The Works of Samuel Johnson, Volume 2Nichols, 1816 - English literature |
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Page 29
... excellence , but that he may stop with honour at the second or third : though therefore my performance should fall below the excellence of other dictionaries , I may obtain , at least , the praise of having endeavoured well ; nor shall ...
... excellence , but that he may stop with honour at the second or third : though therefore my performance should fall below the excellence of other dictionaries , I may obtain , at least , the praise of having endeavoured well ; nor shall ...
Page 52
... excellence excited my veneration , when my memory supplied me , from late books , with an example that was wanting , or when my heart , in the tenderness of friendship , solicited admission for a favourite name . So far have I been from ...
... excellence excited my veneration , when my memory supplied me , from late books , with an example that was wanting , or when my heart , in the tenderness of friendship , solicited admission for a favourite name . So far have I been from ...
Page 70
... excellence of Shakespeare , that he drew his scenes from nature , and from life . He copied the manners of the world then passing before him , and has more allusions than other poets to the traditions and superstition of the vulgar ...
... excellence of Shakespeare , that he drew his scenes from nature , and from life . He copied the manners of the world then passing before him , and has more allusions than other poets to the traditions and superstition of the vulgar ...
Page 77
... excellence are paid to antiquity , is a complaint likely to be always continued by those , who , being able to add nothing to truth , hope for eminence from the heresies of paradox ; or those , who , being forced by disappointment upon ...
... excellence are paid to antiquity , is a complaint likely to be always continued by those , who , being able to add nothing to truth , hope for eminence from the heresies of paradox ; or those , who , being forced by disappointment upon ...
Page 78
... excellence is not absolute and definite , but gradual and compara- tive ; to works not raised upon principles demonstra- tive and scientifick , but appealing wholly to obser- vation and experience , no other test can be applied than ...
... excellence is not absolute and definite , but gradual and compara- tive ; to works not raised upon principles demonstra- tive and scientifick , but appealing wholly to obser- vation and experience , no other test can be applied than ...
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Common terms and phrases
ancient appeared attempt Banquo beauty censure character commerce common considered copies criticism curiosity dictionary died hereafter diligence discovered drama easily editions editor elegance Eloisa to Abelard endeavoured English enquiry Epictetus EPITAPHS equally excellence exhibit expected Falstaff favour formed France French genius Habit happiness Harleian library Henry Henry VI honour hope imagined justly kind king king of Portugal knowledge known labour language learning less likewise Macbeth mankind means ment mind nation nature necessary neglected neral never NOTE obscure observed opinion orthography passage passions perfect spy perhaps play poet Pope Portuguese praise preserved Prester John preter prince produced publick racters reader reason religion remarkable Roman scenes seems sense sentiments Shakespeare shew shewn sometimes Spain speech suffered sufficient supplied supposed things thought tion trade traffick tragedy truth witches words writers written
Popular passages
Page 464 - She should have died hereafter; There would have been a time for such a word. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death.
Page 139 - All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them, not laboriously, but luckily; when he describes anything, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards and found her there.
Page 81 - In the writings of other poets a character is too often an individual: in those of Shakespeare it is commonly a species.
Page 85 - That this is a practice contrary to the rules of criticism will be readily allowed; but there is always an appeal open from criticism to nature. The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing.
Page 89 - ... is probably to be sought in the common intercourse of life, among those who speak only to be understood, without ambition of elegance. The polite are always catching modish innovations, and the learned depart from established forms of speech in hope of finding or making better; those who wish for distinction forsake the vulgar when the vulgar is right.
Page 60 - When we see men grow old and die at a certain time one after another, from century to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal justice may the lexicographer be derided who, being able to produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his dictionary can embalm his language and secure it from corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary nature and clear the world...
Page 67 - I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave; and success and miscarriage are empty sounds. I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise.
Page 85 - ... the real state of sublunary nature, which partakes of good and evil, joy and sorrow, mingled with endless variety of proportion and innumerable modes of combination, and expressing the course of the world, in which the loss of one is the gain of another; in which, at the same time, the reveler is hasting to his wine and the mourner burying his friend...
Page 31 - IT is the fate of those who toil at the lower employments of life, to be rather driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by the prospect of good; to be exposed to censure, without hope of praise ; to be disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where success would have been without applause, and diligence without reward.
Page 97 - Granicus, he is in a state of elevation above the reach of reason or of truth, and from the heights of empyrean poetry may despise the circumscriptions of terrestrial nature.