The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland, to the Time of Dean Swift, Volume 2

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R. Griffiths, at the Dunciad in St. Paul's Church-Yard., 1753
 

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Page 140 - Three poets in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn; The first in loftiness of thought surpassed, The next in majesty; in both the last. The force of Nature could no further go, To make a third she joined the former two.
Page 126 - O thou, that, with surpassing glory crown'd, Look'st from thy sole dominion, like the god Of this new world ; at whose sight all the stars Hide their diminish'd heads ; to thee I call, But with no friendly voice, and add thy name, 0 sun ! to tell thee how I hate thy beams, That bring to my remembrance from what state 1 fell, how glorious once above thy sphere...
Page 321 - Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking. Blest madman, who could every hour employ With something new to wish or to enjoy ! Railing and praising were his usual themes, And both, to show his judgment, in extremes : So over violent or over civil That every man with him was God or Devil.
Page 322 - In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half-hung, The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung, On once a flock-bed, but repair'd with straw, With tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw, The George and Garter dangling from that bed Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, Great Villiers lies — alas!
Page 127 - Looks through the horizontal misty air Shorn of his beams, or from behind the moon, In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs.
Page 135 - This is owing to you ; for you put it into my head by the question you put to me at Chalfont ; which before I had not thought of.
Page 244 - ... much declined by fair ladies, old age : may she live to be very old, and yet seem young, be told so by her glass, and have no aches to inform her of the truth : and when she shall appear to be mortal, may her Lord not mourn for her, but go hand in hand with her to that place where we are told there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage, that being there divorced we may all have an equal interest in her again.
Page 77 - Davenant. It being forbidden him in the rebellious times to act tragedies and comedies, because they contained some matter of scandal to those good people who could more easily dispossess their lawful sovereign than endure a wanton jest, he was forced to turn his thoughts another way, and to introduce the examples of moral virtue writ in verse, and performed in recitative music.
Page 166 - Her name was Margaret Lucas, youngest sister to the Lord Lucas of Colchester, a noble family ; for all the brothers were valiant, and all the sisters virtuous.
Page 321 - A man so various, that he seem'd to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome; Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong; Was every thing by starts, and nothing long; But, in the course of one revolving moon, Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon: Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking. Bless'd madman! who could every hour employ With something new to wish or to enjoy!

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