Memoirs of the Life of Dr. Darwin: Chiefly During His Residence at Lichfield, with Anecdotes of His Friends, and Criticisms on His Writings

Front Cover
Johnson, 1804 - Lichfield (England) - 430 pages

From inside the book

Selected pages

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 305 - Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride, He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest; In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err...
Page 215 - And, like. the bafelefs fabric of a vifion, Leave not a wreck behind ! We are fuch IlufT As dreams are made on, and our Uttle life Is rounded with a deep.
Page 305 - The proper ftudy of Mankind is Man. Plac'd on this ifthmus of a middle ftate, A being darkly wife, and rudely great : With too much knowledge for the Sceptic fide...
Page 428 - By Nature's law, what may be, may be now; There's no prerogative in human hours. In human hearts what bolder thought can rise Than man's presumption on to-morrow's dawn? Where is to-morrow? In another world. For numbers this is certain; the reverse Is sure to none; and yet on this perhaps...
Page 2 - Florid health, and the earnest of good humour, a sunny smile, on entering a room, and on first accosting his friends, rendered, in his youth, that exterior agreeable, to which beauty and symmetry had not been propitious.
Page 38 - Sabrina was become the favourite. He placed the fair Lucretia with a chamber milliner. She behaved well, and became the wife of a respectable linen-draper in London.
Page 305 - Julius bleed for justice' sake? What villain touch'd his body, that did stab, And not for justice? What, shall one of us, That struck the foremost man of all this world, But for supporting robbers; shall we now Contaminate our fingers with base bribes? And sell the mighty space of our large...
Page 304 - Thine own begotten, breaking violent way Tore through my entrails, that with fear and pain Distorted, all my nether shape thus grew Transformed: but he my inbred enemy Forth issued, brandishing his fatal dart Made to destroy: I fled and cried out "Death;" Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sighed From all her caves, and back resounded "Death.
Page 348 - E'en now, e'en now, on yonder western shores, Weeps pale despair, and writhing anguish roars ; E'en now in Afric's groves, with hideous yell. Fierce slavery stalks, and slips the dogs of hell; From vale to vale the gathering cries rebound. And sable nations tremble at the sound...
Page 325 - And now, Philanthropy! thy rays divine Dart round the globe from Zembla to the Line; O'er each dark prison plays the cheering light, Like northern lustres o'er the vault of night. From realm to realm, with cross or crescent crown'd, Where'er mankind and misery are found, O'er burning sands, deep waves, or wilds of snow, Thy Howard journeying seeks the house of woe.

Bibliographic information