Johnsonian Miscellanies, Volume 1

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George Birkbeck Norman Hill
At the Clarendon Press, 1897

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Page 425 - Ay, but to die, and go we know not where ; To lie in cold obstruction and to rot ; This sensible warm motion to become 120 A kneaded clod ; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods...
Page 183 - They that are delivered from the noise of archers in the places of drawing water, there shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the Lord...
Page 240 - Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings.
Page 186 - Thus to mine eyes. —Now o'er the one half-world Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse The curtain'd sleep; now witchcraft celebrates Pale Hecate's offerings; and wither'd murder, Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf, Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design Moves like a ghost.
Page 448 - No author ever kept his verse and his prose at a greater distance from each other. His thoughts are natural, and his style has a smooth and placid equability, which has never yet obtained its due commendation. Nothing is far-sought, or hard-laboured ; but all is easy without feebleness, and familiar without grossness.
Page 414 - That, sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.' This stroke stunned me a good deal, and when we had sat down I felt myself not a little embarrassed and apprehensive of what might come next.
Page 455 - Ay, sir ; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand. Pol. ' That's very true, my lord. Ham. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion — 'Have you a daughter ? Pol. I have, my lord. Ham. Let her not walk i' the sun : conception is a blessing ; but not as your daughter may conceive.
Page 414 - Mr. Davies mentioned my name, and respectfully introduced me to him. I was much agitated; and recollecting his prejudice against the Scotch, of which I had heard much, I said to Davies, " Don't tell where I come from." —" From Scotland," cried Davies, roguishly. " Mr. Johnson," said I, " I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.
Page 248 - Oft in danger, yet alive, We are come to thirty-five; Long may better years arrive, Better years than thirty-five. Could philosophers contrive Life to stop at thirty-five, Time his hours should never drive O'er the bounds of thirty-five. High to soar, and deep to dive, Nature gives at thirty-five. Ladies, stock and tend your hive, Trifle not at thirty-five: For howe'er we boast and strive, 156 Life declines from thirty-five. He that ever hopes to thrive Must begin by thirty-five; And all who wisely...
Page 282 - him to whom much is given, much will be required," seems to have been ever present to his mind in a rigorous sense, and to have made him dissatisfied with his labours and acts of goodness, however comparatively great ; so that the unavoidable consciousness of his superiority was in that respect a cause of disquiet. He suffered so much from this, and...

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