Lives of illustrious ... Irishmen, ed. by J. Wills, Volume 2, Part 2

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Page 378 - CALL it not vain: — they do not err, Who say that when the poet dies Mute Nature mourns her worshipper And celebrates his obsequies; Who say tall cliff and cavern lone For the departed bard make moan ; That mountains weep in crystal rill; That flowers in tears of balm distil; Through his loved groves that breezes sigh, And oaks in deeper groan reply, 10 And rivers teach their rushing wave To murmur dirges round his grave.
Page 293 - The generall end therefore of all the booke is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline...
Page 293 - Queene, being a continued allegory, or darke conceit, I have thought good, as well for avoyding of gealous opinions and misconstructions, as also for your better light in reading thereof (being so by you commanded), to discover unto you the general intention and meaning, which in the whole course thereof I have fashioned, without expressing of any particular purposes, or by-accidents therein occasioned.
Page 294 - ... by an Historiographer should be the twelfth booke, which is the last; where I devise that the Faery Queene kept her Annuall feaste xii.
Page 293 - I have followed all the antique Poets historicall ; first Homere, who in the Persons of Agamemnon and Ulysses hath ensampled a good governour and a vertuous man, the one in his Ilias, the other in his Odysseis : then Virgil, whose like intention was to doe in the person of...
Page 318 - He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom ; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold...
Page 295 - I have briefly overronne, to direct your understanding to the wel-head of the history, that from thence gathering the whole intention of the conceit, ye may, as in a handfull, gripe al the discourse, which otherwise may happily seeme tedious and confused. So humbly craving the continuance of your honourable favour towards me, and th' eternall establishment of your happines, I humbly take leave.
Page 295 - Ephes.) that he could not succeed in that enterprise : which being forth-with put upon him with due furnitures thereunto, he seemed the goodliest man in al that company, and was well liked of the Lady. And eftesoones taking on him knighthood, and mounting on that straunge Courser, he went forth with her on that adventure : where beginneth the first booke, viz.
Page 294 - In that Faery Queene I meane glory in my generall intention, but in my particular I conceive the most excellent and glorious person of our soveraine the Queene, and her kingdome in Faery Land.
Page 293 - I labour to pourtraict in Arthure, before he was king, the image of a brave knight, perfected in the twelve private morall vertues, as Aristotle hath devised...

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