Critical, Historical, and Miscellaneous Essays, Volumen6

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Página 156 - But, though his mind was very scantily stored with materials, he used what materials he had in such a way as to produce a wonderful effect. There have been many greater writers; but perhaps no writer was ever more uniformly agreeable. His style was always pure and easy, and, on proper occasions, pointed and energetic. His narratives were always amusing, his descriptions always picturesque, his humour rich and joyous, yet not without an occasional tinge of amiable sadness.
Página 302 - Neptunia caede rubescunt. 695 regina in mediis patrio vocat agmina sistro necdum etiam geminos a tergo respicit anguis. omnigenumque deum monstra et latrator Anubis contra Neptunum et Venerem contraque Minervam tela tenent.
Página 161 - It is made up of incongruous parts. The village in its happy days is a true English village. The village in its decay is an Irish village. The felicity and the misery which Goldsmith has brought close together belong to two different countries, and to two different stages in the progress of society. He had assuredly never seen in his native island such a rural paradise, such a seat of plenty, content, and tranquillity, as his
Página 182 - I saved appearances tolerably well; but I took care that the Whig dogs should not have the best of it.
Página 197 - Since the last Easter I have reformed no evil habit, my time has been unprofitably spent, and seems as a dream that has left nothing behind. My memory grows confused, and I know not how the days pass over me.
Página 178 - Parliament, a lord of the treasury, an ambassador, a secretary of state. It would be easy, on the other hand, to name several writers of the nineteenth century of whom the least successful has received forty thousand pounds from the booksellers. But Johnson entered on his vocation in the most dreary part of the dreary interval which separated two ages of prosperity. Literature had ceased to flourish under the patronage of the great, and had not begun to nourish under the patronage of the public.
Página 212 - Lives of the Poets " are, on the whole, the best of Johnson's works. The narratives are as entertaining as any novel. The remarks on life and on human nature are eminently shrewd and profound. The criticisms are often excellent, and, even when grossly and provokingly unjust, well deserve to be studied, for, however erroneous they may be, they are never silly. They are the judgments of a mind trammeled by prejudice and deficient in sensibility, but vigorous and acute.
Página 156 - English writers ; to Reynolds, the first of English painters ; and to Burke, who had not yet entered Parliament, but had distinguished himself greatly by his writings and by the eloquence of his conversation. With these eminent men Goldsmith became intimate. In 1763 he was one of the nine original members of that celebrated fraternity which has sometimes been called the Literary Club, but which has always disclaimed that epithet, and still glories in the simple name of The Club.
Página 178 - He was a vicious man, but very kind to me. If you call a dog HERVEY, I shall love him.
Página 163 - Goldsmith was on terms of intimacy with all the four. He aspired to share in their colloquial renown; but never was ambition more unfortunate. It may seem strange that a man who wrote with so much perspicuity , vivacity, and grace, should have been, whenever he took a part in conversation, an .empty, noisy, blundering, rattle. But on this point the evidence is overwhelming. So extraordinary was the contrast between Goldsmith's published works and the silly things which he said, that Horace Walpole...

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