In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column, The Ovidian Elegiac Metre. (From Schiller.) I stood in unimaginable trance Remorse. Act iv. Sc. 3. The intelligible forms of ancient poets, Or chasms and watery depths, — all these have vanished; They live no longer in the faith of reason. Wallenstein. Part i. Act ii. Sc. 4. (Translated from Schiller.) I've lived and loved. Clothing the palpable and familiar With golden exhalations of the dawn. Act ii. Sc. 6. The Death of Wallenstein. Act i. Sc. 1. Often do the spirits Of great events stride on before the events, Act v. Sc. 1. Biog. Lit. Chap. xv. A dwarf sees farther than the giant when he has the giant's shoulder to mount on.3 The Friend. Sec. i. Essay 8. An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches in flat countries, with spire steeples, which, as they cannot be referred to any other object, point as with silent finger to the sky and star.* Ibid., No. 14. 1 Sed ita a principio inchoatum esse mundum ut certis rebus certa signa præcurrerent (Thus in the beginning the world was so made that certain signs come before certain events). — CICERO: Divinatione, liber i, cap. 52. Coming events cast their shadows before. - CAMPBELL: Lochiel's Warning. Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present. - SHELLEY: A Defence of Poetry. 2 "A phrase," says Coleridge, "which I have borrowed from a Greek monk, who applies it to a patriarch of Constantinople." 8 See Burton, page 185. 4 See Wordsworth, page 481. Reviewers are usually people who would have been poets, historians, biographers, if they could; they have tried their talents at one or the other, and have failed; therefore they turn critics.1 Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton, p. 36. Schiller has the material sublime. Delivered 1811-1812. Table Talk. I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose, words in their best order; poetry, the best words in their best order. Ibid. That passage is what I call the sublime dashed to pieces by cutting too close with the fiery four-in-hand round the corner of nonsense. Ibid. Iago's soliloquy, the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity how awful it is! Notes on some other Plays of Shakespeare. JOSIAH QUINCY. 1772-1864. If this bill [for the admission of Orleans Territory as a State] passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is virtually a dissolution of the Union; that it will free the States from their moral obligation; and, as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, definitely to prepare for a separation,- amicably if they can, violently if they must.2 Abridged Cong. Debates, Jan. 14, 1811. Vol. iv. p. 327. 1 Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid and malignant race. As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker in despair, so an unsuccessful author turns critic. -SHELLEY: Fragments of Adonais. You know who critics are? The men who have failed in literature and art.-DISRAELI: Lothair, chap. xxxv. The gentleman [Mr. Quincy] cannot have forgotten his own sentiment, uttered even on the floor of this House, "Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must."-- - HENRY CLAY: Speech, Jan. 8, 1813. ROBERT SOUTHEY. 1774-1843. "You are old, Father William," the young man cried, "The few locks which are left you are gray; You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man, Now tell me the reason I pray." The Old Man's Comforts, and how he gained them. The march of intellect.1 Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society. Vol. ii. p. 360. The laws are with us, and God on our side. On the Rise and Progress of Popular Disaffection (1817). Agreed to differ. Life of Wesley. My days among the dead are passed; Where'er these casual eyes are cast, The mighty minds of old; My never-failing friends are they, And so never ending, but always descending. And this way the water comes down at Lodore. See Burke, page 408. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. From his brimstone bed, at break of day, To look at his little snug farm of the World, The Devil's Walk. Stanza 1 He passed a cottage with a double coach-house, A cottage of gentility; And he owned with a grin, That his favourite sin Is pride that apes humility.1 Ibid. Stanza 8. Where Washington hath left His awful memory A light for after times! Ode written during the War with America, 1814. How beautiful is night! A dewy freshness fills the silent air; No mist obscures; nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain, In full-orbed glory, yonder moon divine Rolls through the dark blue depths; The desert circle spreads Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky. How beautiful is night! Thalaba. Book i. Stanza 1 "But what good came of it at last?" "Why, that I cannot tell," said he; The Battle of Blenheim. Madoc in Wales. Part i. 5. What will not woman, gentle woman dare, 1 See Coleridge, page 501. 24 Darkly, deeply, beautifully blue," Part ii. 2. BYRON: Don Juan, canto iv. stanza 110 And last of all an Admiral came, A terrible man with a terrible name, A name which you all know by sight very well, The March to Moscow. Stanza 8 They sin who tell us love can die; With life all other passions fly, Love is indestructible, Its holy flame forever burneth; It soweth here with toil and care, The Curse of Kehama. Canto x. Stanza 10. Oh, when a mother meets on high Hath she not then for pains and fears, An over-payment of delight? Stanza 11 Thou hast been called, O sleep! the friend of woe; The Satanic school. Canto xv. Stanza 11. Vision of Judgment. Original Preface. CHARLES LAMB. 1775-1834. The red-letter days now become, to all intents and purposes, dead-letter days. Oxford in the Vacation. For with G. D., to be absent from the body is sometimes (not to speak profanely) to be present with the Lord. Ibid. A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigour of the game. Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist. |