The plays of William Shakespeare, with the corrections and illustr. of various commentators. To which are added notes by S. Johnson, Volume 1

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Palavras e frases frequentes

Passagens conhecidas

Página x - Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature. Particular manners can be known to few, and therefore few only can judge how nearly they are copied. The irregular combinations of fanciful invention may delight awhile, by that novelty of which the common satiety of life sends us all in quest; but the pleasures of sudden wonder are soon exhausted, and the mind can only repose on the stability of truth.
Página 53 - The bigger bulk it shows. Hence, bashful cunning ! And prompt me, plain and holy innocence ! I am your wife, if you will marry me ; If not, I'll die your maid : to be your fellow You may deny me ; but I'll be your servant, Whether you will or no.
Página xxv - A quibble is to Shakespeare what luminous vapours are to the traveller : he follows it at all adventures ; it is sure to lead him out of his way, and sure to engulf him in the mire.
Página 462 - I will be bound to pay it ten times o'er, On forfeit of my hands, my head, my heart: If this will not suffice, it must appear That malice bears down truth. And I beseech you, Wrest once the law to your authority: To do a great right, do a little wrong, And curb this cruel devil of his will.
Página xxii - He carries his persons indifferently through right and wrong, and at the close dismisses them without further care, and leaves their examples to operate by chance. This fault the barbarity of his age cannot extenuate, for it is always a writer's duty to make the world better, and justice is a virtue independent on time or place.
Página 433 - I would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear! would she were hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin!
Página 269 - Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, Not light them for themselves ; for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike As if we had them not.
Página 118 - Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell : It fell upon a little western flower, Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
Página xxiii - ... with more zeal than judgment, to transfer to his imagined interpolators. We need not wonder to find Hector quoting Aristotle, when we see the loves of Theseus and Hippolyta combined with the Gothic mythology of fairies.
Página lxxiii - ... you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read Nature; he looked inwards, and found her there.

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