The Letters of Sir Thomas Fitzosborne, on Several Subjects

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J. Dodsley, 1769 - 452 pages
 

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Page 3 - If we see right, we see our woes: Then what avails it to have eyes? From ignorance our comfort flows. The only wretched are the wise. We wearied should lie down in death: This cheat of life would take no more; If you thought fame but empty breath; I, Phillis, but a perjur'd whore.
Page 184 - ... at once upon the mind with the fame force of conviction, as that the whole is greater than any of its parts, or, that if from equals you take away equals, the remainder will be equal. And in both cafes, the propofitions \vhich reft upon thefe plain and obvious maxims, feem equally capable of the fame evidence of demonftration.
Page 58 - It might, metbinks, somewhat abate the insolence of human pride, to consider, that it is but increasing or diminishing the velocity of certain fluids in the animal machine, to elate the soul with the gayest hopes, or sink her into the deepest despair ; to depress the hero into a coward, or advance the coward into a hero.
Page 347 - I must freely confess to you, . . . that having met with many things, of which I could give myself no one probable cause, and some things, of which several causes may be assigned so differing, as not to agree in any thing, unless in their being all of them probable enough; I have often found such difficulties in searching into the...
Page 256 - And oft look'd back, slow moving o'er the strand. Not so his loss the fierce Achilles bore; But sad, retiring to the sounding shore, O'er the wild margin of the deep he hung, That kindred deep, from whence his mother sprung : There...
Page 362 - The number of those writers who can, with any justness of expression, be termed thinking authors, would not form a very copious library, though one were to take in all of that kind which both ancient...
Page 115 - ... of my acquaintance, a captain of a privateer, who wrote an account to his owners of an engagement, " in which he had the good fortune, " he told them, of having only one of his
Page 313 - I herepafs my life : with a fortune far above the neceffity of engaging in the drudgery of bufinefs; and with defires much too humble to have any relifh for the fplendid baits of ambition. You muft not, however, imagine that I...
Page 186 - Upon juft and folid reafons : it is not becaufe Ariftotle and Horace have given us the rules of criticifm, that we fubmit to their authority; it is becaufe thofe rules are derived from works which have been diftinguimed by the uninterrupted admiration of all the more improved part of mankind from their earlieft appearance down to this prefent hour. For whatever, thro...
Page 62 - One cannot indeed but regret," says he, "that Dr. Tillotson, who abounds with such noble and generous sentiments, should want the art of setting them off with all the advantage they deserve ; that the sublime in morals should not be attended with a suitable elevation of language. The truth, however, is, his words are frequently ill chosen, and almost always ill placed ; his periods are both tedious and unharmonious ; as his metaphors are generally mean, and often ridiculous.

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