The life of Samuel Johnson. [Followed by] The journal of a tour to the Hebrides, Volume 5

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Page 58 - THREE Poets, in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. The first in loftiness of thought surpassed; The next in majesty •, In both the last. The force of Nature could no further go ; To make a third, she joined the former two.
Page 174 - Twas thine own genius gave the final blow, And helped to plant the wound that laid thee low. So the struck eagle, stretched upon the plain, No more through rolling clouds to soar again, Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart, And wing'd the shaft that quivered in his heart.
Page 106 - I sat down on a bank, such as a writer of Romance might have delighted to feign. I had indeed no trees to whisper over my head, but a clear rivulet streamed at my feet. The day was calm, the air soft, and all was rudeness, silence, and solitude. Before me, and on either side, were high hills, which by hindering the eye from ranging, forced the mind to find entertainment for itself. Whether I spent the hour well I know not; for here I first conceived the thought of this narration.
Page 94 - The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty ! make thick my blood ; Stop up...
Page 61 - What is to become of society, if a friendship of twenty years is to be broken off for such a cause ? ' As Bacon says, ' Who then to frail mortality shall trust, ' But limns the water, or but writes in dust.
Page 33 - He cannot deny himself the vanity of finishing with the encomium of Dr. Johnson, whose friendly partiality to the companion of his tour represents him as one "whose acuteness would help my inquiry, and whose gaiety of conversation and civility of manners are sufficient to counteract the inconveniences of travel in countries less hospitable than we have passed.
Page 265 - Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses ; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and from my friends be such frigid philosophy, as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow • warmer among...
Page 105 - O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down And steep my senses in forgetfulness...
Page 70 - Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir, is the most invulnerable man I know ; the man with whom if you should quarrel, you will find the most difficulty how to abuse.
Page 77 - It is a pity to see Lord Monboddo publish such notions as he has done; a man of sense, and of so much elegant learning. There would be little in a fool doing it; we should only laugh; but when a wise man does it, we are sorry. Other people have strange notions; but they conceal them. If they have tails, they hide them; but Monboddo is as jealous of his tail as a squirrel.

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