Oliver Goldsmith, His Friends and Critics: A Lecture

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Hodges, Smith, 1862 - 80 pages

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Page 73 - At church, with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorned the venerable place; Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway; And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.
Page 72 - Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled. And still where many a garden flower grows wild, There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, The village preacher's modest mansion rose. A man he was to all the country dear, And passing rich with forty pounds a year...
Page 69 - Alone stood brave Horatius, But constant still in mind ; Thrice thirty thousand foes before, And the broad flood behind. " Down with him ! " cried false Sextus, With a smile on his pale face. "Now yield thee," cried Lars Porsena,
Page 72 - Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done, Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won. Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow, And quite forgot their vices in their woe; Careless their merits or their faults to scan, His pity gave ere charity began.
Page 47 - I received one morning a message from poor Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and as it was not in his power to come to me, begging that I would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent passion. I perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had got a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him.
Page 34 - Is not a patron, My Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?
Page 79 - Homer continued twenty-five hundred years, or more, without the loss of a syllable or letter; during which time infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities, have been decayed and demolished ? It is not possible to have the true pictures or statues of Cyrus, Alexander, Caesar, no nor of the kings or great personages of much later years; for the originals cannot last, and the copies cannot but lose of the life and truth.
Page 72 - Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side. But in his duty prompt at every call, He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all ; And as a bird each fond endearment tries To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, Allured to brighter worlds and led the way.
Page 48 - I put the cork into the bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated. He then told me that he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced to me. I looked into it, and saw its merit ; told the landlady I should soon return, and having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high tone for having used him so ill '." My next meeting...
Page 71 - And still his name sounds stirring Unto the men of Rome, As the trumpet-blast that cries to them To charge the Volscian home ; And wives still pray to Juno For boys with hearts as bold As his who kept the bridge so well In the brave days of old.

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