The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper: Including the Series Edited with Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, Bind 16

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J. Johnson, 1810 - 526 sider
 

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Side 449 - Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen, who survey The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay, 'Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand Between a splendid and a happy land.
Side 448 - The watch-dog's voice that bay'd the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind ; These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made.
Side 79 - Tis with our judgments as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
Side 66 - Euphrosyne, And by men, heart-easing Mirth, Whom lovely Venus at a birth With two sister Graces more To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore...
Side 83 - A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain. And drinking largely sobers us again.
Side 448 - Around my fire an evening group to draw, And tell of all I felt and all I saw ; And, as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue, Pants to the place from whence at first she flew — I still had hopes — my long vexations past, Here to return, and die at home at last.
Side 445 - Thus every good his native wilds impart, Imprints the patriot passion on his heart; And e'en those ills, that round his mansion rise, Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies. Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms...
Side 448 - And still as each repeated pleasure tired, Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired ; The dancing pair that simply sought renown, By holding out to tire each other down ; The swain mistrustless of his smutted face, While secret laughter titter'd round the place ; The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love, The matron's glance that would those looks reprove...
Side 444 - Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear, Whose bright succession decks the varied year; Whatever sweets salute the northern sky With vernal lives, that blossom but to die; These, here disporting, own the kindred soil, Nor ask luxuriance from the planter's toil; While sea-born gales their gelid wings expand To winnow fragrance round the smiling land.
Side 66 - To hear the lark begin his flight, And singing startle the dull night, From his watch-tower in the skies, Till the dappled dawn doth rise...

Om forfatteren (1810)

Samuel Johnson was born in 1709, in Lichfield, England. The son of a bookseller, Johnson briefly attended Pembroke College, Oxford, taught school, worked for a printer, and opened a boarding academy with his wife's money before that failed. Moving to London in 1737, Johnson scratched out a living from writing. He regularly contributed articles and moral essays to journals, including the Gentleman's Magazine, the Adventurer, and the Idler, and became known for his poems and satires in imitation of Juvenal. Between 1750 and 1752, he produced the Rambler almost single-handedly. In 1755 Johnson published Dictionary of the English Language, which secured his place in contemporary literary circles. Johnson wrote Rasselas in a week in 1759, trying to earn money to visit his dying mother. He also wrote a widely-read edition of Shakespeare's plays, as well as Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland and Lives of the Poets. Johnson's writing was so thoughtful, powerful, and influential that he was considered a singular authority on all things literary. His stature attracted the attention of James Boswell, whose biography, Life of Johnson, provides much of what we know about its subject. Johnson died in 1784.

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