Boswell's Life of Johnson: Tour to the Hebrides (1773) and Journey into North Wales (1774)

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Clarendon Press, 1887 - Authors, English
 

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Page 89 - How far is't called to Fores? What are these, So wither'd, and so wild in their attire ? That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth, And yet are on't?' He repeated a good deal more of Macbeth. His recitation
Page 99 - Just as we came out of it, a raven perched on one of the chimney-tops, and croaked. Then I repeated The raven himself is hoarse, That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements
Page 17 - Scarce had lamented Forbes paid The tribute to his Minstrel's shade; The tale of friendship scarce was told, Ere the narrator's heart was cold— Far may we search before we find A heart so manly and so kind.' It is only of late years that Forbes has generally ceased to be a dissyllable.
Page 11 - was announced almost as soon as he began to appear in the world of Letters. In his London, a poem, are the following nervous lines : — ' For who would leave, unbrib'd, Hibernia's land ? Or change the rocks of Scotland for the Strand? There none are swept by sudden fate away ; But all, whom hunger spares, with age decay.
Page 291 - it happened oddly, that a raven perched upon one of the chimney-tops, and croaked. Then I in my turn repeated—• " The raven himself is hoarse, That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan, Under my battlements." ' I wish you had been with us. Think what enthusiastick happiness I shall have to see Mr. Samuel Johnson walking among the romantick rocks and woods of my ancestors at Auchinleck
Page 255 - Just in the gate, and in the jaws of hell, Revengeful cares, and sullen sorrows dwell ; And pale diseases, and repining age; Want, fear, and famine's unresisted rage; Here toils and death, and death's half-brother, sleep, Forms terrible to view their sentry keep. Dryden,
Page 89 - I'll warrant you, (said Dr. Johnson,) one of the songs of Ossian.' He then repeated these lines :— 'Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound. All at her work the village maiden sings; Nor while she turns the giddy wheel around, Revolves the sad vicissitude of things
Page 5 - that his father put Martin's Account into his hands when he was very young, and that he was much pleased with it. We reckoned there would be some inconveniencies and hardships, and perhaps a little danger; but these we were persuaded were magnified in the imagination of every body.
Page 379 - And long-protracted bowers enjoyed at noon The gloom and coolness of declining day. We bear our shades about us : self-deprived Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread, And range an Indian waste without a tree. Thanks to Benevolus'—he spares me yet These chestnuts ranged in corresponding lines, And though himself so polished still reprieves The obsolete prolixity of shade.
Page 90 - had seen the lines. They are quoted under wheel (with changes made perhaps intentionally by Johnson), as follows :— 'Verse sweetens care however rude the sound; All at her work the village maiden, sings; Nor, as she turns the giddy wheel around, Revolves the sad vicissitudes of things.

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