The Life of John Milton

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Nichols and Son, 1810 - 646 pages

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Page 252 - And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image ; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye.
Page 151 - Memory and her siren daughters ; but by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar to touch and purify the lips of whom He pleases.
Page 389 - CVRIAC, this three years' day these eyes, though clear, To outward view, of blemish or of spot, Bereft of light their seeing have forgot, Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear Of sun, or moon, or star throughout the year, Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope ; but still bear up, and steer Right onward.
Page 394 - Old Law did save, And such as yet once more I trust to have Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint, Came vested all in white, pure as her mind.
Page 151 - Neither do I think it shame to covenant with any knowing reader that for some few years yet I may go on trust with him toward the payment of what I am now indebted, as being a work not to be raised from the heat of youth or the vapours of wine, like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amorist or the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite...
Page 507 - Looks through the horizontal misty air Shorn of his beams, or from behind the moon, In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs.
Page 252 - ... books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect, that! bred them. I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and, being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men.
Page 100 - Namancos and Bayona's hold ; Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth ! And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth...
Page 254 - Methinks I see, in my mind, a noble and puissant nation rousing herself, like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks: methinks I see her as an eagle muing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam...
Page 149 - ... that epic form whereof the two poems of Homer, and those other two of Virgil and Tasso are a diffuse, and the Book of Job a brief model...

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