Laconics: Or, The Best Words of the Best Authors |
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Page 8
There is , perhaps , nothing more easy than to write properly for the English theatre ; I am amazed that none are apprenticed to the trade . The author , when well acquainted with the value of thunder and lightning , when versed in all ...
There is , perhaps , nothing more easy than to write properly for the English theatre ; I am amazed that none are apprenticed to the trade . The author , when well acquainted with the value of thunder and lightning , when versed in all ...
Page 10
Tis necessary a writing critic should understand how to write . And though every writer is not bound to show himself in the capacity of critic , every writing critic is bound to show himself capable of being a writer .
Tis necessary a writing critic should understand how to write . And though every writer is not bound to show himself in the capacity of critic , every writing critic is bound to show himself capable of being a writer .
Page 15
For still the wickeder some authors write , Others to write worse are encourag'd by ' t ; And tho ' those fierce inquisitors of wit , The critics , spare no flesh that ever writ , But just as toothdraw'rs find , among the rout ...
For still the wickeder some authors write , Others to write worse are encourag'd by ' t ; And tho ' those fierce inquisitors of wit , The critics , spare no flesh that ever writ , But just as toothdraw'rs find , among the rout ...
Page 16
But just as toothdraw'rs find , among the rout , Their own teeth work in pulling others out , So they , decrying all of all that write , Think to erect a trade of judging by ' t . Small poetry , like other heresies , By being persecuted ...
But just as toothdraw'rs find , among the rout , Their own teeth work in pulling others out , So they , decrying all of all that write , Think to erect a trade of judging by ' t . Small poetry , like other heresies , By being persecuted ...
Page 19
The Militant Couple . --- Buckingham . LXXIV . Style in painting is the same as in writing ; a power over materials , whether words or colours , by which conceptions or sentiments are conveyed . --Sir J. Reynolds . LXXV .
The Militant Couple . --- Buckingham . LXXIV . Style in painting is the same as in writing ; a power over materials , whether words or colours , by which conceptions or sentiments are conveyed . --Sir J. Reynolds . LXXV .
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Popular passages
Page 189 - This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeit of our own behaviour, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars...
Page 253 - For within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king, Keeps death his court ; and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp...
Page 231 - Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep, Then dreams he of another benefice; Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck, And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes; And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two, And sleeps again.
Page 205 - The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark, When neither is attended ; and, I think, The nightingale, if she should sing by day, When every goose is cackling, would be thought No better a musician than the wren.
Page 253 - Let's choose executors and talk of wills : And yet not so — for what can we bequeath Save our deposed bodies to the ground? Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's, And nothing can we call our own but death, And that small model of the barren earth Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
Page 244 - If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions : I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.
Page 262 - 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 240 - Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them ; and, when you have them, they are not worth the search.
Page 97 - And now to conclude, Experience keeps a dear School, but Fools will learn in no other...
Page 119 - ... our Pride, and four times as much by our Folly; and from these Taxes the Commissioners cannot ease or deliver us by allowing an Abatement. However let us hearken to good Advice, and something may be done for us; God helps them that help themselves, as Poor Richard says, in his Almanack of 1733.