Horace Walpole and His World: Select Passages from His Letters

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C. Scribner's sons, 1895 - Authors, English - 296 pages

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Page 140 - And she may still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's.
Page 65 - The procession, through a line of foot-guards, every seventh man bearing a torch, the horse-guards lining the outside, their officers, with drawn sabres and crape sashes, on horseback, the drums muffled, the fifes, bells tolling, and minute guns ; all this was very solemn.
Page 102 - Wondrous clean, but as evidently an actor as Garrick. He spoke his sermon, but so fast, and with so little accent, that I am sure he has often uttered it, for it was like a lesson. There were parts and eloquence in it ; but towards the end he exalted his voice, and acted very ugly enthusiasm ; decried learning, and told stories, like Latimer, of the fool of his college, who said,
Page 140 - The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England, and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul's, like the editions of Baalbec and Palmyra.
Page 52 - Orford from the next box, where he was enjoying himself with his petite partie, to help us to mince chickens. We minced seven chickens into a china dish, which Lady Caroline stewed over a lamp with three pats of butter and a flagon of water, stirring, and rattling, and laughing, and we every minute expecting to have the dish fly about our ears.
Page 66 - ... but in two minutes his curiosity got the better of his hypocrisy, and he ran -about the chapel with his glass to spy who was or was not there, spying with one hand, and mopping his eyes with the other. Then returned the fear of catching cold; and the Duke of Cumberland, who was sinking with heat, felt himself weighed down, and turning round, found it was the Duke of Newcastle standing upon his train, to avoid the chill of the marble. It was very theatric to look down into the vault, where the...
Page 65 - There wanted nothing but incense, and little chapels here and there, with priests saying mass for the repose of the defunct; yet one could not complain of its not being catholic enough.
Page 233 - Actors and actresses can only guess at the tone of high life, and cannot be inspired with it. Why are there so few genteel comedies, but because most comedies are written by men not of that sphere P Etherege, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Gibber wrote genteel comedy, because they lived in the best company; and Mrs.
Page 103 - They talk of shady groves, purling streams, and cooling breezes, and we get sore throats and agues with attempting to realize these visions. Master Damon writes a song and invites Miss Chloe to enjoy the cool of the evening, and the deuce a bit have we of any such thing as a cool evening. Zephyr is a north-east wind that makes Damon button up to the chin, and pinches Chloe's nose till it is red and blue; and then they cry, "This is a bad summer" — as if we ever had any other. The best summer we...
Page 60 - is talked of, nothing admired, but what I cannot help calling a very insipid and tedious performance : it is a kind of novel, called ' The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy ;' the great humour of which consists in the whole narration always going backwards.

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