The Book Without a Name, Volume 1Henry Colburn, publisher, Great Marlborough Street., 1841 - English essays |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Abbey Alban's Amphitryon amusing ancient archdeacon beauty bell bird Botherum called charity church civilization coal cookery court culinary curious dæmon delight dinner dish England English fashion favorite Fitzforward flamingo French Frère Jacques genius give head Hertfordshire honor human ill-humored imagination indulgence intellectual Irish Jeremy Bentham Julius Cæsar king kitchen lady lady's laugh LE CORDON BLEU learned less liberality live London Lord Louis the Fourteenth luxury macaw Madame de Maintenon master ment merit Midge mind monument moral nation nature neighbors never once parrot party passed persons pleasure political Poll poor possess punning punster reader replied royal Saxon scarcely secretary-bird sense social society species spirit steam-engine suffering taste thing thought tion Titmouse truth Verjuice virtue Westminster Abbey Whig wisdom women word
Popular passages
Page 159 - Here Reynolds is laid, and to tell you my mind, He has not left a wiser or better behind. His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand ; His manners were gentle, complying, and bland ; Still born to improve us in every part, His pencil our faces, his manners our heart. To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering, When they judged without skill he was still hard of hearing : When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff, He shifted his trumpet and only took snuff.
Page 193 - ... of attention to their wants. To wish to better the condition of the poor by enabling them to command a greater quantity of the necessaries and comforts of life, and then to complain of high wages, is the act of a silly boy who gives away his cake and then cries for it.
Page 123 - One telleth us,f that he being a younger brother, and having wasted all that was left him, came to court on trust, where, upon the bare stock of his wit, he trafficked so wisely, and prospered so well, that he got, spent, and left, more than any subject since the Conquest. Indeed he lived at the time of the dissolution of abbeys, which was the harvest of estates ; and it argued idleness, if any courtier had his barns empty.
Page 163 - ... suicide. Having entered fully into the contemplation of this evil, just conceive it, reader, at the end of some forty minutes, melting into distance, and your, aching head left free to receive the varied attack of a debutant from a garret window, beginning to learn the bugle ! ! It might reconcile even Swift himself to deafness ! Not all the alphabets in the world could express the horrible combinations of sound attendant on this truculent massacre of Guido of Arezzo. Astolpho's horn is a faint...
Page 251 - ... I have the authority of my nurse for declaring, that the French invented ruffles, and the English the shirt ; that the English improved on the feather by adding to it the hat ; and many old ladies, of higher literary pretension than the honest woman from whom I derived these facts, assign this as a reason why the artists of Paris are expert in gilding and gewgaws, without being able to construct a lock for their doors, or a fastening for their windows, fit to be seen in a Christian country (vide...
Page 183 - ... her acquaintance come in for their share. She is the censor-general of fashions and of morals, of caps and carriages, of bonnets and behaviour : not that she always ventures to be directly personal ; a diatribe on an abstract proposition will equally serve her turn. If a lady's stays happen to be cut low, she wonders how modest women can bring themselves to the fashion of showing their bosoms to every jackanapes. If the vicar rides a good horse, she falls upon the category of sporting parsons...
Page 158 - ... uncovered, made a thousand apologies to the ladies, as he retired. At that instant, the Abbey bells began to ring so loud, that we could not hear one another speak ; and this peal, as we afterwards learned, was for the honour of Mr Bullock, an eminent cowkeeper of Tottenham, who had just arrived at Bath, to drink the waters for indigestion.
Page 37 - ... tables with elegance and science, from which slovenly ignorance now drives them to other and better dinners. Open, then, forthwith, seminaries, not merely for catechisms, and spiritual metaphysics, so difficult to infant digestion, but for culinary instruction and physical amelioration, facile to the comprehension of all. Establish model schools and found chairs for the dissemination of that eminently useful knowledge, the knowledge by which we may eat to live, with safety and satisfaction. Provide...
Page 98 - Yes," answered the duke, " I have seen him." " Well," said the king, " in what condition did you find him?" "Condition! why he is old and very poor.
Page 115 - ... state as to last for centuries, with a very trifling repair ; but that the roofs of the north and south transepts, and the east end of the nave, were extremely insecure, the ends of many of the main timbers being so rotten as to lose their geometrical bond and dependence on the walls ; the great window of the south transept, and several of the minor windows, were also reported to be in a ruinous state. He...