An Historical Summary of English Literature

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Cassell, 1920 - Authors, English - 275 pages

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Page 195 - And in poetry, no less than in life, he is * a beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain.
Page 90 - The First part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, with the death of the good Duke Humphrey : And the banishment and death of the Duke of...
Page 119 - Compound for sins they are inclined to By damning those they have no mind to.
Page 84 - He had the sound, distinct, comprehensive knowledge of Aristotle, with all the beautiful lights, graces, and embellishments of Cicero. One does not know which to admire most in his writings, the strength of reason, force of style, or brightness of imagination.
Page 14 - Alfred found learning dead and he restored it, Education neglected and he revived it, The laws powerless and he gave them force, The church debased and he raised it, The land ravaged by a fearful enemy From which he delivered it, Alfred's name will live as long As mankind shall respect the past.
Page 198 - Scherer is disposed to label him, as a rhetorician only. Along with his astounding power and passion, he had a strong and deep sense for what is beautiful in nature, and for what is beautiful in human action and suffering. When he warms to his work, when he is inspired, Nature herself seems to take the pen from him, as she took it from "Wordsworth, and to write for him as she wrote for Wordsworth, though in a different fashion, with her own penetrating simplicity.
Page 125 - Love in a Tub (1664), She would if she Could (1668), and The Man of Mode (1676), all characterised by the grossness of the period.
Page 72 - That same framing of his style to an old rustic language I dare not allow, since neither Theocritus in Greek, Virgil in Latin, nor Sannazzaro in Italian did affect it.
Page 209 - Culture and Anarchy (1869), St. Paul and Protestantism (1870), Friendship's Garland (1871), Literature and Dogma (1873), God and the Bible (1875), Last Essays on Church and Religion (1877), Mixed Essays (1879), Irish Essays (1882), and Discourses in America (1885).
Page 177 - You will see Coleridge — he who sits obscure In the exceeding lustre and the pure Intense irradiation of a mind, Which, with its own internal lightning blind, Flags wearily through darkness and despair — A cloud-encircled meteor of the air, A hooded eagle among blinking owls.

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