Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart, Volume 3R. Cadell, 1839 - Authors, Scottish |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
66 Edinburgh 66 My Dear Abbotsford admirable alluded amusement appeared Ashestiel ballad Barnard Castle believe bookseller brother Canto Castle character connexion Constable copy criticism Dear Southey delighted doubt Dryden Edin Edinburgh Annual Edinburgh Review edition English expressed father favour favourite feelings genius George Ellis Gifford give hand Henry Highland honour hope Inchkenneth interest James James Ballantyne Jeffrey Joanna Baillie John Ballantyne kind labours Lady Lake least less letter literary literature London Lord Byron Lord Melville Lordship Marmion mentioned mind Minstrel Miss Baillie Morritt Murray never occasion opinion party perhaps person pleasure poem poet poetical poetry political published reader Robert Southey Rokeby Rokeby Park romance scene Scotch Scotland seems Siddons soon spirit Staffa success sure talent thing thought tion verses volume WALTER SCOTT WAVERLEY NOVELS Whig whole wish write young
Popular passages
Page 61 - For talents mourn, untimely lost, When best employed and wanted most; Mourn genius high, and lore profound, And wit that loved to play, not wound ; And all the reasoning powers divine, To penetrate, resolve, combine ; And feelings keen, and fancy's glow, They sleep with him who sleeps below...
Page 250 - He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, Who dares not put it to the touch, To gain or lose it all.
Page 361 - Dutch settlement, was not, as might have been expected, in the best order; the apartment had not been regularly ventilated, and, either from this circumstance, or already affected by the fatal sickness peculiar to Batavia, Leyden, when he left the place, had a fit of shivering, and declared the atmosphere was enough to give any mortal a fever. The presage was too just; he took his bed, and died in three days, on the eve of the battle which gave Java to the British empire.
Page 34 - I humbly think that we may be excused from intrusting to them those places in the State where the influence of such a clergy, who act under the direction of a passive tool of our worst foe, is likely to be attended with the most fatal consequences. If a gentleman chooses to walk about with a couple of pounds of gunpowder in his pocket, if I give him the shelter of my roof, I may at least be permitted to exclude him from the seat next to the fire.
Page 159 - On a circle of stones but barely nine ; They heated it red and fiery hot, Till the burnished brass did glimmer and shine. They rolled him up in a sheet of lead — A sheet of lead for a funeral pall ; They plunged him in the cauldron red, And melted him, lead, and bones, and all.
Page 214 - ... amusement. I have heard Scott chuckle with particular glee over the recollection of an excursion to the vale of the Ettrick, near which river the party were pursued by a bull. " Come, King John," said he, " we must even take the water," and accordingly he and * Miscellaneous Prose Works, vol.
Page 395 - The poem, my Lord, was not written upon contract for a sum of money — though it is too true that it was sold and published in a very unfinished state (which I have since regretted), to enable me to extricate myself from some engagements which fell suddenly upon me, by the unexpected misfortunes of a very near relation. So that, to quote statute and precedent, I really come under the case cited by Juvenal, though not quite in the extremity of the classic author — Esurit, intactam Paridi nisi vendit...
Page 50 - I should scarcely venture to put this into your hands. As it is, I do it with no little solicitude, and earnestly hope that it will make no difference in the friendship which has hitherto subsisted between us. I have spoken of your poem exactly as I think, and though I cannot reasonably suppose that you will be pleased with every thing I have said, it would mortify me very severely to believe I had given you pain. If you have any amity left for me, you will not delay very long to tell me so. In the...
Page 76 - ... best Greek and Roman authorities, than to exhibit distinguished specimens of success in either department; just as they are said to possess the best possible rules for building ships of war, although not equally remarkable for their power of fighting them. When criticism becomes a pursuit separate from poetry, those who follow it are apt to forget, that the legitimate ends of the art for which they lay down rules, are instruction or delight, and that these points being attained, by what road...
Page 52 - ... that we never entertained much partiality for this sort of composition, and ventured on a former occasion to express our regret, that an author endowed with such talents should consume them in imitations of obsolete extravagance, and in the representation of manners and sentiments in which none of his readers can be supposed to take much interest, except the few who can judge of their exactness. To write a modern romance of chivalry, seems to be much such a fantasy as to build a modern abbey,...