The Works of Alexander Pope: Letters

Front Cover
A. Millar [and others], 1757 - English literature
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 282 - Homer was the greater genius ; Virgil, the better artist. In one we most admire the man ; in the other, the work. Homer hurries and transports us with a commanding impetuosity; Virgil leads us with an attractive majesty...
Page 307 - ... between penetration and felicity, he hits upon that particular point on which the bent of each argument turns, or the force of each motive depends.
Page 202 - Jerusalem with iniquity: the heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, "Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon us.
Page 316 - Spenser, whom he will not allow to be great enough to be ranked with him; and challenges the names of Sophocles, Euripides, and...
Page 164 - To make an Episode. Take any remaining adventure of your former collection in which you could no way involve your hero, or any unfortunate accident that was too good to be thrown away, and it will be of use applied to any other person, who may be lost and evaporate in the course of the work without the least damage to the composition.
Page 309 - The audience was generally composed of the meaner sort of people; and therefore the images of life were to be drawn from those of their own rank. Accordingly we find that not our author's only but almost all the old comedies have their scene among tradesmen and mechanics; and even their historical plays strictly follow the common old stories or vulgar traditions of that kind of people.
Page 306 - ... him. His characters are so much nature herself, that it is a sort of injury to call them by so distant a name as copies of her. Those of other poets have a constant resemblance, which...
Page 273 - ... and after all the various changes of times and religions, his gods continue to this day the gods of poetry.
Page 288 - OdyfTes above the yEneis : as that the. hero is a wifer man ; and the action of the one more beneficial to his country than that of the other : or...
Page 241 - Locke takes notice of a mother who permitted them to her children, but rewarded or punished them as they treated them well or ill. This was no other than entering them betimes into a daily...