The Works of the English Poets: With Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, Volume 11

Front Cover
Samuel Johnson
C. Bathurst, 1779

From inside the book

Selected pages

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 151 - prove kind, And fill our empty brain ; Yet if rough Neptune rouze the wind, To wave the azure main, Our paper, pen, and ink, and we, Roll up and down our fhips at fea, With a fa, &c.
Page 152 - The Dutch would fcorn fo weak a foe, And quit their fort at Goree : For what refiftance can they find From men who've left their hearts behind ! With a fa, .&c. * VI. Let wind and weather do its
Page 151 - How hard it is to write ; The Mufes now, and Neptune too, We muft implore to write to you, With a fa, la, la, la, la. II.
Page 153 - When any mournful tune you hear, That dies in every note ; As if it figh'd with each man's care, For being fo remote ; Think how often love we've
Page 22 - By titles, which but few can boaft, A moft juft mafter, and a faithful friend ? One who never yet did wrong To high or low, to old or young ? Of him what orphan can complain ? Of him what widow make her moan? But fuch as wifh him here again, And mifs his goodnefs now
Page 23 - With fpoils of viftory and glory fraught. To him then every heart was open, down From the great man to the clown : In him rejoic'd, to him inclin'd ; And as his health round the glad board did pafs, Each honeft fellow cry'd, Fill full my glafs; And fhew'd the fullnefs of his mind. No
Page 44 - vain have prov'd the labours of the ftage, -*.-*- In ftriving to reclaim a vicious age ! Poets may write, the mifchief to impeach ; You care as little what the poets teach, As you regard at church what parfons preach. But where fuch follies and fuch vices reign, What honeft pen
Page 46 - weary marches, fleeplefs nights, For this feeds hard, and lodges cold ; Which can't be bought with hills of gold. Since wealth and power too weak we find, To quell the tumults of the mind ; Or from the monarch's roofs of
Page 21 - Ballads, and all the fpurious excefs Of ills that malice could devife, Or ever fwarm'd from a licentious prefs, Hung round about him like a fpell : And in his own hand too was writ, That worthy piece of modern wit, The country's late appeal. But from fuch ills when will our wretched
Page 48 - of eager love, She coldly calls me friend. Ah, Sylvia ! thus in vain you ftrive To aft a healer's part, 'Twill keep but lingering pain alive, Alas ! and break my heart. When, on my lonely, penfive bed I lay me down to reft, In hope to calm my raging head, And cool my burning breaft. Her cruelty all

Bibliographic information