The Pursuits of Literature: A Satirical Poem in Four Dialogues. With Notes

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T. Becket, 1803 - 574 pages

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Page 193 - The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour: The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Page xx - I will not sit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon public robbery.
Page 452 - Wise men have said are wearisome; who reads Incessantly, and to his reading brings not A spirit and judgment equal or superior (And what he brings, what needs he elsewhere seek) Uncertain and unsettled still remains, Deep versed in books and shallow in himself, Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys, And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge; As children gathering pebbles on the shore.
Page 254 - I take to be the discovery of the certainty or probability of such propositions or truths, which the mind arrives at by deduction made from such ideas which it has got by the use of its natural faculties, viz. by sensation or reflection. Faith, on the other side, is the assent to any proposition, not thus made out by the deductions of reason, but upon the credit of the proposer, as coming from God in some extraordinary way of communication.
Page 171 - First in his east the glorious lamp was seen, Regent of day, and all the horizon round Invested with bright rays, jocund to run His longitude through heaven's high road ; the gray Dawn and the Pleiades before him danced, Shedding sweet influence.
Page 256 - An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah : for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Page 452 - However, many books, Wise men have said, are wearisome; who reads Incessantly, and to his reading brings not A spirit and...
Page 244 - We no longer look for learned authors in the usual place, in the retreats of academic erudition and in the seats of religion. Our peasantry now read The Rights of Man on mountains and moors and by the wayside; and shepherds make the analogy between their occupation and that of their governors.
Page 233 - LORENZO rears again his awful head, And feels his ancient glories round him spread ; The Muses starting from their trance revive, And at their ROSCOE'S bidding, wake and live.
Page 47 - Find, if you can, in what you cannot change. Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes, Tenets with books, and principles with times.

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