Anecdotes of Polite Literature ...

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G. Burnet, 1764

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Page 173 - This pencil take (she said) whose colours clear Richly paint the vernal year : Thine, too, these golden keys, immortal Boy ! This can unlock the gates of Joy ; Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears, Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic Tears.
Page 117 - As when far off at sea a fleet descried Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring Their spicy drugs ; they, on the trading flood, Through the wide Ethiopian to the cape, Ply stemming nightly toward the pole : so seemed Far off the flying fiend.
Page 172 - In flower of youth and beauty's pride. Happy, happy, happy pair! None but the brave, None but the brave, None but the brave deserves the fair...
Page 184 - Thy banks ? — alas, is this the boafted fcene, This dreary, wide, uncultivated plain, Where fick'ning Nature wears a fainter green, And Defolation fpreads her torpid reign ? Is this the fcene where Freedom breath'd, Her copious horn where Plenty wreath'd. And health at opening day Bade all her rofeate breezes fly, To wake the fons of Induftry, And make their fields more gay?
Page 84 - Every one has something so singularly his own that no painter could have distinguished them more by their features than the poet has by their manners.
Page 116 - Phlegra with the heroic race were join'd That fought at Thebes and Ilium, on each side...
Page 177 - Can Music's voice, can Beauty's eye, Can Painting's glowing hand supply A charm so suited to my mind, As blows this hollow gust of wind, As drops this little weeping rill Soft tinkling down the moss-grown hill, While through the west, where sinks the crimson day, Meek Twilight slowly sails, and waves her banners gray?
Page 112 - Ethereal Powers And Spirits, both them who stood and them who faild; Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell. Not free, what proof could they have givn sincere Of true allegiance, constant Faith or Love, Where only what they needs must do, appeard, Not what they would?
Page 174 - Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate ; Beneath the good how far — but far above the great ! ODE VI.
Page 152 - They may be of fome ufe to the lower rank of writers ; but an author of genius has much finer materials of Nature's production, for elevating his fubject, and making it interefting.

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