The works of Samuel Johnson

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Bell & Bradfute, James M'Cleish, and William Blackwood, 1806

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Page 332 - Be of good courage, I begin to feel Some rousing motions in me, which dispose To something extraordinary my thoughts. I with this messenger will go along, Nothing to do, be sure, that may dishonour Our law, or stain my vow of Nazarite. If there be aught of presage in the mind, This day will be remarkable in my life By some great act, or of my days the last.
Page 120 - The sound must seem an echo to the sense : Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows ; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar: When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labours, and the words move slow : Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Page 336 - Out, out, hyaena! these are thy wonted arts And arts of every woman false like thee, To break all faith, all vows, deceive, betray, Then, as repentant, to submit, beseech, And reconcilement move with...
Page 132 - I fled, and cried out Death; Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sighed From all her caves, and back resounded Death.
Page 211 - ... business, and exclude pleasure, and to devote their days and nights to a particular attention. But all common degrees of excellence are attainable at a lower price ; he that should steadily...
Page 56 - Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do unto them ; for this is the law and the prophets.
Page 211 - The proverbial oracles of our parsimonious ancestors have informed us that the fatal waste of fortune is by small expenses, by the profusion of sums too little singly to alarm our caution, and which we never suffer ourselves to consider together. Of the same kind is the prodigality of life ; he that hopes to look back hereafter with satisfaction upon past years, must learn to know the present value of single minutes, and endeavour to let no particle of time fall useless to the ground.
Page 335 - My vessel trusted to me from above, Gloriously rigg'd; and for a word, a tear, Fool! have divulg'd the secret gift of God To a deceitful woman ? And the chorus talks of adding fuel to flame in a report : He's gone, and who knows how he may report Thy words, by adding fuel to the flame...
Page 106 - Shoots far into the bosom of dim Night > ->-^^->' ' A glimmering dawn : here Nature first begins "-•• Her farthest verge, and Chaos to retire...
Page 337 - The Sun to me is dark And silent as the Moon, When she deserts the night Hid in her vacant interlunar cave. Since light so necessary is to life, And almost life itself, if it be true That light is in the Soul, She all in every part; why was the sight To such a tender ball as the eye confined?

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