Miscellanies: Hours of Idleness. English bards and Scotch reviewers. Hints from HoraceJ. Murray, 1837 |
From inside the book
Page 214
... Oh , Amos Cottle ! — Phoebus ! what a name To fill the speaking trump of future fame ! Oh , Amos Cottle ! for a moment think What meagre profits spring from pen and ink ! When thus devoted to poetic dreams , Who will peruse thy ...
... Oh , Amos Cottle ! — Phoebus ! what a name To fill the speaking trump of future fame ! Oh , Amos Cottle ! for a moment think What meagre profits spring from pen and ink ! When thus devoted to poetic dreams , Who will peruse thy ...
Common terms and phrases
ANACREON bard beauty beneath bids bless blest bosom breast Calmar Capel Lofft CATULLUS dare dark dead dear death delight dream Drury Dunciad E'en Edinburgh Review edition epic fame fate fear feel foes folly friendship genius Gifford glory glow Harrow heart heaven heroes honour hope Jeffrey kiss lady live Lochlin Lord Byron Lord Carlisle Lord Henry Petty Lord Holland love's last adieu lyre Mathon mingle Moore Morven muse ne'er never Newstead Newstead Abbey night numbers o'er once Orla Oscar poem poet poetical poetry Pope praise Probus quæ quid remembrance rhyme rise satire scene shade sigh sire sleep smile song soothe soul Southey stanzas strain taste tears thee thine thing thou throng translation truth verse voice Walter Scott wave weep wings write written young youth
Popular passages
Page 200 - And think'st thou, Scott! by vain conceit perchance, On public taste to foist thy stale romance, Though Murray with his Miller may combine To yield thy muse just half-a-crown per line? No! when the sons of song descend to trade, Their bays are sear, their former laurels fade. Let such forego the poet's sacred name, Who rack their brains for lucre, not for fame: Still for stern Mammon may they toil in vain!
Page 205 - And Christmas stories tortured into rhyme Contain the essence of the true sublime. Thus, when he tells the tale of Betty Foy, The idiot mother of 'an idiot boy...
Page 239 - Henry Kirke White died at Cambridge, in October, 1806, in consequence of too much exertion in the pursuit of studies that would have matured a mind which disease and poverty could not impair, and which death itself destroyed rather than subdued. His poems abound in such beauties as must impress the reader with the liveliest regret, that so short a period was allotted to talents which would have dignified even the sacred functions he was destined to assume.
Page 205 - Who, both by precept and example, shows That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose...
Page 305 - Pretty ! in amber to observe the forms Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms ! The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there.
Page 192 - And I not sing, lest, haply, Scotch Reviews Should dub me scribbler, and denounce my Muse? Prepare for rhyme — I'll publish, right or wrong : Fools are my theme, let Satire be my song...
Page 178 - ... at which each was written. Now, the law upon the point of minority, we hold to be perfectly clear. It is a plea available only to the defendant; no plaintiff can offer it as a supplementary ground of action. Thus, if any suit could be brought against Lord Byron, for the purpose of compelling him to put into court a certain quantity of poetry, and if...
Page 267 - Descriptas servare vices operumque colores Cur ego, si nequeo ignoroque, poeta salutor? Cur nescire pudens prave quam discere malo ? Versibus exponi tragicis res comica non vult; Indignatur item privatis ac prope socco 90 Dignis carminibus narrari coena Thyestae.
Page 265 - Res gestae regumque ducumque et tristia bella Quo scribi possent numero, monstravit Homerus.
Page 238 - White ! 96 while life was in its spring, And thy young muse just waved her joyous wing, The spoiler swept that soaring lyre away, Which else had sounded an immortal lay. Oh ! what a noble heart was here undone, When Science' self destroy'd her favourite son!