Wit and Humour, Selected from the English Poets: With an Illustrative Essay and Critical Comments

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Norwood Editions, 1846 - 332 páginas

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Página 341 - Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat, To persuade Tommy Townshend* to lend him a vote ; Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining, And thought of convincing, while they thought of -dining. Though equal to all things, for all things unfit: Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit ; For a patriot, too cool ; for a drudge, disobedient ; And too fond of the right, to pursue the expedient. In short, 'twas his fate, unemployed or in place, sir, To eat mutton cold,...
Página 268 - Blest madman, who could every hour employ With something new to wish or to enjoy...
Página 284 - The rest the winds dispers'd in empty air. But now secure the painted vessel glides, The sunbeams trembling on the floating tides ; While melting music steals upon the sky, And soften'd sounds along the waters die : Smooth flow the waves, the zephyrs gently play, Belinda smil'd, and all the world was gay. All but the sylph — with careful thoughts opprest, Th' impending woe sat heavy on his breast.
Página 287 - Ah cease, rash youth ! desist ere 'tis too late, Fear the just gods, and think of Scylla's fate! Chang'd to a bird, and sent to flit in air, She dearly pays for Nisus' injur'd hair ! But when to mischief mortals bend their will, How soon they find fit instruments of ill ! Just then, Clarissa drew with tempting grace A...
Página 263 - Shadwell alone of all my sons is he Who stands confirmed in full stupidity. The rest to some faint meaning make pretence, But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
Página 5 - For, wit lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness and variety wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy...
Página 288 - T' inclose the lock ; now joins it, to divide. Ev'n then, before the fatal engine clos'd, A wretched sylph too fondly interpos'd ; Fate urg'd the shears, and cut the sylph in twain, (But airy substance soon unites again) The meeting points the sacred hair dissever From the fair head, for ever, and for ever ! Then flash'd the living lightning from her eyes, • And screams of horror rend th
Página 343 - He cherish'd his friend, and he relish'da bumper ; Yet one fault he had, and that one was a thumper. Perhaps you may ask if the man was a miser? I answer, no, no, for he always was wiser : Too courteous, perhaps, or obligingly flat?
Página 265 - Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high, He sought the storms ; but, for a calm unfit, Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.
Página 301 - Unwater'd see the drooping sea-horse mourn, And swallows roost in Nilus' dusty urn. My lord advances with majestic mien, Smit with the mighty pleasure to be seen : But soft — by regular approach — not yet — First...

Sobre o autor (1846)

Leigh Hunt was so prolific that, if his writing were ever collected, it would exceed 100 volumes of mostly unmemorable prose. He was so eccentric and socially visible that even Dickens's caricature of Hunt as the perennially cheerful Harold Skimpole in Bleak House is immediately recognizable. But his philosophy of cheer, however eccentric among such doleful writers of his generation as Coleridge and Byron, appealed to middle-class public taste, which accounts for his immense following. Educated, like Coleridge and Lamb, at Christ's Hospital, Hunt became a journalist, helping his brother John edit the weekly Examiner. As a result of the paper's liberal policy, they were both fined and imprisoned for two years for writing a libelous description of the Prince Regent on his birthday. Hunt turned his prison cell into a salon and enjoyed visits from Jeremy Bentham, Byron, Keats, Lamb, and Hazlitt. After his release, Hunt settled in Hampstead, London, a political martyr and a model of domesticity. His writing includes The Feast of the Poets (1814), a satire of contemporary writers; The Story of Rimini (1816), a saccharine Italianate romance; and Hero and Leander (1819). Young poets such as Keats found the sensual surfaces easy to imitate. But mostly Hunt wrote essays and edited dozens of short-lived magazines and journals, providing an insight into the literary life of London during this period.

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