Essay on MiltonAmerican book Company, 1903 - 160 pages |
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admirable Æschylus ancient army beautiful called cause character Charles civil Comus conduct Cowley Cromwell dæmons Dante death Deity despotism Divine Comedy doctrine Edinburgh Review enemies England English Eschylus Essay on Milton Euripides evil famous father faults feelings freedom genius Gibbon give hands hath heart honor House human illusion interest Italian James John Milton king language Latin liberty literary literature Long Parliament look lyric MAC.'S ESS Macau Macaulay Macaulay's memory ment mind nation never noble opinion oppressive Paradise Lost party Petition of Right poems poet poetry political popular praise principles Professor Puritans Rebellion reform Regicides reign resemblance Revolution Roundheads Royalists Samson Agonistes scarcely Sir George Trevelyan speech spirit stadtholder Star Chamber style things thought throne tion Tory Trevelyan tyranny tyrant verse Whig words writing wrote
Popular passages
Page 103 - Those who injured her during the period of her disguise were forever excluded from participation in the blessings which she bestowed. But to those who, in spite of her loathsome aspect, pitied and protected her, she afterwards revealed herself in the beautiful and celestial form which was natural to her, accompanied their steps, granted all their wishes, filled their houses with wealth, made them happy in love and victorious in war.
Page 104 - Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait forever.
Page 115 - Their palaces were houses not made with hands; their diadems, crowns of glory which should never fade away! On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests they looked down with contempt; for they esteemed themselves rich in more precious treasure and eloquent in a more sublime language; nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand.
Page 68 - His poetry acts like an incantation. Its merit lies less in its obvious meaning than in its occult power. There would seem, at first sight, to be no more in his words than in other words. But they are words of enchantment. No sooner are they pronounced, than the past is present and the distant near. New forms of beauty start at once into existence, and all the burial-places of the memory give up their dead.
Page 62 - By poetry we mean the art of employing words in such a manner as to produce an illusion on the imagination, the art of doing by means of words what the painter does by means of colors.
Page 104 - When a prisoner first leaves his cell he cannot bear the light of day ; he is unable to discriminate colors or recognize faces. But the remedy is, not to remand him into his dungeon, but to accustom him to the rays of the sun. The blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and bewilder nations which have become half blind in the house of bondage.
Page 116 - He had been wrested by no common deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He had been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice.
Page 115 - The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of superior beings and eternal interests. Not content with acknowledging, in general terms, an overruling Providence, they habitually ascribed every event to the will of the Great Being, for whose power nothing was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute.
Page 47 - I began thus far to assent both to them and divers of my friends here at home ; and not less to an inward prompting which now grew daily upon me, that by labour and intent study, which I take to be my portion in- this life, joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written to after-times, as they should not willingly let it die.
Page 116 - Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men; the one all self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion— the other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust before his Maker but he set his foot on the neck of his king.