Life of Geoffrey Chaucer: The Early English Poet: Including Memoirs of His Near Friend and Kinsman, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster: with Sketches of the Manners, Opinions, Arts and Literature of England in the Fourteenth Century, Volume 2

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T. Davison, 1804 - Great Britain
 

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Page 175 - a lies asleep, Then dreams he of another benefice : Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck, And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, Of healths five fathom deep ; and then anon Drums in his ear; at which he starts, and wakes; And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two, And sleeps again.
Page 498 - What things have we seen Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, As if that every one (from whence they came) Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, And had resolved to live a fool the rest Of his dull life...
Page 294 - Prendre garde qu'un qui ne heurte une diphtongue ; Épier si des vers la rime est brève ou longue ; Ou bien si la voyelle, à l'autre s'unissant, Ne rend point à l'oreille un vers trop languissant.
Page 274 - Let no man deceive you by any means ; for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition ; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped ; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
Page 97 - ... we shall probably be of opinion, that his majesty was either totally insensible of our author's poetical talents, or at least had no mind to encourage him in the cultivation or exercise of them.
Page 75 - tis in him to right Boccace. I prefer, in our countryman, far above all his other stories, the noble poem of Palamon and Arcite, which is of the epic kind, and perhaps not much inferior to the Ilias, or the jEneis. The story is more pleasing than either of them, the manners as perfect, the diction as poetical, the learning as deep and various, and the disposition full as artful...
Page 69 - It may be amusing to the fancy of a reader of Chaucer's works, to represent to himself the young poet accoutred in the robes of a lawyer, examining a witness, fixing upon him the keenness of his eye, addressing himself with anxiety and expectation to a jury, or exercising the subtlety of his wit and judgment in the...
Page 33 - ... two such men, after having known each ' other so intimately, and mutually looked to each other for fellowship in amusement and relief in adversity during so long a period, should afterward come to view each other with eyes of estrangement, indifference and distaste...
Page 225 - November, which was the anniversary of his birth, beside other proceedings by which he wished to stamp it as memorable, such as the enlargement of all debtors and prisoners, the restoration of such of his subjects as were in a state of banishment, and the abolition, by public ordinance, of the French language in all law-cases, pleadings, judgments and contracts within the realm, he also solemnly conferred in full parliament upon his second son Lionel of Antwerp the title of duke of Clarence, and...
Page 231 - XXIV. imagination. The Roman de la Rose, which '-. was written during the thirteenth century, placed their preeminence as to these early ages beyond the reach of rivalship. It may justly be regarded as the predecessor and progenitor of all that is most admirable in the effusions of modern, in contradistinction to the chivalrous, poetry.

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