Letters of Thomas Gray

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Small, Maynard & Company, 1899 - 222 pages
 

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Page 36 - d, unfinish'd, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them...
Page 36 - But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature...
Page xv - I do not remember to have gone ten paces without an exclamation that there was no restraining: not a precipice, not a torrent, not a cliff, but is pregnant with religion and poetry.
Page 6 - ... dangerous. Both vale and hill are covered with most venerable beeches, and other very reverend vegetables, that, like most other ancient people, are always dreaming out their old stories to the winds...
Page 143 - He eat them all at one dinner; but his fate was a Turbot on Trinity Sunday, of which he left little for the company besides bones. He had not been hearty all the week ; but after this sixth fish he never held up his head more, and a violent looseness carried him off. — They say he made a very good end.
Page 1 - When you have seen one of my days, you have seen a whole year of my life; they go round and round like the blind horse in the mill, only he has the satisfaction of fancying he makes a progress and gets some ground ; my eyes are open enough to see the same dull prospect, and to know that, having made four-and-twenty steps more, I shall be just where I was.
Page 161 - We take it for a translation ; and should believe it to be a true story, if it were not for St. Nicholas.
Page 77 - As I am not at all disposed to be either so indulgent, or so correspondent, as they 76 desire, I have but one bad way left to escape the honour they would inflict upon me ; and therefore am obliged to desire you would make Dodsley print it immediately (which may be done in less than a week's time) from your copy, but without my name...
Page 18 - ... (which was as steep upwards, as the other part was downwards) out rushed a great wolf, came close to the head of the horses, seized the dog by the throat, and rushed up the hill again with him in his mouth. This was done in less than a quarter of a minute; we all saw it, and yet the servants had not time to draw their pistols, or do anything to save the dog.
Page 138 - Sermons,' with his own comick figure, from a painting by Reynolds, at the head of them ? They are in the style I think most proper for the pulpit, and show a strong imagination and a sensible heart ; but you see him often tottering on the verge of laughter, and ready to throw his periwig in the face of the audience.

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