The London Anecdotes for All Readers ...

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Charles Maybury Archer
D. Bogue, 1848

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Page 98 - Beauclerk and the beaming smile of Garrick, Gibbon tapping his snuff-box and Sir Joshua with his trumpet in his ear. In the foreground is that strange figure which is as familiar to us as the figures of those among whom we have been brought up, the gigantic body, the huge massy face, seamed with the scars of disease, the brown coat, the black worsted stockings, the gray wig with the scorched foretop, the dirty hands, the nails bitten and pared to the quick.
Page 119 - As he gave out this text, his voice " rose like a steam of rich distilled perfumes," and when he came to the two last words, which he pronounced loud, deep, and distinct, it seemed to me, who was then young, as if the sounds had echoed from the bottom of the human heart, and as if that prayer might have floated in solemn silence through the universe. The idea of St. John came into mind, " of one crying in the wilderness, who had his loins girt about, and whose food was locusts and wild honey.
Page 124 - Though my perishing ranks should be strewed in their gore, Like ocean-weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore, Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains, While the kindling of life in his bosom remains, Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low, With his back to the field, and his feet to the foe ! And leaving in battle no blot on his name, Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame.
Page 94 - It was on the day, or rather night, of the 27th of June 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page, in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains.
Page 98 - As we close it the club-room is before us, and the table on which stands the omelet for Nugent, and the lemons for Johnson. There are assembled those heads which live for ever on the canvas of Reynolds. There are the spectacles of Burke and the tall thin form of...
Page 120 - He made a poetical and pastoral excursion — and to show the fatal effects of war, drew a striking contrast between the simple shepherd-boy, driving his team afield, or sitting under the hawthorn, piping to his flock, " as though he should never be old," and the same poor country lad, crimped, kidnapped, brought into town, made drunk at an alehouse, turned into a wretched drummer-boy, with his hair sticking on end with powder and pomatum, a long cue at his back, and tricked out in the loathsome...
Page 118 - ... gone through ! How altered my state ! I had dined the day before at a secretary of state's in company with Mr. Pitt, and had been waited upon by men in gaudy liveries ! I had had nobody to assist me in the world. No teachers of any sort. Nobody to shelter me from the consequence of bad, and no one to counsel me to good behaviour.
Page 54 - ... these occasions, to try all the resources of her sprightly powers for his immediate relief. She told him the story of John Gilpin (which had been treasured in her memory from her childhood) to dissipate the gloom of the passing hour. Its effect on the fancy of Cowper had the air of enchantment: he informed her the next morning that convulsions of laughter, brought on by his recollection of her story, had kept him waking during the greatest part of the night ; and that he had turned it into a...
Page 118 - I could see the prodigious sand-hill, where I had begun my gardening works. What a nothing ! But now came rushing into my mind all at once my pretty little garden, my little blue smock-frock, my little nailed shoes, my pretty pigeons that I used to feed out of my hands, the last kind words and tears of my gentle, and tender-hearted, and affectionate mother ! I hastened back into the room. If I had looked a moment longer I should have dropped.
Page 54 - Strada, in one of his Prolusions*, gives an account of a chimerical correspondence between two friends by the help of a certain load-stone, which had such virtue in it, that if it touched two several needles, when one of the needles so touched began to move, the other, though at never so great a distance, moved at the same time, and in the same manner.

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