The History of English Dramatic Poetry to the Time of Shakespeare:: And Annals of the Stage to the Restoration, Volume 3

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John Murray, Albemarle-Street., 1831 - English drama - 508 pages

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Page 121 - Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend The wondrous architecture of the world, And measure every wandering planet's course, Still climbing after knowledge infinite, And always moving as the restless spheres, Will us to wear ourselves, and never rest, Until we reach the ripest fruit of all, That perfect bliss and sole felicity, The sweet fruition of an earthly crown.
Page 296 - King Henry making a mask at the Cardinal Wolsey's house, and certain cannons being shot off at his entry, some of the paper, or other stuff wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the thatch...
Page 128 - ... spheres of Heaven, That time may cease, and midnight never come; Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again and make Perpetual day; or let this hour be but A year, a month, a week, a natural day, That Faustus may repent and save his soul! O lente, lente, currite noctis equi!
Page 116 - I'll ride in golden armour like the sun ; And in my helm a triple plume shall spring, Spangled with diamonds, dancing in the air, To note me emperor of the three-fold world...
Page 121 - Flora in her morning's pride, Shaking her silver tresses in the air, Rain'st on the earth resolved pearl in showers, And sprinklest sapphires on thy shining face, Where Beauty, mother to the Muses, sits, And comments volumes with her...
Page 127 - Alexander's love and (Enon's death? And hath not he, that built the walls of Thebes With ravishing sound of his melodious harp, Made music with my Mephistophilis ? Why should I die, then, or basely despair ? I am resolv'd ; Faustus shall ne'er repent.
Page 296 - ... and their eyes more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming within less than an hour the whole house to the very ground. This was the fatal period of that virtuous fabrick, wherein yet nothing did perish but wood and straw, and a few forsaken cloaks...
Page 254 - This eulogy of honourable love is vigorous in thought as well as metre : — "fis nature's second sun, Causing a spring of virtues where he shines; And as without the sun, the world's great eye, All colours, beauties, both of art and nature, Are given in vain to...
Page 140 - He rends and tears it with his wrathful paw, And highly scorning that the lowly earth Should drink his blood, mounts up into the air.
Page 130 - That peril is the chiefest way to happiness, And resolution honour's fairest aim. What glory is there in a common good, That hangs for every peasant to achieve? That like I best that flies beyond my reach. Set me to scale the high Pyramides...

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