Category: Biographies
Fielding, it is said, drank confusion to the man who invented the fifth act of a play. He who has edited an extensive work, and has concluded his labours by the preparation of a copious index, might well be pardoned, if he omitted to include the inventor of the Preface among t...
Fielding, it is said, drank confusion to the man who invented the fifth act of a play. He who has edited an extensive work, and has concluded his labours by the preparation of a...
2. Chapter 2moment; his looks seemed rivetted to his plate; nor would he, unless when in very high company, say one word, or even pay the least attention to what was said by others, till he...
3. Chapter 3long speech is put into his mouth. It was the Earl of Sandwich who had spoken at this turn of the debate. The editor of the _Parl. Hist_. (xii. 1398), without even notifying the...
4. Chapter 4of honesty from the beginning of his life to the end. He could for ever wage war with knaves and malice, and preserve his temper; could know men, and yet feel for them; could sm...
5. Chapter 5[521] Malone most likely is meant. Mr. Croker says:--'Johnson has "_indifferently_" in the sense of "_without concern_" in his _Dictionary_, with this example from _Shakespeare_...
6. Chapter 6[582] Murphy referring to Boswell's statement says:--'The Epilogue, we are told in a late publication, was written by Sir William Young. This is a new discovery, but by no means...
7. Chapter 7'When e'en as love was breaking off from wonder, And tender accents quiver'd on my lips.' Ib. 'And fate lies crowded in a narrow space.' Act iii. sc. 6. 'Reflect that life and d...
8. Chapter 8'And wake from ignorance the western world.' Act iv. sc. 2. 'Through hissing ages a proverbial coward, The tale of women, and the scorn of fools.' Act iv. sc. 3. 'No records but...
9. Chapter 9[590] Johnson wrote of Milton:--'I cannot but conceive him calm and confident, little disappointed, not at all dejected, relying on his own merit with steady consciousness, and...
10. Chapter 10Moore, describing Sheridan's funeral, says:--'It was well remarked by a French Journal, in contrasting the penury of Sheridan's latter years with the splendour of his funeral, t...
11. Chapter 11portrait painted by Mr. Northcote, I had not been ten minutes alone with him before I asked him why there were holes in his carpet.' Dryden, Pope, Reynolds, Northcote, Ruskin, s...
12. Chapter 12[1117] 'I have myself heard Reynolds declare, that the elder Mr. Mudge was, in his opinion, the wisest man he had ever met with in his life. He has always told me that he owed h...
13. Chapter 13[1211] Dr. Warton wrote to his brother on Jan. 22, 1766:--'Of all solemn coxcombs Goldsmith is the first; yet sensible--but affects to use Johnson's hard words in conversation.'...
14. Chapter 14leave to say, that we merchants are a species of gentry that have grown into the world this last century, and are as honourable, and almost as useful as you landed-folks, that h...
15. Chapter 15[1445] 'It is but justice to Mr. Thrale to say, that a more ingenuous frame of mind no man possessed. His education at Oxford gave him the habits of a gentleman; his amiable tem...