Category: Biographies
In 1764 and 1765 it should seem that Dr. Johnson was so busily employed with his edition of Shakspeare, as to have had little leisure for any other literary exertion, or, indeed, even for private correspondence[1]. He did not favour me with a single letter for more than two ye...
In 1764 and 1765 it should seem that Dr. Johnson was so busily employed with his edition of Shakspeare, as to have had little leisure for any other literary exertion, or, indeed...
7. Chapter 7_Romeo and Juliet_, act ii. sc. 2. He was a God with whom he ventured to take great liberties. Thus on Jan. 10, 1776, he wrote:--'I have ventured to produce _Hamlet_ with altera...
10. Chapter 10[991] Horace Walpole wrote, on Jan. 15, 1775 (_Letters_, vi. 171):--'They [the Millers] hold a Parnassus-fair every Thursday, give out rhymes and themes, and all the flux of qua...
9. Chapter 9learning in ready cash of any he ever knew.' Later authors have used the same image. Lord Chesterfield (_Letters_, ii. 291) in 1749 wrote of Lord Bolingbroke:--'He has an infini...
3. Chapter 3projected.... so many schools opened for general knowledge, and so many lectures in particular sciences attended.' Goldsmith, in his _Life of Nash_ (published in 1762), describe...
11. Chapter 11of being his _surest_ descendant as is vulgarly said, has in reality no connection whatever with his blood. And secondly, independent of this theory, (which, if true, should com...
5. Chapter 5London. He had seen 'the mob requiring gentlemen and ladies of all ranks as they passed in their carriages, to shout for Wilkes and liberty, marking the same words on all their...
8. Chapter 8'But how did he return, this haughty brave, Who whipt the winds, and made the sea his slave? (Though Neptune took unkindly to be bound And Eurus never such hard usage found In h...
12. Chapter 12almost ever known in a court of justice.' 'The issue of Mrs. Rudd's trial was thought to involve the fate of the Perreaus; and the popular fancy had taken the part of the woman...
4. Chapter 4comedies were to be pitted against each other.' _False Delicacy_ had a great success. Ten thousand copies of it were sold before the season closed. (_Ib_ p. 96.) 'Garrick's prol...
6. Chapter 6[234] Horace Walpole told Malone that 'he was about twenty-two [twenty-four] years old when his father retired; and that he remembered his offering one day to read to him, findi...
2. Chapter 2that of Pope is cautious and uniform. Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind; Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of composition. Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid;...