An Account of the English Dramatick Poets: Or, Some Observations and Remarks on the Lives and Writings, of All Those that Have Publish'd Either Comedies, Tragedies, Tragi-comedies, Pastorals, Masques, Interludes, Farces, Or Opera's in the English Tongue

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L. L., 1691 - 556 páginas

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Página 73 - I was twelve years old, and was thus made a poet as immediately as a child is made an eunuch.
Página 131 - In the age wherein those poets lived, there was less of gallantry than in ours ; neither did they keep the best company of theirs. Their fortune has been much like that of Epicurus, in the retirement of his gardens ; to live almost unknown, and to be celebrated after their decease. I cannot find that any of them had been conversant in courts, except Ben Jonson; and his genius lay not so much that way, as to make an improvement by it.
Página 447 - t is agreed on by raostv that his Learning was not extraordinary; and I am apt to believe, that his skill in the French and Italian Tongues, exceeded his knowledge in the Roman Language; ... so I should think I were guilty of an Injury beyond pardon to his Memory. Should I so far disparage it, as to bring his Wit in competition with any of our Age.
Página 251 - ... true it is that my plays are not exposed to the world in volumes, to bear the title of works (as others *) : one reason is, that many of them by shifting and change of companies, have been negligently lost. Others of them are still retained in the hands of some actors, who think it against their peculiar profit to have them come in print, and a third that it never was any great ambition in me to be in this kind voluminously read.
Página 129 - Poetry was then, if not in its infancy among us, at least not arrived to its vigour and maturity: witness the lameness of their plots; many of which, especially those which they writ first (for even that age refined itself in some measure), were made up of some ridiculous incoherent story, which in one play many times took up the business of an age. I suppose I need not name Pericles, Prince of Tyre, nor the historical plays of Shakespeare: besides many of the rest, as the Winter's Tale, Love's Labour...
Página 448 - Language; ... so I should think I were guilty of an Injury beyond pardon to his Memory. Should I so far disparage it, as to bring his Wit in competition with any of our Age. ... I...
Página 412 - I doubt not to show, that though he would be thought to imitate the silkworm, that spins its web from its own bowels, yet I shall make him appear like the leech, that lives upon the blood of other men, drawn from the gums ; and, when he is rubbed with salt, spews it up again.
Página 77 - Horace's wit and Virgil's state He did not steal, but emulate, And when he would like them appear, Their garb, but not their clothes, did wear ; He not from Rome alone, but Greece, Like Jason brought the golden fleece ; To him that language, though to none Of th' others, as his own was known.
Página 311 - Arts, that he caus'd his Picture to be drawn, in three feveral Figures in the fame Table, viz. That of Teague in the Committee, Mr. Scruple in The Cheats, and M. Galliard, in The Variety: which piece is ftill in being in Windfor Cajlle.
Página 134 - Virtuous, to palliate their own difhonour.' . . . [p. 140] But . . I fhall . . go on with the Thing I have undertook, (to wit) The Defence of the Poets of the laft Age. Were Mr. Dryden really as great a Scholar, as he would have the World believe him to be ; he would have call'd to mind, that Homer, whom he profefleth to imitate, had fet him a better pattern of Gratitude, who mentions with Refpeft and Kindnefs his Mafter Phemls, Mentor of Ithaca, and even Tychius, the honeft Leather-drefler.

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