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dily unite themselves with all the world, are liable to meet with bad company.

Gentle, Tame. Gentle animals are naturally so. Tame ones are so partly by the art and industry of man. The dog, the ox, and the horse, are gentle animals; the bear and the lion are sometimes tame.

Capacity, Ability. Capacity has more relation to the knowledge of things; ability to their application. The one is acquired by study; the other by practice. He, who has capacity for a thing, is proper to undertake; he, who has ability, to execute.

Little, Small. The word little sometimes signifies only want of bigness: and, at other times, want of greatness in every sense; whereas that of small is the opposite only to bigness, and supposes some kind of length. Thus we say a little house; a little man; a little cup; a little globe: but, a small thread; a small line; a small twig.

To go back, to Return. We go back from a place where we have some considerable time been. We return to a place we had just before left. Thus, we say he is gone back into his own country. He is returned home. We say, also, he is gone back from virtue; he has returned to his fault.

To Put, to Place. Put seems to have a general sense place, one more limited, meaning to put orderly, and in a proper place. We put columns to support an edifice: We place them with symmetry.

To Bid, to Order. The first of these is extremely general, the other more limited. To bid intimates direction to perform, whether the person directing has any authority for so doing or' not To order implies the exercise of authority. Some people are so very officious, that they are always ready to do what they are bid, whether the thing be right or wrong, or the person bidding be empowered to order them or not.

To Vary, to Change. We vary in our sentiments when we give them up, and embrace them again. We change our opinions when we reject one in order to embrace another.

Variation, Variety. Successive changes in the same subject make variation. A multitude of different objects forms variety. Thus, we say the variation of time; variety of colours. There is no government bus is subjeci to variation. There is no species in nature in which we may not observe great variety.

Gay, Merry. We are gay by disposition; merry through turn of mind. Sad and serious are exactly their opposites. Our gaiety turns almost entirely to our own advantage: but our merriment at the same time that it is agreeable to others, is no less so to ourselves. We should, if possible, suppress our gaiety when in

the house of affliction. We should cease to be merry when others are serious.

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To Hear, to Hearken. To hear implies having the ear struck with any sound. To hearken means to lend an ear in order to hear Sometimes we hear without hearkening; and we often hearken without hearing.

Observations sur la Poésie anglaise.

Les vers anglais sont composés d'un certain nombre de syllabes. Généralement deux syllabes forment un pied poétique. Il y en a deux sortes: savoir, le ïambique et le trochée.

Le ïambique est composé d'une brève et d'une longue, comme

alóft,

creáte.

Le trochée, d'un longue et d'une brève, comme lófty, hóly. La mesure iamqique est

de quatre syllabes.

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De six.

De huit.

With ravish'd ears
The monarch hears.

The lord of heav'n confess,
On high his glories raise.
Him let all angels bless
Him all his armies praise.

DRYDEN.

In other men we faults can spy,
And blame the mote that dims their eye.

De dix, pour la poésie héroïque et tragique.

In all you write, observe with care and art
To move the passions, and incline the heart.

GAY.

DRYDEN.

Dans ces mesures, l'accent doit être placé sur les syllabes paires. La mesure trochée est

de trois syllabes,

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Dans ces mesures, l'accent doit être placé sur les syllabes impaires. Le vers de douze syllabes, appelé alexandrin, sert pour diver

sifier la poésie héroïque La pause doit-être à la sixième syllabe.
Waller was smooth, but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full resounding line,
The long majestick march, and energy divine.

РОРЕ.

Les vers de quatorze syllabes se sépare en mesures qui sont alternativement de huit et de dix syllabes.

She to receive thy radiant name,
Selects a wider space.

FENTON.

Il y a aussi une mesure très-prompte, fort usitée dans les chansons, appelée anapestique.

Dans cette mesure l'accent doit être placé sur chaque troisième syllabe.

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POPE.

May I govern my passions with absolute sway, And grow wiser and better as life wears away. Les mesures le plus en usage sont celles de sept, de huit et de dix syllabes. Elles sont variées par différentes combinaisons de longues et de brèves; qui donnent beaucoup d'harmonie aux vers anglais; et c'est peut-être à cause de la ressource que les Auteurs trouvent dans la prosodie de leur langue, qu'ils négligent souvent la rime, si nécessaire aux vers français.

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La versification admet quelques licences, savoir: l'élision de l'e dans the devant une voyelle, comme th'eternal; de l'o dans to comme t'accept; la synerese, par laquelle deux voyelles brèves sont unies en une syllabe, comme question, spécial, où un mot est abregé par la suppression d'une voyelle brève devant une liquide, comme av'rice, temp'rance, pour avarice temperance.

CHOIX DE POÉSIE ANGLAISE. On Happiness (a).·

OH happiness! our being's end and aim!

Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate'er thy name:
That something still which prompts th'eternal sigh
For which we bear to live, or dare to die,
Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies,
O'er-look'd, seen double, by the fool, and wise.
Plant of celestial seed! if dropt below,
Say, in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow
Fair op'ning to some court's propitious shine,
Or deep with di'monds in the flaming mine?
Twin'd with the wreaths parnassian laurels yield,
Or teap'd in iron harvests of the field?.

?

?

Ask of the learn'd the way the learn'd are blind;
This bids to serve, and that to shun mankind ;
Some place the bliss in action, some in ease,
Those call it pleasure: and contentment these.

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;

Take nature's path, and mad opinion's leave;
All states can reach it, and all heads conceive
Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell;
There needs but thinking right, and meaning well;
And mourn our various portions as we please,
Equal is common sense, and common ease. -
Order is heav'n's first law; and this confest,
Some are, and must be, greater than the rest,
More rich, more wire; but who infers from hence.
That such are happier, shocks all common sense. →→→
Know, all the good that individuals find,

Or good and nature meant to mere mankind,
Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense
Lie in three words, health, peace, and competence.

The progress of life (a).

ALL the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players >
They have their exits, and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms:
And then, the whining school-boy with his satchel :
And shining morning-face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then, the lover;
Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad,
Made to his mistress' eye-brow Then, a soldier;
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation

:

Even in the cannon's mouth: And then, the justice,
In fair round belly, with good capon lin❜d,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances,
And so he plays his part: The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon;
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;
His youthful hose well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound: Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness, and mere oblivion ;

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Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.

King Henry the fourth's speech, when he receives news by night of the Earl of Northumberland's rebellion (b).

How many thousands of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eye-lids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness!

Why rather, sleep, ly'st thou in smoky cribs,

(a) Shakespear, in the play intitled: As you like it. Act, 2. sc. 7. (b) The second part of King Henry the IV. Aci, 3. sc, 1.

Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,

And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?
O thou dull God, why ly'st thou with the vile,
In loathsome beds; and leav'st the kingly couch,
A watch case, or a common larum bell!
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's heyes, and rock is brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge;
And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deafning clamours in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Can'st thou O partial sleep! give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
And, in the calmest and the stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,

Deny it to a King? Then, happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crowu.

Meditation on death. Hamlet. Act. 3. sc. I.

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to sleep;

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The stings and arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them? — To die;
No more aud, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ach, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die ;
To sleep! perchance, to dream:
ay, there's the rub;
For iu that sleep of dreath what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

to sleep;

Must give us pause: There's the respect,
That makes calamity of so long life :

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

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To groan and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we kuow not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution

Is siclhy'd o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprizes of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

On

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