Vulgar words in Lives of the Poets, Volume 1 (Page 1)
This book at a glance
|
~ ~ ~ Sentence 292 ~ ~ ~
A coal-pit has not often found its poet; but, that it may not want its due honour, Cleiveland has paralleled it with the sun: The moderate value of our guiltless ore Makes no man atheist, and no woman whore; Yet why should hallow'd vestal's sacred shrine Deserve more honour than a flaming mine?
~ ~ ~ Sentence 322 ~ ~ ~
Thou murderer, which hast kill'd; and devil, which would'st damn me!
~ ~ ~ Sentence 822 ~ ~ ~
One of his objections to academical education, as it was then conducted, is, that men designed for orders in the church were permitted to act plays, "writhing and unboning their clergy limbs to all the antick and dishonest gestures of Trincalos[29], buffoons, and bawds, prostituting the shame of that ministry which they had, or were near having, to the eyes of courtiers and court ladies, their grooms and mademoiselles."
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,817 ~ ~ ~
Mr. Butler and his friend attended accordingly; the duke joined them; but, as the d--l would have it, the door of the room where they sat was open, and his grace, who had seated himself near it, observing a pimp of his acquaintance (the creature too was a knight) trip by with a brace of ladies, immediately quitted his engagement to follow another kind of business, at which he was more ready than in doing good offices to men of desert, though no one was better qualified than he, both in regard to his fortune and understanding, to protect them; and, from that time to the day of his death, poor Butler never found the least effect of his promise!"
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,990 ~ ~ ~
Another of his most vigorous pieces is his lampoon on sir Car Scroop, who, in a poem called the Praise of Satire, had some lines like these[68]: He who can push into a midnight fray His brave companion, and then run away, Leaving him to be murder'd in the street, Then put it off with some buffoon conceit; Him, thus dishonour'd, for a wit you own, And court him as top fiddler of the town.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,991 ~ ~ ~
This was meant of Rochester, whose "buffoon conceit" was, I suppose, a saying often mentioned, that "every man would be a coward, if he durst;" and drew from him those furious verses; to which Scroop made, in reply, an epigram, ending with these lines: Thou canst hurt no man's fame with thy ill word; Thy pen is full as harmless as thy sword.