FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73  
74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   >>   >|  
or Jacob Tonson, at the Judge's Head, in Chancery-lane, 1686, 8vo. His chapter on Solitude, wherein he descants on the delights of rural scenery and gardens; and his conclusion, directing every man towards the attainment of his own felicity, are worth perusing. That on Death is forcibly written; he calls it "no more than for a man to close up all the travails, pains, and misfortunes of life, with one sweet and eternal sleep; he is now at everlasting rest; the fears and misery of poverty, the anxieties of riches, the vexations of a process, do not devour him. He does not fear the calumnies of the base, nor the frowns of the great. 'Tis death which delivers the prisoner from his fetters, and the slave and captive from his chain; 'tis death which rescues the servant from the endless toils of a laborious life, the poor from oppression, and makes the beggar equal with princes. Here desperation finds a remedy, all the languors of disease, all the frustrations and tediousness of life, all the infirmities of age, all the disquiets of the passions, and all the calamities of fortune, with whatever can make a man miserable, vanish in these shades." In his very curious "Essay of a Country House," he thus moralizes:--"The variety of flowers, beautiful and fragrant, with which his gardens are adorned, opening themselves, and dying one after another, must admonish him of the fading state of earthly pleasures, of the frailty of life, and of the succeeding generations to which he must give place. The constant current of a fountain, or a rivulet, must remind of the flux of time, which never returns." SAMUEL COLLINS, ESQ. of Archeton, Northamptonshire, author of "Paradise Retrieved; 1717, 8vo. In the Preface to the Lady's Recreation, by Charles Evelyn, Esq. he is extremely severe on this "Squire Collins," whom he accuses of ignorance and arrogance. JOHN EVELYN, son of the author of _Sylva_. His genius early displayed itself; for when little more than fifteen, he wrote a Greek poem, which must have some merit, because his father has prefixed it to the second edition of his _Sylva_. In Mr. Nicoll's Collection of Poems, are some by him. There are two poems of his in Dryden's Miscellany. He translated Plutarch's Life of Alexander from the Greek; and the History of Two Grand Viziers, from the French. When only nineteen, he translated from the Latin, Rapin on Gardens. He died in 1698. The Quarterly Review, in its review of Mr. Bray's Mem
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73  
74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
translated
 

author

 

gardens

 

Collins

 

Paradise

 

Retrieved

 

Northamptonshire

 
Archeton
 

returns

 
SAMUEL

COLLINS

 

Preface

 

Squire

 

Charles

 

Evelyn

 
extremely
 

review

 
Recreation
 

severe

 

admonish


fading

 
adorned
 

opening

 

earthly

 

pleasures

 

fountain

 

current

 
rivulet
 

remind

 

constant


frailty
 

succeeding

 
generations
 

Review

 

edition

 

Nicoll

 

Collection

 

nineteen

 

prefixed

 

French


Viziers

 

Alexander

 

Dryden

 
Miscellany
 
History
 

father

 
EVELYN
 

genius

 

arrogance

 

accuses