John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.
Page 505
| Samuel Taylor Coleridge. (1772–1834) (continued) |
| 5284 |
| Reviewers are usually people who would have been poets, historians, biographers, if they could; they have tried their talents at one or the other, and have failed; therefore they turn critics. 1 |
| Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton, p. 36. Delivered 1811–1812. |
| 5285 |
| Schiller has the material sublime. |
| Table Talk. |
| 5286 |
| I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose,—words in their best order; poetry,—the best words in their best order. |
| Table Talk. |
| 5287 |
| That passage is what I call the sublime dashed to pieces by cutting too close with the fiery four-in-hand round the corner of nonsense. |
| Table Talk. |
| 5288 |
| Iago’s soliloquy, the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity—how awful it is! |
| Notes on some other Plays of Shakespeare. |
| Josiah Quincy. (1772–1864) |
| 5289 |
| If this bill [for the admission of Orleans Territory as a State] passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is virtually a dissolution of the Union; that it will free the States from their moral obligation; and, as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, definitely to prepare for a separation,—amicably if they can, violently if they must. 2 |
| Abridged Cong. Debates, Jan. 14, 1811. Vol. iv. p. 327. |
| Note 1. Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid and malignant race. As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker in despair, so an unsuccessful author turns critic.—Percy Bysshe Shelley: Fragments of Adonais. You know who critics are? The men who have failed in literature and art.—Benjamin Disraeli (Earl Beaconsfield): Lothair, chap. xxxv. [back] |
| Note 2. The gentleman [Mr. Quincy] cannot have forgotten his own sentiment, uttered even on the floor of this House, “Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.”—Henry Clay: Speech, Jan. 8, 1813. [back] |