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A thoroughly representative selection of the poetry of John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester. Rochester (1647–1680) was among the worst (best?) of the Restoration rakes, and also one of the period’s best satirists employing a direct language rife with plenty of four-letter words and an obsessive indulgence of the most vulgar vernacular used on behalf of satirical shredding, scatological humor, and sexual candor. Volume 7 in The Reader's Library Series. ISBN: 978-1-932023-49-7 https://www.facebook.com/williamralpheditions...

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A Rodomontade on His Cruel Mistress Trust not that thing called woman: she is worse Than all ingredients crammed into a curse. Were she but ugly, peevish, proud, a whore, Poxed, painted, perjured, so she were no more, I could forgive her, and connive at this, Alleging still she but a woman is. But she is worse: in time she will forestall The Devil, and be the damning of us all....

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Contents Introduction A Pastoral Dialogue between Alexis and Strephon A Dialogue between Strephon and Daphne Song (Give Me Leave to Rail at You...) Song (Insulting Beauty, You Misspend...) Song (My Dear Mistress Has a Heart...) Woman's Honour (A Song) Song (To This Moment a Rebel...) Written in a Lady's Prayer Book The Discovery The Advice Under King Charles II's Picture The Platonic Lady Song (Phillis, Be Gentler, I Advise...) Epistle To Love The Imperfect Enjoyment A Ramble in St. James's Park On the Women about Town Song (Quoth the Duchess of Cleveland...) Song (Love a Woman? You’re an Ass!...) Upon His Drinking Bowl Grecian Kindness Signior Dildo A Satire on Charles II Tunbridge Wells Upon His Leaving His Mistress Against Constancy To a Lady, in a Letter Song (Leave This Gaudy Gilded Stage...) The Fall The Mistress (A Song) Song (Absent from Thee I Languish Still...) A Song of a Young Lady to Her Ancient Lover Song (All My Past Life Is Mine No More...) A Satire against Reason and Mankind A Letter from Artemesia in the Town to Chloe in the Country The Disabled Debauchee Upon Nothing A...

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Excerpt: ?IT IS VERY KIND in the dear mother.? ?But--what, Rachel? Don?t you like it! She so enjoyed choosing it for you.? ?Oh yes, it is a perfect thing in its way. Don?t say a word to her; but if you are consulted for my next birthday present, Grace, couldn?t you suggest that one does cease to be a girl.? ?Only try it on, Rachel dear, she will be pleased to see you in it.? ?Oh yes, I will bedizen myself to oblige her. I do assure you I am not ungrateful. It is beautiful in itself, and shows how well nature can be imitated; but it is meant for a mere girl, and this is the very day I had fixed for hauling down the flag of youth.?...

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Excerpt: To M. le Marquis Damaso Pareto I have always longed to tell a simple and true story, which should strike terror into two young lovers, and drive them to take refuge each in the other?s heart, as two children cling together at the sight of a snake by a woodside. At the risk of spoiling my story and of being taken for a coxcomb, I state my intention at the outset....

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Excerpt: How much is conveyed in those two short words--?The Parish!? And with how many tales of distress and misery, of broken fortune and ruined hopes, too often of unrelieved wretchedness and successful knavery, are they associated! A poor man, with small earnings, and a large family, just manages to live on from hand to mouth, and to procure food from day to day; he has barely sufficient to satisfy the present cravings of nature, and can take no heed of the future....

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Excerpt: The Children of the Night For those that never know the light, The darkness is a sullen thing; And they, the Children of the Night, Seem lost in Fortune?s winnowing. But some are strong and some are weak, -- And there?s the story. House and home Are shut from countless hearts that seek World-refuge that will never come....

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Contents The Children of the Night .................................................................................................................................................................................. 7 The Children of the Night ................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Three Quatrains ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 8 The World ............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 9 An Old Story ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 9 Ballade of a Ship .................................................................

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Excerpt: It was many years ago. Hadleyburg was the most honest and upright town in all the region round about. It had kept that reputation unsmirched during three generations, and was prouder of it than of any other of its possessions. It was so proud of it, and so anxious to insure its perpetuation, that it began to teach the principles of honest dealing to its babies in the cradle, and made the like teachings the staple of their culture thenceforward through all the years devoted to their education. Also, throughout the formative years temptations were kept out of the way of the young people, so that their honesty could have every chance to harden and solidify, and become a part of their very bone....

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Excerpt: The life and adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, containing a Faithful Account of the Fortunes, Misfortunes, Uprisings, Downfallings and Complete Career of the Nickelby Family by Charles Dickens....

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. Now these are the names of the children of Israel, which came into Egypt; every man and his household came with Jacob -- 2. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah -- 3. Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin -- 4. Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher -- 5. And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls: for Joseph was in Egypt already -- 6. And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation -- 7. And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them....

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Excerpt: Speeches: Literary and Social by Charles Dickens.

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Contents SPEECH: EDINBURGH, JUNE 25, 1841.................................................................................................................. 6 SPEECH: JANUARY, 1842. ..................................................................................................................................... 10 SPEECH: FEBRUARY 1842. ................................................................................................................................... 11 SPEECH: FEBRUARY 7, 1842. ............................................................................................................................... 15 SPEECH: NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 18, 1842. ..................................................................................................... 19 SPEECH: MANCHESTER, OCTOBER 5, 1843. ................................................................................................... 23 SPEECH: LIVERPOOL, FEBRUARY 26, 1844. .................................................................................................... 28 SPEECH: BIRMINGHAM, FEBRUARY 28, 1844. .........................................................

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Excerpt: William Shakespeare, the protagonist on the great arena of modern poetry, and the glory of the human intellect, was born at Stratford-upon- Avon, in the county of Warwick, in the year 1564, and upon some day, not precisely ascertained, in the month of April. It is certain that he was baptized on the 25th; and from that fact, combined with some shadow of a tradition, Malone has inferred that he was born on the 23d. There is doubtless, on the one hand, no absolute necessity deducible from law or custom, as either operated in those times, which obliges us to adopt such a conclusion; for children might be baptized, and were baptized, at various distances from their birth: yet, on the other hand, the 23d is as likely to have been the day as any other; and more likely than any earlier day, upon two arguments. First, because there was probably a tradition floating in the seventeenth century, that Shakespeare died upon his birthday: now it is beyond a doubt that he died upon the 23d of April....

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Contents SHAKSPEARE ........................................................................................................................4 POPE ................................................................................................................................... 73 CHARLES LAMB ............................................................................................................... 121 GOETHE........................................................................................................................... 163 SCHILLER......................................................................................................................... 187...

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Excerpt: Essays of Michel de Montaigne, Book the Second translated by Charles Cotton, ed. William Carew Hazilitt.

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Contents CHAPTER I OF THE INCONSTANCY OF OUR ACTIONS ...................................................... 5 CHAPTER II OF DRUNKENNESS .............................................................................................. 14 CHAPTER III A CUSTOM OF THE ISLE OF CEA .................................................................. 24 CHAPTER IV TO-MORROW?S A NEW DAY............................................................................ 40 CHAPTER V OF CONSCIENCE .................................................................................................. 43 CHAPTER VI USE MAKES PERFECT ...................................................................................... 47 CHAPTER VII OF RECOMPENSES OF HONOUR.................................................................. 59 CHAPTER VIII OF THE AFFECTION OF FATHERS TO THEIR CHILDREN................... 63 CHAPTER IX OF THE ARMS OF THE PARTHIANS .............................................................. 84 CHAPTER X OF BOOKS .............................................................................................................. 87 CHAPTER XI OF CRUELTY.....

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Excerpt: Puck of Pook?s Hill by Rudyard Kipling.

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Contents Puck of Pook?s Hill ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 4 WELAND?S SWORD......................................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Puck?s Song ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 4 A Tree Song ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 20 YOUNG MEN AT THE MANOR .................................................................................................................................................................... 21 Sir Richard?s Song .........................................................................................

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Excerpt: Of the Legendary Past. ?LITTLE WARS? is the game of kings--for players in an inferior social position. It can be played by boys of every age from twelve to one hundred and fifty--and even later if the limbs remain sufficiently supple--by girls of the better sort, and by a few rare and gifted women. This is to be a full History of Little Wars from its recorded and authenticated beginning until the present time, an account of how to make little warfare, and hints of the most priceless sort for the recumbent strategist ?....

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Introduction: Lysimachus, the son of Aristides the Just, and Melesias, the son of the elder Thucydides, two aged men who live together, are desirous of educating their sons in the best manner. Their own education, as often happens with the sons of great men, has been neglected; and they are resolved that their children shall have more care taken of them, than they received themselves at the hands of their fathers....

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Excerpt: Easter Holidays; Hail! festal Easter that dost bring Approach of sweetly-smiling spring, When Nature?s clad in green: When feather?d songsters through the grove With beasts confess the power of love And brighten all the scene. Now youths the breaking stages load That swiftly rattling o?er the road To Greenwich haste away: While some with sounding oars divide Of smoothly-flowing Thames the tide All sing the festive lay. With mirthful dance they beat the ground, Their shouts of joy the hills resound And catch the jocund noise: Without a tear, without a sigh Their moments all in transports fly Till evening ends their joys....

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Table of Contents: Easter Holidays, 1 -- Dura Navis, 2 -- Nil Pejus est Caelibe Vit‘, 4 -- Sonnet to the Autumnal Moon, 5 -- Anthem for the Children of Christ?s Hospital, 6 -- Julia, 7 -- Quae Nocent Docent, 8 -- The Nose, 9 -- To the Muse, 11 -- Destruction of the Bastile, 12 -- Life, 14 -- Progress of Vice, 15 -- Monody on the Death of Chatterton, 16 -- An Invocation, 19 -- Anna and Harland, 20 -- To the Evening Star, 21 -- Pain, 22 -- On a Lady Weeping: Imitation from the Latin of Nicolaus Archius, 23 -- Monody on a Tea-kettle, 24 -- Genevieve, 26 -- On Receiving an Account that his Only Sister?s Death was Inevitable, 27 -- On Seeing a Youth Affectionately Welcomed by a Sister, 28 -- A Mathematical Problem, 29 -- Honour, 32 -- On Imitation, 34 -- Inside the Coach, 35 -- Devonshire Roads, 36 -- Music, 37 -- Sonnet: On Quitting School for College, 38 -- Absence: A Farewell Ode on Quitting School for Jesus College, Cambridge, 39 -- Happiness, 40 -- A Wish: Written in Jesus Wood, Feb. 10, 1792, 43 -- An Ode in the Manner of Anacreon, 44 -- To Disappointment, 45 -- A Fragment Found in a Lecture-Room, 46 -- Ode, 47 -- A Lover?s Complai...

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. Pro and con monsieur de manerville, the father, was a worthy Norman gentleman, well known to the Marechael de Richelieu, who married him to one of the richest heiresses of Bordeaux in the days when the old duke reigned in Guienne as governor. The Norman then sold the estate he owned in Bessin, and became a Gascon, allured by the beauty of the chateau de Lanstrac, a delightful residence owned by his wife. During the last days of the reign of Louis XV., he bought the post of major of the Gate Guards, and lived till 1813, having by great good luck escaped the dangers of the Revolution in the following manner....

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Introduction: In the MENO, Anytus had parted from Socrates with the significant words: ?That in any city, and particularly in the city of Athens, it is easier to do men harm than to do them good;? and Socrates was anticipating another opportunity of talking with him. In the Euthyphro, Socrates is awaiting his trial for impiety. But before the trial begins, Plato would like to put the world on their trial, and convince them of ignorance in that very matter touching which Socrates is accused. An incident which may perhaps really have occurred in the family of Euthyphro, a learned Athenian diviner and soothsayer, furnishes the occasion of the discussion....

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Excerpt: Volume One of the life and adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, containing a Faithful Account of the Fortunes, Misfortunes, Uprisings, Downfallings and Complete Career of the Nickelby Family by Charles Dickens....

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Excerpt: How much is conveyed in those two short words--?The Parish!? And with how many tales of distress and misery, of broken fortune and ruined hopes, too often of unrelieved wretchedness and successful knavery, are they associated! A poor man, with small earnings, and a large family, just manages to live on from hand to mouth, and to procure food from day to day; he has barely sufficient to satisfy the present cravings of nature, and can take no heed of the future....

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Excerpt: The pages which follow have been extracted from a pile of manuscript which was apparently meant for the eye of one woman only. She seems to have been the writer?s childhood?s friend. They had parted as children, or very little more than children. Years passed. Then something recalled to the woman the companion of her young days and she wrote to him: ?I have been hearing of you lately. I know where life has brought you. You certainly selected your own road. But to us, left behind, it always looked as if you had struck out into a pathless desert....