Read some spectators in great anguish of mind. 'Im weary of my part My torch is out, and the world stands before me Like a black desart at th' approach of night I'll lay me down and stray no further on' (All for Love)
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
"Is there yet left the least unmortgag'd hope" ('All for Love')
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Read an act of 'The Rehearsall' and one of 'All for Love'. Bed 12.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Came up and din'd alone. Writt little. Read 'All for Love'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
Din'd alone in own room. Read part of 'All for Love'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Savile Print: Book
'Shakespeare incited his appetite for poetry: Cowper, Pope, Dryden, Goldsmith, Thomson, Byron. Not only were they more interesting than the fifty volumes of Wesley's Christian Library: eventually Barker realised that "the reason why I could not understand them was, that there was nothing to be understood - that the books were made up of words, and commonplace errors and mystical and nonsensical expressions, and that there was no light or truth in them". When his superintendent searched his lodgings and found Shakespeare and Byron there, Barker was hauled before a disciplinary committee'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Barker Print: Book
'[Mary Smith] found emancipation in Shakespeare, Dryden, Goldsmith and other standard male authors, whom she extolled for their universality: "These authors wrote from their hearts for humanity, and I could follow them fully and with delight, though but a child. They awakened my young nature, and I found for the first time that my pondering heart was akin to that of the whole human race. And when I read the famous essays of Steele and Addison, I could realize much of their truth an beauty of expression... Pope's stanzas, which I read at school as an eight year old child, showed me how far I felt and shared the sentiment that he wrote, when he says,
Thus let me live unseen, unknown
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world and not a stone
Tell where I lie".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Smith Print: Book
William Wordsworth to Walter Scott: 'I had a peep at your edition of Dryden - I had not time to read the Notes which would have interested me most, namely the historical and illustrative ones; but some of the critical introductions I read ... '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
Byron's Ravenna Journal (4 January-27 February 1821), 10 January 1821: 'Midnight. I have been turning over different Lives of the Poets. I rarely read their works, unless an occasional flight over the classical ones, Pope, Dryden, Johnson, Gray, and those who approach them nearest ...'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
'George Howell, bricklayer and trade unionist..."read promiscuously. How could it be otherwise? I had no real guide, was obliged to feel my way into light. Yet perhaps there was a guidance, although indefinite and without distinctive aim". Howell groped his way through literature "on the principle that one poet's works suggested another, or the criticisms on one led to comparisons with another. Thus: Milton - Shakespeare; Pope-Dryden; Byron-Shelley; Burns-Scott; Coleridge-Wordsworth and Southey, and later on Spenser-Chaucer, Bryant-Longfellow, and so on". By following these intertextual links, autodidacts could reconstruct the literary canon on their own'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Howell Print: Book
'At the age of five she was caught by her father reading Dryden: 'I dropt my Book and burst into Tears'. However, instead of the expected punishment, her father gave her a shilling...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Laetitia Pilkington Print: Book
?With this proposal I of course readily closed and accordingly the next day my father gave me the 1st vol of the "Universal History" (beginning with the life of Mohamed) and the 1st of Rapin?s "History of England", to begin with, an each of which in turn, I bestowed an hour in reading on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Friday mornings, allotting the other two mornings to a more amusing kind of reading such as Dryden?s "Virgil", "Telamachus", "Charles 12th". etc. I also began a translation of "Diable Boiteaux" & a prose one of Virgil?s "Eneid".?
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Marsh Print: Book
'[B]e not thrown into wild delight because his genius has shone forth--misfortune & rage have occasioned this & whenever he may speak himself [underlined] Lord Byron will succeed--self is the sole inspirer of his genius he cannot like Homer Dante Virgil Milton Dryden Spencer Gray--Goldsmith [underlined] Tasso write on other subjects well[--]but what he feels he can describe extravagantly well--& therefore I never did doubt that he would one day or other write again as at first--but for God sake do not let this circumstance make you forget what a Rogue he is'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Caroline Lamb Print: Book
'she was reading Dryden's "Don Sebastian", which treats of incest, and happened to ask Byron a question. He said angrily: "Where did you hear that?". "I looked up and saw that he was holding over me a dagger which he usually wore. I replied, "Oh, only from this book". I was not afraid - I as persuaded he only did it to terrify me".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Isabella (Annabella), Baroness Byron Print: Book
'Read Dryden's comedy of the Spanish Fryar, was not much pleased with it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Hunter Print: Book
'Read several of Dryden's original Poems. The sudden transition from his "Funeral Lines on Oliver Cromwell", to his "Astraea Redux on the Restoration", the two first poems in the collection, has a curious effect...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'Read Dryden's Dedication to his "Translations of Juvenal's Satires":--a stranger, rambling composition...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'Began Dryden's "Prose Works"...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
Letter to Mrs Macintosh June 19 1796 'At length I set up my rest under a broad spreading cedar, beside the statue of Diana which seemed to protect me. I thought of Dryden?s description: "The graceful goddess was array?d in green,/ About her feet were little beagles seen,/ That watch?d with upward eyes the motions of their queen."'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
'and thence walked to Woolwich, reading "The Rivall Ladys" all the way and find it a most pleasant and fine-writ play.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'So home, and then down to Woolwich, reading and making an end of "The Rivall Ladys", and find it a very pretty play.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'I am very well pleased this night with reading a poem I brought home with me last night from Westminster hall, of Driden's upon the present war - a very good poem.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Unknown
'And so to dinner alone, having since church-time heard my boy read over Dryden's reply to Sir R Howard's answer about his "Essay of Poesy" - and a letter in answer to that, the last whereof is mighty silly in behalf of Howard.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
Monday 6 August 1923: 'We went over to Charleston yesterday [...] Clive was sitting in the drawing room window reading Dryden.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Bell Print: Book
Thursday 29 August 1935: 'Reading Miss Mole, Abbe Dunnet (good), an occasional bite at Hind & Panther'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Saturday 31 August 1935: 'Read Hind & Panther. D.H.L. by E. (good) & slept.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'.....I've been ill with heart trouble - why I can't imagine, as it has always been quite strong so Sachie lent me his country house for a fortnight. I sat on the verandah all day, reading and sleeping. I read a lot of Dryden, in a lovely first edition (Dryden was by birth a county neighbour, which accounts for the library being full of his work) - Pope, the life of Alexander the Great, of whom there is a portrait wearing a periwig, and delightful eighteenth century books about the moral worth of animals, praising the industry of the Bee, reproving the Ostrich for being a Bad Parent.....'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edith Sitwell Print: Book
'I have done all my [italics] composition [end italics] of Ld B -, & done Crabbe outright since you left & got up Dryden & Pope - so now I'm all clear & straight before me.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Book
'[her mother having forbidden her to learn to read due to her weak eyes] I was at this time about five Years of Age, and my Mother being one Day abroad, I had happily laid hold on "Alexander's Feast", and found something in it so charming, that I read it aloud; - but how like a condemned Criminal did I look, when my Father, softly opening his Study-door, took in the very Fact; I dropt my Book, and burst into Tears, begging Pardon, and promising never to do so again: But my Sorrow was soon dispell'd, when he bade me not be frighten'd, but read to him, which to his great Surprize, I did very distinctly, and without hurting the beauty of the Numbers. Instead of the whipping, of which I stood in Dread, he took me up in his Arms, and kiss'd me, giving me a whole Shilling, as a Reward, and told me, "He would give me another, as soon as I got a Poem by Heart"; which he put into my Hand, and prov'd to be Mr [italics] Pope[end italics]'s sacred Eclogue, which Task I perform'd before my Mother return'd Home. They were both astonish'd at my Memory, and from that Day forward, I was [permitted to read as much as I pleas'd'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Laetitia van Lewen Print: Book
'An hour won. Dryden's Epistles read for pleasure September night windy, dark, warm, and I have read the Epistles of Dryden [sic]
'Reading these Epistles which have no connection with my work and little with my ideas, have given me a happy sense of my own leisure. Who has the necessary time and vacancy of mind to read Dryden's Epistles for pleasure in 1927? or to copy out extracts from them into a Commonplace Book? Or to write out more often than is necessary the words: Dryden, Epistles, Dryden's Epistles? No one but me and perhaps Siegfried Sassoon.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Texts discussed, and quoted from at length, in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1930) include The Conquest of Granada, and its prefatory Essay of Heroic Plays.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Texts discussed, and quoted from at length, in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1930) include The Conquest of Granada, and its prefatory Essay of Heroic Plays.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Texts discussed and quoted from in E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1930) include John Dryden, Preface to The Maiden Queen, regarding which Forster comments: 'Interesting but not sound. It's true that a writer knows whether he has carried out his aims, but he may be biassed in favour of his model, all the same'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
'After dinner our conversation first turned upon Pope. Johnson said, his characters of men were admirably drawn, those of women not so well. He repeated to us, in his forcible melodious manner, the concluding lines of the "Dunciad". While he was talking loudly in praise of those lines, one of the company ventured to say, "Too fine for such a poem:— a poem on what?" Johnson, (with a disdainful look,) "Why, on [italics] dunces [italics]. It was worth while being a dunce then. Ah, Sir, hadst [italics] thou [italics] lived in those days! It is not worth while being a dunce now, when there are no wits." Bickerstaff observed, as a peculiar circumstance, that Pope's fame was higher when he was alive, than it was then. Johnson said, his Pastorals were poor things, though the versification was fine. He told us, with high satisfaction, the anecdote of Pope's enquiring who was the author of his "London," and saying, he will be soon [italics] deterré [italics]. He observed, that in Dryden's poetry there were passages drawn from a profundity which Pope could never reach. He repeated some fine lines on love, by the former, (which I have now forgotten,) and gave great applause to the character of Zimri. Goldsmith said, that Pope's character of Addison shewed a deep knowledge of the human heart. Johnson said, that the description of the temple, in "The Mourning Bride," was the finest poetical passage he had ever read; he recollected none in Shakspeare equal to it'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'Oct. 25. Wednesday. I went with the Prior to St. Cloud, to see Dr. Hooke.—We walked round the palace, and had some talk.—I dined with our whole company at the Monastery.—In the library, "Beroald",—"Cymon",—"Titus", from Boccace.—"Oratio Proverbialis" to the Virgin, from Petrarch; Falkland to Sandys;—Dryden's Preface to the third vol. of Miscellanies.'
[Boswell's footnote: 'He means, I suppose, that he read those different pieces, while he remained in the library'.]
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'I related a dispute between Goldsmith and Mr. Robert Dodsley, one day when they and I were dining at Tom Davies's, in 1762. Goldsmith asserted, that there was no poetry produced in this age. Dodsley appealed to his own Collection, and maintained, that though you could not find a palace like Dryden's "Ode on St. Cecilia's Day", you had villages composed of very pretty houses; and he mentioned particularly "The Spleen".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Dodsley Print: Book
Lord Dufferin to Alfred Tennyson [1858]:
'For the first 20 years of my life I not only did not care for poetry, but to the despair of my friends absolutely disliked it, at least so much of it as until that time had fallen in my way. In vain my mother read to me Dryden, Pope, Byron, Young, Cowper and all the standard classics of the day, each seemed to me as distasteful as I had from early infancy found Virgil, and I shall never forget her dismay when at a literary dinner I was cross-examined as to my tastes, and blushingly confessed before an Olympus of poets that I rather disliked poetry than otherwise.
'Soon afterwards I fell in with a volume of yours, and suddenly felt such a sensation of delight as I never experienced before. A new world seemed to open to me, and from that day, by a constant study of your works, I gradually worked my way to a gradual appreciation of what is good in all kinds of authors.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Helen Selina Sheridan Blackwood Print: Book
'the Verses written by Bentley upon Learning & publish'd in Dodsley's Miscellanies - how like they are to Evelyn's Verses on Virtue published in Dryden's Miscellanies! yet I do not suppose them a Plagiarisme; old Bentley would have scorned such Tricks, besides what passed once between myself and Mr Johnson should cure me of Suspicion in these Cases. We had then some thoughts of giving a Translation of Boethius, and I used now & then to shew him the Verses I had made towards the Work: in the Ode with the Story of Orpheus in it - beginning
"felix qui potuit &c"
he altered some of my Verses to these which he [italics] thought [end italics] his own.
"Fondly viewed his following Bride
Viewing lost, and losing died."
Two Years after this, I resolved to go through all th Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, and in one of them - Bonduca, I found two Lines so like these of Johnson's that one would have sworn he had imitated them: that very Afternoon he came, & says I, did you ever delight much in Reading Beaumont & Fletcher's Plays - I never read any of them at all replied he, but I intend some Time to go over them, here in your fine Edition'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
'We were speaking of Young as a Poet; Young's works cried Johnson are like a miry Road, with here & there a Stepping Stone or so; but you must always so dirty your Feet before another clean Place appears, that nobody will often walk that way. in this however said I as well as in his general Manner of writing he resembles your favourite Dryden - & to this no Answer was made: The next Morning we were drawing Spirits over a Lamp, and the Liquor bubbled in the Glass Retort; there says Mr Johnson - Young bubbles and froths in his Descriptions like this Spirit; but Dryden foams like the Sea we saw in a Storm the other day at Brighthelmstone'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'We were speaking of Young as a Poet; Young's works cried Johnson are like a miry Road, with here & there a Stepping Stone or so; but you must always so dirty your Feet before another clean Place appears, that nobody will often walk that way. in this however said I as well as in his general Manner of writing he resembles your favourite Dryden - & to this no Answer was made: The next Morning we were drawing Spirits over a Lamp, and the Liquor bubbled in the Glass Retort; there says Mr Johnson - Young bubbles and froths in his Descriptions like this Spirit; but Dryden foams like the Sea we saw in a Storm the other day at Brighthelmstone'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
'20: Jan: 1779.] My second Daughter Susanna Arabella who will not be nine Years old till next May, can at this Moment read a French Comedy to divert herself, and these very Holy days her Amusement has been to make Sophy & sometimes Hester help her to act the two or three 1st Scenes of Moliere's Bourgeois Gentilhomme: add to this she has a real Taste for English Poetry, and when Mr Johnson repeated Dryden's Musick Ode the other day, She said She had got the whole poem, & Pope's too upon the same Subject by Heart for her own Amusement'.
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Susanna Arabella Thrale Print: Book
'The Simile to the rope Dancer in Prior's Alma is only a good Versification of Dryden's Thought in the preface to Fresnoy's Art of Painting.
"Plac'd on the isthmus of a narrow State"
that Thought, & almost the whole Line is taken from Cowley.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
'David Hume and John Dryden are at present my companions'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Book
John Wilson Croker to the Rev. George Croly, 28 November 1816:
'Though I have little time to read poetry,and notwithstanding all the charms of fashion, I read
more of Pope and Dryden than I do of even Scott and Byron; that is to say, I do not return to
Scott and Byron with the same regular appetite that I do to the others.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Book
Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 12 July 1795, 'Drydens denunciation of Time & Space is by no means so ridiculous as Critics have pretended — I cry out against them most heartily.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Books read by Oscar Wilde in Reading Gaol, December 1896 - March 1897, taken from his list of books requested and then sent by his friends. Source author notes that Wilde read and re-read everything available to him in prison. 'Gaston de Latour by Walter Pater, MA (Macmillan), Milman's History of Latin Christianity, Wordsworth's Complete Works in one volume with preface by John Morley (Macmillan, 7/6), Matthew Arnold's Poems. One volume complete. (Macmillan, 7/6), Dante and other Essays by Dean Church (Macmillan, 5/-), Percy's Reliques, Hallam's Middle Ages (History of), Dryden's Poems (1 vol. Macmillan. 3/6), Burns's Poems ditto, Morte D'Arthur ditto, Froissart's Chronicles ditto, Buckle's History of Civilisation, Marlowe's Plays, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (edited by A. Pollard 2 vols 10/-) Macmillan, Introduction to Dante by John Addington Symonds, Companion to Dante by A.J. Butler, Miscellaneous Essays by Walter Pater, An English translation of Goethe's Faust'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Print: Book
From Anne Isabella Milbanke's reminiscences of her father:
'"Of Shakespeare, Otway, Dryden, he was a devoted admirer, pointing out or reciting to me their finest passages"'.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Ralph Milbanke Print: Book
'[At Halnaby, on honeymoon] she [Anne Isabella Milbanke] was reading Dryden's Don Sebastian, which treats of incest, and happened to ask Byron [husband] a question. He said angrily: "Where did you hear that?"
'"I looked up and saw that he was holding over me the dagger which he usually wore. I replied, "Oh, only from this book." I was not afraid -- I was persuaded he only did it to terrify me. He put the dagger down and said (I am sure I say it without a feeling of vanity) "If anything could make me believe in heaven, it is the expression of your countenance at this moment."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Isabella Lady Byron Print: Book
Transcribed in Reading Notes of Edward Pordage (c.1710):
Extracts from John Dryden's The Medall. A Satyre against Sedition (1682); notes from the
'Epistle to the Whigs' (A2r–A4r) and the poem itself.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Pordage Print: Book
Transcribed in Reading Notes of Edward Pordage (c.1710):
Extracts from John Dryden's The Medall. A Satyre against Sedition (1682); notes from the
'Epistle to the Whigs' (A2r–A4r) and the poem itself.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Pordage Print: Book
Transcribed in Reading Notes of Edward Pordage (c.1710):
Extracts from John Dryden's 'Heroique Stanza's, Consecrated to the Glorious Memory of his
most Serene and Renowned Highnesse Oliver Late Lord Protector of this Common-Wealth, &c.
Written after the Celebration of his Funerall', in Three Poems Upon the Death of his late
Highnesse Oliver Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1659), pp. 1-9.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Pordage Print: Book
Transcribed in Reading Notes of Edward Pordage (c.1710):
Extracts from John Dryden's The Second Part of Absalom and Achitophel a Poem (1682).
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Pordage Print: Book
