English prose and verse from Beowulf to Stevenson

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 Excerpt: ...that he was forced to rest upon the couch, till By natural deformity, or accidental distora short cessation restored his powers, and he tion, his vital functions were so much diswas again able to talk with his former vigour. 15 ordered, that his life was "long disease."3 His The approaches of this dreadful malady ho most frequent assailment was the headache, began to feel soon after his uncle's death; and, which he used to relieve by inhaling the steam with the usual weakness of men so diseased, of coffee, which he very frequently required, eagerly snatched that temporary relief with Most of what can be told concerning his which the table and the bottle flatter and 20 petty peculiarities was communicated by a feseduce. But his health continually declined, male domestic of the Earl of Oxford,4 who knew and he grew more and more burthensome to him perhaps after the middle of life. He was himself. then so weak as to stand in perpetual need of To what I have formerly said of his writings female attendance; extremely sensible of cold, may be added, that his diction was often harsh, 25 so that he wore a kind of fur doublet,5 under a unskilfully laboured, and injudiciously selected, shirt of very coarse warm linen with fine He affected the obsolete when it was not sleeves. When he rose, he was invested in worthy of revival; and he puts his words out bodice made of stiff canvas, being scarcely of the common order, seeming to think, with able to hold himself erect till they were laced, some later candidates for fame, that not to 30 and he then put on a flannel waistcoat. One write prose is certainly to write poetry. His side was contracted. His legs were so slender, lines commonly are of slow motion, clogged that he enlarged their bulk with three pair of a...