ISBN: 9781502796172

The actors in the old tragedies, as we read, piped their iambics to a tune, speaking from under a mask, and wearing stilts and a great head-dress. 'Twas thought the dignity of the Tragic … Altro …

The actors in the old tragedies, as we read, piped their iambics to a tune, speaking from under a mask, and wearing stilts and a great head-dress. 'Twas thought the dignity of the Tragic Muse required these appurtenances, and that she was not to move except to a measure and cadence. So Queen Medea slew her children to a slow music: and King Agamemnon perished in a dying fall (to use Mr. Dryden's words): the Chorus standing by in a set attitude, and rhythmically and decorously bewailing the fates of those great crowned persons. The Muse of History hath encumbered herself with ceremony as well as her Sister of the Theatre. She too wears the mask and the cothurnus, and speaks to measure. She too, in our age, busies herself with the affairs only of kings; waiting on them obsequiously and stately, as if she were but a mistress of court ceremonies, and had nothing to do with the registering of the affairs of the common people. I have seen in his very old age and decrepitude the old French King Lewis the Fourteenth, the type and model of kinghood-who never moved but to measure, who lived and died according to the laws of his Court-marshal, persisting in enacting through life the part of Hero; and, divested of poetry, this was but a little wrinkled old man, pock-marked, and with a great periwig and red heels to make him look tall-a hero for a book if you like, or for a brass statue or a painted ceiling, a god in a Roman shape, but what more than a man for Madame Maintenon, or the barber who shaved him, or Monsieur Fagon, his surgeon? Trade Books>Trade Paperback>Classics>Coll Classics>Coll Classics, CreateSpace Publishing Core >1<

ISBN: 9781502796172

When Francis, fourth Viscount Castlewood, came to his title, and presently after to take possession of his house of Castlewood, county Hants, in the year 1691, almost the only tenant of t… Altro …

When Francis, fourth Viscount Castlewood, came to his title, and presently after to take possession of his house of Castlewood, county Hants, in the year 1691, almost the only tenant of the place besides the domestics was a lad of twelve years of age, of whom no one seemed to take any note until my Lady Viscountess lighted upon him, going over the house with the housekeeper on the day of her arrival. The boy was in the room known as the Book-room, or Yellow Gallery, where the portraits of the family used to hang, that fine piece among others of Sir Antonio Van Dyck of George, second Viscount, and that by Mr. Dobson of my lord the third Viscount, just deceased, which it seems his lady and widow did not think fit to carry away, when she sent for and carried off to her house at Chelsey, near to London, the picture of herself by Sir Peter Lely, in which her ladyship was represented as a huntress of Diana's court.The new and fair lady of Castlewood found the sad, lonely, little occupant of this gallery busy over his great book, which he laid down when he was aware that a stranger was at hand. And, knowing who that person must be, the lad stood up and bowed before her, performing a shy obeisance to the mistress of his house.She stretched out her hand-indeed when was it that that hand would not stretch out to do an act of kindness, or to protect grief and ill-fortune? And this is our kinsman, she said and what is your name, kinsman? Trade Books>Trade Paperback>Classics>Coll Classics>Coll Classics, CreateSpace Publishing Core >1<

ISBN: 9781502796172

he story of Henry Esmond, a colonel in the service of Queen Anne of England, begins in his youth, as the illegitimate and orphaned cousin of the Viscount and Lady of Castlewood. The Jacob… Altro …

he story of Henry Esmond, a colonel in the service of Queen Anne of England, begins in his youth, as the illegitimate and orphaned cousin of the Viscount and Lady of Castlewood. The Jacobite family gradually embraces Henry as one of their own. When Henry comes of age he joins the campaign to restore James Stuart to the throne, but is eventually forced to accept the Protestant future of England. Trade Books>Trade Paperback>Classics>Coll Classics>Coll Classics, CreateSpace Publishing Core >1<