The works of Mr. Thomas Brown, serious and comical : in prose and verse, with his remains in four volumes compleat; vol. IIBrown, Thomas
General
The works of Mr. Thomas Brown, serious and comical : in prose and verse, with his remains in four volumes compleat; vol. II
Brown, Thomas
English wit and humor -- Early works to 1800; Erotic literature -- Early works to 1800; Latin literature -- Translations into English
Hitherto ’tis well, but ’tis hardly love, for that like a bee, forfeits
its name if it has no sting. But alas! the lurking fire quickly bursts
out, and that pleasing idea which represented itself so sweetly and so
respectfully to the soul one moment before, now insolently obtrudes upon
our most serious thoughts, and makes us impious even at the horns of the
altar; she perfidiously betrays us in our very sleep itself, sometimes
appearing haughty and scornfully, sometimes yielding and kind; and this
too when there is no reason for either. The infant-passion is now become
a cruel father of all other passions; cruel indeed, for he has no sooner
given birth to one, but he stifles it to introduce another; whose
short-liv’d fate is just the same, and destroy’d the next moment it is
born.
Hope and despair, joy and sorrow, courage and fear, continually succeed
each other; anger, jealousy, and revenge, distract the mind; and all
these mingled, their fury is like a storm blowing from every corner of
the heavens: then the lover, like the ocean, agitated by such boisterous
winds, he foams and roars, the swelling waves of his boiling appetite
dash each other to pieces, the foggy clouds of melancholy and
disappointment intercept the glittering rays of reason’s sun; the
rattling thunder of jealous rage breaks thro’ his trembling sphere, when
his understanding returns but for a moment, ’tis like darted lightning
piercing thro’ the obscure of violent passions, and shews nature in
every lover a confusion almost equal to her original chaos.
Whoever was really in love (_charming Sempronia_) will readily confess
the allegory to be just. Tho’ nothing has surprised me more in affairs
of this nature than that most men who have been sensible of this passion
do not care to own it, when once their more indulgent fate has put a
period to it; as if it were a calling their judgment in question to
believe they thought a woman handsom. Your eyes justify our adoration,
and will ever constitute the felicity of
_Corn. Gallus._
_From Bully_ DAWSON _to Bully_ W----
_Confound you for a monumental Sluggard_,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account