United States or New Caledonia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Farqubar; but there's at this Time a greater necessity for a Man to be wakeful, when he has acquir'd a Reputation, than at any Time before; he'll find abundantly more difficulty attend the Securing than the Attaining of the greatest Reputation; he'll meet with Envy from every Quarter; Malice will pursue him in all his undertakings, and if he makes any manner of Defence, he cannot commence it too soon, tho' it is not always prudential to shew an open Resentment, even to the utmost ill Treatment.
A Choice of Actors, next to Interest and Popularity, is the greatest Advantage to a new Play: If a Stage-Poet has the Misfortune not to have a sufficient Influence over the Managers of the Theatres to make a Nomination, his Performance must very much suffer; and if he cannot entirely Command his Theatre, and Season for bringing it on, it will be perfectly slaughter'd; and a certain Theatre has lately acquir'd the Name of a Slaughter-House, but whether more for the Stupidity of its Poets than its Actors, I do not pretend to determine; but certain it is, that Acting is the Life of all Dramatick-Performances.
Yet by this most dextrous way of Twisting, Extending, Contracting, and Distinguishing of Phrases and Reasoning, they presently made it as plain as the Sun at Noon Day; that these Prestarians were King-killers, Common-wealths Men, Rebels, Traytors, and Enemies to Monarchy; that they restor'd the Monarchy only in order to Destroy it, and that they Preach'd up Sedition, Rebellion and the like: This was prov'd so plain by these sublime Distinctions, that they convinc'd themselves and their Posterity of it, by a rare and newly acquir'd Art, found out by extraordinary Study, which proves the wonderful power of Custom, insomuch, that let any Man by this method, tell a Lye over a certain number of times, he shall arrive to a Satisfaction of its certainty, tho' he knew it to be a Fiction before, and shall freely tell it for a Truth all his life after.
Nor are his wonderful Tellescopes of a mean Quality, by which such plain Discoveries are made, of the Lands and Seas in the Moon, and in all the habitable Planets, that one may as plainly fee what a Clock it is by one of the Dials in the Moon, as if it were no farther off than Windsor-Castle; and had he liv'd to finish the Speaking-trumpet which he had contriv'd to convey Sound thither, Harlequin's Mock-Trumpet had been a Fool to it; and it had no doubt been an admirable Experiment, to have given us a general Advantage from all their acquir'd Knowledge in those Regions, where no doubt several useful Discoveries are daily made by the Men of Thought for the Improvement of all sorts of humane Understanding, and to have discoursed with them on those things, must have been very pleasant, besides, its being very much to our particular Advantage.
So the dull Eel moves nimbler in the mud, Than all the swift-finn'd racers of the flood. As skilful divers to the bottom fall, Sooner than those that cannot swim at all, So in the way of writing, without thinking, Thou hast a strange alacrity in sinking. Thou writ'st below ev'n thy own nat'ral parts, And with acquir'd dulness, and new arts Of studied nonsense, tak'st kind readers hearts.
And for further Confirmation, though I once purposedly kept it so near the hot Iron I just now mention'd, as to make it sensibly Warm, yet it shin'd more Dimly than it had done by Affriction or the Flame of a Candle, though by both those ways it had not acquir'd any warmth that was sensible. Upon White and Red Cloths it seem'd to succeed best, especially in comparison of Black ones.
Sixthly, I remember, that Acquainting one Day a Virtuoso of Unsuspected Credit, that had Visited Hot Countries, with part of what I have here Deliver'd concerning Blackness, he Related to me by way of Confirmation of it, a very notable Experiment, which he had both others make, and Made himself in a Warm Climate, namely, that having carefully Black'd over Eggs, and Expos'd them to the Hot Sun, they were thereby in no very Long time well Roasted, to which Effect I conceive the Heat of the Climate must have Concurr'd with the Disposition of the Black Surface to Reflect the Sunbeams Inward, for I remember, that having made that among other Tryals in England, though in Summer-time, the Eggs I Expos'd, acquir'd indeed a considerable Degree of Heat, but yet not so Intense a One, as prov'd Sufficient to Roast them.
But if the Whiteness of Water turn'd into Froth must therefore be reputed Emphatical, because it appears not that the Nature of the Body is Alter'd, but only that the Disposition of its Parts in reference to the Incident Light is Chang'd, why may not the Whiteness be accounted Emphatical too, which I shall shew anon to be Producible, barely by such another change in Black Horn? and yet this so easily acquir'd Whiteness seems to be as truly its Colour as the Blackness was before, and at least is more Permanent than the Greenness of Leaves, the Redness of Roses, and, in short, than the Genuine Colours of the most part of Nature's Productions.
But how and in what direction it exerted itself so as to become the cause of dissatisfaction between them, after it began to operate, is what I am able to explain with great exactness, and is as follows: My uncle Toby Shandy, Madam, was a gentleman, who, with the virtues which usually constitute the character of a man of honour and rectitude, possessed one in a very eminent degree, which is seldom or never put into the catalogue; and that was a most extreme and unparallel'd modesty of nature; though I correct the word nature, for this reason, that I may not prejudge a point which must shortly come to a hearing, and that is, Whether this modesty of his was natural or acquir'd.
Word Of The Day