Masterpieces in English Literature (Paperback)

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. 1874 Excerpt: ...a native of Syracuse and a contemporary of Plato.--Mimus. The text is perhaps faulty. Should it be Sophron-s Mimes? If we retain Sophron Mimus, we may interpret Mimus, the comedian or writer of Mimes. A Mime was a kind of farce in which real characters were depicted.--Aristophanes has already been mentioned. So Dionysius. See, in Anthon's Classical Dictionary, an interesting statement of intercourse between Plato and Dionysius. Fruitless. Exemplify by sentences the meanings of fruitless, barren, useless, unprofitable, idle, abortive, ineffectual, profitless, futile, vain. they fell upon one kind of strictness, unless their care were equal to regulate all other things of like aptness to corrupt the mind, that single endeavor, they knew, would be but a fond labor; to shut and fortify one gate against corruption, and be necessitated to leave others round about wide open. If we think to regulate printing, thereby to rectify manners, we must regulate all recreations and pastimes, all that is delightful to man. No music must be heard, no song be set or sung, but what is grave and Doric. There must be licensing dancers, that no gesture, motion, or deportment be taught our youth, but what, by their allowance, shall be thought honest. For such Plato was provided of. It will ask more than the work of twenty licensers to examine all the lutes, the violins, and the guitars in every house. They must not be suffered to prattle as they do, but must be licensed what they may say. And who shall silence all the airs and madrigals that whisper softness in chambers? The windows also, and the balconies must be thought on. These are shrewd books, with dangerous frontispieces, set to sale. Who shall prohibit them? Shall twenty licensers? The villages also must have their visitors ..