[…] diſcarded, vniuſt ſeruingmen, yonger ſonnes to yonger brothers, reuolted tapſters, and Oſtlers, tradefalne, the cankers of a calme world, and a long peace, ten times more diſhonourable ragged then an olde fazd ancient, […]
The author [of the poem Testament of Faire Creseide, Robert Henryson] has conceived in a very poetical manner his description of the season in which he supposes himself to have written this dolorous tragedy. The sun was in Aries; his setting was ushered in with furious storms of hail; the cold was biting and intense; and the poet sat in a solitary little building which he calls his orature. [footnote: oratory.]
And bold / Electric Pindar, quick as fear, / With race-dust on his cheeks, and clear / Slant startled eyes that seemed to hear // The chariot rounding the last goal, / to hurtle past it in his soul.
Bunyan has told us […] that in New England his dream was the daily subject of the conversation of thousands.