Front matter
Reading edition
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NIGHTMARE ABBEY
By
Thomas Love Peacock
CONTENTS
NIGHTMARE ABBEY
NOTES TO Nightmare Abbey
NIGHTMARE ABBEY:
BY
THE AUTHOR OF HEADLONG HALL.
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There's a dark lantern of the spirit, Which none see by but those who bear it, That makes them in the dark see visions And hag themselves with apparitions, Find racks for their own minds, and vaunt Of their own misery and want. BUTLER.
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LONDON:
1818.
MATTHEW. Oh! it's your only fine humour, sir. Your true melancholy breeds your perfect fine wit, sir. I am melancholy myself, divers times, sir; and then do I no more but take pen and paper presently, and overflow you half a score or a dozen of sonnets at a sitting.
STEPHEN. Truly, sir, and I love such things out of measure.
MATTHEW. Why, I pray you, sir, make use of my study: it's at your service.
STEPHEN. I thank you, sir, I shall be bold, I warrant you. Have you a stool there, to be melancholy upon?
BEN JONSON, Every Man in his Humour, Act 3, Sc. I
Ay esleu gazouiller et siffler oye, comme dit le commun proverbe, entre les cygnes, plutoust que d'estre entre tant de gentils poetes et faconds orateurs mut du tout estime.
RABELAIS, Prol. L. 5
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