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ReadingWillow structured literacy program for Australian students
Poetry Library

— Stephen Crane

I stood upon a high place,

And saw, below, many devils

Running, leaping,

And carousing in sin.

…

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adjective

Engaged in or ready for action; characterized by energetic work, thought, or speech.

“The students were very active in class discussions, asking many thoughtful questions.”

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J. PHILIPS.

45 lines
Samuel Johnson·1709–1784
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ohn Philips was born on the 30th of December, 1676, at Bampton, inOxfordshire; of which place his father, Dr. Stephen Philips, archdeaconof Salop, was minister. The first part of his education was domestick;after which he was sent to Winchester, where, as we are told by Dr.Sewel, his biographer, he was soon distinguished by the superiority ofhis exercises; and, what is less easily to be credited, so much endearedhimself to his schoolfellows, by his civility and good nature, thatthey, without murmur or ill will, saw him indulged by the master withparticular immunities. It is related, that, when he was at school, heseldom mingled in play with the other boys, but retired to his chamber;where his sovereign pleasure was to sit, hour after hour, while his hairwas combed by somebody, whose service he found means to procure.[90] At school he became acquainted with the poets, ancient and modern, andfixed his attention particularly on Milton. In 1694, he entered himself at Christ church; a college, at that time, inthe highest reputation, by the transmission of Busby's scholars to thecare first of Fell, and afterwards of Aldrich. Here he was distinguishedas a genius eminent among the eminent, and for friendship particularlyintimate with Mr. Smith, the author of Phaedra and Hippolytus. Theprofession which he intended to follow was that of physick; and he tookmuch delight in natural history, of which botany was his favourite part. His reputation was confined to his friends and to the university; till,about 1703, he extended it to a wider circle by the Splendid Shilling,which struck the publick attention with a mode of writing new andunexpected. This performance raised him so high, that, when Europe resounded withthe victory of Blenheim, he was, probably, with an occult opposition toAddison, employed to deliver the acclamation of the tories. It is saidthat he would willingly have declined the task, but that his friendsurged it upon him. It appears that he wrote this poem at the house of Mr.St. John. Blenheim was published in 1705. The next year produced his greatest work,the poem upon Cider, in two books; which was received with loud praises,and continued long to be read, as an imitation of Virgil's Georgicks,which needed not shun the presence of the original. He then grew probably more confident of his own abilities, and began tomeditate a poem on the Last Day; a subject on which no mind can hope toequal expectation. This work he did not live to finish; his diseases, a slow consumptionand an asthma, put a stop to his studies, and on Feb. 15, 1708, at thebeginning of his thirty-third year, put an end to his life. He was buried in the cathedral of Hereford; and sir Simon Harcourt,afterwards lord chancellor, gave him a monument in Westminster Abbey.The inscription at Westminster was written, as I have heard, by Dr.Atterbury, though commonly given to Dr. Freind.
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