"Black-letter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wisdom of centuries ago override the wisdom, or overshadow the light of the present, is a paradox peculiar to our system of jurisprudence. There are lawyers and judges, who enjoy a high reputation, whose fame rests upon their profound research among the worm-eaten tomes of black-letter law, and whose glory consists in their familiarity with the opinions and axioms of men who lived and died so long ago that their very tombs are forgotten. This class of lawyers and jurists hold in contempt all the learning, the philosophy, ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... last; it ends the MS. period. Under the influence of the Renaissance, now enormously potent, every Italian noble forms a library. The scholars are seeking out the ninth-century copies of the classics, and they discard the Gothic (black-letter) hands of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in favour of the Carolingian minuscule (or, some say that of the twelfth century). As early as 1426 we find books written in a script adapted and refined from ...
— The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts - Helps for Students of History, No. 17. • M. R. James
... certain licences of incident, description, and phrase in it, is quite the best of our bunch in this kind. It is, in general conception, pure Amadis of the later and slightly degraded type. Laurana, the heroine (of whom a peculiarly hideous portrait adorns the black-letter editions side by side with Parismus himself, who is rather a "jolly gentleman") is won with much less difficulty and in much less time than Oriana—but separations and difficulties duly follow in "desolate isles" and the like. And though ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... massive stone, entirely out of proportion to the size of the apartment. On the front had once been an armorial scutcheon; for the hammer, or chisel, which had been employed to deface the shield or crest, had left uninjured the scroll beneath, which bore the pious motto, 'TRUST IN GOD.' Black-letter, you know, was my early passion, and the tombstones in the Greyfriars' churchyard early yielded up to my knowledge as a decipherer what little they could tell of the ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... passed away delightfully in this quaint-looking apartment, half study, half drawing-room. Scott read several passages from the old romance of "Arthur," with a fine, deep sonorous voice, and a gravity of tone that seemed to suit the antiquated, black-letter volume. It was a rich treat to hear such a work, read by such a person, and in such a place; and his appearance as he sat reading, in a large armed chair, with his favorite hound Maida at his feet, and surrounded by books and relics, and border trophies, would have ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... place. It was a dim, old-fashioned chamber festooned with cobwebs, and besprinkled with antique dust. Around the walls stood several oaken bookcases, the lower shelves of which were filled with rows of gigantic folios, and black-letter quartos, and the upper with little parchment-covered duodecimos. Over the central bookcase was a bronze bust of Hippocrates, with which, according to some authorities, Dr. Heidegger was accustomed to hold consultations, in all difficult cases of his practice. In the obscurest corner of the ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... practices, and they designate her so frequently by the epithet of the 'Black Lady,' that many, both in Hainault and Flanders, are ignorant that this is not really her title." Here follows a whole-length portrait of this specimen of black-letter majesty.] ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 564, September 1, 1832 • Various
... correspondents acquainted with the history and literature of the German tales {358} which go under the name of Till Eulenspiegel? I am searching to find out which are the English translations, but have only succeeded to trace two. The oldest is a very curious black-letter volume in small 4to. in the British Museum, C. 21. c/5, formerly in the possession of Mr. Garrick, as appears from Bishop Percy ("Dissertation on the Origin of the British Stage," Reliques, vol. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... Woodlands a bit of enchanted forest cut from an old black-letter legend, in which one half expected to meet mediaeval knights on foaming steeds—every-day folk ride jogging horses—threading their way through the mysterious forest aisles in search of those romantic adventures which were necessary to give knights of that period an ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... and James the wise. And wizard black-letter tomes which treat Of demons of every name and size Which a Christian man is presumed to meet, But never a hint and never a line Can I find of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... So from the black-letter volume before him Dirk began to read the seventh chapter, in which, as it chances, the great Apostle deals with the marriage state. On he read, in a quiet even voice, till he came to the twelfth and four following verses, of which the last three run: "For the ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... to the table-phrase more than one number is placed, then expect not that the same black-letter word is always to be found in the book to the last number, as is to the first number, but it may be some other black or marked word of like meaning; as for antichrist the black-lettered word in some places is harlot, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... disclosure of something new, yet working an harmonious development of what you have heretofore seen. The west front is unspeakably grand, and may be read over and over again forever, and still show undetected meanings, like a great, broad page of marvellous writing in black-letter,—so many sculptured ornaments there are, blossoming out before your eyes, and gray statues that have grown there since you looked last, and empty niches, and a hundred airy canopies beneath which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... and I have therefore little doubt that it made its appearance during the reign of Mary;" and he adds, p. 315, "on the whole, this piece is one of the most amusing and most humorous of the class to which it belongs." A fragment of a black-letter copy of the interlude is preserved at Lambeth Palace,[2] and is described by Mr Maitland in his "List of Early ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... songs of the Troubadours, Or of Minnesingers in old black-letter, Sound in his ears more sweet than yours, And if yours are not sweeter ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Acts and Monuments is of the date 1641, 3 vols, folio, the last of those in the black-letter, and probably the latest when it came into Bunyan's hands. In each volume he has written his name beneath the title-page, in a large and stout print-hand. Under some of the woodcuts he has inserted ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous |
