...was content to purchase it by the sacrifice of reason, propriety, and truth. A quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra, for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it." Perhaps the following observations and explanations of a few remarkable words and phrases used by Shakespeare...

...immortal Preface, we are indebted for the trenchant phrase that: A quibble was for Shakespeare the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it. — ED.] More free ftom molion, no not death himfelfe 476 In mortall furie halfe fo peremptorie, As...

...was content to purchase it by the sacrifice of reason, propriety, and truth. A quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it." Johnson meant by quibble what we mean by word-play, and, allowing for metaphorical expression, we must...

...Johnson, 'for which he would always turn aside from his career, or stoop from his elevation', 'the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it.'22 The anxiety that speaks through Johnson's strictures doubtless arises from the threat posed...

...was content to purchase it by the sacrifice of reason, propriety, and truth. A quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra, for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it."—Now, isn't all this very much exaggerated? It seems to me to be written much more for the sake...

...reviving it'. It will be remembered that Garrick's friend Dr Johnson said a quibble was Shakespeare's fatal Cleopatra, for which he lost the world and was content to lose it. He excuses himself for not having removed the references to Rosaline, as Otway and Gibber had done;...

...was content to purchase it, by the sacrifice of reason, propriety and truth. A quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it. — Samuel Johnson, "Preface to Shakespeare" Just as Euripides' story of faithful Helen's sojourn in...

...Johnson, whose famous criticism of Shakespeare's wordplay is often quoted: "A quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it."11 Cleopatra, that occult agent of femininity who stretches the boundaries of passion and discourse,...

...was content to purchase it by the sacrifice of reason, propriety and truth. A quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it. ' It will be thought strange that, in enumerating the defects of this writer, I have not yet mentioned...

...was content to purchase it, by the sacrifice of reason, propriety and truth. A quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it. [74] In this passage, frequently cited by Johnson's contemporaries, we see the firm decisiveness absent...