human
This last comet (which appeared in the year 1680) I may well call the most remarkable one that ever appeared; since, besides the former consideration, I shall presently shew, that it is no other than that very comet, which came by the earth at the time of Noah's deluge, and _which was the cause of the same_.
gpt
Since 575 years appear to be the period of the comet that caused the deluge, what a learned friend who was the occasion of my examination of this matter, suggests, will deserve to be considered; viz. Whether the story of the phoenix, that celebrated emblem of the resurrection in Christian antiquity, (that it returns once after five centuries, and goes to the altar and city of the sun, and is there burnt; and another arises out of its ashes, and carries away the remains of the former; &c.) be not an allegorical representation of this comet, which returns once after five centuries, and goes down to the sun, and is there vehemently heated, and its outward regions dissolved; yet that it flies off again, and carries away what remains after that terrible burning; &c. and whether the _conflagration_ and renovation of things, which some such comet may bring on the earth, be not hereby prefigured, I will not here be positive: but I own, that I do not know of any solution of this famous piece of mythology and hieroglyphics, as this seems to be, that can be compared with it.
human
The incumbrances of fortune were shaken from his mind as _dew-drops from the lion's mane_.
gpt
Much of my life has been lost under the pressures of disease; much has been trifled away; and much has always been spent in provision for the day that was passing over me; but I shall not think my employment useless or ignoble, if by my assistance foreign nations and distant ages gain access to the propagators of knowledge, and understand the teachers of truth; if my labours afford light to the repositories of science, and add celebrity to Bacon, to Hooker, to Milton, and to Boyle.
human
In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed; and though no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the authour, and the world is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the faults of that which it condemns, yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the ENGLISH DICTIONARY was written with _little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academick bowers, but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow_.