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Thoughts and Details on Scarcity. Vol. v. p. 156.
All men that are ruined, are ruined on the side of their natural propensities.
Letter i. On a Regicide Peace. Vol. v. p. 286.
All those instances to be found in history, whether real or fabulous, of a doubtful public spirit, at which morality is perplexed, reason is staggered, and from which affrighted Nature recoils, are their chosen and almost sole examples for the instruction of their youth.
Letter i. On a Regicide Peace. Vol. v. p. 311.
Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.
Letter i. On a Regicide Peace. Vol. v. p. 331.
Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.
Speech on the Petition of the Unitarians. Vol. vii. p. 50.
There never was a bad man that had ability for good service.
Speech in opening the Impeachment of Warren Hastings. Third Day. Vol. x. p. 54.
The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
Speech at County Meeting of Bucks, 1784.
[412]
I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard than in the tomb of the Capulets.[412:1]
Letter to Matthew Smith.
It has all the contortions of the sibyl without the inspiration.[412:2]
Prior's Life of Burke.[412:3]
He was not merely a chip of the old block, but the old block itself.[412:4]
On Pitt's First Speech, Feb. 26, 1781. From Wraxall's Memoirs, First Series, vol. i. p. 342.
[407:1] Boston edition. 1865-1867.
[407:2] In the adversity of our best friends we always find something which is not wholly displeasing to us.—Rochefoucauld: Reflections, xv.
[407:3] Lord Brougham says of Bacon, "He it was who first employed the well-known phrase of 'the wisdom of our ancestors.'"
Sydney Smith: Plymley's Letters, letter v. Lord Eldon: On Sir Samuel Romilly's Bill, 1815. Cicero: De Legibus, ii. 2, 3.
[408:1] See Fielding, page 364.
[408:2] See Goldsmith, page 401.
[408:3] The march of intellect.—Southey: Progress and Prospects of Society, vol. ii. p. 360.
[409:1] Quid velit et possit rerum concordia discors (What the discordant harmony of circumstances would and could effect).—Horace: Epistle i. 12, 19.
Mr. Breen, in his "Modern English Literature," says: "This remarkable thought Alison the historian has turned to good account; it occurs so often in his disquisitions that he seems to have made it the staple of all wisdom and the basis of every truth."
[410:1] This expression was tortured to mean that he actually thought the people no better than swine; and the phrase "the swinish multitude" was bruited about in every form of speech and writing, in order to excite popular indignation.
[411:1] See Appendix, page 859.
[411:2] I know no way of judging of the future but by the past.—Patrick Henry: Speech in the Virginia Convention, March, 1775.
[411:3] We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us.— Cause of the Present Discontents, vol. i. p. 439.
[412:1] Family vault of "all the Capulets."—Reflections on the Revolution in France, vol. iii. p. 349.
[412:2] When Croft's "Life of Dr. Young" was spoken of as a good imitation of Dr. Johnson's style, "No, no," said he, "it is not a good imitation of Johnson; it has all his pomp without his force; it has all the nodosities of the oak, without its strength; it has all the contortions of the sibyl, without the inspiration."—Prior: Life of Burke.
The gloomy comparisons of a disturbed imagination, the melancholy madness of poetry without the inspiration.—Junius: Letter No. viii. To Sir W. Draper.
[412:3] At the conclusion of one of Mr. Burke's eloquent harangues, Mr. Cruger, finding nothing to add, or perhaps as he thought to add with effect, exclaimed earnestly, in the language of the counting-house, "I say ditto to Mr. Burke! I say ditto to Mr. Burke!"—Prior: Life of Burke, p. 152.
[412:4] See Sir Thomas Browne, page 219.
CHARLES CHURCHILL. 1731-1764.He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone.
The Rosciad. Line 322.
But, spite of all the criticising elves,
Those who would make us feel—must feel themselves.[412:5]
The Rosciad. Line 961.
Who to patch up his fame, or fill his purse,
Still pilfers wretched plans, and makes them worse;
[413]Like gypsies, lest the stolen brat be known,
Defacing first, then claiming for his own.[413:1]
The Apology. Line 232.
No statesman e'er will find it worth his pains
To tax our labours and excise our brains.
Night. Line 271.
Apt alliteration 's artful aid.
The Prophecy of Famine. Line 86.
There webs were spread of more than common size,
And half-starved spiders prey'd on half-starved flies.
The Prophecy of Famine. Line 327.
With curious art the brain, too finely wrought,
Preys on herself, and is destroyed by thought.
Epistle to William Hogarth. Line 645.
Men the most infamous are fond of fame,
And those who fear not guilt yet start at shame.
The Author. Line 233.
Be England what she will,
With all her faults she is my country still.[413:2]
The Farewell. Line 27.
Wherever waves can roll, and winds can blow.[413:3]
The Farewell. Line 38.
[412:5]
Si vis me flere, dolendum est
Primum ipsi tibi
(If you wish me to weep, you yourself must first feel grief).
Horace: Ars Poetica, v. 102.
[413:1] Steal! to be sure they may; and, egad, serve your best thoughts as gypsies do stolen children,—disguise them to make 'em pass for their own.—Sheridan: The Critic, act. i. sc. i.
[413:2]
England, with all thy faults I love thee still,
My country!
Cowper: The Task, book ii. The Timepiece, line 206.
[413:3] Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam.—Byron: The Corsair, canto i. stanza 1.
WILLIAM COWPER. 1731-1800.Is base in kind, and born to be a slave.
Table Talk. Line 28.
As if the world and they were hand and glove.
Table Talk. Line 173.
Happiness depends, as Nature shows,
Less on exterior things than most suppose.
Table Talk. Line 246.
[414]
Freedom has a thousand charms to show,
That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.
Table Talk. Line 260.
Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,
The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.
Table Talk. Line 542.
Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appear'd,
And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard:
To carry nature lengths unknown before,
To give a Milton birth, ask'd ages more.
Table Talk. Line 556.
Elegant as simplicity, and warm
As ecstasy.
Table Talk. Line 588.
Low ambition and the thirst of praise.[414:1]
Table Talk. Line 591.
Made poetry a mere mechanic art.
Table Talk. Line 654.
Nature, exerting an unwearied power,
Forms, opens, and gives scent to every flower;
Spreads the fresh verdure of the field, and leads
The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads.
Table Talk. Line 690.
Lights of the world, and stars of human race.
The Progress of Error. Line 97.
How much a dunce that has been sent to roam
Excels a dunce that has been kept at home!
The Progress of Error. Line 415.
Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true,—
A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew.
Truth. Line 327.
The sounding jargon of the schools.[414:2]
Truth. Line 367.
When one that holds communion with the skies
Has fill'd his urn where these pure waters rise,
And once more mingles with us meaner things,
'T is e'en as if an angel shook his wings.
Charity. Line 435.
A fool must now and then be right by chance.
Conversation. Line 96.
[415]
He would not, with a peremptory tone,
Assert the nose upon his face his own.
Conversation. Line 121.
A moral, sensible, and well-bred man
Will not affront me,—and no other can.
Conversation. Line 193.
Pernicious weed! whose scent the fair annoys,
Unfriendly to society's chief joys:
Thy worst effect is banishing for hours
The sex whose presence civilizes ours.
Conversation. Line 251.
I cannot talk with civet in the room,
A fine puss-gentleman that 's all perfume.
Conversation. Line 283.
The solemn fop; significant and budge;
A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge.[415:1]
Conversation. Line 299.
His wit invites you by his looks to come,
But when you knock, it never is at home.[415:2]
Conversation. Line 303.
Our wasted oil unprofitably burns,
Like hidden lamps in old sepulchral urns.[415:3]
Conversation. Line 357.
That good diffused may more abundant grow.
Conversation. Line 443.
A business with an income at its heels
Furnishes always oil for its own wheels.
Retirement. Line 614.
Absence of occupation is not rest,
A mind quite vacant is a mind distress'd.
Retirement. Line 623.
An idler is a watch that wants both hands,
As useless if it goes as if it stands.
Retirement. Line 681.
Built God a church, and laugh'd his word to scorn.
Retirement. Line 688.
[416]
Philologists, who chase
A panting syllable through time and space,
Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark
To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark.
Retirement. Line 691.
I praise the Frenchman,[416:1] his remark was shrewd,—
How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!
But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper, Solitude is sweet.
Retirement. Line 739.
A kick that scarce would move a horse
May kill a sound divine.
The Yearly Distress.
I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute.
Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk.
O Solitude! where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk.
But the sound of the church-going bell
These valleys and rocks never heard;
Ne'er sigh'd at the sound of a knell,
Or smiled when a Sabbath appear'd.
Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk.
How fleet is a glance of the mind!
Compared with the speed of its flight
The tempest itself lags behind,
And the swift-winged, arrows of light.
Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk.
There goes the parson, O illustrious spark!
And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.
On observing some Names of Little Note.
But oars alone can ne'er prevail
To reach the distant coast;
The breath of heaven must swell the sail,
Or all the toil is lost.
Human Frailty.
And the tear that is wiped with a little address,
May be follow'd perhaps by a smile.
The Rose.
[417]
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