Anecdote Biography

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Bentley, 1860

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Page 274 - Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom.
Page 133 - The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail — its roof may shake — the wind may blow through it— the storm may enter — the rain may enter — but the King of England cannot enter ! — all his force dares not cross* the threshold of the ruined tenement...
Page 274 - IT is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles ; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in — glittering like the morning star full of life, and splendour, and joy.
Page 322 - Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, ' If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
Page 274 - ... little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour, and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult.
Page 131 - I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people, so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest.
Page 203 - Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote; Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining, And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining; Though equal to all things, for all things unfit; Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit; For a patriot too cool; for a drudge disobedient; And too fond of the right to pursue the expedient. In short, 'twas his fate, unemployed or in place, sir, To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks...
Page 13 - I am at liberty, like every other man, to use my own language ; and though I may perhaps have some ambition to please this gentleman I shall not lay myself under any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his diction, or his mien, however matured by age or modelled by experience.
Page 240 - ... to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forsaken, and to compare and collate the distresses of all men in all countries. His plan is original ; and it is as full of genius as it is of humanity. It was a voyage of discovery ; a circumnavigation of charity.
Page 270 - The spirit it is impossible not to admire ; but the old Parisian ferocity has broken out in a shocking manner. It is true, that this may be no more than a sudden explosion ; if so, no indication can be taken from it ; but if it should be character, rather than accident, then that people are not fit for liberty, and must have a strong hand, like that of their former masters, to coerce them.

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