Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to the Edinburgh Review, Volume 3

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Page 336 - The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the great Hall of William Rufus, the hall which had resounded with acclamations at the inauguration of thirty kings, the hall which had witnessed the just sentence of Bacon and the Just absolution of Somers, the hall where the eloquence of...
Page 107 - Ich sehe nur, wie sich die Menschen plagen. Der kleine Gott der Welt bleibt stets von gleichem Schlag Und ist so wunderlich als wie am ersten Tag. Ein wenig besser würd...
Page 49 - No mob attacked by regular soldiers was ever more completely routed. The little band of Frenchmen, who alone ventured to confront the English, were swept down the stream of fugitives. In an hour the forces of Surajah Dowlah were dispersed, never to reassemble. Only five hundred of the vanquished were slain. But their camp, their guns, their baggage, innumerable waggons, innumerable cattle, remained in the power of the conquerors.
Page 217 - Baretti ; while Mackintosh turned over Thomas Aquinas to verify a quotation ; while Talleyrand related his conversations with Barras at the Luxembourg, or his ride with Lannes over the field of Austerlitz.
Page 423 - As when some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, In their confluctions, all to run one way, This may be truly said to be a humour.
Page 484 - I fared like a distressed prince, who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid; I was undone by my auxiliary; when I had once called him in, I could not subsist without dependence on him.
Page 37 - Nothing in history or fiction, not even the story which Ugolino told in the sea of everlasting ice, after he had wiped his bloody lips on the scalp of his murderer, approaches the horrors which were recounted by the few survivors of that night.
Page 215 - O'er my dim eyeballs glance the sudden tears ! How sweet were once thy prospects fresh and fair, Thy sloping walks, and unpolluted air ! How sweet the glooms beneath...
Page 339 - Fox and Sheridan, the English Demosthenes and the English Hyperides. There was Burke, ignorant, indeed, or negligent of the art of adapting his reasonings and his style to the capacity and taste of his hearers, but in amplitude of comprehension and richness of imagination superior to every orator, ancient or modern.
Page 357 - All those whom we have been accustomed to revere as intellectual patriarchs seemed children when compared with her ; for Burke had sat up all night to read her writings, and Johnson had pronounced her superior to Fielding, when Rogers was still a schoolboy, and Southey still in petticoats. Her Diary is written in her earliest and best manner ; in true woman's English, clear, natural, and lively. It ought to be consulted by every person who wishes to be well acquainted with the history of our literature...

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