A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood. Speech on Conciliation with America. A wise and salutary neglect. Vol. ii. p. 117. Ibid. My vigour relents, I pardon something to the spirit of liberty. Ibid. Vol. ii. p. 118. The religion most prevalent in our northern. colonies is a refinement on the principles of resistance: it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion. Ibid. Vol. ii. p. 123. All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter. Ibid. Vol. ii. p. 169. The worthy gentleman who has been snatched from us at the moment of the election, and in the middle of the contest, whilst his desires were as warm, and his hopes as eager as ours, has feelingly told us what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue. Speech at Bristol on Declining the Poll. Vol. ii. p. 429. 1 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, say ditto to Mr. Burke." - Prior's Life of Burke, p. 152. They made and recorded a sort of institute and digest of anarchy, called the Rights of Man. On the Army Estimates. Vol. iii. p. 221. You had that action and counteraction, which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers draws out the harmony of the universe.1 Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 277. 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. . . . . 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. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded. Ibid. Vol. iii. p. 331 1 Quid velit et possit rerum concordia discors. Horace, Epist. 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." The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone. Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 331. That chastity of honour which felt a stain like a wound. Ibid. Vol. iii. p. 332. Vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness. Ibid. Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle. Ibid. Vol. iii. p. 334. Learning will be cast into the mire and trodden. down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude.1 Ibid. Vol. iii. p. 335 Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field, that, of course, they are many in number, or that, after all, they are other than the little, shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour. Ibid. Vol. iii. p. 344. 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. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 453. The cold neutrality of an impartial judge. Preface to Brissot's Address. Vol. v. p. 67. And having looked to government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them.1 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. Ibid. p. 311. Early and provident fear is the mother of safety. Speech on the Petition of the Unitarians. Vol. vii. p. 50. The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion. Speech at County Meeting of Bucks, 1784. Wisdom of our ancestors.2 Discussion on the Traitorous Correspondence Bill (1793). 1 We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us. Cause of the Present Discontents, Vol. i. p. 439. 2 Sydney Smith, Plymley's Letters, v.; Lord Eldon on Sir Samuel Romilly's Bill, 1815; Cicero de Legibus, ii. 2. 3. I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard, than in the tomb of the Capulets.1 Letter to Matthew Smith. It has all the contortions of the sibyl, without the inspiration.2 From Prior's Life of Burke. He was not merely a chip of the old block, but the old block itself.8 On Pitt's first Speech, Feb. 26, 1781. From Wraxall's Memoirs, 1st Series, Vol. i. p. 342. BEILBY PORTEUS. 1731 - 1808. In sober state, Through the sequester'd vale of rural life, The tenor of his way.1 Death. Line 108. One murder made a villain, Millions a hero. Princes were privileged 1 Family vault of "all the Capulets." - Reflections on the Revolution in France, Vol. iii. p. 349. 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's Life of Burke. 3 See Proverbial Expressions. 4 Compare Gray, Elegy, Stanza 19. 5 Compare Young, ante, p. 283. |