Historical Sketches of Statesmen who Flourished in the Time of George III.

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Página 453 - Would he oblige me? let me only find, He does not think me what he thinks mankind.
Página 336 - I am not afraid of offending a most learned body, and most jealous of its reputation for that learning, when I say he is the first of his profession. It is a point settled by those who settle...
Página 336 - I shall say the less of him, because his near relation to you makes you more particularly acquainted with his merits. But I should appear little acquainted with them, or little sensible of them, if I could utter his name on this occasion without expressing my esteem for his character.
Página 48 - By these dogmas he abided through his whole life, with a steadfastness, and even to a sacrifice of power, which sets at defiance all attempts to question their perfect sincerity. Such as he was when he left Oxford, such he continued above sixty years after, to the close of his long and prosperous life; — the enemy of all reform, the champion of the throne and the altar, and confounding every abuse that surrounded the one, or grew up within the precincts of the other, with the institutions themselves...
Página 65 - Of every change he was the enemy ; of all improvement, careless and even distrustful ; of the least deviation from the most beaten track, suspicious ; of the remotest risks, an acute prognosticator, as by some natural instinct ; of the slightest actual danger, a terror-stricken spectator. As he could imagine nothing better than the existing state of any given thing, he could see only peril and hazard in the search for any thing new ; and with him it was quite enough, to characterise a measure as...
Página 164 - ... will, never let it appear that he was more than your equal, and was quite willing, if you chose, to become your auditor. It is said of Swift that his rule was to allow a minute's pause after he had concluded, and then, if no person took up the conversation, to recommence himself.
Página 165 - I stoop to acquire it by servility and corruption. ' If I rise not to rank, I shall at least be honest ; and should I ever cease to be so, many an example shows me, that an ill-acquired elevation, by making me the more conspicuous, would only make me the more universally and the more notoriously contemptible...
Página 48 - With all these apparent discrepancies between Lord Eldon's outward and inward man, nothing could be more incorrect than to represent him as tainted with hypocrisy, in the ordinary sense of the word. He had imbibed from his youth, and in the orthodox bowers which Isis waters, the dogmas of the Tory creed in all their purity and rigour. By these dogmas he abided through his whole life, with a steadfastness and even at a sacrifice of power, which sets at defiance all attempts to question their perfect...
Página 164 - It was an invariable peculiarity — one second after four o'clock, and he would not wait for the Viceroy. The moment he perceived me he took me by the hand; said he would not have any one introduce me; and, with a manner which I often thought was charmed, at once banished every apprehension, and completely familiarised me at the Priory.

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