Political Essays, with Sketches of Public Characters ...

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William Hone, 1819 - Great Britain - 439 pages
 

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Page 267 - Ay, sir ; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.
Page 370 - How charming is divine Philosophy! Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo's lute, And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, Where no crude surfeit reigns.
Page 312 - But pleasures are like poppies spread — You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed ; Or like the snow falls in the river — A moment white, then melts for ever...
Page 128 - And the king answered the people roughly, and forsook the old men's counsel that they gave him ; and spake to them after the counsel of the young men, saying, My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke ; my father also chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.
Page 142 - What is he, whose grief Bears such an emphasis ? whose phrase of sorrow Conjures the wand'ring stars, and makes them stand Like wonder-wounded hearers ? this is I, Hamlet the Dane.
Page xvi - For never can true reconcilement grow Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep...
Page 252 - Thankless too for peace, (Peace long preserved by fleets and perilous seas) Secure from actual warfare, we have loved To swell the warwhoop, passionate for war ! Alas ! for ages ignorant of all Its ghastlier workings, (famine or blue plague, Battle, or siege, or flight through wintry...
Page 136 - The preacher then launched into his subject, like an eagle dallying with the wind. The sermon was upon peace and war — upon church and state — not their alliance, but their separation — on the spirit of the world, and the spirit of Christianity, not as the same, but as opposed to one another. He talked of those who had inscribed the cross of Christ on banners dripping with human gore.
Page 136 - And for myself, I could not have been more delighted if I had heard the music of the spheres. Poetry and Philosophy had met together. Truth and Genius had embraced, under the eye and with the sanction of Religion.
Page xxxvi - Tis avarice all, ambition is no more ! See, all our nobles begging to be slaves ! See, all our fools aspiring to be knaves ! The wit of cheats, the courage of a whore, Are what ten thousand envy and adore ! All, all look up with reverential awe, At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the law : While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry — ' Nothing is sacred now but villany.

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