Memoirs of the Life of the Right Honourable Sir James Mackintosh, Volume 1

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Little, Brown, 1853 - 525 pages
 

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Page 119 - ... if the invention of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and consociateth the most remote regions in participation of their fruits, how much more are letters to be magnified, which, as ships, pass through the vast seas of time, and make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other?
Page 410 - Blessings be with them — and eternal praise, Who gave us nobler loves, and nobler cares—- The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays ! Oh ! might my name be numbered among theirs, Then gladly would I end my mortal days.
Page 186 - Providence, this favored seat of justice and liberty, this noblest work of human wisdom and virtue, be destined to destruction, which I shall not be charged with national prejudice for saying, would be the most dangerous wound ever inflicted on civilization; at least let us carry with us into our sad exile the consolation that we ourselves have not violated the rights of hospitality to exiles — that we have not torn from the altar the suppliant who claimed protection as the voluntary victim of...
Page 185 - In the court where we are now met, Cromwell twice sent a satirist on his tyranny to be convicted and punished as a libeller; and in this court, almost in sight of the scaffold streaming with the blood of his sovereign, within hearing of the clash of his bayonets .which drove out...
Page 323 - Every where natural, he carried into public something of that simple and negligent exterior which belonged to him in private. When he began to speak, a common observer might have thought him...
Page 155 - Father, who wouldest not the death of a sinner but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live...
Page 253 - Perhaps, my good friend, you have fallen into this error of superior natures. From this error has, I think, arisen that calamity with which it has pleased Providence to visit you, which to a mind less fortified by reason and religion...
Page 115 - But this is that which will indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if contemplation and action may be more nearly and straitly conjoined and united together than they have been; a conjunction like unto that of the two highest planets, Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation, and Jupiter, the planet of civil society and action.
Page 110 - Philosophy, counterscarp, outworks, citadel, and all, fell without a blow, by " the whiff and wind of his fell doctrine," as if it had been a pack of cards. The volcano of the French Revolution was seen expiring in its own flames, like a bonfire made of straw : the principles of Reform were scattered in all directions, like chaff before the keen northern blast. He laid about him like one inspired ; nothing could withstand his envenomed tooth. Like some savage beast got into the garden of the fabled...
Page 185 - One asylum of free discussion is still inviolate. There is still one spot in Europe where man can freely exercise his reason on the most important concerns of society, where he can boldly publish his judgment on the acts of the proudest and most powerful tyrants.

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