We cultivate literature on a little oatmeal.1 Memoir. Vol. i. p. 23. Truth is its [justice's] handmaid, freedom is its child, peace is its companion, safety walks in its steps, victory follows in its train; it is the brightest emanation from the Gospel; it is the attribute of God. P. 29. P. 53. It is always right that a man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is within him. Avoid shame, but do not seek glory, nothing so expensive as glory." P. 88. Let every man be occupied, and occupied in the highest employment of which his nature is capable, and die with the consciousness that he has done his best. P. 130. Looked as if she had walked straight out of the ark. P. 157. The Smiths never had any arms, and have invariably sealed their letters with their thumbs. P. 244. Not body enough to cover his mind decently with; his intellect is improperly exposed. P. 258. He has spent all his life in letting down empty buckets into empty wells; and he is frittering away his age in trying to draw them up again." P. 259. You find people ready enough to do the Samaritan, without the oil and twopence. P. 261. Ah, you flavour everything; you are the vanilla of society. My living in Yorkshire was so far out of the it was actually twelve miles from a lemon. P. 262. way, that P. 262. 1 Mr. Smith, with reference to the "Edinburgh Review," says: "The motto I proposed for the Review' was 'Tenui musam meditamur avena;' but this was too near the truth to be admitted; so we took our present grave motto from Publius Syrus, of whom none of us had, I am sure, a single line." read 2 A favorite motto, which through life Mr. Smith inculcated on his family. See Cowper, page 419. As the French say, there are three sexes, women, and clergymen.1 Memoir. Vol. i. p. 262. To take Macaulay out of literature and society and put him in the House of Commons, is like taking the chief physician out of London during a pestilence. P. 265. Daniel Webster struck me much like a steam-engine in trousers. P. 267. "Heat, ma'am!" I said; "it was so dreadful here, that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off flesh and sit in my bones." my Macaulay is like a book in breeches. Ibid. He has oc casional flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly delightful. Serenely full, the epicure would say, P. 363. Fate cannot harm me, I have dined to-day." Recipe for Salad. P. 374. Thank God for tea! What would the world do withhow did it exist? I am glad I was not born out tea? before tea. P. 383. If you choose to represent the various parts in life by holes upon a table, of different shapes, some circular, some triangular, some square, some oblong, - and the persons acting these parts by bits of wood of similar shapes, we shall generally find that the triangular person has got into the square hole, the oblong into the triangular, and a square person has squeezed himself into the round hole. The officer and the office, the doer and the thing done, seldom fit so exactly that we can say they were almost made for each other. 1 Lord Wharncliffe says, that 3 Sketches of Moral Philosophy. "The well-known sentence, almost a proverb, this world consists of men, women, and Herveys,' was originally Lady Montagu's." - Montagu Letters, vol. i. p. 64. 2 See Dryden, p. 273. 8 The right man to fill the right place LAYARD: Speech, Jan. 15, 1855. The schoolboy whips his taxed top; the beardless youth manages his taxed horse with a taxed bridle on a taxed road; and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid seven per cent, into a spoon that has paid fifteen per cent, flings himself back upon his chintz bed which has paid twenty-two per cent, and expires in the arms of an apothecary who has paid a license of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death. Review of Seybert's Annals of the United States, 1820. In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book, or goes to an American play, or looks at an American picture or statue ? Magnificent spectacle of human happiness. Ibid. America. Edinburgh Review, July, 1824. In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm [at Sidmouth], Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, was seen at the door of her house with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea-water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused; Mrs. Partington's spirit was up. But I need not tell you that the contest was unequal; the Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. Speech at Taunton, 1813. Men who prefer any load of infamy, however great, to any pressure of taxation, however light. On American Debts. J. HOOKHAM FRERE. 1769-1846. And don't confound the language of the nation The Monks and the Giants. Canto i. Line 6. A sudden thought strikes me, let us swear an eternal The Rovers. Act i. Sc. 1. friendship.1 1 See Otway, page 280. My fair one, let us swear an eternal friendship. - MOLIÈRE: Le Bour geois Gentilhomme, act iv. sc. 1. DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 1769-1852. Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won. Despatch, 1815. It is very true that I have said that I considered Napoleon's presence in the field equal to forty thousand men in the balance. This is a very loose way of talking; but the idea is a very different one from that of his presence at a battle being equal to a reinforcement of forty thousand men. Mem. by the Duke,1 Sept. 18, 1836. over which I have no control.2 Circumstances I never saw so many shocking bad hats in my life.3 Upon seeing the first Reformed Parliament. There is no mistake; there has been no mistake; and there shall be no mistake.1 Letter to Mr. Huskisson. The JOHN TOBIN. 1770-1804. man that lays his hand upon a woman, Save in the way of kindness, is a wretch Whom 't were gross flattery to name a coward. The Honeymoon. Act ii. Sc. 1. She's adorned Amply that in her husband's eye looks lovely,- Can see her beauty in. Act iii. Sc. 4. 1 STANHOPE: Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, p. 81. 2 This phrase was first used by the Duke of Wellington in a letter, about 1839 or 1840.-SALA: Echoes of the Week, in London Illustrated News, Aug. 23, 1884. Greville, Mem., ch. ii. (1823), gives an earlier instance. 3 Sir William Fraser, in "Words on Wellington" (1889), p. 12, says this phrase originated with the Duke. Captain Gronow, in his "* Recollections," says it originated with the Duke of York, second son of George III., about 1817. gave rise to the slang expression, "And no mistake.” 4 This Wellington, p. 122. Words on GEORGE CANNING. 1770-1827. Story! God bless you! I have none to tell, sir. I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damned first. Ibid. So down thy hill, romantic Ashbourn, glides And finds, with keen, The Loves of the Triangles. Line 178. discriminating sight, New Morality. Give me the avowed, the erect, the manly foe, Ibid. I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old. The King's Message, Dec. 12, 1826. No, here's to the pilot that weathered the storm! The Pilot that weathered the Storm. 1 "Defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies." The French Ana assign to Maréchal Villars this aphorism when taking leave of Louis XIV. 2 See Shakespeare, page 74. |