Historical Sketches of Statesmen who Flourished in the Time of George III.: Second Series, Volume 1Lea and Blanchard, 1839 - Great Britain |
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Page 76 - 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...
Page 197 - No; it is because I remember both. I served with Wolfe at Quebec ; having lived so long, I have had full time for reflection on this matter; and my clear opinion is, that if this fair occasion for giving up Canada is neglected, nothing but difficulty, in either keeping or resigning it, will ever after be known.
Page 36 - ... that is known among nations living under constitutional Governments. But if the investigation itself was thus an object of reprobation and disgust, its result gave, if possible, less satisfaction still. What could be said of a sentence which showed that, even when tried behind her back, and by an invisible tribunal formed wholly of her adversaries, not the shadow of guilt could be found in her whole conduct ; and that even the mercenary fancies and foul perjuries of the spies had failed to present...
Page 73 - Yet this defect, the leading one of his intellectual character, was chiefly confined to his professional exertions ; and the counsellor so hesitating in answering an important case, — the judge so prone to doubt that he could hardly bring his mind to decide one, — was, in all that practically concerned his party or himself, as ready to take a line, and to follow it with determination of purpose, as the least ingenious of ordinary politicians. The timidity, too, of...
Page 22 - ... the Law, in order to prevent all risks ; it being equally manifest that, if merely preventing a Catholic from being the Sovereign's consort had been the only purpose of the enactment, this could have been most effectually accomplished by simply declaring the marriage void, and the forfeiture of the crown became wholly superfluous.
Page 171 - Priam here — or with a heathen god, such as ^Eolus : — those kind of folks are very well in Pope's Homer and Dryden's Virgil ; — but, as I said to Sir Robert who sat next me, What have you or I to do with them matters ? I like a good plain man of business, like young Mr. Jenkinson — a man of the pen and the desk, like his father before him — and who never speaks when he is not wanted : let me tell you, Mr. Canning speaks too much, by half. Time is short — there are only twenty-four hours...
Page 93 - ... administering the Law of Nations comprehend within their scope the highest national rights, involve the existence of peace itself, define the duties of neutrality, set limits to the prerogatives of war. Accordingly, the volume which records Sir W. Scott's judgments is not like the reports of commonlaw cases, a book only unsealed to the members of the legal profession ; it may well be in the hands of the general student, and form part of any classical library of English eloquence, or even of national...
Page 22 - Scotland, and every other country, abounds in cases of acts prohibited and made void, yet punished by a forfeiture of the rights of him who contravenes the prohibition, as much as if they were valid and effectual. " The same courtly reasoners and fraudulent matchmakers of -Carlton House next assumed, that statutes so solemn as the Bill of Rights and Act of Settlement could be varied, and, indeed, repealed in an essential particular, most clearly within their mischief, by a subsequent law which makes...
Page 26 - Brunswick was the individual whom it was found convenient to make the sacrifice on this occasion to an arrangement that diffused so universal a joy through this free, moral, and reflecting country. She was niece of George III., and consequently one of the Prince's nearest relations. Nor has it ever been denied, that in her youth she was a Princess of singular accomplishments, as well of mind as of person. All who had seen her in those days represented her as lovely ; nor did she, on touching our...
Page 173 - The fate that befel him was that which might have mortified others but well suited his tastes, to be little thought of, less talked about — or if, in debate, any measure was to be exposed — any minister to be attacked — means were ever found, nay, pains were taken to " assure the House that nothing was meant against the respected nobleman at the head of His Majesty's Government, for whom we all entertain feelings of et cetera, and of et cetera, and of et cetera.