Memoirs of His Own Time: With Reminiscences of the Men and Events of the Revolution

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Lindsay & Blakiston, 1846 - United States - 504 pages
 

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Page 87 - Is it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit That from her working all his visage wann'd, Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting With forms to his conceit?
Page 280 - That a Committee in conjunction with one from the Senate, be appointed to consider on the most suitable manner of paying honour to the memory of the man, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his fellow citizens.
Page 369 - AVARICE exempted him from the first, His matchless IMPUDENCE from the second. Nor was he more singular in the undeviating Pravity of his Manners Than successful in Accumulating WEALTH. For, without TRADE or PROFESSION, Without TRUST of PUBLIC MONEY, And without BRIBE-WORTHY Service, He acquired, or more properly created, A MINISTERIAL ESTATE. He was the only Person of his Time, Who could CHEAT without the Mask of HONESTY, Retain his Primeval MEANNESS When possessed of TEN THOUSAND a YEAR, And having...
Page 341 - Constitution, which we now present, is the result of a spirit of amity, and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable.
Page 331 - Things vulgar and, well weighed, scarce worth the praise? They praise, and they admire they know not what. And know not whom, but as one leads the other; And what delight to be by such extolled, To live upon their tongues and be their talk, Of whom to be dispraised were no small praise, His lot who dares be singularly good?
Page xxiv - Knowledge and wisdom, gained from converse sweet With books, or while he ranged the crowded streets With a keen eye and overflowing heart : So genius triumphed over seeming wrong, And poured out truth in works by thoughtful love Inspired — works potent over smiles and tears. And as round mountain-tops the lightning plays, Thus innocently sported, breaking forth As from a cloud of some grave sympathy, Humour, and wild instinctive wit, and all The vivid flashes of his spoken words.
Page 119 - Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine: Yet one I would select from that proud throng, Partly because they blend me with his line, And partly that I did his sire some wrong...
Page 154 - In 1787, he was a member of the convention, which framed the constitution of the United States, and his name is affixed to that instrument. In October, 1788...
Page 369 - He acquired, or more properly created, A MINISTERIAL ESTATE. He was the only Person of his Time, Who could CHEAT without the Mask of HONESTY, Retain his Primeval MEANNESS When possessed of TEN THOUSAND a Year, And having daily deserved the GIBBET for what he did, Was at last condemned to it for what he could not do. Oh Indignant Reader! Think not his Life useless to Mankind! PROVIDENCE connived at his execrable Designs, To give to After-ages A conspicuous PROOF and EXAMPLE, Of how small Estimation...
Page 116 - The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul's...

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