book iii
. chap. iv._
[406-1] See Chapman, page 37.
Nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus (Nobility is the one only virtue).--JUVENAL: _Satire viii. line 20._
[406-2] The first stanza is quoted in full, and the last line of the second, by Shakespeare in "Othello," act ii. sc. 3.
[406-3] The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree, Sing all a green willow; Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee, Sing willow, willow, willow.
_Othello, act iv. sc. 3._
[406-4] Quoted by Shakespeare in Second Part of "Henry IV.," act ii. sc. 4.
[406-5] Quoted by Shakespeare in "Twelfth Night," act ii. sc. 3.
EDMUND BURKE. 1729-1797.
The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.
_A Vindication of Natural Society._[407-1] _Preface, vol. i. p. 7._
"War," says Machiavel, "ought to be the only study of a prince;" and by a prince he means every sort of state, however constituted. "He ought," says this great political doctor, "to consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes ability to execute military plans." A meditation on the conduct of political societies made old Hobbes imagine that war was the state of nature.
_A Vindication of Natural Society. Vol. i. p. 15._
I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others.[407-2]
_On the Sublime and Beautiful. Sect. xiv. vol. 1. p. 118._
Custom reconciles us to everything.
_On the Sublime and Beautiful. Sect. xviii. vol. i. p. 231._
There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
_Observations on a Late Publication on the Present State of the Nation. Vol. i. p. 273._
The wisdom of our ancestors.[407-3]
_Observations on a Late Publication on the Present State of the Nation. Vol. i. p. 516. Also in the Discussion on the Traitorous Correspondence Bill, 1793._
Illustrious predecessor.[408-1]
_Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents. Vol. i. p. 456._
In such a strait the wisest may well be perplexed and the boldest staggered.
_Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents. Vol. i. p. 516._
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
_Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents. Vol. i. p. 526._
Of this stamp is the cant of, Not men, but measures.[408-2]
_Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents. Vol. i. p. 531._
The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear.
_Speech on the Conciliation of America. Vol. ii. p. 108._
There is America, which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners, yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world.
_Speech on the Conciliation of America. Vol. ii. p. 115._
Fiction lags after truth, invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren.
_Speech on the Conciliation of America. Vol. ii. p. 116._
A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.
_Speech on the Conciliation of America. Vol. ii. p. 117._
A wise and salutary neglect.
_Speech on the Conciliation of America. Vol. ii. p. 117._
My vigour relents,--I pardon something to the spirit of liberty.
_Speech on the Conciliation of America. Vol. ii. p. 118._
The religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principles of resistance: it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion.
_Speech on the Conciliation of America. Vol. ii. p. 123._
I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.
_Speech on the Conciliation of America. Vol. ii. p. 136._
The march of the human mind is slow.[408-3]
_Speech on the Conciliation of America. Vol. ii. p. 149._
All government,--indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act,--is founded on compromise and barter.
_Speech on the Conciliation of America. Vol. ii. p. 169._
The worthy gentleman who has been snatched from us at the moment of the election, and in the middle of the contest, whilst his desires were as warm and his hopes as eager as ours, has feelingly told us what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue.
_Speech at Bristol on Declining the Poll. Vol. ii. p. 420._
They made and recorded a sort of institute and digest of anarchy, called the Rights of Man.
_On the Army Estimates. Vol iii. p. 221._
People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.
_Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 274._
You had that action and counteraction which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers draws out the harmony of the universe.[409-1]
_Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 277._
It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in,--glittering like the morning star full of life and splendour and joy. . . . Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men,--in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded.
_Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 331._
The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone.
_Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 331._
That chastity of honour which felt a stain like a wound.
_Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 332._
Vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.
_Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 332._
Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.
_Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 334._
Learning will be cast into the mire and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude.[410-1]
_Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 335._
Because half-a-dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that of course they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour.
_Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 344._
In their nomination to office they will not appoint to the exercise of authority as to a pitiful job, but as to a holy function.
_Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 356._
The men of England,--the men, I mean, of light and leading in England.
_Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 365._
He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
_Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 453._
To execute laws is a royal office; to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a political executive magistracy, though merely such, is a great trust.[411-1]
_Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 497._
You can never plan the future by the past.[411-2]
_Letter to a Member of the National Assembly. Vol. iv. p. 55._
The cold neutrality of an impartial judge.
_Preface to Brissot's Address. Vol. v. p. 67._
And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them.[411-3]
_Thoughts and Details on Scarcity. Vol. v. p. 156._
All men that are ruined, are ruined on the side of their natural propensities.
_Letter i. On a Regicide Peace. Vol. v. p. 286._
All those instances to be found in history, whether real or fabulous, of a doubtful public spirit, at which morality is perplexed, reason is staggered, and from which affrighted Nature recoils, are their chosen and almost sole examples for the instruction of their youth.
_Letter i. On a Regicide Peace. Vol. v. p. 311._
Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.
_Letter i. On a Regicide Peace. Vol. v. p. 331._
Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.
_Speech on the Petition of the Unitarians. Vol. vii. p. 50._
There never was a bad man that had ability for good service.
_Speech in opening the Impeachment of Warren Hastings. Third Day. Vol. x. p. 54._
The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
_Speech at County Meeting of Bucks, 1784._
I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard than in the tomb of the Capulets.[412-1]
_Letter to Matthew Smith._
It has all the contortions of the sibyl without the inspiration.[412-2]
_Prior's Life of Burke._[412-3]
He was not merely a chip of the old block, but the old block itself.[412-4]
_On Pitt's First Speech, Feb. 26, 1781. From Wraxall's Memoirs, First Series, vol. i. p. 342._
FOOTNOTES:
[407-1] Boston edition. 1865-1867.
[407-2] In the adversity of our best friends we always find something which is not wholly displeasing to us.--ROCHEFOUCAULD: _Reflections, xv._
[407-3] Lord Brougham says of Bacon, "He it was who first employed the well-known phrase of 'the wisdom of our ancestors.'"
SYDNEY SMITH: _Plymley's Letters, letter v._ LORD ELDON: _On Sir Samuel Romilly's Bill, 1815._ CICERO: _De Legibus, ii. 2, 3._
[408-1] See Fielding, page 364.
[408-2] See Goldsmith, page 401.
[408-3] The march of intellect.--SOUTHEY: _Progress and Prospects of Society, vol. ii. p. 360._
[409-1] Quid velit et possit rerum concordia discors (What the discordant harmony of circumstances would and could effect).--HORACE: _Epistle i. 12, 19._
Mr. Breen, in his "Modern English Literature," says: "This remarkable thought Alison the historian has turned to good account; it occurs so often in his disquisitions that he seems to have made it the staple of all wisdom and the basis of every truth."
[410-1] This expression was tortured to mean that he actually thought the people no better than swine; and the phrase "the swinish multitude" was bruited about in every form of speech and writing, in order to excite popular indignation.
[411-1] See Appendix, page 859.
[411-2] I know no way of judging of the future but by the past.--PATRICK HENRY: _Speech in the Virginia Convention, March, 1775._
[411-3] We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us.--_Cause of the Present Discontents, vol. i. p. 439._
[412-1] Family vault of "all the Capulets."--_Reflections on the Revolution in France, vol. iii. p. 349._
[412-2] When Croft's "Life of Dr. Young" was spoken of as a good imitation of Dr. Johnson's style, "No, no," said he, "it is not a good imitation of Johnson; it has all his pomp without his force; it has all the nodosities of the oak, without its strength; it has all the contortions of the sibyl, without the inspiration."--PRIOR: _Life of Burke._
The gloomy comparisons of a disturbed imagination, the melancholy madness of poetry without the inspiration.--JUNIUS: _Letter No. viii. To Sir W. Draper._
[412-3] At the conclusion of one of Mr. Burke's eloquent harangues, Mr. Cruger, finding nothing to add, or perhaps as he thought to add with effect, exclaimed earnestly, in the language of the counting-house, "I say ditto to Mr. Burke! I say ditto to Mr. Burke!"--PRIOR: _Life of Burke, p. 152._
[412-4] See Sir Thomas Browne, page 219.
CHARLES CHURCHILL. 1731-1764.
He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone.
_The Rosciad. Line 322._
But, spite of all the criticising elves, Those who would make us feel--must feel themselves.[412-5]
_The Rosciad. Line 961._
Who to patch up his fame, or fill his purse, Still pilfers wretched plans, and makes them worse; Like gypsies, lest the stolen brat be known, Defacing first, then claiming for his own.[413-1]
_The Apology. Line 232._
No statesman e'er will find it worth his pains To tax our labours and excise our brains.
_Night. Line 271._
Apt alliteration 's artful aid.
_The Prophecy of Famine. Line 86._
There webs were spread of more than common size, And half-starved spiders prey'd on half-starved flies.
_The Prophecy of Famine. Line 327._
With curious art the brain, too finely wrought, Preys on herself, and is destroyed by thought.
_Epistle to William Hogarth. Line 645._
Men the most infamous are fond of fame, And those who fear not guilt yet start at shame.
_The Author. Line 233._
Be England what she will, With all her faults she is my country still.[413-2]
_The Farewell. Line 27._
Wherever waves can roll, and winds can blow.[413-3]
_The Farewell. Line 38._
FOOTNOTES:
[412-5] Si vis me flere, dolendum est Primum ipsi tibi
(If you wish me to weep, you yourself must first feel grief).
HORACE: _Ars Poetica, v. 102._
[413-1] Steal! to be sure they may; and, egad, serve your best thoughts as gypsies do stolen children,--disguise them to make 'em pass for their own.--SHERIDAN: _The Critic, act. i. sc. i._
[413-2] England, with all thy faults I love thee still, My country!
COWPER: _The Task,