The British essayists; with prefaces by A. Chalmers, Հատոր 28

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Էջ 51 - THE notion of birth, as it is commonly called and established by custom, is also the manifest result of the prejudices of the many, and of the designs of a few. It is the child of Pride and Folly, coupled together by that industrious pander Self-love. It is surely the strongest instance, and the weakest prop, of human vanity. If it means any thing, it means a long lineal descent from a founder, whose industry or good fortune, whose merit, or perhaps whose guilt, has enabled his posterity to live...
Էջ 53 - Peerage, so much the better, but, if not, it is no great matter, for, being so solid a good in itself, it wants no borrowed advantages, and is unquestionably the most pleasing sentiment, that a truly generous mind is capable of feeling. NOBLE BIRTH implies only a peerage in the family.
Էջ 53 - I foolishly imagined that well-born meant born with a sound mind in a sound body; a healthy, strong constitution, joined to a good heart and a good understanding. But I never suspected that it could possibly mean the shrivelled tasteless fruit of an old genealogical tree. I communicated my doubts, and applied for information to my late worthy and curious friend, the celebrated Mrs. Kennon, whose valuable collection of fossils and minerals, lately sold, sufficiently proves her skill and researches...
Էջ 113 - ... and dejection. They have still one asylum left to fly to, which, with all their advantages of birth and education, it is surprising they should not long since have discovered; but since they have not, I shall beg leave to point it out; and it is this: that they once more retire to the...
Էջ 53 - ... yeomen, farmers, and ploughmen, are not born, or at least, in so mean a way as not to deserve that name ; and it is perhaps for that reason that their mothers are said to be delivered, rather than brought to bed of them. But baronets, knights, and esquires have the honour of being born. I must...
Էջ 39 - This is followed by many other bans mots, equally ingenious, alluding to the title of my paper, and worth at least the twopence a week that it costs. In the city (for my paper has made its way to that end of the town, upon the supposition of its being a fashionable one in this) I am received and considered in a different light. All my general reflections upon the vices or the follies of the age, are, by the ladies, supposed to...
Էջ 46 - The ancients most certainly have had very imperfect notions of honour, for they had none of duelling. One reads, it is true, of murders committed every now and then among the Greeks and Romans, prompted only by...
Էջ 41 - ... of a few. It is certain, however, that there has not been a time when the prerogative of human reason was more freely asserted, nor errors and prejudices more ably attacked and exposed by the best writers, than now.
Էջ 8 - Now by what occurs to me off-hand, and without consulting my books, I humbly apprehend that no action will lie against you ; but on the contrary I do conceive, and indeed take upon me to affirm, that you may proceed against these criminals...
Էջ 200 - I am sullen; if I answer, though with the utmost mildness, I am either insolent or impertinent. How must I do, Mr. Fitz-Adam, to reclaim or bear with him? Whatever I was by nature, I am at present so humbled, that I can submit to any thing. I have laid my case before you for your advice; being well convinced, by your speculations in general, that you are a warm advocate for the sex, though you sometimes take the liberty of telling us our own.

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