Posthumous Memoirs of His Own Time, Volume 1

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Page 178 - Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows, While proudly riding o'er the azure realm In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes; Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm; Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his evening prey.
Page 182 - With unexpected legions bursts away, And sees defenceless realms receive his sway; Short sway ! fair Austria spreads her mournful charms, The queen, the beauty, sets the world in arms; From hill to hill the...
Page 112 - Above the rest, majestically great, Behold the infant Atlas of the state, The matchless miracle of modern days; In whom Britannia to the world displays A sight to make surrounding nations stare; A kingdom trusted to a schoolboy's care!
Page 216 - A baleful smile upon their baffled guest. Heard ye the din of battle bray, Lance to lance and horse to horse? Long years of havoc urge their destined course, And through the kindred squadrons mow their way. Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame, With many a foul and midnight murder fed, Revere his consort's faith, his father's fame, And spare the meek usurper's holy head!
Page 355 - ... and regulated on permanent and equitable principles, for the mutual benefit of both countries.
Page 272 - Pert without fire, without experience sage, Young with more art than Shelburne gleaned from age, Too proud from pilfered greatness to descend, Too humble not to call Dundas his friend, In solemn dignity and sullen state, This new Octavius rises to debate!
Page 242 - I too well perceive," observed he, " that the minister's object in sustaining the scrutiny, is only to persecute an individual whom he honours by making him the victim of private resentment. I have always emulated to stand fair with him. It has been my pride to fight side by side with him the battles of the constitution : little suspecting that he would so soon desert his principles, and become the agent of that very secret influence which he had so long, and so successfully, laboured to overturn....
Page 37 - Nor did he, while thus chastising his adversary, alter a muscle of his own countenance ; which, as well as his gestures, seemed to participate, and display the unalterable serenity of his intellectual formation. Rarely did he elevate his voice, and never except in subservience to the dictates of his judgment, with the view to produce a corresponding effect on his audience. Yet he was always heard, generally listened to with eagerness, and could obtain a hearing at almost any hour. Burke, who wanted...
Page 262 - ... of a wholesale upholsterer for this house, to furnish it, not with the faded tapestry figures of antiquated merit, such as decorate, and may reproach, some other houses, but with real, solid, living patterns of true modern virtue. Paul Benfield made (reckoning himself) no fewer than eight members in the last parliament. What copious streams of pure blood must he not have transfused into the veins of the present ! But what is even more striking than the real services of this new-imported patriot,...
Page 165 - Of shame unconscious in his bold career, He spurns that honour which the weak revere. For, true to public virtue's patriot plan, He loves the minister, and not the man. Alike the advocate of North and wit, The friend of Shelburne, and the guide of Pitt." Nor did his political enemies satisfy themselves with inveighing against his tergiversation, and the interested versatility with which he supported three different administrations, in three successive years. They pursued him into private life, and...

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