The History of England, from the Invasion of Julius Cæsar to the Revolution in 1688. In Eight Volumes, Volume 1

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J. M'Creery, 1807 - Great Britain

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Page x - I was ever more disposed to see the favourable than unfavourable side of things; a turn of mind which it is more happy to possess, than to be born to an estate of ten thousand a year. In 1751, I removed from the country to the town, the true scene for a man of letters.
Page 126 - ... the industrious policy of Edgar. He took great pains in hunting and pursuing those ravenous animals ; and when he found that all that escaped him had taken shelter in the mountains and forests of Wales, he changed the tribute of money imposed on the Welsh princes by Athelstan, his predecessor", into an annual tribute of three hundred heads of wolves ; which produced such diligence in hunting them, that the animal has been no more seen in this island.
Page ix - Understanding, which was published while I was at Turin. But this piece was at first little more successful than the Treatise of Human Nature. On my return from Italy, I had the mortification to find all England in a ferment, on account of Dr. Middleton's Free Inquiry, while my performance was entirely overlooked and neglected.
Page x - Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals; which, in my own opinion (who ought not to judge on that subject), is of all my writings, historical, philosophical, or literary, incomparably the best. It came unnoticed and unobserved into the world.
Page 295 - ... harangues of the pope, and of Peter himself, representing the dismal situation of their brethren in the East, and the indignity suffered by the Christian name, in allowing the holy city to remain in the hands of infidels, here found the minds of men so well prepared, that the whole multitude, suddenly and violently, declared for the war, and solemnly devoted themselves to perform this service, so meritorious, as they believed it, to God and religion.
Page vii - I went over to France, with a view of prosecuting my studies in a country retreat ; and I there laid that plan of life, which I have steadily and successfully pursued. I resolved to make a very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of fortune, to maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every object as contemptible, except the improvement of my talents in literature.
Page xvi - My company was not unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the studious and literary; and as I took a particular pleasure in the company of modest women, I had no reason to be displeased with the reception 1 met with from them.
Page xix - Colonel Edmondstoune soon afterwards came to see him, and take leave of him; and on his way home, he could not forbear writing him a letter, bidding him once more an eternal adieu, and applying to him, as to a dying man, the beautiful French verses in which the Abbe" Chaulieu, in expectation of his own death, laments his approaching separation from his friend, the Marquis de la Fare.
Page 92 - ... was appointed to preside. Every man was punished as an outlaw who did not register himself in some tithing. And no man could change his habitation, without a warrant or certificate from the borsholder of the tithing to which he formerly belonged...
Page 307 - He seems to have been a violent and tyrannical prince ; a perfidious, encroaching, and dangerous neighbor ; an unkind and ungenerous relation. He was equally prodigal and rapacious in the management of his treasury ; and, if he possessed abilities, he lay so much under the government of impetuous passions, that he made little use of them in his administration...

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