Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons: Chiefly of the Present and Two Preceding Centuries ...

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T. Cadell Jun. and W. Davies, 1798 - Anecdotes

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Page 473 - His talents of every kind, powerful from nature, and not meanly cultivated by letters, his social virtues in all the relations, and all the habitudes of life, rendered him the centre of a very great and unparalleled variety of agreeable societies, which will be dissipated by his death. He had too much merit not to excite some jealousy, too much innocence to provoke any enmity. The loss of no man of his time can be felt with more sincere, general, and unmixed sorrow.
Page 321 - When I wrote my treatise about our system, I had an eye upon such principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity; and nothing can rejoice me more than to find it useful for that purpose.
Page 68 - Turks' man-of-war tacked about, and we continued our course. But when your father saw it convenient to retreat, looking upon me, he blessed himself, and snatched me up in his arms, saying, ' Good God, that love can make this change !' and though he seemingly chid me, he would laugh at it as often as he remembered that voyage.
Page 476 - I HAVE regularly and attentively read these Holy Scriptures ; and am of opinion, that this volume, independently of its divine origin, contains more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, more pure morality, more important history, and finer strains both of poetry and eloquence, than can be collected from all other books, in whatever age or language they may have been composed.
Page 471 - His illness was long, but borne with a mild and cheerful fortitude, without the least mixture of any thing irritable or querulous ; agreeably to the placid and even tenour of his whole life. He had, from the beginning of his malady, a distinct view of his dissolution ; and he contemplated it with that entire composure, which nothing but the innocence, integrity, and usefulness of his life, and an unaffected submission to the will of Providence, could bestow.
Page 96 - A fiery soul, which, working out its way, Fretted the pigmy body to decay, And o'er-informed the tenement of clay...
Page 137 - It is indeed a thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so many postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by several eyes and judgments, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain notion thereof than to make a portrait of Proteus, or to define the figure of the fleeting air.
Page 64 - King in order to his affairs ; saying, if I would ask my husband privately, he would tell me what he found in the packet, and I might tell her. I that was young and innocent, and to that day had never in my mouth what news...
Page 2 - I am weary of travelling, I am resolved to go abroad no more : but when I am dead and gone, I know not what my brother will do. I am much afraid, that when he comes to the crown, he will be obliged to travel again.
Page 322 - You sometimes speak of gravity as essential and inherent to matter. Pray do not ascribe that notion to me, for the cause of gravity is what I do not pretend to know and therefore would take more time to consider of it.

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