On Taste: On the Sublime and Beautiful; Reflections on the French Revolution

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P. F. Collier & son, 1909 - 443 pages

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Page 224 - 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.
Page 315 - He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. This amicable conflict with difficulty obliges us to an intimate acquaintance with our object, and compels us to consider it in all its relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial.
Page 181 - You will observe, that from magna charta to the declaration of right, it has been the uniform policy of our constitution to claim and assert our liberties, as an entailed inheritance derived to us from our forefathers, and to be transmitted to our posterity ; as an estate specially belonging to the people of this kingdom, without any reference whatever to any other more general or prior right.
Page 55 - Their dread commander : he, above the rest In shape and gesture proudly eminent, Stood like a tower : his form had yet not lost All her original brightness ; nor appeared Less than arch-angel ruined, and the excess Of glory obscured...
Page 156 - Circumstances (which with some gentlemen pass for nothing) give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.
Page 170 - A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
Page 176 - An Act for the further Limitation of the Crown, and better securing the Rights and Liberties of the Subject...
Page 56 - In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men, Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up: It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice...
Page 175 - That King James the Second, having endeavoured to subvert the constitution of the kingdom, by breaking the original contract between king and people...
Page 55 - Less than archangel ruined, and the excess Of glory obscured ; as when the sun, new risen, Looks through the horizontal misty air Shorn of his beams, or from behind the moon, In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs.

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