The Quarterly Review, Volume 99

Front Cover
John Murray, 1856 - English literature

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 422 - It was at Rome, on the 15th of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter,* that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.
Page 127 - Not that I speak in respect of want ; for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound : everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
Page 310 - He said it that knew it best ; and had by nature himself no advantage in that he commended. A strange thing, that that part of an orator, which is but superficial, and rather the virtue \ of a player, should be placed so high above those other noble parts of invention, elocution, and the rest : nay almost alone, as if it were all in all. But the reason is plain. There is in human nature, generally, more of the fool than of the wise ; and therefore those faculties by which the foolish part of mens...
Page 506 - For neither man nor angel can discern Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks Invisible, except to God alone, By his permissive will, through heaven and earth : And oft, though Wisdom wake, Suspicion sleeps At Wisdom's gate, and to Simplicity Resigns her charge, while Goodness thinks no ill Where no ill seems...
Page 296 - May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? 20. For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean. 21. (For all the Athenians, and strangers which were there, spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.) 22.
Page 301 - Certainly the ablest men that ever were, have had all an openness and frankness of dealing, and a name of certainty and veracity: but then they were like horses well managed, for they could tell passing well when to stop or turn; and at such times when they thought the case indeed required...
Page 291 - ... that giants, magicians, fairies, and heroes of romance which succeeded, had exhausted the portion of credulity which belonged to their age ; that now nothing was left to a writer but that species of the marvellous, which might still be produced, and with as great an effect as ever, though in another way ; that is, the marvellous in life, in manners, in characters, .and in extraordinary situations...
Page 127 - You know what my manner of life hath been. Oh, I lived in and loved darkness, and hated light; I was a chief, the chief of sinners. This is true : I hated godliness, yet God had mercy on me.
Page 317 - Give heed to one that hath sorrowed in the bright lustre of a court and gone heavily over the best seeming fair ground.
Page 152 - We had sheathed our swords in each other's bowels,' says an eyewitness, ' had not the sagacity and great calmness of Mr. Hampden, by a short speech, prevented it.

Bibliographic information