A Century of Anecdote from 1760-1860, Volume 1

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R. Bentley, 1864 - Anecdotes

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Page 28 - We set out from the Opera, changed our clothes at Northumberland House, the Duke of York, Lady Northumberland, Lady Mary Coke, Lord Hertford, and I, all in one hackney coach, and drove to the spot ; it rained torrents ; yet the lane was full of mob, and the house so full we could not get in — at last they discovered it was the Duke of York, and the company squeezed themselves into one another's pockets to make room for us.
Page 160 - I am amazed at his grace's speech. The noble duke cannot look before him, behind him, or on either side of him, without seeing some noble peer who owes his seat in this house to his successful exertions in the profession to which I belong.
Page 165 - I scarcely ever met with a better companion ; he has inexhaustible spirits, infinite wit and humour, and a great deal of knowledge ; but a thorough profligate in principle as in practice, his life stained with every vice, and his conversation full of blasphemy and indecency. These morals he glories in — for shame is a weakness he has long since surmounted. He told us himself, that in this time of public dissension he was resolved to make his fortune.
Page 293 - ... additional value to every talent and acquirement. They will remember, too, that he whose name they hold in reverence was not less distinguished by the inflexible uprightness of his political conduct than by his loving disposition and his winning manners. They will remember that, in the last lines which he traced, he expressed his joy that he had done nothing unworthy of the friend of Fox and Grey ; and they will have reason to feel similar joy if, in looking back on many troubled years, they...
Page 144 - Religion, language, interest, affections may, and I hope will, yet prove a bond of permanent union between the= two countries.
Page 47 - Others appeared struck by the unwonted association of brilliant images ; but every possible combination of ideas seemed always present to his mind, and he could at once produce whatever he desired. I was one of those who met to spend an evening in memory of Shakspeare at the Boar's Head, Eastcheap. Many professed wits were present, but Pitt was the most amusing of the party, and the readiest and most apt in the required allusions.
Page 292 - With peculiar fondness they will recall that venerable chamber in which all the antique gravity of a college library was so singularly blended with all that female grace and wit could devise to embellish a drawing-room. They will recollect, not unmoved, those shelves loaded with the varied learning of many lands and many ages, and those portraits in which were preserved the features of the best and wisest Englishmen of two generations.
Page 293 - The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus : Let no such man be trusted.
Page 28 - ... the company squeezed themselves into one another's pockets to make room for us. The house, which is borrowed, and to which the ghost has adjourned, is wretchedly small and miserable; when we opened the chamber, in which were fifty people, with no light but one...
Page 253 - Those colonists who professed to be attached to Great Britain were treated with favour, while those who preferred a republic to a monarchy were obliged to conceal their opinions, or they were promptly treated as guilty of sedition. There never was a period in the history of the country when there was less freedom of speech than at this time.

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