NEW AND POPULAR HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.

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Page 26 - Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and from my friends, be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins...
Page 18 - Wallace's undaunted heart ; Who dar'd to, nobly, stem tyrannic pride, Or nobly die, the second glorious part, (The patriot's God, peculiarly thou art, His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward !) O never, never, Scotia's realm desert, But still the patriot, and the patriot -bard, In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard ! MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN.
Page 17 - Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! And oh ! may Heaven their simple lives prevent From luxury's contagion, weak and vile ! Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved Isle. O Thou! who pour'd the patriotic tide That stream'd thro...
Page 118 - In what constitutes the real happiness of human life, they are in no respect inferior to those who would seem so much above them. In ease of body and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.
Page 119 - Parliament] as witnesses to the validity of the deed, when they are pleased to contract more ! Good God ! What ? Is this an entire surrender ? My Lord, I find my heart so full of grief and indignation, that I must beg pardon not to finish the last part of my discourse ; but pause that I may drop a tear as the prelude to so sad a story ! This fervent appeal had no effect.
Page 68 - I see you entertain a great doubt with regard to the authenticity of the poems of Ossian. You are certainly right in so doing. It is indeed strange that any men of sense could have imagined it possible, that above twenty thousand verses, along with numberless historical facts, could have been preserved by oral tradition during fifty generations, by the rudest perhaps of all the European nations, the most necessitous, the most turbulent, and the most unsettled.
Page 24 - Their blood is shed In confirmation of the noblest claim, Our claim to feed upon immortal truth, To walk with God, to be divinely free, To soar, and to anticipate the skies.
Page 118 - When Providence divided the earth among a few lordly masters, it neither forgot nor abandoned those who seemed to have been left out in the partition. These last, too, enjoy their share of all that it produces. In what constitutes the real happiness of human life, they are in no respect inferior to those who would seem so much above them.
Page 62 - ... filled, out of a leet or body of six, selected by the Kirk. Various caveats, or conditions, were added, to secure the Kirk against any abuse of their powers by these new dignitaries. They were to propound nothing in Parliament, in name of the Kirk, without its special warrant and direction. They were, at every General Assembly, to give an account of the manner in which they had executed their commission ; they were to be contented with such part of their benefices as the King had assigned for...
Page 61 - Scottish chronicles of Holinshed, adorned it with a lustre similar to that with which a level beam of the sun often invests some fragment of glass, which, though shining at a distance with the lustre of a diamond, is by a near investigation discovered to be of no worth or estimation.

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