Essays on his own times, forming a 2nd series of The Friend, ed. by his daughter [S. Coleridge]. |
Common terms and phrases
acres additional admit agriculturist alarm ambition annum appear argument army Arthur Young Austria believe Bonaparte Britain bushels Buttermere Cæsar cause character Chief Consul circumstances consequence consider constitution constitution of France corn despotism effect election empire enemy England equally error Europe evil exist faction facts farmer favour fear feelings France freedom French French revolution friends high price honourable hope human important influence interest Jacobinism Julius Cæsar Keswick King labourers less letter liberty means measures ment military mind ministers ministry Minorca monarchy moral nation nature never object occasioned opinion opposition paper Parliament party peace perhaps Pitt political popular possess present price of provisions Prince of Orange principles produce quantity question reason render Republic restoration revolution Roman Rome S. T. COLERidge scarcely scarcity soldiers Spain Spaniards Spanish spirit suppose Suwarrow Tiberius tion tism truth universal suffrage wheat whole wish words
Popular passages
Page 366 - His Majesty makes no claim to prescribe to France what shall be the form of her government, or in whose hands she shall vest the authority necessary for conducting the affairs of a great and powerful nation.
Page 643 - If I, though fated to the studious shade Which party-strife, nor anxious power invade, If I aspire in public virtue's cause, To guide the Muses by sublimer laws, Do thou her own authority impart, And give my numbers entrance to the heart. Perhaps the verse might rouse her...
Page 528 - ... be generally known : he could not answer for the peace either of the nation or of the army, if any delay was put to the sending for the King : what need was there of sending propositions to him ? Might they not as well prepare them, and offer them to him when he should come over ? He was to bring neither army nor treasure with him, either to fright or to corrupt them.
Page 328 - ... no science, he has raised no man of genius from obscurity, he counts no one prime work of God among his friends. From the same source, he has no attachment to female society, no fondness for children, no perceptions of beauty in natural scenery; but he is fond of convivial indulgences, of that stimulation, which, keeping up the glow of self-importance, and the sense of internal power, gives feelings without the mediation of ideas.
Page 324 - ... these, necessarily render the heights of office barren heights, which command indeed a vast and extensive prospect, but attract so many clouds and vapours, that, most often, all prospect is precluded. Still, however, Mr. Pitt's situation, however inauspicious for his real being, was favourable to his fame!* He heaped period on period ; persuaded himself and the nation, that extemporaneous arrangement of sentences was eloquence ; and that eloquence implied wisdom.
Page 645 - The abandonment of all principle of right enables the soul to choose and act upon a principle of wrong, and to subordinate to this one principle all the various vices of human nature. For it is a mournful truth, that as devastation is incomparably an easier work than production, so may all its means and instruments be more easily arranged into a scheme and system...
Page 321 - His after-disr cipline in the special pleader's office, and at the bar, carried on the scheme of his education with unbroken uniformity. His first political connections were with the Reformers, but those who accuse him of sympathising or coalescing with their intemperate or visionary plans, misunderstand his character, and are ignorant of the historical facts. Imaginary situations in an imaginary state of things rise up in minds that possess a power and facility in combining images. — Mr. Pitt's...
Page 329 - ... subject of a philosophical history, and that too of no scanty size. We can scarcely furnish the chapter of contents to a work, which would comprise subjects so important and delicate, as the causes of the diffusion and intensity of secret influence; the machinery and state intrigue of marriages; the overbalance of the commercial interest; the panic of property struck by the late revolution; the short-sightedness of the...
Page 325 - And now came the French Revolution. This was a new event: the old routine of reasoning, the common trade of politics, were to become obsolete. He appeared wholly unprepared for it: half favouring, half condemning, ignorant of what he favoured, and why he condemned, he neither displayed the honest enthusiasm and fixed principle of Mr. Fox, nor the intimate acquaintance with the general nature of man, and the consequent prescience of Mr. Burke.
Page 322 - ... a young man whose feet had never wandered, whose very eye had never turned to the right or to the left, whose whole track had been as curveless as the motion of a fascinated reptile! It was a young man whose heart was solitary, because he had existed always amid objects of futurity, and whose imagination too was unpopulous, because those objects of hope to which his habitual wishes had transferred, and as it were projected, his existence, were all familiar and long-established objects!