An Essay on the History of the English Government and Constitution: From the Reign of Henry VII to the Present Time

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Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1821 - Constitutional history - 320 pages

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Page 99 - Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks : methinks I see her as an eagle, mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam...
Page 233 - All this is true if time stood still ; which contrariwise moveth so round, that a froward retention of custom is as turbulent a thing as an innovation ; and they that reverence too much old times are but a scorn to the new.
Page 87 - And whereas the Laws of England are the birthright of the people thereof, and all the Kings and Queens, who shall ascend the Throne of this realm, ought to administer the Government of the same according to the said laws, and all their officers and ministers ought to serve them respectively according to the same...
Page 51 - That the liberties, franchises, privileges and jurisdictions of Parliament are the ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of the subjects of England...
Page 292 - Ye cannot make us now less capable, less knowing, less eagerly pursuing of the truth, unless ye first make yourselves, that made us so, less the lovers, less the founders of our true liberty. We can grow ignorant again, brutish, formal, and slavish, as ye found us; but you then must first become that which ye cannot be, oppressive, arbitrary and tyrannous, as they were from whom ye have freed us.
Page 130 - Party is a body of men united, for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed.
Page 200 - As it is in the body, so it is in the mind ; practice makes it what it is : and most even of those excellences which are looked on as natural endowments, will be found, when examined into more narrowly, to be the product of exercise, and to be raised to that pitch only by repeated actions.
Page 292 - If it be desired to know the immediate cause of all this free writing and free speaking, there cannot be assigned a truer than your own mild and free and humane government. It is the liberty, Lords and Commons, which your...
Page 305 - Smith (?'), they be made good cheap in this kingdom ; for whosoever studieth the laws of the realm, who studieth in the universities, who professeth the liberal sciences, and, (to be short,) who can live idly, and without manual labour, and will bear the port, charge, and countenance of a gentleman, he shall be called master, and shall be taken for a gentleman.
Page 110 - Protestant Subjects dissenting from the Church of England from the Penalties of certain Laws...

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