Arthur Thomas Malkin

“ The volume of Greek art, compared with which that of Rome was but a debasing translation, has since that time been opened to the world; and, however we may continue to admire the industry by which Palladio obtained his then extended knowledge, the fancy and pictorial beauty which pervade many of his designs, and the worth of the architect himself as a man of genius, taste, and letters, it is yet our duty to direct the architectural student to look much farther than Vicenza for examples of pure design, and for principles of essential value. ”

“ Though austere in temper, Ximenes was not cruel, and in civil matters had great reluctance to the shedding of blood. Yet in eleven years, as Grand Inquisitor, he burnt at the stake 2500 persons, for the glory of God and the good of the sufferer’s souls. Such miserable self-delusion in so great and good a man ought to teach humility, as well as to inspire abhorrence. ”

“ Experience improved the Mexicans in the art of war. When the Spaniards, by the energy of their attack, had forced a way into the heart of the city, Guatimozin led them still onwards by a show of slackened resistance, while he detached troops, by land and water, to beset the breaches in the causeway by which it was necessary for the enemy to retire. At a given signal, the great drum of the god of war was struck, and the Mexicans returned to the attack, their hatred of the invaders stimulated by the ferocity of their superstition. ”

“ This was a flattering proposal to so young a man, and consonant to Jenner’s ruling tastes; nevertheless he declined it. It is fortunate for mankind that he chose the laborious seclusion of a country practice in preference to aiming at distinction and wealth; for in no other sphere could he have found opportunities of pursuing his discovery of vaccination through all the perplexities in which his early researches into that subject involved him. ”

“ Purity, which her sentiments and principles teach her to love; talents and accomplishments, which her energetic genius might easily have acquired; uncommon scenes, and incidents fitted for her extraordinary mind; and even beauty, which her fancy contemplates so constantly, that she can scarcely suppose it to be foreign to herself, and which, in the enthusiasm of invention, she bestows on this adorned as well as improved self,—these seem to be the materials out of which she has formed ‘Corinne,’ and the mode in which she reconciled it to her knowledge of her own character.... ”

“ His person was dignified and handsome, and he excelled in bodily accomplishments and martial exercises. He was very fond of paintings, and of music; and, in literature as in art, he possessed a cultivated and correct taste. He was one of those rare men who seem qualified to excel in all pursuits alike; and his talents were set off by an extraordinary laboriousness, and capacity of application. As a navigator, soldier, statesman, and historian, his name is intimately and honourably linked with one of the most brilliant periods of British history. ”

“ The compilers of memoirs have racked their brains for some plausible explanation of Elizabeth’s repugnance to matrimony. When overtures were first made to her she was young, and had a good person, which she spared no art in setting off to advantage: she was notoriously fond of admiration, and was no less jealous of the personal beauty of Mary, Queen of Scots, than of her competition as a rival sovereign, or as a claimant of the crown of England. Neither prudery nor coldness could be imputed to her. ”

“ The policy of our government was to make the sea the scene of our chief exertions, and our fleets were victorious in every quarter of the globe. By land the conduct of the war was most unsuccessful. We were indeed cautious of risking our own troops on the continent; but the national wealth was profusely spent in subsidizing other nations, in combining alliances against France, which one after another proved utterly unable to withstand the energy of the French government and the talent of the republican generals, and in trifling expeditions, injurious if they failed, and useless if successful. ”

“ So that in her was fulfilled this sentence of the Gospel, that the children of this world are often wiser in their views and designs than the children of light. Elizabeth’s aim was to reign, to govern, to be mistress, to keep her people in submission, neither affecting to weaken her subjects, nor to make conquests in foreign countries; but yet not suffering any person to encroach in the least upon the sovereign power, which she knew perfectly well how to maintain, both by policy and by force. For no person in her time had more wit, more skill, more judgment than she had. ”

“ Of the singular scene which our British Solomon devised it is not necessary to speak, since Raleigh was not an actor in it. But as no more evidence could be obtained against him even by the King’s sagacity, he was reprieved, and remanded to the Tower, where the next twelve years of his life were spent in confinement. Fortunately, he had never ceased to cultivate literature with a zeal not often found in the soldier and politician, and he now beguiled the tedium of his lot by an entire devotion to those studies which before had only served to diversify his more active and engrossing pursuits. ”

“ Smith was the creator of the science of political economy, for he had only a chaos of materials from which to form it. Some defects may be discovered in his arrangement, and some errors detected in the principles as laid down by him; for it is hardly given to human intellect, that the originator of a science should also carry it to perfection. But Smith established the foundation upon which all future superstructures must rest; and the labours of Ricardo, Malthus, and some now living, eminent as they are, instead of superseding their predecessor do but enhance his merit. ”

“ Half the painting of the chapel being completed, Bramante was desirous that Raphael, then rising into eminence, should finish the half remaining; expecting, no doubt, that the latter, being more exclusively a painter, would exhibit a superiority over one who had chiefly practised as a sculptor. At this, the indignation of Michael Angelo was naturally fired, and he arraigned at once, in the presence of the Pope, not only the architectural defects of Bramante’s buildings, but likewise the moral faults of his character. ”

“ Fearless, inflexible, morose, and imperious; he neither courted any one, nor yielded to any one, nor conciliated any one. Yet he was sensible of, and seemingly contrite for, his defects of temper; for he writes to Bucer: “I have not had harder contests with my vices, which are great and many, than with my impatience. I have not yet been able to subdue that savage brute.” His talents were extremely powerful, both for literature and for business. His profound and various learning acquired for him the general respect which it deserved. ”

“ Wesley had sailed to America in the society of some Moravian missionaries, whose exalted piety had wrought deeply on his feelings, and given them some influence over his conduct. On his return to England, while he was already impressed with some sense of his own unworthiness, he became closely connected with Peter Boehler, a man of talents and authority, and a Moravian. Through his instructions Wesley became thoroughly convinced of his own unbelief, and began to pray, with all the ardour of his enthusiastic soul, for an instantaneous conversion. ”

“ This is naturally to be accounted for in some degree by the greater docility of earlier youth; but as so much has been said of the inspiration which Raphael caught from Michael Angelo, in Florence from a sight of the Cartoons, and in Rome from that of the ceiling of the Capella Sistina, it is necessary to remember that a direct imitation of Michael Angelo is no where to be traced in Raphael, and that he seemed desirous rather of exhibiting his own feeling as distinct from that of the great Florentine master, than of aiming at that master’s style. ”

“ Another object was to allay party-violence by promoting literary taste; in Steele’s figurative language, to substitute the lute for the trumpet. On this subject Addison says, “I am amazed that the press should be only made use of in this way by news-writers, and the zealots of parties; as if it were not more advantageous to mankind to be instructed in wisdom and virtue than in politics, and to be made good fathers, husbands, and sons, than counsellors and statesmen.” ”

“ We have much abridged the preceding account, in order to make room for a popular exposition of his two great discoveries—the aberration of light, and the nutation of the earth’s axis. If we were to blot these discoveries out of his life, there would remain an ample stock of useful labours, fully sufficient to justify us in stating that Bradley was unequalled as an observer, and of no mean character as a philosopher. But for the latter we must refer the reader to the excellent account from which our facts have been taken, or to any history of astronomy. ”

“ The charge of personal depravity in so illustrious a sovereign deserves a fuller examination than is admissible within our limits. But it is in a great measure discredited by the circumstance that it originated with those Romish and political enemies, who perseveringly strove to destroy the queen, as the main prop of that fabric they were moving every engine to overthrow. Dr. Sanders and Cardinal Allen, the popes, the Spanish writers and their partisans, make statements, some of them manifestly untrue, others unsupported by respectable testimony. ”

“ It was not possible that the more intimate associates of Luther—the men who had struggled by his side, who were devoted to his person and his memory, who inherited his opinions and his principles, and who were animated by some portion of his zeal—should stand by in silence, and permit some of the dearest objects of their own struggles and the vigils of their master to be offered up to the foe by the irresolute hand of Melancthon. ”

“ CORTEZ. Perhaps no great revolution has ever been effected by means apparently so inadequate to the end proposed, as in the first establishment of the Spanish monarchy on the continent of America. The immense importance of that revolution, and its intimate connexion with the history of geographical discovery, warrant us in assigning a place in our Gallery to a representative of the rude and daring men by whom the mighty conquest was effected. ”

“ Knox’s moral character we may safely pronounce to have been unblemished, notwithstanding the outrageous charges of dissolute conversation which have been brought by some writers against him,—calumnies equally levelled against Beza, Calvin, and other fathers of the Reformation, and which bear their own refutation in their extravagance. As a preacher, he was energetic and effective, and uncommonly powerful in awakening the negligent or the hardened conscience. ”

“ The libels against Elizabeth’s good fame were put forth mostly by persons of that proscribed sect, who have represented her, not as indulging the frailties from which her most strenuous advocates cannot exonerate her, but as a monster of cruelty, avarice, and lust. It is but justice to place in contrast with so hateful a picture the noble character ascribed to her even by a Jesuit, in a book published in the Catholic metropolis of France. ”

“ PORSON. It is perhaps not easy to invest the memoirs of a verbal critic with the interest which attaches itself to the lives of men distinguished in other departments of literature and science: the classical scholar has little sympathy, in respect of his peculiar vocation, with the world around him, and the world for the most part repays his indifference with interest. Nevertheless, it is due to the great reputation of the subject of this memoir to relate the principal events of his life. ”

“ As a critic, Addison’s merit is impartially and ably set forth in the notes to his Life in Dr. Kippis’s edition of the ‘Biographia Britannica.’ On that subject Johnson is just and liberal. “Addison is now despised by some who perhaps would never have seen his defects, but by the lights which he afforded them.” By some of these arrogant despisers he has been blamed for deciding by taste rather than by principles. To this Dr. Warton, who thought him superior to Dryden as a critic, briefly answers, taste must decide. Addison’s style has been universally admired and thought a model. ”

“ But he comprehended not the character of the Roman Catholic priesthood, nor could he conceive the tenacity and the passion with which men, in other respects reasonable and respectable, will cling to the interests, the prejudices, the abuses, the very vices, which are associated with their profession. It was an easy matter to him to confound the superstitious rites and tenets of Rome by his profound learning and eloquent arguments; but it was another and a far different task to deal with the offended feelings of an implacable hierarchy. ”

“ His freedom of speech in the pulpit was another constant source of offence; and it is not to be denied that, although the feelings of that age warranted a greater latitude than would now be tolerated in a teacher of religion, his energetic and severe temper led him to use violent and indiscreet language in speaking of public men and public things. For Mary herself he prayed in terms which, however fitting for a minister to employ towards one of his flock whom he regarded to be in deadly and pernicious error, a queen could hardly be expected to endure from a subject without anger. ”