Various

“ I pity the Allies, who have relied upon the aid and friendship of the British nation, perceiving that what they had done at so great an expense of blood and treasure is of no effect, as they will be exposed to the revenge of that power against whom they have been so active. I pity the Queen, her royal successors, and the present and future generations of Britain, when they shall find the nation deeply involved in debt, and that the common enemy who occasioned it, though once near being sufficiently humbled, does still triumph, and design their ruin ”

“ What! shall not a single hare, or pheasant, or partridge, or plover, or even a solitary grouse, be spared from the swoop of this destroying kite? Not one. Richard Griffiths Welford, Esquire, Barrister-at-law, has undertaken to rouse the nation from its deadly trance. Yet a few years, and no more shall the crow of the gorcock be heard on the purple heath, or the belling of the deer in the forest, or the call of the landrail in the field. No longer shall we watch at evening the roe gliding from the thicket, or the hare dancing across the lawn. ”

“ But let us believe, for an instant, that one prisoner has resisted the ill effects of wicked association—let us suppose him to have escaped the contamination of a jail, to have received no moral hurt from bad example, to be untainted by the corrupting atmosphere of congregated vice—in short, to return into the world at the end of his imprisonment a better man than he was at its commencement. Let us suppose all this, although the supposition, it must be confessed, is unsupported by experience, and directly in the teeth of probability. ”

“ What advantages does the husband of the girl of fourteen, of the heir-presumptive to the Spanish crown, bring to Spain, in exchange for the rich dowery of his child-bride—for the chance, not to say the probability, of being a queen's husband—and for an immense accession of influence to his dynasty in the country where that dynasty most covets it? The advantages are all of a negative kind. By that marriage, Spain, delivered over to French intrigues, exposed to the machinations and vampire-like endearments of an ancient and hereditary foe, becomes de facto a vassal to her puissant neighbour. ”

“ That instant the national air changes to a rapid waltz, and in the twinkling of an eye, the whole of that spacious floor is covered thick with the whirling multitude. The sober Mr Bloomfield, to whom such a scene is quite a novelty, grows giddy with the mere view of it. He looks with all his might, but he ought to have a hundred pairs of eyes to watch the mazes of this dance. One couple after another appear and vanish as if by enchantment. He sees a bewitching face—he strives to follow it—impossible!—in a minute fifty substitutes are presented to him—it is lost in a living whirlpool of faces. ”

“ Nothing could be more quiet—to look at the exterior—than the house she called her home. It stood at the extremity of the town, protected from the road by its own neat inclosure of turf and gravel-walk—surely as remote from every species of disturbance or excitement as the most devoted student could desire. We question even whether a barrel-organ or a hurdy-gurdy was ever known to commit an outrage upon its tranquillity; and for its interior, were not Mr and Miss Bloomfield (they were brother and sister, uncle and aunt of Mildred) the most staid, orderly, methodical persons in the world? ”

“ In the ears of niece and uncle resounded, by anticipation, the joyous chimes that should usher in the Montpensier marriage, proclaim their triumph, drown the cries of rage of the Spanish nation, and the indignant murmurs of Europe;—not that the goal was so near, the prize so certain and easy of attainment. Much yet remained to do; a false step might be ruinous—over-precipitation ensure defeat. The King of the French was not the man to make the one, or be guilty of the other. ”

“ Lord Metcalfe followed the dictates of his natural benevolence, no less than those of his excellent judgment, in applying to those purposes, and in this manner, his great knowledge and experience of mankind. Burke, who has been most truly called "the greatest philosopher in practice whom the world ever saw," has said, "that in the world we live in, distrust is but too necessary; some of old called it the very sinews of discretion. But what signify common-places, that always run parallel and equal? Distrust is good, or it is bad, according to our position and our purpose." ”

“ Your lean Cassius, on the contrary, has all the pugnacity of a terrier. He yelps at every body and every thing, is at perpetual warfare with the whole of animated nature, and will not be quieted even by dint of much kicking. The only chance you have of relieving yourself from his everlasting yammering and impertinence, is to throw him an unpicked bone, wherewith he will retreat in double-quick time to the kennel. And of a truth the number of excellent bones which are sacrificed to the terriers of this world, is absolutely amazing. ”

“ You are not blamed, nor are you blamable, for reserving the right of sporting in your own properties to yourselves; but why make your game such utterly sacred animals? Why encourage their over-increase to such a degree as must naturally injure yourselves by curtailing your rent; and which, undoubtedly, whatever be his bargain, must irritate the farmer, and lessen that harmony and good-will which ought to exist betwixt you both? Is it for sport you do these things? If so, your definition of sport must be naturally different from ours. ”

“ The Infanta's husband is a youth of good capacity, possessing a liberal share of that mixture of sense, judgment, and wit, defined in his native tongue by the one expressive word esprit. His manners are pleasant and affable; he is a man with whom his inferiors in rank can converse, argue, even dispute—not a stilted Spanish Bourbon, puffed up with imaginary merit, inflated with etiquette, and looking down, from the height of his splendid insignificance and inane pride, upon better men then himself. He is one, in short, who rapidly makes friends and partisans. ”

“ Novelty is my original passion—the spring of all my virtues and vices—the stimulant of all my desires, disasters, and distinctions. In short, I determined to see the Thames.
Rose at daybreak—the sky blue, the wind fragrant, Putney throwing up its first faint smokes; the villa all asleep. Leaving a billet for Sir Charles, I ordered my cab, and set off for the Thames. "How little," says Jonathan Swift, "does one-half of the world know what the other is doing." ”

“ French hotels and restaurants replace taverns and chop-houses. French names are seen above shops; promises of French, German, and Spanish conversation, are read in the windows; and grimy-visaged, hirsute individuals, in plaited pantaloons and garments of eccentric cut, saunter, cigar in mouth, over the shabby pavement. It is curious to remark the different tone and station taken by English in Paris and French in London. In the former capital, nothing is too good for the intruding islanders. ”

“ You plough, and sow, and watch the growing crops with anxiety and hope; you rise early, and eat the bread of carefulness; rent-day comes twice a-year with its inexorable demand; and yet you are doomed too frequently to see the fertility which Providence bestows and your industry would secure, blighted and destroyed by creatures which would be deemed vermin, but for the sanction which the law and your customs give to their preservation, and which exist for no advantage to you, and for no good to the public, but solely to afford a few day's amusement in the year to the proprietors of the soil. ”

“ The large, squat, sleek hares lie couched in every furrow; each thistle-tuft has its lurking rabbit; and ceaseless at evening is the crow of the purple-necked pheasant from the gorse. The crops ripen, and are gathered in, not so plentifully as the richness of the land would warrant, but still strong and heavy. The partridges are now seen running in the stubble-fields, or sunning themselves on some pleasant bank, so secure that they hardly will take the trouble to fly away as you approach, but generally slip through a hedge, and lie down upon the other side. ”

“ And when, to such flimsy Will-o'-the-wisp considerations as the esteem and love of a nation, are opposed rank, money, and decorations, a palace to live in, sumptuous fare, and a well-filled purse, and perhaps, ere long, a wealthy bride, who would hesitate? If any would, seek them not amongst the Bourbons. Loath indeed should we be to pledge ourselves for the consistency and patriotism of a man whose uncle and grandfather betrayed their country to a foreign usurper. ”

“ How vexatious is it that we cannot see the past, that we cannot fly back from the bustle of this blacksmith world, from the jargon of public life, and the tameness of private toil; into those majestic ages, when the world was as magnificent as a theatre; when nations were swallowed up in the shifting of a scene; when all were fifth acts, and when every catastrophe broke down an empire!
But, what sounds are these? The steamer had shot along during my reverie, and was now passing a long line of low-built strong vessels, moored in the centre of the river. ”

“ We will venture to assert that there is not a monkey now caged up in the zoological gardens, who would not—if permitted by the honourable Society—return to his native woods a better and a wiser beast for the one long journey he has made. Should Mr Kohl, we ask, behave worse than an imprisoned monkey? We pardon M. Michelet when he rants about la belle France, because we know that the excited gentleman—eloquent and scholarly as he is—is reposing eternally in Paris, under the drapeau, which fans nothing but glory into his smiling and complacent visage. ”

“ To be in the same room with a living king and queen—it is an opportunity by no means to be lost."
"And then," said Miss Bloomfield, "it is an act of charity."
This species of charity is very prevalent at Brussels. You dance there out of pure commiseration. It is an excellent invention, this gay benevolence. You give, and you make no sacrifice; you buy balls and concerts with the money you drop into the beggar's hat; charity is all sweetness. Poverty itself wears quite a festive air; the poor are the farmers-general of our pleasures; it is they who give the ball. Long live the dance! ”

“ The Queen-mother well knew that the mass of the nation would be opposed to their realisation; but she reckoned on means sufficiently powerful to render indignation impotent, and frustrate revolt. She trusted to the adherence of an army, purposely caressed, pampered, and corrupted; she felt strong in the support of a monarch, whose interest in the affair was at least equal to her own; she observed with satisfaction the indifferent attitude assumed by the British government with respect to Spanish affairs. ”

“ He kept his mind always so well regulated, and its powers so entirely under his control—he preserved his temper so calm and unruffled—he resisted so successfully the approach of prejudice, that he was enabled to penetrate into the recesses of human conduct and motives, and to acquire the most intimate knowledge and the most practical experience of mankind.
The acquisition of that experience is calculated to impress the statesman with an unfavourable opinion of his species, and to excite too general a feeling of distrust. ”

“ There were a greater number of fat and elderly gentlemen than Mildred would have expected, taking part in the dance, or circulating about the room with all or more than the vivacity of youth. How happy!—how supremely blest!—seems that rotund and bald-headed sire, who, standing on the edge of the dais, now forsaken by their Majesties, surveys the whole assembly, and invites the whole assembly to return the compliment. How beautifully the bland sympathy he feels for others mingles with and swells his sense of self-importance! ”