Various

“ You have been ill-treated, I own, but there is no use in kicking at power, unless you can kick it before you. The machinery of government is too huge for any one of us to resist, and unless we run along with it, our only wisdom is, to get out of its way. But you shall have a commission, ay, even if it cost a thousand guineas. Never refuse; I am not in the habit of throwing away my money; but you saved Mariamne's life, and I would not have lost my child for all the bullion in the Bank of England, or on the globe. ”

“ The Tiger himself was a well-disposed animal; somewhat given to solitary prowling, like his namesakes in a state of nature, but of most untiger-like and facetious humour. He generally marched into Glyndewi after an early breakfast, and from that time until he returned to his "mutton" at five, might be seen majestically stalking up and down the extreme edge of the terrace, looking at the fishing-boats, and shaking—not his tail, for, as all stout gentlemen seem to think it their duty to do by the sea-side, he wore a round jacket. ”

“ The object of the painter is doubtless a good one; it is to avert that morbid sympathy which has been so conspicuously and mischievously felt and affected for the worst, the most wicked of mankind. But to do this is the province of the press, not the pencil. It is a mistake of the whole purpose of art. It will not deter murderers, who look not at pictures; and if they were to look at these, would not be converted by any thing the pictures have to show—nor will it keep back one fool, madman, or sentimental hypocrite from making a disgraceful exhibition. ”

“ Harkye, stranger, when men have been slaving and sweating for four or five months to build houses for their wives and for the poor worms of children, and then a parcel of devils from hell come and burn them down like maize-stalks in a stubble-field, it is no wonder that their teeth should grind together, and their fists clench of themselves. So it was with us; but we said nothing, for our rage would not let us speak. But presently as we strained our eyes through the loopholes, the Spaniards showed themselves at the opening of the forest yonder, coming towards the blockhouse. ”

“ Now, what, after all, is the impression on the mind of the spectator? for it is not enough to paint plague or madness: unless our human sympathy be touched, we turn away in disgust. Yet upon this picture we look with pleasure. Many whom we have heard say they could not bear to look at it, we found again and again standing before it: some we questioned; and at last they acknowledged pleasure. So are we moved at tragedy: human sympathies are moved—the great natural source of all our pleasures: pity and tenderness, and a sense of the awfulness of a great mystery, are upon us ”

“ We feel the good flowing in upon us; and were not the busy scene of the multitudes in an exhibition, and the general glare, distracting, and discordant to the feeling such a picture is calculated to convey, we could enter calmly and deeply into its enjoyment. We have given, at much length, a description of the picture, because we think it a work of more importance than any that has, we would say ever, been exhibited upon the Academy walls—one of more decided commanding genius. There are faults in it doubtless, some of drawing, but not of much importance. ”

“ It was Maïna, the betrothed of Frederick. On the left of the burgomaster, negligently leaning on the back of the magistrate's chair, was a man still young in years, but so wrinkled and careworn, from study or bad health, that he might have passed for old. The man's expression was cold and severe; his look proud and fiery; his language rough and harsh. On analysing his features you could easily make out that he had prodigious powers of mind, a character imperious and jealous, and such indomitable pride that he might do a mischief to any rival who might be bold enough to cross his path. ”

“ Vast and overwhelming, however, as the ills which follow in the train of over producing power, in the world material and manufacturing, they sink into utter insignificance—for magnitude, they are as Highgate Hill to sky-enveloped Chimborazo of eternal snow—in comparison with that crowding crush, that prodigious overflow, of charlatanic genius, in the world physical and spiritual, which blocks up every highway and byway, swarms in every circle, roars in every market-place, or thunders in each senate of the realm. ”

“ A general sigh seemed to break from every heart, and Mariamne hung on the hand of the duchess, and grew pale. There was a silence for a while; at length she resumed—"We must not return to our own country, at least until this horrid struggle is at an end; for we should only embarrass those who have sent us to the protection of this generous land, and for whose sake we live. Yet, we only do honour to them by avoiding to eat the bread of dependence, while we can labour for ourselves." ”

“ Is it open, then, to any of us, or all of us, to call a meeting for rescinding the Act of Settlement? But all will now advance to a rapid consummation; Mr O'Connell pursues only his old movement—then he is lost by the decay of the enthusiasm. He adopts a new one—that which he has obscurely announced. Then we are as sure as we are of day and night, of his treason, as of British power to crush it, that the suspended thunderbolt, now raised aloft by the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, will put an end to him for ever. ”

“ The attitude is of one with a fixed purpose, one under an imaginary divine commission; it is of entire faith and firmness; and never was such insanity more finely conceived in a countenance. The man is all crazed, and grand, awfully grand, in his craziness. He throws around him an infection of craziness, as does the atmosphere of plague. There is a peculiar look in the eye, which shows the most consummate skill of the painter. The finger starts up as with an electric power, as if it could draw down the vengeance which it communicates. ”

“ You hear what I say, gentlemen?" he added, turning to the rivals.
"I shall certainly not miss the appointment," said Castero, throwing back his head proudly. "If to-morrow is not as glorious to me as to-day has been, I will break my violin, and never touch a bow again as long as I live."
"As for me," said Frederick, "if I do not make up for the check I unluckily met to-day by a glorious victory, I swear I will renounce the flattering name my countrymen have given me, and will hide my shame in some foreign land. The Orpheus of his country must have no rival of his fame." ”

“ Reluctantly we tear ourselves from a task which has indeed been a labour of love. Many poets may inspire as high an admiration as Schiller; few so tender a personal affection. Even in his doubts and his errors, we have that interest in his struggles which arises from the conviction of his sound heart and his manly nature. Wrestling at one time with bitter poverty, at one with unhappy passion—lonely in his habits, prematurely broken in his health, his later wisdom dispelling his early dreams of Utopian liberty—still, throughout all, his bravery never fails him, his gentleness is never soured ”

“ There is, therefore, in Mr Poole's picture more to excite our wonder and pity than disgust; nay, there is even room for the exhibition of tender, sensitive, apprehensive, scarcely suffering beauty, and set off by contrasts not too strong; so that nothing impedes the mind in, or draws it off from, the contemplation of the madman—here more than madman, the maniac made inspired by the belief of the spectator in denunciations which appear verifying themselves visibly before him. ”

“ Whilst drenching the body politic with Reform purge, or, with slashing tomahawk, inflicting Repeal gashes, they bid the prostrate and panting state subject rejoice over the wondrous dispatch with which its parts can be dismembered, the arithmetical accuracy with which its financial plethora can be depleted. Eccentric in its motions and universal in its aspirations, for the genius of this age no conception is too mean, no subject too intricate, no enterprise too rash, no object too sacred. ”

“ Here, certainly, can best be seen that peculiar union of intellect and imagination which Mr Carlyle has so well distinguished as Schiller's characteristic attribute, and in which it would be difficult to name the modern poet by whom he is surpassed; and here the variety of the genius is least restrained and limited by the earnestness of the mind. For Schiller's variety is not that of Shakspeare, a creative and universal spirit, passing with the breath of life into characters the most diverse, and unidentified with the creations its invisible agency invokes. ”

“ O God!" cried Rachel, "the hellhounds have murdered my Asa!"
She clasped her husband's body in her arms, and there was no getting her away. I felt sad enough myself, but there was scanty time for grieving; for a party of Spaniards, headed by one of the Acadians, was close up to the mound on the side which I was defending. I shot the Acadian; but another, the sixth, and last but one, took his place. "Rachel!" cried I, "the rifle, for God's sake, the rifle! a single bullet may save all our lives." ”

“ In the first place, they make, by their position and ease, the awful overwhelming sea safe. It is, as Longinus remarks, the plank that takes away the danger and the poetry; and such an assemblage of courtiers put the times of Canute quite out of our heads—a collection from a book of fashions—Ladies' Magazines—in their velvet gauze and tiffany, in colours that put the sun to shame, and make him blush less red; and the little, minute work about the pebbly shore creates a weariness, for they tempt us to count the sands. ”

“ Recollect the words you used a minute or two ago, 'Glory is dearer to me than life—than love—than eternal salvation!' That is quite enough for me; and we must understand each other. Adieu. Your favourite instrument is again whole and entire, and sweeter toned than ever. You will find it on the table in your room. Castero, your rival, will be vanquished in this second trial, and Maïna will be yours—for you are the protégé of a greater than the Stadtholder. ”

“ I had led her a circuit through the Downs, in the hope of reviving her by the fresh air before we reached the villa; and we were moving slowly along over the velvet turf, and enjoying that most animating of all the breaths of sky or earth—the sea-breeze; when Mariamne's steed—one of the most highly manèged, and most beautiful of animals, began to show signs of restlessness, pricked up his ears, stopped suddenly, and began to snuff the gale with an inflated nostril. ”

“ I could bear it on this evening less than ever; a hair will turn the scale, and I had just been, half ludicrously, half seriously, affected by Welsh nationality. One cannot help warming towards a community which are so warm-hearted among themselves. Visions of I know not what—love and a living, Clara and a cottage—were floating dreamlike before my eyes, and I felt as if borne along by a current whose direction might be dangerous, but which it was misery to resist. Willingham had turned away a minute to hunt for some missing book, which contained one of his favourites ”

“ There is much richness, in fact; and the artist has, with very great skill, avoided a gaudy effect. So the Battle of Waterloo must derive its great value from the truth of the portraits. It is any thing, however, but an heroic representation of a battle. Perhaps the object of the painter was confined to the facts of a military description, of positions of brigades and battalions—to our unmilitary eyes, there is wanting the vivid action, the energy, the mighty conflict—possibly only the ideal of a battle—-which may, after all, be in appearance a much more tame sort of thing than we imagine. ”

“ Not altogether liking some of his subjects, we cannot but admire the skill in their treatment, the warm glow in the colouring, and true character of some of his woods running off in perspective are most pleasing. He does not aim at sentiment. He often reminds us of Gainsborough's best manner; but he is superior to him always, in subject, in composition, and in variety. He has great skill in the transparency and clearness of his tones. ”

“ If the Spaniards had returned to the attack they would have made short work of us; for as soon as we left off fighting and our blood cooled, we became stiff and helpless. But now came the women with rags and bandages, and washed our wounds and bound them up, and we dragged ourselves into the blockhouse, and lay down upon our mattresses of dry leaves. And Godsend loaded the rifles and a dozen Spanish muskets that were lying about, to be in readiness for another attack, and the women kept watch while we slept. But the Spaniards had had enough, and we saw no more of them. ”

“ Are we to receive, at the hands of traitors, a new model for our glorious empire? and, without condescending to pause for one instant in discussing consequences, are we to drink of this cup of indignity—that the constitution and settlement of our state, which one hundred and fifty five years ago required the deliberations of two ancient nations, England and Scotland, collected in their representatives, to effect, now at this day are to be put into the furnace anew by obscure conspirators, and traitors long since due to the gallows. ”

“ If a man wants a good dinner, a hearty laugh, an opportunity of singing songs and speech-making, and can put up with indifferent wine, let him go to the race Ordinary at Glyndewi next year, if it still be among the things which time has spared. There was nothing like stiffness or formality: people came there for amusement, and they knew that the only way to get it was to make it for themselves. There seemed to be fun enough for half-a-dozen of the common run of such dinners, even while the ladies remained. It was, as Hanmer called it, an extra-ordinary. ”

“ I hear a fair reader of eighteen, prettily ejaculate—"thank Heaven, that all men have not such barbarous ideas! Why, I would go fifty miles to a good ball!" Be not alarmed, my dear young lady; give me but a moment to thank Providence, in my turn, that you are neither my sister nor my daughter, and will promise you, that you shall never be my wife.
On the Saturday night then, I made Gordon and Willingham both very cross, and caught Sydney Dawson's eye looking over his spectacles with supreme contempt, when I declared my decided intention of staying at home the night of the ball. ”