Various

“ His pipe smoked, his venison devoured, the trapper wraps him in his blanket, and sleeps. We are then transported to a beaver-lodge at the extremity of a frozen and snow-covered lake. Yonder, where the points of a few bulrushes appear above the monotonous surface of dazzling white, are a number of small earthy mounds, the trees and bushes in whose vicinity are cut and barked in many places. It is a lively place enough in the warm season, when the beavers are busy nibbling down trees and bushes, to mend their dams and stock their storehouses with food. ”

“ Commercial distress, unexampled bankruptcy, money at a minimum rate of eight per cent, ruined colonies, and a war-tax made permanent and augmented, have been the first-fruits of that glorious measure which was absolutely to swamp us with an inundation of unexampled riches! How much further, we may ask, is it proposed to carry the experiment? Are the navigation laws to be repealed by a ministry which acknowledges the necessity of increasing our armaments? Which interest is next to suffer?
"Who else must be let blood—who else is rank?" ”

“ Philosophy, literature, and legislation, of course, have attained illustrious distinctions. But the naval service combines every thing: personal intrepidity, the strongest demand upon personal resources, the quickest decision, the most vigorous exertion of manual and mechanical skill, the sternest hardihood, and the most practical and continual application of science.
The unrivalled triumph of human invention is the instrument by which all those powerful qualities are brought into play: a ship of the line, with all its stores, its crew, and its guns on board, is the wonder of the world. ”

“ A worse kind of education for a statesman, or for the leader of a popular movement, cannot be found than this. It was this kind of partial knowledge, unilluminated by the clear lucid light which bygone history alone can shed authoritatively upon passing events, which, in the recollection of many still alive, led to the dark catastrophe and horrors of the French Revolution. There is hardly one social change, hardly one political experiment now making, for which a prototype cannot be furnished from the pages of history. ”

“ The poor brutes have no chance of a fair fight, or even of a few yards' law and a run for their lives. Their hungry stomachs and keen olfactories touchingly appealed to by the scraps of frozen game, they eat their way to the trap, and finally put their foot in it. The trapper's trade is a sneaking sort of business; and one cannot but understand the feeling of self-humiliation of Cooper's Natty Bumpo, upon finding himself reduced from the rifle to the snare—from the stand-up fight in the forest to the stealthy prowl and treacherous trap. ”

“ It is contrary to the constitution of a free country, that any class should be selected as the subjects of isolated taxation, and doubly so when the selection is made for the almost avowed purpose of relieving some other class from the impost. Equal laws and equal rights can only be maintained where there is a proper equality of burdens; and if it be difficult to arrange the scale, as it undoubtedly is, the difficulty must be met by those who propose to substitute this unconstitutional mode of taxation for that which applied equally to all classes of the community. ”

“ If the figures of the picture are at first fierce and repulsive—the figures of brethren armed against brethren, of mercenary Germans and frantic savages, Canadian rangers and American ploughmen, all bristling together with the horrid front of war—what a charm of contrast is presented, when among these stern and forbidding groups is beheld the form of a Christian woman, moving to and fro, disarming every heart of every emotion but reverence, softening the misfortunes of defeat, and checking the elation of victory! ”

“ But here was a town almost open, and with no other garrison, for the first six weeks of the siege, than a battalion of half-disciplined Mussulmans, headed by such men as could be spared from two British ships of war.
The whole defence was justly regarded by the nation, less as a bold military service, than as an exploit—one of those singular achievements which are exhibited from time to time, as if to show how far intrepidity and talent combined can go ”

“ GREENWICH TIME. "The time is out of joint—oh, cursed spite!"—Hamlet.
We are no friends to modern miracles. Whether these be wrought at Trêves, Loretto, or Edinburgh, we protest and make head against them all; and we care not a farthing for the indignation of the miracle-monger, be he pope, prelate, priest, potentate, protector, or provost. The interference of modern town-councils, to which we have all been long accustomed, has at last reached a point which borders upon absolute impiety. ”

“ Was Paris fortified without a purpose? Is he blind to the fact that the peace of Europe at this moment depends upon the life of a man now in his seventy-fifth year? We maintain that there never was a period, at least within our recollection, when the maintenance of general tranquillity throughout Europe was more precarious. And yet, this is the very moment which Mr Cobden selects for a crusade, or rather a tirade, against our military establishments!
Our feelings are any thing but those of dislike towards the "affectionate and domesticated" French. ”

“ Yet there is a period in her history up to which an Englishman should be familiar with it; for he who reads the speeches of Burke and Chatham, or reverts to the Johnsonian age of literature, will otherwise be often at a loss how to regard events and facts to which the men of those days always referred with the warmth of political party, but which we can now examine with candour, and judge without prejudice or passion.
No man of that day is more entitled to the candid retrospect of posterity than General Burgoyne, for no one suffered more than he from the heat of contemporaries. ”

“ Let Britain be the first to set the example, and every other nation will follow in her wake. Cannons, by unanimous consent, will be spiked, banners handed over to the respectable fraternity of Odd Fellows, and the soldier condemned to the stiffing walls of the factory, never more to stand at ease. Such are the dreams of Cobden; and if he really believes in them, and in the actual regeneration of human nature by means of free-trade instead of religion, we should like to see him try the experiment on a minor scale. ”

“ Still Schmidt hesitated between thirst for revenge and the habit of obedience, when, just at that moment, the trumpets clanged out the first notes of the reveillée. The Spanish bands were already playing the diana; the sky grew gray in the east, a few dropping shots were heard, exchanged by the hostile outposts whom the first glimmer of day rendered visible to each other. Heinzel hurried to his horse; and the instinct of discipline and duty prevailing with Schmidt, he sheathed his sabre and gloomily rejoined his squadron. ”

“ After the surrender, the Baroness Reidesel went to join her husband in the American camp. Seated in a calash with her children, she drove through the American lines, presenting such a touching picture of female virtue, as awed even the common soldiers, and moved them to tears as she passed along. She was met by a gentleman who had once enjoyed the command of the army in which she thus became a guest; one whose patriotism no injury from his country could disaffect, and whose gallantry and politeness no severity from his foes could disarm. ”

“ Starting from such a cradle, the Hudson, like a young Hercules playing with serpents, catches up a hundred little tributary brooks, and goes leaping and brawling through the woods till it finds itself a river. Then, gathering size and strength through every curve of its way, it turns eastward to seek its fortunes in the big world. ”

“ In 1789, the Swedish and Russian fleets were fighting in the Baltic. England was at peace,—his ship had been paid off; relaxation, the London balls, the Parisian theatres, rambles through the German watering-places, were before him. Ten thousand idlers of the navy would have enjoyed them all without delay. But the young captain was determined to rise in his profession; and, as the time might come when a Swedish or a Russian war might be on the hands of England herself, he felt that it might be advantageous for an English officer to have some knowledge of the Baltic. ”

“ Are we to gain no confidence, nor take any warning from the rise and decline of nations, not much less powerful than our own, whose checkered career and the causes of it are open to our view? Is the world behind us a blank, that we should go stumbling on at the instigation of every reckless adventurer, more culpable in his attempts to guide us, than the ship-captain who should presume to thread the coral reefs of the Indian Ocean without consulting the authoritative chart? ”

“ No one who has not seen it can have the least idea of the change that takes place in the appearance of the woods at night, when a large fire is suddenly lighted. Before, all was cold, silent, chilling, gloomy, and desolate, and the pale snow looked unearthly in the dark. Now, a bright ruddy glow falls upon the thick stems of the trees, and penetrates through the branches overhead, tipping those nearest the fire with a ruby tinge, the mere sight of which warms one. The white snow changes to a beautiful pink ”

“ It is not surprising that Lord John Russell should adopt without hesitation the legacy of his predecessor, and attempt to profit by the income-tax when he has the machinery ready to his hand. But we warn the people of this country—we warn those who were betrayed into yielding by specious promises, but who now find to their cost that they in reality are to become the bearers of the burden of the state—we warn them that the same game will be continued, and that, if they consent to this augmentation, it will not be by any means the last. ”

“ On his death, Bernadotte was elected to the throne, which he retained [315] through life;—the solitary instance of permanent power among all the generals of the French empire; but an instance justified by high character, by his acquirement of the throne without crime, and by its possession without tyranny.
There may be no royal road to fame, but there are some habits which naturally lead to it; one of those, activity of spirit, Sir Sidney Smith possessed in a remarkable degree. Wherever any thing new or exciting in his profession was to be seen, there he was certain to be. ”

“ If, therefore, this income-tax, palmed upon us through fraudulent representation, and now proposed as perpetual on the plea of pressing emergency, is to be continued for ever, it will be necessary for us to consider how far it is levied on those benefited by the removal of indirect taxes—how far it applies to all classes—and whether it is one-sided and unjust, or fair and equitable, in its operation. Before we consent to an impost which must affect us and our children, it is well that we should thoroughly understand the nature of the obligation we undertake. ”

“ The Hudson girdled the forlorn intrenchments to which the British general now retired, and its fords were all in possession of the American forces. By means of these fords they had regained the forts on Lake George, and the road to Skenesborough, and all retreat was cut off—even the desperate retreat which Burgoyne had proposed, of abandoning artillery and baggage and carrying nothing away but bodies and souls. Yet for six days his proud soul stood firm, unable to endure or even face the thought of surrender. The American batteries were constantly at play upon his camp. ”