Typical selections from the best English authors, with introductory notices [by E. E. Smith], Volume 1

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Page 198 - I deny not, but that it is of greatest concernment in the church and commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves as well as men ; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors. For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are...
Page 204 - 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 150 - Oblivion is not to be hired; the greater part must be content to be as though they had not been; to be found in the register of God, not in the record of man.
Page 150 - Now, since these dead bones have already outlasted the living ones of Methuselah, and, in a yard under ground, and thin walls of clay, outworn all the strong and specious buildings above it, and quietly rested under the drums and tramplings of three conquests...
Page 4 - He had walk for a hundred sheep; and my mother milked thirty kine. He was able, and did find the king a harness, with himself and his horse, while he came to the place that he should receive the king's wages. I can remember that I buckled his harness when he went unto Blackheath field.
Page 188 - I am persuaded, his power and interest, at that time, was greater to do, good or hurt, than any man's in the kingdom, or than any man of his rank hath had in any time : for his reputation of honesty was universal, and his affections seemed so publicly guided, that no corrupt or private ends could bias them.
Page 208 - Now once again by all concurrence of signs, and by the general instinct of holy and devout men, as they daily and solemnly express their thoughts, God is decreeing to begin some new and great period in his church, even to the reforming of reformation itself; what does he then but reveal himself to his servants, and as his mani>er is, first to his Englishmen...
Page 47 - It was a high speech of Seneca, after the manner of the Stoics, that the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired: "Bona rerum secundarum optabilia, adversarum mirabilia.
Page 206 - For who knows not that truth is strong, next to the Almighty ; she needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings to make her victorious, those are the shifts and the defences that error uses against her power...
Page 53 - It were better to have no opinion of God at all. than such an opinion as is unworthy of Him; for the one is unbelief, the other is contumely: and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity. Plutarch saith well to that purpose:

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