"Some natures the more pains a man takes to reclaim them, the worse they are."—L'ESTRANGE: Johnson's Dict., w. Pains.
"Says John Milton, in that impassioned speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, where every word leaps with intellectual life, 'Who kills a man, kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man lives a burden upon the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose for a life beyond life!'"—Louisville Examiner, June, 1850.
LESSON III.—PROSE.
"The philosopher, the saint, or the hero—the wise, the good, or the great man—very often lies hid and concealed in a plebeian, which a proper education might have disinterred and brought to light."—Addison.
"The year before, he had so used the matter, that what by force, what by policy, he had taken from the Christians above thirty small castles."—Knolles.
"It is an important truth, that religion, vital religion, the religion of the heart, is the most powerful auxiliary of reason, in waging war with the passions, and promoting that sweet composure which constitutes the peace of God."—Murray's Key, p. 181.
"Pray, sir, be pleased to take the part of us beauties and fortunes into your consideration, and do not let us be flattered out of our senses. Tell people that we fair ones expect honest plain answers, as well as other folks."—Spectator, No. 534. "Unhappy it would be for us, did not uniformity prevail in morals: that our actions should uniformly be directed to what is good and against what is ill, is the greatest blessing in society; and in order to uniformity of action, uniformity of sentiment is indispensable."—Kames, El. of Crit., Vol. ii, p. 366.
"Thus the pleasure of all the senses is the same in all, high and low, learned and unlearned."—Burke, on Taste, p. 39.
"Upwards of eight millions of acres have, I believe, been thus disposed of."—Society in America, Vol. i, p. 333.
"The Latin Grammar comes something nearer, but yet does not hit the mark neither."—Johnson's Gram. Com., p. 281.
"Of the like nature is the following inaccuracy of Dean Swift's."—Blair's Rhet., p. 105. "Thus, Sir, I have given you my own opinion, relating to this weighty affair, as well as that of a great majority of both houses here."—Ib.
"A foot is just twelve times as long as an inch; and an hour is sixty times the length of a minute."—Murray's Gram., p. 48.
"What can we expect, who come a gleaning, not after the first reapers, but after the very beggars?"—Cowley's Pref. to Poems, p. x.
"In our Lord's being betrayed into the hands of the chief-priests and scribes, by Judas Iscariot; in his being by them delivered to the Gentiles; in his being mocked, scourged, spitted on, [say spit upon,] and crucified; and in his rising from the dead after three days; there was much that was singular, complicated, and not to be easily calculated on before hand."—Gurney's Essays, p. 40.
"To be morose, implacable, inexorable, and revengeful, is one of the greatest degeneracies of human nature."—Dr. J. Owen.
"Now, says he, if tragedy, which is in its nature grand and lofty, will not admit of this, who can forbear laughing to hear the historian Gorgias Leontinus styling Xerxes, that cowardly Persian king, Jupiter; and vultures, living sepulchres?"—Holmes's Rhetoric?, Part II, p. 14.
"O let thy all-seeing eye, and not the eye of the world, be the star to steer my course by; and let thy blessed favour, more than the liking of any sinful men, be ever my study and delight."—Jenks's Prayers, p. 156.
LESSON IV.—PROSE.
"O the Hope of Israel, the Saviour thereof in time of trouble, why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a way-faring man, that turneth aside to tarry for a night?"—Jeremiah, xiv, 8.
