An Anecdotal History of the British Parliament: From the Earliest Periods to the Present Time : with Notices of Eminent Parliamentary Men, and Examples of Their Oratory

Front Cover
H. Cox, 1880 - Anecdotes - 530 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 201 - ... it would assume the likeness of an animated thing, instinct with life and motion — how soon it would ruffle, as it were, its swelling plumage — how quickly it would put forth all its beauty and its bravery, collect its scattered elements of strength, and awaken its dormant thunder. Such as is one of these magnificent machines when springing from inaction into a display of its might — such is England herself, while apparently passive and motionless she silently concentrates the power to...
Page 148 - Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever carried this most perilous mode of hardy industry to the extent, to which it has been pushed by this recent people ; a people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.
Page 115 - I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people, so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest.
Page 236 - ... it may be that I shall leave a name sometimes remembered with expressions of good-will in the abodes of those whose lot it is to labour, and to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow, when they shall recruit their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no longer leavened by a sense of injustice.
Page 146 - He made an administration, so checkered and speckled; he put together a piece of joinery, so crossly indented and whimsically dove-tailed; a cabinet so variously inlaid ; such a piece of diversified Mosaic ; such a tesselated pavement without cement; here a bit of black stone, and there a bit of white ; patriots and courtiers ; King's friends and republicans ; whigs and tories ; treacherous friends and open enemies; that it was indeed a very curious shew ; but utterly unsafe to touch, and unsure...
Page 280 - Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die. But leave us still our old Nobility.
Page 51 - That the influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished"?
Page 148 - I contemplate these things ; when I know that the colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, and that they are not squeezed into this happy form by the constraints of watchful and suspicious government, but that, through a wise and salutary neglect, a generous nature has been suffered to take her own way to perfection...
Page 184 - If the King's servants will not permit a Constitutional question to be decided on according to the forms and on the principles of the Constitution, it must then be decided in some other manner. And rather than it should be given up, rather than the nation should surrender their birthright to a despotic Minister, I hope, my Lords, old as I am, I shall see the question brought to issue and fairly tried between the people and the Government.
Page 56 - I do not mean to be disrespectful, but the attempt of the Lords to stop the progress of reform, reminds me very forcibly of the great storm of Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the excellent Mrs. Partington on that occasion. In the winter of 1824, there set in a great flood upon that town — the tide rose to an incredible height — the waves rushed in upon the houses, and everything was threatened with destruction.

Bibliographic information