Political tracts. Political essays. Miscellaneous essays. A journey to the Western Islands of Scotland

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J. Buckland, J. Rivington and Sons, T. Payne and Sons, L. Davis, B. White and Son ... [and 36 others in London], 1787
 

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Page 206 - Looks through the horizontal misty air Shorn of his beams, or from behind the moon, In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs.
Page 497 - Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and...
Page 193 - As to your first query, it seems to me that if the matter of our sun and planets and all the matter of the universe were evenly scattered throughout all the heavens, and every particle had an innate gravity towards all the rest, and the whole space throughout which this matter was scattered was...
Page 143 - The time is now come, in which every Englishman expects to be informed of the national affairs ; and in which he has a right to have that expectation gratified. For, whatever may be urged by ministers, or those whom vanity or interest make the followers of ministers, concerning the necessity of confidence in our...
Page 450 - Books are faithful repositories, which may be a while neglected or forgotten; but when they are opened again, will again impart their instruction: memory, once interrupted, is not to be recalled. Written learning is a fixed luminary, which, after the cloud that had hidden it has passed away, is again bright in its proper station. Tradition is but a meteor, which, if once it falls, cannot be rekindled.
Page 196 - ... opinion, inconsistent with the hypothesis of innate gravity, without a supernatural power to reconcile them ; and therefore it infers a Deity. For if there be innate gravity...
Page 367 - Out of one of the beds on which we were to repose started up, at our entrance, a man black as a Cyclops from the forge.
Page 214 - WHEN we have before us such objects as excite love and complacency ; the body is affected, so far as I could observe, much in the following manner : the head reclines something on one side ; the eye-lids are more closed than usual, and the eyes roll gently with an inclination to the object ; the mouth is a little opened, and the breath drawn slowly, with now and then a low sigh ; the whole body is composed, and the hands fall idly to the sides. All this is accompanied with an inward sense of melting...
Page 241 - The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it...
Page 458 - It would be easy to shew it if he had it ; but whence could it be had? It is too long to be remembered, and the language formerly had nothing written. He has...

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