Westward, beyond the still pleasant, but, even then, no longer solitary, hamlet of Charing, a broad space, broken here and there by scattered houses and venerable pollards, in the early spring of 1467, presented the rural scene for the sports and pastimes of the inhabitants of Westminister and London.

The classic literature is always modern.

A mind once cultivated will not lie fallow for half an hour.

There is nothing so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity as the application of a rough truth.

He who seeks repentance for the past, should woo the angel virtue for the future.

A fool flatters himself, a wise man flatters the fool.

Oratory, like the drama, abhors lengthiness; like the drama, it must keep doing. It avoids, as frigid, prolonged metaphysical soliloquy. Beauties themselves, if they delay or distract the effect which should be produced on the audience, become blemishes.