The best portraits are perhaps those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature; and we are not certain that the best histories are not those in which a little of the exaggeration of fictitious narrative is judiciously employed. Something is lost in accuracy; but much is gained in effect. The fainter lines are neglected; but the great characteristic features are imprinted on the mind forever.

History distinguishes what is accidental and transitory in human nature from what is essential and immutable.

It may be laid as an universal rule that a government which attempts more than it ought will perform less.

The hearts of men are their books; events are their tutors; great actions are their eloquence.

A kind of semi-Solomon, half-knowing everything, from the cedar to the hyssop.

He [Charles II] was utterly without ambition. He detested business, and would sooner have abdicated his crown than have undergone the trouble of really directing the administration.

From the poetry of Lord Byron they drew a system of ethics compounded of misanthropy and voluptuousness,-a system in which the two great commandments were to hate your neighbour and to love your neighbour's wife.