We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.

Then none was for a party; Than all were for the state; Then the great man helped the poor, And the poor man loved the great: Then lands were fairly portioned; Then spoils were fairly sold: The Romans were like brothers In the brave days of old.

A perfect historian must possess an imagination sufficiently powerful to make his narrative affecting and picturesque; yet he must control it so absolutely as to content himself with the materials which he finds, and to refrain from supplying deficiencies by additions of his own. He must be a profound and ingenious reasoner; yet he must possess sufficient self-command to abstain from casting his facts in the mould of his hypothesis.

Those who seem to load the public taste are, in general, merely outrunning it in the direction which it is spontaneously pursuing.

In perseverance, in self command, in forethought, in all virtues which conduce to success in life, the Scots have never been surpassed.

To punish a man because he has committed a crime, or because he is believed, though unjustly, to have committed a crime, is not persecution. To punish a man, because we infer from the nature of some doctrine which he holds, or from the conduct of other persons who hold the same doctrines with him, that he will commit a crime, is persecution, and is, in every case, foolish and wicked.

No man who is correctly informed as to the past will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present.