Scotland by no means escaped the fate ordained for every country which is connected, but not incorporated, with another country of greater resources.

At present, the novels which we owe to English ladies form no small part of the literary glory of our country. No class of works is more honorably distinguished for fine observation, by grace, by delicate wit, by pure moral feeling.

No man in the world acts up to his own standard of right.

The great cause of revolutions is this, that while nations move onward, constitutions stand still.

It has often been found that profuse expenditures, heavy taxation, absurd commercial restrictions, corrupt tribunals, disastrous wars, seditions, persecutions, conflagrations, inundation, have not been able to destroy capital so fast as the exertions of private citizens have been able to create it.

And to say that society ought to be governed by the opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are the wisest and best?

A beggarly people, A church and no steeple.