The British Essayists, Volume 42

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Alexander Chalmers
J. Johnson, 1808 - English essays

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Page 130 - Our political system is placed in a just correspondence and symmetry with the order of the world, and with the mode of existence decreed to a permanent body composed of transitory parts ; wherein, by the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young, but in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression.
Page 39 - The sun and moving planets he beheld ; Then, looking down on the sun's feeble ray, Survey'd our dusky, faint, imperfect day, And under what a cloud of night we lay.— Rowe.
Page 2 - Since I was of understanding to know we knew nothing, my reason hath been more pliable to the will of faith : I am now content to understand a mystery without a rigid definition, in an easy and Platonic description.
Page 47 - Offices, and to teach my little flock, by my constant example as well as doctrine, 1 may hope that God will accept of this discharge of duty from me. The general good of the Church is the principle by which every Clergyman ought to direct himself; and to enter upon a remote Benefice, advancing in years and less active in life, a Cure on which perhaps I should not chuse to reside long, would shew more of the lucrative mind than the pastoral care, and therefore 1 think I ought to disclaim it. " I shall...
Page 39 - Non illuc auro positi, nee ture sepulti perveniunt. Illic postquam se lumine vero implevit, stellasque vagas miratur, et astra fixa polis, vidit quanta sub nocte iaceret nostra dies, risitque sui ludibria trunci.
Page 136 - Dolly, or a machine for washing, is recommended by some lively remarks on the saving of time. — An elegant preface on parental duties ushers in the famous pills for conception. — The great fecundity of nature is a natural theme of admiration in the advertisement of the Persian powder for lice. — The contagion of bad communications is very forcibly descanted upon by the inventor of the antivariolique bags against the infection of the smallpox, &c. — A sincere believer in future rewards and...
Page 36 - ... within this house of flesh. Those strange and mystical transmigrations that I have observed in silkworms, turned my philosophy into divinity. There is in these works of nature, which seem to puzzle reason, something divine, and hath more in it than the eye of a common spectator doth discover.
Page 136 - The advantages -of exercife are fet forth very pointedly in recommendation of a plafter for corns. The inventor of the aqua mirifica for the eye, has not forgotton to expatiate on the tendency which the contemplation of Nature's works has to open and expand the mind.
Page 51 - This is my story,— now to the prayer of my petition. I never before envied you the possession of the Orkneys, which I now do only to provide for this eloquent innocent apostle. The sun has refused your barren...

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