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The wretched profligate who was thus selected to mate with the Emperor's eldest born child and to appropriate the fair demesnes of the Tuscan republic was nominally the offspring of Lorenzo de Medici by a Moorish slave, although generally reputed a bastard of the Pope himself.
The place wore its fairest aspect: avenues of elms, that had begun to grow when England was young; gigantic oaks dotted here and there upon the undulating open ground, reputed a thousand years old; bright young plantations of rare fir and pine, that had a pert crisp newness about them, like the air of a modern dandy; everywhere the appearance of that perfect care and culture which is the most conclusive evidence of unlimited wealth.
We learned from this gentleman, that though Anjou is reputed to have a great proportion of heath and barren land, it does not yield to any province in France either for beauty or fertility. As much of it as lays along the Loire, I have already had occasion to describe, and what we were now passing through was not a whit behind it.
'There was one African on the estate who was the terror of the Negroes, owing to his reputed supernatural powers as an Obeah-man. 'This man, whom I will call Martin, was a tall, powerful Negro, who, even apart from the mysterious powers with which he was supposed to be invested, was a formidable opponent from his mere size and strength.
I have sometimes thought that I could not have existed in the days of received witchcraft; that I could not have slept in a village where one of those reputed hags dwelt. Our ancestors were bolder or more obtuse.
My father travelled with him from Dublin to Ardbraccan, and this reputed silent man never ceased talking and telling entertaining anecdotes till the carriage stopped at the steps at Ardbraccan. This I could hardly credit till I myself heard his Grace burst forth in conversation. The truth of his character gives such value to everything he says, even to his humorous stories.
There are others, on the other hand, who, having no fair claim at all to it, are warmed and nourished throughout life by the good opinion of mankind. No man lived with fewer virtues than Abraham Allcraft; no man was reputed richer in all the virtues that adorn humanity. He was an honest man, because he starved upon a crust. He was industrious, because from morn till night he laboured at the bank.
Accordingly, without suffering them to know that I had carte blanche, I simply communicated to them my wish to have the matter arranged without public investigation that I was persuaded from a hasty review which I had given to the case, that there were good grounds for action; but, at the same time, I dwelt upon the casualties of such a course the possibility that the chief living witness if he were living might not be found, or might not survive long enough as he was reputed to be very old for the purposes of examination before the commission; the long delays which belonged to a litigated suit, in which the details of a mixed foreign and domestic business of so many years was to be raked up, reviewed and explained; and the further chances, in the event of final success, of the property of the debtor being so covered, concealed, or made away with, as to baffle at last all the industry and labors of the creditor.
Jedediah Morse is reputed a man of talent, industry, and vigour, with high aims for the good of his fellow-men, ingenious to conceive, resolute in action, and sanguine of success. His wife is described as a woman of calm, reflective mind, animated conversation, and engaging manners.
He remained perfectly quiet; for although reputed a hot-tempered man, he never would have anything to do with controversy if he could help it; and he only replied to one of his antagonists after twenty years' interval, and then in the most charming spirit of candour and moderation. But he had the great satisfaction of living to see his doctrine accepted upon all sides.
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