United States or Kazakhstan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Though Buckingham is forgotten and Shaftesbury's name swallowed up in that of his more philanthropic descendant, we can read of Achitophel and Zimri still, and feel something of the strength and heat which he caught from a fiercely fought conflict and transmitted with his own gravity and purposefulness into verse.

Above all Shaftesbury relied on the temper of the Commons, elected as they had been in the very heat of the panic and irritated by the long delay in calling the Houses together. At this moment, however, a new and formidable opponent to Shaftesbury's plans presented himself in the Prince of Orange. The position of William had for some time been one of singular difficulty.

We do not see that he is aware as yet of there being as valid objections on his own sceptical principles to the alleged data of naturalistic deism, as to the pretensions of a supernatural religion. He was content with Shaftesbury's position. Shaftesbury's influence on Diderot was permanent.

Lord Shaftesbury's brilliant but indistinct treatises have also been the germ of many discussions in ethics. Bolingbroke wrote with great liveliness, but with equal shallowness of thought and knowledge. His idiomatic English style is not one of the least of his merits. The burlesque memoir of "Martinus Scriblerus" was the joint production of Swift, Pope, and Arbuthnot.

Oddly enough, Lord Palmerston was the statesman with whom, despite all ethical dissimilarity, he had the most sympathy, and this arose partly from their near relationship and partly from Lord Palmerston's easy-going habit of placing his ecclesiastical patronage in Lord Shaftesbury's hands.

It was to Shaftesbury's influence that Charles attributed the dislike which the Commons displayed to the war and their refusal of a grant of supplies for it until fresh religious securities were devised.

Well, my lord, the fewer at Court, there is the more room for those that can bustle there. But there are two mainstrings of Shaftesbury's fiddle broken the Popish Plot fallen into discredit and Rochester disgraced. Changeful times but here is to the little man who shall mend them." "I apprehend you," replied his lordship; "and meet your health with my love.

The reasons which they employed were diametrically opposite. Shaftesbury's opinion was, that the restraints were insufficient; and that nothing but the total exclusion of the duke could give a proper security to the kingdom.

A gentleman and lady with whom I travelled said that Lord and Lady Shaftesbury had visited in person the most forlorn and wretched parts of London, that they might get, by their own eyesight, a more correct gauge of the misery to be relieved. I did not see Lord Shaftesbury's children; but, from the crayon likenesses which hung upon the walls, they must be a family of uncommon beauty.

"If every rich man were animated by Shaftesbury's spirit," said Mr. Desmond, in conclusion, "extreme poverty would be wiped out of England, and yet we should retain all that makes life charming and profitable. He was no leveller, save of foul rookeries. First and last he believed in order, particularly his own a true nobleman. And the inspiration of his great career came to him on the Hill."