United States or Slovakia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Langton. Goldsmith being mentioned, Johnson observed, that it was long before his merit came to be acknowledged. That he once complained to him, in ludicrous terms of distress, 'Whenever I write any thing, the publick MAKE A POINT to know nothing about it: but that his Traveller brought him into high reputation.
What can be known, will be collected by chance, from the recesses of obscure and obsolete papers, perused commonly with some other view. Of this knowledge every man has some, and none has much; but when an authour has engaged the publick attention, those who can add any thing to his illustration, communicate their discoveries, and time produces what had eluded diligence.
Our healths all well, only my eyes with overworking them are sore as candlelight comes to them, and not else; publick matters in a most sad condition; seamen discouraged for want of pay, and are become not to be governed: nor, as matters are now, can any fleete go out next year. Our enemies, French and Dutch, great, and grow more by our poverty.
But it is surely time for this nation to rouse from indolence, and to resolve to put an end to frauds that have been so long known. It is time to watch with more vigilance the distribution of the publick treasure, and to consider rather how to contract the national expenses, than upon what pretences new offices may be erected, and new dependencies created.
It has been asserted, likewise, my lords, and with much greater appearance of justice, that this whole design has been formed and conducted without the concurrence or approbation of the senate; and that, therefore, it can be considered only as a private scheme to be executed at the publick expense, as a plan formed by the ministry to aggrandize or ingratiate themselves at the hazard of the nation.
They replied they were ready to show their minds in any proper way where they were if they might be directed thereto but would not go out of the door to do the same and desired that they might be led to a vote where they were and they were ready to show their minds which the Moderator refused to do and thereupon declared that it was voted that Deacon Marshalls way of singing called the 'Old Way' should be sung in Publick for the future and ordered me to record the same as the vote of the Said Society which I refused to do under the circumstances thereof and have recorded the facts and proceedings."
Petitions from men of much inferiour rank, and whose interest is much less closely connected with that of the publick, have been thought necessary to be heard, nor is the meanest individual to be injured or restrained, without being admitted to offer his arguments in his own favour.
After having examined the nature of these liquors, it is natural to inquire, how much they are in use; whether mankind appear to know their quality, and avoid and detest them like other poisons; or whether they are considered as inoffensive, and drank, like other liquors, to raise the spirits, or to gladden the heart; whether they make part of social entertainments, and whether they are handed round at publick tables, without any suspicion of their fatal consequences.
I know, my lords, how highly every man learns to value that which he has long contended for, and how easily every man prevails upon himself to believe the security of the publick complicated with his own.
It is, sir, the proper province of a senator to promote, not to obstruct the publick counsels; and when he declares his disapprobation of any expedient, to endeavour to substitute a better: for how can he be said to sustain his part of the general burden of publick affairs, who lays others under the necessity of forming every plan, and inventing every expedient, and contents himself with only censuring what he never endeavours to amend?
Word Of The Day