“Armstrong's blank verse [The Prisoner of Mount Saint Michael] not otherwise than good in its ordinary fabric, affords by its occasional excellence a strong presumption that, had he lived, he would have attained to a consummate mastery of it.”
Till like a clock worn out with eating time,
The wheels of weary life at last stood still.—Dryden's Œdipus.
1. The Lords' amendment as to curates to be adopted, £380,000. 2. The Ulster glebes, 465,000. 3. The glebe houses to be free, 150,000. Total £995,000.
Or the Bishop of Peterborough's amendment as to the tax upon livings in lieu of No. 3, would carry a heavier charge by 124,000. Total £1,119,000.
Carm. iii. 5, 27. In Mr. Gladstone's own translation, The Odes of Horace (p. 84):—
... Can wool repair
The colours that it lost when soaked with dye?
Ah, no. True merit once resigned,
No trick nor feint will serve as well.
A rendering less apt for this occasion finds favour with some scholars, that true virtue can never be restored to those who have once fallen away from it.
In 1871-73 the tories gained twenty-three seats against only one gained by the liberals; in the first three years of the government nine seats had been lost and nine gained.
“Individuals may recover from even serious sickness; it does not appear to be the way with governments.”—Mr. Gladstone, Nineteenth Century, Sept. 1887.
εὐδαίμων μὲν ὅς ὲκ θαλάσσας ἔφυγε χεῖμα, λιμέυα δ᾽ἔκιχεν; εὐδαίμων δ᾽ὅς ὕπερθε μόχθων ἐγένεθ.