A reflection is attributed to the illustrious historian Edward Gibbon, which those who are capable of giving it just value ought more frequently to apply.
“My lot,” he says, “might have been that of a peasant, a slave, or a savage; nor can I reflect without pleasure on the bounty of nature, which cast my birth in a free and civilized country, in an age of science and philosophy, in a family of honourable rank, and decently endowed with the gifts of fortune.”
Herveys.
Lady Wortley Montague says of the Hervey family, “They were a clever but eccentric race, and of whom it was observed, that the world consisted of men, women, and Herveys.”
Coquetry.
Tacitus remarks of Poppea, the Queen of Nero, that she concealed a part of her face: to the end, that the imagination having fuller play by irritating curiosity, they might think more highly of her beauty than if the whole of her face had been exposed.