Letters on history, vol. 1. let. 5.
It seems to me, that in order to maintain the moral system of the world at a certain point, far below that of ideal perfection, (for we are made capable of conceiving what we are incapable of attaining), but however sufficient upon the whole to constitute a state easy and happy, or at the worst tolerable: I say, it seems to me, that the author of nature has thought fit to mingle from time to time, among the societies of men, a few, and but a few, of those on whom he is graciously pleased to bestow a larger proportion of the ethereal spirit than is given in the ordinary course of his providence to the sons of men.
Bolingbroke, on the spirit of patriotism, let. 1.
To crowd into a single member of a period, different subjects, is still worse than to crowd them into one period.
—————— Trojam, genitore Adamasto
Paupere (mansissetque utinam fortuna) profectus.
Æneid. iii. 614.
Where two things are so connected as to require but a copulative, it is pleasant to find a resemblance in the members of the period, were it even so slight as where both begin with the same letter:
The peacock, in all his pride, does not display half the colour that appears in the garments of a British lady, when she is either dressed for a ball or a birth-day.
Spectator, Nº 265.
Had not my dog of a steward run away as he did, without making up his accounts, I had still been immersed in sin and sea-coal.
Ibid. Nº. 530.