This is the burden of my song,
I sing it day and night:
Why are so many always wrong
When I am always right?
(509)
See [Comparisons, Apt]; [Self-flattery].
CONCEIT OF OPINION
When Lord Hardwicke’s marriage bill was in the House of Commons, Fox, afterward Lord Holland, saying that one clause gave unheard-of power to parents on the marriage of minors, proceeded to lay open the chicanery and jargon of the lawyers, and the pride of their mufti, and drew a most severe picture of the Chancellor under the application of the story of a gentlewoman at Salisbury, who, having a sore leg, sent for a country surgeon, who pronounced that it must be cut off. The gentlewoman, unwilling to submit to the operation, sent for another more merciful, who said he could save her leg without the least operation. The surgeons conferred. The ignorant one said: “I know it might be saved, but I have given my opinion; my character depends upon it, and we must carry it through.” The leg was cut off. (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”
(510)
CONCENTRATION