Le premier qui fut roi, fut un soldat heureux:
Qui sert bien son pays, n'a pas besoin d'aïeux
(The first who was king was a successful soldier. He who serves well his country has no need of ancestors).—Voltaire: Merope, act i. sc. 3.
[495:1] The very words of a Highland laird, while on his death-bed, to his son.
[495:2] See Dryden, page [275].
[495:4] A power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England.—Daniel Webster: Speech, May 7, 1834.
Why should the brave Spanish soldier brag the sun never sets in the Spanish dominions, but ever shineth on one part or other we have conquered for our king?—Captain John Smith: Advertisements for the Unexperienced, &c. (Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Third Series, vol. iii. p. 49).
It may be said of them (the Hollanders) as of the Spaniards, that the sun never sets on their dominions.—Gage: New Survey of the West Indies. Epistle Dedicatory. (London, 1648.)
I am called