Historical voices

They are therefore indebted to them for much that regulates, much that charms, and much that solaces existence.

The Saxon, the Sclav, and the Celt have adopted most of the laws and many of the customs of these Arabian tribes, all their literature and all their religion.

THE relations that subsist between the Bedoueen race that, under the name of Jews, is found in every country of Europe, and the Teutonic, Sclavonian, and Celtic races which have appropriated that division of the globe, will form hereafter…

Free trade seems working mischief faster than the most fearful of us predicted, and Manchester houses, as I am told, ‘failing in rows,’ ashamed to do penance in public, are secretly weeping in sackcloth and ashes, and heartily praying that…

I care nothing about ‘outsides,’ it is ‘insides’ I look to; give me a good ‘heart,’ and I don’t care how rough the ‘bark’ is.

I am very sorry for him, but I know nothing so likely to rouse the landed aristocracy from their apathy, and to weaken their idolatry of Peel so much as this warning note of the joint operation of his free trade and restrictive currency…

But it is observable, that no individuals now grumble so much as the farmers who voted for free trader in 1847, unless indeed it be the shipowners, every one of whom for years, both in and out of Parliament, supported the repeal of the…

When one recalls all to which this speech led, the most memorable effort of that ardent, energetic life to which it was perhaps fatal, one can scarcely observe the origin of such vast exertions without emotion.

I will not delude the people by pretending that I could take off more than seven millions and a half of taxes without replacing them by others, and not leave the nation bankrupt.

But those who have occasion to refer to his speeches and calmly to examine them, will be struck by the amplitude and the freshness of his knowledge, the clearness of his views, the coherence in all his efforts, and often--a point for which…

He never uttered a sentence in the House of Commons which did not convey a conviction or a fact.

And it must be borne in mind that he never offered his opinion on any subject which he had not diligently investigated and attempted to comprehend in all its bearings.

It was clear, therefore, that the commercial principle, omnipotent in England, was not competent to cope with the peculiar circumstances of Ireland.

The first element of success in railway enterprise, according to the highest authorities, is population; property is only the second consideration.

Where millions were to be expended by the state, something more advantageous to the community should accrue than the temporary subsistence of the multitude.

The field is legitimately open to speculation where all agree that all is hopeless.

What a barbarous and odious policy, that goes upon the principle that none but capitalists are henceforth to be allowed to live, as farmers at least.

Whether the principle be a true one, and whether its unqualified application by any party in the state be possible, are questions yet unsettled.

This principle was first introduced into active politics in order to preserve the possessions of that portion of the aristocracy which had established itself on the plunder of the Church.

What Lord George Bentinck appreciated most in a parliamentary speaker was brilliancy: quickness of perception, promptness of repartee, clear and concise argument, a fresh and felicitous quotation, wit and picture, and, if necessary, a…

Why, sir, I think when this language reaches the people of Ireland--coming, too, as it does from the Treasury, above all, from the Secretary of State for the Home Department--there is indeed danger to be apprehended that such a doctrine…

What is this but telling the people of Ireland, that assassination, murder, incendiarism, are of such light consideration in the eyes of the Secretary of State, that their sanction or suppression by the minister of the crown hinges upon…

I cannot help expressing a wish that some arrangement may be made connected with the levying of the poor-rate in Ireland, by which absentee landlords may be made to contribute in something like a fair proportion to the wants of the poor in…

I believe that the first ingredient in the happiness of a people is, that the gentry should reside on their native soil, and spend their rents among those from whom they receive them.