Memoirs of prince Rupert and the Cavaliers including their private correspondence, Volume 1

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Page 352 - are most of them old decayed serving men, and tapsters and such kind of fellows and,' said I, 'their troops are gentlemen's sons, younger sons and persons of quality. Do you think that the spirits of such base and mean fellows will ever be able to encounter gentlemen that have honour and courage and resolution in them?
Page 145 - It is a nest of wasps, or swarm of vermin which have overcrept the land. I mean the Monopolies and Pollers of the people : these, like the Frogs of Egypt, have gotten possession of our dwellings, and we have scarce a room free from them. They sup in our cup.
Page 104 - King would yield and consent to what they desire ; so that my conscience is only concerned in honour and gratitude to follow my master. I have eaten his bread and served him near thirty years, and will not do so base a thing as to forsake him ; and choose rather to lose my Life (which I am sure I shall do) to preserve and defend those things, which are against my conscience to preserve and defend.
Page 286 - A singular person, whose life was one contradiction. He wrote against Popery, and embraced it ; he was a zealous opposer of the court, and a sacrifice for it ; was conscientiously converted in the midst of his prosecution of Lord Strafford, and was most unconscientiously a prosecutor of Lord Clarendon.
Page 136 - This firm and sensible speech silenced them. A council was held; the judges were consulted ; and on this occasion they came to a very unexpected decision, that " Felton ought not to be tortured by the rack, for no such punishment is known or allowed by our law.
Page 193 - He was superior to all those passions and affections which attend vulgar minds, and was guilty of no other ambition than of knowledge, and to be reputed a lover of all good men ; and that made him too much a contemner of those arts, which must be indulged in the transactions of human affairs.
Page 193 - In this time, his house being within little more than ten miles of Oxford, he contracted familiarity and friendship with the most polite and accurate men of that university ; who found such an immenseness of wit, and such a solidity of judgment in him, so infinite a fancy, bound in by a most logical ratiocination, such a vast knowledge, that he was not ignorant in any thing, yet such an excessive humility, as if he had known nothing, that they frequently resorted and dwelt with him, as in a college...
Page 286 - Papacy, and embraced it ; he was a zealous opposer of the Court, and a sacrifice for it ; was conscientiously converted in the midst of his prosecution of Lord Strafford, and was most unconscientiously a prosecutor of Lord Clarendon. With great parts, he always hurt himself and his friends ; with romantic bravery, he was always an unsuccessful commander. He spoke for the test act, though a Roman Catholic, and addicted himself to astrology on the birthday of true philosophy.
Page 328 - The ostentatious simplicity of their dress, their sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff posture, their long graces, their Hebrew names, the Scriptural phrases which they introduced on every occasion, their contempt of human learning, their detestation of polite amusements, were indeed fair game for the laughers.
Page 194 - The other was, lest he might be thought to avoid it out of fear to do an ungracious thing to the house of commons, who were...

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