Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches: With Elucidations, Volume 1

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Scribner, Welford,, 1853
 

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Page 86 - 0 king, in the depth of winter, while you are feasting with your thanes, and the fire is blazing on the hearth in the midst of the hall, you have seen a bird, pelted by the storm, enter at one door, and escape at the other. During its passage it was visible, but whence it came, or whither it went, you knew not. Such to me appears the life of man. He walks the earth for a few years, but what precedes his birth, or what is to follow after his death, we cannot tell. Undoubtedly, if the new religion...
Page 75 - While he was in possession of this dignity, he received intelligence that forty strangers had landed on the isle of Thanet. These were Augustine and his associates, partly Gauls, partly Italians, whom Pope Gregory the Great had sent for the benevolent purpose of converting the pagans. Ethelbert could not be unacquainted with the Christian religion. It was probably the belief of the majority of the British slaves in his dominions : it was certainly professed by his queen Bertha, the daughter of Charibert,...
Page 322 - By the lord," said the inferior, placing his hands between those of his chief, " I promise to be faithful and true ; to love all that thou lovest, and shun all that thou shunnrat, conformably to the laws of God and man ; and never in will or weald (power), in word or work, to do that which thou loathest, provided thou hold me as I mean to serve, and fulfil the conditions to which we agreed when I subjected myself to thee, and chose thy...
Page 37 - ... his direction, and has hitherto defied the ravages of time. Convinced by experience that the pretentura thrown up by Agricola could not confine the northern tribes, he resolved to oppose a second barrier to their incursions, by drawing a ditch and rampart across the island, from the Solway frith on the western, to the mouth of the Tyne on the eastern, coast. This mighty fortification measured in length...
Page 317 - I am still alive, and with the help of God I still shall conquer ! ' The men-at-arms once more returned to attack the redoubts, but they were again repelled by the impregnable phalanx of the Saxons. The Duke now resorted to the stratagem of ordering a thousand horse to advance, and then suddenly retreat, in the hope of drawing the enemy from his intrenchments.
Page 62 - When they pursue, they infallibly overtake: when they are pursued, their escape is certain. They despise danger: they are inured to shipwreck: they are eager to purchase booty with the peril of their lives. Tempests, which to others are so dreadful, to them are subjects of joy. The storm is their protection when they are pressed by the enemy, and a cover for their operations when they meditate an attack.
Page 72 - ... and forests Multitudes found a secure asylum among the mountains which cover the west of the island : where, struggling with poverty, and engaged in constant warfare, they rapidly lost the faint polish of provincial civilization, and relapsed into many of the habits of savage life.
Page 1 - Julius Caesar, in the short space of three years, had conducted his victorious legions from the foot of the Alps to the mouth of the Rhine. From the coast of the Morini he could descry the white cliffs of the neighbouring island : and the conqueror of Gaul aspired to the glory of adding Britain to the dominions of Rome. The inability or refusal of the Gallic mariners to acquaint him with the number of the inhabitants, their manner of warfare, and their political institutions ; and the prudence or...
Page 58 - British kings, had recourse to an expedient, which, however promising it might appear in the outset, proved in the result most fatal to the liberty of their country.
Page 17 - ... into the circle of courses : he is made to do penance for a time in the body of a beast or reptile : and then permitted to reassume the form of man. According to the predominance of vice or virtue in his disposition, a repetition of his probation may be necessary : but, after a certain number of transmigrations; his offences will be expiated, his passions subdued, and the circle of felicity will receive him among'its inhabitants t.

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