Letters Written by the Late Earl of Chatham to His Nephew Thomas Pitt, Esq. (afterwards Lord Camelford)

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T. Payne, 1804 - 104 pages
 

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Page xxi - I call therefore a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices both private and public of peace and war.
Page xxvi - Musam meditaris avena ; nos patriae fines et dulcia linquimus arva : nos patriam fugimus ; tu, Tityre, lentus in umbra formosam resonare doces Amaryllida silvas.
Page xxxi - Virgil. I hope you taste and love those authors particularly. You cannot read them too much : they are not only the two greatest poets, but they contain the finest lessons for your age to imbibe : lessons of honour, courage, disinterestedness, love of truth, command of temper, gentleness of behaviour, humanity, and in one word, virtue in its true signification.
Page 20 - The first is the perfection and glory of the human nature ; the two last the deprivation and disgrace of it. Remember the essence of religion is, a heart void of offence towards God and man ; not subtle speculative opinions, but an active vital principle of faith. The words of a heathen were so fine that I must / give them to you: Compositum Jus, Fasque Animi, Sanctosque Recessus Mentis, et incoctum generoso Pectus Hones to.
Page 28 - I would however venture to call it, benevolence in trifles, or the preference of others to ourselves in little daily, hourly, occurrences in the commerce of life.
Page 13 - ... information or explanation upon a point, to do it with proper apologies for the trouble you give: or if obliged to differ, to do it with all possible...
Page 16 - ... errors for truths, prejudices for principles; and when that is once done (no matter how vainly and weakly), the adhering perhaps to false and dangerous notions, only because one has declared for them, and submitting, for life, the understanding and conscience to a yoke of base and servile prejudices, vainly taken up and obstinately retained.
Page 11 - ... abhorrence you feel for the scene of vice and folly (and of real misery and perdition, under the false notion of pleasure and spirit), which has opened to you at your college, and at the same time, the manly, brave, generous, and wise resolution and true spirit, with which you resisted and repulsed the first attempts upon a mind and heart, 1 thank God, infinitely too firm and...
Page 14 - There is likewise a particular attention required to contradict with good manners ; such as, begging pardon, begging leave to doubt, and such like phrases.
Page 58 - ... corrupt man with such an aphorism ! What fatal casuistry is it big with ! How many a villain might, and has masked himself in the sayings of ancient illustrious exiles, while he was, in fact, dissolving all the nearest and dearest ties that hold societies together, and spurning at all laws, divine and human ! How easy the transition from this political to some impious ecclesiastical aphorisms ! If all soils are alike to the brave and virtuous, so may all churches and modes of worship ; — that...

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