Belfegor [a verse adaptation of N. Machiavelli's novella di Belfegor].

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Page 101 - ... refused, to inform and prosecute on this law. Every Roman Catholic was, under the same act, to forfeit his estate to his nearest Protestant relation, until, through a profession of what he did not believe, he redeemed by his hypocrisy, what the law had transferred to the kinsman as the recompense of his profligacy.
Page 42 - No sooner had the Almighty ceased, but all The multitude of angels, with a shout Loud as from numbers without number...
Page 101 - Latin tongue, not exactly the same as our liturgy, but very near it and containing no offence whatsoever against the laws, or against good morals) was forged into a crime punishable with perpetual imprisonment. The teaching school...
Page 108 - A patriot, sir! Why, patriots spring up like mushrooms! I could raise fifty of them within the four-andtwenty hours. I have raised many of them in one night. It is but refusing to gratify an unreasonable or an insolent demand, and up starts a patriot.
Page 101 - Catholic was, under the same act, to forfeit his estate to his nearest Protestant relation, until, through a profession of what he did not believe, he redeemed, by his hypocrisy, what the law had transferred to the kinsman as the recompense of his profligacy. When thus turned out of doors from his paternal estate, he was disabled from acquiring any other by any industry, donation, or charity; but was rendered a foreigner in his native land...
Page 126 - ... and such disinterested forbearance was least of all to be expected in the clergy of the middle ages. The history of one of the absurd relics mentioned in the preceding pages, the good sword of Winfarthing, is probably a fair sample of that of a majority of the shrines, if their origin could be known. This precious relic was originally the sword of a robber, who took sanctuary in the churchyard, but escaped through the negligence of the watchman, and left this sword behind him. It was laid up...
Page 116 - Ireton's regiment, that at Cashell, in the county of Tipperary, in the province of Munster, in Carrick- Patrick church, seated on a hill or rock, stormed by the Lord Inchequine, and where there were neare 700 put to the sword, and none saved but the mayor's wife and his son...
Page 28 - The peace of 1763,' continued he, ' was carried through and approved by a pecuniary distribution. Nothing else could have surmounted the difficulty. I was myself the channel through which the mony passed.
Page 67 - He was nearly wholly in the water of the well, his feet just above the surface. Williams fastened the other end of the cord round the paling, to prevent the body getting beyond our reach. The boy struggled a little with his arms and legs in the water; the water bubbled for a minute. We waited till these symptoms were past, and then went in, and afterwards I think we went out, and walked down Shoreditch to occupy the time...
Page 118 - ... binding themselves thereby with a perpetual reproach : for afterward, by the will of God, it so happened, that every one which came of that kinred of men which had plaied that naughty prank, were borne with tailes, even as brute beasts bee.

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