A Series of Letters Between Mrs. Elizabeth Carter and Miss Catherine Talbot, from the Year 1741 to 1770: To which are Added, Letters from Mrs. Elizabeth Carter to Mrs. Vesey, Between the Years 1763 and 1787; Published from the Original Manuscripts in the Posession of the Rev. Montagu Pennington, 4. köide

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F.C. and J. Rivington, 1809
 

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Page 85 - ... happiness below. His great integrity, his amiable simplicity, and the gentle temper of his mind, rendered him unfit for the advancements of public life, which in this bad world are procured and supported by arts to which his soul was an utter stranger: and the affections of his heart were disappointed in every scheme of that domestic comfort, which he was so peculiarly qualified to impart, and to enjoy. He was a noble and edifying example of the power of Christian principles, in many instances,...
Page 21 - Thus passes life in an alternation tion of private and of social suffering ; and yet SO wonderful and so merciful is the composition of our existence, that innumerable pleasures find a place amidst the evils of mortality, and, upon the whole, we suffer only just enough to reconcile us to the limits of our present duration, and to extend our views to futurity.
Page 109 - Aikin, and Mr. Bryant's Analysis of Ancient Mythology, of which I have read one volume in quarto. It is a work of immense learning, and very great ingenuity, but has to me the fault of almost all the mythological systems I ever read} the want of sufficient proof. When one is professedly invited into the regions of fiction, the further one travels the better. Imagination has a natural right to take the lead, and reason very quietly falls asleep, and never interferes in the progress. But whenever an...
Page 110 - He died of a fever, poor man ! I am sincerely glad to hear he has no family, so his loss will not be felt in domestic life.
Page 58 - ... raving and blaspheming at a gaming-table, must be an aggregate of all the follies and all the crimes that a worthless head and a profligate heart can collect from all parts of the globe. Next winter may perhaps furnish a companion to the picture, and exhibit the coterie ladies making riots at the play-houses, armed with oaken clubs, knocking down watchmen, and demolishing lamps — and fainting away at the sight of a spider or an earwig.
Page 174 - Yes : ask your own heart ; and it will tell you, what is the rule of life that best directs it to grow wise and good. Be thankful for this gracious guidance, and never listen to the half learning, the perverted understanding, and pert ridicule of French philosophers, and beaux esprits, who would persuade you it is best to wander over a wide stormy ocean, without a pilot, and without a leading star!
Page 92 - It grieves me to find your spirits are still so low ; but do endeavour to raise them from the melancholy chambers' of the grave, to those glad regions of immortality and happiness, where I trust our excellent friend is rejoicing in his escape from the sufferings of probationary life. It would be absolutely selfish to wish him back again into a world where his trials derived their most painful acuteness from the sensibility of his virtue.
Page 93 - ... are as impenetrable to example as they are to reason ; though, as you say, they may be silenced, they will not be convinced ; for conviction is not an operation of the head, but of the heart. This is the doctrine of inspiration, and common sense and experience bear ample testimony to its truth. " You say Lord Lyttelton ' became a Christian* from philosophical enquiry.
Page 85 - ... violence beat upon him. In all the conversations upon his misfortunes to which I have been witness, I do not recollect ever to have heard him utter a single murmur or complaint. It pleased God to try him in the " furnace of affliction," and like gold he came out with the greater purity and the brighter lustre.
Page 93 - I differ from you with regard to the persons who will receive the benefit from works of this kind. They contribute, as every thing else does, to make the good better, but seldom, or never to reform the bad. Those whom you justly characterize by the title of

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