[The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 by Charles Lamb]@TWC D-Link book
The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4

CHAPTER XIII
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A generous creature a horse is, sensible in some sort of honor; and made most handsome by that which deforms men most--pride." _Martyrdom_.--"Heart of oak hath sometimes warped a little in the scorching heat of persecution.

Their want of true courage herein cannot be excused.

Yet many censure them for surrendering up their forts after a long siege, who would have yielded up their own at the first summons .-- Oh! there is more required to make one valiant, than to call Cranmer or Jewel coward; as if the fire in Smithfield had been no hotter than what is painted in the Book of Martyrs." _Text of St.Paul_.--"St.Paul saith, Let not the sun go down on your wrath, to carry news to the antipodes in another world of thy revengeful nature.

Yet let us take the Apostle's meaning rather than his words, with all possible speed to depose our passion; not understanding him so literally, that we may take leave to be angry till sunset: then might our wrath lengthen with the days; and men in Greenland, where the day lasts above a quarter of a year, have plentiful scope for revenge."[1] [Footnote 1: This whimsical prevention of a consequence which no one would have thought of deducing,--setting up an absurdum on purpose to hunt it down,--placing guards as it were at the very outposts of possibility,--gravely giving out laws to insanity and prescribing moral fences to distempered intellects, could never have entered into a head less entertainingly constructed than that of Fuller or Sir Thomas Browne, the very air of whose style the conclusion of this passage most aptly imitates.] _Bishop Brownrig_.--"He carried learning enough _in numerato_ about him in his pockets for any discourse, and had much more at home in his chests for any serious dispute." _Modest Want_.--"Those that with diligence fight against poverty, though neither conquer till death makes it a drawn battle, expect not but prevent their craving of thee: for God forbid the heavens should never rain, till the earth first opens her mouth; seeing _some grounds will sooner burn than chap_." _Death-bed Temptations_.--"The devil is most busy on the last day of his term; and a tenant to be ousted cares not what mischief he doth." _Conversation_.--"Seeing we are civilized Englishmen, let us not be naked savages in our talk." _Wounded Soldier_.--"Halting is the stateliest march of a soldier; and 'tis a brave sight to see the flesh of an ancient as torn as his colors." _Wat Tyler_.--"A _misogrammatist_; if a good Greek word may be given to so barbarous a rebel." _Heralds_.--"Heralds new mould men's names--taking from them, adding to them, melting out all the liquid letters, torturing mutes to make them speak, and making vowels dumb,--to bring it to a fallacious _homonomy_ at the last, that their names may be the same with those noble houses they pretend to." _Antiquarian Diligence_.--"It is most worthy observation, with what diligence he [Camden] inquired after ancient places, making hue and cry after many a city which was run away, and by certain marks and tokens pursuing to find it; as by the situation on the Roman highways, by just distance from other ancient cities, by some affinity of name, by tradition of the inhabitants, by Roman coins digged up, and by some appearance of ruins.

A broken urn is a whole evidence; or an old gate still surviving, out of which the city is run out.


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