The Life of the Right Honourable John Philpot Curran, Late Master of the Rolls in Ireland, Volume 1

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A. Constable and Company, 1819 - Lawyers

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Page 310 - ... no matter with what solemnities he may have been devoted upon the altar of slavery ; the first moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain, the altar and the god sink together in the dust ; his soul walks abroad in her own majesty ; his body swells beyond the measure of his chains that burst from around him, and he stands redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled, by the irresistible Genius of UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION ! [Here Mr.
Page 310 - I speak in the spirit of the British law, which makes liberty commensurate with, and inseparable from, British soil; which proclaims even to the stranger and the sojourner, the moment he sets his foot upon British earth, that the ground on which he treads is holy, and consecrated by the genius of universal emancipation.
Page 314 - In that awful moment of a nation's travail, of the last gasp of tyranny and the first breath of freedom, how pregnant is the example ! The press extinguished, the people enslaved, and the prince undone. As the advocate of society, therefore — of peace — of domestic liberty — and the lasting union of the two countries — I conjure you to guard the liberty of the press, that great sentinel of the state, that grand detector of public imposture; guard it, because, when it sinks, there sinks with...
Page 311 - What then remains? The liberty of the press only — that sacred palladium which no influence, no power, no minister, no government, which nothing but the depravity or folly or corruption of a jury, can ever destroy. And what calamities are the people saved from by having public communication left open to them? I will tell you, gentlemen, what they are saved from, and what the government is saved from; I will tell you, also, to what both are exposed by shutting up that communication.
Page 292 - I am aware, my lords, that truth is to be sought only by slow and painful progress; I know also that error is in its nature flippant and compendious ; it hops with airy and fastidious levity over proofs and arguments, and perches upon assertion, which it calls conclusion.
Page 315 - I will not relinquish the confidence that this day will be the period of his sufferings; and, however mercilessly he has been hitherto pursued, that your verdict will send him home to the arms of his family, and the wishes of his country. But if, which heaven forbid, it hath still been unfortunately determined, that because he has not bent to power and authority, because he would not bow down before the golden calf and worship it, he is to be bound and cast into the furnace ; I do trust in God, that...
Page 203 - Consider the lilies of the field; they toil not, neither do they spin: yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Page 138 - Fabricius, whom to move from his integrity would have been more difficult than to have pushed the sun from his course. I would add, that if he had seemed to hesitate, it was but for a moment; that his hesitation was like the passing cloud that floats across the morning sun, and hides it from the view, and does so for a moment hide it by involving the spectator •without even approaching the face of the luminary...
Page 146 - Yes, my good lord, I see you do not forget them ; I see their sacred forms passing in sad review before your memory ; I see your pained and softened fancy recalling those happy meetings, where the innocent enjoyment of social mirth became expanded into the nobler warmth of social virtue, and the horizon of the board became enlarged into the horizon of man...
Page 376 - Let me ask you honestly, what do you feel, when in my hearing, when in the face of this audience, you...

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