[Footnote 1510: Francis Horner, in one of his letters, says: "It is among the
very sincere and zealous friends of liberty that you will find the most
perfect specimens of wrongheadedness; men of a dissenting, provincial
cast of virtue--who [15according to one of Sharpe's favourite phrases]
WILL drive a wedge the broad end foremost--utter strangers to all
moderation in political business."--Francis Horner's LIFE AND
CORRESPONDENCE [151843], ii. 133.]
[Footnote 1511: Professor Tyndall on 'Faraday as a Discoverer,' pp. 40-1.]
[Footnote 1512: Yet Burke himself; though capable of giving Barry such excellent
advice, was by no means immaculate as regarded his own temper. When
he lay ill at Beaconsfield, Fox, from whom he had become separated by
political differences arising out of the French Revolution, went down
to see his old friend. But Burke would not grant him an interview;
he positively refused to see him. On his return to town, Fox told his
friend Coke the result of his journey; and when Coke lamented Burke's
obstinacy, Fox only replied, goodnaturedly: "Ah! never mind, Tom; I
always find every Irishman has got a piece of potato in his head."
Yet Fox, with his usual generosity, when he heard of Burke's impending
death, wrote a most kind and cordial letter to Mrs. Burke, expressive of
his grief and sympathy; and when Burke was no more, Fox was the first
to propose that he should be interred with public honours in Westminster
Abbey--which only Burke's own express wish, that he should be buried at
Beaconsfield, prevented being carried out.]
[Footnote 1513: When Curran, the Irish barrister, visited Burns's cabin in 1810, he
found it converted into a public house, and the landlord who showed it
was drunk. "There," said he, pointing to a corner on one side of the
fire, with a most MALAPROPOS laugh-"there is the very spot where Robert
Burns was born." "The genius and the fate of the man," says Curran,
"were already heavy on my heart; but the drunken laugh of the landlord
gave me such a view of the rock on which he had foundered, that I could
not stand it, but burst into tears."]
[Footnote 1514: The chaplain of Horsemongerlane Gaol, in his annual report to the
Surrey justices, thus states the result of his careful study of the
causes of dishonesty: "From my experience of predatory crime, founded
upon careful study of the character of a great variety of prisoners,
I conclude that habitual dishonesty is to be referred neither to
ignorance, nor to drunkenness, nor to poverty, nor to overcrowding in
towns, nor to temptation from surrounding wealth--nor, indeed, to any
one of the many indirect causes to which it is sometimes referred--but
mainly TO A DISPOSITION TO ACQUIRE PROPERTY WITH A LESS DEGREE OF LABOUR
THAN ORDINARY INDUSTRY." The italics are the author's.]
[Footnote 1515: S. C. Hall's 'Memories.']
[Footnote 1516: Moore's 'Life of Byron,' 8vo. Ed., p. 182.]
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