NOTE 71, p. 278.—This was in strict accordance with Burke’s political philosophy. In a letter to the Sheriff of Bristol, he wrote: “Of one thing I am perfectly clear, that it is not by deciding the suit, but by compromising the difference, that peace can be restored or kept.” NOTE 72, p. 278.—Shak.: “Othello,” Act iii., Scene v. So at the beginning of his paper on the “Present Discontents,” Burke speaks of “reputation, the most precious possession of every individual.” In the fourth letter on a “Regicide Peace,” he said: “Our ruin will be disguised in profit, and the sale of a few wretched baubles will bribe a degenerate people to barter away the most precious jewel of their souls.” NOTE 73, p. 279.—“I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love.”—HOSEA, xi., 4. NOTE 74, p. 279.—Another illustration of Burke’s habit of making use of the inestimable maxims of the great Greek politician. NOTE 75, p. 282.—“Experiment upon a worthless subject” was a maxim among old scientific inquirers. NOTE 76, p. 286.—A “Treasury Extent” was a writ of Commission for valuing lands and tenements for satisfying a Crown debt. NOTE 77, p. 289.—The quotation is from Juvenal i., l. 90, and refers to the habit of the Roman gambler. Gifford renders the passage: “For now no more the pocket’s stores supply The boundless charges of the desperate die, _The chest itself is staked_.” NOTE 78, p. 291.—Milton’s Paradise Lost, iv., 106. This also is a misquotation:—_retract_ should be _recant_. Burke seldom took the trouble to verify his quotations, but relied upon a powerful, though slightly fallible, memory. NOTE 79, p. 294.—This passage is perhaps one of the noblest and most characteristic of all Burke’s utterances. And yet, in all its magnificence it shows how largely the orator was indebted to his reading. Mr. E. J. Payne, as an illustration of the way in which Burke “repays his rich thievery of the Bible and the English poets,” has pointed out the sources from which the most striking expressions were consciously or unconsciously derived. The closing sentence in an adaptation from Virgil, Æn. vi., 726; “My trust is in her,” is from the Psalms; “Light as air,” etc., from Othello; “Grapple to you,” from Hamlet; “No force under heaven,” etc., from St. Paul; “Chosen race,” Tate & Brady; “Perfect obedience” and “mysterious whole,” from Pope. Most striking of all, the passage in which “the chosen race” is represented “turning their faces towards you,” is from 1. Kings, viii., 44–45. “If the people go out to battle, or whithersoever thou shall send them, and shall pray unto the Lord toward the city, which thou hast chosen, and toward the house that I have built in thy name, then hear thou in heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause.” NOTE 80, p. 295.—Until 1798 the Land Tax yielded from one third to one half of all the revenue; but in that year it was made permanent, and now yields only about one sixty-fourth.