"Commons" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... O ye swains,—'tis a tale most profane, How all the tyrannical powers, Kings, Commons, and Lords, are uniting amain, To cut down this guardian of ours. From the East to the West, blow the trumpet to arms, Through the land let the sound of it flee, Let the far and the near all unite with a cheer, In defense of ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... conclusion of an argument by Edmund Burke in which the speaker maintained that Warren Hastings should be impeached by the House of Commons. If it had been preceded by a clear "introduction" and convincing "proof," do you think that it would have made an ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon
... and when the heather-bells are coming out they all return, and each fairy takes possession of a bell and lives there. She makes it her home. And the brownies—they live under the leaves of the heather, and attend to the fairies, and dance with them at night just over the vast heather commons. Then, by a magical kind of movement, each little fairy sets her own heather-bell ringing, and you can't by any possibility imagine what the music is like. It is so sweet—oh, it is so sweet that no music one has ever heard, made ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... the Second-Reading of the Home Rule Bill passing through the English House of Commons, ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... Campeache, etc., and the government one of the most considerable next to Peru and Mexico.... So that Spain has as well too much right as advantage not to assert the propriety of these woods, for though not all inhabited, these people may as justly pretend to make use of our rivers, mountains and commons, as we can to enjoy any benefit to those woods." So much for the strict justice of the matter. But when the ambassador came to give his own opinion on the trade, he advised that if the English confined themselves to cutting ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... of all the Roman senators, alone attempted, by the power of virtue, to withstand the violence of Saturninus, tribune of the people at Rome, who would, by all means, cause an unjust law to pass in favour of the commons, and, by so doing, having incurred the capital penalties that Saturninus had established against the dissentient, entertained those who, in this extremity, led him to execution with words to this effect: That it was a thing too easy and too ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... 1872 the Government at Ottawa was subjected to a sort of fusillade on the question from the floor of the House of Commons. Hon. Alexander MacKenzie (afterwards Premier), Hon. Dr. John Schultz (later Sir John, Governor of Manitoba, who had been imprisoned by Louis Riel and had escaped with a price on his head), an ardent Canadian, Hon. William Cunningham, a newspaper man from Winnipeg, Hon. ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... Mercy that he was still "pure well;" and in these epistles he records with Pepysian minuteness every incident which was likely to be important at home; how Mr. Scawen had taken him to see the House of Commons, and how Lady Abney carried him out in her coach to Newington; how soon his wrist-bands got soiled in the smoke of London, and how his horse had fallen into Mr. Coward's well at Walthamstow; and how he had gone a fishing "with extraordinary success, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... granting to him and his successors the whole of the profits that might arise from the use of a water-raising engine, described in the last article in the 'Century' of Inventions. The 'Century' itself had been presented to the king and commons some months previously. This invention, coupled with its penultimate and antepenultimate ninety-ninth and ninety-eighth inventions, may indeed be justly considered as the wonder of the 'Century,' since, when united with ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... House of Commons, Monday, December 8.—Prince ARTHUR came down to House this afternoon, with light heart, and unwrinkled brow. The first section of Session was drawing to a close; truly a wonderful time. OLD MORALITY, in arranging for its disposal, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Dec. 20, 1890 • Various
... theological views were most responsible for the bitter hatred which was borne to him by a large body of his country-men, [12] and which found its expression in the malignant insinuations in which Burke, to his everlasting shame, indulged in the House of Commons. ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... to the general assembly of the people, who signify their approval or dissent by tumultuous cries, but have no power of altering or reversing the measures proposed by the nobles. Thus we have already the three main elements of political life: king, lords, and commons—though the position of the last is at present ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... however guilty, could not be touched by any known laws of the land. The speech of Lord Molesworth, the author of the State of Denmark, may shew the temper, or rather the intemperance, of the House of Commons. "Extraordinary crimes (exclaimed that ardent Whig) call aloud for extraordinary remedies. The Roman lawgivers had not foreseen the possible existence of a parricide; but as soon as the first monster appeared, he was sewn in a sack, and cast headlong into the river; and I shall be content to inflict ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... May (in his 'Constitutional History of England', 1760-1860), 'political discussion was silenced by the licenser, the Star Chamber, the dungeon, the pillory, mutilation, and branding.' The contest between King and Commons afterwards developed the free controversial use of tracts and newspapers, but the Parliament was not more tolerant than the king, and against the narrow spirit of his time Milton rose to his utmost height, fashioning after the masterpiece of an old Greek orator who sought ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... as popular now, in the autumn of his days among his country neighbours, as he had been in former times in Parliament, and among the Puritan leaders. Thrice had he represented his native county in the House of Commons, and had been a trusted friend of Oliver Cromwell himself. It was only latterly, men said, since Oliver showed a disposition to grasp more and ever more power for himself that the good Judge, unable to prevent that of which he disapproved, had retired from the intricate problems and difficulties ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... wrestled with sickness, temptation, and despair four mortal years; and with the inaccessible and thorny niche, a hole in a precipice, where the boy hermit Benedict buried himself, and lived three years on the pittance the good monk Romanus could spare him from his scanty commons, and subdivided that mouthful with his friend, a raven; and the hollow tree of his patron St. Bavon; and the earthly purgatory at Fribourg, where lived a nameless saint in a horrid cavern, his eyes chilled with ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... any man who said differently. Then rich and poor fell on their knees before him, and Arthur took the sword and offered it upon the altar where the Archbishop stood, and the best man that was there made him Knight. After that the crown was put on his head, and he swore to his lords and commons that he would be a true King, and would do them justice all the days ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... much in that way;—not directly, I mean. Only think where we should be if we had a feminine House of Commons, with feminine debates, carried on, of course, with feminine courtesy. My cousins Iphy and Phemy there would of course be members. ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... troops whom he had sent forward, and others who there met him from the neighboring garrison of Ariminium. The tribunes of the people, those great officers of the democracy, corresponding by some of their functions to our House of Commons, men personally, and by their position in the state, entirely in his interest, and who, for his sake, had fled from home, there and then he produced to the soldiery; thus identified his cause, and that of the ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... have to encounter beast? 760 They fight for no espoused cause, Frail privilege, fundamental laws, Not for a thorough reformation, Nor covenant, nor protestation, Nor liberty of consciences, 765 Nor Lords and Commons ordinances; Nor for the church, nor for church-lands, To get them in their own no hands; Nor evil counsellors to bring To justice that seduce the King; 770 Nor for the worship of us men, Though we have done as much for them. Th' AEgyptians worshipp'd dogs, and for Their faith made internecine ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... every street-crossing. All these streams and courses had fish in them at all seasons, and all summer long they had boys in them, and now and then a boy in winter, when the thin ice of the mild Southern Ohio winter let him through with his skates. Then there were the Commons: a wide expanse of open fields, where the cows were pastured, and the boys flew their kites, and ran races, and practised for their circuses in the tan-bark rings of the ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... winter what a joy it was, after a long solitary walk, or ride, or drive, or railway journey, to suddenly find myself at dusk in the midst of all that warmth and light and gayety; what a contrast to the House of Commons; what a relief after Barge Yard or Downing Street; what tea that was, what crumpets and buttered toast, what a cigarette; what romps and jokes, and really jolly good fun; and all that delightful untaught music that afterwards became so cultivated! Music was a special ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... the two representatives of the War Office in the House of Commons are singularly alike. When answering their daily catechism both wear spectacles—Mr. FORSTER an ordinary gold-rimmed pair, Mr. MACPHERSON the fearsome tortoise-shell variety which gives an air of antiquity to the most ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... in that time, when the great mortalitie reigned, renounced the faith of Christ, with that part of the people which he had in gouernement, for both the same Sighere and others of his chiefest lords, and also part of his commons louing this life, and not regarding the life to come, began to repaire their idolish churches, and fell to the worshipping of idols, as though thereby they should haue beene defended from that mortalitie. But his associat Sebbie with great deuotion continued stedfast ...
— Chronicles 1 (of 6): The Historie of England 5 (of 8) - The Fift Booke of the Historie of England. • Raphael Holinshed
... in the latter part of it. After referring me to his private residence, in case I wished to consult him personally later in the day, he mentioned some proceeding, called 'proving the Will,' and some strange place called 'Doctors' Commons.' However, there was the copy of the Will, and ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... that day to open the session, great numbers of the populace thronged about the prison from an expectation that Mr. W. would on that occasion recover his liberty; and with an intention to conduct him to the House of Commons. On being disappointed, they grew tumultuous, and an additional party of the third regiment of Guards were sent for. Some foolish paper had been stuck up against the prison wall, which a justice of the peace, then present, was not very wise in taking notice of, for when ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... opening which the disputes between king and parliament gave to men of his birth, education, and gifts. At first he was a moderate opponent of the king's attempts to dispense with parliament; but the growing evidence that the House of Commons was seeking to increase its own constitutional power at the expense of the prerogative, and especially the anti-Church tendencies of the parliamentary leaders, converted him at first into a moderate and then into a strong Royalist. One of the chief of the king's constitutional ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... practice, violently to revolutionize this world to their bidding,—that is quite another thing. There is the world of ideas and there is the world of practice; the French are often for suppressing the one and the English the other; but neither is to be suppressed. A member of the House of Commons said to me the other day: "That a thing is an anomaly, I consider to be no objection to it whatever." I venture to think he was wrong; that a thing is an anomaly is an objection to it, but absolutely and in the sphere of ideas: it is not necessarily, under such ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... lovely sufferer for whose rescue all true men and leal would fight to the death. He quoted the outrages of Elizabeth's reign, the cruelties of Cromwell's soldiery, the savagery of Ginkell, as if those wrongs had been inflicted yesterday, and the House of Commons of to-day were answerable for them. He made fiery speeches which were reported at length in the Irish newspapers. He was a fine speaker, after a florid pattern, and had a great command of voice, ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... by their being placed beyond the reach of that nutritious article, which drove them to seek a false stimulant in intoxicating liquors. He would undertake to prove before a committee of the House of Commons, that there existed a combination to keep up the price of muffins, and to give the bellmen a monopoly; he would prove it by bellmen at the bar of that House; and he would also prove, that these men corresponded with each other by secret words and signs as 'Snooks,' 'Walker,' 'Ferguson,' ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... memorable contest took place in the House of Commons, in which the partisans of Mr. Macabaw were so very nearly getting him the Speakership. On the day that the report of the debate appeared in the Times, there appeared also an announcement in ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... recently entered the House of Commons, and had already established a character there for industry and ability. He labored indeed under one most unfortunate defect, want of fluency. But he occasionally expressed himself with a dignity and energy worthy of the greatest orators. Before he had been many days in Parliament, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... Often no hand could be got for love or for gold to touch the sick or to carry the departed to their graves. When the graveyards were filled, thousands were buried, without a prayer or a last look, in deep trenches salted with quicklime, on the commons or in an open field. Many a street in many a town fell suddenly silent and deserted, and grass grew between the stones of the causeway. Here and there fires were kept burning night and day to purify ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... made in both houses that an humble address in reply be presented to his Majesty, professing loyalty to his person, and supporting his views and measures. The mover in the Commons was Thomas Ackland, who, in the course of his speech at the time, strongly urged the policy of coercion, and emphasized his approval of it by declaring that it would have been better for his country that America had never been known than that "a great consolidated western empire" ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... at a moment when I expected encouragement for having maintained the honour of my country while acting as a naval officer should have done, I wrote to him, 'You may scratch and be d——d.' This letter was, I think, very unfairly quoted against me some time afterwards in the House of Commons. However, my name was erased from the list of naval officers, and was not replaced there for several years. I was well and kindly received by His Majesty the Sultan, promoted to the rank of full admiral, and settled down to my work as a Turkish naval officer, head of the ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... first day, she espouses the cause of Hastings with a presumptuous vehemence and acrimony quite inconsistent with the modesty and suavity of her ordinary deportment. She shudders when Burke enters the Hall at the head of the Commons. She pronounces him the cruel oppressor of an innocent man. She is at a loss to conceive how the managers can look at the defendant and not blush. Windham comes to her from the managers' box, to offer her refreshment. "But," says she, "I could not break bread with ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... American, as were the grand house of William Morrison and the beautiful Edgar mansion. The house once occupied by the French commandant was wrapped in the national colors. It had been the first State House of Illinois. A hundred years before—just one hundred years—Kaskaskia Commons had received its grand name from his most Christian Majesty Louis XV, and it then seemed likely to become the capital of the French mid-continent empire in the New World. The Jesuits flocked here, zealous for the conversion of the Indian races. Here came ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... to the Cathedral and Doctors' Commons, made it the resort of the clergy, and ecclesiastical loungers. In that respect, Child's was superseded by the Chapter, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... home for trial, lest it should be discovered that the Lord Chancellor and his noble associates in the enterprise were confederates in the piracies also. Party spirit ran high, and the opponents of the ministers brought a resolution into the House of Commons for excluding from place all the partners of Kidd in the original enterprise. And although this resolution was voted down, yet the Tories contrived afterward to impeach the Whig lords upon the charge of having been concerned with Kidd. But the articles were not sustained. Meanwhile ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... full account of his estate, but willingly and knowingly concealed it, or any part of it, with design to defraud his creditors, he should be put to death as a felon: the reason and justice of which clause was this, and it was given as the reason of it when the act was passed in the House of Commons, namely, that the act was made for the relief of the debtor, as well as of the creditor, and to procure for him a deliverance on a surrender of his effects; but then it was made also for the relief of ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... which carry an association no less interesting, though of a different kind. The great porch facing the entrance gateway leads into the hall, which is also part of Bishop Fitzjames's work. The hall is divided by a screen of dark oak, which came from old Doctors' Commons, and the other oak fittings were brought here from the former chapel, and originally belonged to the chapel of London House, Aldersgate Street. A new ceiling was put up by Bishop Sherlock, whose arms are over ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... expression of his thought. "I'm just turned forty, and I feel like a boy. I was looking at that 'Peerage' there, the other day—and do you know, I'm sixteen years younger than the first Lord Plowden was when they made him a peer? Why he didn't even get into the House of Commons until ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... buildings of Dublin are justly famous. In the former may still be seen the room which was the House of Lords formerly, and where the bank directors now sit, under a clean marble image of George III. The House of Commons has disappeared, for the accommodation of clerks and cashiers. The interior is light, splendid, airy, well furnished, and the outside of the building not less so. The Exchange, hard by, is an equally magnificent structure; but the genius of commerce has deserted it, for all ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... of the sea, of the coasts, and the estuaries; of the lakes and rivers. There are no manor lords with exclusive privileges; no lands set apart for feeding beasts or birds for the profit or pleasure of particular persons; every one may kill game on his own grounds, and on the public commons. Yet with all these seeming advantages, there are rarely three successive years without a famine in one province ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... position is rated high in Texas in proportion to the amount of reward that’s out for him. They’d probably give me the freedom of the state if they knew my crimes had been the subject of debate in the House of Commons. ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... John Russell's measure was being debated in the House of Commons, there was a new political animation in Middlemarch, and a new definition of parties which might show a decided change of balance if a new election came. And there were some who already predicted this event, declaring that ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... Dashfort: "there was Lady ——, and the other sister, that married the man with the long nose; and the daughter again, of whom they contrived to make an honest woman, by getting her married in time to a blue riband, and who contrived to get herself into Doctors' Commons the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... poet, s. of a lawyer at Westbury, Wiltshire, was ed. at Winchester and Oxf., and became a barrister of the Middle Temple, 1595. He was a member successively of the English and Irish Houses of Commons, and held various legal offices. In literature he is known as the writer of two poems, Orchestra: a Poem of Dancing (1594), and Nosce Teipsum (Know Thyself), in two elegies (1) Of Humane Knowledge (2) Of the Immortality of the Soul. The poem consists ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... Monday, March 16.—House of Commons really looked to-night as if it meant fighting. No lack of matter for quarrel. Even before public business was reached, Orders bristled with Motions raising controversial points. Lord CHUNNEL-TANNEL, that man of peace, was to the fore; his Bill, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 28, 1891 • Various
... dissect a butterfly or a mosquito hawk, and describe their parts as accurately as a spectacled student with a scalpel and microscope could talk about a cadaver. The entire Third District, with its swamps and canals and commons and railroad sections, and its wondrous, crooked, tortuous streets, was an open book to Titee. There was not a nook or corner that he did not know or could not tell of. There was not a bit of gossip among the gamins, little Creole and Spanish fellows, with dark skins and lovely eyes, ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... Commons, Wednesday, Sept. 9.—Parliament met again after brief recess. Compared with recent rushes at critical epochs, attendance scanty. Among absentees the SPEAKER, who has well earned the holiday ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 16, 1914 • Various
... longer a Fellow—eo facto non socius ibidem existat (1441). If a Fellow of Peterhouse did not produce his book at the fresh selection, or appoint a deputy to bring it, he was liable to be put out of commons until he restored ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... I thought it was England. Whiniver ye hear iv anny counthry helpin' us, ye think it is England. That's because England has helped us so much in th' past. Says Lord Cranburne in reply to a question in th' House iv Commons: 'I am reluctantly foorced be mesilf to blushin'ly admit that but f'r us, people on their way to China to-day wud be gettin' up an' lookin' over th' side iv th' ship an' sayin', "This is where America used to be." Whin war was first ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... parsonage. His brother, succeeding to the estates, and residing chiefly in the neighbourhood, became, like his father before him, member for the county, and was one of the country gentlemen most looked up to in the House of Commons. A sensible and frequent, though uncommonly prosy speaker, singularly independent (for he had a clear fourteen thousand pounds a year, and did not desire office), and valuing himself on not being a party man, so that his vote on critical questions was ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book II • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of Madagascar and the mainland of Africa. It may be useful to mention that at this time the East India Company's monopoly of trade in the Indian Ocean had been broken by a declaration of the House of Commons, Jan. 11, 1694, that every British subject had the right ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... Bill says, "That that, among other things, shall be a conventicle wherein any such meeting is found doing any thing contrary to the Liturgy of the Church of England," they would have it added, "or practice." The Commons to the Lords said, that they knew not what might hereafter be found out which might he called the practice of the Church of England: for there are many things may be said to be the practice of the Church, which were never established by any law either common, statute, or canon; as singing ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... year—Doncaster, with its subscription-rooms under authority, winked at by a pious corporation, patronized by nobles and gentlemen supporters of the turf, and who are good enough, sometimes, to make laws for us plebeians in the Houses of Lords and Commons. There is Doncaster, with policemen to keep order, and admit none but "respectable" people—subscribers, who fear Heaven and honour the Queen. Are you aware, my Lord Chief-Justice, are you aware, Mr Attorney, Mr Solicitor-General, have you the slightest notion, ye Inspectors of Police, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Is there need for further restriction? Hall: Immigration, XI, XII. Hunter: Poverty, VI. Charities and The Commons, issue for ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... irregular pear-shape, and then was connected to another portion by a narrow neck. The little villages about had a rural aspect, and some of them were joined to the mainland by bridges. And cows were still pastured on the commons and in several tracts of meadow land in the city. Many people had their own milk and made butter. There were large gardens at the sides of the houses, many of them standing with the gable end to the street, ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... come in at six o'clock to give him his tea—a meal he always takes. At this period, however, there is something remarkably exciting in the proceedings of the French army under Pichegru; or Fox, Adam, or Sheridan, is expected to make an onslaught upon the ministry in the House of Commons. The post comes into Dumfries at eight o'clock at night. There is always a group of gentlemen on the street, eager to hear the news. Burns saunters out to the High Street, and waits amongst the rest. The intelligence of the evening is very interesting. The ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various
... Commons, Monday, March 24.—Prince ARTHUR explained in speech nearly two hours long the bearings of Irish Land Purchase Bill. In course of his exposition the happy accident by which civilised man is furnished with two coat-tails was strikingly illustrated. On ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... not. That's just my point. Your getting into the House of Commons doesn't seem probable now. But in those days your getting merely to know M.P.'s was equally improbable. The synagogal dignities were all filled up by old hands, there was no way of getting on the Council and meeting ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... have exactly suited the subjects of George the Second? The English have, it is true, long been a great and a happy people. But they have been great and happy because their history has been the history of a succession of timely reforms. The Great Charter, the assembling of the first House of Commons, the Petition of Right, the Declaration of Right, the Bill which is now on our table, what are they all but steps in one great progress? To every one of those steps the same objections might have been made which we heard to-night, "You are better off than your neighbours ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the calm had continued for twenty-four hours, during which we pulled continuously to the eastward, relieving each other at frequent intervals, this reflection almost ceased to afford us any comfort, for we found that short commons and hard work together were exhausting our strength with such alarming rapidity that, unless we sighted the hoped- for sail pretty speedily, we should have no strength left with which to pull to her. And when another twelve hours had passed over our heads, and another cloudless, breathless, blazing ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... Charta, suddenly mentions Henry VII., and then stops; he has not a word to say upon the responsibility of Ministers, the independence of the judicature, or even the freedom of the press. He approves of the English financial system, whose control by the Commons he mentions, but he fails to indicate the importance of the fact. As to the underlying principles of the constitution, the account which he gives of them conveys hardly more to the reader than the famous ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... invited to represent a Dorsetshire constituency in Parliament in the Radical interest. He was returned by a large majority; and, having a loud voice and an easy manner, he soon acquired some reputation both in and out of the House of Commons by the popularity of his own views, and the extent of his wife's information, which he retailed at second hand. He made his maiden speech in the House unabashed the first night he sat there. Indeed, he was afraid of nothing except ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... less, of style: and were I either to speak or write to the public, I should prefer moderate matter, adorned with all the beauties and elegancies of style, to the strongest matter in the world, ill-worded and ill-delivered. Your business is negotiation abroad, and oratory in the House of Commons at home. What figure can you make, in either case, if your style be inelegant, I do not say bad? Imagine yourself writing an office-letter to a secretary of state, which letter is to be read by the whole Cabinet Council, and very possibly ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... which led to the Great Charter, and the clauses of the Great Charter itself show that it was the joint work of English and Welsh. Wales again exerted a decisive influence on the Barons' War—the troubles in which the House of Commons first emerged. And Wales—half of it for more than six hundred years—half of it for nearly four hundred—has lived under the public law and administrative system which the Norman and Angevin kings ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... Fitchett, a tall fellow, who had once been a footman in the Oldinport family, and in that giddy elevation had enunciated a contemptuous opinion of boiled beef, which had been traditionally handed down in Shepperton as the direct cause of his ultimate reduction to pauper commons. His calves were now shrunken, and his hair was grey without the aid of powder; but he still carried his chin as if he were conscious of a stiff cravat; he set his dilapidated hat on with a knowing inclination towards the left ear; and when he was on field-work, he carted and ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... me God! then; but the landlord told me as you'd started off that mornin' for London, and he didn't know when you'd come back, and he didn't know the name o' the place where you lived in London, though he said he thought it was in one o' them law courts, such as Westminster Hall or Doctors' Commons, or somethin' like that. So what was I to do? I couldn't send a letter by post, not knowin' where to direct to, and I couldn't give it into your own hands, and I'd been told partickler not to let anybody else know of it; so I'd nothing to do but to wait and see if you come back, ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... expression of my sentiments, and the effect of the entire appeal was to elicit from the great man the kindest possible invitation. He would be delighted to see me, especially if I should turn up on the following Saturday and would remain till the Monday morning. We would take a walk over the Surrey commons, and I could tell him all about the other great man, the one in America. He indicated to me the best train, and it may be imagined whether on the Saturday afternoon I was punctual at Waterloo. He carried his benevolence to the point of coming to ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... and confounded (as in Egypt, yearely, with the ouerflowyng of Nilus, the greatest and longest riuer in the world) or, that ground bequeathed, were to be assigned: or, ground sold, were to be layd out: or (when disorder preuailed) that Commons were distributed into seueralties. For, where, vpon these & such like occasions, Some by ignorance, some by negligence, Some by fraude, and some by violence, did wrongfully limite, measure, encroach, ...
— The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara • John Dee
... both of you all the more for graceful ambiguities: mystery is priceless to your king, and your usage is obscure: therefore do I lay upon you higher honour. Henceforth, ye vowel magnates, and you my faithful commons consonants, take heed that no one be accounted literate or eloquent who places these my oldest friends in a dilemma. Their right use is a mystery; so be it; but woe be unto those whose innate want of taste profanes that mystery. Honour be to H, and worship be to W; and let those who misuse ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... we refer our readers to the Reports on Steam Navigation with India. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed. 14th July ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... Britain is the best and most glorious monarch upon the globe, and his subjects the happiest in the universe." And yet Lord Mansfield, whose marble figure stands proudly among those of other distinguished Englishmen in the corridor of the British House of Commons, defended him in Parliament, not as a loyalist, but as a revolutionist. "Otis" said he, "is a man of consequence among the people over there. It was said the man is mad. What then? One madman often makes many. Massaniello was mad, nobody doubts; yet ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... impressive; his person was dignified; and his clear, distinct voice fell on the listening ear like the sound of silver. After a graceful allusion to the distinguished character of his friend and client, Mr. Aubrey, (to whose eminent position in the House of Commons he bore his personal testimony,) to the magnitude of the interests now at stake, and the extraordinary nature of the claim set up, he proceeded: "On every account, therefore, I feel sensible, gentlemen, to an unusual and most ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... nothing at all; and his knowledge (save, perhaps in Art) was anything but extensive and still less accurate. Politically he was a mere baby, all the eighty years of his life; though he passed many of them in the House of Commons and might have passed several in the House of Lords, had he chosen to attend it. When he was young he was a theoretical republican rejoicing in the execution of Charles I.: when he was old the French Revolution was ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... for his head, Whatever winds might blow; A neighb'ring commons was his bed, Tho' drest in sheets ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... this motive, the queen, though engaged in successful and necessary wars, thought it more prudent to make a continual dilapidation of the royal demesnes,[*] than demand the most moderate supplies from the commons. As she lived unmarried, and had no posterity, she was content to serve her present turn, though at the expense of her successors; who, by reason of this policy, joined to other circumstances, found themselves on a sudden reduced ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... punished her husband by making him keep as many Lents in the same year as her sister did the King of Naples. The Queen not knowing what the Emperor meant, he explained himself, and said, 'When the King of Naples offends his Queen she keeps him on short commons and 'soupe maigre' till he has expiated the offence by the penance of humbling himself; and then, and not till then, permits him to return and share the nuptial rights ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 4 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... the Duke of Omnium's heir,—heir to that nobleman's title and to his enormous wealth; and, therefore, was a man of mark in the world. He sat in the House of Commons, of course. He was about five-and-twenty years of age, and was, as yet, unmarried. He did not hunt or shoot or keep a yacht, and had been heard to say that he had never put a foot upon a race-course in his ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... act like men in love? The mule's ire was culminating. I dug my spurs into his side. Vain effort! He was bent on mischief, and malignant against the persecuted race. If he had been in the House of Commons, (and many of his brethren are there,) I know he never would have voted for the admission of Jews into the English Parliament. Before I could anticipate his movement, he rushed at several pedestrian Hebrews ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... failure to assist Cochrane in the action in the Basque Roads, the admiralty went so far as to forge charts, and so to show that the admiral could not come to Cochrane's assistance, and Gambier was not only acquitted, but received a vote of thanks from the House of Commons for the victory in which he had taken no part. For four years Lord Cochrane received no appointment, but at the close of 1813 his uncle, Sir Alexander Cochrane, was selected for the command of the fleet on the North American ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... other than that precocious marvel of England who but a year before had taken the breath from the House of Commons, and had sent his fame flying over the Channel and across the wide Atlantic; the talk of London, who set the fashions, cringed not before white hairs, or royalty, or customs, or institutions, and was now, at one and twenty, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... briefly glance at each, as they form a most important standpoint in our national history, and are subjects of the first interest to Irishmen and to Irish history; and as Burke's maiden speech in the House of Commons was made in favour of conciliating America, I shall treat that question first. The facts are brief and significant but by no means as thoroughly known or as well considered as they should be, when we remember their all-important results—results which as yet ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... Mr. Hunt.—I was particularly curious to witness the debut of the Hon. Member for Preston, in an assembly so little accustomed, as that so long misnamed the House of Commons, to such an out-and-outer of the Demos coming between the wind and their nobility—to see whether any gaucherie of manner would betray an uneasy consciousness of his not being quite at ease among those scions ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... drawing-room, and I had a few moments of very pleasant, friendly conversation with Mr. Dickens. They are both people that one could not know a little of without desiring to know more. After a little we began to talk of separating; the lord mayor to take his seat in the House of Commons, and the rest of the party to any other engagement that ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... the stories told by Mr. Spencer Leigh Hughes in his speech in the House of Commons one night tickled everybody. It is the story of the small boy who was watching the Speaker's procession as it wended its way through the lobby. First came the Speaker, and then the chaplain, ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... the British House of Commons are disappointing to the pilgrim in search of decorum. The Mother of Parliaments has trouble ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... about to relate to my juvenile readers took place in the year 1647. By referring to the history of England of that date they will find that King Charles the First, against whom the Commons of England had rebelled, after a civil war of nearly five years, had been defeated, and was confined as a prisoner at Hampton Court. The Cavaliers, or the party who fought for King Charles, had all been dispersed, ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... ministry safely in hand, he turned his attention to the House of Commons. The old Whigs had set an example, which George was shrewd enough to follow. Walpole and Newcastle had succeeded in giving England one of the most peaceful and prosperous governments within in the previous ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... hearing Mr. Chamberlain's evidence, said that the inquiry was at an end as far as they were concerned, but that they would report the refusal to give up the missing cablegrams to the House of Commons. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 34, July 1, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Lyell. In these cavities are patches of sand like sea-sand, and like the sand which alternates with the great beds of small pebbles derived from the wear-and-tear of chalk-flints, which form Keston, Hayes and Addington Commons. Near Down a rounded chalk-flint is a rarity, though some few do occur; and I have not yet seen a stone of distant origin, which makes a difference—at least to geological eyes—in the very aspect of the country, compared with all the ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... it is provided: 'Forasmuch as divers shoemakers and cordwainers use to tan their leather, and sell the same falsely tanned—also make shoes and boots of such leather not well tanned, and sell them as dear as they will, to the great deceipt of the poor commons—it is accorded and assented, that no shoemaker nor cordwainer shall use the craft of tanning, nor tanner the craft of shoemaking; and he that doth contrary to this act, shall forfeit to the king all his leather so tanned, and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... this spot is beautiful, as fine as most woodland scenery. The view from Shah Zumaun's summer-house is also extensive, and not to be exceeded as a cultivated woodland scene; it is variegated with green swardy commons, presenting all sorts of cultivation; with water, villages, abundance of trees, willows, poplars, hedgerows, and by the grand but barren mountains surrounding it, the Pughman hills, which must be at least 13,000 feet ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... to make perfectly good laws, that is no one's fault but our own; for if we were wise, we should choose wise law-makers, and we must be filled with the fruit of our own devices. As long as these laws have been made and passed, by Commons, Lords, and Queen, according to the ancient forms and constitution which God has taught our forefathers from time to time for more than a thousand years, and which have had God's blessing and favour on them, and made us, from the least of all nations, the greatest nation on ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... aisle, o'er grating stair, The long procession poured, Till all were gathered on the seats Around the Commons board. ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... at the end of October, 1908. His sledges were drawn by strong, plump ponies obtained from Manchuria. They were fed with maize, compressed fodder, and concentrated food, but when during the journey they had to be put on short commons they ate up straps, rope ends, and one another's tails. The four men had provisions for fully ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... my acquaintance, the number of my dead and living companions, was enlarged. To a lover of books, the shops and sales of London present irresistible temptations; and the manufacture of my history required a various and growing stock of materials. The militia, my travels, the House of Commons, the fame of an author, contributed to multiply my connections: I was chosen a member of the fashionable clubs; and, before I left England in 1783, there were few persons of any eminence in the literary ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... information upon the subject. Lord Besborough having called after dinner for a bottle of champagne, a wine to which Mackay was partial, and the conversation turning on the means of governing the House of Commons, Mackay said, that, 'money formed, after all, the only effectual and certain method.' 'The peace of 1763,' continued he, 'was carried through and approved by a pecuniary distribution. Nothing else could have surmounted the difficulty. I was myself the channel ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 22., Saturday, March 30, 1850 • Various
... for what purpose elections were now ordered, unless to invent new penal laws, or to impose fresh burdens on the country. With all the efforts which had been made to introduce civil men, well affected in religion, it was certain that the Catholics would return a large majority of the House of Commons, not only in the chief towns, but from the fifteen old, and seventeen new counties, lately created. To counterbalance this majority, over forty boroughs, returning two members each, were created, by royal charter, in places thinly or not at ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... thing that gave him the greatest pleasure in the world' was 'to see sporting dogs hunt.'[7] I can myself recollect going over a country place with an old member of Parliament who had sat in the House of Commons for nearly fifty years of the most momentous period of modern English history. If questioned he could tell about the stirring scenes of the great Reform Bill of 1832, but it was curious to observe how speedily and inevitably he passed from such matters to the history of ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... personal conduct of a man, when beheld in his domestic career. It is, indeed, a source of deep thankfulness, the admirer of Burke's genius in public, has no reason to blush for his character in private; and that when we have listened to his matchless oratory upon the arena of the House of Commons, we have not to mourn over dissipation, impurity, and depravity amid the circles of private history. Our theory, then, is, that beyond what his distinctive genius inspired, Burke's wondrous power of enunciating everlasting principles ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... he, "you'll see the great Daniel Webster; he's a great man, I tell you; King William, number four, I guess, would be no match for him as an orator—he'd talk him out of sight in half an hour. If he was in your house of Commons, I reckon he'd make some of your great folks look pretty streaked—he's a true patriot and statesman, the first in our country, and a most particular cute lawyer. There was a Quaker chap too cute for him once ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... to defend the Church and religion, appears from many examples. Henry IV., in the second year of his reign, promises to maintain and defend the Christian religion (Rot. Parl., iii. 466.); and on his renewed promise, in the fourth year of his reign, to defend the Christian faith, the Commons piously grant a subsidy (Ibid., 493.); and Henry VI., in the twentieth year of his reign, acts as keeper of the Christian ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 59, December 14, 1850 • Various
... in my elder brother, and his fellows were ever subject to his will. Even at the shooting matches in sport he was ever chosen captain, and the singing pueri soon would do his every behest. Cousin Maud would give them free commons on many a Sunday and holy-day, and when they had well filled their hungry young crops at our table for the coming week of lean fare, they went out with us into the garden, and it presently rang with mirthful songs, Herdegen beating the measure, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... revolution since the Middle Ages) find it very hard to understand this steady passion for being a nuisance, and mistake it for mere whimsical impulsiveness and folly. When an Irish member holds up the whole business of the House of Commons by talking of his bleeding country for five or six hours, the simple English members suppose that he is a sentimentalist. The truth is that he is a scornful realist who alone remains unaffected ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... House of Commons, Monday, March 9.—When on conclusion of Questions the PRIME MINISTER rose to move Second Reading of Home Rule Bill, House presented appearance seen only once or twice in lifetime of a Parliament. Chamber crowded from floor to topmost bench of Strangers' Gallery. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... which side Mr. Bright took, and how judicious and far-sighted he was in taking it. But everybody should remember also how, when Mr. Bright pointed out the consequences likely to ensue from the cruise of the Alabama, he was insulted by Mr. Laird in the House of Commons; the Mr. Laird who launched the Alabama, who has been the means of creating bitter enmity between the people of this country and of the United States, and has contrived to invest the unlawful speculation of a shipbuilder with the dignity of an international difficulty, to make it the ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... into opposite Armies can never happen. If there had not first been an opinion received of the greatest part of England, that these Powers were divided between the King, and the Lords, and the House of Commons, the people had never been divided, and fallen into this Civill Warre; first between those that disagreed in Politiques; and after between the Dissenters about the liberty of Religion; which have so instructed men in this point of Soveraign Right, that there be ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... unknown of air, Out of all summer, from wave to wave, He'll perch, and prank his feathers fair, Jangle a glass-clear wildering stave, And take his commons there— ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... 1892 was Professor of Practical Theology in Hartford Theological Seminary, and in 1892 became Professor of Social Economics in the Chicago Theological Seminary. In 1894 he became the founder and resident warden of the Chicago Commons Social Settlement. Dr. Taylor is associate ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... was written, Feminism was demanding votes, and, not getting them at once, became naughty, and tied itself to the House of Commons or pushed policemen over. Chesterton devotes a large section of this book to demanding what is the mistake ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... there was a House of Commons Committee, before which Mrs. Fry gave evidence. Her statement is so remarkable as to be worth recovering out of a long-forgotten Blue Book. In answer to questions, she told the Committee that "There are rules, which occasionally, but very seldom, are broken; order has been ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... endeavored to persuade the British Government to unite with him in acknowledging the independence of the South—twice through efforts made directly upon the British Cabinet, and once through Roebuck and Lindsay, members of the House of Commons, to induce it by a parliamentary vote to compel the British Ministry to unite with the Emperor in acknowledging the independence of the South. That Louis Napoleon is our bitter enemy, is proved also by the French-Mexican war, in which ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Ireland become Parts of the same Empire with England Diminution of the Importance of England after the Accession of James I Doctrine of Divine Right The Separation between the Church and the Puritans becomes wider Accession and Character of Charles I Tactics of the Opposition in the House of Commons Petition of Right Petition of Right violated; Character and Designs of Wentworth Character of Laud Star Chamber and High Commission Ship-Money Resistance to the Liturgy in Scotland A Parliament called and dissolved The Long Parliament First Appearance of the Two great English Parties ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Complete Contents of the Five Volumes • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... statesmanship; that he was both a patriot and a reformer; that great constituencies were emulous to make him their representative; that in wit, in learning, in reason, in moderation, in wisdom, in the power of managing and directing men's minds and passions, he was the first man in the House of Commons; that the germs of great improvements are to be found in his speeches; that, when he was overborne by the almost absolute power of the Court, his apparent sycophancy was merely the wariness of a wise statesman; that Queen Elizabeth eventually acknowledged his services to ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... in Canadian elections for the Dominion House of Commons was given to a limited number of women for the first time in 1917. By an Act of Parliament which became law in 1918 all women in Canada have the right to vote in Dominion elections under the same conditions as men. Women of twenty-one and over have the right to vote in the Provincial elections ...
— The Canadian Girl at Work - A Book of Vocational Guidance • Marjory MacMurchy
... copyrights; never dreamed of making a collected edition of his works. He died in 1616, probably of drink taken. Legal documents prove him to have been a lender of small sums, an avid creditor, a would-be encloser of commons. In his will he does not bequeath or mention any books, manuscripts, copyrights, and so forth. It is utterly incredible, then, that this man wrote the poems and plays, so rich in poetry, thought, scholarship, ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... Design of the British Ministry was to make themselves Masters of the Property of the Colonists, and to appropriate their Money in such a Manner as effectually to enslave them. The Ministry had influence enough in Parliament to procure an Act, declaratory of a Right in the King Lords and Commons of Great Britain to make Laws binding his Majestys Subjects in America in all Cases whatsoever; and also to pass other Acts for taxing the American Subjects with the express Purpose of raising a Revenue, and appropriating the same for the Support ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... sight in England to see land in a natural uncultivated state devoid of vegetation. The hills are covered with grasses and bushes, the moors with ling and heather, commons with grass, bracken and gorse, a garden tends to become smothered in weeds, and even a gravel path will not long remain free from grass. It is clear that soil is well suited for the growth of plants. We will make a few experiments to see what ...
— Lessons on Soil • E. J. Russell
... with virulence against Uncles and Aunts; Accused the laws of England for allowing them to Possess their Estates when wanted by their Nephews or Neices, and wished HE were in the House of Commons, that he might reform the Legislature, and rectify all ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... order of precedence was observed as at the theatre—senators, knights, and commons having each their appropriate place. To the former was set apart the podium, a broad precinction or platform which ran immediately round the arena. Hither they brought the curule seats or bisellia, described in speaking of the theatres ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... 1445, a petition was presented, or entered on the rolls of the British Parliament, from the commons of two neighboring counties, praying the abatement of a nuisance which promised fearful interruptions to the peace and quiet of their hamlets, in consequence of the number of attorneys having increased from eight to twenty-four, setting forth that attorneys ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... became aware that a civil war was inevitable and that the South planned to issue privateers. On that day Russell asked the Admiralty to reinforce the British fleet in West Indian waters that British commerce might be adequately protected. Five days later, May 6, he announced in the Commons that Great Britain must be strictly neutral, and that a policy of close harmony with France was being matured; and on this day he proposed through Cowley, in Paris, that Great Britain and France each ask both the contending parties in America to ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... keep the cable tied up, when there is such important news to be sent. But the instructions are, 'Send no messages to the United States.' I'm sending an unimportant House of Commons speech." ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... character of the deceased, and the irreparable loss of the country, were delivered by the Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord Stanley, Lord Brougham, the Duke of Wellington, and the Duke of Cleveland, and in the House of Commons, by Lord John Russell, and Messrs. Hume, Gladstone, Goulburn, Herries, Napier, Inglis and Somervile. The House, in testimony of its grief, adjourned without business, an act without precedent, except in case of death in the royal ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... does not look with favour on the expedition. I have had to point out to him that a Field Ambulance is not, as he would say, the House of Commons, and that there is a certain propriety binding even on a chauffeur and a limit to the freedom of the speech you may apply to your Commandant. This afternoon Tom has exceeded all the limits. The worst of Tom is that while his tongue rages on the confines of ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... Fabius Maximus was elected pro-dictator by a vote of the Comitia—not dictator, because that could only be done through appointment by the surviving consul, then absent in Gaul—or none knew where. By the same power, and in order to appease the commons irritated by criticisms of Flaminius, Marcus Minutius Rufus was elected master of the horse. Nor were the gods neglected. Their stimulating influence was invoked by the dictator to inspire the people with confidence, while he soothed them with the intimation that Flaminius had failed rather ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... figure as public speakers; and Mr. Wilberforce, among others, may be held out as an instance. Nothing can be more insignificant as to mere outward appearance, and yet he is listened to in the House of Commons. But he does not wield it, he does not insult or bully it. He leads by following opinion, he trims, he shifts, he glides on the silvery sounds of his undulating, flexible, cautiously modulated voice, winding his way betwixt heaven ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... much," my companion murmured. "In the Lords it wouldn't matter, but in the Commons you are a nuisance. I suppose you want to ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and used the ruins of Tantallon for a magazine of smuggled merchandise. As for a gauger, I do not believe he valued the life of one at half a farthing. But that part of the coast of Lothian is to this day as wild a place, and the commons there as rough a crew, as any ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 1948) head of government: Prime Minister Tony BLAIR (since 2 May 1997) cabinet: Cabinet of Ministers appointed by the prime minister elections: none; the queen is a hereditary monarch; prime minister is the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons and must have the ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... to weight. Because two accusations are better than one, contradictions are set staring one another in the face, without even an attempt to reconcile them. And, to give the whole a sort of portentous air of labor and information, the table of the House of Commons is swept into this ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the plumbing appliances in their apartments, it interferes with them in twenty ways a day and hedges them round about with a hundred laws which they can only learn, as Parnell advised a follower to learn the rules of the House of Commons, by breaking them. ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... Parliamentary reform has been under discussion in the House of Commons. That the Legislature should attempt to deal with reforms of any kind which have not been previously demanded by the Daily Press is regarded in certain quarters as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various
... very decent devil, if judged by the exalted character of the company it kept. It stood high on the rungs of the social ladder and pulled and pushed men from it by thousands to wretchedness and ruin. So flagrant and universal was the drinking customs of Boston then that dealers offered on the commons during holidays, without let or hindrance, the drunkard's glass to the crowds thronging by extemporized booths and bars. Shocking as was the excesses of this period "nothing comparatively was heard on the subject of intemperance—it was seldom a theme ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... there was only this difference between the fates of Charles the First, and his son James the Second; that the former's was a wet martyrdom and the other's a dry one. When Sir Richard Steele was made a Member of the Commons it was expected from his ingenious writings that he would have been an admirable orator, but it not proving so, De Foe said "He had better have continued the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 551, June 9, 1832 • Various
... elegant compliment; the very crimes of others she seems to consider as so much incense offered up at the shrine of her own immaculate virtue. I'm certain she thinks she deserves to be canonised for having kept out of Doctors' Commons. Never is any affair of that sort alluded to that she does not cast such a triumphant look towards her husband, as much as to say, 'Here am I, the paragon of faithful wives and virtuous matrons!' Were I in his ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... the crevices had sprung a tuft of blue harebells, waving as wild and free as if they grew among the bonny red heather on the glorious hills of the North, or shook their tiny bells to the breeze on the broom-encircled commons ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... Discourse of the Contests and Dissensions between the Nobles and Commons of Athens ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various
... time—a Burleigh, a Cromwell, a Marlborough—was the usual thing. Marlborough was the last who tried to govern without party. During the reign of Anne the Whigs and Tories were combined in varying proportions, till the final return of a Tory House of Commons and the formation of a purely Tory ministry, in 1711. From that time Party Government, as we now understand ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... thy beams!' The phrase sounds exaggerated, but it was apparently his settled conviction that the only remedy for melancholy, except indeed the religious remedy, was in hard work or in the rapture of conversational strife. His little circle of friends called forth his humour as the House of Commons excited Chatham's eloquence; and both of them were inclined to mouth too much when deprived of the necessary stimulus. Chatham's set speeches were as pompous as Johnson's deliberate writing. Johnson ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... that, if the treaty were not the law of the land, the President should be impeached. But the parts of the treaty into which the President had not the right to enter, he could not make law by proclamation. Swanwick supported the call as one exercised by the House of Commons. On the Federal side, Harper said that the papers were not necessary, and, being unnecessary, the demand was an improper and unconstitutional interference with the executive department. If he thought them necessary, he would change ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... do not habitually try all political offences, they are competent to try them all. Another political body enjoys the right of impeachment before the House of Lords: the only difference which exists between the two countries in this respect is, that in England the Commons may impeach whomsoever they please before the Lords, whilst in France the Deputies can only employ this mode of prosecution against the ministers of ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... to the Crown being only 6s. 8d. There were also royalties connected with this estate which Welshmen were opposed to alienating from the Crown and placing in the hands of a private subject. There was opposition to the grant in the House of Commons and an address was voted, asking the King to ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard
... a practical builder to discover that? Absurd! Are you satisfied now? No! Take another illustration. What's this printed paper, here, on the chimney-piece? Assessed Taxes. Ha! Assessed Taxes will do. You're not in the House of Commons; you're not Chancellor of the Exchequer—but haven't you an opinion of your own about taxation, in spite of that? Must you and I be in Parliament before we can presume to see that the feeble old British Constitution is at ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... exertions Italy is making, both in her Parliament and through the press, for the suppression of this gambling principality—recounting the many terrible suicides so frequently occurring there. But, a still more hopeful sign is the action recently taken in our own House of Commons as evidenced by the following extract from the Morning Post of ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... well as the strength of his cause, he trampled upon his opponents, there was nothing coarse, nothing virulent, nothing contumelious, nothing ungenerous in his triumph. Whether he addressed the Liverpool electors, or the House of Commons, it was with the same ease, the same adaptation to his auditory, the same unrivalled dexterity, the same command of his subject and his hearers, and the same success. His only faults as a speaker were committed when, under the inebriating influence of popular applause, he was led away by the heat ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various
... been Mrs. Siddons's dearest friend. Indeed, for many years of her life, Mrs. F—— seems to me to have postponed the claims even of her husband and children upon her time and attention, to her absolute devotion to her celebrated idol. Mr. F—— was a dutiful member of the House of Commons, and I suppose his boy was at school and his girl too young to demand her mother's constant care and superintendence, at the time when she literally gave up the whole of her existence to Mrs. Siddons during the London ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... prerogative, the privilege of parliament, the detail of government, the nature and regulation of the finances, the different branches of commerce, the politics that prevail, and the connexions that subsist among the different powers of Europe; for on all these subjects the deliberations of a House of Commons occasionally turn. ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... going the rounds of the Locofoco Foreign Sag Nicht papers of the South, occupying from four to six columns, according to the dimensions of the papers copying. I have waded through your learned address, and find it to be one of more ponderous magnitude than the Report made to the British House of Commons, by Lord North, on a subject of far greater interest! And as I am one of the class of men you address, notwithstanding your great advantage over me in point of age and experience; and as no one has made a formal response to your pious warnings, it will not be deemed insolent ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... polling booths would be open, and the voters of the towns of Elgin and Clayfield and the surrounding townships would once again be invited to make their choice between a Liberal and a Conservative representative of the district in the Dominion House of Commons. The ground had never been more completely covered, every inch of advantage more stubbornly held, by either side, in the political history of the riding. There was no doubt of the hope that sat behind the deprecation in Walter Winter's eye, nor of the anxiety that showed ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... very natural feeling that it would be awkward for me if there were two Wurzel-Flummerys in the House of Commons, I should be the last to interfere with his decision. In any case, I don't see what concern it ...
— First Plays • A. A. Milne
... Orchids are the "Early Purple," which is abundant in our woods and pastures; the "Meadow Orchis"; and the "Spotted Orchis" of our heaths and commons. Less frequent are the "Bee Orchis," the "Butterfly Orchis," "Lady's Tresses," ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... kite and string he drew down the lightning from the clouds and showed that lightning was a discharge of electricity. He was now in London as agent for Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. His scientific and literary reputation gave him great influence. He was examined at the bar of the House of Commons. Many questions and answers were arranged beforehand between Franklin and his friends in the House. But many questions were answered on the spur of the moment. Before the passage of the Stamp Act the feeling of the colonists toward Britain had been "the best in the world." So Franklin declared. ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... Confederate chieftains. When the battle of Fredericksburg was fought, all the world thought that the desired recognition would come at once. James M. Mason, the commissioner to England, wrote home that a large majority of the House of Commons was willing to vote for acknowledging Southern independence, and Charles Francis Adams, the Minister of the United States, was of the same opinion. Gladstone, then one of the most popular members of the British Cabinet, and a majority of his colleagues favored ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... yacht—I hae a cousin at the board of excise—that's 'Commissioner Bertram; he got his commissionership in the great contest for the county, that ye must have heard of, for it was appealed to the House of Commons—now I should have voted there for the Laird of Balruddery; but ye see my father was a Jacobite, and out with Kenmore, so he never took the oaths; and I ken not weel how it was, but all that I could do and say, they keepit me off the roll, though my agent, that had a vote upon my estate, ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott |
