The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. History of England (1849)
It is because we had a preserving revolution in the seventeenth century that we have not had a destroying revolution in the nineteenth. History of England (1849)
There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles II. But the seamen were not gentlemen, and the gentlemen were not seamen. History of England (1849)
I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the dignity of history if I can succeed in placing before the English of the nineteenth century a true picture of the life of their ancestors. History of England (1849)
Those who compare the age in which their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only in imagination, may talk of degeneracy and decay; but no man who is correctly informed as to the past, will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present. History of England (1849)
The ambassador [of Russia] and the grandees who accompanied him were so gorgeous that all London crowded to stare at them, and so filthy that nobody dared to touch them. They came to the court balls dropping pearls and vermin. History of England (1849)