The Craftsman, Volume 10

Front Cover
R. Francelin, 1737

From inside the book

Selected pages

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 107 - This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land, Dear for her reputation through the world, Is now leas'd out (I die pronouncing it), Like to a tenement, or pelting farm: England, bound in with the triumphant sea, Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame, With inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds: That England, that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Page 196 - Our ships are laden with the harvest of every climate : our tables are stored with spices, and oils, and wines; our rooms are filled with pyramids of China, and adorned with the workmanship of Japan : our morning's draught comes to us from the remotest corners of the earth; we repair our bodies by the drugs of America, and repose ourselves under Indian canopies. My friend Sir Andrew calls the vineyards of France our gardens; the spice-islands our hot-beds; the Persians our silk-weavers, and the Chinese...
Page 196 - ... perfection than a crab : that our melons, our peaches, our figs, our apricots, and cherries, are strangers among us, imported in different ages, and naturalized in our English gardens ; and that they would all degenerate...
Page 194 - I have often been pleased to hear disputes adjusted between an inhabitant of Japan and an alderman of London, or to see a subject of the great mogul entering into a league with one of the Czar of Muscovy.
Page 197 - In this case, how would he be surprised to hear all the languages of Europe spoken in this little spot of his former dominions, and to see so many private men, who in his time would have been the vassals of some powerful baron, negotiating like princes for greater sums of money than were formerly to be met with in the royal treasury ! Trade, without enlarging the British territories, has given us a kind of additional empire.
Page 195 - I am wonderfully delighted to see such a body of men thriving in their own...
Page 195 - Nature seems to have taken a particular care to disseminate her blessings among the different regions of the world, with an eye to this mutual intercourse and traffic among mankind, that the natives of the several parts of the globe might have a kind of dependence upon one another, and be united together by their common interest.
Page 196 - Nor has traffic more enriched our vegetable world, than it has improved the whole face of nature among us. Our ships are laden with the harvest of every climate. Our tables are stored with spices, and oils, and wines.
Page 58 - I grant it is, the greatest part of it ; but is the land excused, or eased by it ? By no means : but, on the contrary, so loaded, that in many places half, in others a quarter, in others one eighth of the yearly value does not come into the owner's pocket : and if I have not been misinformed, the land in some places will not pay the taxes : so that we may say, that the charge of the government came not upon commodities, till the land could not bear it. The burthen unavoidably settles upon the land...
Page 194 - Frenchman at different times; or rather fancy myself like the old philosopher, who upon being asked what countryman he was, replied, that he was a citizen of the world. Though I very frequently visit this busy multitude of people, I am known to nobody there but...

Bibliographic information