Joseph Ritson Quotes

To establish yourself at Stockton you have nothing to do but, by dint of evidence, &c. to gain a desperate cause or two, ruin two or three honest, and hang two or three innocent men, and your fortune is made.

Always prefer Tory or Jacobite writers; the Whigs are the greatest liars in the world. You consult history for facts, not principles. The Whigs, I allow, have the advantage in the latter, and this advantage they are constantly labouring to support by a misrepresentation of the former. A glaring instance of this habitual perversion is their uniform position that the King, Lords and Commons, are the three estates of the realm; than which nothing can be more false. Now, it so happens, that the bad principles of the Tories are corroborated by the facts and records of history, which makes it their interest to investigate and expose the truth: and I can readily believe that all the alterations which Hume professes to have made in his history in favour of that party were strictly just. The revolution itself was so iniquitous a transaction, and we have had such a succession of scoundrels since it took place, that you must not wonder if corruption or pusillanimity have prevented historians from speaking of both as they deserve.

As human sacrifices were a natural effect of that superstitious cruelty which first produced the slaughter of animals, so is it equally natural that those accustomed to eat the brute, should not long abstain from the man: more especially as; when toasted or broiled on the altar, the appearance, savour, and taste of both would be nearly, if not entirely, the same.

You talk of sending me the pebbles of the brook in exchange for the gold of Ophir: you return me the pearls of the Ocean for the mud of the Thames.

You complain, I see, that I have too much acidity in my composition; and, I think, you have too much puritanism. St. Matthew, vii. 5.

It suits your purpose, no doubt, to delude the unwary by false colors; as the devil, when he commences innkeeper, hangs out an angel for his sign. The real meaning, however, is that you '--set down ALL in malice.' Shakspears morality, in the hands of a Reviewer, is to be read backward, like a witch's prayer.

I inclose the catalogue of your friend Jackson the quakeers library. Perhaps you have already heard that the owner cut his throat in the wine-cellar, where he was accustomed to retire after the family had gone to bed: and there, as one of his servants observeed, was his "dear head found lyeing among the hogsheads." You see the various ways there are of creeping out of the world.

I confess it is a case I know not how to handle, since the actor can bear raillery no worse than the action will applause.

Whatever change may take place you must have better pretensions, I presume, to intitle yourself to its advantages than a set of political and religious opinions; unless you think it sufficient to emulate the bons citoyens who make it their business, in rags and tatters, to discuss questions in the Jardin de la revolution, for the good of their country.

...but if you succeed in persuading this poor devil to part with every penny of his own profits, in stripping him to the skin, in picking him to the bone, Jonathan Wild was a fool to you, that's all. You have my full and free consent to do whatever you please with the fellow, and god send him a good deliverance. But you won't forget to lend me the cash!

But I am sure you will agree with me that truth should be preferred to all things and sacrificed to nothing; and that a single fact is worth a hundred conjectures.

Does the expression Jugulatio, orjugulatus est, in the Ulster annals, imply strictly the cutting of a mans throat, or merely the putting him to death?

The modern practice of authors is rather to rival than assist one another; and indeed a mysterious jealousy on one side seems naturally enough to generate a secret hostility on the other.

I shall only request the favour to add that it would be most absurd nay inexpressibly impertinent and foolish in me to dispute the right you have in common with every other person of controverting my opinions or correcting my errors: a liberty of which no one perhaps has made a greater use than myself. I think I need call no ghost from the grave to explain the difference between information and attack. Far from being offended, you say, with any person who should acquaint you that you had a hole in your stocking or some dirt on your face, you would think yourself much obliged to him; and so should I, but not if he accompanied the information with a kick on the shin or a box on the ear. I have nothing to object to your inserting the notes of Mr. Tyrwhitt and Mr. Malone. They had received some provocation, and if they have advanced any thing I dislike I can find a speedier method of being even with them than that you are so obliging as to point out. And do you seriously think that after being gibbeted for eight or ten years in the margin of your edition it is a sufficient compensation that I stand a chance of obtaining a reversal of my sentence from your successor? No, no, e'en let me hang on.

You cannot say that I have ever been backward in doing justice to your ingenious contrivances and unremitting assiduity in pursuit of money. I foresaw the success of your design upon the poor Count, too well concerted, indeed, to give him a chance of eluding it. But I am not yet sufficiently hardened to congratulate you upon an event which affords the immediate prospect of a jail for your client, and the not very distant one of a gallows—or at least a pillory—for yourself. Jonathan Wild was a great man, to be sure; but I would not have you forget that he was hanged at last.