One story's good, they say, till another's told. Your clients, I will do you the justice to believe, can lye no faster than you can swear. But you se… - Joseph Ritson

A Scotchman in a passion must necessarily be a very ferocious and dangerous animal: it is therefore, very well for me to have been at so great a distance when the fit came on; otherwise, perhaps, instead of an angry letter, I should have received your dirk in my wem. Egertons advice, no doubt, was meant to be confined to English Booksellers, as he must be thoroughly sensible, if it were only from his dealings with you, of the immaculacy of his Scotish brethren...You seem to forget that three shillings sterling is near two pounds Scots, and that there has been a time when the mighty and puissant Monarch of all Scotland had not such a sum in his Treasury. The case is altered, I perceive, at present; but whom have you to thank for it?

The consciousness of a mind disposed to contribute to the happiness of the minutest being … shall afford you a much greater and more heartfelt satisfaction than to be clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day.

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.