"Commonality" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is buried under the floor of his own house, without monument or memorial, and among the commonalty the house continues occupied as usual, but among the great there is more refinement, and it is ever after abandoned. The corpse being washed, the first chapter of the Koran is read over it, and the interment ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... the people to prey in their turn on them; those who found their own acres disappearing, became enclosers of commons; this is one of the grievances which Massinger notices, while the writer of the "Five Years of King James" tells us that these discontents between the gentry and the commonalty grew out into a petty rebellion; and it appears by Peyton that "divers of the people were ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... a breach ready to fall, even this iniquity of going down to Egypt for help, &c. Then, (ver. 6) there is a snare to entrap thy feet in the sins of the wicked; if thou be joined with them, thou cannot well escape. Ver. 8: Wicked profane contemners of God and his people bring ruin on a city or commonalty, they set it on fire and blow it up. But godly men pacify wrath, turn away judgments, and purge all from provocations, which is the only means to turn it away. Ver. 16 shows, when wicked men gather together, and grow ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... little all tied in handkerchiefs and stockings to take up the tribute required by Bismarck to rid the soil of the detested German. They did it. Alone they did it—the French people—the hard-working, frugal, loyal commonalty of France—without asking the loan of a sou ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... prevailed during the last twenty years. By the "Provisions of Oxford" it was agreed that the Great Council should assemble thrice in the year, whether summoned by the king or no; and on each occasion "the Commonalty shall elect twelve honest men who shall come to the Parliaments, and at other times when occasion shall be when the King and his Council shall send for them, to treat of the wants of the king and of his kingdom. And the Commonalty shall hold as established that which these Twelve shall do." ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... newcomers. For the former, all benefits from communal trade and communal lands were reserved, and nothing was left for the latter but the right of freely using the skill of their own hands. The city thus became divided into "the burghers" or "the commonalty," and "the inhabitants."(38) The trade, which was formerly communal, now became the privilege of the merchant and artisan "families," and the next step—that of becoming individual, or the privilege ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... lead to as easily as would any magistrate to-day who had before him a carpenter accused of persuading soldiers that killing is murder. Politicians move on the level of the common intelligence, and compete there with each other in charging the ignorance of the commonalty with emotion. A politician need be no more than something between a curate and a card-sharper. If he knows anything of the arts, of history, of economics, or of science, he had better forget it, or else use it as a forestaller would ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... people is reduced to the last extremity, the high position of its chiefs is in danger; the humble commonalty easily finds ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... that hell which had long gaped for it. To those his companions his death was as slight a thing as would theirs have been to him. In the eyes of the two remaining would-be leaders he was a stumbling-block removed, and to the squatting, open-mouthed commonalty his taking off weighed not a feather against the solid entertainment I was affording them. I was now a better man than Red ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... of the great muster had already gone back to their tents and lodgings. The commonalty were mostly stringing away through the vales and hill passes to their homes, no longer in ordered companies, but in bands of two or three. Disputes and misunderstandings arose here and there between men of different provinces. ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... necessarily be attacked by the asserters of divine right in temporal government. If our experiment succeeds the powers of Europe must fall, or undergo an entire change. {113} England's nobility must acknowledge, sooner or later, the equality of the commonalty and gentry with themselves. Distinctions in France have already gone, except as to the assertion of the power of an emperor by virtue of ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... the knowledge of the Ismi Aazam or Great Name, a knowledge first possessed by the prophet Sulaiman or Solomon, and since Solomon transmitted only to those who are highly favoured by Providence. This appears to be the true name of God, which is too awful and potent to be known or used by the commonalty; hence Allah, really an epithet, is used instead. It was in virtue of engraving the great name on his ring that Solomon possessed dominion over men and genii, and over the winds and birds and beasts. The uttering of Solomon's own name casts out demons, cures the sick, and raises the dead. The names ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... themselves socially aloof from the populace, they set a moral standard for them and guided them by their example. I admit Bushido had its esoteric and exoteric teachings; these were eudemonistic, looking after the welfare and happiness of the commonalty, while those were aretaic, emphasizing the practice of virtues ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... they saw in the streets and in the churches, as belonging to one of these three types. But my ecclesiastical acquaintances were as free from hypocrisy as from fanaticism. They were good, honest children of the commonalty, with, not the cunning, but ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... the wallet must be filled somehow," he said, striking his stomach, "we cannot afford to wait. Moreover, these gentry who lead snug lives in government offices may talk and talk, but their words are not good to eat, so I have come back here again to draw my pay out of the commonalty," he said, striking the mud with ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... as he had bathed over sixty patients, sufferers from all the most abominable diseases of unhappy humanity, at the piscinas that morning. And the scene around him seemed like a realisation of the evangelical commonalty; but doubtless it was so charming and so gay simply because its duration ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... courted his acquaintance as the sine qua non of society; and the younger members of the school looked up to him for protection and assistance. If power was abused by the upper boys, Bernard was appealed to as the mediator between the fag{9} and his master. His grants of liberties{10} to the commonalty were indiscriminate and profuse, while his influence was always exerted to obtain the same privileges for his numerous proteges from the more close aristocrats.{11} He was always to be seen attended by a shoal ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... miracle of Brou. It is a whole world. You would say that either one transcendent genius had modelled every face and figure of those thousands (so individual are they), or that a company of inspired men differing in their traditions and upbringing from all the commonalty of mankind had done such things. When you go to the names all you find is that Coulombe out of Touraine began the job, that there was some sort of quarrel between his head-man and the paymasters, that he was replaced in the most everyday manner conceivable by a Fleming, Van Boghem, ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... would have been far nicer for me to have made friends with the people in the little villas. My! I've often thought how I would relish a tea-party at the Watsons'! Your father used to have a saying about it being better to be at the head of the commonalty than at the tail of the gentry, and I know it's true. Mrs. Duff-Whalley of The Towers would be a big body at the Miss Watsons' tea-parties, and I know fine I'm only tolerated at the Tweedies' and the Olivers' and all ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... resorted to the old practice of summoning national assemblies, the so-called Danehof. At the first of these assemblies held at Nyborg, Midsummer Day 1314, the bishops and councillors solemnly promised that the commonalty should enjoy all the ancient rights and privileges conceded to them by Valdemar II., and the wise provision that the Danehof should meet annually considerably strengthened its authority. The keystone to the whole constitutional system was "King Valdemar's Charter" issued ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... live, or finding proper masters: "because he was obliged to serve those who gave him necessaries, during two years found no one to teach him a word in the things he learned." —Opus Tertium, cap. xx. In 1214 the Commonalty of Oxford agreed to pay 52s. yearly for the use of poor scholars, and to give 100 of them a meal of bread, ale, and pottage, with one large dish of flesh or fish, every St Nicholas day.—Wood's An. i. 185. Wood's Annals (ed. Gutch, ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... Commissions Seale, He sollemnly had sworne, that what he spoke My Chaplaine to no Creature liuing, but To me, should vtter, with demure Confidence, This pausingly ensu'de; neither the King, nor's Heyres (Tell you the Duke) shall prosper, bid him striue To the loue o'th' Commonalty, the Duke Shall ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... conceive that whatever of god-like essence was muffled in the hulk of his composition was quickened by the truly unearthly beauty of that pale face with its mystic smile and the sweet eyes that seemed to see sights denied to the commonalty. I think Messer Simone was in love with Beatrice very much as I might have been, out of very wonder at a thing so rare and fair and unfamiliar. I was never, as I have said, in love with Folco's daughter; ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... with an umbrella over his head; but some Jains say that the carving above the saint's head is not an umbrella but a cobra's hood. Even after it had ceased to be the exclusive appanage of the king, the umbrella was a sign of noble rank, and not permitted to the commonalty. ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... could wish, I shall, if I am favoured so much of the Disposer of events as to see that period, fix them on as broad and independent a basis as possible. Among the many wise adages which have been treasured up by our Scottish ancestors, this is one of the best—Better be the head o' the commonalty than the ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... They were generally at the same time erected into a commonalty or corporation, with the privilege of having magistrates and a town-council of their own, of making bye-laws for their own government, of building walls for their own defence, and of reducing all their inhabitants under a sort of military ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... ourselves. Nations rarely, if ever, start with a complete ideal. Certainly we have no national ideals, no principles of progress peculiar to ourselves in Ireland, which are a common possession of our people. National ideals are the possession of a few people only. Yet we must spread them in wide commonalty over Ireland if we are to create a civilization worthy of our hopes and our ages of struggle and sacrifice to attain the power to build. We must spread them in wide commonalty because it is certain that democracy will prevail in Ireland. The ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... ma'am, what I always said was, that for the commonalty, there's no getting out of an Irish cabin a girl fit to be about a lady such as you, Mrs. Carver, in the shape of a waiting-maid or waiting-maid's assistant, on account they smell so of smoke, which is very distressing; but this Honor McBride seems a bettermost sort of girl, ma'am; ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... unpaid-for "humming-stuff," the portentous words, "No Chalk," which to their indignation and astonishment were scored over the doorway by means of that very mineral whose presence they purported to deny. Not that the gift of decyphering written characters—a gift among the commonalty of that day considered little less cabalistical than the art of inditing—could, in strict justice, have been laid to the charge of either disciple of the sea; but there was, to say the truth, a certain twist in the formation of the letters—an indescribable lee-lurch ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the Reformation had produced in Spain had been to make the Inquisition more vigilant and the commonalty more bigoted. The times of refreshing came to all neighbouring countries. One people alone remained, like the fleece of the Hebrew warrior, dry in the midst of that benignant and fertilising dew. While other nations ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the Sanskrit cil, to meditate, to worship (for an inferior never stands in the presence of his superior), and has been dispensed with in the case of Europeans, who shake hands. Though the nobles have now comparatively little power, they address each other and are addressed by the commonalty in the most respectful tone, words derived from the Sanskrit being often employed in addressing superiors, or equals if both are of high rank, such as Baginda, Duli Paduka, Ianda, and in addressing a superior the speaker only alludes to himself ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... remember the fate that befell the queen's favourites when Edward threw off his tutelage and took the reins of power into his own hands. Such is ever the fate of favourites; neither nobles nor the commonalty love upstarts, and more than one will, I foresee, erelong draw upon themselves the enmity of the king's uncles and other nobles for the influence they have gained over the mind of the young king. I should wish you, then, to make as many acquaintances as you can, ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... with the bourgeois regime that he accepted the title of "pair de France." Montalembert had received it some time before. There must have been something soothing, not inharmonious to the poetical mind, in the slumbrous reign which gradually became intolerable to the commonalty and got itself into contempt with all the world. The young poets of the time were peaceful, not discontented. Full of energy as they were, they took no part in the gathering storm. Hugo, a peer, tranquil in the superior chamber; young De Musset, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... very reverse of our English proverb, "Better to be the head of the commonalty than ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... England, in spite, not only of terrible conflict, but of defeat and falls, through the discipline of repentance, to holiness and the blessedness which comes with it. The Red Cross Knight, St. George of England, whose name Georgos, the Ploughman, is dwelt upon, apparently to suggest that from the commonalty, the "tall clownish young men," were raised up the great champions of the Truth,—though sorely troubled by the wiles of Duessa, by the craft of the arch-sorcerer, by the force and pride of the great powers of the Apocalyptic Beast and Dragon, finally overcomes them, and wins the deliverance ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... for he said, "That if the lords and gentlemen would accustom themselves, from their tender years, to the service and fear of God, they would live with greater Christianity in their riper age: and if persons of quality came once to give good examples of religion, the commonalty, who form themselves according to their model, would not fail to regulate their manners; and therefore the reformation of all degrees in the kingdom consisted chiefly in the virtuous ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... to the very walls of Durham and Carlisle, and only those districts which bought off the invaders were spared. The title which had been bestowed upon Wallace by a comparatively small number was now ratified by the commonalty of the whole of Scotland; and associated with him was the young Sir Andrew Moray of Bothwell, whose father had been the only Scotch noble who had fought at Stirling, and it is notable that in some of the documents of the time Wallace gives ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... boroughs were commanded to surrender their charters. Few complied; and the course which the King took with those few did not encourage others to trust him. In several towns the right of voting was taken away from the commonalty, and given to a very small number of persons, who were required to bind themselves by oath to support the candidates recommended by the government. At Tewkesbury, for example, the franchise was confined to thirteen persons. Yet even this number ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... life, as I could wish, I shall, if I am favoured so much of the Disposer of events as to see that period, fix them on as broad and independent a basis as possible. Among the many wise adages which have been treasured up by our Scottish ancestors, this is one of the best, Better be the head o' the commonalty, than the tail ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... at least the danger of them; there is in every state (as we know) two portions of subjects; the noblesse and the commonalty. When one of these is discontent, the danger is not great; for common people are of slow motion, if they be not excited by the greater sort; and the greater sort are of small strength, except the multitude be ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... round him, the autumn sunshine lighting up all the glow and colour of the picture, the scarlet coats, the rich bay and brown of the horses, the verdant background of lawn and shrubberies. Two huge marquees had been erected for the commonalty—one for the school-children, the other for the villagers. There were long tables in the billiard-room for the farming class; and for the quality there was the horse-shoe table in the dining-room, as at Roderick's birthday dinner. But on this occasion the ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... taken in again, and under the pretence of a reformation of religion fix upon our necks a new political despotism worse than the Whig and Protestant aristocracy that the sixteenth century brought into being, to the irreparable damage of the Crown and the unspeakable loss of us the commonalty. May St Thomas avert an evil only too likely to befall us. As for Ospringe, however, it was after all in some sort royal property, the Crown having anciently a Camera Regis there for the King's use when he was on his way to Canterbury ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... of their sons, maintaining them as sumptuously as if they were sons of princes. Sometimes too they purchase titles for them, and set upon their breasts the mark that so much distinguishes men of rank from the commonalty. ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Divinities into several classes, and in the last class, which Ovid calls the populace, or commonalty of the Gods, were the Satyrs and Sileni. The latter, according to Pausanias, were no other than Satyrs of advanced age. There seems, however, to have been one among them, to whom the name of Silenus was especially given, and to him the present story relates. According to Pindar and ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... singularly rich and fruitful issues. Time, kind inevitable Time, dulled the paralysing horror of his sister's death, and softened the memory of all that long torture of publicity, legal investigation, and the like, which had followed it. The natural healing 'in widest commonalty spread,' which flows from affection, nature, and the direction of the mind to high and liberating aims, came to him also as the months and years passed. His wife's death, his sister's tragedy, left indeed indelible marks; but, though scarred and changed, he was in the end neither crippled nor ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... belonged to the Queen of Sicily, who grew richer and richer as her son-in-law grew poorer and poorer. She aided him with money and with lands. In 1424, the duchy of Touraine with all its dependencies, except the castellany of Chinon, had come into her possession.[801] The burgesses and commonalty of Tours earnestly desired peace. Meanwhile they made every effort to escape from pillage at the hands of men-at-arms. Neither King Charles nor Queen Yolande was able to defend them, so they must needs defend themselves.[802] When the town watchmen announced the approach of one of those marauding ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... granted for us and our heirs, as well to archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, and other folk of holy Church, as also to earls, barons, and to all the commonalty of the land, that for no business from henceforth will we take such manner of aids, tasks, nor prises but by the common consent of the realm, and for the common profit thereof, saving the ancient aids and prises due ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... at the thwarts, for there was no breeze that day in the narrow firth. Then came the chief warriors in short fur jackets, splendid in glittering helms and byrnies, and each with his thrall bearing his battle-axe. Followed the fighting commonalty with axe and spear. Last came Ironbeard, stern as ever, and Biorn with his heart torn between eagerness and regret. Only the children, the women, and the old men were left in Hightown, and they stood on the shingle watching till the last galley had passed out of sight ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... Jacob van Churler and David Provoost were appointed inspectors of the new staple tobacco. "In 1652 the commonalty at Manhattan was informed that, to show their good intentions, the Amsterdam directors had determined to take off the export ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... declare that he absented himself from his countrymen, and refrained from coming to him on this account, that he might the more easily keep the state in its allegiance, lest on the departure of all the nobility the commonalty should, in their indiscretion, revolt. And thus the whole state was at his control; and that he, if Caesar would permit, would come to the camp to him, and would commit his own fortunes and those of the state ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... made various acquaintances in the hamlet and a thing that gratified me a good deal was to find our new coins in circulation —lots of milrays, lots of mills, lots of cents, a good many nickels, and some silver; all this among the artisans and commonalty generally; yes, and even some gold—but that was at the bank, that is to say, the goldsmith's. I dropped in there while Marco, the son of Marco, was haggling with a shopkeeper over a quarter of a pound of salt, and asked for change for a twenty-dollar gold piece. They furnished it—that is, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... "So with the commonalty of us Mardians. How then with those beings who every way are but too apt to be riddles. In many points the works of our great poet Vavona, now dead a thousand moons, still remain a mystery. Some call him a mystic; but wherein ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... ecclesiastical in every way, without becoming more religious. As formerly, some people were acceptable, and some were not; but it was, as everywhere else, more a question of money; there was an aristocracy and a commonalty, but there was a confusion and a more ready convertibility ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... giants step out of a host and engage, the armies stand still in expectation, and the puny privates and commonalty remain quiet to witness the combat of the tremendous champions of the war: so it is said that when the Contrebanque arrived, and ranged itself before the officers of Lenoir—rouleau to rouleau, bank-note to bank-note, war for war, controlment ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dignity of this influential class, they were called only Elders for a long time. Titles were carefully adjusted in those days. The commonalty bore the appellations of Goodman and Goodwife, and one of Roger William's offences was his wishing to limit these terms to those who gave some signs of deserving them. The name "Mr." was allowed to those who had taken the degree of Master ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... parish shall possess among its other teachers its one university-bred schoolmaster, popularly chosen, and well paid, and suited to assist in transplanting to the higher places of society those select and vigorous scions that from time to time spring up from the stock of the commonalty. The waking dream of running down the ignorance and misery of a sinking country by an array of starveling teachers in the train of any one denomination—itself, mayhap, sufficiently attenuated by ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... may be noticed. Formerly, the Lord Mayor of London was elected by the whole of the commonalty. All the citizens assembled at Paul's Cross, and there, sometimes with tumult and sometimes with fighting, they elected their mayor for the next year. But since every man in the City was compelled to belong to his own Company, to speak ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... they, "that your majesty should appease them, if possible, by fair words, and by a show of granting what they ask; for if we once attempt to put them down by force, and should not be able to go through with it, we shall only make matters a great deal worse. The commonalty of London and of all England would then join them, and the nobles and the government will be swept away entirely from ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... burial-place is part of the manor of Finsbury, or Fensbury, which is of great antiquity, as appears by its being a prebend of St. Paul's Cathedral in 1104. In the year 1315, it was granted by Robert de Baldock to the mayor and commonalty of London. Part of it was, in 1498, converted into a large field for the use of archers and other military citizens to exercise in. This is now called ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... brought hither it was frequently reported among the Commonalty that he was kept close Prisoner, which report caused the people of that Town, those of Charles-city, Henrico, and New-Kent Countries, being in all about the Number of eight hundred, or a thousand, to rise and march thitherwards ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... the people knew nothing. When they died they ceased to be. Even mummification, usually supposed to have been general, was not for them. Down to an epoch relatively late it was a privilege reserved to priests and princes. When the commonalty were embalmed it was with the opulent design that, in a future existence, they should serve their masters as they had in this. Embalming was a preparation for the Judgment Day. Of that the people knew nothing either. It was even ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... murders already mentioned to have been committed in the valleys of Piedmont, nearly depopulated most of the towns and villages. One place only had not been assaulted, and that was owing to the difficulty of approaching it; this was the little commonalty of Roras, which was situated upon ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... sincerely love poetry, know the touch of the master's hand on the chords too well to fumble among them after him. Nay, more than this; all inferior poetry is an injury to the good, inasmuch as it takes away the freshness of rhymes, blunders upon and gives a wretched commonalty to good thoughts; and, in general, adds to the weight of human weariness in a most woful and culpable manner. There are few thoughts likely to come across ordinary men, which have not already been expressed by greater ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... Caelian Hill, and were kept under submission to the patricians. As the Roman conquests extended, their numbers increased, until they formed the larger part of the population. They were called plebs, or commonalty, and had no political privileges whatever. They had not even the right of suffrage; but they were enrolled in the army, [Footnote: Liv., i. 33. Dionys., iii. 31. ] and made to bear the expenses of the state. At first they were ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... light illuminated the flower-covered bier as it slowly travelled on, one thought of the bright succession of his works between the darkness before and the darkness after. I am glad to say that the Royal Society was represented by four of its chief officers, and nine of the commonalty, including myself. Tennyson has a right to that, as the first poet since Lucretius who has understood the drift ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... town of Bovey Tracey in Devonshire. My companion—for the machine discommodated two—was a fiddler, convicted (like myself) of vagrancy; a bottle-nosed man, who took the situation with such phlegm as only experience can breed, and munched a sausage under the commonalty's gaze. 'Good Lord,' said I to myself, eyeing him, 'and to think that he with my chances, or I with his taste for music, might be driving at this moment ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... round and round in the fairy circle; and then I could easily distinguish several stars and other orders of knighthood; French queues and bags contrasted with plain English heads of hair, or professional wigs; old age and youth, nobility and commonalty, all passing each other in the motley swarm. An Englishman who joined me during this my reverie, pointed out to me on my enquiring, princes and lords with their dazzling stars; with which they eclipsed the less brilliant part ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... comes to be his turn to feast his eye upon some triumph of modern or some miracle of old typography. He will then return to a bookless home proud and satisfied, tasting of the joy that is in widest commonalty spread. Alas! he will do nothing of the kind, not, at least, if he is one of those in whom the old Adam of the bookstalls still breathes. A public library must always be an abomination. To enjoy a book, you must own it. 'John Jones his book,' that is the ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... of the most extraordinary kind,—signalized by the abolition of the daimiates, the suppression of the military class, the substitution of a plebeian for an aristocratic army, popular enfranchisement, the rapid formalism of a new commonalty. industrial [446] expansion, the rise of a new aristocracy of wealth, and popular representation in government! Old Japan had never developed a wealthy and powerful middle class: she had not even ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... Pnyx seems to have been introduced about 390 B.C. The original payment was probably only one obol, and then from time to time increased. It was a sign of the relative decay of political interest in Athens when it became needful thus to reward the commonalty ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... your good sheep go, your echoes, your wag-tail dogs, your wealthy pursy manufacturers! He decried the attractions of the sublimer House, and laughed at the transparent Whiggery of his party in replenishing it from the upper shoots of the commonalty: 'Dragging it down to prop it up! swamping it to keep it ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... gods: the commonalty of the gods, its varieties, human, animal, and intermediate between man and beast; gods of foreign origin, indigenous gods, and the contradictory forms with which they were invested in accordance with various conceptions ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... and beats the church door with his fist).The house of God is closed this Whitsun Eve. The reverend clergy will grant no audience with the Lord to-day, and so the worshipful commonalty will have to go home and go to bed without any mass. Look here, good folk! Here you have a door—mere wood, of course, but that matters little, as it is lined with copper. Just take a look at this door! If I say that the Lord is living within—this being His house; and if I say that the bishop's ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... open-handed and cousinly to all who begged advice of him. But now all these provided him with plenty of good advice indeed, and great assurance of feeling, but not a movement of leg, or lip, or purse-string in his favour. All good people of either persuasion, royalty or commonalty, knowing his kitchen-range to be cold, no longer would play turnspit. And this, it may be, seared his heart more than ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... former of which possessed rights and privileges not conceded to the latter, and stood to them as patrons to clients, like the baron of the Middle Ages to the vassals. This inequality gave rise to repeated and often protracted struggles in the commonalty, during which the latter gradually encroached on the rights of the former till the barrier in civic status, and even in social to some extent, was as good as abolished, and members of the plebeian class were eligible to the highest offices and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... to wield so large a power over the affairs and the minds of men; we can only say that amid all the stirring movements of the nineteenth century he has not so done. The existence of what may be called a widespread commonalty explains the rarity of personal eminence in America. There has been and still remains a higher general level of personality than in any European country, and the degree of eminence is correspondingly reduced. It is just because ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... various ages, yet in England, as elsewhere, the epoch of its moral omnipotence had come to an end many generations before the disruption of its external framework. In the fourteenth century men had long ceased to look for the mediation of the Church between an overbearing Crown and a baronage and commonalty eager for the maintenance of their rights or for the assertion of their claims. On the other hand, the conflicts which still recurred between the temporal power and the Church had as little reference as ever to spiritual ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... magistrates and other notables in the front seats along the coping of the arena wall, lesser notables in the first tier, well-to-do persons in the second tier, traders and manufacturers and such like in the third tier and the commonalty in ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... brothers certainly he had soon become the most widely acceptable among not only the young people of the passenger guards but also the male commonalty of the boiler deck. In a state of society which he, as "a type," reflected they saw themselves; saw their own spiritual image; their unqualified straightforwardness, their transparent simplicity ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... communa and communia.(153) Bishop Stubbs, however, hesitates to translate communio as "commune," the latter being essentially a French term for a particular form of municipal government. He prefers to render it "commonalty," "fraternity," or "franchise," although he goes so far as to allow that the term "suggests that the communal idea was already in existence as a basis of civic organization" in Stephen's reign, an idea which became fully developed in the succeeding reign.(154) He is also in favour of dating ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... A count who doesn't count (money) counts for nothing.] says the sneering Italian proverb; and it would be little less than miraculous if a nobility like that of modern Venice maintained superior state and regard in the eyes of the quick-witted, intelligent, sarcastic commonalty. ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... writing. As it is important to the understanding of many passages of the play, a translation is subjoined of the oldest known document relating to it. The original, which is in Latin and German, is dated in August, 1291, and is under the seals of the whole of the men of Schwytz, the commonalty of the vale of Uri and the whole of the men of the upper and lower ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... not for office, but for liberty against tyrants and usurpers." Therefore those of Pompey's party, fearing this inflexible constancy in Cato, by which he kept with him the whole senate, lest by this he should likewise pervert and draw after him all the well-affected part of the commonalty, resolved to withstand Domitius at once, and to prevent his entrance into the forum. To this end, therefore, they sent in a band of armed men, who slew the torchbearer of Domitius, as he was leading the way before him, and ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the oligarchies was not accomplished, however, by the people. "The commonalty," says THIRLWALL, "even when really superior in strength, could not all at once shake off the awe with which it was impressed by years of subjection. It needed a leader to animate, unite, and direct it; and it was seldom that one capable of inspiring it with confidence ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... only. The plan of the campaign was that which had won Le Mans and London. The towns of Dorset were frightfully harried on the march to the capital of the West. Disunion at once broke out; the leading men in Exeter sent to offer unconditional submission and to give hostages. But the commonalty disowned the agreement; notwithstanding the blinding of one of the hostages before the walls, they defended the city valiantly for eighteen days. It was only when the walls began to crumble away beneath ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... His grandfather was a small landed proprietor, but he had to sell Spence's mains, and the name was changed to Chirnside. So (as my father used to say) he was sprung from the tail of the gentry; while my mother was descended from the head of the commonalty. The Brodies had been tenant farmers in East Lothian for six or seven generations, though they originally came from the north. My grandfather Brodie thought abrogation of the Corn Laws meant ruin for the farmers, who had taken 19 years' leases ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... sweep. She managed the nightly eviction with such gay expedition that it almost felt like ten minutes ago when the place, except for the pride-swollen monitors, was cleared. While these officers watched the commonalty clumping reluctantly upstairs toward the umbrella-rack, the Liberry Teacher paced sedately around the shelves, giving the books that routine straightening they must have before seven struck and the horde rushed in again. It was really her relieving officer's work, but the Liberry ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... prosper in all things, In God's word and justice may give light to all queens. Let us pray for the honourable council and nobility, That they may always counsel us[252] wisdom with tranquillity, God save the Queen, the realm, and commonalty! ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... the old Eastern tale of "The Fish and the Ring," invented some thousands of years since. It has survived to our own day, and is still related and believed by the commonalty to the east of London. In the church at Stepney is a tomb to the memory of Lady Rebecca Berry, who died 1696, in whose coat-of-arms a fish and an annulet appear. She has hence been supposed the heroine of a once popular ballad, ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... confident guess, moreover, is, that you would, in all senses of the word, succeed there; I think, also rather confidently, we could promise you an audience of British aristocracy in London here,—and of British commonalty all manner of audiences that you liked to stoop to. I heard an ignorant blockhead (or mainly so) called —- bow-wowing here, some months ago, to an audience of several thousands, in the City, one evening,—upon Universal Peace, or some ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... licensed and regulated, &c. In short, this Court exercises in many respects the same powers in the several Counties, in regard to their internal police, as those that are exercised by the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of incorporated Cities. ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... worm holes. They dig clean passages, they slash and crumble without a slimy trail, they are the pinkers. The others, the liquefiers, are the chemists; they dissolve their food by means of reagents. All are the grubs of flies and belong to the commonalty of the Muscidae. Many are their species. To distinguish them from one another by rearing them in order to obtain the perfect stage would involve a great expenditure of time to little profit. We will describe them by the ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... but it is noteworthy how few even of the elite acquired and retained that lively and generous love of literature which would have enabled them to sow seeds of the divine fire far and wide—"of joy in widest commonalty spread." Considering the intensity with which the classics have been studied in the old universities and public schools of the United Kingdom, the fine flower of scholarship achieved, the sure touch of style and criticism, one cannot help being amazed at the low ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... as rapidly as the flowers in "Adonis' garden." The whole literature was, to an extent which we find tedious, saturated with classical myths, anecdotes, philosophic dicta—a world of knowledge of a kind then "in widest commonalty spread," but now so much forgotten that, to Baconians and the public, such lore ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... strangers who recently, incited by Admiral the Marquis of Carmarthen, had gone a-pressing in her streets and grievously wounded divers persons. [Footnote: State Papers Domestic, Anne, xxxvi: No. 24: Petition of the Mayor, Jurats and Commonalty of the Free ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... with fowls swimming in grease; then with brown ragouts belaboured with onions; then with a smoking pilaff of rice: several of which dishes I can pronounce to be of excellent material and flavour. When the gentry had concluded this repast, it was handed to a side table, where the commonalty speedily discussed it. We left them licking their fingers as we hastened away upon the second part of ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the Commonalty of Scotland, Knox next asked that he might come and justify his doctrine, and prove Popery "abominable before God." Now, could any Government admit a man who published the tidings that any member of a State might avenge God on an idolater, the Queen being, according to ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... however, could no longer control the movement. A considerable number of the commonalty of Basle and the majority of the council, were already on the side of radical Reformation. About a year after Erasmus, Johannes Oecolampadius, whose first residence at Basle had also coincided with his (at that time he had helped Erasmus with Hebrew for the edition of ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... thief, the rogue, the tippler, the smuggler for a brother in iniquity, that he might enjoy greater latitude in his vices and frauds." The magistrates had not been appointed contrary to the will of the people, because they were "proposed to the commonalty in front of the City Hall by their names and surnames, each in his quality, before they were admitted or sworn to office. The question is then put, 'Does any one object?'" At length, in 1658, Stuyvesant allowed the burgomasters and schepens to nominate their successors, ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... Company hides itself with the modesty of an author in Stationers' Hall Court, Ludgate Hill, close abutting on Paternoster Row, a congenial neighbourhood. This hall of the master, and keeper, and wardens, and commonalty of the mystery or art of the Stationers of the City of London stands on the site of Burgavenny House, which the Stationers modified and re-erected in the third and fourth years of Philip and Mary—the dangerous period when the company was first incorporated. The old house ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... officering his yacht with such a gruff, rather illiterate man, when gentlemen were to be had for the asking. But Flanagan was a splendid seaman, and the admiral would not have exchanged him for the smartest English naval-reserve afloat. There was never a bend in Flanagan's back; royalty and commonalty were all the same to him. And those who came to criticize generally remained to admire; for Flanagan was the kind of sailor fast disappearing from the waters, a man who had learned his seamanship before ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... ways people take of flattering and enticing those whose associations are unlike their own. Hence I have always thought that the most fortunate Britons are those whose experience has given them a practical share in many aspects of the national lot, who have lived long among the mixed commonalty, roughing it with them under difficulties, knowing how their food tastes to them, and getting acquainted with their notions and motives not by inference from traditional types in literature or from philosophical theories, but from daily fellowship and observation. ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... squirming more inextricably into the heart of the press, elbowed and shouldered and politely walked upon, not only fore and aft, but to port and starboard as well, by dame, dowager, and debutante, husband, lover, and esquire, patricians, celebrities and the commonalty (a trace, as the chemists say), P. Sybarite at length found himself only a layer or two removed from the ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... is right or no, he ought, for the sake of pleasing the marquis, to be ready to give up his farm," said Voules, "and if he won't do so of his own accord, he should be compelled. I have no idea of the commonalty venturing to set themselves up against the aristocracy in the way they have done since ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... education went this was no doubt the case; but it is possible that in his subsequent life his reforms were too rapid, too thorough-going, too modern, for Scotland. The English sovereigns were richer, stronger, and more potent; the English commonalty more perfectly developed, and more capable of affording a strong support to a monarch who stood against the nobles and their capricious tyranny. James might not have been the enlightened ruler he was but for his training ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... the lower order were fairly secured against oppressive and partisan decisions on the part of the magistrates, and against party fraud in the taking of the auspices and in the regulation of the calendar. There was now political equality between the nobility and the commonalty. ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... few arguments with thee; a few quiddities about thy profession. I know thou art skilful at thy trade, which, though a vocation having its basis in fraud, finding countenance through the weakness and credulity of mankind, doth yet hold the commonalty in thrall and terror—a restraint which none other scheme ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... all the sewers of London, and it was plain to him that all the commonalty cried shame upon their King. He screamed and twisted there in his chair at the last, and when he was come out into the darkness he fell upon his companion, and beat him so that he ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... his material for the drama of "Coriolanus" from Plutarch's "Lives," and it is significant that he selected from that list of worthies the most conspicuous adversary of the commonalty that Rome produced. He presents him to us as a hero, and, so far as he can, enlists our sympathy for him from beginning to end. When Menenius says ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... Antoine was lighted as for a fete. From its open windows came sounds of gay laughter and rattling dice. You might have thought them keeping carnival in the midst of a happy and loyal city. If the Lieutenant-General found anything to vex him in the present situation, he did not let the commonalty ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... 1792, additional and more expensive decorations having been introduced, the price of admission was raised to two shillings. I cannot approve of this. The company may be more select; but a number of the honest commonalty are, I fear, excluded from sharing in elegant and innocent entertainment. An attempt to abolish the one-shilling gallery at the playhouse has been very ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... the overhand: in me it is verified. Pray for me, good people, I beseech you heartily, That the Lord above on my poor soul have mercy. Farewell noblemen, with the clergy spiritual, Farewell men of law, with the whole commonalty. Your disobedience I do forgive you all, And desire God to pardon your iniquity. Farewell, sweet England, now last of all to thee: I am right sorry I could do for thee no more. Farewell once again, yea, farewell ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... had indeed caused great astonishment and wrath among the pious in and about Paisley, and not only among them, but had estranged the affections even of the more worldly from the priesthood, of whom it was openly said that the sense of pity towards the commonalty of mankind was extinguished within them, and that they were all in ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... described by Froissart. He says that when the Londoners found the King 'besotted' with his favourites, they sent word to Queen Isabella that if she could land in England with 300 armed men she would find the citizens of London and the majority of the nobles and commonalty ready to join her and place her on the Throne. This the Queen effected: the citizens joined the little army thus collected—without their assistance, Froissart says, the thing could not have been done—and made Edward ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... things had been going on in the quarter allotted to the commonalty, Somerset in front had waited the fall of the curtain with those sick and sorry feelings which should be combated by the aid of philosophy and a good conscience, but which really are only subdued by time and the abrading rush of affairs. He was, however, ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... the North; if we do not, De Bow and Governor Hammond are schoolmasters who will teach us to our heart's content. We see how easily their social organization adapts itself to a state of warfare. They breed a superior order of men for leaders, an ignorant commonalty ready to follow them as the vassals of feudal times followed their lords; and a race of bondsmen, who, unless this war changes them from chattels to human beings, will continue to add vastly to their military strength in raising their food, in ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... quite legal under the laws which still enforced membership of the Catholic Church upon all Scotchmen. But the last man who had been so condemned was Knox; and he no longer delayed to publish in Geneva an Appellation or appeal against his sentence, directed to the nobles, the estates and the commonalty of Scotland. His demand for a return to the primitive Gospel under the Divine authority is powerful and eloquent. His reasons, on the other hand, for 'appeal from the sentence and judgment of the visible Church to the knowledge of the temporal magistrate' are difficult to reconcile with the ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... to stir up and recal the same province from superstition, rebellion, calamity, and poverty, which heretofore have horribly raged therein, to religion, obedience, strength, and prosperity. And whereas our beloved and faithful subjects the mayor and commonalty and citizens of our city of London, burning with a flagrant zeal to promote such our pious intention in this behalf, have undertaken a considerable part of the said plantation in Ulster, and are making ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... an exclusive coterie of poetic words. It should react upon his metrical vocabulary to its beneficial expansion, by taking him outside his aristocratic circle of language, and keeping him in touch with the great commonalty, the proletariat of speech. For it is with words as with men: constant intermarriage within the limits of a patrician clan begets effete refinement; and to reinvigorate the stock, its veins must be replenished from hardy ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... man of the commonalty, except infants, insane persons, and criminals, is, of common right, and by the laws of God, a freeman, and entitled to the free enjoyment of liberty. That liberty or freedom consists in having an actual share in the appointment of those who frame the laws, and who are to be ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Ridley on charity. Christ's hospital was specially devoted to fatherless and motherless children. The buildings of the monastery of Grey Friars, Newgate Street, were appropriated to it; liberal public subscription added to the king's grant endowed it richly; and the mayor, commonalty and citizens of London were nominated its governors in its charter of 1553. At first Christ's hospital shared a common fund with the two other hospitals of the foundation (Bridewell and St Thomas's), but the three soon became independent. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... upon rational grounds in astrology, I was so bold as to aver therein, that the Parliament stood upon a tottering foundation, and that the commonalty and soldiery would join ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... for us and our heirs, as well to archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, and other folk of holy Church, as also to eaarls, barons, and to all the commonalty of the land, that *for no business from henceforth will we take such manner of aids, tasks, nor prises but by the common consent of the realm,* and for the common profit thereof, saving the ancient aids and ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... placed her in the second rank, Lilla Watford being marked as first. There was sufficient divergence of type, as well as of individual beauty, to allow of fair comment; Lady Arabella represented the aristocratic type, and Lilla that of the commonalty. ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... occasionally held, until 1734, when an Act of Parliament was obtained making it a Parish Church, appointing a district to it and enabling the Master and Usher of the Free Grammar School to be Rector and Lecturer of the church. The mayor, bailiffs, and commonalty were made patrons, but in 1835, these arrangements having failed to work satisfactorily, the patronage was transferred to trustees who acted as managers of the school and in 1864 the lectureship was abolished, the rectory was severed from the office of Head ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Churches of Coventry - A Short History of the City and Its Medieval Remains • Frederic W. Woodhouse
... groups of merchants in various towns who were organized for mutual protection or other advantage, as the "fishmongers adventurers" who brought their complaints before the Royal Council in 1542, "The Master, Wardens, and Commonalty of Merchant Venturers, of Bristol," existing apparently in the fourteenth century, fully organized by 1467, and incorporated in 1552, "The Society of Merchants Adventurers of Newcastle upon Tyne," or the similar bodies at York ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... centuries, but the patricians kept their own privilege of being tried before the tribunal of the curiae. 19. The power of the state was now usurped by a factious oligarchy, whose oppressions were more grievous than those of the worst tyrant; they at last became so intolerable, that the commonalty had recourse to arms, and fortified that part of the city which was exclusively inhabited by the plebeians, while others formed a camp on the Sacred Mount at some distance from Rome. A tumult of this kind was called a secession; it threatened ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... their sessions their powers were delegated to intermediate commissions, small boards for the regulation of current affairs. There was nothing democratic in such a constitution. Even the representatives of the commonalty were taken from among the most privileged members of their order. Nor were the powers of the Estates extensive. They bargained with the royal intendants for the gross amount of the taxes to be assessed on their provinces. They divided ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... among the gentry as well as the commonalty; a sort of plebeian heads whose fancy moves with the same wheel as these men—in the same level with mechanics, though their fortunes do sometimes gild their infirmities and their ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... retired life, and caused several cells to be made in the house, where in a short time he established a numerous society of dervises. He soon came to be publicly known by his virtue, through which he acquired the esteem of many people, as well of the commonalty as of the chief of the city. In short, he was much honoured and courted by all ranks. People came from afar to recommend themselves to his prayers; and all who visited him, published what blessings they received through ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... went to the national Parliament the lord Archbishop of York, the lord Abbot of St. Mary's Abbey, those nobles who resided in the city and were Lords Temporal, and the two representatives of the commonalty of the city. The body of Lords Spiritual was of great importance in the Middle Ages. The Convocation of the lords of the Church had itself a share in the governing of the nation as well as of the Church, its own particular sphere. ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson
... — N. inferiority, minority, subordinacy; shortcoming, deficiency; minimum; smallness &c. 32; imperfection; lower quality, lower worth. [personal inferiority] commonalty &c. 876. V. be inferior &c. adj.; fall short of, come short of; not pass, not come up to; want. become smaller, render smaller &c. (decrease) 36, (contract) 195; hide its diminished head, retire into the shade, yield the palm, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... says (Etym. v, 10): "A law is an ordinance of the people, whereby something is sanctioned by the Elders together with the Commonalty." ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... latter end of the speech. By expelling the [Greek: daemos] of Eretria, he means of course the popular party, die Volkspartei, as Pabst has it; but they would by their own partisans be called the people.] to expel the Eretrian commonalty; others to Oreus, to set up Philistides as ruler? Yet the Greeks endure to see all this; methinks they view it as they would a hailstorm, each praying that it may not fall on himself, none trying to prevent it. And not only are the outrages ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... before the mighty breath of their omnipotent passion. Their love is the great fact of their lives. Why should it yield to less powerful sentiments, to inferior satisfactions. If the laws and sentiments of the commonalty of mankind oppose, why gain the lesser, palling pleasure of a fair character among our fellows whom we care not for, and lose the one joy of existence? Such, in all three of these novels, to a greater or less extent, is the theory of action of the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various |
