"Commonalty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ceiling joists. After ward-room mess, with fare that kings might have envied—teal and partridge and venison and a steak of beaver's tail, and moose nose as an entree, with a tidbit of buffalo hump that melted in your mouth like flakes—the commonalty, as La Chesnaye designated those who sat below the salt, would draw off to the far hearth. Here the sailors gathered close, spinning yarns, cracking jokes, popping corn, and toasting wits, a-merrier far that your kitchen cuddies ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... Caesar, to 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 to ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... 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, after ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... distemper might be, no doubt, the quantity of wretched fresh and salt fish consumed by the commonalty at all seasons as well as in Lent, which our poor now would hardly be ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... his barons rested entirely upon these two classes, the priests and the soldiers; the remainder, the commonalty and the peasantry, were, in their hands, merely an inert mass, to be taxed and subjected to forced labour at will. The slaves were probably regarded as of little importance; the bulk of the people consisted of free families who were at liberty to dispose of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... is more or less absolute in proportion to the talents of the reigning prince; no other bounds being set to his authority than the counterbalance or check it meets with from the power of the great vassals, and disaffection of the commonalty. But this resistance is exerted in so irregular a manner, and with so little view to the public good, that nothing like liberty results from it. They experience only an alternative of tyranny and anarchy, or the former ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... 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 men in the best possible way; and it is a wiser, more generous, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... 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 ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... Holy Cross.—Founded in the year 1392 by the "Bailiffs and Commonalty" of the town of Birmingham (answering to our aldermen and councillors), and licensed by the Crown, for which the town paid L50, the purpose being to "make and found a gild and perpetual fraternity of brethren and sustern (sisters), in honour of the Holy Cross," and ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... 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. ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... had lived long in ease and plenty, and might be apt to think their deliverance too dearly bought: wherefore one of the first actions of the new government was to take off the tax upon chimneys, as a burthen very ungrateful to the commonalty. But money being wanted to support the war (which even the convention-parliament, that put the crown upon his head, were very unwilling he should engage in), the present Bishop of Salisbury[7] is said to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... chapels; defacing ancient tombs and monuments, and pulling down the bells in parish churches, and ordering only one bell in a steeple, as sufficient to call the people together, which set the commonalty ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 43, Saturday, August 24, 1850 • Various
... St. Honore press up to the Bank of France, old women and old men with their 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
... multitude, multitudes; a crowd, crowds;' &c. Substantives which imply plurality in the singular number, and consequently have no other plural, generally require a plural verb. They are cattle, cavalry, clergy, commonalty, gentry, laity, mankind, nobility, peasantry people, populace, public, rabble, &c. [;] as, 'The public are informed.' Collective nouns which form a regular plural, such as, number, numbers; multitude, multitudes; have, like all other substantives, a singular verb, when they are in the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... reduced to the last extremity, the high position of its chiefs is in danger; the humble commonalty easily finds safety ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... body being brought to the parish of Strood was accompanied from thence to the west door of the Cathedral Church of Rochester by the Prebendaries of the said church in their formalities, with the gentry and commonalty of the said City and places adjacent, with torches before them. Near the Cathedral they were met by the choir who sung Te Deum before them; when Divine service was ended, the Choir went before the body to the grave (which was made in the body of the Church) singing ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... grant to hold and keep the laws and rightful customs which the commonalty of your realm shall have chosen, and to maintain and enforce them to the honor of ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher
... should let them go, and begin counting afresh.' So you, since this is your mind, had better reconcile yourself now to living like an ordinary man; you will give up your extravagant haughty hopes and put yourself on a level with the commonalty; if you are sensible, you will not be ashamed to unlearn in your old age, and change ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... man, having made this purchase, put on the habit of a dervish, and in a short time he established a numerous society of dervishes.[16] He soon came to be known by his virtues, 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 honored and courted by all ranks. People came from afar to recommend themselves to his prayers; and all who visited him, published what blessings ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... insufficient and unfinal, so long as man feels within himself the prompting to be something better or higher than he is. Yet the English life is wonderfully perfected. With a faery dream of a king supported in his preeminence by a nobility, a nobility supported in turn by a commonalty, a commonalty supported again by a proletariat resting upon immeasurable ether; with a system of government kept, by assent so general that the dissent does not matter, in the hands of a few families reared, if not trained, to power; with a society ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... power of the early Teutonic kings. "Concerning smaller matters", says Tacitus,[31] "the chiefs deliberate; concerning greater matters, the whole nation; but in such wise that even those things which are in the power of the commonalty are discussed in detail by the chiefs. They come together, unless any sudden and accidental emergency have arisen, on fixed days determined by the new or full moon; for these times they deem the most fortunate for the transaction of business. An ill consequence flowing from their ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... if the last burden had been rolled from its heart, and assurance were at length perfect, Paris bursts forth anew into extreme jubilee. The Basoche rejoices aloud, that the foe of Parlements is fallen; Nobility, Gentry, Commonalty have rejoiced; and rejoice. Nay now, with new emphasis, Rascality itself, starting suddenly from its dim depths, will arise and do it,—for down even thither the new Political Evangel, in some rude version or other, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... political expression of social forces. How else, indeed, could the general will find fit expression, except through the attrition of many minds? And who could know better the needs of the community than the commonalty? Not that men reasoned about the philosophy of their political institutions: they simply accepted them. And young Douglass grew up in an atmosphere friendly to local self-government of ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... Whereas there pass'd an Act, June 24th, against Fornication and Adultery, to the great detriment of most of the young Ladies, Gentlewomen, and Commonalty of England, and to the utter decay of many whole Families, especially when married to old Men; your Petitioners most humbly beg your Honours will take this great Grievance into mature Consideration, and the said Act may be repealed. —A Blessing ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... and 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
... my particular view. The women in America represent the aristocracy which exists everywhere else in both sexes. You are born to the patrician leisure; you have the accomplishments and the clothes and manners and ideals; and we men are a natural commonalty, born to business, to newspapers, to cigars, and horses. This natural female aristocracy of ours establishes the forms, usages, places, and times of society. The epicene aristocracies of other countries turn night into day in their social pleasures, and our noblesse sympathetically ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... is scarcely less a subject of remark. It is based on the old French element of the fur trade—that is, a commonalty who are the descendants of French or Canadian boatmen, and clerks and interpreters who have invariably married Indian women. The English, who succeeded to power after the fall of Quebec, chiefly withdrew, but have also left another element in ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... other Nations can Boast; and the Fruitfulness of your Virtues sufficiently make amends for the Barrenness of your Soil: Which however cannot be incommode to your Lordship; since your Quality and the Veneration that the Commonalty naturally pay their Lords creates a flowing Plenty there . . . that makes you Happy. And to compleat your Happiness, my Lord, Heaven has blest you with a Lady, to whom it has given all the Graces, Beauties, and Virtues ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... into execution. But he and the constituted order were not without friends and supporters. He had, as his opponents saw, a number of "wicked and pernicious counsellors, aides and assistants against the commonalty in these our cruel commotions." Moreover—and a great moreover is that!—it was everywhere bruited that he had sent to England, to the King, "for two thousand Red Coates." Perhaps the King—perhaps England—will take his view, and, not consulting the good of Virginia, send the ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... barons, and even of the sheriffs, who were hardly more obedient,—an institution which, with great public advantages, has remained to our times. In the spirit of the same policy he armed the whole body of the people: the English commonalty had been in a manner disarmed ever since the Conquest. In this regulation we may probably trace the origin of the militia, which, being under the orders of the crown rather in a political than a feudal respect, were judged more to be relied on than the soldiers of tenure, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... 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
... commonalty of the town of Mansoul came to him into the castle to mourn, and to weep, and to lament for their wickedness, by which they had forced him out of the town. So when they were come, bowed themselves to the ground seven times; they also wept, they ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... midst of such tempests and convulsions. The feudal system, with which the liberty, much more the power of the Commons, was totally incompatible, began gradually to decline; and both the king and the commonalty, who felt its inconveniences, contributed to favour this new power, which was more submissive than the barons to the regular authority of the crown, and at the same time afforded protection to the inferior orders of the state. [FN [z] Rymer, vol. i. p. 802. ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... 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; my tastes are simpler, more carnal; give ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Ireland, hung under the trees, and was filling fast from pipes and an apparatus which I leave for William's scientific description: terrace before Belvidere House—well-dressed groups parading on it: groups all over the gardens, mantles, scarves, and feathers floating: all the commonalty outside in fields at half-price. We soon espied Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton, and joined company, and were extremely happy, and wished for you and dear Honora. Sun shining, no wind. Presently we met the Solicitor-General: he started back, and made me such a bow as ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... 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
... 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
... leavings, such as crumbs and 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 general ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... 1793 were denied the vote; sixty seats were in the hands of three families, and a majority of the members were returned by pocket-boroughs. A more hopeless want of system can hardly be imagined: a corrupt aristocracy, a ferocious commonalty, a distracted government, a divided people—such was the verdict of a contemporary politician. At length, after a Protestant revolt in Ulster, a Catholic rising in the south, and a French invasion, Pitt bribed and cajoled ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... 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
... 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 ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... a peerage and a seat in haven. Thither let 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 swimming!' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... an unrivalled discipline in taste: 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 standard of literary culture in ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... he will walk in and stand en queue until it 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 best bookplate. I have never admired ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... ringing in his ears, felt driven (3) to join battle. On their side the leaders of Thebes calculated that, if they did not fight, their provincial cities (4) would hold aloof from them and Thebes itself would be besieged; while, if the commonalty of Thebes failed to get supplies, there was every prospect that the city itself would turn against them; and, seeing that many of them had already tasted the bitterness of exile, they came to the conclusion that it was better for them ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... introduced as pleading before the king in behalf of the commonalty, who had been driven by the extortions of Wolsey into some illegal excesses. In this scene, which is true to history, we have her upright reasoning mind, her steadiness of purpose, her piety and benevolence, placed in a strong light. The unshrinking dignity with which she opposes without ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... which 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 were putting away childish things, the Spaniard ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... dishonour. The Spanish people found themselves without a gentry for leading their armies. England possessed, and possesses a gentry, the noblest that the world has seen, who are the natural leaders of her intrepid commonalty, alike in her fleets and in her armies. But why? How and in what sense qualified? Not only by principle and by honour—that glorious distinction which poor men can appreciate, even when less sternly summoned to its duties; not only by courage as fiery and as passively enduring as the courage ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... timocracy when the state's numerical law of generation [an unsolved riddle] has not been properly observed, and inferior offspring have entered in consequence into the ruling body. The introduction of private property will cause them to assume towards the commonalty the attitude, not of guardians, but of masters, and to be at odds among themselves; also, in their education gymnastic will acquire predominance over music. Ambition and party spirit become the characteristic ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... 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
... the Regent Albany, the Earls of Moray and Angus and Orkney. Two barons, eighty knights, among whom were several Frenchmen, and several other persons of rank were also captured; while Swinton, Gordon, and many other knights and gentlemen were slain, together with seven hundred of the commonalty. With the exception only of Flodden, no battle on the Border was so fatal to the Scottish nobility, whose defeat was effected by ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... no such unconsciousness of his mission. A genius for opposition pushes him to the front and flashes in speech and print. He is content probably to put up with the leadership of the Lower House, assured that, with the Conservative commonalty at his back, his talents will soon win for him a complete ascendancy. Meanwhile it is proved to demonstration that none of the acting chiefs are fit for the post. Sir Richard Cross and Mr. W. H. Smith, "great as are many of their qualities, do not entirely possess those that are necessary to secure ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... much the same arrangements of syntax. And in proportion as the democracy of intelligence extends—a friend of mine, who is a doctor, tells me that complaints formerly reserved to what is called aristocracy (though what that word means in plain English I don't know) are equally shared by the commonalty—tic-douloureux and other neuralgic maladies abound. And the human race, in England at least, is becoming more slight and delicate. There is a fable of a man who, when he became exceedingly old, was turned into a grasshopper. England is very old, and is evidently approaching ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... soul at once conquered and led me captive; this plain scorn of a world as exemplified in lacerated saints and a crucified Redeemer opened up to me illimitable prospects of fresh beliefs, and therefore new joys in things and new revolts against all that had come to form part and parcel of the commonalty of mankind. Till now I had not even remotely suspected that a deification of flesh and fleshly desire was possible, Shelley's teaching had been, while accepting the body, to dream of the soul as a star, and so preserve our ideal; but now suddenly I saw, with delightful clearness and ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... 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 Path of the King • John Buchan
... Beaufort, though generous, was not free from the worldliness which had met him everywhere, amidst the society in which his youth had been spent. His uncle, the head of one of those families which yearly vanish from the commonalty into the peerage, but which once formed a distinguished peculiarity in the aristocracy of England—families of ancient birth, immense possessions, at once noble and untitled—held his estates by ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... commonalty still hung upon every motion of the blacksmith and the miller, but by the people of quality the cudgelers were for the moment quite forgot. The head of the house of Jaquelin hurried over the grass ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... 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
... the commonalty may be named Thomas Heywood, one of the most moral play writers of his time, who has sometimes been called the prose Shakspeare, and Decker, a voluminous writer, who cooperated in several plays of more celebrated men, especially those ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... 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 ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... 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 prisoner at ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... hitherto borne full sway in matters of police. The third battle was in 1357. This was the famous riot of St. Scholastica's day—satis periculosa—which resulted in the excommunication of the Mayor, while he and the commonalty of the town of Oxford were laid under an interdict by John, Bishop of Lincoln. The Mayor, who was a vintner and drawn into the quarrel through it having arisen in his tavern, is stated in one account to have been originally in the service of the University—protected ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... won more cannon and more small arms. They rake the loyalist Swiss and Germans with a murderous fire. The foreign troops fight to the last. They are killed or overwhelmed as the victorious commonalty take possession of the Square. Danton who has directed the proletariat is the ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... of my coach to give them an account of what success I had had at Court. I told them that the Queen had declared her satisfaction in their submission, and that she told me it was the only method they could have taken for the deliverance of the prisoners. I added other persuasives to pacify the commonalty, and they dispersed the sooner because it was supper-time; for you must know that the people of Paris, even those that are the busiest in all such commotions, do not care to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... incumbent upon all mankind, and more immediately upon kings; because whatever may drop from their hands and tongue, the special deed or word will somehow become the subject of public animadversion; whereas any act or remark of the commonalty attracts not such notice:—Let a dervish, or poor man, commit a hundred indiscretions, and his companions will not notice one out of the hundred; and let a king but utter one foolish word, and it will be echoed from kingdom to kingdom:—therefore ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... 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 ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... as guide, and since she knew the world of ease and the world of necessity and could walk alike with the aristocratic and the commonalty—and remain equally herself—she sat amused, watching him as he watched the rest. The twinkle that sought to flash into her eye flashed only in her mind, but the play of keen humor and wit quaintly expressed sparkled through ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... pass through, to 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 ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and thence to the head of the Roman Catholic Church. The [Greek: tiara] of the Greeks, and tiara of the Latins, expresses the cloth cap or fez of the Parthians, Persians, Armenians, &c., {145} which was a low scull-cap amongst the commonalty, but a stiff and elevated covering for the kings and personages of distinction (Xen. Anab. ii. 5, 23.). This imposing tiara is frequently represented on ancient monuments, where it varies in some details, though always preserving the characteristic peculiarity of a tall upright ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... distinction, all his customers. The chins of these good people had suffered somewhat before I had acquired sufficient dexterity to lay a razor on the consular chin; but by dint of repeated experiments on the beards of the commonalty I had achieved a degree of skill which inspired me with the greatest confidence; so, in obedience to the order of the First Consul, I brought the warm water, opened the razor boldly, and began operations. Just as I was going to place the razor upon the face of the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... 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 ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... 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 ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... of his own stamp, the thief for a 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 ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... 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 the New Testament), ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... in 'us,' though often of feminine words, as the central Arbor, will indicate either real masculine strength (quereus, laurus), or conditions of dominant majesty (cedrus), of stubbornness and enduring force (crataegus), or of peasant-like commonalty and hardship (juncus); softened, as it may sometimes happen, into gentleness and beneficence (thymus). The occasional forms in 'er' and 'il' will ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... to 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, the ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... — 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 ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... mistaken 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, ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... obtaining at a nominal price a grant of crown domains, to be sold again for hundreds of thousands of francs. Truly there was but one thing that could match the flaunting wastefulness of the reigning favourites at court, and that was the hard condition, the intolerable poverty, of the despised commonalty. ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... 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 ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... no valid distinction between the words communio, 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 ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... agree in giving the year 697 as that of the election of the first doge, Paul Luke Anafeste. He was elected in a general meeting of the commonalty, tribunes, and clergy, at Heraclea, "divinis rebus procuratis," as usual, in all serious work, in those times. His authority is thus defined by Sabellico, who was not likely to have exaggerated it:—"Penes quem decus omne imperii ac majestas ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... Concord. A great conflict of opposite opinions arose in the senate; but, at last, the most moderate and most acceptable to the people prevailed, and consent was given, that of two consuls, one should be chosen from the commonalty. When the dictator proclaimed this determination of the senate to the people, at the moment pleased and reconciled with the senate, as they could not well otherwise be, they accompanied Camillus home with all ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... was due to make from the scaffold would be for the "comfort of God's people.'' It was not so often that justice exacted the extreme penalty from a young woman of rank and beauty. With "dreadful objects so familiar'' in the way of public executions, it was likely enough that pity in the commonalty was "choked with custom of fell deeds.'' Something out of the way in the nature of a dreadful object-lesson might stir the hearts of the populace and make them conscious of the Wrath ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... for us; and as 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 ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... Stationers' 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 ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... of Bristol, and, as that is not my purpose, I shall proceed to other matters, not, however, till I have strongly recommended to every one, who is in any way connected with that city, to read the book published by John Cranidge, A.M. in the year 1818, entitled, "A Mirror for the Burgesses and Commonalty of the City of Bristol; in which is exhibited to their view, a part of the great and many interesting benefactions and endowments, of which the city has to boast, and for which the CORPORATION are responsible, as the stewards ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... stewardship. He voluntarily 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
... descriptions. My head turned round, my heart grew sick, as I regarded visages deformed by vice, and listened to accounts of chicanery that was continually embroiling the ignorant. These locusts will probably diminish as the people become more enlightened. In this period of social life the commonalty are always cunningly attentive to their own interest; but their faculties, confined to a few objects, are so narrowed, that they cannot discover it in the general good. The profession of the law renders a set of men still shrewder and more selfish than the rest; ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... Bella, the great leader of the Florentine commonalty in the latter years of the 13th century. He bore the arms of Hugh with a ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... 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 ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... queens: but as this escaped Her Majesty's law officers in the late argument for her coronation, we will not suppose it had any connexion with the strong desire for that event at the Mansion House. The mayor, bailiffs, and commonalty of Oxford also claim to assist in the office of butlery, and receive the humbler reward ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... of Oxford contain the first attempt to effect this, by enacting that thrice every year the newly formed royal Council should meet together with twelve men elected by the Commonalty of England, and consult on the affairs of the kingdom.[39] There is no doubt that these twelve belonged to the nobles and were to represent them: the decisive point lies in the fact that it was not a number of nobles summoned by the King, but a committee of the Estates chosen ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... were very apt to classify the black-coated men whom 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
... up the steps 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 ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... neighborhoods of Aulnay, Antony, and Chatenay. The wealthy Receiver-General had lately purchased in this part of the world a country-house for his wife, who remained in Paris only during the session. Though the fair Emilie despised the commonalty, her feeling was not carried so far as to scorn the advantages of a fortune acquired in a profession; so she accompanied her sister to the sumptuous villa, less out of affection for the members of her family who were visiting ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... unravel a 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 ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... needed to hold in check such arbitrary misgovernment as had 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 ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... the clergy, the nobility and commonalty of France think it reasonable to exclude a prince for professing a different religion; and will the papists be angry if the protestants be of the same opinion? No, sure, they cannot ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... were about to move off, to the amazement of the company and the few onlookers who, notwithstanding the weather, stood around to represent the commonalty, Miss Horn herself, solitary, in a long black cloak and somewhat awful bonnet, issued, and made her way through the mourners until she stood immediately behind the hearse, by the side of Mr Cairns, the parish minister. The ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... 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 education of ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... in 1534, Sir R. Gresham, who was agent for Henry the Eighth at Antwerp, and had been struck with the advantages attending the Bourse, or Exchange, of that city, prevailed upon his Royal Master to send a letter to the Mayor and Commonalty of London, recommending them to erect a similar building on their manor of Leadenhall. The Court of Common Council, however, were of opinion that such a removal of the seat of business would be impracticable, and the scheme was therefore dropped; but in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... people of the Kopparberg were at church, Gustavus again appeared at the head of fifteen hundred Dalesmen. He spoke to the people after divine service, and now the miners likewise swore fidelity to his cause. Thereupon the commonalty of the mining districts and the Dalesmen wrote to the commons of Helsingland, requesting that the Helsingers might bear themselves like true Swedish men against the overbearing violence and tyranny of the Danes. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... this young Indian was commonly called in his tribe, in consequence of the rapidity of his movement when employed as a runner, had a much more respectable name, and one that he had fairly earned in some of the forays of his people, but which the commonalty had just the same indisposition to use as the French have to call Marshal Soult the Duc de Dalmatie. The last may be the most honorable title, but it is not that by which he is the best known to his countrymen. Waubkenewh was an appellation, notwithstanding, of which the young Chippewa was ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... To distinguish myself from the commonalty and mortify the poets; the fellows grow so conceited, when any of their foolish wit prevails upon the side-boxes. I swear,—he, he, he, I have often constrained my inclinations to laugh,—he, he, he, ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... dissipated in an instant 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
... began to get spread abroad insomuch that a quarter or half the city was informed thereof, especially the small folk of the commonalty, whom the evil touched most nearly. They began to assemble in the streets, and it came to pass that one day, after dinner, several went from house to house calling for their comrades, and saying, 'Come and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... efforts to attain it. She had justly acquired the reputation of the reverse of a coquette or yet of a prude; still she had never received an offer, and at the age of twenty-six, had now begun to lower her thoughts to the commonalty. Her fortune would have easily obtained her husband here, but she was determined to pick amongst the lower supporters of the aristocracy of the nation. With the Moseleys she had been early acquainted, though some years their senior; a circumstance, however, to which she took care ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 for their ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... the great world of London exists, as in no other city on the globe, a quiet and leafy suburb, peopled only by those whose vocation is not of the commonalty. Its very environment is inspiring to great thoughts and deeds, and small wonder it is that so many master minds have first received their stimulus amid the shady walks and rather gloomy buildings ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... governing the provinces of Caesar. He went minutely into finances; and would have his sheep sheared, not flayed. His eyes and hands were everywhere, to bring about the Brotherhood of Man. There is, perhaps, evidence in the Christian Evangels: where we see the Jewish commonalty on excellent good terms with the Roman soldier, and Jesus consorting freindily with Tiberius' centurions and tax-gatherers; but the Jewish national leaders as the enemies of both—of the Romans, and of the democratic ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... Wordsworth continued it in "Michael," "The Solitary Reaper," "To a Highland Girl," "Stepping Westward," The Excursion, and a score of lesser poems. Joy and sorrow, not of princes or heroes, but "in widest commonalty spread," are his themes; and the hidden purpose of many of his poems is to show that the keynote of all life is happiness,—not an occasional thing, the result of chance or circumstance, but a heroic thing, to be won, as one would win ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... of food and the deplorable sickness and death, it was inevitable that extreme dissatisfaction should be felt with the responsible head. Wingfield was accused of keeping the best of the supplies to himself. The commonalty may have believed this. Smith himself must have known that the supplies were limited, but have been willing to take advantage of this charge to depose the President, who was clearly in many ways incompetent for his trying position. It appears by Mr. Wingfield's ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Doge of Venice was Paolo Lucio Anafesto, elected by the tribunal of commonalty, tribunals, and clergy, at Heraclea, in 697. The period of the subjection of the ecclesiastical to the ducal and patrician powers followed. The "Council of Ten" was established in 1335, and the last Doge elected ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... Balmoral. We had played with each other as boys, for the feudal system of the clans was communal and democratic. It was, to take one illustration, customary for the sons of chiefs to have foster-brothers adopted from the commonalty, companions in peace time, comrades and defenders ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... the 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... 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
... not incorporated until the 3rd year of King James I. when they were made a Corporation, by the name of master, wardens and commonalty of the art and mystery of butchers; yet the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 337, October 25, 1828. • Various
... that rose-water is sprinkled on the faces of the "nobility and gentry, " common water being good enough for the commonalty. I have had to drink tea made in compliment with rose-water and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... accumulated good store of wine by the end of the festival, when they shared it among the populace in a great carouse; nor were they held too strictly to account for the justice of particular fines by which the whole commonalty profited. ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... 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 ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... suddenly hurried through two more social revolutions 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 approached that stage of industrial development which, in the ancient European societies, ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... body? 1 Cor. xii. 17,19. So if in the family all were masters, where were the household? where were the family government? If in a city all were aldermen, where were the citizens? where were the city government? If in a kingdom all were kings, where were the subjects, the people, the commonalty, the ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... "Republican" means: of, or pertaining to, a Republic; that "Republic" means a thing, affair, or matter, closely related to, and touching the "public;" and that the "public" are the "people"—not a small proportion of them, but "the people at large," the whole community, the Nation, the commonalty, the generality. Hence, "a Republican form of government" is, in their opinion, plainly that form which is most closely identified with, and representative of, the generality or majority of the people; or, ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... 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 o' ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... time Mr. Clarke had made such good use of his time in explaining the law to his audience, and displaying the great wealth and unbounded liberality of Sir Launcelot Greaves, that he had actually brought over to his sentiments the constable and the commonalty, tag-rag, and bob-tail, and even staggered the majority of the farmers, who, at first, had breathed nothing but defiance and revenge. Farmer Stake being first called to the bar, and sworn touching the identity of Sir Launcelot Greaves ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... 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's mining- engines that the men of ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... Appealing to 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 ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... about dogs and books and things! It 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 ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... admission at all. However, order was soon established, and Mr. Cobden-Sanderson stepped up on to the platform and in a few pleasantly sententious phrases introduced Mr. Crane as one who had always been 'the advocate of great and unpopular causes,' and the aim of whose art was 'joy in widest commonalty spread.' Mr. Crane began his lecture by pointing out that Art had two fields, aspect and adaptation, and that it was primarily with the latter that the designer was concerned, his object being not literal fact but ideal beauty. With the unstudied and accidental effects of Nature ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... that she maintains a train of prating pettifoggers, prowling sumners[255], smooth-tongued bawds, artless[256] empirics, hungry parasites, newscarriers, janglers[257], and such like idle companions, that delude the commonalty. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various |
