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Inquiry Into the Rise and Growth of the Royal Prerogative in England
Inquiry Into the Rise and Growth of the Royal Prerogative in England Author:John Allen Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: of John Allen, who, through nearly all my life till his lamented death, was ever kind, friendly and useful to me, and who was a man, as I have before said, gifte... more »d with very remarkable powers of mind and tenacity of attention and memory. Very truly yours, C. R. Fox. Of Mr. Allen, Lord Brougham, who knew him well, thus speaks :— " It would be a very imperfect account of Lord Holland which should make no mention of the friend who for the latter and more important part of his life shared all his thoughts and was never a day apart from him, Mr. John Allen ; or the loss which in him the world of politics and of science, but still more, our private circle, has lately had to deplore-another blank which assuredly cannot be filled up If it be asked what was the peculiar merit, the characteristic excellence of Mr. Allen's understanding, the answer is not difficult to make. It was the rare faculty of combining general views with details of facts, and thus at once availing himself of all that theory or speculation presents for our guide, with all that practical experience affords to correct those results of generalreasoning. This great excellence was displayed by him in everything to which he directed his mind, whether it were the political questions of the day, which he treated as practically as the veriest drudge in any of the public offices, and yet with all the enlargement of view which marked the statesman and the philosopher; or the speculations of history, which he studied at once with the acumen that extracts from it as an essence the general progress of our species, after the manner of Voltaire and Millar; and with the minute observation of facts and weighing of evidence which we trace through the luminous and picturesque pages of Robertson and Gibbon. He for whom no...« less