An exception, however, is made in favour of Kanakhala, while the merit attaching to Prayaga is the greatest.

He was supposed to be a man of inferior intellect, whose chief merit was the ability to conceal his thoughts and hold his tongue, and whose power rested on the army, the allegiance of which he had seduced by bribes and promises.

It is true that specifically first-night merit is a trivial matter compared with what may be called thousandth-performance merit; but it is equally true that there is no inconsistency between the two orders of merit, and that a play will never be less esteemed on its thousandth performance for having achieved a conspicuous first-night success.

Perhaps the greatest merit which this author has to plead, is his attachment to Ben Johnson, and admiration of him: Silius Italicus performed an annual visit to Virgil's tomb, and that circumstance reflects more honour upon him in the eyes of Virgil's admirers, than all the works of that author.

"Lockhart's praise has given me great pleasure, and his wife's even still greater; but, after all, the merit is in my subjectin the man, not in me.

Its great merit is the grace and polish of the language; but the arguments brought forward to prove what an excellent thing it is for a man to have good friends, and plenty of them, in this world, and the rules for his behaviour towards them, seem to us somewhat trite and commonplace, whatever might have been their effect upon a Roman reader.

Her chief merit is the actual truthfulness with which she represented animals.

Its merits are principally its illustrations, many of which are from original dissections, some of which are very good diagrams, others ordinary, and somesuch as the view of the human brain and spinal chord on page 282wretched.

Their great merit is the strong and vivid, yet always noble, style with which the details are set forth.

In extenuation of this summary attempt I hasten to explain that its chief merit is its lack of originality.

The merits of each question that arises are distinctly comprehended by the nation at home, and the government is merely its outward representative.

Cowley had, indeed, a great deal too much of 'the precocious humour of the world-wise boy' to put forward his play as anything of the kind; he was perfectly aware that it was an absolutely unreal fantasy, based entirely on convention and imitation, the sole merit of which was the more or less clever manner in which borrowing, reminiscence, and tradition were interwoven and combined.

The peculiar merit of this Encyclopaedia is its convenient adaptedness to popular use.

It so fell out that the merits of Wordsworth were the occasion of my first public declaration of my new way of thinking, and separation from those of my habitual companions who had not undergone a similar change.

When all is said the chief merit of the Duomo is this immensity.

The attempt to produce an effect by means of the material employedan attempt which panders to this evil tendency of the publicis most to be condemned in branches of literature where any merit there may be lies expressly in the form; I mean, in poetical work.

If merit be disease; if virtue death; To be good, not to be; who'd then bequeath 10 Himself to discipline?

But it was not so much the intrinsic merit of those views, still less was it the extent to which we acted upon them, which won for us the favour of those races; we owed that mainly to the uncompromising hostility, the bitter denunciations, and the unmeasured violence which the promulgation of those views provoked from those who were regarded by them as their oppressors.

A small pier, a narrow esplanade, and some small gardens form its chief artificial recommendations, and its one natural merit is an invigorating breeze which never seems to fail.

His merit was a ceaseless diligence, in which it was doubtful whether ambition or conscientiousness had the greatest share.

Jesus' merits being the only refuge of my soul.

Seven years were devoted to the Dictionary, which, whatever its merits, could be a book only in the material sense of the word, and was of course destined to be soon superseded.

Its principal merit is its burning earnestness of feeling and purpose; and earnestness is sacred from criticism.

But the true merit of Trieste is not in anything that it has itself, its church, its arch, its noble site.

The merit of a modern metaphysician is, like that of a good chemist or naturalist, accurate observation in noting the facts of mind.