Both indeed grant him a slight knack at the pathetic; but, if I may venture a prediction, his pretensions to the latter will one day appear no better founded, than his pretentions to the former.

Although this satire apparently aims to demonstrate the superior merits of the great classical writers, it is mainly an attack on pretentions to knowledge.

Whoever considers the evasive tendency of these answers, will find in them abundant proof of Glamorgan's pretentions.

I believe he means to bring me, through Necessity, to resign my Pretentions to him for some Provision for my Life; but I will die first.

[Footnote D: This implication, in the first principle of the utilitarian scheme, of perfect impartiality between persons, is regarded by Mr. Herbert Spencer (in his Social Statics) as a disproof of the pretentions of utility to be a sufficient guide to right; since (he says) the principle of utility presupposes the anterior principle, that everybody has an equal right to happiness.

We are glad, however, to have found an opportunity of attending somewhat more particularly to his pretentions.

There are shops in Genoa expressly for the sale of these bridal ornaments, which are worn there, exclusively by the inferior classes; for the higher orders of society if seen in such, would forfeit, whether foreigners or citizens, all pretentions to rank and fashion; however, the Genoese gold trinkets, may be, and are, much worn by the Hidalgos of many a place afar from that of their manufacture.

Madelene, come herself to open the door for him, was in a summer dress of no pretentions to style other than that which her figure, with its large, free, splendid lines, gave whatever she happened to wear.

I found by long experience that the loosest principles and most abandoned behaviour carried all before them in pretentions to women of fortune.

"Wilks, who wanted nothing but abilities to be reduc'd to tell him that it was my opinion that Booth would never be made easy by anything we could do for him, 'till he had a share in the profits and management; and that, as he did not want friends to assist him, whatever his merit might be before, every one would think since his acting of Cato, he had now enough to back his pretentions to it.

Caesar and Pompey made not a warmer division in the Roman Republick than those heroines, their country women, the Faustina and Cuzzoni, blew up in our commonwealth of academical musick by their implacable pretentions to superiority.[A]

every performer would be a Caesar or Nothing; their several pretentions to preference were not to be limited within the laws of harmony; they would all choose their own songs, but not more to set off themselves than to oppose or deprive another of an occasion to shine.

How many Whigs and Tories have changed their parties, when their good or bad pretentions have met with a check to their higher preferment?"

He represented, with reason, how prejudicial it was to government, that the command of ships and colonies should be given as caprice dictates, and to gratify the pretentions of vain pride, while experienced officers were overlooked, or disdainfully repulsed, condemned to figure on the lists of the half-pay, of the reforms, and even before the time, which would have called them to a necessary, or at least legal repose.

I have not yet been here long enough to discover the causes of this change; perhaps they may lie too deep for such an observer as myself: but if (as the causes of important effects sometimes do) they lie on the surface, they will be less liable to escape me, than an observer of more pretentions.

Indeed, people of any pretentions to patriotism (that is to say, who were much afraid) did not venture to wear any thing but wooden shoes; as it had been declared anti-civique, if not suspicious, to walk in leather.

I have not yet been here long enough to discover the causes of this change; perhaps they may lie too deep for such an observer as myself: but if (as the causes of important effects sometimes do) they lie on the surface, they will be less liable to escape me, than an observer of more pretentions.

Indeed, people of any pretentions to patriotism (that is to say, who were much afraid) did not venture to wear any thing but wooden shoes; as it had been declared anti-civique, if not suspicious, to walk in leather.

I believe he means to bring me, through Necessity, to resign my Pretentions to him for some Provision for my Life; but I will die first.

Pastoral, relying for its distinctive features upon the accidents rather than the essentials of life, failed to justify its pretentions as a serious and independent form of art.

Every house of any pretentions provides a servants' hall.

They complain of the want of interest in their proceedings on the part of many of the leading commercial houses, of the lamentable condition of commerce, of the inattention of their "mother," Spain, to the plausible pretentions of this her daughter, animated though she was by the most fervent patriotism.

She told her that whatever she might hear respecting her supposed parentage, she was merely a child without pretentions, and protected from motives of love, and of love only; that her protectors were poor, and ever likely to remain so, and that what God required of her, was that when able, she should assist them as they had assisted her in helpless infancy.

The latter was less bigoted than the master, affected less arrogance and admitted more worldly pretentions.

He affected inordinate pretentions of profundity.