Mourn, mourn, pettifoggers, ye venal crew, And you, minor poets, woe, woe is to you!

I feel sure, for example, your assertion that I and my fellow-countrymen derive our opinions of German conduct wholly from corrupt and venal newspapers, or usually from a single newspaper which doles out mental poison in subservience to a single political party, was not intended to be as insulting as it really sounded.

If this analysis is successful in convincing you that American opinion does not rest on English lies, is not the result of a venal press controlled by British gold, but has a far more substantial foundation, then my letter will not have been written in vain.

Such was the parliament, which some of those, who are now aspiring to sit in another, have taught the rabble to consider as an unlawful convention of men, worthless, venal, and prostitute, slaves of the court, and tyrants of the people.

It was a cheering omen for their start across the Western Ocean, and the invalid Governor found himself a popular man on board, for it was generally understood that but for his insistence upon an immediate trial and sentence, the villain might have played upon some more venal judge and so escaped.

The underlying principle of those propositions was grace,divine grace to save the world,the principle of Paul and Saint Augustine; therefore not new, but forgotten; a mighty comfort to miserable people, mocked and cheated and robbed by a venal and a gluttonous clergy.

Even literature and science were venal.

The venal boroughs, which both Whig and Tory magnates controlled, were the chief seats of abuses and scandals.

It has divested politics of all attraction to superior men, and put government largely into the hands of the most venal and unblushing of demagogues.

Low, grovelling souls who are utterly incapable of elevating themselves to the higher and nobler duties of pure patriotismbeings who, forever keeping their own selfish aims in view, decide all public measures by their presumed influence on their own aggrandizementjudge me by the venal rule which they prescribe for themselves.

Pope thus describes him: 'Seen him, I have, but in his happier hour, Of social pleasure, ill exchanged for power; Seen him uncumbered with the venal tribe, Smile without art, and win without a bribe.

Three hundred venal and bribed souls out of so many millions!

His wonder and satisfaction increased when, after recommending her to obey the orders of Boges, the eunuch, who was head over the house of women, she reminded him that she was a king's daughter, bound to obey the commands of her lord, but unable to bow to a venal servant.

He damns a beautiful expression less out of spite than because he really does not understand it: any novelty of thought or sentiment gives him a shock from which he cannot recover for some time, and he naturally takes his revenge for the alarm and uneasiness occasioned him, without referring to venal or party motives.

Reading between the lines of his speech a cynic could only infer that the Upper House, as at present constituted, is such a useless and superfluous assembly that it does not much matter who gets into it or by what venal ladder he climbs.

Gifford was hated even more than his associates; not only, we fear, for his venal sycophancy, but because he had been apprenticed to a shoemaker and never concealed the lowness of his origin.

Now, however clumsy and confused the diplomacy of these present Allies may be (challenged constantly, as it is, by democracy and hampered by a free, venal and irresponsible Press in at least three of their countries), the necessity they will be under will be so urgent and so evident, that it is impossible to imagine that they will not set up some permanent organ for the direction and co-ordination of their joint international relationships.

The venal sex is bought and sold. Accurs'd be he who first of yore Discover'd the pernicious ore!

History presents few such anomalies; and it appears scarcely credible that so ill-organized a plot, hatched, moreover, under the very eyes of those who were to become its victims, and revealed to upwards of a score of persons, many of whom were incited to join it from merely venal motives, should ever have attained its accomplishment.

The venal mind Can neither fit inducement find To lead their purpose or their fate To sway, to probe, or stimulate!

He was so ingrainedly venal, treacherous, and mendacious that nothing he said or wrote can be accepted as true, and no sentiments which he at any time professed can be accepted as those he really felt.

An edict of January 31, 1522, created within the Parliament a fourth chamber, composed of eighteen councillors and two presidents, all of fresh, and, no doubt, venal appointment, though the edict dared not avow as much.

But it is not only Barrere and his colleagues who suppose the whole country bribeablethe notion is common to the French in general; and vanity adding to the omnipotence of gold, whenever they speak of a battle lost, or a town taken, they conclude it impossible to have occurred but through the venal treachery of their officers.

In quoting the strong points, a venal press was constrained to "scatter the living coals of truth."

It was still more creditable to him, that in such venal and corrupt days he maintained his integrity perfectly unsullied.