As pointed, and severe as he is in his writings, in his temper he had all the softness of the tenderest disposition; gentle and inoffensive to every man in his particular character; he only attacks vice as a public enemy, compassionating the wound he is under a necessity to probe, or grieving, like a good natured conqueror, at the occasions which provoke him to make such havock.

He looked at the coin, then he looked at the horse, and then, picking out the meekest and the most inoffensive of his free passengers, he bade him get off and motioned me to take the vacated seat at my right as a first-class paying passenger.

When Henry I. came to the throne, he appointed Theobald, a feeble but good man, to the See of Canterbury,less ambitious than Lanfranc, more inoffensive than Anselm; a Norman disinclined to quarrel with his sovereign.

As it is the most general of all human failings, so is it regarded with the most indulgence: a latent consciousness averts the censure of the weak; and the wise, who flatter themselves with being exempt from it, plead in its favour, by ranking it as a foible too light for serious condemnation, or too inoffensive for punishment.

We did not expect, my lords, that our navies would sail out under the command of admirals renowned for bravery, knowledge, and vigilance, and float upon the ocean without design, or enter ports and leave them, equally inoffensive as a packet-boat, or petty trader.

"If relays of eyes were to be hired like post-horses, I would never admit any but select companions: they afford a constant variety of entertainment, and is almost the only one pleasing in the enjoyment and inoffensive in the consequence.

" In Martyn's "History of the Great Reformation," Vol. iv, p. 238, is an extract from an oration of Edward Everett, on the English exiles who founded this government, in which he says: "Did they look for a retired spot, inoffensive from its obscurity, safe in its remoteness from the haunts of despots, where the little church of Leyden might enjoy freedom of conscience?