"Scrivener" Quotes from Famous Books
... you can trust me with your manuscript for a little time, should I have leisure to read it but by small snatches, which would be wronging you, and would break all connexion in my head. Criticism you are too great a writer to want; and to read critically is far beyond my present power. Can a scrivener, or a scrivener's hearer, be a judge of composition, style, profound reasoning, and new lights and discoveries, etc.? But my weary hand and breast must finish. May I ask the favour of you calling on me any morning, when you shall happen to come to town? ... — Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... 1608-1674, was born in London—eight years before the greatest English poet, Shakespeare, died. His father followed the profession of a scrivener, in which he acquired a competence. As a boy, Milton was exceedingly studious, continuing his studies till midnight. He graduated at Christ's College, Cambridge, where his singular beauty, his slight figure, and his fastidious ... — McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the Speculator of John a Windor, a scrivener, sometimes living in Newbury. This Windor was club-fisted, wrote with a pen betwixt both his hands. I have seen many bonds and bills wrote by him. He was much given to debauchery, so that at some times the Daemons would not appear to the Speculator; he would ... — William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... they may seem to us to stand of unequal measures, yet a skilful reader that can scan them in their nature, shall find it otherwise. And if a verse here and there fal out a sillable shorter or longer than another, I rather aret it to the negligence and rape of Adam Scrivener, that I may speak as Chaucer doth, than to any unconning or oversight in the Author. For how fearful he was to have his works miswritten, or his verse mismeasured, may appear in the end of his fifth book of Troilus and ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... the commons the consideration of proper means for lessening the national debt, was a prelude to the famous South-Sea act, which became productive of so much mischief and infatuation The scheme was projected by sir John Blunt, who had been bred a scrivener, and was possessed of all the cunning, plausibility, and boldness requisite for such an undertaking. He communicated his plan to Mr. Aislaby, the chancellor of the exchequer, as well as to one of the secretaries ... — The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... engaged as courier in a noble family, and in the situation made many journeys and learned to know the world, and also to lay by some money. In September 1757 he married the daughter of the magistrate (Schultheiss) of Dotzheim, and he obtained appointment under him as scrivener. By his wife he had seven children. On the death of his father-in-law, and the appointment of a new magistrate, the aspect of his affairs changed. He was detected in attempts to appropriate trust-money to his own use, and was dismissed his office. He sank deeper and ... — Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... it said. "Sic transit gloria.... Call me Arnulf the goldsmith and Robert the scrivener.... Quick, man, quick. I have much to do ... — The Path of the King • John Buchan
... moment's time. Nor was his industry with the pen, when occasion called for it, less eager. Entrusted with extensive management of public and private affairs, he acted in his rustic neighbourhood as scrivener, writing out petitions, deeds of conveyance, wills, covenants, &c., with pecuniary gain to himself, and to the great benefit of his employers. These labours, at all times considerable, at one period of the year, viz., between Christmas and Candlemas, when money transactions are settled in ... — The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 473., Saturday, January 29, 1831 • Various |