It was a recognised and effective mode of flattering a new emperor to blacken the character of his predecessors; Domitian himself allowed his court poets to vilify Caligula and Nero.
An it be a constable, I'll vilify him, and be lodged in the Counter yet.
I could vilify you now, for pushing me into this business!
Therefore, when you are with her, if my name comes up, be sure you vilify me roundly.
You will perceive that the worry now making is about breaches of privilege, tending to degrade and vilify the House.
They were no great workers, but they would exert themselves to the utmost to annoy or vilify the objects of their displeasure.
I quickly undeceived such as had come expecting to hear me vilify the Bible, the churches, or religion.
The priestly party in Madrid, in the mean time, spared no effort to vilify me.
Her agents and minions throughout Spain exerted themselves to the utmost to render my humble labours abortive, and to vilify the work which I was attempting to disseminate.
Every art which ingenuity could practise, and influence assist in its operation, was exerted to vilify and misrepresent the real design of the French revolution.
Those who in this position are wanting in what is due to Napoleon, vilify only their own character, and the nation which they represent.
It is creditable in these days of political rancour and bitterness that no malignant attempt has been made to vilify him by his opponents or by the hostile part of the press.
To vilify men, to call them rascals, to threaten to lash them with his whip was not the way to handle the liberty-loving Virginians.
Robert Beverley said it was his constant practice to browbeat and vilify both lawyers and their clients.
The priestly party in Madrid, in the meantime, spared no effort to vilify me.
It has now been fashionable, for near half a century, to defame and vilify the house of Stuart, and to exalt and magnify the reign of Elizabeth.
For he that is of sound faith, and of conversation honest in the world; no man, however he may fail in circumstantials, may lightly reproach or vilify him.
And I add, had you joined herewith, such as vilify and trample upon the blood of the Lord Jesus, preferring the snivel of their own brains before him, you had herein but drawn your own picture, and given your reader an emblem of yourself.
Then they would not have occasion to vilify religion because of you, since you tell them that Christ and you are parted.
There are many Passions and Tempers of Mind which naturally dispose us to depress and vilify the Merit of one rising in the Esteem of Mankind.
Thus it has become the tradition to belittle his work, to vilify his character, and to sum up his whole career, as a prominent New Englander has recently done, by alluding to him as a "creature of the opposition.
Tis an ordinary thing for great men tovilify and insult, oppress, injure, tyrannise, to take what liberty they list, and who dare speak against?
It seemed indeed as if the whole press had set itself the task of covering Salvat with mud, so as to be able to vilify Anarchism generally.
Do you not see how you reproach and condemn yourselves, while you vilify them as savages and barbarous wretches?
Reader, bear with this mixture: for God will own his image when peevish contenders do deny it, or blaspheme it; and will receive those whom faction and proud domination would cast out, and vilify with scorn and slanders.
Against this remember, that it is folly to admire that which you never tried and knew; and mark whether all men do not vilify it, that have tried it to the last: dying men call it no better than vanity and deceit.
Insensate they who, tasting not, yet vilify its use; For when they thirst and seek its help, God will the gift refuse.
It was the favorite pastime of its friends to exaggerate coffee's merits; and of its enemies, to vilify its users.
And, lastly, I fear an ungraceful, if not an unpleasant utterance, which would disgrace and vilify the whole.
As to the kind of philanthropy that would thus vilify and slander a town lying in ashes, and its inhabitants houseless and homeless, what terms can characterize it?
And yet such men are not only allowed to vilify and abuse the people whom their misconduct has outraged, but certain New York sheets take up their cause and pour forth wormwood and gall upon the town, the community, and the State.
Terror was now succeeded by bitter indignation at the conduct of Lady Gwyn, who had dared to drive me from my own house, and vilify me as a common thief.
He himself became conscious as he went on of the iniquity of this instruction, and proceeded to cite and vilify passages from Mrs Besant's works, thus doing everything in his power to prejudice the jury on the real issue.
