But now concerning his further procee 45 dings, concerning his victorious both entrance and cōtinuance within the Realme of England , two points are worthy to be considered: one, how he being a man of no great either power or dominion, did so suddenly preuaile against a couragious King, possessed of a large and puissant State.
— from The Lives of the III. Normans, Kings of England: William the First, William the Second, Henrie the First by Hayward, John, Sir

But, to throw a sop to your curiosity, it was a matter of native genius engineered by Providence.
— from The Mystics: A Novel by Katherine Cecil Thurston

And it proved to be this young Caesar, whose father was a man of no great eminence, Octavius, and his mother, Attia, Caesar's sister's daughter; for which reason, Caesar, who had no children, made him by will the heir of his house and property.
— from The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch Being Parts of the "Lives" of Plutarch, Edited for Boys and Girls by Plutarch

The choir of Bayeux is a masterpiece of Norman Gothic erected by Robert des Ablêges (1206-31), who died a crusader, and by the two successive bishops.
— from How France Built Her Cathedrals: A Study in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries by Elizabeth Boyle O'Reilly

The manors of East Lynn and West Lynn, and even that of Woolhanger—although just then all three were at issue about some rights of wreck, and the hanging of a sheep-stealer (a man of no great eminence, yet claimed by each for the sake of his clothes)—these three, having their rights impugned, or even superseded, as they declared by the quartering of soldiers in their neighbourhood, united very kindly to oppose the King's Commissioner.
— from Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor by R. D. (Richard Doddridge) Blackmore

There are many books that I, though a man of no great erudition, can remember, which gain much of interest from the pertinent and appropriate comments with which the writer has seen fit to illustrate any striking situation.
— from Dead Man's Rock by Arthur Quiller-Couch

The southern troops under the supreme command of Hsieh Hsüan, far inferior in numbers and militarily of no great efficiency, made surprise attacks on isolated units before these were in regular formation.
— from A History of China by Wolfram Eberhard

There came to Florence at that time the Florentine painter Vaga, a master of no great excellence, who was executing commonplace works at Toscanella in the province of Rome.
— from Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi by Giorgio Vasari