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Raffaelle ever be degraded from his high rank among painters, because he might not have been able to draw Cupids and Nymphs with the minute elegance of Albani; in the same manner as Demosthenes will always be allowed to have hushed the thunder of Grecian eloquence, although he could not perhaps (whatever Tully may suggest to the contrary) have spoken with the simple graces of Lysias. Philosophers may refine, and logicians may distinguish as learnedly and subtilly as they please; it will, after all, be true that the eloquence of a senator is of a species wholly different from the eloquence of an advocate; that the two kinds ought never to be confounded; and that a complete speaker before a jury or a single judge may strain his throat without effect in a popular assembly. If Cicero, indeed, meaned no more than that the title of orator should be given only to one, who, like himself, excels all men in every way, the argument is reduced to a mere dispute about words, which every writer may apply as he thinks proper, provided he apprize his reader of the new sense in which he means to use them; but, surely, he might have asserted, with equal propriety, that he alone, who surpasses the rest of mankind in every sort of poetry, deserves the appellation of a poet; for nothing can be more exact than the analogy between the two arts, and their near allegiance is often acknowledged by the great man himself, with whose opinions I am taking so much liberty: had he said that by the word orator he meaned a speaker, who had cultivated every branch of his art, the Romans might have thought this an innovation in their language, but they would, perhaps, have adopted the definition on his authority. SIR W. JONES

426. THE SIENESE-HARDSHIPS TO WHICH THEY WERE SUBJECTED BY CHARLES V. AND COSMO DE' MEDICI, A.D. 1555. The fears of the Sienese concerning the fate of their country were not imaginary, or their suspicion of the Emperor and Cosmo ill-founded; for no sooner had the Imperial troops taken possession of the town, than Cosmo, without regarding the articles of capitulation, not only displaced the magistrates who were in office, and nominated new ones devoted to his own interest, but commanded all the citizens to deliver up their arms to persons whom he appointed to receive them. They submitted to the former from necessity, though with all the reluctance and regret which men accustomed to

liberty feel in obeying the first commands of a master. They did not yield the same obedience to the latter. And many persons of distinction, rather than degrade themselves from the rank of freemen to the condition of slaves, by surrendering their arms, fled to their countryinen at Monte-Alcino, and chose to endure all the hardships, and encounter all the dangers which they had reason to expect in that new station, where they had fixed the seat of their new republic.

W. ROBERTSON

427. DEATH. It is death that puts into man all the wisdom of the world, without speaking a word: it is death alone that can suddenly make man to know himself. He tells the proud and insolent, that they are but objects, and humbles them at the instant: makes them cry, complain, and repent; yea, even to hate their forepassed happiness. He takes account of the rich and proves him a beggar; a naked beggar, which hath interest in nothing, but in the gravel that fills his mouth. He holds a glass before the eyes of the most beautiful, and makes them see therein, their deformity and rottenness; and they acknowledge it.

O eloquent, just and mighty death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised: thou hast drawn together all the far stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, HIC IACET. SIR W. RALEIGH

428. EDWIN, KING OF NORTHUMBERLAND, SUMMONS A CONFERENCE OF HIS PAGAN PRIESTHOOD, A.D. 597. To the solemn question, as to which religion was the true one, the High Priest thus replied: 'No one has applied to the worship of the Gods with greater zeal and fidelity than myself, but I do not see that I am the better for it; I am not more prosperous, nor do I enjoy a greater share of the royal favour. I am ready to give up those ungrateful Gods: let us try whether these new ones will reward us better.' But there were others of more reflective minds. A thane came forward and said, 'To what, O King, shall I liken the life of man? When you are feasting with your thanes in the depth of winter and the hall is warm with the blazing fire, and all around the wind is raging, and the snow falling,

a little bird flies through the hall, enters at one door and escapes at another. For a moment, while within, it is visible to the eyes, but it came out of the darkness of the storm, and glides again into the same darkness. So is human life; we behold it for an instant, but of what has gone before, or what is to follow after, we are utterly ignorant. If the new religion can teach this wonderful secret, let us give it our serious attention.' H. H. MILMAN

429. PARALLEL BETWEEN LYSIAS AND ISÆUS. The true comparison between Lysias and Isæus appears to be this; purity, accuracy, propriety, conciseness, perspicuity, were common to both of them in an equal degree, and both possessed that roundness of expression, to which nothing could be added, and from which nothing could be removed without destroying its justness and symmetry; but the orations of Lysias had all that sweet simplicity, that exquisite grace, that clearness, and as it were transparency, which characterized the genuine Attic diction, and which may be more easily conceived than defined, admired than imitated: for it is analogous to gracefulness in motion, to melody in a series of sounds, and to beauty in the most beautiful of all visible objects, the human form; the lineaments of Isæus were more dignified and manly, and his graces rather those of Mars than of Adonis; for Dionysius observes, that his figures were stronger and more various, his composition more forcible and impetuous, and that he surpassed Lysias in ardour and vehemence, as much as Lysias excelled him in simple and natural charms. * * * Demosthenes and Isæus, without having anything forced or unnatural in their productions, took more pains than Lysias in preparing the minds of the judges; in relating the facts which gave birth to the litigation; in dividing the parts of their address to the court; in marshalling their evidence; in disposing and enforcing their observations; in digressing without deviation; in returning to the subject without abruptness; in amplifying; in aggravating; in extenuating; and as Dionysius says particularly of Isæus, in attacking their adversaries, laying close siege to their understandings and storming the passions of the jury. His manner of opening was various, according to the great variety of causes in which he was employed; sometimes he told his story in a natural order, with conciseness and simplicity, without preparation, without ornament,

without any mixture of argumentation; sometimes he divided a long narration into several heads, proving each of them as he went along; a method of which he seems to have been fond and which could not but conduce to the perspicuity of his speeches; in all cases he made frequent use of that oratorial syllogism, which logicians call mixeípnμa, where the premises are respectively proved by argument or evidence before the speaker draws his conclusion; while the vouμnua, in which one proposition is suppressed, appears to have been more agreeable to the manner of Lysias; and Dionysius indeed mentions this as a strong mark of discrimination between the two advocates. SIR W. JONES

430.

MARSHAL NEY-HIS BETRAYAL OF THE BOURBONS ON THE RETURN OF NAPOLEON FROM ELBA, A. D. 1815. He had an audience of the King on the 9th March when he accepted his appointment with expressions of the most devoted faith to the King. On the 11th he learned that the enemy was in possession of Lyons, but he continued to make preparations for resistance and collected all the troops he could from the adjoining garrisons. To those who objected the bad disposition of the soldiers, and remarked, that he would have difficulty in inducing them to fight, he answered determinedly, 'They shall fight; I will take a musket from a grenadier and begin the action myself. I will run my sword to the hilt in the first who hesitates to follow my example.' In these dispositions on the night betwixt the 13th and 14th of March, he received a letter from Napoleon summoning him to join his standard. He had already sounded both his officers and soldiers and discovered their unalterable determination to join the enemy. He therefore had it only in his choice to retain his command by passing over to the enemy or else to return to the King, without executing anything which might seem even an effort at realising his boast, and also without the army over which he had asserted his possession of such influence.

SIR W. SCOTT

431. THE SPANIARDS-JUSTIFICATION OF THEIR RETALIATION ON THE FRENCH. There are insults and injuries, which to have endured at the hand of an oppressor, degrades a man in his own esteem, and forces him to recover his level by a signal and terrible revenge. Such are the inflictions which the French armies have poured out upon the Spaniards.

If ever acts of ferocious retaliation might admit of extenuation, it is in such a cause, and upon such provocation as they have received, from an enemy unrestrained in his career of ambition and blood, by any law human or divine. Such is, in my opinion, the justification of the Spaniards. Thus they defend and avenge their invaded country—their pillaged and desolated homes-their murdered parents-their violated wives and daughters-and who shall say, that such vengeance is not justified in the eyes of God and man? Who shall pretend that the assailant of unoffending and defenceless innocence is privileged from resistance or retaliation, that the invader has a right to make his inroad when he thinks fit, to commit what excesses he pleases;-but that he is only to be met in the listed field and by regular battalions-that the cottage or the altar are to be defended or avenged only by an enrolled soldiery; that the peaceful population of a country must be passive under every species of outrage and of wrong?

432. Plato expresses his abhorrence of some fables of the poets, which seem to reflect on the gods as the authors of injustice; and lays it down as a principle, that whatever is permitted to befall a just man, whether poverty, sickness, or any of those things which seem to be evils, shall either in life or death conduce to his good. My readers will observe how agreeable this maxim is to what we find delivered by a greater authority. Seneca has written a discourse purposely on this subject; in which he takes pains, after the doctrine of the Stoics, to shew that adversity is not in itself an evil; and mentions a noble saying of Demetrius, that 'nothing would be more unhappy than a man who had never known affliction.' He compares prosperity to the indulgence of a fond mother to a child, which often proves his ruin; but the affection of the Divine Being to that of a wise father, who would have his sons exercised with labour, disappointment, and pain, that they may gather strength and improve their fortitude. On this occasion, the philosopher rises into that celebrated sentiment, that there is not on earth a spectacle more worthy the regard of a Creator intent on his works, than a brave man superior to his sufferings; to which he adds, that it must be a pleasure to Jupiter himself to look down from heaven, and see Cato amidst the ruins of his country preserving his integrity. J. HUGHES

PLATO AND SENECA-ON THE USES OF ADVERSITY.

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