Puslapio vaizdai
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This was expreffive, and fufficient to prove LIGARIUS's innocence; but it did not fatisfy the orator, who proceeds with additional fpirit, addreffing the accuser himself : "Quid, tubero, tuus ille districtus in acie "Pharfalicâ gladius agebat?" At the mention of Pharfalia, CESAR is reported to have felt fuch emotions, that he let fall the papers, which he had brought to accufe LI

GARIUS.

This paffage affords a mafter-piece of CICERO's oratorical judgement, and his knowledge of the human mind.

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O write in a fimple unadorned ftyle, when the subject requires energy, is a glaring fault it proves a want of genius and fenfibility; for in this cafe, while the author

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fhould affect with all the powers of defcription, the diction is infipid, and the expreffion naked and unadorned. Figures are therefore to be called in to his affiftance; figures, which applied with propriety will add strength to his nerves, and push his fentiments home upon the reader.

ORIG.-Ουχ ημαρτετε, padwy, &c.

μα, της εν Ματ

This oath from DEMOSTHENES is finely adapted to the critic's illuftration. The oath is not brought in by chance, or to fill up the paffage: it materially conduces to the fublimity of the reflection.

The battle of Charonea, fo unfortunate to the Athenians, is the occafion of this difcourfe. Dejected at their lofs, the Athenians wanted confolation. The orator comforts them by faying, "You were not "in the wrong." They required to be animated. He strengthens the foregoing: F.3

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"You were not in the wrong, I fwear by "thofe noble fouls who loft their lives." Fully to confirm their fpirits, he puts them in mind of the heroes, who, like themselves, had fought for their freedom. Nothing therefore could have been more efficacious than the affertion, that their own conduct had deferved applause.

A paffage from the inspired orator St. PAUL may illuftrate the critic's fentiments upon the fore-mentioned quotation from DEMOSTHENES. The repetition of dev, though ingenious, yields to the expreffion of the apoftle.

"Ye fuffer fools gladly, feeing ye your"felves are wife :

"For ye fuffer, if a man bring you into "bondage, if a man devour you, if a man "take of you, if a man exalt himself, if a man finite in the face."

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Oaths are common in many heathen authors: HOMER and VIRGIL have introduced them; but the holy fcriptures furnish us with oaths conveyed in the most spirited solemnity.

By myself have I fworn, faith the Lord; "for, because thou haft done this thing, "bleffing I will blefs thee, and multiplying "I will multiply thy feed, as the stars in heaven."-GENES. Ch. xxii.

There is a well-adapted oath in OTWAY'S Venice Preserved. PRIULI is introduced, Act I. Scene i. crying out to JAFFIER in a rage, "No more-I'll hear no more-be

gone and leave me." JAFFIER as eagerly replies, "Not hear me! by my fufferings, "but thou fhalt." This oath is happy; for it puts into PRIULI's mind the many woes JAFFIER had undergone upon his account; and the words tend more effectually to penetrate into the father's ears.

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ORIG.-Παρα τω Ευπολιδι.

We have scarce a fragment left of EUPOLIS's writings HORACE mentions him, among others, as fevere and fatirical in his comic writings, by lashing publicly upon the stage every notorious character, and directly defcribing their persons.

Eupolis atq; Cratinus, &c.

"Siquis erat dignus defcribi,quòd malus,aut fur, "Aut mœchus fuit, &c.

Multâ cum libertate notabant."*

The

* If a man glories in the character of a vilain, let him be completely expofed. The laws forbid it not, though, when wrested, they But have punished the generous fatirift. honefty never can defend itself, where oppreffion is pointed against it. This remark was occafioned by a perufal of Dr. FRANCIS's note upon the above words, which is evafive, and of as immoral a tendency, as the very worst which even he could have produced.-See FRANCIS'S Hor. Book I. Sat. iv. Notes.-Surely the doctor has never met with a fatirist, whom his christianlike difpofition would not teach him to forgive!

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