Sir F. Ha! ha! Sneer. In your more serious efforts, he says, your bombast would be less intolerable, if the thoughts were ever suited to the expression; but the homeliness of the sentiment stares through the fantastic encumbrance of its fine language, like a clown in one of the new uniforms! Sir F. Ha! ha! Sneer. That your occasional tropes and flowers suit the general coarseness of your style, as tambour sprigs would a ground of linsey-wolsey; while your imitations of Shakespeare resemble the mimicry of Falstaff's Page, and are about as near the standard of the original. Sir F. Ha! Sneer. In short, that even the finest passages you steal are of no service to you; for the poverty of your own language prevents their assimilating; so that they lie on the surface like lumps of marl on a barren moor, encumbering what it is not in their power to fertilize! Sir F. [After great agitation.] Now, another person would be vexed at this. Sneer. Oh! but I would n't have told you, only to divert you. Sir F. I know it - I am diverted Ha ha ha! not the least invention! - Ha! ha! ha! very good! very good! Sneer. Yes-no genius! Ha! ha! ha! Dan. A severe rogue! ha! ha! But you are quite right, Sir Fretful, never to read such nonsense. You are quite right. Sir F. To be sure-for, if there is anything to one's praise, it is a foolish vanity to be gratified at it; and if it is abuse, why, one is always sure to hear of it from one good-natured friend or another! In the fourteenth century the Earl of Flanders claimed sovereignty over the Flemish town of Ghent; but he having deprived it of certain immunities which the citizens guarded with jealousy, a war broke out which lasted several years. Among the chiefs of the people of Ghent was Philip van Artevelde, on whose story a dramatic romance has been founded. It the scene from which the following passage is taken the envoys of the Earl have been allowed to address the people and make certain overtures. After they have spoken, Van Artevelde replies in the following, speech. So in Index, MINE, RECREANT, Taylor, I. SIRS, ye have heard these knights discourse to you The worthy leaders ye have lately lost. True, they were worthy men, most gallant chiefs; Of the great loss we suffer by their fall. II. But had they guessed, or could they but have dreamed, The great examples which they died to show Should fall so flat, should shine so fruitless here, Wherefore let us be slaves," had they thought this, O, then, with what an agony of shame, Their blushing faces buried in the dust, Had their great spirits parted hence for heaven! III. What! shall we teach our chroniclers henceforth To write, that in five bodies were contained The sole brave hearts of Ghent! which five defunct, The heartless town, by brainless counsel led, Delivered up her keys, stript off her robes, And so with all humility besought Her haughty lord that he would scourge her lightly! It shall not be no, verily for now, Thus looking on you as ye stand before me, IV. But, lo! the Earl is "mercifully minded"! V. O, Sirs! look round But think not that the parchment and mouth pardon -- There's that betwixt you been which men remember VI. There's that betwixt you been which you yourselves, Ye should forgive this bloody-minded man For all his black and murderous monstrous crimes! СІІІ. THE USES OF THE PASSIONS. REV. SYDNEY SMITH. See in Index, IMAGERY, MAUSOLEUM, MOULDER or MOLDER, PHILIPPIC, SACRIFICE, SIMILE, BURKE, CICERO, COR'TES, PRUSSIA, SMITH. In the twelfth paragraph, the author alludes to the celebrated retreat of ten thousand Greeks, under Xenophon and others, from the invasion of Persia. The CARDUCHIAN (kar-du'ke-an) mountains lie along the northeastern margin of the valley of the Tigris. Delivery. The style, though didactic, is brilliant, animated, and eloquent, and should be read with corresponding warmth and spirit. 1. THE passions are in morals what motion is in physics: they create, preserve, and animate; and without them, all would be silence and death. Avarice guides men across the deserts of the ocean; pride covers the earth with trophies, and mausoleums, and pyramids; love turns men from their savage rudeness; ambition shakes the very foundation of kingdoms. 2. By the love of glory weak nations swell into magnitude and strength. Whatever there is of terrible, whatever there is of beautiful in human events, all that rouses the soul, and is remembered while thought and flesh cling together, all these have their origin from the passions. As it is only in storms, and when their coming waters are driven up into the air, that we cătch a sight of the depths of the sea, it is only in the season of perturbation that we have a glimpse of the real internal nature of man. 3. To all efforts of the imagination, a certain degree of passion appears highly favorable;—anger quickens wit, multiplies images and words, and gives a flow and a fecundity, of which the mind is utterly destitute in its ordinary state. Every man is eloquent in speaking of himself, from the direct influence which his passions have upon his imagination. The finest and most affecting parts of Cicero are always about himself. In that noble conclusion of the second philippic, which after * wards cost him his life, every passion of his great mind seems to be at work. 4. "But do you, Antony," he says, "look to yourself; and I will confess what are my principles: I have defended the Republic when I was young, I will not desert it now I am old I have despised the sword of Catiline, and the sword of Antony shall not alarm me. Most willingly would I sacrifice this body, if by my death the liberty of Rome could be established. Did not I say, twenty years ago, in this very Senate, that when a man perished who had reached the dignity of Consul, he could not be said to have perished prematurely? 5. "And do you think, now that old age is come upon me, I will retract or deny this doctrine? Conscript fathers, I wish for death; I have gained all that the Republic can bestow; I have performed all that it can require! Let death come when it will, I am prepared to meet it. I have only two things to implore: first, that my country may deal out to all her children the punishment or the reward they merit; next, that when I do die, I may leave the Romans free. If the gods grant me this, there is nothing else which they can bestow." 6. No one could say of Edmund Burke, that he did not write with passion; and whenever his passions are awakened, his imagination appears to be fecundated. He is metaphorical at all times; but when he feels * Stung by the philippics of Cicero, Antony insisted on his death, and Octavius basely consented to it. In endeavoring to escape from Tusculum, where he was living when the news of his proscription arrived, Cicero was overtaken and murdered by a party of soldiers, headed by Popilius Lænas, whose life he had formerly saved by his eloquence. Cicero's head and hands, says Plutarch, were cut off, carried to Rome, and presented to Antony, who had them fixed up on the rostra in the forum. Cicero perished in the year 43 B. C. He was opposed to Cæsar, though not a party to his assassination. |