church; if ever the rich man looks upon him with respect, it is there; and both will be the better the oftener they meet where the feeling of superiority is mitigated in the one and the spirit of the other is erected and confirmed. — Paley. (33) A custom in some of our country churches. (34) An English breakfast; which may well excite in others what in Rousseau continued through life, un goût vif pour les déjeûnés. C'est le temps de la journée où nous sommes le plus tranquilles, où nous causons le plus à notre aise. The luxuries here mentioned, familiar to us as they now are, were almost unknown before the Revolution. (35) He who resolves to rise in the world by politics or religion can degrade his mind to any degree, when he sets about it. Overcome the first scruple, and the work is done. "You hesitate," said one who spoke from experience. "Put on the mask, young man; and in a very little while you will not know it from your own face." (36) Zeuxis is said to have drawn his Helen from an assemblage of the most beautiful women; and many a writer of fiction, in forming a life to his mind, has recourse to the brightest moments in the lives of others. I may be suspected of having done so here, and of having designed, as it were, from living models; but, by making an allusion now and then to those who have really lived, I thought I should give something of interest to the picture, as well as better illustrate my meaning. (37) "By the Mass!" said the Duke of Norfolk to Sir Thomas More, "by the Mass! Master More, it is perilous striving with princes; the anger of a prince is death."—" And is that all, my lord? then the difference between you and me is but this - That I shall die to-day, and you to-morrow." —Roper's Life. (38) Traitor's gate, the water-gate in the Tower of London. (39) This very slight sketch of Civil Dissension is taken from our own annals; but, for an obvious reason, not from those of our own age. The persons here immediately alluded to lived more than a hundred years ago, in a reign which Blackstone has justly represented as wicked, sanguinary and turbulent; but such times have always afforded the most signal instances of heroic courage and ardent affection. Great reverses, like theirs, lay open the human heart. They occur indeed but seldom ; yet all men are liable to them; all, when they occur to others, make them more or less their own; and, were we to describe our condition to an inhabitant of some other planet, could we omit what forms so striking a circumstance in human life? (40) A prisoner, prosecuted for high treason, may now make his defence by counsel. In the reign of William the Third the law was altered; and it was in rising to urge the necessity of an alteration, that Lord Shaftesbury, with such admirable quickness, took advantage of the embarrassment that seized him. "If I," said he, "who rise only to give my opinion of this bill, am so confounded that I cannot say what I intended, what must be the condition of that man, who, without any assistance, is pleading for his life?" (41) Lord Russell. May I have somebody to write, to assist my memory? Mr. Attorney General. Yes, a servant. Lord Chief Justice. Any of your servants shall assist you in writing anything you please for you. Lord Russell. My wife is here, my Lord, to do it. -State Trials, II. (42) See the Alcestis of Euripides, v. 194. (43) Such as Russell found in Cavendish; and such as many have found. (44) An allusion to the last interview of Sir Thomas More and his daughter Margaret. "Dear Meg," said he, when afterwards with a coal he wrote to bid her farewell, “I never liked your manner towards me better; for I like when daughterly love and dear charity have no leisure to look to worldly courtesy."- Roper's Life. (45) Epaminondas, after his victory at Leuctra, rejoiced most of all at the pleasure which it would give his father and mother; and who would not have envied them their feelings? Cornelia was called at Rome the mother-in-law of Scipio. "When," said she to her sons, "shall I be called the mother of the Gracchi?" (46) At illa quanti sunt, animum tanquam emeritis stipendiis libidinis, ambitionis, contentionis, inimicitiarum, cupiditatum omnium, secum esse, secumque (ut dicitur) vivere ? -Cic de Senectute. (47) Hinc ubi jam emissum caveis ad sidera cœli (49) Richard the First. For the romantic story here alluded to we are indebted to the French chroniclers. See Fauchet. Recueil de l'Origine de la Langue et Poësie Fr. (49) She was under all her sails, and looked less like a ship incrusted with ice than ice in the fashion of a ship.-See the Voyage of Captain Thomas James, in 1631. (50) An act of filial piety represented on the coins of Catana, a Greek city, some remains of which are still to be seen at the foot of Mount Etna.* The story is toid of two brothers who, in this manner, saved both their parents. The place from which they escaped was long called the field of the pious; and public games were annually held there to commemorate the event. (51) What a pleasing picture of domestic life is given to us by Bishop Berkeley in his letters! "The more we have of good instruments, the better; for all my children, not excepting my little daughter, learn to play, and are preparing to fill my house with harmony against all events, that, if we have worse times, we may have better spirits." (52) See the Alcestis of Euripides, v. 328. (53) How often, says an excellent writer, do we err in our estimate of happiness! When I hear of a man who has noble parks, splendid palaces, and every luxury in life, I always inquire whom he has to love; and, if I find he has nobody, or does not love those he has, in the midst of all his grandeur I pronounce him a being in deep adversity. (54) Cicero. It is remarkable that, among the comforts of old age, he has not mentioned those arising from the society of women and children. Perhaps the husband of Terentia and "the father of Marcus felt something on the subject, of which he was willing to spare himself the recollection." (55) An old writer breaks off in a very lively manner at a later hour of the night. "But the Hyades run low in the heavens, and to keep our eyes open any longer were to act our Antipodes. The huntsmen are up in America, and they are already past their first sleep in Persia." • It is introduced also, and very happily, by two great masters; by Virgil in the Sack of Troy, and by Raphael in the Incendio di Borgo. Before I conclude I would say something in favor of the old-fashioned triplet, which I have here ventured to use so often. Dryden seems to have delighted in it, and in many of his poems has used it much oftener than I have done, as for instance in the Hind and Panther, and in Theodore and Honoria, where he introduces it three, four and even five times in succession. If I have erred anywhere in the structure of my verse from a desire to follow yet earlier end higher examples, I rely on the forgiveness of those in whose ear the music of our 'old versification is still sounding.† • Pope used to mention this poem as the most correct specimen of Dryden's versification. It was, indeed, written when he had completely formed his manner, and may be supposed to exhibit, negligence excepted, his deliberate and ultimate scheme of metre. -Johnson. With regard to trisyllables, as their accent is very rarely on the last, they cannot properly be any rhymes at all; yet nevertheless I highly commend those who have judiciously and sparingly introduced them as such.- Gray. |