4. Natural reason inclines men to mutual converse and society': It implants in them a strong affection for those who spring' from them: It excites them to form communities, and join in public assemblies: And, for these ends, to endeavor to procure both the necessaries' and conveniences' of life. 5. COMMENCING SERIES. EXAMPLE. Lóve, jóy, peàce; long-suffering, gentleness, goodness; fáíth, méekness, temperánce, are the fruits of the Spirit, and against such there is no làw. 6. CONCLUDING SERIES. EXAMPLE. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace; long-suffering, géntleness, goodness; faith, méekness, tèmperance:- Against such there is no law. 7. COMMENCING SERIES. EXAMPLE. Métaphors, enígmas, móttoes, párables; fables, dreams, visions; dramátic writings, burlèsque, and all methods of allúsion are comprehended in Mr. Locke's definition of wit, and Mr. Addison's short explanation of it. 8. CONCLUDING SERIES. EXAMPLES. Mr. Locke's definition of wit, with this short explication, comprehends most of the species of wit; as, mètaphors, enigmas, mottoes, paràbles; fàbles, drèams, visions; dramátic writings, burlésque, and allùsion. 9. We are always complaining our days are few, and acting as though there should be no end of them. I imagined that I was admitted into a long spacious gallery, which had one side covered with pieces, of all the famous painters who are now líving; and the other with the greatest masters who are dead. The wicked may indeed taste a malignant kind of pleasure, in those actions to which they are accustomed whilst in this life; but when they are removed from all those objects which are here apt to gratify them, they will naturally become their own tormentors. The pleasures of the imagination are not so gross as those of sénse, nor so refined as those of the understanding. 10. It was necessary for the world, that arts should be invented and improved books written and transmitted to postérity, nations conquered and cìvilized. All other arts of perpetuating our ideas, except writing and printing, continue but a short time: statues can last but a few thousands of years, edifices féwer, and colors still fewer than èdifices. Our lives, says Seneca, are spent either in doing nothing at àll, or in doing nothing to the púrpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. C 11. I conjure you by that which you profess Against the churches; though the yesty waves Confound and swallow navigàtion up; Though bladed corn be lodg'd and trees blown dòwn; Though castles topple on their warder's heads; Though palaces and pyramids do slope Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure Of nature's germins tumble altogether, Ev'n until destruction sícken, answer me To what I ask you. 12. So when the faithful pencil has design'd Some bright idea of the master's mind, Where a new world leaps out at his command, And ready nature waits upon his hand; When the ripe colours soften and unite, And sweetly melt into just shade and light; When mellowing years their full perfection give, And each bold figure just begins to live; 13. When the gay and smiling aspect of things has begun to leave the passage to a man's heart thus thoughtlessly unguàrded; when kind and caressing looks of every object without, that can flatter his senses, have conspired with the enemy within, to betray him and put him off his dèfence; when music likewise hath lent her aid, and tried her power upon the pàssions; when the voice of singing men, and the voice of singing women, with the sound of the viol and the lute, have broke in upon his soul, and in some tender notes have touched the secret spring of rápture, that moment let us dissect and look into his heart,—see how vàin, how weak, how empty a thing it is! 14. Where, amid the dark clouds of Pagan philosophy, can he show us such a clear prospect of a future stàte, the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the deàd, and the general júdgment, as in St. Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians? But to consider the Paradise Lost only as it regards our present subject; what can be conceived greater than the battle of àngels, the majesty of Messíáh, the stature and behaviour of Satan and his pèers? what more beautiful than Pandemonium, Pàradise, Heaven', 'Angels, 'Adam, and' Eve? what more strange than the creation of the world, the several metamorphoses of the fallen ángels, and the surprising adventures their leader meets with in his search after Paradise? 15. But should these credulous infidels after all be in the right, and this pretended revelation be all a fable; from believing it what harm could ensue ? Would it render princes more tyrannical, or subjects more ungóvernable; the rich more insolent, or the poor more disorderly? Would it make worse parents or childrén, husbands or wives; masters or sérvants, friends or néighbors? Or would it not make men more virtuous, and, consequently more happy in èvery situation? 16. Consider, I beseech you, what was the part of a faithful citizen, of a prudent, an active, and an honest minister? Was he not to secure Euboea Was he not to make Boetia our as our defence against all attacks by séa? barrier on the midland side? The cities bordering on Peloponnesus our bulwark on thát quarter ? Was he not to attend with due precaution to the importation of corn, that this trade might be protected through all its progress up to our own hárbors? Was he not to cover those districts which we commanded, by seasonable detachments, as the Proconesus, the Chersonesus, and Ténedos? To exert himself in the assembly for this purpose? While with equal zeal he laboured to gain others to our interest and alliance, as Byzantium, Abydos, and Eubœá? Was he not to cut off the best and most important resources of our enemies, and to supply those in which our country was defective? And all this you have gained by my counsels and my administration. 17. Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find, Why form'd so weak, so líttle, and so blind? Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no lèss. Or ask of yonder argent fields above, Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove? 18. A parenthesis must be pronounced in a lower tone of voice than the principal sentence, and conclude with the same pause and inflection which terminates the member that immediately precedes it. EXAMPLES. It is this sense which furnishes the imagination with its ideas; so that by the pleasure of the imagination or fáncy (which I shall use promiscuously) I here mean such as arise from visible objects. Natural historians obsérve (for while I am in the country I must fetch my allusions from thence) that only male birds have voices; that their songs begin a little before breeding-time, and end a little after. Notwithstanding all this care of Cicero, history informs us that Marcus proved a mere blockhead; and that náture (who it seems was even with the son for her prodigality to the father) rendered him incapable of improving, by all the rules of eloquence, the precepts of philosophy, his own endeavors, and the most refined conversation in Athens. 19. But when the intervening member goes farther than these simple phrases, they must always be pronounced in a lower tone of voice, and terminate with the rising inflection. EXAMPLE. I had létters from him (here I felt in my póckets) that exactly spoke the Czar's character, which I knew perfectly well. Young master was alive last Whitsuntide, said the coachman. Whitsuntide! alàs! cried Trim, (extending his right arm and falling instantly into the same attitude in which he read the sermon,) what is Whitsuntide, Jónathan, (for that was the coachman's náme,) or Shrovetide, or any tide or time past, to this? Are we not here nów, continued the córporal, (striking the end of his stick perpendicularly upon the floor, so as to give an idea of health and stability,) and are we nót (dropping his hat upon the ground) gone in a moment? 20. A company of waggish boys were watching of frogs at the side of the pond, and still as any of them put up their heads, they would be pelting them down again with stones: "Children," (says one of the frogs,) “you never consider, that though this may be play to you, it is death to us.” 21. My departure is objected to me, which charge I cannot answer without commending myself. For what must I sày? That I fled from a conscious 38 of guilt? But what is charged upon me as a crime, was so far from being a fault, that it is the most glorious action since the memory of màn. That I feared being called to an account by the people? That was never talked of; and if it had been done, I should have come off with double honour. That I wanted the support of good and honest mén? That is false. That I was afraid of death? That is a càlumny. I must, therefore, say what I would not, unless compelled to it, that I withdraw to preserve the city. |