those sailing before a propitious breeze, that they may not be plunged beneath the waves. 8. But this is no time for a tribunal of jústice, but for showing mercy; not for accusation, but for philanthropy; not for tríal, but for pàrdon; not for sentence and execútion, but compassion and kindness. 8.] Page 49. Comparison and contrast. 1. By hónor and dishonor, by évil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet trùe; as únknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chástened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as póor, yet making many rìch; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship hath ríghteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath Chríst with Bèlial? or what part hath he that believeth with an ìnfidel? 2. The house of the wicked shall be overthrown; but the tabernacle of the upright shall flourish. There is a way which seemeth ríght unto a man; but the end thereof are the ways of death. Even in laughter the heart is sórrowful; and the end of that mirth is heaviness. A wise man feareth, and departeth from évil; but the fool rageth, and is confident. The wicked is driven away in his wickedness; but the righteous hath hope in his death. Righteousness exalteth a nátion; but sin is a reproach to any people. The king's favour is toward a wíse servant; but his wrath is against him that causeth shame. 3. Between fame and true honor a distinction is to be made. The former is a blind and noísy applause: the latter a more silent and internal homage. Fame floats on the breath of the múltitude: honor rests on the judgment of the thinking. Fame may give praise, while it witholds estéem; true honor implies esteem, mingled with respect. The one regards particular distínguished talents: the other looks up to the whole character. 4. The most frightful disorders arose from the state of feudal anarchy. Force decided all things. Europe was one great field of battle, where the weak struggled for fréedom, and the strong for domìnion. The king was without power, and the nobles without principle. They were tyrants at home, and robbers abroad. Nothing remained to be a check upon ferocity and violence. 5. These two qualities, delicacy and correctness, mutually imply each other. No taste can be exquisitely delicate without being correct; nor can be thoroughly correct without being delicate. But still a predominancy of one or other quality in the mixture is often visible. The power of delicacy is chiefly seen in discerning the true mérit of a work; the power of correctness, in rejecting false pretensions to merit. Delicacy leans more to feeling; correctness more to reason and judgment. The former is more the gift of náture; the latter, more the product of cùlture and art. Among the ancient critics, Longinus possessed most délicacy; Aristotle, most correctness. Among the moderns, Mr. Addison is a high example of délicate taste; Dean Swift, had he written on the subject of criticism, would perhaps have afforded the example of a correct one. 6. Reason, eloquence, and every art which ever has been studied among mankind, may be abused, and may prove dangerous in the hands of bad mén; but it were perfectly childish to contend, that, upon this account, they ought to be abolished. 7. To Bourdaloue, the French critics attribute more solidity and close réasoning; to Massillon, a more plèasing and engaging manner. Bourdaloue is indeed a great reasoner, and inculcates his doctrines with much zeal, piety, and earnestness: but his style is verbose, he is disagreeably full of quotations from the Fathers, and he wants imagination. : 8. Homer was the greater génius; Virgil the better artist in the one, we most admire the mán; in the other, the work. Homer hurries us with a commanding impetuósity; Virgil leads us with an attractive majesty. Homer scatters with a generous profúsion; Virgil bestows with a careful magnificence. Homer, like the Nile, pours out his riches with a sudden óverflow; Virgil, like a river in its banks, with a constant stream.--And when we look upon their machines, Homer seems, like his own Jupiter in his terrors, shaking Olympus, scattering the lightnings, and firing the heavens; Virgil, like the same power in his benevolence, counselling with the gods, laying plans for empires, and ordering his whole creation. 9. Dryden knew more of man in his general náture, and Pope in his local manners. The notions of Dryden were formed by comprehensive speculation, those of Pope by minute attention. There is more dignity in the knowledge of Dry'den, and more certainty in that of Pope. Poetry was not the sole praise of either; for both ex celled likewise in prose: but Pope did not borrow his prose from his predecessor. The style of Dryden is capricious and varied; that of Pope is cautious and uniform. Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind; Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of composition. Dryden is sometimes vehement and rápid; Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle. Dryden's page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetátion; Pope's is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe, and levelled by the roller.-Dryden's performances, were always hasty; either excited by some external occasion, or extorted by domestic necessity: -he composed without consideration, and published without correction. What his mind could supply at call, or gather in one excursion, was all that he sought and all that he gave. The dilatory caution of Pope enabled him to condense his sentiments, to multiply his images, and to accumulate all that study might produce, or chance might supply. If the flights of Dryden therefore, are hígher, Pope continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire, the blaze is bríghter; of Pope's the heat is more règular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight. 10. Never before were so many opposing interests, passions, and principles, committed to such a decision. On one side an attachment to the ancient order of things, on the other a passionate desire of change; a wish in some to perpétuate, in others to destroy every thing; every abuse sacred in the eyes of the fórmer, every foundation attempted to be demolished by the latter; a jealousy of power shrinking from the slightest innovation, pretensions to freedom pushed to madness and anarchy; superstition in all its dotage, impiety in all its fury; whatever in short, could be found most discordant in the principles, or violent in the passions of men, were the fearful ingredients which the hand of Divine justice selected to mingle in this furnace of wrath. 9.] Page 51. The pause of suspension requires the ris ing slide. In the Analysis, several kinds of sentences are classed, to which this rule applies. But as the principle is the same in all, no distinction is necessary in the Exercises. 1. Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius César, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judéa, and Herod being tetrarch of Gálilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and of the region of Trachonítis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abiléne, Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. 2. For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrów, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungódly; And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy |