fquadrons round her, and guard the cradle of fo " great, fo hapless a princess! "Ye gloomy retreats, where fhame obliges pover"ty to fhrowd herself, how often has she made her "confolation and her charity flow even to you; fhe, "who was fo ftrongly affected with your wants and "afflictions, and more induftrious to conceal her be"neficence, than you were to hide your mifery." bO fortuné fejour! O champs aimés des cieux ! Englished. "O charming fpot! O fields belov'd by heaven! O rives du Jourdain! O champs aimés des cieux! Par cent miracles fignalées ! Englished. "O banks of Jordan! fields belov❜d by heaven! 66 By miracles immortal made! "From the delicious country of our fathers? Abner having complained that no more miracles were feen; Joab full of a holy indignation answers him thus: Et quel tems fut jamais fi fertile en miracles? Quand Dieu par plus d'effets montra-t-il-fon pouvoir? Auras tu donc toujours des yeux pour ne point voir, a Fléchier. • Defpreaux, Racine. Peuple Peuple ingrat? Quoi toujours les plus grandes mer veilles, Sans ébranler ton cœur, fraperont tes oreilles ? Englished, "What age, in miracles, fo much abounded? "Whene'er did God fo bright his power difplay? "O wilt thou ftill have eyes, and yet not fee! Ungrateful people! ftill fhall mighty wonders "Strike strong thine ear, yet not affect thy heart? The profopopeia is a figure that communicates action and motion to inanimate things; makes perfons fpeak, whether prefent or abfent, and fometimes even the dead. 'Tis ufual with the poets to give indignation and admiration to rivers, trees; fadness to beafts, &c. d Atque indignatum magnis ftridoribus æquor. Pontem indignatus Araxes, Miraturque novas frondes, & non fua poma. It triftis arator, Mærentem abjungens fraterna morte juvencum. Sous de fougueux courfiers l'onde écume, & fe plaint J'entens déja frémir les deux mers étonnées De voir leurs flots unis au pié des Pyrenées. Englished. "Beneath the fiery courfers, ocean foams, "I hear, already, the two feas, amaz'd, The elder Pliny often paints his descriptions in almoft as ftrong colours as a poet would do. He defcribes wonderfully, in a very few words, the grief and fhame of a peacock, which having loft its tail fought only to hide itself. f Cauda amiffa pudibundus Virgil. Despreaux. f Lib. 10, c. 20. ac In another place he ac mærens quærit latebram. gives a fenfation of joy to the earth, which anciently had feen itself cultivated by victorious generals, and broke up with a ploughfhare adorned with laurels : & Gaudente terra vomere laureato, & triumphali aratore. He fays therefore, that the houses where the ftatues of heroes nobly defcended were ranged in order, ftill triumphed, as it were, after they had changed their fovereigns; and that the walls reproached a coward who dwelt in them, with daily entering a place made facred by the monuments of the virtue and glory of others. Triumphabant etiam dominis mutatis ipfe domus;& erat hæc ftimulatio ingens, exprobrantibus tectis quotidie imbellem dominum intrare in alienum triumphum. This paffage was tranflated by father Bouhours, who being unable in French to express the ingenious brevity of the laft thought, intrare in alienum triumphum, employed another turn, which indeed is very beautiful but longer, and confequently not fo lively. h Cicero employs the fame thought, but extends it, as an orator should do: it is when he speaks of the palace of Pompey the Great, which Anthony had seized. He asks the latter, if he thought he was entering his own house, when he entered this porch adorned with the fpoils of the enemies, and the prows of the ships taken from them. He afterwards ufes the figure we are now speaking of, and fays, he pities the very roofs and walls of that unfortunate house, which had neither feen nor heard any thing but what was wife and honourable, when Pompey dwelt under them ; but is now become an obfcure retreat for Anthony's debaucheries. An tu illa in veftibulo roftra, & haftium fpolia cum afpexifti, domum tuum te introire putas? fieri non poteft. Quamvis enim fine mente, fine fenfu fis, ut es, tamen & te, & tua, & tuos nofti.. Me quidem miferet parietum ipforum atque tectorum. 2 Pil. n. 68, 69. i Lib. 18. c. 3. Lib. 35. c. 21 Quid enim unquam domus illa viderat nifi pudicum, nifi ex optimo more & fanétiffima difciplina? Nunc in hujus fedibus pro cubiculis ftabula, pro tricliniis popinæ funt. This figure, which gives life, as it were, to inanimate things, adds a prodigious grace and vivacity to orations. When Cicero was pleading for Milo, he obferved, that the law of the twelve tables allowed the flaying of a robber in fome cafes, whence he draws this conclufion: Quis eft qui, quoquo modo quis interfectus fit, puniendum putet, cùm videat aliquando gladium nobis ad occidendum hominem ab ipfis porrigi legibus? He might have faid barely, cùm videat licere nobis aliquando per leges hominem occidere. But inftead of that, he transforms the laws into perfons, as it were, and represents them as running to the affiftance of a man attacked by robbers, and putting a fword into his hand to defend himfelf. He again. employs the fame figure fome lines after: Silent enim leges inter arma, nec fe expectari jubent: cùm ei, qui expectare velit, antè injufta pœna luenda fit quam jufta repetenda. 1 "At thefe cries Jerufalem fhed a flood of tears, "the arches of the temple fhook, the river Jordan was troubled, and all its rivulets echo'd the found of "these mournful words: What is this powerful « man who faved the people of Ifrael, dead? ""Tis well known that victory is naturally cruel, infolent, and impious; but M. Turrene made her gentle, rational, and religious. "Ever fince juftice has groaned beneath the weight "of laws and knotty formalities, and that to ruin "one another with chicane, became a trade, Kings "were not able to fupport the fatigue of prefiding over them. "Has not her beauty been always guarded by the "moft. fcrupulous virtue ? • "I will not relate the too happy fuccefs of his "enterprizes, nor his famous victories, which virtue ແ was afhamed of; nor that long feries of profperity Сс which has aftonished the whole world. Reason guides a man to an entire conviction "of the hiftorical proofs of the Chriftian religion: "after which, it delivers and abandons him to an"other light, which, though not contrary, is yet entirely different from, and infinitely fuperior to "it." There is another kind of profopopeia, ftill more ively and bolder than the firft. 'Tis when we address ourfelves to inanimate things, or make them fpeak, or when, instead of relating indirectly the discourses of those in question, we make them deliver these difcourses; or laftly, when we even give fpeech to the dead. 1. To address inanimate things. After Cicero had given a description of Clodius's death, and afcribed it to a particular providence, he fays, even religion and the altars of the Gods were affected with it; and afterwards addreffes his discourse to them thus: Religiones mehercule ipfa, aræque cum illam belluam cadere viderunt, commoviffe fe videntur, & jus in illo fuum retinuiffe. Vos enim Albani tumuli atque luci, vos, inquam, imploro atque obteftor, vofque Albanorum obruta ara, &c. "Had it not been for this peace, Flanders! thou Сс bloody theatre, where fo many tragic scenes are "exhibited, thou would't have encreased the num"ber of our provinces; and inftead of being the « unhappy fource of our wars, thou wouldst now be the peaceable fruit of our victories. "Sword of the Lord, is this! • Boffuet fpeaking of Cromwell. > Fonten. what a dreadful ftroke 9 Pro Mil. n. 85. * Fléchier. f Boffuet. |