elegant, than if the word illum had been fubftituted in their place. & Ad cœnam tempore venit Canius. Opipare a Py thio apparatum convivium. Cymbarum ante oculos multitudo. Pro fe quifque quod ceperat, afferebat: ante pedes Pythii pifces abjiciebantur. The concife ftile, in which the verbs are fuppreffed, is very graceful. We fhould make our youth obferve, that this is a beauty which can feldom be expreffed in our language. There is, in my opinion, in the words, ante pedes Pythii pifces abjiciebantur, a fine image of people who were in a hurry to throw down a great quantity of fish, at Pythius's feet. I know not the tranflator's reafon for fubftituting another thought inftead of it, which is not in the Latin. Tum Canius: quæfo, inquit, quid eft hoc, Pythi? Tantumne pifcium, tantumne cymbarum? Et ille: Quid mirum, inquit? Hoc loco eft, Syracufis quidquid eft pifcium: hic aquatio: hac villa ifti carere non poffunt. i Incenfus Canius cupiditate, contendit a Pythio ut venderet. Gravate ille primo. Quid multa? Impetrat: emit homo cupidus & locuples tanti, quanti Pythius voluit, & emit infructos: nomina facit: negotium conficit. Nothing can be finer than this. But thefe two words, homo cupidus & locuples are uncommonly elegant. They include the two motives which determined Canius to buy this little house at fo high a price; which is, that he had a great inclination to Canius came at the time appointed. He found a magnificent entertainment, and the fea covered with fishermens boats, who one after another brought Pythius a great quantity of filh, as if they had just taken them in his prefence, h Canius being very much fur prifed at the fight; What, fays he to Pythius, is there fuch a quantity of fish, and fuch a number of fifhing-boats here every day! Every day, answered Pythius. This is the only place about Syracufe, where there is any fish, and where fishermen can even get water; and all these people cannot fubfift in any other place. i Behold Canius enamoured with the house; he preffes Pythius to fell it him: Pythius feems very unwilling; is mightily courted; but confents at laft. Canius, being a man of wealth and pleasure, buys the house, giving Pythius whatever he asked for it, together with the furniture. The contract is figned; and the affair ended, D 3 poffefs poffefs it, and was very rich. The tranflator has not taken the true fenfe of the firft word, Canius, a man of wealth and pleasure; which does not exprefs homo cupidus. Invitat Canius poftridie familiares fuos: venit ipfe mature, Scalmum nullum videt. Quærit ex proximo vicino, num feria quædam pifcatorum effent, quod eos nullos viderit. Nulla, quod fciam, inquit ille: fed hic pifcari nulli folent. Itaque heri mirabar quid accidiffet. Stomachari Canius. Sed quid faceret? Nondum enim Aquillius, collega & familiaris meus, protulerat de dolo male formulas: in quibus ipfis, cum ex eo quæreretur quid effet dolus malus, refpondebat, cum effet aliud fimulatum, aliud actum. Though we should suppress certain turns, a certain number of ideas and expreffions in this narrative, ftill the foundation will be the fame, and none of the neceffary circumstances will be omitted', but then it will be divefted of all its beauty and delicacy, that is, of every thing that adorns narration. m VII. I cannot forbear relating, in this place, a ftory which Pliny the naturalift has left us, where we may fee in a single word, the meaning and energy of that plain and natural embellishment of which we are now fpeaking. A flave who had got out of the ftate of captivity, having purchased a small field, cultivated. it with fo much care, that it became the most fertile in the whole country; which drew on him the jea Canius intreats his friends to come to fee him the day following at his new habitation. He repairs thither himself very early in the 'morning, but fees neither fifhermen nor fishing boats. He asks a neighbour whether the fishermen were making holiday, feeing none of them there. Not that I know of, replies the neighbour; for there never is any fishing in this place, and I was yesterday fur. prifed to fee fo many fishing-boats. Upon this, Canius began to fall into a great rage. But what could he do?... For my collegue and: friend Aquillius had not yet efta- blifhed the laws against deceit and treachery: What is called deceit then, fays the fame Aquillus, is when we give a man room to expect one thing, and do another. 1 Caret cæteris lenociniis expositio; & nifi commendetur hac venustate, jaceat neceffe eft. Quin. 1. 4. c. 2. Plin. 1. 19. c. 6. loufy n loufy of all his neighbours, who charged him with em ploying magic and charms, to make his own field fo furprizingly fruitful, and theirs barren. Upon this, he was cited to appear before the people of Rome. He appeared accordingly on the day appointed for his trial. Every body knows that the aflembly of the people was held in the Forum, which was the public place of juftice. He brought his daughter with him, who, fays the hiftorian from whom this is borrowed, was a sturdy country wench, very laborious, well fed and clothed. He had brought all his ruftic inftruments, which were in a very good condition; fome very heavy mattocks, a ftrong plough, and his oxen, which were large and fat. Then, turning to the judges, these, says he, are my charms, and the magic I ufe in cultivating my land. I cannot, fays he, fet before you my toil, my watchings and my labour by day and night. . . . He was unanimously acquitted. There is no perfon but must be fenfibly touched upon the bare reading of this, with the beauty of that anfwer; Thefe, O Romans, are my charms! But in what then does that beauty confift? Is there any extraordinary thought in thofe few words; any fhining expreffion, bold metaphor, or fublime figure? There is nothing of all this. Tis only the natural and honeft fimplicity of the answer drawn from nature itself, that pleases and charms. If we fubftituted the wittieft and most florid phrafes that can be conceived, in the room of thofe few, plain and homely words, we fhould deprive the peasant's anfwer of all its beauty. Thus, according to the fame Pliny, Nero, who, from an ill tafte, preferred what was brillant to fimplicity, fpoiled one of the fineft ftatues of Lyfippus, by ordering it to be gilt, because it was made of brafs. But it was afterwards found necessary to take off the gilding, (it having spoil * Inftrumentum tukicum omne in forum attulit, & adduxit filiam validam, arque (ùt ait Pisʊ) bene curatam ac veftitam, ferramenta e gregiè facta, graves ligones, vomeresponderofos, boves faturos. Plin. 34. c. 8. ed all the beauty of the artift) and by that means the ftatue recovered its former value. ARTICLE the SECOND. ΤΗ HE fublime, or marvellous, is that which conftitutes the grand real eloquence. M. de la Mothe defines it thus, in the difcourfe prefixed to his odes. I believe, fays he, the fublime is nothing but the true, and the new, united in a grand idea, and expreffed with elegance and brevity. He afterwards affigns the reafon of every branch of this definition. The firft paffage is well worth reading, and contains very judicious reflections. I am, however, in doubt whether the laft part of this definition be entirely juft; expreffed with elegance and brevity. Are thefe two qualities then fo effential to the fublime, that it cannot fubfift without them? I thought elegance fo far from being the proper characteriftic of the fublime, that it was often the reverse of it; and, I own, I discover nothing of it in the two examples cited by M. de la Mothe: one of them is out of Mofes; God faid, let there be light, and there was light; the other from Homer; Great God, give us but day, and then fight against us. As to brevity, it is fometimes neceffary to the fublime, when it confifts in a fhort and lively thought, as in the former examples; but in my opinion it does not conftitute its effence P. There are a great many paffages in Demofthenes and Cicero, which are very extenfive and much amplified, and yet very fublime, though no brevity appears in them. I use the freedom which M. de la Mothe gives his readers in the place in queftion, and only point out my P Probably it is not that fpecies of the fublime which is defined in this place. doubts. doubts, fubmitting them to his better understanding. The excellent treatife of Longinus upon this fubject, would alone be fufficient to form the tafte of youth. I propofe little more in this place than to draw fome reflections from it, which may ferve as fo many rules and principles. Boileau afferts, that Longinus does not underftand by the fublime, what the orators call the fublime ftile, but that extraordinary, that marvellous which strikes in difcourfe, and gives a work that force which ravishes and tranfports. The fublime ftile, fays he, always requires grand expreffions; but the fublime may be formed in a fingle thought, a fingle figure, a fingle turn of words. Without entering upon an examination of this remark, which admits of feveral difficulties, I think it fufficient to obferve, that by the fublime, I here understand, as well that which is more amplified and interwoven with the body of the oration; as that which is more concife and confifts in lively and moving ftrokes; because E find equally in both kinds, a manner of thinking and expreffion, great and noble, which is the effence of the fublime. I. The plain ftile of which I treated at first, though it be perfect in its kind, and often full of inimitable graces, is proper for inftructing, proving, and even for pleafing; but it does not produce any of thofe great effects, without which Cicero looks upon eloquence as trifling. As thefe plain and natural beauties have nothing of the grand, and as we fee the orator always ferene and calm, the equality of ftile ufed in that kind of eloquence does not at all warm and raife the foul; whereas the fublime fpecies produces a kind of admiration mix'd with aftonishment and furprife, which is quite different from meerly to please or perfuade. We may fay, with regard to perfuafion, that, generally speaking, it has no more power over us than Eloquentiam, quæ admiratio nem non habet, nullam judico. in Epift. ad Brut. D$ Longin. c. Ja what |