DEATH. Death is the last limit of all things. Demosthenes (De Coron. 97) says: "Death is the close of life to all men." Euripides (Electr. 954) says: "Let not a man, though he may run the first round well, imagine he will win the victory, before he comes nigh the line and turns the goal of life." Seneca (Ad Marc. de Consol. 19) says: "Death is both the solution and close of all pains, beyond which our evils reach not." Shakespeare ("Othello," act v. sc. 2) says:- "Here is my journey's end: here is my butt, THE OBSCURE. He has lived not ill, who has lived and died unnoticed by the world. It was the maxim of Epicurus, “Lead a life of retirement;" and Euripides (Iphig. in Aul. 17) says:-"I envy the man who has passed through life without danger, unknown, inglorious." EVENNESS OF TEMPER. Every phase, aspect, and circumstance of life suited Aristippus, though he aimed at higher objects, still submitting with an unruffled countenance to the events of life. THE ADVANTAGES OF AN ACTIVE LIFE. To be successful in war and lead in triumph the captive enemy, makes man like a god, and confers immortal honor: it is no mean praise, too, to have gained the friendship of the great. EVERY MAN CANNOT succeed. It is not every one that succeeds in reaching Corinth. CLAMORS OF THE IMPORTUNATE. But if the crow could have been satisfied to eat his food in silence, he would have had more meat and much less quarrelling and envy. VIRTUE. Virtue holds a middle place between these two vices, and is equally removed from both. This is the well-known doctrine of Aristotle (Eth. 11, 6):— "Virtue is a deliberate habit, being in the middle. . It is a mean state between two faults, one of excess, the other of defect." Cicero (Brut. 40) says: "Since every virtue, as your old Academy said, is a mean: both were anxious to follow a certain mean. THE RUDE MAN CONTENDING for trifles. The other often contends for things of no consequence whatever; armed with futile arguments he combats everything that is advanced. A SECRET. Strive not to find out his secrets, and keep what is intrusted to thee though tried by wine and passion; praise not thy own pursuits, nor blame those of thy friend. away; let him give me life and wealth: a well- Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, HYPOCRISY. What! if one were to assume a grim, stern countenance, with naked feet and scanty robe, to ape the appearance of Cato, would he thereby be representing the virtues and manners of that old worthy? IMITATORS. O imitators, a servile race, how often have your attacks roused my bile and often my laughter! ORIGINALITY. THE VULGAR. Sometimes the vulgar throng form a just judg ment, but oft they labor under gross mistakes. POETASTERS. Physicians practise what belongs to their art: mechanics work only at their trade; but learned and unlearned, we all equally are scribbling verses. GREECE. Greece led captive her savage conquerors, and introduced civilization to barbarous Latium. CORRUPTION OF TASTE. But our knights now take pleasure, not in what delights the ear, but in pageant shows that charm the wandering eye. DULNESS. Thou wouldst swear that he had been born in thick Boeotian air. THE POET. The expression of the face is not better expressed I was the first to step out freely along a hitherto untravelled route; I have not trod in the footsteps by the sculptor's art, than are the life and manof others: he who relies on himself, is the leader toners of heroes in the poet's works. As for me, to guide the swarm. APPLAUSE OF THE POPULACE. I court not the favor of the fickle mob. celebrate thy exploits, to describe the lands and rivers that have witnessed thy victories, the fortresses thou hast stormed on the peaks of mountains, the barbarian realms thou hast overrun, the wars that have been gloriously terminated under Shakespeare ("Antony and Cleopatra," act v. sc. 2) calls thy auspices in all parts of the world, the gates of For man learns more readily and remembers They complained that the honor they received more willingly what excites his ridicule than what did not come up to their high deserts. Indulgent Athens taught me some of the higher arts, putting me in the way to distinguish a straight “No one feels jealous of those who have existed ten thou-line from a curve, and to search after wisdom sand years ago, or of those who are about to come into being, or of the dead." In the Shakespeare Society's reprint of Forde's "Line of Life," 1620, the following passage occurs: "Great men are by great men [not good men by good men] narrowly sifted; their lives, their actions, their demeanors examined, for that their places and honors are hunted after, as the beazar (beaver?) for his preservations." SUPERIOR MERIT. For the man who raises himself above his neighbors irritates by his excessive splendor, and is only loved after death. amidst the groves of Academe, but the hard exigen- Milton ("Paradise Regained," iv. l. 227) says:- City or suburban, studious walks and shades. Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long." ADVANCING YEARS. Waning years steal from us our pleasures one by one; they have already snatched away my jokes, my loves, my revellings, and play. Wordsworth (in "The Fountain ") says:- Mourns less for what age takes away And Byron (“Childe Harold," canto iii. st. 2):— Fire from the mind as vigor from the limb; DIFFERENCES OF OPINION. RICHES. But if riches had power to bestow wisdom and render thee less a slave to passions and fears, then indeed thou mightest blush with reason if there were one on earth more covetous than thou. CHANGEABLENESS OF PROPERTY. What boots it whether the food thou eatest was bought just now from the lands of another, or whether it is the produce of an estate thou boughtest many years ago? He who bought some time ago lands close to Aricia or Veii pays as well as thou for the plate of herbs he sups on, though he may think otherwise; he boils his pot at night with wood that he has bought even as thou dost; and yet he calls the land his own as far as where a certain poplar fixes the boundary and prevents quar In short, we do not all admire and love the rels with his neighbor; as if anything can be same thing. DIFFERENCES OF TASTE. Demanding things quite different with differing taste. What shall I give them? What shall I refuse? Thou refusest what the other demands; what thou askest is hateful and annoying to the other two. IRRITABILITY OF THE POET. I submit to much, that I may keep in good humor the fretful tribe of poets, while I write and try by humble submissions to catch public applause. SELF-CONCEIT OF A POET. For my own part, I had rather be esteemed a foolish and dull writer, provided my own faults please me, or at least escape my notice, than be wise and a prey to continual vexation. Pope ("Essay on Man," iv. 260) says: "What is it to be wise? "Tis but to know how little can be known; It is a favorite idea of Goethe, found in his "Torquato Tasso" (1. 2, 85): Beloved brother, let us not forget that man can never lay aside his own nature." And in his "Truth and Poetry" (xvi. 4): "A man may turn whither he chooses; he may undertake whatever he may; but he always will come back to the path which Nature has once prescribed to him." Destouches ("Glorieux," v. 3) has the same idea: "I know it only too well; drive out what springs from nature, it returns at a gallop." And La Fontaine ("Fables," ii. 187): "Let them shut the door in his face, he will get back through the windows." But perhaps Frederick the Great expresses the idea as forcibly as any of these when he says, in his letter to Voltaire, March 19, 1771: "Drive prejudices out by the door, they will re-enter by the window." PLEASING DELUSIONS. By Pollux, cruel friends, you have destroyed, not saved me, in taking away this pleasure and robbing me by force of such an agreeable delusion. called a lasting possession which in the short space of a single hour may change its lord and fall to other hands by coaxing, sale, violence, or certainly at last by death. Since thus no property has a lasting tenure, and heir comes upon heir, as wave on wave, what real benefit is there in landed property and ever-increasing hoards? Antiphanes (in Grotii Exc. p. 627) says: "Whoever thou art, who thinkest that any possession is lasting, thou art much mistaken." GENIUS OF EACH INDIVIDUAL. The cause of the differences in men is only known to that mystic genius who presides at our birth, who directs our horoscope, the god of nature, living and dying with each, changeable like each, propitious or malign according as we obey his behests. Menander (Fr. Com. Gr., p. 974) says: "A good genius is present to every man at his birth as the director of his life: for we must not imagine that it can be a bad genius that injures a good life.' Spenser, in his "Faerie Queen" (ii. 12, 47), says:— "Genius That celestiall powre to whom the care Of life, and generation of all. That lives, perteines in charge particulare, Thal is ourselfe, whom though we do not see, Did wisely make, and good Agdistes call. EITHER IMPROVE YOUR LIFE, OR LEAVE THE STAGE OF LIFE. What boots it to pluck one thorn out of so many? If thou knowest not how to live sensibly, give way to those who do. Thou hast had enough of the pleasures of life, enough of feasting and revellings; it is time for thee to depart, lest the age, on whom mirth and jollity sit well, should laugh at thee as thou reelest, and hoot thee off | crop of words die out, and those lately produced the stage of life. Pope ("Essay on Man," iii. 70) says: "Thou too must perish when thy feast is o'er." UNIFORMITY RECOMMENDED. So that a beauteous maid above should end in a hideous fish. RIDICULE. flourish and are vigorous like the youthful. In Ecclesiasticus (xiv. 18) we have: "As of the green leaves on a thick tree, some fall and some grow; so is the generation of flesh and blood, one cometh to an end and another is born. WORDS. All the works of man will perish, still less can we expect that the bloom and grace of language will continue to flourish and endure. Many words My friends, were you admitted to such a sight, will revive which have been long in oblivion, and could you refrain from laughter? DREAMS OF THE SICK MAN. The delusive dreams of the sick man. PAINTERS AND POETS. Painters and poets are granted the same licence. We are aware of this; such indulgence we give and take. Diphilus (Athen. vi. 1) says: "As tragic writers say, who alone have the power to say and do all things." Aristotle (Metaph. i. 2, 10) says: "According to the proverb, 'Poets produce many fictions.'" Lucian (Pro. Imagg. 18) says: "This is an old saying, that both poets and painters are irresponsible." others will disappear which are in present repute, if usage shall so will it, in whose power is the decision, the law, and the rule of speech. Roscommon thus translates this passage ("Art of Poetry"): "Men ever had, and ever will have, leave CRITICS. Critics dispute, and the question is still undecided. STYLE. PURPLE PATCHES. Ofttimes to lofty beginnings that promise much are sewed one or two purple patches, which may shine from far. CAUSE OF ERRORS. Let each subject have its own peculiar style, and keep it, if what is becoming be our object. BOMBAST. Each throws aside high-sounding expressions We are led astray by the semblance of what is and words a foot and half long. right. Hood says: "For man may pious texts repeat, And yet religion have no inward seat." EXTREMES. When we try to avoid one fault we are led to the opposite, unless we be very careful. UNIFORMITY DESIRABLE. I would no more imitate such an one than wish to appear in public distinguished for black eyes and hair, but disfigured by a hideous nose. SUBJECT SUITABLE TO ABILITIES. Ye writers choose a subject fitted to your strength, and ponder long what your shoulders refuse to bear and what they are able to support. He who has hit upon a subject suited to his powers, will never fail to find eloquent words and lucid arrangement. Seneca (De Tranq. An. 5) says: "In the next place, we must take a proper gauge of the things which we attempt, and compare our strength with the enterprise in which we are about to engage. For the individual ought always to be superior to that on which he is employed." MAN EASILY AFFECTED TO GRIEF OR JOY. As man laughs with those that laugh, so he weeps with those that weep; if thou wish me to weep, thou must first shed tears thyself; then thy sorrows will touch me. Aristotle (Rhet. iii. 7, 5) says: "The audience always sympathizes with him who speaks pathetically." Plato (Ion. c. 6, or 535 E.) says: those who are weeping, or looking fiercely, or astonished, in "I am constantly looking down from my seat above upon unison with what is related." Roscommon thus translates the passage: "We weep and laugh, as we see others do; Churchill ("The Rosciad," 1. 801) says:- AN ACTOR. Words of sorrow become the sorrowful; menacing words suit the passionate; sportive expressions a playful look; serious words become the grave; for nature forms us from our very birth capable of feeling every change of fortune; she delights the heart with mirth, transports to rage, or wrings the sad soul and bends it down to earth. As the leaves of the woods change at the fall of In course of time she teaches the tongue to be the the year, the earliest disappearing first, so the old | interpreter of the feelings of the heart. WORDS ARE LIKE LEAVES. Roscommon translates the passage thus: "Your looks must alter as your subject does, From kind to fierce, from wanton to severe Sophocles (Ajax, 551) speaks thus of youth: "Yet even now I have thus much to be envious of thee, that thou art sensible of none of these present evils. For in (Or, as Pope has it, 'From grave to gay; from lively to feeling nothing is centred the sweetest life, until thou learn severe '); For nature forms and softens us within, And writes our fortune's changes in our face." ACHILLES. Let him be intrepid, fierce, unforgiving, impetuous, and declare that laws were not made for him, claiming everything by his sword. UNIFORMITY. Let him from the beginning to the closing scene maintain the character he has assumed, and be in every way consistent. TRANSLATION. Nor shouldst thou translate word for word like a faithful interpreter. Roscommon, on "Translated Verse," says: "Tis true, composing is the nobler part, THE MOUNTAIN IN LABOR. What will this boaster produce worthy of such mouthing? The mountain is in labor; lo, a ridiculous mouse will spring forth. This is a Greek proverb preserved by Athenæus (xiv. 6):The mountain was in labor, and Jupiter was frightened, but it brought forth a mouse." "Great cry and little wool, as the fellow said when he sheared his hogs." A FLASH ENDING IN SMOKE. He does not begin with a flash and end in smoke, but tries to rise from a cloud of smoke to light. DIFFERENCES OF AGE. to know what it is to be happy, what it is to feel pain." Gray says: "Ah! how regardless of their doom The little victims play! No sense have they of ills to come, Shakespeare thus describes the ages of man (" As You Like "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: Even in the cannon's mouth. And then, the justice, With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side, Is second childishness, and mere oblivion: THE EYE. That which is conveyed through the ear, affects us less than what the eye receives, and what the spectator sees himself. Herodotus (i. 8) says: "For the ear of man is less to be trusted than the eyes." A GOD. Let no deity intervene, unless some difficulty arise which is worthy of a god's unravelling. Plato (Cratyl. c. 36, 425, D.) says: "As the writers of tragedies, when they are in difficulty, fly to their machinery, and introduce the gods." Cicero also (Nat. Deor. 1, 20) says: "As tragic poets, when you are unable to wind up your argument in any other way, you have recourse to a god." You must strictly attend to the manners suited to every age, and give to each season and the varying years of life the peculiar graces that belong to them. The child, who has learned to speak and walks with firmer step, loves to play with his equals, is quick to feel and equally so to lay aside resentment, changing his feelings from moment to moment. The beardless youth, having got rid of his tutor, joys in his horses, dogs, and the games of the sunny Campus, yielding like wax to every evil impression, rough to reproof, slow in attending to his true interests, lavish of his money, presumptuous, amorous, and swift to leave what had before pleased his fancy. Our inclinations having undergone a change, the age and spirit of manhood seeks for wealth and friendships, is a slave to ambition, is cautious of doing what he may afterwards repent; a thousand ills encompass the aged; either he lives to amass wealth, which he fears to make use of, or else he manages everything with a cold and timid touch, procrastinat- Latium would not have been more famed for ing, slow to entertain hopes, attached to life, the bravery of her citizens and her deeds of arms morose, complaining, a praiser of the times when than for her literary works, if our poets had not he was a boy, the scourge and chastiser of the refused to submit to the labor and delay of coryoung. Years in life's full tide bring many bless-rection. Ye descendants of Pompilius, condemn ings; the ebb carries many away, GREEK AUTHORS. Make the Grecian models your supreme delight; read them by day and study them by night. CORRECTION OF STYLE. the poem, which the toil of many a day and many |
