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Philip, and to the Translation of Demosthenes, which the Letter-writer professes to have not read before he answered it-to the spirited defence of that Dissertation, which the Letterwriter probably has read, but never attempted to answer. The Life of Philip contains many curious researches into the principles of government established among the leading states of Greece; many sagacious remarks on their intestine discords; many exact descriptions of their most celebrated characters, together with an extensive and correct view of those subtle intrigues, and those ambitious projects, by which Philip, at a favourable crisis, gradually obtained an unexampled and fatal mastery of the Grecian Republics. In the Translation of Demosthenes, Leland unites the man of taste with the man of learning; and shows himself to have possessed not only a competent knowledge of the Greek language, but that clearness in his own conceptions, and that animation in his feelings, which enabled him to catch the real meaning, and to preserve the genuine spirit of the most perfect orator that Athens ever produced. Through the Dissertation upon Eloquence, and the Defence of it, we see great accuracy of erudition, great perspicuity and strength of style, and, above all, a stoutness of judgment, which, in traversing the open and spacious walks of literature, disdained to be led captive, either by the sorceries of a self-deluded visionary, or the decrees of a selfcreated despot.

DR. PARR.

DR. MIDDLETON.

MIDDLETON was a man of no common attainments his learning was elegant and profound, his judgment acute and polished; he had a fine and correct taste; and his style was so pure and so harmonious, so vigorously flowing without being inflated, that, Addison alone excepted, he seems to me without a rival. As to his mind, I am compelled with grief and reluctance to confess it was neither ingenious nor faithful.

DR. PARR.

HORACE WALPOLE.

WALPOLE had a warm conception, vehement attachments, strong aversions, with an apparent contradiction in his temper-for he had numerous caprices, and invincible perseverance. His principles tended to republicanism, but without any of its austerity; his love of faction was unmixed with any aspiring. He had a great sense of honour, but not great enough, for he had too much weakness to resist doing wrong, though too much sensibility not to feel it in others. He had a great measure of pride, equally apt to resent neglect, and scorning to stoop to any meanness or flattery. A boundless friend; a bitter, but a placable enemy. His humour was satiric, though accompanied with a most compassionate heart. Indiscreet and abandoned to his passions, it seemed as if he despised or could bear no

restraint; yet this want of government of himself was the more blamable, as nobody had greater command of resolution whenever he made a point of it. This appeared in his person: naturally very delicate, and educated with too fond a tenderness, by unrelaxed temperance and braving all inclemency of weathers, he formed and enjoyed the firmest and unabated health. One virtue he possessed in a singular degree-disinterestedness and contempt of money-if one may call that a virtue, which really was a passion. In short, such was his promptness to dislike superiors, such his humanity to inferiors, that, considering how few men are of so firm a texture as not to be influenced by their situation, he thinks, if he may be allowed to judge of himself, that had either extreme of fortune been his lot, he should have made a good prince, but not a very honest slave.

HORACE WALPOLE.

DR. SUMNER.

THE reader will, I hope, indulge me, if in this place I cannot refrain from an encomium on the virtues of this my most learned and intimate friend, and a lamentation of his loss; for no man surely was more distinguished for genius, integrity, an admirable temper, most humane manners, exquisite learning. He had besides, such a talent of communicating and instructing, as I never knew in any other master; lastly, such a cheerfulness and sweetness, that it was absolutely doubt. ful whether he was most agreeable to his friends

or to his scholars. languages he was deeply versed; yet, like another Socrates, he wrote very little himself, though no one had more skill and precision in correcting the faults, or admiring the beauties of other writers so that if his course of life or more benignant fortune had placed him at the bar or in parliament, and he had not undertaken the province of a schoolmaster, only in the talent of eloquence, which of all nations Britain alone now cultivates, he would have yielded the palm to no one for several particular endowments, which of themselves recommend an orator, if not in perfection, were certainly much to be admired in him, a tuneful voice, polite diction, volubility of speech, humour, a remarkable memory; lastly, the eyes, the looks, the action, not of a player, but almost of another Demosthenes. In short, as Cicero, in some degree, said of Roscius, he was such a master as alone to seem worthy of instructing youth, and such an orator as alone to seem worthy of discharging the most important public trusts. Does not the name of such a one exact from me the highest honour? Such a one shall I not lament? For his death shall I not be afflicted? But let me beware of seeming to grieve more on my own account than for the death of my friend and instructor; for, by dying, what has he left but a frail, uncertain, wretched life, in which, except virtue and fame, there is nothing which a good man ought eagerly to covet? I indeed, by his death, am deprived of the most pleasing union of studies, and have also lost an assistant, whose judgment would have checked

Both in the Greek and Latin

the redundance of youthful genius, have obscured the faults either of my speech or gesture, have polished my language, and would not only have urged me to compose a task which, on account of its extreme difficulty, almost all of us avoid, but would kindly have animadverted on my writings, have detected my mistakes, and perhaps, by friendly commendations, which have the greatest influence on the best minds, have excited me to greater attempts. In this very work, which I am now publishing, how have I regretted the want of such a learned and candid critic! for though he once perused it cursorily, yet he added not a word; he scarce altered a syllable: the notes that he wrote in the margin of the book were written more for the sake of commending than of blaming: but such was his regard for me, that he had determined more accurately to revise with me the whole volume. If he had, it would perhaps have been free from many faults; at least it would have come forth more elegant and polished. But the perfection of my little book is a trivial loss; other things which have perished with him, I shall not cease most feelingly to lament; his friendship, his offices, his advice: but, as I said before, this is my misfortune; for he, as I trust, is most happy, and rather compassionates the empty cares of mortals, than requires either their praise or their grief.

SIR WILLIAM JONES.

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