Like brothers live, in amity combined; And swelling commerce opens all her ports. 5. And be the sure resource of drooping age. SECTION V. APOSTROPHE. Rudiments, p. 111. 1. I cannot but imagine the virtuous heroes, legislators, and patriots of every age and country, are bending from their elevated seats to witness this contest, as if they were incapable, till it be brought to a favourable issue, of enjoying their eternal repose. Enjoy that repose, illustrious immortals! Your mantle fell when you ascended; and thousands, inflamed with your spirit, and impatient to tread in your steps, are ready to swear by Him that sitteth upon the throne and liveth for ever and ever, that they will protect Freedom in her last asylum, and never desert that cause, which you sustained by your labours, and cemented with your blood. 3. Strike the harp in praise of Bragela, whom I left in the isle of mist, the spouse of my love. Dost thou raise thy fair face from the rock to find the sails of Cuthullin ? The sea is rolling far distant, and its white foam will deceive thee for my sails. Retire, my love, for it is night, and the dark wind sighs in thy hair. Retire to the hall of my feasts, and think of the times that are past ; for I will not return till the storm of war is gone. 66 4. Thus passes the world away. Throughout all ranks and conditions, one generation passeth, and another generation cometh ;" and this great inn is by turns evacuated and replenished by troops of succeeding pilgrims. O vain and inconstant world! O fleeting and transient life! When will the sons of men learn to think of thee as they ought? When will they learn humanity from the afflictions of their brethren; or moderation and wisdom from the sense of their own fugitive state? SECTION VI. HYPERBOLE. Rudiments, p. 113. 1. The radiance of the lamps rivalled the brightness of noon. 2. The garment blazed with jewels. 3. Thick as autumnal leaves. His legions lay entranced 4. The rain descends in torrents. 5. An ocean of liquor would scarcely quench his thirst. 6. The kingdom extends from the rising to the setting of the sun. 7. The nation dissolved in tears at his death. I SECTION VII. ANTITHESIS. Rudiments, p. 114. 1. Pride and humility. No two feelings of the human mind are more opposite than pride and humility. Pride is founded on a high opinion of ourselves; humility, on the consciousness of the want of merit. Pride is the offspring of ignorance; humility is the child of wisdom. Pride hardens the heart; humility softens the temper and disposition. Pride is deaf to the clamours of conscience; humility listens with reverence to the monitor within. Finally, pride rejects the counsels of reason, the voice of experience, and the dictates of religion; while humility, with a docile spirit, thankfully receives instruction from all who address her in the garb of truth.* 2. Temperance and exercise. Where opportunities of exercise are wanting, temperance may, in a great measure, supply its place. If exercise throws off all superfluities, temperance prevents them; if exercise clears the vessels, temperance neither satiates nor overstrains them; if exercise raises proper ferments in the humours, and promotes the circulation of the blood, temperance gives nature her full play, and enables her to exert herself in all her force and vigour; if exercise dissipates a growing distemper, temperance starves it. 3. Cheerfulness and mirth. : The latter I Mirth is Those are I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. consider as an act, the former as a habit of the mind. short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent. often raised into the greatest transports of mirth, who are subject to the greatest depressions of melancholy on the contrary, cheerfulness, though it does not give the mind such an exquisite gladness, prevents us from falling into any depth of sorrow. Mirth is like a flash of lightning, which breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment: cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity. *These passages, extracted from eminent prose writers, may be read to the Pupils, and the points of antithesis explained to them, that they may imitate them in sentences of their own composition. 4. Discretion and cunning. At the same time that I think discretion the most useful talent a man can be master of, I look upon cunning to be the accomplishment of little, mean, ungenerous minds. Discretion points out the noblest ends to us, and pursues the most proper and laudable methods of attaining them; cunning has only private selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed. Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well-formed eye, commands a whole horizon; cunning is a kind of shortsightedness, that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance. 5. True modesty and false. Nothing is more amiable than true modesty, and nothing more contemptible than false. The one guards virtue; the other betrays it. True modesty is ashamed to do any thing that is repugnant to the rules of right reason: false modesty is ashamed to do any thing that is opposite to the humour of the company. True modesty avoids what is criminal; false modesty every thing that is unfashionable. The latter is only a general undetermined instinct the former is that instinct limited and circumscribed by the rules of prudence and religion. 6. True honour and religion. True honour, though it is a different principle from religion, produces the same effects. The lines of action, though drawn from different parts, terminate in the same point. Religion embraces virtue, as it is enjoined by the laws of God; honour, as it is graceful and ornamental to human nature. The religious man fears, the man of honour scorns, to do an ill action. The latter considers vice as something that is beneath him; the former, as something that is offensive to the Divine Being: the one as what is unbecoming; the other as what is forbidden. SECTION VIII. CLIMAX. Rudiments, p. 114. 1. Nothing can be more worthy of us, than to contribute to the happiness of those who have been once useful, and are still willing to be so; to allow them not to feel the want of such enjoyments as they are now unable to procure; to be a staff to their declining days; to smooth the furrows in the faded cheek; and to make the winter of old age wear the aspect of spring. 2. The history of every succeeding generation is this. New actors come forth on the stage of the world; new objects attract the attention; new intrigues engage the passions of men; new members occupy the seats of justice; new ministers fill the temples of religion; a new world, in short, in the course of a few years, has gradually and insensibly risen around us. 3. It is pleasant to be virtuous and good, because that is to excel many others; it is pleasant to grow better, because that is to excel ourselves; it is pleasant to mortify and subdue our lusts, because that is victory; it is pleasant to command our appetites and passions, and to keep them in due order, within the bounds of reason and religion, because that is empire. SECTION IX. ERRORS IN THE USE OF FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. Rudiments, p. 115. 1. No human happiness is so pure as not to contain any alloy. 2. Hope, the star of life, darts a ray of light through the thickest gloom. 3. There is a time when factions, by their mutual attacks, stun and disable one another. 4. Let us be careful to suit our sails to the wind and weather, and to steer our vessel aright, that we may avoid the rocks and shoals which lie every where around us. 5. I can never enough admire the sagacity of this country for the encouragement given to the professors of physic. With what indulgence does she rear those of her own growth, and receive those that come from abroad! Like a skilful gardener, she transplants them from every foreign soil to her own. 6. In this our day of proof, our land of hope, The good man has his clouds that intervene ; |