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mer must undoubtedly be admitted to be the greater genius; the latter, to be the more correct writer. Homer was an

original in his art, and discovers both the beauties and the defects which are to be expected in an original author, more nature and ease, more sublimity and force, but greater irregularities and negligences in composition.

3. Virgil has all along kept his eye upon Homer: in many places, he has not so much imitated, as he has literally translated him. The description of the storm, for instance, in the first Æneid,* and Æneas'† speech upon that occasion, are translations from the fifth book of the Odyssey, not to mention almost all the similes of Virgil, which are no other than copies of those of Homer.

4. The preeminence in invention, therefore, must, beyond doubt, be ascribed to Homer. As to the preeminence in judgment, though many critics are disposed to give it to Virgil, yet, in my opinion, it hangs doubtful. In Homer, we discern all the Greek vivacity; in Virgil, all the Roman stateliness. Homer's imagination is by much the most rich and copious; Virgil's, the most chaste and correct. The strength of the former lies in his power of warming the fancy; that of the latter, in his power of touching the heart.

5. Homer's style is more simple and animated; Virgil's, more elegant and uniform. The first has, on many occasions, a sublimity to which the latter never attains; but the latter, in return, never sinks below a certain degree of epic dignity, which cannot be so clearly pronounced of the former. Not, however, to detract from the admiration due to both these great poets, most of Homer's defects may reasonably

•Æ-ne ́id, an heroic poem, written by Virgil, in which Æneas is the hero. It is Virgil's most celebrated work.

† E-ne'as, the reputed son of Anchises and Venus: next to Hector, the bravest among the heroes of the Trojan war in 1184 B. O.

Od'ys-sey, an epic poem attributed to Homer.

be imputed, not to his genius, but to the manners of the age in which he lived; and, for the feeble passages of the Eneid, this excuse ought to be admitted, that it was left an unfinished work.

SECTION VII.

EMPHATIC CLAUSE.

EMPHATIC CLAUSE signifies that several words in succession are emphatic, forming a clause or phrase.

EXAMPLE.

As to the gentlemen present, I cannot give them my confidence. Pardon me, gentlemen, confidence is a plant of slow growth.

Absolute Emphatic Clause.

NOTE. Clauses of this kind are subject to the same rules that have been given under Absolute Emphasis, when applied to single words.

EXAMPLES.

1. I warn you, do not DARE to lay your hand on the constitution.

2. Take courage; let your motto be, “Onward and upward, and true to the line."

3. The thunders of heaven are sometimes heard to roll in the voice of a united people.

4. American literature will find that her intellectual spirit is her tree of life; and the UNION OF THE STATES, her garden of paradise.

EXERCISE.

1. Look upon my son! What mean you? Look upon my boy as though I guessed it! Guessed the trial thou 'dst

QUESTIONS. What is emphatic clause? How should emphatic clauses be

read?

have me make! Guessed it instinctively! Thou dost not meanno, no-thou wouldst not have me make a trial of my skill upon my child! Impossible! I do not guess your meaning.

2. We shall be forced, ultimately, to retract; let us retract while we CAN, and not when we must. I say we must necessarily UNDO these violent, oppressive acts. They must be repealed. You WILL repeal them. I pledge myself for it; I stake my reputation on it. I will consent to be taken for an IDIOT, if they are not finally repealed.

3. Is this man possessed of talents adequate to the great occasion? Is this the man that made the earth to tremble? that shook kingdoms? He deserves to be treated with utter contempt.

4. You will again be restored to your firesides and homes; and your fellow-citizens, pointing you out, shall say, "There goes one who belonged to the army of Italy."

5. He is gone from painful labor to quiet rest; from unquiet desire to happy contentment; from sorrow to joy; and from transitory time to immortality.

6. I hope, sir, that gentlemen will deliberately survey the awful isthmus on which we stand. They may bear down all opposition; they may carry the measure triumphantly through the house; but if they do, sir, in my humble judg ment, it will be a triumph of the military over the civil authority; a triumph over the powers of this house; a triumph over the constitution of the land; and I pray, sir, most devoutly, that it may not prove, in its ultimate effects and consequences, a triumph over the liberties of the people.

7. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But, if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier had spoken my lines. And do not saw the air too much with your hands, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must

beget a temperance that will give it smoothness. Oh! it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious, periwig *-pated fellow, tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, † who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise. Pray you avoid it.

8. Be not too tame, either; but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, and the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'erstep no the modesty of nature; for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end is, to hold, as it were, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the times, their form and pressure. Now, this overdone, or come tardy off, though it may make the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of one of which must, in your allowance, overweigh a whole theater of others.

SECTION VIII.

ABSOLUTE EMPHATIC CLAUSE REPEATED.

NOTE. Clauses of this kind are subject to the same rules that have been given under Absolute Emphasis, when applied to single words.

EXAMPLES.

1. Let our subject be our country, OUR WHOLE COUNTRY, and NOTHING BUT OUR COUNTRY.

2. A Deity believed is joy begun; a Deity ADORED is JOY ADVANCED; a Deity BELOVED is JOY MATURED.

3. My first argument for the adoption of this measure is, the

Peri-wig, a small wig to conceal baldness.

Groundlings, those who stood in what is called the pit, at theaters.

people demand it; my second argument is, THE PEOPLE DEMAND IT; my third argument is, THE PEOPLE DEMAND IT.

EXERCISE.

1. Frown INDIGNANTLY upon the first dawning of an attempt to alienate any portion of this Union from the rest. The UNION-it must be preserved.

2. I have shown by the gentleman's own arguments, that the doctrine advanced by him, is not at present received; that it never was received; that it never CAN, by any possibility, BE RECEIVED; and, if admitted at all, it must be by

the TOTAL SUBVERSION OF LIBERTY.

3. What was the cause of our wasting forty millions of money, and sixty thousand lives? The American war! What was it that produced the French rescript?* The American war! What was it that produced the Spanish manifesto? THE AMERICAN WAR! What was it that armed forty-two thousand men in Ireland, with the arguments carried on the points of forty-two thousand bayonets? THE AMERICAN WAR! For what are we about to incur an additional debt of twelve or fourteen millions? THIS DIABOLICAL, AMERICAN WAR!

4. I impeach him in the name of the Commons House of Parliament, whose trust he has betrayed. I impeach him in the name of the English nation, whose ancient honor he has sullied. I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose rights he has trodden under foot, and whose country he has turned into a desert. Lastly, in the name of human nature itself, in the name of both sexes, in the name of every age, in the name of every rank, I impeach the common enemy and oppressor of all.

Re'script, among the Romans, an edict or decree.

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