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$ 205. Character of the ENGLISH, the ORIENTAL, the LATIN, and the GREEK Languages.

We Britons in our time have been remarkable borrowers, as our multiform language may sufficiently shew. Our terms in polite literature prove, that this came from Greece; our terms in music and painting, that these came from Italy; our phrases in cookery and war, that we learnt these from the French; and our phrases in navigation, that we were taught by the Flemings and Low Dutch. These many and very different sources of our language may be the cause why it is so deficient in regularity and analogy. Yet we have this advantage to compensate the defect, that what we want in elegance, we gain in copiousness, in which last respect few languages will be found superior to our own. Let us pass from ourselves to the nations of the East. The Eastern world, from the earliest days, has been at all times the seat of enormous monarchy; on its natives fair liberty never shed its genial influence. If at any time civil discords arose among them, (and arise there did innumerable) the contest was never about the form of their government (for this was an object of which the combatants had no conception); it was all from the poor motive of, who should be their master; whether a Cyrus or an Artaxerxes, a Mahomet or a Mustapha.

Such was their condition; and what was the consequence?—Their ideas became consonant to their servile state, and their words became consonant to their servile ideas. The great distinction for ever in their sight, was that of tyrant and slave; the most unnatural one conceivable, and the most susceptible of pomp and empty exaggeration. Hence they talked of kings as gods; and of themselves as the meanest and most abject reptiles. Nothing was either great or little in moderation, but every sentiment was heightened by incredible hyperbole. Thus, though they sometimes ascended into the great and magnificent, they as frequently degenerated into the tumid and bombast. The Greeks too of Asia became infected by their neighbours, who were often, at times, not only their neighbours, but their masters; and hence that luxuriance of the Asiatic style, unknown to the chaste eloquence and purity of Athens. But of the Creeks we forbear to speak now, as we shall speak of

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And what sort of people may we pronounce the Romans?-A nation engaged in wars and commotions, some foreign, some domestic, which for seven hundred years wholly engrossed their thoughts. Hence therefore their language became, like their ideas, copious in all terms expressive of things political, and well adapted to the purposes both of history and popular eloquence. But what was their philosophy?-As a nation it was none, if we may credit their ablest writers. And hence the unfituess of their language to this subject; a defect which even Cicero is compelled to confess, and more fully makes appear, when he writes philosophy himself, from the number of terms which he is obliged to invent. Virgil seems to have judged the most truly of his countrymen, when admitting their inferiority in the more elegant arts, he concludes at last with his usual majesty:

Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento, ( tibi eruut artes) pacisque imponere morem, Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos.

From considering the Romans, let us pass to the Greeks. The Grecian commonwealths, while they maintained their liberty, were the most heroic confederacy that ever existed. They were the politest, the bravest, and the wisest of men. In the short space of little more than a century they became such statesmen, warriors, orators, historians, physicians, poets, critics, painters, sculptors, architects, and (last of all) philosophers, that one can hardly help considering that golden period, as a providential event in honour of human nature, to shew to what perfection the species might ascend.

Now the language of these Greeks was truly like themselves; it was conformable to their transcendant and universal genius. Where matter so abounded, words followed of course, and those exquisite in every kind, as the ideas for which they stood. And hence it followed, there was not a subject to be found which could not with propriety be expressed in Greek.

er;

Here were words and numbers for the humour of an Aristophanes; for the active elegance of a Philemon or Menander for the amorous strains of a Mimnermus or Sappho; for the rural lays of a Theocritus or Bion; and for the sublime con

ceptions of a Sophocles or Homer. The same in prose. Here Isocrates was enabled to display his art, in all the accuracy of periods and the nice counterpoise of diction. Here Demosthenes found materials for that nervous composition, that manly force of unaffected eloquence, which rushed like a torrent, too impetuous to be withstood.

Who were more different in exhibiting their philosophy, than Xenophon, Plato, and his disciple Aristotle? Different, I say, in their character of composition; for as to their philosophy itself, it was in reality the same. Aristotle, strict, methodic, and orderly; subtle in thought; sparing in ornament; with little address to the passions or imagination; but exhibiting the whole with such a pregnant brevity, that in every sentence we seem to read a page. How exquisitely is this all performed in Greek! Let those, who imagine it may be done as well in another language, satisfy themselves, either by attempting to translate him, or by perusing his translations already made by men of learning. On the contrary, when we read either Xenophon or Plato, nothing of this method and strict order appears. The formal and didactic is wholly dropt. Whatever they may teach, it is without professing to be teachers; a train of dia logue and truly polite address, in which, as in a mirror, we behold human life adorned in all its colours of sentiment and

manners.

And yet though these differ in this manner from the Stagyrite, how different are they likewise in character from each other! -Plato, copious, figurative, and majestic; intermixing at times the facetious and Batiric; enriching his works with tales and fables, and the mystic theology of ancient times. Xenophon, the pattern of perfect simplicity; every where smooth, harmonious, and pure; declining the figurative, the marvellous, and the mystic; ascending but rarely into the sublime; nor then so much trusting to the colours of style as to the intrinsic dignity of the sentiment it self.

The language, in the mean time, in which he and Plato wrote, appears to suit so accurately with the style of both, that when we read either of the two, we cannot help thinking, that it is he alone who has hit its character, and that it could not have appeared so elegant in any other

manner.

And thus is the Greek tongue, from its propriety and universality, made for all that is great and all that is beautiful, in every subject and under every form of writing:

Graiis ingenium, Graiis dedit ore rotundo
Musa loqui.

It were to be wished, that those amongst us, who either write or read with a view to employ their liberal leisure, (for as to such as do either from views more sordid, we leave them, like slaves, to their destined drudgery) it were to be wished, I say, that the liberal (if they have a relish for letters) would inspect the finished models of Grecian literature; that they would not waste those hours, which they cannot recal, upon the meaner productions of the French and English press; upon that fungous growth of novels and of pamphlets, where, it is to be feared, they rarely find any rational pleasure, and more rarely still any solid improvement.

To be completely skilled in ancient learning is by no means a work of such insuperable pains. The very progress itself is attended with delight, and resembles a journey through some pleasant country, where, every mile we advance, new charms arise. It is certainly as easy to be a scholar, as a gamester, or many other characters equally illiberal and low. The same application, the same quantity of habit, will fit us for one as completely as for the other. And as to those who tell us, with an air of seeming wisdom, that it is men, and not books, we must study to become knowing; this I have always remarked, from repeated experience, to be the common consolation and language of dunces. They shelter their ignorance under a few bright examples, whose transcendant abilities, without the common helps, have been sufficient of themselves to great and important ends. But alas!

Decipit exemplar vitiis imitabileIn truth, each man's understanding, when ripened and mature, is a composite of natural capacity, and of superinduced habit. Hence the greatest men will be necessarily those who possess the best capacities, cultivated with the best habits. Hence also moderate capacities, when adorned with valuable science, will far transcend others the most acute by nature, when either neglected, or applied to low and base purposes. And thus, for the ho

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When the magnitude of the Roman empire grew enormous, and there were two imperial cities, Rome and Constantinople, then that happened which was natural; out of one empire it became two, distinguished by the different names of the Western, and the Eastern.

The Western empire soon sunk. So early as in the fifth century, Rome, once the mistress of nations, beheld herself at the feet of a Gothic sovereign. The Eastern empire lasted many centuries longer, and, though often impaired by external enemies, and weakened as often by internal factions, yet still it retained traces of its ancient splendour, resembling, in the language of Virgil, some fair but faded flower:

Cui neque fulgor adhuc, necdum, sua forma recessit. VIRG.

At length, after various plunges and various escapes, it was totally annihilated in the fifteenth century by the victorious arms of Mahomet the Great.

The interval between the fall of these two empires (the Western or Latin in the fifth century, the Eastern or Grecian in the fifteenth) making a space of near a thousand years, constitutes what we call the Middle Age.

brandinum, &c. ; strange names it must be confessed, some more obvious, others less so, yet none tending to furnish us with any high or promising ideas.

And yet we must acknowledge, for the honour of humanity and of its great and divine Author, who never forsakes it, that some sparks of intellect were at all times visible, through the whole of this dark and dreary period. It is here we must look for the taste and literature of the times.

The few who were enlightened, when arts and sciences were thus obscured, may be said to have happily maintained the continuity of knowledge; to have been (if I may use the expression) like the twilight. of a summer's night; that auspicious gleam between the setting and the rising sun, which, though it cannot retain the lustre of the day, helps at least to save us from the totality of darkness. Ibid.

§ 207. An Account of the Destruction of the Alexandrian Library.

"When Alexandria was taken by the "Mahometans, Amrus, their commander, "found there Philoponus, whose conver"sation highly pleased him, as Amrus was a lover of letters, and Philoponus a "learned man. On a certain day Philo

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Dominion passed during this interval into the hands of rude, illiterate men: men who conquered more by multitude" than by military skill; and who, having little or no taste either for sciences or arts, naturally despised those things from which they had reaped no advantage.

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ponus said to him: You have visited "all the repositories or public warehouses "in Alexandria, and you have sealed up things of every sort that are found there. "As to those things that may be useful to << you, I presume to say nothing; but as "to things of no service to you, some of "them perhaps may be more suitable to "me.' Amrus said to him: And what is it you want?" The philosophical books (replied he) preserved in the "royal libraries.' This (said Amrus) is a request upon which I cannot decide. "You desire a thing where I can issue no "orders till I have leave from Omar, the This was the age of Moukery and Le- "commander of the faithful.'-Letters gends; of Leonine verses, (that is, of bad were accordingly written to Omar, inLatin put into rhyme;) of projects, to de-forming him of what Philoponus had cide truth by ploughshares and battoons; "said; and an answer was returned by of crusades, to conquer infidels, and ex- "Omar, to the following purport: As tirpate heretics; of princes deposed, not "to the books of which you have made as Croesus was by Cyrus, but by one who mention, if there be contained in them had no armies, and who did not even "what accords with the book of God wear a sword. "(meaning the Alcoran) there is without "them, in the book of God, all that is "sufficient.

Different portions of this age have been distinguished by different descriptions; such as Sæculum Monotheleticum, Sæculum Eiconoclasticum, Sæculum Obscurum, Sæculum Ferreum, Sæculum Hildi

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"sufficient. But if there be any thing in "them repugnant to that book, we in no "respect want them. Order them there"fore to be all destroyed.' Amrus upon

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under Epaminondas, by the Thebans; and, last of all, it was wholly crushed by the Macedonian Philip.

But though their political sovereignty was lost, yet, happily for mankind, their love of literature and arts did not sink along with it.

Just at the close of their golden days of empire, flourished Xenophon and Plato, the disciples of Socrates; and from Plato descended that race of philosophers called the Old Academy.

Aristotle, who was Plato's disciple, may

Thus ended this noble library; and thus began, if it did not begin sooner, the age of barbarity and ignorance. Harris. § 208. A short historical Account of ATHENS, from the time of her PERSIAN Triumphs to that of her becoming subject be said not to have invented a new philoto the TURKS.-Sketch, during this long sublime and rapturous mysteries of his massophy, but rather to have tempered the Interval, of her political and literary ter with method, order, and a stricter State; of her Philosophers; of her Gym-mode of reasoning. nasia; of her good and bad Fortune, &c. &c.-Manners of the present Inhabi tants.-Olives and Honey.

When the Athenians had delivered themselves from the tyranny of Pisistratus, and after this had defeated the vast efforts of the Persians, and that against two successive invaders, Darius and Xerxes, they may be considered as at the summit of their national glory. For more than half a century afterwards they maintained, without controul, the sovereignty of Greece*.

As their taste was naturally good, arts of every kind soon rose among them, and flourished. Valour had given them reputation; reputation gave them an ascend ant; and that ascendant produced a security, which left their minds at ease, and gave them leisure to cultivate every thing liberal or elegant.

It was then that Pericles adorned the city with temples, theatres, and other beautiful public buildings. Phidias, the great sculptor, was employed as his architect; who when he had erected edifices, adorned them himself, and added statues and bassorelievos, the admiration of every beholder. It was then that Polygnotus and Myro painted; that Sophocles and Euripides wrote; and, not long after, that they saw the divine Socrates.

Human affairs are by nature prone to change; and states, as well as individuals, are born to decay. Jealousy and ambition insensibly fomented wars; and success in these wars, as in others, was often varibus. The military strength of the Athenians was first impaired by the Lacedæmohians; after that, it was again humiliated,

Zeno, who was himself also educated in the principles of Platonism, only differed from Plato in the comparative estimate of things, allowing nothing to be intrinsically good but virtue, nothing intrinsically bad but vice, and considering all other things to be in themselves indifferent.

He too, and Aristotle, accurately culti vated logic, but in different ways: for Aristotle chiefly dwelt upon the simple syllogism; Zeno upon that which is derived out of it, the compound or hypothetic. Both too, as well as other philosophers, cultivated rhetoric along with logic; holding a knowledge in both to be requisite for those who think of addressing mankind with all the efficacy of persuasion. Zeno elegantly illustrated the force of these two powers by a simile, taken from the hand; the close power of logic he compared to the fist, or hand compressed; the diffuse power of logic, to the palm, or hand open.

I shall mention but two sects more, the New Academy, and the Epicurean.

The New Academy, so called from the Old Academy (the name given to the school of Plato) was founded by Arcesilas, and ably maintained by Carneades. From a mistaken imitation of the great parent of philosophy, Socrates, (particularly as he appears in the dialogues of Plato) because Socrates doubted some things, therefore Arcesilas and Carneades doubted all.

Epicurus drew from another source: Democritus had taught him atoms and a void. By the fortuitous concourse of atoms he fancied he could form a world, while by a feigned veneration he complimented away his gods, and totally denied theif

*For these historical facts consult the ancient and modern authors of Grecian history.

providential care, lest the trouble of it should impair their uninterrupted state of bliss. Virtue he recommended, though not for the sake of virtue, but pleasure: pleasure, according to him, being our chief and sovereign good. It must be confessed, however, that though his principles were erroneous, and even bad, never was a man more temperate and humane; never was a man more beloved by his friends, or more cordially attached to them in affectionate esteem.

We have already mentioned the alliance between philosophy and rhetoric. This cannot be thought wonderful, if rhetoric be the art by which men are persuaded and if men cannot be persuaded without a knowledge of human nature; for what but philosophy can procure us this knowledge?

It was for this reason the ablest Greek philosophers not only taught (as we hinted before) but wrote also treatises upon rhetoric. They had a farther inducement, and that was the intrinsic beauty of their language, as it was then spoken among the learned and polite. They would have been ashamed to have delivered philosophy, as it has been too often delivered since, in compositions as clumsy as the common dialect of the mere vulgar.

The same love of elegance, which made them attend to their style, made them attend even to the places where their philo'sophy was taught.

Plato delivered his lectures in a place shaded with groves; on the banks of the river Ilissus; and which, as it once belonged to a person called Academus, was called after his name, the Academy. Aristotle chose another spot of a similar character, where there were trees and shade; a spot called the Lycæum. Zeno taught in a portico or colonnade, distinguished from other buildings of that sort (of which the Athenians had many) by the name of the Variegated Portico, the walls being decorated with various paintings of Polygnotus and Myro, two capital masters of that transcendant period. Epicurus ad

dressed his hearers in those well-known gardens called, after his own name, the gardens of Epicurus.

Some of these places gave names to the doctrines which were taught there. Plato's philosophy took its name of Academic, from the Academy; that of Zeno was called the Stoic, from a Greek word signifying a portico.

The system indeed of Aristotle was not denominated from the place but was called Peripatetic, from the manner in which he taught; from his walking about at the time when he disserted. The term Epicurean philosophy needs no explanation.

Open air, shade, water, and pleasant walks, seem above all things to favour that exercise the best suited to contemplation, I mean gentle walking without inducing fatigue. The many agreeable walks in and about Oxford may teach my own countrymen the truth of this assertion, and best explain how Horace lived, while the student at Athens, employed (as he tells us)

inter silvas Academi quærere verum.

These places of public institution were called among the Greeks by the name of Gymnasia, in which, whatever that word might have originally meant, were taught all those exercises, and all those arts, which tended to cultivate not only the body but the mind. As man was a being consisting of both, the Greeks could not consider that education as complete in which both were not regarded, and both properly formed. Hence their Gymnasia, with reference to this double end, were adorned with two statues, those of Mercury and of Hercules; the corporeal accomplishments being patronised (as they supposed) by the God of strength, the mental accomplishments by the God of ingenuity.

It is to be feared, that many places, now called Academies, scarce deserve the name upon this extensive plan, if the professors teach no more than how to dance, fence, and ride upon horses.

It was for the cultivation of every liberal accomplishment that Athens was celebrated (as we have said) during many centuries, long after her political influence was lost, and at an end.

When Alexander the Great died, many tyrants, like many hydras, immediately sprung up. Athens then, though she still maintained the form of her ancient government, was perpetually checked and humiliated by their insolence. Antipater destroyed her orators and she was sacked by Demetrius. At length she became subject to the all-powerful Romans, and found the cruel Sylla her severest enemy.

His face (which perhaps indicated his manner,) was of a purple red, intermixed with white. This circumstance could

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