What he has said of Mæcenas
is perfectly just.
is perfectly just.
Tacitus
He points out the causes of the corrupt taste
that debauched the eloquence of those times and imputes the mischief
to the degeneracy of the manners. Whatever the man was, such was the
orator. _Talis oratio quails vita. _ When ancient discipline relaxed,
luxury succeeded, and language became delicate, brilliant, spangled
with conceits. Simplicity was laid aside, and quaint expressions grew
into fashion. Does the mind sink into languor, the body moves
reluctantly. Is the man softened into effeminacy, you see it in his
gait. Is he quick and eager, he walks with alacrity. The powers of the
understanding are affected in the same manner. Having laid this down
as his principle, Seneca proceeds to describe the soft delicacy of
Mæcenas, and he finds the same vice in his phraseology. He cites a
number of the lady-like terms, which the great patron of letters
considered as exquisite beauties. In all this, says he, we see the man
who walked the streets of Rome in his open and flowing robe. _Nonne
statim, cum hæc legis, occurrit hunc esse, qui solutis tunicis in urbe
semper incesserit? _ Seneca, epist. cxiv.
What he has said of Mæcenas
is perfectly just. The fopperies of that celebrated minister are in
this Dialogue called CALAMISTRI; an allusion borrowed from Cicero,
who praises the beautiful simplicity of _Cæsar's Commentaries_, and
says there were men of a vicious taste, who wanted to apply the
_curling-iron_, that is, to introduce the glitter of conceit and
antithesis in the place of truth and nature. _Commentarios quosdam
scripsit rerum suarum, valde quidem probandos: nudi enim sunt, et
recti, et venusti, omni ornatu orationis, tanquam veste, detracto.
Ineptis gratum fortasse fecit, qui volunt illa_ CALAMISTRIS _inurere. _
Cicero _De Claris Orat. _ s. 262.
[d] Who Gallio was, is not clearly settled by the commentators.
Quintilian, lib. iii. cap. 1, makes mention of Gallio, who wrote a
treatise of eloquence; and in the _Annals_, b. xv. s. 73, we find
Junius Gallio, the brother of Seneca; but whether either of them is
the person here intended, remains uncertain. Whoever he was, his
eloquence was a tinkling cymbal.
that debauched the eloquence of those times and imputes the mischief
to the degeneracy of the manners. Whatever the man was, such was the
orator. _Talis oratio quails vita. _ When ancient discipline relaxed,
luxury succeeded, and language became delicate, brilliant, spangled
with conceits. Simplicity was laid aside, and quaint expressions grew
into fashion. Does the mind sink into languor, the body moves
reluctantly. Is the man softened into effeminacy, you see it in his
gait. Is he quick and eager, he walks with alacrity. The powers of the
understanding are affected in the same manner. Having laid this down
as his principle, Seneca proceeds to describe the soft delicacy of
Mæcenas, and he finds the same vice in his phraseology. He cites a
number of the lady-like terms, which the great patron of letters
considered as exquisite beauties. In all this, says he, we see the man
who walked the streets of Rome in his open and flowing robe. _Nonne
statim, cum hæc legis, occurrit hunc esse, qui solutis tunicis in urbe
semper incesserit? _ Seneca, epist. cxiv.
What he has said of Mæcenas
is perfectly just. The fopperies of that celebrated minister are in
this Dialogue called CALAMISTRI; an allusion borrowed from Cicero,
who praises the beautiful simplicity of _Cæsar's Commentaries_, and
says there were men of a vicious taste, who wanted to apply the
_curling-iron_, that is, to introduce the glitter of conceit and
antithesis in the place of truth and nature. _Commentarios quosdam
scripsit rerum suarum, valde quidem probandos: nudi enim sunt, et
recti, et venusti, omni ornatu orationis, tanquam veste, detracto.
Ineptis gratum fortasse fecit, qui volunt illa_ CALAMISTRIS _inurere. _
Cicero _De Claris Orat. _ s. 262.
[d] Who Gallio was, is not clearly settled by the commentators.
Quintilian, lib. iii. cap. 1, makes mention of Gallio, who wrote a
treatise of eloquence; and in the _Annals_, b. xv. s. 73, we find
Junius Gallio, the brother of Seneca; but whether either of them is
the person here intended, remains uncertain. Whoever he was, his
eloquence was a tinkling cymbal.
