Wiser, I esteem it, to give chance
the credit of the successful ones.
the credit of the successful ones.
James Russell Lowell
--H.
B.
]
[Footnote 19: The speaker is of a different mind from Tully, who, in his
recently discovered tractate _De Republica_, tells us, _Nec vero habere
virtutem satis est, quasi artem aliquam, nisi utare_, and from our
Milton, who says: 'I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue,
unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her
adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to
be run for, _not without dust and heat. '--Areop_. He had taken the words
out of the Roman's mouth, without knowing it, and might well exclaim
with Donatus (if Saint Jerome's tutor may stand sponsor for a curse),
_Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerint! _--H. W. ]
[Footnote 20: That was a pithy saying of Persius, and fits our
politicians without a wrinkle,--_Magister artis, ingeniique largitor
venter_. --H. W. ]
[Footnote 21: There is truth yet in this of Juvenal,--
'Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas. '--H. W. ]
[Footnote 22: Jortin is willing to allow of other miracles besides those
recorded in Holy Writ, and why not of othere prophecies? It is granting
too much to Satan to suppose him, as divers of the learned have done,
the inspirer of the ancient oracles.
Wiser, I esteem it, to give chance
the credit of the successful ones. What is said here of Louis Phillippe
was verified in some of its minute particulars within a few months'
time. Enough to have made the fortune of Delphi or Hammon, and no thanks
to Beelzebub neither! That of Seneca in Medea will suit here:--
'Rapida fortuna ac levis
Praecepsque regno eripuit, exsilio dedit. '
Let us allow, even to richly deserved misfortune, our commiseration, and
be not over-hasty meanwhile in our censure of the French people, left
for the first time to govern themselves, remembering that wise sentence
of AEschylus,--
[Greek: Apas de trachus hostis han neon kratae. ]
--H. W. ]
[Footnote 23: A rustic euphemism for the American variety of the
_Mephitis_. --H. W. ]
[Footnote 24: _Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English_. ]
[Footnote 25: Cited in Collier. (I give my authority where I do not quote
from the original book. )]
[Footnote 26: The word occurs in a letter of Mary Boleyn, in Golding, and
Warner. Milton also was fond of the word. ]
[Footnote 27: Though I find Worcester in the _Mirror for Magistrates_.
[Footnote 19: The speaker is of a different mind from Tully, who, in his
recently discovered tractate _De Republica_, tells us, _Nec vero habere
virtutem satis est, quasi artem aliquam, nisi utare_, and from our
Milton, who says: 'I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue,
unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her
adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to
be run for, _not without dust and heat. '--Areop_. He had taken the words
out of the Roman's mouth, without knowing it, and might well exclaim
with Donatus (if Saint Jerome's tutor may stand sponsor for a curse),
_Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerint! _--H. W. ]
[Footnote 20: That was a pithy saying of Persius, and fits our
politicians without a wrinkle,--_Magister artis, ingeniique largitor
venter_. --H. W. ]
[Footnote 21: There is truth yet in this of Juvenal,--
'Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas. '--H. W. ]
[Footnote 22: Jortin is willing to allow of other miracles besides those
recorded in Holy Writ, and why not of othere prophecies? It is granting
too much to Satan to suppose him, as divers of the learned have done,
the inspirer of the ancient oracles.
Wiser, I esteem it, to give chance
the credit of the successful ones. What is said here of Louis Phillippe
was verified in some of its minute particulars within a few months'
time. Enough to have made the fortune of Delphi or Hammon, and no thanks
to Beelzebub neither! That of Seneca in Medea will suit here:--
'Rapida fortuna ac levis
Praecepsque regno eripuit, exsilio dedit. '
Let us allow, even to richly deserved misfortune, our commiseration, and
be not over-hasty meanwhile in our censure of the French people, left
for the first time to govern themselves, remembering that wise sentence
of AEschylus,--
[Greek: Apas de trachus hostis han neon kratae. ]
--H. W. ]
[Footnote 23: A rustic euphemism for the American variety of the
_Mephitis_. --H. W. ]
[Footnote 24: _Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English_. ]
[Footnote 25: Cited in Collier. (I give my authority where I do not quote
from the original book. )]
[Footnote 26: The word occurs in a letter of Mary Boleyn, in Golding, and
Warner. Milton also was fond of the word. ]
[Footnote 27: Though I find Worcester in the _Mirror for Magistrates_.
