[13] 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
Austin (if saint's name may stand sponsor for a curse). _Pereant qui
ante nos nostra dixerint!_--H. W.
[14] That was a pithy saying of Persius, and fits our politicians
without a wrinkle,--_Magister artis, ingeniique largitor venter._--H. W.
[15] There is truth yet in this of Juvenal,--
"Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas."
[16] Jortin is willing to allow of other miracles besides those recorded
in Holy Writ, and why not of other 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 Philippe was
verified in some of its minute particulars within a few months' time.
Enough to have made the fortune of Delphi or Ammon, 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 overhasty meanwhile in our censure of the French people, left for
the first time to govern themselves, remembering that wise sentence of
AEschylus,--
{Hapas de trachys hostis an neon krate.} H. W.
No. V.