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yet, even in this dangerous situation, Cæsar, on every possible occasion, preferred the more gentle method of expostulation and reproof, to those bloody remedies which seem to have been so repugnant to his disposition.

A similar behaviour, in the succeeding age, of so unimpeached a character as Germanicus, will sufficiently evince the necessity of seasonable acts of violence among barbarians. "Orabat," says Tacitus, when describing his conduct in the midst of an engagement, "insisterent cædibus; solam internecionem gentis finem bello fore." "He intreated them to pursue their slaughter; that the extirpation of the whole race alone would put an end to the war;" plainly proving, by this unusual eagerness for bloodshed in so humane a conqueror, that it is sometimes necessary to frighten into servitude those who cannot be enticed into alliance.

From these appearances, then, however his boundless ambition may have blinded him to the nicer distinctions of right and wrong, may we conclude that it was not from a promiscuous effusion of blood and the undistinguished mass of a million of carcases, that Cæsar strove to deserve the name of great; and that, by whatever excesses it was gained, no man ever made a more temperate use of illegal authority. Nay, even admitting, what it is improbable to suppose, that this lenity proceeded, not from a disposition naturally merciful, but from a refinement in political artifice, the man whose reason will enable him so far to subject his resentments to his interest, has at least the merit of promoting, with his own, the common interest of mankind.

And here it may not be amiss to examine the ten

dency of this forgiving principle, which is so peculiarly the offspring of Christianity, that the contrary seems almost to have been a 'tenet of heathen morality. For we find those alone among the ancients, whose greatness of mind or purity of morals as it were instinctively dictated to them some of the leading points in the gospel doctrine, to have effected, or even conceived, this philosophic conquest over the passions. Lycurgus, Aristides, Titus, Trajan, and Adrian are striking instances of this; nor have we any example of the remembrance of an injury voluntarily foregone by a Claudius or a Tiberius. The reason is obvious; the mind of man naturally recoils at an indignity; and it is as much in our natures to seek the gratification of our revenge by the destruction of the offending object, as it is in the adder to wound the heel which treads on it. Unenlightened,

then, and undirected, how can man so far counteract the operations of his nature, as to detect the insidious treachery of this passion, and sacrifice, what he considers a just resentment, to what the world would name a blameable timidity.

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But let it not be imagined that the suppression of a passion so invariably implanted in our nature, will tend at all to apathize the finer feelings of the soul, or that the patient endurance of the primitive Christian borders on the haughty insensibility of the Stoic. In the very suffering an injury, a great mind feels a conscious satisfaction in pity for the petulant weakness of the injurer, and, in forgiving it, the sublime pleasure which this art of upbraiding an enemy into a friend never fails to inspire. Revenge may, for a moment, cast an illusive gleam over the mind, but is incapable of lulling those reflections its consequences

may give rise to, or obtaining that complete triumph over the inclinations of a fallen enemy.

But however this principle might tend to the happiness or aggrandisement of human nature, its superior advantages, without the assistance of revealed religion, would probably have never been thoroughly understood. For though, in some instances, the practice of it in the heathen world may seem to stagger this opinion, their most refined philosophy has never ranked it in their catalogue of virtues, or considered it as one of those unalterable dogmas which constitute a wise and good man. In the disputations of the Socratic school, and the philosophic retirement of Tusculum, the subjection of ambition, pleasure, and the other leading passions of the human mind to the calm and dispassionate direction of wisdom, was discussed with the utmost refinement of wit and knowledge; and still remain the interesting pictures of superior understanding emerging from the darkness of superstition, and struggling for liberality of sentiment amidst the disadvantages of Pagan prejudice, while retaliation of injuries, nay, even hereditary enmities, were considered not as the weaknesses, but almost the absolute duties of human nature.

So seldom do we find this principle characterised in the writings of the ancients, that it was with some difficulty I could find a motto for this paper; and had I not been afraid of so early alarming my fellowcitizens, I had, at one time, some thoughts of referring to the Greek Testament for that purpose. Homer has described but one of his heroes as being evnns te KраTEρòç Tε, gentle and valiant. Even in the amiable Hector, who unites in his character the patriot, the son, the husband, and father, we do not find the

superior generosity of foregoing his resentments. And Virgil's "parcere subjectis" may rather be considered as descriptive of the imperious condescension of the Roman senate, than that refined lenity which strives to obliterate the obligation in the manner of conferring it. Cæsar, indeed, in his letter to Oppius, has a profession of this virtue; but, as I have in a great measure interwoven his defence with my subject, a quotation from him might have been considered as a partial evidence. I do not recollect

that, in any other passage of the more familiar classics, there is any thing perfectly descriptive of it; nay, even amidst the sounding pageantry of title with which their poets have decked the heathen deities, there is none, in my opinion, so comprehensively expressive of the divine attributes, as the simple and unaffected address of ALMIGHTY AND MOST MERCIFUL FATHER.

C.

No. 21. MONDAY, APRIL 3, 1787.
Chloreaque, Sybarimque, Daretaque, Thersilochumque.
VIRGIL'S En. XII. 363.

"Chloreus, and Sybaris, and Dares, and Thersilochus.

"To GREGORY GRIFFIN, Esq. "SIR,-The author from whom I have adopted this motto has been justly esteemed of all poets, both ancient and modern, the most pathetic. But perhaps if every passage, whose excellence consisted in awaking the tender feelings of the reader, should be collected and compared together, there would not be found one in which the writer has displayed a greater share of sensibility than in this single line which I have selected.

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Such, indeed, with me, has been the influence

of the abovementioned hexameter, that I never could reflect, without indignation and astonishment, that Virgil, who had been so liberally rewarded for twentysix lines in the sixth book of his Æneid, should, for this, never have received the gratuity of a farthing. In whatever point of view the two passages shall be examined, it will be found that the latter is in all respects equal, if not superior, to the former. There is no one, I believe, who will be so hardy as to deny that the verse, for whose merit I am contending, is eminently distinguished by every quality which the critics have deemed necessary to the constitution of the most beautiful poetry. If the greatest originality of thought, the noblest simplicity of expression, the most exquisite pathos, and the finest adaption of the sound to the sense, can entitle a verse to the name of excellent, I shall not hesitate to pronounce that the one I am speaking of is as worthy of admiration as any in the poem.

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In order to see whether it be so, let us try it in each of the above particulars. Though I am sensible that there are people who have been bold enough to assert that the names which it contains are borrowed from history or tradition, I cannot but look upon myself as in duty bound to believe that they are the genuine offspring of the poet's imagination; for, as no such tradition is now current, and as no such history has ever been produced, charity demands of me that I should incline to the favourable side of the question. In this I am the more particularly justified, when I reflect that Virgil, from other parts of his works, has given us strong reason to conclude that he was abundantly capable of inventing for himself what he is here accused of having taken from another.

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