"avarice to injure and violate *." So again, «All wish, says the fame Author, to arrive at "old age; and yet when they have attained it, they are disgusted with it: fuch is the levity " and perverseness of folly +." VIRGIL, after he has given us a view of the difficulties and dangers of the ancestors of the Romans, makes this reflexion, So vaft the toil to found the Roman ftate 1. MILTON reprefents the obduracy of the rebellious angels, upon the march of the Son of GOD against them, in the following verses; This faw his hapless foes, but ftood obdur'd, And to rebellious fight rallied their pow'rs Infenfate, hope conceiving from despair; And then the Poet adds this remark, In heav'nly sp'rits could fuch perverseness dwell! Mr COBB, in his pindaric ode, intitled, the Female Reign, occasioned by the wonderful fuccefs of the arms of Queen ANNE and her allies, has these lines : What Qua ex re intelligi facile potuit, nullum effe officium tam fanctum, atque folemne, quod non avaritia comminuere, atque, violare foleat. CICER. pro QUINT. n.6. + Quo in genere in primis eft fenectus, quam ut adipifcantur, omnes optant; eandem accufant adeptam : tanta eft inconftantia ftultitiæ atque perverfitas! CICER. de Senectute, n.2. Tante molis erat Romanam condere gentem! - Æneid. lib.i. ver. 37. What treble ruin pious ANNA brings He, by imperial favour rais'd, In highest rank of glory blaz'd, And had till now unrivall'd fhone More than a King contented with his own: Who durft affault the throne of GOD; And, for contended realms of blissful light, The firft in folid misery, Monarch of hell, and woes, and endless night. Immediately the Poet as it were fufpends his poem, to make room for the following reflexions; Corruption of the beft is worst: And foul ambition, like an evil wind, § 3. We fhall next produce fome inftances of the Epiphonema from the facred Writings. After the account of ABIMELECH'S wickedness in slaying his father GIDEON'S fons, threescore and ten perfons, of his being wounded by a piece of a mill-ftone caft upon his head by a woman, and of his being thrust through and dying by the fword of his armour-bearer, the facred Hifto rian fays, Thus GoD rendered the wickedness ss of ABIMELECH, which he did unto his father, " in slaying his seventy brethren *ss So the royal Pfalmift, after he had described his danger from his enemies, and his confidence in God for his deliverance, fays, " Salvation belongs unto the LORD: thy blessing is upon thy " people +." 58 In like manner our blessed LORD, after he had delivered his parable of the marriage-fupper, and had represented the man that appeared without a wedding-garment, and his tremendous doom, fays, SS For many are called, but few are schofen ." And, After the facred Writer had told us, that " Many that believed, came, and confessed, and "fhewed their deeds; and that many of them ss which used curious arts, brought their books together, and burned them before all men; and that they counted the price of them, and ss found it fifty thousand pieces of silver;" he adds this remark, " So mightily grew the Word ss of GOD, and prevailed [." § 4. As to the use of this Figure, it is evident, (1) That it gives a variety to our discourses and by variety attention is undoubtedly kept alive, * Judges ix. 56. Hh + Pfalm iii. 8. and and confequently we may hope the deeper imprefsions by the means will be made upon our readers or auditors. (2) The Epiphonema may be very serviceable as a kind of moral, or general improvement and ufe of the fubject we have been difcoursing upon; and thus our hearers or readers may receive instruction, and substantial and durable benefit. (3) The genius or fkill of the writer or speaker may be fhewn by a pertinent and useful Epiphonema, which, though it may naturally be deduced from our fubject, yet might not be obvious to all, and so may be an evidence of our wisdom in deriving it from our preceding difcourse. $5. As to directions concerning the Epiphonema, it may not be improper to obferve, (1) That it fhould not be too frequent. Should this be the cafe, our discourses might be liable to be cenfured as formal and affected, and too frequently checked in what should be a strong impetuous current, for the fake of fage and moral reflexions. Though the Epiphonema may diversify our speeches or compositions, yet, by being too often used, we may abate our force, and restrain that fire, which after all is the orator's or writer's beft recommendation, and fuprême glory. (2) Our reflexions fhould not only contain fome plain and evident truth, but should also naturally spring from the difcourfe from whence we derive them from, otherwise we may render our design in making them abortive and vain. (3) Let our Epiphonemas, in general at least, be short. Let them be like mafsy, weighty bullion, instead of being expanded into a vast amplification, while their ideas by the means become jejune and languid. Remarks upon what we have faid, fhould, like an arrow or thunderbolt, strike at once; and fuccefs is to be expected from compacted force, rather than a weak and fubtile diffusion. |