All copies
are feeble and unmarked. They sacrifice the plainness of nature to the
gaudiness of ornament, and the tinsel of wit. But the ancients are full
of a noble and affecting simplicity. By one touch of nature and
observation they paint a scene more truly, than their successors are
able to do in whole wire-drawn pages. In description they are
unequalled. Their eloquence is fervent, manly and sonorous. Their
thoughts are just, natural, independent and profound. The pathos of
Virgil, and the sublimity of Homer, have never been surpassed. And as
their knowledge was not acquired in learned indolence, they knew how to
join the severest application with the brightest genius. Accordingly in
their style they have united simplicity, eloquence and harmony, in a
manner of which the moderns have seldom had even an idea. The
correctness of a Caesar, and the sonorous period of a Cicero; the
majesty of a Virgil, and the politeness of a Horace, are such as no
living language can express.
It is the remark of a certain old-fashioned writer, "The form of the
world passeth away." A century or two ago the greatest wits were known
to have pathetically lamented, that the writers, of whose merits I have
been speaking, were handed down to us in so mutilated a condition.
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