Benferade is here juftly cenfured for the meannefs of his expreffion; but Boileau fhould not, I think, have blamed him for calling man the Image of God. Ovid, who is burlesqued by Benferade, does not determine whether man was made by the fupreme God, or by Prometheus; but he afferts" that man was formed in the image of the gods." Met. I. 78. Natus homo eft: five hunc divino femine fecit Boileau, in his "Obfervations upon Longinus," produces an example of the Sublime out of Corneille's Medea. "Cette fameuse enchantereffe se vantant que feule, et abandonné comme elle eft de tout le monde, elle trouvera pourtant bien moyen de se venger de tous fes ennemis. Nerine fa confidante lui dit, Perdez Perdez l'aveugle erreur dont vous êtes feduite, A quoi Medée repond, -Moi, dis-je, eft c'eft affez. "Moi." Peut-on nier qui'l n'y ait du fublime, et du fublime le plus relevé dans ce monofyllabe, Moi ?" Reflex. X. Corneille borrowed this thought from the Latin Medea, ver. 164. NUTRIX. Abiêre Colchi. Conjugis nulla eft fides, Nihilque fupereft opibus de tantis tibi. Should not Corneille have ftopped at Moi? and has he not spoiled the fublime, by lengthening out the thought, and adding, Moi, dis-je, et c'est affez. CASAUBON. CASAUBON. ISAAC CASAUBON came over to England, and received fome favours and a tolerable income from the Court. But he experienced the truth of the faying, Beneficium accipere eft libertatem vendere. He became little better than a bond-slave to James the Firft, and was obliged to ufe his pen as his mafter fhould require. He was commiffioned to write againft Baronius, and to ftudy Ecclefiaftical history in his old days; when it was too late to undertake the tafk; and when he might have done eminent fervice to the learned world, by publishing Greek claffical writers, or philological Remarks,-for which he had all proper qualifications, but for which James had no tafte. He was also employed by the King to perfuade his illuftrious friend Thuanus to alter, or cancel, all that he had written concerning Mary Queen of Scots; and to infert in his hiftory fuch accounts as the King should fend him, vouched by his own royal word. But Thuanus had more fense, more more fpirit, more honefty, and more regard to his own reputation, than to fubmit to fuch dirty directions and every one knew, or might have known, that neither the Affeverations nor the Oaths of James were to be taken for a farthing. Here is fome of the doctrine, which Cafaubon, under the infpection of his new mafter, advanced in a letter to Thuanus. "If Princes have been too free and licentious in things which it concerns not pofterity to know, it is not the duty of an Hiftorian to expose such actions to public view. Such liberty, and impartiality, as it is called by fome,-proceeds not from the love of truth, but from mere malignity. Why should not a certain moderation be used, in treating of the actions of crowned heads? To fin is human, fays the proverb; and if candid allowances ought to be made to the frailties of Men, much more to thofe of Monarchs, who are not accountable to any here below; who have fo many temptations to go aftray, and fo many courtiers about them, to entice and mislead them. It is therefore the duty of good Subjects, rather to pity the hard condition of their rulers, than to expofe and cenfure their actions ;-excepting those public and flagrant offences, which the confcience of the historian, and the glory of God, will not fuffer to be diffembled or fuppreffed." After After all, James was in the right to recommend thefe rules. He knew full well that his own life and converfation would make a curfed figure in true and impartial history. See Bulkeley's Thuanus, Vol. VII. CHANDLER. He was more of a Di SOME unpublished Sermons of Bishop Chandler were sent to me to perufe. They are such, as might be expected from him, and upon points in which he was skilled. vine than of a Philologer. His ftyle in these fermons is rather of the homely kind: but his subjects and his manner of treating them would, in my opinion, fecure the attention and the approbation of those, who love theological learning, and mind things more than words. But though I like his performance in the main, I must make one exception; and mention one point, wherein I differ from him. In a difcourfe on Malachi, he undertakes to fhew, that our Saviour is the Jehovah; and this VOL. II. L1 he |
