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riages. The holy Jerome roundly asserts that it is plain, by the formation of the two sexes, in the description of which he is rather particular, that they are destined for one another, and for propagation. It follows, therefore, that they are to make love without ceasing, in order that their respective faculties may not be bestowed in vain. This being the case, why should not men and women marry again? Why, indeed, is a man to deny his wife to his friend, if a cessation of attention on his own part be personally convenient? He may present the wife of another with a loaf of bread, if she be hungry; and why may not her other wants be supplied, if they are urgent? Functions are not given to lie dormant, &c. &c.

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After such a passage, it is useless to quote any more; but it is necessary to remark, by the way, that the economical style, so intimately connected with the polemical, ought to be employed with the greatest circumspection; and that it belongs not to the profane to imitate the things hazarded by the saints, either as regards the heat of their zeal, or the piquancy of their delivery.

ELEGANCE.

ACCORDING to some authors, this word comes from electus, chosen; it does not appear that its etymology

We deem it prudent, as Gibbon observes, to keep the passage veiled in the decent obscurity of a dead language; not that we fear the societies, either Constitutional or Suppressive, whose leniency to the peccadilloes and pruriencies of saints have never been called in question, but simply as a matter of profane taste.-T. "Quoniam ipsa organa et genitaliam fabrica et nostra feminarumque discretio, et receptacula vulvæ, ad suscipiendos et coalendos, fœtus condita, sexus differentium prædicant, hoc breviter respondebo. Nunquam ergo cessemus a libidine, ne frustra hujuscemodi membra portemus. Cur enim maritus se abstineat ab uxore? Cur casta vidua perseveret, si ad hoc tantum nati sumus ut pecuaum more vivamus? Aut quíd mihi nocebit si cum uxore meâ alius concubuerit? Quomodo enim dentium officium est mandere, et in alvum ea, qua sunt mahsa, transmittere, et non habet crimen, qui conjugi meæ panem dederit; ita si genitalium hoc est officium, ut semper fruantur naturâ suâ, meam lassitudinem alterius vires superent, et uxoris, ut ita dixerim, ardentissimam gulam, fortuita libido restinguat."

can be derived from any other Latin word, since all is choice that is elegant. Elegance is the result of regu→ larity and grace.

This word is employed in speaking of painting and sculpture. Elegans signum is opposed to signum rigens, -a proportionate figure, the rounded outlines of which are expressed with softness, to a cold and badlyfinished figure.

The severity of the ancient Romans gave an odious sense to the word elegantia. They regarded all kinds of elegance as affectation and far-fetched politeness, unworthy the gravity of the first ages. "Vitii, non laudis fuit," says Aulus Gellius. They called him an elegant man, who in these days we designate a petitmaître (bellus homuncio) and which the English call a beau; but towards the time of Cicero, when manners received their last degree of refinement, elegans was always deemed laudatory. Cicero makes use of this word in a hundred places, to describe a man or a polite discourse. At that time even a repast was called elegant; which is scarcely the case among us.*

This term among the French, as among the ancient Romans, is confined to sculpture, painting, eloquence, and still more to poetry: it does not precisely mean the same thing as grace.

The word grace applies particularly to the countenance; and we do not say an elegant face, as we say elegant contours; the reason is, that grace always relates to something in motion, and it is in the countenance that the mind appears: thus we do not say an elegant gait, because gait includes motion.

The elegance of a discourse is not its eloquence; it is a part of it; it is neither the harmony nor metre alone; it is clearness, metre, and choice of words, united.

There are languages in Europe in which nothing is more scarce than an elegant expression. Rude terminations, frequent consonants, and auxiliary verbs grammatically repeated in the same sentence, offend the ears even of the natives themselves.

*It is, however, naturalised in England.-T.

A discourse may be elegant without being good, elegance being, in reality, only a choice of words; but a discourse cannot be absolutely good without being elegant. Elegance is still more necessary to poetry than eloquence, because it is a part of that harmony so necessary to verse.

An orator may convince and affect, even without elegance, purity, or number; a poet cannot really do so without being elegant: it is one of the principal merits of Virgil. Horace is much less elegant in his satires and epistles, so that he is much less of a poet sermoni proprior.

The great point in poetry and the oratorical art is, that the elegance should never appear forced; and the poet in that, as in other things, has greater difficulties than the orator; for harmony being the base of his art, he must not permit a succession of harsh syllables. He must even sometimes sacrifice a little of the thought to elegance of expression, which is a constraint that the orator never experiences.

It should be remarked, that if elegance always appears easy, all that is easy and natural is not, however, elegant.

It is seldom said of a comedy that it is elegantly written. The simplicity and rapidity of a familiar dialogue exclude this merit, so proper to all other poetry. Elegance would seem inconsistent with the comic. A thing elegantly said would not be laughed at; though most of the verses of Moliere's Amphitrion, with the exception of those of mere pleasantry, are elegantly written. The mixture of gods and men in this piece, so unique in its kind, and the irregular verses, forming a number of madrigals, are perhaps the cause.

A madrigal requires to be more elegant than an epigram, because the madrigal bears somewhat the nature of the ode, and the epigram belongs to the comic. The one is made to express a delicate sentiment, the other a ludicrous one.

Elegance should not be attended to in the sublime: it would weaken it. If we read of the elegance of the

Jupiter Olympus of Phidias, it would be a satire. The elegance of the Venus of Praxiteles may be properly alluded to.

ELIAS OR ELIJAH, AND ENOCH.

ELIAS and ENOCH are two very important personages of antiquity. They are the only mortals who have been taken out of the world without having first tasted of death. A very learned man has pretended that these are allegorical personages. The father and mother of Elias are unknown. He believes that his country, Gilead, signifies nothing but the circulation of time. He proves it to have come from Galgala, which signifies revolution. But what signifies the name of the village of Galgala !

The word Elias has a sensible relation to that of Elios, the sun. The burnt sacrifice offered by Elias, and lighted by fire from heaven, is an image of that which can be done by the united rays of the sun. The rain which falls, after great heats, is also a physical truth.

The chariot of fire and the fiery horses, which bore Elias to heaven, are a lively image of the four horses of the sun. The return of Elias at the end of the world seems to accord with the ancient opinion, that the sun would extinguish itself in the waters, in the midst of the general destruction that was expected; for almost all antiquity was for a long time persuaded that the world would sooner or later be destroyed.

We do not adopt these allegories; we only stand by those related in the Old Testament.

Enoch is as singular a personage as Elias, only that Genesis names his father and son, while the family of Elias is unknown. The inhabitants of both east and west have celebrated this Enoch.

The holy scripture, which is our infallible guide, informs us that Enoch was the father of Methusala or Methusalem, and that he only dwelt on the earth three hundred and sixty-five years, which seems a very

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short life for one of the first patriarchs. It is said that he walked in the way of God, and that he appeared no longer, because God carried him away. It is that," says Calmet, "which makes the holy fathers and most of the commentators assure us that Enoch still lives; that God has borne him out of the world as well as Elias; that both will come before the last judgment, to oppose the antichrist; that Elias will preach to the Jews, and Enoch to the gentiles."

St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Hebrews (which has been contested) says expressly, "by faith Enoch was translated, that he should not see death, because death had translated him."

St. Justin, or somebody who had taken his name, says that Elias and Enoch are in a terrestrial paradise, and that they there wait the second coming of Jesus Christ.

St. Jerome, on the contrary, believes that Enoch and Elias are in heaven. It is the same Enoch, the seventh man after Adam, who is pretended to have written the book quoted by St. Jude.†

Tertulliant says that this work was preserved in the ark, and even that Enoch made a second copy of it after the deluge.

This is what the holy scripture and the holy fathers relate of Enoch; but the profane writers of the east tell us much more. They believe that there really was an Enoch, and that he was the first who made slaves of prisoners of war: they sometimes call him Enoc, and sometimes Edris. They say that he was the same who gave laws to the Egyptians under the name of Thaut, called by the Greeks Hermes Trismegistus. They give him a son named Sabi, the author of the religion of the Sabæans.

There was a tradition in Phrygia on a certain Anach, the same whom the Hebrews call Enoch. The Phrygians held this tradition from the Chaldeans or Baby-.

* Jerome's Commentary on Amos.
+ See Apocryphal books.

Book i. De cultu fœminarum.

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