it; than which there cannot be a greater compliment to the genius of a Writer, and indeed fuch an examination is the touchstone of composition.

Very beautiful is the epitaph of the celebrated BENJ. JOHNSON upon the Countess-dowager of PEMBROKE, sifter to SIR PHILIP SYDNEY, and contains two elegant inftances of the Profopopeia.

Underneath this fable herfe

Lies the subject of all verse;

SYDNEY'S fifter, PEMBROKE's mother:

Death, ere thou haft kill'd another,

Wife, and virtuous, good as fhe,

Time will throw its dart at thee.

VIRGIL thus describes Fame;

Fame, of all ills the fwifteft in its course,
By motion gathers, and augments its force;
Low creeps at first, but fwells t' enormous fize,
Stalks thro' the world, and tow'rs into the skies *.

The great CICERO, in his first oration against CATILINE, an oration that for rhetorical force and beauty transcends all praise, introduces his COUNTRY, or the COMMONWEALTH, as speaking

Fama, malum quo non aliud velocius ullum,
Mobilitate viget, virefque acquirit eundo:
Parva metu primo; mox fefe attollit in auras,
Ingrediturque folo, & caput inter nubila condit.

firft

VIRGIL. Æneid. lib. iv. ver. 174.

first to CATILINE, and afterwards to himself. TO CATILINE his country thus addresses herself : "Your COUNTRY, CATILINE, thus pleads with “you, and, as it were, thus whispers in your "ear. There has been no enormity for a course "of years, but what has fprung from you. "There has been no outrage, but has had you "for its author. The murders of many citi

zens, the oppreffion and plundering of my al"lies, these have been perpetrated by you with impunity and without animadversion. You "have not only slighted law and justice, but you "have overturned and difsolved them. These "former crimes, though in themselves not fit to "be tolerated, I have endured as well as I "could; but it is past all patience that I should "always be kept in panic upon your account, "that upon every motion CATILINE is to be "dreaded, and that there can be no plot at any "time laid against me, in which your wickedness has not its concern. Be gone then, and rid "me from my alarms; if they are just, that I "may not be crushed by your treafon; or if they are groundless, that I may at length be "delivered from my fears*."

The

Quæ (fc. patria) tecum, Catilina! fic agit, & quodammodo tacita loquitur. Nullum jam tot annos facinus exftitit, nifi per te nullum flagitium fine te; tibi uni multorum civium neces, tibi vexatio, direptioque fociorum impunita fuit, ac libera tu non folum ad negligendas leges & quæftiones, verumetiam ad evertendas, perfringendafque valuitli. Su, eriora illa, quamquam ferenda non fuerunt, tamen, ut po ui.

tuli :

The speech of his COUNTRY to CICERO is thus imagined: "I will fuppofe that my country, "which is much dearer to me than my life, that "all Italy, that the whole republic should thus ❝ accoft me. MARCUS TULLIUS, what are you' doing? What do you fuffer this wretch, whom

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you have detected as a public enemy, whom "you fee the leader of rebellion, who is expect"ed as the commander in chief of an army of ❝ traitors, who is the author of this treason, the "head of this confpiracy, and who inlifts every "abandoned citizen and slave under his ftand❝ards, do you suffer this wretch fo to depart " from Rome, as that he should seem rather to ❝ be let loose by you to make war upon the "city, than to be expelled it? Will you not or"der him to be loaden with chains, to be in"stantly put to death, and that in the feverest "manner poffible? And what should hinder

you? The custom of our ancestors? But per«fons in private life have very frequently taken "off feditious citizens. Or do thofe laws pre"vent you which respect the punishment of Ro"man citizens? But they who rebel against their "country, by that very rebellion forfeit the privileges

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tuli: nunc vero, me totam effe in metu propter te unum, quidquid increpuerit, Catilinam timeri, nullum videri contra me confilium iniri poffe, quod à tuo fcelere abhorreat, non eft ferendum. Quamobrem difcede, atque hunc mihi timorem eripe: fi verus, ne opprimar; fin falfus, ut tandem aliquando timere definam. CICER. in CATIL. orat. i.

vileges of citizens. Or are you afraid of the "cenfures of pofterity? Is this a grateful requital to the Roman people, who have raised

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you a man new to glory, without the recom"mendations of an illuftrious pedigree, and that "fo very early through all the degrees of ho"nour to the highest dignity? is this a grateful

requital to them, if through the apprehensions "of obloquy upon you, or any other considera❝tion, you should give yourself no concern "about the welfare of your fellow-citizens? "But whence this fear of cenfure? Is a cenfure

upon your juftice and refolution lefs formida"ble than a cenfure, upon your indolence and "cowardice? What! when Italy fhall be ra"vaged by war, when the cities fhall be plun"dered, when Rome fhall be fet on fire, can

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you imagine that your character will not perish "in the flames of the public indignation *?"

The

* Etenim fi mecum patria, quæ mihi vita multo est carior, fi cuncta Italia, fi omnis refpublica loquatur. M. Tulli! quid agis? Tu-ne eum, quem effe hoftem comperifti, quem ducem belli futurum vides, quem exfpectari imperatorem in caftris hoftium fentis, auctorem fceleris, principem conjurationis, evocatorem fervorum & civium perditorum, exire patieris, ut abs te non emiffus ex urbe, fed immiffus in urbem effe videatur? Non-ne hunc in vincula duci, non ad mortem rapi, non fummo fupplicio mactari imperabis? Quid tandem impedit te? Mos-ne majorum? At perfæpe etiam privati in hac republica perniciofos civeis morte multarunt. An leges, quæ de civium Romanorum fupplicio rogatæ funt? At nunquam in hac urbe ii qui à republica defecerunt, civium jura tenuerunt. An invidiam pofteritatis, times? Præclaram vero pópulo Ro

The fame Orator, in his fpeech for MILO, fays, "What if the twelve Tables decreed that

a thief at night might be killed in any manner, " and a ruffian by day, in cafe he was armed,

might be slain without the imputation of mur"der, who is there, by whatever way the villain "comes to his end, that will adjudge that per"fon to be worthy of death who kills an as"fafsin, since he fees that in fome instances "the very laws themfelves hold out a fword to "a man to destroy his enemy +?" CICERO might have barely faid, "that it is in fome in"ftances allowed us to kill a man according to "the laws." But how cool and languid had this kind of language been, in comparison with the Orator's transforming the laws into perfons, and representing them as coming to the help of a man attacked by ruffians, and putting a fword into his hands for his defence?

Presently

mano refers gratiam, qui te hominum per te cognitum, nulla commendatione majorum, tam maturè ad fummum imperium per omneis honorum extulit, fi propter invidiam, aut alicujus periculi metum, falutem civium tuorum negligis. Sed fi quis invidiæ metus, num est vehementiùs feveritatis ac fortitudinis invidia, quàm inertiæ ac nequitiæ pertinefcenda? An cùm bello vallabitur Italia, vexabuntur urbes, tecta ardebunt, tum te non exiftimas invidie incendio conflagraturum? CICER. in CATIL. orat. i. §.

+ Quod fi duodecim Tabule nocturnum furem quoque modo, diurnum autem, fi fe telo defenderit, interfici impunè voluerunt; quis eft qui, quoquo modo quis interfectus fit, puni. endum putet, cum videat aliquando gladium nobis ad occidendam hominem ab ipfis porrigi legibus? CICER. pro MIL. § 3.