Of the Origin and Progress of Language, Volume 4

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Page 362 - And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
Page 362 - I give unto you, That ye love one another •, as I have loved you, that ye alfo love one another. 3$ By this fhall all men know that ye are my difciples, if ye have love one to another.
Page 355 - ... virtue, nor any religion •without the love of God. We muft therefore perceive beauty both in God and in Virtue. Then he'proceeds to fhew, that body has in itfelf no beauty, but that the beauty we admire in it is all from mind : So that what we admire in the works of art is the genius of the artift...
Page 63 - ... out of the work and alter quite the colour of the ftile, fuch as exclamation, much ufed even by Cicero, and fuch as epithets which are the diftinguifhing characteriftic of the poetic ftile, but of which the ftile of Demofthenes is almoft entirely free, (for I have read whole orations of his, where there is not a fingle epithet), the figures he ufes being fuch as efcape the attention of the unlearned, and, though the learned perceive that they give an unufual caft to the ftile, yet they do not...
Page 116 - Englifh a fubjunctive mood, marked by the termination ; but this termination was no other than the termination of the firft perfon of the prefent of the indicative, without any variation of the other perfons. Thus Milton fays, if I love, if thou love, if he love. But this mood is, fince his time, almoft quite out of fafhion; tho' we have fo little variation in our verbs, that I think not the leaft mould be loft.
Page 238 - The practice of reciting the orations of antient authors I would recommend particularly to thofe who would form themfelves to be public fpeakers. I have heard that the Marquis of Wharton formed his fon, the Duke, to be one of the greateft, and at the fame time one of the readieft fpeakers that ever was in England, by making him get by heart whole orations of Demofthenes, and repeat them with all the graces of action and pronunciation.
Page 438 - I have faid, either by blind chance pr fatal aeceflity. bis temple in Babylon, attended by a woman. confecrated to his fervice, he fays he does not believe, though he was told the fame ftory by the Egyptian priefts of their Jupiter in Thebes * ; And it is evident, that neither did he .believe what the fame Egyptian priefts told him, of two wolves condu&ing a blind-folded prieft to a temple of Cefes, at the diftance of twenty ftadia, and bringing him back again...
Page 159 - I have pbferved elfewhere, is different from the oratorial *. But writing in the plaineft manner, and upon the moft common fubjects, we may avoid a dull and tirefoine uniformity. But above all, whatever be the fubject upon which we write, we fhould take care to avoid the affectation of giving numbers to our profe, which was one of the greateft beauties of antient compofition, but of which our language, and I believe every other modern language, is abfolutely incapable, having neither melody nor rhythm....
Page 415 - Perfians, but the hiftory of the Lydians, Aflyrians, Medes, Scythians, and Egyptians ; and, indeed, the whole hiftory of the world then known; fo that as to the variety of the matter he far exceeds Homer, and yet with all that variety the unity of the work is Mill preferved.
Page 277 - Herennium, by feme critics afcribed to one Cornificius, but undoubtedly the work of an antient rhetorician, treats more fully of it, and is at a great deal of pains to make us underftand wherein the art confiftsf. Both Cicero and he agree in this, that it was by a reference to fenfible objects that the memory both of things and of words was preferved. They therefore imagined to themfelves certain places or loci as they called them, fuch as houfes or porticos ; and in thefe they conceived certain...

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