At the present day, most of our sermons, funeral orations, set discourses, and harangues in certain ceremonies, are tedious amplifications—strings of commonplace expressions repeated again and again a thousand times. These discourses are only supportable when rarely heard. Why speak when you have nothing new to say? It is high time to put a stop to this excessive waste of words, and therefore we conclude our article.
ANCIENTS AND MODERNS.
The great cause of the ancients versus the moderns is not yet disposed of; it has been at issue ever since the silver age, which succeeded the golden one. Men have always pretended that the good old times were much better than the present. Nestor, in the "Iliad," wishing to insinuate himself, like a wise mediator, into the good opinion of Achilles and Agamemnon, begins with saying: "I have lived with better men than you; never have I seen, nor shall I ever see again, such great personages as Dryas, Cæneus, Exadius, Polyphemus equal to the gods," etc. Posterity has made ample amends to Achilles for Nestor's bad compliment, so vainly admired by those who admire nothing but what is ancient. Who knows anything about Dryas? We have scarcely heard of Exadius or of Cæneus; and as for Polyphemus equal to the gods, he has no very high reputation, unless, indeed, there was something divine in his having a great eye in the middle of his forehead, and eating the raw carcasses of mankind.
Lucretius does not hesitate to say that nature has degenerated:
Ipsa dedit dulces fœtus et pabula lœta,
Quæ nunc vix nostro grandescunt aucta labore;
Conterimusque boves, et vires agricolarum, etc.
Antiquity is full of the praises of another antiquity still more remote:
Les hommes, en tout tems, ont pensé qu'autrefois,
De longs ruisseaux de lait serpentaient dans nos bois;
La lune était plus grande, et la nuit moins obscure;
L'hiver se couronnait de fleurs et de verdure;
Se contemplait à l'aise, admirait son néant,
Et, formé pour agir, se plaisait à rien faire, etc.
Men have, in every age, believed that once
Long streams of milk ran winding through the woods;
The moon was larger and the night less dark;
Winter was crowned with flowers and trod on verdure;
Man, the world's king, had nothing else to do
Than contemplate his utter worthlessness,
And, formed for action, took delight in sloth, etc.
Horace combats this prejudice with equal force and address in his fine epistle to Augustus. "Must our poems, then," says he, "be like our wines, of which the oldest are always preferred?" He afterward says:
Indignor quidquam reprehendi, non quia crasse
Compositum illepideve putetur, sed quia nuper;
Nec veniam antiquis, sed honorem et præmia posci.
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Ingeniis non ille favet plauditque sepultis,
Nostra sed impugnat, nos nostraque lividus odit.
I feel my honest indignation rise,
When, with affected air, a coxcomb cries:
"The work, I own, has elegance and ease,
But sure no modern should presume to please";
Thus for his favorite ancients dares to claim,
Not pardon only, but rewards and fame.
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Not to the illustrious dead his homage pays,
But envious robs the living of their praise.—FRANCIS.