There is no one but laughs when
_Hotspur_ says,
_Why, what a deal of candied Courtesie
This fawning Greyhound then did proffer me!
Look, when his infant Fortune came to Age,
And gentle_ Harry Percy--_and kind Cousin_--_The
Devil take such Cozeners_.--
_Shakespear_ found the Stage, and all the People of his Days, infected
with these Puerillities, and he very well knew how (though perhaps he
never read it in _Epictetus_) [Greek: ] to attune, or harmonize his
Mind to the Things which happen.
I now remember one of these shining Strokes, which I have seen quoted
in several Works of Taste, and even in the Treatise of Studies by the
late Mr. _Rollin_. This _Morceau_ is taken from the beautiful Funeral
Oration of the great _Turenne_: The whole Piece is very fine, but it
seems to me that the Stroke I am speaking of should not have been made
Use of by a Bishop.--This is it:
"O Sovereigns! Enemies of _France_, ye live, and the Spirit
of Christian Charity forbids me to wish your Deaths,
&c.--But ye live, and I mourn in this Pulpit the Death of a
virtuous Captain, whose Intentions were pure, &c.--"
An Apostrophe in this Taste would have been very proper at _Rome_ in
the Civil Wars, after the Assassination of _Pompey_; or at _London_
after the Death of _Charles_ the First.
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