dared not venture to pursue this method, even when discussing subjects which seem to border most upon sensibility.

Bourdaloue has composed four different sermons upon the death of Jesus Christ, and yet he hath not made one single Good Friday sermon of which the distinguishing characteristic should be to affect. His genius always led him to consider the history of the sufferings of the Son of God in another point of view; he therefore intimated to his hearers that their shedding of tears was not the design he proposed. "Others have moved you to pity a hundred times," said he, in his exordium: "but, for my part, I am desirous of instructing you." Bourdaloue was nevertheless affecting; but he had the skill of placing at proper intervals those passages which would no longer have had the effect of impressing the auditory had he heaped them together.

The most celebrated models of pathetic eloquence are the address of FLAVIAN the bishop* to the Em

* For an account of FLAVIAN's conduct, and his speech to the emperor in favour of the inhabitants of Antioch [not Thessalonica], whose seditious conduct had provoked Theodosius's threatened vengeance, but which the eloquence and entreaties of Flavian averted, see Universal History, vol. xvi., p. 417-419, and CHRYSOST., Orat. xx., p. 226– 234, and Hom. xxi., c. 3. See also the substance of Flavian's noted speech, as reported by Chrysostom, in ROLLIN's Belles Lettres, vol. ii., c. 3, § 2, p. 215–220; and in MAURY's Reflexions sur les Sermons de M. Bossuet, p. 329

334.

peror Theodosius, in favour of the inhabitants of Thessalonica; the supplication of the virtuous prelate BARTHOLOMEW DE LAS CASAS* to Philip II. [Fer

* "All the writings of Las Casas show a solid judgment, profound learning, true piety, and an excellent heart."Biographical Dictionary.

"This man, so famous in the annals of the New World, had accompanied his father in the first voyage made by Columbus. The mildness and simplicity of the Indians affected him so strongly, that he made himself an ecclesiastic in order to devote his labours to their conversion. But this soon became the least of his attentions. As he was more a man than a priest, he felt more for the cruelties exercised against them than for their superstitions. He employed every method in order to comfort the people, for whom he had conceived an attachment, or to soften their tyrants. He became the avowed patron of the Indians; and by his bold interpositions on their behalf, as well as by the respect due to his abilities and character, he had often the merit of setting some bounds to the excesses of his countrymen. He did not fail to remonstrate warmly against the proceedings of Albuquerque; and though he soon found that attention to his own interest rendered that rapacious officer deaf to admonition, he did not abandon the wretched people whose cause he had espoused. He instantly set out for Spain, with the most sanguine hopes of opening the eyes and softening the heart of Ferdinand by that striking picture of the oppression of his new subjects which he would exhibit to his view.

"He easily obtained admittance to the king, whom he found in a declining state of health. With much freedom and no less eloquence, he represented to him all the fatal

dinand] against the murderers of the Mexicans, and the exhortations of CHEMINAIS in behalf of the pris

oners.

This discourse of Cheminais is written with as much pathos as simplicity; but the ideas and strokes of oratory are never raised so high as to reach the sublime. In it the style is adapted to the subject, without forming its principal merit.*

Cheminais's manner of writing, so full of sweet

effects of the reparticiones, or distributions, in the New World, boldly charging him with the guilt of having authorized this impious measure, which had brought misery and destruction upon a numerous and miserable race of men whom Providence had placed under his protection. Fer dinand, whose mind as well as body were much enfeebled by his distemper, was greatly alarmed at this charge of impiety, which at another juncture he would have despised. He listened with deep compunction to the discourse of Las Casas, and promised to take into attentive consideration the means of redressing the evil of which he complained.

"After this, Ferdinand in a short time dying, Las Casas applied to his successor, Charles V.; but none of the schemes of this most amiable prelate were crowned with that success which his benevolence merited."-RAYNAL'S and ROBERTSON's Histories, passim.

* The sermons of CHEMINAIS are on various subjects, and are comprised in four, and sometimes in five volumes, 8vo. They have been much admired. Cheminais was born 1652, and died 1689.-Vid. Dictionnaire des Predicateurs Francois, in artic.

ness and tenderness, denotes the happiest talent. His sermons breathe a certain attractive and affectionate languor, which must ever give us occasion to regret that this writer, otherwise enfeebled by habitual infirmities, had not lived long enough to finish his oratorial career." *

* It is to be confessed that there are not so many specimens of this sort of pathetic eloquence to be found among English writers as could be wished. Perhaps no nation can boast of more argumentative and sensible discourses, or of abler defences of every branch of Christian doctrine and duty. But to find that persuasive tenderness, or what the French call onction, mingled with the solidity of argument and the effusions of piety, is more rare. Bishop KEN'S Retired Christian resembles, in a good measure, the character ascribed by our author to the writings of Cheminais. In the works of FLAVEL are intermingled many tender and pathetic expressions. The noted RICHARD Baxter, also, though too fond of controversy, and his style far from being correct or elegant, has, notwithstanding, in some of his practical pieces, and particularly in that one entitled The Saint's Everlasting Rest, some fine and affecting passages. He only wanted "his genius to be curbed by salutary checks" to have obtained in his practical works the character of a pathetic writer. There is in HoWE'S "Living Temple" a grand and beautiful metaphorical description of human depravity, under the idea of a ruinous temple (p. 155); and in Bishop SHERLOCK's discourses, a fine and much admired piece of eloquence, where the character of our blessed Lord is contrasted with that of the impostor Mohammed (v. i., p. 271), though perhaps neither of them can be properly classed as pathetic pieces.

4

SECTION LVII.

OF THE PERORATION.

Ir pathos be requisite in a Christian discourse, it is undoubtedly in the peroration. There the orator

Where shall we find many passages more excellent and pathetic in their kind than in Dr. GROSVENOR'S Sermon entitled "The Temper of Jesus tow rds his Enemies?"

The ingenious Dr. Knox has the following sensible observations on the pathetic style, particularly as it is to be found in Scripture and in the works of STERNE :

"There must be a charm added by the creative power of genius which no didactic rules can teach, which cannot be adequately described, but which is powerfully felt by the vibrations of the heart-strings, and which causes an irresistible overflowing of the Aaкрvшv яηуαι, the sacri fontes lachrymarum.

"Florid diction and pompous declamation are indeed found to be the least adapted of all modes of address to affect the finer sensibilities of nature. Plain words, without epithets, without metaphors, without similes, have oftener excited emotions of the tenderest sympathy than the most laboured composition of Corneille. A few words of simple pathos will penetrate the soul to the quick, when a hundred lines of declamation shall assail it as feebly and ineffectually as a gentle gale the Mountain of Plinlimmon.

"A writer of taste and genius may avail himself greatly in pathetic compositions by adopting the many words and phrases remarkable for their beautiful simplicity which are interspersed in that pleasing as well as venerable