directly said, that to gainsay, I might defend my selfe with ease, if any should accuse me of being new or insolent, did they but know how much better I find ye esteem it to imitate the old and elegant humanity of Greece, then the barbarick pride' of a Hunnish and Norwegian statelines. And "born, that are sordid and mean in nature, and of Plebeians "by birth that are genteel'd in disposition."-A Commentary on Fortescue De Laudibus Legum Anglia; by E. Waterhous, Esq. P. 529. fol. 1663. 'The old and elegant humanity of Greece, then the barbarick pride, &c.] By humanity we are to understand courtesy, politeness, a Latin sense; the same as in the acknowlegments he addressed in Cromwell's name to the Count of Oldenburgh for a set of German Horses which that Prince had presented to the Protector:-"cùm quòd essent ipsæ singulari erga me humanitate ac benevolentiâ refertæ."-Pr. W. II. 434. ed. 1738. Humane was to convey a similar sense in Par. Lost, II. 109. "Belial, in act more graceful and humane.” But the Commentators, from P. Hume downward, have passed it over, as if they considered it to stand there in the acceptation now received among us. The Athenians, with a vanity common to every People preeminent in the arts of cultivated life, regarded all nations but the Greeks as strangers to civilization. With them he who was not a Greek was comprehended under the general appellation of Barbarian. In this large sense it was that Cato, the Censor, while vebement in his opposition to the introduction of Grecian Literature at Rome, warned his Son, " quandocumque ista gens suas litteras "dabit, omnia corrumpet. Tum etiam magis, si medicos suos "huc mittet. Jurarunt inter se, barbaros necare omnes medicinâ. "Et hoc ipsum mercede faciunt, ut fides iis sit, et facile disper out of those ages, to whose polite wisdom and letters we ow that we are not yet Gothes and Jutlanders, I could name him who from his private house wrote that Discourse to the Parlament of Athens, that perswades them to change the forme of Democraty which was then establisht?. Such "dant. Nos quoque dictitant barbaros, et spurcius nos, quam "alios opicos, adpellatione foedant."-Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. 39, cap. 7. MILTON, then, sets "the elegant humanity of Greece" in opposition to "barbarick pride" with exact propriety. Of this propriety, Warburton, who thought highly of the AREOPAGITICA, and imitated it, seems to have been unaware; for when copying this passage, he gave these phrases a different construction. This was in his "Enquiry into the Causes of Prodigies and Miracles, as related by Historians;" where he remarks, "We "justly pride ourselves in imitating the free Manners and elegant Humanity of Greece and Rome; rather than the barbarous In"quisitorial Spirit of a Spanish or Italic Hierarchy."-Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtonian; p. 96, 8vo. 1789. 2 I could name him who from his privat house wrote that Discourse to the Parlament of Athens, that perswades them to change the forme of Democraty which was then establisht.] He took this immediately from Dionysius Halicarnasseus; who had said of Isocrates, Η τίς ἐκ ἂν θαυμάσειε τὴν ἐπιβολὴν τῶ ῥήτορος ; ὃς ἐτόλμησε διαλεχθῆναι περὶ πολιτείας 'Αθηναίοις, ἀξιῶν μεταθέσθαι μὲν τὴν τότε καθεςῶσαν δημοκρατίαν, ὡς μεγάλα Ελάπτεσαν τὴν πόλιν, ὑπὲρ ῆς τῶν δημαγωγῶν ἐδεὶς ἐπεχείρει Ays-De Antiquis Oratoribus Commentarii; p. 83. 1781. Mores's edit. At the same time he might have also remembered Cicero. "Exstitit igitur jam senibus illis, quos paulo ante diximus, Isocrates, cujus domus cunctæ Græciæ quasi ludus quidam patuit, atque officina dicendi, magnus orator, & per"fectus magister, quamquam forensi luce caruit, intraque pa honour was done in those dayes to men who profest the study of wisdome and eloquence not only in their own Country, but in other lands, that Cities and Siniories heard them gladly, and with great respect, if they had ought in publick to admonish "rietes aluit eam gloriam, quam nemo quidem, meo judicio est "poeta consecutus."-De Clar. Orat. s. 32. MILTON forbore to "name him," lest he should afford opportunity for the invidious remark, that he had made a proud comparison in placing himself by the side of a Professor of Rhetoric the most consummate that Athens ever saw. We learn from the Oration wherein Isocrates urged Philip to mediate a general peace among the Grecian States, and in confederacy with them to turn their united arms against the Persian Monarch; and the same again from one of those he is thought to have composed for recital at a Panathenaic commemoration, that organic impediments, and a stridulous voice, disqualified him for a public speaker: from this cause, instead of assisting personally at their deliberative Assemblies, this renowned Teacher of Eloquence, like some others, gave his counsel to the Athenians in the same mode by which MILTON now" admonishes" the Parliament-in the form of a Speech, supposed to have been spoken. 3 Cities and Siniories heard them gladly, and with great respect.] What Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and after him Hieronymus Wolfius, relate concerning the celebrity of Isocrates and his political writings seems to have afforded the hint for this statement. Ἔχων δὲ πολλὲς ἀντε καὶ ἄλλες διεξιέναι λόγους, πρὸς πόλεις τε καὶ δυνάστας καὶ ἰδιώτας γραφέντας, &c.-De Antiquis Oratoribus Commentarii; p. 89. Mores's edit. 1781. And Wolfius: "Et ipse apud Græciæ principes ac reges, celebris et gratiosus "fuit: & plerasque orationes vel ad maximas Græciæ civitates, "vel ad reges & principes scripsit."-De Vita Isoc. We must not forget that Cities is here used by MILTON in the Latin signification, for an independent community living under the State. Thus did Dion Prusæus, a stranger and a privat Orator, counsell the Rhodians against a free Government. Siniories, in one of its senses, was, we may suppose, an honorary appellation equivalent to States, as already explained in a note on the first sentence of this Oration. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Signiory was the style and title of honour for the supreme magistracy in the Italian Republics. Agreeably to which, Harrington proposed for his imaginary Commonwealth-" that the Duke with six "Counsellors be the signiory." Works; p. 529. fol. 1747. And Howell entitled the first Section of his Survey of Venice, " Of the Republic or Signiory of Venice." In Shakspeare, this meaning of Signiory has not hitherto been explained. " " to him put "The manage of my State; as, at that time, Tempest, A. i. S. 2. Prospero is speaking of the Republics, into which so considerable a portion of Italy was in the middle ages parcelled out. Thus when Othello says, My services which I have done the Signiory," he makes precisely the same boast, as when he afterward observes that he had " done the State some service;" and this line determines the word to mean the same as in my text, and in the quotation from the Tempest, Dion Prusæus, a stranger and a privat Orator-] Dio or Dion was a Rhetorician, and a Heathen Philosopher; he was called Prusaus from Prusa, a town in Bithynia, his birthplace. For his eminence in Literature, he was favoured by Nerva, and Trajan bestowed marks of peculiar grace on him. Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. III. 305. Hamburg. 1717. The splendid elegance of his Orations obtained for him the high-sounding surname of Chrysostom. From this appellation he has by some former Edict: and I abound with other like examples, which to set heer would be superfluous. But, if from the industry of a life wholly dedicated to studious labours, and those naturall endowments haply not the worst for two and fifty degrees of northern latitude3, so much must be derogated, as Writers been confounded with John Chrysostom, the eloquent Preacher; to whom our Authour hereafter gives the epithet of holy to discriminate them.-Why MILTON denominated him "a privat Orator," I have explained in the Prefatory Remarks. 5 Those naturall endowments haply not the worst, for two and fifty degrees of northern latitude.] It stands "worst" in all the Editions, that have been in my hands, but the context makes it, I think, manifest, that MILTON wrote " haply not the worse." The apprehension that the ungenial Climate of his native. country might be detrimental to his poetical talent, is not unfrequently expressed in our Authour's writings: yet if he seriously entertained the fancy, that the scale of Genius is graduated by degrees of Latitude, his lavish encomium hereafter in this Tract on the proud pre-eminence of the English in mental qualifications is much at variance with that opinion. It is where he beseeches the Parliament to beware of what they do by placing the Press under an Imprimatur-" Lords and Commons of "England! consider what Nation it is whereof ye are and "whereof ye are the Governors: a Nation not slow and dull, "but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit; acute to in"vent, subtle and sinewy to discourse; not beneath the reach "of any point the highest that human capacity can soar to." Montesquieu has dedicated more than one Book of his work on Laws to the effects of Climate upon the character of Nations. But may we not with more truth attribute their diversity to the predominancy of moral rather than of physical causes? And think that Gray went on surer grounds in ascribing a superiour efficacy to the wise institutions resulting from free Governments than to the influence of Soil and the temperature of the Air? |