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Updated: May 3, 2025
But when the same man proceeds to display, with equal eloquence, the present calamities of the nation, and tells to how much better purposes the sum thus demanded may be applied; when he dwells upon the possibility that an impolitick use may be made of the national treasure, and hints that it may be asked for one purpose and employed to another, what can be collected from his harangue, however elegant, entertaining, and pathetick?
It has been long the business or the amusement of the gentlemen, who, having for some time conferred upon themselves the venerable titles of patriots, advocates for the people, and defenders of the constitution, have at length persuaded part of the nation to dignify them with the same appellation, to display in the most pathetick language, and aggravate with the most hyperbolical exaggerations, the wantonness with which the late ministry exercised their power, the exorbitance of their demands, and the violence of their measures.
They discover in every passage some secret meaning, some remote allusion, some artful allegory, or some occult imitation, which no other reader ever suspected; but they have no perception of the cogency of arguments, the force of pathetick sentiments, the various colours of diction, or the flowery embellishments of fancy; of all that engages the attention of others they are totally insensible, while they pry into worlds of conjecture, and amuse themselves with phantoms in the clouds.
Johnson desired to have 'Let ambition fire thy mind , played over again, and appeared to give a patient attention to it; though he owned to me that he was very insensible to the power of musick . I told him, that it affected me to such a degree, as often to agitate my nerves painfully, producing in my mind alternate sensations of pathetick dejection, so that I was ready to shed tears; and of daring resolution, so that I was inclined to rush into the thickest part of the battle.
But the admirers of this great poet have never less reason to indulge their hopes of supreme excellence, than when he seems fully resolved to sink them in dejection, and mollify them with tender emotions by the fall of greatness, the danger of innocence, or the crosses of love. He is not long soft and pathetick without some idle conceit, or contemptible equivocation.
Kings and subjects may both take a lesson of moderation from the melancholy fate of the House of Stuart; that kings may not suffer degradation and exile, and subjects may not be harrassed by the evils of a disputed succession. Let me close the scene on that unfortunate House with the elegant and pathetick reflections of Voltaire, in his Histoire Generale.
The power of searching, however it is now become the subject of loud exclamation and pathetick harangues, is no new invasion of the rights of the people, but has been already granted in its utmost extent, for an end of no greater importance than the preservation of the game.
All hands being called, and the Prisoner brought aft, the Captain explained the nature of his Crime in the most lively manner, and made a very Pathetick speech to the Ship's Company during his punishment. The woman was in the greatest agonies, and strongly interceded for him. The man's name was Tuburi and his wife's name Tamide. I remember them both last Voyage.
When our liberties, sir, are endangered, or our country invaded, it may be very easy, when it is proposed that we should have recourse to our swords for security, to bewail, in pathetick language, the miseries of war, to describe the desolation of cities, the waste of kingdoms, the insolence of victory, and the cruelty of power inflamed by hostilities.
Such was his sensibility, and so much was he affected by pathetick poetry, that, when he was reading Dr. Beattie's Hermit in my presence, it brought tears into his eyes . He disapproved much of mingling real facts with fiction. On this account he censured a book entitled Love and Madness . Mr. Hoole told him, he was born in Moorfields, and had received part of his early instruction in Grub-street.
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