And, to conclude, St. Prosper, recapitulating the whole, pronounces that
the blessed shall find gratification without satiety, and enjoy health
without disease. _"Saturitas sine fastidio, et tota sanitas sine
morbo._"
It is not then so much to be wondered at that the Mahometans have
admitted the use of the five senses in their paradise. They say that the
first beatitude will be the union with God; but this does not exclude
the rest. Mahomet's paradise is a fable; but; once more be it observed,
there is in it neither contradiction nor impurity.
Philosophy requires clear and precise ideas, which Grotius had not. He
quotes a great deal, and makes a show of reasoning which will not bear
a close examination. The unjust imputations cast on the Mahometans would
suffice to make a very large book. They have subjugated one of the
largest and most beautiful countries upon earth; to drive them from it
would have been a finer exploit than to abuse them.
The empress of Russia supplies a great example. She takes from them Azov
and Tangarok, Moldavia, Wallachia, and Georgia; she pushes her conquests
to the ramparts of Erzerum; she sends against them fleets from the
remotest parts of the Baltic, and others covering the Euxine; but she
does not say in her manifestos that a pigeon whispered in Mahomet's ear.
ART OF POETRY.
A MAN
A man of almost universal learning--a man even of genius, who joins
philosophy with imagination, uses, in his excellent article
"Encyclopedia," these remarkable words: "If we except this Perrault, and
some others, whose merits the versifier Boileau was not capable of
appreciating."
This philosopher is right in doing justice to Claude Perrault, the
learned translator of Vitruvius, a man useful in more arts than one, and
to whom we are indebted for the fine front of the Louvre and for other
great monuments; but justice should also be rendered to Boileau. Had he
been only a versifier, he would scarcely have been known; he would not
have been one of the few great men who will hand down the age of Louis
XIV. to posterity. His tart satires, his fine epistles, and above all,
his art of poetry, are masterpieces of reasoning as well as
poetry--_"sapere est principium et fons."_ The art of versifying is,
indeed, prodigiously difficult, especially in our language, where
alexandrines follow one another two by two; where it is rare to avoid
monotony; where it is absolutely necessary to rhyme; where noble and
pleasing rhymes are too limited in number; and where a word out of its
place, or a harsh syllable, is sufficient to spoil a happy thought. It
is like dancing in fetters on a rope; the greatest success is of itself
nothing.
Boileau's art of poetry is to be admired, because he always says true
and useful things in a pleasing manner, because he always gives both
precept and example, and because he is varied, passing with perfect
ease, and without ever failing in purity of language, "From grave to
gay, from lively to severe."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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