At the present day, most of our sermons, funeral orations, set
discourses, and harangues in certain ceremonies, are tedious
amplifications--strings of commonplace expressions repeated again and
again a thousand times. These discourses are only supportable when
rarely heard. Why speak when you have nothing new to say? It is high
time to put a stop to this excessive waste of words, and therefore we
conclude our article.
ANCIENTS AND MODERNS.
The great cause of the ancients _versus_ the moderns is not yet disposed
of; it has been at issue ever since the silver age, which succeeded the
golden one. Men have always pretended that the _good old times_ were
much better than the present. Nestor, in the "Iliad," wishing to
insinuate himself, like a wise mediator, into the good opinion of
Achilles and Agamemnon, begins with saying: "I have lived with better
men than you; never have I seen, nor shall I ever see again, such great
personages as Dryas, Cæneus, Exadius, Polyphemus equal to the gods,"
etc. Posterity has made ample amends to Achilles for Nestor's bad
compliment, so vainly admired by those who admire nothing but what is
ancient. Who knows anything about _Dryas_? We have scarcely heard of
_Exadius_ or of _Cæneus_; and as for _Polyphemus equal to the gods_, he
has no very high reputation, unless, indeed, there was something divine
in his having a great eye in the middle of his forehead, and eating the
raw carcasses of mankind.
Lucretius does not hesitate to say that nature has degenerated:
_Ipsa dedit dulces fœtus et pabula lœta,_
_Quæ nunc vix nostro grandescunt aucta labore;_
_Conterimusque boves, et vires agricolarum, etc._
Antiquity is full of the praises of another antiquity still more remote:
_Les hommes, en tout tems, ont pensé qu'autrefois,_
_De longs ruisseaux de lait serpentaient dans nos bois;_
_La lune était plus grande, et la nuit moins obscure;_
_L'hiver se couronnait de fleurs et de verdure;_
_Se contemplait à l'aise, admirait son néant,_
_Et, formé pour agir, se plaisait à rien faire, etc._
Men have, in every age, believed that once
Long streams of milk ran winding through the woods;
The moon was larger and the night less dark;
Winter was crowned with flowers and trod on verdure;
Man, the world's king, had nothing else to do
Than contemplate his utter worthlessness,
And, formed for action, took delight in sloth, etc.
Horace combats this prejudice with equal force and address in his fine
epistle to Augustus. "Must our poems, then," says he, "be like our
wines, of which the oldest are always preferred?" He afterward says:
_Indignor quidquam reprehendi, non quia crasse_
_Compositum illepideve putetur, sed quia nuper;_
_Nec veniam antiquis, sed honorem et præmia posci._
* * * * *
_Ingeniis non ille favet plauditque sepultis,_
_Nostra sed impugnat, nos nostraque lividus odit._