at once his engaging manner, the fimplicity, fweetness and harmony of his ftile. With Demofthenes he is vehement, abrupt, and diforderly regular; he dazles with his lightning, and terrifies with his thunder. When he parallels the Greek with the Roman Orator, he shews in two periods the distinguishing excellencies of each; the first is a very hurricane, which bears down all before it; the last, a conflagration, gentle in its beginning, gradually dif perfed, increafing and getting to fuch a head, as to rage beyond refiftance, and devour all things. His Senfe is every where the very thing he would exprefs, and the Sound of his words is an echo to his fense.

His Judgment is exact and impartial, both in what he blames and what he commends. The sentence he pronounces is founded upon, and fupported by reafons, which are fatisfactory and juft. His approbation is not attended with fits of stupid admiration, or gaping, like an idiot, at something furprising which he cannot comprehend; nor are his cenfures fretful and wafpifh. He ftings, like the bee, what actually annoys him, but carries honey along with him, which, if it heals not the wound, yet affuages the smart.

His Candor is extenfive as his Judgment. The penetration of the one obliged him to -reprove what was amifs; the fecret work

ings of the other bias him to excuse or extenuate it, in the best manner he is able. Whenever he lays open the faults of a writer, he forgets not to mention the qualities he had, which were deferving of praife. Where Homer finks into trifles, he cannot help reproving him; but tho' Homer nods fometimes, he is Homer ftill; excelling all the world when broad awake, and in his fits of drowsiness dreaming like a god.

The Good-nature alfo of Longinus must not pass without notice. He bore an averfion to the fneers and cavils of thofe, who, unequal to the weighty province of Criticism, abuse it, and become its nufance. He frequently takes pains to fhew, how misplaced their animadverfions afe, and to defend the injured from afperfions. There is an inftance of this in his vindication of Theopompus from the censure of Cecilius*. He cannot endure to fee what is right in that author, perverted into error; nor where he really errs, will he suffer him to pafs unreproved t. Yet here his Good-nature exerts itself again, and he propofes divers methods of amending what is wrong.

* Sect. XXXI. † Se&t. XLIII.

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*

The Judgment and Candor and Impartiality, with which Longinus declares his fentiments of the writings of others, will, I am perfuaded, rife in our esteem, when we reflect on that exemplary piece of juftice he has done to Mofes. The manner of his quoting that celebrated paffage from him, is as honourable to the critic, as the quotation itself to the Jewish legislator. Whether he believed the Mofaic hiftory of the Creation, is a point, in which we are not in the leaft concerned; but it was plainly his opinion, that tho' it be condefcendingly fuited to the finite conception of man, yet it is related in a manner not inconfiftent with the majefty of God. To contend, as fome do, that he never read Mofes, is trifling, or rather litigious. The Greek translation had been difperfed, throughout the Roman empire, long before the time in which he lived; and no man of a serious, much less of a philofophical turn, could reject it, as unworthy a perufal. Befides, Zenobia, according to the testimony of Photius †, was a Jewish convert. And I have fomewhere feen it mentioned from Bellarmine, that he was a Christian; but as I am a ftranger to the reasons, on which he founds the affertion, I fhall lay no stress upon it.

*Sect. IX. + Prefixed to Hudson's Longinus.

But

But there is strong probability, that Longinus was not only acquainted with the writings of the Old Testament, but with those also of the New, fince to a manuscript of the latter in the Vatican library, there is prefixed a paffage from fome of this author's writings which is preserved there, as an inftance of his judgment. He is drawing up a lift of the greatest orators, and at the close he says, "And further, Paul of Tarfus, the chief fup"porter of an opinion not yet established." Fabricius, I own, has been fo officiously kind as to attribute thefe words to chriftian forgery, but for what reafons I cannot conjecture. If for any of real weight and importance, certainly he ought not to have concealed them from the world.

If Longinus ever faw any of the writings of St. Paul, he could not but entertain an high opinion of him. Such a judge must needs applaud fo masterly an orator. For where is the writer that can vye with him in fublime and pathetic eloquence? Demofthenes could rouse up the Athenians against Philip, and Cicero ftrike shame and confufion into the breafts of Anthony or Catiline; and did not the eloquence of St. Paul, tho' bound in degrading fetters, make the oppreffive, the abandon'd Felix * Bibliotheca Græca, 1. 4. c. 31. C 4

trem

tremble, and almost perfuade Agrippa, in Ipite of all his prejudice, to be a chriftian? Homer after his death was looked upon as more than human, and temples were erected to his honour; and was not St. Paul admired as a god, even whilst he was on earth, when the inhabitants of Lyftra would have facrificed to him? Let his writings be examined and judged by the fevereft teft of the fevereft critics, and they cannot be found deficient; nay, they will appear more abundantly stocked with fublime and pathetic thoughts, with strong and beautiful figures, with nervous and elegant expreffions, than any other compofition in the world.

But, to leave this digreffion: It is a remark of Sir William Temple, that no pure Greek was written after the reign of the Antonini. But the diction of Longinus, tho' lefs pure than that of Ariftotle, is elegant and nervous, the concifeness or diffuseness of his periods being always fuited to the nature of his subject. The terms he ufes are generally fo ftrong and expreffive, and fometimes fo artfully compounded, that they cannot be rendered into another language without wide circumlocution. He has a high and mafculine turn of thought, unknown to any other writer, which inforced. him to give all poffible ftrength and energy to

his