I cannot avoid referring to my former observations on Mimnermus, in order to illustrate the voluptuous precepts of that peculiar sect of philosophy by a sublime passage in the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon, which seems in a most direct manner levelled against the Asiatic professors of similar doctrines. To make the resemblance more striking, I have rendered the beginning of the second chapter, by a close paraphrase, into the same measure that I have adopted in my translation of the Grecian elegy. Thus said the Heathen reasoning but in vain→ "Man's life is short; but lengthen'd out by pain; "In death no remedy, no comfort, lies, "And from the grave we never more shall rise. "Born to all chance, on all adventures driven, "The sport of Fortune or capricious Heaven, "We pass away and are no longer seen "And leave no record that we once have been. "Our breath is smoke; our heart's warm pulse a spark, "Soon kindled, soon extinct-then all is dark; "Consum❜d to ashes our weak house of clay, "Our spirit vanished like soft air away; "Our name eras'd from Time's uncertain page; "Our works unnoticed by the rising age. "We die, alas! and leave no trace behind, "Like airy vapours driv❜n before the wind, "Like mists that gather at the close of night, "Soon scattered by the day's increasing light. "And when this vision is dissolved at last, This empty, trifling, fleeting, shadow past, "A seal is fixed upon the funeral urn, "And fate itself prohibits our return. "Come, then, enjoy the hours that yet are thine, "Give thy full soul to perfumes, baths, and wine, "Let youth enhance the moments as they fly, "And let no flower of painted Spring pass by! "With early rosebuds crown thy festive head, "Ere yet their full-blown leaves are torn and shed; "Omit no untried joy, no new delight, "The jovial day, the soft voluptuous night; "Leave, thro' the world, the signs of parted bliss"This is our portion, and our lot is this." This is enough for the illustration of the subject before us; but we must not forget to notice what follows. With a wonderful mixture of force and ingenuity, the sacred poet proceeds (still in the character, though no longer in the language, of the heathen) to the consequential doctrines of this sect of voluptuaries, to those secondary precepts which are not expressed, but are necessarily implied, in their false and selfish philosophy. "Let us oppress the poor righteous man; let us not 66 spare the widow, nor reverence the gray hairs of the "aged; let our strength be the law of Justice;" &c. &c. To this succeeds a sudden turn of language, in the highest degree noble, solemn, and impressive. Such Things they did imagine, and were deceived "For God created man to be immortal, and made 4. him to be an image of his own eternity-The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God-In the sight "of the unwise they seemed to die, and their departure is taken for misery, and their going from us to be ut66 ter destruction-But they are in peace. "For, though they be punished in the sight of men, yet is their hope full of immortality." |