_September_ 2. 1833.
CHARACTERISTIC TEMPERAMENT OF NATIONS.--GREEK PARTICLES.--LATIN COMPOUNDS.-
-PROPERTIUS.--TIBULLUS.--LUCAN.--STATIUS.--VALERIUS FLACCUS.--CLAUDIAN.--
PERSIUS.------PRUDENTIUS.--HERMESIANAX.
The English affect stimulant nourishment--beef and beer. The French,
excitants, irritants--nitrous oxide, alcohol, champagne. The Austrians,
sedatives--hyoscyamus. The Russians, narcotics--opium, tobacco, and beng.
* * * * *
It is worth particular notice how the style of Greek oratory, so full, in
the times of political independence, of connective particles, some of
passion, some of sensation only, and escaping the classification of mere
grammatical logic, became, in the hands of the declaimers and philosophers
of the Alexandrian era, and still later, entirely deprived of this
peculiarity. So it was with Homer as compared with Nonnus, Tryphiodorus,
and the like. In the latter there are in the same number of lines fewer
words by one half than in the Iliad. All the appoggiaturas of time are
lost.
All the Greek writers after Demosthenes and his contemporaries, what are
they but the leavings of tyranny, in which a few precious things seem
sheltered by the mass of rubbish! Yet, whenever liberty began but to hope
and strive, a Polybius appeared.
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