Alexandria gazette, commercial and political. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1812-1817, 1814-03-22

the blessings VI CuuCdtt0fla lhiCathn6
| more literary acqniremcnts} he said that
s. education would have the happy effect
| of rendering the horrors Of death less
horrible" Our religion, my friend, tells
| you and me, that her aid alone, and only,
can subdue the horrors Of death altoge-
Their. Again
| He recited well known song, two
lines OF which are,
.Loye rules 'mong men and saints a
| boye,
is Fer loyeis Heaven & Heaven is love-
As an amendation, our Orator tho't
proper to substitute Gods for Saints
thus Misunderstanding the sentiment, In the
presence of an audience, great malo-
rity of whom are professors of christi
asity.
On his last visit to this city, some
years ago, he delivered dissertation on
understanding up, with great elo-
quence, the arguments for and against
that act. He suppressed his own OPT
Mon on the question. 1t is said, howe
| yer, that those in favour were more
weighty than the contrary. Thus he
counlenanced that crying sin, to which
man, under the pressure OF extreme
msntal anguish, is sufficiently prone,
! without the sophistical deductions of
teistical philosophy.
| On the question of duelling, / hear
that he has takena side, pronouncing a.
gainst it; encouraged thereto, probably
by the sentimens Of the Legislature of
Virginia, hisadopted, and adopting coun-
try.
| l cannot but congratulate you, my
dear friend, on the felicitous state of our
public morals and religion, thus con.
signed to the fostering care ola Vert
| miller and an Ogilvie, who with the zeal
Of true missionaries, are travelling thro'
the United States, to carry light and in
struction, and Improvement and refor.
! nation, even to our very doors.
We have heard much Of our Orators
talent for criticism" philosophical"
criticism. AS specimen Of his powers
in this way, exhibit from the Port-Fo-
lia, the following just criticism on the
! critic.
I" In his analysis of Cato's soliloquy,
he (Mr. o. condemns thi, passage:
F." Or whence this Pleasing hope, this fond
desire,
This longing after Immortality I"
This he considers as tautologous. The
g pleasing hope" may be called the po-
sitive degree Of the mind the fond
desire" the comparative ; and the
/" longing after" the superlative-all In
dicating different sensations, more vivid
in proportion as the prospect of eternity
approaches.
M. .. considers these lines,
Or whence this secret dread, this inward
horror
| Of falling into naught !"
as terms SYNONYMOUS. Here the criti-
| cism appears to US inaccurate, All of
US, for instance, have natural dread OF
battle but what man, in reading an ac
count OF en- action, everuttered scream
| of horror /! 1t Is only in the hour of
battle that he can be thus affected.
Dread is nothing bat fear, of which hor-
| ror is the climax.
| AgaiB-Cato says
+" lis Heaven itself which points out an
hereafter.
And intimates eternity to Man."
| Which Mr.. o. deems SYNONYMOUS.
Eternity undoubtedly comprehesds an
hereafter; but does it thence follow that
every hereafter must, &c vi rernlini, be
an eternity2
Exactly of the same species of criti-
cism is his censure of this passage;
Z" The wreck of matter, and the crush
| of worlds"
Mr.: Q. contepds that the crush of
worlds is the wreck Of matter. But
will he venture to say the wreck of mat
ter is necessarily the crush of worlds
This wreck is evidently distinct thing;
and the poet, to shew its extent, expands
the idea, and comprehends in the wreck
the dissolution Of the universe"
| Thus far the Port Folio To which /
take the liberty to add, that the speci-
| mems quoted above prove that Mr.. o.
gilvie's criticisms are hypercriticisms,
and are idle and untenabls, unless, in
deed, philosophical criticism { (which is
the assumed title of his) be distinct
from that which is rational and conform.
able to the dictates of common.sense.
There is, il / mistake not, in the same
soliIcqsy an expression much bolder
than any of those which Mr.. o. has un-
dertaken to condemn. Mr.. Addison
| speaks Of regular confusion" than
which there are not two terms in the
English language more apparently Cpl
posed, not excepting Millions unquief
resi-, nor his darkness uisibie. All of
these expressions, however, conceive
to be perfectly defensible, except from
e