Imatges de pàgina
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of the drinkers. By degrees, how. ever, my eyes penetrated through the thick vapours, when I discovered the priest of the place in the middle of fifteen or twenty drunken fellows. His black coat was just as much bedaubed as the frocks of his flock, and like the rest of them, he had cards in his left hand, which he ftruck fo forcibly on the dirty table, that the whole chamber trembled. At first, I was shocked at the violent abuse they gave each other, and thought they were quarrelling; but foon found that all the blackguard appellations which fhocked ine, were only modes of friendly falutation among them. Every one of them had now drank his fix or eight pots of beer, and they defired the landlord to give each a dram of brandy, by way, they faid, of locking the ftomach. But now their good humour depart ed, and I prefently faw, in all their looks and geftures, the most ferious preparation for a fray. This at length broke out. At first the priest took vain pains to fupprefs it. He fwore and roared at laft as much as the rest. Now one feized a pot and threw it at his adverfary's head, another clenched his fift, a third pulled the legs from a stool to knock his enemy on the head. Every thing, in fhort, feemed to speak blood and death; when on the ringing of the bell for evening prayer, Ave Maria ye- !' cried the priest, and down dropped their arms, they pulled off their bonnets, folded their hands, and repeated their Ave Marias. It put me in mind of the adventure in Don Quixote, where peace is fuddenly reftored in the great fray, on account of the helmet of Mambrino, and the afs's collar, by the recollection of what paffed in the Agramantine camp. As foon, however,

as prayers were over, they were all feized again with their former fury, which was the more violent, from the momentary interruption it bad met with. Pots and glaffes began to fly. I obferved the curate creep under the table for fecurity, and I withdrew into the landlord's bedchamber.

"The fame fcenes occur in the inland towns among the citizens, officers, clergymen, and ftudents. They all falute each other with abufive language; all vie in hard drinking; and close to every church, which are fearce lefs than 28,700, there is regularly a beer-house and a brothel. A student at the univerfity of Ingolstadt must carry a thick cudgel, and wear a neat cut hat; he must be able to drink from eight to ten quarts of beer at a fitting, and be always ready to fight right or wrong, with the officers of the garrifon that is quartered there. You may foppofe that this does not tend raile the reputation of the university, which is, indeed, but thinly vifited, though the profeffors are able men, and do their duty, although a proclamation came out fome years ince, to forbid any Ba varian from studying out of the country.

"No pen can describe the ridiculous mixtures of debauchery and devotion which every day happen. The most notorious is that which took place in the church of St. Mary, Oettingen, a few years fince, when a prieft actually deflowered a girl whom he had long purfued, and could only make a prize of there before the altar of the Virgin.

"The country people join to their indolence and devotion a certain ferocity of temper, which often gives rife to bloody fcenes. When they mean to praife a church holi

day,

day, or fome public feftival which has lately been kept, they fay,fuch a one was a charming affair; there were fix or eight people killed or made cripples at it. If nothing of this kind has been done, it is call ed a mere nothing, a fiddle-faddle bufinefs. In the last century, and the beginning of this, the Bavarian troops maintained the first reputation among the German forces. At the battle of Hockstedt, they kept their ground and imagined themfelves victors, till the elector who led them was informed that the French had given way in the other wing. Under Tilly and Merci they like. wife did wonders; but fince the time of thefe generals, military difcipline has fo far relaxed amongst them, that they are no longer fol diers. Indeed no people can flew more abhorrence to every thing which is called difcipline and or der, than the Bavarians do. They might, however, ftill be ufeful as freebooters, whofe robberies and all irregularities are more pardonable than thofe of regular troops. There are bands of robbers about, which are one thousand men ftrong, and would undoubtedly make good ravaging parties in time of war. There have been inftances of their fighting against the military, under bold leaders, to the very laft man. But the poorest peafant confiders it 49 a hardfhip to be drafted into the regular troops of his prince.

"The inhabitants of the capital, on the other hand, are the most weak, timid, and fubfervient people in the world. They have no quickness of parts at all, and you will feek in vain in the town for that liberty, which fometimes indeed degenerates into coarfenefs of manners, but is still the moft agreeable trait in the character of

the country people. Under the laft government, while the people of Munich were crouching under a defpotic minifter, and only ventured to murmur in fecret, the country people difcovered their dif content with a freedom which threatened dangerous confequences. At the fame time, an unbounded and inexpreffible love for their prince prevailed on them to pull down the inclufures of their fields at the command of the master of the hounds, in order that the game might pafture there. They fpake with raptures of the amiable quali ties of their lord; indeed they did not pafs over his faults, but tried to excufe him for them, and load. ed his fervants, without reserve, with their heaviest curfes, and thus gave every tranger a juft idea of the court, while the inhabitants of the town, in the dedicatory addreffes of books and poems, extolled the tyrants of the land to hea ven. The country people judge as impartially of the prefent government. I fhould not, however, have obtained any account of the prince or his fervants, if I had not got acquainted with fome fu▾ reign artists belonging to the court, who were more interested in the state of them both than the natives, who were infatuated with their beer pots. Every fhoe-black in Paris knows all the great people of the court, pries into their private life as well as their politics, and condemns or approves at difere tion; but here you meet with many court-counsellors and fecre taries, who know nothing of the great people, except their names. To conclude, the unadulterated Bavarian peafant is gruff, fat, dirty, lazy, drunken, and undifciplined; but he is brave, economical, patri.

otic, and fuch a flave to his word, that when it has once been given it is never broke. As to his hatred of regular difcipline, it is partly owing to the difcouragement thrown upon the military way of life by the clergy, and partly to there be ing no provifion for difabled faldiers. Something too arifes from

the prince's not being military; for in the year 1778, when the imperial troops were recruiting at Straubingen, and carried about with them a picture of the emperor in his uniform, many of the natives immediately enlifted on hearing that the emperor was a soldier.”

CLASSICAL

[94]

CLASSICAL

AND POLITE

CRITICIS M.

Of the GREEK COMPOSITION.

[From the Fourth Volume, on the Origin and Progress of Languages.]

“I

Come now to speak of com. pofition in Greek, the moft material thing in every language, and for the fake of which all the reft of the grammatical art is intended. It is almost needlefs to obferve that by compofition here I mean not that compofition by which fingle words are formed, of which I have already treated, but that compofition by which words are put together in fentences; as to which, I have already obferved, that the chief beauty of it is variety; for, if it were always the fame, though ever fo beautiful, it would foon become difgufting. Now, the Greek language, expreffing all the various connections of words by flexion, particularly by genders, numbers, and cafes, admits of a wonderful variety of arrangement, in fo much, that it is only indeclinable words that require to be connected by juxta-pofition. In this way, not only the ear muft be greatly pleafed, but I think I have fhown, that, by the pofition of emphatical words in certain parts of the fentence, the fenfe is convey ed more forcibly than it could be otherwife; and, as the meaning,

where the compofition is in periods or long fentences, cannot be divided and taken feparately, but muit be apprehended altogether or not at all, it is evident that the fenfe in that way comes upon the mind more clote and embodied, as it were, and confequently more forcibly than when broken down, and frittered into fmall pieces.

This compofition, fo various, and fo different from our uniform compofition, and which, therefore, appears to us unnatural, is no doubt at first difficult to the young begin ner, both in Greek and Latin. But it is furprifing how foon it becomes cafy to us, and even familiar; and, at laft we defpife every other kind of compofition; which is the reason why the learned, after the restoration of learning, and for more than one hundred years after that, fcorned to write in their vernacular language, which they confidered to be fit only for fervants or flaves, as the word denotes; but they wrote in Latin (fometimes in Greek), and con. verfed in Latin with one another. In Germany, they fill write in

Latin upon any learned fubject, though the Latin be not fo good as might be wifhed. For my own part, if I could write in Latin as well as fome of the fcholars in England, and particularly my friend fir George Baker phyfician in London, writing, as I do, not for the vulgar, I would never write in Englith, or in any modern language. When I was at a foreign university many years ago, I was in the habit of both fpeaking and writing Latin, and could do it tolerably well; but this faculty I have now loft, and I am too old, much too old, to recover it. But to return to the sub. ject.

"Thefe long periods in Greek or Latin, fo artificially arranged, and confifting of feveral members, various not only in the structure of the words but in the matter, (which fhould be the cafe of every long period well compofed,) if they be not well read, with a proper variation of tone fuitable to the difference of matter, will not be intelligible even to the most learned ears. this very change of tone, at the fame time that it makes the fenfe quite clear and diftinct, gives a beautiful variety to the pronunciation, as we must be fenfible from hearing well read the periods of Demofthenes or Milton.

But

"There is one thing remaining to be spoken to, which, in my apprehenfion, gave as great a flow to the Greek compofition as any thing I have hitherto mentioned, and made them fpeak ore rotundo, more than any other people in the world. What I mean, is the use of so many particles, or little words, more by tar than are to be found, I believe, in any other language in the world. By the flexion of nouns, adjectives, and verbs, words are connected together; but by thefe particles the

2

fenfe is connected, fo that we know what is to follow by what goes before, and there is no gap or interval in the flumen orationis, any more than in a natural stream. Thus, when a pe goes before, we are fure that fomething is to follow that has the relation of oppofition to the thing preceding, and which is mark ed by the correfpondent particle de; and, when a re goes before, we are fure another conjunction is to follow, joining the fubfequent thing to the preceding. The particle de gives an emphasis to what follows, which we can hardly exprefs in English even by a circumlocution.

The particle 70 ferves a like pure pofe of railing the attention, though I think not fo emphatically as . It is the Dorick of oo, and antwers to the Latin tibi, which is used by Lucretius in the fame fenfe, where he fays,

His tibi me rebus quædam divina voluptas

Percipit atque horror.

"Our I understand to be a particle which connects in the way of reafoning what follows with what goes before, importing that the one is a confequence of the other.

"Ta appears to me to be a limiting particle, reftricting the generali. ty of the word or propolition to which it is applied. Thus, the meaning of that common expreffion, so ye doxes, is, I at least think so, whatever others may think; and it may generally be rendered by at leaft in English.

As the Greeks compound other words, fo they compound thofe particles, and they fay, parrot Toycefour, &c. all which, I am perfuaded, have a meaning, but which it is very difficult to exprefs in English or in any other language. And this

has

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