Davus sum, non Œdipus.Deum qui non summum putetCui in manu sit quem esse dementem velitQuem sapere—quem sanari—quem in morbum injici.CHAPTER XXIV.
Davus sum, non Œdipus.
Davus sum, non Œdipus.
Davus sum, non Œdipus.
Davus sum, non Œdipus.
Deum qui non summum putetCui in manu sit quem esse dementem velitQuem sapere—quem sanari—quem in morbum injici.
Deum qui non summum putetCui in manu sit quem esse dementem velitQuem sapere—quem sanari—quem in morbum injici.
Deum qui non summum putetCui in manu sit quem esse dementem velitQuem sapere—quem sanari—quem in morbum injici.
Deum qui non summum putet
Cui in manu sit quem esse dementem velit
Quem sapere—quem sanari—quem in morbum injici.
Another considerable personage belonged to this Symposium, whose entrance into life was marked with promises, which he subsequently failed to fulfil. He had every advantage of family, education, connection, and situation; he had considerable learning, and was by no means destitute of talent. He was of very elegant and agreeable manners, and must necessarily have been a very acceptable member of any society, which assembled for the purpose of indulging enlightened and interesting conversation.
But he was appointed to some diplomatic situation abroad, and he continued for many years absent from England. Whether he had put the poisoned chalice of infidelity to his lips before hisdeparture, is uncertain; but he appeared to have employed his leisure in searching for objections and arguments, as they related to Scripture, which had been so often refuted, that they were considered by the learned and the wise, as almost exploded. This gentleman, however, collected, and made a book of them, which certainly has done no honour to his reputation, in any sense whatever.
He was, moreover, a poet, but here also he discovered a perverted and fantastical taste, having dramatized one of the most exceptionable and unnatural tales in the whole collection of Ovid’s Metamorphosis.
Notice is not pretended to be taken, in our memoranda, of the literary productions of this gentleman with any thing like chronological accuracy; they seem to have been written down merely as the recollection of them presented itself. He got considerable credit, and deservedly too, by a spirited translation of a very crabbed Latin poet, though severer critics seemed inclined to consider it rather as a paraphrase than as a translation. However this may be, the version was, undoubtedly, highly spirited and poetical.
But an earlier, if not absolutely his first literary effort, was a speculative investigation on the subject of ancient Greek politics. This was characterized by much sound sense, and very extensive reading, subject to the imputation of a style somewhat tooinflated.
A later production exhibited a metaphysical labyrinth, in which the author bewildered himself, and confused his readers. Among the more remarkable paradoxes which this work contained, and it contained a great many, was the preposterous supposition that Newton’s Principia, was an Atheistical system, and that the philosophy of Bacon was unsound and erroneous. His partiality to Helvetius, Delaplace, and the French school, demonstrate the perverse tendency of his mind, on religious subjects, which indeed, even in conversation, and it is even said in female conversation too, he was at no pains to conceal.
As a Symposiast, however, his talents would have done honour to the Athenian academy itself, and it is hoped that time and reflection may have meliorated and amended those opinions, which it is impossible that any religious character can approve.
Two other individuals compleated the number of Symposiasts, of one of whom some mention has already been made, the other was the Sexagenarian himself.
To the former, a tribute of affection has been paid, which he who compiled the heterogeneous matter of these pages, can testify to have beenwell-deserved. We are inclined to make some mention of the latter, as we knew him in the decline of life.