The Queen, deep wounded with the darts of love, When the next morning had restor'd the sun, “ O my dear Anna, my anxiety “ Has chas'd my sleep. What an uncommon gueft “ Have we admitted to our regal dome! " O what a form! How brave, how great in arms! “ 'Tis past conjecture; certain 'tis he fprang “ From a celestial stock : his port, his looks, “ His speech proclaim his origin divine. “ Fear argues vulgar minds; but by what fates « Has he been toft? What wars has he describ'd ? “ Had not my soul immoveably resolvid “ Never to wear the nuptial bonds again, “ From the first hour my dear Sichæus fell, “ And the connubial bed and torch renounc'd, “ This man might o'er my prudence so prevail « As to incline me to a second choice. « Sifter, I own that since my husband's death, , “ Th' unfortunate SICHÆUS, since the time “ My brother's barb'rous hand with gore distain'd “ The houshold Gods, this man alone has charm'd “ My gazing sense, and wak'd my soul to love: “ And the same paffion that SICHÆUS rais'd, “ Æneas now rekindles in my breast. “ But O! may earth afunder burst, and lock L 2 « Me “ Me in its clofing jaws, or may the arm 1 * At Regina gravi jamdudum faucia cura, Vulnus alit venis, & cæco carpitur igni. VIRGIL. Æneid. lib. iv. ver. 1. CHAPTER CHAP TERV, The APOSTOPESIS confidered. $ 1. The definition of the Apofiopesis, 2.. An instance of this Figure from Bishop FLEETWOOD. § 3. Examples of it from VIRGIL, TERENCE, Cicero, and Juvenal. $ 4. Instances of this Figure in Scripture, and on what occasions. $ 5. The use of the Apofiopesis. $1. A Pafiopefis * is a Figure whereby a per son, often through the power of some passion, ás anger, forrow, fear, &c. breaks off his speech without finishing the sense. $ 2. We have a remarkable instance of this Figure in the following passage of Bishop FLEETWOOD; in which, contrasting the foriner and the latter years of Queen Anne's reign, he thus speaks, and then clofes with a striking Apofiopesis. - Never did seven such years together pass over " the head of any English Monarch, nor cover - it with so much honour. The crown and fceptre seemed to be the Queen's least orna ments : I am filent. L 3 * From αποσιωπφώ, - ments : those other Princes wore in common 66 with her; and her great personal virtues were “ the fame before and since. But such was the ic fame of her administration of affairs at home; “ such was the reputation and felicity in choos“ ing Ministers, and such. was then esteemed “ their faithfulness and zeal, their diligence and great abilities in executing her commands : “ to such an height of military glory did her great General and her armies carry the Britisha " name abroad; such were the harmony and « concord betwixt her and her allies; and such “ was the blessing of God upon all her councils 6 and undertakings, that I am as sure as history 66 can make me, that no Prince of ours was “ ever yet so prosperous and successful, so loved, « fo esteemed and honoured by their subjects 66 and their friends, nor near so formidable to 66 their enemies. We were, as all the world “ imagined then, just entering on the ways that promised to lead to such a peace, as would have answered all the prayers of our religious « Queen, the care and vigilance of a moft able Ministry, the payments of a willing and obe“ dient People, as well as all the glorious toils « and hazards of the Soldiery; when God for “ our sins 'permitted the spirit of discord to go forth, and, by troubling the Camp, the City, " and the Country (and O! that it had altoge“ ther spared the Places facred to his Worship!) “ to spoil for a time the beautiful and pleasing “ prospect, and give us in its stead, I know 6. not what Our enemies will tell the rest “ with pleasure $ 3. VIRGIL brings in one of his shepherds faying to another, We know who saw you + And again; NePTUNE, in his rage against the winds, for having raised a tempest without his orders, fays, Whom I -- but let me still the boiling waves 1. SO TERENCE, But I, you ty burn-villain, if I live - 1 QUINTILIAN furnishes us with an example of this Figure from CIĊERO. « But would CLOsi bius have made any mention of this law, is which he boasts to be his own invention, while * Milo was living, not to say while he was Con“ sul ? As to all ourselves -- I durft not say all 8." L 4 CICERO Fleetwood's Preface to his Four Sermons on public Co. casions. + Novimus & qui te Eclog. iii. ver. 8. Quos ego — sed motos præftat componere fluctus, Æneid. lib. i. ver. 135, 1 Ego te, furcifer, Eunuch. act. s. sc. 6. An hujus legis quam Clodius à fe inventam gloriatur mentionem facere ausus esset vivo Milone, ne dicam Consule? De noftrum enim omnium-non audeo totum dicere. Quint. lib.ix, cap. 2. $ ?. |