Cicero sought to imitate the cadence
of his periods, but with little success. Lord Bacon was a poet.
[Footnote: See the Filum Labyrinthi, and the Essay on Death
particularly.] His language has a sweet and majestic rhythm, which
satisfies the sense, no less than the almost superhuman wisdom of his
philosophy satisfies the intellect; it is a strain which distends, and
then bursts the circumference of the reader's mind, and pours itself
forth together with it into the universal element with which it has
perpetual sympathy. All the authors of revolutions in opinion are not
only necessarily poets as they are inventors, nor even as their words
unveil the permanent analogy of things by images which participate in
the life of truth; but as their periods are harmonious and rhythmical,
and contain in themselves the elements of verse; being the echo of the
eternal music. Nor are those supreme poets, who have employed
traditional forms of rhythm on account of the form and action of their
subjects, less capable of perceiving and teaching the truth of things,
than those who have omitted that form.
Pages:
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409