Who could ever think of it as a good expedient for comforting
an afflicted parent, to exaggerate, with all the force of
elocution, the irreparable loss, which he has met with by the
death of a favourite child ? The more power of imagination and
expression you here employ, the more you encrease his despair
and affliction.
The shame, confusion, and terror of Verres, no doubt, rose in
proportion to the noble eloquence and vehemence of Cicero: So
also did his pain and uneasiness. These former passions were
too strong for the pleasure arising from the beauties of
elocution; and operated, though from the same principle, yet
in a contrary manner, to the sympathy, compassion, and
indignation of the audience.
Lord Clarendon, when he approaches towards the catastrophe of
the royal party, supposes, that his narration must then become
infinite]y disagreeable; and he hurries over the king's death,
without giving us one circumstance of it. He considers it as
too horrid a scene to be contemplated with any satisfaction,
or even without the utmost pain and aversion. He himself, as
well as the readers of that age, were too deeply concerned in
the events, and felt a pain from subjects, which an historian
and a reader of another age would regard as the most pathetic
and most interesting, and, by consequence, the most agreeable.
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