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the other rifled his pock

knocked him down, the one held his hands

ets of his watch and money.

The one

How did these two men behave in the same circumstances? seized with a malicious joy the opportunity thus offered him of gratifying his revenge; the other, with a noble generosity, pardoned his enemies for those offences against him which he could have then so easily punished. we were all engaged in conversation, we heard some beautiful music under our windows, which was continued at intervals during the remainder of the evening.

"Can he imagine that God sends forth an irresistible strength against some sins; in others he allows men a power of repelling his grace?"

Cæsar was at Rome, an insurrection broke out among his troops, who were too impatient to wait for the triumph, and the advantages they hoped to derive from it.

SECTION IV.

POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE SYNONYMES.

ANOTHER principle by which we may frequently discover a difference between two approximating meanings, is where one term is positive, and the other negative; that is, where the first expresses some idea independently, and the second, the negation of another idea. The two verbs, to shun and to avoid, show a difference of this sort; to shun is positively to turn away from, to avoid is merely not to approach, or go in the Between way of. many approximating words, we shall have no difficulty in distinguishing, by the application of this test. The difference between unable and not able, inability and disability, and many others, becomes thus immediately clear. The two words have the same idea in common, but the one has a negative quality not found in the other, and thus a distinction can be made. The pairs of words treated in this section differ from each other in consequence of this principle.

Despair-Hopelessness.

Despair is positive; hopelessness is negative. spairs, once hoped, but has now lost his hope

He who de

The hopeless

man may never have hoped; desperate is deprived of hope; hopeless is wanting hope. Affairs are said to be hopeless when their state is such as not to raise any hope of their being successful. An enterprise is said to be desperate when all hope is lost which we once entertained of its success. To be desperate, we must have previously hoped.

[Hel. Oft expectation fails, and most oft there

Where most it promises; and oft it hits,

Where hope is coldest and despair most sits. All's Well, &c., ii. 1.

K. Rich. The hopeless word of-never to return,

Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.
Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair!

Nor am I in the list of them that hope:
Hopeless are all my evils, all remediless.
And oft his cogitations sink as low
As, through the abysses of a joyless heart,
The heaviest plummet of despair can go.
For years to me are sad and dull;
My very moments are too full
Of hopelessness and fear.

Exercise.

Richard II., i. 3

P. L., iv. 74.

S. 4., 648

WORDSWORTH. 'Dion.'

'Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots.']

"In a part of Asia, the sick, when their case comes to be thought

are carried out and laid on the earth, before they are dead, and left there." Are they indifferent, being used as signs of immoderate and

entation for the dead?

I am a man of

lam

fortunes, that is, a man whose friends are dead;

for I never aimed at any other fortune than in friends.

66

"The Eneans wish in vain their wanted chief,

of flight, more ———————————— of relief."

is the thought of the unattainableness of any good, which works differently in men's minds, sometimes producing uneasiness or pain, sometimes rest and indolence."

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of ransom, and condemned to lie

In durance, doomed a lingering death to die."

“We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but

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And fired the troops, and called the gods to aid."

"[He] watches with greedy hope to find
His wish and best advantage, us asunder;
to circumvent us joined, where each
To other speedy aid might lend at need."

Disability-Inability.

Inability is a natural want of power to act; disability is a want of qualification. One who confesses his inability to account for some phenomenon, gives us to understand that nature has not endowed him with power to explain its cause. One who is disqualified, by reason of his nonage, from entering into a contract, labours under a legal disability.

[Val. Leave off discourse of disability.

Exercise.

Two Gent. of Verona, ii. 4.]

There are many questions which have baffled the most sagacious penetration of the human intellect, and which the deepest philosophy is to this day obliged to confess its to fathom.

In the tenth and eleventh centuries, the Jews were persecuted in England with unrelenting cruelty, and even at this monent they labour under many legal in that country.

He accepted, though much against his will, the office vacant by the death of the professor, as he could plead neither ignorance nor

cuse for refusing it.

as an ex

The party on the other side grounded their hopes of success on the alleged of the plaintiff, and on the presumption that as he was a minor, he could not be a party to the contract in question.

One who confesses his some action, or explain some question. He who labours under

declares that he is not able to perform

unable to enter into certain contracts or agreements.

"It is not from

in practice."

Want of age is a legal

18

to discover what they ought to do, that men err

to contract a marriage.

This disadvantage which the Dissenters at present lie under, of a

to receive church preferments, will be easily remedied by the repeal of the test.

Disbelief-Unbelief.

Unbelief is a want of belief; disbelief is an unwillingness or refusal to believe. I express my unbelief of what I am willing to believe, but am not convinced is true. I express my disbelief of what I have reason to think is false. Unbelief is open to conviction; disbelief is already convinced of the falseness of what it does not believe. Many men have

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The magistrate having heard the prisoner's story, expressed his unqualified of every word he had uttered, and turning to the clerk of the office,

directed him immediately to make out his committal.

Notwithstanding all the pretensions to the art of magic which this impostor so unblushingly asserted, few, even in those superstitious times, were so far deceived by his artifices as not to suspect him of fraud, and many even openly expressed their of the art he professed.

It is well known that a firm faith in the power of magic is to this day common in all parts of the East; and a dangerous experiment would it be for any European traveller who, in the pride of his philosophy, should venture there publicly to express his in its agency.

One of the most pernicious effects of a close acquaintance with the world is, that it renders us so familiar with the worst parts of human nature, as almost to lead to our in many good qualities which really

exist among men.

Freedom-Liberty.

Freedom represents a positive-liberty, a negative quality. The former denotes a natural state; the latter, an exemption from bonds or slavery. Those who have never been slaves enjoy freedom; Those who are exempt from slavery enjoy liberty. Freedom supposes a right; liberty supposes a previous restraint. Freedom is the birthright of every Englishman. A prisoner who is set at liberty regains his freedom. We are at liberty to speak on any subject we choose, but circumstances may prevent our speaking with freedom.

[Bru. And, waving our red weapons o'er our heads,

Let's all cry, Peace! Freedom! and Liberty! Julius Cæsar, iii. 1.

Pro. Shortly shall all my labours end, and thou
Shalt have the air at freedom

Jaq.

Tempest, iv. 1.

I must have liberty

As You Like It, ii. 7.

Withal, as large a charter as the wind

To blow on whom I please

The conquered also, and enslaved in war

Shall, with their freedom lost, all virtue lose. P. L., xi. 798.

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After ten years' confinement, the prisoner's friends contrived to raise the sum necessary for his ransom, and he was at length set at

The question was discussed with great bers of the society took part in the debate.

and most of the mem

The ancient Greeks cherished the deepest and most heartfelt love for their country; they fought and bled for their

thousand deaths to slavery or oppression.

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and preferred a

He was one of the most amiable characters of his time, and his disposition was marked by the and frankness with which he communicated

his opinions and sentiments to his friends.

-; they seem to

Some men appear to have had singular ideas of have thought that it meant a privilege to do whatever their evil passions might dictate, and to have looked upon it as a state in which the most atrocious crimes might be committed with impunity.

at

After having suffered three years' imprisonment for this libel, he was set and he determined thenceforth to express himself with less on the character and conduct of others.

"The of the press is a blessing when we are inclined to write against others, and a calamity when we find ourselves overborne by the multitude of our assailants."

A Lie-An Untruth.

A lie is positively-an untruth is negatively false. The former is intentional, the latter involuntary. He who says

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