Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/32

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Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.

to read except Macaulay. Mr. Kennedy's version of τὸν κατάπτυστον τουτονὶ into "this despicable fellow" is only one of many proofs that Demosthenes is untranslatable. The character of the invective partakes too much of the filth of Swift to be fit for translation into English, at least in the nineteenth century. It may have been fit when Swift wrote at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and it may be—(Dii meliora!)—again in the twentieth century. But perhaps Macaulay's article on "Barère" may give some idea to an Englishman of the effect on an Athenian of the power of Demosthenes in invective.

Whether the invective of Demosthenes or that of Æschines surpasses anything that human genius can ever again produce, as far as my limited observation extends, Lord Macaulay's invective on "Barère" appears to be a censure of no slight nature. I will venture to quote one or two sentences of Lord Macaulay's article on "Barère:"—

"In two things he was consistent, in his love of Christianity and in his hatred to England. If this were so, we must say that England is much more beholden to him than Christianity.

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"Renegade, traitor, slave, coward, liar, slanderer, murderer, hack writer, police spy—the one small service which he