Note (return) — Chapter III
Reading edition
II. The second stage supplies examples of a kind of rhetorical apostrophe; the speaker addressing one who was departed as though he had ears to hear. Were not this the foundation stone on which the rest of the edifice seems to have been built, we might have passed it by unnoticed. Of this we have an instance in the address to the Shepherds on Christmas-day. "Whom have ye seen, ye shepherds? Say ye, tell ye, who hath appeared on the earth? Say ye, what saw ye? Announce to us the nativity of Christ95."