THE MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS AND SPEECHES OF LORD MACAULAY

CONTRIBUTIONS TO KNIGHT'S QUARTERLY MAGAZINE

By By Thomas Babington Macaulay

VOLUME I. 

PREFACE. 

Lord Macaulay always looked forward to a publication of hismiscellaneous works, either by himself or by those who should representhim after his death. And latterly he expressly reserved, wheneverthe arrangements as to copyright made it necessary, the right of suchpublication. 

The collection which is now published comprehends some of the earliestand some of the latest works which he composed. He was born on 25thOctober, 1800; commenced residence at Trinity College, Cambridge, inOctober, 1818; was elected Craven University Scholar in 1821; graduatedas B. A. In 1822; was elected fellow of the college in October, 1824;was called to the bar in February, 1826, when he joined the NorthernCircuit; and was elected member for Calne in 1830. After this lastevent, he did not long continue to practise at the bar. He went to Indiain 1834, whence he returned in June, 1838. He was elected member forEdinburgh, in 1839, and lost this seat in July, 1847; and this (thoughhe was afterwards again elected for that city in July, 1852, withoutbeing a candidate) may be considered as the last instance of his takingan active part in the contests of public life. These few dates arementioned for the purpose of enabling the reader to assign the articles, now and previously published, to the principal periods into which theauthor's life may be divided. 

The admirers of his later works will probably be interested by watchingthe gradual formation of his style, and will notice in his earlierproductions, vigorous and clear as their language always was, theoccurrence of faults against which he afterwards most anxiously guardedhimself. A much greater interest will undoubtedly be felt in tracing thedate and development of his opinions. 

The articles published in Knight's Quarterly Magazine were composedduring the author's residence at college, as B. A. It may be remarkedthat the first two of these exhibit the earnestness with which healready endeavoured to represent to himself and to others the scenes andpersons of past times as in actual existence. Of the Dialogue betweenMilton and Cowley he spoke, many years after its publication, as thatone of his works which he remembered with most satisfaction. The articleon Mitford's Greece he did not himself value so highly as others thoughtit deserved. This article, at any rate, contains the first distinctenunciation of his views, as to the office of an historian, viewsafterwards more fully set forth in his Essay, upon History, in theEdinburgh Review. From the protest, in the last mentioned essay, againstthe conventional notions respecting the majesty of history might perhapshave been anticipated something like the third chapter of the Historyof England. It may be amusing to notice that in the article on Mitford, appears the first sketch of the New Zealander, afterwards filled up ina passage in the review of Mrs Austin's translation of Ranke, a passagewhich at one time was the subject of allusion, two or three times aweek, in speeches and leading articles. In this, too, appear, perhapsfor the first time, the author's views on the representative system. These he retained to the very last; they are brought forward repeatedlyin the articles published in this collection and elsewhere, and in hisspeeches in parliament; and they coincide with the opinions expressed inthe letter to an American correspondent, which was so often cited in thelate debate on the Reform Bill. 

Some explanation appears to be necessary as to the publication of thethree articles "Mill on Government, " "Westminster Reviewer's Defence ofMill" and "Utilitarian Theory of Government. "

In 1828 Mr James Mill, the author of the History of British India, reprinted some essays which he had contributed to the Supplement to theEncyclopaedia Britannica; and among these was an Essay on Government. The method of inquiry and reasoning adopted in this essay appearedto Macaulay to be essentially wrong. He entertained a very strongconviction that the only sound foundation for a theory of Governmentmust be laid in careful and copious historical induction; and hebelieved that Mr Mill's work rested upon a vicious reasoning a priori. Upon this point he felt the more earnestly, owing to his own passion forhistorical research, and to his devout admiration of Bacon, whose workshe was at that time studying with intense attention. There can, however, be little doubt that he was also provoked by the pretensions of somemembers of a sect which then commonly went by the name of Benthamites, or Utilitarians. This sect included many of his contemporaries, who hadquitted Cambridge at about the same time with him. It had succeeded, insome measure, to the sect of the Byronians, whom he has described in thereview of Moore's Life of Lord Byron, who discarded their neckcloths, and fixed little models of skulls on the sand-glasses by which theyregulated the boiling of their eggs for breakfast. The members of thesesects, and of many others that have succeeded, have probably long agolearned to smile at the temporary humours. But Macaulay, himself asincere admirer of Bentham, was irritated by what he considered theunwarranted tone assumed by several of the class of Utilitarians. "Weapprehend, " he said, "that many of them are persons who, having readlittle or nothing, are delighted to be rescued from the sense of theirown inferiority by some teacher who assures them that the studies whichthey have neglected are of no value, puts five or six phrases into theirmouths, lends them an odd number of the Westminster Review, and ina month transforms them into philosophers;" and he spoke of them as"smatterers, whose attainments just suffice to elevate them from theinsignificance of dunces to the dignity of bores, and to spread dismayamong their pious aunts and grand mothers. " The sect, of course, likeother sects, comprehended some pretenders, and these the most arrogantand intolerant among its members. He, however, went so far as to applythe following language to the majority:--"As to the greater part ofthe sect, it is, we apprehend, of little consequence what they study orunder whom. It would be more amusing, to be sure, and more reputable, ifthey would take up the old republican cant and declaim about Brutus andTimoleon, the duty of killing tyrants and the blessedness of dying forliberty. But, on the whole, they might have chosen worse. They may aswell be Utilitarians as jockeys or dandies. And, though quibbling aboutself-interest and motives, and objects of desire, and the greatesthappiness of the greatest number, is but a poor employment for a grownman, it certainly hurts the health less than hard drinking and thefortune less than high play; it is not much more laughable thanphrenology, and is immeasurably more humane than cock-fighting. "

Macaulay inserted in the Edinburgh Review of March, 1829, an articleupon Mr Mill's Essay. He attacked the method with much vehemence; and, to the end of his life, he never saw any ground for believing that inthis he had gone too far. But before long he felt that he had not spokenof the author of the Essay with the respect due to so eminent a man. In1833, he described Mr mill, during the debate on the India Bill of thatyear, as a "gentleman extremely well acquainted with the affairs of ourEastern Empire, a most valuable servant of the Company, and the authorof a history of India, which, though certainly not free from faults, is, I think, on the whole, the greatest historical work which has appearedin our language since that of Gibbon. "

Almost immediately upon the appearance of the article in the EdinburghReview, an answer was published in the Westminster Review. It wasuntruly attributed, in the newspapers of the day, to Mr Bentham himself. Macaulay's answer to this appeared in the Edinburgh Review, June, 1829. He wrote the answer under the belief that he was answering Mr Bentham, and was undeceived in time only to add the postscript. The author of thearticle in the Westminster Review had not perceived that the questionraised was not as to the truth or falsehood of the result at which MrMill had arrived, but as to the soundness or unsoundness of the methodwhich he pursued; a misunderstanding at which Macaulay, while hesupposed the article to be the work of Mr Bentham, expressed muchsurprise. The controversy soon became principally a dispute as to thetheory which was commonly known by the name of The Greatest HappinessPrinciple. Another article in the Westminster Review followed; anda surrejoinder by Macaulay in the Edinburgh Review of October, 1829. Macaulay was irritated at what he conceived to be either extremedullness or gross unfairness on the part of his unknown antagonist, andstruck as hard as he could; and he struck very hard indeed. 

The ethical question thus raised was afterwards discussed by Sir JamesMackintosh, in the Dissertation contributed by him to the seventhedition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, page 284-313 (Whewell'sEdition). Sir James Mackintosh notices the part taken in the controversyby Macaulay, in the following words: "A writer of consummate ability, who has failed in little but the respect due to the abilities andcharacter of his opponents, has given too much countenance to the abuseand confusion of language exemplified in the well-known verse of Pope, 'Modes of self-love the Passions we may call. '

'We know, ' says he, 'no universal proposition respecting human naturewhich is true but one--that men always act from self-interest. '" "Itis manifest from the sequel, that the writer is not the dupe of theconfusion; but many of his readers may be so. If, indeed, the word"self-interest" could with propriety be used for the gratification ofevery prevalent desire, he has clearly shown that this change in thesignification of terms would be of no advantage to the doctrine which hecontroverts. It would make as many sorts of self-interest as thereare appetites, and it is irreconcilably at variance with the system ofassociation proposed by Mr Mill. " "The admirable writer whose languagehas occasioned this illustration, who at an early age has mastered everyspecies of composition, will doubtless hold fast to simplicity, whichsurvives all the fashions of deviation from it, and which a man ofgenius so fertile has few temptations to for sake. "

When Macaulay selected for publication certain articles of the EdinburghReview, he resolved not to publish any of the three essays in question;for which he assigned the following reason:--

"The author has been strongly urged to insert three papers on theUtilitarian Philosophy, which, when they first appeared, attractedsome notice, but which are not in the American editions. He has howeverdetermined to omit these papers, not because he is disposed to retract asingle doctrine which they contain, but because he is unwilling to offerwhat might be regarded as an affront to the memory of one from whoseopinions he still widely dissents, but to whose talents and virtues headmits that he formerly did not do justice. Serious as are the faults ofthe Essay on Government, a critic, while noticing those faults, shouldhave abstained from using contemptuous language respecting the historianof British India. It ought to be known that Mr Mill had the generosity, not only to forgive, but to forget the unbecoming acrimony with which hehad been assailed, and was, when his valuable life closed, on terms ofcordial friendship with his assailant. "

Under these circumstances, considerable doubt has been felt as to thepropriety of republishing the three Essays in the present collection. But it has been determined, not without much hesitation, that theyshould appear. It is felt that no disrespect is shown to the memory ofMr Mill, when the publication is accompanied by so full an apology forthe tone adopted towards him; and Mr Mill himself would have been thelast to wish for the suppression of opinions on the ground that theywere in express antagonism to his own. The grave has now closed upon theassailant as well as the assailed. On the other hand, it cannot butbe desirable that opinions which the author retained to the last, onimportant questions in politics and morals, should be before the public. 

Some of the poems now collected have already appeared in print; othersare supplied by the recollection of friends. The first two are publishedon account of their having been composed in the author's childhood. Inthe poems, as well as in the prose works, will be occasionally foundthoughts and expressions which have afterwards been adopted in laterproductions. 

No alteration whatever has been made from the form in which the authorleft the several articles, with the exception of some changes inpunctuation, and the correction of one or two obvious misprints. 

T. F. E. London, June 1860. 

CONTENTS. 

CONTRIBUTIONS TO KNIGHT'S QUARTERLY MAGAZINE. 

Fragments of a Roman Tale. (June 1823. )

On the Royal Society of Literature. (June 1823. )

Scenes from "Athenian Revels. " (January 1824. )

Criticisms on the Principal Italian Writers. No. I. Dante. (January1824. )

Criticisms on the Principal Italian Writers. No. II. Petrarch. (April1824. )

Some account of the Great Lawsuit between the Parishes of St Dennis andSt George in the Water. (April 1824. )

A Conversation between Mr Abraham Cowley and Mr John Milton, touchingthe Great Civil War. (August 1824. )

On the Athenian Orators. (August 1824. )

A Prophetic Account of a Grand National Epic Poem, to be entitled "TheWellingtoniad, " and to be Published A. D. 2824. (November 1824. )

On Mitford's History of Greece. (November 1824. )

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS OF LORD MACAULAY. 

CONTRIBUTIONS TO KNIGHT'S QUARTERLY MAGAZINE. 

FRAGMENTS OF A ROMAN TALE. (June 1823. )

It was an hour after noon. Ligarius was returning from the CampusMartius. He strolled through one of the streets which led to the Forum, settling his gown, and calculating the odds on the gladiators who wereto fence at the approaching Saturnalia. While thus occupied, he overtookFlaminius, who, with a heavy step and a melancholy face, was saunteringin the same direction. The light-hearted young man plucked him by thesleeve. 

"Good-day, Flaminius. Are you to be of Catiline's party this evening?"

"Not I. "

"Why so? Your little Tarentine girl will break her heart. "

"No matter. Catiline has the best cooks and the finest wine in Rome. There are charming women at his parties. But the twelve-line board andthe dice-box pay for all. The Gods confound me if I did not lose twomillions of sesterces last night. My villa at Tibur, and all thestatues that my father the praetor brought from Ephesus, must go tothe auctioneer. That is a high price, you will acknowledge, even forPhoenicopters, Chian, and Callinice. "

"High indeed, by Pollux. "

"And that is not the worst. I saw several of the leading senators thismorning. Strange things are whispered in the higher political circles. "

"The Gods confound the political circles. I have hated the name ofpolitician ever since Sylla's proscription, when I was within a momentof having my throat cut by a politician, who took me for anotherpolitician. While there is a cask of Falernian in Campania, or a girl inthe Suburra, I shall be too well employed to think on the subject. "

"You will do well, " said Flaminius gravely, "to bestow some littleconsideration upon it at present. Otherwise, I fear, you will soon renewyour acquaintance with politicians, in a manner quite as unpleasant asthat to which you allude. "

"Averting Gods! what do you mean?"

"I will tell you. There are rumours of conspiracy. The order of thingsestablished by Lucius Sylla has excited the disgust of the people, andof a large party of the nobles. Some violent convulsion is expected. "

"What is that to me? I suppose that they will hardly proscribe thevintners and gladiators, or pass a law compelling every citizen to takea wife. "

"You do not understand. Catiline is supposed to be the author of therevolutionary schemes. You must have heard bold opinions at his tablerepeatedly. "

"I never listen to any opinions upon such subjects, bold or timid. "

"Look to it. Your name has been mentioned. "

"Mine! good Gods! I call Heaven to witness that I never so much asmentioned Senate, Consul, or Comitia, in Catiline's house. "

"Nobody suspects you of any participation in the inmost counsels of theparty. But our great men surmise that you are among those whom he hasbribed so high with beauty, or entangled so deeply in distress, thatthey are no longer their own masters. I shall never set foot withinhis threshold again. I have been solemnly warned by men who understandpublic affairs; and I advise you to be cautious. "

The friends had now turned into the Forum, which was thronged withthe gay and elegant youth of Rome. "I can tell you more, " continuedFlaminius; "somebody was remarking to the Consul yesterday how loosely acertain acquaintance of ours tied his girdle. 'Let him look to himself;'said Cicero, 'or the state may find a tighter girdle for his neck. '"

"Good Gods! who is it? You cannot surely mean"--

"There he is. "

Flaminius pointed to a man who was pacing up and down the Forum at alittle distance from them. He was in the prime of manhood. Hispersonal advantages were extremely striking, and were displayed with anextravagant but not ungraceful foppery. His gown waved in loose folds;his long dark curls were dressed with exquisite art, and shone andsteamed with odours; his step and gesture exhibited an elegantand commanding figure in every posture of polite languor. But hiscountenance formed a singular contrast to the general appearance ofhis person. The high and imperial brow, the keen aquiline features, thecompressed mouth; the penetrating eye, indicated the highest degree ofability and decision. He seemed absorbed in intense meditation. Witheyes fixed on the ground, and lips working in thought, he saunteredround the area, apparently unconscious how many of the young gallantsof Rome were envying the taste of his dress, and the ease of hisfashionable stagger. 

"Good Heaven!" said Ligarius, "Caius Caesar is as unlikely to be in aplot as I am. "

"Not at all. "

"He does nothing but game; feast, intrigue, read Greek, and writeverses. "

"You know nothing of Caesar. Though he rarely addresses the Senate, he is considered as the finest speaker there, after the Consul. Hisinfluence with the multitude is immense. He will serve his rivals inpublic life as he served me last night at Catiline's. We were playing atthe twelve lines. (Duodecim scripta, a game of mixed chance and skill, which seems to have been very fashionable in the higher circles ofRome. The famous lawyer Mucius was renowned for his skill in it. --"Cic. Orat. " i. 50. )--Immense stakes. He laughed all the time, chatted withValeria over his shoulder, kissed her hand between every two moves, andscarcely looked at the board. I thought that I had him. All at onceI found my counters driven into the corner. Not a piece to move, by Hercules. It cost me two millions of sesterces. All the Gods andGoddesses confound him for it!"

"As to Valeria, " said Ligarius, "I forgot to ask whether you have heardthe news. "

"Not a word. What?"

"I was told at the baths to-day that Caesar escorted the lady home. Unfortunately old Quintus Lutatius had come back from his villa inCampania, in a whim of jealousy. He was not expected for three days. There was a fine tumult. The old fool called for his sword and hisslaves, cursed his wife, and swore that he would cut Caesar's throat. "

"And Caesar?"

"He laughed, quoted Anacreon, trussed his gown round his left arm, closed with Quintus, flung him down, twisted his sword out of his hand, burst through the attendants, ran a freed-man through the shoulder, andwas in the street in an instant. "

"Well done! Here he comes. Good-day, Caius. "

Caesar lifted his head at the salutation. His air of deep abstractionvanished; and he extended a hand to each of the friends. 

"How are you after your last night's exploit?"

"As well as possible, " said Caesar, laughing. 

"In truth we should rather ask how Quintus Lutatius is. "

"He, I understand, is as well as can be expected of a man with afaithless spouse and a broken head. His freed-man is most seriouslyhurt. Poor fellow! he shall have half of whatever I win to-night. Flaminius, you shall have your revenge at Catiline's. "

"You are very kind. I do not intend to be at Catiline's till I wish topart with my town-house. My villa is gone already. "

"Not at Catiline's, base spirit! You are not of his mind, my gallantLigarius. Dice, Chian, and the loveliest Greek singing girl that wasever seen. Think of that, Ligarius. By Venus, she almost made me adoreher, by telling me that I talked Greek with the most Attic accent thatshe had heard in Italy. "

"I doubt she will not say the same of me, " replied Ligarius. "I am justas able to decipher an obelisk as to read a line of Homer. "

"You barbarous Scythian, who had the care of your education?"

"An old fool, --a Greek pedant, --a Stoic. He told me that pain was noevil, and flogged me as if he thought so. At last one day, in the middleof a lecture, I set fire to his enormous filthy beard, singed his face, and sent him roaring out of the house. There ended my studies. From thattime to this I have had as little to do with Greece as the wine thatyour poor old friend Lutatius calls his delicious Samian. "

"Well done, Ligarius. I hate a Stoic. I wish Marcus Cato had a beardthat you might singe it for him. The fool talked his two hours in theSenate yesterday, without changing a muscle of his face. He looked assavage and as motionless as the mask in which Roscius acted Alecto. Idetest everything connected with him. "

"Except his sister, Servilia. "

"True. She is a lovely woman. "

"They say that you have told her so, Caius"

"So I have. "

"And that she was not angry. "

"What woman is?"

"Aye--but they say"--

"No matter what they say. Common fame lies like a Greek rhetorician. You might know so much, Ligarius, without reading the philosophers. Butcome, I will introduce you to little dark-eyed Zoe. "

"I tell you I can speak no Greek. "

"More shame for you. It is high time that you should begin. You willnever have such a charming instructress. Of what was your fatherthinking when he sent for an old Stoic with a long beard to teach you?There is no language-mistress like a handsome woman. When I was atAthens, I learnt more Greek from a pretty flower-girl in the Peiraeusthan from all the Portico and the Academy. She was no Stoic, Heavenknows. But come along to Zoe. I will be your interpreter. Woo her inhonest Latin, and I will turn it into elegant Greek between the throwsof dice. I can make love and mind my game at once, as Flaminius can tellyou. 

"Well, then, to be plain, Caesar, Flaminius has been talking to me aboutplots, and suspicions, and politicians. I never plagued myself with suchthings since Sylla's and Marius's days; and then I never could see muchdifference between the parties. All that I am sure of is, that those whomeddle with such affairs are generally stabbed or strangled. And, thoughI like Greek wine and handsome women, I do not wish to risk my neck forthem. Now, tell me as a friend, Caius--is there no danger?"

"Danger!" repeated Caesar, with a short, fierce, disdainful laugh: "whatdanger do you apprehend?"

"That you should best know, " said Flaminius; "you are far more intimatewith Catiline than I. But I advise you to be cautious. The leading menentertain strong suspicions. "

Caesar drew up his figure from its ordinary state of graceful relaxationinto an attitude of commanding dignity, and replied in a voice ofwhich the deep and impassioned melody formed a strange contrast tothe humorous and affected tone of his ordinary conversation. "Let themsuspect. They suspect because they know what they have deserved. Whathave they done for Rome?--What for mankind? Ask the citizens--ask theprovinces. Have they had any other object than to perpetuate theirown exclusive power, and to keep us under the yoke of an oligarchicaltyranny, which unites in itself the worst evils of every other system, and combines more than Athenian turbulence with more than Persiandespotism?"

"Good Gods! Caesar. It is not safe for you to speak, or for us to listento, such things, at such a crisis. "

"Judge for yourselves what you will hear. I will judge for myself whatI will speak. I was not twenty years old when I defied Lucius Sylla, surrounded by the spears of legionaries and the daggers of assassins. Do you suppose that I stand in awe of his paltry successors, who haveinherited a power which they never could have acquired; who wouldimitate his proscriptions, though they have never equalled hisconquests?"

"Pompey is almost as little to be trifled with as Sylla. I heard aconsular senator say that, in consequence of the present alarming stateof affairs, he would probably be recalled from the command assigned tohim by the Manilian law. "

"Let him come, --the pupil of Sylla's butcheries, --the gleaner ofLucullus's trophies, --the thief-taker of the Senate. "

"For Heaven's sake, Caius!--if you knew what the Consul said"--

"Something about himself, no doubt. Pity that such talents should becoupled with such cowardice and coxcombry. He is the finest speakerliving, --infinitely superior to what Hortensius was, in his bestdays;--a charming companion, except when he tells over for the twentiethtime all the jokes that he made at Verres's trial. But he is thedespicable tool of a despicable party. "

"Your language, Caius, convinces me that the reports which have beencirculated are not without foundation. I will venture to prophesy thatwithin a few months the republic will pass through a whole Odyssey ofstrange adventures. "

"I believe so; an Odyssey, of which Pompey will be the Polyphemus, andCicero the Siren. I would have the state imitate Ulysses: show nomercy to the former; but contrive, if it can be done, to listen tothe enchanting voice of the other, without being seduced by it todestruction. "

"But whom can your party produce as rivals to these two famous leaders?"

"Time will show. I would hope that there may arise a man, whose geniusto conquer, to conciliate, and to govern, may unite in one cause anoppressed and divided people;--may do all that Sylla should have done, and exhibit the magnificent spectacle of a great nation directed by agreat mind. "

"And where is such a man to be found?"

"Perhaps where you would least expect to find him. Perhaps he may beone whose powers have hitherto been concealed in domestic or literaryretirement. Perhaps he may be one, who, while waiting for some adequateexcitement, for some worthy opportunity, squanders on trifles a geniusbefore which may yet be humbled the sword of Pompey and the gownof Cicero. Perhaps he may now be disputing with a sophist; perhapsprattling with a mistress; perhaps" and, as he spoke, he turned away, and resumed his lounge, "strolling in the Forum. "

*****

It was almost midnight. The party had separated. Catiline and Cetheguswere still conferring in the supper-room, which was, as usual, thehighest apartment of the house. It formed a cupola, from which windowsopened on the flat roof that surrounded it. To this terrace Zoe hadretired. With eyes dimmed with fond and melancholy tears, she leanedover the balustrade, to catch the last glimpse of the departing form ofCaesar, as it grew more and more indistinct in the moonlight. Had heany thought of her? Any love for her? He, the favourite of the high-bornbeauties of Rome, the most splendid, the most graceful, the mosteloquent of its nobles? It could not be. His voice had, indeed, beentouchingly soft whenever he addressed her. There had been a fascinatingtenderness even in the vivacity of his look and conversation. But suchwere always the manners of Caesar towards women. He had wreathed a sprigof myrtle in her hair as she was singing. She took it from her darkringlets, and kissed it, and wept over it, and thought of the sweetlegends of her own dear Greece, --of youths and girls, who, pining awayin hopeless love, had been transformed into flowers by the compassionof the Gods; and she wished to become a flower, which Caesar mightsometimes touch, though he should touch it only to weave a crown forsome prouder and happier mistress. 

She was roused from her musings by the loud step and voice of Cethegus, who was pacing furiously up and down the supper-room. 

"May all the Gods confound me, if Caesar be not the deepest traitor, orthe most miserable idiot, that ever intermeddled with a plot!"

Zoe shuddered. She drew nearer to the window. She stood concealed fromobservation by the curtain of fine network which hung over the aperture, to exclude the annoying insects of the climate. 

"And you too!" continued Cethegus, turning fiercely on his accomplice;"you to take his part against me!--you, who proposed the schemeyourself!"

"My dear Caius Cethegus, you will not understand me. I proposed thescheme; and I will join in executing it. But policy is as necessary toour plans as boldness. I did not wish to startle Caesar--to lose hisco-operation--perhaps to send him off with an information against us toCicero and Catulus. He was so indignant at your suggestion that all mydissimulation was scarcely sufficient to prevent a total rupture. "

"Indignant! The Gods confound him!--He prated about humanity, andgenerosity, and moderation. By Hercules, I have not heard such a lecturesince I was with Xenochares at Rhodes. "

"Caesar is made up of inconsistencies. He has boundless ambition, unquestioned courage, admirable sagacity. Yet I have frequently observedin him a womanish weakness at the sight of pain. I remember that onceone of his slaves was taken ill while carrying his litter. He alighted, put the fellow in his place and walked home in a fall of snow. I wonderthat you could be so ill-advised as to talk to him of massacre, and pillage, and conflagration. You might have foreseen that suchpropositions would disgust a man of his temper. "

"I do not know. I have not your self-command, Lucius. I hatesuch conspirators. What is the use of them? We must haveblood--blood, --hacking and tearing work--bloody work!"

"Do not grind your teeth, my dear Caius; and lay down the carving-knife. By Hercules, you have cut up all the stuffing of the couch. "

"No matter; we shall have couches enough soon, --and down to stuffthem with, --and purple to cover them, --and pretty women to lollon them, --unless this fool, and such as he, spoil our plans. I hadsomething else to say. The essenced fop wishes to seduce Zoe from me. "

"Impossible! You misconstrue the ordinary gallantries which he is in thehabit of paying to every handsome face. "

"Curse on his ordinary gallantries, and his verses, and his compliments, and his sprigs of myrtle! If Caesar should dare--by Hercules, I willtear him to pieces in the middle of the Forum. "

"Trust his destruction to me. We must use his talents andinfluence--thrust him upon every danger--make him our instrument whilewe are contending--our peace-offering to the Senate if we fail--ourfirst victim if we succeed. "

"Hark! what noise was that?"

"Somebody in the terrace--lend me your dagger. "

Catiline rushed to the window. Zoe was standing in the shade. He steppedout. She darted into the room--passed like a flash of lightning by thestartled Cethegus--flew down the stairs--through the court--throughthe vestibule--through the street. Steps, voices, lights, came fast andconfusedly behind her; but with the speed of love and terror she gainedupon her pursuers. She fled through the wilderness of unknown and duskystreets, till she found herself, breathless and exhausted, in the midstof a crowd of gallants, who, with chaplets on their heads and torches intheir hands, were reeling from the portico of a stately mansion. 

The foremost of the throng was a youth whose slender figure andbeautiful countenance seemed hardly consistent with his sex. But thefeminine delicacy of his features rendered more frightful the mingledsensuality and ferocity of their expression. The libertine audacity ofhis stare, and the grotesque foppery of his apparel, seemed to indicateat least a partial insanity. Flinging one arm round Zoe, and tearingaway her veil with the other, he disclosed to the gaze of his throngingcompanions the regular features and large dark eyes which characteriseAthenian beauty. 

"Clodius has all the luck to-night, " cried Ligarius. 

"Not so, by Hercules, " said Marcus Coelius; "the girl is fairly ourcommon prize: we will fling dice for her. The Venus (Venus was the Romanterm for the highest throw of the dice. ) throw, as it ought to do, shalldecide. "

"Let me go--let me go, for Heaven's sake, " cried Zoe, struggling withClodius. 

"What a charming Greek accent she has! Come into the house, my littleAthenian nightingale. "

"Oh! what will become of me? If you have mothers--if you have sisters"--

"Clodius has a sister, " muttered Ligarius, "or he is much belied. "

"By Heaven, she is weeping, " said Clodius. 

"If she were not evidently a Greek, " said Coelius, "I should take herfor a vestal virgin. "

"And if she were a vestal virgin, " cried Clodius fiercely, "it shouldnot deter me. This way;--no struggling--no screaming. "

"Struggling! screaming!" exclaimed a gay and commanding voice; "You aremaking very ungentle love, Clodius. "

The whole party started. Caesar had mingled with them unperceived. 

The sound of his voice thrilled through the very heart of Zoe. Witha convulsive effort she burst from the grasp of her insolent admirer, flung herself at the feet of Caesar, and clasped his knees. The moonshone full on her agitated and imploring face: her lips moved; but sheuttered no sound. He gazed at her for an instant--raised her--claspedher to his bosom. "Fear nothing, my sweet Zoe. " Then, with foldedarms, and a smile of placid defiance, he placed himself between her andClodius. 

Clodius staggered forward, flushed with wine and rage, and utteringalternately a curse and a hiccup. 

"By Pollux, this passes a jest. Caesar, how dare you insult me thus?"

"A jest! I am as serious as a Jew on the Sabbath. Insult you; for such apair of eyes I would insult the whole consular bench, or I should be asinsensible as King Psammis's mummy. "

"Good Gods, Caesar!" said Marcus Coelius, interposing; "you cannot thinkit worth while to get into a brawl for a little Greek girl!"

"Why not? The Greek girls have used me as well as those of Rome. Besides, the whole reputation of my gallantry is at stake. Give up sucha lovely woman to that drunken boy! My character would be gone for ever. No more perfumed tablets, full of vows and raptures. No more toying withfingers at the circus. No more evening walks along the Tiber. No morehiding in chests or jumping from windows. I, the favoured suitor of halfthe white stoles in Rome, could never again aspire above a freed-woman. You a man of gallantry, and think of such a thing! For shame, my dearCoelius! Do not let Clodia hear of it. "

While Caesar spoke he had been engaged in keeping Clodius atarm's-length. The rage of the frantic libertine increased as thestruggle continued. "Stand back, as you value your life, " he cried; "Iwill pass. "

"Not this way, sweet Clodius. I have too much regard for you to sufferyou to make love at such disadvantage. You smell too much of Falernianat present. Would you stifle your mistress? By Hercules, you are fitto kiss nobody now, except old Piso, when he is tumbling home in themorning from the vintners. "

Clodius plunged his hand into his bosom and drew a little dagger, thefaithful companion of many desperate adventures. 

"Oh, Gods! he will be murdered!" cried Zoe. 

The whole throng of revellers was in agitation. The street fluctuatedwith torches and lifted hands. It was but for a moment. Caesar watchedwith a steady eye the descending hand of Clodius, arrested the blow, seized his antagonist by the throat, and flung him against one of thepillars of the portico with such violence, that he rolled, stunned andsenseless, on the ground. 

"He is killed, " cried several voices. 

"Fair self-defence, by Hercules!" said Marcus Coelius. "Bear witness, you all saw him draw his dagger. "

"He is not dead--he breathes, " said Ligarius. "Carry him into the house;he is dreadfully bruised. "

The rest of the party retired with Clodius. Coelius turned to Caesar. 

"By all the Gods, Caius! you have won your lady fairly. A splendidvictory! You deserve a triumph. "

"What a madman Clodius has become!"

"Intolerable. But come and sup with me on the Nones. You have noobjection to meet the Consul?"

"Cicero? None at all. We need not talk politics. Our old dispute aboutPlato and Epicurus will furnish us with plenty of conversation. Soreckon upon me, my dear Marcus, and farewell. "

Caesar and Zoe turned away. As soon as they were beyond hearing, shebegan in great agitation:--

"Caesar, you are in danger. I know all. I overheard Catiline andCethegus. You are engaged in a project which must lead to certaindestruction. "

"My beautiful Zoe, I live only for glory and pleasure. For these I havenever hesitated to hazard an existence which they alone render valuableto me. In the present case, I can assure you that our scheme presentsthe fairest hopes of success. "

"So much the worse. You do not know--you do not understand me. Ispeak not of open peril, but of secret treachery. Catiline hatesyou;--Cethegus hates you;--your destruction is resolved. If you survivethe contest, you perish in the first hour of victory. They detest youfor your moderation; they are eager for blood and plunder. I haverisked my life to bring you this warning; but that is of little moment. Farewell!--Be happy. "

Caesar stopped her. "Do you fly from my thanks, dear Zoe?"

"I wish not for your thanks, but for your safety;--I desire not todefraud Valeria or Servilia of one caress, extorted from gratitude orpity. Be my feelings what they may, I have learnt in a fearful school toendure and to suppress them. I have been taught to abase a proud spiritto the claps and hisses of the vulgar;--to smile on suitors who unitedthe insults of a despicable pride to the endearments of a loathsomefondness;--to affect sprightliness with an aching head, and eyes fromwhich tears were ready to gush;--to feign love with curses on my lips, and madness in my brain. Who feels for me any esteem, --any tenderness?Who will shed a tear over the nameless grave which will soon shelterfrom cruelty and scorn the broken heart of the poor Athenian girl? Butyou, who alone have addressed her in her degradation with a voiceof kindness and respect, farewell. Sometimes think of me, --not withsorrow;--no; I could bear your ingratitude, but not your distress. Yet, if it will not pain you too much, in distant days, when your loftyhopes and destinies are accomplished, --on the evening of some mightyvictory, --in the chariot of some magnificent triumph, --think on one wholoved you with that exceeding love which only the miserable can feel. Think that, wherever her exhausted frame may have sunk beneath thesensibilities of a tortured spirit, --in whatever hovel or whatever vaultshe may have closed her eyes, --whatever strange scenes of horror andpollution may have surrounded her dying bed, your shape was the lastthat swam before her sight--your voice the last sound that was ringingin her ears. Yet turn your face to me, Caesar. Let me carry away onelast look of those features, and then "--He turned round. He looked ather. He hid his face on her bosom, and burst into tears. With sobs longand loud, and convulsive as those of a terrified child, he poured forthon her bosom the tribute of impetuous and uncontrollable emotion. Heraised his head; but he in vain struggled to restore composure to thebrow which had confronted the frown of Sylla, and the lips which hadrivalled the eloquence of Cicero. He several times attempted to speak, but in vain; and his voice still faltered with tenderness, when, after apause of several minutes, he thus addressed her:

"My own dear Zoe, your love has been bestowed on one who, if hecannot merit, can at least appreciate and adore you. Beings of similarloveliness, and similar devotedness of affection, mingled, in all myboyish dreams of greatness, with visions of curule chairs and ivorycars, marshalled legions and laurelled fasces. Such I have endeavouredto find in the world; and, in their stead, I have met with selfishness, with vanity, with frivolity, with falsehood. The life which you havepreserved is a boon less valuable than the affection "--

"Oh! Caesar, " interrupted the blushing Zoe, "think only on your ownsecurity at present. If you feel as you speak, --but you are only mockingme, --or perhaps your compassion "--

"By Heaven!--by every oath that is binding "--

"Alas! alas! Caesar, were not all the same oaths sworn yesterday toValeria? But I will trust you, at least so far as to partake yourpresent dangers. Flight may be necessary:--form your plans. Be they whatthey may, there is one who, in exile, in poverty, in peril, asks only towander, to beg, to die with you. "

"My Zoe, I do not anticipate any such necessity. To renounce theconspiracy without renouncing the principles on which it was originallyundertaken, --to elude the vengeance of the Senate without losingthe confidence of the people, --is, indeed, an arduous, but not animpossible, task. I owe it to myself and to my country to make theattempt. There is still ample time for consideration. At present I amtoo happy in love to think of ambition or danger. "

They had reached the door of a stately palace. Caesar struck it. It wasinstantly opened by a slave. Zoe found herself in a magnificent hall, surrounded by pillars of green marble, between which were ranged thestatues of the long line of Julian nobles. 

"Call Endymion, " said Caesar. 

The confidential freed-man made his appearance, not without a slightsmile, which his patron's good nature emboldened him to hazard, atperceiving the beautiful Athenian. 

"Arm my slaves, Endymion; there are reasons for precaution. Letthem relieve each other on guard during the night. Zoe, my love, mypreserver, why are your cheeks so pale? Let me kiss some bloom intothem. How you tremble! Endymion, a flask of Samian and some fruit. Bringthem to my apartments. This way, my sweet Zoe. "

*****

ON THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE. (June 1823. )

This is the age of societies. There is scarcely one Englishman in tenwho has not belonged to some association for distributing books, or forprosecuting them; for sending invalids to the hospital, or beggars tothe treadmill; for giving plate to the rich, or blankets to the poor. To be the most absurd institution among so many institutions is no smalldistinction; it seems, however, to belong indisputably to the RoyalSociety of Literature. At the first establishment of that ridiculousacademy, every sensible man predicted that, in spite of regal patronageand episcopal management, it would do nothing, or do harm. And it willscarcely be denied that those expectations have hitherto been fulfilled. 

I do not attack the founders of the association. Their characters arerespectable; their motives, I am willing to believe, were laudable. But I feel, and it is the duty of every literary man to feel, a strongjealousy of their proceedings. Their society can be innocent only whileit continues to be despicable. Should they ever possess the power toencourage merit, they must also possess the power to depress it. Whichpower will be more frequently exercised, let every one who has studiedliterary history, let every one who has studied human nature, declare. 

Envy and faction insinuate themselves into all communities. Theyoften disturb the peace, and pervert the decisions, of benevolent andscientific associations. But it is in literary academies that they exertthe most extensive and pernicious influence. In the first place, theprinciples of literary criticism, though equally fixed with those onwhich the chemist and the surgeon proceed, are by no means equallyrecognised. Men are rarely able to assign a reason for their approbationor dislike on questions of taste; and therefore they willingly submitto any guide who boldly asserts his claim to superior discernment. It ismore difficult to ascertain and establish the merits of a poem thanthe powers of a machine or the benefits of a new remedy. Hence it isin literature, that quackery is most easily puffed, and excellence mosteasily decried. 

In some degree this argument applies to academies of the fine arts; andit is fully confirmed by all that I have ever heard of that institutionwhich annually disfigures the walls of Somerset House with an acre ofspoiled canvas. But a literary tribunal is incomparably more dangerous. Other societies, at least, have no tendency to call forth any opinionson those subjects which most agitate and inflame the minds of men. Thesceptic and the zealot, the revolutionist and the placeman, meet oncommon ground in a gallery of paintings or a laboratory of science. Theycan praise or censure without reference to the differences which existbetween them. In a literary body this can never be the case. Literatureis, and always must be, inseparably blended with politics and theology;it is the great engine which moves the feelings of a people on the mostmomentous questions. It is, therefore, impossible that any societycan be formed so impartial as to consider the literary character of anindividual abstracted from the opinions which his writings inculcate. Itis not to be hoped, perhaps it is not to be wished, that the feelingsof the man should be so completely forgotten in the duties of theacademician. The consequences are evident. The honours and censuresof this Star Chamber of the Muses will be awarded according to theprejudices of the particular sect or faction which may at the timepredominate. Whigs would canvass against a Southey, Tories against aByron. Those who might at first protest against such conduct as unjustwould soon adopt it on the plea of retaliation; and the general good ofliterature, for which the society was professedly instituted, would beforgotten in the stronger claims of political and religious partiality. 

Yet even this is not the worst. Should the institution ever acquire anyinfluence, it will afford most pernicious facilities to every malignantcoward who may desire to blast a reputation which he envies. It willfurnish a secure ambuscade, behind which the Maroons of literature maytake a certain and deadly aim. The editorial WE has often been fatalto rising genius; though all the world knows that it is only a form ofspeech, very often employed by a single needy blockhead. The academic WEwould have a far greater and more ruinous influence. Numbers, whilethey increase the effect, would diminish the shame, of injustice. The advantages of an open and those of an anonymous attack would becombined; and the authority of avowal would be united to the security ofconcealment. The serpents in Virgil, after they had destroyed Laocoon, found an asylum from the vengeance of the enraged people behind theshield of the statue of Minerva. And, in the same manner, everythingthat is grovelling and venomous, everything that can hiss, andeverything that can sting, would take sanctuary in the recesses of thisnew temple of wisdom. 

The French academy was, of all such associations, the most widely andthe most justly celebrated. It was founded by the greatest of ministers:it was patronised by successive kings; it numbered in its lists most ofthe eminent French writers. Yet what benefit has literature derived fromits labours? What is its history but an uninterrupted record of servilecompliances--of paltry artifices--of deadly quarrels--of perfidiousfriendships? Whether governed by the Court, by the Sorbonne, or bythe Philosophers, it was always equally powerful for evil, and equallyimpotent for good. I might speak of the attacks by which it attemptedto depress the rising fame of Corneille; I might speak of the reluctancewith which it gave its tardy confirmation to the applauses which thewhole civilised world had bestowed on the genius of Voltaire. I mightprove by overwhelming evidence that, to the latest period of itsexistence, even under the superintendence of the all-accomplishedD'Alembert, it continued to be a scene of the fiercest animosities andthe basest intrigues. I might cite Piron's epigrams, and Marmontel'smemoirs, and Montesquieu's letters. But I hasten on to another topic. 

One of the modes by which our Society proposes to encourage merit is thedistribution of prizes. The munificence of the king has enabled itto offer an annual premium of a hundred guineas for the best essay inprose, and another of fifty guineas for the best poem, which may betransmitted to it. This is very laughable. In the first place thejudges may err. Those imperfections of human intellect to which, as thearticles of the Church tell us, even general councils are subject, maypossibly be found even in the Royal Society of Literature. The Frenchacademy, as I have already said, was the most illustrious assembly ofthe kind, and numbered among its associates men much more distinguishedthan ever will assemble at Mr Hatchard's to rummage the box of theEnglish Society. Yet this famous body gave a poetical prize, for whichVoltaire was a candidate, to a fellow who wrote some verses about THEFROZEN AND THE BURNING POLE. 

Yet, granting that the prizes were always awarded to the bestcomposition, that composition, I say without hesitation, will always bebad. A prize poem is like a prize sheep. The object of the competitorfor the agricultural premium is to produce an animal fit, not to beeaten, but to be weighed. Accordingly he pampers his victim into morbidand unnatural fatness; and, when it is in such a state that it wouldbe sent away in disgust from any table, he offers it to the judges. Theobject of the poetical candidate, in like manner, is to produce, not agood poem, but a poem of that exact degree of frigidity or bombast whichmay appear to his censors to be correct or sublime. Compositions thusconstructed will always be worthless. The few excellences which they maycontain will have an exotic aspect and flavour. In general, prize sheepare good for nothing but to make tallow candles, and prize poems aregood for nothing but to light them. 

The first subject proposed by the Society to the poets of England wasDartmoor. I thought that they intended a covert sarcasm at their ownprojects. Their institution was a literary Dartmoor scheme;--a planfor forcing into cultivation the waste lands of intellect, --for raisingpoetical produce, by means of bounties, from soil too meagre to haveyielded any returns in the natural course of things. The plan for thecultivation of Dartmoor has, I hear, been abandoned. I hope that thismay be an omen of the fate of the Society. 

In truth, this seems by no means improbable. They have been offering forseveral years the rewards which the king placed at their disposal, andhave not, as far as I can learn, been able to find in their box onecomposition which they have deemed worthy of publication. At least nopublication has taken place. The associates may perhaps be astonishedat this. But I will attempt to explain it, after the manner of ancienttimes, by means of an apologue. 

About four hundred years after the Deluge, King Gomer Chephoraod reignedin Babylon. He united all the characteristics of an excellent sovereign. He made good laws, won great battles, and white-washed long streets. He was, in consequence, idolised by his people, and panegyrised by manypoets and orators. A book was then a sermons undertaking. Neither papernor any similar material had been invented. Authors were therefore underthe necessity of inscribing their compositions on massive bricks. Someof these Babylonian records are still preserved in European museums; butthe language in which they are written has never been deciphered. GomerChephoraod was so popular that the clay of all the plains round theEuphrates could scarcely furnish brick-kilns enough for his eulogists. It is recorded in particular that Pharonezzar, the Assyrian Pindar, published a bridge and four walls in his praise. 

One day the king was going in state from his palace to the temple ofBelus. During this procession it was lawful for any Babylonian to offerany petition or suggestion to his sovereign. As the chariot passedbefore a vintner's shop, a large company, apparently half-drunk, salliedforth into the street, and one of them thus addressed the king:

"Gomer Chephoraod, live for ever! It appears to thy servants that of allthe productions of the earth good wine is the best, and bad wine is theworst. Good wine makes the heart cheerful, the eyes bright, the speechready. Bad wine confuses the head, disorders the stomach, makes usquarrelsome at night, and sick the next morning. Now therefore let mylord the king take order that thy servants may drink good wine. 

"And how is this to be done?" said the good-natured prince. 

"O King, " said his monitor, "this is most easy. Let the king make adecree, and seal it with his royal signet: and let it be proclaimed thatthe king will give ten she-asses, and ten slaves, and ten changes ofraiment, every year, unto the man who shall make ten measures of thebest wine. And whosoever wishes for the she-asses, and the slaves, andthe raiment, let him send the ten measures of wine to thy servants, andwe will drink thereof and judge. So shall there be much good wine inAssyria. "

The project pleased Gomer Chephoraod. "Be it so, " said he. The peopleshouted. The petitioners prostrated themselves in gratitude. The samenight heralds were despatched to bear the intelligence to the remotestdistricts of Assyria. 

After a due interval the wines began to come in; and the examinersassembled to adjudge the prize. The first vessel was unsealed. Itsodour was such that the judges, without tasting it, pronounced unanimouscondemnation. The next was opened: it had a villainous taste of clay. The third was sour and vapid. They proceeded from one cask of execrableliquor to another, till at length, in absolute nausea, they gave up theinvestigation. 

The next morning they all assembled at the gate of the king, with palefaces and aching heads. They owned that they could not recommend anycompetitor as worthy of the rewards. They swore that the wine was littlebetter than poison, and entreated permission to resign the office ofdeciding between such detestable potions. 

"In the name of Belus, how can this have happened?" said the king. 

Merolchazzar, the high-priest, muttered something about the anger ofthe Gods at the toleration shown to a sect of impious heretics who atepigeons broiled, "whereas, " said he, "our religion commands us to eatthem roasted. Now therefore, O King, " continued this respectable divine, "give command to thy men of war, and let them smite the disobedientpeople with the sword, them, and their wives, and their children, andlet their houses, and their flocks, and their herds, be given to thyservants the priests. Then shall the land yield its increase, andthe fruits of the earth shall be no more blasted by the vengeance ofHeaven. "

"Nay, " said the king, "the ground lies under no general curse fromHeaven. The season has been singularly good. The wine which thou didstthyself drink at the banquet a few nights ago, O venerable Merolchazzar, was of this year's vintage. Dost thou not remember how thou didst praiseit? It was the same night that thou wast inspired by Belus and didstreel to and fro, and discourse sacred mysteries. These things are toohard for me. I comprehend them not. The only wine which is bad is thatwhich is sent to my judges. Who can expound this to us?"

The king scratched his head. Upon which all the courtiers scratchedtheir heads. 

He then ordered proclamation to be made that a purple robe and a goldenchain should be given to the man who could solve this difficulty. 

An old philosopher, who had been observed to smile rather disdainfullywhen the prize had first been instituted, came forward and spoke thus:--

"Gomer Chephoraod, live for ever! Marvel not at that which has happened. It was no miracle, but a natural event. How could it be otherwise? It istrue that much good wine has been made this year. But who would send itin for thy rewards? Thou knowest Ascobaruch who hath the great vineyardsin the north, and Cohahiroth who sendeth wine every year from the southover the Persian Golf. Their wines are so delicious that ten measuresthereof are sold for an hundred talents of silver. Thinkest thou thatthey will exchange them for thy slaves and thine asses? What would thyprize profit any who have vineyards in rich soils?"

"Who then, " said one of the judges, "are the wretches who sent us thispoison?"

"Blame them not, " said the sage, "seeing that you have been the authorsof the evil. They are men whose lands are poor, and have never yieldedthem any returns equal to the prizes which the king proposed. Wherefore, knowing that the lords of the fruitful vineyards would not enter intocompetition with them they planted vines, some on rocks, and some inlight sandy soil, and some in deep clay. Hence their wines are bad. For no culture or reward will make barren land bear good vines. Knowtherefore, assuredly, that your prizes have increased the quantity ofbad but not of good wine. "

There was a long silence. At length the king spoke. "Give him the purplerobe and the chain of gold. Throw the wines into the Euphrates; andproclaim that the Royal Society of Wines is dissolved. "

*****

SCENES FROM "ATHENIAN REVELS. " (January 1824. )

A DRAMA. 

I. 

SCENE--A Street in Athens. 

Enter CALLIDEMUS and SPEUSIPPUS;

CALLIDEMUS. So, you young reprobate! You must be a man of wit, forsooth, and a man of quality! You must spend as if you were as rich as Nicias, and prate as if you were as wise as Pericles! You must dangle aftersophists and pretty women! And I must pay for all! I must sup on thymeand onions, while you are swallowing thrushes and hares! I must drinkwater, that you may play the cottabus (This game consisted in projectingwine out of cups; it was a diversion extremely fashionable at Athenianentertainments. ) with Chian wine! I must wander about as ragged asPauson (Pauson was an Athenian painter, whose name was synonymous withbeggary. See Aristophanes; Plutus, 602. From his poverty, I am inclinedto suppose that he painted historical pictures. ), that you may beas fine as Alcibiades! I must lie on bare boards, with a stone (SeeAristophanes; Plutus, 542. ) for my pillow, and a rotten mat for mycoverlid, by the light of a wretched winking lamp, while you aremarching in state, with as many torches as one sees at the feast ofCeres, to thunder with your hatchet (See Theocritus; Idyll ii. 128. )at the doors of half the Ionian ladies in Peiraeus. (This was the mostdisreputable part of Athens. See Aristophanes: Pax, 165. )

SPEUSIPPUS. Why, thou unreasonable old man! Thou most shameless offathers!--

CALLIDEMUS. Ungrateful wretch; dare you talk so? Are you not afraid ofthe thunders of Jupiter?

SPEUSIPPUS. Jupiter thunder! nonsense! Anaxagoras says, that thunder isonly an explosion produced by--

CALLIDEMUS. He does! Would that it had fallen on his head for his pains!

SPEUSIPPUS. Nay: talk rationally. 

CALLIDEMUS. Rationally! You audacious young sophist! I will talkrationally. Do you know that I am your father? What quibble can you makeupon that?

SPEUSIPPUS. Do I know that you are my father? Let us take the questionto pieces, as Melesigenes would say. First, then, we must inquire whatis knowledge? Secondly, what is a father? Now, knowledge, as Socratessaid the other day to Theaetetus (See Plato's Theaetetus. )--

CALLIDEMUS. Socrates! what! the ragged flat-nosed old dotard, who walksabout all day barefoot, and filches cloaks, and dissects gnats, andshoes (See Aristophanes; Nubes, 150. ) fleas with wax?

SPEUSIPPUS. All fiction! All trumped up by Aristophanes!

CALLIDEMUS. By Pallas, if he is in the habit of putting shoes on hisfleas, he is kinder to them than to himself. But listen to me, boy; ifyou go on in this way, you will be ruined. There is an argument for you. Go to your Socrates and your Melesigenes, and tell them to refute that. Ruined! Do you hear?

SPEUSIPPUS. Ruined!

CALLIDEMUS. Ay, by Jupiter! Is such a show as you make to be supportedon nothing? During all the last war, I made not an obol from myfarm; the Peloponnesian locusts came almost as regularly as thePleiades;--corn burnt;--olives stripped;--fruit trees cut down;--wellsstopped up;--and, just when peace came, and I hoped that all would turnout well, you must begin to spend as if you had all the mines of Thasusat command. 

SPEUSIPPUS. Now, by Neptune, who delights in horses--

CALLIDEMUS. If Neptune delights in horses, he does not resemble me. Youmust ride at the Panathenaea on a horse fit for the great king: fouracres of my best vines went for that folly. You must retrench, or youwill have nothing to eat. Does not Anaxagoras mention, among his otherdiscoveries, that when a man has nothing to eat he dies?

SPEUSIPPUS. You are deceived. My friends--

CALLIDEMUS. Oh, yes! your friends will notice you, doubtless, when youare squeezing through the crowd, on a winter's day, to warm yourselfat the fire of the baths;--or when you are fighting with beggars andbeggars' dogs for the scraps of a sacrifice;--or when you are gladto earn three wretched obols (The stipend of an Athenian juryman. ) bylistening all day to lying speeches and crying children. 

SPEUSIPPUS. There are other means of support. 

CALLIDEMUS. What! I suppose you will wander from house to house, like that wretched buffoon Philippus (Xenophon; Convivium. ), and begeverybody who has asked a supper-party to be so kind as to feed youand laugh at you; or you will turn sycophant; you will get a bunchof grapes, or a pair of shoes, now and then, by frightening some richcoward with a mock prosecution. Well! that is a task for which yourstudies under the sophists may have fitted you. 

SPEUSIPPUS. You are wide of the mark. 

CALLIDEMUS. Then what, in the name of Juno, is your scheme? Doyou intend to join Orestes (A celebrated highwayman of Attica. SeeAristophanes; Aves, 711; and in several other passages. ), and rob onthe highway? Take care; beware of the eleven (The police officers ofAthens. ); beware of the hemlock. It may be very pleasant to live atother people's expense; but not very pleasant, I should think, to hearthe pestle give its last bang against the mortar, when the cold dose isready. Pah!--

SPEUSIPPUS. Hemlock? Orestes! folly!--I aim at nobler objects. What sayyou to politics, --the general assembly?

CALLIDEMUS. You an orator!--oh no! no! Cleon was worth twenty such foolsas you. You have succeeded, I grant, to his impudence, for which, ifthere be justice in Tartarus, he is now soaking up to the eyes in hisown tanpickle. But the Paphlagonian had parts. 

SPEUSIPPUS. And you mean to imply--

CALLIDEMUS. Not I. You are a Pericles in embryo, doubtless. Well: andwhen are you to make your first speech? O Pallas!

SPEUSIPPUS. I thought of speaking, the other day, on the Sicilianexpedition; but Nicias (See Thucydides, vi. 8. ) got up before me. 

CALLIDEMUS. Nicias, poor honest man, might just as well have satestill; his speaking did but little good. The loss of your oration is, doubtless, an irreparable public calamity. 

SPEUSIPPUS. Why, not so; I intend to introduce it at the next assembly;it will suit any subject. 

CALLIDEMUS. That is to say, it will suit none. But pray, if it be nottoo presumptuous a request, indulge me with a specimen. 

SPEUSIPPUS. Well; suppose the agora crowded;--an important subject underdiscussion;--an ambassador from Argos, or from the great king;--thetributes from the islands;--an impeachment;--in short, anything youplease. The crier makes proclamation. --"Any citizen above fifty yearsold may speak--any citizen not disqualified may speak. " Then I rise:--agreat murmur of curiosity while I am mounting the stand. 

CALLIDEMUS. Of curiosity! yes, and of something else too. You willinfallibly be dragged down by main force, like poor Glaucon (SeeXenophon Memorabilia, iii. ) last year. 

SPEUSIPPUS. Never fear. I shall begin in this style: "When I consider, Athenians, the importance of our city;--when I consider the extentof its power, the wisdom of its laws, the elegance of itsdecorations;--when I consider by what names and by what exploits itsannals are adorned; when I think on Harmodius and Aristogiton, onThemistocles and Miltiades, on Cimon and Pericles;--when I contemplateour pre-eminence in arts and letters;--when I observe so manyflourishing states and islands compelled to own the dominion, andpurchase the protection of the City of the Violet Crown" (A favouriteepithet of Athens. See Aristophanes; Acharn. 637. )--

CALLIDEMUS. I shall choke with rage. Oh, all ye gods and goddesses, whatsacrilege, what perjury have I ever committed, that I should be singledout from among all the citizens of Athens to be the father of this fool?

SPEUSIPPUS. What now? By Bacchus, old man, I would not advise you togive way to such fits of passion in the streets. If Aristophanes were tosee you, you would infallibly be in a comedy next spring. 

CALLIDEMUS. You have more reason to fear Aristophanes than any foolliving. Oh, that he could but hear you trying to imitate the slang ofStraton (See Aristophanes; Equites, 1375. ) and the lisp of Alcibiades!(See Aristophanes; Vespae, 44. ) You would be an inexhaustible subject. You would console him for the loss of Cleon. 

SPEUSIPPUS. No, no. I may perhaps figure at the dramatic representationsbefore long; but in a very different way. 

CALLIDEMUS. What do you mean?

SPEUSIPPUS. What say you to a tragedy?

CALLIDEMUS. A tragedy of yours?

SPEUSIPPUS. Even so. 

CALLIDEMUS. Oh Hercules! Oh Bacchus! This is too much. Here is anuniversal genius; sophist, --orator, --poet. To what a three-headedmonster have I given birth! a perfect Cerberus of intellect! And praywhat may your piece be about? Or will your tragedy, like your speech, serve equally for any subject?

SPEUSIPPUS. I thought of several plots;--Oedipus, --Eteocles andPolynices, --the war of Troy, --the murder of Agamemnon. 

CALLIDEMUS. And what have you chosen?

SPEUSIPPUS. You know there is a law which permits any modern poetto retouch a play of Aeschylus, and bring it forward as his owncomposition. And, as there is an absurd prejudice, among the vulgar, in favour of his extravagant pieces, I have selected one of them, andaltered it. 

CALLIDEMUS. Which of them?

SPEUSIPPUS. Oh! that mass of barbarous absurdities, the Prometheus. ButI have framed it anew upon the model of Euripides. By Bacchus, I shallmake Sophocles and Agathon look about them. You would not know the playagain. 

CALLIDEMUS. By Jupiter, I believe not. 

SPEUSIPPUS. I have omitted the whole of the absurd dialogue betweenVulcan and Strength, at the beginning. 

CALLIDEMUS. That may be, on the whole, an improvement. The play willthen open with that grand soliloquy of Prometheus, when he is chained tothe rock. 

"Oh! ye eternal heavens! ye rushing winds! Ye fountains of greatstreams! Ye ocean waves, That in ten thousand sparkling dimples wreatheYour azure smiles! All-generating earth! All-seeing sun! On you, on you, I call. " (See Aeschylus; Prometheus, 88. )

Well, I allow that will be striking; I did not think you capable of thatidea. Why do you laugh?

SPEUSIPPUS. Do you seriously suppose that one who has studied the playsof that great man, Euripides, would ever begin a tragedy in such aranting style?

CALLIDEMUS. What, does not your play open with the speech of Prometheus?

SPEUSIPPUS. No doubt. 

CALLIDEMUS. Then what, in the name of Bacchus, do you make him say?

SPEUSIPPUS. You shall hear; and, if it be not in the very style ofEuripides, call me a fool. 

CALLIDEMUS. That is a liberty which I shall venture to take, whether itbe or no. But go on. 

SPEUSIPPUS. Prometheus begins thus:--

 "Coelus begat Saturn and Briareus Cottus and Creius and Iapetus, Gyges and Hyperion, Phoebe, Tethys, Thea and Rhea and Mnemosyne. Then Saturn wedded Rhea, and begat Pluto and Neptune, Jupiter and Juno. "

CALLIDEMUS. Very beautiful, and very natural; and, as you say, very likeEuripides. 

SPEUSIPPUS. You are sneering. Really, father, you do not understandthese things. You had not those advantages in your youth--

CALLIDEMUS. Which I have been fool enough to let you have. No; in myearly days, lying had not been dignified into a science, nor politicsdegraded into a trade. I wrestled, and read Homer's battles, instead ofdressing my hair, and reciting lectures in verse out of Euripides. ButI have some notion of what a play should be; I have seen Phrynichus, andlived with Aeschylus. I saw the representation of the Persians. 

SPEUSIPPUS. A wretched play; it may amuse the fools who row thetriremes; but it is utterly unworthy to be read by any man of taste. 

CALLIDEMUS. If you had seen it acted;--the whole theatre frantic withjoy, stamping, shouting, laughing, crying. There was Cynaegeirus, thebrother of Aeschylus, who lost both his arms at Marathon, beating thestumps against his sides with rapture. When the crowd remarked him--Butwhere are you going?

SPEUSIPPUS. To sup with Alcibiades; he sails with the expedition forSicily in a few days; this is his farewell entertainment. 

CALLIDEMUS. So much the better; I should say, so much the worse. Thatcursed Sicilian expedition! And you were one of the young fools (SeeThucydides, vi. 13. ) who stood clapping and shouting while he wasgulling the rabble, and who drowned poor Nicias's voice with youruproar. Look to it; a day of reckoning will come. As to Alcibiadeshimself--

SPEUSIPPUS. What can you say against him? His enemies themselvesacknowledge his merit. 

CALLIDEMUS. They acknowledge that he is clever, and handsome, andthat he was crowned at the Olympic games. And what other merits do hisfriends claim for him? A precious assembly you will meet at his house, no doubt. 

SPEUSIPPUS. The first men in Athens, probably. 

CALLIDEMUS. Whom do you mean by the first men in Athens?

SPEUSIPPUS. Callicles. (Callicles plays a conspicuous part in theGorgias of Plato. )

CALLIDEMUS. A sacrilegious, impious, unfeeling ruffian!

SPEUSIPPUS. Hippomachus. 

CALLIDEMUS. A fool, who can talk of nothing but his travels throughPersia and Egypt. Go, go. The gods forbid that I should detain you fromsuch choice society!

[Exeunt severally. ]

II. 

SCENE--A Hall in the house of ALCIBIADES. 

ALCIBIADES, SPEUSIPPUS, CALLICLES, HIPPOMACHUS, CHARICLEA, and others, seated round a table feasting. 

ALCIBIADES. Bring larger cups. This shall be our gayest revel. It isprobably the last--for some of us at least. 

SPEUSIPPUS. At all events, it will be long before you taste such wineagain, Alcibiades. 

CALLICLES. Nay, there is excellent wine in Sicily. When I was there withEurymedon's squadron, I had many a long carouse. You never saw finergrapes than those of Aetna. 

HIPPOMACHUS. The Greeks do not understand the art of making wine. YourPersian is the man. So rich, so fragrant, so sparkling! I will tell youwhat the Satrap of Caria said to me about that when I supped with him. 

ALCIBIADES. Nay, sweet Hippomachus; not a word to-night about satraps, or the great king, or the walls of Babylon, or the Pyramids, or themummies. Chariclea, why do you look so sad?

CHARICLEA. Can I be cheerful when you are going to leave me, Alcibiades?

ALCIBIADES. My life, my sweet soul, it is but for a short time. In ayear we conquer Sicily. In another, we humble Carthage. (See Thucydides, vi. 90. ) I will bring back such robes, such necklaces, elephants' teethby thousands, ay, and the elephants themselves, if you wish to see them. Nay, smile, my Chariclea, or I shall talk nonsense to no purpose. 

HIPPOMACHUS. The largest elephant that I ever saw was in the grounds ofTeribazus, near Susa. I wish that I had measured him. 

ALCIBIADES. I wish that he had trod upon you. Come, come, Chariclea, weshall soon return, and then--

CHARICLEA. Yes; then indeed. 

ALCIBIADES. 

 Yes, then-- Then for revels; then for dances, Tender whispers, melting glances. Peasants, pluck your richest fruits: Minstrels, sound your sweetest flutes: Come in laughing crowds to greet us, Dark-eyed daughters of Miletus; Bring the myrtles, bring the dice, Floods of Chian, hills of spice. 

SPEUSIPPUS. Whose lines are those, Alcibiades?

ALCIBIADES. My own. Think you, because I do not shut myself up tomeditate, and drink water, and eat herbs, that I cannot write verses?By Apollo, if I did not spend my days in politics, and my nights inrevelry, I should have made Sophocles tremble. But now I never go beyonda little song like this, and never invoke any Muse but Chariclea. Butcome, Speusippus, sing. You are a professed poet. Let us have some ofyour verses. 

SPEUSIPPUS. My verses! How can you talk so? I a professed poet!

ALCIBIADES. Oh, content you, sweet Speusippus. We all know your designsupon the tragic honours. Come, sing. A chorus of your new play. 

SPEUSIPPUS. Nay, nay--

HIPPOMACHUS. When a guest who is asked to sing at a Persian banquetrefuses--

SPEUSIPPUS. In the name of Bacchus--

ALCIBIADES. I am absolute. Sing. 

SPEUSIPPUS. Well, then, I will sing you a chorus, which, I think, is atolerable imitation of Euripides. 

CHARICLEA. Of Euripides?--Not a word. 

ALCIBIADES. Why so, sweet Chariclea?

CHARICLEA. Would you have me betray my sex? Would you have me forgethis Phaedras and Sthenoboeas? No if I ever suffer any lines of thatwoman-hater, or his imitators, to be sung in my presence, may I sellherbs (The mother of Euripides was a herb-woman. This was a favouritetopic of Aristophanes. ) like his mother, and wear rags like hisTelephus. (The hero of one of the lost plays of Euripides, who appearsto have been brought upon the stage in the garb of a beggar. SeeAristophanes; Acharn. 430; and in other places. )

ALCIBIADES. Then, sweet Chariclea, since you have silenced Speusippus, you shall sing yourself. 

CHARICLEA. What shall I sing?

ALCIBIADES. Nay, choose for yourself. 

CHARICLEA. Then I will sing an old Ionian hymn, which is chanted everyspring at the feast of Venus, near Miletus. I used to sing it in my owncountry when I was a child; and--ah, Alcibiades!

ALCIBIADES. Dear Chariclea, you shall sing something else. Thisdistresses you. 

CHARICLEA. No hand me the lyre:--no matter. You will hear the song todisadvantage. But if it were sung as I have heard it sung:--if thiswere a beautiful morning in spring, and if we were standing on a woodypromontory, with the sea, and the white sails, and the blue Cycladesbeneath us, --and the portico of a temple peeping through the trees ona huge peak above our heads, --and thousands of people, with myrtlesin their hands, thronging up the winding path, their gay dresses andgarlands disappearing and emerging by turns as they passed round theangles of the rock, --then perhaps--

ALCIBIADES. Now, by Venus herself, sweet lady, where you are we shalllack neither sun, nor flowers, nor spring, nor temple, nor goddess. 

CHARICLEA. (Sings. )

 Let this sunny hour be given, Venus, unto love and mirth: Smiles like thine are in the heaven; Bloom like thine is on the earth; And the tinkling of the fountains, And the murmurs of the sea, And the echoes from the mountains, Speak of youth, and hope, and thee. 

 By whate'er of soft expression Thou hast taught to lovers' eyes, Faint denial, slow confession, Glowing cheeks and stifled sighs; By the pleasure and the pain, By the follies and the wiles, Pouting fondness, sweet disdain, Happy tears and mournful smiles;

 Come with music floating o'er thee; Come with violets springing round: Let the Graces dance before thee, All their golden zones unbound; Now in sport their faces hiding, Now, with slender fingers fair, From their laughing eyes dividing The long curls of rose-crowned hair. 

ALCIBIADES. Sweetly sung; but mournfully, Chariclea; for which I wouldchide you, but that I am sad myself. More wine there. I wish to all thegods that I had fairly sailed from Athens. 

CHARICLEA. And from me, Alcibiades?

ALCIBIADES. Yes, from you, dear lady. The days which immediately precedeseparation are the most melancholy of our lives. 

CHARICLEA. Except those which immediately follow it. 

ALCIBIADES. No; when I cease to see you, other objects may compel myattention; but can I be near you without thinking how lovely you are, and how soon I must leave you?

HIPPOMACHUS. Ay; travelling soon puts such thoughts out of men's heads. 

CALLICLES. A battle is the best remedy for them. 

CHARICLEA. A battle, I should think, might supply their place withothers as unpleasant. 

CALLICLES. No. The preparations are rather disagreeable to a novice. But as soon as the fighting begins, by Jupiter, it is a noble time;--mentrampling, --shields clashing, --spears breaking, --and the poean roaringlouder than all. 

CHARICLEA. But what if you are killed?

CALLICLES. What indeed? You must ask Speusippus that question. He is aphilosopher. 

ALCIBIADES. Yes, and the greatest of philosophers, if he can answer it. 

SPEUSIPPUS. Pythagoras is of opinion--

HIPPOMACHUS. Pythagoras stole that and all his other opinions from Asiaand Egypt. The transmigration of the soul and the vegetable diet arederived from India. I met a Brachman in Sogdiana--

CALLICLES. All nonsense!

CHARICLEA. What think you, Alcibiades?

ALCIBIADES. I think that, if the doctrine be true, your spirit will betransfused into one of the doves who carry (Homer's Odyssey, xii. 63. ) ambrosia to the gods or verses to the mistresses of poets. Do youremember Anacreon's lines? How should you like such an office?

CHARICLEA. If I were to be your dove, Alcibiades, and you would treat meas Anacreon treated his, and let me nestle in your breast and drinkfrom your cup, I would submit even to carry your love-letters to otherladies. 

CALLICLES. What, in the name of Jupiter, is the use of all thesespeculations about death? Socrates once (See the close of Plato'sGorgias. ) lectured me upon it the best part of a day. I have hated thesight of him ever since. Such things may suit an old sophist when he isfasting; but in the midst of wine and music--

HIPPOMACHUS. I differ from you. The enlightened Egyptians bringskeletons into their banquets, in order to remind their guests to makethe most of their life while they have it. 

CALLICLES. I want neither skeleton nor sophist to teach me that lesson. More wine, I pray you, and less wisdom. If you must believe somethingwhich you never can know, why not be contented with the long storiesabout the other world which are told us when we are initiated at theEleusinian mysteries? (The scene which follows is founded upon history. Thucydides tells us, in his sixth book, that about this time Alcibiadeswas suspected of having assisted at a mock celebration of these famousmysteries. It was the opinion of the vulgar among the Athenians thatextraordinary privileges were granted in the other world to alt who hadbeen initiated. )

CHARICLEA. And what are those stories?

ALCIBIADES. Are not you initiated, Chariclea?

CHARICLEA. No; my mother was a Lydian, a barbarian; and therefore--

ALCIBIADES. I understand. Now the curse of Venus on the fools who madeso hateful a law! Speusippus, does not your friend Euripides (The rightof Euripides to this line is somewhat disputable. See Aristophanes;Plutus, 1152. ) say

"The land where thou art prosperous is thy country?"

Surely we ought to say to every lady

"The land where thou art pretty is thy country. "

Besides, to exclude foreign beauties from the chorus of the initiated inthe Elysian fields is less cruel to them than to ourselves. Chariclea, you shall be initiated. 

CHARICLEA. When?

ALCIBIADES. Now. 

CHARICLEA. Where?

ALCIBIADES. Here. 

CHARICLEA. Delightful!

SPEUSIPPUS. But there must be an interval of a year between thepurification and the initiation. 

ALCIBIADES. We will suppose all that. 

SPEUSIPPUS. And nine days of rigid mortification of the senses. 

ALCIBIADES. We will suppose that too. I am sure it was supposed, with aslittle reason, when I was initiated. 

SPEUSIPPUS. But you are sworn to secrecy. 

ALCIBIADES. You a sophist, and talk of oaths! You a pupil of Euripides, and forget his maxims!

"My lips have sworn it; but my mind is free. " (See Euripides:Hippolytus, 608. For the jesuitical morality of this line Euripides isbitterly attacked by the comic poet. )

SPEUSIPPUS. But Alcibiades--

ALCIBIADES. What! Are you afraid of Ceres and Proserpine?

SPEUSIPPUS. No--but--but--I--that is I--but it is best to be safe--Imean--Suppose there should be something in it. 

ALCIBIADES. Now, by Mercury, I shall die with laughing. O Speusippus. Speusippus! Go back to your old father. Dig vineyards, and judge causes, and be a respectable citizen. But never, while you live; again dream ofbeing a philosopher. 

SPEUSIPPUS. Nay, I was only--

ALCIBIADES. A pupil of Gorgias and Melesigenes afraid of Tartarus! Inwhat region of the infernal world do you expect your domicile to befixed? Shall you roll a stone like Sisyphus? Hard exercise, Speusippus!

SPEUSIPPUS. In the name of all the gods--

ALCIBIADES. Or shall you sit starved and thirsty in the midst of fruitand wine like Tantalus? Poor fellow? I think I see your face as youare springing up to the branches and missing your aim. Oh Bacchus! OhMercury!

SPEUSIPPUS. Alcibiades!

ALCIBIADES. Or perhaps you will be food for a vulture, like the hugefellow who was rude to Latona. 

SPEUSIPPUS. Alcibiades!

ALCIBIADES. Never fear. Minos will not be so cruel. Your eloquencewill triumph over all accusations. The Furies will skulk away likedisappointed sycophants. Only address the judges of hell in thespeech which you were prevented from speaking last assembly. "When Iconsider"--is not that the beginning of it? Come, man, do not beangry. Why do you pace up and down with such long steps? You are not inTartarus yet. You seem to think that you are already stalking like poorAchilles, "With stride Majestic through the plain of Asphodel. " (See Homer'sOdyssey, xi. 538. )

SPEUSIPPUS. How can you talk so, when you know that I believe all thatfoolery as little as you do?

ALCIBIADES. Then march. You shall be the crier. Callicles, you shallcarry the torch. Why do you stare? (The crier and torchbearer wereimportant functionaries at the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries. )

CALLICLES. I do not much like the frolic. 

ALCIBIADES. Nay, surely you are not taken with a fit of piety. If allbe true that is told of you, you have as little reason to think the godsvindictive as any man breathing. If you be not belied, a certain goldengoblet which I have seen at your house was once in the temple of Juno atCorcyra. And men say that there was a priestess at Tarentum--

CALLICLES. A fig for the gods! I was thinking about the Archons. Youwill have an accusation laid against you to-morrow. It is not verypleasant to be tried before the king. (The name of king was given inthe Athenian democracy to the magistrate who exercised those spiritualfunctions which in the monarchical times had belonged to the sovereign. His court took cognisance of offences against the religion of thestate. )

ALCIBIADES. Never fear: there is not a sycophant in Attica who woulddare to breathe a word against me, for the golden plane-tree of thegreat king. (See Herodotus, viii. 28. )

HIPPOMACHUS. That plane-tree--

ALCIBIADES. Never mind the plane-tree. Come, Callicles, you were notso timid when you plundered the merchantman off Cape Malea. Take up thetorch and move. Hippomachus, tell one of the slaves to bring a sow. (Asow was sacrificed to Ceres at the admission to the greater mysteries. )

CALLICLES. And what part are you to play?

ALCIBIADES. I shall be hierophant. Herald, to your office. Torchbearer, advance with the lights. Come forward, fair novice. We will celebratethe rite within. 

[Exeunt. ]

*****

CRITICISMS ON THE PRINCIPAL ITALIAN WRITERS. 

No. I. DANTE. (January 1824. )

 "Fairest of stars, last in the train of night, If better thou belong not to the dawn, Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn With thy bright circlet. " --Milton. 

In a review of Italian literature, Dante has a double claim toprecedency. He was the earliest and the greatest writer of his country. He was the first man who fully descried and exhibited the powers ofhis native dialect. The Latin tongue, which, under the most favourablecircumstances, and in the hands of the greatest masters, had still beenpoor, feeble, and singularly unpoetical, and which had, in the age ofDante, been debased by the admixture of innumerable barbarous wordsand idioms, was still cultivated with superstitious veneration, andreceived, in the last stage of corruption, more honours than it haddeserved in the period of its life and vigour. It was the language ofthe cabinet, of the university, of the church. It was employed by allwho aspired to distinction in the higher walks of poetry. In compassionto the ignorance of his mistress, a cavalier might now and then proclaimhis passion in Tuscan or Provenc'al rhymes. The vulgar might occasionallybe edified by a pious allegory in the popular jargon. But no writerhad conceived it possible that the dialect of peasants and market-womenshould possess sufficient energy and precision for a majestic anddurable work. Dante adventured first. He detected the rich treasures ofthought and diction which still lay latent in their ore. He refined theminto purity. He burnished them into splendour. He fitted them for everypurpose of use and magnificence. And he has thus acquired the glory, notonly of producing the finest narrative poem of modern times but also ofcreating a language, distinguished by unrivalled melody, and peculiarlycapable of furnishing to lofty and passionate thoughts their appropriategarb of severe and concise expression. 

To many this may appear a singular panegyric on the Italian tongue. Indeed the great majority of the young gentlemen and young ladies, who, when they are asked whether they read Italian, answer "yes, " never gobeyond the stories at the end of their grammar, --The Pastor Fido, --or anact of Artaserse. They could as soon read a Babylonian brick as a cantoof Dante. Hence it is a general opinion, among those who know little ornothing of the subject, that this admirable language is adapted only tothe effeminate cant of sonnetteers, musicians, and connoisseurs. 

The fact is that Dante and Petrarch have been the Oromasdes andArimanes of Italian literature. I wish not to detract from the meritsof Petrarch. No one can doubt that his poems exhibit, amidst someimbecility and more affectation, much elegance, ingenuity, andtenderness. They present us with a mixture which can only be compared tothe whimsical concert described by the humorous poet of Modena:

 "S'udian gli usignuoli, al primo albore, Egli asini cantar versi d'amore. " (Tassoni; Secchia Rapita, canto i. Stanza 6. )

I am not, however, at present speaking of the intrinsic excellencies ofhis writings, which I shall take another opportunity to examine, but ofthe effect which they produced on the literature of Italy. The floridand luxurious charms of his style enticed the poets and the public fromthe contemplation of nobler and sterner models. In truth, though arude state of society is that in which great original works aremost frequently produced, it is also that in which they are worstappreciated. This may appear paradoxical; but it is proved byexperience, and is consistent with reason. To be without any receivedcanons of taste is good for the few who can create, but bad for the manywho can only imitate and judge. Great and active minds cannot remain atrest. In a cultivated age they are too often contented to move on inthe beaten path. But where no path exists they will make one. Thusthe Iliad, the Odyssey, the Divine Comedy, appeared in dark and halfbarbarous times: and thus of the few original works which have beenproduced in more polished ages we owe a large proportion to men in lowstations and of uninformed minds. I will instance, in our own language, the Pilgrim's Progress and Robinson Crusoe. Of all the prose works offiction which we possess, these are, I will not say the best, but themost peculiar, the most unprecedented, the most inimitable. Had Bunyanand Defoe been educated gentlemen, they would probably have publishedtranslations and imitations of French romances "by a person of quality. "I am not sure that we should have had Lear if Shakspeare had been ableto read Sophocles. 

But these circumstances, while they foster genius, are unfavourable tothe science of criticism. Men judge by comparison. They are unable toestimate the grandeur of an object when there is no standard by whichthey can measure it. One of the French philosophers (I beg Gerard'spardon), who accompanied Napoleon to Egypt, tells us that, when he firstvisited the great Pyramid, he was surprised to see it so diminutive. Itstood alone in a boundless plain. There was nothing near it from whichhe could calculate its magnitude. But when the camp was pitched besideit, and the tents appeared like diminutive specks around its base, hethen perceived the immensity of this mightiest work of man. In the samemanner, it is not till a crowd of petty writers has sprung up that themerit of the great masterspirits of literature is understood. 

We have indeed ample proof that Dante was highly admired in his own andthe following age. I wish that we had equal proof that he was admiredfor his excellencies. But it is a remarkable corroboration of what hasbeen said, that this great man seems to have been utterly unable toappreciate himself. In his treatise "De Vulgari Eloquentia" he talkswith satisfaction of what he has done for Italian literature, of thepurity and correctness of his style. "Cependant, " says a favouritewriter of mine, (Sismondi, Literature du Midi de l'Europe. ) "il n'estni pur, ni correct, mais il est createur. " Considering the difficultieswith which Dante had to struggle, we may perhaps be more inclined thanthe French critic to allow him this praise. Still it is by no means hishighest or most peculiar title to applause. It is scarcely necessary tosay that those qualities which escaped the notice of the poet himselfwere not likely to attract the attention of the commentators. The factis, that, while the public homage was paid to some absurdities withwhich his works may be justly charged, and to many more which werefalsely imputed to them, --while lecturers were paid to expound andeulogise his physics, his metaphysics, his theology, all bad of theirkind--while annotators laboured to detect allegorical meanings of whichthe author never dreamed, the great powers of his imagination, and theincomparable force of his style, were neither admired nor imitated. Arimanes had prevailed. The Divine Comedy was to that age what St. Paul's Cathedral was to Omai. The poor Otaheitean stared listlessly fora moment at the huge cupola, and ran into a toyshop to play with beads. Italy, too, was charmed with literary trinkets, and played with them forfour centuries. 

From the time of Petrarch to the appearance of Alfieri's tragedies, wemay trace in almost every page of Italian literature the influence ofthose celebrated sonnets which, from the nature both of their beautiesand their faults, were peculiarly unfit to be models for generalimitation. Almost all the poets of that period, however different inthe degree and quality of their talents, are characterised by greatexaggeration, and as a necessary consequence, great coldness ofsentiment; by a passion for frivolous and tawdry ornament; and, aboveall, by an extreme feebleness and diffuseness of style. Tasso, Marino, Guarini, Metastasio, and a crowd of writers of inferior merit andcelebrity, were spell-bound in the enchanted gardens of a gaudy andmeretricious Alcina, who concealed debility and deformity beneath thedeceitful semblance of loveliness and health. Ariosto, the great Ariostohimself, like his own Ruggiero, stooped for a time to linger amidstthe magic flowers and fountains, and to caress the gay and paintedsorceress. But to him, as to his own Ruggiero, had been given theomnipotent ring and the winged courser, which bore him from the paradiseof deception to the regions of light and nature. 

The evil of which I speak was not confined to the graver poets. Itinfected satire, comedy, burlesque. No person can admire more than I dothe great masterpieces of wit and humour which Italy has produced. StillI cannot but discern and lament a great deficiency, which is common tothem all. I find in them abundance of ingenuity, of droll naivete, ofprofound and just reflection, of happy expression. Manners, characters, opinions, are treated with "a most learned spirit of human dealing. " Butsomething is still wanting. We read, and we admire, and we yawn. We lookin vain for the bacchanalian fury which inspired the comedy of Athens, for the fierce and withering scorn which animates the invectives ofJuvenal and Dryden, or even for the compact and pointed diction whichadds zest to the verses of Pope and Boileau. There is no enthusiasm, no energy, no condensation, nothing which springs from strongfeeling, nothing which tends to excite it. Many fine thoughts and fineexpressions reward the toil of reading. Still it is a toil. The SecchiaRapita, in some points the best poem of its kind, is painfully diffuseand languid. The Animali Parlanti of Casti is perfectly intolerable. Iadmire the dexterity of the plot, and the liberality of the opinions. I admit that it is impossible to turn to a page which does not containsomething that deserves to be remembered; but it is at least six timesas long as it ought to be. And the garrulous feebleness of the style isa still greater fault than the length of the work. 

It may be thought that I have gone too far in attributing these evils tothe influence of the works and the fame of Petrarch. It cannot, however, be doubted that they have arisen, in a great measure, from a neglect ofthe style of Dante. This is not more proved by the decline of Italianpoetry than by its resuscitation. After the lapse of four hundred andfifty years, there appeared a man capable of appreciating and imitatingthe father of Tuscan literature--Vittorio Alfieri. Like the prince inthe nursery tale, he sought and found the sleeping beauty within therecesses which had so long concealed her from mankind. The portalwas indeed rusted by time;--the dust of ages had accumulated on thehangings;--the furniture was of antique fashion;--and the gorgeouscolour of the embroidery had faded. But the living charms which werewell worth all the rest remained in the bloom of eternal youth, and wellrewarded the bold adventurer who roused them from their long slumber. Inevery line of the Philip and the Saul, the greatest poems, I think, ofthe eighteenth century, we may trace the influence of that mightygenius which has immortalised the ill-starred love of Francesca, andthe paternal agonies of Ugolino. Alfieri bequeathed the sovereignty ofItalian literature to the author of the Aristodemus--a man of geniusscarcely inferior to his own, and a still more devoted disciple of thegreat Florentine. It must be acknowledged that this eminent writer hassometimes pushed too far his idolatry of Dante. To borrow a sprightlyillustration from Sir John Denham, he has not only imitated his garb, but borrowed his clothes. He often quotes his phrases; and he has, not very judiciously as it appears to me, imitated his versification. Nevertheless, he has displayed many of the higher excellencies of hismaster; and his works may justly inspire us with a hope that the Italianlanguage will long flourish under a new literary dynasty, or ratherunder the legitimate line, which has at length been restored to a thronelong occupied by specious usurpers. 

The man to whom the literature of his country owes its origin andits revival was born in times singularly adapted to call forth hisextraordinary powers. Religious zeal, chivalrous love and honour, democratic liberty, are the three most powerful principles that haveever influenced the character of large masses of men. Each of themsingly has often excited the greatest enthusiasm, and produced themost important changes. In the time of Dante all the three, often inamalgamation, generally in conflict, agitated the public mind. Thepreceding generation had witnessed the wrongs and the revenge of thebrave, the accomplished, the unfortunate Emperor Frederic the Second, --apoet in an age of schoolmen, --a philosopher in an age of monks, --astatesman in an age of crusaders. During the whole life of the poet, Italy was experiencing the consequences of the memorable struggle whichhe had maintained against the Church. The finest works of imaginationhave always been produced in times of political convulsion, as therichest vineyards and the sweetest flowers always grow on the soil whichhas been fertilised by the fiery deluge of a volcano. To look nofurther than the literary history of our own country, can we doubtthat Shakspeare was in a great measure produced by the Reformation, and Wordsworth by the French Revolution? Poets often avoid politicaltransactions; they often affect to despise them. But, whether theyperceive it or not, they must be influenced by them. As long as theirminds have any point of contact with those of their fellow-men, theelectric impulse, at whatever distance it may originate, will becircuitously communicated to them. 

This will be the case even in large societies, where the division oflabour enables many speculative men to observe the face of nature, orto analyse their own minds, at a distance from the seat of politicaltransactions. In the little republic of which Dante was a member thestate of things was very different. These small communities are mostunmercifully abused by most of our modern professors of the scienceof government. In such states, they tell us, factions are alwaysmost violent: where both parties are cooped up within a narrow space, political difference necessarily produces personal malignity. Every manmust be a soldier; every moment may produce a war. No citizen can liedown secure that he shall not be roused by the alarum-bell, to repelor avenge an injury. In such petty quarrels Greece squandered the bloodwhich might have purchased for her the permanent empire of the world, and Italy wasted the energy and the abilities which would have enabledher to defend her independence against the Pontiffs and the Caesars. 

All this is true: yet there is still a compensation. Mankind has notderived so much benefit from the empire of Rome as from the city ofAthens, nor from the kingdom of France as from the city of Florence. The violence of party feeling may be an evil; but it calls forth thatactivity of mind which in some states of society it is desirable toproduce at any expense. Universal soldiership may be an evil; but whereevery man is a soldier there will be no standing army. And is it no evilthat one man in every fifty should be bred to the trade of slaughter;should live only by destroying and by exposing himself to be destroyed;should fight without enthusiasm and conquer without glory; be sent to ahospital when wounded, and rot on a dunghill when old? Such, over morethan two-thirds of Europe, is the fate of soldiers. It was somethingthat the citizen of Milan or Florence fought, not merely in the vagueand rhetorical sense in which the words are often used, but in sobertruth, for his parents, his children, his lands, his house, his altars. It was something that he marched forth to battle beneath the Carroccio, which had been the object of his childish veneration: that his agedfather looked down from the battlements on his exploits; that hisfriends and his rivals were the witnesses of his glory. If he fell, hewas consigned to no venal or heedless guardians. The same day saw himconveyed within the walls which he had defended. His wounds were dressedby his mother; his confession was whispered to the friendly priestwho had heard and absolved the follies of his youth; his last sigh wasbreathed upon the lips of the lady of his love. Surely there is no swordlike that which is beaten out of a ploughshare. Surely this state ofthings was not unmixedly bad; its evils were alleviated by enthusiasmand by tenderness; and it will at least be acknowledged that it was wellfitted to nurse poetical genius in an imaginative and observant mind. 

Nor did the religious spirit of the age tend less to this result thanits political circumstances. Fanaticism is an evil, but it is not thegreatest of evils. It is good that a people should be roused by anymeans from a state of utter torpor;--that their minds should be divertedfrom objects merely sensual, to meditations, however erroneous, on themysteries of the moral and intellectual world; and from interests whichare immediately selfish to those which relate to the past, the future, and the remote. These effects have sometimes been produced by the worstsuperstitions that ever existed; but the Catholic religion, even inthe time of its utmost extravagance and atrocity, never wholly lost thespirit of the Great Teacher, whose precepts form the noblest code, asHis conduct furnished the purest example, of moral excellence. It is ofall religions the most poetical. The ancient superstitions furnishedthe fancy with beautiful images, but took no hold on the heart. Thedoctrines of the Reformed Churches have most powerfully influencedthe feelings and the conduct of men, but have not presented them withvisions of sensible beauty and grandeur. The Roman Catholic Church hasunited to the awful doctrines of the one that Mr Coleridge calls the"fair humanities" of the other. It has enriched sculpture and paintingwith the loveliest and most majestic forms. To the Phidian Jupiter itcan oppose the Moses of Michael Angelo; and to the voluptuous beautyof the Queen of Cyprus, the serene and pensive loveliness of the VirginMother. The legends of its martyrs and its saints may vie in ingenuityand interest with the mythological fables of Greece; its ceremonies andprocessions were the delight of the vulgar; the huge fabric of secularpower with which it was connected attracted the admiration of thestatesman. At the same time, it never lost sight of the most solemnand tremendous doctrines of Christianity, --the incarnate God, --thejudgment, --the retribution, --the eternity of happiness or torment. Thus, while, like the ancient religions, it received incalculable support frompolicy and ceremony, it never wholly became, like those religions, amerely political and ceremonial institution. 

The beginning of the thirteenth century was, as Machiavelli hasremarked, the era of a great revival of this extraordinary system. Thepolicy of Innocent, --the growth of the Inquisition and the mendicantorders, --the wars against the Albigenses, the Pagans of the East, andthe unfortunate princes of the house of Swabia, agitated Italy duringthe two following generations. In this point Dante was completelyunder the influence of his age. He was a man of a turbid and melancholyspirit. In early youth he had entertained a strong and unfortunatepassion, which, long after the death of her whom he loved, continued tohaunt him. Dissipation, ambition, misfortunes had not effaced it. He wasnot only a sincere, but a passionate, believer. The crimes and abusesof the Church of Rome were indeed loathsome to him; but to all itsdoctrines and all its rites he adhered with enthusiastic fondness andveneration; and, at length, driven from his native country, reduced toa situation the most painful to a man of his disposition, condemned tolearn by experience that no food is so bitter as the bread of dependence

 ("Tu proverai si come sa di sale Lo pane altrui, e come e duro calle Lo scendere e'l sa'ir per l'altrui scale. " Paradiso, canto xvii. ), and no ascent so painful as the staircase of a patron, --his woundedspirit took refuge in visionary devotion. Beatrice, the unforgottenobject of his early tenderness, was invested by his imagination withglorious and mysterious attributes; she was enthroned among the highestof the celestial hierarchy: Almighty Wisdom had assigned to her the careof the sinful and unhappy wanderer who had loved her with such a perfectlove. ("L'amico mio, e non della ventura. " Inferno, canto ii. ) By aconfusion, like that which often takes place in dreams, he has sometimeslost sight of her human nature, and even of her personal existence, andseems to consider her as one of the attributes of the Deity. 

But those religious hopes which had released the mind of the sublimeenthusiast from the terrors of death had not rendered his speculationson human life more cheerful. This is an inconsistency which may often beobserved in men of a similar temperament. He hoped for happiness beyondthe grave: but he felt none on earth. It is from this cause, more thanfrom any other, that his description of Heaven is so far inferior to theHell or the Purgatory. With the passions and miseries of the sufferingspirits he feels a strong sympathy. But among the beatified he appearsas one who has nothing in common with them, --as one who is incapable ofcomprehending, not only the degree, but the nature of their enjoyment. We think that we see him standing amidst those smiling and radiantspirits with that scowl of unutterable misery on his brow, and that curlof bitter disdain on his lips, which all his portraits have preserved, and which might furnish Chantrey with hints for the head of hisprojected Satan. 

There is no poet whose intellectual and moral character are so closelyconnected. The great source, as it appears to me, of the power of theDivine Comedy is the strong belief with which the story seems to betold. In this respect, the only books which approach to its excellenceare Gulliver's Travels and Robinson Crusoe. The solemnity of hisasseverations, the consistency and minuteness of his details, theearnestness with which he labours to make the reader understand theexact shape and size of everything that he describes, give an air ofreality to his wildest fictions. I should only weaken this statementby quoting instances of a feeling which pervades the whole work, and towhich it owes much of its fascination. This is the real justificationof the many passages in his poem which bad critics have condemned asgrotesque. I am concerned to see that Mr Cary, to whom Dante owes morethan ever poet owed to translator, has sanctioned an accusation utterlyunworthy of his abilities. "His solicitude, " says that gentleman, "todefine all his images in such a manner as to bring them within thecircle of our vision, and to subject them to the power of the pencil, renders him little better than grotesque, where Milton has since taughtus to expect sublimity. " It is true that Dante has never shrunk fromembodying his conceptions in determinate words, that he has even givenmeasures and numbers, where Milton would have left his images to floatundefined in a gorgeous haze of language. Both were right. Miltondid not profess to have been in heaven or hell. He might thereforereasonably confine himself to magnificent generalities. Far differentwas the office of the lonely traveller, who had wandered through thenations of the dead. Had he described the abode of the rejected spiritsin language resembling the splendid lines of the English Poet, --had hetold us of--

 "An universe of death, which God by curse Created evil, for evil only good, Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds Perverse all monstrous, all prodigious things, Abominable, unutterable, and worse Than fables yet have feigned, or fear conceived, Gorgons, and hydras, and chimaeras dire"--

this would doubtless have been noble writing. But where would have beenthat strong impression of reality, which, in accordance with his plan, it should have been his great object to produce? It was absolutelynecessary for him to delineate accurately "all monstrous, all prodigiousthings, "--to utter what might to others appear "unutterable, "--to relatewith the air of truth what fables had never feigned, --to embody whatfear had never conceived. And I will frankly confess that the vaguesublimity of Milton affects me less than these reviled details of Dante. We read Milton; and we know that we are reading a great poet. Whenwe read Dante, the poet vanishes. We are listening to the man who hasreturned from "the valley of the dolorous abyss;" ("Lavalle d'abissodoloroso. "--Inferno, cantoiv. )--we seem to see the dilated eye ofhorror, to hear the shuddering accents with which he tells his fearfultale. Considered in this light, the narratives are exactly what theyshould be, --definite in themselves, but suggesting to the mind ideasof awful and indefinite wonder. They are made up of the images of theearth:--they are told in the language of the earth. --Yet the wholeeffect is, beyond expression, wild and unearthly. The fact is, thatsupernatural beings, as long as they are considered merely withreference to their own nature, excite our feelings very feebly. It iswhen the great gulf which separates them from us is passed, when wesuspect some strange and undefinable relation between the laws of thevisible and the invisible world, that they rouse, perhaps, the strongestemotions of which our nature is capable. How many children, and how manymen, are afraid of ghosts, who are not afraid of God! And this, because, though they entertain a much stronger conviction of the existence of aDeity than of the reality of apparitions, they have no apprehension thathe will manifest himself to them in any sensible manner. While thisis the case, to describe superhuman beings in the language, andto attribute to them the actions, of humanity may be grotesque, unphilosophical, inconsistent; but it will be the only mode of workingupon the feelings of men, and, therefore, the only mode suited forpoetry. Shakspeare understood this well, as he understood everythingthat belonged to his art. Who does not sympathise with the rapture ofAriel, flying after sunset on the wings of the bat, or sucking in thecups of flowers with the bee? Who does not shudder at the caldron ofMacbeth? Where is the philosopher who is not moved when he thinks ofthe strange connection between the infernal spirits and "the sow'sblood that hath eaten her nine farrow?" But this difficult task ofrepresenting supernatural beings to our minds, in a manner which shallbe neither unintelligible to our intellects nor wholly inconsistent withour ideas of their nature, has never been so well performed as byDante. I will refer to three instances, which are, perhaps, the moststriking:--the description of the transformations of the serpents andthe robbers, in the twenty-fifth canto of the Inferno, --the passageconcerning Nimrod, in the thirty-first canto of the same part, --and themagnificent procession in the twenty-ninth canto of the Purgatorio. 

The metaphors and comparisons of Dante harmonise admirably with thatair of strong reality of which I have spoken. They have a very peculiarcharacter. He is perhaps the only poet whose writings would become muchless intelligible if all illustrations of this sort were expunged. Hissimiles are frequently rather those of a traveller than of a poet. Heemploys them not to display his ingenuity by fanciful analogies, --notto delight the reader by affording him a distant and passing glimpse ofbeautiful images remote from the path in which he is proceeding, but togive an exact idea of the objects which he is describing, by comparingthem with others generally known. The boiling pitch in Malebolge waslike that in the Venetian arsenal:--the mound on which he travelledalong the banks of Phlegethon was like that between Ghent and Bruges, but not so large:--the cavities where the Simoniacal prelates areconfined resemble the Fonts in the Church of John at Florence. Every reader of Dante will recall many other illustrations of thisdescription, which add to the appearance of sincerity and earnestnessfrom which the narrative derives so much of its interest. 

Many of his comparisons, again, are intended to give an exact idea ofhis feelings under particular circumstances. The delicate shades ofgrief, of fear, of anger, are rarely discriminated with sufficientaccuracy in the language of the most refined nations. A rude dialectnever abounds in nice distinctions of this kind. Dante therefore employsthe most accurate and infinitely the most poetical mode of markingthe precise state of his mind. Every person who has experienced thebewildering effect of sudden bad tidings, --the stupefaction, --the vaguedoubt of the truth of our own perceptions which they produce, --willunderstand the following simile:--"I was as he is who dreameth his ownharm, --who, dreaming, wishes that it may be all a dream, so that hedesires that which is as though it were not. " This is only one out of ahundred equally striking and expressive similitudes. The comparisons ofHomer and Milton are magnificent digressions. It scarcely injures theireffect to detach them from the work. Those of Dante are very different. They derive their beauty from the context, and reflect beauty upon it. His embroidery cannot be taken out without spoiling the whole web. Icannot dismiss this part of the subject without advising every personwho can muster sufficient Italian to read the simile of the sheep, inthe third canto of the Purgatorio. I think it the most perfect passageof the kind in the world, the most imaginative, the most picturesque, and the most sweetly expressed. 

No person can have attended to the Divine Comedy without observing howlittle impression the forms of the external world appear to have made onthe mind of Dante. His temper and his situation had led him to fix hisobservation almost exclusively on human nature. The exquisite opening ofthe eighth* canto of the Purgatorio affords a strong instance of this. (I cannot help observing that Gray's imitation of that noble line

 "Che paia 'lgiorna pianger che si muore, "--

is one of the most striking instances of injudicious plagiarism withwhich I am acquainted. Dante did not put this strong personification atthe beginning of his description. The imagination of the reader is sowell prepared for it by the previous lines, that it appears perfectlynatural and pathetic. Placed as Gray has placed it, neither precedednor followed by anything that harmonises with it, it becomes a frigidconceit. Woe to the unskilful rider who ventures on the horses ofAchilles!)

He leaves to others the earth, the ocean, and the sky. His business iswith man. To other writers, evening may be the season of dews and starsand radiant clouds. To Dante it is the hour of fond recollection andpassionate devotion, --the hour which melts the heart of the mariner andkindles the love of the pilgrim, --the hour when the toll of the bellseems to mourn for another day which is gone and will return no more. 

The feeling of the present age has taken a direction diametricallyopposite. The magnificence of the physical world, and its influenceupon the human mind, have been the favourite themes of our most eminentpoets. The herd of bluestocking ladies and sonneteering gentlemen seemto consider a strong sensibility to the "splendour of the grass, theglory of the flower, " as an ingredient absolutely indispensable in theformation of a poetical mind. They treat with contempt all writers whoare unfortunately

 nec ponere lucum Artifices, nec rus saturum laudare. 

The orthodox poetical creed is more Catholic. The noblest earthly objectof the contemplation of man is man himself. The universe, and all itsfair and glorious forms, are indeed included in the wide empire of theimagination; but she has placed her home and her sanctuary amidst theinexhaustible varieties and the impenetrable mysteries of the mind. 

 In tutte parti impera, e quivi regge; Quivi e la sua cittade, e l'alto seggio. (Inferno, canto i. )

Othello is perhaps the greatest work in the world. From what does itderive its power? From the clouds? From the ocean? From the mountains?Or from love strong as death, and jealousy cruel as the grave? What isit that we go forth to see in Hamlet? Is it a reed shaken with the wind?A small celandine? A bed of daffodils? Or is it to contemplate a mightyand wayward mind laid bare before us to the inmost recesses? It mayperhaps be doubted whether the lakes and the hills are better fitted forthe education of a poet than the dusky streets of a huge capital. Indeedwho is not tired to death with pure description of scenery? Is it notthe fact, that external objects never strongly excite our feelings butwhen they are contemplated in reference to man, as illustrating hisdestiny, or as influencing his character? The most beautiful object inthe world, it will be allowed, is a beautiful woman. But who that cananalyse his feelings is not sensible that she owes her fascinationless to grace of outline and delicacy of colour, than to a thousandassociations which, often unperceived by ourselves, connect thosequalities with the source of our existence, with the nourishment of ourinfancy, with the passions of our youth, with the hopes of our age--withelegance, with vivacity, with tenderness, with the strongest of naturalinstincts, with the dearest of social ties?

To those who think thus, the insensibility of the Florentine poet tothe beauties of nature will not appear an unpardonable deficiency. Onmankind no writer, with the exception of Shakspeare, has looked witha more penetrating eye. I have said that his poetical character hadderived a tinge from his peculiar temper. It is on the sterner anddarker passions that he delights to dwell. All love excepting thehalf-mystic passion which he still felt for his buried Beatrice, hadpalled on the fierce and restless exile. The sad story of Rimini isalmost a single exception. I know not whether it has been remarked, that, in one point, misanthropy seems to have affected his mind, asit did that of Swift. Nauseous and revolting images seem to have had afascination for his mind; and he repeatedly places before his readers, with all the energy of his incomparable style, the most loathsomeobjects of the sewer and the dissecting-room. 

There is another peculiarity in the poem of Dante, which, I think, deserves notice. Ancient mythology has hardly ever been successfullyinterwoven with modern poetry. One class of writers have introduced thefabulous deities merely as allegorical representatives of love, wine, or wisdom. This necessarily renders their works tame and cold. We maysometimes admire their ingenuity; but with what interest can we readof beings of whose personal existence the writer does not suffer usto entertain, for a moment, even a conventional belief? Even Spenser'sallegory is scarcely tolerable, till we contrive to forget that Unasignifies innocence, and consider her merely as an oppressed lady underthe protection of a generous knight. 

Those writers who have, more judiciously, attempted to preserve thepersonality of the classical divinities have failed from a differentcause. They have been imitators, and imitators at a disadvantage. Euripides and Catullus believed in Bacchus and Cybele as little as wedo. But they lived among men who did. Their imaginations, if not theiropinions, took the colour of the age. Hence the glorious inspiration ofthe Bacchae and the Atys. Our minds are formed by circumstances: and Ido not believe that it would be in the power of the greatest modern poetto lash himself up to a degree of enthusiasm adequate to the productionof such works. 

Dante, alone among the poets of later times, has been, in this respect, neither an allegorist nor an imitator; and, consequently, he alone hasintroduced the ancient fictions with effect. His Minos, his Charon, his Pluto, are absolutely terrific. Nothing can be more beautiful ororiginal than the use which he has made of the River of Lethe. He hasnever assigned to his mythological characters any functions inconsistentwith the creed of the Catholic Church. He has related nothing concerningthem which a good Christian of that age might not believe possible. Onthis account there is nothing in these passages that appears puerile orpedantic. On the contrary, this singular use of classical names suggeststo the mind a vague and awful idea of some mysterious revelation, anterior to all recorded history, of which the dispersed fragments mighthave been retained amidst the impostures and superstitions of laterreligions. Indeed the mythology of the Divine Comedy is of the elder andmore colossal mould. It breathes the spirit of Homer and Aeschylus, notof Ovid and Claudian. 

This is the more extraordinary, since Dante seems to have been utterlyignorant of the Greek language; and his favourite Latin models couldonly have served to mislead him. Indeed, it is impossible not to remarkhis admiration of writers far inferior to himself; and, in particular, his idolatry of Virgil, who, elegant and splendid as he is, has nopretensions to the depth and originality of mind which characterise hisTuscan worshipper, In truth it may be laid down as an almost universalrule that good poets are bad critics. Their minds are under the tyrannyof ten thousand associations imperceptible to others. The worst writermay easily happen to touch a spring which is connected in their mindswith a long succession of beautiful images. They are like the giganticslaves of Aladdin, gifted with matchless power, but bound by spellsso mighty that when a child whom they could have crushed touched atalisman, of whose secret he was ignorant, they immediately became hisvassals. It has more than once happened to me to see minds, gracefuland majestic as the Titania of Shakspeare, bewitched by the charms of anass's head, bestowing on it the fondest caresses, and crowning itwith the sweetest flowers. I need only mention the poems attributed toOssian. They are utterly worthless, except as an edifying instance ofthe success of a story without evidence, and of a book without merit. They are a chaos of words which present no image, of images which haveno archetype:--they are without form and void; and darkness is upon theface of them. Yet how many men of genius have panegyrised and imitatedthem!

The style of Dante is, if not his highest, perhaps his most peculiarexcellence. I know nothing with which it can be compared. The noblestmodels of Greek composition must yield to it. His words are the fewestand the best which it is possible to use. The first expression in whichhe clothes his thoughts is always so energetic and comprehensive thatamplification would only injure the effect. There is probably no writerin any language who has presented so many strong pictures to the mind. Yet there is probably no writer equally concise. This perfection ofstyle is the principal merit of the Paradiso, which, as I have alreadyremarked, is by no means equal in other respects to the two precedingparts of the poem. The force and felicity of the diction, however, irresistibly attract the reader through the theological lectures and thesketches of ecclesiastical biography, with which this division of thework too much abounds. It may seem almost absurd to quote particularspecimens of an excellence which is diffused over all his hundredcantos. I will, however, instance the third canto of the Inferno, andthe sixth of the Purgatorio, as passages incomparable in their kind. Themerit of the latter is, perhaps, rather oratorical than poetical; norcan I recollect anything in the great Athenian speeches which equals itin force of invective and bitterness of sarcasm. I have heard the mosteloquent statesman of the age remark that, next to Demosthenes, Danteis the writer who ought to be most attentively studied by every man whodesires to attain oratorical eminence. 

But it is time to close this feeble and rambling critique. I cannotrefrain, however, from saying a few words upon the translations of theDivine Comedy. Boyd's is as tedious and languid as the original is rapidand forcible. The strange measure which he has chosen, and, for aught Iknow, invented, is most unfit for such a work. Translations ought neverto be written in a verse which requires much command of rhyme. Thestanza becomes a bed of Procrustes; and the thoughts of the unfortunateauthor are alternately racked and curtailed to fit their new receptacle. The abrupt and yet consecutive style of Dante suffers more than thatof any other poet by a version diffuse in style, and divided intoparagraphs, for they deserve no other name, of equal length. 

Nothing can be said in favour of Hayley's attempt, but that it is betterthan Boyd's. His mind was a tolerable specimen of filigree work, --ratherelegant, and very feeble. All that can be said for his best works isthat they are neat. All that can be said against his worst is that theyare stupid. He might have translated Metastasio tolerably. But he wasutterly unable to do justice to the

 "rime e aspre e chiocce, "Come si converrebbe al tristo buco. " (Inferno, canto xxxii. )

I turn with pleasure from these wretched performances to Mr Cary'stranslation. It is a work which well deserves a separate discussion, andon which, if this article were not already too long, I could dwellwith great pleasure. At present I will only say that there is no otherversion in the world, as far as I know, so faithful, yet that there isno other version which so fully proves that the translator is himself aman of poetical genius. Those who are ignorant of the Italian languageshould read it to become acquainted with the Divine Comedy. Thosewho are most intimate with Italian literature should read it for itsoriginal merits: and I believe that they will find it difficult todetermine whether the author deserves most praise for his intimacy withthe language of Dante, or for his extraordinary mastery over his own. 

*****

CRITICISMS ON THE PRINCIPAL ITALIAN WRITERS. 

No. II. PETRARCH. (April 1824. )

 Et vos, o lauri, carpam, et te, proxima myrte, Sic positae quoniam suaves miscetis odores. Virgil. 

It would not be easy to name a writer whose celebrity, when both itsextent and its duration are taken into the account, can be considered asequal to that of Petrarch. Four centuries and a half have elapsed sincehis death. Yet still the inhabitants of every nation throughout thewestern world are as familiar with his character and his adventures aswith the most illustrious names, and the most recent anecdotes, of theirown literary history. This is indeed a rare distinction. His detractorsmust acknowledge that it could not have been acquired by a poetdestitute of merit. His admirers will scarcely maintain that theunassisted merit of Petrarch could have raised him to that eminencewhich has not yet been attained by Shakspeare, Milton, or Dante, --thateminence, of which perhaps no modern writer, excepting himself andCervantes, has long retained possession, --an European reputation. 

It is not difficult to discover some of the causes to which this greatman has owed a celebrity, which I cannot but think disproportioned tohis real claims on the admiration of mankind. In the first place, heis an egotist. Egotism in conversation is universally abhorred. Lovers, and, I believe, lovers alone, pardon it in each other. No services, no talents, no powers of pleasing, render it endurable. Gratitude, admiration, interest, fear, scarcely prevent those who are condemned tolisten to it from indicating their disgust and fatigue. The childlessuncle, the powerful patron can scarcely extort this compliance. We leavethe inside of the mail in a storm, and mount the box, rather thanhear the history of our companion. The chaplain bites his lips in thepresence of the archbishop. The midshipman yawns at the table ofthe First Lord. Yet, from whatever cause, this practice, the pest ofconversation, gives to writing a zest which nothing else can impart. Rousseau made the boldest experiment of this kind; and it fullysucceeded. In our own time Lord Byron, by a series of attempts of thesame nature, made himself the object of general interest and admiration. Wordsworth wrote with egotism more intense, but less obvious; and he hasbeen rewarded with a sect of worshippers, comparatively small in number, but far more enthusiastic in their devotion. It is needless to multiplyinstances. Even now all the walks of literature are infested withmendicants for fame, who attempt to excite our interest by exhibitingall the distortions of their intellects, and stripping the covering fromall the putrid sores of their feelings. Nor are there wanting many whopush their imitation of the beggars whom they resemble a step further, and who find it easier to extort a pittance from the spectator, bysimulating deformity and debility from which they are exempt, than bysuch honest labour as their health and strength enable them to perform. In the meantime the credulous public pities and pampers a nuisance whichrequires only the treadmill and the whip. This art, often successfulwhen employed by dunces, gives irresistible fascination to works whichpossess intrinsic merit. We are always desirous to know something ofthe character and situation of those whose writings we have perusedwith pleasure. The passages in which Milton has alluded to his owncircumstances are perhaps read more frequently, and with more interest, than any other lines in his poems. It is amusing to observe with whatlabour critics have attempted to glean from the poems of Homer, somehints as to his situation and feelings. According to one hypothesis, he intended to describe himself under the name of Demodocus. Othersmaintain that he was the identical Phemius whose life Ulysses spared. This propensity of the human mind explains, I think, in a great degree, the extensive popularity of a poet whose works are little else than theexpression of his personal feelings. 

In the second place, Petrarch was not only an egotist, but an amatoryegotist. The hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows, which he described, were derived from the passion which of all passions exerts the widestinfluence, and which of all passions borrows most from the imagination. He had also another immense advantage. He was the first eminent amatorypoet who appeared after the great convulsion which had changed, not onlythe political, but the moral, state of the world. The Greeks, who, intheir public institutions and their literary tastes, were diametricallyopposed to the oriental nations, bore a considerable resemblance tothose nations in their domestic habits. Like them, they despised theintellects and immured the persons of their women; and it was among theleast of the frightful evils to which this pernicious system gavebirth, that all the accomplishments of mind, and all the fascinations ofmanner, which, in a highly cultivated age, will generally be necessaryto attach men to their female associates, were monopolised by thePhrynes and the Lamais. The indispensable ingredients of honourable andchivalrous love were nowhere to be found united. The matrons and theirdaughters confined in the harem, --insipid, uneducated, ignorant of allbut the mechanical arts, scarcely seen till they were married, --couldrarely excite interest; afterwards their brilliant rivals, half Graces, half Harpies, elegant and informed, but fickle and rapacious, couldnever inspire respect. 

The state of society in Rome was, in this point, far happier; andthe Latin literature partook of the superiority. The Roman poets havedecidedly surpassed those of Greece in the delineation of the passion oflove. There is no subject which they have treated with so much success. Ovid, Catullus, Tibullus, Horace, and Propertius, in spite of all theirfaults, must be allowed to rank high in this department of the art. Tothese I would add my favourite Plautus; who, though he took his plotsfrom Greece, found, I suspect, the originals of his enchanting femalecharacters at Rome. 

Still many evils remained: and, in the decline of the great empire, allthat was pernicious in its domestic institutions appeared more strongly. Under the influence of governments at once dependent and tyrannical, which purchased, by cringing to their enemies, the power of trampling ontheir subjects, the Romans sunk into the lowest state of effeminacyand debasement. Falsehood, cowardice, sloth, conscious and unrepiningdegradation, formed the national character. Such a character is totallyincompatible with the stronger passions. Love, in particular, which, inthe modern sense of the word, implies protection and devotion on the oneside, confidence on the other, respect and fidelity on both, could notexist among the sluggish and heartless slaves who cringed around thethrones of Honorius and Augustulus. At this period the great renovationcommenced. The warriors of the north, destitute as they were ofknowledge and humanity, brought with them, from their forests andmarshes, those qualities without which humanity is a weakness andknowledge a curse, --energy--independence--the dread of shame--thecontempt of danger. It would be most interesting to examine the mannerin which the admixture of the savage conquerors and the effeminateslaves, after many generations of darkness and agitation, produced themodern European character;--to trace back, from the first conflict tothe final amalgamation, the operation of that mysterious alchemy which, from hostile and worthless elements, has extracted the pure gold ofhuman nature--to analyse the mass, and to determine the proportion inwhich the ingredients are mingled. But I will confine myself to thesubject to which I have more particularly referred. The nature of thepassion of love had undergone a complete change. It still retained, indeed, the fanciful and voluptuous character which it had possessedamong the southern nations of antiquity. But it was tinged with thesuperstitious veneration with which the northern warriors had beenaccustomed to regard women. Devotion and war had imparted to it theirmost solemn and animating feelings. It was sanctified by the blessingsof the Church, and decorated with the wreaths of the tournament. Venus, as in the ancient fable, was again rising above the dark and tempestuouswaves which had so long covered her beauty. But she rose not now, as ofold, in exposed and luxurious loveliness. She still wore the cestus ofher ancient witchcraft; but the diadem of Juno was on her brow, andthe aegis of Pallas in her hand. Love might, in fact, be called a newpassion; and it is not astonishing that the first poet of eminencewho wholly devoted his genius to this theme should have excited anextraordinary sensation. He may be compared to an adventurer whoaccidentally lands in a rich and unknown island; and who, though he mayonly set up an ill-shaped cross upon the shore, acquires possession ofits treasures, and gives it his name. The claim of Petrarch was indeedsomewhat like that of Amerigo Vespucci to the continent which shouldhave derived its appellation from Columbus. The Provencal poets wereunquestionably the masters of the Florentine. But they wrote in an agewhich could not appreciate their merits; and their imitator lived at thevery period when composition in the vernacular language began to attractgeneral attention. Petrarch was in literature what a Valentine isin love. The public preferred him, not because his merits were of atranscendent order, but because he was the first person whom they sawafter they awoke from their long sleep. 

Nor did Petrarch gain less by comparison with his immediate successorsthan with those who had preceded him. Till more than a century after hisdeath Italy produced no poet who could be compared to him. This decay ofgenius is doubtless to be ascribed, in a great measure, to the influencewhich his own works had exercised upon the literature of his country. Yet it has conduced much to his fame. Nothing is more favourable tothe reputation of a writer than to be succeeded by a race inferiorto himself; and it is an advantage, from obvious causes, much morefrequently enjoyed by those who corrupt the national taste than by thosewho improve it. 

Another cause has co-operated with those which I have mentioned tospread the renown of Petrarch. I mean the interest which is inspired bythe events of his life--an interest which must have been strongly feltby his contemporaries, since, after an interval of five hundred years, no critic can be wholly exempt from its influence. Among the great mento whom we owe the resuscitation of science he deserves the foremostplace; and his enthusiastic attachment to this great cause constituteshis most just and splendid title to the gratitude of posterity. He wasthe votary of literature. He loved it with a perfect love. He worshippedit with an almost fanatical devotion. He was the missionary, whoproclaimed its discoveries to distant countries--the pilgrim, whotravelled far and wide to collect its reliques--the hermit, who retiredto seclusion to meditate on its beauties--the champion, who fought itsbattles--the conqueror, who, in more than a metaphorical sense, ledbarbarism and ignorance in triumph, and received in the Capitol thelaurel which his magnificent victory had earned. 

Nothing can be conceived more noble or affecting than that ceremony. Thesuperb palaces and porticoes, by which had rolled the ivory chariotsof Marius and Caesar, had long mouldered into dust. The laurelledfasces--the golden eagles--the shouting legions--the captives and thepictured cities--were indeed wanting to his victorious procession. Thesceptre had passed away from Rome. But she still retained the mightierinfluence of an intellectual empire, and was now to confer the prouderreward of an intellectual triumph. To the man who had extended thedominion of her ancient language--who had erected the trophiesof philosophy and imagination in the haunts of ignorance andferocity--whose captives were the hearts of admiring nations enchainedby the influence of his song--whose spoils were the treasures of ancientgenius rescued from obscurity and decay--the Eternal City offered thejust and glorious tribute of her gratitude. Amidst the ruined monumentsof ancient and the infant erections of modern art, he who had restoredthe broken link between the two ages of human civilisation was crownedwith the wreath which he had deserved from the moderns who owed to himtheir refinement--from the ancients who owed to him their fame. Neverwas a coronation so august witnessed by Westminster or by Rheims. 

When we turn from this glorious spectacle to the private chamber of thepoet, --when we contemplate the struggle of passion and virtue, --theeye dimmed, the cheek furrowed, by the tears of sinful and hopelessdesire, --when we reflect on the whole history of his attachment, fromthe gay fantasy of his youth to the lingering despair of his age, pityand affection mingle with our admiration. Even after death had placedthe last seal on his misery, we see him devoting to the cause of thehuman mind all the strength and energy which love and sorrow had spared. He lived the apostle of literature;--he fell its martyr:--he was founddead with his head reclined on a book. 

Those who have studied the life and writings of Petrarch with attention, will perhaps be inclined to make some deductions from this panegyric. It cannot be denied that his merits were disfigured by a most unpleasantaffectation. His zeal for literature communicated a tinge of pedantryto all his feelings and opinions. His love was the love of asonnetteer:--his patriotism was the patriotism of an antiquarian. Theinterest with which we contemplate the works, and study the history, ofthose who, in former ages, have occupied our country, arises fromthe associations which connect them with the community in which arecomprised all the objects of our affection and our hope. In the mindof Petrarch these feelings were reversed. He loved Italy, because itabounded with the monuments of the ancient masters of the world. Hisnative city--the fair and glorious Florence--the modern Athens, then inall the bloom and strength of its youth, could not obtain, from the mostdistinguished of its citizens, any portion of that passionate homagewhich he paid to the decrepitude of Rome. These and many otherblemishes, though they must in candour be acknowledged, can but in avery slight degree diminish the glory of his career. For my own part, Ilook upon it with so much fondness and pleasure that I feel reluctantto turn from it to the consideration of his works, which I by no meanscontemplate with equal admiration. 

Nevertheless, I think highly of the poetical powers of Petrarch. He didnot possess, indeed, the art of strongly presenting sensible objects tothe imagination;--and this is the more remarkable, because the talent ofwhich I speak is that which peculiarly distinguishes the Italian poets. In the Divine Comedy it is displayed in its highest perfection. Itcharacterises almost every celebrated poem in the language. Perhaps thisis to be attributed to the circumstance, that painting and sculpturehad attained a high degree of excellence in Italy before poetry had beenextensively cultivated. Men were debarred from books, but accustomedfrom childhood to contemplate the admirable works of art, which, even inthe thirteenth century, Italy began to produce. Hence their imaginationsreceived so strong a bias that, even in their writings, a taste forgraphic delineation is discernible. The progress of things in Englandhas been in all respects different. The consequence is, that Englishhistorical pictures are poems on canvas; while Italian poems arepictures painted to the mind by means of words. Of this nationalcharacteristic the writings of Petrarch are almost totally destitute. His sonnets indeed, from their subject and nature, and his Latin Poems, from the restraints which always shackle one who writes in a deadlanguage, cannot fairly be received in evidence. But his Triumphsabsolutely required the exercise of this talent, and exhibit noindications of it. 

Genius, however, he certainly possessed, and genius of a high order. Hisardent, tender, and magnificent turn of thought, his brilliant fancy, his command of expression, at once forcible and elegant, must beacknowledged. Nature meant him for the prince of lyric writers. But byone fatal present she deprived her other gifts of half their value. Hewould have been a much greater poet had he been a less clever man. Hisingenuity was the bane of his mind. He abandoned the noble and naturalstyle, in which he might have excelled, for the conceits which heproduced with a facility at once admirable and disgusting. His muse, like the Roman lady in Livy, was tempted by gaudy ornaments to betraythe fastnesses of her strength, and, like her, was crushed beneath theglittering bribes which had seduced her. 

The paucity of his thoughts is very remarkable. It is impossible to lookwithout amazement on a mind so fertile in combinations, yet so barrenof images. His amatory poetry is wholly made up of a very few topics, disposed in so many orders, and exhibited in so many lights, that itreminds us of those arithmetical problems about permutations, which somuch astonish the unlearned. The French cook, who boasted that he couldmake fifteen different dishes out of a nettle-top, was not a greatermaster of his art. The mind of Petrarch was a kaleidoscope. At everyturn it presents us with new forms, always fantastic, occasionallybeautiful; and we can scarcely believe that all these varieties havebeen produced by the same worthless fragments of glass. The sameness ofhis images is, indeed, in some degree, to be attributed to the samenessof his subject. It would be unreasonable to expect perpetual varietyfrom so many hundred compositions, all of the same length, all inthe same measure, and all addressed to the same insipid and heartlesscoquette. I cannot but suspect also that the perverted taste, which isthe blemish of his amatory verses, was to be attributed to the influenceof Laura, who, probably, like most critics of her sex, preferred a gaudyto a majestic style. Be this as it may, he no sooner changes his subjectthan he changes his manner. When he speaks of the wrongs and degradationof Italy, devastated by foreign invaders, and but feebly defended byher pusillanimous children, the effeminate lisp of the sonnetteeris exchanged for a cry, wild, and solemn, and piercing as that whichproclaimed "Sleep no more" to the bloody house of Cawdor. "Italy seemsnot to feel her sufferings, " exclaims her impassioned poet; "decrepit, sluggish, and languid, will she sleep forever? Will there be none toawake her? Oh that I had my hands twisted in her hair!"

 ("Che suoi guai non par che senta; Vecchia, oziosa, e lenta. Dormira sempre, e non fia chi la svegli? Le man l' avess' io avvolte entro e capegli. " Canzone xi. )

Nor is it with less energy that he denounces against the MahometanBabylon the vengeance of Europe and of Christ. His magnificentenumeration of the ancient exploits of the Greeks must always exciteadmiration, and cannot be perused without the deepest interest, at atime when the wise and good, bitterly disappointed in so many othercountries, are looking with breathless anxiety towards the natal land ofliberty, --the field of Marathon, --and the deadly pass where the Lion ofLacedaemon turned to bay. 

 ("Maratona, e le mortali strette Che difese il LEON con poca gente. " Canzone v. )

His poems on religious subjects also deserve the highest commendation. At the head of these must be placed the Ode to the Virgin. It is, perhaps, the finest hymn in the world. His devout veneration receives anexquisitely poetical character from the delicate perception of the sexand the loveliness of his idol, which we may easily trace throughout thewhole composition. 

I could dwell with pleasure on these and similar parts of the writingsof Petrarch; but I must return to his amatory poetry: to that heentrusted his fame; and to that he has principally owed it. 

The prevailing defect of his best compositions on this subject isthe universal brilliancy with which they are lighted up. The naturallanguage of the passions is, indeed, often figurative and fantastic; andwith none is this more the case than with that of love. Still there isa limit. The feelings should, indeed, have their ornamental garb; but, like an elegant woman, they should be neither muffled nor exposed. Thedrapery should be so arranged, as at once to answer the purposesof modest concealment and judicious display. The decorations shouldsometimes be employed to hide a defect, and sometimes to heighten abeauty; but never to conceal, much less to distort, the charms to whichthey are subsidiary. The love of Petrarch, on the contrary, arraysitself like a foppish savage, whose nose is bored with a golden ring, whose skin is painted with grotesque forms and dazzling colours, andwhose ears are drawn down his shoulders by the weight of jewels. It isa rule, without any exception, in all kinds of composition, that theprincipal idea, the predominant feeling, should never be confounded withthe accompanying decorations. It should generally be distinguished fromthem by greater simplicity of expression; as we recognise Napoleon inthe pictures of his battles, amidst a crowd of embroidered coats andplumes, by his grey cloak and his hat without a feather. In the versesof Petrarch it is generally impossible to say what thought is meantto be prominent. All is equally elaborate. The chief wears the samegorgeous and degrading livery with his retinue, and obtains only hisshare of the indifferent stare which we bestow upon them in common. The poems have no strong lights and shades, no background, noforeground;--they are like the illuminated figures in an orientalmanuscript, --plenty of rich tints and no perspective. Such are thefaults of the most celebrated of these compositions. Of those which areuniversally acknowledged to be bad it is scarcely possible to speak withpatience. Yet they have much in common with their splendid companions. They differ from them, as a Mayday procession of chimneysweepers differsfrom the Field of Cloth of Gold. They have the gaudiness but not thewealth. His muse belongs to that numerous class of females who haveno objection to be dirty, while they can be tawdry. When his brilliantconceits are exhausted, he supplies their place with metaphysicalquibbles, forced antitheses, bad puns, and execrable charades. In hisfifth sonnet he may, I think, be said to have sounded the lowest chasmof the Bathos. Upon the whole, that piece may be safely pronounced to bethe worst attempt at poetry, and the worst attempt at wit, in the world. 

A strong proof of the truth of these criticisms is, that almost all thesonnets produce exactly the same effect on the mind of the reader. Theyrelate to all the various moods of a lover, from joy to despair:--yetthey are perused, as far as my experience and observation have gone, with exactly the same feeling. The fact is, that in none of them are thepassion and the ingenuity mixed in just proportions. There is not enoughsentiment to dilute the condiments which are employed to season it. Therepast which he sets before us resembles the Spanish entertainment inDryden's "Mock Astrologer", at which the relish of all the dishesand sauces was overpowered by the common flavour of spice. Fish, --flesh, --fowl, --everything at table tasted of nothing but redpepper. 

The writings of Petrarch may indeed suffer undeservedly from one causeto which I must allude. His imitators have so much familiarised the earof Italy and of Europe to the favourite topics of amorous flattery andlamentation, that we can scarcely think them original when we find themin the first author; and, even when our understandings have convinced usthat they were new to him, they are still old to us. This has been thefate of many of the finest passages of the most eminent writers. Itis melancholy to trace a noble thought from stage to stage of itsprofanation; to see it transferred from the first illustrious wearer tohis lacqueys, turned, and turned again, and at last hung on a scarecrow. Petrarch has really suffered much from this cause. Yet that he shouldhave so suffered is a sufficient proof that his excellences were not ofthe highest order. A line may be stolen; but the pervading spirit of agreat poet is not to be surreptitiously obtained by a plagiarist. Thecontinued imitation of twenty-five centuries has left Homer as itfound him. If every simile and every turn of Dante had been copied tenthousand times, the Divine Comedy would have retained all its freshness. It was easy for the porter in Farquhar to pass for Beau Clincher, byborrowing his lace and his pulvilio. It would have been more difficultto enact Sir Harry Wildair. 

Before I quit this subject I must defend Petrarch from one accusationwhich is in the present day frequently brought against him. His sonnetsare pronounced by a large sect of critics not to possess certainqualities which they maintain to be indispensable to sonnets, with asmuch confidence, and as much reason, as their prototypes of old insistedon the unities of the drama. I am an exoteric--utterly unable to explainthe mysteries of this new poetical faith. I only know that it is afaith, which except a man do keep pure and undefiled, without doubt heshall be called a blockhead. I cannot, however, refrain from asking whatis the particular virtue which belongs to fourteen as distinguished fromall other numbers. Does it arise from its being a multiple of seven? Hasthis principle any reference to the sabbatical ordinance? Or is itto the order of rhymes that these singular properties are attached?Unhappily the sonnets of Shakspeare differ as much in this respect fromthose of Petrarch, as from a Spenserian or an octave stanza. Away withthis unmeaning jargon! We have pulled down the old regime of criticism. I trust that we shall never tolerate the equally pedantic and irrationaldespotism, which some of the revolutionary leaders would erect upon itsruins. We have not dethroned Aristotle and Bossu for this. 

These sonnet-fanciers would do well to reflect that, though the style ofPetrarch may not suit the standard of perfection which they have chosen, they lie under great obligations to these very poems, --that, but forPetrarch the measure, concerning which they legislate so judiciously, would probably never have attracted notice; and that to him they owe thepleasure of admiring, and the glory of composing, pieces, which seemto have been produced by Master Slender, with the assistance of his manSimple. 

I cannot conclude these remarks without making a few observations on theLatin writings of Petrarch. It appears that, both by himself and by hiscontemporaries, these were far more highly valued than his compositionsin the vernacular language. Posterity, the supreme court of literaryappeal, has not only reversed the judgment, but, according to itsgeneral practice, reversed it with costs, and condemned the unfortunateworks to pay, not only for their own inferiority, but also for theinjustice of those who had given them an unmerited preference. Andit must be owned that, without making large allowances for thecircumstances under which they were produced, we cannot pronounce a veryfavourable judgment. They must be considered as exotics, transplanted toa foreign climate, and reared in an unfavourable situation; and it wouldbe unreasonable to expect from them the health and the vigour whichwe find in the indigenous plants around them, or which they mightthemselves have possessed in their native soil. He has but veryimperfectly imitated the style of the Latin authors, and has notcompensated for the deficiency by enriching the ancient language withthe graces of modern poetry. The splendour and ingenuity, which weadmire, even when we condemn it, in his Italian works, is almost totallywanting, and only illuminates with rare and occasional glimpses thedreary obscurity of the African. The eclogues have more animation; butthey can only be called poems by courtesy. They have nothing in commonwith his writings in his native language, except the eternal pun aboutLaura and Daphne. None of these works would have placed him on a levelwith Vida or Buchanan. Yet, when we compare him with those who precededhim, when we consider that he went on the forlorn hope of literature, that he was the first who perceived, and the first who attempted torevive, the finer elegancies of the ancient language of the world, weshall perhaps think more highly of him than of those who could neverhave surpassed his beauties if they had not inherited them. 

He has aspired to emulate the philosophical eloquence of Cicero, as wellas the poetical majesty of Virgil. His essay on the Remedies of Goodand Evil Fortune is a singular work in a colloquial form, and a mostscholastic style. It seems to be framed upon the model of the TusculanQuestions, --with what success those who have read it may easilydetermine. It consists of a series of dialogues: in each of these aperson is introduced who has experienced some happy or some adverseevent: he gravely states his case; and a reasoner, or rather Reasonpersonified, confutes him; a task not very difficult, since the discipledefends his position only by pertinaciously repeating it, in almostthe same words at the end of every argument of his antagonist. In thismanner Petrarch solves an immense variety of cases. Indeed, I doubtwhether it would be possible to name any pleasure or any calamity whichdoes not find a place in this dissertation. He gives excellent advice toa man who is in expectation of discovering the philosopher's stone;--toanother, who has formed a fine aviary;--to a third, who is delightedwith the tricks of a favourite monkey. His lectures to the unfortunateare equally singular. He seems to imagine that a precedent in point is asufficient consolation for every form of suffering. "Our town is taken, "says one complainant; "So was Troy, " replies his comforter. "My wife haseloped, " says another; "If it has happened to you once, it happenedto Menelaus twice. " One poor fellow is in great distress at havingdiscovered that his wife's son is none of his. "It is hard, " sayshe, "that I should have had the expense of bringing up one who isindifferent to me. " "You are a man, " returns his monitor, quoting thefamous line of Terence; "and nothing that belongs to any other manought to be indifferent to you. " The physical calamities of life are notomitted; and there is in particular a disquisition on the advantages ofhaving the itch, which, if not convincing, is certainly very amusing. 

The invectives on an unfortunate physician, or rather upon the medicalscience, have more spirit. Petrarch was thoroughly in earnest on thissubject. And the bitterness of his feelings occasionally produces, inthe midst of his classical and scholastic pedantry, a sentence worthy ofthe second Philippic. Swift himself might have envied the chapter on thecauses of the paleness of physicians. 

Of his Latin works the Epistles are the most generally known andadmired. As compositions they are certainly superior to his essays. But their excellence is only comparative. From so large a collection ofletters, written by so eminent a man, during so varied and eventfula life, we should have expected a complete and spirited view of theliterature, the manners, and the politics of the age. A traveller--apoet--a scholar--a lover--a courtier--a recluse--he might haveperpetuated, in an imperishable record, the form and pressure of the ageand body of the time. Those who read his correspondence, in the hopeof finding such information as this, will be utterly disappointed. Itcontains nothing characteristic of the period or of the individual. Itis a series, not of letters, but of themes; and, as it is not generallyknown, might be very safely employed at public schools as a magazine ofcommonplaces. Whether he write on politics to the Emperor and theDoge, or send advice and consolation to a private friend, every line iscrowded with examples and quotations, and sounds big with Anaxagoras andScipio. Such was the interest excited by the character of Petrarch, andsuch the admiration which was felt for his epistolary style, that it waswith difficulty that his letters reached the place of their destination. The poet describes, with pretended regret and real complacency, theimportunity of the curious, who often opened, and sometimes stole, these favourite compositions. It is a remarkable fact that, of all hisepistles, the least affected are those which are addressed to the deadand the unborn. Nothing can be more absurd than his whim of composinggrave letters of expostulation and commendation to Cicero and Seneca;yet these strange performances are written in a far more natural mannerthan his communications to his living correspondents. But of all hisLatin works the preference must be given to the Epistle to Posterity;a simple, noble, and pathetic composition, most honourable both to histaste and his heart. If we can make allowance for some of the affectedhumility of an author, we shall perhaps think that no literary man hasleft a more pleasing memorial of himself. 

In conclusion, we may pronounce that the works of Petrarch were belowboth his genius and his celebrity; and that the circumstances underwhich he wrote were as adverse to the development of his powers as theywere favourable to the extension of his fame. 

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SOME ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT LAWSUIT BETWEEN THE PARISHES OF ST DENNIS ANDST GEORGE IN THE WATER. (April 1824. )

PART I. 

The parish of St Dennis is one of the most pleasant parts of the countyin which it is situated. It is fertile, well wooded, well watered, andof an excellent air. For many generations the manor had been holden intail-male by a worshipful family, who have always taken precedence oftheir neighbours at the races and the sessions. 

In ancient times the affairs of this parish were administered by aCourt-Baron, in which the freeholders were judges; and the rates werelevied by select vestries of the inhabitant householders. But at lengththese good customs fell into disuse. The Lords of the Manor, indeed, still held courts for form's sake; but they or their stewards had thewhole management of affairs. They demanded services, duties, and customsto which they had no just title. Nay, they would often bring actionsagainst their neighbours for their own private advantage, and then sendin the bill to the parish. No objection was made, during many years, tothese proceedings, so that the rates became heavier and heavier: norwas any person exempted from these demands, except the footmen andgamekeepers of the squire and the rector of the parish. They indeed werenever checked in any excess. They would come to an honest labourer'scottage, eat his pancakes, tuck his fowls into their pockets, and canethe poor man himself. If he went up to the great house to complain, itwas hard to get the speech of Sir Lewis; and, indeed, his only chance ofbeing righted was to coax the squire's pretty housekeeper, who coulddo what she pleased with her master. If he ventured to intrude uponthe Lord of the Manor without this precaution, he gained nothing by hispains. Sir Lewis, indeed, would at first receive him with a civil face;for, to give him his due, he could be a fine gentleman when he pleased. "Good day, my friend, " he would say, "what situation have you in myfamily?" "Bless your honour!" says the poor fellow, "I am not one ofyour honour's servants; I rent a small piece of ground, your honour. ""Then, you dog, " quoth the squire, "what do you mean by coming here? Hasa gentleman nothing to do but to hear the complaints of clowns? Here!Philip, James, Dick, toss this fellow in a blanket; or duck him, and sethim in the stocks to dry. "

One of these precious Lords of the Manor enclosed a deer-park; and, inorder to stock it, he seized all the pretty pet fawns that his tenantshad brought up, without paying them a farthing, or asking their leave. It was a sad day for the parish of St Dennis. Indeed, I do not believethat all his oppressive exactions and long bills enraged the poortenants so much as this cruel measure. 

Yet for a long time, in spite of all these inconveniences, St Dennis'swas a very pleasant place. The people could not refrain from caperingif they heard the sound of a fiddle. And, if they were inclined to beriotous, Sir Lewis had only to send for Punch, or the dancing dogs, and all was quiet again. But this could not last forever; they beganto think more and more of their condition; and, at last, a club offoul-mouthed, good-for-nothing rascals was held at the sign of theDevil, for the purpose of abusing the squire and the parson. The doctor, to own the truth, was old and indolent, extremely fat and greedy. He hadnot preached a tolerable sermon for a long time. The squire was stillworse; so that, partly by truth and partly by falsehood, the club setthe whole parish against their superiors. The boys scrawled caricaturesof the clergyman upon the church-door, and shot at the landlord withpop-guns as he rode a-hunting. It was even whispered about that the Lordof the Manor had no right to his estate, and that, if he were compelledto produce the original title-deeds, it would be found that he only heldthe estate in trust for the inhabitants of the parish. 

In the meantime the squire was pressed more and more for money. Theparish could pay no more. The rector refused to lend a farthing. TheJews were clamorous for their money; and the landlord had no otherresource than to call together the inhabitants of the parish, and torequest their assistance. They now attacked him furiously about theirgrievances, and insisted that he should relinquish his oppressivepowers. They insisted that his footmen should be kept in order, thatthe parson should pay his share of the rates, that the children of theparish should be allowed to fish in the trout-stream, and to gatherblackberries in the hedges. They at last went so far as to demand thathe should acknowledge that he held his estate only in trust for them. His distress compelled him to submit. They, in return, agreed to set himfree from his pecuniary difficulties, and to suffer him to inhabit themanor-house; and only annoyed him from time to time by singing impudentballads under his window. 

The neighbouring gentlefolks did not look on these proceedings with muchcomplacency. It is true that Sir Lewis and his ancestors had plaguedthem with law-suits, and affronted them at county meetings. Still theypreferred the insolence of a gentleman to that of the rabble, and feltsome uneasiness lest the example should infect their own tenants. 

A large party of them met at the house of Lord Caesar Germain. LordCaesar was the proudest man in the county. His family was very ancientand illustrious, though not particularly opulent. He had invited mostof his wealthy neighbours. There was Mrs Kitty North, the relict of poorSquire Peter, respecting whom the coroner's jury had found a verdictof accidental death, but whose fate had nevertheless excited strangewhispers in the neighbourhood. There was Squire Don, the owner of thegreat West Indian property, who was not so rich as he had formerly been, but still retained his pride, and kept up his customary pomp; so that hehad plenty of plate but no breeches. There was Squire Von Blunderbussen, who had succeeded to the estates of his uncle, old Colonel FredericVon Blunderbussen, of the hussars. The colonel was a very singular oldfellow; he used to learn a page of Chambaud's grammar, and to translateTelemaque, every morning, and he kept six French masters to teach himto parleyvoo. Nevertheless he was a shrewd clever man, and improved hisestate with so much care, sometimes by honest and sometimes by dishonestmeans, that he left a very pretty property to his nephew. 

Lord Caesar poured out a glass of Tokay for Mrs Kitty. "Your health, mydear madam, I never saw you look more charming. Pray, what think you ofthese doings at St Dennis's?"

"Fine doings, indeed!" interrupted Von Blunderbussen; "I wish thatwe had my old uncle alive, he would have had some of them up to thehalberts. He knew how to usa cat-o'-nine-tails. If things go on in thisway, a gentleman will not be able to horsewhip an impudent farmer, or tosay a civil word to a milk-maid. "

"Indeed, it's very true, Sir, " said Mrs Kitty; "their insolence isintolerable. Look at me, for instance:--a poor lone woman!--My dearPeter dead! I loved him:--so I did; and, when he died, I was sohysterical you cannot think. And now I cannot lean on the arm of adecent footman, or take a walk with a tall grenadier behind me, just toprotect me from audacious vagabonds, but they must have their nauseoussuspicions;--odious creatures!"

"This must be stopped, " replied Lord Caesar. "We ought to contribute tosupport my poor brother-in-law against these rascals. I will write toSquire Guelf on this subject by this night's post. His name is always atthe head of our county subscriptions. "

If the people of St Dennis's had been angry before, they were well-nighmad when they heard of this conversation. The whole parish ran to themanor-house. Sir Lewis's Swiss porter shut the door against them; butthey broke in and knocked him on the head for his impudence. They thenseized the Squire, hooted at him, pelted him, ducked him, and carriedhim to the watch-house. They turned the rector into the street, burnthis wig and band, and sold the church-plate by auction. They put up apainted Jezebel in the pulpit to preach. They scratched out the textswhich were written round the church, and scribbled profane scraps ofsongs and plays in their place. They set the organ playing to pot-housetunes. Instead of being decently asked in church, they were marriedover a broomstick. But, of all their whims, the use of the new patentsteel-traps was the most remarkable. 

This trap was constructed on a completely new principle. It consistedof a cleaver hung in a frame like a window; when any poor wretch gotin, down it came with a tremendous din, and took off his head in atwinkling. They got the squire into one of these machines. In order toprevent any of his partisans from getting footing in the parish, theyplaced traps at every corner. It was impossible to walk through thehighway at broad noon without tumbling into one or other of them. Noman could go about his business in security. Yet so great was the hatredwhich the inhabitants entertained for the old family, that a few decent, honest people, who begged them to take down the steel-traps, and to putup humane man-traps in their room, were very roughly handled for theirgood nature. 

In the meantime the neighbouring gentry undertook a suit against theparish on the behalf of Sir Lewis's heir, and applied to Squire Guelffor his assistance. 

Everybody knows that Squire Guelf is more closely tied up than anygentleman in the shire. He could, therefore, lend them no help; but hereferred them to the Vestry of the Parish of St George in the Water. These good people had long borne a grudge against their neighbours onthe other side of the stream; and some mutual trespasses had latelyoccurred which increased their hostility. 

There was an honest Irishman, a great favourite among them, who used toentertain them with raree-shows, and to exhibit a magic lantern to thechildren on winter evenings. He had gone quite mad upon this subject. Sometimes he would call out in the middle of the street--"Take careof that corner, neighbours; for the love of Heaven, keep clear of thatpost, there is a patent steel-trap concealed thereabouts. " Sometimes hewould be disturbed by frightful dreams; then he would get up at dead ofnight, open his window and cry "fire, " till the parish was roused, and the engines sent for. The pulpit of the Parish of St George seemedlikely to fall; I believe that the only reason was that the parson hadgrown too fat and heavy; but nothing would persuade this honest man butthat it was a scheme of the people at St Dennis's, and that they hadsawed through the pillars in order to break the rector's neck. Once hewent about with a knife in his pocket, and told all the persons whom hemet that it had been sharpened by the knife-grinder of the next parishto cut their throats. These extravagancies had a great effect on thepeople; and the more so because they were espoused by Squire Guelf'ssteward, who was the most influential person in the parish. He was avery fair-spoken man, very attentive to the main chance, and the idolof the old women, because he never played at skittles or danced with thegirls; and, indeed, never took any recreation but that of drinking onSaturday nights with his friend Harry, the Scotch pedlar. His supporterscalled him Sweet William; his enemies the Bottomless Pit. 

The people of St Dennis's, however, had their advocates. There wasFrank, the richest farmer in the parish, whose great grandfather hadbeen knocked on the head many years before, in a squabble between theparish and a former landlord. There was Dick, the merry-andrew, ratherlight-fingered and riotous, but a clever droll fellow. Above all, therewas Charley, the publican, a jolly, fat, honest lad, a great favouritewith the women, who, if he had not been rather too fond of ale andchuck-farthing, would have been the best fellow in the neighbourhood. 

"My boys, " said Charley, "this is exceedingly well for Madam North;--notthat I would speak uncivilly of her; she put up my picture in her bestroom, bless her for it! But, I say, this is very well for her, and forLord Caesar, and Squire Don, and Colonel Von;--but what affair is it ofyours or mine? It is not to be wondered at, that gentlemen should wishto keep poor people out of their own. But it is strange indeed thatthey should expect the poor themselves to combine against their owninterests. If the folks at St Dennis's should attack us we have the lawand our cudgels to protect us. But why, in the name of wonder, are we toattack them? When old Sir Charles, who was Lord of the Manor formerly, and the parson, who was presented by him to the living, tried to bullythe vestry, did not we knock their heads together, and go to meeting tohear Jeremiah Ringletub preach? And did the Squire Don, or the great SirLewis, that lived at that time, or the Germains, say a word againstus for it? Mind your own business, my lads: law is not to be had fornothing; and we, you may be sure, shall have to pay the whole bill. "

Nevertheless the people of St George's were resolved on law. They criedout most lustily, "Squire Guelf for ever! Sweet William for ever! Nosteel traps!" Squire Guelf took all the rascally footmen who had wornold Sir Lewis's livery into his service. They were fed in the kitchen onthe very best of everything, though they had no settlement. Many people, and the paupers in particular, grumbled at these proceedings. Thesteward, however, devised a way to keep them quiet. 

There had lived in this parish for many years an old gentleman, namedSir Habeas Corpus. He was said by some to be of Saxon, by some ofNorman, extraction. Some maintain that he was not born till after thetime of Sir Charles, to whom we have before alluded. Others are ofopinion that he was a legitimate son of old Lady Magna Charta, althoughhe was long concealed and kept out of his birthright. Certain it is thathe was a very benevolent person. Whenever any poor fellow was takenup on grounds which he thought insufficient, he used to attend on hisbehalf and bail him; and thus he had become so popular, that to takedirect measures against him was out of the question. 

The steward, accordingly, brought a dozen physicians to examine SirHabeas. After consultation, they reported that he was in a very bad way, and ought not, on any account, to be allowed to stir out for severalmonths. Fortified with this authority, the parish officers put himto bed, closed his windows, and barred his doors. They paid him everyattention, and from time to time issued bulletins of his health. Thesteward never spoke of him without declaring that he was the bestgentleman in the world; but excellent care was taken that he shouldnever stir out of doors. 

When this obstacle was removed, the Squire and the steward kept theparish in excellent order; flogged this man, sent that man to thestocks, and pushed forward the law-suit with a noble disregard ofexpense. They were, however, wanting either in skill or in fortune. Andeverything went against them after their antagonists had begun to employSolicitor Nap. 

Who does not know the name of Solicitor Nap? At what alehouse is not hisbehaviour discussed? In what print-shop is not his picture seen? Yet howlittle truth has been said about him! Some people hold that he usedto give laudanum by pints to his six clerks for his amusement. Others, whose number has very much increased since he was killed by thegaol distemper, conceive that he was the very model of honour andgood-nature. I shall try to tell the truth about him. 

He was assuredly an excellent solicitor. In his way he never wassurpassed. As soon as the parish began to employ him, their cause tooka turn. In a very little time they were successful; and Nap became rich. He now set up for a gentleman; took possession of the old manor-house;got into the commission of the peace, and affected to be on a par withthe best of the county. He governed the vestries as absolutely as theold family had done. Yet, to give him his due, he managed things withfar more discretion than either Sir Lewis or the rioters who had pulledthe Lords of the Manor down. He kept his servants in tolerable order. He removed the steel traps from the highways and the corners of thestreets. He still left a few indeed in the more exposed parts of hispremises; and set up a board announcing that traps and spring guns wereset in his grounds. He brought the poor parson back to the parish;and, though he did not enable him to keep a fine house and a coach asformerly, he settled him in a snug little cottage, and allowed him apleasant pad-nag. He whitewashed the church again; and put the stocks, which had been much wanted of late, into good repair. 

With the neighbouring gentry, however, he was no favourite. He wascrafty and litigious. He cared nothing for right, if he could raise apoint of law against them. He pounded their cattle, broke their hedges, and seduced their tenants from them. He almost ruined Lord Caesar withactions, in every one of which he was successful. Von Blunderbussen wentto law with him for an alleged trespass, but was cast, and almost ruinedby the costs of suit. He next took a fancy to the seat of Squire Don, who was, to say the truth, little better than an idiot. He asked thepoor dupe to dinner, and then threatened to have him tossed in a blanketunless he would make over his estates to him. The poor Squire signed andsealed a deed by which the property was assigned to Joe, a brother ofNap's, in trust for and to the use of Nap himself. The tenants, however, stood out. They maintained that the estate was entailed, and refusedto pay rents to the new landlord; and in this refusal they were stoutlysupported by the people in St George's. 

About the same time Nap took it into his head to match with quality, andnothing would serve him but one of the Miss Germains. Lord Caesarswore like a trooper; but there was no help for it. Nap had twice putexecutions in his principal residence, and had refused to discharge thelatter of the two till he had extorted a bond from his Lordship whichcompelled him to comply. 

THE END OF THE FIRST PART. 

*****

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN MR ABRAHAM COWLEY AND MR JOHN MILTON, TOUCHINGTHE GREAT CIVIL WAR. SET DOWN BY A GENTLEMAN OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE. (August 1824. )

 "Referre sermones Deorum et Magna modis tenuare parvis. "--Horace. 

I have thought it good to set down in writing a memorable debate, wherein I was a listener, and two men of pregnant parts and greatreputation discoursers; hoping that my friends will not be displeased tohave a record both of the strange times through which I have lived, andof the famous men with whom I have conversed. It chanced in the warm andbeautiful spring of the year 1665, a little before the saddest summerthat ever London saw, that I went to the Bowling Green at Piccadilly, whither, at that time, the best gentry made continual resorts. ThereI met Mr Cowley, who had lately left Barnelms. There was then a housepreparing for him at Chertsey; and till it should be finished, he hadcome up for a short time to London, that he might urge a suit to hisGrace of Buckingham touching certain lands of her Majesty's, whereofhe requested a lease. I had the honour to be familiarly acquainted withthat worthy gentleman and most excellent poet, whose death hath beendeplored with as general a consent of all Powers that delight in thewoods, or in verse, or in love, as was of old that of Daphnis or ofCallus. 

After some talk, which it is not material to set down at large, concerning his suit and his vexations at the court, where indeed hishonesty did him more harm than his parts could do him good, I entreatedhim to dine with me at my lodging in the Temple, which he mostcourteously promised. And, that so eminent a guest might not lack abetter entertainment than cooks or vintners can provide, I sent to thehouse of Mr John Milton, in the Artillery Walk, to beg that he wouldalso be my guest. For, though he had been secretary, first to theCouncil of State, and, after that, to the Protector, and Mr Cowley hadheld the same post under the Lord St Albans in his banishment, I hoped, notwithstanding that they would think themselves rather united by theircommon art than divided by their different factions. And so indeed itproved. For, while we sat at table, they talked freely of many men andthings, as well ancient as modern, with much civility. Nay, Mr Milton, who seldom tasted wine, both because of his singular temperance andbecause of his gout, did more than once pledge Mr Cowley, who was indeedno hermit in diet. At last, being heated, Mr Milton begged that I wouldopen the windows. "Nay, " said I, "if you desire fresh air and coolness, what should hinder us, as the evening is fair, from sailing for an houron the river?" To this they both cheerfully consented; and forth wewalked, Mr Cowley and I leading Mr Milton between us, to the TempleStairs. There we took a boat; and thence we were rowed up the river. 

The wind was pleasant; the evening fine; the sky, the earth, and thewater beautiful to look upon. But Mr Cowley and I held our peace, andsaid nothing of the gay sights around us, lest we should too feelinglyremind Mr Milton of his calamity; whereof, however, he needed nomonitor: for soon he said, sadly, "Ah, Mr Cowley, you are a happy man. What would I now give but for one more look at the sun, and the waters, and the gardens of this fair city!"

"I know not, " said Mr Cowley, "whether we ought not rather to envy youfor that which makes you to envy others: and that specially in thisplace, where all eyes which are not closed in blindness ought to becomefountains of tears. What can we look upon which is not a memorial ofchange and sorrow, of fair things vanished, and evil things done? WhenI see the gate of Whitehall, and the stately pillars of the BanquetingHouse, I cannot choose but think of what I have there seen in formerdays, masques, and pageants, and dances, and smiles, and the waving ofgraceful heads, and the bounding of delicate feet. And then I turn tothoughts of other things, which even to remember makes me to blush andweep;--of the great black scaffold, and the axe and block, which wereplaced before those very windows; and the voice seems to sound in mineears, the lawless and terrible voice, which cried out that the head of aking was the head of a traitor. There stands Westminster Hall, which whocan look upon, and not tremble to think how time, and change, and deathconfound the councils of the wise, and beat down the weapons ofthe mighty? How have I seen it surrounded with tens of thousands ofpetitioners crying for justice and privilege! How have I heard it shakewith fierce and proud words, which made the hearts of the people burnwithin them! Then it is blockaded by dragoons, and cleared by pikemen. And they who have conquered their master go forth trembling at the wordof their servant. And yet a little while, and the usurper comes forthfrom it, in his robe of ermine, with the golden staff in one hand andthe Bible in the other, amidst the roaring of the guns and the shoutingof the people. And yet again a little while, and the doors are throngedwith multitudes in black, and the hearse and the plumes come forth; andthe tyrant is borne, in more than royal pomp, to a royal sepulchre. Afew days more, and his head is fixed to rot on the pinnacles of thatvery hall where he sat on a throne in his life, and lay in state afterhis death. When I think on all these things, to look round me makes mesad at heart. True it is that God hath restored to us our old laws, andthe rightful line of our kings. Yet, how I know not, but it seems to methat something is wanting--that our court hath not the old gravity, norour people the old loyalty. These evil times, like the great deluge, have overwhelmed and confused all earthly things. And, even as thosewaters, though at last they abated, yet, as the learned write, destroyedall trace of the garden of Eden, so that its place hath never since beenfound, so hath this opening of all the flood-gates of political evileffaced all marks of the ancient political paradise. "

"Sir, by your favour, " said Mr Milton, "though, from many circumstancesboth of body and of fortune, I might plead fairer excuses fordespondency than yourself, I yet look not so sadly either on the pastor on the future. That a deluge hath passed over this our nation, I denynot. But I hold it not to be such a deluge as that of which you speak;but rather a blessed flood, like those of the Nile, which in itsoverflow doth indeed wash away ancient landmarks, and confoundboundaries, and sweep away dwellings, yea, doth give birth to many fouland dangerous reptiles. Yet hence is the fulness of the granary, thebeauty of the garden, the nurture of all living things. 

"I remember well, Mr Cowley, what you have said concerning these thingsin your Discourse of the Government of Oliver Cromwell, which my friendElwood read to me last year. Truly, for elegance and rhetoric, thatessay is to be compared with the finest tractates of Isocrates andCicero. But neither that nor any other book, nor any events, which withmost men have, more than any book, weight and authority, have altered myopinion, that, of all assemblies that ever were in this world, the bestand the most useful was our Long Parliament. I speak not this as wishingto provoke debate; which neither yet do I decline. "

Mr Cowley was, as I could see, a little nettled. Yet, as he was a manof a kind disposition and a most refined courtesy, he put a force uponhimself, and answered with more vehemence and quickness indeed than washis wont, yet not uncivilly. "Surely, Mr Milton, you speak not as youthink. I am indeed one of those who believe that God hath reserved tohimself the censure of kings, and that their crimes and oppressions arenot to be resisted by the hands of their subjects. Yet can I easilyfind excuse for the violence of such as are stung to madness by grievoustyranny. But what shall we say for these men? Which of their justdemands was not granted? Which even of their cruel and unreasonablerequisitions, so as it were not inconsistent with all law and order, wasrefused? Had they not sent Strafford to the block and Laud to the Tower?Had they not destroyed the Courts of the High Commission and the StarChamber? Had they not reversed the proceedings confirmed by the voicesof the judges of England, in the matter of ship-money? Had they nottaken from the king his ancient and most lawful power touching the orderof knighthood? Had they not provided that, after their dissolution, triennial parliaments should be holden, and that their own power shouldcontinue till of their great condescension they should be pleased toresign it themselves? What more could they ask? Was it not enough thatthey had taken from their king all his oppressive powers, and manythat were most salutary? Was it not enough that they had filled hiscouncil-board with his enemies, and his prisons with his adherents? Wasit not enough that they had raised a furious multitude, to shout andswagger daily under the very windows of his royal palace? Was it notenough that they had taken from him the most blessed prerogative ofprincely mercy; that, complaining of intolerance themselves, they haddenied all toleration to others; that they had urged, against forms, scruples childish as those of any formalist; that they had persecutedthe least remnant of the popish rites with the fiercest bitterness ofthe popish spirit? Must they besides all this have full power to commandhis armies, and to massacre his friends?

"For military command, it was never known in any monarchy, nay, in anywell ordered republic, that it was committed to the debates of a largeand unsettled assembly. For their other requisition, that he should giveup to their vengeance all who had defended the rights of his crown, hishonour must have been ruined if he had complied. Is it not thereforeplain that they desired these things only in order that, by refusing, his Majesty might give them a pretence for war?

"Men have often risen up against fraud, against cruelty, againstrapine. But when before was it known that concessions were met withimportunities, graciousness with insults, the open palm of bounty withthe clenched fist of malice? Was it like trusty delegates of the Commonsof England, and faithful stewards of their liberty and their wealth, toengage them for such causes in civil war, which both to liberty andto wealth is of all things the most hostile. Evil indeed must be thedisease which is not more tolerable than such a medicine. Those who, even to save a nation from tyrants, excite it to civil war do in generalbut minister to it the same miserable kind of relief wherewith thewizards of Pharaoh mocked the Egyptian. We read that, when Moses hadturned their waters into blood, those impious magicians, intending, notbenefit to the thirsting people, but vain and emulous ostentation oftheir own art, did themselves also change into blood the water which theplague had spared. Such sad comfort do those who stir up war ministerto the oppressed. But here where was the oppression? What was thefavour which had not been granted? What was the evil which had not beenremoved? What further could they desire?"

"These questions, " said Mr Milton, austerely, "have indeed oftendeceived the ignorant; but that Mr Cowley should have been so beguiled, I marvel. You ask what more the Parliament could desire? I willanswer you in one word, security. What are votes, and statutes, andresolutions? They have no eyes to see, no hands to strike and avenge. They must have some safeguard from without. Many things, therefore, which in themselves were peradventure hurtful, was this Parliamentconstrained to ask, lest otherwise good laws and precious rights shouldbe without defence. Nor did they want a great and signal example of thisdanger. I need not remind you that, many years before, the two Houseshad presented to the king the Petition of Right, wherein were set downall the most valuable privileges of the people of this realm. Did notCharles accept it? Did he not declare it to be law? Was it not asfully enacted as ever were any of those bills of the Long Parliamentconcerning which you spoke? And were those privileges therefore enjoyedmore fully by the people? No: the king did from that time redoublehis oppressions as if to avenge himself for the shame of having beencompelled to renounce them. Then were our estates laid under shamefulimpositions, our houses ransacked, our bodies imprisoned. Then was thesteel of the hangman blunted with mangling the ears of harmless men. Then our very minds were fettered, and the iron entered into our souls. Then we were compelled to hide our hatred, our sorrow, and our scorn, to laugh with hidden faces at the mummery of Laud, to curse under ourbreath the tyranny of Wentworth. Of old time it was well and noblysaid, by one of our kings, that an Englishman ought to be as free as histhoughts. Our prince reversed the maxim; he strove to make our thoughtsas much slaves as ourselves. To sneer at a Romish pageant, to miscall alord's crest, were crimes for which there was no mercy. These were allthe fruits which we gathered from those excellent laws of the formerParliament, from these solemn promises of the king. Were we to bedeceived again? Were we again to give subsidies, and receive nothing butpromises? Were we again to make wholesome statutes, and then leavethem to be broken daily and hourly, until the oppressor should havesquandered another supply, and should be ready for another perjury? Youask what they could desire which he had not already granted. Let meask of you another question. What pledge could he give which he had notalready violated? From the first year of his reign, whenever he had needof the purses of his Commons to support the revels of Buckingham or theprocessions of Laud, he had assured them that, as he was a gentlemanand a king, he would sacredly preserve their rights. He had pawnedthose solemn pledges, and pawned them again and again; but when hadhe redeemed them? 'Upon my faith, '--'Upon my sacred word, '--'Upon thehonour of a prince, '--came so easily from his lips, and dwelt so shorta time on his mind that they were as little to be trusted as the 'By thehilts' of an Alsatian dicer. 

"Therefore it is that I praise this Parliament for what else I mighthave condemned. If what he had granted had been granted graciously andreadily, if what he had before promised had been faithfully observed, they could not be defended. It was because he had never yielded theworst abuse without a long struggle, and seldom without a large bribe;it was because he had no sooner disentangled himself from his troublesthan he forgot his promises; and, more like a villainous huckster than agreat king, kept both the prerogative and the large price which had beenpaid to him to forego it; it was because of these things that it wasnecessary and just to bind with forcible restraints one who could bebound neither by law nor honour. Nay, even while he was making thosevery concessions of which you speak, he betrayed his deadly hatredagainst the people and their friends. Not only did he, contrary toall that ever was deemed lawful in England, order that members of theCommons House of Parliament should be impeached of high treason atthe bar of the Lords; thereby violating both the trial by jury and theprivileges of the House; but, not content with breaking the law by hisministers, he went himself armed to assail it. In the birth-place andsanctuary of freedom, in the House itself; nay in the very chair of thespeaker, placed for the protection of free speech and privilege, he sat, rolling his eyes round the benches, searching for those whose blood hedesired, and singling out his opposers to the slaughter. This most fouloutrage fails. Then again for the old arts. Then come gracious messages. Then come courteous speeches. Then is again mortgaged his oftenforfeited honour. He will never again violate the laws. He will respecttheir rights as if they were his own. He pledges the dignity of hiscrown; that crown which had been committed to him for the weal of hispeople, and which he never named, but that he might the more easilydelude and oppress them. 

"The power of the sword, I grant you, was not one to be permanentlypossessed by Parliament. Neither did that Parliament demand it as apermanent possession. They asked it only for temporary security. Nor canI see on what conditions they could safely make peace with that falseand wicked king, save such as would deprive him of all power to injure. 

"For civil war, that it is an evil I dispute not. But that it is thegreatest of evils, that I stoutly deny. It doth indeed appear to themisjudging to be a worse calamity than bad government, because itsmiseries are collected together within a short space and time, and mayeasily at one view be taken in and perceived. But the misfortunes ofnations ruled by tyrants, being distributed over many centuries and manyplaces, as they are of greater weight and number, so are they of lessdisplay. When the Devil of tyranny hath gone into the body politic hedeparts not but with struggles, and foaming, and great convulsions. Shall he, therefore, vex it for ever, lest, in going out, he for amoment tear and rend it? Truly this argument touching the evils of warwould better become my friend Elwood, or some other of the people calledQuakers, than a courtier and a cavalier. It applies no more to this warthan to all others, as well foreign as domestic, and, in this war, nomore to the Houses than to the king; nay, not so much, since he by alittle sincerity and moderation might have rendered that needless whichtheir duty to God and man then enforced them to do. "

"Pardon me, Mr Milton, " said Mr Cowley; "I grieve to hear you speak thusof that good king. Most unhappy indeed he was, in that he reigned at atime when the spirit of the then living generation was for freedom, andthe precedents of former ages for prerogative. His case was like to thatof Christopher Columbus, when he sailed forth on an unknown ocean, andfound that the compass, whereby he shaped his course, had shifted fromthe north pole whereto before it had constantly pointed. So it was withCharles. His compass varied; and therefore he could not tack aright. Ifhe had been an absolute king he would doubtless, like Titus Vespasian, have been called the delight of the human race. If he had been a Doge ofVenice, or a Stadtholder of Holland, he would never have outstepped thelaws. But he lived when our government had neither clear definitions norstrong sanctions. Let, therefore, his faults be ascribed to the time. Ofhis virtues the praise is his own. 

"Never was there a more gracious prince, or a more proper gentleman. In every pleasure he was temperate, in conversation mild and grave, infriendship constant, to his servants liberal, to his queen faithful andloving, in battle grave, in sorrow and captivity resolved, in death mostChristian and forgiving. 

"For his oppressions, let us look at the former history of this realm. James was never accounted a tyrant. Elizabeth is esteemed to have beenthe mother of her people. Were they less arbitrary? Did they never layhands on the purses of their subjects but by Act of Parliament? Did theynever confine insolent and disobedient men but in due course of law? Wasthe court of Star Chamber less active? Were the ears of libellers moresafe? I pray you, let not king Charles be thus dealt with. It was enoughthat in his life he was tried for an alleged breach of laws which noneever heard named till they were discovered for his destruction. Let nothis fame be treated as was his sacred and anointed body. Let not hismemory be tried by principles found out ex post facto. Let us not judgeby the spirit of one generation a man whose disposition had been formedby the temper and fashion of another. "

"Nay, but conceive me, Mr Cowley, " said Mr Milton; "inasmuch as, at thebeginning of his reign, he imitated those who had governed before him, I blame him not. To expect that kings will, of their own free choice, abridge their prerogative, were argument of but slender wisdom. Whatever, therefore, lawless, unjust, or cruel, he either did orpermitted during the first years of his reign, I pass by. But for whatwas done after that he had solemnly given his consent to the Petitionof Right, where shall we find defence? Let it be supposed, which yet Iconcede not, that the tyranny of his father and of Queen Elizabeth hadbeen no less rigorous than was his. But had his father, had that queen, sworn like him, to abstain from those rigours? Had they, like him, forgood and valuable consideration, aliened their hurtful prerogatives?Surely not: from whatever excuse you can plead for him he had whollyexcluded himself. The borders of countries, we know, are mostly theseats of perpetual wars and tumults. It was the same with the undefinedfrontiers, which of old separated privilege and prerogative. They werethe debatable land of our polity. It was no marvel if, both on the oneside and on the other, inroads were often made. But, when treaties havebeen concluded, spaces measured, lines drawn, landmarks set up, thatwhich before might pass for innocent error or just reprisal becomesrobbery, perjury, deadly sin. He knew not, you say, which of his powerswere founded on ancient law, and which only on vicious example. But hadhe not read the Petition of Right? Had not proclamation been made fromhis throne, Soit fait comme il est desire?

"For his private virtues they are beside the question. Remember younot, " and Mr Milton smiled, but somewhat sternly, "what Dr Cauis saithin the Merry Wives of Shakspeare? 'What shall the honest man do in mycloset? There is no honest man that shall come in my closet. ' Even sosay I. There is no good man who shall make us his slaves. If he breakhis word to his people, is it a sufficient defence that he keeps itto his companions? If he oppress and extort all day, shall he be heldblameless because he prayeth at night and morning? If he be insatiablein plunder and revenge, shall we pass it by because in meat and drinkhe is temperate? If he have lived like a tyrant, shall all be forgottenbecause he hath died like a martyr?

"He was a man, as I think, who had so much semblance of virtues as mightmake his vices most dangerous. He was not a tyrant after our wontedEnglish model. The second Richard, the second and fourth Edwards, andthe eighth Harry, were men profuse, gay, boisterous; lovers of women andof wine, of no outward sanctity or gravity. Charles was a ruler afterthe Italian fashion; grave, demure, of a solemn carriage, and a soberdiet; as constant at prayers as a priest, as heedless of oaths as anatheist. "

Mr Cowley answered somewhat sharply: "I am sorry, Sir, to hear you speakthus. I had hoped that the vehemence of spirit which was caused by theseviolent times had now abated. Yet, sure, Mr Milton, whatever you maythink of the character of King Charles, you will not still justify hismurder?"

"Sir, " said Mr Milton, "I must have been of a hard and strange nature, if the vehemence which was imputed to me in my younger days had not beendiminished by the afflictions wherewith it hath pleased Almighty Godto chasten my age. I will not now defend all that I may heretofore havewritten. But this I say, that I perceive not wherefore a king should beexempted from all punishment. Is it just that where most is given leastshould be required? Or politic that where there is the greatest power toinjure there should be no danger to restrain? But, you will say, there is no such law. Such a law there is. There is the law ofselfpreservation written by God himself on our hearts. There is theprimal compact and bond of society, not graven on stone, or sealed withwax, nor put down on parchment, nor set forth in any express form ofwords by men when of old they came together; but implied in the very actthat they so came together, pre-supposed in all subsequent law, not tobe repealed by any authority, nor invalidated by being omitted in anycode; inasmuch as from thence are all codes and all authority. 

"Neither do I well see wherefore you cavaliers, and, indeed, many of uswhom you merrily call Roundheads, distinguish between those who foughtagainst King Charles, and specially after the second commission given toSir Thomas Fairfax, and those who condemned him to death. Sure, if hisperson were inviolable, it was as wicked to lift the sword against it atNaseby as the axe at Whitehall. If his life might justly be taken, whynot in course of trial as well as by right of war?

"Thus much in general as touching the right. But, for the execution ofKing Charles in particular, I will not now undertake to defend it. Deathis inflicted, not that the culprit may die, but that the state may bethereby advantaged. And, from all that I know, I think that the death ofKing Charles hath more hindered than advanced the liberties of England. 

"First, he left an heir. He was in captivity. The heir was in freedom. He was odious to the Scots. The heir was favoured by them. To killthe captive therefore, whereby the heir, in the apprehension of allroyalists, became forthwith king--what was it, in truth, but to settheir captive free, and to give him besides other great advantages?

"Next, it was a deed most odious to the people, and not only to yourparty, but to many among ourselves; and, as it is perilous for anygovernment to outrage the public opinion, so most was it perilous for agovernment which had from that opinion alone its birth, its nurture, andits defence. 

"Yet doth not this properly belong to our dispute; nor can these faultsbe justly charged upon that most renowned Parliament. For, as you know, the high court of justice was not established until the House had beenpurged of such members as were adverse to the army, and brought whollyunder the control of the chief officers. "

"And who, " said Mr Cowley, "levied that army? Who commissioned thoseofficers? Was not the fate of the Commons as justly deserved as was thatof Diomedes, who was devoured by those horses whom he had himself taughtto feed on the flesh and blood of men? How could they hope that otherswould respect laws which they had themselves insulted; that swords whichhad been drawn against the prerogatives of the king would be put up atan ordinance of the Commons? It was believed, of old, that there weresome devils easily raised but never to be laid; insomuch that, if amagician called them up, he should be forced to find them always someemployment; for, though they would do all his bidding, yet, if he leftthem but for one moment without some work of evil to perform, they wouldturn their claws against himself. Such a fiend is an army. They whoevoke it cannot dismiss it. They are at once its masters and its slaves. Let them not fail to find for it task after task of blood and rapine. Let them not leave it for a moment in repose, lest it tear them inpieces. 

"Thus was it with that famous assembly. They formed a force which theycould neither govern nor resist. They made it powerful. They made itfanatical. As if military insolence were not of itself sufficientlydangerous, they heightened it with spiritual pride, --they encouragedtheir soldiers to rave from the tops of tubs against the men of Belial, till every trooper thought himself a prophet. They taught them to abusepopery, till every drummer fancied that he was as infallible as a pope. 

"Then it was that religion changed her nature. She was no longerthe parent of arts and letters, of wholesome knowledge, of innocentpleasures, of blessed household smiles. In their place came sour faces, whining voices, the chattering of fools, the yells of madmen. Then menfasted from meat and drink, who fasted not from bribes and blood. Thenmen frowned at stage-plays, who smiled at massacres. Then men preachedagainst painted faces, who felt no remorse for their own most paintedlives. Religion had been a pole-star to light and to guide. It was nowmore like to that ominous star in the book of the Apocalypse, whichfell from heaven upon the fountains and rivers and changed them intowormwood; for even so did it descend from its high and celestialdwelling-place to plague this earth, and to turn into bitterness allthat was sweet, and into poison all that was nourishing. 

"Therefore it was not strange that such things should follow. They whohad closed the barriers of London against the king could not defendthem against their own creatures. They who had so stoutly cried forprivilege, when that prince, most unadvisedly no doubt, came among themto demand their members, durst not wag their fingers when Oliver filledtheir hall with soldiers, gave their mace to a corporal, put their keysin his pocket, and drove them forth with base terms, borrowed half fromthe conventicle and half from the ale-house. Then were we, like thetrees of the forest in holy writ, given over to the rule of the bramble;then from the basest of the shrubs came forth the fire which devouredthe cedars of Lebanon. We bowed down before a man of mean birth, ofungraceful demeanour, of stammering and most vulgar utterance, ofscandalous and notorious hypocrisy. Our laws were made and unmade at hispleasure; the constitution of our Parliaments changed by his writ andproclamation; our persons imprisoned; our property plundered; our landsand houses overrun with soldiers; and the great charter itself wasbut argument for a scurrilous jest; and for all this we may thank thatParliament; for never, unless they had so violently shaken the vessel, could such foul dregs have risen to the top. "

Then answered Mr Milton: "What you have now said comprehends so great anumber of subjects, that it would require, not an evening's sail on theThames, but rather a voyage to the Indies, accurately to treat of all:yet, in as few words as I may, I will explain my sense of these matters. 

"First, as to the army. An army, as you have well set forth, is alwaysa weapon dangerous to those who use it; yet he who falls among thievesspares not to fire his musquetoon, because he may be slain if it burstin his hand. Nor must states refrain from defending themselves, lesttheir defenders should at last turn against them. Nevertheless, againstthis danger statesmen should carefully provide; and, that they may doso, they should take especial care that neither the officers nor thesoldiers do forget that they are also citizens. I do believe that theEnglish army would have continued to obey the parliament with all duty, but for one act, which, as it was in intention, in seeming, and inimmediate effect, worthy to be compared with the most famous in history, so was it, in its final consequence, most injurious. I speak of thatordinance called the "self-denying", and of the new model of the army. By those measures the Commons gave up the command of their forces intothe hands of men who were not of themselves. Hence, doubtless, derivedno small honour to that noble assembly, which sacrificed to the hope ofpublic good the assurance of private advantage. And, as to the conductof the war, the scheme prospered. Witness the battle of Naseby, and thememorable exploits of Fairfax in the west. But thereby the Parliamentlost that hold on the soldiers and that power to control them, whichthey retained while every regiment was commanded by their own members. Politicians there be, who would wholly divide the legislative fromthe executive power. In the golden age this may have succeeded; in themillennium it may succeed again. But, where great armies and great taxesare required, there the executive government must always hold a greatauthority, which authority, that it may not oppress and destroy thelegislature, must be in some manner blended with it. The leaders offoreign mercenaries have always been most dangerous to a country. Theofficers of native armies, deprived of the civil privileges of othermen, are as much to be feared. This was the great error of thatParliament: and, though an error it were, it was an error generous, virtuous, and more to be deplored than censured. 

"Hence came the power of the army and its leaders, and especially ofthat most famous leader, whom both in our conversation to-day, and inthat discourse whereon I before touched, you have, in my poor opinion, far too roughly handled. Wherefore you speak contemptibly of his partsI know not; but I suspect that you are not free from the error common tostudious and speculative men. Because Oliver was an ungraceful orator, and never said, either in public or private, anything memorable, youwill have it that he was of a mean capacity. Sure this is unjust. Manymen have there been ignorant of letters, without wit, without eloquence, who yet had the wisdom to devise, and the courage to perform, that whichthey lacked language to explain. Such men often, in troubled times, haveworked out the deliverance of nations and their own greatness, notby logic, not by rhetoric, but by wariness in success, by calmness indanger, by fierce and stubborn resolution in all adversity. The heartsof men are their books; events are their tutors; great actions are theireloquence: and such an one, in my judgment, was his late Highness, who, if none were to treat his name scornfully now shook not at the sound ofit while he lived, would, by very few, be mentioned otherwise than withreverence. His own deeds shall avouch him for a great statesman, a greatsoldier, a true lover of his country, a merciful and generous conqueror. 

"For his faults, let us reflect that they who seem to lead areoftentimes most constrained to follow. They who will mix with men, andespecially they who will govern them, must in many things obey them. They who will yield to no such conditions may be hermits, but cannotbe generals and statesmen. If a man will walk straight forward withoutturning to the right or the left, he must walk in a desert, and not inCheapside. Thus was he enforced to do many things which jumped not withhis inclination nor made for his honour; because the army, on whichalone he could depend for power and life, might not otherwise becontented. And I, for mine own part, marvel less that he sometimes wasfain to indulge their violence than that he could so often restrain it. 

"In that he dissolved the Parliament, I praise him. It then was sodiminished in numbers, as well by the death as by the exclusion ofmembers, that it was no longer the same assembly; and, if at that timeit had made itself perpetual, we should have been governed, not by anEnglish House of Commons, but by a Venetian Council. 

"If in his following rule he overstepped the laws, I pity rather thancondemn him. He may be compared to that Maeandrius of Samos, of whomHerodotus saith, in his Thalia, that, wishing to be of all men the mostjust, he was not able; for after the death of Polycrates he offeredfreedom to the people; and not till certain of them threatened to callhim to a reckoning for what he had formerly done, did he change hispurpose, and make himself a tyrant, lest he should be treated as acriminal. 

"Such was the case of Oliver. He gave to his country a form ofgovernment so free and admirable that, in near six thousand years, human wisdom hath never devised any more excellent contrivance for humanhappiness. To himself he reserved so little power that it would scarcelyhave sufficed for his safety, and it is a marvel that it could sufficefor his ambition. When, after that, he found that the members of hisParliament disputed his right even to that small authority which he hadkept, when he might have kept all, then indeed I own that he began togovern by the sword those who would not suffer him to govern by the law. 

"But, for the rest, what sovereign was ever more princely in pardoninginjuries, in conquering enemies, in extending the dominions andthe renown of his people? What sea, what shore did he not mark withimperishable memorials of his friendship or his vengeance? The gold ofSpain, the steel of Sweden, the ten thousand sails of Holland, availednothing against him. While every foreign state trembled at our arms, wesat secure from all assault. War, which often so strangely troubles bothhusbandry and commerce, never silenced the song of our reapers, or thesound of our looms. Justice was equally administered; God was freelyworshipped. 

"Now look at that which we have taken in exchange. With the restoredking have come over to us vices of every sort, and most the basest andmost shameful, --lust without love--servitude without loyalty--foulnessof speech--dishonesty of dealing--grinning contempt of all things goodand generous. The throne is surrounded by men whom the former Charleswould have spurned from his footstool. The altar is served by slaveswhose knees are supple to every being but God. Rhymers, whose books thehangman should burn, pandars, actors, and buffoons, these drink a healthand throw a main with the King; these have stars on their breasts andgold sticks in their hands; these shut out from his presence the bestand bravest of those who bled for his house. Even so doth God visitthose who know not how to value freedom. He gives them over to thetyranny which they have desired, Ina pantes epaurontai basileos. "

"I will not, " said Mr Cowley, "dispute with you on this argument. But, if it be as you say, how can you maintain that England hath been sogreatly advantaged by the rebellion?"

"Understand me rightly, Sir, " said Mr Milton. "This nation is not givenover to slavery and vice. We tasted indeed the fruits of liberty beforethey had well ripened. Their flavour was harsh and bitter; and we turnedfrom them with loathing to the sweeter poisons of servitude. This isbut for a time. England is sleeping on the lap of Dalilah, traitorouslychained, but not yet shorn of strength. Let the cry be once heard--thePhilistines be upon thee; and at once that sleep will be broken, andthose chains will be as flax in the fire. The great Parliament hath leftbehind it in our hearts and minds a hatred of tyrants, a just knowledgeof our rights, a scorn of vain and deluding names; and that therevellers of Whitehall shall surely find. The sun is darkened; but it isonly for a moment: it is but an eclipse; though all birds of evil omenhave begun to scream, and all ravenous beasts have gone forth to prey, thinking it to be midnight. Woe to them if they be abroad when the raysagain shine forth!

"The king hath judged ill. Had he been wise he would have rememberedthat he owed his restoration only to confusions which had wearied usout, and made us eager for repose. He would have known that the follyand perfidy of a prince would restore to the good old cause many heartswhich had been alienated thence by the turbulence of factions; for, ifI know aught of history, or of the heart of man, he will soon learn thatthe last champion of the people was not destroyed when he murdered Vane, nor seduced when he beguiled Fairfax. "

Mr Cowley seemed to me not to take much amiss what Mr Milton had saidtouching that thankless court, which had indeed but poorly requited hisown good service. He only said, therefore, "Another rebellion! Alas!alas! Mr Milton! If there be no choice but between despotism andanarchy, I prefer despotism. "

"Many men, " said Mr Milton, "have floridly and ingeniously comparedanarchy and despotism; but they who so amuse themselves do but look atseparate parts of that which is truly one great whole. Each is the causeand the effect of the other; the evils of either are the evils ofboth. Thus do states move on in the same eternal cycle, which, from theremotest point, brings them back again to the same sad starting-post:and, till both those who govern and those who obey shall learn and markthis great truth, men can expect little through the future, as theyhave known little through the past, save vicissitudes of extreme evils, alternately producing and produced. 

"When will rulers learn that, where liberty is not, security end ordercan never be? We talk of absolute power; but all power hath limits, which, if not fixed by the moderation of the governors, will be fixedby the force of the governed. Sovereigns may send their opposers todungeons; they may clear out a senate-house with soldiers; they mayenlist armies of spies; they may hang scores of the disaffected inchains at every cross road; but what power shall stand in that frightfultime when rebellion hath become a less evil than endurance? Who shalldissolve that terrible tribunal, which, in the hearts of the oppressed, denounces against the oppressor the doom of its wild justice? Who shallrepeal the law of selfdefence? What arms or discipline shall resistthe strength of famine and despair? How often were the ancient Caesarsdragged from their golden palaces, stripped of their purple robes, mangled, stoned, defiled with filth, pierced with hooks, hurled intoTiber? How often have the Eastern Sultans perished by the sabres oftheir own janissaries, or the bow-strings of their own mutes! For nopower which is not limited by laws can ever be protected by them. Small, therefore, is the wisdom of those who would fly to servitude as if itwere a refuge from commotion; for anarchy is the sure consequence oftyranny. That governments may be safe, nations must be free. Theirpassions must have an outlet provided, lest they make one. 

"When I was at Naples, I went with Signor Manso, a gentleman ofexcellent parts and breeding, who had been the familiar friend of thatfamous poet Torquato Tasso, to see the burning mountain Vesuvius. Iwondered how the peasants could venture to dwell so fearlessly andcheerfully on its sides, when the lava was flowing from its summit;but Manso smiled, and told me that when the fire descends freely theyretreat before it without haste or fear. They can tell how fast it willmove, and how far; and they know, moreover, that, though it may worksome little damage, it will soon cover the fields over which it hathpassed with rich vineyards and sweet flowers. But, when the flames arepent up in the mountain, then it is that they have reason to fear; thenit is that the earth sinks and the sea swells; then cities are swallowedup; and their place knoweth them no more. So it is in politics: wherethe people is most closely restrained, there it gives the greatestshocks to peace and order; therefore would I say to all kings, let yourdemagogues lead crowds, lest they lead armies; let them bluster, lestthey massacre; a little turbulence is, as it were, the rainbow of thestate; it shows indeed that there is a passing shower; but it is apledge that there shall be no deluge. "

"This is true, " said Mr Cowley; "yet these admonitions are not lessneedful to subjects than to sovereigns. "

"Surely, " said Mr Milton; "and, that I may end this long debate with afew words in which we shall both agree, I hold that, as freedom is theonly safeguard of governments, so are order and moderation generallynecessary to preserve freedom. Even the vainest opinions of men are notto be outraged by those who propose to themselves the happiness of menfor their end, and who must work with the passions of men for theirmeans. The blind reverence for things ancient is indeed so foolishthat it might make a wise man laugh, if it were not also sometimes somischievous that it would rather make a good man weep. Yet, since it maynot be wholly cured it must be discreetly indulged; and therefore thosewho would amend evil laws should consider rather how much it may be safeto spare, than how much it may be possible to change. Have you not heardthat men who have been shut up for many years in dungeons shrink if theysee the light, and fall down if their irons be struck off? And so, whennations have long been in the house of bondage, the chains which havecrippled them are necessary to support them, the darkness which hathweakened their sight is necessary to preserve it. Therefore release themnot too rashly, lest they curse their freedom and pine for their prison. 

"I think indeed that the renowned Parliament, of which we have talked somuch, did show, until it became subject to the soldiers, a singularand admirable moderation, in such times scarcely to be hoped, andmost worthy to be an example to all that shall come after. But on thisargument I have said enough: and I will therefore only pray to AlmightyGod that those who shall, in future times stand forth in defence ofour liberties, as well civil as religious, may adorn the good causeby mercy, prudence, and soberness, to the glory of his name and thehappiness and honour of the English people. "

And so ended that discourse; and not long after we were set on shoreagain at the Temple Gardens, and there parted company: and the sameevening I took notes of what had been said, which I have here more fullyset down, from regard both to the fame of the men, and the importance ofthe subject-matter. 

*****

ON THE ATHENIAN ORATORS. (August 1824. )

 "To the famous orators repair, Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence Wielded at will that fierce democratie, Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne. " --Milton. 

The celebrity of the great classical writers is confined within nolimits, except those which separate civilised from savage man. Theirworks are the common property of every polished nation. They havefurnished subjects for the painter, and models for the poet. In theminds of the educated classes throughout Europe, their namesare indissolubly associated with the endearing recollections ofchildhood, --the old school-room, --the dog-eared grammar, --the firstprize, --the tears so often shed and so quickly dried. So great is theveneration with which they are regarded, that even the editors andcommentators who perform the lowest menial offices to their memory, areconsidered, like the equerries and chamberlains of sovereign princes, as entitled to a high rank in the table of literary precedence. It is, therefore, somewhat singular that their productions should so rarelyhave been examined on just and philosophical principles of criticism. 

The ancient writers themselves afford us but little assistance. When they particularise, they are commonly trivial: when they wouldgeneralise, they become indistinct. An exception must, indeed, be madein favour of Aristotle. Both in analysis and in combination, that greatman was without a rival. No philosopher has ever possessed, in an equaldegree, the talent either of separating established systems into theirprimary elements, or of connecting detached phenomena in harmonioussystems. He was the great fashioner of the intellectual chaos; hechanged its darkness into light, and its discord into order. He broughtto literary researches the same vigour and amplitude of mind to whichboth physical and metaphysical science are so greatly indebted. Hisfundamental principles of criticism are excellent. To cite only asingle instance:--the doctrine which he established, that poetry is animitative art, when justly understood, is to the critic what the compassis to the navigator. With it he may venture upon the most extensiveexcursions. Without it he must creep cautiously along the coast, or losehimself in a trackless expanse, and trust, at best, to the guidance ofan occasional star. It is a discovery which changes a caprice into ascience. 

The general propositions of Aristotle are valuable. But the merit of thesuperstructure bears no proportion to that of the foundation. This ispartly to be ascribed to the character of the philosopher, who, thoughqualified to do all that could be done by the resolving and combiningpowers of the understanding, seems not to have possessed much ofsensibility or imagination. Partly, also, it may be attributed to thedeficiency of materials. The great works of genius which then existedwere not either sufficiently numerous or sufficiently varied to enableany man to form a perfect code of literature. To require that a criticshould conceive classes of composition which had never existed, and theninvestigate their principles, would be as unreasonable as the demand ofNebuchadnezzar, who expected his magicians first to tell him his dreamand then to interpret it. 

With all his deficiencies, Aristotle was the most enlightened andprofound critic of antiquity. Dionysius was far from possessing the sameexquisite subtilty, or the same vast comprehension. But he had accessto a much greater number of specimens; and he had devoted himself, asit appears, more exclusively to the study of elegant literature. Hispeculiar judgments are of more value than his general principles. He isonly the historian of literature. Aristotle is its philosopher. 

Quintilian applied to general literature the same principles by which hehad been accustomed to judge of the declamations of his pupils. He looksfor nothing but rhetoric, and rhetoric not of the highest order. Hespeaks coldly of the incomparable works of Aeschylus. He admires, beyondexpression, those inexhaustible mines of common-places, the plays ofEuripides. He bestows a few vague words on the poetical character ofHomer. He then proceeds to consider him merely as an orator. An oratorHomer doubtless was, and a great orator. But surely nothing is moreremarkable, in his admirable works, than the art with which hisoratorical powers are made subservient to the purposes of poetry. Norcan I think Quintilian a great critic in his own province. Just as aremany of his remarks, beautiful as are many of his illustrations, wecan perpetually detect in his thoughts that flavour which the soil ofdespotism generally communicates to all the fruits of genius. Eloquencewas, in his time, little more than a condiment which served to stimulatein a despot the jaded appetite for panegyric, an amusement forthe travelled nobles and the blue-stocking matrons of Rome. It is, therefore, with him, rather a sport than a war; it is a contest offoils, not of swords. He appears to think more of the grace of theattitude than of the direction and vigour of the thrust. It must beacknowledged, in justice to Quintilian, that this is an error to whichCicero has too often given the sanction, both of his precept and of hisexample. 

Longinus seems to have had great sensibility, but little discrimination. He gives us eloquent sentences, but no principles. It was happilysaid that Montesquieu ought to have changed the name of his book from"L'Esprit des Lois" to "L'Esprit sur les Lois". In the same mannerthe philosopher of Palmyra ought to have entitled his famous work, not"Longinus on the Sublime, " but "The Sublimities of Longinus. " The originof the sublime is one of the most curious and interesting subjects ofinquiry that can occupy the attention of a critic. In our own country ithas been discussed, with great ability, and, I think, with very littlesuccess, by Burke and Dugald Stuart. Longinus dispenses himself from allinvestigations of this nature, by telling his friend Terentianus that healready knows everything that can be said upon the question. It is to beregretted that Terentianus did not impart some of his knowledge tohis instructor: for from Longinus we learn only that sublimity meansheight--or elevation. (Akrotes kai exoche tis logon esti ta uoe. ) Thisname, so commodiously vague, is applied indifferently to the nobleprayer of Ajax in the Iliad, and to a passage of Plato about the humanbody, as full of conceits as an ode of Cowley. Having no fixed standard, Longinus is right only by accident. He is rather a fancier than acritic. 

Modern writers have been prevented by many causes from supplying thedeficiencies of their classical predecessors. At the time of the revivalof literature, no man could, without great and painful labour, acquirean accurate and elegant knowledge of the ancient languages. And, unfortunately, those grammatical and philological studies, without whichit was impossible to understand the great works of Athenian and Romangenius, have a tendency to contract the views and deaden the sensibilityof those who follow them with extreme assiduity. A powerful mind, whichhas been long employed in such studies, may be compared to the giganticspirit in the Arabian tale, who was persuaded to contract himself tosmall dimensions in order to enter within the enchanted vessel, and, when his prison had been closed upon him, found himself unable to escapefrom the narrow boundaries to the measure of which he had reduced hisstature. When the means have long been the objects of application, theyare naturally substituted for the end. It was said, by Eugene of Savoy, that the greatest generals have commonly been those who have been atonce raised to command, and introduced to the great operations of war, without being employed in the petty calculations and manoeuvres whichemploy the time of an inferior officer. In literature the principle isequally sound. The great tactics of criticism will, in general, be bestunderstood by those who have not had much practice in drilling syllablesand particles. 

I remember to have observed among the French Anas a ludicrous instanceof this. A scholar, doubtless of great learning, recommends the studyof some long Latin treatise, of which I now forget the name, on thereligion, manners, government, and language of the early Greeks. "Forthere, " says he, "you will learn everything of importance that iscontained in the Iliad and Odyssey, without the trouble of reading twosuch tedious books. " Alas! it had not occurred to the poor gentlemanthat all the knowledge to which he attached so much value was usefulonly as it illustrated the great poems which he despised, and would beas worthless for any other purpose as the mythology of Caffraria, or thevocabulary of Otaheite. 

Of those scholars who have disdained to confine themselves to verbalcriticism few have been successful. The ancient languages have, generally, a magical influence on their faculties. They were "foolscalled into a circle by Greek invocations. " The Iliad and Aeneid were tothem not books but curiosities, or rather reliques. They no more admiredthose works for their merits than a good Catholic venerates the house ofthe Virgin at Loretto for its architecture. Whatever was classical wasgood. Homer was a great poet, and so was Callimachus. The epistles ofCicero were fine, and so were those of Phalaris. Even with respect toquestions of evidence they fell into the same error. The authority ofall narrations, written in Greek or Latin, was the same with them. Itnever crossed their minds that the lapse of five hundred years, orthe distance of five hundred leagues, could affect the accuracy ofa narration;--that Livy could be a less veracious historian thanPolybius;--or that Plutarch could know less about the friends ofXenophon than Xenophon himself. Deceived by the distance of time, theyseem to consider all the Classics as contemporaries; just as I haveknown people in England, deceived by the distance of place, take it forgranted that all persons who live in India are neighbours, and ask aninhabitant of Bombay about the health of an acquaintance at Calcutta. It is to be hoped that no barbarian deluge will ever again pass overEurope. But should such a calamity happen, it seems not improbable thatsome future Rollin or Gillies will compile a history of England fromMiss Porter's Scottish Chiefs, Miss Lee's Recess, and Sir NathanielWraxall's Memoirs. 

It is surely time that ancient literature should be examined in adifferent manner, without pedantical prepossessions, but with a justallowance, at the same time, for the difference of circumstances andmanners. I am far from pretending to the knowledge or ability whichsuch a task would require. All that I mean to offer is a collection ofdesultory remarks upon a most interesting portion of Greek literature. 

It may be doubted whether any compositions which have ever been producedin the world are equally perfect in their kind with the great Athenianorations. Genius is subject to the same laws which regulate theproduction of cotton and molasses. The supply adjusts itself to thedemand. The quantity may be diminished by restrictions, and multipliedby bounties. The singular excellence to which eloquence attained atAthens is to be mainly attributed to the influence which it exertedthere. In turbulent times, under a constitution purely democratic, among a people educated exactly to that point at which men are mostsusceptible of strong and sudden impressions, acute, but not soundreasoners, warm in their feelings, unfixed in their principles, and passionate admirers of fine composition, oratory received suchencouragement as it has never since obtained. 

The taste and knowledge of the Athenian people was a favourite object ofthe contemptuous derision of Samuel Johnson; a man who knew nothing ofGreek literature beyond the common school-books, and who seems to havebrought to what he had read scarcely more than the discernment of acommon school-boy. He used to assert, with that arrogant absurditywhich, in spite of his great abilities and virtues, renders him, perhapsthe most ridiculous character in literary history, that Demosthenesspoke to a people of brutes;--to a barbarous people;--that there couldhave been no civilisation before the invention of printing. Johnsonwas a keen but a very narrow-minded observer of mankind. He perpetuallyconfounded their general nature with their particular circumstances. Heknew London intimately. The sagacity of his remarks on its society isperfectly astonishing. But Fleet Street was the world to him. Hesaw that Londoners who did not read were profoundly ignorant; andhe inferred that a Greek, who had few or no books, must have been asuninformed as one of Mr Thrale's draymen. 

There seems to be, on the contrary, every reason to believe, that, ingeneral intelligence, the Athenian populace far surpassed the lowerorders of any community that has ever existed. It must be considered, that to be a citizen was to be a legislator, --a soldier, --a judge, --oneupon whose voice might depend the fate of the wealthiest tributarystate, of the most eminent public man. The lowest offices, both ofagriculture and of trade, were, in common, performed by slaves. Thecommonwealth supplied its meanest members with the support of life, theopportunity of leisure, and the means of amusement. Books were indeedfew: but they were excellent; and they were accurately known. It isnot by turning over libraries, but by repeatedly perusing and intentlycontemplating a few great models, that the mind is best disciplined. Aman of letters must now read much that he soon forgets, and much fromwhich he learns nothing worthy to be remembered. The best works employ, in general, but a small portion of his time. Demosthenes is said to havetranscribed six times the history of Thucydides. If he had been a youngpolitician of the present age, he might in the same space of time haveskimmed innumerable newspapers and pamphlets. I do not condemn thatdesultory mode of study which the state of things, in our day, rendersa matter of necessity. But I may be allowed to doubt whether the changeson which the admirers of modern institutions delight to dwell haveimproved our condition so much in reality as in appearance. Rumford, it is said, proposed to the Elector of Bavaria a scheme for feeding hissoldiers at a much cheaper rate than formerly. His plan was simply tocompel them to masticate their food thoroughly. A small quantity, thuseaten, would, according to that famous projector, afford more sustenancethan a large meal hastily devoured. I do not know how Rumford'sproposition was received; but to the mind, I believe, it will be foundmore nutritious to digest a page than to devour a volume. 

Books, however, were the least part of the education of an Atheniancitizen. Let us, for a moment, transport ourselves in thought, to thatglorious city. Let us imagine that we are entering its gates, in thetime of its power and glory. A crowd is assembled round a portico. Allare gazing with delight at the entablature; for Phidias is putting upthe frieze. We turn into another street; a rhapsodist is reciting there:men, women, children are thronging round him: the tears are running downtheir cheeks: their eyes are fixed: their very breath is still; forhe is telling how Priam fell at the feet of Achilles, and kissed thosehands, --the terrible--the murderous, --which had slain so many of hissons. (--kai kuse cheiras, deinas, anorophonous, ai oi poleas ktanonuias. )

We enter the public place; there is a ring of youths, all leaningforward, with sparkling eyes, and gestures of expectation. Socrates ispitted against the famous atheist, from Ionia, and has just broughthim to a contradiction in terms. But we are interrupted. The herald iscrying--"Room for the Prytanes. " The general assembly is to meet. Thepeople are swarming in on every side. Proclamation is made--"Who wishesto speak?" There is a shout, and a clapping of hands: Pericles ismounting the stand. Then for a play of Sophocles; and away to sup withAspasia. I know of no modern university which has so excellent a systemof education. 

Knowledge thus acquired and opinions thus formed were, indeed, likelyto be, in some respects, defective. Propositions which are advancedin discourse generally result from a partial view of the question, andcannot be kept under examination long enough to be corrected. Men ofgreat conversational powers almost universally practise a sort oflively sophistry and exaggeration, which deceives, for the moment, boththemselves and their auditors. Thus we see doctrines, which cannot beara close inspection, triumph perpetually in drawing-rooms, in debatingsocieties, and even in legislative or judicial assemblies. To theconversational education of the Athenians I am inclined to attributethe great looseness of reasoning which is remarkable in most of theirscientific writings. Even the most illogical of modern writers wouldstand perfectly aghast at the puerile fallacies which seem to havedeluded some of the greatest men of antiquity. Sir Thomas Lethbridgewould stare at the political economy of Xenophon; and the author of"Soirees de Petersbourg" would be ashamed of some of the metaphysicalarguments of Plato. But the very circumstances which retarded the growthof science were peculiarly favourable to the cultivation of eloquence. From the early habit of taking a share in animated discussion theintelligent student would derive that readiness of resource, thatcopiousness of language, and that knowledge of the temper andunderstanding of an audience, which are far more valuable to an oratorthan the greatest logical powers. 

Horace has prettily compared poems to those paintings of which theeffect varies as the spectator changes his stand. The same remarkapplies with at least equal justice to speeches. They must be readwith the temper of those to whom they were addressed, or they mustnecessarily appear to offend against the laws of taste and reason; asthe finest picture, seen in a light different from that for which it wasdesigned, will appear fit only for a sign. This is perpetually forgottenby those who criticise oratory. Because they are reading at leisure, pausing at every line, reconsidering every argument, they forget thatthe hearers were hurried from point to point too rapidly to detect thefallacies through which they were conducted; that they had no time todisentangle sophisms, or to notice slight inaccuracies of expression;that elaborate excellence, either of reasoning or of language, wouldhave been absolutely thrown away. To recur to the analogy of the sisterart, these connoisseurs examine a panorama through a microscope, andquarrel with a scene-painter because he does not give to his work theexquisite finish of Gerard Dow. 

Oratory is to be estimated on principles different from those whichare applied to other productions. Truth is the object of philosophy andhistory. Truth is the object even of those works which are peculiarlycalled works of fiction, but which, in fact, bear the same relation tohistory which algebra bears to arithmetic. The merit of poetry, inits wildest forms, still consists in its truth, --truth conveyed to theunderstanding, not directly by the words, but circuitously by means ofimaginative associations, which serve as its conductors. The objectof oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion. The admiration of themultitude does not make Moore a greater poet than Coleridge, or Beattiea greater philosopher than Berkeley. But the criterion of eloquence isdifferent. A speaker who exhausts the whole philosophy of a question, who displays every grace of style, yet produces no effect on hisaudience, may be a great essayist, a great statesman, a great master ofcomposition; but he is not an orator. If he miss the mark, it makes nodifference whether he have taken aim too high or too low. 

The effect of the great freedom of the press in England has been, in agreat measure, to destroy this distinction, and to leave among us littleof what I call Oratory Proper. Our legislators, our candidates, on greatoccasions even our advocates, address themselves less to the audiencethan to the reporters. They think less of the few hearers than of theinnumerable readers. At Athens the case was different; there the onlyobject of the speaker was immediate conviction and persuasion. He, therefore, who would justly appreciate the merit of the Grecian oratorsshould place himself, as nearly as possible, in the situation oftheir auditors: he should divest himself of his modern feelings andacquirements, and make the prejudices and interests of the Atheniancitizen his own. He who studies their works in this spirit will findthat many of those things which, to an English reader, appear to beblemishes, --the frequent violation of those excellent rules ofevidence by which our courts of law are regulated, --the introductionof extraneous matter, --the reference to considerations of politicalexpediency in judicial investigations, --the assertions, withoutproof, --the passionate entreaties, --the furious invectives, --are reallyproofs of the prudence and address of the speakers. He must notdwell maliciously on arguments or phrases, but acquiesce in his firstimpressions. It requires repeated perusal and reflection to deciderightly on any other portion of literature. But with respect to worksof which the merit depends on their instantaneous effect the most hastyjudgment is likely to be best. 

The history of eloquence at Athens is remarkable. From a very earlyperiod great speakers had flourished there. Pisistratus and Themistoclesare said to have owed much of their influence to their talents fordebate. We learn, with more certainty, that Pericles was distinguishedby extraordinary oratorical powers. The substance of some of hisspeeches is transmitted to us by Thucydides; and that excellent writerhas doubtless faithfully reported the general line of his arguments. Butthe manner, which in oratory is of at least as much consequence as thematter, was of no importance to his narration. It is evident that he hasnot attempted to preserve it. Throughout his work, every speech on everysubject, whatever may have been the character of the dialect of thespeaker, is in exactly the same form. The grave king of Sparta, thefurious demagogue of Athens, the general encouraging his army, thecaptive supplicating for his life, all are represented as speakersin one unvaried style, --a style moreover wholly unfit for oratoricalpurposes. His mode of reasoning is singularly elliptical, --in realitymost consecutive, --yet in appearance often incoherent. His meaning, initself sufficiently perplexing, is compressed into the fewest possiblewords. His great fondness for antithetical expression has not a littleconduced to this effect. Every one must have observed how much more thesense is condensed in the verses of Pope and his imitators, who neverventured to continue the same clause from couplet to couplet, thanin those of poets who allow themselves that license. Every artificialdivision, which is strongly marked, and which frequently recurs, hasthe same tendency. The natural and perspicuous expression whichspontaneously rises to the mind will often refuse to accommodate itselfto such a form. It is necessary either to expand it into weakness, orto compress it into almost impenetrable density. The latter is generallythe choice of an able man, and was assuredly the choice of Thucydides. 

It is scarcely necessary to say that such speeches could never have beendelivered. They are perhaps among the most difficult passages in theGreek language, and would probably have been scarcely more intelligibleto an Athenian auditor than to a modern reader. Their obscurity wasacknowledged by Cicero, who was as intimate with the literature andlanguage of Greece as the most accomplished of its natives, and whoseems to have held a respectable rank among the Greek authors. Theirdifficulty to a modern reader lies, not in the words, but in thereasoning. A dictionary is of far less use in studying them than a clearhead and a close attention to the context. They are valuable to thescholar as displaying, beyond almost any other compositions, the powersof the finest of languages: they are valuable to the philosopher asillustrating the morals and manners of a most interesting age: theyabound in just thought and energetic expression. But they do notenable us to form any accurate opinion on the merits of the early Greekorators. 

Though it cannot be doubted that, before the Persian wars, Athens hadproduced eminent speakers, yet the period during which eloquence mostflourished among her citizens was by no means that of her greatest powerand glory. It commenced at the close of the Peloponnesian war. Infact, the steps by which Athenian oratory approached to its finishedexcellence seem to have been almost contemporaneous with those by whichthe Athenian character and the Athenian empire sunk to degradation. Atthe time when the little commonwealth achieved those victories whichtwenty-five eventful centuries have left unequalled, eloquence wasin its infancy. The deliverers of Greece became its plunderers andoppressors. Unmeasured exaction, atrocious vengeance, the madness of themultitude, the tyranny of the great, filled the Cyclades with tears, and blood, and mourning. The sword unpeopled whole islands in a day. The plough passed over the ruins of famous cities. The imperialrepublic sent forth her children by thousands to pine in the quarriesof Syracuse, or to feed the vultures of Aegospotami. She was at lengthreduced by famine and slaughter to humble herself before her enemies, and to purchase existence by the sacrifice of her empire and her laws. During these disastrous and gloomy years, oratory was advancing towardsits highest excellence. And it was when the moral, the political, andthe military character of the people was most utterly degraded, it waswhen the viceroy of a Macedonian sovereign gave law to Greece, that thecourts of Athens witnessed the most splendid contest of eloquence thatthe world has ever known. 

The causes of this phenomenon it is not, I think, difficult to assign. The division of labour operates on the productions of the orator as itdoes on those of the mechanic. It was remarked by the ancients that thePentathlete, who divided his attention between several exercises, thoughhe could not vie with a boxer in the use of the cestus, or with one whohad confined his attention to running in the contest of the stadium, yet enjoyed far greater general vigour and health than either. It isthe same with the mind. The superiority in technical skill is often morethan compensated by the inferiority in general intelligence. And this ispeculiarly the case in politics. States have always been best governedby men who have taken a wide view of public affairs, and who have rathera general acquaintance with many sciences than a perfect mastery ofone. The union of the political and military departments in Greececontributed not a little to the splendour of its early history. Aftertheir separation more skilful generals and greater speakers appeared;but the breed of statesmen dwindled and became almost extinct. Themistocles or Pericles would have been no match for Demosthenes inthe assembly, or for Iphicrates in the field. But surely they wereincomparably better fitted than either for the supreme direction ofaffairs. 

There is indeed a remarkable coincidence between the progress of theart of war, and that of the art of oratory, among the Greeks. Theyboth advanced to perfection by contemporaneous steps, and from similarcauses. The early speakers, like the early warriors of Greece, weremerely a militia. It was found that in both employments practice anddiscipline gave superiority. (It has often occurred to me, that to thecircumstances mentioned in the text is to be referred one of the mostremarkable events in Grecian history; I mean the silent but rapiddownfall of the Lacedaemonian power. Soon after the termination of thePeloponnesian war, the strength of Lacedaemon began to decline. Itsmilitary discipline, its social institutions, were the same. Agesilaus, during whose reign the change took place, was the ablest of its kings. Yet the Spartan armies were frequently defeated in pitched battles, --anoccurrence considered impossible in the earlier ages of Greece. They areallowed to have fought most bravely; yet they were no longer attended bythe success to which they had formerly been accustomed. No solution ofthese circumstances is offered, as far as I know, by any ancient author. The real cause, I conceive, was this. The Lacedaemonians, alone amongthe Greeks, formed a permanent standing army. While the citizens ofother commonwealths were engaged in agriculture and trade, they had noemployment whatever but the study of military discipline. Hence, duringthe Persian and Peloponnesian wars, they had that advantage over theirneighbours which regular troops always possess over militia. Thisadvantage they lost, when other states began, at a later period, toemploy mercenary forces, who were probably as superior to them in theart of war as they had hitherto been to their antagonists. ) Each pursuittherefore became first an art, and then a trade. In proportion as theprofessors of each became more expert in their particular craft, theybecame less respectable in their general character. Their skill had beenobtained at too great expense to be employed only from disinterestedviews. Thus, the soldiers forgot that they were citizens, and theorators that they were statesmen. I know not to what Demosthenes and hisfamous contemporaries can be so justly compared as to those mercenarytroops who, in their time, overran Greece; or those who, fromsimilar causes, were some centuries ago the scourge of the Italianrepublics, --perfectly acquainted with every part of their profession, irresistible in the field, powerful to defend or to destroy, butdefending without love, and destroying without hatred. We may despisethe characters of these political Condottieri; but is impossibleto examine the system of their tactics without being amazed at itsperfection. 

I had intended to proceed to this examination, and to considerseparately the remains of Lysias, of Aeschines, of Demosthenes, and ofIsocrates, who, though strictly speaking he was rather a pamphleteerthan an orator, deserves, on many accounts, a place in such adisquisition. The length of my prolegomena and digressions compels meto postpone this part of the subject to another occasion. A Magazine iscertainly a delightful invention for a very idle or a very busy man. Heis not compelled to complete his plan or to adhere to his subject. Hemay ramble as far as he is inclined, and stop as soon as he is tired. No one takes the trouble to recollect his contradictory opinions or hisunredeemed pledges. He may be as superficial, as inconsistent, and ascareless as he chooses. Magazines resemble those little angels, who, according to the pretty Rabbinical tradition, are generated everymorning by the brook which rolls over the flowers of Paradise, --whoselife is a song, --who warble till sunset, and then sink back withoutregret into nothingness. Such spirits have nothing to do with thedetecting spear of Ithuriel or the victorious sword of Michael. It isenough for them to please and be forgotten. 

*****

A PROPHETIC ACCOUNT OF A GRAND NATIONAL EPIC POEM, TO BE ENTITLED "THEWELLINGTONIAD, " AND TO BE PUBLISHED A. D. 2824. (November 1824. )

How I became a prophet it is not very important to the reader to know. Nevertheless I feel all the anxiety which, under similar circumstances, troubled the sensitive mind of Sidrophel; and, like him, am eager tovindicate myself from the suspicion of having practised forbidden arts, or held intercourse with beings of another world. I solemnly declare, therefore, that I never saw a ghost, like Lord Lyttleton; consulted agipsy, like Josephine; or heard my name pronounced by an absent person, like Dr Johnson. Though it is now almost as usual for gentlemen toappear at the moment of their death to their friends as to call on themduring their life, none of my acquaintance have been so polite as to payme that customary attention. I have derived my knowledge neither fromthe dead nor from the living; neither from the lines of a hand, nor fromthe grounds of a tea-cup; neither from the stars of the firmament, norfrom the fiends of the abyss. I have never, like the Wesley family, heard "that mighty leading angel, " who "drew after him the third part ofheaven's sons, " scratching in my cupboard. I have never been enticedto sign any of those delusive bonds which have been the ruin of so manypoor creatures; and, having always been an indifferent horse man, I havebeen careful not to venture myself on a broomstick. 

My insight into futurity, like that of George Fox the quaker, and thatof our great and philosophic poet, Lord Byron, is derived from simplepresentiment. This is a far less artificial process than those which areemployed by some others. Yet my predictions will, I believe, be foundmore correct than theirs, or, at all events, as Sir Benjamin Back bitesays in the play, "more circumstantial. "

I prophesy then, that, in the year 2824, according to our presentreckoning, a grand national Epic Poem, worthy to be compared with theIliad, the Aeneid, or the Jerusalem, will be published in London. 

Men naturally take an interest in the adventures of every eminentwriter. I will, therefore, gratify the laudable curiosity, which, onthis occasion, will doubtless be universal, by pre fixing to my accountof the poem a concise memoir of the poet. 

Richard Quongti will be born at Westminster on the 1st of July, 2786. He will be the younger son of the younger branch of one of the mostrespectable families in England. He will be linearly descended fromQuongti, the famous Chinese liberal, who, after the failure of theheroic attempt of his party to obtain a constitution from the EmperorFim Fam, will take refuge in England, in the twenty-third century. Herehis descendants will obtain considerable note; and one branch of thefamily will be raised to the peerage. 

Richard, however, though destined to exalt his family to distinctionfar nobler than any which wealth or titles can bestow, will be born toa very scanty fortune. He will display in his early youth such strikingtalents as will attract the notice of Viscount Quongti, his thirdcousin, then secretary of state for the Steam Department. At the expenseof this eminent nobleman, he will be sent to prosecute his studies atthe university of Tombuctoo. To that illustrious seat of the muses allthe ingenuous youth of every country will then be attracted by the highscientific character of Professor Quashaboo, and the eminent literaryattainments of Professor Kissey Kickey. In spite of this formidablecompetition, however, Quongti will acquire the highest honours in everydepartment of knowledge, and will obtain the esteem of his associates byhis amiable and unaffected manners. The guardians of the young Duke ofCarrington, premier peer of England, and the last remaining scion of theancient and illustrious house of Smith, will be desirous to secure soable an instructor for their ward. With the Duke, Quongti will performthe grand tour, and visit the polished courts of Sydney and Capetown. After prevailing on his pupil, with great difficulty, to subdue aviolent and imprudent passion which he had conceived for a Hottentotlady, of great beauty and accomplishments indeed, but of dubiouscharacter, he will travel with him to the United States of America. Butthat tremendous war which will be fatal to American liberty will, atthat time, be raging through the whole federation. At New York thetravellers will hear of the final defeat and death of the illustriouschampion of freedom, Jonathon Higginbottom, and of the elevation ofEbenezer Hogsflesh to the perpetual Presidency. They will not chooseto proceed in a journey which would expose them to the insults of thatbrutal soldiery, whose cruelty and rapacity will have devastated Mexicoand Colombia, and now, at length, enslaved their own country. 

On their return to England, A. D. 2810, the death of the Duke will compelhis preceptor to seek for a subsistence by literary labours. His famewill be raised by many small productions of considerable merit; and hewill at last obtain a permanent place in the highest class of writers byhis great epic poem. 

The celebrated work will become, with unexampled rapidity, a popularfavourite. The sale will be so beneficial to the author that, instead ofgoing about the dirty streets on his velocipede, he will be enabled toset up his balloon. 

The character of this noble poem will be so finely and justly givenin the Tombuctoo Review for April 2825, that I cannot refrain fromtranslating the passage. The author will be our poet's old preceptor, Professor Kissey Kickey. 

"In pathos, in splendour of language, in sweetness of versification, MrQuongti has long been considered as unrivalled. In his exquisite poem onthe Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus all these qualities are displayed in theirgreatest perfection. How exquisitely does that work arrest and embodythe undefined and vague shadows which flit over an imaginative mind. Thecold worldling may not comprehend it; but it will find a response in thebosom of every youthful poet, of every enthusiastic lover, who has seenan Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus by moonlight. But we were yet to learn thathe possessed the comprehension, the judgment, and the fertility of mindindispensable to the epic poet. 

"It is difficult to conceive a plot more perfect than that of the'Wellingtoniad. ' It is most faithful to the manners of the age to whichit relates. It preserves exactly all the historical circumstances, and interweaves them most artfully with all the speciosa miracula ofsupernatural agency. "

Thus far the learned Professor of Humanity in the university ofTombuctoo. I fear that the critics of our time will form an opiniondiametrically opposite as to these every points. Some will, I fear, be disgusted by the machinery, which is derived from the mythology ofancient Greece. I can only say that, in the twenty-ninth century, thatmachinery will be universally in use among poets; and that Quongti willuse it, partly in conformity with the general practice, and partly froma veneration, perhaps excessive, for the great remains of classicalantiquity, which will then, as now, be assiduously read by every man ofeducation; though Tom Moore's songs will be forgotten, and only threecopies of Lord Byron's works will exist: one in the possession of KingGeorge the Nineteenth, one in the Duke of Carrington's collection, and one in the library of the British Museum. Finally, should any goodpeople be concerned to hear that Pagan fictions will so long retaintheir influence over literature, let them reflect that, as the Bishopof St David's says, in his "Proofs of the Inspiration of the SibyllineVerses, " read at the last meeting of the Royal Society of Literature, "at all events, a Pagan is not a Papist. "

Some readers of the present day may think that Quongti is by no meansentitled to the compliments which his Negro critic pays him on hisadherence to the historical circumstances of the time in which he haschosen his subject; that, where he introduces any trait of our manners, it is in the wrong place, and that he confounds the customs of our agewith those of much more remote periods. I can only say that thecharge is infinitely more applicable to Homer, Virgil, and Tasso. If, therefore, the reader should detect, in the following abstract of theplot, any little deviation from strict historical accuracy, let himreflect, for a moment, whether Agamemnon would not have found as much tocensure in the Iliad, --Dido in the Aeneid, --or Godfrey in the Jerusalem. Let him not suffer his opinions to depend on circumstances which cannotpossibly affect the truth or falsehood of the representation. If itbe impossible for a single man to kill hundreds in battle, theimpossibility is not diminished by distance of time. If it be as certainthat Rinaldo never disenchanted a forest in Palestine as it is that theDuke of Wellington never disenchanted the forest of Soignies, can we, asrational men, tolerate the one story and ridicule the other? Of this, atleast, I am certain, that whatever excuse we have for admiring the plotsof those famous poems our children will have for extolling that of the"Wellingtoniad. "

I shall proceed to give a sketch of the narrative. The subject is "TheReign of the Hundred Days. "

BOOK I. 

The poem commences, in form, with a solemn proposition of the subject. Then the muse is invoked to give the poet accurate information as to thecauses of so terrible a commotion. The answer to this question, being, it is to be supposed, the joint production of the poet and the muse, ascribes the event to circumstances which have hitherto eluded all theresearch of political writers, namely, the influence of the god Mars, who, we are told, had some forty years before usurped the conjugalrights of old Carlo Buonaparte, and given birth to Napoleon. By hisincitement it was that the emperor with his devoted companions wasnow on the sea, returning to his ancient dominions. The gods were atpresent, fortunately for the adventurer, feasting with the Ethiopians, whose entertainments, according to the ancient custom described byHomer, they annually attended, with the same sort of condescendinggluttony which now carries the cabinet to Guildhall on the 9th ofNovember. Neptune was, in consequence, absent, and unable to preventthe enemy of his favourite island from crossing his element. Boreas, however, who had his abode on the banks of the Russian ocean, and who, like Thetis in the Iliad, was not of sufficient quality to have aninvitation to Ethiopia, resolves to destroy the armament which bringswar and danger to his beloved Alexander. He accordingly raises a stormwhich is most powerfully described. Napoleon bewails the inglorious fatefor which he seems to be reserved. "Oh! thrice happy, " says he, "thosewho were frozen to death at Krasnoi, or slaughtered at Leipsic. Oh, Kutusoff, bravest of the Russians, wherefore was I not permitted to fallby thy victorious sword?" He then offers a prayer to Aeolus, and vowsto him a sacrifice of a black ram. In consequence, the god recalls histurbulent subject; the sea is calmed; and the ship anchors in the portof Frejus. Napoleon and Bertrand, who is always called the faithfulBertrand, land to explore the country; Mars meets them disguised asa lancer of the guard, wearing the cross of the legion of honour. Headvises them to apply for necessaries of all kinds to the governor, shows them the way, and disappears with a strong smell of gunpowder. Napoleon makes a pathetic speech, and enters the governor's house. Herehe sees hanging up a fine print of the battle of Austerlitz, himselfin the foreground giving his orders. This puts him in high spirits; headvances and salutes the governor, who receives him most loyally, giveshim an entertainment, and, according to the usage of all epic hosts, insists after dinner on a full narration of all that has happened to himsince the battle of Leipsic. 

BOOK II. 

Napoleon carries his narrative from the battle of Leipsic to hisabdication. But, as we shall have a great quantity of fighting on ourhands, I think it best to omit the details. 

BOOK III. 

Napoleon describes his sojourn at Elba, and his return; how he wasdriven by stress of weather to Sardinia, and fought with the harpiesthere; how he was then carried southward to Sicily, where he generouslytook on board an English sailor, whom a man-of-war had unhappily leftthere, and who was in imminent danger of being devoured by the Cyclops;how he landed in the bay of Naples, saw the Sibyl, and descended toTartarus; how he held a long and pathetic conversation with Poniatowski, whom he found wandering unburied on the banks of Styx; how he swore togive him a splendid funeral; how he had also an affectionate interviewwith Desaix; how Moreau and Sir Ralph Abercrombie fled at the sightof him. He relates that he then re-embarked, and met with nothing ofimportance till the commencement of the storm with which the poem opens. 

BOOK IV. 

The scene changes to Paris. Fame, in the garb of an express, bringsintelligence of the landing of Napoleon. The king performs a sacrifice:but the entrails are unfavourable; and the victim is without a heart. He prepares to encounter the invader. A young captain of the guard, --theson of Maria Antoinette by Apollo, --in the shape of a fiddler, rushesin to tell him that Napoleon is approaching with a vast army. Theroyal forces are drawn out for battle. Full catalogues are given ofthe regiments on both sides; their colonels, lieutenant-colonels, anduniform. 

BOOK V. 

The king comes forward and defies Napoleon to single combat. Napoleonaccepts it. Sacrifices are offered. The ground is measured by Ney andMacdonald. The combatants advance. Louis snaps his pistol in vain. Thebullet of Napoleon, on the contrary, carries off the tip of the king'sear. Napoleon then rushes on him sword in hand. But Louis snatches up astone, such as ten men of those degenerate days will be unable to move, and hurls it at his antagonist. Mars averts it. Napoleon then seizesLouis, and is about to strike a fatal blow, when Bacchus intervenes, like Venus in the third book of the Iliad, bears off the king in a thickcloud, and seats him in an hotel at Lille, with a bottle of Maraschinoand a basin of soup before him. Both armies instantly proclaim Napoleonemperor. 

BOOK VI. 

Neptune, returned from his Ethiopian revels, sees with rage the eventswhich have taken place in Europe. He flies to the cave of Alecto, and drags out the fiend, commanding her to excite universal hostilityagainst Napoleon. The Fury repairs to Lord Castlereagh; and, as, whenshe visited Turnus, she assumed the form of an old woman, she hereappears in the kindred shape of Mr Vansittart, and in an impassionedaddress exhorts his lordship to war. His lordship, like Turnus, treatsthis unwonted monitor with great disrespect, tells him that he is an olddoting fool, and advises him to look after the ways and means, and leavequestions of peace and war to his betters. The Fury then displays allher terrors. The neat powdered hair bristles up into snakes; the blackstockings appear clotted with blood; and, brandishing a torch, sheannounces her name and mission. Lord Castlereagh, seized with fury, flies instantly to the Parliament, and recommends war with a torrentof eloquent invective. All the members instantly clamour for vengeance, seize their arms which are hanging round the walls of the house, andrush forth to prepare for instant hostilities. 

BOOK VII. 

In this book intelligence arrives at London of the flight of the Duchessd'Angouleme from France. It is stated that this heroine, armed from headto foot, defended Bordeaux against the adherents of Napoleon, and thatshe fought hand to hand with Clausel, and beat him down with an enormousstone. Deserted by her followers, she at last, like Turnus, plunged, armed as she was, into the Garonne, and swam to an English ship whichlay off the coast. This intelligence yet more inflames the English towar. 

A yet bolder flight than any which has been mentioned follows. The Dukeof Wellington goes to take leave of the duchess; and a scene passesquite equal to the famous interview of Hector and Andromache. Lord Dourois frightened at his father's feather, but begs for his epaulette. 

BOOK VIII. 

Neptune, trembling for the event of the war, implores Venus, who, asthe offspring of his element, naturally venerates him, to procure fromVulcan a deadly sword and a pair of unerring pistols for the Duke. Theyare accordingly made, and superbly decorated. The sheath of the sword, like the shield of Achilles, is carved, in exquisitely fine miniature, with scenes from the common life of the period; a dance at Almack's aboxing match at the Fives-court, a lord mayor's procession, and a manhanging. All these are fully and elegantly described. The Duke thusarmed hastens to Brussels. 

BOOK IX. 

The Duke is received at Brussels by the King of the Netherlands withgreat magnificence. He is informed of the approach of the armies of allthe confederate kings. The poet, however, with a laudable zeal forthe glory of his country, completely passes over the exploits of theAustrians in Italy, and the discussions of the congress. Englandand France, Wellington and Napoleon, almost exclusively occupy hisattention. Several days are spent at Brussels in revelry. The Englishheroes astonish their allies by exhibiting splendid games, similar tothose which draw the flower of the British aristocracy to Newmarket andMoulsey Hurst, and which will be considered by our descendants withas much veneration as the Olympian and Isthmian contests by classicalstudents of the present time. In the combat of the cestus, Shaw, thelifeguardsman, vanquishes the Prince of Orange, and obtains a bull as aprize. In the horse-race, the Duke of Wellington and Lord Uxbridge rideagainst each other; the Duke is victorious, and is rewarded with twelveopera-girls. On the last day of the festivities, a splendid dance takesplace, at which all the heroes attend. 

BOOK X. 

Mars, seeing the English army thus inactive, hastens to rouse Napoleon, who, conducted by Night and Silence, unexpectedly attacks the Prussians. The slaughter is immense. Napoleon kills many whose histories andfamilies are happily particularised. He slays Herman, the craniologist, who dwelt by the linden-shadowed Elbe, and measured with his eye theskulls of all who walked through the streets of Berlin. Alas! his ownskull is now cleft by the Corsican sword. Four pupils of the Universityof Jena advance together to encounter the Emperor; at four blows hedestroys them all. Blucher rushes to arrest the devastation; Napoleonstrikes him to the ground, and is on the point of killing him, butGneisenau, Ziethen, Bulow, and all the other heroes of the Prussianarmy, gather round him, and bear the venerable chief to a distancefrom the field. The slaughter is continued till night. In the meantimeNeptune has despatched Fame to bear the intelligence to the Duke, whois dancing at Brussels. The whole army is put in motion. The Duke ofBrunswick's horse speaks to admonish him of his danger, but in vain. 

BOOK XI. 

Picton, the Duke of Brunswick, and the Prince of Orange, engage Ney atQuatre Bras. Ney kills the Duke of Brunswick, and strips him, sendinghis belt to Napoleon. The English fall back on Waterloo. Jupiter callsa council of the gods, and commands that none shall interfere on eitherside. Mars and Neptune make very eloquent speeches. The battle ofWaterloo commences. Napoleon kills Picton and Delancy. Ney engagesPonsonby and kills him. The Prince of Orange is wounded by Soult. LordUxbridge flies to check the carnage. He is severely wounded by Napoleon, and only saved by the assistance of Lord Hill. In the meantime theDuke makes a tremendous carnage among the French. He encounters GeneralDuhesme and vanquishes him, but spares his life. He kills Toubert, whokept the gaming-house in the Palais Royal, and Maronet, who loved tospend whole nights in drinking champagne. Clerval, who had been hootedfrom the stage, and had then become a captain in the Imperial Guard, wished that he had still continued to face the more harmless enmity ofthe Parisian pit. But Larrey, the son of Esculapius, whom his father hadinstructed in all the secrets of his art, and who was surgeon-general ofthe French army, embraced the knees of the destroyer, and conjured himnot to give death to one whose office it was to give life. The Dukeraised him, and bade him live. 

But we must hasten to the close. Napoleon rushes to encounterWellington. Both armies stand in mute amaze. The heroes fire theirpistols; that of Napoleon misses, but that of Wellington, formed by thehand of Vulcan, and primed by the Cyclops, wounds the Emperor in thethigh. He flies, and takes refuge among his troops. The flight becomespromiscuous. The arrival of the Prussians, from a motive of patriotism, the poet completely passes over. 

BOOK XII. 

Things are now hastening to the catastrophe. Napoleon flies to London, and, seating himself on the hearth of the Regent, embraces the householdgods and conjures him, by the venerable age of George III. , and by theopening perfections of the Princess Charlotte, to spare him. The Princeis inclined to do so; when, looking on his breast, he sees there thebelt of the Duke of Brunswick. He instantly draws his sword, and isabout to stab the destroyer of his kinsman. Piety and hospitality, however, restrain his hand. He takes a middle course, and condemnsNapoleon to be exposed on a desert island. The King of France re-entersParis; and the poem concludes. 

*****

ON MITFORD'S HISTORY OF GREECE. (November 1824. )

This is a book which enjoys a great and increasing popularity: but, while it has attracted a considerable share of the public attention, ithas been little noticed by the critics. Mr Mitford has almost succeededin mounting, unperceived by those whose office it is to watch suchaspirants, to a high place among historians. He has taken a seat onthe dais without being challenged by a single seneschal. To oppose theprogress of his fame is now almost a hopeless enterprise. Had he beenreviewed with candid severity, when he had published only his firstvolume, his work would either have deserved its reputation, or wouldnever have obtained it. "Then, " as Indra says of Kehama, "then was thetime to strike. " The time was neglected; and the consequence is thatMr Mitford like Kehama, has laid his victorious hand on the literaryAmreeta, and seems about to taste the precious elixir of immortality. Ishall venture to emulate the courage of the honest Glendoveer--

 "When now He saw the Amreeta in Kehama's hand, An impulse that defied all self-command, In that extremity, Stung him, and he resolved to seize the cup, And dare the Rajah's force in Seeva's sight, Forward he sprung to tempt the unequal fray. "

In plain words, I shall offer a few considerations, which may tend toreduce an overpraised writer to his proper level. 

The principal characteristic of this historian, the origin of hisexcellencies and his defects, is a love of singularity. He has nonotion of going with a multitude to do either good or evil. An explodedopinion, or an unpopular person, has an irresistible charm for him. Thesame perverseness may be traced in his diction. His style wouldnever have been elegant; but it might at least have been manly andperspicuous; and nothing but the most elaborate care could possibly havemade it so bad as it is. It is distinguished by harsh phrases, strangecollocations, occasional solecisms, frequent obscurity, and, above all, by a peculiar oddity, which can no more be described than it can beoverlooked. Nor is this all. Mr Mitford piques himself on spellingbetter than any of his neighbours; and this not only in ancient names, which he mangles in defiance both of custom and of reason, but in themost ordinary words of the English language. It is, in itself, a matterperfectly indifferent whether we call a foreigner by the name which hebears in his own language, or by that which corresponds to it in ours;whether we say Lorenzo de Medici, or Lawrence de Medici, Jean Chauvin, or John Calvin. In such cases established usage is considered as lawby all writers except Mr Mitford. If he were always consistent withhimself, he might be excused for sometimes disagreeing with hisneighbours; but he proceeds on no principle but that of being unlikethe rest of the world. Every child has heard of Linnaeus; thereforeMr Mitford calls him Linne: Rousseau is known all over Europe as JeanJacques; therefore Mr Mitford bestows on him the strange appellation ofJohn James. 

Had Mr Mitford undertaken a History of any other country than Greece, this propensity would have rendered his work useless and absurd. Hisoccasional remarks on the affairs of ancient Rome and of modern Europeare full of errors: but he writes of times with respect to which almostevery other writer has been in the wrong; and, therefore, by resolutelydeviating from his predecessors, he is often in the right. 

Almost all the modern historians of Greece have shown the grossestignorance of the most obvious phenomena of human nature. In theirrepresentations the generals and statesmen of antiquity are absolutelydivested of all individuality. They are personifications; they arepassions, talents, opinions, virtues, vices, but not men. Inconsistencyis a thing of which these writers have no notion. That a man may havebeen liberal in his youth and avaricious in his age, cruel to one enemyand merciful to another, is to them utterly inconceivable. If the factsbe undeniable, they suppose some strange and deep design, in order toexplain what, as every one who has observed his own mind knows, needsno explanation at all. This is a mode of writing very acceptable to themultitude who have always been accustomed to make gods and daemonsout of men very little better or worse than themselves; but it appearscontemptible to all who have watched the changes of human character--toall who have observed the influence of time, of circumstances, andof associates, on mankind--to all who have seen a hero in the gout, ademocrat in the church, a pedant in love, or a philosopher in liquor. This practice of painting in nothing but black and white is unpardonableeven in the drama. It is the great fault of Alfieri; and how much itinjures the effect of his compositions will be obvious to every one whowill compare his Rosmunda with the Lady Macbeth of Shakspeare. The oneis a wicked woman; the other is a fiend. Her only feeling is hatred;all her words are curses. We are at once shocked and fatigued by thespectacle of such raving cruelty, excited by no provocation, repeatedly changing its object, and constant in nothing but in itsin-extinguishable thirst for blood. 

In history this error is far more disgraceful. Indeed, there is no faultwhich so completely ruins a narrative in the opinion of a judiciousreader. We know that the line of demarcation between good and bad menis so faintly marked as often to elude the most careful investigationof those who have the best opportunities for judging. Public men, aboveall, are surrounded with so many temptations and difficulties thatsome doubt must almost always hang over their real dispositions andintentions. The lives of Pym, Cromwell, Monk, Clarendon, Marlborough, Burnet, Walpole, are well known to us. We are acquainted with theiractions, their speeches, their writings; we have abundance of lettersand well-authenticated anecdotes relating to them: yet what candid manwill venture very positively to say which of them were honest and whichof them were dishonest men? It appears easier to pronounce decidedlyupon the great characters of antiquity, not because we have greatermeans of discovering truth, but simply because we have less means ofdetecting error. The modern historians of Greece have forgotten this. Their heroes and villains are as consistent in all their sayings anddoings as the cardinal virtues and the deadly sins in an allegory. Weshould as soon expect a good action from giant Slay-good in Bunyan asfrom Dionysius; and a crime of Epaminondas would seem as incongruousas a faux-pas of the grave and comely damsel called Discretion, whoanswered the bell at the door of the house Beautiful. 

This error was partly the cause and partly the effect of the highestimation in which the later ancient writers have been held by modernscholars. Those French and English authors who have treated of theaffairs of Greece have generally turned with contempt from the simpleand natural narrations of Thucydides and Xenophon to the extravagantrepresentations of Plutarch, Diodorus, Curtius, and other romancersof the same class, --men who described military operations without everhaving handled a sword, and applied to the seditions of little republicsspeculations formed by observation on an empire which covered halfthe known world. Of liberty they knew nothing. It was to them agreat mystery--a superhuman enjoyment. They ranted about liberty andpatriotism, from the same cause which leads monks to talk more ardentlythan other men about love and women. A wise man values politicalliberty, because it secures the persons and the possessions of citizens;because it tends to prevent the extravagance of rulers, and thecorruption of judges; because it gives birth to useful sciences andelegant arts; because it excites the industry and increases the comfortsof all classes of society. These theorists imagined that it possessedsomething eternally and intrinsically good, distinct from the blessingswhich it generally produced. They considered it not as a means but as anend; an end to be attained at any cost. Their favourite heroes are thosewho have sacrificed, for the mere name of freedom, the prosperity--thesecurity--the justice--from which freedom derives its value. 

There is another remarkable characteristic of these writers, in whichtheir modern worshippers have carefully imitated them--a great fondnessfor good stories. The most established facts, dates, and characters arenever suffered to come into competition with a splendid saying, or aromantic exploit. The early historians have left us natural and simpledescriptions of the great events which they witnessed, and the great menwith whom they associated. When we read the account which Plutarchand Rollin have given of the same period, we scarcely know our oldacquaintance again; we are utterly confounded by the melo-dramaticeffect of the narration, and the sublime coxcombry of the characters. 

These are the principal errors into which the predecessors of Mr Mitfordhave fallen; and from most of these he is free. His faults are of acompletely different description. It is to be hoped that the students ofhistory may now be saved, like Dorax in Dryden's play, by swallowingtwo conflicting poisons, each of which may serve as an antidote to theother. 

The first and most important difference between Mr Mitford and those whohave preceded him is in his narration. Here the advantage lies, forthe most part, on his side. His principle is to follow the contemporaryhistorians, to look with doubt on all statements which are not insome degree confirmed by them, and absolutely to reject all which arecontradicted by them. While he retains the guidance of some writer inwhom he can place confidence, he goes on excellently. When he loses it, he falls to the level, or perhaps below the level, of the writers whomhe so much despises: he is as absurd as they, and very much duller. Itis really amusing to observe how he proceeds with his narration when hehas no better authority than poor Diodorus. He is compelled to relatesomething; yet he believes nothing. He accompanies every fact witha long statement of objections. His account of the administration ofDionysius is in no sense a history. It ought to be entitled--"Historicdoubts as to certain events, alleged to have taken place in Sicily. "

This scepticism, however, like that of some great legal charactersalmost as sceptical as himself; vanishes whenever his politicalpartialities interfere. He is a vehement admirer of tyranny andoligarchy, and considers no evidence as feeble which can be broughtforward in favour of those forms of government. Democracy he hates witha perfect hatred, a hatred which, in the first volume of his history, appears only in his episodes and reflections, but which, in those partswhere he has less reverence for his guides, and can venture to take hisown way, completely distorts even his narration. 

In taking up these opinions, I have no doubt that Mr Mitford wasinfluenced by the same love of singularity which led him to spell"island" without an "s, " and to place two dots over the last letter of"idea. " In truth, preceding historians have erred so monstrously on theother side that even the worst parts of Mr Mitford's book may be usefulas a corrective. For a young gentleman who talks much about his country, tyrannicide, and Epaminondas, this work, diluted in a sufficientquantity of Rollin and Berthelemi, may be a very useful remedy. 

The errors of both parties arise from an ignorance or a neglect of thefundamental principles of political science. The writers on one sideimagine popular government to be always a blessing; Mr Mitford omits noopportunity of assuring us that it is always a curse. The fact is, thata good government, like a good coat, is that which fits the body forwhich it is designed. A man who, upon abstract principles, pronouncesa constitution to be good, without an exact knowledge of the peoplewho are to be governed by it, judges as absurdly as a tailor who shouldmeasure the Belvidere Apollo for the clothes of all his customers. Thedemagogues who wished to see Portugal a republic, and the wise criticswho revile the Virginians for not having instituted a peerage, appearequally ridiculous to all men of sense and candour. 

That is the best government which desires to make the people happy, andknows how to make them happy. Neither the inclination nor the knowledgewill suffice alone; and it is difficult to find them together. 

Pure democracy, and pure democracy alone, satisfies the former conditionof this great problem. That the governors may be solicitous only forthe interests of the governed, it is necessary that the interests of thegovernors and the governed should be the same. This cannot be often thecase where power is intrusted to one or to a few. The privileged part ofthe community will doubtless derive a certain degree of advantage fromthe general prosperity of the state; but they will derive a greater fromoppression and exaction. The king will desire an useless war for hisglory, or a parc-aux-cerfs for his pleasure. The nobles will demandmonopolies and lettres-de-cachet. In proportion as the number ofgovernors is increased the evil is diminished. There are fewer tocontribute, and more to receive. The dividend which each can obtain ofthe public plunder becomes less and less tempting. But the interests ofthe subjects and the rulers never absolutely coincide till the subjectsthemselves become the rulers, that is, till the government be eitherimmediately or mediately democratical. 

But this is not enough. "Will without power, " said the sagacious Casimirto Milor Beefington, "is like children playing at soldiers. " The peoplewill always be desirous to promote their own interests; but it may bedoubted, whether, in any community, they were ever sufficiently educatedto understand them. Even in this island, where the multitude have longbeen better informed than in any other part of Europe, the rights of themany have generally been asserted against themselves by the patriotismof the few. Free trade, one of the greatest blessings which a governmentcan confer on a people, is in almost every country unpopular. It maybe well doubted, whether a liberal policy with regard to our commercialrelations would find any support from a parliament elected by universalsuffrage. The republicans on the other side of the Atlantic haverecently adopted regulations of which the consequences will, beforelong, show us, "How nations sink, by darling schemes oppressed, When vengeance listens to the fool's request. "

The people are to be governed for their own good; and, that they maybe governed for their own good, they must not be governed by theirown ignorance. There are countries in which it would be as absurd toestablish popular government as to abolish all the restraints in aschool, or to untie all the strait-waistcoats in a madhouse. 

Hence it may be concluded that the happiest state of society is that inwhich supreme power resides in the whole body of a well-informed people. This is an imaginary, perhaps an unattainable, state of things. Yet, insome measure, we may approximate to it; and he alone deserves the nameof a great statesman, whose principle it is to extend the power of thepeople in proportion to the extent of their knowledge, and to give themevery facility for obtaining such a degree of knowledge as may renderit safe to trust them with absolute power. In the mean time, it isdangerous to praise or condemn constitutions in the abstract; since, from the despotism of St Petersburg to the democracy of Washington, there is scarcely a form of government which might not, at least in somehypothetical case, be the best possible. 

If, however, there be any form of government which in all ages and allnations has always been, and must always be, pernicious, it is certainlythat which Mr Mitford, on his usual principle of being wiser than allthe rest of the world, has taken under his especial patronage--pureoligarchy. This is closely, and indeed inseparably, connected withanother of his eccentric tastes, a marked partiality for Lacedaemon, anda dislike of Athens. Mr Mitford's book has, I suspect, rendered thesesentiments in some degree popular; and I shall, therefore, examine themat some length. 

The shades in the Athenian character strike the eye more rapidly thanthose in the Lacedaemonian: not because they are darker, but becausethey are on a brighter ground. The law of ostracism is an instanceof this. Nothing can be conceived more odious than the practice ofpunishing a citizen, simply and professedly, for his eminence;--andnothing in the institutions of Athens is more frequently or more justlycensured. Lacedaemon was free from this. And why? Lacedaemon didnot need it. Oligarchy is an ostracism of itself, --an ostracism notoccasional, but permanent, --not dubious, but certain. Her laws preventedthe development of merit instead of attacking its maturity. They did notcut down the plant in its high and palmy state, but cursed the soil witheternal sterility. In spite of the law of ostracism, Athens produced, within a hundred and fifty years, the greatest public men that everexisted. Whom had Sparta to ostracise? She produced, at most, foureminent men, Brasidas, Gylippus, Lysander, and Agesilaus. Of these, notone rose to distinction within her jurisdiction. It was only whenthey escaped from the region within which the influence of aristocracywithered everything good and noble, it was only when they ceased to beLacedaemonians, that they became great men. Brasidas, among the citiesof Thrace, was strictly a democratical leader, the favourite ministerand general of the people. The same may be said of Gylippus, atSyracuse. Lysander, in the Hellespont, and Agesilaus, in Asia, wereliberated for a time from the hateful restraints imposed by theconstitution of Lycurgus. Both acquired fame abroad; and both returnedto be watched and depressed at home. This is not peculiar to Sparta. Oligarchy, wherever it has existed, has always stunted the growth ofgenius. Thus it was at Rome, till about a century before the Christianera: we read of abundance of consuls and dictators who won battles, and enjoyed triumphs; but we look in vain for a single man of the firstorder of intellect, --for a Pericles, a Demosthenes, or a Hannibal. The Gracchi formed a strong democratical party; Marius revived it; thefoundations of the old aristocracy were shaken; and two generationsfertile in really great men appeared. 

Venice is a still more remarkable instance: in her history we seenothing but the state; aristocracy had destroyed every seed of geniusand virtue. Her dominion was like herself, lofty and magnificent, butfounded on filth and weeds. God forbid that there should ever againexist a powerful and civilised state, which, after existing throughthirteen hundred eventful years, should not bequeath to mankind thememory of one great name or one generous action. 

Many writers, and Mr Mitford among the number, have admired thestability of the Spartan institutions; in fact, there is little toadmire, and less to approve. Oligarchy is the weakest and the moststable of governments; and it is stable because it is weak. It has asort of valetudinarian longevity; it lives in the balance of Sanctorius;it takes no exercise; it exposes itself to no accident; it is seizedwith an hypochondriac alarm at every new sensation; it trembles at everybreath; it lets blood for every inflammation: and thus, without everenjoying a day of health or pleasure, drags on its existence to a dotingand debilitated old age. 

The Spartans purchased for their government a prolongation of itsexistence by the sacrifice of happiness at home and dignity abroad. Theycringed to the powerful; they trampled on the weak; they massacred theirhelots; they betrayed their allies; they contrived to be a day toolate for the battle of Marathon; they attempted to avoid the battle ofSalamis; they suffered the Athenians, to whom they owed their livesand liberties, to be a second time driven from their country by thePersians, that they might finish their own fortifications on theIsthmus; they attempted to take advantage of the distress to whichexertions in their cause had reduced their preservers, in order to makethem their slaves; they strove to prevent those who had abandoned theirwalls to defend them, from rebuilding them to defend themselves; theycommenced the Peloponnesian war in violation of their engagements withAthens; they abandoned it in violation of their engagements withtheir allies; they gave up to the sword whole cities which had placedthemselves under their protection; they bartered, for advantagesconfined to themselves, the interest, the freedom, and the livesof those who had served them most faithfully; they took with equalcomplacency, and equal infamy, the stripes of Elis and the bribes ofPersia; they never showed either resentment or gratitude; they abstainedfrom no injury, and they revenged none. Above all, they looked on acitizen who served them well as their deadliest enemy. These are thearts which protract the existence of government. 

Nor were the domestic institutions of Lacedaemon less hateful or lesscontemptible than her foreign policy. A perpetual interference withevery part of the system of human life, a constant struggle againstnature and reason, characterised all her laws. To violate evenprejudices which have taken deep root in the minds of a people isscarcely expedient; to think of extirpating natural appetites andpassions is frantic: the external symptoms may be occasionallyrepressed; but the feeling still exists, and, debarred from its naturalobjects, preys on the disordered mind and body of its victim. Thus itis in convents---thus it is among ascetic sects--thus it was among theLacedaemonians. Hence arose that madness, or violence approaching tomadness, which, in spite of every external restraint, often appearedamong the most distinguished citizens of Sparta. Cleomenes terminatedhis career of raving cruelty by cutting himself to pieces. Pausaniasseems to have been absolutely insane; he formed a hopeless andprofligate scheme; he betrayed it by the ostentation of his behaviour, and the imprudence of his measures; and he alienated, by his insolence, all who might have served or protected him. Xenophon, a warm admirer ofLacedaemon, furnishes us with the strongest evidence to this effect. It is impossible not to observe the brutal and senseless fury whichcharacterises almost every Spartan with whom he was connected. Clearchusnearly lost his life by his cruelty. Chirisophus deprived his armyof the services of a faithful guide by his unreasonable and ferociousseverity. But it is needless to multiply instances. Lycurgus, MrMitford's favourite legislator, founded his whole system on a mistakenprinciple. He never considered that governments were made for men, andnot men for governments. Instead of adapting the constitution to thepeople, he distorted the minds of the people to suit the constitution, ascheme worthy of the Laputan Academy of Projectors. And this appears toMr Mitford to constitute his peculiar title to admiration. Hear himself:"What to modern eyes most strikingly sets that extraordinary man aboveall other legislators is, that in so many circumstances, apparently outof the reach of law, he controlled and formed to his own mind the willsand habits of his people. " I should suppose that this gentleman had theadvantage of receiving his education under the ferula of DrPangloss; for his metaphysics are clearly those of the castle ofThunder-ten-tronckh: "Remarquez bien que les nez ont ete faits pourporter des lunettes, aussi avons nous des lunettes. Les jambes sontvisiblement institues pour etre chaussees, et nous avons des chausses. Les cochons etant faits pour etre manges, nous mangeons du porc toutel'annee. "

At Athens the laws did not constantly interfere with the tastes of thepeople. The children were not taken from their parents by that universalstep-mother, the state. They were not starved into thieves, or torturedinto bullies; there was no established table at which every one mustdine, no established style in which every one must converse. An Athenianmight eat whatever he could afford to buy, and talk as long as he couldfind people to listen. The government did not tell the people whatopinions they were to hold, or what songs they were to sing. Freedomproduced excellence. Thus philosophy took its origin. Thus were producedthose models of poetry, of oratory, and of the arts, which scarcely fallshort of the standard of ideal excellence. Nothing is more conducive tohappiness than the free exercise of the mind in pursuits congenial toit. This happiness, assuredly, was enjoyed far more at Athens than atSparta. The Athenians are acknowledged even by their enemies to havebeen distinguished, in private life, by their courteous and amiabledemeanour. Their levity, at least, was better than Spartan sullennessand their impertinence than Spartan insolence. Even in courage it may bequestioned whether they were inferior to the Lacedaemonians. The greatAthenian historian has reported a remarkable observation of the greatAthenian minister. Pericles maintained that his countrymen, withoutsubmitting to the hardships of a Spartan education, rivalled all theachievements of Spartan valour, and that therefore the pleasures andamusements which they enjoyed were to be considered as so much cleargain. The infantry of Athens was certainly not equal to that ofLacedaemon; but this seems to have been caused merely by want ofpractice: the attention of the Athenians was diverted from thediscipline of the phalanx to that of the trireme. The Lacedaemonians, inspite of all their boasted valour, were, from the same cause, timid anddisorderly in naval action. 

But we are told that crimes of great enormity were perpetrated by theAthenian government, and the democracies under its protection. It istrue that Athens too often acted up to the full extent of the laws ofwar in an age when those laws had not been mitigated by causes whichhave operated in later times. This accusation is, in fact, common toAthens, to Lacedaemon, to all the states of Greece, and to all statessimilarly situated. Where communities are very large, the heavier evilsof war are felt but by few. The ploughboy sings, the spinning-wheelturns round, the wedding-day is fixed, whether the last battle were lostor won. In little states it cannot be thus; every man feels in his ownproperty and person the effect of a war. Every man is a soldier, and asoldier fighting for his nearest interests. His own trees have been cutdown--his own corn has been burnt--his own house has been pillaged--hisown relations have been killed. How can he entertain towards the enemiesof his country the same feelings with one who has suffered nothing fromthem, except perhaps the addition of a small sum to the taxes which hepays? Men in such circumstances cannot be generous. They have too muchat stake. It is when they are, if I may so express myself, playingfor love, it is when war is a mere game at chess, it is when they arecontending for a remote colony, a frontier town, the honours of a flag, a salute, or a title, that they can make fine speeches, and do goodoffices to their enemies. The Black Prince waited behind the chair ofhis captive; Villars interchanged repartees with Eugene; George II. Sentcongratulations to Louis XV. , during a war, upon occasion of his escapefrom the attempt of Damien: and these things are fine and generous, andvery gratifying to the author of the Broad Stone of Honour, and all theother wise men who think, like him, that God made the world only for theuse of gentlemen. But they spring in general from utter heartlessness. No war ought ever to be undertaken but under circumstances which renderall interchange of courtesy between the combatants impossible. It is abad thing that men should hate each other; but it is far worse thatthey should contract the habit of cutting one another's throats withouthatred. War is never lenient, but where it is wanton; when men arecompelled to fight in selfdefence, they must hate and avenge: this maybe bad; but it is human nature; it is the clay as it came from the handof the potter. 

It is true that among the dependencies of Athens seditions assumeda character more ferocious than even in France, during the reign ofterror--the accursed Saturnalia of an accursed bondage. It is truethat in Athens itself, where such convulsions were scarcely known, the condition of the higher orders was disagreeable; that they werecompelled to contribute large sums for the service or the amusementof the public; and that they were sometimes harassed by vexatiousinformers. Whenever such cases occur, Mr Mitford's scepticism vanishes. The "if, " the "but, " the "it is said, " the "if we may believe, " withwhich he qualifies every charge against a tyrant or an aristocracy, areat once abandoned. The blacker the story, the firmer is his belief, andhe never fails to inveigh with hearty bitterness against democracy asthe source of every species of crime. 

The Athenians, I believe, possessed more liberty than was good forthem. Yet I will venture to assert that, while the splendour, theintelligence, and the energy of that great people were peculiar tothemselves, the crimes with which they are charged arose from causeswhich were common to them with every other state which then existed. The violence of faction in that age sprung from a cause which has alwaysbeen fertile in every political and moral evil, domestic slavery. 

The effect of slavery is completely to dissolve the connection whichnaturally exists between the higher and lower classes of free citizens. The rich spend their wealth in purchasing and maintaining slaves. Thereis no demand for the labour of the poor; the fable of Menenius ceases tobe applicable; the belly communicates no nutriment to the members; thereis an atrophy in the body politic. The two parties, therefore, proceedto extremities utterly unknown in countries where they have mutuallyneed of each other. In Rome the oligarchy was too powerful to besubverted by force; and neither the tribunes nor the popular assemblies, though constitutionally omnipotent, could maintain a successful contestagainst men who possessed the whole property of the state. Hence thenecessity for measures tending to unsettle the whole frame of society, and to take away every motive of industry; the abolition of debts, andthe agrarian laws--propositions absurdly condemned by men who donot consider the circumstances from which they sprung. They were thedesperate remedies of a desperate disease. In Greece the oligarchicalinterest was not in general so deeply rooted as at Rome. The multitude, therefore, often redressed by force grievances which, at Rome, werecommonly attacked under the forms of the constitution. They drove out ormassacred the rich, and divided their property. If the superior union ormilitary skill of the rich rendered them victorious, they took measuresequally violent, disarmed all in whom they could not confide, oftenslaughtered great numbers, and occasionally expelled the wholecommonalty from the city, and remained, with their slaves, the soleinhabitants. 

From such calamities Athens and Lacedaemon alone were almost completelyfree. At Athens the purses of the rich were laid under regularcontribution for the support of the poor; and this, rightly considered, was as much a favour to the givers as to the receivers, since no othermeasure could possibly have saved their houses from pillage and theirpersons from violence. It is singular that Mr Mitford should perpetuallyreprobate a policy which was the best that could be pursued in sucha state of things, and which alone saved Athens from the frightfuloutrages which were perpetrated at Corcyra. 

Lacedaemon, cursed with a system of slavery more odious than has everexisted in any other country, avoided this evil by almost totallyannihilating private property. Lycurgus began by an agrarian law. Heabolished all professions except that of arms; he made the whole of hiscommunity a standing army, every member of which had a common right tothe services of a crowd of miserable bondmen; he secured the state fromsedition at the expense of the Helots. Of all the parts of his systemthis is the most creditable to his head, and the most disgraceful to hisheart. 

These considerations, and many others of equal importance, Mr Mitfordhas neglected; but he has yet a heavier charge to answer. He has madenot only illogical inferences, but false statements. While he neverstates, without qualifications and objections, the charges which theearliest and best historians have brought against his favourite tyrants, Pisistratus, Hippias, and Gelon, he transcribes, without any hesitation, the grossest abuse of the least authoritative writers against everydemocracy and every demagogue. Such an accusation should not be madewithout being supported; and I will therefore select one out of manypassages which will fully substantiate the charge, and convict MrMitford of wilful misrepresentation, or of negligence scarcely lessculpable. Mr Mitford is speaking of one of the greatest men that everlived, Demosthenes, and comparing him with his rival, Aeschines. Let himspeak for himself. 

"In earliest youth Demosthenes earned an opprobrious nickname bythe effeminacy of his dress and manner. " Does Mr Mitford know thatDemosthenes denied this charge, and explained the nickname in aperfectly different manner? (See the speech of Aeschines againstTimarchus. ) And, if he knew it, should he not have stated it? Heproceeds thus: "On emerging from minority, by the Athenian law, atfive-and-twenty, he earned another opprobrious nickname by a prosecutionof his guardians, which was considered as a dishonourable attemptto extort money from them. " In the first place Demosthenes was notfive-and-twenty years of age. Mr Mitford might have learned, from socommon a book as the Archaeologia of Archbishop Potter, that at twentyAthenian citizens were freed from the control of their guardians, andbegan to manage their own property. The very speech of Demosthenesagainst his guardians proves most satisfactorily that he was undertwenty. In his speech against Midias, he says that when he undertookthat prosecution he was quite a boy. (Meirakullion on komide. ) His youthmight, therefore, excuse the step, even if it had been considered, asMr Mitford says, a dishonourable attempt to extort money. But whoconsidered it as such? Not the judges who condemned the guardians. TheAthenian courts of justice were not the purest in the world; but theirdecisions were at least as likely to be just as the abuse of a deadlyenemy. Mr Mitford refers for confirmation of his statement to Aeschinesand Plutarch. Aeschines by no means bears him out; and Plutarch directlycontradicts him. "Not long after, " says Mr Mitford, "he took blowspublicly in the theater" (I preserve the orthography, if it can beso called, of this historian) "from a petulant youth of rank, namedMeidias. " Here are two disgraceful mistakes. In the first place, it waslong after; eight years at the very least, probably much more. In thenext place the petulant youth, of whom Mr Mitford speaks, was fiftyyears old. (Whoever will read the speech of Demosthenes against Midiaswill find the statements in the text confirmed, and will have, moreover, the pleasure of becoming acquainted with one of the finest compositionsin the world. ) Really Mr Mitford has less reason to censure thecarelessness of his predecessors than to reform his own. After thismonstrous inaccuracy, with regard to facts, we may be able to judge whatdegree of credit ought to be given to the vague abuse of such a writer. "The cowardice of Demosthenes in the field afterwards became notorious. "Demosthenes was a civil character; war was not his business. In his timethe division between military and political offices was beginning to bestrongly marked; yet the recollection of the days when every citizen wasa soldier was still recent. In such states of society a certain degreeof disrepute always attaches to sedentary men; but that any leaderof the Athenian democracy could have been, as Mr Mitford says ofDemosthenes, a few lines before, remarkable for "an extraordinarydeficiency of personal courage, " is absolutely impossible. Whatmercenary warrior of the time exposed his life to greater or moreconstant perils? Was there a single soldier at Chaeronea who had morecause to tremble for his safety than the orator, who, in case of defeat, could scarcely hope for mercy from the people whom he had misled orthe prince whom he had opposed? Were not the ordinary fluctuations ofpopular feeling enough to deter any coward from engaging in politicalconflicts? Isocrates, whom Mr Mitford extols, because he constantlyemployed all the flowers of his school-boy rhetoric to decorateoligarchy and tyranny, avoided the judicial and political meetingsof Athens from mere timidity, and seems to have hated democracy onlybecause he durst not look a popular assembly in the face. Demostheneswas a man of a feeble constitution: his nerves were weak, but his spiritwas high; and the energy and enthusiasm of his feelings supported himthrough life and in death. 

So much for Demosthenes. Now for the orator of aristocracy. I donot wish to abuse Aeschines. He may have been an honest man. He wascertainly a great man; and I feel a reverence, of which Mr Mitford seemsto have no notion, for great men of every party. But, when Mr Mitfordsays that the private character of Aeschines was without stain, doeshe remember what Aeschines has himself confessed in his speech againstTimarchus? I can make allowances, as well as Mr Mitford, for persons wholived under a different system of laws and morals; but let them bemade impartially. If Demosthenes is to be attacked on account of somechildish improprieties, proved only by the assertion of an antagonist, what shall we say of those maturer vices which that antagonist hashimself acknowledged? "Against the private character of Aeschines, "says Mr Mitford, "Demosthenes seems not to have had an insinuationto oppose. " Has Mr Mitford ever read the speech of Demosthenes on theEmbassy? Or can he have forgotten, what was never forgotten by anyoneelse who ever read it, the story which Demosthenes relates with suchterrible energy of language concerning the drunken brutality of hisrival? True or false, here is something more than an insinuation; andnothing can vindicate the historian, who has overlooked it, from thecharge of negligence or of partiality. But Aeschines denied the story. And did not Demosthenes also deny the story respecting his childishnickname, which Mr Mitford has nevertheless told without anyqualification? But the judges, or some part of them, showed, by theirclamour, their disbelief of the relation of Demosthenes. And did notthe judges, who tried the cause between Demosthenes and his guardians, indicate, in a much clearer manner, their approbation of theprosecution? But Demosthenes was a demagogue, and is to be slandered. Aeschines was an aristocrat, and is to be panegyrised. Is this ahistory, or a party-pamphlet?

These passages, all selected from a single page of Mr Mitford's work, may give some notion to those readers, who have not the means ofcomparing his statements with the original authorities, of his extremepartiality and carelessness. Indeed, whenever this historian mentionsDemosthenes, he violates all the laws of candour and even of decency;he weighs no authorities; he makes no allowances; he forgets the bestauthenticated facts in the history of the times, and the most generallyrecognised principles of human nature. The opposition of the greatorator to the policy of Philip he represents as neither more nor lessthan deliberate villany. I hold almost the same opinion with Mr Mitfordrespecting the character and the views of that great and accomplishedprince. But am I, therefore, to pronounce Demosthenes profligate andinsincere? Surely not. Do we not perpetually see men of the greatesttalents and the purest intentions misled by national or factiousprejudices? The most respectable people in England were, little morethan forty years ago, in the habit of uttering the bitterest abuseagainst Washington and Franklin. It is certainly to be regretted thatmen should err so grossly in their estimate of character. But no personwho knows anything of human nature will impute such errors to depravity. 

Mr Mitford is not more consistent with himself than with reason. Thoughhe is the advocate of all oligarchies, he is also a warm admirer ofall kings, and of all citizens who raised themselves to that speciesof sovereignty which the Greeks denominated tyranny. If monarchy, as MrMitford holds, be in itself a blessing, democracy must be a betterform of government than aristocracy, which is always opposed to thesupremacy, and even to the eminence, of individuals. On the other hand, it is but one step that separates the demagogue and the sovereign. 

If this article had not extended itself to so great a length, Ishould offer a few observations on some other peculiarities of thiswriter, --his general preference of the Barbarians to the Greeks, --hispredilection for Persians, Carthaginians, Thracians, for all nations, in short, except that great and enlightened nation of which he is thehistorian. But I will confine myself to a single topic. 

Mr Mitford has remarked, with truth and spirit, that "any historyperfectly written, but especially a Grecian history perfectly writtenshould be a political institute for all nations. " It has not occurred tohim that a Grecian history, perfectly written, should also be a completerecord of the rise and progress of poetry, philosophy, and the arts. Here his work is extremely deficient. Indeed, though it may seem astrange thing to say of a gentleman who has published so many quartos, Mr Mitford seems to entertain a feeling, bordering on contempt, for literary and speculative pursuits. The talents of action almostexclusively attract his notice; and he talks with very complacentdisdain of "the idle learned. " Homer, indeed, he admires; butprincipally, I am afraid, because he is convinced that Homer couldneither read nor write. He could not avoid speaking of Socrates; but hehas been far more solicitous to trace his death to political causes, andto deduce from it consequences unfavourable to Athens, and to populargovernments, than to throw light on the character and doctrines of thewonderful man, "From whose mouth issued forth Mellifluous streams that watered all the schools Of Academics, old and new, with those Surnamed Peripatetics, and the sect Epicurean, and the Stoic severe. "

He does not seem to be aware that Demosthenes was a great orator; herepresents him sometimes as an aspirant demagogue, sometimes as anadroit negotiator, and always as a great rogue. But that in which theAthenian excelled all men of all ages, that irresistible eloquence, which at the distance of more than two thousand years stirs our blood, and brings tears into our eyes, he passes by with a few phrases ofcommonplace commendation. The origin of the drama, the doctrines of thesophists, the course of Athenian education, the state of the artsand sciences, the whole domestic system of the Greeks, he has almostcompletely neglected. Yet these things will appear, to a reflecting man, scarcely less worthy of attention than the taking of Sphacteria or thediscipline of the targeteers of Iphicrates. 

This, indeed, is a deficiency by no means peculiar to Mr Mitford. Most people seem to imagine that a detail of public occurrences--theoperations of sieges---the changes of administrations--the treaties--theconspiracies--the rebellions--is a complete history. Differences ofdefinition are logically unimportant; but practically they sometimesproduce the most momentous effects. Thus it has been in the presentcase. Historians have, almost without exception, confined themselvesto the public transactions of states, and have left to the negligentadministration of writers of fiction a province at least equallyextensive and valuable. 

All wise statesmen have agreed to consider the prosperity or adversityof nations as made up of the happiness or misery of individuals, and toreject as chimerical all notions of a public interest of the community, distinct from the interest of the component parts. It is thereforestrange that those whose office it is to supply statesmen with examplesand warnings should omit, as too mean for the dignity of history, circumstances which exert the most extensive influence on the state ofsociety. In general, the under current of human life flows steadily on, unruffled by the storms which agitate the surface. The happiness of themany commonly depends on causes independent of victories or defeats, ofrevolutions or restorations, --causes which can be regulated by no laws, and which are recorded in no archives. These causes are the thingswhich it is of main importance to us to know, not how the Lacedaemonianphalanx was broken at Leuctra, --not whether Alexander died of poisonor by disease. History, without these, is a shell without a kernel;and such is almost all the history which is extant in the world. Paltryskirmishes and plots are reported with absurd and useless minuteness;but improvements the most essential to the comfort of human life extendthemselves over the world, and introduce themselves into every cottage, before any annalist can condescend, from the dignity of writing aboutgenerals and ambassadors, to take the least notice of them. Thus theprogress of the most salutary inventions and discoveries is buried inimpenetrable mystery; mankind are deprived of a most useful species ofknowledge, and their benefactors of their honest fame. In the meantimeevery child knows by heart the dates and adventures of a long line ofbarbarian kings. The history of nations, in the sense in which I usethe word, is often best studied in works not professedly historical. Thucydides, as far as he goes, is an excellent writer; yet he affords usfar less knowledge of the most important particulars relating to Athensthan Plato or Aristophanes. The little treatise of Xenophon on DomesticEconomy contains more historical information than all the seven booksof his Hellenics. The same may be said of the Satires of Horace, ofthe Letters of Cicero, of the novels of Le Sage, of the memoirs ofMarmontel. Many others might be mentioned; but these sufficientlyillustrate my meaning. 

I would hope that there may yet appear a writer who may despise thepresent narrow limits, and assert the rights of history over every partof her natural domain. Should such a writer engage in that enterprise, in which I cannot but consider Mr Mitford as having failed, he willrecord, indeed, all that is interesting and important in military andpolitical transactions; but he will not think anything too trivial forthe gravity of history which is not too trivial to promote or diminishthe happiness of man. He will portray in vivid colours the domesticsociety, the manners, the amusements, the conversation of the Greeks. Hewill not disdain to discuss the state of agriculture, of the mechanicalarts, and of the conveniences of life. The progress of painting, ofsculpture, and of architecture, will form an important part of hisplan. But, above all, his attention will be given to the history of thatsplendid literature from which has sprung all the strength, the wisdom, the freedom, and the glory, of the western world. 

Of the indifference which Mr Mitford shows on this subject I will notspeak; for I cannot speak with fairness. It is a subject on which I loveto forget the accuracy of a judge, in the veneration of a worshipperand the gratitude of a child. If we consider merely the subtlety ofdisquisition, the force of imagination, the perfect energy and eleganceof expression which characterise the great works of Athenian genius, wemust pronounce them intrinsically most valuable; but what shall we saywhen we reflect that from hence have sprung directly or indirectly, allthe noblest creations of the human intellect; that from hence were thevast accomplishments and the brilliant fancy of Cicero; the witheringfire of Juvenal; the plastic imagination of Dante; the humour ofCervantes; the comprehension of Bacon; the wit of Butler; the supremeand universal excellence of Shakspeare? All the triumphs of truth andgenius over prejudice and power, in every country and in every age, have been the triumphs of Athens. Wherever a few great minds have madea stand against violence and fraud, in the cause of liberty and reason, there has been her spirit in the midst of them; inspiring, encouraging, consoling;--by the lonely lamp of Erasmus; by the restless bed ofPascal; in the tribune of Mirabeau; in the cell of Galileo; on thescaffold of Sidney. But who shall estimate her influence on privatehappiness? Who shall say how many thousands have been made wiser, happier, and better, by those pursuits in which she has taught mankindto engage: to how many the studies which took their rise from herhave been wealth in poverty, --liberty in bondage, --health insickness, --society in solitude? Her power is indeed manifested atthe bar, in the senate, in the field of battle, in the schools ofphilosophy. But these are not her glory. Wherever literature consolessorrow, or assuages pain, --wherever it brings gladness to eyes whichfail with wakefulness and tears, and ache for the dark house and thelong sleep, --there is exhibited, in its noblest form, the immortalinfluence of Athens. 

The dervise, in the Arabian tale, did not hesitate to abandon to hiscomrade the camels with their load of jewels and gold, while he retainedthe casket of that mysterious juice which enabled him to behold atone glance all the hidden riches of the universe. Surely it is noexaggeration to say that no external advantage is to be compared withthat purification of the intellectual eye which gives us to contemplatethe infinite wealth of the mental world, all the hoarded treasures ofits primeval dynasties, all the shapeless ore of its yet unexploredmines. This is the gift of Athens to man. Her freedom and her powerhave for more than twenty centuries been annihilated; her people havedegenerated into timid slaves; her language into a barbarous jargon;her temples have been given up to the successive depredations of Romans, Turks, and Scotchmen; but her intellectual empire is imperishable. Andwhen those who have rivalled her greatness shall have shared her fate;when civilisation and knowledge shall have fixed their abode in distantcontinents; when the sceptre shall have passed away from England;when, perhaps, travellers from distant regions shall in vain labour todecipher on some mouldering pedestal the name of our proudest chief;shall hear savage hymns chaunted to some misshapen idol over the ruineddome of our proudest temple; and shall see a single naked fisherman washhis nets in the river of the ten thousand masts;--her influence andher glory will still survive, --fresh in eternal youth, exempt frommutability and decay, immortal as the intellectual principle from whichthey derived their origin, and over which they exercise their control.