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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of
+Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4), by Thomas Babington Macaulay
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4)
+       Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine]
+
+Author: Thomas Babington Macaulay
+
+Posting Date: June 14, 2008 [EBook #2167]
+Release Date: May, 2000
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WRITINGS OF LORD MACAULAY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Mike Alder and Sue Asscher
+
+
+
+
+
+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 his
+miscellaneous works, either by himself or by those who should represent
+him after his death. And latterly he expressly reserved, whenever
+the arrangements as to copyright made it necessary, the right of such
+publication.
+
+The collection which is now published comprehends some of the earliest
+and some of the latest works which he composed. He was born on 25th
+October, 1800; commenced residence at Trinity College, Cambridge, in
+October, 1818; was elected Craven University Scholar in 1821; graduated
+as 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 Northern
+Circuit; and was elected member for Calne in 1830. After this last
+event, he did not long continue to practise at the bar. He went to India
+in 1834, whence he returned in June, 1838. He was elected member for
+Edinburgh, in 1839, and lost this seat in July, 1847; and this (though
+he was afterwards again elected for that city in July, 1852, without
+being a candidate) may be considered as the last instance of his taking
+an active part in the contests of public life. These few dates are
+mentioned for the purpose of enabling the reader to assign the articles,
+now and previously published, to the principal periods into which the
+author's life may be divided.
+
+The admirers of his later works will probably be interested by watching
+the gradual formation of his style, and will notice in his earlier
+productions, vigorous and clear as their language always was, the
+occurrence of faults against which he afterwards most anxiously guarded
+himself. A much greater interest will undoubtedly be felt in tracing the
+date and development of his opinions.
+
+The articles published in Knight's Quarterly Magazine were composed
+during the author's residence at college, as B.A. It may be remarked
+that the first two of these exhibit the earnestness with which he
+already endeavoured to represent to himself and to others the scenes and
+persons of past times as in actual existence. Of the Dialogue between
+Milton and Cowley he spoke, many years after its publication, as that
+one of his works which he remembered with most satisfaction. The article
+on Mitford's Greece he did not himself value so highly as others thought
+it deserved. This article, at any rate, contains the first distinct
+enunciation of his views, as to the office of an historian, views
+afterwards more fully set forth in his Essay, upon History, in the
+Edinburgh Review. From the protest, in the last mentioned essay, against
+the conventional notions respecting the majesty of history might perhaps
+have been anticipated something like the third chapter of the History
+of England. It may be amusing to notice that in the article on Mitford,
+appears the first sketch of the New Zealander, afterwards filled up in
+a passage in the review of Mrs Austin's translation of Ranke, a passage
+which at one time was the subject of allusion, two or three times a
+week, in speeches and leading articles. In this, too, appear, perhaps
+for the first time, the author's views on the representative system.
+These he retained to the very last; they are brought forward repeatedly
+in the articles published in this collection and elsewhere, and in his
+speeches in parliament; and they coincide with the opinions expressed in
+the letter to an American correspondent, which was so often cited in the
+late debate on the Reform Bill.
+
+Some explanation appears to be necessary as to the publication of the
+three articles "Mill on Government," "Westminster Reviewer's Defence of
+Mill" 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 the
+Encyclopaedia Britannica; and among these was an Essay on Government.
+The method of inquiry and reasoning adopted in this essay appeared
+to Macaulay to be essentially wrong. He entertained a very strong
+conviction that the only sound foundation for a theory of Government
+must be laid in careful and copious historical induction; and he
+believed 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 for
+historical research, and to his devout admiration of Bacon, whose works
+he was at that time studying with intense attention. There can, however,
+be little doubt that he was also provoked by the pretensions of some
+members of a sect which then commonly went by the name of Benthamites,
+or Utilitarians. This sect included many of his contemporaries, who had
+quitted Cambridge at about the same time with him. It had succeeded, in
+some measure, to the sect of the Byronians, whom he has described in the
+review of Moore's Life of Lord Byron, who discarded their neckcloths,
+and fixed little models of skulls on the sand-glasses by which they
+regulated the boiling of their eggs for breakfast. The members of these
+sects, and of many others that have succeeded, have probably long ago
+learned to smile at the temporary humours. But Macaulay, himself a
+sincere admirer of Bentham, was irritated by what he considered the
+unwarranted tone assumed by several of the class of Utilitarians. "We
+apprehend," he said, "that many of them are persons who, having read
+little or nothing, are delighted to be rescued from the sense of their
+own inferiority by some teacher who assures them that the studies which
+they have neglected are of no value, puts five or six phrases into their
+mouths, lends them an odd number of the Westminster Review, and in
+a month transforms them into philosophers;" and he spoke of them as
+"smatterers, whose attainments just suffice to elevate them from the
+insignificance of dunces to the dignity of bores, and to spread dismay
+among their pious aunts and grand mothers." The sect, of course, like
+other sects, comprehended some pretenders, and these the most arrogant
+and intolerant among its members. He, however, went so far as to apply
+the following language to the majority:--"As to the greater part of
+the sect, it is, we apprehend, of little consequence what they study or
+under whom. It would be more amusing, to be sure, and more reputable, if
+they would take up the old republican cant and declaim about Brutus and
+Timoleon, the duty of killing tyrants and the blessedness of dying for
+liberty. But, on the whole, they might have chosen worse. They may as
+well be Utilitarians as jockeys or dandies. And, though quibbling about
+self-interest and motives, and objects of desire, and the greatest
+happiness of the greatest number, is but a poor employment for a grown
+man, it certainly hurts the health less than hard drinking and the
+fortune less than high play; it is not much more laughable than
+phrenology, and is immeasurably more humane than cock-fighting."
+
+Macaulay inserted in the Edinburgh Review of March, 1829, an article
+upon 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 in
+this he had gone too far. But before long he felt that he had not spoken
+of the author of the Essay with the respect due to so eminent a man. In
+1833, he described Mr mill, during the debate on the India Bill of that
+year, as a "gentleman extremely well acquainted with the affairs of our
+Eastern Empire, a most valuable servant of the Company, and the author
+of a history of India, which, though certainly not free from faults, is,
+I think, on the whole, the greatest historical work which has appeared
+in our language since that of Gibbon."
+
+Almost immediately upon the appearance of the article in the Edinburgh
+Review, an answer was published in the Westminster Review. It was
+untruly 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 the
+article in the Westminster Review had not perceived that the question
+raised was not as to the truth or falsehood of the result at which Mr
+Mill had arrived, but as to the soundness or unsoundness of the method
+which he pursued; a misunderstanding at which Macaulay, while he
+supposed the article to be the work of Mr Bentham, expressed much
+surprise. The controversy soon became principally a dispute as to the
+theory which was commonly known by the name of The Greatest Happiness
+Principle. Another article in the Westminster Review followed; and
+a surrejoinder by Macaulay in the Edinburgh Review of October, 1829.
+Macaulay was irritated at what he conceived to be either extreme
+dullness or gross unfairness on the part of his unknown antagonist, and
+struck as hard as he could; and he struck very hard indeed.
+
+The ethical question thus raised was afterwards discussed by Sir James
+Mackintosh, in the Dissertation contributed by him to the seventh
+edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, page 284-313 (Whewell's
+Edition). Sir James Mackintosh notices the part taken in the controversy
+by Macaulay, in the following words: "A writer of consummate ability,
+who has failed in little but the respect due to the abilities and
+character of his opponents, has given too much countenance to the abuse
+and 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 nature
+which is true but one--that men always act from self-interest.'" "It
+is manifest from the sequel, that the writer is not the dupe of the
+confusion; but many of his readers may be so. If, indeed, the word
+"self-interest" could with propriety be used for the gratification of
+every prevalent desire, he has clearly shown that this change in the
+signification of terms would be of no advantage to the doctrine which he
+controverts. It would make as many sorts of self-interest as there
+are appetites, and it is irreconcilably at variance with the system of
+association proposed by Mr Mill." "The admirable writer whose language
+has occasioned this illustration, who at an early age has mastered every
+species of composition, will doubtless hold fast to simplicity, which
+survives all the fashions of deviation from it, and which a man of
+genius so fertile has few temptations to for sake."
+
+When Macaulay selected for publication certain articles of the Edinburgh
+Review, 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 the
+Utilitarian Philosophy, which, when they first appeared, attracted
+some notice, but which are not in the American editions. He has however
+determined to omit these papers, not because he is disposed to retract a
+single doctrine which they contain, but because he is unwilling to offer
+what might be regarded as an affront to the memory of one from whose
+opinions he still widely dissents, but to whose talents and virtues he
+admits that he formerly did not do justice. Serious as are the faults of
+the Essay on Government, a critic, while noticing those faults, should
+have abstained from using contemptuous language respecting the historian
+of 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 he
+had been assailed, and was, when his valuable life closed, on terms of
+cordial friendship with his assailant."
+
+Under these circumstances, considerable doubt has been felt as to the
+propriety of republishing the three Essays in the present collection.
+But it has been determined, not without much hesitation, that they
+should appear. It is felt that no disrespect is shown to the memory of
+Mr Mill, when the publication is accompanied by so full an apology for
+the tone adopted towards him; and Mr Mill himself would have been the
+last to wish for the suppression of opinions on the ground that they
+were in express antagonism to his own. The grave has now closed upon the
+assailant as well as the assailed. On the other hand, it cannot but
+be desirable that opinions which the author retained to the last, on
+important questions in politics and morals, should be before the public.
+
+Some of the poems now collected have already appeared in print; others
+are supplied by the recollection of friends. The first two are published
+on account of their having been composed in the author's childhood. In
+the poems, as well as in the prose works, will be occasionally found
+thoughts and expressions which have afterwards been adopted in later
+productions.
+
+No alteration whatever has been made from the form in which the author
+left the several articles, with the exception of some changes in
+punctuation, 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. (January
+1824.)
+
+Criticisms on the Principal Italian Writers. No. II. Petrarch. (April
+1824.)
+
+Some account of the Great Lawsuit between the Parishes of St Dennis and
+St George in the Water. (April 1824.)
+
+A Conversation between Mr Abraham Cowley and Mr John Milton, touching
+the Great Civil War. (August 1824.)
+
+On the Athenian Orators. (August 1824.)
+
+A Prophetic Account of a Grand National Epic Poem, to be entitled "The
+Wellingtoniad," 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 Campus
+Martius. He strolled through one of the streets which led to the Forum,
+settling his gown, and calculating the odds on the gladiators who were
+to fence at the approaching Saturnalia. While thus occupied, he overtook
+Flaminius, who, with a heavy step and a melancholy face, was sauntering
+in the same direction. The light-hearted young man plucked him by the
+sleeve.
+
+"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 and
+the dice-box pay for all. The Gods confound me if I did not lose two
+millions of sesterces last night. My villa at Tibur, and all the
+statues that my father the praetor brought from Ephesus, must go to
+the auctioneer. That is a high price, you will acknowledge, even for
+Phoenicopters, Chian, and Callinice."
+
+"High indeed, by Pollux."
+
+"And that is not the worst. I saw several of the leading senators this
+morning. Strange things are whispered in the higher political circles."
+
+"The Gods confound the political circles. I have hated the name of
+politician ever since Sylla's proscription, when I was within a moment
+of having my throat cut by a politician, who took me for another
+politician. While there is a cask of Falernian in Campania, or a girl in
+the Suburra, I shall be too well employed to think on the subject."
+
+"You will do well," said Flaminius gravely, "to bestow some little
+consideration upon it at present. Otherwise, I fear, you will soon renew
+your acquaintance with politicians, in a manner quite as unpleasant as
+that to which you allude."
+
+"Averting Gods! what do you mean?"
+
+"I will tell you. There are rumours of conspiracy. The order of things
+established by Lucius Sylla has excited the disgust of the people, and
+of a large party of the nobles. Some violent convulsion is expected."
+
+"What is that to me? I suppose that they will hardly proscribe the
+vintners and gladiators, or pass a law compelling every citizen to take
+a wife."
+
+"You do not understand. Catiline is supposed to be the author of the
+revolutionary schemes. You must have heard bold opinions at his table
+repeatedly."
+
+"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 as
+mentioned Senate, Consul, or Comitia, in Catiline's house."
+
+"Nobody suspects you of any participation in the inmost counsels of the
+party. But our great men surmise that you are among those whom he has
+bribed so high with beauty, or entangled so deeply in distress, that
+they are no longer their own masters. I shall never set foot within
+his threshold again. I have been solemnly warned by men who understand
+public affairs; and I advise you to be cautious."
+
+The friends had now turned into the Forum, which was thronged with
+the gay and elegant youth of Rome. "I can tell you more," continued
+Flaminius; "somebody was remarking to the Consul yesterday how loosely a
+certain 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 a
+little distance from them. He was in the prime of manhood. His
+personal advantages were extremely striking, and were displayed with an
+extravagant but not ungraceful foppery. His gown waved in loose folds;
+his long dark curls were dressed with exquisite art, and shone and
+steamed with odours; his step and gesture exhibited an elegant
+and commanding figure in every posture of polite languor. But his
+countenance formed a singular contrast to the general appearance of
+his person. The high and imperial brow, the keen aquiline features, the
+compressed mouth; the penetrating eye, indicated the highest degree of
+ability and decision. He seemed absorbed in intense meditation. With
+eyes fixed on the ground, and lips working in thought, he sauntered
+round the area, apparently unconscious how many of the young gallants
+of Rome were envying the taste of his dress, and the ease of his
+fashionable stagger.
+
+"Good Heaven!" said Ligarius, "Caius Caesar is as unlikely to be in a
+plot as I am."
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"He does nothing but game; feast, intrigue, read Greek, and write
+verses."
+
+"You know nothing of Caesar. Though he rarely addresses the Senate,
+he is considered as the finest speaker there, after the Consul. His
+influence with the multitude is immense. He will serve his rivals in
+public life as he served me last night at Catiline's. We were playing at
+the twelve lines. (Duodecim scripta, a game of mixed chance and skill,
+which seems to have been very fashionable in the higher circles of
+Rome. The famous lawyer Mucius was renowned for his skill in it.--"Cic.
+Orat." i. 50.)--Immense stakes. He laughed all the time, chatted with
+Valeria over his shoulder, kissed her hand between every two moves, and
+scarcely looked at the board. I thought that I had him. All at once
+I found my counters driven into the corner. Not a piece to move,
+by Hercules. It cost me two millions of sesterces. All the Gods and
+Goddesses confound him for it!"
+
+"As to Valeria," said Ligarius, "I forgot to ask whether you have heard
+the 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 in
+Campania, 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 his
+slaves, 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, and
+was 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 abstraction
+vanished; 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 a
+faithless spouse and a broken head. His freed-man is most seriously
+hurt. 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 to
+part with my town-house. My villa is gone already."
+
+"Not at Catiline's, base spirit! You are not of his mind, my gallant
+Ligarius. Dice, Chian, and the loveliest Greek singing girl that was
+ever seen. Think of that, Ligarius. By Venus, she almost made me adore
+her, by telling me that I talked Greek with the most Attic accent that
+she had heard in Italy."
+
+"I doubt she will not say the same of me," replied Ligarius. "I am just
+as 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 no
+evil, and flogged me as if he thought so. At last one day, in the middle
+of 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 that
+time to this I have had as little to do with Greece as the wine that
+your poor old friend Lutatius calls his delicious Samian."
+
+"Well done, Ligarius. I hate a Stoic. I wish Marcus Cato had a beard
+that you might singe it for him. The fool talked his two hours in the
+Senate yesterday, without changing a muscle of his face. He looked as
+savage and as motionless as the mask in which Roscius acted Alecto. I
+detest 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. But
+come, 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 will
+never have such a charming instructress. Of what was your father
+thinking 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 at
+Athens, I learnt more Greek from a pretty flower-girl in the Peiraeus
+than from all the Portico and the Academy. She was no Stoic, Heaven
+knows. But come along to Zoe. I will be your interpreter. Woo her in
+honest Latin, and I will turn it into elegant Greek between the throws
+of dice. I can make love and mind my game at once, as Flaminius can tell
+you.
+
+"Well, then, to be plain, Caesar, Flaminius has been talking to me about
+plots, and suspicions, and politicians. I never plagued myself with such
+things since Sylla's and Marius's days; and then I never could see much
+difference between the parties. All that I am sure of is, that those who
+meddle with such affairs are generally stabbed or strangled. And, though
+I like Greek wine and handsome women, I do not wish to risk my neck for
+them. Now, tell me as a friend, Caius--is there no danger?"
+
+"Danger!" repeated Caesar, with a short, fierce, disdainful laugh: "what
+danger do you apprehend?"
+
+"That you should best know," said Flaminius; "you are far more intimate
+with Catiline than I. But I advise you to be cautious. The leading men
+entertain strong suspicions."
+
+Caesar drew up his figure from its ordinary state of graceful relaxation
+into an attitude of commanding dignity, and replied in a voice of
+which the deep and impassioned melody formed a strange contrast to
+the humorous and affected tone of his ordinary conversation. "Let them
+suspect. They suspect because they know what they have deserved. What
+have they done for Rome?--What for mankind? Ask the citizens--ask the
+provinces. Have they had any other object than to perpetuate their
+own exclusive power, and to keep us under the yoke of an oligarchical
+tyranny, which unites in itself the worst evils of every other system,
+and combines more than Athenian turbulence with more than Persian
+despotism?"
+
+"Good Gods! Caesar. It is not safe for you to speak, or for us to listen
+to, such things, at such a crisis."
+
+"Judge for yourselves what you will hear. I will judge for myself what
+I 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 have
+inherited a power which they never could have acquired; who would
+imitate his proscriptions, though they have never equalled his
+conquests?"
+
+"Pompey is almost as little to be trifled with as Sylla. I heard a
+consular senator say that, in consequence of the present alarming state
+of affairs, he would probably be recalled from the command assigned to
+him by the Manilian law."
+
+"Let him come,--the pupil of Sylla's butcheries,--the gleaner of
+Lucullus'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 be
+coupled with such cowardice and coxcombry. He is the finest speaker
+living,--infinitely superior to what Hortensius was, in his best
+days;--a charming companion, except when he tells over for the twentieth
+time all the jokes that he made at Verres's trial. But he is the
+despicable tool of a despicable party."
+
+"Your language, Caius, convinces me that the reports which have been
+circulated are not without foundation. I will venture to prophesy that
+within a few months the republic will pass through a whole Odyssey of
+strange adventures."
+
+"I believe so; an Odyssey, of which Pompey will be the Polyphemus, and
+Cicero the Siren. I would have the state imitate Ulysses: show no
+mercy to the former; but contrive, if it can be done, to listen to
+the enchanting voice of the other, without being seduced by it to
+destruction."
+
+"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 genius
+to conquer, to conciliate, and to govern, may unite in one cause an
+oppressed and divided people;--may do all that Sylla should have done,
+and exhibit the magnificent spectacle of a great nation directed by a
+great mind."
+
+"And where is such a man to be found?"
+
+"Perhaps where you would least expect to find him. Perhaps he may be
+one whose powers have hitherto been concealed in domestic or literary
+retirement. Perhaps he may be one, who, while waiting for some adequate
+excitement, for some worthy opportunity, squanders on trifles a genius
+before which may yet be humbled the sword of Pompey and the gown
+of Cicero. Perhaps he may now be disputing with a sophist; perhaps
+prattling 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 Cethegus
+were still conferring in the supper-room, which was, as usual, the
+highest apartment of the house. It formed a cupola, from which windows
+opened on the flat roof that surrounded it. To this terrace Zoe had
+retired. With eyes dimmed with fond and melancholy tears, she leaned
+over the balustrade, to catch the last glimpse of the departing form of
+Caesar, as it grew more and more indistinct in the moonlight. Had he
+any thought of her? Any love for her? He, the favourite of the high-born
+beauties of Rome, the most splendid, the most graceful, the most
+eloquent of its nobles? It could not be. His voice had, indeed, been
+touchingly soft whenever he addressed her. There had been a fascinating
+tenderness even in the vivacity of his look and conversation. But such
+were always the manners of Caesar towards women. He had wreathed a sprig
+of myrtle in her hair as she was singing. She took it from her dark
+ringlets, and kissed it, and wept over it, and thought of the sweet
+legends of her own dear Greece,--of youths and girls, who, pining away
+in hopeless love, had been transformed into flowers by the compassion
+of the Gods; and she wished to become a flower, which Caesar might
+sometimes touch, though he should touch it only to weave a crown for
+some 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, or
+the most miserable idiot, that ever intermeddled with a plot!"
+
+Zoe shuddered. She drew nearer to the window. She stood concealed from
+observation 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 scheme
+yourself!"
+
+"My dear Caius Cethegus, you will not understand me. I proposed the
+scheme; and I will join in executing it. But policy is as necessary to
+our plans as boldness. I did not wish to startle Caesar--to lose his
+co-operation--perhaps to send him off with an information against us to
+Cicero and Catulus. He was so indignant at your suggestion that all my
+dissimulation was scarcely sufficient to prevent a total rupture."
+
+"Indignant! The Gods confound him!--He prated about humanity, and
+generosity, and moderation. By Hercules, I have not heard such a lecture
+since I was with Xenochares at Rhodes."
+
+"Caesar is made up of inconsistencies. He has boundless ambition,
+unquestioned courage, admirable sagacity. Yet I have frequently observed
+in him a womanish weakness at the sight of pain. I remember that once
+one 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 wonder
+that you could be so ill-advised as to talk to him of massacre,
+and pillage, and conflagration. You might have foreseen that such
+propositions would disgust a man of his temper."
+
+"I do not know. I have not your self-command, Lucius. I hate
+such conspirators. What is the use of them? We must have
+blood--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 stuff
+them with,--and purple to cover them,--and pretty women to loll
+on them,--unless this fool, and such as he, spoil our plans. I had
+something else to say. The essenced fop wishes to seduce Zoe from me."
+
+"Impossible! You misconstrue the ordinary gallantries which he is in the
+habit 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 will
+tear him to pieces in the middle of the Forum."
+
+"Trust his destruction to me. We must use his talents and
+influence--thrust him upon every danger--make him our instrument while
+we are contending--our peace-offering to the Senate if we fail--our
+first 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 stepped
+out. She darted into the room--passed like a flash of lightning by the
+startled Cethegus--flew down the stairs--through the court--through
+the vestibule--through the street. Steps, voices, lights, came fast and
+confusedly behind her; but with the speed of love and terror she gained
+upon her pursuers. She fled through the wilderness of unknown and dusky
+streets, till she found herself, breathless and exhausted, in the midst
+of a crowd of gallants, who, with chaplets on their heads and torches in
+their hands, were reeling from the portico of a stately mansion.
+
+The foremost of the throng was a youth whose slender figure and
+beautiful countenance seemed hardly consistent with his sex. But the
+feminine delicacy of his features rendered more frightful the mingled
+sensuality and ferocity of their expression. The libertine audacity of
+his stare, and the grotesque foppery of his apparel, seemed to indicate
+at least a partial insanity. Flinging one arm round Zoe, and tearing
+away her veil with the other, he disclosed to the gaze of his thronging
+companions the regular features and large dark eyes which characterise
+Athenian beauty.
+
+"Clodius has all the luck to-night," cried Ligarius.
+
+"Not so, by Hercules," said Marcus Coelius; "the girl is fairly our
+common prize: we will fling dice for her. The Venus (Venus was the Roman
+term for the highest throw of the dice.) throw, as it ought to do, shall
+decide."
+
+"Let me go--let me go, for Heaven's sake," cried Zoe, struggling with
+Clodius.
+
+"What a charming Greek accent she has! Come into the house, my little
+Athenian 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 her
+for a vestal virgin."
+
+"And if she were a vestal virgin," cried Clodius fiercely, "it should
+not deter me. This way;--no struggling--no screaming."
+
+"Struggling! screaming!" exclaimed a gay and commanding voice; "You are
+making 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. With
+a convulsive effort she burst from the grasp of her insolent admirer,
+flung herself at the feet of Caesar, and clasped his knees. The moon
+shone full on her agitated and imploring face: her lips moved; but she
+uttered no sound. He gazed at her for an instant--raised her--clasped
+her to his bosom. "Fear nothing, my sweet Zoe." Then, with folded
+arms, and a smile of placid defiance, he placed himself between her and
+Clodius.
+
+Clodius staggered forward, flushed with wine and rage, and uttering
+alternately 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 a
+pair of eyes I would insult the whole consular bench, or I should be as
+insensible as King Psammis's mummy."
+
+"Good Gods, Caesar!" said Marcus Coelius, interposing; "you cannot think
+it 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 such
+a 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 with
+fingers at the circus. No more evening walks along the Tiber. No more
+hiding in chests or jumping from windows. I, the favoured suitor of half
+the 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 dear
+Coelius! Do not let Clodia hear of it."
+
+While Caesar spoke he had been engaged in keeping Clodius at
+arm's-length. The rage of the frantic libertine increased as the
+struggle continued. "Stand back, as you value your life," he cried; "I
+will pass."
+
+"Not this way, sweet Clodius. I have too much regard for you to suffer
+you to make love at such disadvantage. You smell too much of Falernian
+at present. Would you stifle your mistress? By Hercules, you are fit
+to kiss nobody now, except old Piso, when he is tumbling home in the
+morning from the vintners."
+
+Clodius plunged his hand into his bosom and drew a little dagger, the
+faithful companion of many desperate adventures.
+
+"Oh, Gods! he will be murdered!" cried Zoe.
+
+The whole throng of revellers was in agitation. The street fluctuated
+with torches and lifted hands. It was but for a moment. Caesar watched
+with a steady eye the descending hand of Clodius, arrested the blow,
+seized his antagonist by the throat, and flung him against one of the
+pillars of the portico with such violence, that he rolled, stunned and
+senseless, 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 splendid
+victory! You deserve a triumph."
+
+"What a madman Clodius has become!"
+
+"Intolerable. But come and sup with me on the Nones. You have no
+objection to meet the Consul?"
+
+"Cicero? None at all. We need not talk politics. Our old dispute about
+Plato and Epicurus will furnish us with plenty of conversation. So
+reckon upon me, my dear Marcus, and farewell."
+
+Caesar and Zoe turned away. As soon as they were beyond hearing, she
+began in great agitation:--
+
+"Caesar, you are in danger. I know all. I overheard Catiline and
+Cethegus. You are engaged in a project which must lead to certain
+destruction."
+
+"My beautiful Zoe, I live only for glory and pleasure. For these I have
+never hesitated to hazard an existence which they alone render valuable
+to me. In the present case, I can assure you that our scheme presents
+the fairest hopes of success."
+
+"So much the worse. You do not know--you do not understand me. I
+speak not of open peril, but of secret treachery. Catiline hates
+you;--Cethegus hates you;--your destruction is resolved. If you survive
+the contest, you perish in the first hour of victory. They detest you
+for your moderation; they are eager for blood and plunder. I have
+risked 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 to
+defraud Valeria or Servilia of one caress, extorted from gratitude or
+pity. Be my feelings what they may, I have learnt in a fearful school to
+endure and to suppress them. I have been taught to abase a proud spirit
+to the claps and hisses of the vulgar;--to smile on suitors who united
+the insults of a despicable pride to the endearments of a loathsome
+fondness;--to affect sprightliness with an aching head, and eyes from
+which 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 shelter
+from cruelty and scorn the broken heart of the poor Athenian girl? But
+you, who alone have addressed her in her degradation with a voice
+of kindness and respect, farewell. Sometimes think of me,--not with
+sorrow;--no; I could bear your ingratitude, but not your distress. Yet,
+if it will not pain you too much, in distant days, when your lofty
+hopes and destinies are accomplished,--on the evening of some mighty
+victory,--in the chariot of some magnificent triumph,--think on one who
+loved you with that exceeding love which only the miserable can feel.
+Think that, wherever her exhausted frame may have sunk beneath the
+sensibilities of a tortured spirit,--in whatever hovel or whatever vault
+she may have closed her eyes,--whatever strange scenes of horror and
+pollution may have surrounded her dying bed, your shape was the last
+that swam before her sight--your voice the last sound that was ringing
+in her ears. Yet turn your face to me, Caesar. Let me carry away one
+last look of those features, and then "--He turned round. He looked at
+her. He hid his face on her bosom, and burst into tears. With sobs long
+and loud, and convulsive as those of a terrified child, he poured forth
+on her bosom the tribute of impetuous and uncontrollable emotion. He
+raised his head; but he in vain struggled to restore composure to the
+brow which had confronted the frown of Sylla, and the lips which had
+rivalled the eloquence of Cicero. He several times attempted to speak,
+but in vain; and his voice still faltered with tenderness, when, after a
+pause of several minutes, he thus addressed her:
+
+"My own dear Zoe, your love has been bestowed on one who, if he
+cannot merit, can at least appreciate and adore you. Beings of similar
+loveliness, and similar devotedness of affection, mingled, in all my
+boyish dreams of greatness, with visions of curule chairs and ivory
+cars, marshalled legions and laurelled fasces. Such I have endeavoured
+to find in the world; and, in their stead, I have met with selfishness,
+with vanity, with frivolity, with falsehood. The life which you have
+preserved is a boon less valuable than the affection "--
+
+"Oh! Caesar," interrupted the blushing Zoe, "think only on your own
+security at present. If you feel as you speak,--but you are only mocking
+me,--or perhaps your compassion "--
+
+"By Heaven!--by every oath that is binding "--
+
+"Alas! alas! Caesar, were not all the same oaths sworn yesterday to
+Valeria? But I will trust you, at least so far as to partake your
+present dangers. Flight may be necessary:--form your plans. Be they what
+they may, there is one who, in exile, in poverty, in peril, asks only to
+wander, to beg, to die with you."
+
+"My Zoe, I do not anticipate any such necessity. To renounce the
+conspiracy without renouncing the principles on which it was originally
+undertaken,--to elude the vengeance of the Senate without losing
+the confidence of the people,--is, indeed, an arduous, but not an
+impossible, task. I owe it to myself and to my country to make the
+attempt. There is still ample time for consideration. At present I am
+too happy in love to think of ambition or danger."
+
+They had reached the door of a stately palace. Caesar struck it. It was
+instantly opened by a slave. Zoe found herself in a magnificent hall,
+surrounded by pillars of green marble, between which were ranged the
+statues of the long line of Julian nobles.
+
+"Call Endymion," said Caesar.
+
+The confidential freed-man made his appearance, not without a slight
+smile, which his patron's good nature emboldened him to hazard, at
+perceiving the beautiful Athenian.
+
+"Arm my slaves, Endymion; there are reasons for precaution. Let
+them relieve each other on guard during the night. Zoe, my love, my
+preserver, why are your cheeks so pale? Let me kiss some bloom into
+them. How you tremble! Endymion, a flask of Samian and some fruit. Bring
+them 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 ten
+who has not belonged to some association for distributing books, or for
+prosecuting them; for sending invalids to the hospital, or beggars to
+the treadmill; for giving plate to the rich, or blankets to the poor.
+To be the most absurd institution among so many institutions is no small
+distinction; it seems, however, to belong indisputably to the Royal
+Society of Literature. At the first establishment of that ridiculous
+academy, every sensible man predicted that, in spite of regal patronage
+and episcopal management, it would do nothing, or do harm. And it will
+scarcely be denied that those expectations have hitherto been fulfilled.
+
+I do not attack the founders of the association. Their characters are
+respectable; their motives, I am willing to believe, were laudable.
+But I feel, and it is the duty of every literary man to feel, a strong
+jealousy of their proceedings. Their society can be innocent only while
+it continues to be despicable. Should they ever possess the power to
+encourage merit, they must also possess the power to depress it. Which
+power will be more frequently exercised, let every one who has studied
+literary history, let every one who has studied human nature, declare.
+
+Envy and faction insinuate themselves into all communities. They
+often disturb the peace, and pervert the decisions, of benevolent and
+scientific associations. But it is in literary academies that they exert
+the most extensive and pernicious influence. In the first place, the
+principles of literary criticism, though equally fixed with those on
+which the chemist and the surgeon proceed, are by no means equally
+recognised. Men are rarely able to assign a reason for their approbation
+or dislike on questions of taste; and therefore they willingly submit
+to any guide who boldly asserts his claim to superior discernment. It is
+more difficult to ascertain and establish the merits of a poem than
+the powers of a machine or the benefits of a new remedy. Hence it is
+in literature, that quackery is most easily puffed, and excellence most
+easily decried.
+
+In some degree this argument applies to academies of the fine arts; and
+it is fully confirmed by all that I have ever heard of that institution
+which annually disfigures the walls of Somerset House with an acre of
+spoiled canvas. But a literary tribunal is incomparably more dangerous.
+Other societies, at least, have no tendency to call forth any opinions
+on those subjects which most agitate and inflame the minds of men. The
+sceptic and the zealot, the revolutionist and the placeman, meet on
+common ground in a gallery of paintings or a laboratory of science. They
+can praise or censure without reference to the differences which exist
+between them. In a literary body this can never be the case. Literature
+is, and always must be, inseparably blended with politics and theology;
+it is the great engine which moves the feelings of a people on the most
+momentous questions. It is, therefore, impossible that any society
+can be formed so impartial as to consider the literary character of an
+individual abstracted from the opinions which his writings inculcate. It
+is not to be hoped, perhaps it is not to be wished, that the feelings
+of the man should be so completely forgotten in the duties of the
+academician. The consequences are evident. The honours and censures
+of this Star Chamber of the Muses will be awarded according to the
+prejudices of the particular sect or faction which may at the time
+predominate. Whigs would canvass against a Southey, Tories against a
+Byron. Those who might at first protest against such conduct as unjust
+would soon adopt it on the plea of retaliation; and the general good of
+literature, for which the society was professedly instituted, would be
+forgotten in the stronger claims of political and religious partiality.
+
+Yet even this is not the worst. Should the institution ever acquire any
+influence, it will afford most pernicious facilities to every malignant
+coward who may desire to blast a reputation which he envies. It will
+furnish a secure ambuscade, behind which the Maroons of literature may
+take a certain and deadly aim. The editorial WE has often been fatal
+to rising genius; though all the world knows that it is only a form of
+speech, very often employed by a single needy blockhead. The academic WE
+would have a far greater and more ruinous influence. Numbers, while
+they increase the effect, would diminish the shame, of injustice.
+The advantages of an open and those of an anonymous attack would be
+combined; and the authority of avowal would be united to the security of
+concealment. The serpents in Virgil, after they had destroyed Laocoon,
+found an asylum from the vengeance of the enraged people behind the
+shield of the statue of Minerva. And, in the same manner, everything
+that is grovelling and venomous, everything that can hiss, and
+everything that can sting, would take sanctuary in the recesses of this
+new temple of wisdom.
+
+The French academy was, of all such associations, the most widely and
+the most justly celebrated. It was founded by the greatest of ministers:
+it was patronised by successive kings; it numbered in its lists most of
+the eminent French writers. Yet what benefit has literature derived from
+its labours? What is its history but an uninterrupted record of servile
+compliances--of paltry artifices--of deadly quarrels--of perfidious
+friendships? Whether governed by the Court, by the Sorbonne, or by
+the Philosophers, it was always equally powerful for evil, and equally
+impotent for good. I might speak of the attacks by which it attempted
+to depress the rising fame of Corneille; I might speak of the reluctance
+with which it gave its tardy confirmation to the applauses which the
+whole civilised world had bestowed on the genius of Voltaire. I might
+prove by overwhelming evidence that, to the latest period of its
+existence, even under the superintendence of the all-accomplished
+D'Alembert, it continued to be a scene of the fiercest animosities and
+the basest intrigues. I might cite Piron's epigrams, and Marmontel's
+memoirs, and Montesquieu's letters. But I hasten on to another topic.
+
+One of the modes by which our Society proposes to encourage merit is the
+distribution of prizes. The munificence of the king has enabled it
+to offer an annual premium of a hundred guineas for the best essay in
+prose, and another of fifty guineas for the best poem, which may be
+transmitted to it. This is very laughable. In the first place the
+judges may err. Those imperfections of human intellect to which, as the
+articles of the Church tell us, even general councils are subject, may
+possibly be found even in the Royal Society of Literature. The French
+academy, as I have already said, was the most illustrious assembly of
+the kind, and numbered among its associates men much more distinguished
+than ever will assemble at Mr Hatchard's to rummage the box of the
+English Society. Yet this famous body gave a poetical prize, for which
+Voltaire was a candidate, to a fellow who wrote some verses about THE
+FROZEN AND THE BURNING POLE.
+
+Yet, granting that the prizes were always awarded to the best
+composition, that composition, I say without hesitation, will always be
+bad. A prize poem is like a prize sheep. The object of the competitor
+for the agricultural premium is to produce an animal fit, not to be
+eaten, but to be weighed. Accordingly he pampers his victim into morbid
+and unnatural fatness; and, when it is in such a state that it would
+be sent away in disgust from any table, he offers it to the judges. The
+object of the poetical candidate, in like manner, is to produce, not a
+good poem, but a poem of that exact degree of frigidity or bombast which
+may appear to his censors to be correct or sublime. Compositions thus
+constructed will always be worthless. The few excellences which they may
+contain will have an exotic aspect and flavour. In general, prize sheep
+are good for nothing but to make tallow candles, and prize poems are
+good for nothing but to light them.
+
+The first subject proposed by the Society to the poets of England was
+Dartmoor. I thought that they intended a covert sarcasm at their own
+projects. Their institution was a literary Dartmoor scheme;--a plan
+for forcing into cultivation the waste lands of intellect,--for raising
+poetical produce, by means of bounties, from soil too meagre to have
+yielded any returns in the natural course of things. The plan for the
+cultivation of Dartmoor has, I hear, been abandoned. I hope that this
+may be an omen of the fate of the Society.
+
+In truth, this seems by no means improbable. They have been offering for
+several years the rewards which the king placed at their disposal, and
+have not, as far as I can learn, been able to find in their box one
+composition which they have deemed worthy of publication. At least no
+publication has taken place. The associates may perhaps be astonished
+at this. But I will attempt to explain it, after the manner of ancient
+times, by means of an apologue.
+
+About four hundred years after the Deluge, King Gomer Chephoraod reigned
+in 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 many
+poets and orators. A book was then a sermons undertaking. Neither paper
+nor any similar material had been invented. Authors were therefore under
+the necessity of inscribing their compositions on massive bricks. Some
+of these Babylonian records are still preserved in European museums; but
+the language in which they are written has never been deciphered. Gomer
+Chephoraod was so popular that the clay of all the plains round the
+Euphrates 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 of
+Belus. During this procession it was lawful for any Babylonian to offer
+any petition or suggestion to his sovereign. As the chariot passed
+before a vintner's shop, a large company, apparently half-drunk, sallied
+forth into the street, and one of them thus addressed the king:
+
+"Gomer Chephoraod, live for ever! It appears to thy servants that of all
+the productions of the earth good wine is the best, and bad wine is the
+worst. Good wine makes the heart cheerful, the eyes bright, the speech
+ready. Bad wine confuses the head, disorders the stomach, makes us
+quarrelsome at night, and sick the next morning. Now therefore let my
+lord 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 a
+decree, and seal it with his royal signet: and let it be proclaimed that
+the king will give ten she-asses, and ten slaves, and ten changes of
+raiment, every year, unto the man who shall make ten measures of the
+best wine. And whosoever wishes for the she-asses, and the slaves, and
+the raiment, let him send the ten measures of wine to thy servants, and
+we will drink thereof and judge. So shall there be much good wine in
+Assyria."
+
+The project pleased Gomer Chephoraod. "Be it so," said he. The people
+shouted. The petitioners prostrated themselves in gratitude. The same
+night heralds were despatched to bear the intelligence to the remotest
+districts of Assyria.
+
+After a due interval the wines began to come in; and the examiners
+assembled to adjudge the prize. The first vessel was unsealed. Its
+odour was such that the judges, without tasting it, pronounced unanimous
+condemnation. The next was opened: it had a villainous taste of clay.
+The third was sour and vapid. They proceeded from one cask of execrable
+liquor to another, till at length, in absolute nausea, they gave up the
+investigation.
+
+The next morning they all assembled at the gate of the king, with pale
+faces and aching heads. They owned that they could not recommend any
+competitor as worthy of the rewards. They swore that the wine was little
+better than poison, and entreated permission to resign the office of
+deciding 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 of
+the Gods at the toleration shown to a sect of impious heretics who ate
+pigeons broiled, "whereas," said he, "our religion commands us to eat
+them roasted. Now therefore, O King," continued this respectable divine,
+"give command to thy men of war, and let them smite the disobedient
+people with the sword, them, and their wives, and their children, and
+let their houses, and their flocks, and their herds, be given to thy
+servants the priests. Then shall the land yield its increase, and
+the fruits of the earth shall be no more blasted by the vengeance of
+Heaven."
+
+"Nay," said the king, "the ground lies under no general curse from
+Heaven. The season has been singularly good. The wine which thou didst
+thyself drink at the banquet a few nights ago, O venerable Merolchazzar,
+was of this year's vintage. Dost thou not remember how thou didst praise
+it? It was the same night that thou wast inspired by Belus and didst
+reel to and fro, and discourse sacred mysteries. These things are too
+hard for me. I comprehend them not. The only wine which is bad is that
+which is sent to my judges. Who can expound this to us?"
+
+The king scratched his head. Upon which all the courtiers scratched
+their heads.
+
+He then ordered proclamation to be made that a purple robe and a golden
+chain should be given to the man who could solve this difficulty.
+
+An old philosopher, who had been observed to smile rather disdainfully
+when 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 is
+true that much good wine has been made this year. But who would send it
+in for thy rewards? Thou knowest Ascobaruch who hath the great vineyards
+in the north, and Cohahiroth who sendeth wine every year from the south
+over the Persian Golf. Their wines are so delicious that ten measures
+thereof are sold for an hundred talents of silver. Thinkest thou that
+they will exchange them for thy slaves and thine asses? What would thy
+prize profit any who have vineyards in rich soils?"
+
+"Who then," said one of the judges, "are the wretches who sent us this
+poison?"
+
+"Blame them not," said the sage, "seeing that you have been the authors
+of the evil. They are men whose lands are poor, and have never yielded
+them any returns equal to the prizes which the king proposed. Wherefore,
+knowing that the lords of the fruitful vineyards would not enter into
+competition with them they planted vines, some on rocks, and some in
+light sandy soil, and some in deep clay. Hence their wines are bad.
+For no culture or reward will make barren land bear good vines. Know
+therefore, assuredly, that your prizes have increased the quantity of
+bad but not of good wine."
+
+There was a long silence. At length the king spoke. "Give him the purple
+robe and the chain of gold. Throw the wines into the Euphrates; and
+proclaim 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 after
+sophists and pretty women! And I must pay for all! I must sup on thyme
+and onions, while you are swallowing thrushes and hares! I must drink
+water, that you may play the cottabus (This game consisted in projecting
+wine out of cups; it was a diversion extremely fashionable at Athenian
+entertainments.) with Chian wine! I must wander about as ragged as
+Pauson (Pauson was an Athenian painter, whose name was synonymous with
+beggary. See Aristophanes; Plutus, 602. From his poverty, I am inclined
+to suppose that he painted historical pictures.), that you may be
+as fine as Alcibiades! I must lie on bare boards, with a stone (See
+Aristophanes; Plutus, 542.) for my pillow, and a rotten mat for my
+coverlid, by the light of a wretched winking lamp, while you are
+marching in state, with as many torches as one sees at the feast of
+Ceres, to thunder with your hatchet (See Theocritus; Idyll ii. 128.)
+at the doors of half the Ionian ladies in Peiraeus. (This was the most
+disreputable part of Athens. See Aristophanes: Pax, 165.)
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. Why, thou unreasonable old man! Thou most shameless of
+fathers!--
+
+CALLIDEMUS. Ungrateful wretch; dare you talk so? Are you not afraid of
+the thunders of Jupiter?
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. Jupiter thunder! nonsense! Anaxagoras says, that thunder is
+only 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 talk
+rationally. Do you know that I am your father? What quibble can you make
+upon that?
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. Do I know that you are my father? Let us take the question
+to pieces, as Melesigenes would say. First, then, we must inquire what
+is knowledge? Secondly, what is a father? Now, knowledge, as Socrates
+said the other day to Theaetetus (See Plato's Theaetetus.)--
+
+CALLIDEMUS. Socrates! what! the ragged flat-nosed old dotard, who walks
+about all day barefoot, and filches cloaks, and dissects gnats, and
+shoes (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 his
+fleas, he is kinder to them than to himself. But listen to me, boy; if
+you 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 supported
+on nothing? During all the last war, I made not an obol from my
+farm; the Peloponnesian locusts came almost as regularly as the
+Pleiades;--corn burnt;--olives stripped;--fruit trees cut down;--wells
+stopped up;--and, just when peace came, and I hoped that all would turn
+out well, you must begin to spend as if you had all the mines of Thasus
+at command.
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. Now, by Neptune, who delights in horses--
+
+CALLIDEMUS. If Neptune delights in horses, he does not resemble me. You
+must ride at the Panathenaea on a horse fit for the great king: four
+acres of my best vines went for that folly. You must retrench, or you
+will have nothing to eat. Does not Anaxagoras mention, among his other
+discoveries, 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 you
+are squeezing through the crowd, on a winter's day, to warm yourself
+at the fire of the baths;--or when you are fighting with beggars and
+beggars' dogs for the scraps of a sacrifice;--or when you are glad
+to earn three wretched obols (The stipend of an Athenian juryman.) by
+listening 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 beg
+everybody who has asked a supper-party to be so kind as to feed you
+and laugh at you; or you will turn sycophant; you will get a bunch
+of grapes, or a pair of shoes, now and then, by frightening some rich
+coward with a mock prosecution. Well! that is a task for which your
+studies 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? Do
+you intend to join Orestes (A celebrated highwayman of Attica. See
+Aristophanes; Aves, 711; and in several other passages.), and rob on
+the highway? Take care; beware of the eleven (The police officers of
+Athens.); beware of the hemlock. It may be very pleasant to live at
+other people's expense; but not very pleasant, I should think, to hear
+the pestle give its last bang against the mortar, when the cold dose is
+ready. Pah!--
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. Hemlock? Orestes! folly!--I aim at nobler objects. What say
+you to politics,--the general assembly?
+
+CALLIDEMUS. You an orator!--oh no! no! Cleon was worth twenty such fools
+as you. You have succeeded, I grant, to his impudence, for which, if
+there be justice in Tartarus, he is now soaking up to the eyes in his
+own tanpickle. But the Paphlagonian had parts.
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. And you mean to imply--
+
+CALLIDEMUS. Not I. You are a Pericles in embryo, doubtless. Well: and
+when are you to make your first speech? O Pallas!
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. I thought of speaking, the other day, on the Sicilian
+expedition; but Nicias (See Thucydides, vi. 8.) got up before me.
+
+CALLIDEMUS. Nicias, poor honest man, might just as well have sate
+still; 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 not
+too presumptuous a request, indulge me with a specimen.
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. Well; suppose the agora crowded;--an important subject under
+discussion;--an ambassador from Argos, or from the great king;--the
+tributes from the islands;--an impeachment;--in short, anything you
+please. The crier makes proclamation.--"Any citizen above fifty years
+old may speak--any citizen not disqualified may speak." Then I rise:--a
+great murmur of curiosity while I am mounting the stand.
+
+CALLIDEMUS. Of curiosity! yes, and of something else too. You will
+infallibly be dragged down by main force, like poor Glaucon (See
+Xenophon 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 extent
+of its power, the wisdom of its laws, the elegance of its
+decorations;--when I consider by what names and by what exploits its
+annals are adorned; when I think on Harmodius and Aristogiton, on
+Themistocles and Miltiades, on Cimon and Pericles;--when I contemplate
+our pre-eminence in arts and letters;--when I observe so many
+flourishing states and islands compelled to own the dominion, and
+purchase the protection of the City of the Violet Crown" (A favourite
+epithet of Athens. See Aristophanes; Acharn. 637.)--
+
+CALLIDEMUS. I shall choke with rage. Oh, all ye gods and goddesses, what
+sacrilege, what perjury have I ever committed, that I should be singled
+out 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 to
+give way to such fits of passion in the streets. If Aristophanes were to
+see you, you would infallibly be in a comedy next spring.
+
+CALLIDEMUS. You have more reason to fear Aristophanes than any fool
+living. Oh, that he could but hear you trying to imitate the slang of
+Straton (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 representations
+before 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 an
+universal genius; sophist,--orator,--poet. To what a three-headed
+monster have I given birth! a perfect Cerberus of intellect! And pray
+what 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 and
+Polynices,--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 poet
+to retouch a play of Aeschylus, and bring it forward as his own
+composition. And, as there is an absurd prejudice, among the vulgar,
+in favour of his extravagant pieces, I have selected one of them, and
+altered it.
+
+CALLIDEMUS. Which of them?
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. Oh! that mass of barbarous absurdities, the Prometheus. But
+I have framed it anew upon the model of Euripides. By Bacchus, I shall
+make Sophocles and Agathon look about them. You would not know the play
+again.
+
+CALLIDEMUS. By Jupiter, I believe not.
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. I have omitted the whole of the absurd dialogue between
+Vulcan and Strength, at the beginning.
+
+CALLIDEMUS. That may be, on the whole, an improvement. The play will
+then open with that grand soliloquy of Prometheus, when he is chained to
+the rock.
+
+"Oh! ye eternal heavens! ye rushing winds! Ye fountains of great
+streams! Ye ocean waves, That in ten thousand sparkling dimples wreathe
+Your 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 that
+idea. Why do you laugh?
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. Do you seriously suppose that one who has studied the plays
+of that great man, Euripides, would ever begin a tragedy in such a
+ranting 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 of
+Euripides, call me a fool.
+
+CALLIDEMUS. That is a liberty which I shall venture to take, whether it
+be 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 like
+Euripides.
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. You are sneering. Really, father, you do not understand
+these things. You had not those advantages in your youth--
+
+CALLIDEMUS. Which I have been fool enough to let you have. No; in my
+early days, lying had not been dignified into a science, nor politics
+degraded into a trade. I wrestled, and read Homer's battles, instead of
+dressing my hair, and reciting lectures in verse out of Euripides. But
+I have some notion of what a play should be; I have seen Phrynichus, and
+lived with Aeschylus. I saw the representation of the Persians.
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. A wretched play; it may amuse the fools who row the
+triremes; but it is utterly unworthy to be read by any man of taste.
+
+CALLIDEMUS. If you had seen it acted;--the whole theatre frantic with
+joy, stamping, shouting, laughing, crying. There was Cynaegeirus, the
+brother of Aeschylus, who lost both his arms at Marathon, beating the
+stumps against his sides with rapture. When the crowd remarked him--But
+where are you going?
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. To sup with Alcibiades; he sails with the expedition for
+Sicily in a few days; this is his farewell entertainment.
+
+CALLIDEMUS. So much the better; I should say, so much the worse. That
+cursed Sicilian expedition! And you were one of the young fools (See
+Thucydides, vi. 13.) who stood clapping and shouting while he was
+gulling the rabble, and who drowned poor Nicias's voice with your
+uproar. Look to it; a day of reckoning will come. As to Alcibiades
+himself--
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. What can you say against him? His enemies themselves
+acknowledge his merit.
+
+CALLIDEMUS. They acknowledge that he is clever, and handsome, and
+that he was crowned at the Olympic games. And what other merits do his
+friends 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 the
+Gorgias of Plato.)
+
+CALLIDEMUS. A sacrilegious, impious, unfeeling ruffian!
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. Hippomachus.
+
+CALLIDEMUS. A fool, who can talk of nothing but his travels through
+Persia and Egypt. Go, go. The gods forbid that I should detain you from
+such 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 is
+probably the last--for some of us at least.
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. At all events, it will be long before you taste such wine
+again, Alcibiades.
+
+CALLICLES. Nay, there is excellent wine in Sicily. When I was there with
+Eurymedon's squadron, I had many a long carouse. You never saw finer
+grapes than those of Aetna.
+
+HIPPOMACHUS. The Greeks do not understand the art of making wine. Your
+Persian is the man. So rich, so fragrant, so sparkling! I will tell you
+what 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 the
+mummies. 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 a
+year we conquer Sicily. In another, we humble Carthage. (See Thucydides,
+vi. 90.) I will bring back such robes, such necklaces, elephants' teeth
+by 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 of
+Teribazus, near Susa. I wish that I had measured him.
+
+ALCIBIADES. I wish that he had trod upon you. Come, come, Chariclea, we
+shall 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 to
+meditate, 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 in
+revelry, I should have made Sophocles tremble. But now I never go beyond
+a little song like this, and never invoke any Muse but Chariclea. But
+come, Speusippus, sing. You are a professed poet. Let us have some of
+your verses.
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. My verses! How can you talk so? I a professed poet!
+
+ALCIBIADES. Oh, content you, sweet Speusippus. We all know your designs
+upon 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 banquet
+refuses--
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. In the name of Bacchus--
+
+ALCIBIADES. I am absolute. Sing.
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. Well, then, I will sing you a chorus, which, I think, is a
+tolerable 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 forget
+his Phaedras and Sthenoboeas? No if I ever suffer any lines of that
+woman-hater, or his imitators, to be sung in my presence, may I sell
+herbs (The mother of Euripides was a herb-woman. This was a favourite
+topic of Aristophanes.) like his mother, and wear rags like his
+Telephus. (The hero of one of the lost plays of Euripides, who appears
+to have been brought upon the stage in the garb of a beggar. See
+Aristophanes; 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 every
+spring at the feast of Venus, near Miletus. I used to sing it in my own
+country when I was a child; and--ah, Alcibiades!
+
+ALCIBIADES. Dear Chariclea, you shall sing something else. This
+distresses you.
+
+CHARICLEA. No hand me the lyre:--no matter. You will hear the song to
+disadvantage. But if it were sung as I have heard it sung:--if this
+were a beautiful morning in spring, and if we were standing on a woody
+promontory, with the sea, and the white sails, and the blue Cyclades
+beneath us,--and the portico of a temple peeping through the trees on
+a huge peak above our heads,--and thousands of people, with myrtles
+in their hands, thronging up the winding path, their gay dresses and
+garlands disappearing and emerging by turns as they passed round the
+angles of the rock,--then perhaps--
+
+
+ALCIBIADES. Now, by Venus herself, sweet lady, where you are we shall
+lack 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 would
+chide you, but that I am sad myself. More wine there. I wish to all the
+gods that I had fairly sailed from Athens.
+
+CHARICLEA. And from me, Alcibiades?
+
+ALCIBIADES. Yes, from you, dear lady. The days which immediately precede
+separation 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 my
+attention; 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 with
+others 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;--men
+trampling,--shields clashing,--spears breaking,--and the poean roaring
+louder than all.
+
+CHARICLEA. But what if you are killed?
+
+CALLICLES. What indeed? You must ask Speusippus that question. He is a
+philosopher.
+
+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 Asia
+and Egypt. The transmigration of the soul and the vegetable diet are
+derived 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 be
+transfused into one of the doves who carry (Homer's Odyssey, xii.
+63.) ambrosia to the gods or verses to the mistresses of poets. Do you
+remember Anacreon's lines? How should you like such an office?
+
+CHARICLEA. If I were to be your dove, Alcibiades, and you would treat me
+as Anacreon treated his, and let me nestle in your breast and drink
+from your cup, I would submit even to carry your love-letters to other
+ladies.
+
+CALLICLES. What, in the name of Jupiter, is the use of all these
+speculations about death? Socrates once (See the close of Plato's
+Gorgias.) lectured me upon it the best part of a day. I have hated the
+sight of him ever since. Such things may suit an old sophist when he is
+fasting; but in the midst of wine and music--
+
+HIPPOMACHUS. I differ from you. The enlightened Egyptians bring
+skeletons into their banquets, in order to remind their guests to make
+the 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 something
+which you never can know, why not be contented with the long stories
+about the other world which are told us when we are initiated at the
+Eleusinian mysteries? (The scene which follows is founded upon history.
+Thucydides tells us, in his sixth book, that about this time Alcibiades
+was suspected of having assisted at a mock celebration of these famous
+mysteries. It was the opinion of the vulgar among the Athenians that
+extraordinary privileges were granted in the other world to alt who had
+been 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 made
+so hateful a law! Speusippus, does not your friend Euripides (The right
+of 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 in
+the 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 the
+purification 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 as
+little 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 is
+bitterly 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--I
+mean--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 of
+being a philosopher.
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. Nay, I was only--
+
+ALCIBIADES. A pupil of Gorgias and Melesigenes afraid of Tartarus! In
+what region of the infernal world do you expect your domicile to be
+fixed? 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 fruit
+and wine like Tantalus? Poor fellow? I think I see your face as you
+are springing up to the branches and missing your aim. Oh Bacchus! Oh
+Mercury!
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. Alcibiades!
+
+ALCIBIADES. Or perhaps you will be food for a vulture, like the huge
+fellow who was rude to Latona.
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. Alcibiades!
+
+ALCIBIADES. Never fear. Minos will not be so cruel. Your eloquence
+will triumph over all accusations. The Furies will skulk away like
+disappointed sycophants. Only address the judges of hell in the
+speech which you were prevented from speaking last assembly. "When I
+consider"--is not that the beginning of it? Come, man, do not be
+angry. Why do you pace up and down with such long steps? You are not in
+Tartarus yet. You seem to think that you are already stalking like poor
+Achilles,
+
+"With stride Majestic through the plain of Asphodel." (See Homer's
+Odyssey, xi. 538.)
+
+SPEUSIPPUS. How can you talk so, when you know that I believe all that
+foolery as little as you do?
+
+ALCIBIADES. Then march. You shall be the crier. Callicles, you shall
+carry the torch. Why do you stare? (The crier and torchbearer were
+important 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 all
+be true that is told of you, you have as little reason to think the gods
+vindictive as any man breathing. If you be not belied, a certain golden
+goblet which I have seen at your house was once in the temple of Juno at
+Corcyra. And men say that there was a priestess at Tarentum--
+
+CALLICLES. A fig for the gods! I was thinking about the Archons. You
+will have an accusation laid against you to-morrow. It is not very
+pleasant to be tried before the king. (The name of king was given in
+the Athenian democracy to the magistrate who exercised those spiritual
+functions which in the monarchical times had belonged to the sovereign.
+His court took cognisance of offences against the religion of the
+state.)
+
+ALCIBIADES. Never fear: there is not a sycophant in Attica who would
+dare to breathe a word against me, for the golden plane-tree of the
+great king. (See Herodotus, viii. 28.)
+
+HIPPOMACHUS. That plane-tree--
+
+ALCIBIADES. Never mind the plane-tree. Come, Callicles, you were not
+so timid when you plundered the merchantman off Cape Malea. Take up the
+torch and move. Hippomachus, tell one of the slaves to bring a sow. (A
+sow 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 celebrate
+the 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 to
+precedency. He was the earliest and the greatest writer of his country.
+He was the first man who fully descried and exhibited the powers of
+his native dialect. The Latin tongue, which, under the most favourable
+circumstances, and in the hands of the greatest masters, had still been
+poor, feeble, and singularly unpoetical, and which had, in the age of
+Dante, been debased by the admixture of innumerable barbarous words
+and idioms, was still cultivated with superstitious veneration, and
+received, in the last stage of corruption, more honours than it had
+deserved in the period of its life and vigour. It was the language of
+the cabinet, of the university, of the church. It was employed by all
+who aspired to distinction in the higher walks of poetry. In compassion
+to the ignorance of his mistress, a cavalier might now and then proclaim
+his passion in Tuscan or Provenc'al rhymes. The vulgar might occasionally
+be edified by a pious allegory in the popular jargon. But no writer
+had conceived it possible that the dialect of peasants and market-women
+should possess sufficient energy and precision for a majestic and
+durable work. Dante adventured first. He detected the rich treasures of
+thought and diction which still lay latent in their ore. He refined them
+into purity. He burnished them into splendour. He fitted them for every
+purpose of use and magnificence. And he has thus acquired the glory, not
+only of producing the finest narrative poem of modern times but also of
+creating a language, distinguished by unrivalled melody, and peculiarly
+capable of furnishing to lofty and passionate thoughts their appropriate
+garb 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 go
+beyond the stories at the end of their grammar,--The Pastor Fido,--or an
+act of Artaserse. They could as soon read a Babylonian brick as a canto
+of Dante. Hence it is a general opinion, among those who know little or
+nothing of the subject, that this admirable language is adapted only to
+the effeminate cant of sonnetteers, musicians, and connoisseurs.
+
+The fact is that Dante and Petrarch have been the Oromasdes and
+Arimanes of Italian literature. I wish not to detract from the merits
+of Petrarch. No one can doubt that his poems exhibit, amidst some
+imbecility and more affectation, much elegance, ingenuity, and
+tenderness. They present us with a mixture which can only be compared to
+the 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 of
+his writings, which I shall take another opportunity to examine, but of
+the effect which they produced on the literature of Italy. The florid
+and luxurious charms of his style enticed the poets and the public from
+the contemplation of nobler and sterner models. In truth, though a
+rude state of society is that in which great original works are
+most frequently produced, it is also that in which they are worst
+appreciated. This may appear paradoxical; but it is proved by
+experience, and is consistent with reason. To be without any received
+canons of taste is good for the few who can create, but bad for the many
+who can only imitate and judge. Great and active minds cannot remain at
+rest. In a cultivated age they are too often contented to move on in
+the beaten path. But where no path exists they will make one. Thus
+the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Divine Comedy, appeared in dark and half
+barbarous times: and thus of the few original works which have been
+produced in more polished ages we owe a large proportion to men in low
+stations and of uninformed minds. I will instance, in our own language,
+the Pilgrim's Progress and Robinson Crusoe. Of all the prose works of
+fiction which we possess, these are, I will not say the best, but the
+most peculiar, the most unprecedented, the most inimitable. Had Bunyan
+and Defoe been educated gentlemen, they would probably have published
+translations and imitations of French romances "by a person of quality."
+I am not sure that we should have had Lear if Shakspeare had been able
+to read Sophocles.
+
+But these circumstances, while they foster genius, are unfavourable to
+the science of criticism. Men judge by comparison. They are unable to
+estimate the grandeur of an object when there is no standard by which
+they can measure it. One of the French philosophers (I beg Gerard's
+pardon), who accompanied Napoleon to Egypt, tells us that, when he first
+visited the great Pyramid, he was surprised to see it so diminutive. It
+stood alone in a boundless plain. There was nothing near it from which
+he could calculate its magnitude. But when the camp was pitched beside
+it, and the tents appeared like diminutive specks around its base, he
+then perceived the immensity of this mightiest work of man. In the same
+manner, it is not till a crowd of petty writers has sprung up that the
+merit of the great masterspirits of literature is understood.
+
+We have indeed ample proof that Dante was highly admired in his own and
+the following age. I wish that we had equal proof that he was admired
+for his excellencies. But it is a remarkable corroboration of what has
+been said, that this great man seems to have been utterly unable to
+appreciate himself. In his treatise "De Vulgari Eloquentia" he talks
+with satisfaction of what he has done for Italian literature, of the
+purity and correctness of his style. "Cependant," says a favourite
+writer of mine,(Sismondi, Literature du Midi de l'Europe.) "il n'est
+ni pur, ni correct, mais il est createur." Considering the difficulties
+with which Dante had to struggle, we may perhaps be more inclined than
+the French critic to allow him this praise. Still it is by no means his
+highest or most peculiar title to applause. It is scarcely necessary to
+say that those qualities which escaped the notice of the poet himself
+were not likely to attract the attention of the commentators. The fact
+is, that, while the public homage was paid to some absurdities with
+which his works may be justly charged, and to many more which were
+falsely imputed to them,--while lecturers were paid to expound and
+eulogise his physics, his metaphysics, his theology, all bad of their
+kind--while annotators laboured to detect allegorical meanings of which
+the author never dreamed, the great powers of his imagination, and the
+incomparable 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 for
+a 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 for
+four centuries.
+
+From the time of Petrarch to the appearance of Alfieri's tragedies, we
+may trace in almost every page of Italian literature the influence of
+those celebrated sonnets which, from the nature both of their beauties
+and their faults, were peculiarly unfit to be models for general
+imitation. Almost all the poets of that period, however different in
+the degree and quality of their talents, are characterised by great
+exaggeration, and as a necessary consequence, great coldness of
+sentiment; by a passion for frivolous and tawdry ornament; and, above
+all, by an extreme feebleness and diffuseness of style. Tasso, Marino,
+Guarini, Metastasio, and a crowd of writers of inferior merit and
+celebrity, were spell-bound in the enchanted gardens of a gaudy and
+meretricious Alcina, who concealed debility and deformity beneath the
+deceitful semblance of loveliness and health. Ariosto, the great Ariosto
+himself, like his own Ruggiero, stooped for a time to linger amidst
+the magic flowers and fountains, and to caress the gay and painted
+sorceress. But to him, as to his own Ruggiero, had been given the
+omnipotent ring and the winged courser, which bore him from the paradise
+of deception to the regions of light and nature.
+
+The evil of which I speak was not confined to the graver poets. It
+infected satire, comedy, burlesque. No person can admire more than I do
+the great masterpieces of wit and humour which Italy has produced. Still
+I cannot but discern and lament a great deficiency, which is common to
+them all. I find in them abundance of ingenuity, of droll naivete, of
+profound and just reflection, of happy expression. Manners, characters,
+opinions, are treated with "a most learned spirit of human dealing." But
+something is still wanting. We read, and we admire, and we yawn. We look
+in vain for the bacchanalian fury which inspired the comedy of Athens,
+for the fierce and withering scorn which animates the invectives of
+Juvenal and Dryden, or even for the compact and pointed diction which
+adds zest to the verses of Pope and Boileau. There is no enthusiasm,
+no energy, no condensation, nothing which springs from strong
+feeling, nothing which tends to excite it. Many fine thoughts and fine
+expressions reward the toil of reading. Still it is a toil. The Secchia
+Rapita, in some points the best poem of its kind, is painfully diffuse
+and languid. The Animali Parlanti of Casti is perfectly intolerable. I
+admire 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 contain
+something that deserves to be remembered; but it is at least six times
+as long as it ought to be. And the garrulous feebleness of the style is
+a still greater fault than the length of the work.
+
+It may be thought that I have gone too far in attributing these evils to
+the 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 of
+the style of Dante. This is not more proved by the decline of Italian
+poetry than by its resuscitation. After the lapse of four hundred and
+fifty years, there appeared a man capable of appreciating and imitating
+the father of Tuscan literature--Vittorio Alfieri. Like the prince in
+the nursery tale, he sought and found the sleeping beauty within the
+recesses which had so long concealed her from mankind. The portal
+was indeed rusted by time;--the dust of ages had accumulated on the
+hangings;--the furniture was of antique fashion;--and the gorgeous
+colour of the embroidery had faded. But the living charms which were
+well worth all the rest remained in the bloom of eternal youth, and well
+rewarded the bold adventurer who roused them from their long slumber. In
+every line of the Philip and the Saul, the greatest poems, I think, of
+the eighteenth century, we may trace the influence of that mighty
+genius which has immortalised the ill-starred love of Francesca, and
+the paternal agonies of Ugolino. Alfieri bequeathed the sovereignty of
+Italian literature to the author of the Aristodemus--a man of genius
+scarcely inferior to his own, and a still more devoted disciple of the
+great Florentine. It must be acknowledged that this eminent writer has
+sometimes pushed too far his idolatry of Dante. To borrow a sprightly
+illustration 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 his
+master; and his works may justly inspire us with a hope that the Italian
+language will long flourish under a new literary dynasty, or rather
+under the legitimate line, which has at length been restored to a throne
+long occupied by specious usurpers.
+
+The man to whom the literature of his country owes its origin and
+its revival was born in times singularly adapted to call forth his
+extraordinary powers. Religious zeal, chivalrous love and honour,
+democratic liberty, are the three most powerful principles that have
+ever influenced the character of large masses of men. Each of them
+singly has often excited the greatest enthusiasm, and produced the
+most important changes. In the time of Dante all the three, often in
+amalgamation, generally in conflict, agitated the public mind. The
+preceding generation had witnessed the wrongs and the revenge of the
+brave, the accomplished, the unfortunate Emperor Frederic the Second,--a
+poet in an age of schoolmen,--a philosopher in an age of monks,--a
+statesman in an age of crusaders. During the whole life of the poet,
+Italy was experiencing the consequences of the memorable struggle which
+he had maintained against the Church. The finest works of imagination
+have always been produced in times of political convulsion, as the
+richest vineyards and the sweetest flowers always grow on the soil which
+has been fertilised by the fiery deluge of a volcano. To look no
+further than the literary history of our own country, can we doubt
+that Shakspeare was in a great measure produced by the Reformation,
+and Wordsworth by the French Revolution? Poets often avoid political
+transactions; they often affect to despise them. But, whether they
+perceive it or not, they must be influenced by them. As long as their
+minds have any point of contact with those of their fellow-men, the
+electric impulse, at whatever distance it may originate, will be
+circuitously communicated to them.
+
+This will be the case even in large societies, where the division of
+labour enables many speculative men to observe the face of nature, or
+to analyse their own minds, at a distance from the seat of political
+transactions. In the little republic of which Dante was a member the
+state of things was very different. These small communities are most
+unmercifully abused by most of our modern professors of the science
+of government. In such states, they tell us, factions are always
+most violent: where both parties are cooped up within a narrow space,
+political difference necessarily produces personal malignity. Every man
+must be a soldier; every moment may produce a war. No citizen can lie
+down secure that he shall not be roused by the alarum-bell, to repel
+or avenge an injury. In such petty quarrels Greece squandered the blood
+which might have purchased for her the permanent empire of the world,
+and Italy wasted the energy and the abilities which would have enabled
+her to defend her independence against the Pontiffs and the Caesars.
+
+All this is true: yet there is still a compensation. Mankind has not
+derived so much benefit from the empire of Rome as from the city of
+Athens, 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 that
+activity of mind which in some states of society it is desirable to
+produce at any expense. Universal soldiership may be an evil; but where
+every man is a soldier there will be no standing army. And is it no evil
+that 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 a
+hospital when wounded, and rot on a dunghill when old? Such, over more
+than two-thirds of Europe, is the fate of soldiers. It was something
+that the citizen of Milan or Florence fought, not merely in the vague
+and rhetorical sense in which the words are often used, but in sober
+truth, 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 aged
+father looked down from the battlements on his exploits; that his
+friends and his rivals were the witnesses of his glory. If he fell, he
+was consigned to no venal or heedless guardians. The same day saw him
+conveyed within the walls which he had defended. His wounds were dressed
+by his mother; his confession was whispered to the friendly priest
+who had heard and absolved the follies of his youth; his last sigh was
+breathed upon the lips of the lady of his love. Surely there is no sword
+like that which is beaten out of a ploughshare. Surely this state of
+things was not unmixedly bad; its evils were alleviated by enthusiasm
+and by tenderness; and it will at least be acknowledged that it was well
+fitted to nurse poetical genius in an imaginative and observant mind.
+
+Nor did the religious spirit of the age tend less to this result than
+its political circumstances. Fanaticism is an evil, but it is not the
+greatest of evils. It is good that a people should be roused by any
+means from a state of utter torpor;--that their minds should be diverted
+from objects merely sensual, to meditations, however erroneous, on the
+mysteries of the moral and intellectual world; and from interests which
+are immediately selfish to those which relate to the past, the future,
+and the remote. These effects have sometimes been produced by the worst
+superstitions that ever existed; but the Catholic religion, even in
+the time of its utmost extravagance and atrocity, never wholly lost the
+spirit of the Great Teacher, whose precepts form the noblest code, as
+His conduct furnished the purest example, of moral excellence. It is of
+all religions the most poetical. The ancient superstitions furnished
+the fancy with beautiful images, but took no hold on the heart. The
+doctrines of the Reformed Churches have most powerfully influenced
+the feelings and the conduct of men, but have not presented them with
+visions of sensible beauty and grandeur. The Roman Catholic Church has
+united to the awful doctrines of the one that Mr Coleridge calls the
+"fair humanities" of the other. It has enriched sculpture and painting
+with the loveliest and most majestic forms. To the Phidian Jupiter it
+can oppose the Moses of Michael Angelo; and to the voluptuous beauty
+of the Queen of Cyprus, the serene and pensive loveliness of the Virgin
+Mother. The legends of its martyrs and its saints may vie in ingenuity
+and interest with the mythological fables of Greece; its ceremonies and
+processions were the delight of the vulgar; the huge fabric of secular
+power with which it was connected attracted the admiration of the
+statesman. At the same time, it never lost sight of the most solemn
+and tremendous doctrines of Christianity,--the incarnate God,--the
+judgment,--the retribution,--the eternity of happiness or torment. Thus,
+while, like the ancient religions, it received incalculable support from
+policy and ceremony, it never wholly became, like those religions, a
+merely political and ceremonial institution.
+
+The beginning of the thirteenth century was, as Machiavelli has
+remarked, the era of a great revival of this extraordinary system. The
+policy of Innocent,--the growth of the Inquisition and the mendicant
+orders,--the wars against the Albigenses, the Pagans of the East, and
+the unfortunate princes of the house of Swabia, agitated Italy during
+the two following generations. In this point Dante was completely
+under the influence of his age. He was a man of a turbid and melancholy
+spirit. In early youth he had entertained a strong and unfortunate
+passion, which, long after the death of her whom he loved, continued to
+haunt him. Dissipation, ambition, misfortunes had not effaced it. He was
+not only a sincere, but a passionate, believer. The crimes and abuses
+of the Church of Rome were indeed loathsome to him; but to all its
+doctrines and all its rites he adhered with enthusiastic fondness and
+veneration; and, at length, driven from his native country, reduced to
+a situation the most painful to a man of his disposition, condemned to
+learn 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 wounded
+spirit took refuge in visionary devotion. Beatrice, the unforgotten
+object of his early tenderness, was invested by his imagination with
+glorious and mysterious attributes; she was enthroned among the highest
+of the celestial hierarchy: Almighty Wisdom had assigned to her the care
+of the sinful and unhappy wanderer who had loved her with such a perfect
+love. ("L'amico mio, e non della ventura." Inferno, canto ii.) By a
+confusion, like that which often takes place in dreams, he has sometimes
+lost sight of her human nature, and even of her personal existence, and
+seems to consider her as one of the attributes of the Deity.
+
+But those religious hopes which had released the mind of the sublime
+enthusiast from the terrors of death had not rendered his speculations
+on human life more cheerful. This is an inconsistency which may often be
+observed in men of a similar temperament. He hoped for happiness beyond
+the grave: but he felt none on earth. It is from this cause, more than
+from any other, that his description of Heaven is so far inferior to the
+Hell or the Purgatory. With the passions and miseries of the suffering
+spirits he feels a strong sympathy. But among the beatified he appears
+as one who has nothing in common with them,--as one who is incapable of
+comprehending, not only the degree, but the nature of their enjoyment.
+We think that we see him standing amidst those smiling and radiant
+spirits with that scowl of unutterable misery on his brow, and that curl
+of bitter disdain on his lips, which all his portraits have preserved,
+and which might furnish Chantrey with hints for the head of his
+projected Satan.
+
+There is no poet whose intellectual and moral character are so closely
+connected. The great source, as it appears to me, of the power of the
+Divine Comedy is the strong belief with which the story seems to be
+told. In this respect, the only books which approach to its excellence
+are Gulliver's Travels and Robinson Crusoe. The solemnity of his
+asseverations, the consistency and minuteness of his details, the
+earnestness with which he labours to make the reader understand the
+exact shape and size of everything that he describes, give an air of
+reality to his wildest fictions. I should only weaken this statement
+by quoting instances of a feeling which pervades the whole work, and to
+which it owes much of its fascination. This is the real justification
+of the many passages in his poem which bad critics have condemned as
+grotesque. I am concerned to see that Mr Cary, to whom Dante owes more
+than ever poet owed to translator, has sanctioned an accusation utterly
+unworthy of his abilities. "His solicitude," says that gentleman, "to
+define all his images in such a manner as to bring them within the
+circle of our vision, and to subject them to the power of the pencil,
+renders him little better than grotesque, where Milton has since taught
+us to expect sublimity." It is true that Dante has never shrunk from
+embodying his conceptions in determinate words, that he has even given
+measures and numbers, where Milton would have left his images to float
+undefined in a gorgeous haze of language. Both were right. Milton
+did not profess to have been in heaven or hell. He might therefore
+reasonably confine himself to magnificent generalities. Far different
+was the office of the lonely traveller, who had wandered through the
+nations of the dead. Had he described the abode of the rejected spirits
+in language resembling the splendid lines of the English Poet,--had he
+told 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 been
+that strong impression of reality, which, in accordance with his plan,
+it should have been his great object to produce? It was absolutely
+necessary for him to delineate accurately "all monstrous, all prodigious
+things,"--to utter what might to others appear "unutterable,"--to relate
+with the air of truth what fables had never feigned,--to embody what
+fear had never conceived. And I will frankly confess that the vague
+sublimity of Milton affects me less than these reviled details of Dante.
+We read Milton; and we know that we are reading a great poet. When
+we read Dante, the poet vanishes. We are listening to the man who has
+returned from "the valley of the dolorous abyss;" ("Lavalle d'abisso
+doloroso."--Inferno, cantoiv.)--we seem to see the dilated eye of
+horror, to hear the shuddering accents with which he tells his fearful
+tale. Considered in this light, the narratives are exactly what they
+should be,--definite in themselves, but suggesting to the mind ideas
+of awful and indefinite wonder. They are made up of the images of the
+earth:--they are told in the language of the earth.--Yet the whole
+effect is, beyond expression, wild and unearthly. The fact is, that
+supernatural beings, as long as they are considered merely with
+reference to their own nature, excite our feelings very feebly. It is
+when the great gulf which separates them from us is passed, when we
+suspect some strange and undefinable relation between the laws of the
+visible and the invisible world, that they rouse, perhaps, the strongest
+emotions of which our nature is capable. How many children, and how many
+men, are afraid of ghosts, who are not afraid of God! And this, because,
+though they entertain a much stronger conviction of the existence of a
+Deity than of the reality of apparitions, they have no apprehension that
+he will manifest himself to them in any sensible manner. While this
+is the case, to describe superhuman beings in the language, and
+to attribute to them the actions, of humanity may be grotesque,
+unphilosophical, inconsistent; but it will be the only mode of working
+upon the feelings of men, and, therefore, the only mode suited for
+poetry. Shakspeare understood this well, as he understood everything
+that belonged to his art. Who does not sympathise with the rapture of
+Ariel, flying after sunset on the wings of the bat, or sucking in the
+cups of flowers with the bee? Who does not shudder at the caldron of
+Macbeth? Where is the philosopher who is not moved when he thinks of
+the strange connection between the infernal spirits and "the sow's
+blood that hath eaten her nine farrow?" But this difficult task of
+representing supernatural beings to our minds, in a manner which shall
+be neither unintelligible to our intellects nor wholly inconsistent with
+our ideas of their nature, has never been so well performed as by
+Dante. I will refer to three instances, which are, perhaps, the most
+striking:--the description of the transformations of the serpents and
+the robbers, in the twenty-fifth canto of the Inferno,--the passage
+concerning Nimrod, in the thirty-first canto of the same part,--and the
+magnificent procession in the twenty-ninth canto of the Purgatorio.
+
+The metaphors and comparisons of Dante harmonise admirably with that
+air of strong reality of which I have spoken. They have a very peculiar
+character. He is perhaps the only poet whose writings would become much
+less intelligible if all illustrations of this sort were expunged. His
+similes are frequently rather those of a traveller than of a poet. He
+employs them not to display his ingenuity by fanciful analogies,--not
+to delight the reader by affording him a distant and passing glimpse of
+beautiful images remote from the path in which he is proceeding, but to
+give an exact idea of the objects which he is describing, by comparing
+them with others generally known. The boiling pitch in Malebolge was
+like that in the Venetian arsenal:--the mound on which he travelled
+along the banks of Phlegethon was like that between Ghent and Bruges,
+but not so large:--the cavities where the Simoniacal prelates are
+confined resemble the Fonts in the Church of John at Florence.
+Every reader of Dante will recall many other illustrations of this
+description, which add to the appearance of sincerity and earnestness
+from which the narrative derives so much of its interest.
+
+Many of his comparisons, again, are intended to give an exact idea of
+his feelings under particular circumstances. The delicate shades of
+grief, of fear, of anger, are rarely discriminated with sufficient
+accuracy in the language of the most refined nations. A rude dialect
+never abounds in nice distinctions of this kind. Dante therefore employs
+the most accurate and infinitely the most poetical mode of marking
+the precise state of his mind. Every person who has experienced the
+bewildering effect of sudden bad tidings,--the stupefaction,--the vague
+doubt of the truth of our own perceptions which they produce,--will
+understand the following simile:--"I was as he is who dreameth his own
+harm,--who, dreaming, wishes that it may be all a dream, so that he
+desires that which is as though it were not." This is only one out of a
+hundred equally striking and expressive similitudes. The comparisons of
+Homer and Milton are magnificent digressions. It scarcely injures their
+effect 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. I
+cannot dismiss this part of the subject without advising every person
+who can muster sufficient Italian to read the simile of the sheep, in
+the third canto of the Purgatorio. I think it the most perfect passage
+of 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 how
+little impression the forms of the external world appear to have made on
+the mind of Dante. His temper and his situation had led him to fix his
+observation almost exclusively on human nature. The exquisite opening of
+the 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 with
+which I am acquainted. Dante did not put this strong personification at
+the beginning of his description. The imagination of the reader is so
+well prepared for it by the previous lines, that it appears perfectly
+natural and pathetic. Placed as Gray has placed it, neither preceded
+nor followed by anything that harmonises with it, it becomes a frigid
+conceit. Woe to the unskilful rider who ventures on the horses of
+Achilles!)
+
+He leaves to others the earth, the ocean, and the sky. His business is
+with man. To other writers, evening may be the season of dews and stars
+and radiant clouds. To Dante it is the hour of fond recollection and
+passionate devotion,--the hour which melts the heart of the mariner and
+kindles the love of the pilgrim,--the hour when the toll of the bell
+seems to mourn for another day which is gone and will return no more.
+
+The feeling of the present age has taken a direction diametrically
+opposite. The magnificence of the physical world, and its influence
+upon the human mind, have been the favourite themes of our most eminent
+poets. The herd of bluestocking ladies and sonneteering gentlemen seem
+to consider a strong sensibility to the "splendour of the grass, the
+glory of the flower," as an ingredient absolutely indispensable in the
+formation of a poetical mind. They treat with contempt all writers who
+are unfortunately
+
+     nec ponere lucum
+     Artifices, nec rus saturum laudare.
+
+The orthodox poetical creed is more Catholic. The noblest earthly object
+of the contemplation of man is man himself. The universe, and all its
+fair and glorious forms, are indeed included in the wide empire of the
+imagination; but she has placed her home and her sanctuary amidst the
+inexhaustible 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 it
+derive its power? From the clouds? From the ocean? From the mountains?
+Or from love strong as death, and jealousy cruel as the grave? What is
+it 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 mighty
+and wayward mind laid bare before us to the inmost recesses? It may
+perhaps be doubted whether the lakes and the hills are better fitted for
+the education of a poet than the dusky streets of a huge capital. Indeed
+who is not tired to death with pure description of scenery? Is it not
+the fact, that external objects never strongly excite our feelings but
+when they are contemplated in reference to man, as illustrating his
+destiny, or as influencing his character? The most beautiful object in
+the world, it will be allowed, is a beautiful woman. But who that can
+analyse his feelings is not sensible that she owes her fascination
+less to grace of outline and delicacy of colour, than to a thousand
+associations which, often unperceived by ourselves, connect those
+qualities with the source of our existence, with the nourishment of our
+infancy, with the passions of our youth, with the hopes of our age--with
+elegance, with vivacity, with tenderness, with the strongest of natural
+instincts, with the dearest of social ties?
+
+To those who think thus, the insensibility of the Florentine poet to
+the beauties of nature will not appear an unpardonable deficiency. On
+mankind no writer, with the exception of Shakspeare, has looked with
+a more penetrating eye. I have said that his poetical character had
+derived a tinge from his peculiar temper. It is on the sterner and
+darker passions that he delights to dwell. All love excepting the
+half-mystic passion which he still felt for his buried Beatrice, had
+palled on the fierce and restless exile. The sad story of Rimini is
+almost a single exception. I know not whether it has been remarked,
+that, in one point, misanthropy seems to have affected his mind, as
+it did that of Swift. Nauseous and revolting images seem to have had a
+fascination for his mind; and he repeatedly places before his readers,
+with all the energy of his incomparable style, the most loathsome
+objects 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 successfully
+interwoven with modern poetry. One class of writers have introduced the
+fabulous deities merely as allegorical representatives of love, wine,
+or wisdom. This necessarily renders their works tame and cold. We may
+sometimes admire their ingenuity; but with what interest can we read
+of beings of whose personal existence the writer does not suffer us
+to entertain, for a moment, even a conventional belief? Even Spenser's
+allegory is scarcely tolerable, till we contrive to forget that Una
+signifies innocence, and consider her merely as an oppressed lady under
+the protection of a generous knight.
+
+Those writers who have, more judiciously, attempted to preserve the
+personality of the classical divinities have failed from a different
+cause. They have been imitators, and imitators at a disadvantage.
+Euripides and Catullus believed in Bacchus and Cybele as little as we
+do. But they lived among men who did. Their imaginations, if not their
+opinions, took the colour of the age. Hence the glorious inspiration of
+the Bacchae and the Atys. Our minds are formed by circumstances: and I
+do not believe that it would be in the power of the greatest modern poet
+to lash himself up to a degree of enthusiasm adequate to the production
+of 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 has
+introduced the ancient fictions with effect. His Minos, his Charon,
+his Pluto, are absolutely terrific. Nothing can be more beautiful or
+original than the use which he has made of the River of Lethe. He has
+never assigned to his mythological characters any functions inconsistent
+with the creed of the Catholic Church. He has related nothing concerning
+them which a good Christian of that age might not believe possible. On
+this account there is nothing in these passages that appears puerile or
+pedantic. On the contrary, this singular use of classical names suggests
+to the mind a vague and awful idea of some mysterious revelation,
+anterior to all recorded history, of which the dispersed fragments might
+have been retained amidst the impostures and superstitions of later
+religions. Indeed the mythology of the Divine Comedy is of the elder and
+more colossal mould. It breathes the spirit of Homer and Aeschylus, not
+of Ovid and Claudian.
+
+This is the more extraordinary, since Dante seems to have been utterly
+ignorant of the Greek language; and his favourite Latin models could
+only have served to mislead him. Indeed, it is impossible not to remark
+his admiration of writers far inferior to himself; and, in particular,
+his idolatry of Virgil, who, elegant and splendid as he is, has no
+pretensions to the depth and originality of mind which characterise his
+Tuscan worshipper, In truth it may be laid down as an almost universal
+rule that good poets are bad critics. Their minds are under the tyranny
+of ten thousand associations imperceptible to others. The worst writer
+may easily happen to touch a spring which is connected in their minds
+with a long succession of beautiful images. They are like the gigantic
+slaves of Aladdin, gifted with matchless power, but bound by spells
+so mighty that when a child whom they could have crushed touched a
+talisman, of whose secret he was ignorant, they immediately became his
+vassals. It has more than once happened to me to see minds, graceful
+and majestic as the Titania of Shakspeare, bewitched by the charms of an
+ass's head, bestowing on it the fondest caresses, and crowning it
+with the sweetest flowers. I need only mention the poems attributed to
+Ossian. They are utterly worthless, except as an edifying instance of
+the 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 have
+no archetype:--they are without form and void; and darkness is upon the
+face of them. Yet how many men of genius have panegyrised and imitated
+them!
+
+The style of Dante is, if not his highest, perhaps his most peculiar
+excellence. I know nothing with which it can be compared. The noblest
+models of Greek composition must yield to it. His words are the fewest
+and the best which it is possible to use. The first expression in which
+he clothes his thoughts is always so energetic and comprehensive that
+amplification would only injure the effect. There is probably no writer
+in any language who has presented so many strong pictures to the mind.
+Yet there is probably no writer equally concise. This perfection of
+style is the principal merit of the Paradiso, which, as I have already
+remarked, is by no means equal in other respects to the two preceding
+parts of the poem. The force and felicity of the diction, however,
+irresistibly attract the reader through the theological lectures and the
+sketches of ecclesiastical biography, with which this division of the
+work too much abounds. It may seem almost absurd to quote particular
+specimens of an excellence which is diffused over all his hundred
+cantos. I will, however, instance the third canto of the Inferno, and
+the sixth of the Purgatorio, as passages incomparable in their kind. The
+merit of the latter is, perhaps, rather oratorical than poetical; nor
+can I recollect anything in the great Athenian speeches which equals it
+in force of invective and bitterness of sarcasm. I have heard the most
+eloquent statesman of the age remark that, next to Demosthenes, Dante
+is the writer who ought to be most attentively studied by every man who
+desires to attain oratorical eminence.
+
+But it is time to close this feeble and rambling critique. I cannot
+refrain, however, from saying a few words upon the translations of the
+Divine Comedy. Boyd's is as tedious and languid as the original is rapid
+and forcible. The strange measure which he has chosen, and, for aught I
+know, invented, is most unfit for such a work. Translations ought never
+to be written in a verse which requires much command of rhyme. The
+stanza becomes a bed of Procrustes; and the thoughts of the unfortunate
+author are alternately racked and curtailed to fit their new receptacle.
+The abrupt and yet consecutive style of Dante suffers more than that
+of any other poet by a version diffuse in style, and divided into
+paragraphs, for they deserve no other name, of equal length.
+
+Nothing can be said in favour of Hayley's attempt, but that it is better
+than Boyd's. His mind was a tolerable specimen of filigree work,--rather
+elegant, and very feeble. All that can be said for his best works is
+that they are neat. All that can be said against his worst is that they
+are stupid. He might have translated Metastasio tolerably. But he was
+utterly 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's
+translation. It is a work which well deserves a separate discussion, and
+on which, if this article were not already too long, I could dwell
+with great pleasure. At present I will only say that there is no other
+version in the world, as far as I know, so faithful, yet that there is
+no other version which so fully proves that the translator is himself a
+man of poetical genius. Those who are ignorant of the Italian language
+should read it to become acquainted with the Divine Comedy. Those
+who are most intimate with Italian literature should read it for its
+original merits: and I believe that they will find it difficult to
+determine whether the author deserves most praise for his intimacy with
+the 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 its
+extent and its duration are taken into the account, can be considered as
+equal to that of Petrarch. Four centuries and a half have elapsed since
+his death. Yet still the inhabitants of every nation throughout the
+western world are as familiar with his character and his adventures as
+with the most illustrious names, and the most recent anecdotes, of their
+own literary history. This is indeed a rare distinction. His detractors
+must acknowledge that it could not have been acquired by a poet
+destitute of merit. His admirers will scarcely maintain that the
+unassisted merit of Petrarch could have raised him to that eminence
+which has not yet been attained by Shakspeare, Milton, or Dante,--that
+eminence, of which perhaps no modern writer, excepting himself and
+Cervantes, has long retained possession,--an European reputation.
+
+It is not difficult to discover some of the causes to which this great
+man has owed a celebrity, which I cannot but think disproportioned to
+his real claims on the admiration of mankind. In the first place, he
+is 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 to
+listen to it from indicating their disgust and fatigue. The childless
+uncle, the powerful patron can scarcely extort this compliance. We leave
+the inside of the mail in a storm, and mount the box, rather than
+hear the history of our companion. The chaplain bites his lips in the
+presence of the archbishop. The midshipman yawns at the table of
+the First Lord. Yet, from whatever cause, this practice, the pest of
+conversation, gives to writing a zest which nothing else can impart.
+Rousseau made the boldest experiment of this kind; and it fully
+succeeded. In our own time Lord Byron, by a series of attempts of the
+same nature, made himself the object of general interest and admiration.
+Wordsworth wrote with egotism more intense, but less obvious; and he has
+been rewarded with a sect of worshippers, comparatively small in number,
+but far more enthusiastic in their devotion. It is needless to multiply
+instances. Even now all the walks of literature are infested with
+mendicants for fame, who attempt to excite our interest by exhibiting
+all the distortions of their intellects, and stripping the covering from
+all the putrid sores of their feelings. Nor are there wanting many who
+push their imitation of the beggars whom they resemble a step further,
+and who find it easier to extort a pittance from the spectator, by
+simulating deformity and debility from which they are exempt, than by
+such honest labour as their health and strength enable them to perform.
+In the meantime the credulous public pities and pampers a nuisance which
+requires only the treadmill and the whip. This art, often successful
+when employed by dunces, gives irresistible fascination to works which
+possess intrinsic merit. We are always desirous to know something of
+the character and situation of those whose writings we have perused
+with pleasure. The passages in which Milton has alluded to his own
+circumstances are perhaps read more frequently, and with more interest,
+than any other lines in his poems. It is amusing to observe with what
+labour critics have attempted to glean from the poems of Homer, some
+hints as to his situation and feelings. According to one hypothesis,
+he intended to describe himself under the name of Demodocus. Others
+maintain 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 the
+expression of his personal feelings.
+
+In the second place, Petrarch was not only an egotist, but an amatory
+egotist. The hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows, which he described,
+were derived from the passion which of all passions exerts the widest
+influence, and which of all passions borrows most from the imagination.
+He had also another immense advantage. He was the first eminent amatory
+poet who appeared after the great convulsion which had changed, not only
+the political, but the moral, state of the world. The Greeks, who, in
+their public institutions and their literary tastes, were diametrically
+opposed to the oriental nations, bore a considerable resemblance to
+those nations in their domestic habits. Like them, they despised the
+intellects and immured the persons of their women; and it was among the
+least of the frightful evils to which this pernicious system gave
+birth, that all the accomplishments of mind, and all the fascinations of
+manner, which, in a highly cultivated age, will generally be necessary
+to attach men to their female associates, were monopolised by the
+Phrynes and the Lamais. The indispensable ingredients of honourable and
+chivalrous love were nowhere to be found united. The matrons and their
+daughters confined in the harem,--insipid, uneducated, ignorant of all
+but the mechanical arts, scarcely seen till they were married,--could
+rarely excite interest; afterwards their brilliant rivals, half Graces,
+half Harpies, elegant and informed, but fickle and rapacious, could
+never inspire respect.
+
+The state of society in Rome was, in this point, far happier; and
+the Latin literature partook of the superiority. The Roman poets have
+decidedly surpassed those of Greece in the delineation of the passion of
+love. There is no subject which they have treated with so much success.
+Ovid, Catullus, Tibullus, Horace, and Propertius, in spite of all their
+faults, must be allowed to rank high in this department of the art. To
+these I would add my favourite Plautus; who, though he took his plots
+from Greece, found, I suspect, the originals of his enchanting female
+characters at Rome.
+
+Still many evils remained: and, in the decline of the great empire, all
+that 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 on
+their subjects, the Romans sunk into the lowest state of effeminacy
+and debasement. Falsehood, cowardice, sloth, conscious and unrepining
+degradation, formed the national character. Such a character is totally
+incompatible with the stronger passions. Love, in particular, which, in
+the modern sense of the word, implies protection and devotion on the one
+side, confidence on the other, respect and fidelity on both, could not
+exist among the sluggish and heartless slaves who cringed around the
+thrones of Honorius and Augustulus. At this period the great renovation
+commenced. The warriors of the north, destitute as they were of
+knowledge and humanity, brought with them, from their forests and
+marshes, those qualities without which humanity is a weakness and
+knowledge a curse,--energy--independence--the dread of shame--the
+contempt of danger. It would be most interesting to examine the manner
+in which the admixture of the savage conquerors and the effeminate
+slaves, after many generations of darkness and agitation, produced the
+modern European character;--to trace back, from the first conflict to
+the final amalgamation, the operation of that mysterious alchemy which,
+from hostile and worthless elements, has extracted the pure gold of
+human nature--to analyse the mass, and to determine the proportion in
+which the ingredients are mingled. But I will confine myself to the
+subject to which I have more particularly referred. The nature of the
+passion of love had undergone a complete change. It still retained,
+indeed, the fanciful and voluptuous character which it had possessed
+among the southern nations of antiquity. But it was tinged with the
+superstitious veneration with which the northern warriors had been
+accustomed to regard women. Devotion and war had imparted to it their
+most solemn and animating feelings. It was sanctified by the blessings
+of the Church, and decorated with the wreaths of the tournament. Venus,
+as in the ancient fable, was again rising above the dark and tempestuous
+waves which had so long covered her beauty. But she rose not now, as of
+old, in exposed and luxurious loveliness. She still wore the cestus of
+her ancient witchcraft; but the diadem of Juno was on her brow, and
+the aegis of Pallas in her hand. Love might, in fact, be called a new
+passion; and it is not astonishing that the first poet of eminence
+who wholly devoted his genius to this theme should have excited an
+extraordinary sensation. He may be compared to an adventurer who
+accidentally lands in a rich and unknown island; and who, though he may
+only set up an ill-shaped cross upon the shore, acquires possession of
+its treasures, and gives it his name. The claim of Petrarch was indeed
+somewhat like that of Amerigo Vespucci to the continent which should
+have derived its appellation from Columbus. The Provencal poets were
+unquestionably the masters of the Florentine. But they wrote in an age
+which could not appreciate their merits; and their imitator lived at the
+very period when composition in the vernacular language began to attract
+general attention. Petrarch was in literature what a Valentine is
+in love. The public preferred him, not because his merits were of a
+transcendent order, but because he was the first person whom they saw
+after they awoke from their long sleep.
+
+Nor did Petrarch gain less by comparison with his immediate successors
+than with those who had preceded him. Till more than a century after his
+death Italy produced no poet who could be compared to him. This decay of
+genius is doubtless to be ascribed, in a great measure, to the influence
+which his own works had exercised upon the literature of his country.
+Yet it has conduced much to his fame. Nothing is more favourable to
+the reputation of a writer than to be succeeded by a race inferior
+to himself; and it is an advantage, from obvious causes, much more
+frequently enjoyed by those who corrupt the national taste than by those
+who improve it.
+
+Another cause has co-operated with those which I have mentioned to
+spread the renown of Petrarch. I mean the interest which is inspired by
+the events of his life--an interest which must have been strongly felt
+by his contemporaries, since, after an interval of five hundred years,
+no critic can be wholly exempt from its influence. Among the great men
+to whom we owe the resuscitation of science he deserves the foremost
+place; and his enthusiastic attachment to this great cause constitutes
+his most just and splendid title to the gratitude of posterity. He was
+the votary of literature. He loved it with a perfect love. He worshipped
+it with an almost fanatical devotion. He was the missionary, who
+proclaimed its discoveries to distant countries--the pilgrim, who
+travelled far and wide to collect its reliques--the hermit, who retired
+to seclusion to meditate on its beauties--the champion, who fought its
+battles--the conqueror, who, in more than a metaphorical sense, led
+barbarism and ignorance in triumph, and received in the Capitol the
+laurel which his magnificent victory had earned.
+
+Nothing can be conceived more noble or affecting than that ceremony. The
+superb palaces and porticoes, by which had rolled the ivory chariots
+of Marius and Caesar, had long mouldered into dust. The laurelled
+fasces--the golden eagles--the shouting legions--the captives and the
+pictured cities--were indeed wanting to his victorious procession. The
+sceptre had passed away from Rome. But she still retained the mightier
+influence of an intellectual empire, and was now to confer the prouder
+reward of an intellectual triumph. To the man who had extended the
+dominion of her ancient language--who had erected the trophies
+of philosophy and imagination in the haunts of ignorance and
+ferocity--whose captives were the hearts of admiring nations enchained
+by the influence of his song--whose spoils were the treasures of ancient
+genius rescued from obscurity and decay--the Eternal City offered the
+just and glorious tribute of her gratitude. Amidst the ruined monuments
+of ancient and the infant erections of modern art, he who had restored
+the broken link between the two ages of human civilisation was crowned
+with the wreath which he had deserved from the moderns who owed to him
+their refinement--from the ancients who owed to him their fame. Never
+was a coronation so august witnessed by Westminster or by Rheims.
+
+When we turn from this glorious spectacle to the private chamber of the
+poet,--when we contemplate the struggle of passion and virtue,--the
+eye dimmed, the cheek furrowed, by the tears of sinful and hopeless
+desire,--when we reflect on the whole history of his attachment, from
+the gay fantasy of his youth to the lingering despair of his age, pity
+and affection mingle with our admiration. Even after death had placed
+the last seal on his misery, we see him devoting to the cause of the
+human mind all the strength and energy which love and sorrow had spared.
+He lived the apostle of literature;--he fell its martyr:--he was found
+dead 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 unpleasant
+affectation. His zeal for literature communicated a tinge of pedantry
+to all his feelings and opinions. His love was the love of a
+sonnetteer:--his patriotism was the patriotism of an antiquarian. The
+interest with which we contemplate the works, and study the history, of
+those who, in former ages, have occupied our country, arises from
+the associations which connect them with the community in which are
+comprised all the objects of our affection and our hope. In the mind
+of Petrarch these feelings were reversed. He loved Italy, because it
+abounded with the monuments of the ancient masters of the world. His
+native city--the fair and glorious Florence--the modern Athens, then in
+all the bloom and strength of its youth, could not obtain, from the most
+distinguished of its citizens, any portion of that passionate homage
+which he paid to the decrepitude of Rome. These and many other
+blemishes, though they must in candour be acknowledged, can but in a
+very slight degree diminish the glory of his career. For my own part, I
+look upon it with so much fondness and pleasure that I feel reluctant
+to turn from it to the consideration of his works, which I by no means
+contemplate with equal admiration.
+
+Nevertheless, I think highly of the poetical powers of Petrarch. He did
+not possess, indeed, the art of strongly presenting sensible objects to
+the imagination;--and this is the more remarkable, because the talent of
+which I speak is that which peculiarly distinguishes the Italian poets.
+In the Divine Comedy it is displayed in its highest perfection. It
+characterises almost every celebrated poem in the language. Perhaps this
+is to be attributed to the circumstance, that painting and sculpture
+had attained a high degree of excellence in Italy before poetry had been
+extensively cultivated. Men were debarred from books, but accustomed
+from childhood to contemplate the admirable works of art, which, even in
+the thirteenth century, Italy began to produce. Hence their imaginations
+received so strong a bias that, even in their writings, a taste for
+graphic delineation is discernible. The progress of things in England
+has been in all respects different. The consequence is, that English
+historical pictures are poems on canvas; while Italian poems are
+pictures painted to the mind by means of words. Of this national
+characteristic 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 dead
+language, cannot fairly be received in evidence. But his Triumphs
+absolutely required the exercise of this talent, and exhibit no
+indications of it.
+
+Genius, however, he certainly possessed, and genius of a high order. His
+ardent, tender, and magnificent turn of thought, his brilliant fancy,
+his command of expression, at once forcible and elegant, must be
+acknowledged. Nature meant him for the prince of lyric writers. But by
+one fatal present she deprived her other gifts of half their value. He
+would have been a much greater poet had he been a less clever man. His
+ingenuity was the bane of his mind. He abandoned the noble and natural
+style, in which he might have excelled, for the conceits which he
+produced with a facility at once admirable and disgusting. His muse,
+like the Roman lady in Livy, was tempted by gaudy ornaments to betray
+the fastnesses of her strength, and, like her, was crushed beneath the
+glittering bribes which had seduced her.
+
+The paucity of his thoughts is very remarkable. It is impossible to look
+without amazement on a mind so fertile in combinations, yet so barren
+of 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 it
+reminds us of those arithmetical problems about permutations, which so
+much astonish the unlearned. The French cook, who boasted that he could
+make fifteen different dishes out of a nettle-top, was not a greater
+master of his art. The mind of Petrarch was a kaleidoscope. At every
+turn it presents us with new forms, always fantastic, occasionally
+beautiful; and we can scarcely believe that all these varieties have
+been produced by the same worthless fragments of glass. The sameness of
+his images is, indeed, in some degree, to be attributed to the sameness
+of his subject. It would be unreasonable to expect perpetual variety
+from so many hundred compositions, all of the same length, all in
+the same measure, and all addressed to the same insipid and heartless
+coquette. I cannot but suspect also that the perverted taste, which is
+the blemish of his amatory verses, was to be attributed to the influence
+of Laura, who, probably, like most critics of her sex, preferred a gaudy
+to a majestic style. Be this as it may, he no sooner changes his subject
+than he changes his manner. When he speaks of the wrongs and degradation
+of Italy, devastated by foreign invaders, and but feebly defended by
+her pusillanimous children, the effeminate lisp of the sonnetteer
+is exchanged for a cry, wild, and solemn, and piercing as that which
+proclaimed "Sleep no more" to the bloody house of Cawdor. "Italy seems
+not to feel her sufferings," exclaims her impassioned poet; "decrepit,
+sluggish, and languid, will she sleep forever? Will there be none to
+awake 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 Mahometan
+Babylon the vengeance of Europe and of Christ. His magnificent
+enumeration of the ancient exploits of the Greeks must always excite
+admiration, and cannot be perused without the deepest interest, at a
+time when the wise and good, bitterly disappointed in so many other
+countries, are looking with breathless anxiety towards the natal land of
+liberty,--the field of Marathon,--and the deadly pass where the Lion of
+Lacedaemon 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 an
+exquisitely poetical character from the delicate perception of the sex
+and the loveliness of his idol, which we may easily trace throughout the
+whole composition.
+
+I could dwell with pleasure on these and similar parts of the writings
+of Petrarch; but I must return to his amatory poetry: to that he
+entrusted his fame; and to that he has principally owed it.
+
+The prevailing defect of his best compositions on this subject is
+the universal brilliancy with which they are lighted up. The natural
+language of the passions is, indeed, often figurative and fantastic; and
+with none is this more the case than with that of love. Still there is
+a limit. The feelings should, indeed, have their ornamental garb; but,
+like an elegant woman, they should be neither muffled nor exposed. The
+drapery should be so arranged, as at once to answer the purposes
+of modest concealment and judicious display. The decorations should
+sometimes be employed to hide a defect, and sometimes to heighten a
+beauty; but never to conceal, much less to distort, the charms to which
+they are subsidiary. The love of Petrarch, on the contrary, arrays
+itself like a foppish savage, whose nose is bored with a golden ring,
+whose skin is painted with grotesque forms and dazzling colours, and
+whose ears are drawn down his shoulders by the weight of jewels. It is
+a rule, without any exception, in all kinds of composition, that the
+principal idea, the predominant feeling, should never be confounded with
+the accompanying decorations. It should generally be distinguished from
+them by greater simplicity of expression; as we recognise Napoleon in
+the pictures of his battles, amidst a crowd of embroidered coats and
+plumes, by his grey cloak and his hat without a feather. In the verses
+of Petrarch it is generally impossible to say what thought is meant
+to be prominent. All is equally elaborate. The chief wears the same
+gorgeous and degrading livery with his retinue, and obtains only his
+share of the indifferent stare which we bestow upon them in common.
+The poems have no strong lights and shades, no background, no
+foreground;--they are like the illuminated figures in an oriental
+manuscript,--plenty of rich tints and no perspective. Such are the
+faults of the most celebrated of these compositions. Of those which are
+universally acknowledged to be bad it is scarcely possible to speak with
+patience. Yet they have much in common with their splendid companions.
+They differ from them, as a Mayday procession of chimneysweepers differs
+from the Field of Cloth of Gold. They have the gaudiness but not the
+wealth. His muse belongs to that numerous class of females who have
+no objection to be dirty, while they can be tawdry. When his brilliant
+conceits are exhausted, he supplies their place with metaphysical
+quibbles, forced antitheses, bad puns, and execrable charades. In his
+fifth sonnet he may, I think, be said to have sounded the lowest chasm
+of the Bathos. Upon the whole, that piece may be safely pronounced to be
+the 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 the
+sonnets produce exactly the same effect on the mind of the reader. They
+relate to all the various moods of a lover, from joy to despair:--yet
+they 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 the
+passion and the ingenuity mixed in just proportions. There is not enough
+sentiment to dilute the condiments which are employed to season it. The
+repast which he sets before us resembles the Spanish entertainment in
+Dryden's "Mock Astrologer", at which the relish of all the dishes
+and sauces was overpowered by the common flavour of spice.
+Fish,--flesh,--fowl,--everything at table tasted of nothing but red
+pepper.
+
+The writings of Petrarch may indeed suffer undeservedly from one cause
+to which I must allude. His imitators have so much familiarised the ear
+of Italy and of Europe to the favourite topics of amorous flattery and
+lamentation, that we can scarcely think them original when we find them
+in the first author; and, even when our understandings have convinced us
+that they were new to him, they are still old to us. This has been the
+fate of many of the finest passages of the most eminent writers. It
+is melancholy to trace a noble thought from stage to stage of its
+profanation; to see it transferred from the first illustrious wearer to
+his lacqueys, turned, and turned again, and at last hung on a scarecrow.
+Petrarch has really suffered much from this cause. Yet that he should
+have so suffered is a sufficient proof that his excellences were not of
+the highest order. A line may be stolen; but the pervading spirit of a
+great poet is not to be surreptitiously obtained by a plagiarist. The
+continued imitation of twenty-five centuries has left Homer as it
+found him. If every simile and every turn of Dante had been copied ten
+thousand times, the Divine Comedy would have retained all its freshness.
+It was easy for the porter in Farquhar to pass for Beau Clincher, by
+borrowing his lace and his pulvilio. It would have been more difficult
+to enact Sir Harry Wildair.
+
+Before I quit this subject I must defend Petrarch from one accusation
+which is in the present day frequently brought against him. His sonnets
+are pronounced by a large sect of critics not to possess certain
+qualities which they maintain to be indispensable to sonnets, with as
+much confidence, and as much reason, as their prototypes of old insisted
+on the unities of the drama. I am an exoteric--utterly unable to explain
+the mysteries of this new poetical faith. I only know that it is a
+faith, which except a man do keep pure and undefiled, without doubt he
+shall be called a blockhead. I cannot, however, refrain from asking what
+is the particular virtue which belongs to fourteen as distinguished from
+all other numbers. Does it arise from its being a multiple of seven? Has
+this principle any reference to the sabbatical ordinance? Or is it
+to the order of rhymes that these singular properties are attached?
+Unhappily the sonnets of Shakspeare differ as much in this respect from
+those of Petrarch, as from a Spenserian or an octave stanza. Away with
+this unmeaning jargon! We have pulled down the old regime of criticism.
+I trust that we shall never tolerate the equally pedantic and irrational
+despotism, which some of the revolutionary leaders would erect upon its
+ruins. We have not dethroned Aristotle and Bossu for this.
+
+These sonnet-fanciers would do well to reflect that, though the style of
+Petrarch may not suit the standard of perfection which they have chosen,
+they lie under great obligations to these very poems,--that, but for
+Petrarch the measure, concerning which they legislate so judiciously,
+would probably never have attracted notice; and that to him they owe the
+pleasure of admiring, and the glory of composing, pieces, which seem
+to have been produced by Master Slender, with the assistance of his man
+Simple.
+
+I cannot conclude these remarks without making a few observations on the
+Latin writings of Petrarch. It appears that, both by himself and by his
+contemporaries, these were far more highly valued than his compositions
+in the vernacular language. Posterity, the supreme court of literary
+appeal, has not only reversed the judgment, but, according to its
+general practice, reversed it with costs, and condemned the unfortunate
+works to pay, not only for their own inferiority, but also for the
+injustice of those who had given them an unmerited preference. And
+it must be owned that, without making large allowances for the
+circumstances under which they were produced, we cannot pronounce a very
+favourable judgment. They must be considered as exotics, transplanted to
+a foreign climate, and reared in an unfavourable situation; and it would
+be unreasonable to expect from them the health and the vigour which
+we find in the indigenous plants around them, or which they might
+themselves have possessed in their native soil. He has but very
+imperfectly imitated the style of the Latin authors, and has not
+compensated for the deficiency by enriching the ancient language with
+the graces of modern poetry. The splendour and ingenuity, which we
+admire, even when we condemn it, in his Italian works, is almost totally
+wanting, and only illuminates with rare and occasional glimpses the
+dreary obscurity of the African. The eclogues have more animation; but
+they can only be called poems by courtesy. They have nothing in common
+with his writings in his native language, except the eternal pun about
+Laura and Daphne. None of these works would have placed him on a level
+with Vida or Buchanan. Yet, when we compare him with those who preceded
+him, when we consider that he went on the forlorn hope of literature,
+that he was the first who perceived, and the first who attempted to
+revive, the finer elegancies of the ancient language of the world, we
+shall perhaps think more highly of him than of those who could never
+have surpassed his beauties if they had not inherited them.
+
+He has aspired to emulate the philosophical eloquence of Cicero, as well
+as the poetical majesty of Virgil. His essay on the Remedies of Good
+and Evil Fortune is a singular work in a colloquial form, and a most
+scholastic style. It seems to be framed upon the model of the Tusculan
+Questions,--with what success those who have read it may easily
+determine. It consists of a series of dialogues: in each of these a
+person is introduced who has experienced some happy or some adverse
+event: he gravely states his case; and a reasoner, or rather Reason
+personified, confutes him; a task not very difficult, since the disciple
+defends his position only by pertinaciously repeating it, in almost
+the same words at the end of every argument of his antagonist. In this
+manner Petrarch solves an immense variety of cases. Indeed, I doubt
+whether it would be possible to name any pleasure or any calamity which
+does not find a place in this dissertation. He gives excellent advice to
+a man who is in expectation of discovering the philosopher's stone;--to
+another, who has formed a fine aviary;--to a third, who is delighted
+with the tricks of a favourite monkey. His lectures to the unfortunate
+are equally singular. He seems to imagine that a precedent in point is a
+sufficient consolation for every form of suffering. "Our town is taken,"
+says one complainant; "So was Troy," replies his comforter. "My wife has
+eloped," says another; "If it has happened to you once, it happened
+to Menelaus twice." One poor fellow is in great distress at having
+discovered that his wife's son is none of his. "It is hard," says
+he, "that I should have had the expense of bringing up one who is
+indifferent to me." "You are a man," returns his monitor, quoting the
+famous line of Terence; "and nothing that belongs to any other man
+ought to be indifferent to you." The physical calamities of life are not
+omitted; and there is in particular a disquisition on the advantages of
+having the itch, which, if not convincing, is certainly very amusing.
+
+The invectives on an unfortunate physician, or rather upon the medical
+science, have more spirit. Petrarch was thoroughly in earnest on this
+subject. And the bitterness of his feelings occasionally produces, in
+the midst of his classical and scholastic pedantry, a sentence worthy of
+the second Philippic. Swift himself might have envied the chapter on the
+causes of the paleness of physicians.
+
+Of his Latin works the Epistles are the most generally known and
+admired. As compositions they are certainly superior to his essays.
+But their excellence is only comparative. From so large a collection of
+letters, written by so eminent a man, during so varied and eventful
+a life, we should have expected a complete and spirited view of the
+literature, the manners, and the politics of the age. A traveller--a
+poet--a scholar--a lover--a courtier--a recluse--he might have
+perpetuated, in an imperishable record, the form and pressure of the age
+and body of the time. Those who read his correspondence, in the hope
+of finding such information as this, will be utterly disappointed. It
+contains nothing characteristic of the period or of the individual. It
+is a series, not of letters, but of themes; and, as it is not generally
+known, might be very safely employed at public schools as a magazine of
+commonplaces. Whether he write on politics to the Emperor and the
+Doge, or send advice and consolation to a private friend, every line is
+crowded with examples and quotations, and sounds big with Anaxagoras and
+Scipio. Such was the interest excited by the character of Petrarch, and
+such the admiration which was felt for his epistolary style, that it was
+with difficulty that his letters reached the place of their destination.
+The poet describes, with pretended regret and real complacency, the
+importunity of the curious, who often opened, and sometimes stole,
+these favourite compositions. It is a remarkable fact that, of all his
+epistles, the least affected are those which are addressed to the dead
+and the unborn. Nothing can be more absurd than his whim of composing
+grave letters of expostulation and commendation to Cicero and Seneca;
+yet these strange performances are written in a far more natural manner
+than his communications to his living correspondents. But of all his
+Latin works the preference must be given to the Epistle to Posterity;
+a simple, noble, and pathetic composition, most honourable both to his
+taste and his heart. If we can make allowance for some of the affected
+humility of an author, we shall perhaps think that no literary man has
+left a more pleasing memorial of himself.
+
+In conclusion, we may pronounce that the works of Petrarch were below
+both his genius and his celebrity; and that the circumstances under
+which he wrote were as adverse to the development of his powers as they
+were favourable to the extension of his fame.
+
+*****
+
+
+
+
+SOME ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT LAWSUIT BETWEEN THE PARISHES OF ST DENNIS AND
+ST GEORGE IN THE WATER. (April 1824.)
+
+
+PART I.
+
+The parish of St Dennis is one of the most pleasant parts of the county
+in which it is situated. It is fertile, well wooded, well watered, and
+of an excellent air. For many generations the manor had been holden in
+tail-male by a worshipful family, who have always taken precedence of
+their neighbours at the races and the sessions.
+
+In ancient times the affairs of this parish were administered by a
+Court-Baron, in which the freeholders were judges; and the rates were
+levied by select vestries of the inhabitant householders. But at length
+these good customs fell into disuse. The Lords of the Manor, indeed,
+still held courts for form's sake; but they or their stewards had the
+whole management of affairs. They demanded services, duties, and customs
+to which they had no just title. Nay, they would often bring actions
+against their neighbours for their own private advantage, and then send
+in the bill to the parish. No objection was made, during many years, to
+these proceedings, so that the rates became heavier and heavier: nor
+was any person exempted from these demands, except the footmen and
+gamekeepers of the squire and the rector of the parish. They indeed were
+never checked in any excess. They would come to an honest labourer's
+cottage, eat his pancakes, tuck his fowls into their pockets, and cane
+the poor man himself. If he went up to the great house to complain, it
+was hard to get the speech of Sir Lewis; and, indeed, his only chance of
+being righted was to coax the squire's pretty housekeeper, who could
+do what she pleased with her master. If he ventured to intrude upon
+the Lord of the Manor without this precaution, he gained nothing by his
+pains. 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 my
+family?" "Bless your honour!" says the poor fellow, "I am not one of
+your 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? Has
+a 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 set
+him in the stocks to dry."
+
+One of these precious Lords of the Manor enclosed a deer-park; and, in
+order to stock it, he seized all the pretty pet fawns that his tenants
+had 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 believe
+that all his oppressive exactions and long bills enraged the poor
+tenants so much as this cruel measure.
+
+Yet for a long time, in spite of all these inconveniences, St Dennis's
+was a very pleasant place. The people could not refrain from capering
+if they heard the sound of a fiddle. And, if they were inclined to be
+riotous, Sir Lewis had only to send for Punch, or the dancing dogs,
+and all was quiet again. But this could not last forever; they began
+to think more and more of their condition; and, at last, a club of
+foul-mouthed, good-for-nothing rascals was held at the sign of the
+Devil, 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 had
+not preached a tolerable sermon for a long time. The squire was still
+worse; so that, partly by truth and partly by falsehood, the club set
+the whole parish against their superiors. The boys scrawled caricatures
+of the clergyman upon the church-door, and shot at the landlord with
+pop-guns as he rode a-hunting. It was even whispered about that the Lord
+of the Manor had no right to his estate, and that, if he were compelled
+to produce the original title-deeds, it would be found that he only held
+the estate in trust for the inhabitants of the parish.
+
+In the meantime the squire was pressed more and more for money. The
+parish could pay no more. The rector refused to lend a farthing. The
+Jews were clamorous for their money; and the landlord had no other
+resource than to call together the inhabitants of the parish, and to
+request their assistance. They now attacked him furiously about their
+grievances, and insisted that he should relinquish his oppressive
+powers. They insisted that his footmen should be kept in order, that
+the parson should pay his share of the rates, that the children of the
+parish should be allowed to fish in the trout-stream, and to gather
+blackberries in the hedges. They at last went so far as to demand that
+he should acknowledge that he held his estate only in trust for them.
+His distress compelled him to submit. They, in return, agreed to set him
+free from his pecuniary difficulties, and to suffer him to inhabit the
+manor-house; and only annoyed him from time to time by singing impudent
+ballads under his window.
+
+The neighbouring gentlefolks did not look on these proceedings with much
+complacency. It is true that Sir Lewis and his ancestors had plagued
+them with law-suits, and affronted them at county meetings. Still they
+preferred the insolence of a gentleman to that of the rabble, and felt
+some uneasiness lest the example should infect their own tenants.
+
+A large party of them met at the house of Lord Caesar Germain. Lord
+Caesar was the proudest man in the county. His family was very ancient
+and illustrious, though not particularly opulent. He had invited most
+of his wealthy neighbours. There was Mrs Kitty North, the relict of poor
+Squire Peter, respecting whom the coroner's jury had found a verdict
+of accidental death, but whose fate had nevertheless excited strange
+whispers in the neighbourhood. There was Squire Don, the owner of the
+great 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 he
+had plenty of plate but no breeches. There was Squire Von Blunderbussen,
+who had succeeded to the estates of his uncle, old Colonel Frederic
+Von Blunderbussen, of the hussars. The colonel was a very singular old
+fellow; he used to learn a page of Chambaud's grammar, and to translate
+Telemaque, every morning, and he kept six French masters to teach him
+to parleyvoo. Nevertheless he was a shrewd clever man, and improved his
+estate with so much care, sometimes by honest and sometimes by dishonest
+means, that he left a very pretty property to his nephew.
+
+Lord Caesar poured out a glass of Tokay for Mrs Kitty. "Your health, my
+dear madam, I never saw you look more charming. Pray, what think you of
+these doings at St Dennis's?"
+
+"Fine doings, indeed!" interrupted Von Blunderbussen; "I wish that
+we had my old uncle alive, he would have had some of them up to the
+halberts. He knew how to usa cat-o'-nine-tails. If things go on in this
+way, a gentleman will not be able to horsewhip an impudent farmer, or to
+say a civil word to a milk-maid."
+
+"Indeed, it's very true, Sir," said Mrs Kitty; "their insolence is
+intolerable. Look at me, for instance:--a poor lone woman!--My dear
+Peter dead! I loved him:--so I did; and, when he died, I was so
+hysterical you cannot think. And now I cannot lean on the arm of a
+decent footman, or take a walk with a tall grenadier behind me, just to
+protect me from audacious vagabonds, but they must have their nauseous
+suspicions;--odious creatures!"
+
+"This must be stopped," replied Lord Caesar. "We ought to contribute to
+support my poor brother-in-law against these rascals. I will write to
+Squire Guelf on this subject by this night's post. His name is always at
+the head of our county subscriptions."
+
+If the people of St Dennis's had been angry before, they were well-nigh
+mad when they heard of this conversation. The whole parish ran to the
+manor-house. Sir Lewis's Swiss porter shut the door against them; but
+they broke in and knocked him on the head for his impudence. They then
+seized the Squire, hooted at him, pelted him, ducked him, and carried
+him to the watch-house. They turned the rector into the street, burnt
+his wig and band, and sold the church-plate by auction. They put up a
+painted Jezebel in the pulpit to preach. They scratched out the texts
+which were written round the church, and scribbled profane scraps of
+songs and plays in their place. They set the organ playing to pot-house
+tunes. Instead of being decently asked in church, they were married
+over a broomstick. But, of all their whims, the use of the new patent
+steel-traps was the most remarkable.
+
+This trap was constructed on a completely new principle. It consisted
+of a cleaver hung in a frame like a window; when any poor wretch got
+in, down it came with a tremendous din, and took off his head in a
+twinkling. They got the squire into one of these machines. In order to
+prevent any of his partisans from getting footing in the parish, they
+placed traps at every corner. It was impossible to walk through the
+highway at broad noon without tumbling into one or other of them. No
+man could go about his business in security. Yet so great was the hatred
+which the inhabitants entertained for the old family, that a few decent,
+honest people, who begged them to take down the steel-traps, and to put
+up humane man-traps in their room, were very roughly handled for their
+good nature.
+
+In the meantime the neighbouring gentry undertook a suit against the
+parish on the behalf of Sir Lewis's heir, and applied to Squire Guelf
+for his assistance.
+
+Everybody knows that Squire Guelf is more closely tied up than any
+gentleman in the shire. He could, therefore, lend them no help; but he
+referred them to the Vestry of the Parish of St George in the Water.
+These good people had long borne a grudge against their neighbours on
+the other side of the stream; and some mutual trespasses had lately
+occurred which increased their hostility.
+
+There was an honest Irishman, a great favourite among them, who used to
+entertain them with raree-shows, and to exhibit a magic lantern to the
+children on winter evenings. He had gone quite mad upon this subject.
+Sometimes he would call out in the middle of the street--"Take care
+of that corner, neighbours; for the love of Heaven, keep clear of that
+post, there is a patent steel-trap concealed thereabouts." Sometimes he
+would be disturbed by frightful dreams; then he would get up at dead of
+night, open his window and cry "fire," till the parish was roused,
+and the engines sent for. The pulpit of the Parish of St George seemed
+likely to fall; I believe that the only reason was that the parson had
+grown too fat and heavy; but nothing would persuade this honest man but
+that it was a scheme of the people at St Dennis's, and that they had
+sawed through the pillars in order to break the rector's neck. Once he
+went about with a knife in his pocket, and told all the persons whom he
+met that it had been sharpened by the knife-grinder of the next parish
+to cut their throats. These extravagancies had a great effect on the
+people; and the more so because they were espoused by Squire Guelf's
+steward, who was the most influential person in the parish. He was a
+very fair-spoken man, very attentive to the main chance, and the idol
+of the old women, because he never played at skittles or danced with the
+girls; and, indeed, never took any recreation but that of drinking on
+Saturday nights with his friend Harry, the Scotch pedlar. His supporters
+called him Sweet William; his enemies the Bottomless Pit.
+
+The people of St Dennis's, however, had their advocates. There was
+Frank, the richest farmer in the parish, whose great grandfather had
+been knocked on the head many years before, in a squabble between the
+parish and a former landlord. There was Dick, the merry-andrew, rather
+light-fingered and riotous, but a clever droll fellow. Above all, there
+was Charley, the publican, a jolly, fat, honest lad, a great favourite
+with the women, who, if he had not been rather too fond of ale and
+chuck-farthing, would have been the best fellow in the neighbourhood.
+
+"My boys," said Charley, "this is exceedingly well for Madam North;--not
+that I would speak uncivilly of her; she put up my picture in her best
+room, bless her for it! But, I say, this is very well for her, and for
+Lord Caesar, and Squire Don, and Colonel Von;--but what affair is it of
+yours or mine? It is not to be wondered at, that gentlemen should wish
+to keep poor people out of their own. But it is strange indeed that
+they should expect the poor themselves to combine against their own
+interests. If the folks at St Dennis's should attack us we have the law
+and our cudgels to protect us. But why, in the name of wonder, are we to
+attack 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 bully
+the vestry, did not we knock their heads together, and go to meeting to
+hear Jeremiah Ringletub preach? And did the Squire Don, or the great Sir
+Lewis, that lived at that time, or the Germains, say a word against
+us for it? Mind your own business, my lads: law is not to be had for
+nothing; 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 cried
+out most lustily, "Squire Guelf for ever! Sweet William for ever! No
+steel traps!" Squire Guelf took all the rascally footmen who had worn
+old Sir Lewis's livery into his service. They were fed in the kitchen on
+the very best of everything, though they had no settlement. Many people,
+and the paupers in particular, grumbled at these proceedings. The
+steward, however, devised a way to keep them quiet.
+
+There had lived in this parish for many years an old gentleman, named
+Sir Habeas Corpus. He was said by some to be of Saxon, by some of
+Norman, extraction. Some maintain that he was not born till after the
+time of Sir Charles, to whom we have before alluded. Others are of
+opinion that he was a legitimate son of old Lady Magna Charta, although
+he was long concealed and kept out of his birthright. Certain it is that
+he was a very benevolent person. Whenever any poor fellow was taken
+up on grounds which he thought insufficient, he used to attend on his
+behalf and bail him; and thus he had become so popular, that to take
+direct measures against him was out of the question.
+
+The steward, accordingly, brought a dozen physicians to examine Sir
+Habeas. 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 several
+months. Fortified with this authority, the parish officers put him
+to bed, closed his windows, and barred his doors. They paid him every
+attention, and from time to time issued bulletins of his health. The
+steward never spoke of him without declaring that he was the best
+gentleman in the world; but excellent care was taken that he should
+never stir out of doors.
+
+When this obstacle was removed, the Squire and the steward kept the
+parish in excellent order; flogged this man, sent that man to the
+stocks, and pushed forward the law-suit with a noble disregard of
+expense. They were, however, wanting either in skill or in fortune. And
+everything went against them after their antagonists had begun to employ
+Solicitor Nap.
+
+Who does not know the name of Solicitor Nap? At what alehouse is not his
+behaviour discussed? In what print-shop is not his picture seen? Yet how
+little truth has been said about him! Some people hold that he used
+to give laudanum by pints to his six clerks for his amusement. Others,
+whose number has very much increased since he was killed by the
+gaol distemper, conceive that he was the very model of honour and
+good-nature. I shall try to tell the truth about him.
+
+He was assuredly an excellent solicitor. In his way he never was
+surpassed. As soon as the parish began to employ him, their cause took
+a 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 with
+the best of the county. He governed the vestries as absolutely as the
+old family had done. Yet, to give him his due, he managed things with
+far more discretion than either Sir Lewis or the rioters who had pulled
+the Lords of the Manor down. He kept his servants in tolerable order.
+He removed the steel traps from the highways and the corners of the
+streets. He still left a few indeed in the more exposed parts of his
+premises; and set up a board announcing that traps and spring guns were
+set 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 as
+formerly, he settled him in a snug little cottage, and allowed him a
+pleasant 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 was
+crafty and litigious. He cared nothing for right, if he could raise a
+point of law against them. He pounded their cattle, broke their hedges,
+and seduced their tenants from them. He almost ruined Lord Caesar with
+actions, in every one of which he was successful. Von Blunderbussen went
+to law with him for an alleged trespass, but was cast, and almost ruined
+by 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 the
+poor dupe to dinner, and then threatened to have him tossed in a blanket
+unless he would make over his estates to him. The poor Squire signed and
+sealed a deed by which the property was assigned to Joe, a brother of
+Nap's, in trust for and to the use of Nap himself. The tenants, however,
+stood out. They maintained that the estate was entailed, and refused
+to pay rents to the new landlord; and in this refusal they were stoutly
+supported by the people in St George's.
+
+About the same time Nap took it into his head to match with quality, and
+nothing would serve him but one of the Miss Germains. Lord Caesar
+swore like a trooper; but there was no help for it. Nap had twice put
+executions in his principal residence, and had refused to discharge the
+latter of the two till he had extorted a bond from his Lordship which
+compelled him to comply.
+
+THE END OF THE FIRST PART.
+
+*****
+
+
+
+
+A CONVERSATION BETWEEN MR ABRAHAM COWLEY AND MR JOHN MILTON, TOUCHING
+THE 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 great
+reputation discoursers; hoping that my friends will not be displeased to
+have a record both of the strange times through which I have lived, and
+of the famous men with whom I have conversed. It chanced in the warm and
+beautiful spring of the year 1665, a little before the saddest summer
+that ever London saw, that I went to the Bowling Green at Piccadilly,
+whither, at that time, the best gentry made continual resorts. There
+I met Mr Cowley, who had lately left Barnelms. There was then a house
+preparing for him at Chertsey; and till it should be finished, he had
+come up for a short time to London, that he might urge a suit to his
+Grace of Buckingham touching certain lands of her Majesty's, whereof
+he requested a lease. I had the honour to be familiarly acquainted with
+that worthy gentleman and most excellent poet, whose death hath been
+deplored with as general a consent of all Powers that delight in the
+woods, or in verse, or in love, as was of old that of Daphnis or of
+Callus.
+
+After some talk, which it is not material to set down at large,
+concerning his suit and his vexations at the court, where indeed his
+honesty did him more harm than his parts could do him good, I entreated
+him to dine with me at my lodging in the Temple, which he most
+courteously promised. And, that so eminent a guest might not lack a
+better entertainment than cooks or vintners can provide, I sent to the
+house of Mr John Milton, in the Artillery Walk, to beg that he would
+also be my guest. For, though he had been secretary, first to the
+Council of State, and, after that, to the Protector, and Mr Cowley had
+held the same post under the Lord St Albans in his banishment, I hoped,
+notwithstanding that they would think themselves rather united by their
+common art than divided by their different factions. And so indeed it
+proved. For, while we sat at table, they talked freely of many men and
+things, as well ancient as modern, with much civility. Nay, Mr Milton,
+who seldom tasted wine, both because of his singular temperance and
+because of his gout, did more than once pledge Mr Cowley, who was indeed
+no hermit in diet. At last, being heated, Mr Milton begged that I would
+open 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 hour
+on the river?" To this they both cheerfully consented; and forth we
+walked, Mr Cowley and I leading Mr Milton between us, to the Temple
+Stairs. 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 the
+water beautiful to look upon. But Mr Cowley and I held our peace, and
+said nothing of the gay sights around us, lest we should too feelingly
+remind Mr Milton of his calamity; whereof, however, he needed no
+monitor: 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 you
+for that which makes you to envy others: and that specially in this
+place, where all eyes which are not closed in blindness ought to become
+fountains of tears. What can we look upon which is not a memorial of
+change and sorrow, of fair things vanished, and evil things done? When
+I see the gate of Whitehall, and the stately pillars of the Banqueting
+House, I cannot choose but think of what I have there seen in former
+days, masques, and pageants, and dances, and smiles, and the waving of
+graceful heads, and the bounding of delicate feet. And then I turn to
+thoughts of other things, which even to remember makes me to blush and
+weep;--of the great black scaffold, and the axe and block, which were
+placed before those very windows; and the voice seems to sound in mine
+ears, the lawless and terrible voice, which cried out that the head of a
+king was the head of a traitor. There stands Westminster Hall, which who
+can look upon, and not tremble to think how time, and change, and death
+confound the councils of the wise, and beat down the weapons of
+the mighty? How have I seen it surrounded with tens of thousands of
+petitioners crying for justice and privilege! How have I heard it shake
+with fierce and proud words, which made the hearts of the people burn
+within them! Then it is blockaded by dragoons, and cleared by pikemen.
+And they who have conquered their master go forth trembling at the word
+of their servant. And yet a little while, and the usurper comes forth
+from it, in his robe of ermine, with the golden staff in one hand and
+the Bible in the other, amidst the roaring of the guns and the shouting
+of the people. And yet again a little while, and the doors are thronged
+with multitudes in black, and the hearse and the plumes come forth; and
+the tyrant is borne, in more than royal pomp, to a royal sepulchre. A
+few days more, and his head is fixed to rot on the pinnacles of that
+very hall where he sat on a throne in his life, and lay in state after
+his death. When I think on all these things, to look round me makes me
+sad at heart. True it is that God hath restored to us our old laws, and
+the rightful line of our kings. Yet, how I know not, but it seems to me
+that something is wanting--that our court hath not the old gravity, nor
+our people the old loyalty. These evil times, like the great deluge,
+have overwhelmed and confused all earthly things. And, even as those
+waters, though at last they abated, yet, as the learned write, destroyed
+all trace of the garden of Eden, so that its place hath never since been
+found, so hath this opening of all the flood-gates of political evil
+effaced all marks of the ancient political paradise."
+
+"Sir, by your favour," said Mr Milton, "though, from many circumstances
+both of body and of fortune, I might plead fairer excuses for
+despondency than yourself, I yet look not so sadly either on the past
+or on the future. That a deluge hath passed over this our nation, I deny
+not. 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 its
+overflow doth indeed wash away ancient landmarks, and confound
+boundaries, and sweep away dwellings, yea, doth give birth to many foul
+and dangerous reptiles. Yet hence is the fulness of the granary, the
+beauty of the garden, the nurture of all living things.
+
+"I remember well, Mr Cowley, what you have said concerning these things
+in your Discourse of the Government of Oliver Cromwell, which my friend
+Elwood read to me last year. Truly, for elegance and rhetoric, that
+essay is to be compared with the finest tractates of Isocrates and
+Cicero. But neither that nor any other book, nor any events, which with
+most men have, more than any book, weight and authority, have altered my
+opinion, that, of all assemblies that ever were in this world, the best
+and the most useful was our Long Parliament. I speak not this as wishing
+to provoke debate; which neither yet do I decline."
+
+Mr Cowley was, as I could see, a little nettled. Yet, as he was a man
+of a kind disposition and a most refined courtesy, he put a force upon
+himself, and answered with more vehemence and quickness indeed than was
+his wont, yet not uncivilly. "Surely, Mr Milton, you speak not as you
+think. I am indeed one of those who believe that God hath reserved to
+himself the censure of kings, and that their crimes and oppressions are
+not to be resisted by the hands of their subjects. Yet can I easily
+find excuse for the violence of such as are stung to madness by grievous
+tyranny. But what shall we say for these men? Which of their just
+demands was not granted? Which even of their cruel and unreasonable
+requisitions, so as it were not inconsistent with all law and order, was
+refused? 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 Star
+Chamber? Had they not reversed the proceedings confirmed by the voices
+of the judges of England, in the matter of ship-money? Had they not
+taken from the king his ancient and most lawful power touching the order
+of knighthood? Had they not provided that, after their dissolution,
+triennial parliaments should be holden, and that their own power should
+continue till of their great condescension they should be pleased to
+resign it themselves? What more could they ask? Was it not enough that
+they had taken from their king all his oppressive powers, and many
+that were most salutary? Was it not enough that they had filled his
+council-board with his enemies, and his prisons with his adherents? Was
+it not enough that they had raised a furious multitude, to shout and
+swagger daily under the very windows of his royal palace? Was it not
+enough that they had taken from him the most blessed prerogative of
+princely mercy; that, complaining of intolerance themselves, they had
+denied all toleration to others; that they had urged, against forms,
+scruples childish as those of any formalist; that they had persecuted
+the least remnant of the popish rites with the fiercest bitterness of
+the popish spirit? Must they besides all this have full power to command
+his armies, and to massacre his friends?
+
+"For military command, it was never known in any monarchy, nay, in any
+well ordered republic, that it was committed to the debates of a large
+and unsettled assembly. For their other requisition, that he should give
+up to their vengeance all who had defended the rights of his crown, his
+honour must have been ruined if he had complied. Is it not therefore
+plain 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, against
+rapine. But when before was it known that concessions were met with
+importunities, graciousness with insults, the open palm of bounty with
+the clenched fist of malice? Was it like trusty delegates of the Commons
+of England, and faithful stewards of their liberty and their wealth, to
+engage them for such causes in civil war, which both to liberty and
+to wealth is of all things the most hostile. Evil indeed must be the
+disease 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 general
+but minister to it the same miserable kind of relief wherewith the
+wizards of Pharaoh mocked the Egyptian. We read that, when Moses had
+turned their waters into blood, those impious magicians, intending, not
+benefit to the thirsting people, but vain and emulous ostentation of
+their own art, did themselves also change into blood the water which the
+plague had spared. Such sad comfort do those who stir up war minister
+to the oppressed. But here where was the oppression? What was the
+favour which had not been granted? What was the evil which had not been
+removed? What further could they desire?"
+
+"These questions," said Mr Milton, austerely, "have indeed often
+deceived the ignorant; but that Mr Cowley should have been so beguiled,
+I marvel. You ask what more the Parliament could desire? I will
+answer you in one word, security. What are votes, and statutes, and
+resolutions? 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 Parliament
+constrained to ask, lest otherwise good laws and precious rights should
+be without defence. Nor did they want a great and signal example of this
+danger. I need not remind you that, many years before, the two Houses
+had presented to the king the Petition of Right, wherein were set down
+all the most valuable privileges of the people of this realm. Did not
+Charles accept it? Did he not declare it to be law? Was it not as
+fully enacted as ever were any of those bills of the Long Parliament
+concerning which you spoke? And were those privileges therefore enjoyed
+more fully by the people? No: the king did from that time redouble
+his oppressions as if to avenge himself for the shame of having been
+compelled to renounce them. Then were our estates laid under shameful
+impositions, our houses ransacked, our bodies imprisoned. Then was the
+steel 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 our
+breath the tyranny of Wentworth. Of old time it was well and nobly
+said, by one of our kings, that an Englishman ought to be as free as his
+thoughts. Our prince reversed the maxim; he strove to make our thoughts
+as much slaves as ourselves. To sneer at a Romish pageant, to miscall a
+lord's crest, were crimes for which there was no mercy. These were all
+the fruits which we gathered from those excellent laws of the former
+Parliament, from these solemn promises of the king. Were we to be
+deceived again? Were we again to give subsidies, and receive nothing but
+promises? Were we again to make wholesome statutes, and then leave
+them to be broken daily and hourly, until the oppressor should have
+squandered another supply, and should be ready for another perjury? You
+ask what they could desire which he had not already granted. Let me
+ask of you another question. What pledge could he give which he had not
+already violated? From the first year of his reign, whenever he had need
+of the purses of his Commons to support the revels of Buckingham or the
+processions of Laud, he had assured them that, as he was a gentleman
+and a king, he would sacredly preserve their rights. He had pawned
+those solemn pledges, and pawned them again and again; but when had
+he redeemed them? 'Upon my faith,'--'Upon my sacred word,'--'Upon the
+honour of a prince,'--came so easily from his lips, and dwelt so short
+a time on his mind that they were as little to be trusted as the 'By the
+hilts' of an Alsatian dicer.
+
+"Therefore it is that I praise this Parliament for what else I might
+have condemned. If what he had granted had been granted graciously and
+readily, if what he had before promised had been faithfully observed,
+they could not be defended. It was because he had never yielded the
+worst abuse without a long struggle, and seldom without a large bribe;
+it was because he had no sooner disentangled himself from his troubles
+than he forgot his promises; and, more like a villainous huckster than a
+great king, kept both the prerogative and the large price which had been
+paid to him to forego it; it was because of these things that it was
+necessary and just to bind with forcible restraints one who could be
+bound neither by law nor honour. Nay, even while he was making those
+very concessions of which you speak, he betrayed his deadly hatred
+against the people and their friends. Not only did he, contrary to
+all that ever was deemed lawful in England, order that members of the
+Commons House of Parliament should be impeached of high treason at
+the bar of the Lords; thereby violating both the trial by jury and the
+privileges of the House; but, not content with breaking the law by his
+ministers, he went himself armed to assail it. In the birth-place and
+sanctuary of freedom, in the House itself; nay in the very chair of the
+speaker, placed for the protection of free speech and privilege, he sat,
+rolling his eyes round the benches, searching for those whose blood he
+desired, and singling out his opposers to the slaughter. This most foul
+outrage fails. Then again for the old arts. Then come gracious messages.
+Then come courteous speeches. Then is again mortgaged his often
+forfeited honour. He will never again violate the laws. He will respect
+their rights as if they were his own. He pledges the dignity of his
+crown; that crown which had been committed to him for the weal of his
+people, and which he never named, but that he might the more easily
+delude and oppress them.
+
+"The power of the sword, I grant you, was not one to be permanently
+possessed by Parliament. Neither did that Parliament demand it as a
+permanent possession. They asked it only for temporary security. Nor can
+I see on what conditions they could safely make peace with that false
+and 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 the
+greatest of evils, that I stoutly deny. It doth indeed appear to the
+misjudging to be a worse calamity than bad government, because its
+miseries are collected together within a short space and time, and may
+easily at one view be taken in and perceived. But the misfortunes of
+nations ruled by tyrants, being distributed over many centuries and many
+places, as they are of greater weight and number, so are they of less
+display. When the Devil of tyranny hath gone into the body politic he
+departs not but with struggles, and foaming, and great convulsions.
+Shall he, therefore, vex it for ever, lest, in going out, he for a
+moment tear and rend it? Truly this argument touching the evils of war
+would better become my friend Elwood, or some other of the people called
+Quakers, than a courtier and a cavalier. It applies no more to this war
+than to all others, as well foreign as domestic, and, in this war, no
+more to the Houses than to the king; nay, not so much, since he by a
+little sincerity and moderation might have rendered that needless which
+their duty to God and man then enforced them to do."
+
+"Pardon me, Mr Milton," said Mr Cowley; "I grieve to hear you speak thus
+of that good king. Most unhappy indeed he was, in that he reigned at a
+time when the spirit of the then living generation was for freedom, and
+the precedents of former ages for prerogative. His case was like to that
+of Christopher Columbus, when he sailed forth on an unknown ocean, and
+found that the compass, whereby he shaped his course, had shifted from
+the north pole whereto before it had constantly pointed. So it was with
+Charles. His compass varied; and therefore he could not tack aright. If
+he 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 of
+Venice, or a Stadtholder of Holland, he would never have outstepped the
+laws. But he lived when our government had neither clear definitions nor
+strong sanctions. Let, therefore, his faults be ascribed to the time. Of
+his 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, in
+friendship constant, to his servants liberal, to his queen faithful and
+loving, in battle grave, in sorrow and captivity resolved, in death most
+Christian 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 been
+the mother of her people. Were they less arbitrary? Did they never lay
+hands on the purses of their subjects but by Act of Parliament? Did they
+never confine insolent and disobedient men but in due course of law? Was
+the court of Star Chamber less active? Were the ears of libellers more
+safe? I pray you, let not king Charles be thus dealt with. It was enough
+that in his life he was tried for an alleged breach of laws which none
+ever heard named till they were discovered for his destruction. Let not
+his fame be treated as was his sacred and anointed body. Let not his
+memory be tried by principles found out ex post facto. Let us not judge
+by the spirit of one generation a man whose disposition had been formed
+by the temper and fashion of another."
+
+"Nay, but conceive me, Mr Cowley," said Mr Milton; "inasmuch as, at the
+beginning 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 or
+permitted during the first years of his reign, I pass by. But for what
+was done after that he had solemnly given his consent to the Petition
+of Right, where shall we find defence? Let it be supposed, which yet I
+concede not, that the tyranny of his father and of Queen Elizabeth had
+been 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, for
+good and valuable consideration, aliened their hurtful prerogatives?
+Surely not: from whatever excuse you can plead for him he had wholly
+excluded himself. The borders of countries, we know, are mostly the
+seats of perpetual wars and tumults. It was the same with the undefined
+frontiers, which of old separated privilege and prerogative. They were
+the debatable land of our polity. It was no marvel if, both on the one
+side and on the other, inroads were often made. But, when treaties have
+been concluded, spaces measured, lines drawn, landmarks set up, that
+which before might pass for innocent error or just reprisal becomes
+robbery, perjury, deadly sin. He knew not, you say, which of his powers
+were founded on ancient law, and which only on vicious example. But had
+he not read the Petition of Right? Had not proclamation been made from
+his throne, Soit fait comme il est desire?
+
+"For his private virtues they are beside the question. Remember you
+not," and Mr Milton smiled, but somewhat sternly, "what Dr Cauis saith
+in the Merry Wives of Shakspeare? 'What shall the honest man do in my
+closet? There is no honest man that shall come in my closet.' Even so
+say I. There is no good man who shall make us his slaves. If he break
+his word to his people, is it a sufficient defence that he keeps it
+to his companions? If he oppress and extort all day, shall he be held
+blameless because he prayeth at night and morning? If he be insatiable
+in plunder and revenge, shall we pass it by because in meat and drink
+he is temperate? If he have lived like a tyrant, shall all be forgotten
+because he hath died like a martyr?
+
+"He was a man, as I think, who had so much semblance of virtues as might
+make his vices most dangerous. He was not a tyrant after our wonted
+English model. The second Richard, the second and fourth Edwards, and
+the eighth Harry, were men profuse, gay, boisterous; lovers of women and
+of wine, of no outward sanctity or gravity. Charles was a ruler after
+the Italian fashion; grave, demure, of a solemn carriage, and a sober
+diet; as constant at prayers as a priest, as heedless of oaths as an
+atheist."
+
+Mr Cowley answered somewhat sharply: "I am sorry, Sir, to hear you speak
+thus. I had hoped that the vehemence of spirit which was caused by these
+violent times had now abated. Yet, sure, Mr Milton, whatever you may
+think of the character of King Charles, you will not still justify his
+murder?"
+
+"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 been
+diminished by the afflictions wherewith it hath pleased Almighty God
+to chasten my age. I will not now defend all that I may heretofore have
+written. But this I say, that I perceive not wherefore a king should be
+exempted from all punishment. Is it just that where most is given least
+should be required? Or politic that where there is the greatest power to
+injure 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 of
+selfpreservation written by God himself on our hearts. There is the
+primal compact and bond of society, not graven on stone, or sealed with
+wax, nor put down on parchment, nor set forth in any express form of
+words by men when of old they came together; but implied in the very act
+that they so came together, pre-supposed in all subsequent law, not to
+be repealed by any authority, nor invalidated by being omitted in any
+code; inasmuch as from thence are all codes and all authority.
+
+"Neither do I well see wherefore you cavaliers, and, indeed, many of us
+whom you merrily call Roundheads, distinguish between those who fought
+against King Charles, and specially after the second commission given to
+Sir Thomas Fairfax, and those who condemned him to death. Sure, if his
+person were inviolable, it was as wicked to lift the sword against it at
+Naseby as the axe at Whitehall. If his life might justly be taken, why
+not in course of trial as well as by right of war?
+
+"Thus much in general as touching the right. But, for the execution of
+King Charles in particular, I will not now undertake to defend it. Death
+is inflicted, not that the culprit may die, but that the state may be
+thereby advantaged. And, from all that I know, I think that the death of
+King 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 kill
+the captive therefore, whereby the heir, in the apprehension of all
+royalists, became forthwith king--what was it, in truth, but to set
+their captive free, and to give him besides other great advantages?
+
+"Next, it was a deed most odious to the people, and not only to your
+party, but to many among ourselves; and, as it is perilous for any
+government to outrage the public opinion, so most was it perilous for a
+government which had from that opinion alone its birth, its nurture, and
+its defence.
+
+"Yet doth not this properly belong to our dispute; nor can these faults
+be justly charged upon that most renowned Parliament. For, as you know,
+the high court of justice was not established until the House had been
+purged of such members as were adverse to the army, and brought wholly
+under the control of the chief officers."
+
+"And who," said Mr Cowley, "levied that army? Who commissioned those
+officers? Was not the fate of the Commons as justly deserved as was that
+of Diomedes, who was devoured by those horses whom he had himself taught
+to feed on the flesh and blood of men? How could they hope that others
+would respect laws which they had themselves insulted; that swords which
+had been drawn against the prerogatives of the king would be put up at
+an ordinance of the Commons? It was believed, of old, that there were
+some devils easily raised but never to be laid; insomuch that, if a
+magician called them up, he should be forced to find them always some
+employment; for, though they would do all his bidding, yet, if he left
+them but for one moment without some work of evil to perform, they would
+turn their claws against himself. Such a fiend is an army. They who
+evoke 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 in
+pieces.
+
+"Thus was it with that famous assembly. They formed a force which they
+could neither govern nor resist. They made it powerful. They made it
+fanatical. As if military insolence were not of itself sufficiently
+dangerous, they heightened it with spiritual pride,--they encouraged
+their soldiers to rave from the tops of tubs against the men of Belial,
+till every trooper thought himself a prophet. They taught them to abuse
+popery, till every drummer fancied that he was as infallible as a pope.
+
+"Then it was that religion changed her nature. She was no longer
+the parent of arts and letters, of wholesome knowledge, of innocent
+pleasures, of blessed household smiles. In their place came sour faces,
+whining voices, the chattering of fools, the yells of madmen. Then men
+fasted from meat and drink, who fasted not from bribes and blood. Then
+men frowned at stage-plays, who smiled at massacres. Then men preached
+against painted faces, who felt no remorse for their own most painted
+lives. Religion had been a pole-star to light and to guide. It was now
+more like to that ominous star in the book of the Apocalypse, which
+fell from heaven upon the fountains and rivers and changed them into
+wormwood; for even so did it descend from its high and celestial
+dwelling-place to plague this earth, and to turn into bitterness all
+that was sweet, and into poison all that was nourishing.
+
+"Therefore it was not strange that such things should follow. They who
+had closed the barriers of London against the king could not defend
+them against their own creatures. They who had so stoutly cried for
+privilege, when that prince, most unadvisedly no doubt, came among them
+to demand their members, durst not wag their fingers when Oliver filled
+their hall with soldiers, gave their mace to a corporal, put their keys
+in his pocket, and drove them forth with base terms, borrowed half from
+the conventicle and half from the ale-house. Then were we, like the
+trees 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 devoured
+the cedars of Lebanon. We bowed down before a man of mean birth, of
+ungraceful demeanour, of stammering and most vulgar utterance, of
+scandalous and notorious hypocrisy. Our laws were made and unmade at his
+pleasure; the constitution of our Parliaments changed by his writ and
+proclamation; our persons imprisoned; our property plundered; our lands
+and houses overrun with soldiers; and the great charter itself was
+but argument for a scurrilous jest; and for all this we may thank that
+Parliament; 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 a
+number of subjects, that it would require, not an evening's sail on the
+Thames, 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 always
+a weapon dangerous to those who use it; yet he who falls among thieves
+spares not to fire his musquetoon, because he may be slain if it burst
+in his hand. Nor must states refrain from defending themselves, lest
+their defenders should at last turn against them. Nevertheless, against
+this danger statesmen should carefully provide; and, that they may do
+so, they should take especial care that neither the officers nor the
+soldiers do forget that they are also citizens. I do believe that the
+English army would have continued to obey the parliament with all duty,
+but for one act, which, as it was in intention, in seeming, and in
+immediate effect, worthy to be compared with the most famous in history,
+so was it, in its final consequence, most injurious. I speak of that
+ordinance called the "self-denying", and of the new model of the army.
+By those measures the Commons gave up the command of their forces into
+the hands of men who were not of themselves. Hence, doubtless, derived
+no small honour to that noble assembly, which sacrificed to the hope of
+public good the assurance of private advantage. And, as to the conduct
+of the war, the scheme prospered. Witness the battle of Naseby, and the
+memorable exploits of Fairfax in the west. But thereby the Parliament
+lost that hold on the soldiers and that power to control them, which
+they retained while every regiment was commanded by their own members.
+Politicians there be, who would wholly divide the legislative from
+the executive power. In the golden age this may have succeeded; in the
+millennium it may succeed again. But, where great armies and great taxes
+are required, there the executive government must always hold a great
+authority, which authority, that it may not oppress and destroy the
+legislature, must be in some manner blended with it. The leaders of
+foreign mercenaries have always been most dangerous to a country. The
+officers of native armies, deprived of the civil privileges of other
+men, are as much to be feared. This was the great error of that
+Parliament: 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 of
+that most famous leader, whom both in our conversation to-day, and in
+that discourse whereon I before touched, you have, in my poor opinion,
+far too roughly handled. Wherefore you speak contemptibly of his parts
+I know not; but I suspect that you are not free from the error common to
+studious and speculative men. Because Oliver was an ungraceful orator,
+and never said, either in public or private, anything memorable, you
+will have it that he was of a mean capacity. Sure this is unjust. Many
+men have there been ignorant of letters, without wit, without eloquence,
+who yet had the wisdom to devise, and the courage to perform, that which
+they lacked language to explain. Such men often, in troubled times, have
+worked out the deliverance of nations and their own greatness, not
+by logic, not by rhetoric, but by wariness in success, by calmness in
+danger, by fierce and stubborn resolution in all adversity. The hearts
+of men are their books; events are their tutors; great actions are their
+eloquence: 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 of
+it while he lived, would, by very few, be mentioned otherwise than with
+reverence. His own deeds shall avouch him for a great statesman, a great
+soldier, a true lover of his country, a merciful and generous conqueror.
+
+"For his faults, let us reflect that they who seem to lead are
+oftentimes most constrained to follow. They who will mix with men, and
+especially they who will govern them, must in many things obey them.
+They who will yield to no such conditions may be hermits, but cannot
+be generals and statesmen. If a man will walk straight forward without
+turning to the right or the left, he must walk in a desert, and not in
+Cheapside. Thus was he enforced to do many things which jumped not with
+his inclination nor made for his honour; because the army, on which
+alone he could depend for power and life, might not otherwise be
+contented. And I, for mine own part, marvel less that he sometimes was
+fain to indulge their violence than that he could so often restrain it.
+
+"In that he dissolved the Parliament, I praise him. It then was so
+diminished in numbers, as well by the death as by the exclusion of
+members, that it was no longer the same assembly; and, if at that time
+it had made itself perpetual, we should have been governed, not by an
+English House of Commons, but by a Venetian Council.
+
+"If in his following rule he overstepped the laws, I pity rather than
+condemn him. He may be compared to that Maeandrius of Samos, of whom
+Herodotus saith, in his Thalia, that, wishing to be of all men the most
+just, he was not able; for after the death of Polycrates he offered
+freedom to the people; and not till certain of them threatened to call
+him to a reckoning for what he had formerly done, did he change his
+purpose, and make himself a tyrant, lest he should be treated as a
+criminal.
+
+"Such was the case of Oliver. He gave to his country a form of
+government so free and admirable that, in near six thousand years,
+human wisdom hath never devised any more excellent contrivance for human
+happiness. To himself he reserved so little power that it would scarcely
+have sufficed for his safety, and it is a marvel that it could suffice
+for his ambition. When, after that, he found that the members of his
+Parliament disputed his right even to that small authority which he had
+kept, when he might have kept all, then indeed I own that he began to
+govern 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 pardoning
+injuries, in conquering enemies, in extending the dominions and
+the renown of his people? What sea, what shore did he not mark with
+imperishable memorials of his friendship or his vengeance? The gold of
+Spain, the steel of Sweden, the ten thousand sails of Holland, availed
+nothing against him. While every foreign state trembled at our arms, we
+sat secure from all assault. War, which often so strangely troubles both
+husbandry and commerce, never silenced the song of our reapers, or the
+sound of our looms. Justice was equally administered; God was freely
+worshipped.
+
+"Now look at that which we have taken in exchange. With the restored
+king have come over to us vices of every sort, and most the basest and
+most shameful,--lust without love--servitude without loyalty--foulness
+of speech--dishonesty of dealing--grinning contempt of all things good
+and generous. The throne is surrounded by men whom the former Charles
+would have spurned from his footstool. The altar is served by slaves
+whose knees are supple to every being but God. Rhymers, whose books the
+hangman should burn, pandars, actors, and buffoons, these drink a health
+and throw a main with the King; these have stars on their breasts and
+gold sticks in their hands; these shut out from his presence the best
+and bravest of those who bled for his house. Even so doth God visit
+those who know not how to value freedom. He gives them over to the
+tyranny 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 so
+greatly advantaged by the rebellion?"
+
+"Understand me rightly, Sir," said Mr Milton. "This nation is not given
+over to slavery and vice. We tasted indeed the fruits of liberty before
+they had well ripened. Their flavour was harsh and bitter; and we turned
+from them with loathing to the sweeter poisons of servitude. This is
+but for a time. England is sleeping on the lap of Dalilah, traitorously
+chained, but not yet shorn of strength. Let the cry be once heard--the
+Philistines be upon thee; and at once that sleep will be broken, and
+those chains will be as flax in the fire. The great Parliament hath left
+behind it in our hearts and minds a hatred of tyrants, a just knowledge
+of our rights, a scorn of vain and deluding names; and that the
+revellers of Whitehall shall surely find. The sun is darkened; but it is
+only for a moment: it is but an eclipse; though all birds of evil omen
+have 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 rays
+again shine forth!
+
+"The king hath judged ill. Had he been wise he would have remembered
+that he owed his restoration only to confusions which had wearied us
+out, and made us eager for repose. He would have known that the folly
+and perfidy of a prince would restore to the good old cause many hearts
+which had been alienated thence by the turbulence of factions; for, if
+I know aught of history, or of the heart of man, he will soon learn that
+the 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 said
+touching that thankless court, which had indeed but poorly requited his
+own good service. He only said, therefore, "Another rebellion! Alas!
+alas! Mr Milton! If there be no choice but between despotism and
+anarchy, I prefer despotism."
+
+"Many men," said Mr Milton, "have floridly and ingeniously compared
+anarchy and despotism; but they who so amuse themselves do but look at
+separate parts of that which is truly one great whole. Each is the cause
+and the effect of the other; the evils of either are the evils of
+both. Thus do states move on in the same eternal cycle, which, from the
+remotest point, brings them back again to the same sad starting-post:
+and, till both those who govern and those who obey shall learn and mark
+this great truth, men can expect little through the future, as they
+have 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 order
+can never be? We talk of absolute power; but all power hath limits,
+which, if not fixed by the moderation of the governors, will be fixed
+by the force of the governed. Sovereigns may send their opposers to
+dungeons; they may clear out a senate-house with soldiers; they may
+enlist armies of spies; they may hang scores of the disaffected in
+chains at every cross road; but what power shall stand in that frightful
+time when rebellion hath become a less evil than endurance? Who shall
+dissolve that terrible tribunal, which, in the hearts of the oppressed,
+denounces against the oppressor the doom of its wild justice? Who shall
+repeal the law of selfdefence? What arms or discipline shall resist
+the strength of famine and despair? How often were the ancient Caesars
+dragged from their golden palaces, stripped of their purple robes,
+mangled, stoned, defiled with filth, pierced with hooks, hurled into
+Tiber? How often have the Eastern Sultans perished by the sabres of
+their own janissaries, or the bow-strings of their own mutes! For no
+power 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 it
+were a refuge from commotion; for anarchy is the sure consequence of
+tyranny. That governments may be safe, nations must be free. Their
+passions must have an outlet provided, lest they make one.
+
+"When I was at Naples, I went with Signor Manso, a gentleman of
+excellent parts and breeding, who had been the familiar friend of that
+famous poet Torquato Tasso, to see the burning mountain Vesuvius. I
+wondered how the peasants could venture to dwell so fearlessly and
+cheerfully on its sides, when the lava was flowing from its summit;
+but Manso smiled, and told me that when the fire descends freely they
+retreat before it without haste or fear. They can tell how fast it will
+move, and how far; and they know, moreover, that, though it may work
+some little damage, it will soon cover the fields over which it hath
+passed with rich vineyards and sweet flowers. But, when the flames are
+pent up in the mountain, then it is that they have reason to fear; then
+it is that the earth sinks and the sea swells; then cities are swallowed
+up; and their place knoweth them no more. So it is in politics: where
+the people is most closely restrained, there it gives the greatest
+shocks to peace and order; therefore would I say to all kings, let your
+demagogues lead crowds, lest they lead armies; let them bluster, lest
+they massacre; a little turbulence is, as it were, the rainbow of the
+state; it shows indeed that there is a passing shower; but it is a
+pledge that there shall be no deluge."
+
+"This is true," said Mr Cowley; "yet these admonitions are not less
+needful to subjects than to sovereigns."
+
+"Surely," said Mr Milton; "and, that I may end this long debate with a
+few words in which we shall both agree, I hold that, as freedom is the
+only safeguard of governments, so are order and moderation generally
+necessary to preserve freedom. Even the vainest opinions of men are not
+to be outraged by those who propose to themselves the happiness of men
+for their end, and who must work with the passions of men for their
+means. The blind reverence for things ancient is indeed so foolish
+that it might make a wise man laugh, if it were not also sometimes so
+mischievous that it would rather make a good man weep. Yet, since it may
+not be wholly cured it must be discreetly indulged; and therefore those
+who would amend evil laws should consider rather how much it may be safe
+to spare, than how much it may be possible to change. Have you not heard
+that men who have been shut up for many years in dungeons shrink if they
+see the light, and fall down if their irons be struck off? And so, when
+nations have long been in the house of bondage, the chains which have
+crippled them are necessary to support them, the darkness which hath
+weakened their sight is necessary to preserve it. Therefore release them
+not too rashly, lest they curse their freedom and pine for their prison.
+
+"I think indeed that the renowned Parliament, of which we have talked so
+much, did show, until it became subject to the soldiers, a singular
+and admirable moderation, in such times scarcely to be hoped, and
+most worthy to be an example to all that shall come after. But on this
+argument I have said enough: and I will therefore only pray to Almighty
+God that those who shall, in future times stand forth in defence of
+our liberties, as well civil as religious, may adorn the good cause
+by mercy, prudence, and soberness, to the glory of his name and the
+happiness and honour of the English people."
+
+And so ended that discourse; and not long after we were set on shore
+again at the Temple Gardens, and there parted company: and the same
+evening I took notes of what had been said, which I have here more fully
+set down, from regard both to the fame of the men, and the importance of
+the 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 no
+limits, except those which separate civilised from savage man. Their
+works are the common property of every polished nation. They have
+furnished subjects for the painter, and models for the poet. In the
+minds of the educated classes throughout Europe, their names
+are indissolubly associated with the endearing recollections of
+childhood,--the old school-room,--the dog-eared grammar,--the first
+prize,--the tears so often shed and so quickly dried. So great is the
+veneration with which they are regarded, that even the editors and
+commentators who perform the lowest menial offices to their memory, are
+considered, 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 rarely
+have 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 would
+generalise, they become indistinct. An exception must, indeed, be made
+in favour of Aristotle. Both in analysis and in combination, that great
+man was without a rival. No philosopher has ever possessed, in an equal
+degree, the talent either of separating established systems into their
+primary elements, or of connecting detached phenomena in harmonious
+systems. He was the great fashioner of the intellectual chaos; he
+changed its darkness into light, and its discord into order. He brought
+to literary researches the same vigour and amplitude of mind to which
+both physical and metaphysical science are so greatly indebted. His
+fundamental principles of criticism are excellent. To cite only a
+single instance:--the doctrine which he established, that poetry is an
+imitative art, when justly understood, is to the critic what the compass
+is to the navigator. With it he may venture upon the most extensive
+excursions. Without it he must creep cautiously along the coast, or lose
+himself in a trackless expanse, and trust, at best, to the guidance of
+an occasional star. It is a discovery which changes a caprice into a
+science.
+
+The general propositions of Aristotle are valuable. But the merit of the
+superstructure bears no proportion to that of the foundation. This is
+partly to be ascribed to the character of the philosopher, who, though
+qualified to do all that could be done by the resolving and combining
+powers of the understanding, seems not to have possessed much of
+sensibility or imagination. Partly, also, it may be attributed to the
+deficiency of materials. The great works of genius which then existed
+were not either sufficiently numerous or sufficiently varied to enable
+any man to form a perfect code of literature. To require that a critic
+should conceive classes of composition which had never existed, and then
+investigate their principles, would be as unreasonable as the demand of
+Nebuchadnezzar, who expected his magicians first to tell him his dream
+and then to interpret it.
+
+With all his deficiencies, Aristotle was the most enlightened and
+profound critic of antiquity. Dionysius was far from possessing the same
+exquisite subtilty, or the same vast comprehension. But he had access
+to a much greater number of specimens; and he had devoted himself, as
+it appears, more exclusively to the study of elegant literature. His
+peculiar judgments are of more value than his general principles. He is
+only the historian of literature. Aristotle is its philosopher.
+
+Quintilian applied to general literature the same principles by which he
+had been accustomed to judge of the declamations of his pupils. He looks
+for nothing but rhetoric, and rhetoric not of the highest order. He
+speaks coldly of the incomparable works of Aeschylus. He admires, beyond
+expression, those inexhaustible mines of common-places, the plays of
+Euripides. He bestows a few vague words on the poetical character of
+Homer. He then proceeds to consider him merely as an orator. An orator
+Homer doubtless was, and a great orator. But surely nothing is more
+remarkable, in his admirable works, than the art with which his
+oratorical powers are made subservient to the purposes of poetry. Nor
+can I think Quintilian a great critic in his own province. Just as are
+many of his remarks, beautiful as are many of his illustrations, we
+can perpetually detect in his thoughts that flavour which the soil of
+despotism generally communicates to all the fruits of genius. Eloquence
+was, in his time, little more than a condiment which served to stimulate
+in a despot the jaded appetite for panegyric, an amusement for
+the travelled nobles and the blue-stocking matrons of Rome. It is,
+therefore, with him, rather a sport than a war; it is a contest of
+foils, not of swords. He appears to think more of the grace of the
+attitude than of the direction and vigour of the thrust. It must be
+acknowledged, in justice to Quintilian, that this is an error to which
+Cicero has too often given the sanction, both of his precept and of his
+example.
+
+Longinus seems to have had great sensibility, but little discrimination.
+He gives us eloquent sentences, but no principles. It was happily
+said 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 manner
+the philosopher of Palmyra ought to have entitled his famous work, not
+"Longinus on the Sublime," but "The Sublimities of Longinus." The origin
+of the sublime is one of the most curious and interesting subjects of
+inquiry that can occupy the attention of a critic. In our own country it
+has been discussed, with great ability, and, I think, with very little
+success, by Burke and Dugald Stuart. Longinus dispenses himself from all
+investigations of this nature, by telling his friend Terentianus that he
+already knows everything that can be said upon the question. It is to be
+regretted that Terentianus did not impart some of his knowledge to
+his instructor: for from Longinus we learn only that sublimity means
+height--or elevation. (Akrotes kai exoche tis logon esti ta uoe.) This
+name, so commodiously vague, is applied indifferently to the noble
+prayer of Ajax in the Iliad, and to a passage of Plato about the human
+body, 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 a
+critic.
+
+Modern writers have been prevented by many causes from supplying the
+deficiencies of their classical predecessors. At the time of the revival
+of literature, no man could, without great and painful labour, acquire
+an accurate and elegant knowledge of the ancient languages. And,
+unfortunately, those grammatical and philological studies, without which
+it was impossible to understand the great works of Athenian and Roman
+genius, have a tendency to contract the views and deaden the sensibility
+of those who follow them with extreme assiduity. A powerful mind, which
+has been long employed in such studies, may be compared to the gigantic
+spirit in the Arabian tale, who was persuaded to contract himself to
+small dimensions in order to enter within the enchanted vessel, and,
+when his prison had been closed upon him, found himself unable to escape
+from the narrow boundaries to the measure of which he had reduced his
+stature. When the means have long been the objects of application, they
+are naturally substituted for the end. It was said, by Eugene of Savoy,
+that the greatest generals have commonly been those who have been at
+once raised to command, and introduced to the great operations of war,
+without being employed in the petty calculations and manoeuvres which
+employ the time of an inferior officer. In literature the principle is
+equally sound. The great tactics of criticism will, in general, be best
+understood by those who have not had much practice in drilling syllables
+and particles.
+
+I remember to have observed among the French Anas a ludicrous instance
+of this. A scholar, doubtless of great learning, recommends the study
+of some long Latin treatise, of which I now forget the name, on the
+religion, manners, government, and language of the early Greeks. "For
+there," says he, "you will learn everything of importance that is
+contained in the Iliad and Odyssey, without the trouble of reading two
+such tedious books." Alas! it had not occurred to the poor gentleman
+that all the knowledge to which he attached so much value was useful
+only as it illustrated the great poems which he despised, and would be
+as worthless for any other purpose as the mythology of Caffraria, or the
+vocabulary of Otaheite.
+
+Of those scholars who have disdained to confine themselves to verbal
+criticism few have been successful. The ancient languages have,
+generally, a magical influence on their faculties. They were "fools
+called into a circle by Greek invocations." The Iliad and Aeneid were to
+them not books but curiosities, or rather reliques. They no more admired
+those works for their merits than a good Catholic venerates the house of
+the Virgin at Loretto for its architecture. Whatever was classical was
+good. Homer was a great poet, and so was Callimachus. The epistles of
+Cicero were fine, and so were those of Phalaris. Even with respect to
+questions of evidence they fell into the same error. The authority of
+all narrations, written in Greek or Latin, was the same with them. It
+never crossed their minds that the lapse of five hundred years, or
+the distance of five hundred leagues, could affect the accuracy of
+a narration;--that Livy could be a less veracious historian than
+Polybius;--or that Plutarch could know less about the friends of
+Xenophon than Xenophon himself. Deceived by the distance of time, they
+seem to consider all the Classics as contemporaries; just as I have
+known people in England, deceived by the distance of place, take it for
+granted that all persons who live in India are neighbours, and ask an
+inhabitant of Bombay about the health of an acquaintance at Calcutta.
+It is to be hoped that no barbarian deluge will ever again pass over
+Europe. But should such a calamity happen, it seems not improbable that
+some future Rollin or Gillies will compile a history of England from
+Miss Porter's Scottish Chiefs, Miss Lee's Recess, and Sir Nathaniel
+Wraxall's Memoirs.
+
+It is surely time that ancient literature should be examined in a
+different manner, without pedantical prepossessions, but with a just
+allowance, at the same time, for the difference of circumstances and
+manners. I am far from pretending to the knowledge or ability which
+such a task would require. All that I mean to offer is a collection of
+desultory remarks upon a most interesting portion of Greek literature.
+
+It may be doubted whether any compositions which have ever been produced
+in the world are equally perfect in their kind with the great Athenian
+orations. Genius is subject to the same laws which regulate the
+production of cotton and molasses. The supply adjusts itself to the
+demand. The quantity may be diminished by restrictions, and multiplied
+by bounties. The singular excellence to which eloquence attained at
+Athens is to be mainly attributed to the influence which it exerted
+there. In turbulent times, under a constitution purely democratic,
+among a people educated exactly to that point at which men are most
+susceptible of strong and sudden impressions, acute, but not sound
+reasoners, warm in their feelings, unfixed in their principles,
+and passionate admirers of fine composition, oratory received such
+encouragement as it has never since obtained.
+
+The taste and knowledge of the Athenian people was a favourite object of
+the contemptuous derision of Samuel Johnson; a man who knew nothing of
+Greek literature beyond the common school-books, and who seems to have
+brought to what he had read scarcely more than the discernment of a
+common school-boy. He used to assert, with that arrogant absurdity
+which, in spite of his great abilities and virtues, renders him, perhaps
+the most ridiculous character in literary history, that Demosthenes
+spoke to a people of brutes;--to a barbarous people;--that there could
+have been no civilisation before the invention of printing. Johnson
+was a keen but a very narrow-minded observer of mankind. He perpetually
+confounded their general nature with their particular circumstances. He
+knew London intimately. The sagacity of his remarks on its society is
+perfectly astonishing. But Fleet Street was the world to him. He
+saw that Londoners who did not read were profoundly ignorant; and
+he inferred that a Greek, who had few or no books, must have been as
+uninformed as one of Mr Thrale's draymen.
+
+There seems to be, on the contrary, every reason to believe, that, in
+general intelligence, the Athenian populace far surpassed the lower
+orders 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,--one
+upon whose voice might depend the fate of the wealthiest tributary
+state, of the most eminent public man. The lowest offices, both of
+agriculture and of trade, were, in common, performed by slaves. The
+commonwealth supplied its meanest members with the support of life, the
+opportunity of leisure, and the means of amusement. Books were indeed
+few: but they were excellent; and they were accurately known. It is
+not by turning over libraries, but by repeatedly perusing and intently
+contemplating a few great models, that the mind is best disciplined. A
+man of letters must now read much that he soon forgets, and much from
+which he learns nothing worthy to be remembered. The best works employ,
+in general, but a small portion of his time. Demosthenes is said to have
+transcribed six times the history of Thucydides. If he had been a young
+politician of the present age, he might in the same space of time have
+skimmed innumerable newspapers and pamphlets. I do not condemn that
+desultory mode of study which the state of things, in our day, renders
+a matter of necessity. But I may be allowed to doubt whether the changes
+on which the admirers of modern institutions delight to dwell have
+improved our condition so much in reality as in appearance. Rumford,
+it is said, proposed to the Elector of Bavaria a scheme for feeding his
+soldiers at a much cheaper rate than formerly. His plan was simply to
+compel them to masticate their food thoroughly. A small quantity, thus
+eaten, would, according to that famous projector, afford more sustenance
+than a large meal hastily devoured. I do not know how Rumford's
+proposition was received; but to the mind, I believe, it will be found
+more nutritious to digest a page than to devour a volume.
+
+Books, however, were the least part of the education of an Athenian
+citizen. Let us, for a moment, transport ourselves in thought, to that
+glorious city. Let us imagine that we are entering its gates, in the
+time of its power and glory. A crowd is assembled round a portico. All
+are gazing with delight at the entablature; for Phidias is putting up
+the frieze. We turn into another street; a rhapsodist is reciting there:
+men, women, children are thronging round him: the tears are running down
+their cheeks: their eyes are fixed: their very breath is still; for
+he is telling how Priam fell at the feet of Achilles, and kissed those
+hands,--the terrible--the murderous,--which had slain so many of his
+sons. (--kai kuse cheiras, deinas, anorophonous, ai oi poleas ktanon
+uias.)
+
+We enter the public place; there is a ring of youths, all leaning
+forward, with sparkling eyes, and gestures of expectation. Socrates is
+pitted against the famous atheist, from Ionia, and has just brought
+him to a contradiction in terms. But we are interrupted. The herald is
+crying--"Room for the Prytanes." The general assembly is to meet. The
+people are swarming in on every side. Proclamation is made--"Who wishes
+to speak?" There is a shout, and a clapping of hands: Pericles is
+mounting the stand. Then for a play of Sophocles; and away to sup with
+Aspasia. I know of no modern university which has so excellent a system
+of education.
+
+Knowledge thus acquired and opinions thus formed were, indeed, likely
+to be, in some respects, defective. Propositions which are advanced
+in discourse generally result from a partial view of the question, and
+cannot be kept under examination long enough to be corrected. Men of
+great conversational powers almost universally practise a sort of
+lively sophistry and exaggeration, which deceives, for the moment, both
+themselves and their auditors. Thus we see doctrines, which cannot bear
+a close inspection, triumph perpetually in drawing-rooms, in debating
+societies, and even in legislative or judicial assemblies. To the
+conversational education of the Athenians I am inclined to attribute
+the great looseness of reasoning which is remarkable in most of their
+scientific writings. Even the most illogical of modern writers would
+stand perfectly aghast at the puerile fallacies which seem to have
+deluded some of the greatest men of antiquity. Sir Thomas Lethbridge
+would stare at the political economy of Xenophon; and the author of
+"Soirees de Petersbourg" would be ashamed of some of the metaphysical
+arguments of Plato. But the very circumstances which retarded the growth
+of science were peculiarly favourable to the cultivation of eloquence.
+From the early habit of taking a share in animated discussion the
+intelligent student would derive that readiness of resource, that
+copiousness of language, and that knowledge of the temper and
+understanding of an audience, which are far more valuable to an orator
+than the greatest logical powers.
+
+Horace has prettily compared poems to those paintings of which the
+effect varies as the spectator changes his stand. The same remark
+applies with at least equal justice to speeches. They must be read
+with the temper of those to whom they were addressed, or they must
+necessarily appear to offend against the laws of taste and reason; as
+the finest picture, seen in a light different from that for which it was
+designed, will appear fit only for a sign. This is perpetually forgotten
+by those who criticise oratory. Because they are reading at leisure,
+pausing at every line, reconsidering every argument, they forget that
+the hearers were hurried from point to point too rapidly to detect the
+fallacies through which they were conducted; that they had no time to
+disentangle sophisms, or to notice slight inaccuracies of expression;
+that elaborate excellence, either of reasoning or of language, would
+have been absolutely thrown away. To recur to the analogy of the sister
+art, these connoisseurs examine a panorama through a microscope, and
+quarrel with a scene-painter because he does not give to his work the
+exquisite finish of Gerard Dow.
+
+Oratory is to be estimated on principles different from those which
+are applied to other productions. Truth is the object of philosophy and
+history. Truth is the object even of those works which are peculiarly
+called works of fiction, but which, in fact, bear the same relation to
+history which algebra bears to arithmetic. The merit of poetry, in
+its wildest forms, still consists in its truth,--truth conveyed to the
+understanding, not directly by the words, but circuitously by means of
+imaginative associations, which serve as its conductors. The object
+of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion. The admiration of the
+multitude does not make Moore a greater poet than Coleridge, or Beattie
+a greater philosopher than Berkeley. But the criterion of eloquence is
+different. A speaker who exhausts the whole philosophy of a question,
+who displays every grace of style, yet produces no effect on his
+audience, may be a great essayist, a great statesman, a great master of
+composition; but he is not an orator. If he miss the mark, it makes no
+difference whether he have taken aim too high or too low.
+
+The effect of the great freedom of the press in England has been, in a
+great measure, to destroy this distinction, and to leave among us little
+of what I call Oratory Proper. Our legislators, our candidates, on great
+occasions even our advocates, address themselves less to the audience
+than to the reporters. They think less of the few hearers than of the
+innumerable readers. At Athens the case was different; there the only
+object of the speaker was immediate conviction and persuasion. He,
+therefore, who would justly appreciate the merit of the Grecian orators
+should place himself, as nearly as possible, in the situation of
+their auditors: he should divest himself of his modern feelings and
+acquirements, and make the prejudices and interests of the Athenian
+citizen his own. He who studies their works in this spirit will find
+that many of those things which, to an English reader, appear to be
+blemishes,--the frequent violation of those excellent rules of
+evidence by which our courts of law are regulated,--the introduction
+of extraneous matter,--the reference to considerations of political
+expediency in judicial investigations,--the assertions, without
+proof,--the passionate entreaties,--the furious invectives,--are really
+proofs of the prudence and address of the speakers. He must not
+dwell maliciously on arguments or phrases, but acquiesce in his first
+impressions. It requires repeated perusal and reflection to decide
+rightly on any other portion of literature. But with respect to works
+of which the merit depends on their instantaneous effect the most hasty
+judgment is likely to be best.
+
+The history of eloquence at Athens is remarkable. From a very early
+period great speakers had flourished there. Pisistratus and Themistocles
+are said to have owed much of their influence to their talents for
+debate. We learn, with more certainty, that Pericles was distinguished
+by extraordinary oratorical powers. The substance of some of his
+speeches is transmitted to us by Thucydides; and that excellent writer
+has doubtless faithfully reported the general line of his arguments. But
+the manner, which in oratory is of at least as much consequence as the
+matter, was of no importance to his narration. It is evident that he has
+not attempted to preserve it. Throughout his work, every speech on every
+subject, whatever may have been the character of the dialect of the
+speaker, is in exactly the same form. The grave king of Sparta, the
+furious demagogue of Athens, the general encouraging his army, the
+captive supplicating for his life, all are represented as speakers
+in one unvaried style,--a style moreover wholly unfit for oratorical
+purposes. His mode of reasoning is singularly elliptical,--in reality
+most consecutive,--yet in appearance often incoherent. His meaning, in
+itself sufficiently perplexing, is compressed into the fewest possible
+words. His great fondness for antithetical expression has not a little
+conduced to this effect. Every one must have observed how much more the
+sense is condensed in the verses of Pope and his imitators, who never
+ventured to continue the same clause from couplet to couplet, than
+in those of poets who allow themselves that license. Every artificial
+division, which is strongly marked, and which frequently recurs, has
+the same tendency. The natural and perspicuous expression which
+spontaneously rises to the mind will often refuse to accommodate itself
+to such a form. It is necessary either to expand it into weakness, or
+to compress it into almost impenetrable density. The latter is generally
+the choice of an able man, and was assuredly the choice of Thucydides.
+
+It is scarcely necessary to say that such speeches could never have been
+delivered. They are perhaps among the most difficult passages in the
+Greek language, and would probably have been scarcely more intelligible
+to an Athenian auditor than to a modern reader. Their obscurity was
+acknowledged by Cicero, who was as intimate with the literature and
+language of Greece as the most accomplished of its natives, and who
+seems to have held a respectable rank among the Greek authors. Their
+difficulty to a modern reader lies, not in the words, but in the
+reasoning. A dictionary is of far less use in studying them than a clear
+head and a close attention to the context. They are valuable to the
+scholar as displaying, beyond almost any other compositions, the powers
+of the finest of languages: they are valuable to the philosopher as
+illustrating the morals and manners of a most interesting age: they
+abound in just thought and energetic expression. But they do not
+enable us to form any accurate opinion on the merits of the early Greek
+orators.
+
+Though it cannot be doubted that, before the Persian wars, Athens had
+produced eminent speakers, yet the period during which eloquence most
+flourished among her citizens was by no means that of her greatest power
+and glory. It commenced at the close of the Peloponnesian war. In
+fact, the steps by which Athenian oratory approached to its finished
+excellence seem to have been almost contemporaneous with those by which
+the Athenian character and the Athenian empire sunk to degradation. At
+the time when the little commonwealth achieved those victories which
+twenty-five eventful centuries have left unequalled, eloquence was
+in its infancy. The deliverers of Greece became its plunderers and
+oppressors. Unmeasured exaction, atrocious vengeance, the madness of the
+multitude, 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 imperial
+republic sent forth her children by thousands to pine in the quarries
+of Syracuse, or to feed the vultures of Aegospotami. She was at length
+reduced 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 towards
+its highest excellence. And it was when the moral, the political, and
+the military character of the people was most utterly degraded, it was
+when the viceroy of a Macedonian sovereign gave law to Greece, that the
+courts of Athens witnessed the most splendid contest of eloquence that
+the 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 it
+does on those of the mechanic. It was remarked by the ancients that the
+Pentathlete, who divided his attention between several exercises, though
+he could not vie with a boxer in the use of the cestus, or with one who
+had confined his attention to running in the contest of the stadium,
+yet enjoyed far greater general vigour and health than either. It is
+the same with the mind. The superiority in technical skill is often more
+than compensated by the inferiority in general intelligence. And this is
+peculiarly the case in politics. States have always been best governed
+by men who have taken a wide view of public affairs, and who have rather
+a general acquaintance with many sciences than a perfect mastery of
+one. The union of the political and military departments in Greece
+contributed not a little to the splendour of its early history. After
+their 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 in
+the assembly, or for Iphicrates in the field. But surely they were
+incomparably better fitted than either for the supreme direction of
+affairs.
+
+There is indeed a remarkable coincidence between the progress of the
+art of war, and that of the art of oratory, among the Greeks. They
+both advanced to perfection by contemporaneous steps, and from similar
+causes. The early speakers, like the early warriors of Greece, were
+merely a militia. It was found that in both employments practice and
+discipline gave superiority. (It has often occurred to me, that to the
+circumstances mentioned in the text is to be referred one of the most
+remarkable events in Grecian history; I mean the silent but rapid
+downfall of the Lacedaemonian power. Soon after the termination of the
+Peloponnesian war, the strength of Lacedaemon began to decline. Its
+military 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,--an
+occurrence considered impossible in the earlier ages of Greece. They are
+allowed to have fought most bravely; yet they were no longer attended by
+the success to which they had formerly been accustomed. No solution of
+these circumstances is offered, as far as I know, by any ancient author.
+The real cause, I conceive, was this. The Lacedaemonians, alone among
+the Greeks, formed a permanent standing army. While the citizens of
+other commonwealths were engaged in agriculture and trade, they had no
+employment whatever but the study of military discipline. Hence, during
+the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, they had that advantage over their
+neighbours which regular troops always possess over militia. This
+advantage they lost, when other states began, at a later period, to
+employ mercenary forces, who were probably as superior to them in the
+art of war as they had hitherto been to their antagonists.) Each pursuit
+therefore became first an art, and then a trade. In proportion as the
+professors of each became more expert in their particular craft, they
+became less respectable in their general character. Their skill had been
+obtained at too great expense to be employed only from disinterested
+views. Thus, the soldiers forgot that they were citizens, and the
+orators that they were statesmen. I know not to what Demosthenes and his
+famous contemporaries can be so justly compared as to those mercenary
+troops who, in their time, overran Greece; or those who, from
+similar causes, were some centuries ago the scourge of the Italian
+republics,--perfectly acquainted with every part of their profession,
+irresistible in the field, powerful to defend or to destroy, but
+defending without love, and destroying without hatred. We may despise
+the characters of these political Condottieri; but is impossible
+to examine the system of their tactics without being amazed at its
+perfection.
+
+I had intended to proceed to this examination, and to consider
+separately the remains of Lysias, of Aeschines, of Demosthenes, and of
+Isocrates, who, though strictly speaking he was rather a pamphleteer
+than an orator, deserves, on many accounts, a place in such a
+disquisition. The length of my prolegomena and digressions compels me
+to postpone this part of the subject to another occasion. A Magazine is
+certainly a delightful invention for a very idle or a very busy man. He
+is not compelled to complete his plan or to adhere to his subject. He
+may 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 his
+unredeemed pledges. He may be as superficial, as inconsistent, and as
+careless as he chooses. Magazines resemble those little angels, who,
+according to the pretty Rabbinical tradition, are generated every
+morning by the brook which rolls over the flowers of Paradise,--whose
+life is a song,--who warble till sunset, and then sink back without
+regret into nothingness. Such spirits have nothing to do with the
+detecting spear of Ithuriel or the victorious sword of Michael. It is
+enough for them to please and be forgotten.
+
+*****
+
+
+
+
+A PROPHETIC ACCOUNT OF A GRAND NATIONAL EPIC POEM, TO BE ENTITLED "THE
+WELLINGTONIAD," 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 to
+vindicate 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 a
+gipsy, like Josephine; or heard my name pronounced by an absent person,
+like Dr Johnson. Though it is now almost as usual for gentlemen to
+appear at the moment of their death to their friends as to call on them
+during their life, none of my acquaintance have been so polite as to pay
+me that customary attention. I have derived my knowledge neither from
+the dead nor from the living; neither from the lines of a hand, nor from
+the grounds of a tea-cup; neither from the stars of the firmament, nor
+from the fiends of the abyss. I have never, like the Wesley family,
+heard "that mighty leading angel," who "drew after him the third part of
+heaven's sons," scratching in my cupboard. I have never been enticed
+to sign any of those delusive bonds which have been the ruin of so many
+poor creatures; and, having always been an indifferent horse man, I have
+been careful not to venture myself on a broomstick.
+
+My insight into futurity, like that of George Fox the quaker, and that
+of our great and philosophic poet, Lord Byron, is derived from simple
+presentiment. This is a far less artificial process than those which are
+employed by some others. Yet my predictions will, I believe, be found
+more correct than theirs, or, at all events, as Sir Benjamin Back bite
+says in the play, "more circumstantial."
+
+I prophesy then, that, in the year 2824, according to our present
+reckoning, a grand national Epic Poem, worthy to be compared with the
+Iliad, the Aeneid, or the Jerusalem, will be published in London.
+
+Men naturally take an interest in the adventures of every eminent
+writer. I will, therefore, gratify the laudable curiosity, which, on
+this occasion, will doubtless be universal, by pre fixing to my account
+of 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 most
+respectable families in England. He will be linearly descended from
+Quongti, the famous Chinese liberal, who, after the failure of the
+heroic attempt of his party to obtain a constitution from the Emperor
+Fim Fam, will take refuge in England, in the twenty-third century. Here
+his descendants will obtain considerable note; and one branch of the
+family will be raised to the peerage.
+
+Richard, however, though destined to exalt his family to distinction
+far nobler than any which wealth or titles can bestow, will be born to
+a very scanty fortune. He will display in his early youth such striking
+talents as will attract the notice of Viscount Quongti, his third
+cousin, then secretary of state for the Steam Department. At the expense
+of this eminent nobleman, he will be sent to prosecute his studies at
+the university of Tombuctoo. To that illustrious seat of the muses all
+the ingenuous youth of every country will then be attracted by the high
+scientific character of Professor Quashaboo, and the eminent literary
+attainments of Professor Kissey Kickey. In spite of this formidable
+competition, however, Quongti will acquire the highest honours in every
+department of knowledge, and will obtain the esteem of his associates by
+his amiable and unaffected manners. The guardians of the young Duke of
+Carrington, premier peer of England, and the last remaining scion of the
+ancient and illustrious house of Smith, will be desirous to secure so
+able an instructor for their ward. With the Duke, Quongti will perform
+the grand tour, and visit the polished courts of Sydney and Capetown.
+After prevailing on his pupil, with great difficulty, to subdue a
+violent and imprudent passion which he had conceived for a Hottentot
+lady, of great beauty and accomplishments indeed, but of dubious
+character, he will travel with him to the United States of America. But
+that tremendous war which will be fatal to American liberty will, at
+that time, be raging through the whole federation. At New York the
+travellers will hear of the final defeat and death of the illustrious
+champion of freedom, Jonathon Higginbottom, and of the elevation of
+Ebenezer Hogsflesh to the perpetual Presidency. They will not choose
+to proceed in a journey which would expose them to the insults of that
+brutal soldiery, whose cruelty and rapacity will have devastated Mexico
+and Colombia, and now, at length, enslaved their own country.
+
+On their return to England, A.D. 2810, the death of the Duke will compel
+his preceptor to seek for a subsistence by literary labours. His fame
+will be raised by many small productions of considerable merit; and he
+will at last obtain a permanent place in the highest class of writers by
+his great epic poem.
+
+The celebrated work will become, with unexampled rapidity, a popular
+favourite. The sale will be so beneficial to the author that, instead of
+going about the dirty streets on his velocipede, he will be enabled to
+set up his balloon.
+
+The character of this noble poem will be so finely and justly given
+in the Tombuctoo Review for April 2825, that I cannot refrain from
+translating the passage. The author will be our poet's old preceptor,
+Professor Kissey Kickey.
+
+"In pathos, in splendour of language, in sweetness of versification, Mr
+Quongti has long been considered as unrivalled. In his exquisite poem on
+the Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus all these qualities are displayed in their
+greatest perfection. How exquisitely does that work arrest and embody
+the undefined and vague shadows which flit over an imaginative mind. The
+cold worldling may not comprehend it; but it will find a response in the
+bosom of every youthful poet, of every enthusiastic lover, who has seen
+an Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus by moonlight. But we were yet to learn that
+he possessed the comprehension, the judgment, and the fertility of mind
+indispensable 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 which
+it relates. It preserves exactly all the historical circumstances,
+and interweaves them most artfully with all the speciosa miracula of
+supernatural agency."
+
+Thus far the learned Professor of Humanity in the university of
+Tombuctoo. I fear that the critics of our time will form an opinion
+diametrically opposite as to these every points. Some will, I fear,
+be disgusted by the machinery, which is derived from the mythology of
+ancient Greece. I can only say that, in the twenty-ninth century, that
+machinery will be universally in use among poets; and that Quongti will
+use it, partly in conformity with the general practice, and partly from
+a veneration, perhaps excessive, for the great remains of classical
+antiquity, which will then, as now, be assiduously read by every man of
+education; though Tom Moore's songs will be forgotten, and only three
+copies of Lord Byron's works will exist: one in the possession of King
+George the Nineteenth, one in the Duke of Carrington's collection,
+and one in the library of the British Museum. Finally, should any good
+people be concerned to hear that Pagan fictions will so long retain
+their influence over literature, let them reflect that, as the Bishop
+of St David's says, in his "Proofs of the Inspiration of the Sibylline
+Verses," 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 means
+entitled to the compliments which his Negro critic pays him on his
+adherence to the historical circumstances of the time in which he has
+chosen 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 age
+with those of much more remote periods. I can only say that the
+charge is infinitely more applicable to Homer, Virgil, and Tasso. If,
+therefore, the reader should detect, in the following abstract of the
+plot, any little deviation from strict historical accuracy, let him
+reflect, for a moment, whether Agamemnon would not have found as much to
+censure in the Iliad,--Dido in the Aeneid,--or Godfrey in the Jerusalem.
+Let him not suffer his opinions to depend on circumstances which cannot
+possibly affect the truth or falsehood of the representation. If it
+be impossible for a single man to kill hundreds in battle, the
+impossibility is not diminished by distance of time. If it be as certain
+that Rinaldo never disenchanted a forest in Palestine as it is that the
+Duke of Wellington never disenchanted the forest of Soignies, can we, as
+rational men, tolerate the one story and ridicule the other? Of this, at
+least, I am certain, that whatever excuse we have for admiring the plots
+of 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 "The
+Reign 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 the
+causes 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 the
+research of political writers, namely, the influence of the god Mars,
+who, we are told, had some forty years before usurped the conjugal
+rights of old Carlo Buonaparte, and given birth to Napoleon. By his
+incitement it was that the emperor with his devoted companions was
+now on the sea, returning to his ancient dominions. The gods were at
+present, fortunately for the adventurer, feasting with the Ethiopians,
+whose entertainments, according to the ancient custom described by
+Homer, they annually attended, with the same sort of condescending
+gluttony which now carries the cabinet to Guildhall on the 9th of
+November. Neptune was, in consequence, absent, and unable to prevent
+the 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 an
+invitation to Ethiopia, resolves to destroy the armament which brings
+war and danger to his beloved Alexander. He accordingly raises a storm
+which is most powerfully described. Napoleon bewails the inglorious fate
+for which he seems to be reserved. "Oh! thrice happy," says he, "those
+who were frozen to death at Krasnoi, or slaughtered at Leipsic. Oh,
+Kutusoff, bravest of the Russians, wherefore was I not permitted to fall
+by thy victorious sword?" He then offers a prayer to Aeolus, and vows
+to him a sacrifice of a black ram. In consequence, the god recalls his
+turbulent subject; the sea is calmed; and the ship anchors in the port
+of Frejus. Napoleon and Bertrand, who is always called the faithful
+Bertrand, land to explore the country; Mars meets them disguised as
+a lancer of the guard, wearing the cross of the legion of honour. He
+advises 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. Here
+he sees hanging up a fine print of the battle of Austerlitz, himself
+in the foreground giving his orders. This puts him in high spirits; he
+advances and salutes the governor, who receives him most loyally, gives
+him an entertainment, and, according to the usage of all epic hosts,
+insists after dinner on a full narration of all that has happened to him
+since the battle of Leipsic.
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+Napoleon carries his narrative from the battle of Leipsic to his
+abdication. But, as we shall have a great quantity of fighting on our
+hands, I think it best to omit the details.
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+Napoleon describes his sojourn at Elba, and his return; how he was
+driven by stress of weather to Sardinia, and fought with the harpies
+there; how he was then carried southward to Sicily, where he generously
+took on board an English sailor, whom a man-of-war had unhappily left
+there, 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 to
+Tartarus; how he held a long and pathetic conversation with Poniatowski,
+whom he found wandering unburied on the banks of Styx; how he swore to
+give him a splendid funeral; how he had also an affectionate interview
+with Desaix; how Moreau and Sir Ralph Abercrombie fled at the sight
+of him. He relates that he then re-embarked, and met with nothing of
+importance 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, brings
+intelligence 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,--the
+son of Maria Antoinette by Apollo,--in the shape of a fiddler, rushes
+in to tell him that Napoleon is approaching with a vast army. The
+royal forces are drawn out for battle. Full catalogues are given of
+the regiments on both sides; their colonels, lieutenant-colonels, and
+uniform.
+
+
+BOOK V.
+
+The king comes forward and defies Napoleon to single combat. Napoleon
+accepts it. Sacrifices are offered. The ground is measured by Ney and
+Macdonald. The combatants advance. Louis snaps his pistol in vain. The
+bullet of Napoleon, on the contrary, carries off the tip of the king's
+ear. Napoleon then rushes on him sword in hand. But Louis snatches up a
+stone, such as ten men of those degenerate days will be unable to move,
+and hurls it at his antagonist. Mars averts it. Napoleon then seizes
+Louis, 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 thick
+cloud, and seats him in an hotel at Lille, with a bottle of Maraschino
+and a basin of soup before him. Both armies instantly proclaim Napoleon
+emperor.
+
+
+BOOK VI.
+
+Neptune, returned from his Ethiopian revels, sees with rage the events
+which have taken place in Europe. He flies to the cave of Alecto,
+and drags out the fiend, commanding her to excite universal hostility
+against Napoleon. The Fury repairs to Lord Castlereagh; and, as, when
+she visited Turnus, she assumed the form of an old woman, she here
+appears in the kindred shape of Mr Vansittart, and in an impassioned
+address exhorts his lordship to war. His lordship, like Turnus, treats
+this unwonted monitor with great disrespect, tells him that he is an old
+doting fool, and advises him to look after the ways and means, and leave
+questions of peace and war to his betters. The Fury then displays all
+her terrors. The neat powdered hair bristles up into snakes; the black
+stockings appear clotted with blood; and, brandishing a torch, she
+announces her name and mission. Lord Castlereagh, seized with fury,
+flies instantly to the Parliament, and recommends war with a torrent
+of eloquent invective. All the members instantly clamour for vengeance,
+seize their arms which are hanging round the walls of the house, and
+rush forth to prepare for instant hostilities.
+
+
+BOOK VII.
+
+In this book intelligence arrives at London of the flight of the Duchess
+d'Angouleme from France. It is stated that this heroine, armed from head
+to foot, defended Bordeaux against the adherents of Napoleon, and that
+she fought hand to hand with Clausel, and beat him down with an enormous
+stone. Deserted by her followers, she at last, like Turnus, plunged,
+armed as she was, into the Garonne, and swam to an English ship which
+lay off the coast. This intelligence yet more inflames the English to
+war.
+
+A yet bolder flight than any which has been mentioned follows. The Duke
+of Wellington goes to take leave of the duchess; and a scene passes
+quite equal to the famous interview of Hector and Andromache. Lord Douro
+is frightened at his father's feather, but begs for his epaulette.
+
+
+BOOK VIII.
+
+Neptune, trembling for the event of the war, implores Venus, who, as
+the offspring of his element, naturally venerates him, to procure from
+Vulcan a deadly sword and a pair of unerring pistols for the Duke. They
+are 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 a
+boxing match at the Fives-court, a lord mayor's procession, and a man
+hanging. All these are fully and elegantly described. The Duke thus
+armed hastens to Brussels.
+
+
+BOOK IX.
+
+The Duke is received at Brussels by the King of the Netherlands with
+great magnificence. He is informed of the approach of the armies of all
+the confederate kings. The poet, however, with a laudable zeal for
+the glory of his country, completely passes over the exploits of the
+Austrians in Italy, and the discussions of the congress. England
+and France, Wellington and Napoleon, almost exclusively occupy his
+attention. Several days are spent at Brussels in revelry. The English
+heroes astonish their allies by exhibiting splendid games, similar to
+those which draw the flower of the British aristocracy to Newmarket and
+Moulsey Hurst, and which will be considered by our descendants with
+as much veneration as the Olympian and Isthmian contests by classical
+students of the present time. In the combat of the cestus, Shaw, the
+lifeguardsman, vanquishes the Prince of Orange, and obtains a bull as a
+prize. In the horse-race, the Duke of Wellington and Lord Uxbridge ride
+against each other; the Duke is victorious, and is rewarded with twelve
+opera-girls. On the last day of the festivities, a splendid dance takes
+place, 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 and
+families are happily particularised. He slays Herman, the craniologist,
+who dwelt by the linden-shadowed Elbe, and measured with his eye the
+skulls of all who walked through the streets of Berlin. Alas! his own
+skull is now cleft by the Corsican sword. Four pupils of the University
+of Jena advance together to encounter the Emperor; at four blows he
+destroys them all. Blucher rushes to arrest the devastation; Napoleon
+strikes him to the ground, and is on the point of killing him, but
+Gneisenau, Ziethen, Bulow, and all the other heroes of the Prussian
+army, gather round him, and bear the venerable chief to a distance
+from the field. The slaughter is continued till night. In the meantime
+Neptune has despatched Fame to bear the intelligence to the Duke, who
+is dancing at Brussels. The whole army is put in motion. The Duke of
+Brunswick'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 at
+Quatre Bras. Ney kills the Duke of Brunswick, and strips him, sending
+his belt to Napoleon. The English fall back on Waterloo. Jupiter calls
+a council of the gods, and commands that none shall interfere on either
+side. Mars and Neptune make very eloquent speeches. The battle of
+Waterloo commences. Napoleon kills Picton and Delancy. Ney engages
+Ponsonby and kills him. The Prince of Orange is wounded by Soult. Lord
+Uxbridge flies to check the carnage. He is severely wounded by Napoleon,
+and only saved by the assistance of Lord Hill. In the meantime the
+Duke makes a tremendous carnage among the French. He encounters General
+Duhesme and vanquishes him, but spares his life. He kills Toubert, who
+kept the gaming-house in the Palais Royal, and Maronet, who loved to
+spend whole nights in drinking champagne. Clerval, who had been hooted
+from the stage, and had then become a captain in the Imperial Guard,
+wished that he had still continued to face the more harmless enmity of
+the Parisian pit. But Larrey, the son of Esculapius, whom his father had
+instructed in all the secrets of his art, and who was surgeon-general of
+the French army, embraced the knees of the destroyer, and conjured him
+not to give death to one whose office it was to give life. The Duke
+raised him, and bade him live.
+
+But we must hasten to the close. Napoleon rushes to encounter
+Wellington. Both armies stand in mute amaze. The heroes fire their
+pistols; that of Napoleon misses, but that of Wellington, formed by the
+hand of Vulcan, and primed by the Cyclops, wounds the Emperor in the
+thigh. He flies, and takes refuge among his troops. The flight becomes
+promiscuous. 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 household
+gods and conjures him, by the venerable age of George III., and by the
+opening perfections of the Princess Charlotte, to spare him. The Prince
+is inclined to do so; when, looking on his breast, he sees there the
+belt of the Duke of Brunswick. He instantly draws his sword, and is
+about to stab the destroyer of his kinsman. Piety and hospitality,
+however, restrain his hand. He takes a middle course, and condemns
+Napoleon to be exposed on a desert island. The King of France re-enters
+Paris; 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, it
+has been little noticed by the critics. Mr Mitford has almost succeeded
+in mounting, unperceived by those whose office it is to watch such
+aspirants, to a high place among historians. He has taken a seat on
+the dais without being challenged by a single seneschal. To oppose the
+progress of his fame is now almost a hopeless enterprise. Had he been
+reviewed with candid severity, when he had published only his first
+volume, his work would either have deserved its reputation, or would
+never have obtained it. "Then," as Indra says of Kehama, "then was the
+time to strike." The time was neglected; and the consequence is that
+Mr Mitford like Kehama, has laid his victorious hand on the literary
+Amreeta, and seems about to taste the precious elixir of immortality. I
+shall 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 to
+reduce an overpraised writer to his proper level.
+
+The principal characteristic of this historian, the origin of his
+excellencies and his defects, is a love of singularity. He has no
+notion of going with a multitude to do either good or evil. An exploded
+opinion, or an unpopular person, has an irresistible charm for him. The
+same perverseness may be traced in his diction. His style would
+never have been elegant; but it might at least have been manly and
+perspicuous; and nothing but the most elaborate care could possibly have
+made it so bad as it is. It is distinguished by harsh phrases, strange
+collocations, occasional solecisms, frequent obscurity, and, above all,
+by a peculiar oddity, which can no more be described than it can be
+overlooked. Nor is this all. Mr Mitford piques himself on spelling
+better 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 the
+most ordinary words of the English language. It is, in itself, a matter
+perfectly indifferent whether we call a foreigner by the name which he
+bears 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 law
+by all writers except Mr Mitford. If he were always consistent with
+himself, he might be excused for sometimes disagreeing with his
+neighbours; but he proceeds on no principle but that of being unlike
+the rest of the world. Every child has heard of Linnaeus; therefore
+Mr Mitford calls him Linne: Rousseau is known all over Europe as Jean
+Jacques; therefore Mr Mitford bestows on him the strange appellation of
+John James.
+
+Had Mr Mitford undertaken a History of any other country than Greece,
+this propensity would have rendered his work useless and absurd. His
+occasional remarks on the affairs of ancient Rome and of modern Europe
+are full of errors: but he writes of times with respect to which almost
+every other writer has been in the wrong; and, therefore, by resolutely
+deviating from his predecessors, he is often in the right.
+
+Almost all the modern historians of Greece have shown the grossest
+ignorance of the most obvious phenomena of human nature. In their
+representations the generals and statesmen of antiquity are absolutely
+divested of all individuality. They are personifications; they are
+passions, talents, opinions, virtues, vices, but not men. Inconsistency
+is a thing of which these writers have no notion. That a man may have
+been liberal in his youth and avaricious in his age, cruel to one enemy
+and merciful to another, is to them utterly inconceivable. If the facts
+be undeniable, they suppose some strange and deep design, in order to
+explain what, as every one who has observed his own mind knows, needs
+no explanation at all. This is a mode of writing very acceptable to the
+multitude who have always been accustomed to make gods and daemons
+out of men very little better or worse than themselves; but it appears
+contemptible to all who have watched the changes of human character--to
+all who have observed the influence of time, of circumstances, and
+of associates, on mankind--to all who have seen a hero in the gout, a
+democrat in the church, a pedant in love, or a philosopher in liquor.
+This practice of painting in nothing but black and white is unpardonable
+even in the drama. It is the great fault of Alfieri; and how much it
+injures the effect of his compositions will be obvious to every one who
+will compare his Rosmunda with the Lady Macbeth of Shakspeare. The one
+is 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 the
+spectacle of such raving cruelty, excited by no provocation,
+repeatedly changing its object, and constant in nothing but in its
+in-extinguishable thirst for blood.
+
+In history this error is far more disgraceful. Indeed, there is no fault
+which so completely ruins a narrative in the opinion of a judicious
+reader. We know that the line of demarcation between good and bad men
+is so faintly marked as often to elude the most careful investigation
+of those who have the best opportunities for judging. Public men, above
+all, are surrounded with so many temptations and difficulties that
+some doubt must almost always hang over their real dispositions and
+intentions. The lives of Pym, Cromwell, Monk, Clarendon, Marlborough,
+Burnet, Walpole, are well known to us. We are acquainted with their
+actions, their speeches, their writings; we have abundance of letters
+and well-authenticated anecdotes relating to them: yet what candid man
+will venture very positively to say which of them were honest and which
+of them were dishonest men? It appears easier to pronounce decidedly
+upon the great characters of antiquity, not because we have greater
+means of discovering truth, but simply because we have less means of
+detecting error. The modern historians of Greece have forgotten this.
+Their heroes and villains are as consistent in all their sayings and
+doings as the cardinal virtues and the deadly sins in an allegory. We
+should as soon expect a good action from giant Slay-good in Bunyan as
+from Dionysius; and a crime of Epaminondas would seem as incongruous
+as a faux-pas of the grave and comely damsel called Discretion, who
+answered the bell at the door of the house Beautiful.
+
+This error was partly the cause and partly the effect of the high
+estimation in which the later ancient writers have been held by modern
+scholars. Those French and English authors who have treated of the
+affairs of Greece have generally turned with contempt from the simple
+and natural narrations of Thucydides and Xenophon to the extravagant
+representations of Plutarch, Diodorus, Curtius, and other romancers
+of the same class,--men who described military operations without ever
+having handled a sword, and applied to the seditions of little republics
+speculations formed by observation on an empire which covered half
+the known world. Of liberty they knew nothing. It was to them a
+great mystery--a superhuman enjoyment. They ranted about liberty and
+patriotism, from the same cause which leads monks to talk more ardently
+than other men about love and women. A wise man values political
+liberty, because it secures the persons and the possessions of citizens;
+because it tends to prevent the extravagance of rulers, and the
+corruption of judges; because it gives birth to useful sciences and
+elegant arts; because it excites the industry and increases the comforts
+of all classes of society. These theorists imagined that it possessed
+something eternally and intrinsically good, distinct from the blessings
+which it generally produced. They considered it not as a means but as an
+end; an end to be attained at any cost. Their favourite heroes are those
+who have sacrificed, for the mere name of freedom, the prosperity--the
+security--the justice--from which freedom derives its value.
+
+There is another remarkable characteristic of these writers, in which
+their modern worshippers have carefully imitated them--a great fondness
+for good stories. The most established facts, dates, and characters are
+never suffered to come into competition with a splendid saying, or a
+romantic exploit. The early historians have left us natural and simple
+descriptions of the great events which they witnessed, and the great men
+with whom they associated. When we read the account which Plutarch
+and Rollin have given of the same period, we scarcely know our old
+acquaintance again; we are utterly confounded by the melo-dramatic
+effect of the narration, and the sublime coxcombry of the characters.
+
+These are the principal errors into which the predecessors of Mr Mitford
+have fallen; and from most of these he is free. His faults are of a
+completely different description. It is to be hoped that the students of
+history may now be saved, like Dorax in Dryden's play, by swallowing
+two conflicting poisons, each of which may serve as an antidote to the
+other.
+
+The first and most important difference between Mr Mitford and those who
+have preceded him is in his narration. Here the advantage lies, for
+the most part, on his side. His principle is to follow the contemporary
+historians, to look with doubt on all statements which are not in
+some degree confirmed by them, and absolutely to reject all which are
+contradicted by them. While he retains the guidance of some writer in
+whom 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 whom
+he so much despises: he is as absurd as they, and very much duller. It
+is really amusing to observe how he proceeds with his narration when he
+has no better authority than poor Diodorus. He is compelled to relate
+something; yet he believes nothing. He accompanies every fact with
+a long statement of objections. His account of the administration of
+Dionysius is in no sense a history. It ought to be entitled--"Historic
+doubts as to certain events, alleged to have taken place in Sicily."
+
+This scepticism, however, like that of some great legal characters
+almost as sceptical as himself; vanishes whenever his political
+partialities interfere. He is a vehement admirer of tyranny and
+oligarchy, and considers no evidence as feeble which can be brought
+forward in favour of those forms of government. Democracy he hates with
+a perfect hatred, a hatred which, in the first volume of his history,
+appears only in his episodes and reflections, but which, in those parts
+where he has less reverence for his guides, and can venture to take his
+own way, completely distorts even his narration.
+
+In taking up these opinions, I have no doubt that Mr Mitford was
+influenced 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 the
+other side that even the worst parts of Mr Mitford's book may be useful
+as a corrective. For a young gentleman who talks much about his country,
+tyrannicide, and Epaminondas, this work, diluted in a sufficient
+quantity of Rollin and Berthelemi, may be a very useful remedy.
+
+The errors of both parties arise from an ignorance or a neglect of the
+fundamental principles of political science. The writers on one side
+imagine popular government to be always a blessing; Mr Mitford omits no
+opportunity of assuring us that it is always a curse. The fact is, that
+a good government, like a good coat, is that which fits the body for
+which it is designed. A man who, upon abstract principles, pronounces
+a constitution to be good, without an exact knowledge of the people
+who are to be governed by it, judges as absurdly as a tailor who should
+measure the Belvidere Apollo for the clothes of all his customers. The
+demagogues who wished to see Portugal a republic, and the wise critics
+who revile the Virginians for not having instituted a peerage, appear
+equally ridiculous to all men of sense and candour.
+
+That is the best government which desires to make the people happy, and
+knows how to make them happy. Neither the inclination nor the knowledge
+will suffice alone; and it is difficult to find them together.
+
+Pure democracy, and pure democracy alone, satisfies the former condition
+of this great problem. That the governors may be solicitous only for
+the interests of the governed, it is necessary that the interests of the
+governors and the governed should be the same. This cannot be often the
+case where power is intrusted to one or to a few. The privileged part of
+the community will doubtless derive a certain degree of advantage from
+the general prosperity of the state; but they will derive a greater from
+oppression and exaction. The king will desire an useless war for his
+glory, or a parc-aux-cerfs for his pleasure. The nobles will demand
+monopolies and lettres-de-cachet. In proportion as the number of
+governors is increased the evil is diminished. There are fewer to
+contribute, and more to receive. The dividend which each can obtain of
+the public plunder becomes less and less tempting. But the interests of
+the subjects and the rulers never absolutely coincide till the subjects
+themselves become the rulers, that is, till the government be either
+immediately or mediately democratical.
+
+But this is not enough. "Will without power," said the sagacious Casimir
+to Milor Beefington, "is like children playing at soldiers." The people
+will always be desirous to promote their own interests; but it may be
+doubted, whether, in any community, they were ever sufficiently educated
+to understand them. Even in this island, where the multitude have long
+been better informed than in any other part of Europe, the rights of the
+many have generally been asserted against themselves by the patriotism
+of the few. Free trade, one of the greatest blessings which a government
+can confer on a people, is in almost every country unpopular. It may
+be well doubted, whether a liberal policy with regard to our commercial
+relations would find any support from a parliament elected by universal
+suffrage. The republicans on the other side of the Atlantic have
+recently adopted regulations of which the consequences will, before
+long, 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 may
+be governed for their own good, they must not be governed by their
+own ignorance. There are countries in which it would be as absurd to
+establish popular government as to abolish all the restraints in a
+school, or to untie all the strait-waistcoats in a madhouse.
+
+Hence it may be concluded that the happiest state of society is that in
+which supreme power resides in the whole body of a well-informed people.
+This is an imaginary, perhaps an unattainable, state of things. Yet, in
+some measure, we may approximate to it; and he alone deserves the name
+of a great statesman, whose principle it is to extend the power of the
+people in proportion to the extent of their knowledge, and to give them
+every facility for obtaining such a degree of knowledge as may render
+it safe to trust them with absolute power. In the mean time, it is
+dangerous 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 some
+hypothetical case, be the best possible.
+
+If, however, there be any form of government which in all ages and all
+nations has always been, and must always be, pernicious, it is certainly
+that which Mr Mitford, on his usual principle of being wiser than all
+the rest of the world, has taken under his especial patronage--pure
+oligarchy. This is closely, and indeed inseparably, connected with
+another of his eccentric tastes, a marked partiality for Lacedaemon, and
+a dislike of Athens. Mr Mitford's book has, I suspect, rendered these
+sentiments in some degree popular; and I shall, therefore, examine them
+at some length.
+
+The shades in the Athenian character strike the eye more rapidly than
+those in the Lacedaemonian: not because they are darker, but because
+they are on a brighter ground. The law of ostracism is an instance
+of this. Nothing can be conceived more odious than the practice of
+punishing a citizen, simply and professedly, for his eminence;--and
+nothing in the institutions of Athens is more frequently or more justly
+censured. Lacedaemon was free from this. And why? Lacedaemon did
+not need it. Oligarchy is an ostracism of itself,--an ostracism not
+occasional, but permanent,--not dubious, but certain. Her laws prevented
+the development of merit instead of attacking its maturity. They did not
+cut down the plant in its high and palmy state, but cursed the soil with
+eternal sterility. In spite of the law of ostracism, Athens produced,
+within a hundred and fifty years, the greatest public men that ever
+existed. Whom had Sparta to ostracise? She produced, at most, four
+eminent men, Brasidas, Gylippus, Lysander, and Agesilaus. Of these, not
+one rose to distinction within her jurisdiction. It was only when
+they escaped from the region within which the influence of aristocracy
+withered everything good and noble, it was only when they ceased to be
+Lacedaemonians, that they became great men. Brasidas, among the cities
+of Thrace, was strictly a democratical leader, the favourite minister
+and general of the people. The same may be said of Gylippus, at
+Syracuse. Lysander, in the Hellespont, and Agesilaus, in Asia, were
+liberated for a time from the hateful restraints imposed by the
+constitution of Lycurgus. Both acquired fame abroad; and both returned
+to be watched and depressed at home. This is not peculiar to Sparta.
+Oligarchy, wherever it has existed, has always stunted the growth of
+genius. Thus it was at Rome, till about a century before the Christian
+era: 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 first
+order of intellect,--for a Pericles, a Demosthenes, or a Hannibal.
+The Gracchi formed a strong democratical party; Marius revived it; the
+foundations of the old aristocracy were shaken; and two generations
+fertile in really great men appeared.
+
+Venice is a still more remarkable instance: in her history we see
+nothing but the state; aristocracy had destroyed every seed of genius
+and virtue. Her dominion was like herself, lofty and magnificent, but
+founded on filth and weeds. God forbid that there should ever again
+exist a powerful and civilised state, which, after existing through
+thirteen hundred eventful years, should not bequeath to mankind the
+memory of one great name or one generous action.
+
+Many writers, and Mr Mitford among the number, have admired the
+stability of the Spartan institutions; in fact, there is little to
+admire, and less to approve. Oligarchy is the weakest and the most
+stable of governments; and it is stable because it is weak. It has a
+sort of valetudinarian longevity; it lives in the balance of Sanctorius;
+it takes no exercise; it exposes itself to no accident; it is seized
+with an hypochondriac alarm at every new sensation; it trembles at every
+breath; it lets blood for every inflammation: and thus, without ever
+enjoying a day of health or pleasure, drags on its existence to a doting
+and debilitated old age.
+
+The Spartans purchased for their government a prolongation of its
+existence by the sacrifice of happiness at home and dignity abroad. They
+cringed to the powerful; they trampled on the weak; they massacred their
+helots; they betrayed their allies; they contrived to be a day too
+late for the battle of Marathon; they attempted to avoid the battle of
+Salamis; they suffered the Athenians, to whom they owed their lives
+and liberties, to be a second time driven from their country by the
+Persians, that they might finish their own fortifications on the
+Isthmus; they attempted to take advantage of the distress to which
+exertions in their cause had reduced their preservers, in order to make
+them their slaves; they strove to prevent those who had abandoned their
+walls to defend them, from rebuilding them to defend themselves; they
+commenced the Peloponnesian war in violation of their engagements with
+Athens; they abandoned it in violation of their engagements with
+their allies; they gave up to the sword whole cities which had placed
+themselves under their protection; they bartered, for advantages
+confined to themselves, the interest, the freedom, and the lives
+of those who had served them most faithfully; they took with equal
+complacency, and equal infamy, the stripes of Elis and the bribes of
+Persia; they never showed either resentment or gratitude; they abstained
+from no injury, and they revenged none. Above all, they looked on a
+citizen who served them well as their deadliest enemy. These are the
+arts which protract the existence of government.
+
+Nor were the domestic institutions of Lacedaemon less hateful or less
+contemptible than her foreign policy. A perpetual interference with
+every part of the system of human life, a constant struggle against
+nature and reason, characterised all her laws. To violate even
+prejudices which have taken deep root in the minds of a people is
+scarcely expedient; to think of extirpating natural appetites and
+passions is frantic: the external symptoms may be occasionally
+repressed; but the feeling still exists, and, debarred from its natural
+objects, preys on the disordered mind and body of its victim. Thus it
+is in convents---thus it is among ascetic sects--thus it was among the
+Lacedaemonians. Hence arose that madness, or violence approaching to
+madness, which, in spite of every external restraint, often appeared
+among the most distinguished citizens of Sparta. Cleomenes terminated
+his career of raving cruelty by cutting himself to pieces. Pausanias
+seems to have been absolutely insane; he formed a hopeless and
+profligate 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 of
+Lacedaemon, furnishes us with the strongest evidence to this effect.
+It is impossible not to observe the brutal and senseless fury which
+characterises almost every Spartan with whom he was connected. Clearchus
+nearly lost his life by his cruelty. Chirisophus deprived his army
+of the services of a faithful guide by his unreasonable and ferocious
+severity. But it is needless to multiply instances. Lycurgus, Mr
+Mitford's favourite legislator, founded his whole system on a mistaken
+principle. He never considered that governments were made for men, and
+not men for governments. Instead of adapting the constitution to the
+people, he distorted the minds of the people to suit the constitution, a
+scheme worthy of the Laputan Academy of Projectors. And this appears to
+Mr Mitford to constitute his peculiar title to admiration. Hear himself:
+"What to modern eyes most strikingly sets that extraordinary man above
+all other legislators is, that in so many circumstances, apparently out
+of the reach of law, he controlled and formed to his own mind the wills
+and habits of his people." I should suppose that this gentleman had the
+advantage of receiving his education under the ferula of Dr
+Pangloss; for his metaphysics are clearly those of the castle of
+Thunder-ten-tronckh: "Remarquez bien que les nez ont ete faits pour
+porter des lunettes, aussi avons nous des lunettes. Les jambes sont
+visiblement institues pour etre chaussees, et nous avons des chausses.
+Les cochons etant faits pour etre manges, nous mangeons du porc toute
+l'annee."
+
+At Athens the laws did not constantly interfere with the tastes of the
+people. The children were not taken from their parents by that universal
+step-mother, the state. They were not starved into thieves, or tortured
+into bullies; there was no established table at which every one must
+dine, no established style in which every one must converse. An Athenian
+might eat whatever he could afford to buy, and talk as long as he could
+find people to listen. The government did not tell the people what
+opinions they were to hold, or what songs they were to sing. Freedom
+produced excellence. Thus philosophy took its origin. Thus were produced
+those models of poetry, of oratory, and of the arts, which scarcely fall
+short of the standard of ideal excellence. Nothing is more conducive to
+happiness than the free exercise of the mind in pursuits congenial to
+it. This happiness, assuredly, was enjoyed far more at Athens than at
+Sparta. The Athenians are acknowledged even by their enemies to have
+been distinguished, in private life, by their courteous and amiable
+demeanour. Their levity, at least, was better than Spartan sullenness
+and their impertinence than Spartan insolence. Even in courage it may be
+questioned whether they were inferior to the Lacedaemonians. The great
+Athenian historian has reported a remarkable observation of the great
+Athenian minister. Pericles maintained that his countrymen, without
+submitting to the hardships of a Spartan education, rivalled all the
+achievements of Spartan valour, and that therefore the pleasures and
+amusements which they enjoyed were to be considered as so much clear
+gain. The infantry of Athens was certainly not equal to that of
+Lacedaemon; but this seems to have been caused merely by want of
+practice: the attention of the Athenians was diverted from the
+discipline of the phalanx to that of the trireme. The Lacedaemonians, in
+spite of all their boasted valour, were, from the same cause, timid and
+disorderly in naval action.
+
+But we are told that crimes of great enormity were perpetrated by the
+Athenian government, and the democracies under its protection. It is
+true that Athens too often acted up to the full extent of the laws of
+war in an age when those laws had not been mitigated by causes which
+have operated in later times. This accusation is, in fact, common to
+Athens, to Lacedaemon, to all the states of Greece, and to all states
+similarly situated. Where communities are very large, the heavier evils
+of war are felt but by few. The ploughboy sings, the spinning-wheel
+turns round, the wedding-day is fixed, whether the last battle were lost
+or won. In little states it cannot be thus; every man feels in his own
+property and person the effect of a war. Every man is a soldier, and a
+soldier fighting for his nearest interests. His own trees have been cut
+down--his own corn has been burnt--his own house has been pillaged--his
+own relations have been killed. How can he entertain towards the enemies
+of his country the same feelings with one who has suffered nothing from
+them, except perhaps the addition of a small sum to the taxes which he
+pays? Men in such circumstances cannot be generous. They have too much
+at stake. It is when they are, if I may so express myself, playing
+for love, it is when war is a mere game at chess, it is when they are
+contending 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 good
+offices to their enemies. The Black Prince waited behind the chair of
+his captive; Villars interchanged repartees with Eugene; George II. sent
+congratulations to Louis XV., during a war, upon occasion of his escape
+from the attempt of Damien: and these things are fine and generous, and
+very gratifying to the author of the Broad Stone of Honour, and all the
+other wise men who think, like him, that God made the world only for the
+use of gentlemen. But they spring in general from utter heartlessness.
+No war ought ever to be undertaken but under circumstances which render
+all interchange of courtesy between the combatants impossible. It is a
+bad thing that men should hate each other; but it is far worse that
+they should contract the habit of cutting one another's throats without
+hatred. War is never lenient, but where it is wanton; when men are
+compelled to fight in selfdefence, they must hate and avenge: this may
+be bad; but it is human nature; it is the clay as it came from the hand
+of the potter.
+
+It is true that among the dependencies of Athens seditions assumed
+a character more ferocious than even in France, during the reign of
+terror--the accursed Saturnalia of an accursed bondage. It is true
+that in Athens itself, where such convulsions were scarcely known,
+the condition of the higher orders was disagreeable; that they were
+compelled to contribute large sums for the service or the amusement
+of the public; and that they were sometimes harassed by vexatious
+informers. Whenever such cases occur, Mr Mitford's scepticism vanishes.
+The "if," the "but," the "it is said," the "if we may believe," with
+which he qualifies every charge against a tyrant or an aristocracy, are
+at once abandoned. The blacker the story, the firmer is his belief, and
+he never fails to inveigh with hearty bitterness against democracy as
+the source of every species of crime.
+
+The Athenians, I believe, possessed more liberty than was good for
+them. Yet I will venture to assert that, while the splendour, the
+intelligence, and the energy of that great people were peculiar to
+themselves, the crimes with which they are charged arose from causes
+which were common to them with every other state which then existed.
+The violence of faction in that age sprung from a cause which has always
+been fertile in every political and moral evil, domestic slavery.
+
+The effect of slavery is completely to dissolve the connection which
+naturally exists between the higher and lower classes of free citizens.
+The rich spend their wealth in purchasing and maintaining slaves. There
+is no demand for the labour of the poor; the fable of Menenius ceases to
+be applicable; the belly communicates no nutriment to the members; there
+is an atrophy in the body politic. The two parties, therefore, proceed
+to extremities utterly unknown in countries where they have mutually
+need of each other. In Rome the oligarchy was too powerful to be
+subverted by force; and neither the tribunes nor the popular assemblies,
+though constitutionally omnipotent, could maintain a successful contest
+against men who possessed the whole property of the state. Hence the
+necessity for measures tending to unsettle the whole frame of society,
+and to take away every motive of industry; the abolition of debts, and
+the agrarian laws--propositions absurdly condemned by men who do
+not consider the circumstances from which they sprung. They were the
+desperate remedies of a desperate disease. In Greece the oligarchical
+interest was not in general so deeply rooted as at Rome. The multitude,
+therefore, often redressed by force grievances which, at Rome, were
+commonly attacked under the forms of the constitution. They drove out or
+massacred the rich, and divided their property. If the superior union or
+military skill of the rich rendered them victorious, they took measures
+equally violent, disarmed all in whom they could not confide, often
+slaughtered great numbers, and occasionally expelled the whole
+commonalty from the city, and remained, with their slaves, the sole
+inhabitants.
+
+From such calamities Athens and Lacedaemon alone were almost completely
+free. At Athens the purses of the rich were laid under regular
+contribution for the support of the poor; and this, rightly considered,
+was as much a favour to the givers as to the receivers, since no other
+measure could possibly have saved their houses from pillage and their
+persons from violence. It is singular that Mr Mitford should perpetually
+reprobate a policy which was the best that could be pursued in such
+a state of things, and which alone saved Athens from the frightful
+outrages which were perpetrated at Corcyra.
+
+Lacedaemon, cursed with a system of slavery more odious than has ever
+existed in any other country, avoided this evil by almost totally
+annihilating private property. Lycurgus began by an agrarian law. He
+abolished all professions except that of arms; he made the whole of his
+community a standing army, every member of which had a common right to
+the services of a crowd of miserable bondmen; he secured the state from
+sedition at the expense of the Helots. Of all the parts of his system
+this is the most creditable to his head, and the most disgraceful to his
+heart.
+
+These considerations, and many others of equal importance, Mr Mitford
+has neglected; but he has yet a heavier charge to answer. He has made
+not only illogical inferences, but false statements. While he never
+states, without qualifications and objections, the charges which the
+earliest 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 every
+democracy and every demagogue. Such an accusation should not be made
+without being supported; and I will therefore select one out of many
+passages which will fully substantiate the charge, and convict Mr
+Mitford of wilful misrepresentation, or of negligence scarcely less
+culpable. Mr Mitford is speaking of one of the greatest men that ever
+lived, Demosthenes, and comparing him with his rival, Aeschines. Let him
+speak for himself.
+
+"In earliest youth Demosthenes earned an opprobrious nickname by
+the effeminacy of his dress and manner." Does Mr Mitford know that
+Demosthenes denied this charge, and explained the nickname in a
+perfectly different manner? (See the speech of Aeschines against
+Timarchus.) And, if he knew it, should he not have stated it? He
+proceeds thus: "On emerging from minority, by the Athenian law, at
+five-and-twenty, he earned another opprobrious nickname by a prosecution
+of his guardians, which was considered as a dishonourable attempt
+to extort money from them." In the first place Demosthenes was not
+five-and-twenty years of age. Mr Mitford might have learned, from so
+common a book as the Archaeologia of Archbishop Potter, that at twenty
+Athenian citizens were freed from the control of their guardians, and
+began to manage their own property. The very speech of Demosthenes
+against his guardians proves most satisfactorily that he was under
+twenty. In his speech against Midias, he says that when he undertook
+that prosecution he was quite a boy. (Meirakullion on komide.) His youth
+might, therefore, excuse the step, even if it had been considered, as
+Mr Mitford says, a dishonourable attempt to extort money. But who
+considered it as such? Not the judges who condemned the guardians. The
+Athenian courts of justice were not the purest in the world; but their
+decisions were at least as likely to be just as the abuse of a deadly
+enemy. Mr Mitford refers for confirmation of his statement to Aeschines
+and Plutarch. Aeschines by no means bears him out; and Plutarch directly
+contradicts him. "Not long after," says Mr Mitford, "he took blows
+publicly in the theater" (I preserve the orthography, if it can be
+so called, of this historian) "from a petulant youth of rank, named
+Meidias." Here are two disgraceful mistakes. In the first place, it was
+long after; eight years at the very least, probably much more. In the
+next place the petulant youth, of whom Mr Mitford speaks, was fifty
+years old. (Whoever will read the speech of Demosthenes against Midias
+will find the statements in the text confirmed, and will have, moreover,
+the pleasure of becoming acquainted with one of the finest compositions
+in the world.) Really Mr Mitford has less reason to censure the
+carelessness of his predecessors than to reform his own. After this
+monstrous inaccuracy, with regard to facts, we may be able to judge what
+degree 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 time
+the division between military and political offices was beginning to be
+strongly marked; yet the recollection of the days when every citizen was
+a soldier was still recent. In such states of society a certain degree
+of disrepute always attaches to sedentary men; but that any leader
+of the Athenian democracy could have been, as Mr Mitford says of
+Demosthenes, a few lines before, remarkable for "an extraordinary
+deficiency of personal courage," is absolutely impossible. What
+mercenary warrior of the time exposed his life to greater or more
+constant perils? Was there a single soldier at Chaeronea who had more
+cause 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 or
+the prince whom he had opposed? Were not the ordinary fluctuations of
+popular feeling enough to deter any coward from engaging in political
+conflicts? Isocrates, whom Mr Mitford extols, because he constantly
+employed all the flowers of his school-boy rhetoric to decorate
+oligarchy and tyranny, avoided the judicial and political meetings
+of Athens from mere timidity, and seems to have hated democracy only
+because he durst not look a popular assembly in the face. Demosthenes
+was a man of a feeble constitution: his nerves were weak, but his spirit
+was high; and the energy and enthusiasm of his feelings supported him
+through life and in death.
+
+So much for Demosthenes. Now for the orator of aristocracy. I do
+not wish to abuse Aeschines. He may have been an honest man. He was
+certainly a great man; and I feel a reverence, of which Mr Mitford seems
+to have no notion, for great men of every party. But, when Mr Mitford
+says that the private character of Aeschines was without stain, does
+he remember what Aeschines has himself confessed in his speech against
+Timarchus? I can make allowances, as well as Mr Mitford, for persons who
+lived under a different system of laws and morals; but let them be
+made impartially. If Demosthenes is to be attacked on account of some
+childish improprieties, proved only by the assertion of an antagonist,
+what shall we say of those maturer vices which that antagonist has
+himself acknowledged? "Against the private character of Aeschines,"
+says Mr Mitford, "Demosthenes seems not to have had an insinuation
+to oppose." Has Mr Mitford ever read the speech of Demosthenes on the
+Embassy? Or can he have forgotten, what was never forgotten by anyone
+else who ever read it, the story which Demosthenes relates with such
+terrible energy of language concerning the drunken brutality of his
+rival? True or false, here is something more than an insinuation; and
+nothing can vindicate the historian, who has overlooked it, from the
+charge of negligence or of partiality. But Aeschines denied the story.
+And did not Demosthenes also deny the story respecting his childish
+nickname, which Mr Mitford has nevertheless told without any
+qualification? But the judges, or some part of them, showed, by their
+clamour, their disbelief of the relation of Demosthenes. And did not
+the judges, who tried the cause between Demosthenes and his guardians,
+indicate, in a much clearer manner, their approbation of the
+prosecution? But Demosthenes was a demagogue, and is to be slandered.
+Aeschines was an aristocrat, and is to be panegyrised. Is this a
+history, 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 of
+comparing his statements with the original authorities, of his extreme
+partiality and carelessness. Indeed, whenever this historian mentions
+Demosthenes, he violates all the laws of candour and even of decency;
+he weighs no authorities; he makes no allowances; he forgets the best
+authenticated facts in the history of the times, and the most generally
+recognised principles of human nature. The opposition of the great
+orator to the policy of Philip he represents as neither more nor less
+than deliberate villany. I hold almost the same opinion with Mr Mitford
+respecting the character and the views of that great and accomplished
+prince. But am I, therefore, to pronounce Demosthenes profligate and
+insincere? Surely not. Do we not perpetually see men of the greatest
+talents and the purest intentions misled by national or factious
+prejudices? The most respectable people in England were, little more
+than forty years ago, in the habit of uttering the bitterest abuse
+against Washington and Franklin. It is certainly to be regretted that
+men should err so grossly in their estimate of character. But no person
+who knows anything of human nature will impute such errors to depravity.
+
+Mr Mitford is not more consistent with himself than with reason. Though
+he is the advocate of all oligarchies, he is also a warm admirer of
+all kings, and of all citizens who raised themselves to that species
+of sovereignty which the Greeks denominated tyranny. If monarchy, as Mr
+Mitford holds, be in itself a blessing, democracy must be a better
+form of government than aristocracy, which is always opposed to the
+supremacy, 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, I
+should offer a few observations on some other peculiarities of this
+writer,--his general preference of the Barbarians to the Greeks,--his
+predilection for Persians, Carthaginians, Thracians, for all nations,
+in short, except that great and enlightened nation of which he is the
+historian. But I will confine myself to a single topic.
+
+Mr Mitford has remarked, with truth and spirit, that "any history
+perfectly written, but especially a Grecian history perfectly written
+should be a political institute for all nations." It has not occurred to
+him that a Grecian history, perfectly written, should also be a complete
+record of the rise and progress of poetry, philosophy, and the arts.
+Here his work is extremely deficient. Indeed, though it may seem a
+strange 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 almost
+exclusively attract his notice; and he talks with very complacent
+disdain of "the idle learned." Homer, indeed, he admires; but
+principally, I am afraid, because he is convinced that Homer could
+neither read nor write. He could not avoid speaking of Socrates; but he
+has been far more solicitous to trace his death to political causes, and
+to deduce from it consequences unfavourable to Athens, and to popular
+governments, than to throw light on the character and doctrines of the
+wonderful 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; he
+represents him sometimes as an aspirant demagogue, sometimes as an
+adroit negotiator, and always as a great rogue. But that in which the
+Athenian 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 of
+commonplace commendation. The origin of the drama, the doctrines of the
+sophists, the course of Athenian education, the state of the arts
+and sciences, the whole domestic system of the Greeks, he has almost
+completely neglected. Yet these things will appear, to a reflecting man,
+scarcely less worthy of attention than the taking of Sphacteria or the
+discipline 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--the
+operations of sieges---the changes of administrations--the treaties--the
+conspiracies--the rebellions--is a complete history. Differences of
+definition are logically unimportant; but practically they sometimes
+produce the most momentous effects. Thus it has been in the present
+case. Historians have, almost without exception, confined themselves
+to the public transactions of states, and have left to the negligent
+administration of writers of fiction a province at least equally
+extensive and valuable.
+
+All wise statesmen have agreed to consider the prosperity or adversity
+of nations as made up of the happiness or misery of individuals, and to
+reject as chimerical all notions of a public interest of the community,
+distinct from the interest of the component parts. It is therefore
+strange that those whose office it is to supply statesmen with examples
+and warnings should omit, as too mean for the dignity of history,
+circumstances which exert the most extensive influence on the state of
+society. In general, the under current of human life flows steadily on,
+unruffled by the storms which agitate the surface. The happiness of the
+many commonly depends on causes independent of victories or defeats, of
+revolutions or restorations,--causes which can be regulated by no laws,
+and which are recorded in no archives. These causes are the things
+which it is of main importance to us to know, not how the Lacedaemonian
+phalanx was broken at Leuctra,--not whether Alexander died of poison
+or by disease. History, without these, is a shell without a kernel;
+and such is almost all the history which is extant in the world. Paltry
+skirmishes and plots are reported with absurd and useless minuteness;
+but improvements the most essential to the comfort of human life extend
+themselves over the world, and introduce themselves into every cottage,
+before any annalist can condescend, from the dignity of writing about
+generals and ambassadors, to take the least notice of them. Thus the
+progress of the most salutary inventions and discoveries is buried in
+impenetrable mystery; mankind are deprived of a most useful species of
+knowledge, and their benefactors of their honest fame. In the meantime
+every child knows by heart the dates and adventures of a long line of
+barbarian kings. The history of nations, in the sense in which I use
+the word, is often best studied in works not professedly historical.
+Thucydides, as far as he goes, is an excellent writer; yet he affords us
+far less knowledge of the most important particulars relating to Athens
+than Plato or Aristophanes. The little treatise of Xenophon on Domestic
+Economy contains more historical information than all the seven books
+of his Hellenics. The same may be said of the Satires of Horace, of
+the Letters of Cicero, of the novels of Le Sage, of the memoirs of
+Marmontel. Many others might be mentioned; but these sufficiently
+illustrate my meaning.
+
+I would hope that there may yet appear a writer who may despise the
+present narrow limits, and assert the rights of history over every part
+of her natural domain. Should such a writer engage in that enterprise,
+in which I cannot but consider Mr Mitford as having failed, he will
+record, indeed, all that is interesting and important in military and
+political transactions; but he will not think anything too trivial for
+the gravity of history which is not too trivial to promote or diminish
+the happiness of man. He will portray in vivid colours the domestic
+society, the manners, the amusements, the conversation of the Greeks. He
+will not disdain to discuss the state of agriculture, of the mechanical
+arts, and of the conveniences of life. The progress of painting, of
+sculpture, and of architecture, will form an important part of his
+plan. But, above all, his attention will be given to the history of that
+splendid 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 not
+speak; for I cannot speak with fairness. It is a subject on which I love
+to forget the accuracy of a judge, in the veneration of a worshipper
+and the gratitude of a child. If we consider merely the subtlety of
+disquisition, the force of imagination, the perfect energy and elegance
+of expression which characterise the great works of Athenian genius, we
+must pronounce them intrinsically most valuable; but what shall we say
+when we reflect that from hence have sprung directly or indirectly, all
+the noblest creations of the human intellect; that from hence were the
+vast accomplishments and the brilliant fancy of Cicero; the withering
+fire of Juvenal; the plastic imagination of Dante; the humour of
+Cervantes; the comprehension of Bacon; the wit of Butler; the supreme
+and universal excellence of Shakspeare? All the triumphs of truth and
+genius over prejudice and power, in every country and in every age,
+have been the triumphs of Athens. Wherever a few great minds have made
+a 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 of
+Pascal; in the tribune of Mirabeau; in the cell of Galileo; on the
+scaffold of Sidney. But who shall estimate her influence on private
+happiness? Who shall say how many thousands have been made wiser,
+happier, and better, by those pursuits in which she has taught mankind
+to engage: to how many the studies which took their rise from her
+have been wealth in poverty,--liberty in bondage,--health in
+sickness,--society in solitude? Her power is indeed manifested at
+the bar, in the senate, in the field of battle, in the schools of
+philosophy. But these are not her glory. Wherever literature consoles
+sorrow, or assuages pain,--wherever it brings gladness to eyes which
+fail with wakefulness and tears, and ache for the dark house and the
+long sleep,--there is exhibited, in its noblest form, the immortal
+influence of Athens.
+
+The dervise, in the Arabian tale, did not hesitate to abandon to his
+comrade the camels with their load of jewels and gold, while he retained
+the casket of that mysterious juice which enabled him to behold at
+one glance all the hidden riches of the universe. Surely it is no
+exaggeration to say that no external advantage is to be compared with
+that purification of the intellectual eye which gives us to contemplate
+the infinite wealth of the mental world, all the hoarded treasures of
+its primeval dynasties, all the shapeless ore of its yet unexplored
+mines. This is the gift of Athens to man. Her freedom and her power
+have for more than twenty centuries been annihilated; her people have
+degenerated 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. And
+when those who have rivalled her greatness shall have shared her fate;
+when civilisation and knowledge shall have fixed their abode in distant
+continents; when the sceptre shall have passed away from England;
+when, perhaps, travellers from distant regions shall in vain labour to
+decipher on some mouldering pedestal the name of our proudest chief;
+shall hear savage hymns chaunted to some misshapen idol over the ruined
+dome of our proudest temple; and shall see a single naked fisherman wash
+his nets in the river of the ten thousand masts;--her influence and
+her glory will still survive,--fresh in eternal youth, exempt from
+mutability and decay, immortal as the intellectual principle from which
+they derived their origin, and over which they exercise their control.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Miscellaneous Writings and
+Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4), by Thomas Babington Macaulay
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