KEIEY 
 
 ?ARY 
 
 ;r5ITY of 
 FORKfA 
 
 \^i^ 
 
 Mmtx) CbarUs^kWUti. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY THOMAS DAVISON. WHITEFRIARS. 
 
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 Eittrarj) iJltn antr ^tatesimeit. 
 
 BY WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR, ESQ. 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED F^R TAYLOR AND HESSEY, 
 
 93, FLEET-STREET, 
 AND 13, WATERLOO-PLACE, PALL MALL. 
 
 1824. 
 

 95-2. 
 
 
 * r 
 
 
 I ^^4^ 
 
 
 ^.i-A, 
 
 TO 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL STOPFORD, 
 
 ADJUTANT-GENERAL IN THE ARMY OF COLUMBIA. 
 
 SIR, 
 
 There may be friends, I feel it, who 
 have never seen each other. In the mo- 
 ment of losing, and perhaps for many 
 years, one of my dearest relatives, I re- 
 joice both in her marriage with you and 
 in the time of it, which presents me the 
 opportunity of adding to my congratula- 
 tions the inscription of these dialogues. 
 
 There never was a period when public 
 spirit was so feeble in England, or political 
 
 AA^. 
 
vi DEDICATION. 
 
 abilities so rare. Sordid selfishness and 
 frivolous amusement, I will not say, are 
 become the characteristics of our country, 
 but, what is suflSciently calamitous and 
 disgraceful, place it upon a dead level 
 with others. Kising far above and pass- 
 ing far away from them, you have aided 
 in establishing one of those great republics 
 which sprang into existence at the voice 
 of Bolivar, and enjoy for your exertions 
 in the noblest cause the highest distinction 
 any mortal can enjoy, his esteem and con- 
 fidence. 
 
 You will find in these Conversations a 
 great variety of subjects and of style. I 
 have admitted a few little men, such as 
 emperors and ministers of modern cut, to 
 shew better the just proportions of the 
 great ; as a painter would place a beggar 
 under a triumphal arch or a camel against 
 a pyramid. The sentiments most often 
 inculcated are those which in themselves 
 
DEDICATION. vii 
 
 are best; which, even in times disas- 
 trous as our own, produced an Epami- 
 nondas, a Pelopidas, and a Phocion ; and 
 in these, when genius lies flat and fruit- 
 less as the sea-sand, a Washington, a Kos- 
 ciusko, and a Bolivar. 
 
 That government beyond a question is 
 the most excellent, which has always been 
 most esteemed by the best and wisest 
 men, and which has produced them in the 
 greatest number. 
 
 Exult in your glorious undertaking, and 
 be assured that the work, and the satisfac- 
 tion at completing it, will be durable. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 
 
 Florence, October, 1822. 
 
THE PREFACE, 
 
 The peculiarities of some celebrated 
 authors, both in style and sentiment, have 
 been imitated in these dialogues : but 
 where they existed in times long past, to 
 have retained their language would have 
 been inelegant and injudicious. It was 
 requisite to modify in a slight degree even 
 that of so late a period as the reigns of 
 Elizabeth and of James I ; a period the 
 most fertile of all in original and vigorous 
 writers. 
 
 In the Conversation between Henry IV 
 and Sir Arnold Savage, I have employed 
 such a phraseology as the reader is in part 
 accustomed to, whether from our earlier 
 annalists or from our great dramatic poet. 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 This, by early habitude, appears more 
 certainly the language of the Plantagenets, 
 than their own would do, copied faithfully, 
 and is attended with no difficulty or dis- 
 gust. 
 
 The only characters known little to the 
 public, of whom no sufficient account is 
 found in the Conversations themselves, are 
 those of the Author, of Sir Arnold Savage, 
 and of Walter Noble. 
 
 Sir Arnold Savage was Speaker of the 
 Commons in the second year, and again 
 in the fifth, of Henry IV : and his manly 
 and dignified speech, addressed to that 
 king, is recorded by Hakewil, by Elsynge, 
 and others. 
 
 Walter Noble represented the city of 
 Lichfield. He lived familiarly with the 
 principal men of the age, remonstrated 
 with Cromwel on his usurpation of power, 
 and retired from public life on the punish- 
 ment of Charles. 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 The memorial of their virtues in these 
 pages is a legacy I hold in trust under 
 them for the benefit of our descendents. 
 
 The reader will not be surprised at find- 
 ing in these dialogues a great diversity of 
 opinions. He is requested to attribute none 
 of them to the author of the work, as pro- 
 ceeding from his conviction or persuasion, 
 but to consider that they have risen and 
 fallen in different periods and emergen- 
 cies ; and he is invited to turn to the more 
 eminent writers of antiquity, where such 
 are introduced, and to compare their sen- 
 timents with those before him. If, after 
 all, he should experience an evil or un- 
 pleasant impression, let him thfow aside 
 first these volumes, as the lightest; then 
 Cicero, Demosthenes, and every one else 
 whose political notions, so discordant from 
 those now prevalent, are represented in 
 them ; and strengthen his mind, and correct 
 both his style and judgement, by a careful 
 
xu PREFACE. 
 
 perusal of the speeches which have happily 
 come down to us, from the more enlight- 
 ened and prudent leaders of our parlia- 
 ment, Mr. Pitt, Lord Castlereagh, and their 
 successors, whose rank and influence have 
 ensured to them the promises of immor- 
 tality. 
 
 What is excellent in one government 
 may not be advisable in another; and 
 what is advisable in that other may not 
 appear so to those who direct its affairs. 
 Hence the ideas of Washington and Frank- 
 lin are represented as very much at vari- 
 ance with the ideas of those statesmen in 
 France, Britain, Prussia, Russia, who de- 
 clare themselves much wiser, much more 
 dispassionate, much more disinterested. 
 Hence also the opinions of the ruder 
 Spaniards are extremely unfavorable to a 
 House of Peers, and somewhat irreverent 
 to that of England. Here however it must 
 be protested, that nothing of this irre- 
 
PREFACE. xiii 
 
 verence should be attributed to the writer ; 
 whose business is to examine the most in- 
 teresting and important questions, by the 
 introduction of personages in some cases 
 the m.ost zealous and enthusiastic, in others 
 the least prejudiced and preoccupied. This 
 method presents occasionally somewhat 
 like dramatic interest, and, where that is 
 deficient or inadmissible, historical facts, 
 biographical characteristics, critical dis- 
 quisitions, philological observations, and 
 philosophical truths or problems. 
 
 Above all things, the reader is exhorted 
 to observe religiously our laws and cus- 
 toms, and to receive as curiosities, not as 
 directions, the things, whatever they may 
 be, which men educated in other countries 
 and with other feelings, may, in the heat 
 of discussion or in the unskilfulness of 
 argument, oppose to them. 
 
 Wherever ground is dug for any pur- 
 pose, there spring up plants of various 
 
XIV PREFACE. 
 
 kinds, from that purpose altogether alien ; 
 most of them are thrown away, a few col- 
 lected : thus I, occupying my mind in en- 
 quiries and speculations which may amuse 
 my decline of life, and shew to others the 
 features of the times in which we live and 
 have been living, at one moment write for 
 business, at another for relaxation, turn 
 over many books, lay open many facts, and 
 gather many fancies which I must relinquish 
 on the road. Should health and peace of 
 mind remain to me, and the enjoyment of 
 a country, where, if there is none to assist, 
 at least there is none to molest me, I hope 
 to leave behind me completed the great 
 object of my studies, an orderly and solid 
 work in history, and I cherish the persua- 
 sion that Posterity will not confound me 
 with the Coxes and Foxes of the age. 
 
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 I. Richard I and the Abbot of Boxley 
 II. The Lord Brooke and Sir Philip Sidney . 
 
 III. King Henry IV and Sir Arnold Savage 
 
 IV. Southey and Porson 
 
 V. Oliver Cromwel and Walter Noble 
 VI. /Eschines and Phocion 
 VII. Queen Elizabeth and Cecil 
 VIII. King James I and Isaac Casaubon 
 IX. Marchese Pallavicini and Walter Landor . 
 X. General Kleber and some French Officers 
 XI. Bonaparte and the President of the Senate 
 XII. Bishop Burnet and Humphrey Hardcastle 
 
 I 
 
 13 
 
 27 
 
 37 
 
 55 
 
 67 
 
 83 
 
 93 
 
 113 
 
 127 
 
 147 
 
 153 
 
XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 XIII. Peter Leopold and the President Du Paty . . 167 
 
 XIV. Demosthenes and Eubulides . . . 229 
 XV. The Abbe Delille and Walter Landor . .249 
 
 XVI. The Emperor Alexander and Capo D'Istria . 311 
 
 XV^II. Kosciusko and Poniatowski . . , 333 
 
 XVIII. Middleton and Magliabechi . . .345 
 
CONVERSATION L 
 
 RICHARD I 
 
 AKD THE 
 
 ABBOT OF BOXLEY. 
 
RICHARD I 
 
 AND THE 
 
 ABBOT OF BOXLEY. 
 
 The abbot of Boxley was on his road to Hague- 
 iiau in search of Richard, when he perceived a tall 
 pilgrim at a distance, and observed him waving 
 his staff toward some soldiers who would have ad- 
 vanced before him. They drew back. 
 
 " He may know something of Coeur de Lion," 
 said the abbot, and spurred his horse on. In an 
 instant he threw himself at the pilgrim's feet, who 
 embraced him affectionately. 
 
 ABBOT. 
 
 O my king! my king! the champion of our 
 faith at the mercy of a prince unworthy to hold 
 his stirrup! the conqueror of Palestine led forth 
 on foot! a captive, and to those he commanded 
 and protected ! Could Saladin see this . . . 
 
 b2 
 
4 RICHARD I AND 
 
 RICHARD. 
 
 The only prince in the universe, who would 
 draw his sword for me against the ruffian of 
 Austria. He alone is worthy to rescue me, who 
 hath proved himself worthy to fight me. 
 
 I might have foreseen this result. What sen- 
 timent of glory, of magnanimity, of honour, of 
 gratitude, of humanity, ever warmed an Austrian 
 bosom ? 
 
 Tell me, declare to me, abbot, speak out at once 
 ... is this the worst of my misfortunes ? Groans 
 burst from me; they cleave my heart; my own 
 EngHsh, I hear, have forsaken me: my brother 
 John is preferred to me ... I am lost indeed. What 
 nation has ever witnessed such a succession of 
 brave monarchs, for two hundred years together, 
 as have reigned uninterruptedly in England ? Ex- 
 ample formed them, danger nurtured them, diffi- 
 culty instructed them, peace and war, in an equal 
 degree, were the supporters of their throne. If 
 John succeed to me, which he never can by virtue, 
 never shall by force, and I pray to God never may 
 by fortune — what will remain to our country but 
 the bitter recollection of her extinguished glory? 
 I would not be regretted at so high a price. I 
 would be better than the gone, presumptuous as is 
 
THE ABBOT OF BOXLEY. 5 
 
 the hope ; but may the coming be better than I ! 
 Abbot, I have given away thrones, but never shall 
 they be torn from me : rather than this, a king of 
 England shall bend before an emperor of Ger- 
 many * ; but shall bend as an oak before the pass- 
 
 * Opinions have changed upon all things, and greatly upon 
 titles and dignities. Who has not seen a consul appointed 
 to reside in a fishing town ? Who has not given a shilling 
 to a marquis, a sixpence to a knight? A Roman senator was 
 beneath the level of an English gentleman ; yet not only a 
 Roman senator, but a Roman citizen, held himself superior to 
 foreign kings. Surely it might well be permitted our Richard 
 to assume a rank far above any potentate of his age. If al- 
 manacks and German court-calendars are to decide on dig- 
 nities, the emperors of Morocco, of Austria, and, since last 
 August, of Mexico, should precede the kings of England and 
 France : but learned men have thought otherwise. On this 
 subject I shall transcribe a few sentences from Leonard Aretine. 
 
 " Quid enim mea refert quemadmodum barbari loquantur, 
 quos neque corrigere possum, si velim, neque magnopere velim 
 si possim ? De rege tamen et imperatore idem sentio quod tu, 
 et jampridem ridens barbariem istam, hoc ipsum notavi atque 
 redargui. Tres enim gradus majorum dignitatum apud Ro- 
 manes, de quorum principe loquimur, fuere: rex, dictator, 
 imperator. Ex his suprema omnium potestas rex est; post 
 regem vero secundum tenuit dignitatis locum dictatura^ post 
 dictaturam imperium tertio gradu consequitur. Hujusce rei 
 probatio est, quod Octaviano imperatori optime se gerenti 
 Senatus Populusqtie Romanus dignitatem augere, pro impera- 
 tore dictatorem facere decrevit, quod ille non recepit, sed flexo 
 genu recusavit, quasi majoris status majorisque invidise dig- 
 nitatem existimans, Imperatoris nomen modicum ac populare, 
 si ad Dictatoris fastigium comparetur. Majorem vero esse 
 regiam potestatem quam dictaturam ex eo potest intelligi, quia 
 
6 RICHARD I AND 
 
 ing wind, only to rise up again in all his majesty 
 and strength. 
 
 ABBOT. 
 
 God grant it ! Abandoning a king Hke Richard, 
 we abandon our fathers and children, our inherit- 
 ance and name. Far from us be for ever such 
 ignominy! May the day when we become the 
 second people upon earth. Almighty God! be the 
 day of our utter extirpation ! 
 
 Julius Caesar, Dictator cum esset, affectavit Regem fieri." 
 Epist ix. lib. vi. 
 
 Many acute arguments follow. The dignity of a sovTan does 
 not depend on the title he possesses ; for that he may with 
 equal arrogance and indiscretion assume ; but on the valour, 
 the power, the wealth, the civilization of those he governs. 
 This is a view of the subject which Aretine has not taken, 
 and which undoubtedly Richard took. 
 
 Rank, which pretends to fix the value of every one, is the 
 most arbitrary of all things. A Roman knight, hardly the 
 equal of our secondary gentlemen, would have disdained to be 
 considered as no better or more respectable than a foren king. 
 In our days, even an adventurer to whom a petty prince or 
 his valet has given a pennyworth of ribbon, looks proudly and 
 disdainfully on any one of us who has nothing more in his 
 button-hole than the button. 
 
 There are few writers more sensible than Plutarch ; and no 
 remark of his appears to me more judicious than the following 
 on Juba; at which however there is not a deputy commissary or 
 under secretary who would not laugh heartily. 
 
 "^ His son, whose name also was Juba, was carried in triumph 
 while yet a child : and truly most happy was his imprison- 
 ment; by which, barbarian as he was, he came to be numbered 
 amongst the most learned writers." 
 
THE ABBOT OF BOXLEY. 7 
 
 RICHARD. 
 
 I cease not to be king, who rnle over hearts like 
 thine. 
 
 ABBOT. 
 
 Here are hardly, I reckon, more than three- 
 score men ; and, considering the character both of 
 their prince and of their race, I cannot but believe 
 that the scrip across my saddlebow contains a full 
 receit for the discharge of my sovran. Certain I 
 am that little is left unto him of the prize that he 
 made from the caravan of Egypt, 
 
 RICHARD. 
 
 The only prizes worthy of Richard were Saladin 
 and Jerusalem. I divided the gold and silver 
 among my soldiers. I have no hesitation in esteem- 
 ing Saladin not only above all the kings and po- 
 tentates now living, which of a truth is little, but 
 above all who have ever reigned ; such is his wis- 
 dom, his courage, his humanity, his courtesy, his 
 fidelity ; and I acknowledge, that if I had remained 
 to conquer him, I would have restored to him all 
 his dominions, excepting Palestine. And the crown 
 of Palestine which of the crusaders should wear? 
 which among them could have worne it one year ? 
 I would do nothing in vain; no, not even for 
 glory. The Christian princes judged of me from 
 their own worthlessness : Saladin judged of me 
 
S RICHARD I AND 
 
 from himself. To them he sent pearls and pre^ 
 cious stones, to me figs and dates; and I resolved 
 from that moment to contend with him and to 
 love him. Look now towards the Holy Alliance. 
 Philip swore upon the Evangelists to abstain from 
 all aggression in my absence. He invades Nor- 
 mandy and sanctions usurpation. Saladin was de- 
 feated and Jerusalem would have fallen; but God 
 will forgive me if I preferred my throne to his 
 sepulchre, my people to his persecutors, and if I 
 chastise a disloyal rather than a loyal enemy. 
 
 ABBOT. 
 
 I wish my liege could have taken him prisoner, 
 that he might have saved such a soul by infusing 
 into it the true faith under baptism. 
 
 RICHARD. 
 
 Ay, that indeed were well : but Saladin lives in 
 a country where prophet comes after prophet, and 
 each treads out the last vestige from the sand. I 
 am afraid it would not hold. 
 
 ABBOT. 
 
 Better as it is then. 
 
 RICHARD. 
 
 There are many in foren parts, who cannot be 
 brought to comprehend, how a sprinkle of water 
 should prepare a man's eternal happiness, or the 
 curtailment of a cuticle his eternal misery. 
 
THE ABBOT OF BOXLEY. 9 
 
 ABBOT. 
 
 Alas, my liege, society is froth above and dregs 
 below, and we have much ado to keep the middle 
 of it sweet and sound ; much ado to communicate 
 right reason and to preserve right feelings. In voy^ 
 ages you may see too much, and learn too little. 
 The winds and the waves throw about you their 
 mutability and their turbulence. We lose much 
 when we lose sight of home 5 more than ever 
 schoolboy wept for. 
 
 RICHARD. 
 
 I discover, my good abbot, that you have watched 
 and traced me from the beginning of my wander^ 
 ings. I sailed along the realms of my family : on 
 the right was England, on the left was France: 
 little else could I discover than sterile eminences 
 and extensive shoals. They fled behind me: so 
 pass away generations ; so shift, and sink, and die 
 away affections. In the wide ocean I was little of 
 a king: old men guided me, boys instructed me; 
 these taught me the names of my towns and har- 
 bours, those showed me the extent of my domi- 
 nions. One cloud that dissolved in one hour half 
 covered them. 
 
 I debark on Sicily. I place my hand upon the 
 throne of Tancred, and fix it. I sail again, and 
 within a day or two behold, as the sun is setting, 
 
10 RICHARD I AND 
 
 the solitary majesty of Crete, mother of a religion, 
 it is said, that lived two thousand years. Onward, 
 and many bright specks bubble up along the blue 
 ^gean ; islands, every one of which, if the songs 
 and stories of the pilots are true, is the monument 
 of a greater man than I am. I leave them all afar 
 off... and for whom? O abbot, to join creatures of 
 less import than the sea-mews on their cliffs ; men 
 praying to be heard, and fearing to be understood, 
 ambitious of another's power in the midst of peni- 
 tence, avaricious of another's wealth under vows 
 of poverty, and jealous of another's glory in the 
 service of their God. Is this Christianity? and is 
 Saladin to be damned if he despises it ? 
 
 The king or emperor of Cyprus* (I forget his 
 title) threw into prison the crew of an English vessel 
 wrecked on his coast ; and, not contented with this 
 inhumanity, forbade the princess of Navarre my 
 spouse, and the queen of Sicily who attended her, 
 to take refuge from the tempest in any of his ports. 
 I conquered his island, with the loss, on my part, 
 of a dinner, two men, and a bridle. He was 
 brought before me. My emperor had an aversion 
 to iron in every form. I adorned his imperial feet 
 with a silver chain, and invited him to the festivi- 
 
 * Isaac the usurper of Cyprus styled himself emperor. 
 
THE ABBOT OF BOXLEY. 11 
 
 ties of my nuptials with Berengere, followed by 
 her coronation as queen of Cyprus. We placed 
 his daughter under the protection of Jane"^, know- 
 ing her sweet temper and courtesy, and remember- 
 ing that a lady of rank rises one step higher by 
 misfortune. She has exchanged the cares of a 
 crown for the gaiety of a court, and I hope that 
 what she lost as princess she will gain as woman. 
 I intend to place her suitably in marriage, and her 
 dowry shall be what my treasury is at the time. 
 
 ABBOT. 
 
 We have only to consider now what lies before 
 us. Could not my liege have treated with the 
 duke of Austria ? 
 
 RICHARD. 
 
 Yes, had he been more nearly my equal. I 
 punished his neglect of discipline : it became in 
 his power to indulge his revenge. Henry is mer- 
 cenary in the same degree, but perhaps less per- 
 fidious, certainly less irritated and hostile. No 
 potentate can forgive the superiority of England : 
 none can forget that I treated him as a trooper 
 and dependent : none can conceal from himself 
 that the features of my contempt were too broad 
 for any mask in all the rich wardrobe of dissimu- 
 lation. Henry alone is capable of securing my 
 * Queen of Sicily. 
 
12 RICHARD I &c. 
 
 return. I remember the fate of Robert ; and if I 
 am not presently in London, I may be in Cardiff. 
 He spoke wisely who said, There is no conjidence 
 in princes ; and he will speak not unwisely, who 
 shall say, There is nonejbr them. 
 
 Those who have abandoned me shall ransom 
 me: I myself will dictate the conditions, and they 
 shall be such as no emperor of Germany can 
 refuse. 
 
 Come on with me. 
 
CONVERSATION II. 
 
 THE LORD BROOKE 
 
 AND 
 
 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, 
 
THE LORD BROOKE 
 
 AND 
 
 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 
 
 BROOKE. 
 
 I COME again unto the woods and unto the 
 wilds of Penshurst, whither my heart and the 
 friend of my heart have long invited me. 
 
 SIDNEY. 
 
 Welcome, welcome! And now, Greville, seat 
 yourself under this oak; since, if you had hungered 
 or thirsted from your journey, you would have re- 
 newed the alacrity of your old servants in the hall. 
 
 BROOKE. 
 
 In truth I did so; for no otherwise the good 
 household would have it. The birds met me first, 
 afFrightened by the tossing up of caps, and I knew 
 by these harbingers, who were coming. When my 
 palfrey eyed them askance for their clamorousness, 
 and shrank somewhat back, they quarreled with 
 
16 THE LORD BROOKE 
 
 him almost before they saluted me, and asked him 
 many pert questions. What a pleasant spot, Sid- 
 ney, have you chosen here for meditation ! a soli- 
 tude is the audience-chamber of God . . . Few days, 
 very few in our year, are like this : there is a fresh 
 pleasure in every fresh posture of the limbs, in 
 every turn the eye takes. 
 
 Youth, credulous of happiness, throw down 
 Upon this turf thy wallet, stored and swoln 
 With morrow-morns, bird-eggs, and bladders burst. 
 That tires thee with its wagging to and fro : 
 Thou too wouldst breathe more freely for it. Age, 
 Who lackest heart to laugh at life's deceit. 
 
 It sometimes requires a stout push, and some- 
 times a sudden resistence, in the wisest men, not 
 to become for a moment the most foolish. What 
 have I done! I have fairly challenged you, so 
 much my master. 
 
 SIDNEY. 
 
 You have warmed me : I must cool a little and 
 watch my opportunity. So now, Greville, return 
 you to your invitations, and I will clear the ground 
 for the company : Youth, Age, and whatever comes 
 between, with all their kindred and dependencies. 
 Verily we need few taunts or expostulations ; for 
 in the country we have few vices, and consequently 
 few repinings. I take especial care that my young 
 
AND SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 17 
 
 labourers and farmers shall never be idle, and supply 
 them with bows and arrows, with bowls and nine- 
 pins, for their Sunday-evening, lest they should 
 wench, drink, and quarrel. In church they are 
 taught to love God ; after church they are prac- 
 tised to love their neighbour ; for business on work- 
 days keeps them apart and scattered, and on mar- 
 ket-days they are prone to a rivalry bordering on 
 malice, as competitors for custom. Goodness does 
 not more certainly make men happy, than happi- 
 ness makes them good. We must distinguish be- 
 tween felicity and prosperity : for prosperity leads 
 often to ambition, and ambition to disappointment : 
 the course is then over; the wheel turns round 
 but once ; while the re-action of goodness and hap- 
 piness is perpetual. 
 
 BROOKE. 
 
 You reason justly and you act rightly. Piety, 
 warm, soft, and passive, as the aether round the 
 throne of Grace, is made callous and inactive by 
 kneeling too much: her vitality faints under 
 rigorous and wearisome observances. A forced 
 match between a man and his religion sours his 
 temper and leaves a barren bed. 
 
 SIDNEY. 
 
 Desire of lucre, the worst and most general 
 country vice, arises here from the necessity of 
 
18 THE LORD BROOKE 
 
 looking to small gains. It is the tartar that en- 
 crusts economy. 
 
 . . . Avarice 
 Grudges the gamesome river-fish its food. 
 And shuts his heart against his own life's blood. 
 
 BROOKE. 
 
 that any thing so monstrous should exist in 
 this profusion and prodigality of blessings ! The 
 herbs are crisp and elastic with health ; they are 
 warm under my hand, as if their veins were filled 
 with such a fluid as ours. WTiat a hum of satis- 
 faction in God's creatures! How is it, Sidney, 
 the smallest do seem the happiest? 
 
 SIDNEY. 
 
 Compensation for their weaknesses and their 
 fears; compensation for the shortness of their 
 existence. Their spirits mount upon the sunbeam 
 above the eagle : they have more enjoyment in their 
 one summer than the elephant in his century. 
 
 BROOKE. 
 
 Are not also the little and lowly in our species 
 the most happy? 
 
 SIDNEY. 
 
 1 would not willingly try nor overcuriously 
 examine it. We, Greville, are happy in these 
 parks and forests: we were happy in my close 
 winter-walk of box and laurustinus and mezereon. 
 
AND SIR PHILIP SIDNF.Y. l!) 
 
 Ill our earlier days did we not emboss our bosoms 
 with the crocusses, and shake them ahnost unto 
 shedding with our transports 1 Ah my friend, there 
 is a greater difference, both in the stages of life and 
 in the seasons of the year, than in the conditions 
 of men: yet the healthy pass through the sea- 
 sons, from the clement to the inclement, not only 
 unreluctantly, but rejoicingly, knowing that the 
 worst will soon finish and the best begin anew; 
 and we are all desirous of pushing forward into 
 every stage of life, excepting that alone which 
 ought reasonably to allure us most, as opening to 
 us the Via Sacra, along which we move in triumph 
 to our eternal country. We may in some measure 
 frame our minds for the reception of happiness, 
 for more or for less ; but we should well consider 
 to what port we are steering in search of it, and 
 that even in the richest we shall find but a cir- 
 cumscribed, and very exhaustible quantity. There 
 is a sickliness in the firmest of us, which induces 
 us to change our side, though reposing ever so 
 softly; yet, wittingly or unwittingly, we turn again 
 soon into our old position. God hath granted unto 
 both of us hearts easily contented; hearts fitted 
 for every station, because fitted for every duty. 
 What appears the dullest may contribute most to 
 our genius : what is most gloomy may soften the 
 
20 THE LORD BROOKE 
 
 seeds and relax the fibres of gaiety. Sometimes 
 we are insensible to its kindlier influence, some- 
 times not. We enjoy the solemnity of the spread- 
 ing oak above us : perhaps we owe to it in part 
 the mood of our minds at this instant : perhaps an 
 inanimate thing supplies me, while I am speaking, 
 with all I possess of animation. Do you imagine 
 that any contest of shepherds can afford them the 
 same pleasure as I receive from the description of 
 it ; or that even in their loves, however innocent 
 and faithful, they are so free from anxiety as I 
 am while I celebrate them ? The exertion of in- 
 tellectual power, of fancy and imagination, keeps 
 from us greatly more than their wTetchedness, and 
 affords us greatly more than their enjoyment. We 
 are motes in the midst of generations: we have 
 our sunbeams to circuit and climb. Look at the 
 summits of all the trees around us, how they move, 
 and the loftiest the most so: nothing is at rest 
 within the compass of our view, except the grey 
 moss on the park-pales. Let it eat away the 
 dead oak, but let it not be compared with the 
 living one. 
 
 Poets are nearly all prone to melancholy ; yet 
 the most plaintive ditty has imparted a fuller joy, 
 and of longer duration, to its composer, than the 
 conquest of Persia to the Macedonian. A bottle 
 
AND SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 21 
 
 of wine bringeth as much pleasure as the acquisi- 
 tion of a kingdom, and not unlike it in kind: the 
 senses in both cases are confused and perverted. 
 
 BROOKE. 
 
 Merciful heaven! and for the fruition of an 
 hour's drunkenness, from which they must awaken 
 with heaviness, pain, and terror, men consume a 
 whole crop of their kind at one harvest-home. 
 Shame upon those light ones who carol at the feast 
 of blood ! and worse upon those graver ones who 
 nail upon their escutcheon the name of great. God 
 sometimes sends a famine, sometimes a pestilence, 
 and sometimes a hero, for the chastisement of man- 
 kind; none of them surely for their admiration. 
 Only some cause like unto that which is now scat- 
 tering the mental fog of the Netherlands, and is 
 preparing them for the fruits of freedom, can 
 justify us in drawing the sword abroad. , . 
 
 SIDNEY. 
 
 And only the accomplishment of our purpose 
 can authorise us again to sheathe it : for, the ag- 
 grandisement of our neighbours is nought of de- 
 triment to us ; on the contrary, if we are honest 
 and industrious, his wealth is ours. We have 
 nothing to dread while our laws are equitable and 
 our impositions light : but children fly from mo- 
 thers that strip and scourge them. We are come 
 
S2 THE LOUD BROOKE 
 
 to an age when we ought to read and speak loudly 
 what our discretion tells us is fit : we are not to 
 be set in a corner for mockery and derision, wdth 
 our hands hanging down motionless and our pockets 
 turned inside-out. Let us congratulate our coun- 
 try on her freedom from debt, and on the economy 
 and disinterestedness of her administrators ; men 
 altogether of eminent worth, afraid of nothing but 
 of deviating from the broad and beaten path of 
 illustrious ancestors, and propagating her glory 
 in far-distant countries, not by the loquacity of 
 mountebanks or the audacity of buffoons, nor by 
 covering a tarnished sword-knot with a trim shoul- 
 der-knot, but by the mission of right learned, 
 grave, and eloquent ambassadors. Triumphantly 
 and disdainfully may you point to others. 
 
 1. 
 
 While tlie young blossom starts to light. 
 And heaven looks down serenely briglit 
 
 On Nature's graceful form j 
 While hills and vales and woods are gay. 
 And village voices all breathe May, 
 
 Who dreads the future storm ? 
 
 2. 
 When princes smile and senates bend, 
 What mortal e'er foresaw his end 
 
 Or fear'd the frown of God? 
 Yet has the tempest swept them off, 
 And the opprest, \\ ith bitter scoff. 
 
 Their silent marble trod. 
 
AND SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 2S 
 
 3. 
 To swell their pride^, to queuch their ire. 
 Did venerable Laws expire 
 
 And sterner forms arise ; 
 Faith in their presence veil'd her head. 
 Patience and Charity were dead. 
 
 And Hope . . beyond the skies. 
 
 But away, away with politics: let not this city- 
 stench infect our fresh country-air. 
 
 BROOKE. 
 
 To happiness then, and unhappiness, since we 
 can discourse upon it without emotion. Our un- 
 happiness appears to be more often sought by us, 
 and pursued more steddily than our happiness. 
 What courtier on the one side, what man of genius 
 on the other, has not complained of unworthi- 
 ness preferred to worth? Who prefers it? his 
 friend? no. his self? no surely. Why then 
 grieve at folly or injustice in those who have no 
 concern in him, and in whom he has no concern? 
 We are indignant at the suiferings of those who 
 bear bravely and undeservedly; but a single cry 
 from them breaks the charm that bound them to us. 
 
 SIDNEY. 
 
 The English character stands high above com- 
 plaining. I have heard the French soldier scream 
 at receiving a wound; I never heard ours: shall 
 the uneducated be worthy of setting an example 
 
24 THE LORD BROOKE 
 
 to the lettered ? If we see, as we have seen, young 
 persons of some promise, but m comparison to us 
 as the colt is to the courser, raised to trust and 
 eminence by any powerful advocate, is it not 
 enough to feel ourselves the stronger men, without 
 exposing our limbs to the passenger, and begging 
 him in proof to handle our muscles? Only one 
 subject of sorrow, none of complaint, in respect to 
 court, is just and reasonable; namely, to be re- 
 jected or overlooked when our exertions or ex- 
 perience might benefit our country. Forbidden 
 to unite our glory with hers, let us cherish it at 
 home the more fondly for its disappointment, and 
 give her reason to say afterwards, she could have 
 wished the union. 
 
 The lord Brooke introduced here is less generally known 
 than the illustrious personage with whom he converses, and 
 upon whose friendship he had the virtue and good sense to 
 found his chief distinction. On his monument in St. Mary's at 
 Warwick, written by himself, we read that he was the servant 
 of Queen Elizabeth, the counsellor of King James and the 
 friend of Sir Philip Sidney. His style is rather stiff, but his 
 sentiments are sound and manly, his reflections deep. The 
 same family produced another eminent man, slain in the civil 
 wars by a shot from Lichfield minster. 
 
 This conversation m as longer. As the speakers were passion- 
 ately fond of poetry, more was introduced : among the sections 
 
AND SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 25 
 
 caucelled was the following, in Mliicli perhaps the verses may, 
 to some readers, not be unacceptable. 
 
 BROOKE. 
 
 To happiness then and unhappiness, since we can discourse 
 upon it without emotion : but first I would rather hear a few 
 more verses; for a small draught increases the thirst of the 
 very thirsty. 
 
 SIDNEY. 
 
 To write as the ancients have written, without borrowing a 
 thought or expression from them, is the most difficult and the 
 most excellent thing we can atchieve in poetry. I attempt no 
 composition which I believe will occupy more than an hour or 
 two, so that I can hardly claim any rank among the poets, 
 but having once collected from curiosity all the invocations to 
 sleep, ancient and modern, I fancied it possible to compose one 
 differently ; which, if you consider the simplicity of the sub- 
 ject and the number of those who have treated it, may appear 
 no easy matter. 
 
 Sleep ! who contractest the waste realms of night. 
 
 None like the wretched can extoll thy powers : 
 We think of thee when thou art far away. 
 We hold thee dearer than tlie light of day. 
 
 And most when Love forsakes us wish thee ours. . . 
 O hither bend thy flight! 
 Silent and welcome as the blessed shade 
 
 Alcestis, to the dark Thessalian hall. 
 When Hercules and Death and Hell obeyed 
 
 Her husband's desolate despondent call. 
 What fiend would persecute thee, gentle Sleej), 
 
 Or beckon thee away from man's distress .'* 
 Needless it were to Vvarn thee of the stings 
 That pierce my pillow, now those waxen wings 
 
 Which bore me to the sun of happiness. 
 Have dropt into the deep. 
 
 BROOKE. 
 
 If I cannot compliment you, as I lately com2)limented a poet 
 
26 THE LORD BROOKE, &c. 
 
 on the same subject, by saying " May all the gods and god- 
 desses he as propitious to your invocation," let me at least con- 
 gratulate you that all here is fiction. 
 
 SIDNEY. 
 
 How many, who have abandoned for public life the studies 
 of philosophy and poetry, may be compared to brooks and rivers, 
 which in the beginning of their course have assuaged our 
 thirst, and have invited us to tranquillity by their bright re- 
 semblance of it, and which afterwards partake the nature of 
 that vast body into which they run, its dreariness, its bitter- 
 ness, its foam, its storms, its everlasting noise and commotion ! 
 I have known several such, and when I have innocently smiled 
 at them, their countenances seemed to say, " / xiisli I could 
 despise you : but alas! I am a runavoay slave, and from the 
 best of mistresses to the worst of masters ; I serve at a tavern 
 ijohere every hour is dinner-time, and pick a bone upon a silver 
 dish." And what is acquired by the more fortunate amongst 
 them ? they may put on a robe and use a designation which I 
 have no right to: my cook and footman may do the same : one 
 has a white apron, the other has red hose 3 I should be quite 
 as much laughed at if I assumed them. A sense of inferior 
 ability is painful : that I feel most at home : I could not do 
 nearly so well what my domestics do ; what the others do I 
 could do better. My blushes are not at the superiority I have 
 given myself, but at the comparison I must go through to 
 give it. 
 
CONVERSATION III 
 
 KING HENRY IV 
 
 SIR ARNOLD SAVAGE. 
 
KING HENRY IV 
 
 AND 
 
 SIR ARNOLD SAVAGE. 
 
 SAVAGE. 
 
 I OBEY the commands of my liege. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 'Tis well : thou appearest more civil and cour- 
 teous, Sir Arnold Savage, than this morning in 
 another place, when thou declared'st unto me, as 
 speaker of the Commons, that no subsidy should be 
 granted me until every cause of public grievance 
 was removed*. 
 
 SAVAGE. 
 
 I am now in the house of the greatest man upon 
 earth; I was then in the house of the greatest 
 nation. 
 
 * Such are the words reported by Hakewill de niodo tenendi 
 Pari. 
 
30 KING HENRY IV 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Marry ! thou speakest rightly upon both points ; 
 but the latter, I swear unto thee, pleaseth me 
 most. And now, Savage, I do tell thee with like 
 frankness, I had well-nigh sent a score of halberts 
 among your worshipful knights and sleek wool- 
 staplers, for I was sore chafed, and, if another had 
 dealt with me in such wise, I should have strait- 
 way followed mine inclination. Thou knowest I am 
 grievously lett and hindered in my projected wars, 
 by such obstinacy and undutifulness in my people. 
 I raised them up from nothingness four years ago, 
 and placed them in opposition to my barons, in 
 trust that, by the blessing of God and his saints, I 
 might be less hampered in my conquest of France. 
 This is monsterous : Parliament speaks too plainly 
 and steps too stoutly for a creature of four years 
 growth. 
 
 SAVAGE. 
 
 God forbid that any king of England should 
 atchieve the conquest of all France. Patience, my 
 liege and lord! Our Norman ancestors, the most 
 warlike people upon whose banners the morning 
 sun ever lighted, have wrested the sceptre from 
 her swadling kings, and, pushing them back on 
 their cushions and cupboards, have been contented 
 with the seizure of their best and largest provinces. 
 
AND SIR ARNOLD SAVAGE. SI 
 
 The possession of more serfs would have tempted 
 them to sit down in idleness, and no piece of un- 
 broken turf would have been left, for the play- 
 ground of their children in arms. William the 
 Conqueror, the most puissant of knights and the 
 wisest of statesmen, thought fit to set open a new 
 career, lest the pride of his chevalry should be 
 troublesome to him at home. He led them forth 
 against the brave and good Harold, whose armies 
 had bled profusely, in their wars against the Scot, 
 Pity that such blood as the Saxon should ever 
 have been spilt ^ ! but hence are the titledeeds to our 
 lands and tenements, the perpetuity of our power 
 and dominion. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 To preserve them from jeopardy, I must have 
 silver in store ; I must have horses and armour, 
 and wherewith to satisfy the cravings of the soldier, 
 always sharp, and sharpest of all after fighting. 
 
 SAVAGE. 
 
 My liege must also have other things, which 
 escaped his recollection. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Store of hides, and of the creatures that were 
 within them; store of bacon, store of oats and 
 
 * The Danes under Harold were not numerous^, and there 
 were few vestiges of the Britons out of Wales and Cornwall. 
 
S2 KING HENRY IV 
 
 barley, of rye and good wheaten corn; lienip, 
 shipping, masts, anchors; pinetree and its piche 
 from the Norwegian, yewtree from Corse and 
 Dahnat. Divers other commodities must be pro- 
 cured from the ruler of the Adriatic, from him 
 who never was infant nor stripling, whom God 
 took by the righthand, and taught to walk by 
 himself the first hour. Moreover I must have 
 instruments of mine own device, w^eighty, and ex- 
 ceeding costly; such as machinery for beating 
 down walls. Nothing of these hath escaped my 
 knowledge or memory, but the recital of some be* 
 fits a butler or sutler or armourer, better than a 
 king. 
 
 SAVAGE. 
 
 And yet methinks, sir, there are others which 
 you might have mentioned and have not, the re- 
 cital of which would befitt a king, rather than 
 sutler, butler, or armourer: they are indeed the 
 very best and most necessary things in the w^orld 
 to batter down your enemy's walls with, 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 What may they be? you must find them. 
 
 SAVAGE. 
 
 You have found them, and must keep them . . . 
 they are the hearts of your subjects. Your horse 
 will not gallop far without them, though you 
 
AND Sill ARNOLD SAVAGE. 33 
 
 empty into his manger all the garners of Surrey. 
 Wars are requisite, to diminish the power of your 
 Baronage, by keeping it long and widely separate 
 from the main body of retainers, and under the 
 ken of a stern and steddy prince, watching the 
 movements of all, curbing their discourses, and 
 inuring them to regular and sharp discipline. In 
 general they are the worthless, exalted by the 
 weak, and dangerous from wealth ill acquired and 
 worse expended. The whole people is a good 
 king's household, quiet and orderly when well 
 treated, and ever in readiness to defend him against 
 the malice of the disappointed, the perfidy of the 
 ungrateful, and the usurpation of the familiar. 
 Act in such guise, most glorious Henry, that the 
 king may say my people, and the people say our 
 king : I then will promise you more, passing all 
 comparison and computation, than I refused you 
 this morning; the enjoyment of a conquest, to 
 which all France in estimation is as a broken flag- 
 staff. A Norman by descent and an Englishman 
 by feeling, the humiliation of France is requisite 
 to my sense even of quiet enjoyment. Neverthe- 
 less I cannot delude my understanding, on which 
 is impressed this truth, namely, that the condition 
 of a people which hath made many conquests, doth 
 ultimately become worse than that of the con- 
 
 D 
 
34 KING HENRY IV 
 
 quered. For, the conquered have no longer to 
 endure the sufferings of weakness or the struggles 
 of strength, and some advantages are usually holden 
 forth to keep them peaceable and contented : but 
 under a conquering prince the people are shadows, 
 which lessen and lessen as he mounts in glory, 
 until at last they become, if I may reasonably say 
 so and unreprovedly, a thing of nothing, a shape- 
 less form. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Faith ! I could find it in my heart, sir Arnold, 
 to clip thine eagle's claws and perch thee some- 
 where in the peerage. 
 
 SAVAGE. 
 
 Measureless is the distance between my liege 
 and me ; but I occupy the second rank among men 
 now living, forasmuchas, under the guidance of 
 Almighty God, the most discreet and courageous 
 have appointed me, unworthy as I am, to be the 
 great comprehensive symbol of the English people. 
 
 Writers differ on the first Speakers of the House of Com- 
 mons, for want rather of reflection than of inquiry. The Saxons 
 had frequently such chiefs ; not always. In the reign of Wil- 
 liam Rufus there was a great council of parliament at Rock- 
 ingham, as may be seen in the history of Eadmerus : his words 
 
AND SIR ARNOLD SAVAGE. 35 
 
 are totius regni adunatio. He reports that a certain knight came 
 forth and stood before the people, and spoke in the name and in 
 the behalf of all. Peter de Montfort in the reign of Henry I U 
 spoke vice totius communitatis, arid consented to the banishment 
 of Ademar de Valence, bishop of Winchester. Asir John Bushey 
 was the first presented by the Commons to the King in full 
 parliament. Elsynge calls him " b, special minion" to Richard 
 II. It appears that he, like all his predecessors, was chosen 
 for one particular speech, purpose, or sitting. 
 
 Sir Arnold Savage, according to Elsynge, " was the first 
 who appears upon any record" to have been appointed to the 
 dignity as now constituted. 
 
 The business on which my dialogue is founded, may be de- 
 scribed by an extract from Rapin. 
 
 " Le roi, ayant rappresente a ce parlement le besoin qu'il 
 avoit d'un secours extraordinaire, les Communes allerent en 
 corps lui presenter une Adresse, dans laquelle elles lui re- 
 montroient que, sans fouler son peuple, il pouvoit subvenir a 
 ses besoins. Elles exposoient que le clerge possedoit la troisieme 
 partie des biens du royaume, et que, ne rendant au roi aucun 
 service personel,il etoit juste qu'il contribuat deses richesses aux 
 besoins pressans de TEtat. L'archeveque de Canterbury. . disoit 
 que leur demande n'avoit pour fondement que Tirreligion et 
 I'avarice." 
 
 The reformers, we see, were atheists in those days, as in 
 ours : and to strip off what is superfluous is to expose the body 
 politic to decay. 
 
 Henry IV was among the most politic of our princes. He and 
 his successor may be compared with Philip and Alexander : 
 but the two great Macedonian princes had not such difliculties 
 to surmount as the two great English. Epamiuondas alone, 
 of all the Greeks, atchieved a victory so arduous as that of 
 Agincourt. That of Poictiers was greater. To subdue the 
 Athenians, or the Asiatics, and to subdue the French are 
 widely diflerent things. Henry V broke down their valour, 
 and subverted the fundamental laws of their monarchy, as is 
 proved by the sixth article in the treaty of Troyes. 
 
 " Apres la mort du roi Charles, la couronne de France, 
 
 D 2 
 
36 KING HENRY IV Scc. 
 
 avec toutes ses dependences, appartiendra au roi d'Angleterre, 
 et a ses heritiers." ... A female then might eventually inherit 
 it. 
 
 The monkish historians, and, more than these, Shakespear 
 have given a glorious character of Henry IV. The fact is, 
 Henry permitted any irregularity at home, and suffered any 
 affront from his rival kings, rather than hazard the per- 
 manency of his power. He rose by the people ; he stood by 
 the clergy. He suffered even the isle of Wight to be in- 
 vaded by the French, without a declaration of war against 
 them. 
 
 We should be slow in our censure of princes. Kingship is 
 a profession which has produced both the most illustrious and 
 the most contemptible of the human race. That sovTan is 
 worthy of no slight respect, who rises in moral dignity to the 
 level of his subjects; so manifold and so great are the impedi- 
 ments. 
 
CONVERSATION IV. 
 
 SOUTHEY 
 
 PORSON. 
 
SOUTH EY 
 
 AND 
 
 PORSON. 
 
 PORSON. 
 
 I SUSPECT, Mr. Southey, that you are angry 
 with me for the freedom with which I have spoken 
 of your poetry and Mr. Wordsworth's. 
 
 SOUTHEY. 
 
 What could have induced you to imagine it, 
 Mr. Professor? You have indeed bent your eyes 
 upon me, since we have been together, with some- 
 what of fierceness and defiance; but I presumed 
 that you fancied me to be a commentator; and I 
 am not irritated at a mistake. You wrong me, in 
 your belief that an opinion on my poetical works 
 hath molested me; but you afford me more than 
 compensation in supposing me acutely sensible of 
 any injustice done to Wordsworth. If we must 
 converse at all upon these topics, we will converse 
 
40 SOU THEY 
 
 on him. What man ever existed, who spent a 
 more retired, a more inoffensive, a more virtuous 
 life, or who adorned it with more noble studies ? 
 
 PORSON. 
 
 I believe so ; I have always heard it ; and those 
 w^ho attack him with virulence or with levity are 
 men of no morality and no reflection. I have de- 
 monstrated that one of them, he who wrote the 
 Pursuits of Literature, could not construe a Greek 
 sentence or scan a verse ; and I have fallen on the 
 very Index from which he drew out his forlorn 
 hope on the parade. This is incomparably the 
 most impudent fellow I have met with in the 
 course of my reading, which has lain, you know, 
 in a province where impudence is no rarity. He 
 has little more merit in having stolen, than he 
 would have had if he had never stolen at all. 
 Those who have failed as painters turn picture- 
 cleaners, those who have failed as writers turn 
 reviewers. Orator Henley taught in the last cen- 
 tury, that the readiest made shoes are boots cut 
 down: there are those who abundantly teach us 
 now, that the readiest made critics are cut down 
 poets. Their assurance is however by no means 
 diminished from their ill success. Even the little 
 man who followed you in the Critical Review, poor 
 Robin Fell owes, whose pretensions widen every 
 
AND PORSON. 41 
 
 smile his imbecillity has excited, would, I am per- 
 suaded, if Homer were living, pat him in a fatherly 
 way upon the cheek, and tell him that, by mo- 
 derating his fire and contracting his prolixity, the 
 public might ere long expect something from him 
 worth reading. 
 
 I had visited a friend in King^s Road when 
 Robin entered. 
 
 " Have you seen the Review ?" cried he to 
 him ..." worse than ever! I am resolved to insert 
 a paragraph in the papers, declaring that I had 
 no co7icern in the last number," 
 
 " Is it so very had?" said I quietly. 
 
 " Infamous ! detestable /" exclaimed he. 
 
 ^^ Sit down then ,. .nobody will believe you;" 
 was my answer. 
 
 Since that morning he has discovered that I 
 drink harder than usual, that my faculties are 
 wearing fast away, that once indeed I had some 
 Greek in my head, but ... he then claps the fore- 
 finger to the side of his nose, turns his eye slowly 
 upward, and looks compassionately and calmly. 
 
 SOUTHEY. 
 
 Come Mr. Porson, grant him his merits: no 
 critic was ever better contrived to make any work 
 a very periodical one, no writer more dexterous in 
 giving a finishing touch. 
 
4JS SOUTHEY 
 
 PORSON. 
 
 The plagiary has a greater latitude of choice 
 than we; and if he brings home a parsnip or 
 turnip-top, when he could as easily have pocketed 
 a nectarine or a pine-apple, he must be a blockhead. 
 I never heard the name of that pursuer of literature ; 
 and I have forgotten that other man's, who evinced 
 his fitness to be the censor of the age, by a trans- 
 lation of the most naked and impure satires of all 
 antiquity, those of Juvenal, which owe their pre- 
 servation to the partiality of the friars ; but indeed 
 they are so impregnated and incrusted with bay- 
 salt and alum that they would not burn. I shall 
 entertain a very unfavourable opinion of him if he 
 has translated them well : pray has he ? 
 
 SOUTHEY. 
 
 Indeed I do not know. I read poets for their 
 poetry, and to extract that nutriment of the in- 
 tellect and of the heart which poetry should con- 
 tain. I never listen to the swans of the sess-pool, 
 and must declare that nothing is heavier to me 
 than rottenness and corruption. 
 
 PORSON. 
 
 You are right, sir, perfectly right. A trans- 
 lator of Juvenal would open a public drain to look 
 for a needle, and may miss it. My nose is not 
 easily offended; but I must have something to fill 
 
AND PORSON. 43 
 
 my belly : come, we will lay aside the scrip of the 
 transpositor and the pouch of the pursuer, in re- 
 serve for the days of unleavened bread, and again, 
 if you please, to the lakes and mountains. Now 
 we are both in better humour, I must bring you 
 to a confession that in your friend Wordsworth 
 there is occasionally a little trash. 
 
 SOUTHEY. 
 
 A haunch of venison would be trash to a Hin- 
 doo, a bottle of burgundy or tokay to the xerif 
 of Mecca. We are guided in our choice, by pre- 
 cept, by habit, by taste, by constitution. Hitherto 
 all our sentiments on poetry have been delivered 
 down to us from authority ; and if it can be de- 
 monstrated, as I think it may be, that the autho- 
 rity is inadequate, and that the dictates are often 
 inapplicable and often misinterpreted, you will 
 allow me to remove the cause out of court. Every 
 man can see what is very bad in a poem, almost 
 every one can see what is very good ; but you, Mr. 
 Porson, who have turned over all the volumes of 
 all the commentators, will inform me whether I 
 am right or wrong in asserting, that no critic hath 
 yet appeared who has been able to fix or to dis- 
 cern the exact degrees of excellence above a cer'- 
 tain point. 
 
>4 SOUTHEY 
 
 PORSON. 
 
 None. 
 
 SOUTHEY. 
 
 The reason is, because the eyes of no one have 
 been upon a level with it. Supposing, for the sake 
 of argument, the contest of Hesiod and Homer to 
 have taken place : the judges, who decided in favour 
 of the worse, who indeed has little merit, may have 
 been elegant wise and conscientious men. Their 
 decision was in favour of that poetry, to the species 
 of which they had been the most accustomed. 
 Corinna was preferred to Pindar no fewer than 
 five times ; and the best judges in Greece gave her 
 the preference; yet whatever were her powers, 
 and beyond all question they were extraordinary, 
 we may assure ourselves that she stood many de- 
 grees below Pindar. Nothing is more absurd than 
 the report, that the judges were prepossessed in 
 her favour by her beauty. Plutarch tells us that 
 she was much older than her competitor, who con- 
 sulted her judgment in his earlier odes. Now, 
 granting their first competition to have been when 
 Pindar was twenty years old, and that all the others 
 were in the years succeeding, her beauty must have 
 been somewhat in the decline ; for in Greece there 
 are few women who retain the graces, none who 
 
AND PORSON. 45 
 
 retain the bloom of youth, beyond the twenty 
 third year. Her countenance, I doubt not, was 
 expressive : but expression, although it gives beauty 
 to men, makes women pay dearly for its stamp, 
 and pay soon. Nature seems, in protection to their 
 loveliness, to have ordered that they, who are our 
 superiors in quickness and sensibility, should in 
 general be little disposed to laborious thought, or 
 to long excursions in the labyrinths of fancy. We 
 may be convinced that the verdict of the judges 
 was biassed by nothing else than their habitudes 
 of thinking : we may be convinced too, that, living 
 in an age when poetry was cultivated so highly, 
 and selected from the most acute and the most 
 dispassionate, they were subject to no greater errors 
 of opinion than are the learned messmates of our 
 English colleges. 
 
 PORSON. 
 
 You are more liberal in your largesses to the 
 fair Greeks, than a friend of mine was, who re- 
 sided in Athens to acquire the language. He 
 assured me that beauty there was in bud at thir- 
 teen, in full blossom at fifteen, losing a leaf or two 
 every day at seventeen, trembling on the thorn at 
 nineteen, and under the tree at twenty. He would 
 have been but an indifferent courtier in the palace 
 of a certain prince, whose exclamation was, 
 
46! SOUTHEY 
 
 O could a girl of sixty breed. 
 
 Then, marriage, thou wert bliss indeed ! 
 
 I will not dissemble or deny, that to composi- 
 tions of a new kind, like Wordsworth's, we come 
 without scales and weights, and without the means 
 of making an assay. 
 
 SOUTHEY. 
 
 Mr. Porson, it does not appear to me, that any- 
 thing more is necessary in the first instance, than 
 to interrogate our hearts in what manner they have 
 been affected. If the ear is satisfied; if at one 
 moment a tumult is aroused in the breast, and 
 tranquillized at another with a perfect conscious- 
 ness of equal power exerted in both cases ; if we 
 rise up from the perusal of the work with a strong 
 excitement to thought, to imagination, to sensi- 
 bility; above all if we sat down with some pro- 
 pensities towards evil, and walk out with much 
 stronger towards good, in the midst of a world, 
 which we never had entered, and of which we 
 never had dreamed before; can we so suddenly 
 put on again the old man of criticism, as to deny 
 that we have been conducted by a most beneficent 
 and most potent genius? Nothing proves to me 
 so manifestly in what a pestiferous condition are 
 its lazarettos, as when I observe how little hath 
 been objected against those who have substituted 
 
AND PORSON. 47 
 
 words for things, and how much against those who 
 have reinstated things for words. 
 
 Let Wordsworth prove to the world, that there 
 may be animation without blood and broken bones, 
 and tenderness remote from the stews. Some 
 may doubt it; for even things the most evident 
 are often but little perceived and strangely esti- 
 mated. Swift ridiculed the music of Handel and 
 the generalship of Marlborough, Pope the style 
 of Middleton and the scholarship of Bentley, 
 Gray the abilities of Shaftesbury and the elo- 
 quence of Rousseau. Shakespear hardly found 
 those who would collect his tragedies; Milton 
 was read from godliness; Virgil was antiquated 
 and rustic, Cicero Asiatic. What a rabble has 
 persecuted my friend, in these latter times the 
 glory of our country. An elephant is born to be 
 consumed by ants in the midst of his unapproach- 
 able solitudes. Wordsworth is the prey of Jeffrey. 
 Why repine? and not rather amuse ourselves 
 with allegories, and recollect that God in the 
 creation left his noblest creature at the mercy of 
 a serpent. 
 
 PORSON. 
 
 In my opinion your friend is verbose ; not indeed 
 without something for his words to rest upon, but 
 
48 SOUTHEY 
 
 from a resolution to gratify and indulge his capa- 
 city. He pursues his thoughts too far ; and con- 
 siders more how he may shew them entirely, than 
 how he may shew them advantageously. Good 
 men may utter whatever comes uppermost, good 
 poets may not. It is better, but it is also more 
 difficult, to make a selection of thoughts, than to 
 accumulate them. He who has a splendid side- 
 board, should likewise have an iron chest with a 
 double lock upon it, and should hold in reserve a 
 greater part than he displays. 
 
 Wordsworth goes out of his way to be attacked. 
 He picks up a piece of dirt, throws it on the carpet 
 in the midst of the company, and cries ** This is a 
 better man than any of you,^^ He does indeed 
 mould the base material into what form he chooses ; 
 but why not rather invite us to contemplate it, 
 than challenge us to condemn it? This surely is 
 false taste. 
 
 SOUTHEY. 
 
 The principal and the most general accusation 
 against Wordsworth is, that the vehicle of his 
 thoughts is unequal to them. Now did ever the 
 judges at the Olympic games say, *' We would 
 have awarded to you the meed of victory^ if your 
 chariot had been equal to your horses: it is true 
 
AND PORSON. 49 
 
 they have won ; but the people is displeased at a 
 car neither new nor richly gilt, and without a 
 gryfhen or sphynx engraven on the aocleV^ 
 
 You admire simplicity in Euripides \ you cen- 
 sure it in Wordsworth : believe me, sir, it arises in 
 neither from penury of thought, which seldom has 
 produced it, but from the strength of temperance^ 
 and at the suggestion of principle. 
 
 Take up a poem of Wordsworth's and read it 5 
 I would rather say, read them all ; and, knowing 
 that a mind like yours must grasp closely what 
 comes within it, I will then appeal to you whether 
 any poet of our country, since Shakspeare, has 
 exerted a greater variety of powers with less strain 
 and less ostentation. I would however, with his 
 permission, lay before you for this purpose a poem 
 which is yet unpublished and incomplete. 
 
 PORSON. 
 
 Pity, with his abilities, he does not imitate the 
 ancients somewhat more. 
 
 SOUTHEY. 
 
 AVhom did they imitate ? If his genius is equal 
 to theirs he has no need of a guide. He also will 
 be an ancient ; and the very counterparts of those, 
 who now decry him, will extoll him a thousand 
 years hence in malignity to the moderns. What- 
 ever is good in poetry is common to all good poets, 
 
 E 
 
50 SOUTHF.Y 
 
 however wide may be the diversity of manner. 
 Nothing can be more dissimilar than the three 
 Greek tragedians : but would you prefer the closest 
 and best copier of Homer to the worst (whichever 
 he be) amongst them ? Let us avoid what is in- 
 different or doubtful, and embrace what is good, 
 whether we see it in another or not ; and if we 
 have contracted any peculiarity while our muscles 
 and bones were softer, let us hope finally to out- 
 grow it. Our feelings and modes of thinking 
 forbid and exclude a very frequent imitation of the 
 old classics, not to mention our manners, which 
 have a nearer connection than is generally known 
 to exist with the higher poetry. When the occa- 
 sion permitted it, Wordsworth has not declined to 
 treat a subject as an ancient poet of equal vigour 
 would have treated it. Let me repeat to you his 
 Laodamia. 
 
 PORSON. 
 
 After your animated recital of this most classic 
 poem, I begin to think more highly of you both. 
 It is pleasant to find two poets living as brothers, 
 and particularly when the palm lies between them, 
 without any third in sight. Those who have 
 ascended to the summit of the mountain, sit quietly 
 and familiarly side by side; it is only those who 
 are climbing with gravel in their shoes, that 
 
AND POllSON. 51 
 
 scramble, kick, and jostle. You have recited a 
 most spirited thing indeed. I never had read it. 
 Now to give you a proof that I have been atten- 
 tive, I will remark two passages that offend me. 
 In the first stanza, 
 
 With sacrifice before the rising morn 
 Performed, my slaughtered lord have I required ; 
 And in thick darkness, amid shades forlorn. 
 Him of the infernal Gods have I desired. 
 
 The second line and the fourth terminate too 
 much alike : have I required and have I desired 
 are worse than prosaic. In another, 
 
 He spake of love, such love as spirits feel 
 In worlds whose course is equable and pure ; 
 No fears to beat away, no strife to heal. 
 The past unsighed for, and the future sure ; 
 Spake, as a witness, of a second birth 
 For all that is most perfect upon earth. 
 
 In a composition such as Sophocles might have 
 exulted to own, and in a stanza the former part of 
 which might have been heard with shouts of rap- 
 ture in the regions he describes, how unseasonable 
 is the allusion to witness and second birth, which 
 things, however holy and venerable in themselves, 
 come stinking and reeking to us from the con- 
 venticle. I desire to see Laodamia in the silent 
 
 V. 9. 
 
52 SOUTHEY 
 
 and gloomy mansion of her beloved Protesllaiis ; 
 not elbowed by the godly butchers in Tottenham- 
 court-road, nor smelling devoutly of ratafia among 
 the sugar-bakers at Blackfriars. 
 
 Mythologies should be kept distinct: the fire- 
 place of one should never be subject to the smoke 
 of another. The Gods of different countries, when 
 they come together unexpectedly, are jealous Gods, 
 and, as our old women say, turn the house out of 
 mndows, 
 
 A current of rich and bright thoughts runs 
 throughout the poem. Pindar himself would not, 
 on that subject, have braced one into more nerve 
 and freshness, nor Euripides have inspired into it 
 more tenderness and more passion. I am not in- 
 sensible to that warmly chaste morality which is 
 the soul of it, nor indifferent to the benefits that 
 literature on many occasions has derived from 
 Christianity. But poetry is a luxury to which, if 
 she tolerates and permits it, she accepts no in- 
 vitation : she beats down your gates and citadels, 
 levels your high places, and eradicates your groves. 
 For which reason I dwell more willingly with 
 those authors, who cannot mix and confound the 
 manners they represent. The hope that we may 
 rescue at Herculaneum a great number of them 
 hath, I firmly believe, kept me alive. . Reasonably 
 
AND PORSON. 53 
 
 may all the best be imagined to exist in a library 
 of some thousands. It will be recorded to the 
 eternal infamy of the kings and princes now 
 reigning, or rather of those whose feet put into 
 motion their rocking horses, that they never have 
 made a common cause in behalf of learning, but 
 on the contrary have made a common cause 
 against it. The earth opened her entrails before 
 them, conjured them to receive again, while it was 
 possible, the glories of their species ... and they 
 turned their backs. They pretend that it is not 
 their business or their duty to interfere in the in- 
 ternal affairs of other states. This is not an in- 
 ternal affair of any state whatever : it interests all ; 
 it belongs to all ; and these scrupulous men have 
 no scruple to interfere in giving their countenance 
 and assistence, when a province is to be torn away 
 or a people to be enslaved. The most contemptible 
 of the Medicean family did more for the advance- 
 ment of letters than all the potentates now in 
 existence. If their delicacy is shocked or alarmed 
 at the idea of making a proposal to send scientific 
 and learned men thither, let them send a brace of 
 pointers and the property is their own. Twenty 
 men in seven years might retrieve all the losses we 
 have experienced from the bigotry of popes and 
 califs. I do not intend to assert, that every Her- 
 
54 SOUTHEY AND PORSON. 
 
 CLilanean manuscript might within that period be 
 unfolded; but the three first sentences of the 
 larger part might be ; which is quite sufficient to 
 inform the scholar, whether a further attempt on 
 the scroll would repay his trouble. There are 
 fewer than thirty Greek authors worth inquiring 
 for ; they exist beyond doubt, and beyond doubt 
 they may with attention, patience, and skill be 
 brought to light. With a smaller sum than is 
 annually expended on the appointment of some 
 silly and impertinent young envoy, we might 
 recall into existence all, or nearly all, those men 
 of immortal name, whose disappearance has been 
 the regret of Genius for three hundred years. In 
 my opinion a few thousand pounds laid out on 
 such an undertaking would be laid out as cre- 
 ditably as on a Persian carpet or a Turkish tent ; 
 as creditably as on a collar of rubies and a ball-dress 
 of Brussells-lace for our Lady in the manger, or 
 as on gilding, for the adoration of princesses and 
 their capuchins, the posteriors and anteriors of 
 saint Januarius. 
 
CONVERSATION V 
 
 OLIVER CROMWEL 
 
 AND 
 
 WALTER NOBLE. 
 
OLIVER CROMWEL 
 
 AND 
 
 WALTER NOBLE. 
 
 CROMWEL. 
 
 What brings thee back from Staffordshire, 
 friend Walter? 
 
 NOBLE. 
 
 I hope, general Cromwel, to persuade you that 
 the death of Charles will be considered by all 
 Europe as a most atrocious action. 
 
 CROMWEL. 
 
 Thou hast already persuaded me : what then ? 
 
 NOBLE. 
 
 Surely then you will prevent it, for your autho^ 
 rity is great. Even those who upon their con- 
 sciences found him guilty, would remitt the penalty 
 of blood, some from policy, some from mercy. I 
 have conversed with Hutchinson, with Ludlow, 
 your friend and mine, and with Walter Long: you 
 
58 OLIVER CROMWEL 
 
 will oblige these worthy friends, and unite in your 
 favour the suffrages of the wisest and best men 
 existing. There are many others, with whom I 
 am in no habits of intercourse, who are known to 
 entertain the same sentiments, among the coun- 
 try gentlemen to whom our parliament owes the 
 better part of its reputation. 
 
 CROMWEL. 
 
 You country gentlemen bring with you into 
 the People's House a freshness and sweet savour, 
 which our citizens lack mightily. I would fain 
 merit your esteem, heedless of these pursy fellows 
 from hulks and warehouses, with one ear lappetted 
 by the pen behind it, and the other an heirloom, 
 as Charles would have had it, in Laud's star- 
 chamber. Oh ! they are proud and bloody men. 
 My heart melts ; but alas ! my authority is null : 
 I am the servant of the Commonwealth: I will 
 not, dare not, betray it. If Charles Stuart had 
 only threatened my death, in the letter we ripped 
 out of the saddle, I would have reproved him 
 manfully and turned him adrift: but others are 
 concerned, lives more precious than mine, worne 
 as it is with fastings, prayers, long services, and 
 preyed upon by a pouncing disease. The Lord 
 hath led him into the toils laid for the innocent. 
 Foolish man ! he never could eschew evil counsel. 
 
AND WALTER NOBLE. 59 
 
 NOBLE. 
 
 In comparison with you, he is but as a pinnacle 
 to a butress. I acknowledge his weaknesses, and 
 cannot wink upon his crimes. But what you visit 
 as the heaviest of them^ perhaps was not so, although 
 the most disastrous to both parties, the bearing 
 of arms against his people. He fought for what 
 he considered as his hereditary property: w^e do 
 the same: should we be hanged for losing a 
 lawsuit ? 
 
 CROMWEL. 
 
 Not unless it is the second ... Thou talkest 
 finely and foolishly, Wat, for a man of thy calm 
 discernment. If a rogue holds a pistol to my 
 breast, do I ask him what he is about? do I care 
 whether his doublet be of dog-skin or of cat-skin ? 
 Fie upon such wicked sophisms ! Marvellous, how 
 the devil works upon good men's minds. 
 
 NOBLE. 
 
 Charles was always more to be dreaded by his 
 friends than by his enemies, and now by neither. 
 
 CROMWEL. 
 
 God forbid that Englishman should be feared 
 by Englishman ! but to be daunted by the weakest, 
 to bend before the worst ... I tell thee, Walter 
 Noble, that if Moses and the prophets commanded 
 
60 OLIVER CROMWEL 
 
 me to this villainy, I would draw back and mount 
 my horse. 
 
 NOBLE. 
 
 I could wish that our history, already too dark 
 with blood, should contain, as far as we are con- 
 cerned in it, some unpolluted pages. 
 
 CROMWEL. 
 
 'Twere better so, much better. Never shall I 
 be called, I promise thee, an unnecessary shedder 
 of blood. But remember, my good prudent friend, 
 of what materials our sectaries are composed : what 
 hostility against all eminence, what rancour against 
 all glory. How the knaves dictate from their stools 
 and benches, to men in armour, bruized and bleed- 
 ing for them ! with what fatherly scourges in their 
 fists do they give counsel to those who protect 
 them from the cart and halter. In the name of 
 the Lord, I must piss upon these firebrands before 
 I can make them tractable. 
 
 NOBLE. 
 
 I lament their blindness; but follies wear out 
 the faster by being hard run upon. This fer- 
 menting sourness will presently turn vapid, and 
 people will cast it out. I am not surprized that 
 you are discontented and angry at what thwarts 
 your better nature. But, come, Cromwel, over- 
 
AND WALTER NOBLE. 61 
 
 look them, despise them, and erect to yourself a 
 glorious name by sparing a mortal enemy. 
 
 CROMWEL. 
 
 A glorious name, by God's blessing, I will erecty 
 and all our fellow labourers shall rejoice at it : but 
 I see better than they do the blow descending on 
 them, and my arm better than theirs can ward it 
 off. Noble, thy heart overflows with kindness for 
 Charles Stuart: if he were at liberty tomorrow by 
 thy intercession, he would sign thy death-warrant 
 the day after for serving the Commonwealth. A 
 generation of vipers ! There is nothing upright or 
 grateful in them : never was there a drop of true 
 Scotch blood in their veins. Indeed we have a 
 clue to their bedchamber still hanging on the door, 
 and I suspect that an Italian fidler or French valet 
 has more than once crossed the current. 
 
 NOBLE. 
 
 That may be : nor indeed is it credible that any 
 royal or courtly family has gone on for three ge- 
 nerations without a spur from some interloper. 
 Look at France! some stout Parisian saint per- 
 formed the last miracle there. 
 
 CROMWEL. 
 
 Now thou talkest gravely and sensibly : I could 
 hear thee discourse thus for hours together. 
 
()^ oLivEii ciio:mwkl 
 
 NOBLE. 
 
 Hear me, Cromwel, with equal patience on 
 matters more important. We all have our suffer- 
 ings; why increase one another's wantonly? Be 
 the blood Scotch or English, French or Italian, a 
 drummer's or a buffoon's, it carries a soul upon 
 its stream, and every soul has many places to touch 
 at, and much business to perform, before it reaches 
 its ultimate destination. Abolish the power of 
 Charles ; extinguish not his virtues : he may be a 
 good father who was a bad king. Whatever is 
 worthy to be loved for any thing is worthy of pre- 
 servation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, 
 if any such should ever arise among men, will 
 not condemn to death him who has done, or is 
 likely to do, more service than injury to society. 
 Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects to 
 ours, and their business is never with hopes or 
 with virtues. 
 
 CROMWEL. 
 
 Walter, Walter ! we laugh at speculators. 
 
 NOBLE. 
 
 Many indeed are ready enough to laugh at spe- 
 culators, because many profit, or expect to profit, 
 by established and widening abuses. vSpeculations 
 towards evil lose their name by adoption : specu- 
 
AND WALTER NOBLE. 68 
 
 lations towards good are for ever speculations, and 
 he who hath proposed them is a chimerical and 
 weak creature. 
 
 CROMWEL. 
 
 Proportions should exist in all things. Sovrans 
 are paid higher than others for their office : they 
 should therefor be punished more severely for 
 abusing it, even if the consequences of this abuse 
 were in nothing more grievous or extensive. We 
 cannot clap them in the stocks conveniently, nor 
 whip them at the market-place. Where there is 
 a crown there must be an axe : I would keep it 
 there only. 
 
 NOBLE. 
 
 Lop off the rotten, press out the poisonous, 
 keep well the rest. Let it suffice to have given 
 this memorable example of national power and 
 justice. 
 
 CROMWEL. 
 
 Justice is perfect ; an attribute of God ; w^e must 
 not trifle with it. 
 
 NOBLE. 
 
 Should we be less merciful to our fellow crea- 
 tures than to our domestic animals ? Before we 
 deliver them to be killed, we weigh their services 
 against their inconveniences. On the foundation 
 of policy, when we have no better, let us erect the 
 
64 OLIVER CROMWEL 
 
 trophies of humanity: let us consider that, edu- 
 cated in the same manner, and situated in the 
 same position, we ourselves might have acted as 
 reprovably. Abolish that for ever which must 
 else for ever generate abuses; and attribute the 
 faults of the man to the office, not the faults of 
 the office to the man. 
 
 CROMWEL. 
 
 I abominate and detest kingship. 
 
 NOBLE. 
 
 I abominate and detest hangmanship; but in 
 certain stages of society both are necessary. Let 
 them go together, we want neither now. 
 
 CROMWEL. 
 
 Prythee, Wat, since thou readest, as I see, the 
 books of philosophers, didst thou ever hear of 
 Digby's remedies by sympathy? 
 
 NOBLE. 
 
 Yes, formerly. 
 
 CROMWEL. 
 
 Well, now, I protest, I do believe there is 
 something in them. To cure my headache, I 
 must breathe a vein in the neck of Charles. 
 
 NOBLE. 
 
 Oliver, Oliver, others are wittiest over wine, 
 thou over blood... cold-hearted, cruel man. 
 
AND WALTER NOBLE. 65 
 
 CROMWEL. 
 
 Why, dost thou verily think me so, Walter? 
 Perhaps thou art right in the main : but he alone, 
 who fashioned me in my mother's womb, and 
 who sees things deeper than we do, knows that. 
 
CONVERSATION VI, 
 
 iESCHINES 
 
 AND 
 
 PHOCION. 
 
JESCHINES 
 
 AND 
 
 PHOCION. 
 
 ^SCHINES. 
 
 Phocion, again I kiss the hand that hath 
 €ver raised up the unfortunate. 
 
 PHOCION. 
 
 1 know not, ^schines, to what your discourse 
 would tend. 
 
 ^SCHINES. 
 
 Yesterday, when the malice of Demosthenes 
 would have turned against me the vengeance of 
 the people, by pointing me out as him whom the 
 priestess of Apollo had designated, in declaring 
 that the Athenians were all unanimous, one ex- 
 cepted, did you not cry aloud, / am that man ; I 
 approve nothing you do? That I see you again, 
 that I can express to you my gratitude, these are 
 your gifts. 
 
70 ^SCHINES 
 
 PHOCION. 
 
 And does ^schines then suppose that I should 
 not have performed my duty, whether he were 
 alive or dead? To have removed from the envy 
 of an ungenerous rival, and from the resentment 
 of an inconsiderate populace, the citizen who pos- 
 sesses my confidence, the orator who defends my 
 country, and the soldier who has fought by my 
 side, was among those actions which are always 
 well repaid. The line is drawn across the account : 
 let us close it. 
 
 iESCHINES. 
 
 I am not insensible, nor have ever been, to the 
 afflicted; my compassion has been excited in the 
 city and in the field ; but when have I been moved, 
 as I am now, to weeping ? Your generosity is more 
 pathetic than pity or than pain ; and at your elo- 
 quence, stern as it is, O Phocion, my tears gush 
 like those warai fountains which burst forth sud- 
 denly from some convulsion of the earth. 
 
 Immortal Gods I that Demades and Polyeuctes 
 and Demosthenes should prevail in the council 
 over Phocion 1 that even their projects for a 
 campaign should be adopted in preference to 
 that general's who hath defeated Philip in every 
 encounter, and should precipitate the war against 
 the advice of a politician, by whose presages, 
 
AND PHOCIOX. Tl 
 
 and his only, the Athenians have never been 
 deceived ! 
 
 PHOCION. 
 
 It is true, I am not popular. 
 
 ^SCHINES. 
 
 Become so. 
 
 PHOCION. 
 
 It has been in my power to commit base ac- 
 tions; and I abstained: would my friend advise 
 jneto committ the basest of all? to court the favour 
 of men I abominate and despise ! 
 
 JESCHINES. 
 
 You court not even those who love and honour 
 you. Thirty times and oftener have you been 
 chosen to lead our armies, and never once were 
 present at the assembly which elected you. Un- 
 paralleled glory ! when have the Gods shown any 
 thing similar among men ! Not Aristides, nor 
 Epaminondas, the most virtuous of mortals, not 
 Miltiades nor Cimon, the most glorious in their 
 exploits, not Codrus, so great as to redeem from 
 contempt the name of king, enjoyed the favour of 
 Heaven so uninterruptedly. No presents, no soli- 
 citations, no flatteries, no concessions; you never 
 even asked a vote, however gravely, legitimately, 
 customarily. 
 
72 yESCHINES 
 
 PHOCION. 
 
 The highest price we can pay for anything is, 
 to ask it : and to solicit a vote appears to me as 
 base an action as to solicit a place in a will : it is 
 not ours, and might have been another's. 
 
 Indifference to the welfare of our country is a 
 crime ; but if our country is reduced to such a 
 condition that the bad are preferred to the good, 
 the foolish to the wise, hardly any catastrophe is 
 to be deprecated or opposed that may shake them 
 from their places. 
 
 ^SCHINES. 
 
 In dangerous and trying times they fall naturally 
 and necessarily, as flies drop from a curtain let 
 down in winter. But if the people demands of me 
 what better I would propose than my adversaries, 
 such are the extremities to which their boisterous- 
 ness and levity have reduced us, I can return 
 no answer. We are in the condition of a wolf 
 biting off his leg to escape from the trap that has 
 caught it. 
 
 PHOCION. 
 
 Calamities have assaulted mankind in such a 
 variety of attacks, that nothing now can be devised 
 against them. He who would strike out any thing 
 novel in architecture, commits a folly in safety; 
 
AND PHOCION. 73 
 
 his house and he may stand ; but he who attempts 
 it in politics, carries a torch, from which at the 
 first narrow passage we may expect a conflagra- 
 tion. Experience is our only teacher both in war 
 and peace. As we formerly did against the Lace- 
 daemonians and their allies, we might by our naval 
 superiority seize or blockade the maritime towns 
 of Philip ; we might conciliate Sparta, who has 
 outraged and defied him ; we might wait even for 
 his death, impending from drunkenness, lust, fero- 
 city, and inevitable in a short space of time, from 
 the vengeance to which they expose him at home. 
 It is a dangerous thing for a monarch to corrupt 
 a nation yet uncivilized ; to corrupt a civilized one 
 is the wisest thing he can do* 
 
 ^SCHINES. 
 
 I see no reason why we should not send an 
 executioner to release him from the prison-house 
 of his crimes, with his family to attend him. 
 Kings play at war unfairly with republics. They 
 can only lose some earth and some creatures that 
 they value as little ; while republics lose in every 
 soldier a part of themselves. Therefore no wise 
 republic ought to be satisfied, unless she bring to 
 punishment the individual most obnoxious, and 
 those about him who may be supposed to have 
 made him so, his counsellors and his courtiers. 
 
74 /ESCHINES 
 
 Retaliation is not a thing to be feared. The Lo- 
 crians have admitted only two new law^s in two 
 hundred years ; because he who proposes to esta- 
 blish or to change one, comes with a halter round 
 his throat, and is strangled if his proposition is re- 
 jected. Let wars, which ought justly to be more 
 perilous to the adviser, be but equally so : let those 
 who engage in them perish if they lose, I mean 
 the principals, and new wars will be as rare among 
 others as new laws among the Locrians. 
 
 PHOCION. 
 
 Both laws and wars are much addicted to the 
 process of generation. Philip, I am afraid, has 
 prepared the Athenians for his government. I 
 W'Onder how in a free state, any man of common 
 sense can be bribed. The corrupter would only 
 spend his money on persons of some calculation and 
 reflection : with how little of either must those be 
 endowed, who do not see that they are paying a 
 perpetuity for an annuity 1 Suppose that they, 
 amidst suspicions both from him in whose favour 
 they betray, and from those to whose detriment they 
 have betrayed, can enjoy what they receive; yet 
 what security have their children and dependents? 
 Property is usually gained in hope no less of be- 
 queathing than of enjoying it ; but how certain is 
 it that these will lose greatly more than was ac- 
 
AND PHOCION. 75 
 
 quired for them ! If they lose their country and 
 their laws, what have they? The bribes of mon- 
 archs will be discovered by the receiver to be like 
 pieces of furniture given to a man who, on return- 
 ing home, finds that his house, in which he in- 
 tended to place them, has another master. I can 
 conceive no bribery at all seductive to the most 
 profligate, short of that which establishes the citi- 
 zen bribed among the members of an hereditary 
 aristocracy, which in the midst of a people is a 
 kind of foren state, where the spoiler and traitor 
 may take refuge. Now Philip is not so inhuman, 
 as, in case he should be the conqueror, to inflict on 
 us so humiliating a punishment. Our differences 
 with him are but recent, and he marches from po- 
 licy not from enmity. The Lacedemonians did 
 indeed attempt it, in the imposition of the thirty 
 tyrants; but so monstrous a state of degradation 
 and of infamy roused us from our torpor, threw 
 under us and beneath our view all other wretched- 
 ness, and we recovered, (I wish we could retain it 
 as easily!) our independence. ... What depresses 
 you? 
 
 ^SCHINES. 
 
 Oh ! could I embody the spirit I receive from 
 you, and present it in all its purity to the Athe- 
 nians, they would surely hear me with as much 
 
76 .ESCHINES 
 
 attention, as that invoker and violator of the Gods, 
 Demosthenes, to whom my blood would be the 
 most acceptable libation at the feasts of Philip. 
 Pertinacity and clamorousness, he imagines, are 
 the tests of sincerity and truth ; although we know 
 that a weak orator raises his voice higher than a 
 powerful one, as the lame raise their legs higher 
 than the sound. Can any thing be so ridiculous 
 as the pretensions of this man, who, because I em- 
 ploy no action, says action is thejirst, the second^ 
 the third requisite of oratory, while he himself is 
 the most ungraceful of all our speakers, and, even 
 in appealing to the Gods, begins by scratching his 
 head ? 
 
 PHOCION. 
 
 This is surely no inattention or indifference to 
 the powers above. I smile at reflecting on the 
 levity with which we contemporaries often judge 
 of those great authors whom posterity will read 
 with incessant admiration: such is Demosthenes. 
 Differ as we may from him in politics, we must 
 acknowledge that no language is more forcible, 
 more clear ; no combinations of words more novel, 
 no sequency of sentences more diversified, more 
 admirably pitched and concerted. Accustomed 
 to consider as the best what is at once the most 
 simple and emphatic, and knowing that whatever 
 
AND PHOCION. 77 
 
 satisfies the understanding, conciliates the ear, I 
 think him little if at all inferior to Aristoteles in 
 style, although in wisdom he is as a mote to a sun- 
 beam; and much superior to Plato; excellent as 
 was he; gorgeous indeed, but becomingly so, as 
 wealthy monarchs are, and truly a magnificent 
 piece of the Gods' work in their richest materials. 
 Defective however and faulty must be the com- 
 position in prose, which you and I with all our study 
 and attention cannot understand. In poetry it is 
 not exactly so : the greater part of it must be in- 
 telligible to all : but in the very best there is often 
 an undersong of sense, which none besides the 
 poetical mind, or one deeply versed in its mysteries, 
 can comprehend. Euripides and Pindar have been 
 blamed by many, who perceived not that the arrow 
 drawn against them fell on Homer. 
 
 Let us praise, my iEschines, w^hatever we can 
 reasonably: nothing is less laborious or irksome, 
 no office is less importunate or nearer a sinecure. 
 Above all others let us praise those who contend 
 with us for glory, since they have already borne 
 their suffrages to our judgment by entering on the 
 same career. Deem it a peculiar talent, and such 
 as no three men in any age have possessed, to give 
 each great citizen or great writer his just propor- 
 tion of applause. A barbarian king or his eunuch 
 
78 ^SCHINES 
 
 can distribute equally and fairly beans and lentils ; 
 but I perceive that ^schines himself finds a dif- 
 ficulty in awarding just commendations. 
 
 A few days ago an old woman, who wrote for- 
 merly a poem on Codrus, such as Codrus with all 
 his self-devotion would hardly have read to save his 
 country, met me in the street, and taxed me with 
 injustice towards Demosthenes. 
 
 " You do not know him, said she: he has 
 heart, and somewhat of genius: true, he is sin- 
 gular and strange: but, I assure you, there is 
 something in him, for I have seen some of his com- 
 positions that do him credit." 
 
 " Lady, replied I, Demosthenes is fortunate to 
 be protected by the same cuirass as Codrus." 
 
 Singular and strange must every man appear 
 who is different from his neighbours; and he is 
 the most different from them who is the most 
 above them. If the clouds were inhabited by men, 
 the men must be of other form and features than 
 those on earth, and their gait would not be the 
 same as upon grass or gravel. Diversity no less is 
 contracted by the habitations, as it were, and 
 haunts, and exercises of our minds. Singularity, 
 when it is natural, requires no apology ; when it 
 is affected, is detestable : such is that of our young 
 people in bad handwriting. On my expedition to 
 
AND PHOCION. 79 
 
 Byzantium, the city decreed that a cloak should 
 be given me worth forty drachmae : and when I was 
 about to return I folded it up carefully, in readi- 
 ness for any service in which I might be employed 
 hereafter. A young officer, studious to imitate 
 my neatness, packed up his in the same manner, 
 not without the hope perhaps that I might remark 
 it, and my servant, or his, on our return, mistook 
 it. I sailed for Athens; he, with a detachment, 
 for Heraclea; whence Ife wrote to me that he had 
 sent my cloak, requesting his own by the first con- 
 veyance. The name was quite illegible, and the 
 carrier, whoever he was, had pursued his way 
 homewards: I directed it then, as the only safe 
 way, if indeed there was any safe one, to the officer 
 *w}io writes worst at Heraclea, 
 
 Come, a few more words upon Demosthenes. 
 Do not, my friend, inveigh against him, lest a part 
 of your opposition be attributed to hatred. How 
 many arguments is it worth to him, if you appear 
 to act from another motive than principle ! True, 
 his eloquence is imperfect: what among men is 
 not? In his repartees there is no playfulness, in 
 his voice there is no flexibility, in his action there 
 is neither dignity nor grace: but how often has 
 he stricken you dumb with his irony! how often 
 has he tossed you from one hand to the other with 
 
80 ^SCHINES 
 
 his interrogatories! What harmony of periods, 
 what choice of expressions, how popular his allu- 
 sions, how plain his illustrations, his dialect how 
 Attic ! I^ this no merit ? is it none in an age of 
 idle rhetoricians, who have forgotten how their 
 fathers and mothers spoke to them ? His sentences 
 are stout and compact as the Macedonian phalanx, 
 animated and ardent as the sacred band of Thebes. 
 Praise him, my ^schines, if you wish to be vic- 
 torious; if you acknowledge that you are van- 
 quished, then revile him and complain. In com- 
 position I know not any superior to him ; and in 
 an assembly of the people he derives advantages 
 from his defects themselves, from the violence of 
 his action, and from the vulgarity of his mien. 
 Permit him to possess these advantages over 
 you: consider him as a wrestler, whose body is 
 robust, but whose feet rest upon something slip- 
 pery : use your dexterity, and reserve your blows. 
 Regard him, if less excellent as a statesman, citi- 
 zen, or soldier, rather as a genius or daemon, who, 
 whether beneficent or malignant, hath, from an 
 elevation far above us, launched forth many new 
 stars into the firmament of mind. 
 
 iESCHlNES. 
 
 O, that we had been born in other days ! The 
 best men always fall upon the worst. 
 
AND PHOCION. 81 
 
 PHOCION. 
 
 The Gods have not granted us, ^schines, the 
 choice of being born when we would; that of 
 dying when we would, they have. Thank them 
 for it, as one among the most excellent of their 
 gifts, and wait not for horn or herald : a whistle is 
 here a signal. Whatever can happen to a wise 
 and virtuous man from his worst enemy, whatever 
 is most dreaded by the inconsiderate and irre- 
 solute, has happened to him frequently from him- 
 self, and not only without his inconvenience, but 
 without his observation. We are prisoners as often 
 as we bolt our doors, exiles as often as we walk to 
 Munychia, and dead as often as we sleep. It 
 would be a folly and a shame to argue that these 
 tilings are voluntary, and that what our enemy im- 
 poses are not : they should be the more so if they 
 befall us from necessity, unless necessity be less a 
 reason with us than caprice. In fine, ^schines, 
 I shall then call the times bad when they make 
 me so. At present they are to be borne, as must 
 also be the storm that follows them. 
 
CONVERSATION VIL 
 
 QUEEN ELIZABETH 
 
 CECIL. 
 
QUEEN ELIZABETH 
 
 AND 
 
 CECIL. 
 
 ELIZABETH. 
 
 I ADVISE thee again, churlish Cecil, how that 
 our Edmund Spenser, whom thou calledst most 
 uncourteously a whining whelp, hath good and 
 solid reason for his complaint. God's blood ! shall 
 the lady that tieth my garter and shuffleth the 
 smock over my head, or the lord that steddieth 
 my chair's back while I eat, or the other that 
 looketh to my buck-hounds lest they be mangy, 
 be holden by me in higher esteem and estate, than 
 he who hath placed me among the bravest of past 
 times, and will as safely and surely set me down 
 among the loveliest in the future. 
 
 CECIL. 
 
 Your Highness must remember he carouseth 
 
86 QUEEN ELIZABETH 
 
 fully for such deserts ... a hundred pounds ayear 
 of unclipt monies, and a butt of canary wine^^. 
 
 ELIZABETH. 
 
 The monies are not enow to sustain a pair of 
 grooms and a pair of palfreys, and more wine hath 
 been drunken in my presence at a feast. The 
 monies are given to such men, that they may not 
 incline nor be obligated to any vile or lowly occu- 
 pation; and the canary, that they may entertain 
 such promising Wits as court their company and 
 converse ; and that in such manner there may be 
 alway in our land a succession of these heirs of 
 Fame. He hath written, not indeed with his 
 wonted fancifulness, nor in learned and majestical 
 language, but in homely and rustic wise, some 
 verses which have moved me ; and haply the more 
 so, inasmuchas they demonstrate to me that his 
 genius hath been dampened by his adversities. 
 Read them. 
 
 CECIL. 
 
 How much is lost when neither heart nor eye 
 Rosewinged Desire or fabling Hope deceives ; 
 
 When boyhood with quick throb hath ceased to spy 
 The dubious apple in the yellow leaves ; 
 
 * Calculating the prices of provisions and the increase of 
 taxeSj the poet-laureate in the time of Elizabeth had about 
 four times as much as at present (1816) 5 so that Cecil spoke 
 reasonably, Elizabeth royally. 
 
AND CECIL. 87 
 
 When, springing from the turf where youth reposed. 
 We find but deserts in the far-sought shore j 
 
 When the huge book of Faery-land lies closed. 
 And those strong brazen clasps will yield no more. 
 
 ELIZABETH. 
 
 The said Edmund hatli also furnished unto 
 the weaver at Arras, John Blaquieres, on my ac- 
 count, a description for some of his cunningest 
 wenches to work at, supplied by mine own self 
 indeed as far as the subject-matter goes, but set 
 forth by him with figures and fancies, and daintily- 
 enough bedecked. I could have wished he had 
 thereunto joined a fair comparison between Dian 
 ... no matter ... he might perhaps have fared the 
 better for it . . . but poets' wits, God help them ! 
 when did they ever sit close about them ! Read 
 the poesy, not over-rich, and concluding very 
 awkwardly and meanly. 
 
 CECIL. 
 
 Where forms the lotus, with its level leaves 
 
 And solid blossoms, many floating isles. 
 What heavenly radiance swiftdescending cleaves 
 
 The darksome wave ! unwonted beauty smiles 
 
 On its pure bosom, on each bright-eyed flower. 
 On every nymph, and twenty sate around . . 
 
 Lo ! 'twas Diana . . from the sultry hour 
 
 Hither she fled, nor fear'd she sight nor sound. 
 
 Unhappy youth, whom thirst and quiver-reeds 
 Drew to these haunts, whom awe forbade to fly. 
 
 Three faithful dogs before him rais'd their heads. 
 And watched and wonder'd at that fixed eve. 
 
88 QUEEN ELIZABETH 
 
 Forth sprang his favorite . . with her arrow-hand 
 Too late the goddess hid what hand may hide. 
 
 Of every nymph and every reed complain'd, 
 And dashed upon the bank the waters wide. 
 
 On the prone head and sandal'd feet they flew . . 
 
 Lo ! slender hoofs and branching horns appear ! 
 The last marred voice not even the favorite knew. 
 
 But bayed and fastened on the upbraiding deer. 
 
 Far be, chaste goddess, far from me and mine 
 
 The stream that tempts thee in the summer noon ! 
 Alas that vengeance dwells with charms divine . . 
 
 ELIZABETH. 
 
 Psha! give me the paper: I forewarned thee 
 how it ended . . pitifully, pitifully. 
 
 CECIL. 
 
 I cannot think otherwise than that the under- 
 taker of the aforecited poesy hath choused your 
 highness; for I have seen painted, I know not 
 where, the identically same Dian, with full as 
 many nymphs, as he calls them, and more dogs. 
 So small a matter as a page of poesy shall never 
 stir my choler nor twitch my purse-string. 
 
 ELIZABETH. 
 
 I have read in Plinius and Mela of a runlet near 
 Dodona, which kindled by approximation an 
 unlighted torch and extinguished a lighted one. 
 Now, Cecil, I desire no such a jetty to be cele- 
 brated as the decoration of my court : in simpler 
 words, which your gravity may more easily under- 
 
AND CECIL, 89 
 
 stand, I would not from the fountain of Honour 
 give lustre to the dull and ignorant, deadening 
 and leaving in "cold obstruction" the lamp of 
 literature and genius. I ardently wish my reign 
 to be remembered : if my actions were different 
 from what they are, I should as ardently wish it 
 to be forgotten. Those are the worst of suicides, 
 who voluntarily and prepensely stab or suffocate 
 their fame, when God has commanded them to 
 stand up on high for an ensample. We call him 
 parricide who destroys the author of his existence : 
 tell me, what shall we call him who casts forth to 
 the dogs and birds of prey, its most faithful pro- 
 pagator and most firm support? The parent gives 
 us few days and sorrowful; the poet many and 
 glorious: the one (supposing him discreet and 
 kindly) best reproves our faults; the other best 
 remunerates our virtues. 
 
 A page of poesy is a little matter: be it so: 
 but of a truth I do tell thee, Cecil, it shall master 
 full many a bold heart that the Spaniard cannot 
 trouble ; it shall win to it full many a proud and 
 flighty one, that even chivalry and manly comeli- 
 ness cannot touch. I may shake titles and digni- 
 ties by the dozen from my breakfast-board ; but I 
 may not save those upon whose heads I shake 
 them from rottenness and oblivion. This year 
 
90 QUEEN ELIZABETH 
 
 they and their sovran dwell together, next year 
 they and their beagle. Both have names, but 
 names perishable. The keeper of my privy-seal is 
 an earl: what then? the keeper of my poultry- 
 yard is a Caesar. In honest truth, a name given 
 to a man is no better than a skin given to him: 
 what is not natively his own, falls off and comes 
 to nothing. 
 
 I desire in future to hear no contempt of pen- 
 men, unless a depraved use of the pen shall have 
 so cramped them, as to incapacitate them for the 
 sword and for the council-chamber. If Alexander 
 was the great, what was Aristoteles who made him 
 so? who taught him every art and science he knew, 
 except three ; those of drinking, of blaspheming, 
 and of murdering his bosom-friends. Come along : 
 I will bring thee back again nearer home. Thou 
 mightest toss and tumble in thy bed many nights, 
 and never eke out the substance of a stanza: but 
 Edmund, if perchance I should call upon him 
 for his counsel, would give me as wholesome and 
 prudent as any of you. We should indemnify 
 such men for the injustice we do unto them in not 
 calling them about us, and for the mortification 
 they must suffer at seeing their inferiors set before 
 them. Edmund is grave and gentle: he com- 
 plains of Fortune, not of Elizabeth, of courts, not 
 
AND CECIL. 91 
 
 of Cecil. I am resolved, so help me God, he 
 shall have no further cause for his repining. Go, 
 convey unto him those twelve silver-spoons, with 
 the apostols on them, gloriously gilded; and de- 
 liver into his hand these twelve large golden 
 pieces, sufficing for the yearly maintenance of an- 
 other horse and groom: besides which, set open 
 before him with due reverence this bible, wherein 
 he may read the mercies of God towards those who 
 waited in patience for his blessing ; and this pair of 
 cremisin silken hosen, which thou knowest I have 
 worne only thirteen months, taking heed that the 
 heelpiece be put into good and sufficient restaura- 
 tion, at my sole charges, by the Italian woman at 
 Charing-cross. 
 
CONVERSATION VIIL 
 
 KING JAMES I 
 
 ISAAC CASAUBON. 
 
KING JAMES I 
 
 AND 
 
 ISAAC CASAUBON*. 
 
 JAMES. 
 
 Good M. Casaubon, I am vexed and perturbed 
 in spirit, to find that all my moderation and all 
 
 * Casaubon, the four last years of his life, resided at the 
 court of James I, and his opinion was consulted and his pen 
 employed, when that religious king made proposals to the pope, 
 for reconciling the Roman-catholic church with the catholic 
 apostolic. He was a singularly virtuous and pious man, a 
 liberal disputant, a sound critic, and of extensive no less than 
 accurate scholarship. Among his friends he had the happiness 
 of numbering a Thuanus, a Scaliger, a Douza, a Heinsius, a 
 Taubmann, an Erpenius, a Gruter, a Beza, and a Grotius. 
 Let no man hereafter hope ever to see, certainly none will ever 
 live familiarly with, so many who have deserved so well of 
 letters. 
 
 James was inglorious, for he was a Stuart; he was par- 
 simonious, for he was a Scotchman ; he was arrogant, for he 
 was a theologian ; and he was arbitrary, for he was educated 
 in the doctrine of prerogative. No family in so many genera- 
 
96 KING JAMES I 
 
 my zeal, which never has departed from it, should 
 be opposed and thwarted by the Pontificials. 
 
 tions has exhibited so few virtues : yet it would be unjust to 
 deny that he was the best of his race; that he was sincere and 
 candid, that he was temperate and compassionate, that he Avas 
 patient and beneficent, that he was learned and the favourer 
 at least, if not the patron and remunerator, of learned men. 
 Pompous as he was, he was less unbending than many con- 
 stitutional kings have been j a practise which did not prevail 
 in Europe until the minor potentates thought it becoming to 
 imitate Louis XIV, and judiciously took that part of his cha- 
 racter which was the most easy to copy. Unbendingness, in 
 the moral as in the vegetable world, is an indication as fre- 
 quently of unsoundness as of strength. Indeed wise men, 
 whether kings or others, have been always free from it. Stiff 
 necks are diseased ones. James conversed, on friendly and 
 social terms, with many who never lied for him, never extorted 
 for him, never extended his power, never pampered his pride, 
 never pandered to his sensuality. He maintained the divine 
 right of kings : we call the doctrine a monstrous one. Now 
 those who give constitutions, must possess a divine right; 
 whence else comes it ? We have seen these given near home, 
 and we have applauded the giver. 
 
 Dari bonum quod potuit auferri potest. 
 
 James called himself catholic, and insisted that the appella- 
 tion could not be refused him, who acknowledged as articles 
 of faith the three creeds, the four Ecumenical Councils, and 
 every doctrine received as necessary to salvation in the four 
 first centuries of the faith. If the title was worth having, it 
 M^as clearly his. 
 
 As in these Dialogues I have not inserted a single sentence 
 written by, or recorded of, the personages who are supposed 
 to hold them, I have thought it needful to subjoin occasional 
 notes and illustrations. On the eighth in particular I shall 
 exceed my usual bounds, recommending at the same time an 
 attentive perusal of Casaubon's letters on the subject. 
 
AND ISAAC CASAUBON. 97 
 
 CASAUBON. 
 
 Your Majesty could entertain but feeble hopes 
 of accommodation, where avarice and pride are 
 the directors of every counsel. The advantage 
 however, which I pointed out to your Majesty, is 
 obtained, inasmuchas you have hung your proofs 
 upon the highest peg in the chambers of the 
 Vatican, and these manifest to the world below you 
 both the sincerity of your heart and the solidity 
 of your arguments. 
 
 JAMES. 
 
 I could have wished that whatever leads to 
 fellowship and concord were tolerated and en- 
 couraged. It is not the interest of kings to carry 
 the forest-laws into churches. On this principle 
 and persuasion I admitted many papists to offices 
 about my person, not expecting that they would 
 prepare for me such a blazing fire so early in the 
 season : and after all, such is my spirit of peace 
 and conciliation, though I would rather keep them 
 out of my cellar and my kitchen, I should not 
 however be loth to go with them, if their priests 
 would allow me, to the communion-table. The 
 Gospel says, this is my body : it does not say how. 
 I am far from angry with the mass-maker for 
 knowing more about it than I do, or than my 
 master chose to tell my betters, his apostles and 
 
 H 
 
98 KING JAMES I 
 
 disciples, or for insisting on transubstantiation, the 
 very name of which was not in existence for some 
 lumdred years after he left the earth. Let every 
 christian take the sacrament: let all neighbours 
 take it together : let each apply to it his own idea \ 
 of its import and its essence. At every comme- ^ 
 moration-dinner, one w^ould wish something which 
 he does not see upon the table, another is desirous 
 that the dish which stands before him were away ; 
 yet surely all may find that wherein their tastes 
 agree ; and nothing, of what is present or of what 
 is absent, can alter their sentiments as to the har- 
 mony of the meeting or the object of the entertain- 
 ment. Such feelings, let me ascend from the little 
 to the great, from the ordinary to the solemn, will 
 the christian's be at the sacrament of the eucharist. 
 The memory of that day when it first was cele- 
 brated, makes me anxious to open my aims to- 
 wards all, and to treat the enemies of my throne 
 with the charity of the Gospel. 
 
 We gratify our humours in sovranty, in Chris- 
 tianity our affections; in this always our best, in 
 that often our worst. You know not, M. Casau- 
 bon, how pleasant a thing it is to converse na- 
 turally, because you have always done so ; but we 
 kings feel it sensibly, those at least amongst us, to 
 whom God hath vouchsafed a plain understanding. 
 
AND ISAAC CASAUBON. 99 
 
 It is like unto a removal from the curtained and 
 closed chamber of sickness, where every footfall is 
 suspended and measured, every voice constrained 
 and lowered, into our native air again, amidst the 
 songs and pipings of our shepherds and the wilder 
 and more exuberant harmony of our woodlands. 
 To you the whole intellectual world lies open : we 
 must speak only in epigrams or in oracles. The 
 book however which I hold in my hand, teaches 
 me that the practise should be laid aside, and that 
 we ought not to be ashamed of acknowledging a 
 sort of relation, at home, with those whom in 
 the house of God we call our brethren. If I fall 
 rather short of this, I do not pretend to tell a 
 man how he should sing, or how he should pro- 
 nounce his language, or upon which side he should 
 lie in bed, much less in what manner he should 
 think on subjects which concern not me. I would 
 exclude none from the benefit of law, none from 
 the enjoyment of dignity: I would establish the 
 catholic peers in that House, from which their 
 friends Garnet and Catesby ^ would, to serve their 
 own purposes, have exploded them. What think 
 you? 
 
 * Garnettus vester a Catesbeio consultus, essetne licitum 
 sontes insoiitesque perclere, si alteri sine alteris extingiii non 
 possent, semel ita respondit in privatis suis aedibus : '' Licere, 
 
 h2 
 
100 KING JAMES I 
 
 CASAUBON. 
 
 I see not how your Majesty can receive as youi 
 counsellors, or indeed as any part of those who are 
 to govern, judge, or administrate, men who pro- 
 fess that another has by right a greater power in 
 this realm, not only than your Majesty, but than 
 all the three estates conjointly. They are bound 
 to assist in placing the instruction of your people 
 out of your hands : they are bound to murder you 
 if you resist the authority of the pope, or even if 
 they are informed by him that such an action is 
 of advantage to the Church : indeed any one may 
 murder you, let him only be persuaded by two or 
 three factious but learned men* that it is con- 
 ducive to the interests of his Holmess. 
 
 si tantum ex ea re boni proventurum esset, quantum aliquot in- 
 sontium necem compensare potest." — So that murder may be 
 committed even without advantage ! The Jesuit requires only 
 a balance of good, and reckons the murder itself as merely an 
 inoffensive means of obtaining it. " Iterum in campis subur- 
 banis, quibus a palude nomen, in banc sententiam . . ' et posse 
 et licere cum sontibus insontes exsiifflari, magnique adeo meriti 
 rem fore, si id magno alicui bono catholicis caderet.' " 
 
 A few factious but learned men, deciding that such or such 
 a thing is of great advantage to catholics, may, not only justly 
 but with glory, blow up fifty or a hundred of their own insontes 
 amongst two or three hundred heretics. 
 
 * The question was proposed and decided in the affirma- 
 tive. It was not an idle or a speculative one, but prepared 
 the minds of the Roman-catholics, and led the way to the 
 murder of two kings, Henry III and Henry IV of France. 
 
AND ISAAC CASAUBON. 101 
 
 JAMES. 
 
 I apprehend that my intentions must be de- 
 ferred. O Lord ! preserve my life for thy glory ! 
 
 The name of the former was inserted for illustration . . An 
 liceat regem legitimum, ^j^/a Henricum III Regem Galliarum 
 Christianissimumypostquam a paucis seditiosis sed doctis cceperit 
 tyrannus appellari, occidere? It is lamentable that the govern- 
 ments of Europe should have permitted such questions to be 
 agitated by the clergy, to whom they least of all belong. It 
 became them to imprison or punish capitally any pope who 
 countenanced these universal rebels. Let those who inveigh 
 so violently, against the Illuminati, the Carhonarj, the Radi- 
 calSf read the following language of the papal agents. The 
 French regicide, Jaques Clement, a supremae auctoritiitis ju- 
 dicibus de causa suscepti parricidii interrogatus, quum more 
 patrio in reorum cellula sederet, non per ambages aut aenigmata 
 sed liquido et diserte respondit, ideo se quod fecerat fecisse, 
 quia rex protestantibus Germaniae principibusopem ferre parans 
 in causa Cliviensi, Pontifici Maximo rem faceret ingratam, ac 
 proinde dignus esset qui pcriret : deum enim se in terris Ro- 
 manum Pontificem agnoscere, cujus voluntati qui sese guovis 
 p>acto opponeret eum se habere exitio devotum. Ipsissima 
 feralis illius prodigii verba sunt. Papa est deus et deus est 
 Papa . . Happy that people, whose Gods were leeks ! religion 
 could not teach them that perfidy and murder were virtues. 
 
 No treason of a priest against a king is criminal. Father 
 Emanuel Sa, who has written a guide to confessors^ says, 
 Clerici rebellio in regem non est crimen laesse majestatis, quia 
 non est principi subjectus . . and again . . Tyrannice gubernans 
 justum acquisitum dominium non potest spoliari sine publico 
 judic'io : lata vero sententia jmtest quisque Jieri executor . . . 
 Christ says, " My kingdom is not of this world :" the pope 
 says, '' My kingdom is." Pius V excited to rebellion all the 
 subjects of Elizabeth: Clement VIII (it is ludicrous to hear 
 the titles of these ruffians) ordered all the Roman-catholics, 
 
log KING JAMES I 
 
 preserve it for the union of Christians ! Casaubon, 
 it is verily, though we enter thereby into bliss, an 
 
 " quantum in ipsis esset^ ut post Elizabethee obitum rex elige- 
 retur, omni sanguinis propinquitate spreta." For this purpose 
 it was requisite that the consciences of men should be modi- 
 fied; and hence arose mental reservation, to which all the 
 abominations of all other religions, all even of popery itself, 
 are trifles. Christ says, " Let your discourse be yea, yea ; 
 nay, nay:" the Jesuit says, supported by the pope, " the speech 
 by equivocation being saved from a lie, the same speech may 
 be without perjury confirmed by oath, or by any other way, 
 though it were by receiving the sacrament, if just necessity 
 so require." Cannot a lie be circuitous? Whatever is said 
 in order to make a man believe an untruth, is a lie ; yet a 
 Jesuit has no hesitation to swear it upon the sacrament ! and 
 princes have no hesitation to let Jesuits be the instructors of 
 youth ! Falsely, as my quotations prove, have they been 
 called the supporters of thrones: they never support them, 
 but when they can govern from them, by means of deluded or 
 aifrighted princes. The papacy is the guardian of govern- 
 ments as a bawd is the guardian of girls ; for profit. Anto- 
 > nius Capellus, a Franciscan friar, says, " Indignos esse reges 
 qui ecclesiis suarum ditionum ullo modo praesint, quos Deus 
 in Moyse sibi displicere aperte commonstravit." Eudsemono- 
 Johannes, a monk of Crete, a true Jesuit, extols the son of the 
 Emperor Henry IV for insulting the dead body of his father, 
 who had been disobedient to the See of Rome. The opinions 
 of these men are not private 5 they are &2cncimnei\. facultate 
 superiorum, by the doctors of theology, and by the chancery of 
 the papal court. The spirit of their church has always been 
 and always will be the same, whenever it can exercise its au- 
 thority ; arrogant, intolerant, persecuting, unforgiving. Its 
 poison has been sublimated, and its froth and fumes have been 
 condensed, by the Jesuits, as may further be seen in Mariana 
 and in Escobar, and in the demonstration of their fallacies by 
 Arnaud and Pascal. 
 
AND ISAAC CASAUBON. 103 
 
 Ugly thing to die. The malignity of popery may 
 soften. I should be sorry to inflict new pains and 
 penalties. 
 
 CASAUBON. 
 
 I would not inflict any: I would authorize no 
 inabilities or privations for a difference in mere 
 articles of faith : for instance, it would be tyranny 
 and madness to declare a man incapable of beating 
 the enemy because he believes in transubstan- 
 tiation: but I would exclude from all power, all 
 trust, all office, whoever should assert that any 
 man has legitimate power of any kind within this 
 realm, unless it repose in, or originate from, the 
 king or parliament or both united. The Council 
 of Trent has defined and settled all the questions 
 at issue in the Roman-catholic creed, so that the 
 popes can pretend to teach nothing new for the 
 future: matters of discipline are likewise fixed. 
 The appointment to ecclesiastical dignities of all 
 degrees may safely be entrusted to the native 
 hierarchy in each kingdom. Your Majesty has 
 then a right to demand, from all your Roman- 
 catholic subjects, that no papal bull, no order, 
 brief, decree, or mandate of any kind hereafter be 
 received in your dominions. 
 
 It is singular and anomalous in the political 
 world, that subjects should claim any right of ap- 
 
104 KING JAMES I 
 
 peal to foren princes; and it is absurd to argue 
 that the appeal is made not to the prince but to 
 the priest, when the person is invested with both 
 characters, and acts in both. He may advise and 
 enlighten ; he may also command and fulminate 
 ... a favourite designation of one among the super- 
 natural powers which he arrogates to himself from 
 the Divinity. By a less exertion, he might trans- 
 fuse in a perennial stream his wisdom and his 
 holiness into a succession of bishops: hence all 
 appeals to Rome would be unnecessary. Power 
 is always the more immoderate and the more 
 jealous when it rises out of usurpation ; but those 
 who contend for liberty of any kind should in no 
 instance be its abettors. If the popes had been 
 conscientious or decently honest men, if they could 
 have abstained from laughing in their sleeves when 
 they called themselves the successors of Saint 
 Peter, if they could have been contented with his 
 mediocrity of fortune, his dignified and righteous 
 exercise of authority, their influence upon sound 
 consciences, far from being less, would have been 
 greater and more permanent : and neither would 
 rape and incest and the abominations of Lamp- 
 sacus and Crete have been committed in their 
 closets, under the images of the saints and under 
 the lamp of the Virgin, nor would forbearance 
 
AND ISAAC CASAUBON. 105 
 
 from evil, and activity in good be postponed to 
 frogs and flounders, to horse-hair, hemp, and 
 ashes, or prayers to the dead for the dead. 
 
 The Cardinal Bellarmin, unable to confute the 
 slightest of your remonstrances, came forward in 
 his master's name, threw down the key of Peter 
 and took up the sword, cutting short the question 
 between you, and asserting that the king of Eng- 
 land was also in temporals the Pope^s feudatory 
 and subject. After this, according to the consti- 
 tution, your majesty may declare rebels, all ad- 
 herents of the pope in any way whatever, all who 
 hold direct or indirect communication with him, 
 all who receive or give intelligence for the fur- 
 therance of his machinations and designs. 
 
 Among the various religions that have been 
 established in the world, the papal is the only one 
 which insists that a kingdom shall have two chief 
 magistrates, that nevertheless one of these shall 
 be superior to the other, and that he of right is 
 so, who has never seen the country, never will see 
 it, never had parentage or progeny or land or tene- 
 ment in it ; that a kingdom neither conquered nor 
 hereditary, neither bequeathed nor surrendered by 
 itself, must admit an alien arbitrator whenever it 
 pleases him to raise a question, and that this alien 
 arbitrator shall always give an irreversible verdict in 
 
lOG KING JAMES I 
 
 his own favour ; lastly, that a kingdom, to the de- 
 triment of its defence, of its agriculture, of its com- 
 merce, of its population, of its independence, shall 
 raise a body of men for the service of this intruder, un- 
 limited in number, enormous in expenditure, which 
 he alone shall discipline, he alone shall organize, he 
 alone shall direct and controul. Mahomet left a 
 family, and was far from deficient in impudence, but 
 he wanted the assurance to claim for his own suc- 
 cessors w^hat the pretended ones of St. Peter claim 
 for theirs : here however we have somewhat worse 
 than common absurdity, or than common arro- 
 gance to contend with ... A harlot was not con- 
 tented with debauching your servants, with getting 
 drunk at your expense, and with picking your 
 pocket every time that you approached her: she 
 became impatient for your purse, and invoked the 
 blessed Virgin to witness that, unless she had it, 
 you should never, as she hoped for salvation, leave 
 the room alive. She now is angry that you have 
 turned her oflP, complains of your violence and in- 
 justice, boasts of her affection and fidelity, pouts, 
 pants, and swells, and swears that neither you nor 
 yours shall enter her house again: Nicodemus 
 asked our Saviour '^ how can these things heV^ 
 and his divine instructor heard and answered him 
 with complacency : put the same question on any 
 
AND ISAAC CASAUBON. 107 
 
 subject of doubt to a theophagous pope from some 
 mountain monastery or some suburban lane, and 
 the fellow will illuminate you with a cartful of 
 fao-o^ots. 
 
 JAMES. 
 
 Is it not wonderful that, odious and contemptible 
 as the Italians are to all the other nations of Eu- 
 rope, when hardly the first amongst them, unless 
 it be the son of some Venetian senator, can find 
 access to the family of any gentleman in England, 
 yet an ignorant, vicious, and ferocious priest, co- 
 vered with filth and vermin, being hailed as an- 
 other God by some dozens of the same cast, in- 
 stantly treats kings as his inferiors and subjects, 
 ^nd is obeyed in a country like this, highminded, 
 free, and enlightened? Is there anything more 
 irrational or more humiliating in the worship of 
 the Dalai-Lama? Far otherwise: he is innocent, 
 gentle, and beneficent, no murderer, no applauder 
 of murders*, no plunderer, no extortioner, no 
 
 * Medals were coined by order of Gregory XIII to com- 
 memorate the massacre of Saint Bartholomew's day : on one 
 side is the pope, on the other is the massacre. He commanded 
 it also to be painted in the Vatican, where the painting still 
 exists. In popes no atrocity is marvellous or remarkable ; but 
 how painful is it to find a scholar like Muretus commending 
 and applauding a massacre ! The following words are part of 
 an oration addressed by him to Gregory, in the name of 
 Charles IX, on the celebration of this truly French festival. 
 
108 KING JAMES I 
 
 vender of pardons, no dealer in dispensations, no 
 forestaller and regrater of manna from heaven or 
 of palms from paradise, no ringdropper of sacra- 
 ments, no scourer of incests, no forger, no be- 
 trayer. 
 
 O noctem illam memorabilem^ et in fastis eximiae alicujus 
 notae adjectione signandam, quae paiicorum seditiosorum in- 
 teritu regem a praesenti caedis periciilo, regnum a perpetua 
 civilium bellorum formidine, liberavit ! Qua quidem nocte 
 Stellas equidem ipsas luxisse solito nitidius arbitror, et flumen 
 Sequanam majores undas volvisse, quo citius ilia impurorum 
 hominum cadavera evolveret et exoneraret in mare ! O feli- 
 cissimam mulierum Catharinam regis matrem ! &c. 
 
 Such are the expressions of Muretus, as the most agreeable 
 he could deliver^ to the successor of him who proclaimed on 
 earth peace, good ivill towards men. This language of Charity 
 had been corrected by Infallibility, and altered to '' pax homi- 
 nibus . . bonae voluntatis :" terms on which a massacre is a com- 
 mentary. 
 
 The only good performed by monarchs in two thousand 
 years, are the abolition of the Jesuits and of the inquisition, 
 which must however be considered as merely the dismissal 
 of old servants grown insolent. In the period of their con- 
 tinuance more mischief has been done to mankind by the catholic 
 religion, not only than by all the other religions that have 
 existed in the world, but than by all the other causes of evil put 
 together. The Jesuits taught youth, but only to a certain 
 and very circumscribed extent, and their principal dogma was, 
 the legitimacy of falsehood : hence knowledge and virtue have 
 suffered more from the Jesuits, than from the most profligate 
 and ignorant of the other confraternities. The catholic reli- 
 gion is the cause, we are informed, why sculpture and paint- 
 ing were revived: it is more certainly the cause why they 
 have made no progress, and why they have been employed on 
 most ignoble objects ; on scourgers and hangmen, on beggarly 
 
AND ISAAC CASAUBON. 109 
 
 O Casaubon, I blush to reflect that dissimula- 
 tion is necessary to the maintenance of peace. A 
 rotten rag covers worse rottenness: remove it, 
 and half the world is tainted with infidelity. In 
 England, in Holland, in any country where laws 
 are equitable and morals pure, how often would 
 these Eminences and Holinesses have clasped the 
 whipping-post, and with how much more fervency 
 than they clasp the cross ! Bellarmin must have 
 been convinced: he must have struggled against 
 his conscience: heated with that conflict, he ad- 
 vances but the more outrageously against me. 
 
 CASAUBON. 
 
 Bellarmin throws all your arguments into the 
 fire, and assumes a fiercer attitude, not from any 
 resentment at being convinced, for that he was 
 long before, but on the principle that, when we 
 are tired of parrying, we thrust. Your Majesty 
 has now a declared competitor for the throne. 
 Parliament will provide, if the statute of queen 
 
 enthusiasts and base impostors. Look at the two masterpieces 
 of the pencil; the Transfiguration of Raphael and the St. 
 Jerome of Correggio : can anything be more incongruous, any- 
 thing more contrary to truth and history? I am persuaded 
 that the little town of Sicyon produced a greater number of 
 great artists in both arts than all the modern world. In land- 
 scape only, where superstition has no influence, are the moderns 
 to be thought on a level with the ancients. Claude and Titian 
 were probably not excelled. 
 
110 KING JAMES I 
 
 Elizabeth is insufficient, the means necessary to 
 maintain your possession. On the compliance of 
 your Roman-catholic subjects with such conserva- 
 tory statutes, nothing can be so unjust or so 
 needless, as to exclude from the rights of citizen- 
 ship, or from the dignities of state, a body of men 
 who believe not differently from your Majesty, 
 but more. 
 
 Casaubon here finished his discourse, and James 
 made no further observation. Such was his simpli- 
 city, he really had imagined that reason and truth, 
 urged so forcibly by him, would alter the system 
 and conciliate the goodwill of the papal court, and 
 that it would resign a wide dominion for a weighty 
 argument. He stroked his beard, licked softly 
 the extremities of his whiskers, ejaculated, sighed, 
 and sate down quietly. He was, notwithstanding, 
 in a frame of mind capable of receiving with satis- 
 faction whatever could derogate from the dignity 
 of the Roman-catholic rites, when Archibald Prin- 
 gle, one of his pages, entered the apartment. 
 
 " Archy," said his Majesty, who was fond of 
 such abbreviations, " I remember to have chidden 
 
AND ISAAC CASAUBON. Ill 
 
 you for a wicked little story you told me last 
 winter, touching a Japonese at Rouen. Come 
 now, if you can divest it of all irreverence, I would 
 fain hear it repeated. I think it a subject for the 
 disquisition of my bishops, whether the pagan 
 sinned or not, or whether, if he sinned, his faith 
 was of such a nature as to atone for it." 
 
 Such were really, if not the first thoughts, those 
 however which now arose in the king's mind . . . 
 The page thus began his narration. 
 
 A young Japonese was brought over to Rouen 
 on the day of Pentecoste. He had expressed in 
 the voyage a deep regret at the death of the 
 chaplain, who might have instructed him in the 
 mysteries, and who, the only time he conversed 
 with him, recommended to him zealously and with 
 unctio7i, as the French say, the worship of the 
 living God. He was constant in his desire to be 
 edified, and immediately on his debarcation was 
 conducted to the cathedral. He observed the 
 elevation of the Hoste with imperturbable de- 
 votion, and an utter indifference to the flattering 
 whispers of the fairest among the faithful . . such 
 as, " O the sweet jonquil-coloured skin! O the 
 pretty piercing black eyes ! O the charming long 
 twisted tail! and how finely those flowers and 
 birds and butterflies are painted upon his trowsers ! 
 
112 KING JAMES I AND ISAAC CASAUBON. 
 
 and look at that leopard in the centre! it seems 
 alive." 
 
 When the service was over, and the Archbishop 
 was mounting his carriage-step, he ran after him, 
 and bit him gently with eyes half-closed, by the 
 calf of the leg. Vociferations were raised by the 
 attendants, the soldiers, and the congregation, ill 
 accordant with sanctity, and wronging the moral 
 character and pious disposition of the Japonese. 
 These however the good prelate quieted, by waving 
 his hand and smiling with affability. The neo- 
 phyte was asked what induced him to bite the 
 archbishop by the leg. He answered, that he 
 wished to pay the living God the same reverence 
 and adoration, as the living God had paid the 
 dead one. 
 
 " See now," cried James, " the result of pro- 
 claiming that the pope is God upon earth. It led 
 this poor heathen, who amid such splendour and 
 prostrations might well mistake an archbishop for 
 a pope, to the verge of an abyss, dark, precipitous, 
 and profound, as any that superstition hath opened 
 in his own deplorable country." 
 
CONVERSATION IX. 
 
 MARCHESS PALLAVICINI 
 
 WALTER LANDOR. 
 
MARCHESE PALLAVICINI 
 
 AND 
 
 WALTER LANDOR. 
 
 At Albaro near Genoa I rented the palace of 
 Marchese Pallavicini. While he was presenting 
 the compliments on my arrival, the wife of his 
 bailiff brought me fish and fowl from the city, and 
 poured upon the table a basketful of fine fruit. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 The walk has tired you, my good woman. The 
 hill indeed is rather steep, but it is short, and you 
 appear, like the generality of Genoese country- 
 women, strongly built. 
 
 PALLAVICINI. 
 
 She has been frightened. When the Neapoli- 
 tans and English landed here in the bay, she was 
 in childbed. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 Poor woman! the alarm must have been great 
 
116 MARCHESE PALLAVICINI 
 
 indeed, before you knew that the general was an 
 Englishman. 
 
 " Ah, sir!" was all she replied. 
 
 Signor marchese, do infonn me what she means. 
 
 PALLAVICINI. 
 
 Sir, it is better for all parties to forget the cala- 
 mities of war, which always are the greatest in the 
 most beautiful countries. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 Indulge me however in my request. Curiosity 
 is pardonable in a stranger, and, led by humanity, 
 is admissible to confidence. 
 
 PALLAVICINI. 
 
 You had begun, sir, to say something which in- 
 terested me, in reply to my inquiry how you liked 
 our scenery. I shall derive much more satisfac- 
 tion from your remarks on our architecture and 
 gardens, than you can derive from my recital of 
 any inhumanity. It is fair and reasonable, and in 
 the course of things, that we should first arrive at 
 that which may afford us pleasure, and not flag 
 towards it wearied and saddened, and incapable of 
 its enjoyment. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 I am pleased, as I observed, by the palace be- 
 fore us, not having seen in Italy, until now, a 
 house of any kind with a span of turf before it. 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 117 
 
 Like yours and your neighbour's, they generally 
 encroach on some lane, following its windings and 
 angles, lest a single inch of ground should be lost; 
 and the roofs fight for the center of the road. If 
 an Italian spends a livre, he must be seen to spend 
 it : his stables, his laundry, his domestics, his pea- 
 sants, must strike the eye together: his pigstie 
 must have witnesses like his will. Every tree is 
 accursed, as that of which the holy cross was fabri- 
 cated, and must be swept away. You are surely 
 the most hospitable people in the world: even 
 that edifice which derives its existence and its 
 name from privacy, stands exposed and wide-open 
 to the stranger. 
 
 When I resided on the Lake of Como, I visited 
 the palace of Marchese Odescalchi. Before it 
 swelled in majesty that sovran of inland waters; 
 behind it was a pond surrounded with brickwork, 
 in which about twenty young goldfish jostled and 
 gaped for room. The Larius had sapped the 
 foundations of his palace, and the marchese had 
 exerted all his genius to avenge himself: he com- 
 posed this bitter parody. I inquired of his cousin 
 Don Pepino, who conducted me, when the roof 
 would be put on. He looked at me, doubting if 
 he understood me, and answered in a gentle tone, 
 
118 MARCHESS PALLAVICINI 
 
 ** It was finished last summer." My error ori- 
 ginated from observing red pantiles, kept in their 
 places by heavy stones, loose, and laid upon them 
 irregularly. 
 
 *' What a beautiful swell, Don Pepino, is this 
 upon the right," exclaimed I. " The little hill 
 seems sensible of pleasure as he dips his foot into 
 the Larius." 
 
 *' There will be the offices." 
 
 **\^Tiat! and hide Grumello? Let me enjoy 
 the sight while I can. He appears instinct with 
 life. How he nods the network of vines upon his 
 head beckoning and inviting us, w^hile the figtrees 
 and mulberries and chesnuts and walnuts, and 
 those lofty and eternal cypresses, stand waiting 
 and immoveable around. His playfellows beyond, 
 all different in form and features, push forward; 
 and, if there is not something in the motion of 
 the air, or something in my eyesight, illusory, 
 they are running a race along the borders . . . Stop 
 a moment: how shall we climb over those two 
 enormous pines ? Ah, Don Pepino ! old trees in 
 their living state are the only things that money 
 cannot command. Palaces and temples and aque- 
 ducts and amphitheatres rise up before it readily : 
 but it must either wait, or pass away before venera- 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 119 
 
 ble trees. What a sweet odour is there ! whence 
 comes it? Sweeter it appears to me and stronger 
 than of the pine itself." " I imagine, said he, 
 from the linden-tree; yes certainly." 
 
 "Is that a linden? It is the largest, and, I 
 should imagine, the oldest upon earth, if I could 
 perceive that it had lost any of its branches." 
 
 " Pity, that it hides half the row of yon houses 
 from the palace ! It will be carried off with the 
 two pines in the autumn." 
 
 PALLAVICINI. 
 
 I would gladly see that Lake, which detained 
 you three whole years amongst a people so rude 
 and barbarous. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 Barbarous is that city, think you, which con- 
 tains two families of friends? It was in Como I 
 received the brave descendants of the Jovii, and 
 my bosom feels at this moment that there I pressed 
 to it the calm philosophical Sironi. I must love 
 that city too for other recollections. Thither came 
 to visit me the learned and modest Bekker, and 
 it was there I shed my last tear when I said fare- 
 well to Southey. 
 
 PALLAVICINI. 
 
 Our cities are in much better taste than our 
 villas. 
 
120 MARCHESE PALLAVICINI 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 They are superb, and appear the more so after 
 the wretched towns of France. In that country 
 almost every thing animated is noisy, and almost 
 every thing inanimate is mis-shapen. All seems 
 reversed : the women have hoarse voices ; the men 
 squeal. The children, and the very dogs and 
 frogs, are more clamourous than ours; the cocks 
 are shriller. On the staircases, as here, the more 
 decent do that which the less decent do at the 
 corner of the streets. In Italy we cannot walk 
 ten paces without observing the union of magni- 
 ficence and filth, of gorgeous finery and squalid 
 meanness. The churches are fairly divided be- 
 tween piety and prostitution, leaving the entrance 
 and a few^ broken chairs to beggary and vermin. 
 There always is something of misapplied paint and 
 importunate gilding. A couple of pepper-boxes 
 are mounted on St. Peter's; a dozen of mass- 
 boxes range the Colosseo; the Pantheon is the 
 tomb of a fiddler. 
 
 Enter the gardens, and approach the vases : do 
 you perceive the rarity, the beauty, the fragrance 
 of the flowers ? In one is a bush of box, in 
 another a knot of tansey: Neptune stands in a 
 parterre of cabbages, and from the shell of a 
 Triton sprout three turnips ... to be sold. 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 121 
 
 We English in our gardens, the most beautiful 
 in the universe, are not exempt from absurdities*. 
 
 * In the shadiness of the English garden, it is the love of 
 retirement that triumphs over taste, and over a full sense and 
 experience of its inconveniences. 
 
 SEPTIMIUS. 
 
 Probum piumque ego ex ephebo noveram 
 Septimium ; at illud in viri virtutibus 
 Primum juvabat, quod casam, quod hortulum 
 Describeret parentum amore ludicro, 
 Locoque fratrum buxeas imagines 
 Complecteretur, toto aperto pectore. 
 Invisere istas cogitabani ssepius, 
 Sciens eundem hunc esse, mitis indolis, 
 Viteeque agresti non agrestem deditum. 
 Odium quod in me est, et fuit semper, domus 
 Aliense ob hoc repello, et evinco brevi . . . 
 Anquiro ubi aedes Septimi ..." vides," ait 
 Herbas salubres colligens vicina anus. 
 Dico paternas, quasque Septimius colit, 
 Cerasus caminum contegit, laurusjbrem. 
 " Verum . . . ecce easdem !" 
 
 Non moror diutius 
 Quin tortuosam carpo et insequor viam; 
 En ipse ! jussa forte villico dabat 
 Quo tortuosa tortuosior foret 
 Via ilia, quaererentque fallentem domum 
 Fenestra aperta quaerere auditi hospites. 
 Benignitate pristina concurritur. . . 
 At buxus, mi Septimi ! quonam loco, 
 A reus, sagittce? " 
 
 "Jure ridenda optimo" 
 Respondit. . . 
 
 Atqui non mea sententid 
 Ridendus ulli est ullus innocentits 
 
122 MARCHESE PALLAVICINI 
 
 Inhabiting a moist and chilly climate, we draw 
 our woods almost into our dining-rooms : you, in- 
 
 Custosve, testisve ; hcBC mdere pervelhrij 
 Istasquejructu annisque convea^as nuces, 
 Sub quels repertus semimortuiis lepiis 
 Cruore pirimis jam rigente naribus, 
 Causa ambigendi seriis parentibus 
 An ederejas nefasne, tarn incerta nece, 
 Illuc eamus j^rotinus. 
 
 Prensat manum, 
 Suspirat ..." eruuntur !" 
 
 Utft? 
 
 " Atqui ita est !" 
 Bellam fatebor reddidisti villulam. 
 Munit recurvum certiusjerrum gradus 
 Quam ros marinus, necjides hide abfuit, 
 Annos ducentos usque servanti locum; 
 Sed qucesO) amice Septimi, mag'is placet 
 Priore f nee quid inter hccc desideras ? 
 
 " Immo omnia ! et me poenitet facti mei 
 Et poenitebit : hostis haud tantum malum 
 Inferret : hunc oriiare gestibam situm ; 
 Ipsum sepulchrum primi amoris obrui." 
 
 The neighbourhood of Genoa produces a great quantity of 
 lemons, and many families are supported by renting, at about 
 thirty crowns, an acre or less of lemon ground. I mentioned 
 the fact at Pisa, with some doubt and hesitation, and there I 
 learned from Don Luigi Serviti and Signor Georgio Salvioni, 
 both gentlemen of Massa di Carrara, the following most ex- 
 traordinary fertility of a lemon tree. A wager was laid in 
 the year 1812 by Signor Antonio Georgieri of Massa with 
 Marchese Calani of Spezia, that, at Croscello, half a mile from 
 the former place, there was one which would mature that year 
 fourteen thousand lemons. It exceeded the quantity. In 
 Spain I was informed that a large tree in favorable seasons 
 
AND WALTER LANDOTl. 123 
 
 habiting a sultry one, condemn your innocent 
 children to the ordeal of a red-hot gravel. 
 
 I have now, signor marchese, performed the 
 conditions you imposed on me, to the extent of 
 my observation; hastily, I confess it, and preoc- 
 cupied by the interest you excited. 
 
 PALLAVICINI. 
 
 Across the road, exactly four paces from your 
 antechamber, were the quarters of your general : 
 exactly forty-eight from his window, out of which 
 he was looking, did this peasant woman lie groan- 
 ing with labour, when several soldiers entered her 
 bedroom, and carried off the articles most neces- 
 sary in her condition. Her husband ran under 
 the window of the general, which faced the 
 wife's, entreating his compassion. He was driven 
 away. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 Was nothing done? 
 
 PALLAVICINI. 
 
 A few threats were added. 
 
 might ripen three thousand 3 in Sicily the same, or nearly so. 
 The fruit howerer of the tree at Croscello is small, of little 
 juice, and bad quality. I presume it to be a wilding. This 
 and the celebrated vine at Hampton-Court are the two most 
 extraordinary fruit-bearing trees on record ; they have quintu- 
 pled the most prolific of their species in Europe. 
 
124 MARCHESE PALLAVICINI 
 
 LAN DOR. 
 
 Impossible, impossible ! 
 
 PALLAVICINI. 
 
 Since, sir, we are in the regions of impossibility, 
 do look again, I entreat you, at the palace just 
 before us : and I am greatly mistaken if I cannot 
 fix your attention upon something of higher im- 
 port than a span of turf. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 It is among the most magnificent and, what is 
 better, tlie most elegant, that I have hitherto seen 
 in Italy; for I have not yet visited the Venetian 
 territory, and know merely from engravings the 
 admirable architecture of Palladio. Whose is it? 
 
 PALLAVICINI. 
 
 It belongs to the family of Cambiagi, to which 
 our republic, while it pleased God to preserve it, 
 owed many signal benefits, as doges and as senators. 
 In the latter capacity a private man from amongst 
 them constructed at his own expense the most 
 commodious of our roads, and indeed the first de- 
 serving the name that had ever been formed in 
 Liguria, whether by the moderns or ancients. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 How grand is that flight of steps upon which 
 the children are playing! These are my vases, 
 marchese, these are my images, this is ornamental 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 125 
 
 gardening, these are decorations for architecture. 
 Take care, blessed creatures, a fall from such a 
 highth!... 
 
 PALLAVICINI. 
 
 Over those steps, amidst the screams and em- 
 braces of those childi'en, with her arms tied be- 
 hind her, imploring help, pity, mercy, was dragged 
 by the hair the marchesa Cambiagi. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 For what offence? 
 
 PALLAVICINI. 
 
 Because her husband had mastered all his pre- 
 judices, and resigned all his privileges. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 Signor marchese, the English general, whatever 
 may be the pubhc opinion of his talents, his prin- 
 ciples, and his conduct, could never have known 
 and permitted it. 
 
 PALLAVICINI. 
 
 Perhaps not. I can only declare that his win- 
 dows were filled with military men, if uniforms 
 make them, and that he was amongst them. This 
 I saw. Your Houses of Parliament, M. Landor, 
 for their own honour, for the honour of the ser- 
 vice and of the nation, should have animadverted 
 on such an outrage : he should answer for it : he 
 should suffer for it. 
 
MARCHESE PALLAVICINI, &C. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 These two fingers have more power, niarchese, 
 than those two houses* A pen ! he shall live for 
 it. What, with their animadversions, can they do 
 like this? 
 
CONVERSATION X. 
 
 GENERAL KLEBER 
 
 AND S031E 
 
 FRENCH OFFICERS. 
 
GENERAL KLEBER 
 
 AND SOME 
 
 FRENCH OFFICERS. 
 
 An English officer was sitting with his back 
 against the base of the great Pyramid. He some- 
 times looked towards those of elder date and 
 ruder materials before him, sometimes was ab- 
 sorbed in thought, and sometimes was observed to 
 write in a pocket-book with great rapidity. 
 
 *' K he were not writing," said a French na- 
 turalist to a young ensign, *' I should imagine him 
 to have lost his eyesight by the ophthalmia. He 
 does not see us : level your rifle : we cannot find 
 a greater curiosity." 
 
 The Arts prevailed : the officer slided with ex- 
 tended arms from his restingplace : the blood, 
 running from his breast, was audible as a swarm 
 of insects in the sand. No other sound was 
 
130 GENERAL KLEBER 
 
 heard. Powder had exploded; life had passed 
 away ; not a vestige remained of either. 
 
 '* Let us examine his papers," said the na- 
 turalist. 
 
 " Pardon me, sir," answered the ensign; " my 
 first enquiry on such occasions is what's o'clock? and 
 afterwards I pursue my mineralogical researches." 
 
 At these words he drew forth the dead man's 
 watch, and stuck it into his sash, while with the 
 other hand he snatched out a purse, containing 
 some zecchins: every part of the dress was exa- 
 mined, and not quite fruitlesly. 
 
 ''See! a locket with a miniature of a young 
 woman!" Such it was ... a modest and lovely 
 countenance. 
 
 " Ha! ha!" said the ensign; " a few touches, a 
 very few touches, I can give them, and Adele 
 will take this for me. Two inches higher, and 
 the ball had split it . . . what a thoughtless man 
 he was! There is gold in it too: it weighs 
 heavy. Pest ! an old woman at the back ! grey as 
 a cat." 
 
 It was the officer's mother, in her old age, as 
 he had left her. There was something of sweet 
 piety, not unsaddened by presage, in the coun- 
 tenance. He severed it with his knife, and threw 
 
AND SOME FRENCH OFFICERS. 131 
 
 it into the bosom of her son. Two foren letters 
 and two pages in pencil were the contents of the 
 pocket-book. Two locks of hair had fallen out : 
 one rested on his eyelashes, for the air was mo- 
 tionless, the other was drawn to the earth by his 
 blood. 
 
 The papers were taken to General Kleber by 
 the naturalist and his associate, with a correct re- 
 cital of the whole occurrence, excepting the ap- 
 pendages of watch, zecchins, and locket. 
 
 " Young man," said Kleber, gravely, " is this 
 a subject of merriment to you? Who knows 
 whether you or I may not be deprived of life as 
 suddenly and unexpectedly? He was not your 
 enemy: perhaps he was writing to a mother or 
 sister. God help them! these suffer most from 
 war. The heart of the far-distant is the scene of 
 its most cruel devastations. Leave the papers: 
 you may go : call the interpreter." 
 
 He entered. 
 
 *« Read this letter." 
 
 My adored Henry . . . 
 
 " Give it me," cried the general ; he blew a 
 strong fire from his pipe and consumed it. 
 
 " Read the other." 
 
 My kind-hearted and beloved son . , . 
 
 " Stop : read the last line only." 
 
 k2 
 
132 GENERAL KLEBER 
 
 The interpreter answered, " It contains merely 
 the name and address." 
 
 " I asked no questions : read them, and write 
 them down legibly." 
 
 He took the paper, tore off the margin, and 
 placed the line in his snuflPbox. 
 
 " Give me that paper in pencil, with a mark of 
 sealingwax on it." 
 
 He snatched it, shrunk, and shook some to- 
 bacco on it. It was no sealingwax. It was a 
 drop of blood; one from the heart; one only; 
 dry, but seeming fresh. 
 
 « Read." 
 
 YeSy my dear mother^ the greatest name that 
 exists among mortals is that of Sydney, He who 
 now bears it in the front of battle, could not suc- 
 cour me : I had advanced too far : I am, however, 
 no p7iso7ier. Take courage, my too fond mother : 
 I am amongst the Arabs, who detest the French : 
 they liberated me. They report, I know 7iot upon 
 what authority, that Bonaparte has deserted his 
 army, and escaped from Egypt, 
 
 " Stop instantly," cried Kleber, rising. " Gen- 
 tlemen," added he to his stafFofficers, " my duty 
 obliges me to hear this unbecoming language on 
 your late commander in chief: retire you a few 
 moments . . . Continue." 
 
AND SOME FRENCH OFFICERS. 133 
 
 He hates every enemy according to his courage 
 and his virtues: he abominates what he cannot 
 debase, at home or abroad*. 
 
 * Whoever is about to describe the character of some re- 
 markable man, considers first how much invention and acute- 
 ness he can display^, and secondly how best he can bring into 
 order and congruity, or what the painters call keeping, his 
 observations and reflections. For which reason, it rarely has 
 happened that we carry in our mind from these writers a re- 
 semblance that is not illusory or overcharged. In all great 
 men there are discordances, as there are inequalities in all 
 great substances. It is only from a collection of facts, gene- 
 rally too minute to be conveyed in the paniers from which 
 public curiosity is fed, that we are enabled to judge fairly and 
 fully. 
 
 There is little perfect truth in the most sagacious of histo- 
 rians, and little pure love of it in the best of men. We are 
 as unwilling to exchange our thoughts for another's as our 
 children, whatever more they may possess of strength or 
 beauty ; and the way to conciliate our suflrages is not by dic- 
 tating and teaching, but by laying before us evidences and tes- 
 timonies, by collecting what may corroborate them from cir- 
 cumstances, and by raising us to the dignity of judges. The 
 ancients drew characters ; we discourse on them . . a much 
 easier matter . . every thing now is compendious and econo- 
 mical: we make soups from bones, and histories from meta- 
 physics. 
 
 Bonaparte seems to me the most extraordinary of mortals j 
 because I am persuaded that so much power was never ac- 
 quired by another with so small an exertion of genius, and so 
 little of any thing that captivates the affections; or main- 
 tained so long unbroken in a succession of such enormous 
 faults, such scandalous disgraces, such disastrous failures and 
 defeats. I investigate him with the same dispassionate atten- 
 tion, as Lacepede would the spine of a serpent from Surinam 
 or Cuvier the jaws of a mammoth from the Ontario. 
 
134 GENEllAL KLEBEK, 
 
 ** Oh!'' whispered Kleber to himself, '' he 
 knows the man so well!" 
 
 All persons who are elevated to high rank, however modest 
 and virtuous, assume more or less of a fictitious character, 
 but congenial and agnate, if I may say it, with the former. 
 Bonaparte would be whatever he had last read or heard of . . . 
 Brutus or Borgia, Frederick or Charlemagne. All appeared 
 best that were most striking no matter for what; and not only 
 a book whenever it fell in his way, or a story when he had 
 patience to listen to it, but even a new suit of cloaths, changed 
 him suddenly. If his hair had been clipped in the morning, 
 he was at noon a Marius, at night a Sylla : no sooner had he 
 put on a court-dress, than he took a lesson of dancing; for 
 Louis XIV danced ; no sooner the uniform of a marshall, than 
 he tried to sing ; for Villars sang. 
 
 Whoever is an imitator, by nature, choice, or necessity, has 
 nothing stable : the flexibility which affords this aptitude, is 
 incompatible with strength. 
 
 Bonaparte's knowledge of chorography, to which many at- 
 tribute a certain part of his successes, was extremely limited. 
 In a conversation with Count Giovio at Como*, a few days 
 after the Austrians had first abandoned Milan, he inquired 
 whether the Larius ran into the lagunes of Mantua. The 
 memory of this excellent man is still fresh in the memory of 
 his fellow citizens and friends : no one ever doubted his vera- 
 city. So long ago as the year 179G, in which his relation was 
 published, he stated that Bonaparte, in his first campaign, 
 had permitted or ordered his sick and wounded, past service, 
 not to be carried to the hospitals or entrusted to the care of 
 the religious and beneficent, but to be left on the field, or 
 killed, or thrown into the rivers. He informs us that many, 
 on somewhat recovering from their lamentable state, w ent mad 
 from thirst and hunger, and that among those who were cast 
 into the water, the hands of many, as they clung in agony to 
 the barks, were l)roken. 
 
 * Published by Oatintlli, Como, 1 706. 
 
AND SOME FRENCH OFFICERS. 135 
 
 The first then are Nelson and Sir Sydney 
 Smith. Their friends coidd e^vpect no mercy at 
 
 Fortunate ! not he who can restrain his indignation or his 
 tears at this recital ; but he who, turning his eyes upon a 
 Sidney;, as he waves away the water from his own parched 
 lips to the wounded soldier near him, can say. This was my 
 countryman, that my enemy. 
 
 Much hath been repeated of the studious and retired 
 habits of his youth. I had inquired into these matters, long 
 before I read the little narrative I have quoted ; the inquiry 
 would otherwise have been superfluous ; for no very studious 
 man was ever very cruel ; no two things in nature have less 
 affinity than violence and reflection. M. St. Leger, lieutenant- 
 colonel of the regiment in which he was ensign, told me that 
 he never, at that period, had heard of his progress in any 
 branch of the mathematics; that he was chiefly remarkable 
 for the dirtiness of his hands and linen, his vulgar pronun- 
 ciation and phrases, his aversion to the society of the oflicers, 
 and his propensity towards the least respectable of the privates. 
 This also would have been corrected by study. If Pompey 
 had read like Cesar, he might not indeed have possessed the 
 clemency and amenit)^ of that most accomplished man, nor 
 have been in any respect worthy to be called his rival, but he 
 would certainly have been less contracted and self-sufficient, 
 less unsteady and impatient, less vindictive and ferocious. 
 
 I remember no general, worthy of the name, reviling the 
 character of those military men who performed their duty 
 against him: for Cesar in his Anti-Cato did not attack the 
 captain, but the senator and the patriot. Bonaparte left un- 
 uttered no term of ungovernable rage and vulgar contumely, 
 when Sir Sydney Smith precluded him from the conquest of 
 Europe by his defence of Acre. 
 
 Spaunochi, governor of Leghorn, refused to open the gates 
 to him, then at peace with the Granduke. Intending a 
 surprize, he had made a forced march, and expecting no re- 
 
136 GENERAL KLEBER 
 
 his hands. If the report be any thing better 
 than an Arabian tale^ I mil surrender myself to 
 
 sisteuce he had brought no cannon with him. He summoned 
 the governor to surrender the town and citadel, who refused 
 both the one and the other until he had orders from Florence. 
 They arrived the next day, and the brave Spaunochi was 
 exiled to Sienna, but not before the allie of the Granduke had 
 cursed him, called him by that appellation so familiar to the 
 lower French, seized his epaulette, spit upon him, and kicked 
 his shin. History for her own sake must soften some cha- 
 racters and equivocate on some facts. She treads confidently 
 and firmly upon blood, she follows her clue unhesitatingly 
 through all the labyrinths of mystery and of crime, she is em- 
 barassed only by vulgarity and baseness. We feel a deep in- 
 terest whenever great masses of mankind are moved, and 
 seldom think or are altogether ignorant what trifling things 
 are the movers. 
 
 Bonaparte was invidious of the dead almost to the same 
 degree as of the living : one time he asserted that Marlborough 
 owed his successes to Eugene, another that Eugene owed his 
 to Marlborough ; and any officer would have been ruined who 
 had suggested, that Marlborough was not present at the battle 
 of Belgrade. In a conversation at Varese, just before his 
 visit to Como, he appears to have mistaken Gustavus Adolphus 
 for Charles XH. On hearing that the army of Gustavus 
 had penetrated into Italy by the lake of Como, of which a 
 terrific account is given in the Latin letters of Sigismund Bol- 
 doni, he denied the fact, and added , . .'' That madman never 
 thought about Italy: he had other affahs, other intei'ests ; he 
 was satis tactiqiie, sans calcid.'"' And yet Napoleon in his 
 youth was an historian. He shewed his manuscript to Paoli : 
 it was such as might have been expected from an admirer of 
 Ossian, Paoli, not long before his death, mentioned the fact 
 at Clifton, and said he believed the young man had never par-» 
 doned the freedom of his advice, in recommending that the 
 
AND SOME FRENCH OFFICERS. 137 
 
 his successor as prisoner of war^ and perhaps 
 may he soon exchanged, Hoxv ti'ill this little 
 leaf reach you ? God k?iows how and when! 
 
 work should be delayed a little, until the impetuosity of his 
 genius had subsided. I should have imagined that the sen- 
 tences were short, as from the tripod ; the General said that, 
 on the contrary, they were excessively verbose, strangely 
 metaphorical, without any regard to punctuation, or rather 
 to that upon which punctuation is founded; that, when you 
 had come, as you believed, to the end of your march, you 
 were to start again ; and often, on setting out, you were sud- 
 denly stopt and countermanded. 
 
 His discipline hath been extolled, and examples are cited of 
 soldiers, in every campaign, shot for petty thefts. To avoid all 
 examination into the wealth of his dukes and princes, such as 
 Cambaceres, Fouche, Talleyrand, Torlonia, and several of his 
 marshals and grand dignitaries, the General Mouton, when he 
 dined at the Escurial, which he did every day, with the king 
 and queen of Spain, took away the plate after dinner, until none 
 was left. This fact, reported to me in the country where it oc- 
 curred, has been since confirmed to me at Florence, by my friend 
 cavaliere Galiano, who sate regularly at the same table and was 
 chamberlain \o the king. 
 
 Whatever in different men may have been the difference of 
 punishment for the same offence, where society was interested; 
 however it may have been permitted by special privilege that he 
 who had renounced the deity might renounce the laws, that he 
 who had abjured the bishop might supersede the citizen, all of- 
 fences were equally unpardonable which were committed against 
 Napoleon. Another proof of a weak intellect : not that forgive- 
 ness is any proof of a strong one. Offences that can be pardoned 
 should never be taken : Bonaparte took them indiscriminately and 
 voraciously, as his food. There is no trouble or address in finding 
 them, and in shewing them there is no wisdom or content. 
 
 His ideas of a ruling star present a still more signal iudi- 
 
138 GENERAL KLEBER 
 
 '' Is there nothing else to examine?" 
 " One more leaf." 
 " Read it." 
 
 cation of a vacillating and ill-composed mind. He knew 
 nothing of judicial astrology, which hath certain laws assigned 
 to it, and fancied he could unite it with atheism, as easily as 
 the iron crown with the lilies j not considering that ruling 
 stars themselves must have a ruler, and must obey, far more 
 certainly than they can indicate, his designs and will. After- 
 wards he laid by the star, and took up the crucifix to play 
 with ; on which some sweeter recollections and more delight- 
 ful hopes might have reposed, if ever he could have brought 
 himself to the persuasion, that either a man or a god would 
 suffer pain, or disseminate good, gratuitously. In the same 
 manner and degree as he was inconsistent in principle he was 
 irresolute in action. He lost his presence of mind when he 
 advanced to dissolve the representatives of the people ; he lost 
 it at the battle of Marengo; and when the allies were marching 
 into Paris, he appeared to be deprived, not of his judgement 
 only and his senses, but of locomotion. In one thing he was 
 singular, and altogether different from every other man ; when 
 he had accomplished his design, he was as fond of appearing 
 dishonest as he was satisfied with having been so : he was the 
 only pickpocket in the world that ever laid before the people 
 the instruments of his trade, and shewed ostentatiously how 
 he had used them. Indeed he had few secrets to keep. He 
 invaded the territory of nations, to whom any possible change 
 might reasonably appear a gainful speculation. Neither force 
 nor fraud, nor bribery itself, however largely and judiciously 
 administered, subverted the continental states : it was effected 
 by the credulity of their hopes and the incapacity of their 
 rulers. His attack was against the cabinet ; those within 
 cried for quarter, gave a province or two for a ransom, kept 
 their places resolutely, (who would abandon them in times 
 so critical?) complimented their master, rang their church- 
 
AND SOME FRENCH OFFICERS. 139 
 
 JVritten in England on the battle of Aboukir. 
 
 Land of all marvels iu all ages past^ 
 
 Egypt, I hail thee from a far-offshore; 
 I hail thee, doom'd to rise again at last. 
 
 And flourish, as in early youth, once more. 
 
 bells, fired their jubilee-cannon, if one was left, for, after so 
 fierce a contest with an enemy so powerful, they had sur- 
 rendered only . . . their country. Austria and Prussia fell 3 
 they had kings and king's servants within: Spain and 
 Portugal, unsuspicious, unprepared, undisciplined, unarmed, 
 resisted succesfully; their kings and king's servants stood 
 without. Where there are interests, real or apparent, 
 distinct fi'om those of the community, that, whatever it be, 
 wherein they lie, should be shoveled down and carried ofif; 
 for there is the ground upon which the enemy will mount his 
 first masked battery. Everywhere kings and oligarchies soon 
 seconded Bonaparte^ nations spurned and expelled him. Of 
 his fidelity or infidelity towards his allies^ I have nothing here 
 to remark, other than that, from whatever motive, he did 
 greatly and incomparably more service, to several who had 
 fought against him, and, after discomfiture and subjugation, 
 had become his friends, than some governments, who boast 
 loudly of their good faith and generosity, to the most faithful 
 and persevering of their confederates. I have truly no leisure 
 for discoursing, and could excite no interest if I did, on princes 
 first degraded into crimp-sergeants, then caparisoned like cooks 
 and ostlers for billets and relays, then running the gauntlet, 
 and drummed from their dominions ; on princes in short who 
 felt, and whose conduct has made others feel, that even this 
 was clemency. The description of tyrants is at least a stirring 
 thing : it is like walking over red-hot ploughshares, and the 
 vulgar are not the first in pressing on to an exhibition so 
 strange and antiquated. Bonaparte had perhaps the fewest 
 virtues and the faintest semblances of them, of any man that 
 lias risen by his own efi*orts to supreme power : and yet the 
 
140 GENERAL KLEBER 
 
 How long hast thou lain desolate ! how long 
 The voice of gladness in thy halls hath ceast ! 
 
 Mute, e'en as Meninon's lyre, the poet's song, 
 And half-supprest the chaunt of cloister'd priest. 
 
 services he rendered to society, incommensurate as they were 
 with the prodigious means he possessed, were great, ma- 
 nifold, and extensive. Never had been such good laws so well 
 administered over so considerable a portion of Europe : never 
 was right obtained with so moderate a cost, never was injury 
 so speedily redressed. Two of the bravest and most orderly 
 nations of the continent received the benefit of excellent kings 
 at his hands. Bernadotte and Louis Bonaparte, the most 
 upright men of their order, gave no signs, either by violence 
 or rapacity, by insolence or falsehood, that they had been 
 nurtured in the feverish bosom of the French Republic. By 
 his insatiate love of change, by his impatience to see any thing, 
 or to be any thing, long together, his mild, intelligent, and 
 virtuous brother, was forced to abdicate a throne, which he 
 mounted amidst the curses of the people and descended amidst 
 their tears. That he might not be an oppressor he ceased to 
 be a king ; and his short unquiet reign is mentioned with gra- 
 titude, by the most republican and least sensitive members of 
 the great European family. 
 
 Instead of scoring maps and shifting kings. Napoleon could 
 have effected more than Henry IV designed. The road was 
 paved for him with well-broken materials and well rolled over. 
 There was hardly a statesman in Europe of capacity enough 
 to direct a workhouse, or write a fair copy of a washerwoman's 
 bill. Energy was extinct upon the continent : in England it 
 was displayed by the crazy fanatics, who wandered from field 
 to marketplace, from marketplace to field, roaring to the people 
 that they were damned; a truth which indeed they might 
 have discovered by themselves, if they had only put their hands 
 into their pockets. While, as Kleber says in the Dialogue, 
 throughout the tvhole territory of France, throughout the range 
 of all her new dominions, not a single man of abilities rvas neg- 
 
AND SOME FRENCH OFFICERS. 141 
 
 Even he, loquacious as a vernal bird. 
 
 Love, in thy plains and in thy groves is dumb, 
 
 Nor on thy thousand Nilefed streams is heard 
 The reed that whispers happier days to come. 
 
 kcted, in England son succeeded to father in the oligarchy, 
 and expeditions were formed just weighty and durable enough 
 to give fortunes to those who had squandered them. Of our 
 generals, the most distinguished then employed was a body 
 that rose from bed after midday; of which when orders were 
 requested, the first answer was, his lordship is at breakfast ; 
 the second, his lordship is at lunch ; the third, his lordship is at 
 diiiner. He and a part of his army returned home. The arma- 
 ment had been directed, first against an island, where fevers are 
 as periodical as rains under the tropics, and ultimately against 
 a fortified city : neither the climate of the one nor the strength 
 of the other was known by the wisest of the ministers, although 
 there is hardly a ginshop in St. Giles, where some smugler or 
 smugler's boy might not have been found, who could have 
 given the information. The want of it seemed so shameful, 
 that one of the ministry, in that hurry and confusion of in- 
 tellect which involve all his words and actions, said in parlia- 
 ment " that he knew it ; but that he tvished to let his colleague 
 have his own voay" . . forgetting that the deference cost the 
 nation an army, and heedless that it cost her a disgrace. His 
 colleague was angry, some say ashamed, and was determined 
 to show that, if he was unfit to direct a council, he was not 
 unable to direct a pistol; a far higher qualification in his 
 country. The choice of the commander was more easily de- 
 fended 3 no member of the cabinet blushed at that. 
 
 I have dwelt the longer on these characters, from the same 
 principle as the sight, after rocks, ruins, and precipices, reposes 
 upon a flat surface though fen or quagmire. On Bonaparte 
 I have thrown together my materials as I caught them from 
 him, not wishing to represent a whole, where no whole ex- 
 isted : he was courtier and postilion, sage and assassin, quicker 
 than the pen could trace the words. He never was observed 
 
142 GENERAL KLEBER 
 
 O'er cities shadowing some dread name divine 
 Palace and fane return tlie hyena's cry. 
 
 And hoofless camels in long single line 
 
 Stalk slow, witli foreheads level to the sk}\ 
 
 in a moment of highly bad or highly good humour, without 
 expressing it by some boisterous sally of ill-breeding. Even 
 those who had seen him daily, and knew him well, stood in 
 astonishment sometimes at the discrepancy between his lan- 
 guage and his office, at the disparity between the action of his 
 hands and his embroidered mantle. Be it remembered, that, 
 if I have represented him as a thing not luminous in itself, I have 
 forborne to represent him as one in which all light is absorbed, 
 or upon which none can fall. He did both greater evil and 
 greater good than all the other potentates of his time united : 
 the larger part of the evil he did, they perpetuate, and nearly 
 all the good they abolish. Priestcraft and oligarchy, the two 
 worst of curses, are restored throughout Europe, and royalets 
 are only plucked forth from under his coop, to be encaged and 
 hoodwinked by their old decoy-men. After taking up, from 
 one side and the other of this strange phenomenon, the brighter 
 parts and the darker, in as just proportions as I could, 
 
 Treis imbris torti radios, treis nubis aquosse, 
 
 I would divert the public mind from dissatisfaction at the 
 present, by shewing in brief retrospect the last example of 
 his selfishness. In the retreat from Moscow he provided only 
 for his own security: the famished and the wounded were 
 without protection. Those, to the amount of forty thousand, 
 who supplied the army with occasional food by distant and 
 desperate excursions, were uninformed of its retreat: they 
 perished to a man, and caused to perish by their disappearance 
 a far greater number of their former comrades. Forty miles 
 of road were excavated in the snow. The army seemed a 
 phantasmagoria : no sound of horses feet was heard, no wheel 
 of waggon or artillery, no voice of man. Regiment followed 
 regiment in long and broken lines, between two files of sol- 
 
AND SOME FRENCH OFFICERS. 143 
 
 No errant outcast of a lawless isle. 
 
 Mocker of heaven and earth, with vows and prayers. 
 Comes thy confiding offspring to beguile. 
 
 And rivet to his wrist the chain he wears. 
 
 diers the whole way. Some stood erect, some reclined a little, 
 some had laid their arms beside them, some clasped them ; all 
 were dead. Several of these had slept in that position, but 
 the greater part had been placed so, to leave the more room, 
 and not a few, from every troop and detachment, took their 
 voluntary station amongst them. The barbarians, who at 
 other seasons rush into battle with loud cries, rarely did so. 
 Skins covered not their bodies only but their faces, and, such 
 was the intensity of cold, they reluctantly gave vent, from 
 amidst the spoils they had taken, to this first and most natural 
 expression of their vengeance. Their spears, although often 
 of soft wood, as the beech, the birch, the pine, remained un- 
 broken, while the sword and sabre of the adversary cracked 
 like ice. Feeble from inanition, inert from weariness, and 
 somnolent from the iciness that enthralled them, they sank 
 into forgetfulness with the Cossacks in pursuit and coming 
 down upon them, and even while they could yet discern, for 
 they looked more frequently to that quarter, the more for- 
 tunate of their comrades marching home. The gay and lively 
 Frenchman, to whom war had been sport and pastime, was 
 now reduced to such apathy, that, in the midst of some kind 
 speech which a friend was to communicate to those he loved 
 the most tenderly, he paused from rigid drowsiness, and bade 
 the messenger adieu. Some, it is reported (and what is un- 
 natural is, in such extremity, not incredible) closed their eyes 
 and threw down their muskets, while they could use them 
 still, not from hope nor from fear, but part from indignation 
 at their general, whose retreats had always been followed by 
 the total ruin of his army 3 and part, remembering with what 
 brave nations they had once fought gloriously, from the impos- 
 sibility of defeating or resisting so barbarous and obscure an 
 enemy. 
 
144 GENERAL KLEBEK 
 
 Britain speaks now . . her thunder thou hast heard . 
 
 Conqueror in every land^ in every sea ; 
 Valour and Truth proclaim the Almighty word. 
 
 And all thou ever hast been, thou shalt be. 
 
 " Defender and passionate lover of thy country," 
 cried Kleber, "thou art less unfortunate than thy 
 auguries. Enthusiastic Englishman, to which of 
 thy conquests have ever been imparted the bene- 
 fits of thy laws? Thy governors have not even 
 communicated their language to their vassals. 
 Nelson and Sydney are illustrious names: the 
 vilest have often been preferred to them, and 
 severely have they been punished for the importu- 
 nity of their valour. We Frenchmen have under- 
 gone much: but throughout the whole territory 
 of France, throughout the range of all her new 
 dominions, not a single man of abilities has been 
 neglected. Remember this, ye who triumph in 
 our excesses. Ye who dread our example, speak 
 plainly; is not this among the examples ye are 
 the least inclined to follow ?... Call my staff, and 
 a file of soldiers. 
 
 " Gentlemen, he who lies under the pyramid. 
 
 Napoleon moved on, surrounded by what guards were left 
 to him, thinking more of Paris than of Moscow, more of the 
 conscripts he could enroll than of the veterans he had left 
 behind him. 
 
AND SOME FRENCH OFFICERS. 145 
 
 seems to have possessed a vacant mind and full 
 heart, qualities unfit for a spy. Indeed he w^as 
 not one. He was the friend and companion of 
 that Sydney Smith who did all the mischief at 
 Toulon, when Hood and Elliot fled from the city, 
 and who lately, you must well remember, broke 
 some of our pipes before Acre ... a ceremony which 
 gave us to understand, without the formalities 
 of diplomacy, that the Grand-Signor declined the 
 honour of our company to take our coffee with 
 him at Constantinople." 
 
 Then turning to the file of soldiers, 
 " A body lies under the Great Pyramid: go, 
 bury it six feet deep. If there is any man among 
 you capable of writing a good epitaph, and such 
 as the brave owe to the brave, he shall have my 
 authority to carve it with his knife upon the 
 Great Pyramid, and his name may be brought 
 back to me." 
 
 " Allow me the honour," said a lieutenant ; 
 " I fly to obey." 
 
 " Perhaps," replied the commander in chief, 
 " it may not be amiss to know the character, the 
 adventures, or at least the name". . . . 
 " No matter, no matter, my general." 
 '* Take them, however," said Kleber, holding a 
 copy, *' and all try your wits." 
 
 L 
 
146 GENERAL KLEBER, &c. 
 
 ** General," said Menou, smiling, " you never 
 gave a command more certain to be executed... 
 AVhat a blockhead was that king, whoever he was, 
 who built so enormous a monument for a wan- 
 dering Englishman !" 
 
 The name of Bonaparte (what no writer has remarked) 
 seems to be derived from Bon-repartee now called San Gen- 
 nasio di huon riposo, a village under Samminiato, in which 
 town the family resided afterwards. The name of Bon-re- 
 parte is preserved by Benedict of Peterborough in his Life of 
 Henry II of England, wherein are described the halts of 
 Philippe Auguste.../J6'r CasteUum Florentinum, et per Seint 
 Denijs de Bon-reparte, &c. 
 
 Although I did my utmost in pursuing this tyrant to death, 
 recommending and insisting on nothing less, yet I acknowledge 
 that I am sorry he is dead. Seeing what I see, I would pre- 
 serve him as the countryman preserves the larger ant, to con- 
 sume the smaller, more numerous and more active in mischief. 
 
 Europe wants a fierce housedog to keep in check those im- 
 pudent little thieves, who molest and plunder her in all direc- 
 tions, shouting and laughing at her slowness and imbecility. 
 
CONVERSATION XL 
 
 BONAPARTE 
 
 AND THE 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE. 
 
BONAPARTE 
 
 AND THE 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 Sire, while the car of Victory is awhile sus- 
 pended in its course, and mothers are embracing 
 those pledges of affection, which a frightful Revo- 
 lution hath spared to their maternity, happy France 
 is devising, under the auspices of her immortal 
 hero, new pangs and afflictions for the tyrants of 
 the ocean. The radiant star that shone upon your 
 Majesty's nativity, throws a lustre that eclipses 
 the polar. It embellishes our soil, and renders it 
 fruitful in all those resources of industry, which 
 will for ever keep it independent of distant and 
 less happy climates. The beet-root, indigenous 
 plant, satisfied all the wishes of a nation at once 
 the most elegant and luxurious. Frenchmen, I 
 am contented with you, said her tutelary Genius : 
 
150 BONAPARTE AND 
 
 yes, your Majesty said it. Suddenly a thousand 
 voices cry, Let us make fresh sacrifices : we have 
 wished; it is not enough; we will do more. 
 
 Ardent to fulfill their duties, and waiting but 
 to be instructed how, the brave youth, and those 
 whose grey hairs are so honorable, implore that 
 paternal wisdom which never will cease to watch 
 over them, that they may receive those august 
 commands which will accomplish their destinies. 
 
 The enemy no longer pollutes our soil : France 
 recovers her attitude. Your Majesty wishes no 
 new provinces : greater triumphs, wider dominion, 
 to the successor of Charlemagne and of Trajan! 
 That mighty mind, to bless a beloved and grateful 
 people, shall make the animal kingdom confederate 
 with the vegetable. Such are his conquests : the 
 only ones that remain for him to atchieve. 
 
 From the calm of their retreats the sages of 
 France step forth! and behold the decree which 
 your Majesty had already uttered at the bottom of 
 their hearts. 
 
 DECREE. 
 
 To put our implacable enemies to confusion, 
 to drive proud Albion to despair, to abolish the 
 feudal system, to wither for ever the iron arm 
 of despotism, and to produce, or rather to place 
 
THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE. 151 
 
 within the reach of all your Majesty's subjects, 
 those luxuries which a long war, excited by the 
 cupidity of the monopolizing islanders, seemed 
 to have interdicted to our policy, and which our 
 discretion taught us manfully to resign, it is pro- 
 posed that every regiment in the French service 
 be subjected to a mild and beneficent diabetes. 
 Our chemists and physicians, ever labouring for 
 the public good, have discovered that this dis- 
 position of the body, which if improperly managed 
 might become a disease, is attended with the most 
 useful results, and produces a large quantity of the 
 saccharine matter. 
 
 The process was pointed out by Nature herself, 
 who also did more, in the person of your Majesty, 
 and of several of the Grand Dignitaries of the 
 Empire, when the barbarians of the North flew 
 from their capital, which they reduced to ashes, 
 and threw themselves in consternation on the 
 Vistula, the Oder, and the Elbe, to the very 
 shores of the Cimbrian Chersonese. 
 
 I therefore have the honour of submitting to 
 your Majesty, that the sugar, the produce of this 
 simple operation, be made subsidiary to that of the 
 beet-root in the proportion of one-third ; and that 
 this lively and long-desired sugar, so salutary to 
 man from its prior relationship with his constituent 
 
152 BONAPARTE, &c. 
 
 principles, and so eager for its reunion, be the 
 only sugar used in the French empire and among 
 the good and faithful allies of your Majesty : and 
 further, that after the expiration of fourteen years, 
 every Power in amity with France may fabricate it 
 within its own territory. 
 
 His Majesty the Emperor of the French, King 
 of Italy, Protector of the Confederation of the 
 Rhine, and Mediator of Switzerland, was gra- 
 ciously pleased to make the following reply. 
 
 Sir, president of my senate, I am content with 
 you. My ministers of war and of the interior 
 shall be charged to carry your proposition into 
 effect. 
 
CONVERSATION XIL 
 
 BISHOP BURNET 
 
 AND 
 
 HUMPHREY HARDCASTLE. 
 
BISHOP BURNET 
 
 AND 
 
 HUMPHREY HARDCASTLE. 
 
 HARDCASTLE. 
 
 I AM curious, my lord Bishop, to know some- 
 what about the flight and escape of my namesake 
 and great uncle Sir Humphrey Hardcastle, who 
 was a free-spoken man, witty, choleric, and hospi- 
 table, and who cannot have been altogether an 
 alien from the researches of your lordship into the 
 history of the two late reigns. 
 
 BURNET. 
 
 Why, Mr. Hardcastle, I do well remember the 
 story of that knight, albeit his manners and morals 
 were such as did entertain me little in his favour. 
 For he hunted and drank and fornicated, and 
 (some do averr) swore, which however, mark me, 
 I do not deliver from my own knowledge, nor 
 from any written and grave document. I the 
 more wonder at him, as he had lived among the 
 
156 BISHOP BURNET 
 
 Roundheads, as they were contemptuously called, 
 and the minister of his parish was Ezechiel Sted- 
 man, a puritan of no ill repute. Howbeit he was 
 ensnared by his worldlymindedness, and fell into 
 evil courses. The Lord, who permitted him a 
 long while to wallow in this mire, caught him by 
 the heel, so to say, as he was coming out, and 
 threw him into great peril in another way. For 
 although he had mended his life, and had espoused 
 your great aunt Margaret Pouncey, whose mother 
 was a Touchet, two staid women, yet did he truly 
 in a boozing-bout, such as some country-gentlemen 
 I could mention do hold after dinner, say of the 
 Duke, 
 
 James, a mm^rain on him, is a papist 
 
 Now among the others of his servants was one 
 Will Taunton, a sallow shining-faced knave, sweaty 
 with impudence. I do remember to have seen the 
 said Taunton in the pillory, for some prominent 
 part he had enacted under the doctor Titus Oates ; 
 and a countrywench, as I suppose her to have 
 been from her apparel and speech, said unto me, 
 plucking my sleeve, Look, parson, WilVs fore- 
 head is like a rank mushroom in a rainy morning ; 
 and yet, I xv arrant you, they shew it forsooth as 
 the cleanest and hones test part about him. 
 
AND HUMPHREY HARDCASTLE. 157 
 
 To continue: Will went straitway, and com- 
 municated the words of his master to Nicolas 
 Shottery, the Duke's valet. Nick gave unto him 
 a shilling, having first spatten thereon, as he, ac- 
 cording to his superstition, said, for luck. The 
 Duke ordered to be counted out unto him eight 
 shillings more, together with a rosary, the which, 
 as he was afraid of wearing it (for he had not lost 
 all grace), he sold at Richmond for two groats. 
 He was missed in the family, and his roguery was 
 scented. On which, nothing was foolisher, im- 
 properer, or unreasonabler, than the desperate 
 push and strain Charles made, put upon it by his 
 brother James, to catch your uncle Hum Hard- 
 castle. Hum had his eye upon him, slipped the 
 noose, and was over into the Low-Countries. 
 
 Abraham Cowley, one of your Pindarique 
 Lyrists, a great stickler for the measures of the 
 first Charles, was posted after him. But he 
 played the said Abraham a scurvy trick, seizing him 
 by his fine flowing curls, on which he prided him- 
 self mightily, like another Absalom ; cuffing him, 
 and, some do say, kicking him in such dishonest 
 wise as I care not to mention, to his, the said 
 Abraham's, great incommodity and confusion. It 
 is agreed on all hands that he handled him very 
 roughly, sending him back to his master with a 
 
158 BISHOP BURNET 
 
 flea in his ear, who gave him but cold comfort, 
 and told him it would be an ill compliment to ask 
 him to be seated. 
 
 " Phil White,*' added he, " may serve you, 
 Cowley. You need not look back, man, nor spread 
 your lingers like a figleaf on the place. Phil 
 does not carry a bottle of peppered brine in his 
 pocket: he is a clever, apposite, upright little 
 prig : I have often had him under my eye close 
 enough, and I promise he may safely be trusted 
 on the blind side of you." 
 
 Then, after these aggravating and childish 
 words, turning to the Duke, as Abraham was 
 leaving the presence, he is reported to have said, 
 I hope untruly . . . 
 
 "But, damn it, brother! the jest would have 
 been highthened if we could have hanged the 
 knave.*' Meaning not indeed his messenger, but 
 the abovecited Hum Hardcastle. And on James 
 shaking his head, sighing, and muttering his 
 doubt of the King's sincerity, and his vexation at 
 so bitter a disappointment, 
 
 "Oddsfish! Jim," said his Majesty, "the mo- 
 tion was Hum's own : I gave him no jog, upon 
 my credit. His own choler did it, a rogue! and 
 he would not have waited to be invested with the 
 order, if I had pressed him ever so civilly. I will 
 
AND HUMPHREY HARDCASTLE. 159 
 
 oblige you another time in any thing, but we can 
 hang only those we can get at.'* 
 
 It would appear that there was a sore and 
 rankling grudge between them, of long standing, 
 and that there had been divers flings and flouts 
 backwards and forwards, on this side the water, 
 on the score of their mistress Poesy, whose favours 
 to them both, if a man may judge from the upshot, 
 left no such a mighty matter for heartburnings 
 and ill blood. 
 
 This reception had such a stress and stir upon 
 the bile and spirits of doctor Spratt's friend (for 
 such he was, even while writing about his mis- 
 tresses), that he wooed his Pegasus another way, 
 and rid gentlier. It fairly untuned him for Chloes 
 and fantastical things of all sorts, set him upon 
 anotherguess scent, gave him ever afterwards a 
 soberer and staider demeanour, and turned his 
 mind to contentment. 
 
 HARDCASTLE. 
 
 The pleasure I have taken in the narration of 
 your Lordship is for the greater part independent 
 of what concerns my family. I never knew that 
 my uncle was a poet, and could hardly have ima- 
 gined that he approached near enough to Mr. 
 Cowley for jealousy or competition. 
 
160 BISHOP BURNET 
 
 BURNET. 
 
 Indeed they who discoursed on such matters 
 were of the same opinion, excepting some few, 
 who see nothing before them and every thing be- 
 hind. These declared that Hum would overtop 
 Abraham, if he could only drink rather less, 
 think rather more, and feel rather rightlier: that 
 he had great spunk and spirit, and that not a fan 
 was left upon a lap when any one sang his airs. 
 Poets, like ministers of state, have their parties, 
 and it is difficult to get at truth, upon questions 
 not capable of demonstration nor founded on mat- 
 ter of fact. To take any trouble about them is 
 an unwise thing : it is like mounting a wall covered 
 with broken glass : you cut your fingers before you 
 reach the top, and you only discover at last that it 
 is, within a span or two, of equal highth on both 
 sides. Who would have imagined that the youth 
 who was carried to his long home the other day, 
 I mean my Lord Rochester's reputed child, Mr. 
 George Nelly, was for several seasons a great 
 poet? Yet I remember the time when he was so 
 famous an one, that he ran after Mr. Milton up 
 Snow-hill, as the old gentleman was leaning on 
 his daughter's arm from the Poultry, and, tread- 
 ing down the heel of his shoe, called him a rogue 
 and a liar, while another poet sprang out from a 
 
AND HUMPHREY HARBCASTLE. 161 
 
 grocer's shop, clapping his hands, and crying 
 ^^ Bravely done! hy Belzehub ! the young cock 
 spurs the blind buzzard gallantly!^' On some 
 neighbour representing to Mr. George the respect- 
 able character of Mr. Milton, and the probability 
 that at some future time he might be considered 
 as among our geniuses, and such as would reflect 
 a certain portion of credit on his ward, and asking 
 him withal why he appeared to him a rogue and liar, 
 he replied : " I have proofs known to few : I possess 
 a sort of drama by him, entitled Com us, which was 
 composed for the entertainment of Lord Pembroke, 
 who held an appointment under the king, and this 
 very John has since changed sides, and written in 
 defence of the Commonwealth." 
 
 Mr. George beojan with satirizino; his father's 
 friends, and confounding the better part of them 
 with all the hirelings and nuisances of the age, 
 with all the scavengers of lust and all the link- 
 boys of literature; with Newgate solicitors, the 
 patrons of adulterers and forgers, who, in the long 
 vacation, turn a penny by puffing a ballad, and 
 are promised a shilling in silver, for their own 
 benefit, on crying down a religious tract* He 
 soon became reconciled to the latter, and they 
 raised him upon their shoulders above the heads 
 of the wittiest and the wisest. This served a 
 
 M 
 
162 BISHOP BURNET 
 
 whole winter. Afterwards, whenever he wrote a 
 bad poem, he supported his sinking fame by some 
 signal act of profligacy, an elegy by a seduction, 
 an heroic by an adultery, a tragedy by a divorse. 
 On the remark of a learned man, that irregularity 
 is no indication of genius, he began to lose ground 
 rapidly, when on a sudden he cried out at the 
 Haymarket, there is 7io God, It was then sur- 
 mised more generally and more gravely that there 
 was something in him, and he stood upon his 
 legs almost to the last. Say rvhat you mll^ 
 once whispered a friend of mine, there are th'mgs 
 in him strong as poison^ and original as sin. 
 Doubts however were entertained by some, on 
 more mature reflection, whether he earned all his 
 reputation by this witticism: for soon afterwards 
 he declared at the Cockpit, that he had purchased 
 a large assortment of cutlasses and pistols, and 
 that, as he was practising the use of them from 
 morning to night, it would be imprudent in per- 
 sons who were without them, either to laugh or 
 to boggle at the Dutch vocabulary with which he 
 had enriched our language.. In fact, he had in- 
 vented new rhymes in profusion, by such words 
 as trackschuyt^ Wageninghen, Skierynoiiiloog^ 
 Bergen-op-Zoom, and whatever is appertaining to 
 the marketplaces of fish, flesh, fowl, flowers, and 
 
AND HUMPHREY HARDCASTLE. 163 
 
 legumes, not to omitt the dockyards and barracks 
 and ginshops, with various kinds of essences and 
 drugs. 
 
 Now, Mr. Hardcastle, I would not censure 
 this: the idea is novel, and does no harm: but 
 why should a man push his neck into a halter to 
 sustain a catch or glee? 
 
 Having had some concern in bringing his re- 
 puted father to a sense of penitence for his 
 offences, I waited on the youth likewise, in a 
 former illness, not without hope of leading him 
 ultimately to a better way of thinking. I had 
 hesitated too long: I found him far advanced in 
 his convalescence. My arguments are not worth 
 repeating. He replied thus. 
 
 *' I change my mistresses as Tom Southern his 
 shirt, from economy. I cannot afford to keep 
 few; and I am detennined not to be forgotten 
 till I am vastly richer. But I assure you, doctor 
 Burnet, for your comfort, that if you imagine I 
 am led astray by lasciviousness, as you call it, and 
 lust, you are quite as much mistaken as if you 
 called a book of arithmetic a bawdy book. I cal- 
 culate on every kiss I give, modest or immodest, 
 on lip or paper. I ask myself one question only; 
 what will it bring me?" On my marveling and 
 raising up my hands, " You churchmen," he 
 
164 BISHOP BURNET 
 
 added, with a laugh, " are too hot in all your 
 quarters for the calm and steddy contemplation of 
 this high mystery." 
 
 He spake thus loosely, Mr. Hardcastle, and I 
 confess, I was disconcerted and took my leave of 
 him. If I gave him any offence at all, it could 
 only be when he said, / should be sorry to die 
 before I have writteii my life, and I replied, 
 Rather say before you have mended it. 
 
 " But, doctor," continued he, " the work I pro- 
 pose may bring me a hundred pounds." Where- 
 unto I rejoined, "That which I, young gentle- 
 man, suggest in preference will be worth much 
 more to you." 
 
 At last he is removed from among the living: 
 let us hope the best ; to wit, that the mercies which 
 have begun w^ith man's forgetfulness will be crowned 
 with God's forgiveness. 
 
 HARDCASTLE. 
 
 I perceive, my lord bishop, that writers of pe- 
 rishable fame may leave behind them something 
 worth collecting. Represented to us by historians 
 like your lordship, w^e survey a light character 
 as a film in agate, and a noxious one as a toad in 
 marble. 
 
 BURNET. 
 
 How near together, Mr. Hardcastle, are things 
 
AND HUMPHRF.Y HARDCASTLE. 165 
 
 which appear to us the most remote and opposite ! 
 how near is life to death, and vanity to glory! 
 How deceived are we, if our expressions are any 
 proofs of it, in what we might deem the very 
 matters most subject to our senses ! the haze above 
 our heads we call the heavens, and the thinnest of 
 the air the firmament. 
 
CONVERSATION XIII, 
 
 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 AKD THE 
 
 PRESIDENT DU PATY. 
 
PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 AND THE 
 
 PRESIDENT DU PATY. 
 
 Among the few Frenchmen who, within the 
 last fifty years, have reflected much honour of 
 any kind on their country, a distinguished rank is 
 holden by the President Du Paty. His letters on 
 Italy contain the most acute observations, and his 
 interview with Leopold forms no inconsiderable 
 portion of their interest. Pleased with the just- 
 ness of his remarks and the pointedness of his ex- 
 pressions, and perhaps hoping to derive some ad- 
 vantage to the new Code from his deep study and 
 long practise of jurisprudence, Leopold invited 
 him to return the next day. 
 
 At the hour appointed, the Granduke was 
 leaning with his elbow on the chimneypiece, that 
 he might neither rise at the entrance of the Pre- 
 sident nor receive him in the manner of a sovran. 
 
no PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 The commencement of all conversation is trifling, 
 even among the greatest men: this expression, 
 whenever I use it, means men of the greatest 
 genius and worth. The usual courtesies, then, 
 having been exchanged, Leopold thus addressed 
 his illustrious visitant. 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 I know, M. Du Paty, that your compliments, 
 rich and abundant as they are, cannot stifle nor 
 supersede your sincerity; and that if I seriously 
 ask your opinion on the defects of my Code, you 
 will answer me just as seriously. 
 
 The President bowed, and, observing that Leo- 
 pold had paused, replied. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 Sir, I cannot bear in mind all the articles of 
 your Code ; and unless I could do so, my observa- 
 tions, if not erroneous, must be imperfect. On 
 these subjects we may not talk vaguely and fanci- 
 fully as on subjects of literature. Where man is 
 to decide on man, where the happiness or wretched- 
 ness of one hangs on the lips of another, where 
 a breath may extinguish a family or blight a gene- 
 ration, every thing should be tried particle by par- 
 ticle . . . To have abolished capital punishments is a 
 proof, in certain circumstances, no less of wisdom 
 than of humanity : but I would suggest to your con- 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 171 
 
 sideration, whether you have provided sufficiently 
 for the protection of property and of honour. 
 Your prisons are empty; but are you sure that 
 the number of criminals is less ? Or are you of 
 opinion that it is better to see them at large than 
 in custody? 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 Here are few assassinations, and no highway 
 robberies. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 I will explain the reason. In other countries 
 the prostitutes are a distinct class: in Tuscany 
 not. Where there are no jealousies there will be 
 few assassinations. Supposing a case of tyranny, 
 the Tuscans will wriggle under it rather than 
 writhe ; and if even they should writhe, yet they 
 will never stand erect. They will committ no 
 assassinations from the other motive to them, that 
 is, for the purpose of robbing : and robbery on the 
 highway they will not committ, having such facili- 
 ties for committing safer and more compendious. 
 Every man may plunder the vineyard of another 
 at small hazard of prosecution; nor is there a 
 single one in all Tuscany that is not plundered 
 repeatedly every autumn, unless the owner pass 
 his nights in it during the maturity of the grapes. 
 If he prosecutes, he suffers a heavier punishment 
 
112 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 than the prosecuted: he loses several days of 
 labour, and receives no indemnity ; nor indeed is 
 there any security against a similar injury the suc- 
 ceeding year. Many robberies require impossible 
 proofs. There are others the crime of which is 
 extenuated by what ought to be an aggravation, 
 because they are also breaches of trust. I know 
 that your Highness has enacted clement laws in 
 order to humanize the people, and that violence 
 might never be added to rapine. But laws should 
 be formed according to the character of the nation 
 that is to receive them. The Italians were always 
 more addicted to robbery and revenge than any 
 other European people; crimes equally proceed- 
 ing from idleness and effeminacy. 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 On what authority do you found your assertion, 
 M. Du Paty, that the Italians were always so ad- 
 dicted to theft ? 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 I will not urge as a proof of it the increasing 
 severity of the ancient laws, which would only de- 
 monstrate their imperfection : but I will insist on the 
 documents of the Latin writers de re rustica^ who 
 give particular directions on the breed of house- 
 dogs for the safeguard of the farms, however far 
 removed be the subject from cattle and cultivation. 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 173 
 
 Nothing similar has entered into the scheme of 
 any modern author on agriculture. Added to 
 which, there is hardly a Latin writer, whether in 
 prose or poetry, whatever be his subject, who does 
 not say something about thieves ; so familiar was 
 the idea. The word itself extended, in more than 
 one direction, beyond the character it first desig- 
 nated: Plautus calls a soldier latro, Horace calls 
 a servant^z^r. The Romans, who far excelled us 
 in the greater part of their institutions, were much 
 inferior in what by way of excellence we call the 
 police* Hence, in early times, an opening to 
 theft, among a people less influenced than any 
 other by continence and honour. In many whole 
 provinces of England, France, and Holland, and 
 throughout all the kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, 
 and Norway, the countryman may sleep in per- 
 fect security with his doors wide open: in Italy, 
 not a single village, not a single house from Como 
 to Reggio. The windows of every dwelling, in Flo- 
 rence, even of your own palace, are barricadoed by 
 grates of iron ; in other words, every dwelling, your 
 own among the rest, holds forth in the censor's 
 face a libel against the government. The fault is 
 partly in the laws, and partly in the magistrature ; 
 for there is no nation so easily coerced by fear, as 
 this. I recommend not cruelty. Those laws are 
 cruel which are illusory, dilatory, or costly, to 
 
174 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 such as appeal to their protection ; not those which 
 award a stated and known severity of punishment 
 for proven offences. The latter are no more so 
 than a precipice or a penknife : I may leap down 
 the one, I may cut my throat with the other ; I 
 may do neither. I pay taxes for the security of 
 my person, my property, and my character : every 
 farthing I pay beyond for law, if I can demon- 
 strate the equity of my cause, is an injustice. 
 Sistus Quintus is the only sovran who appears 
 to have acted uniformly according to the national 
 character. Happy would it have been for his 
 country, had he united to omniscience another 
 attribute of the Godhead, immortality. 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 In that case, M. Du Paty, I should not have 
 had the pleasure of your conversation here. I see 
 however that cruel laws do not necessarily make a 
 people cruel. The Romans (I would rather call 
 them the inhabitants of Rome) were less so under 
 Sistus Quintus than before or since ; and your 
 neighbours the English are, and have always been, 
 the most humane of men, under penal laws the 
 most iniquitous and atrocious. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 The laws of England have been the subject of 
 eulogy to many learned and sagacious men. I 
 have read them repeatedly and pondered them 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 175 
 
 attentively. I find them often dilatory, often un- 
 certain, often contradictory, often cruel, often 
 ruinous. Whenever they find a man down they 
 keep him so, and the more pertinaciously the 
 more earnestly he appeals to them. Like tilers, 
 in mending one hole, they always make another. 
 There is no country in which they move with 
 such velocity where life is at stake, or, where pro- 
 perty is to be defended, so slowly. I have hardly 
 the courage to state these facts, and want it totally 
 to hazard a reflection on them. Can we wonder 
 that, upon a Bench under so rotten an effigy of 
 Justice, sate a Scrogges, a Jefferies, a Finch, a 
 Page! 
 
 Some of the English laws are most strange, 
 and equally strange are the expressions. I may 
 be punished yo?' bringing a man into contempt: 
 as if any one could be brought into it without 
 stirring a step on his own legs towards it. Ari- 
 stides may have been laughed at, Phocion may have 
 been reviled; but the judge who should have said 
 that either had been brought into contempt, would 
 have been covered with it himself by every citizen 
 of Athens. The English are somewhat less quick 
 in the apprehension of absurdity. This expression 
 is not merely an absurdity, but a most pernicious 
 one. The doctrine was inculcated by M. Murray, 
 
176 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 a Scotchman by birth, but an English jndge, and 
 the opinion of judges in that country, when once 
 acted upon, passes into law. The national cha- 
 racter, if I am not greatly mistaken, will within 
 half a century feel the sad effect of this decision. 
 Nothing in the world is such a safeguard of liberty 
 and of virtue, as the maxim ' Ne quid falsi dice re 
 audeat, ne qui dveri non aiideat,' or such a loss 
 and misfortune as its abolition. I would punish 
 most severely every thing false against character, 
 and permitt every thing true, as being the fairest 
 chastisement of faults and follies, the mildest and 
 surest and most expeditious. On the contrary, 
 an English judge would punish in a fellow-citizen 
 what he applauds in a Roman historian. 
 
 It may indeed be doubted whether the laws of 
 England have not been gradually deteriorating 
 for above seven hundred years; that is, whether 
 they have not been accumulating more anomalies, 
 more uncertainties, more delays, more costs, more 
 contradictions, more cruelties. 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 In England a peasant is slaughtered for the 
 slaughter of another's sheep against his consent : 
 a servant for stealing his master's spoon or wig: 
 a little vagabond, starving at christmas, snatches a 
 rag from a hedge, and is recommended to the 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 177 
 
 hangman for correction ... Are these laws better 
 than mine? 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 No, sir; they are worse in themselves; yet your 
 Highness would do well to make the exchange, 
 throwing back to the English, the boy, rag, spoon, 
 and wig. They would suit your people better, 
 and might fairly be laid aside when it had out 
 grown them: but I suspect they would be ser- 
 viceable many years. Punish all crimes and you 
 will punish few, remitt a single one and you 
 create a thousand. I must here observe to you 
 that the privilege of pardon in a prince, is the 
 most flagrant of usurpations. It belongs for the 
 greater part to the person injured ; but not entirely : 
 the magistrate, who takes cognizance of the par- 
 ticulars, should also give his assent in the name of 
 the community, but not in consequence of any 
 private petition or any subsequent representation. 
 I perceive with pleasure in your Code that fines 
 occurr but seldom. 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 Pray, M. Du Paty, give me your reasons. If 
 they are the same as mine they strengthen them ; 
 if they are different, they are more. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 Fines and halters, the minions of English jurists, 
 
 N 
 
178 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 are the most summary and the least summary of 
 chastisements, and by far the worst. A great 
 fine does no harm whatever to a man of great for- 
 tune : it is a bribe to the laws, and ought as much 
 to be prohibited as a bribe to the judge. It ruins, 
 not the poorer man, but the poorer man's children : 
 it deprives him of what he perhaps may do with- 
 out, but what they cannot, without an injury to 
 society. If his education was defective, which the 
 offence goes a great way towards proving, theirs 
 must be more defective still, because the means of 
 educating them are taken away or lessened. In 
 some countries heavier fines are imposed for injuries 
 or aflft-onts committed against the superiors of the 
 offender, slighter for those against the inferiors: 
 this, if indeed they are ever equitable in such 
 cases, ought to be reversed : for the inferior is the 
 weaker in calumny and injustice, as in other things. 
 We cannot strike so hard from below as from 
 above. The rich and powerful man does not lose 
 even so much as a salute by it, while the artisan 
 or tradesman loses in one instance a customer, in 
 another ten or twenty, in another his livelihood. 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 In reply to the former of your remarks, I know 
 not what else to say than that all punishments 
 must in some degree touch the innocent ; and that 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 179 
 
 the family of every criminal is a loser in estima- 
 tion, and consequently in property and prosperity, 
 by his punishment, however just. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 The first duty of a legislator is to proportion 
 penalties ; the second is to isolate them as much 
 as possible, and to embank the waters of bitterness. 
 I would therefore, both for the sake of com- 
 pensation to the unoffending and to guard against 
 offences, place the children of criminals in schools 
 or workhouses, appointed for that purpose, and 
 forbid them to keep the paternal name, which, for 
 more than one reason, should be the first thing 
 forfeited. A workhouse should contain a school, 
 not of writing or reading, but of industiy. If 
 you wish to make the bulk of men wiser, do not 
 put books into their hands, which they will either 
 throw away from indifference, or must drop from 
 necessity, but give them employment suitable to 
 their abilities, and let them be occupied in what 
 will repay them the most certainly and the best. 
 Their thoughts will thus be directed to one main 
 point, and you will produce good artisans and 
 good citizens : this is the wisdom for every day in 
 the week ; and what is higher than this will never 
 be impeded by it, and will often rise out of it. 
 
 N 2 
 
180 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 I will consider your advice : I say it as legislator, 
 not as prince: for in our language, you know, 
 when we promise to consider we purpose to neg- 
 lect. Here I may venture to say, that suitable 
 to my character, my laws are wary and circum- 
 spect. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 I am afraid that, in the practise of jurispru- 
 dence, circumspection more than rarely means 
 dilatoriness. Delay of justice is injustice. When 
 offences are defined and punishments are appor- 
 tioned, no circumspection is necessary. According 
 to the practise in Tuscany, if I complain of a rob- 
 bery, a young commissary of police examines me, 
 and writes my deposition, without reading it over 
 to me that I may acknow^ledge or challenge its cor- 
 rectness. After several weeks another young com- 
 missary examines me again ; at the same interval 
 a third ; and if my relation varies a tittle from what 
 is found written by either, no chance remains of 
 recovering the loss or of punishing the offender. 
 These young men are paid no better than posti- 
 lions, and it seldom happens that one of the three 
 is not corrupted by the offender. Travellers can- 
 not delay their journey: their valets know it: 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 181 
 
 hence hardly one in twenty but finds himself 
 robbed in this city. Witnesses are required where 
 witnesses cannot be expected: for which reason 
 treachery is the constant companion of violence, 
 and all manliness of character is excluded. It is 
 remarkable, that in a single week two cases have 
 occurred in point. A young man in the theatre 
 applauded an actress : one sitting 'near him called 
 him a blockhead for his admiration. He replied. 
 The severer critic, to prove his superior judge- 
 ment, made a different use of his hands, applying 
 them to the face and frill of the applauder, who 
 stood motionless as the prompter himself, and on 
 the following day applied to the police. It being 
 proved that he returned no blow, the Aristarchus 
 was condemned to a month's imprisonment. A 
 few days before or afterwards (I forget which) a 
 young forener, a painter by profession, who had 
 refused a favour to another, was waylaid by him 
 in the street at dusk, and a blow was aimed at his 
 head from behind with a club, which, if he had 
 not at the moment heard the feet of his assassin, 
 must have killed him, as it required from its mas- 
 siveness the use of both hands, and the assassin 
 was a remarkably strong man. The forener turned 
 and avoided it, immediately aiming a blow at his 
 adversary. The facts were proved : and this blow, 
 
182 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 necessary for self-preservation, was alleged as the 
 reason why the crime was punished by one day's 
 confinement. Yet this offender, it cannot be 
 doubted, had premeditated an assassination, and 
 had carried it as far into effect as he could. For this 
 attempt he was almost unpunished ; and if he had 
 succeeded in it he would not have been punished 
 at all; for the witnesses were brought together 
 only by the contest. Had there been no contest 
 there would have been no witnesses : it being the 
 etiquette here in Tuscany not to interfere in 
 another man's affairs without strong solicitation. 
 Now the dead can neither ask favours, nor, what 
 is equally necessary, requite them. Cowardice 
 then is a merit, courage a bar to justice. What 
 can be expected from a people, the least confident 
 of all in personal strength and honour, and accord- 
 ing to some the most insincere and fraudulent, 
 when such dispositions are countenanced by such 
 institutions ? 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 I need not remark, M. Du Paty, that insti- 
 tutions are with difficulty laid aside. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 Yet your Highness has abolished a very ancient 
 one, that of monachism, I forbear to say totally, 
 but surely almost so, and that without detriment 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 183 
 
 or danger. Now the forest is thinned, we dis- 
 cover its boundaries and can make our way 
 through. 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 The business is done then to your satisfaction. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 Not altogether so. In my journey from Pisa 
 to Florence, I inquired what was allotted to each 
 ejected monk, and was informed that it amounted 
 to somewhat less than what each galleyslave could 
 earn in prison; facilities and materials of which 
 earning are supplied to him by government, but 
 are supplied in no measure to the ejected monk. 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 The fellows are idlers'^ and rogues: none of 
 
 * There is less agreement on the character of reformers 
 than of others, and Peter Leopold was a reformer. It is rea- 
 sonable to suppose that he should have defended his conduct 
 in some such manner as is represented in this dialogue. His 
 enemies accuse him of avarice ; and support their opinion by 
 insisting on the inadequate education and slender maintenance 
 of his natural children. Irony may say of Leopold, what Flat- 
 tery said of Cosmo III, that he was pate?- pauperum. The 
 hospitals however were abundantly supplied and careftdly at- 
 tended. After his decease, the lands belonging to them have 
 been granted on perpetual leases, their income much dimi- 
 nished, and their superintendence much neglected. At Pisa 
 the poorest and most afflicted are so reluctant to enter the 
 hospital, that the number of patients is reduced to half of 
 what it was in the time of Leopold, and the quantity of ac- 
 commodations and of comforts to less. At Florence the public 
 
'iSl PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 them understand and few of them believe what 
 they teach. I am not more imperious and arbi- 
 
 is permitted to send subsidies of food twice in the week, and 
 instances liavc occurred of patients who have suffered severely 
 by tlie sudden effect of a nutricious meal. 
 
 The less contemptible of princes love money for the sake of 
 power, the more contemptible love power for the sake of money. 
 Avarice is condemned in them from a sentiment of avarice. 
 Other faults injurious in a greater degree to the public mo- 
 rality are overlooked or forgiven. The principal one of Peter 
 Leopold was his employment of spies and informers. Curiosity 
 and lust were the motives; not cruelty nor suspicion. He 
 and Lord Cowper divided all the beauty of Tuscany in such a 
 manner as that neither should be jealous. In every family 
 throughout Florence, high or low, one of the domestics or one 
 of the children communicated to the agents of the Granduke 
 a detail of its most minute affairs. No harm perhaps was 
 perceived by them in these communications which never led 
 to punishment and seldom to inconvenience ; but in fact they 
 did greater mischief to the national character than the best 
 institutions could remedy or compensate. Hence venality^, 
 bad-faith, suspicion, cowardice ; hence the prostration of pri- 
 vate and the extinction of social virtue. Chetani, a thief- 
 taker, a man equally of scandalous life and of coarse manners, 
 walked into all the societies of Florence unmolested : age lost 
 its dignity, youth its vivacity in his presence ; all bowed be- 
 fore the grand informer. This creature has formed the man- 
 ners of two generations and perhaps the national character for 
 centuries to come. Leopold was in such security by his means, 
 that on his departure from Tuscany, he left behind him not a 
 soldier in Florence. He saw growing vip a generation of Pyg- 
 mies; and he saw them surrounded by cranes, with dipt wings 
 and broken beaks. 
 
 As we frequently see in the progeny of spotted animals, 
 that some are all-white, others all-black, so appears it in the 
 family of Leopold, tliat one has inherited all the brighter parts. 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 185 
 
 trary with the monks, than the monks have been 
 with princes. I have removed their cells, they 
 have removed our palaces. The church of Saint 
 Isidore in Seville was opposite the royal palace. 
 
 the others all the darker of his character. In removing my 
 hand from the portraiture, I wish I could dismiss the most 
 excellent prince of his age, with merely a charge of vmwise 
 curiosity, of unworthy suspicion, or of too vague an indul' 
 gence in sensuality. I wish he had always observed in him- 
 self the justice he inforced in others. The Counts del Benino 
 for services rendered to Florence inherited certain valuable 
 privileges : Leopold annulled them. Del Benino petitioned 
 that he might appeal to the courts of justice. Leopold frankly 
 and willingly assented. The judges fancied they should flatter 
 him by displaying in their decision a luminous proof of his 
 equity, and gave a sentence in favour of the plaintiiF. Leopold 
 disregarded it, and refused Del Benino any satisfaction for his 
 loss. 
 
 I shall not be accused of flattery in recording some wise re- 
 marks and good actions of the reigning Granduke ; for I am 
 the only Englishman at Florence, I believe, who never goes to 
 court, leaving it to my hatter, who is a very honest man, and 
 to my breechesmaker, who never failed to fit me. 
 
 When the minister of Austria, and another, laid before him 
 a list of freemasons, carbonari, and various subjects for im- 
 prisonment or exile, he replied that he knew his people better 
 than strangers could do, and would answer for their conduct. 
 
 When some bigot told him that the Florentines ate meat 
 on Fridays, he answered, '^ I am happy they have it to eat." 
 
 When a Pisan professor, a Signor Rossini, who had written 
 sonnets and such other things as the Italians write on every 
 novelty, deaths, marriages, births, arrivals, departures, rib- 
 bons, crosses, popes, pandars, catchpoles, academicians, &c. 
 &c. &c. every thing in short from which money or meat may 
 be extracted, and had complimented all the invaders and oc- 
 
186 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 Sanchia, the king's daughter, was praying at a 
 window which faced the shrine of the saint, when 
 he appeared to the family, and commanded that 
 the situation of the palace should be changed, as 
 It was dangerous to have a woman so near his 
 ashes^. The body is dangerous from a shew of 
 enthusiasm, of all pests upon earth the most con- 
 tagious. Those who believe nothing make others 
 believe most; as the best actors on our theatres 
 are those who retain the most perfect command 
 over their feelings, voice, and countenance. Our 
 spiritual Mamelukery is as ambitious of power and 
 riches as if it had children to inherit them, and 
 the money that falls into their hands lies dead, 
 the land indifferently cultivated. I shall fumi- 
 gate my old hives, one after another, not minding 
 the buz from within. 
 
 I shall next abolish the greater part of the fes- 
 tivals, for every saint in the calendar has made 
 ten thousand beggars and ten thousand thieves, 
 not counting monks. Frequently, when I have 
 been vehement against abuses, but silent on my 
 
 cupants of his country by turns, not without gross invectives 
 against Ferdinand, congratulated him on his happy and glo- 
 rious return, he ordered a timepiece to he given him, as the 
 present most proper to a timeserver, 
 
 * Luca Tudensis Hist. Mirac. Sti Isidori, c. xxxv. Bol- 
 Jandus. 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 187 
 
 intentions, the clergy has told me that abuses 
 form no part of their religion : they now tremble 
 at what they call innovation, not knowing or dis- 
 sembling that, in a pure religion, there can be no 
 other innovations than abuses. They talk to me 
 about the religion of our forefathers, conveyed to 
 us in all its purity from the earliest ages. I am 
 afraid, M. Du Paty, the pear was thumbed at the 
 stalk when it was just ripe, and it rotted almost 
 the next day. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 The priesthood in all religions sings the same 
 anthem. First, the abuses are stoutly defended ; 
 but when the ground is no longer tenable, then 
 these abuses form no part of the holy faith. If 
 however they are always found in its company, 
 you may as well say that the cat's skin is not the 
 cat : the creature will make horrible cries if you 
 attempt to strip it off, and perhaps will die of the 
 operation. 
 
 You have done much towards the destruction 
 of a system, where fraud has been incessantly 
 building upon fraud for fifteen hundred years. 
 The most dexterous attack ever made against 
 the worship of the Virgin, the principal worship 
 among catholics, which opens so many sidechapels 
 to pilfering and imposture, is that of Cervantes. 
 
188 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 I do not remember in what part. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 Throughout Don Quixote. Dulcinea was the 
 peerless, the immaculate, and death was denounced 
 against all, who hesitated to admit t the assertion 
 of her perfections. Surely your Highness never 
 could have imagined, that Cervantes was such 
 a Knight-errant as to attack Knight-errantry, a 
 folly that had ceased more than a century, if in- 
 deed it was any folly at all ; and the idea that he 
 ridiculed the poems and romances founded on it, 
 is not less improbable, for they contained all the 
 literature of the nation, excepting the garniture 
 of chapterhouses, theology, and pervaded, as with 
 a thread of gold, the beautiful histories of this 
 illustrious people. He delighted the idlers of 
 romance by the jokes he scattered amongst them 
 on the false taste of his predecessors and of his 
 rivals; and he delighted his own heart by this 
 solitary archery; well knowing what amusement 
 those who came another day, would find in pick- 
 ing up his arrows and discovering the bull's-eye 
 hits. Charles V was the knight of La Mancha, 
 devoting his labours and vigils, his wars and trea- 
 ties, to the chimerical idea of making all minds, 
 like watches, turn their indexes, by a simultaneous 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 189 
 
 movement, to one point. Sancho Panza was the 
 symbol of the people, possessing sound sense in 
 all other matters, but ready to follow the most 
 extravagant visionary in this, and combining im- 
 plicit belief in it with the grossest sensuality. 
 For, religion, when it is hot enough to produce 
 enthusiasm, burns up and kills every seed en- 
 trusted to its bosom. 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 Your exposition of the subject is quite novel to 
 me, and your observation on it just. I care no- 
 thing about the worship of mapletrees and marble, 
 or the inscriptions under them, or the coronets 
 above: but I am resolved if not to forbid at 
 least to discountenance the canonization of more 
 saints in Tuscany. Many noble families have 
 been ruined by counting a saint amongst them ; 
 almost as many as have been enriched by count- 
 ing a pope. The process costs fifty thousand 
 crowns. When it happens that a poorer man or 
 woman is made the object of adoration, then in- 
 deed it is attended with somewhat lighter expense, 
 because the confraternity that solicits it never 
 does so, unless it has some powerful patron at 
 Rome, nor unless the speculation is sure enough 
 to be lucrative. 
 
190 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 It appears to me, sir, that even in a religion 
 resting on peculation and fattening on vice, with 
 violence on the right hand and falsehood on the 
 left, giving every thing to the slothful and taking 
 every thing from the industrious, no evil is worse 
 than the necessity of periodical confession to priests : 
 an evil which, I am afraid, all your power cannot 
 remove nor all your wisdom remedy. It does more 
 than impoverish noble families : it divests them of 
 their respectability. What young woman who has 
 once overcome her sense of shame, so as to expose 
 before a stranger of another sex the first secrets of 
 the heart, and the disclosing germs of the passions, 
 can retain any delicacy of character? Modesty, 
 by lifting up her veil, is changed in all her 
 features ; and when she turns her first step aside, 
 is gone for ever. 
 
 Compare the women of Saxony and England 
 with those of Italy and, I say it very reluctantly, 
 of France. What a difference ! In Florence in- 
 deed you rarely see an Englishwoman of cha- 
 racter: they are chiefly those who are little re- 
 spected at home; arrogant, presumptuous, sus- 
 picious, credulous, and speaking one of another 
 more maliciously than untruly. But English- 
 
AND THE PUESIDENT DU PATY. 191 
 
 women in their character as in their cloaths con- 
 tract a great deal of dirt by travelling. Of this 
 there are many causes : such as the filthiness of our 
 continental inns, so shocking to decency, and to 
 nothing of which kind are they accustomed in 
 their own country; the immodest language they 
 hear from all classes, and nearly from all indi- 
 viduals, a thing utterly unknown amongst them at 
 home; the conversations on topics to which not 
 even the most vulgar wretch in England ever 
 alludes in presence of a female; and above all, 
 their intercourse with others of their countrywomen 
 who, from a long residence abroad, have been 
 deeply initiated in foren manners. These lead the 
 fashion: these teach them to talk aloud in their 
 chapels, where they have any, and to feed greedily 
 on the blushes of the more innocent, who at first 
 enter decorously and piously, but who soon do the 
 same towards others, that they may not be thought 
 awkward and ill-bred. 
 
 Your Highness is perhaps acquainted with what 
 occurred this morning. The young woman I 
 understand was among the beauties of a little 
 fishing-town in the west of England: an ensign 
 fell in love with her, and married her. She soon 
 observed that it was unfashionable in Italy to live 
 without her cavaliere servente : she engaged one : 
 
192 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 he went away : she took another. In these mat- 
 ters the number two multiplies rapidly : they fol- 
 lowed not singly nor by intervals, but one upon 
 another, like eels down a floodgate after a shower. 
 Having found access to the house of the Minister, 
 she was visited by many, however they declaimed 
 against her, until at last a gallant for some private 
 injury has whipt her twice in the streets this very 
 day. It is hoped she will have interest enough to 
 stop enquiry, and will have received no other harm 
 than a few such circuitous lines as designate the 
 latitudes on a globe, and the name, partly derived 
 from her native place, and partly from her recent 
 misfortune, of La Nereide Frnistata , . . the whipt 
 Nereid. Nicknames and whippings, when they 
 are once laid on, no one has discovered how to 
 take off. 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 What the English ladies may be in their in- 
 terior I do not pretend to know: but when I 
 compare their manners and address with those of 
 my Florentines, or indeed with those of any other 
 nation, it is- far beyond my prerogative to grant 
 them the precedency. Ours are accused of levity 
 at church : they go thither, it is objected, to make 
 love. Be it so. I never saw a Florentine girl or 
 woman, who did not come out in better humour 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 193 
 
 than she entered, nor an English who did not 
 come out in worse. The heart may surely be as 
 impure from gall as from love ; and if we must 
 err on either side, let it rather be towards the 
 kind affections than towards the unkind. The 
 Florentine opens her heart, gives it, and resumes 
 it, as easily as her fan : the Englishwoman abroad 
 keeps hers locked up, as a store-room for the re- 
 putations she has torne, or intends to tear, in 
 pieces. She may be indeed a good mother ; but 
 if she takes alarm or umbrage at every foot that 
 approaches her, I would rather have such a good 
 mother in cub or kennel, than in my closet, or at 
 my table. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 The Englishwoman is domestic : she of highest 
 rank superintends the village-school, hears the 
 children their lesson, examines their cleanliness, 
 observes their dress, enquires into their health, re- 
 marks their conduct, presages their propensities, 
 is amused at their games and is interested in their 
 adventures. She visits the sick, she converses 
 with the aged, she comforts the afflicted, and she 
 carries her sons and daughters with her, to acquire 
 the practise of their duties. Those in England 
 are all diffidence; those in Italy all defiance. 
 Awkward beyond all other women upon earth, 
 
 o 
 
194 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 they happily are the most so when they are copy- 
 ing what is bad. 
 
 If we desire to know w^ith certainty what reh*- 
 gion is best, let us examine in what country are 
 the best fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, wives : 
 we shall there also find the best citizens, and of 
 course the best christians. 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 Popery, with all her abuses, hath had her con- 
 verts, and even from among the reformed, and 
 men neither vicious nor ignorant: explain me 
 this. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 Reasons and reason are different things. In 
 all religions there have been believers w^ho re- 
 flected with equal intensity. Those you mention, 
 serious and melancholy triflers, attach much im- 
 portance to things of little. After attempting to 
 penetrate and pass the crowd of fathers (as they 
 are called) and saints and martyrs, and knowing 
 that before them lies a vast extent of perplexity 
 and confusion, they stop, exhausted and spiritless, 
 cast back a look of anguish over the ground they 
 have plodded through, hesitate, close their eyes, 
 and sink upon the bosom of infallibility. As if 
 the Almighty had ever invested with his attributes 
 a senseless and vicious priest, studious of nothing 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 195 
 
 but the usurpation of power and the aggrandise- 
 ment of family, a creature stained, as the greater 
 part hath been, with murder and incest and other 
 enormities, at which Nature is confounded and 
 Piety in consternation. 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 The best among them permitt for money what 
 they and all their statutes condemn. Prohibitions 
 are merely a preparation for indulgences : sins are 
 wealth, masses save souls, virtues are insufficient. 
 Would not you relieve your father from the agonies 
 of hell, when a petticoat tied by you round a priest's 
 mistress can accomplish it ? do you hesitate ? would 
 not you, unnatural wretch ! desire that your chil- 
 dren should perform the same service for you ? I 
 have under my windows here in Florence, no 
 fewer than three uncles married to their nieces by 
 express permission from the Holiness of our Lord 
 . . . the title always given to him in our gazettes. 
 A little more wealth, with hardly any more impu- 
 dence, and we (unless I check it) may see brother 
 and sister, father and child, united by the sacra- 
 ment of matrimony. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 Let me return to my monks, who, whatever 
 may be the abuses of their institutions, have no- 
 thing to do with such abominations. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 While they are monks, no : but scatter the dra- 
 gon's teeth upon a warmer mould, and up springs 
 a body of the same troopers. 
 
 Those of Rome were desirous, not many years 
 ago, of beatifying one of your countrymen. Such 
 a rarity, said Benedetto Sant-Anna, one of its 
 promoters, was the hrilliant device of father Ne- 
 pomiicenoy and should have gloriously greased 
 our platters, Benedetto Sant-Anna Torbellini is 
 the natural son of a prince whom I esteem. Neg- 
 lecting his studies, he was placed in a monastery 
 at Rome, where he was remarkable for his musical 
 powers and his influence on the minds of his fair 
 auditors. An intrigue with the adopted niece of 
 a Cardinal, was his ruin. It is not enough, Be- 
 nedetto, said his Eminence, that you treat me with 
 this ingratitude ; me, whofrom your earliest youth 
 have treated you with pater7ial Vindness, We 
 have known each other^s foibles : but such an 
 affront in my own library, under my own eyes, is 
 unpardonable. 
 
 In vain he protested that, guilty as he was, this 
 aggravation of his guilt was unintentional; that 
 for the universe he would not have wounded the 
 feelings of his early friend and benefactor, who 
 certainly had been towards him a great deal more 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 197 
 
 than ever father was; that his Eminence at no 
 other time could have been irritated by any 
 levity in him ; that he thought the library a sanc- 
 tuary unentered by human foot ; and that he and 
 Costanza had almost blinded themselves, by dust- 
 ing the cushion where . . . Begone from my sights 
 villain; leave Rome instantly, cried the cardinal. 
 He obeyed, bringing me a letter ; on which, know- 
 ing his state of probation, I did not hesitate to 
 place him at the head of my young fifers, and he 
 will shortly be leader of my band. His account of 
 the sanctification is this. 
 
 A poor devil had been observed every day, for 
 twenty years, saying his prayers and beating his 
 breast upon a bridge at Rome. It sounded like 
 a drum from inanition voluntary or involuntary. 
 During the performance of these religious duties 
 a boy, who had gone over upon the butress on 
 such an occasion as is usual here in Italy on those 
 places, fell from it, and was taken up by a barge 
 a little way off. We have receits for doing every 
 thing, miracles not excepted. On the death of the 
 Frenchman, who was attended in his last moments 
 by father Nepomuceno, it was resolved to make a 
 saint of him, as having saved by his intercession 
 the boy who tumbled from the butress. Deposi- 
 tions were made upon oath that he was seen pray- 
 
198 PEJ'Ell LEOPOLB 
 
 ing at the time, and that he neither called out for 
 assistence nor exerted any other human aid. Such 
 unequivocal proofs of piety and faith interested all 
 the holy city in his behalf. His cloaths, after 
 being well shaken on the bridge and sprinkled 
 with holy water, were removed to the convent. 
 Benedetto Sant-Anna had the char2:e of o-ivinp: 
 them the odour of sanctity, by sprinkling them 
 daily with the powder of a Tonquin bean, a sub- 
 stance then unknown at the capital of the chris- 
 tian world. They were kissed inside and outside, 
 and some of the more pious in this operation licked 
 them furtively. 
 
 You must have observed at Rome, M. Pre- 
 sident^ a vast number of lame beggars. No single 
 war, in ancient or modern times, could have lamed 
 so many as now become lame every year. Nearly 
 all are cheats. A consultation was holden by the 
 elder monks ; and it was resolved to collect these 
 rogues and vagabonds, and to restore the use of 
 their limbs in the church of the monastery. Two 
 younger members of the confraternity were com- 
 missioned to joke with some and to pay a paolo 
 to others. At the morning appointed for the 
 solemnity, the cloisters were filled with these 
 creatures upon crutches, and the church, arrayed 
 ni silks of yellow and red, was admirably well 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 199 
 
 attended. Every one was in full dress: the ladies 
 with naked bosoms, the gentlemen with swords. 
 Suddenly the cloister-door flew open, and a tre- 
 mendous sound was heard from the pavement to 
 the roof. Tatters rustled round, crutches and 
 knees and bosoms covered with parchment made a 
 noise greater than that of an attack with bayonets. 
 Waves of mendicants, one bending over another, 
 poured in. It was an edifying sight. 
 
 An old beggar, really lame, and not in the 
 secret, heard by chance of the ceremony, and 
 hopped in after the rest. Many prayers were 
 offered up to the beggar-saint: the censer was 
 waved frequently before his picture; motions of 
 the hands in various figures were made over the 
 supplicants, and all received signal benefit. Some 
 walked like boys, others walked indeed, but felt 
 pain. Again crosses were made, again breasts 
 were beaten, groans and thanksgivings were 
 mingled, till at last pain and stiffness were unfelt 
 by all; old sinews were knitted anew, lost bones 
 recovered, and even the maimed and mangled left 
 their late supports in the nave of the church as in- 
 cumbrances, and perhaps as offerings, and walked 
 firm and erect to finish their thanks in the refectory. 
 One only remained. Father Nepomuceno who led 
 the rear, approached him marveling, and said 
 
200 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 majestically and somewhat angrily, Arise, The 
 beggar, strengthened in faith, made an effort. 
 
 Do not you find yourself better ? said father 
 Nepomuceno. 
 
 Rather better, replied the mendicant. 
 
 Rise then instantly. 
 
 He raised himself vehemently, and his crutches 
 and knees and knuckles rattled all in unison upon 
 the floor. 
 
 Thou man of little faith ! avoay ! exclaimed 
 father Nepomuceno. He led him into his cell, 
 and cried furiously, What means this ? 
 
 God knows, replied the poor good patient crea- 
 ture ; it is God's wilL 
 
 Have you prayed ? asked the father hastily. 
 
 Thrice aday regularly, since I coidd speak. 
 
 In church ? and always to the Virgin ? 
 
 Yes, replied the penitentiary. 
 
 Have you confessed ? 
 
 Yes, 
 
 Have you scourged yourself for your manifold 
 sins ? 
 
 Alas! how can I scourge myself! cried the 
 beggar with tears in his eyes, from so painful an 
 inability . . . / can only beat myself when I lie 
 down: and besides, I can committ no offence to any 
 one, xvhich God forbid I should ever wish to do. 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 201 
 
 No offence to any one! is that no offence? 
 Ho*w ! no offence do you think it to talk thus pre- 
 sumptuously ? We are all sinners : unless we did 
 works of charity and penitence, what, in the name 
 of heaven, would become of us! Vile wretch! 
 I must open your eyes ; you have secret crimes 
 unejcpiated : you have brought dishonour upon 
 him who would have been your patron, and whose 
 manifold mercies you have just witnessed towards 
 the more deserving. 
 
 Upon this he took down a scourge, and bade 
 the beggar kiss it. The contrite man compHed. 
 The father unconsciously drew it through his left 
 hand, and found that it was one adapted to his own 
 shoulders. He threw it down indignantly, and 
 seized an old cord from across the back of a chair, 
 with which, and without any farther ceremonials, 
 he scourged the lame beggar heartily, exhorted 
 him to faith, humility, and penitence, and dis- 
 missed him weeping and praising God that his 
 eyes were opened'*^. 
 
 * Saints are again the rage, but saints of hon ton. It will 
 hardly be credited that the following is an extract from a 
 Gazette. Firenze, giovedi 19 Decembre 1822. La religione 
 de' Servi di Maria (her servants are very familiar with her) 
 che ha avuto origine in questa capitale, ci ha dato in quest' 
 anno il contento di vedere due de' suoi figli^, nostri Toscani, 
 sollevati alt onore degli altari, cioe il B. Ubaldo Adimari, 
 
202 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 I am not the advocate of this order ; but it con- 
 tains, I know, many virtuous individuals; many 
 have resigned all pretensions to patrimony in favour 
 of brothers and sisters, relying on a secure posses- 
 sion of their hoods and cells. I may not be greatly 
 benefitted by their processions or their prayers, but 
 surely as much by these as by the cutlass and pistol 
 of the highwayman. 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 I trust however, M. Du Paty, that the laws and 
 establishments are better in Tuscany than in the 
 other states of Italy. 
 
 nobile Fiorentino di cui ne furono gla fatte le festi uella basi- 
 lica della SS. Annunziata di questa citta^, ne' tre giorni della 
 scorsa pasqua, cioe 7- 8. e 9 Aprile, e nella chiesa di monte 
 Senario il di 16 nello scorso maggio, in cui ricorreva la solen- 
 nita de Ascenzion del Signore, e il B. Bonaventura Bonac- 
 corsi^ nobile Pistojese;, del quale oltre le solennissime feste ce- 
 lebrate in Orvieto^ dove passo alia gloria e si conserva il di lui 
 sacro corpo, ne' giorni 11. 12. e 13 dello scorso ottobre^ il di 
 14 del correntC;, giorno della sua jjreziosa morte, ne fu con de- 
 cente sacra pompa solennizata la niemoria nella predetta basi- 
 lica della SS. Annunziata. Rendiamo pertanto grazie all'Al- 
 tissimo, per averci concesso in questi due Beati Comprensori 
 due potenti avvocati al suo divin trono ! According then to 
 the papists, God is ready enough to receive thanlvs and per- 
 fumery, from whoever offers, without the introduction of squire 
 or chamberlain, but is somewhat slow to grant pardon without 
 such powerful advocates as Signor Bonaventura Bonaccorsi or 
 Signor Ubaldo Adimari, in their saintly embroidered shoes 
 and pink satin robes of glory. 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 203 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 I observed nearly the same inequality at Como. 
 A house of industry was established there: virtuous 
 mothers have been led frequently out of it, heavy 
 with child, and died from inanition in the streets, 
 their allowance of food being only one scanty meal 
 in the twenty-four hours, while prostitutes, thieves, 
 assassins, poisoners have enjoyed purer air and 
 more comfortable accommodation in prison, and 
 have been supplied twice in the day with more 
 wholesome food, and each time more abundantly. 
 In both instances a discouragement is holden forth 
 to honesty, a premium to crime. Sovrans know 
 more correctly the state of other countries than of 
 their own. We may be too near great objects to 
 discern them justly, and the greatest of all objects 
 to a prince is the internal state of his people. 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 Your observation is just. The persons we em- 
 ploy have more interest in deceiving us than others 
 have. I can trust one, Gianni*. I send none 
 
 * At my last arrival on the continent, it retained among 
 its ruins two great men, Kosciusko, and Gianni : the one I had 
 seen in England, the other I visited in Genoa. He was in 
 his ninetieth year ; an age to which no other minister of king 
 or prince or republic has attained. But the evil passions 
 never preyed on the heart of Gianni : he enjoyed good health 
 from good spirits, and those from their only genuine source, a 
 
^04 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 abroad ; so that I am rather less liable to decep- 
 tion than my neighbours are. As the gentlemen 
 
 clear conscience. Accustomed, as I had been, to see chatter- 
 ing mountebanks leap one after another upon the same stage, 
 play the same tricks they had exploded, first amid the ap- 
 plauses and afterwards amid the execration of the people, I 
 was refreshed and comforted by the calmness and simplicity 
 of this venerable old man. Occasionally he displayed a pro- 
 pensity to satire, not the broadfaced buffoonery, and washy 
 loquacity of his nation, but the apposite and delicate wit which 
 once sparkled in the better societies of Athens and of Paris. 
 He has left behind him a history of his own times, which 
 never will be published in ours. If any leading state of Europe 
 had been governed by such a minister, how harmless would 
 have been the French revolution out of France, how transitory 
 in. Patient, provident, moderate, imperturbable, he knew on 
 all occasions what kind and what intensity of resistance should 
 be opposed to violence and tumult. I will adduce two in- 
 stances. Ricci bishop of Pistoja and Prato, had excited the 
 indignation of his diocesans, by an attempt, as is related in 
 the Dialogue, to introduce the prayers in Italian, and to abo- 
 lish some idle festivals and processions. The populace of 
 Prato, headed by a Confraternity, broke forth into acts of re- 
 bellion ; the bishop's palace was assaulted, his life threatened. 
 The church-bells summoned all true believers to the banner : 
 the broken bones of saints were exposed, and invited others to 
 be broken. Leopold, on hearing it, shocked in his system of 
 policy, forgot at the moment the mildness of his character, 
 and ordered all the military at hand to march against the in- 
 surgents. Gianni was sent for : he entered the very instant 
 this command was issued. What disturbs your Highness? 
 said he mildly. 
 
 " You ought to have been informed, Gianni, answered the 
 Gran-duke, that the populace of Prato has resisted my authority 
 and insulted Ricci. My troops march in a body against these 
 wretches." / have already dispatched a stronger force against 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 205 
 
 of Tuscany seldom travel further than to Sienna 
 or to Pisa, the expense of a cofFeehousekeeper, 
 under the title of plenipotentiary, is saved me 
 everywhere. 
 
 them than your Highness has done, tvhich hy your permission 
 must remain in the city. 
 
 " On free-quarters until the madmen are quiet. But how 
 could you collect a stronger force so instantaneously ?" 
 
 Instead of ituo regiments I dispatched txvo crosses ; instead 
 of cannon and ammunition-iKaggons, a nail-boa', a hammer, 
 and a clean 7iapkin. If reinforcements are wanted, 'we can 
 find a dice-box at Riccardi's, and a spunge at Rospigliosi's, 
 071 good secu7'ity. At this hour hoxvever, I am persuaded that 
 the Confraternity is walking in procession and extolling to the 
 shies not your humanity but your devotion. It was so. 
 
 The maximum or assize had been abolished by Gianni : 
 lands and provisions rose in value: the people was discon- 
 tented, broke into his house, drank his wine, cut his beds in 
 pieces, and carried off the rest of his furniture. Leopold, 
 who had succeeded to the Empire of Germany and was re- 
 siding at Vienna, decreed that the utmost severity should be 
 exercised against all who had borne any part in this sedition. 
 It was difficult to separate the more guilty from the less; 
 particularly as every man, convicted of delinquency, might 
 hope to extenuate his offence by accusing his enemy of 
 one more flagrant. Gianni, who could neither disobey nor 
 deferr the mandate of the Emperor, engaged Commendatore 
 Pazzi to invite some hundreds of the people to a banquet in 
 the court-yard of his palace. 
 
 Now while the other families of those Florentines, who in 
 ages past had served this bustling little city, were neglected 
 for their obscurity, shunned for their profligacy, or despised 
 for their avarice and baseness, that of Riccardi was still in 
 esteem for its splendid hospitality, that of Pazzi for its patron- 
 age of the people. The invitation was unsuspected : they met, 
 
W6 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 Your Highness is as desirous of abolishing idle 
 offices as others are of creating them^. 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 I am not afraid of losing my place from a want 
 of party friends, and have no very poor relations 
 to support. Among the residents in Florence, I 
 speak in confidence M. President, I remember 
 none of even ordinary talents, or, according to 
 what I could judge or could learn from report, of 
 
 they feasted, they drank profusely ; every man brought forward 
 his merits ; what each had done, and what each was ready to 
 do, was openly declared and carefully recorded. On the follow- 
 ing morning, before day-break, forty were on the road to the 
 gallies. The people is never in such danger, as from its idol. 
 * There is in Italy a little state governed by a woman, who 
 constantly sends after the opera to the innkeepers of her city, 
 and demands a portion of what has been spent amongst them 
 within the day by strangers. If many carriages have stopped 
 at their doors, in passing through the place, the same visit is 
 made, the same tax imposed. She has forbidden the extraction 
 of pictures, offering to purchase them at the value : she has 
 taken several to herself, and has never paid for them. Is it 
 not as proper for the Saints of the Holy Alliance to exercise 
 the duties of high police in such instances, as against the 
 public, where great nations, and such as were never subject to 
 them, rise unanimously and demand the reform of government > 
 England maintains a minister at the court of this woman, 
 whose revenues are little more than his appointments, and 
 whose political influence is weaker than that of any one who 
 keeps a secondrate ginshop in St. Giles. What reed or rush, 
 in its rottenest plight, but serves for the spawn of our aristo- 
 cracv to stick on ! 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. SOT 
 
 the slightest political or literary reputation. Not 
 long ago a young person was sent hither in that 
 capacity, who had more dogs than books, and 
 more mistresses than ideas. He rode hard, drank 
 hard, and fiddled hard, and admitted to his society, 
 as such people usually do, the vilest and most 
 abandoned of both sexes. At Milan, his course 
 was arrested by a deficiency of means: he had 
 already drawn on his bankers here for sums be- 
 yond such even as the prodigality of his govern- 
 ment had enabled him to deposit in their hands. 
 With this heavy debt upon him, he drew on them 
 again from Milan, at one single time, for four 
 thousand crowns : the draft was dishonoured, with 
 a protestation that their concerns were inadequate 
 to such frequent and vast demands. He replied 
 with a vehemence of language such as most tri- 
 bunals would have severely punished in a private 
 character, and such as, if presented in complaint 
 to me, would have obliged me to insist on his re- 
 call. When he thus retired to rest himself for 
 about a year, after the labours of his office, he left 
 behind him a pack of hounds, a groom, a charge 
 d'affaires, a chasseur, and several other domestics. 
 The amusement of these delegated powers was cat- 
 hunting in the spacious gardens belonging to the 
 Legation. Every day the diversion was pursued, until 
 
208 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 the neighbourhood was so infested with rats, that 
 serious remonstrances, light as the subject may ap- 
 pear, were presented to me, by gardeners, grocers, 
 oihnen, booksellers and stationers, and other trades, 
 and I condemned to extermination by poison the 
 more innocent of the offenders. 
 
 As it often happens that those who are very 
 wealthy, are far from forward in displaying what 
 they possess, so happens it that, in countries which 
 abound in talents and genius, the governors are 
 careless how little of them is exhibited in their 
 appointments to foren courts. I should be happy 
 to see, as ministers at mine, M. President, men 
 like you, with whom I could converse familiarly 
 and frankly on matters of high importance : and 
 in my opinion no greater compliment could be 
 paid me, by the princes my friends and allies. 
 To delegate as their representatives young persons 
 of no knowledge, no conduct, no respectability, 
 proves to me a neglect of their duty and an in- 
 difference to their honour, and no less evidently 
 shews the opinion they entertain of me to be 
 unworthy and injurious. Trifling men, in such 
 situations, may suit indeed small courts, but not 
 where the sovran enjoys any considerable share of 
 credit, for the rectitude of his viewr and the 
 arduousness of his undertakings. This reflection 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT Dt' PATY. 209 
 
 leads me back again to an enquiry into the last of 
 your positions, that my code provides but faintly 
 and ineffectually for the protection of character. 
 
 The states of Italy are the parts of shame in the 
 body politic of Europe. I would not hold out an 
 aegis to protect a snail : the gardener does not shelter 
 his plants while they are underground. I declare 
 to you, M. Du Paty, that whenever and wherever 
 I find a character to protect, I will protect it. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 I am averse to the perpetual maintenance of 
 great armies; but without somewhat of a military 
 spirit there can be little spirit for anything, as we 
 see in China and India. That the Florentines 
 should have conquered the Pisans, quite astonishes 
 me when I look upon them ; at present they could 
 not conquer a hencoop guarded by a cur. 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 The Italians, when they were bravest, were like 
 tame rabbits ; very pugnacious amongst themselves, 
 but crouching, screaming, and submitting to be 
 torne piecemeal by the smallest creatures of an- 
 other race. In the consulate of Marcus Valerius 
 (brother of Publicola) and Postumius, the Sabines 
 were conquered: thirteen thousand prisoners were 
 taken in two battles, in the second no Roman was 
 slain. 
 
210 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 I want no armies : if ever I should want them, 
 I can procure a much better commodity at the 
 same price: the rations of a Bohemian and of a 
 Tuscan are the same: I would not exchange a 
 good farmer for a bad soldier, I want honest 
 men, and no other glory than that of making 
 them. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 In Tuscany there are persons of integrity ; few 
 indeed, and therefore the more estimable. One 
 honest Italian is worth one hundred thousand 
 honest Englishmen, for such I imagine to be the 
 proportion. Wherever there is a substitute for 
 morality, where ceremonies stand in the place of 
 duties, where the confession of a fault before a 
 priest is more meritorious than never to have 
 committed it, where virtues and duties are vi- 
 carious, where crimes can be expiated after death 
 for money, where by breaking a wafer you open 
 the gates of heaven, probity and honour, if they 
 exist at all, exist in the temperament of the in- 
 dividual. Hence a general indifference to virtue 
 in others ; hence the best men in Italy do not avoid 
 the worst ; hence the diverging rays of opinion can 
 be brought to no focus ; nothing can be consumed 
 by it, nothing warmed. 
 
 The language proves the character of the 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 211 
 
 people. Of all pursuits and occupations, for I 
 am unwilling to call it knowledge, the most 
 trifling is denominated virtu. 
 
 The Romans, detained from war and activity 
 by a calm, termed it malacia : the Italians, whom 
 it keeps out of danger, call it bonaccia* . 
 
 Love of their country is so feeble, that whatever 
 is excellent they call pelegrino. 
 
 So corrupt are they, that softness with them 
 must partake of disease and impurity : it is mor- 
 bidezza. 
 
 Such is their idea of contemplation, and of the 
 subjects on which it should be fixed, that if a 
 dinner is given to a person of rank, the gazettes 
 announce that it was presented alia Contemplazione 
 della sua Eccellenza, 
 
 A lamb's fry is cosa stupenda. 
 
 Strength, which frightens, and finery, which 
 attracts them, are honesty : hence valentuomo and 
 
 * On malacia and bonaccia let me remark that although 
 the latter supplanted the former as Beneventum did Male- 
 ventum, yet malacia descends not in a direct line from malus 
 (a thing evidently unknown to those who substituted in its 
 place bonaccia,) but from (/.ocXolko;. Malus itself has the same 
 origin^ Effeminacy and wickedness were correlative terms 
 both in Greek and Latin, as were courage and virtue. With 
 us softness and folly, virtue and purity. Let others determine 
 on which side lies the indication of the more quiet, delicate, 
 and reflecting people. 
 
212 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 galantuomo, A welldressed man is a man of 
 honour, uomo di garho. 
 
 Pride is offended at selling anything : the shop- 
 keeper tells you that he gives you his yard of 
 shoe-ribbon: da, not vende. 
 
 Misfortune is criminal : the captive is a wicked 
 man, cattivo, 
 
 Meschino, formerly |?oor^, is now mischievous, 
 or bad. 
 
 A person is not rendered vile by any mis- 
 conduct or criminality: but if he has the tooth- 
 ache, he is avvilito. 
 
 Opera was among the Romans labour, as opei^a^ 
 prethim, &c. It now signifies the most con- 
 temptible of performances, the vilest office of the 
 feet and tongue, whenever it stands alone bi/ 
 excellence. 
 
 Ostia, a sacrifice fhostiaj now serves equally to 
 designate the Almighty and the wafer that seals a 
 billet-doux t. 
 
 * Teseo era stato anch* egli un certo protettore e difensore, 
 e benignamente e con amorevolezza haveva ascoltato i preghi 
 degli uomini meschini. — Vite di Plutarco da M. Ludovico Do- 
 meniclii MDLX. 
 
 t The following distich on the eucharist, as it is called, does 
 not appear to have been written by any of the Jesuits. 
 
 Oblita butyro quanta es mea crustula ! quanta, 
 Vel sine butyro quum deus esse potes ! 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 213 
 
 Your Highness will permit me to add one more 
 example. If injustice is done and redress claimed, 
 it is requisite to perform an execrable act, if the 
 words mean anything, iimiliare una supplica. 
 Language so base and infamous was never heard 
 in the palace of Domitian, who commanded that 
 he should be called lord and God. 
 
 I could select many more such expressions. In 
 this perversion of moral feeling, it is not to be 
 expected that the laws can always stand upright. 
 It is dangerous for a forener not to visit a com- 
 missary of police; but to omit in an address to 
 him the title of Illustrissimo, is fatal. I conversed 
 the other day with an English gentleman, who 
 had conducted his wife and family to Pistoja, for 
 the benefit of the air. He rented a villa at the 
 recommendation of the proprietor, who assured 
 him that the walls were dry; the only doubt he 
 entertained. Within a few days it rained, and the 
 bedchambers were covered with drops. His wife 
 and child suffered in their health : he expostulated : 
 he offered to pay a month's rent and to quit the 
 premises, insisting on the nullity of an agreement 
 
 The comparison in this next between St. Martinus and 
 Paetus, is more in their manner. 
 
 Major uter? tunicam, Martine, rogantibus offers; 
 Pa3te, dares ultro quod tegitur tunica. 
 
Sl# PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 founded on fraud. The proposal was rejected : a 
 court of judicature declared the contract void. 
 The gentleman, to prove that there was nothing 
 light or ungenerous in his motive, gave to his 
 banker, M. Cassigoli, the amount of the six 
 months' rent, to be distributed among respectable 
 families in distress. The proprietor of the house, 
 enraged at losing not only what he had demanded, 
 but also what was offered, circulated a report in 
 the coffeehouses and wherever he went, that the 
 gentleman might well throw away his money, 
 having acquired immense sums by piracy. He is, 
 on the contrary, a literary man, of a life extremely 
 retired. Such expressions could not fail to be in- 
 jurious to a stranger, in any place v/hatever, and 
 particularly in a town where perhaps until then 
 no stranger had resided. He appealed to the 
 tribunals, with a result far different from the 
 former. The commissary, to whom the business 
 was referred by them, called the offender to him 
 in private, without informing the plaintiff of his 
 intention. Hence no proof was adduced, no wit- 
 ness was present, and the gentleman knew nothing 
 of the result for several weeks afterwards. It was, 
 an admonition to be more cautious in future, given 
 to a man, who had in succession been servant to 
 two masters, both of whom were found dead with- 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 215 
 
 out illness; a man who, without any will in his 
 favour, any success in the lottery, any dowry wdth 
 his wife, any trade or profession, any employment 
 or occupation, possessed twelve thousand crowns. 
 Where justice is refused, neglected, or perverted, 
 the Presidente del huon Governo is the magistrate 
 who receives the appeal. The forener stated his 
 case fully to the president, from whom he obtained 
 no redress^. 
 
 * The following circumstances have just occurred. A girl 
 in the service of an English family^ warned to leave it^ for 
 the commonest if not the slightest of offences^ walked away 
 from the teatable to the other side of the room, equally distant 
 from the door^, and poured boiling water on a beautiful boy 
 four years old. She expressed no concern whatever, nor even 
 lifted the child from the ground on which he fell. The father 
 ordered her to quit the apartment. She disobeyed : he pushed 
 her out with some violence, and, as it appeared, not without a 
 bruize on the face. She went directly to live, at a cheap 
 rate, with a judge, who probably gave her directions 
 how to act, instead of saying, as a more honest man would, 
 " You have done a greater mischief than you have received : 
 1 cannot countenance you in your 'prosecution y The man- 
 servant who caused her dismissal, was called to declare that 
 she had received some dozen blows on the breast: he swore 
 so : it was proved by an Italian marquis and an English gen- 
 tleman, who were present, that he was not in the room : nei- 
 ther he nor the girl was reproved for perjury and subornation 
 to perjury ; the one being a spy, the other linng with a judge. 
 The matter was then brought before three judges ; they de- 
 cided unanimously against her. It was again tried before 
 three others : two were of the same opinion. The youngest, 
 a friend of the girl, and of whose protection she boasted openly, 
 gave his sentence in her favour. It was tried a third time, 
 before three friends of the protecting judge j and they, as 
 
216 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 As 1 covered my ears at the commencement, I 
 must at the conchision. But ill and scandalously 
 as my servants acted, the rank and character of the 
 injured gentleman were imperfectly known to the 
 commissary and the president, who also are ignorant 
 that many of the best families in England are 
 untitled. Here counts and marquisses are more 
 
 might be expected, reversed the former sentences, remarking 
 that the gentleman might recover, from the hundred livres he 
 ■was condemned by them to pay;, as much as should, after an^ 
 other legal process, appear just and reasonable for the injury 
 his family had sustained, his wife in thirtysix days of fever 
 and con\'ulsions from her fears, his child in a scald, on the 
 head, neck, and shoulders, cured within a month. He was 
 condemned to discharge all the costs of the prosecution, because 
 the girl could not, and because her lawyer was a very young 
 man and wanted encouragement: 
 
 The salary of n judge in Tuscany is that of a cook in Eng- 
 land ; the regard to character far lower : yet that the office is 
 considered as more illustrious, is demonstrated by the fact, of 
 the president del luon governo, having been promoted to this 
 station from the former. The English gentleman did not offer 
 to profit by this knowledge. 
 
 More injustice is committed in the name of the mild and 
 virtuous Ferdinand than of the most ferocious and faithless 
 prince in Christendom. 
 
 A courier who had been in the service of Prince Borghese, 
 M'ent openly by day into the Postmaster's office, stabbed him 
 in the body, fired a pistol through his hand, was confined at 
 Volterra, and released at the intercession of Prince Borghese 
 in six vceeks. 
 
 Whoever shall publish a periodical work, containing a cor* 
 rect and detailed account of irregularities and iniquities in 
 the various courts of law throughout Europe, Mill accomplish 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 217 
 
 plentiful than sheep and swine, families have orders 
 of knighthood who have not credit for a pound 
 of polenta, and the bravest of whose members 
 would tremble to mount a goat, in their worst 
 breeches. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 Your predecessors have softened what was al- 
 ready too soft: and your Highness must give 
 some consistency to your mud, by exposing and 
 working it, if you desire to leave upon it any 
 durable or just impression. I am afraid it will 
 close upon your footstep the moment you go away. 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 I hope not. Tuscany is a beautiful landscape 
 with bad figures : I must introduce better. I 
 must begin with what forms the moral character, 
 however my conduct may be viewed by the catholic 
 princes. Few amongst them are better than whipt 
 children, or wiser than unwhipt ones. They are 
 puppets in the hands of priests: they nod their 
 heads, open their mouths, shut their eyes, and 
 
 the greatest of all literary undertakings^ and will obtain the 
 merit of the staunchest, the truest^ and the best of all re- 
 formers. No subject is so humble that it may not be recom- 
 mended by a fit simplicity of style ; no story so flat that it 
 may not solicit attention if edged by pointed remarks. The 
 writer will perform one of those operations which are often so 
 admired in Nature, by eliciting a steddy, broad, and beautiful 
 light, from rottenness and corruption. 
 
218 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 their blood is liquefied or congealed at the touch 
 of these impostors. I must lessen their influence 
 by lessening their number. To the intent of 
 keeping up a numerous establishment of satellites 
 in the church militant, a priest is punished more 
 severely for performing twice in the day the most 
 holy of his ceremonies, than for almost any vio- 
 lation of morality. But the popes perhaps have in 
 secret a typical sense of the mass, permitting the 
 priest to celebrate it only once, in remembrance 
 that Christ was sold once only. When we arrive 
 at mystery, a single step farther and we tumble 
 into the foss of fraud. The Romish church is 
 the general hospital of all old and incurable super- 
 stitions from the Ganges to the Po. It is useful 
 to princes as a pigstie is to farmers, but it shall 
 not infect my palace, and shall do as little mis- 
 chief as possible to my people. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 Your Highness, by diminishing the number of 
 priests, will encrease the rate of masses. A few 
 days ago I went into San Lorenzo, and saw a 
 clergyman strip off his gown before the altar with 
 violence and indignation. Enquiring the reason, 
 I was informed that four pauls had been offered 
 to him for a mass, which he accepted, and that on 
 his coming into the church, the negotiator said he 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 219 
 
 could afford to pay only three*. There are offices 
 in the city where masses are bargained for pub- 
 licly. Purgatory is the Peru of Catholicism : the 
 body of Christ in some of our shops is at the 
 price of a stockfish, in others a fat goose will 
 hardly reach it, and in Via de' Calzaioli it is 
 worth a sucking pig. 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 The Roman states are sadly worse in proportion. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 There are more religious in that territory than 
 
 * The Italians were always, far exceeding all other nations, 
 parsimonious and avaricious ; the Tuscans beyond all other Ita- 
 lians ; the Florentines beyond all other Tuscans. So scandalous 
 an example of it, as occurred a few months ago, is, I hope and 
 believe, unparallelled. Prince ******* married a woman 
 of immense fortune, by whom he has a family of eight children. 
 He took a mistress : the wife languished and died. He gave 
 orders that all her cloaths should be sold by auction in his 
 palace; old gowns, old petticoats, old shifts, old shoes, old 
 gloves ; even articles at the value of one penny, such as ex- 
 cited the derision of some, the blushes of others, the horror of 
 not a few. 
 
 There had been no quarrel between the wife and husband. 
 She was beautiful, engaging, sweet-tempered, compliant, do- 
 mestic. She sank from the world which her virtues had adorned, 
 and had been seven days in her grave, when prostitutes pa- 
 raded the street before her palace, wearing those dresses in 
 which the most exemplary of mothers had given the last lessons 
 of morality to her daughters. The prince is one of the richest 
 men on the continent : he is supposed to spend about a tenth 
 of his income : and the sale produced fourteen pounds. 
 
9,20". PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 slavemasters in our American islands, and their 
 gangs are under stronger and severer discipline. 
 The refuse of manhood exercises the tyranny of 
 Xerxes in the cloak and under the statutes of 
 Pythagoras. 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 I would willingly see several religions in my 
 states, knowing that in England and Holland 
 they are checks one upon another. The quaker 
 inverts his eye and rebukes his graceless son, by 
 shewing him how industrious and tractable is the 
 son of some fierce presbyterian : the catholic points 
 to the daughter of a socinian, and cries shame 
 upon his own, educated as she was in the purity of 
 the faith, in the religion of so many forefathers. 
 Catholicism loses somewhat of its poisonous strong 
 savour, by taking root in a well-pulverized well- 
 harrowed soil. As competition levels the price of 
 provisions, so maintains it the just value of sects. 
 Whatever is vicious in one, is kept under by the 
 concourse of others, and each is emulous to prove 
 the superiority of its doctrines by honesty and 
 regularity of life. If ever the English could be 
 brought to one opinion in politics or religion, 
 they would lose the energy of their character and 
 the remains of their freedom. In England the 
 catholics are unexceptionably good members of 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 221 
 
 society, although the gentlemen of that persuasion, 
 I hear, are generally more ignorant than others, 
 partly by the jealous spirit of their church, and 
 partly by an ungenerous exclusion from the uni- 
 versities. They keep, as here, a chaplain in their 
 houses, but always a man of worth, and not com- 
 bining as in Italy a plurality of incongruous offices. 
 Here a confessor, in many instances, is tutor to 
 the children, house-steward to the father, and 
 cavaliere serviente to the mother. He thinks it 
 would be a mockery of God to call her to confess, 
 without a decent provision of slight transgressions. 
 He cures her indigestions by a dram, her qualms 
 of conscience by a sacrament. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 Both morality and learning require the sound 
 of feet running fast behind them, to keep them 
 from loitering and flagging. When Calvinism 
 was making a progress in France, the catholic 
 bishops were learned men ; indeed so learned, that 
 Joseph Scaliger, himself a calvinist, acknowledged 
 in the latter part of his life their immense supe- 
 riority over the rising sect. At present there is 
 only one bishop in France capable of reading a 
 chapter in the Greek testament, which every 
 schoolboy in England, for whatever profession he 
 is intended, must do at eleven years of age. I 
 
PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 would then recommend a free commerce both of 
 matter and of mind. I would let men enter their 
 own churches with the same freedom as their own 
 houses; and I would do it without a homily on 
 graciousness or favour : for tyranny itself is to me 
 a word less odious than toleration, 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 I am placed among certain small difficulties. 
 Tuscany is my farm : the main object of all pro- 
 prietors is their income. I would see my cattle 
 fat and my labourers well-cloathed ; but I would 
 not permit the cattle to break down my fences, 
 nor the labourer to dilapidate my buildings. I 
 will preserve the catholic religion, in all its 
 dogmas, forms, discipline, and ceremonies: it is 
 the pommel of a sovran's sword, and the richest 
 jewel in his regalia: no bull however shall squeeze 
 out blood under me, no faggot sweat out heresy, 
 no false key shall unlock my treasury. The pro- 
 pensity will always exist. The system has been 
 called imperium in imperio, very unwisely : it was 
 imperium super imperio, until it taught kings to 
 profit by its alphabet, its cyphers, and its flagella- 
 tions. You complain that I have softened my 
 mud. This is the season for treading and knead- 
 ing it ; and there are no better means of doing so, 
 none cheaper, none more effectual, than by keep- 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 223 
 
 irig a posse of priests upon the platform. America 
 will produce disturbances in Europe by her eman- 
 cipation from England. The example will operate 
 in part, not principally. Wherever there is a na- 
 tional debt, disproportionably less rapid in its ex- 
 tinction than in its formation, there is a revolu- 
 tionary tendency ; this will spread where there is 
 none, as maladies first engendered in the air are 
 soon communicated by contact to the sound and 
 healthy. Various causes will be attributed to the 
 effect; even the books of philosophers. All the 
 philosophers in the world would produce a weaker 
 effect in this business than one blind ballad-singer. 
 Principles are of slower growth than passions : and 
 the hand of Philosophy, holden out to all, there 
 are few who press cordially : and who are those ? 
 the disappointed, the contemplative, the retired, 
 the timid. Did Cromwel read Plato? did the 
 grocers of Boston read Locke ? The true motives, 
 in political affairs, are often very improbable. 
 Men who never heard of philosophy but to sneer 
 at it after dinner, will attribute to it all those evils 
 which their own venality and corruption have en- 
 gendered, and not from any spirit of falsehood, 
 but from incompetency of judgement and reflec- 
 tion. What is the stablest in itself is not always 
 so in all places : marble is harder and more durable 
 
2S4 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 than timber : but the palaces of Venice and Am- 
 sterdam would have sunken into the deep without 
 wooden piles for their foundation. Single govern- 
 ment wants those manifold props which are sup- 
 plied well-seasoned by Catholicism. A king in- 
 deed may lose his throne by indiscretion or inad- 
 vertency, but the throne itself will never lose its 
 legs in any catholic state. Never will any repub- 
 lican or any mixed constitution exist seven years, 
 where the hierarchy of Rome hath exerted its 
 potency. Venice and Genoa shew no proofs to 
 the contrary: they arose and grew up while the 
 popes were bishops, and ere mankind had witnessed 
 the wonderful spectacle of an inverted apotheosis. 
 God forbid that any corrupt nation should dream 
 of becoming what America is : if it possesses one 
 single man of reflection, he will demonstrate the 
 utter impracticability of citizenship, where the 
 stronger body of the state, as the clergy must 
 morally be, receives its impulse and agency from 
 without, where it claims to itself a jurisdiction 
 over all, excluding all from any authority over its 
 concerns. This demonstration leads to a sentence, 
 which policy is necessitated to pronounce and 
 humanity is unable to mitigate. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 Theories and speculations, which always subvert 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. 225 
 
 religious, never subvert political establishments. 
 Uneasiness makes men shift their postures. Na- 
 tional debts produce the same effects as private 
 ones; immorality and a desire of change; the 
 former universally, the latter almost so. A man 
 may well think he pays profusely, who pays a 
 tenth as an ensurance for his property against 
 all the perils of the sea. Does he reason less 
 justly who deems the same sum sufficient for the 
 security of the remainder, in his own lands, in 
 his own house? No conquered people was ever 
 obliged to surrender such a portion of its wealth, 
 present and reversionary, as in our times has 
 been expended voluntarily, in the purchase of 
 hancuffs and fetters for home-consumption. Free 
 nations, for the sake of doing mischief to others, 
 and to punish the offence of pretending to be 
 like them, have consented that the preparation 
 of grain shall be interdicted in their families, that 
 certain herbs shall never be cultivated in their 
 fields and gardens, that they shall never roast cer- 
 tain beans, nor extract certain liquors, and that 
 certain rooms in their houses shall admit no 
 light. Domitian never did against his enemies, 
 what these free nations have done against them- 
 selves. 
 
 The sea-tortoise can live without its brains, an 
 
 a 
 
226 PETER LEOPOLD 
 
 old discovery! men can govern without theirs, an 
 older still ! 
 
 LEOPOLD. 
 
 I am influenced but little by opinions: they 
 vary the most where they are strongest and loudest. 
 Here they breathe softly, and not against me ; for 
 I excite the hopes of many by extinguishing those 
 of few. What I have begun I will continue, but 
 I see clearly where I ought to stop, and know to a 
 certainty, which few reformers do, where I ca72. 
 Exempt from all intemperance of persecution, as 
 from all taint of bigotry, I am disposed to see Chris- 
 tianity neither in diamonds nor in tatters : I would 
 take down her toupee and sell her rouge-box, to 
 procure her a clean shift and inoffensive stockings. 
 
 I must persuade both clergy and laity that God 
 understands Italian. Ricci, the bishop of Pistoja, 
 is convinced of this important truth : but many of 
 his diocesans, not disputing his authority, argue 
 that, although God indeed may understand it, 
 yet the saints, to whom they offer up incense, and 
 in whom they have greater confidence, may not ; 
 and that being, for the greater part, old men, it 
 might incommode them in the regions of bliss to 
 alter pristine habits ... Warmly and heartily do I 
 thank you, M. Du Paty, for your observations. 
 You have treated me really as your equal. 
 
AND THE PRESIDENT DU PATY. %Ti 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 I should rather thank your Imperial Highness 
 for your patience and confidence. If I have pre- 
 sented one rarity to the Palazzo Pitti, I have 
 been richly remunerated with another. There 
 are only two things w^hich authorise a man out of 
 office to speak his sentiments freely in the courts 
 of princes ; very small stature and very small pro- 
 bity. You have abolished this most ancient statute, 
 in favour of a middle-sized man, who can reproach 
 himself with no perversion or neglect of justice in 
 a magistrature of twenty years. 
 
 Italy has been reinstated in all her privileges and enjoy- 
 ments 3 and the beneficent hands by which they have been 
 rescued and restored are preparing the same for the rest of 
 Europe. In the following verses may be found something 
 like the sentiments attributed to the interlocutors in this 
 Conversation. 
 
 Italia ! omnigenis salve ditissima divis ! 
 
 Scirem, utinam, quando sis genitura viros. 
 Te quondam populosque tuos urbs una subegit, 
 
 Maternaeque dedit viscera secta lupse : 
 Et nunc obtinuit Capitolia Noricus hostis, 
 
 Castraque Taurini, Parthenopesque sinum ; 
 Imposuit profugos sua post perjuria reges... 
 
 Accipe...sunt meritis praemia digna tuis. 
 
 q2 
 
S^8 PETER LEOPOLD, &c. 
 
 The same poet, five years ago, wrote these iambics. 
 
 Fugit Tyrannis exulatque ; vicimus 
 
 O milites civesque ! nunc laetamini. 
 
 Nunc serta nectite orbis omnes incolae. 
 
 Am oris omnes viva serta nectite ! 
 
 Eia ! unde triste vos tenet silentium ? 
 
 Respondeas, Ibere ! quid mussas, Tage ! 
 
 Bseti ! at beata rura tu certe colis ... 
 
 Argute Minci, cur fleas, cur ingemas ? 
 
 Avena quid vult ilia quam sic abjicis ? 
 
 Tuque ante cunctos, magne divorum comes, 
 
 Ccelo fluenta solus educens tua, 
 
 Eridane ! vultum cur paternura averteris ? 
 
 Sequar fugacem in ultima ostia, in mare 
 
 Sequar, latentes proderunt parum Hadriae 
 
 Specus...Quid est quod, immemor tot urbium 
 
 Utraque ripa, non poetarum choris, 
 
 Non montibus juveris, aut campo, aut freto ? 
 
 Quocunque vertor orbe terrarum, simul 
 
 Videtur eloqui omnium indignatio... 
 
 " O Servitutis execranda hsereditas, 
 '^ Vel hac vel ilia (quam parum refert !) manu 
 " Impertienda es ! heu neque immerentibus ! 
 " Promissa, sed promissa regibus novis, 
 " Lux liberorum ubi occidit ! mortalium 
 " Non es, futura semper es, Felicitas ! 
 " Tu vero amice hos qui locos deveneris, 
 " Poeta, faustam gratulaturus vicem, 
 " Abi...idque crede, ne nimis sero scias, 
 " Culpa est fuisse conscium nostri status." 
 
CONVERSATION XIV, 
 
 DEMOSTHENES 
 
 EUBULIDES. 
 
DEMOSTHENES 
 
 AND 
 
 EUBULIDES. 
 
 EUBULIDES. 
 
 You have always convinced me, O Demosthenes, 
 while you were speaking; but I had afterwards 
 need to be convinced again; and I acknowledge 
 that I do not yet believe in the necessity, or in- 
 deed in the utility of a war with Philip. 
 
 DEMOSTHENES. 
 
 He is too powerful. 
 
 EUBULIDES. 
 
 This is my principal reason for recommending 
 that we should abstain from hostilities ; when you 
 have said that he is too powerful, you have also 
 said that we are too weak: we are still bleeding 
 from the Spartan. 
 
 DEMOSTHENES. 
 
 All I could offer in reply, O Eubulides, I have 
 
232 DEMOSTHENES 
 
 already spoken in public, and I would rather not 
 enlarge at present on the subject. Come, tell me 
 freely what you think of my speech. 
 
 EUBULIDES. 
 
 In your language, O Demosthenes, there is a 
 resemblance to the Ilissus, whose waters, as you 
 must have observed, are in most seasons pure and 
 limpid and equable in their course, yet abounding 
 in depths of which, when we discern the bottom, 
 we wonder that we discern it so clearly : the same 
 river at every storm swells into a torrent, without 
 ford or boundary, and is the stronger and the 
 more impetuous from resistance. 
 
 DEMOSTHENES. 
 
 Language is part of a man's character. 
 
 EUBULIDES. 
 
 It often is artificial. 
 
 DEMOSTHENES. 
 
 Often both are so. I spoke not of such lan- 
 guage as that of Gorgias and Isocrates and other 
 rhetoricians, but of that which belongs to elo- 
 quence, of that which enters the heart, however 
 closed against it, of that which pierces like the 
 sword of Perseus, of that which carries us away 
 upon its point easily as Medea her children, and 
 holds the world below in the same suspense and 
 terror. 
 
AND EUBULIDES. 233 
 
 I had to form a manner, with great models on 
 one side of me and Nature on the other. Had I 
 imitated Plato (the writer then most admired) I 
 must have fallen short of his amplitude and dig- 
 nity; and his sentences are seldom such as could 
 be admitted into a popular harangue. Xenophon 
 is elegant, but unimpassioned, and not entirely 
 free, I think, from affectation. Herodotus is the 
 most faultless and perhaps the most excellent of 
 all : what simplicity ! what sweetness ! what har- 
 mony ! not to mention his sagacity of inquiry and 
 his accuracy of description : he could not however 
 form an orator for the times in which we live. 
 Aristoteles and Thucydides were before me: I 
 trembled lest they should lead me where I might 
 raise a recollection of Pericles, whose plainness 
 and conciseness and gravity they have imitated, 
 not always with success. Laying down these quali- 
 ties as the foundation, I have ventured on more 
 solemnity, more passion ; I have also been studious 
 to bring the powers of action into play, that great 
 instrument in exciting the affections which Pericles 
 disdained. He and Jupiter could strike any head 
 with their thunderbolts and stand serene and mo- 
 tionless ; I could not. 
 
 EUBULIDES. 
 
 Your opinion of Pericles hath always been the 
 
234 DEMOSTHENES 
 
 same, but I have formerly heard you mention 
 Plato with much less esteem than today. 
 
 DEMOSTHENES. 
 
 When we talk diversely of the same person or 
 thing, we do not of necessity talk inconsistently. 
 There is much in Plato which a wise man will 
 commend, there is more that will captivate an un- 
 wise one. The irony in his Dialogues has amused 
 me frequently and greatly, and the more because 
 in others I have rarely found it accompanied with 
 fancy and imagination. If I however were to be- 
 come a writer of dialogues, I should be afraid of 
 using it so constantly, often as I am obliged to do 
 so in my orations. Woe betide those who force us 
 into it by injustice and presumption ! Do they 
 dare to censure us? they who are themselves the 
 dust that sullies the wing of genius. Had I formed 
 my opinion of Socrates from Plato, I should call 
 Socrates a sophist. Who would imagine on read- 
 ing Plato, that his master instead of questioning 
 and quibbling, had occupied his time in shewing 
 the uses and offices of Philosophy? There is as 
 wide a difference between the imputed and the 
 real character of this man, as there is between him 
 who first discovered corn growing, and him who 
 first instructed us how to grind it and purify it 
 and prepare it for our sustenance. 
 
AND EUBULIDES. 2S5 
 
 EUBULIDES. 
 
 Before him Pythagoras and Democrltus and, 
 earlier still, Pherecydes . . . 
 
 DEMOSTHENES. 
 
 Of the latter our accounts are contradictory. I 
 entertain no doubt that the knowledge, the pru- 
 dence, the authority of Pythagoras were greater 
 than those of any man, who, under the guidance of 
 the Gods, hath enlightened the regions of Europa. 
 
 EUBULIDES. 
 
 He must have been a true lover of wisdom, as 
 he modestly called himself, to have traveled so far 
 into countries known hardly by name in Greece. 
 
 DEMOSTHENES. 
 
 He sought some congenial soul. If two great 
 men are existing at the extremities of the earth, 
 they will seek each other. 
 
 EUBULIDES. 
 
 Greatness is unsociable. 
 
 DEMOSTHENES. 
 
 It loves itself, it loves what generates it, what 
 proceeds from it, what partakes its essence. If 
 you have formed any idea of greatness, O Eubu- 
 lides, which corresponds not with this description, 
 efface it and cast it out. I admire in Pythagoras 
 a disdain and contempt of dogmatism amidst the 
 plenitude of power. He adapted his institutions 
 
S36 DEMOSTHENES 
 
 to the people he would enlighten and direct. 
 What portion of the world was ever so happy, so 
 peaceable, so w^ell-governed, as the cities of Magna 
 Graecia? While they retained his manners they 
 were free and powerful : some have since declined, 
 others are declining, and perhaps at a future and 
 not a distant time they may yield themselves up 
 to despotism. In a few ages more, those flourishing 
 towns, those inexpugnable citadels, those temples 
 which one would deem eternal, will be hunted for 
 in their wildernesses, like the boars and stags. 
 Already there are philosophers who would remedy 
 what they call popular commotions by hereditary 
 despotism, and who think it as natural and rea- 
 sonable, as that children who cry should be com- 
 pelled to sleep : and there likewise are honest citi- 
 zens who, when they have chewed their fig and 
 swallowed it, say; yes^ H'were xvell. What an 
 eulogy on the human understanding! to assert 
 that it is dangerous to choose a succession of ad- 
 ministrators from the wisest of mankind, and ad- 
 visable to derive it from the weakest! There 
 have been free Greeks within our memory, who 
 would have entered into an holy alliance with the 
 most iniquitous and most insolent of usurpers, 
 Alexander of Pherag, a territory in which Thebe, 
 who murdered her husband, is praised above all 
 
AND EUBULIDES. 237 
 
 others of both sexes. O Juno! may such mar- 
 riages be frequent in such countries! 
 
 Look at history: where do you find in con- 
 tinuation three hereditary kings, of whom one at 
 the least was not inhuman or weak in intellect? 
 Either of these qualities may subvert a state, 
 exposing it first to many sufferings. In our 
 Athenian constitution, if we are weakly governed 
 or capriciously, which hardly can happen, the mis- 
 chief is transitory and reparable ; one year closes 
 it ; and the people, both for its satisfaction and its 
 admonition, sees that no corruption, no trans- 
 gression, in its magistrates, is unregarded or un- 
 chastized. This of all advantages is the greatest, 
 the most corroborative of power, the most tute- 
 lary of morals. I know that there are many in 
 Thrace, and some in Sicily, who would recall my 
 wanderings with the most perfect good-humour 
 and complacency. Demosthenes has not lived, 
 has not reasoned, has not agitated his soul, 
 for them: he leaves them in the quiet posses- 
 sion of all their moulten arguments, and in the 
 persuasive hope of all their bright reversions. 
 Pythagoras could have had little or no influence 
 on men like these : he raised up higher, who kept 
 them down. It is easier to make an impression 
 upon sand than upon marble, but it is easier to 
 make a just one upon marble than upon sand. 
 
238 DEMOSTHENES 
 
 Uncivilized as were the Gauls, he with his mo- 
 deration and prudence hath softened the ferocity 
 of their religion, and hath made it so contradictory 
 and inconsistent that the first man amongst them 
 who reasons will subvert it. He did not say. 
 You shall 710 longer sacrifice your fello^w crea- 
 tures : he said, sacrifice tJie criminal. Other na- 
 tions do the same; often wantonly, always vin- 
 dictively : the Gauls appease by it, as they ima- 
 gine, both society and the Gods. He did not say, 
 AJter a certain time even this outrage on Nature 
 must cease ; but he said; We have souls which 
 pass into other creatures: our dreams prove it: 
 if they are not reminiscences of*what has happened 
 or been represejited in our actual life^ they must 
 be qfi 'what passed before: for from a confusion of 
 brain, to which some attribute them, there can 
 arise nothing so regular and beautiful as many of 
 these visions which you have all ejcperienced. 
 
 A belief in the transmigration of souls will 
 abolish by degrees all inhumanity. I know nothing 
 else that can : in other words, I know nothing else 
 that is worthy to be called religion. 
 
 EUBULIDES. 
 
 But what absurdity! 
 
 DEMOSTHENES. 
 
 I discover no absurdity in making men gentler 
 and kinder. I would rather worship an onion or 
 
AND EUBULIDES. 239 
 
 a crust of bread, than a God who requires me to 
 kill an ox or kid. The idea, not of having lost 
 her daughter, but of having lost her by a sacrifice, 
 fixed the dagger in the grasp of Clytgemnestra. 
 Let us observe, O Eubulides, the religion of our 
 country, be it what it may, unless it command us 
 to be cruel or unjust. In religion, if w^e are 
 right, we do not know that we are so ; if we are 
 wrong, w^e would not. Above all, let us do no- 
 thing and say nothing which may abolish or di- 
 minish in the hearts of the vulgar the sentiments 
 of love and fear : on the contrary, let us perpetu- 
 ally give them fresh excitement and activity, by 
 baring them to the heavens. On the modifica- 
 tions of love it is unnecessary to expatiate ; but I 
 am aware that you may demand of me what ex- 
 citement is required to fear. Amongst its modi- 
 fications are veneration and obedience, against the 
 weakening of which we ought to provide and 
 guard, particularly in what relates to our magi- 
 sterial and military chiefs. 
 
 EUBULIDES. 
 
 I do not conceive that Pythagoras hath left be- 
 hind him in Gaul, unless at Massilia, the remem- 
 brance of his doctrines or of his name. 
 
 DEMOSTHENES. 
 
 We hear little of the Gauls. It appears how- 
 ever that this most capricious and most cruel of 
 
240 DEMOSTHENES 
 
 nations is building cities and establishing com- 
 munities. The most arrogant, the most ungrate- 
 ful, the most unthinking of mankind have not 
 forgotten the wisdom or the services of Pythagoras. 
 Ask them who was their legislator . . . they answer 
 you Samotes: ask them who was Samotes, they 
 reply, A wise man who came amongst us long ago 
 from heyond the sea : for barbarians have little 
 notion of times, and run wildly into far antiquity. 
 The man of Samos was in fact their legislator, or 
 rather their teacher, and it is remarkable that they 
 should have preserved the name in such integrity. 
 Democritus, whom you mentioned, contradicts 
 our senses : he tells us that colours have no 
 colour. But his arguments are so strong, his lan- 
 guage so clear, his pretensions so modest and 
 becoming, I place more confidence in him, than 
 in others : future philosophers may demonstrate to 
 calmer minds what we have not the patience to 
 investigate*. 
 
 EUBULIDES. 
 
 Plato hath not mentioned him. 
 
 DEMOSTHENES. 
 
 O greatness ! what art thou, and where is thy 
 foundation ! I speak not, Eubulides, of that which 
 
 ^ Newton has elucidated the theory of colours first pro- 
 posed by Democritus, the loss of whose voluminous works is 
 the greatest that Philosophy has sustained. 
 
AND EUBULIDES. 241 
 
 the vulgar call greatness, a phantom stalking for- 
 ward from a saltmarsh in Boeotia, or from a cre- 
 vice in some rock of Sunium, or of Taxos*, but 
 the highest, the most illustrious, the most solid 
 among men, what is it ! Philosophy gives us arms 
 against others, not against ourselves, not against 
 those domestic traitors, those homestead incen- 
 diaries, the malignant passions; arms that are 
 brilliant on the ixercise-ground, but brittle in the 
 fight, when the most dangerous of enemies is 
 pressing us. Early love was never so jealous in 
 any one as Philosophy in Plato. He resembles 
 his own idea of God, whose pleasure in the soli- 
 tudes of eternity is the contemplation of himself. 
 
 EUBULIDES. 
 
 It has been suggested to me, that Aristoteles, 
 when he remarks that, by the elongation of the 
 last member in a sentence, a dignity is added to 
 composition, looked towards you who, as you have 
 often heard the rhetoricians say, are sometimes in- 
 attentive or indifferent to nobility of expression. 
 
 DEMOSTHENES. 
 
 When Aristoteles gives an opinion upon elo- 
 quence I listen with earnestness and respect: so 
 wise a man can say nothing inconsiderately: his 
 
 * Taxos was rich in silver-mines. 
 
 R 
 
24S DEMOSTHENES 
 
 own style on all occasions is exactly what it should 
 be : his sentences, in which there are no cracks or 
 inequalities, have always their proper tone : what- 
 ever is rightly said, sounds rightly. 
 
 Ought I to speak nobly, as you call it, of base 
 matters and base men ? ought my pauses to be in- 
 variably the same? would Aristoteles wish that a 
 coat of mail should be as flowing as his gown? 
 Let peace be perfect peace, war decisive war: but 
 let Eloquence move upon earth with all the facili- 
 ties of change that belong to the Gods themselves ; 
 only let her never be idle, never be vain, never 
 be ostentatious; for these are indications of de- 
 bility. We, who have habituated ourselves from 
 early youth to the composition of sonorous periods, 
 know that it requires more skill to finger and stop 
 our instrument than to blow it. When we have 
 gained over the ear to our party, we have other 
 work to do, and sterner and rougher. Then comes 
 forward action, not unaccompanied by vehemence. 
 Pericles, you have heard, used none, but kept his 
 arm wrapped up within his vest. Pericles was in 
 the enjoyment of that power which his virtues and 
 his abilities so well deserved. If he had carried 
 in his bosom the fire that burns in mine, he would 
 have kept his hand outside. By the contemplation 
 of men like me, Aristoteles is what he is ; and. 
 
AND EUBULIDES. 243 
 
 instead of undervaluing, I love him the better for 
 it. Do we not see with greater partiality and 
 fondness those who have been educated and fed 
 upon our farms, than those who come fi'om Orcho- 
 menos or Mantinea ? If he were now amongst us 
 in Athens, what would he think of two or three 
 haranguers, who deal forth his metaphysics by the 
 pailful in their addresses to the people ? 
 
 EUBULIDES. 
 
 I heard one, some little time since, who believed 
 he was doing so, ignorant that the business of me- 
 taphysics is rather to analyse than to involve. He 
 avoided all plain matter, he rejected all idiom . . . 
 
 DEMOSTHENES. 
 
 What an admirable definition have you given, 
 unintentionally, of the worst public speaker pos- 
 sible 1 I will add, with equal confidence, of the 
 worst writer. If I send to Hymettus for a hare, 
 I expect to distinguish it at dinner by its flavour, 
 as readily, as before, by its ears and feet. The 
 people you describe to me, soak out all the juices 
 of our dialect. 
 
 EUBULIDES. 
 
 They could do nothing better. To come again 
 with you into the kitchen, if they can only give 
 us tripe, let them give it clean. 
 
 r2 
 
244 DEMOSTHENES 
 
 DEMOSTHENES. 
 
 I have been careful to retain as much of our 
 idiom as I could, often at the peril of being called 
 ordinary and vulgar. Nations in a state of decay 
 lose their idiom, which loss is always precursory 
 to that of freedom. What your father and gran- 
 father used as an elegance in conversation, is now 
 abandoned to the populace, and every day we 
 miss a little of our own and collect a little from 
 strangers: this prepares us for a more intimate 
 union with them, in which we merge at last alto- 
 gether. Every good writer has much idiom; it 
 is the life and spirit of language ; and none ever 
 entertained a fear or apprehension that strength 
 and sublimity were to be lowered and weakened 
 by it. Speaking to the people, I use the people's 
 phraseology : I temper my metal according to the 
 uses I intend it for. In fact no language is very 
 weak in its natural course, until it runs too far; 
 and then the poorest and the richest are ineffectual 
 equally. The habitude of pleasing by flattery 
 makes a language soft ; the fear of offending by 
 truth makes it circuitous and conventional. Free 
 governments, where such necessity cannot exist, 
 will always produce true eloquence. 
 
 EUBULIDES. 
 
 We have in Athens young orators from the 
 
AND EUBULIDES. ^45 
 
 schools, who inform us that no determinate and 
 masculine peculiarities of manner should appear 
 in public: they would dance without displaying 
 their muscles, they would sing without discom- 
 posing their lips. 
 
 DEMOSTHENES. 
 
 I will drag them, so help me Jupiter! back 
 again to their fathers and mothers: I will grasp 
 their wrists so tight, the most perverse of them 
 shall not break away from me. Tempestuous times 
 are coming . . . another month or two at farthest, 
 and I will throw such animation into their features 
 and their gestures, you shall imagine they have 
 been singing to the drum and horn, and dancing 
 to dithyrambics. The dustbox of metaphysics shall 
 be emptied no more from the schoolroom into the 
 street. I suspect that I also have heard the very 
 chatterer you mentioned. The other day in the 
 marketplace, I saw a vulgar and clumsy man lifted 
 on a honey-barrel by some grocers and slave-mer- 
 chants, and the crowd was so dense around me 
 that I could not walk away. A fresh-looking 
 citizen near me nodded and winked at the close 
 of every sentence. Dissembling as well as I could 
 my impatience at his importunity, " Friend,^ ^ said 
 I, ^* do believe me, I understand not a syllable of 
 the discoursed' *' Ah Demosthenes,'*' whispered 
 
246 DEMOSTHENES 
 
 he, ^"^ your time is fairly gone by : we have orators 
 now whom even you^ with all your acuteness and 
 capacity^ as you yourself have acknowledged to 
 me, cannot comprehend,''^ " Whom will they con- 
 vince?'' cried I. ''Convince! we come already 
 convinced: we want surprize, as at our theatres, 
 astonishment, as at the mysteries of Eleusis'' 
 " But what astonishes, what surprizes youV^ 
 '* To hear an Athenian talk two hours together^ 
 hold us all silent and immovable as the figures of 
 Mercury before our doors, and find not a single 
 one amongst us that can carry home with him a 
 thought or an ea?pression.'' '* Thou art right," 
 I exclaimed; " he is greater than Triptolemus: 
 he not only gives you a plentful meal out of chaff 
 and husks, but he persuades you that it is a sa- 
 voitry repast.'' ** By Jupiter!" swore aloud my 
 disenchanted friend, " he persuades us no such 
 thing: but every one is ashamed of being the first 
 to acknowledge, that he never was master of a 
 particle out of all he had listened to and ap- 
 plauded." I had the curiosity to inquire who the 
 speaker was. ** What! do 7iot you know Anm- 
 destatus!" said he, making a mark of interroga- 
 tion upon my ribs, with a sharper elbow than from 
 his countenance I could have imagined had be- 
 longed to him J '' the clever Ana^destatus, who came 
 
AND EUBULIDES. 247 
 
 into notice as aijoitth, hy the celebration in verse of 
 a pebble at the bottom of the Cephisus, He forth- 
 mth was presented to Anglus, who ea^perienced a 
 hearty pleasure in seducing him away from his 
 guardians, Anglus on his deathbed {for the 
 Gods allowed him one') recommended the young 
 Ancedestatus warmly to his friends : such men 
 have always many, and those the powerful For- 
 tunate had it been for our country if he had 
 pilfered only the verses he pronounced. His new 
 patrons connived at his withdrawing from the 
 treasury no less than sia: hundred talents.^' " Im- 
 possible! six hundred talents are sufficient for the 
 annual stipend of all our civil magistrates, from 
 the highest to the lowest, and of all the generals 
 in our republic and its dependencies.^^ ^^ It was 
 before you came forward into public life, O De- 
 mosthenes : but my father can prove the exactness 
 of my statement. The last little sip from the 
 reservoir was seventy talents^ for a voyage to 
 Lesbos, and a residence there of about three 
 months, to settle the value of forty skins of wine 
 owing to the Lesbians in the time of Thrasybulus. 
 This, I know not by what oversight, is legible 
 among the accounts.''* Indignant at what I heard, 
 
 * Seventy taleuts, in round numbers, 14000 pounds ster- 
 ling. 
 
248 DEMOSTHENES, &C. 
 
 I threatened to call him before the people .... 
 " Let him alone ;" said slowly in an undervoice my 
 prudent friend : ^^ he has those about him "who will 
 swear ^ and adduce the ])roofs^ that you are hold- 
 ing a traitorous correspondence with Philip or 
 Arta^er^ves,'* I began to gaze in some indigna- 
 tion on his florid and calm countenance, he winked 
 again, again accosted me with his elbow and with- 
 drew. 
 
 EUBULIDES. 
 
 Happy Athenians! who have so many great 
 men of so many kinds, all peculiar to yourselves, 
 and can make one even out of Anaedestatus. 
 
CONVERSATION XV. 
 
 THE abbe: delille 
 
 AND 
 
 WALTER LANDOR. 
 
THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 AND 
 
 WALTER LANDOR. 
 
 The Abbe Delille was the happiest of creatures 
 when he could weep over the charms of innocence 
 and of the country in some crowded and fashion- 
 able coterie at Paris. We embraced most pathe- 
 tically on our first meeting there, as if the one 
 were condemned to quit the earth, the other to 
 live upon it. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 You are reported to have said that descriptive 
 poetry has all the merits of a pockethankerchief 
 that smells of roses. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 This, if I said it, is among the things which 
 are neither false enough nor true enough to be 
 displeasing. But the Abbe DeHlle has merits of 
 his own. To translate Milton well, is more laud- 
 
252 THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 able than originality in trifling matters; just as to 
 transport an obelisk from Egypt, and to erect it 
 in one of the squares, must be considered a greater 
 labour than to build a new chandler's shop. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 Milton is indeed extremely difficult to trans- 
 late ; for, however noble and majestic, he is some- 
 times heavy, and often rough and unequal. 
 
 LAND OR. 
 
 Dear abb6, porphyry is heavy, gold is heavier : 
 Ossa and Olympus are rough and unequal. On 
 the contrary, the steppes of Tartary are high, but 
 of uniform elevation : there is not a rock, nor a 
 birch, nor a cytisus, nor an arbutus, upon them, 
 great enough to shelter a new-dropt lamb. Level 
 the Alps one with another, and where is their sub- 
 limity? Raise up the vale of Tempe to the downs 
 above, and where are those sylvan bays and har- 
 bours, in which the imagination watches while the 
 soul reposes; those recesses in which the Gods 
 partook the weaknesses of mortals, and mortals 
 the enjoyments of the Gods ! 
 
 You have treated our poet with all courtesy and 
 attention: in your trimmed and measured dress 
 he might be taken for a Frenchman. Do not 
 think me flattering. You have conducted Eve 
 from Paradise to Paris, and she really looks pret- 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 253 
 
 tier and smarter than before she tripped. With 
 what elegance she rises from a most awful dream 1 
 you represent her (I repeat your expression) as 
 springing up en siu^saut, as if you had caught her 
 asleep, and tickled the young creature on that 
 sofa. 
 
 Homer and Virgil have been excelled in sub- 
 limity by Shakespear and Milton, as the Caucasus 
 and Atlas of the old world by the Andes and Cor- 
 dilleras of the new: but you would embellish 
 them all. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 I owe to Voltaire my first sentiments of ad- 
 miration for Milton and Shakespear. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 He stuck to them as a woodpecker to an old 
 forest-tree, only for the purpose of picking out 
 what was rotten. He has made the holes deeper 
 than he found them, and, after all his cries and 
 chatter, has brought home but scanty sustenance 
 to his starveling nest. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 You must acknowledge that there are fine verses 
 in the tragedies of Voltaire. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 Wlienever such is the first observation, be as- 
 
254} THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 sured, M. 1' Abb6, that the poem, if heroic or dra- 
 matic, is bad. Should a work of this kind be 
 excellent, we say, " How admirably the characters 
 are sustained! what delicacy of discrimination! 
 There is nothing to he talcen away or altered 
 without an injury to the part or to the whole J ^ 
 We may afterwards descend on the versifica- 
 tion. In poetry there is a greater difference be- 
 tween the good and the excellent than there is 
 between the bad and the good. Poetry has no 
 golden mean : mediocrity here is of another metal, 
 which Voltaire however had skill enough to en- 
 crust and polish. In the least wretched of his 
 tragedies, whatever is tolerable is Shakespear's 5 
 but, gracious heaven! how deteriorated! When 
 he pretends to extoll a poet, he chooses some de- 
 fective part, and renders it more so whenever he 
 translates it. I will repeat a few verses from Me- 
 tastasio in favour of my assertion. Metastasio 
 was both a better critic and a better poet, although 
 of the second order in each quality; his tyrants 
 are less philosophical, and his chambermaids less 
 dogmatic. Voltaire was however a man of abilities, 
 and author of many passable epigrams, besides 
 those which are contained in his tragedies and 
 heroics, though it must be confessed, that, like 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 255 
 
 your Parisian lackeys, they are usually the smartest 
 when out of place. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 What you call epigram gives life and spirit to 
 grave works, and seems principally wanted to re- 
 lieve a long poem. I do not see why what pleases 
 us in a star, should not also please us in a con- 
 stellation. This and versification are the main 
 secrets of French poetry, to which must be added 
 an exactness of thought and a brevity of expression, 
 such for instance as we admire in Boileau. But 
 you promised me something of Metastasio. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 I will repeat the lines with Voltaire's observa- 
 tions. 
 
 The king of Parthia is brought in chains be- 
 fore the emperor Hadrian. He has leisure for 
 all the following paraphrase, by which he would 
 signify that his ruin itself shall be subservient to his 
 revenge. 
 
 Sprezza il fiiror del vento 
 Robusta quercia, avvezza 
 Di cento verni e cento 
 Le ingiurie a tolerar. 
 E se pur cadde al suolo, 
 Spiega per V onde il volo, 
 E con quel vento istesso 
 Va contrastando il mar. 
 
256 THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 Con quel vento istesso! it must make haste 
 then . . . Voltaire had forgotten the art of conceal- 
 ing his insincerity, when he praised as a sublime 
 air the worst and most farfetched thought in all 
 the operas of Metastasio. He could read Italian 
 poetry, he could write French : we have seen how 
 he judged of the least familiar, let us now inquire 
 how he judges of the most. He considers then 
 the following lines in Mithridate as a model of 
 perfection. 
 
 J'ai sgu par une longue et penible Industrie 
 
 Des plus mortels venins prevenir la furie. 
 
 Ah ! qu'il m* ewt miee^x Ydlu, plws sage on plws hewrewx, 
 
 Et repoussant les traits d' un amour dangereux, 
 
 Ne pas laisser remplir d' ardeurs empoisonees 
 
 Un coeur deja glace par lejroid des annees. 
 
 Alas 1 the cold of his years, in comparison with 
 the cold of his wit, is but as a flake of snow to a 
 mass of frozen mercury. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 Acknowledge at least that in tales and in history 
 he has done something. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 Yes, he has united them very dexterously. In 
 the lighter touches of irony and derision he excels 
 both Rabelais and Moliere j but in that which re- 
 quires a certain vigour of conception, and there is 
 a kind which does require it, he falls short of Cer- 
 
AND WALTER I.ANDOU. 257 
 
 vantes and of Swift. You have other historians 
 not only more faithful, but more powerful in style 
 and more profound in thought. I do not even place 
 him on a level with our Hume^ and hardly with 
 Robertson, although in composition he may have 
 an advantage over both, certainly over the latter 
 greatly; nor is he at all comparable to Gibbon, 
 whose manner, which many have censured, I think 
 admirably suited to the work. In the decline 
 and fall of the Roman empire there is too much 
 to sadden and disgust: a smile in such a narrative 
 on some occasions is far from unacceptable : if it 
 should be succeeded by a sneer, it is not the sneer 
 of bitterness, which falls not on debility, nor of 
 triumph, which accords not with contempt. His 
 colours, it is true, are gorgeous, like those of the 
 setting sun ; and such were wanted. The style is 
 much swayed by the sentiment : would that which 
 is proper for the historian of Fabius and Scipio, 
 of Hannibal and Pyrrhus, be proper too for Au- 
 gustulus and the popes? Gibbon could be grave 
 when an emperor like Julian commanded it ; but 
 could he, or could any one, on rising from the 
 narration of a Greek historian, who has described 
 how an empress played '* the royal game of 
 
 goose .- 
 
 g» 
 
258 THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 Gibbon, one would imagine, was a mixt pro- 
 duction of two different races in Africa, and bor- 
 rowed the moral features from the one, the physical 
 from the other. The Kabobiguas have no worship, 
 sacrifice, ceremonies, or priests; and the Hou- 
 souanas have a nose which projects little more 
 than five or six lines ; half the face seems to be 
 forehead. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 When Voltaire calls the French poetry strong 
 and energetic, he shews himself insensible that 
 the nature both of the language and of the metre 
 prohibits it: when he calls the Italian weak and 
 effeminate and unfit for action, he overlooks his 
 inconsistency in remarking that '' we respect 
 Homer but read Tasso." No continental poet is 
 less weak and effeminate than Chiabrera; whose 
 works, I apprehend, Voltaire was just as incapable 
 of appreciating as Homer's. Did he ever hear of 
 Filicaja? rich in thought as Pindar himself, and 
 more enthusiastic. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 Enthusiastic as Pindar ! ah M. Landor ! 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 Abbe, I said more enthusiastic, for in criticism 
 
AND WALTER LANDOH. 259 
 
 I love correctness. We have lost the greater and 
 perhaps the better part of Pindar's poetry : what 
 remams is more distinguished for exquisite taste, 
 than for enthusiasm. There is a grandeur of soul 
 which never leaves him even in domestic scenes. 
 His genius does not rise on points or peaks of 
 sublimity, but pervades all things with a vigorous 
 and easy motion, such as the poets attribute to 
 the herald of the Gods. He is remarkable for 
 the rich economy of his ideas and the temperate 
 austerity of his judgement : he never says more 
 than what is proper nor otherwise than what is 
 best, and he appears the superior of mortals in the 
 perfection of wisdom as of poetry. 
 
 The business of this art is to chasten and ele- 
 vate the mind by exciting and regulating the 
 better passions, and to impress on it lessons of 
 terror and of pity by exhibiting the self-chastise- 
 ment of the worse. There should be as much of 
 passion as is possible with as much of reason as is 
 compatible with it. How admirable is the union 
 of these in the ode of Filicaja to Sobieski ! 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 Do you really then preferr this Italian to Boi- 
 leau? his ode to the king is fine. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 There is almost as much difference between his 
 
 s2 
 
260 THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 ode and the Italian, as between Sobieski and 
 Louis ; almost as much as between the liberation 
 of Europe and the conflagration of the Palatinate. 
 Give me the volume, if that in your hand is it. 
 
 " The high wisdom of a young hero is not the tardy fruit 
 of slow old age." 
 
 Dear Abb6, can you ever have read this com- 
 mencement, and call the author a man of genius 
 or taste ? 
 
 . . . Ma muse tremblante 
 Fuit d'un si grand fardeau la charge trop pesante. 
 
 Vulgarity in the metaphor and redundance in the 
 expression; and look! it occurs again at the con- 
 clusion. Addison tells you that he does, what he 
 gives no signs of doing, that he 
 
 '* Bridles in his struggling Muse with pain/* 
 
 But it is better to turn a Muse into a mare than 
 into a mule or ass; and Addison has redeemed 
 the wretchedness of his poetry by the suavity and 
 humour of his prose. 
 
 Et tandis que ton bras des peuples redout^ 
 Va le foudre a la main retablir I'equite. 
 
 I always fancied that the foudre is rather a de- 
 stroyer than an establisher. But why was the 
 arm of Louis feared by the nations, if it was 
 armed only to establish equity? The arm with 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 261 
 
 the thunderbolt in the hand is worse than tauto- 
 logy, if indeed any thing can be worse in a poet 
 than this most obvious proof of debility. 
 Let us turn to his satires. 
 
 SATIRE I. 
 
 Et puis, comment percer cettefoule effroyable 
 De rimeurs affames... c^orz^ le nombre I'accable,,. 
 Un lit et deux placets composoient tout son bien j 
 Ou, pour en mieux parler, Saint-Amant n'avoit rien. 
 
 It would puzzle me to divine in what this mieua: 
 pai^ley^ consists. There never was a verse more 
 perfectly idle than this better-spoken one, or what 
 would incurr more ridicule in any notoriously bad 
 writer. The bed and the deuj^ placets shew the 
 extremes of Saint- Amant's poverty, without any 
 expenditure of wit or fancy to light up the cham- 
 ber: any other piece of worthless furniture might 
 have been added. This however did not suit the 
 Rhyme, Boileau's goddess of Necessity. He there- 
 fore ridicules the man for not having what he had 
 just before ridiculed him for having. 
 
 SATIRE II. 
 
 Pour qui tient Apollon tous ses tresors ouverts, 
 Et qui s^ais a quel coin se marquent les bons vers. 
 
 Behold the art of sinking! Moliere goes into 
 Apollo's treasury, and finds out in it how he marks 
 his pockethankerchief. 
 
262 THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 SATIRE III. 
 
 Nothing can be more flat and out of character 
 than the last lines, from a person who professes 
 just before an utter indifference to the pleasures of 
 the table. 
 
 SATIRE IV. 
 
 Tout herisse de grec, tout bouffi d' arrogance. 
 
 All this, excepting the last word, is in another 
 place. The idea of herisse de grec arose, I pre- 
 sume, from the sharp and slender forms of the 
 Greek letters, as we see them printed. A line 
 of Greek appeared to Boileau like a hedge of 
 aloes. 
 
 La meme erreur les fait errer diversement. 
 
 A contradiction the more apparent, as he had 
 mentioned the hundred roads in which the tra- 
 vellers wandered, some to the right, some to the 
 left. He has ridiculed the errors into which men 
 have run from the imperfection of their reason : a 
 great folly! he now gravely rails at reason itself; 
 a greater! 
 
 Que si d'un sort facheux la maligne inconstance. 
 
 The inconstancy of a sort facheux was never 
 before complained of, still less called malignant. 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 263 
 
 Eutin uu medecin fort expert en son art 
 
 Le guerit ... par adresse ou plutot par hazard. 
 
 It is quite unimportant to the story, if not so 
 to the verse, whether the physician cured the man 
 by skill or chance; but to say that he was Jbrt 
 ea:pert en son arty and subjoin that he effected his 
 cure plutot par hazard, proves that the poet must 
 have chosen his expressions altogether at hazard. 
 
 SATIRE V. 
 
 On fait cas d'uu coursier qui, fier.,.et plein de coeur... 
 
 does what? 
 
 Fait paroitre en courant sa bouillante vigueur. 
 
 This is natural enough : and could not well be 
 otherwise: but what think you of a horse that 
 jamais ne se lasse? Do not be surprized: he be- 
 comes just like another, and 
 
 dans la carriere 
 S*est couvert millefois..,A'\nie, noble poussiere... 
 
 That is, as your countrymen would have said, 
 not Monsieur Poussiere, but Monsieur de Pous- 
 siere, a most important distinction. 
 
 SATIRE VI. 
 
 A man who reasons, must be aware how silly it 
 is to write an angry satire on cats: yet the first 
 thing that provokes the complaints of Boileau 
 
264 THE ABBE DEIJLLE 
 
 against Paris, is the noise of these animals, and 
 their dangerous conspiracies, in league with the 
 rats, against his repose. He then calls this dis- 
 turbance the least of his misfortunes, and attacks 
 the cocks, who, of course, are a plague peculiar to 
 Paris. Yet neither the cocks nor the blacksmith, 
 who falls next under his displeasure, are, if we may 
 judge from the outcry he makes, so grievous an 
 evil to him, as the former licentious disturbers of 
 his peace. 
 
 Les voleurs a Tinstaiit s'emparent de la ville. 
 Le bois le plusfuneste et le moins frequente 
 Est, ail prix de Paris^ un lieu de surete. 
 
 Exaggeration may be carried to any highth 
 where there is wit, but rolls down like a load of 
 gravel where there is none. 
 
 Malheur done a celui qu'une affaire imprenie 
 Engage un peu trop tard au detour d'une rue ! 
 
 He does not seem aware that all the praises he 
 has been lavishing on Louis .are worth nothing, if 
 there is the slightest foundation for this complaint. 
 Thieves are not subjects for satire; but those are 
 truly so whose capitals are crowded with them. 
 
 II faudroit, dans lenclos d'un vaste logement. 
 Avoir loin de la rue un autre appartenient. 
 
 This is curious : for it demonstrates to us that 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 265 
 
 there certainly must have been a time, when it 
 was considered or offered, as wit, satire, or moral. 
 
 SATIRE VII. 
 
 Mais tout fat ine deplait...et me blesse les.yeux ; 
 Je le poursuis partout. 
 
 This is idle and silly; if it were practicable, it 
 would be the ruin of Satire. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 Turn over, and you will find Boileau warmed 
 by the fine French sentiment of loyalty to his 
 king. Aye, that pleases you, I see. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 No sentiment is more just or reasonable than 
 loyalty, but it should belong as much to kings as 
 to their people: where it is not reciprocal it is 
 worth nothing. What insincerity ! what baseness ! 
 to rave against the wild ambition of Alexander, 
 who had all the spirit and all the talents of a con- 
 summate warrior, and to crouch at the feet of 
 Louis with every expression of homage and ad- 
 miration; of Louis, who had no such talents, no 
 such spirit, who exposed his person in no battle, 
 but who ordered a massacre to win the favour of 
 a saint, and consumed a province to cure a heresy : 
 a cow^ard, a bigot, perfidious, ungrateful, perjured, 
 sacrilegious, who died so despised and hated, that 
 his worshippers jumped up from their kneeling, 
 
266 THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 and pelted his carcase with mire and ordure as it 
 went to burial. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 Ah, M. Landor, you cannot do him justice. You 
 must exaggerate. He is the Grand Monarque. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 This satire is borrowed in many parts from 
 Horace, in many from Juvenal, yet Boileau has 
 contrived to sink all the gaiety of the one, and to 
 weaken with cold and hoarseness all the declama- 
 tion of the other. 
 
 SATIRE IX. 
 
 C'est a vous, mon Esprit, a qui je veux parler. 
 
 It is a pity that his Esprit was not summoned 
 to this conference earlier ; but even now it is only 
 called to be talked to, and has more to hear than 
 to say. 
 
 Mais moi qui, dans lefond, s^ais bien ce . . • . 
 
 Significant nod, to give the sentence the ap- 
 pearance of wit, which, if it lies anywhere in it, 
 lies dans lefond, 
 
 Phebus a-t-il pour vous applani le Parnasse ? 
 
 The word applani is not a very happy one. 
 The difficulties of Parnassus are the triumphs of 
 the poet. I must observe here, that Apollo, Par- 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 267 
 
 nassus, &c. are too frequently used by your poets, 
 and that nothing shows a barrenness of invention 
 more evidently, than this perpetual recurrence to 
 mythology on subjects unconnected with it. 
 
 Et ne sgavez-vous pas que, sur ce mont sacre. 
 Qui ne vole au sommet tombe au plus bas degre. 
 
 This is neither true nor ingenious. Horace has 
 misled him by being misunderstood, where he says 
 
 . . . mediocribus esse poetis 
 Non homines^ non di, non concessere columnae. 
 
 Now Horace himself, and Catullus, and Tibul- 
 lus, have never reached nor attempted to reach 
 the summit of Parnassus; and equally certain is 
 it that they have not fallen au plus bas degre. 
 Their poetry is excellent in its kind ; so is that of 
 La Fontaine. It is only those whose poetry has 
 risen no higher than to mediocrity in its kind, 
 whatever that kind may be, whose existence as 
 poets is destined to a short duration. Catullus 
 and Horace will be read as long as Homer and 
 Virgil, and more often and by more readers. 
 
 Par r eclat d'unfardeau trop pesant a porter. 
 
 This is the third time, within a few pages, that 
 I have observed the metaphor, but I never heard 
 until now that difardeau could have an eclat. If 
 
268 THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 it ever is attended by one, it must be, not while 
 it is borne, but at the moment when it is thrown 
 off. 
 
 Peindre Bellone en feu, tonnant de toutes parts . . . 
 
 And what else? Mars, Minerva, Jupiter, the 
 Fates, the Furies ! 
 
 Et le Beige effraye . . . 
 
 but surely in some act of awful devotion . . . that, 
 if we fall from such a highth, it may be into the 
 bosom of Pity. Ah no ! 
 
 . . . fuyant sur ses ramparts. 
 
 How contemptible are these verses on Bellona 
 and the Dutchman, in comparison with those they 
 are intended to imitate. 
 
 Cupidum, pater optime^ vires 
 Deficiunt : neque enim quivis horrentia pilis 
 Agmina^ nee fracta pereuntes cuspide GalloSj 
 Aut labentis equo describat \Tilnera Parthi. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 This satire contains the line which has been 
 so often quoted, 
 
 Et le clinquant du Tasse a tout Tor de Virgile^ 
 
 in w^hich Boileau has scarcely shewn all his wonted 
 discrimination. Surely Tasso is a superb poet. 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 269 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 A few remarks on that foolish verse. Your 
 poets have ahvays felt a violent jealousy of the 
 Italian. If Virgil had lived in the age of Tasso, 
 and Tasso in the age of Virgil, Boileau would 
 have transferred and commuted the designations, 
 and have given the tinsel to Virgil, the gold to 
 Tasso. There is little of tinsel in the Gerusa- 
 lemme, and much of gold. The poet fails when- 
 ever he attempts the sublime, generally so called, 
 but he seldom overloads his descriptions with idle 
 words or frivolous decorations. His characters 
 are more vivid and more distinct than Virgil's, 
 and greatly more interesting. The heroes of the 
 Eneid are like the half-extinct frescoes of Raphael ; 
 but what is wanting in the frescoes of the painter 
 is effaced by time, what is wanting in the figures 
 of the poet was wanting to his genius. No man 
 ever formed in his mind an idea of Dido, or per- 
 haps ever wished to form it ; particularly on find- 
 ing her memory so extensive and her years so ma- 
 ture, that she could recollect the arrival of Teucer 
 at Sidon. Mezentius is called a despiser of the 
 Gods; yet the most pious speech in the Eneid 
 comes from the lips of Mezentius, the most heroical 
 of all the .characters in that poem, and the most 
 resigned to the will of heaven. 
 
270 THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 Ast de me divom pater atque hominum rex 
 Viderit, 
 
 But who would walk among the delightful 
 scenery of woods and waterfalls, of glades and 
 forests, of vallies in their retirement, and of corn- 
 fields in their richness and profusion, for the sake 
 of bringing home a few dry sticks and stubble ? or 
 who could receive more pleasure from such an oc- 
 cupation than from surveying the majestic growth 
 of the trees and the rich variety of the foliage ? 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 I would rather walk through a garden, listening 
 to a fountain, culling roses or sprigs of jessamine, 
 aud meditating upon beautiful Nature. But I am 
 very happy that you admire Tasso. I never could 
 determine, whether he or Virgil had the most 
 grace, and the most elegance, and have often 
 wondered that the same country should have pro- 
 duced, even with the interval of fifteen centuries, 
 two poets almost equal to our Racine. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 Virgil has blemishes like Tasso, and Tasso has 
 beauties like Virgil. The Eneid, I venture to 
 affirm, is the most mis-shapen of epics; an epic 
 of episodes ; for these constitute the greater and 
 better part. The Gerusalemme Liberata is, of 
 all such compositions, the most perfect in its plan. 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 271 
 
 111 regard to execution, read any one book atten- 
 tively, and I am persuaded, M. TAbb^, that you 
 would rather have written it than all the poetry of 
 Voltaire and Boileau ; if indeed there is any thing 
 in either of them that could augment your reputa- 
 tion. 
 
 Let us go on with the volume before us. 
 
 de sang-froid . . . et sans etre amoureux. 
 Pour quelque Iris en I'air faire le langoureux. 
 
 The superfluous on the superfluous! Boileau 
 is one of the forty who has done the very thing. 
 One would imagine that there had lived in Paris 
 some lady of this name either by baptism or con- 
 vention, celebrated .as was Phryne. The French 
 poets, if they wished to interest the reader, should 
 at least have engaged a name less hackneyed. 
 Delia, Corinna, Lesbia bring with them great re- 
 collections: they are names not taken in vain by 
 all the Romans, in the days of Roman gloiy. The 
 women to whom they were first given were not 
 ideal. Synonymous with beauty, grace, fondness, 
 tenderness, they delight the memory by locality. 
 We turn with indifference or with digust from 
 the common Palais-Royal face of Iris. Boileau 
 might have said to a patron, " you shall be my 
 Apollo, my Richelieu, my Louis:" the expression 
 
27^ THE ABBE DELTLLE 
 
 has something to rest upon ; and why should not 
 love enjoy the same privileges as patronage ? 
 
 La Satire^, en lemons, en nouveautes fertile, 
 Sait seule assaisonner le plaisant et Tutile. 
 
 Rhyme consists in similarity of sound, not in 
 identity: an observation that has escaped all your 
 poets^ and, what is more wonderful, all the Italian. 
 Satire is less fertile in novelty than any other kind 
 of poetry ; and possesses not alone the power at- 
 tributed to it, but, on the contrary, in a less de- 
 gree than the rest. If it alone were endowed 
 with this faculty, why should poets employ any 
 kind else? Who would write what cannot be 
 pleasant? who what cannot be useful? Satire 
 alone would serve all the purposes both of poetry 
 and of prose ; and we might expect to find a good 
 satire in every good treatise on geometry, or meta- 
 physics, or music, or cookery. 
 
 He ! mon dieu ! craignez tout d'un auteur en courroux. 
 
 Qui peut...Quoi?...Jem'entends... Mais encor?...Taisez vous. 
 
 Thus ends this long monologue between Boileau 
 and his Esprit^ which must have rejoiced heartily 
 at its dismissal. Perhaps no line is more suitable 
 to the general French taste than this last ... so 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. g'7S 
 
 many short sentences, coming out singly and with 
 breaks between them, like the notes in a cock's 
 morning hymn, which, allow me to observe, seems 
 to have been taken by your countrymen as a model 
 for their verse, not omitting even the interjec- 
 tional scream with which it closes ; ... so many 
 things of which almost every man fancies that he 
 alone is in the secret. I must confess, it is really 
 one to me; and, after all the interpretations it 
 will bear, I find neither wit nor satire in it, nor 
 even the sting of a dead epigram. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 When you compare the tenth satire of Boileau 
 with the manner in which women are attacked by 
 Juvenal, you must be filled with admiration at 
 perceiving how superior French morality is to 
 Roman. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 That is a knotty question, M. I'Abb^: we 
 might bruise our hands, if we were to lay hold 
 of it. It is safer to confine our observations to 
 poetry. 
 
 Que, si sous Adam meme..,et loin avant Noe. 
 
 The same fault incessantly recurring! What 
 was under Adam, was long before Noah. Your 
 marquisses were not very profound in chronology : 
 
 T 
 
274 THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 but even the most ignorant of them probably knew 
 this fact ; notwithstanding the league between his 
 confessor and his vices to keep him from reading 
 the book where it is recorded. In Boileau there is 
 really more of difFuseness than of brevity : few ob- 
 serve this, because he abounds in short sentences ; 
 and few are aware that sentences may be very short 
 and the writer very prolix ; as half a dozen white 
 stones rising out of a brook give the passenger more 
 trouble than a plank across it, not to mention the 
 greater chance of wetting the feet. 
 
 Villon et Saint- Gelais, 
 Arioste, Marot, Bocace, Rabelais. 
 
 One of the beauties at which Boileau aimed, 
 was the nitching of several names together in a 
 verse, without any other word. Caligula spoke 
 justly and admirably, when he compared the sen- 
 tences of Seneca to lime without sand. Mon- 
 tesquieu, Voltaire, and their imitators, Frederick 
 of Prussia and Catharine of Russia, were perhaps 
 not aware how perversely they imitated this blame- 
 able model of style, and how far they were in 
 general from his gravity and acuteness. Florus 
 however seems chiefly to have captivated the at- 
 tention and to have formed the manner of Vol- 
 taire; as the style of our historian Hume is evi- 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 275 
 
 clently taken from a French translation of Macliia- 
 velli. 
 
 Seul avec des valets, souvent voleurs et traitres, 
 Et toujours, a coup sur, enne^yiis de leurs maitres. 
 
 "Why so? in any other respect than as voleurs 
 et traitres. 
 
 Et, pour le rendre libre, il le faut euchaiiier. 
 
 This verse alone was worth a pension from 
 Louis. It is the most violent antithesis that ever 
 was constructed : but, as a maxim in politics, it is 
 admirably adapted to your nation, most happy 
 under a despot and most faithful under an 
 usurper. 
 
 Et ne presume pas que Venus ou Satan, &c. 
 
 The two mythologies ought never to be con- 
 founded. This is worse than Bellona and the 
 Dutchman, or than Mars et le fameux fort de 
 Skink, 
 
 L'honneur est corame une ile escarpee et sans bords : 
 On n'y peut plus rentrer des qu'on en est dehors. 
 
 The simily is imperfect because the fact is un- 
 true. If an island can be entered once, it can be 
 entered twice. 
 
 Avec un air plus sombre 
 S'en aller mediter une vole au jeu d'hombre. 
 
 T 2 
 
216 THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 There is no reason, except the rhyme, for this 
 air plus sombre. When the lady only thinks of 
 playing, she has encountered no ill success, and 
 expects none; otherwise she would not play. 
 
 Comme ce magistrat de hideuse memoire... 
 
 The Story of this magistrate is badly told : the 
 progress of his passion is untraced. How much 
 superior is the Sir Balaam of Pope. 
 
 Mais qui pourroit compter le nombre des haillons? 
 
 This picture is much overcharged. It appears 
 to me that the author had written two descrip- 
 tions, and, not wishing to lose either, nor know- 
 ing what to do with both, tacked them together 
 to compose the tenth satire. He confesses that 
 le r^cit passe un peu V ordinaire, and desires to 
 know whether it could be given in fewer words. 
 Horace may shew that it can be given both in 
 fewer and better. 
 
 Mais qui la priveroit huit jour de ses plaisirs, 
 Et qui, loin d'un galant...objet de ses desirs. 
 
 It is natural enough that the lady's gallant 
 should be the object of her desires: but what 
 shall we think of a versification which permits de 
 ses plaisirs to be followed by de ses desirs? 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 277 
 
 Sa tranquille vertu conserve tous ses crimes. 
 
 A violent counterpoint ! Antithesis was always 
 fond of making inroads on the borders of ab- 
 surdity. 
 
 SATIRE XII. 
 
 Et partout sa doctrine en pen de tenis portee... 
 
 what can be added to its extent if it was partout ? 
 why 
 
 Fut du Gange, du Nil, et du Tage ecoutee. 
 
 Another falling off! Who in the world ever 
 made a voyage to the Ganges for the purpose of 
 arriving at the Tagus ? The verse itself did not 
 exact this penance. It could have been written as 
 easily, 
 
 Fut du Tage, du Nil, et du Gange ecoutee. 
 
 This would have described, as it was intended, 
 the progress of the Christian faith. I know not 
 where, in any language, to find such lethargic 
 verses as the following ; 
 
 Sans simonie on peut contra un bien temporel 
 Hardiment cch anger un bien spiritueL 
 
 Of all the wretched poets ridiculed by Boileau, 
 not one, I believe, has written any thing so sig- 
 nally stupid. Turn to the Discours au Roi. 
 
 Je vais de toutes parts ou me guide ma veine, 
 Sajis tenir en marckant tine route certaine ; 
 
278 THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 Et, sans gener ma plume en ce libre metier, 
 Je la laisse au hazard courir sur le papier. 
 
 This is untrue : if it were not, lie would have 
 written greatly worse than he did. Horgcce has 
 misled him here, as on other occasions, by being 
 misunderstood: he says. 
 
 Ego apis Matinae 
 More modoque 
 Grata carpentis thyma per laborem 
 Plurmurrii 8^c. 
 
 This relates to the diversity of subjects chosen 
 by the lyric poet: instead of which Boileau speaks 
 merely of satires, and tells us that he corrects the 
 age at hazard, and without the view or intention 
 of correcting it. 
 
 Quand je vois ta sagesse en ses justes projets 
 D'une heureiise abondance enrichir tes sujets. 
 
 Here indeed he is a satirist, and a very bold 
 one, and one who does not let his pen run at ran- 
 dom over the paper. 
 
 Que je n' ai wz le ton, ni la vouv assez forte. 
 
 . This verse resembles that in his translation of 
 Sappho, 
 
 Je ne sgaurois trouver,..de langue...ni de voix. 
 
 He places the tone and the voice in contradis- 
 tinction : but what is the difference ? Where the 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 279 
 
 tone is loud, the voice is loud, at least for the time. 
 Here, as everywhere, you find the never-failing 
 characteristic of your verse. Your heroic line 
 rises and falls at a certain pitch, like the handle of 
 a pump. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 You know, M. Landor, even the glorious orb 
 of Phoebus is defaced by spots. Besides, Boileau's 
 satires were his earliest compositions in verse; 
 and some blemishes in them have been detected 
 by our own critics. But they are excusable, or 
 rather they were inevitable. My experience has 
 taught me that perfection is the offspring of labour, 
 and that the Muses must be wooed before they can 
 be won. You will have remarked, I doubt not, 
 that my later works are much more delicately 
 finished than my earlier. The former put me in 
 mind of some rude village in a remote province, 
 the latter more resemble the gardens of Versailles. 
 It is the same in every art. Vestris himself, 
 though, as you are aware, he was Nature's favorite 
 child, could not invest his limbs with all those 
 graces of attitude and motion, which electrified 
 Paris and the world, until Time had organized his 
 budding powers, and Practise had modulated their 
 rich luxuriance. But turn to Boileau's Epistles, 
 
280 THE ABBE DELUXE 
 
 and in some of them at least you will find nothing 
 against which you can object: the dust with which 
 detraction has rubbed them, has only served to 
 renew their exquisite polish. 
 
 LAN DOR. 
 
 With your permission then we will continue our 
 walk, and if we kick up diamonds instead of dirt, 
 or if my blacking, instead of smearing a face, 
 polishes a shoe, we shall be so much the gainers. 
 
 EPITRE I. AU ROI. 
 
 Boileau had just issued a long and laborious 
 writ against Equivoque ; he had despached against 
 it Noah's ark by sea and Heresy by land, when 
 Apollo epei^du makes him suddenly the prize of 
 his adversary. He has the simplicity to tell Louis 
 that Apollo has cautioned him thusj 
 
 Cette mer ou tu cours est celebre en naufrages. 
 
 I hope Louis read this line some years after- 
 wards, when the application of it would scourge 
 him severely. Deprived of all he had acquired by 
 his treachery and violence, unless the nation that 
 brought him upon his knees, had permitted two 
 traitors, Harley and St. John, to second the views 
 of a weak woman and to obstruct those of policy 
 and of England, he had been carted to condign 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 281 
 
 punishment in the Place cle Grtve or at Tyburn. 
 Such examples are much wanted, and, as they can 
 rarely be given, should never be omitted. 
 
 This man is here called grand roi seven times 
 within 200 lines ; and to shew that he really was 
 so, the words are written in grand characters. 
 
 Te livrer le Bosphore, et...d'un vers incivil 
 Proposer au Sultan de te ceder le Nil. 
 
 Can any one doubt that, if the letter e could 
 have been added to vers, the poet would have 
 written civil instead of inciviL I do not re- 
 member in any language an epithet so idle and 
 improper. 
 
 Ne t'avoDS-nous pas vu dans les plaines Belgiques, 
 Quand I'ennemi vainczf, desertant ses remparts, 
 Au devant de ton joug couroit de toutes parts, 
 Toi-meme te borner ? 
 
 Yes, with the assistance of William. Your poets 
 and writers of every kind make all the world 
 French. It has been well remarked, that a French- 
 man when victorious is most truly called vain- 
 cceur, and that yours is the only nation upon 
 earth which, when defeated, still retains this cha- 
 racteristic quality, though transferring it to the 
 part which it exposes to the enemy, and to 
 specify which more particularly would not be 
 decorous. 
 
282 THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 Au devant de ton joug. 
 
 Surely a beneficent prince has no occasion to 
 impose a yoke upon those who run toward him so 
 willingly from all parts: nevertheless the senti- 
 ment is national. 
 
 Iront de ta valeur effrayer runivers.,, 
 
 A wise, beneficent, godlike action ! but what 
 follows ? 
 
 Et camper devant Dole au milieu des hywrs ! ! ! 
 
 He grows more and more reasonable. 
 
 On verra les abus par ta main reformeS;, 
 La licence et Forgueil en tous lieux reprimes, 
 Du debris des traitans ton epargne grossie, 
 Des subsides qffreux la rigueur adoucie, 
 Le soldat, dans la paix, sage et... labor ieux, 
 Nos artisans grossiers rendus., .industrieux. 
 
 What idea must that nation entertain of poetry, 
 which can call this so ? To encounter these 
 wretched lines, truly 
 
 C'est camper devant Dole au milieu des hyvers. 
 What more does Louis perform? 
 
 Tantot je tracerai tes pompeux batiraents, 
 Du loisir d'un heros nobles amusements. 
 
 These noble amusements, with some others of 
 the same hero, brought France into a state of 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 283 
 
 poverty and wretchedness, which, neglected by his 
 successors, hurled the least vicious of the family to 
 the scaffold. 
 
 EPITRE III. 
 
 I turn over the leaves hastily... Here we shall 
 discover what happened when Adam was fallen. 
 
 Le cliardou importun herissa...les guerets^ 
 Le serpent venimeiix rampa daiis...les forets. 
 
 According to this, matters were bettered. If 
 the serpent had always been there, Adam would 
 have lost nothing, and the importunity of the 
 thistle would have been little to be complained of, 
 if it had only been in the gidrets, 
 
 EPITRE IV. AU ROI. 
 
 Comment en vers heureux assieger Doesbourg, 
 Zutphen^ Wagheninghen, HarderwiC;, Knotzembourg? 
 
 These names are tacked together for no other 
 purpose than the rhyme: he complains that they 
 are difficult to pronounce, meaning to say difficult 
 to spell ; for certainly none of them is very harsh ; 
 but whenever a Frenchman finds a difficulty in 
 spelling a word, he throws in a handful of con- 
 sonants to help him over; these are the fascines 
 of M. Boileau's approaches. The sound of IVurts 
 is not offensive to the ear, without which, the poet 
 says, 
 
284 THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 Que j'allois a tes yeux etaler de merveilles ! 
 
 As you French pronounce Zutphen, &c. tliey 
 are truly harsh enough ; but that is owing to your 
 nasal twang, the most disagreeable and disgusting 
 of all sounds, being produced by the same means 
 as a stink is rejected, and thus reminding us of 
 one. The syllable Zut is not harsher than the 
 first in Zetes, or Phen than the first in Phenia:, 
 In fact the sounds of Grand Roi are considerably 
 harsher than any that so pow^erfully offend him, 
 as to stop him with his vary shew on his back when 
 he had promised the king a peep at it. I w^ell 
 remember the difficulty I experienced, in teaching 
 a learned countryman of yours that, 
 
 'Txvas at the royal feast for Persia won.,, 
 
 is really a verse, and that 'trcas should not be 
 pronounced it was, inviting him to read the first 
 line of the Iliad, in which he stumbled at thea, 
 and fell flat upon his face at Peleiadeo, I will 
 now shew you what to any organs sensible of har- 
 mony is really disagreeable ; three similar sounds 
 for instance in one verse, which occurr in the four 
 last of this Epistle, that seems to have been 
 written when the din of the blacksmith's shop, 
 before complained of, was ringing in his ears. 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 285 
 
 Non, non, ne faisow.? plus de plaintes inutiles : 
 Puisqu' ainsi dans deux mois tu -^rends quar«7i^e villes, 
 Assure des bons vers dont ton bras me repond, 
 Je t' a.ttends dans deux ans aux bords de I'Helles/jow^. 
 
 I know nothing of the Dutch language, but I 
 will venture a wager with you, M. I'Abb^, that 
 the harshest verse in it is less so than these ; and 
 a Greek or an Italian shall decide. There are 
 dozens similar. 
 
 Je YdJisfaire la guerre aux habitans de Vair, 
 II mejaut du repos, des pre^ et des iorets. 
 Ont cru me rendre ^Sveux aux yeihv de I'wnivers. 
 Ses ecrits pleins ^^feu partout brilleiit aux yeux. 
 
 The man must have been born in a sawmill, or 
 in France, or under the falls of Niagara, whose 
 ear can suffer these. In the same Epistle we find, 
 
 A ces mots, essuyant sa barbe limoneiise, 
 
 II prend d'un vieux guerrier la figure poicdreiise. 
 
 Another equivoque/ Surely if Boileau had 
 found such poetry in an author of small repute, 
 he would have quoted it as a thing too low to kick 
 up, too flat to ridicule. 
 
 What does the Rhine, after wiping the mud off 
 his moustaches with a clean cambric hankerchief, 
 and assuming the powdered face of an old war- 
 rior? he 
 
 'Dajameux fort de Skink preiid la route connue ! 
 
286 THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 And Louis, what is he about? 
 
 Louis, les animant du feu de son courage, 
 
 Se plaint de sa grandeur... qui Tattache au rivage. 
 
 He had many such complaints to make against 
 his grandeur: Cesar and Alexander had none. 
 A Gascon ran away from a fortress about to be 
 bombarded. He was intercepted and brought 
 back ; and, on his trial before a court-martial, said 
 in his defence that he had wished to shew his 
 courage in the plain. If this had been permitted, 
 it would probably have been found to be of the 
 same kind as that of Louis. 
 
 Turn to the eighth Epistle which is again ad- 
 dressed to the King. I pass over the intermediate, 
 because it is reasonable to presume that if Boileau 
 looks not well in a court-dress, he never looks 
 well. Li other cases indeed it would be unjust 
 to confound the poet with the courtier; in him 
 the courtier is the better part. I observe too that 
 these Epistles are particularly celebrated by the 
 Editor for "the suppleness and grace of the versi- 
 fication, and for the equableness, solidity, and 
 fulness of the style." 
 
 Et mes vers en ce style, ennuyeux, sans appas, 
 Deshonorent ma plume et ne t' lionorent pas. 
 
 If the verses were ennuyeiix et sans appas, it 
 
AND AVALTER LANDOR. 287 
 
 is evident enough that they dishonoured his pen ; 
 and what dishonoured his pen could not honour 
 his prince. This thought, which Boileau has re- 
 peated so often, and so ill, is better expressed by 
 several other of your poets, and shortly before by 
 Malleville, in these words. 
 
 Mais je s^ais quel effort demande cet ouvrage ; 
 La grandeur du sujet me doit epouvanter j 
 Je trahirois sa gloire au lieu de 1' augmenter, 
 
 Et ferois a son nom moins d'honneur que d'outrage. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 That sonnet of Malleville is very beautiful. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 Particularly in the conclusion : yet your critics 
 preferred, to this and all others, one which dis- 
 plays Phillis and Aurora and Zephyr and Olym- 
 pus, and in which a most polite apology is offered 
 to the Sun, for the assertion that the brightness 
 of Phillis was as much superior to his, as his was 
 superior to that of the stars. They, who reason 
 so profoundly on all things, seem to argue thus. If 
 it requires more skill in a tailor to give a fashion- 
 able cut and fresh glossiness to an old court-dress, 
 than to make a new one, it requires a better poet 
 to refurbish a trite thought than to exhibit an 
 original. 
 
THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 Dans les nobles dourcurs d'lin sejour plein de charmes 
 Tu n'es pas moins heros qu'au milieu des alarmes. 
 
 In the second line, another equivoque ! It is 
 perfectly true that he was just as much a hero 
 abed and asleep as in battle, but his heroism was 
 chiefly displayed in these nobles douceurs. Pity 
 that Boileau has written no ode on his marriage 
 with a poor peasant girl whom he met while he 
 was hunting. The Virgin Mary would perhaps 
 have been bridesmaid, and Apollo would have pre- 
 sented the Gospel on which he swore. How many 
 of your most glorious kings would, if they had 
 been private men in any free country, have been 
 condemned to the pillory and the galleys ! 
 
 De ton trone agrandi portant seul tout le faix. 
 
 This is the favorite metaphor of your poet: 
 he ought to have known that kings do not carry 
 the burden of thrones, but that thrones carry 
 theirs, and that therefore the metaphor here is 
 not only inelegant, as usual, but imperfect and 
 misapplied. 
 
 J' amasse de tes faits le pcnible volume. 
 
 Again equivoque ! ... In turning over the leaves 
 to arrive at the Art Poetique, my eye rests on 
 this verse in the twelfth Epistle. 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. ^9 
 
 Qui n'eut jamais pour dieu que glace... 
 
 A strange God enough! it is not to be won- 
 dered at if there is no other in his company : but 
 there is : who ? 
 
 et que froideur. 
 
 There are follies on which it would be a greater 
 
 folly to remark. Who would have the courage to 
 
 ask whether there is not coldness where there is 
 
 ice? A Latin poet however has written almost as 
 
 ill; 
 
 Alpes 
 Frigidus aerias atque alta caciimina. 
 
 Read the first lines in the Art Poetique. 
 
 C'est en vain qu'au Parnasse un temeraire auteur 
 Pense de Tart des vers atteindre la hauteur.., 
 
 Auteur answers to hauteur. After this fashion 
 an echo is the most accomplished of rhymers. 
 
 S'il ne sent point du ciel I'influence secrete. 
 
 In that case he is not temeraire, and the epithet 
 is worse than useless. 
 
 Fuyez de ces auteurs I'abondance sterile^ 
 Et ne vous cliargez point d'un detail inutile. 
 
 The first verse forestals the second, which is 
 flat, and the three following are still worse. 
 
 Ou le Temps qui s'enfuit...Mwe horloge a la main. 
 
 U 
 
290 THE ABBE BELILLE 
 
 He thinks it unreasonable that such an allegory 
 should be censured. Now Time should be repre- 
 sented with no very modern inventions to desig- 
 nate him. I presume that M. Boileau means the 
 hourglass by his horloge a la main ; but although 
 we often see in prints an allegorical figure of this 
 description, no poet should think that a sufficient 
 reason for adopting it, but rather (if a better were 
 wanting) for its rejection. An hourglass in the 
 hand of this mighty and most awful Power is 
 hardly less ridiculous than a watch and seals. 
 
 Soyez vif et presse dans vos narrations^ 
 Soyez ricbe et pompeux dans vos descriptions. 
 
 I know not which to call the w^orse, the lines or 
 the advice. But to recommend a man to be rich 
 in any thing, is a hint that cannot always be 
 taken. 
 
 y aime mieux Arioste et ses fables comiques 
 Que ces auteurs toujours froids et melancholiques. 
 
 Really! This he intends as a />25-a//^r. Ariosto 
 is a plagiary, the most so of all poets ; Ariosto is 
 negligent; his plan inartificial, defective, bad: 
 but divide the Orlando into three parts and take 
 the worst of them, and although it may contain a 
 large portion of extremely vile poetry, it will con- 
 tain more of good than the whole French lan- 
 guage. 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 291 
 
 Mais aussi pardounez, si, pleiu de ce beau zele, 
 De tous vos -^di^fameiix observateur fidele, 
 Quelques fois du bon or je separe le faux. 
 
 What has gold to do, false or sterling, with 
 steps, zeal, and observation ? Fameux, I must 
 remark, is a very favorite expression with him, 
 and is a very unpoetical one. Poetry is the voice 
 of Fame, and celebrates, not what is famous, but 
 what deserves to be so. Of this Boileau is igno- 
 rant. He uses the same epithet at the beginning 
 of the Lutrin. 
 
 Et to\, fameux heros, dont la sage entremise 
 De ce scbisme naissant debarrassa I'Eglise, 
 Viens d'un regard heureux animer mon projet, 
 Et garde-toi de rire en si grave sujet. 
 
 The last advice destroys all facetiousness ; to 
 animate a project is nonsense. 
 
 Et de longs traits ^^feu lui sortent par les yeux. 
 
 This is just as euphonous as the verse, 
 Ses ecrits pleins ^<tfeu partout brillent aux yeux. 
 
 Another such is, 
 
 De ses ailes dans \air secouant la pous5?ere. 
 
 Another no less so, 
 
 ... Invisible en ce lieu 
 Je ne pourrai done plw^ etre \u que de Dim, 
 
 u 2 
 
/ 
 292 THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 And another, 
 
 La Xenophon dans Vair lieurte contre un la Serre. 
 
 In the translation of Sappho's ode, all is 
 wretchedly bad after the first stanza. 
 
 Je sens de veine en veine une subtile flamme 
 
 Courir par tout mon corps, 
 
 Je ne sgaurois trouver de langue..»m de voix. 
 
 Un wMage con/w^ se repand sur ma vile. 
 
 Je n'en tends j5/w5...je tombe en de douces langueurs... 
 
 He had talked about doux transports two lines 
 above. 
 
 Et pale, sans haleine, interdite, perdue,,. 
 
 This is the very contrary to the manner of 
 Sappho, as praised by Longinus, and nothing can 
 be more diffuse, more tautological, more prosaic. 
 
 You must have remarked, M. l'Abb6, that I 
 have frequently turned over several pages together, 
 and that, familiar, as you may call me, of the 
 Holy Office, I never have invested my meagre 
 and hollow-eyed delinquent with colours of flame 
 and images of devils. Ridicule has followed the 
 vestiges of Truth, but never usurped her place. 
 I have said nothing of the Odes, from an un- 
 willingness to insult over their helpless fatuity. 
 Only throw a glance over that on the taking of 
 Namur. 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 293 
 
 Quelle docte et sainte ivresse 
 Aujourd'hui me fait la loi ? 
 
 Violent absurdity ! 
 
 Et par cent bouches horribles 
 L'airain sur ces monts terribles. — 
 Dix mille vaillant Alcides, — 
 C'est Jupiter en personne, 
 Ou c'est le vainqueur.,.de Mons ! — 
 Saint-Omer, Besangon, Dole, 
 YpreSj Mastriclit, et Cambrai ! ! ! — 
 Accourez, Nassau, Baviere, 
 
 to do what? 
 
 Conslderer *,,ces approches ! ! — 
 Louis, ^ tout donnant Tame, 
 Marcher, courir avec eux. 
 
 He might have marched with 'em, but he ran 
 before 'em. 
 
 Son gouverneur, qui se trouble. — 
 De corps morts, de rocs, de briques. 
 
 Here, I observe, the editor says, le son de 
 ces mots repond a ce qu'ils expriment. Pray, 
 M. l'Abb6, which is the sound among them that 
 resembles the dead bodies ? 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 The odes of Boileau, I confess, are inferior to 
 the choruses of Racine in Athalie. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 Diffuse and feeble paraphrases from the Psalms ! 
 The best ode in your language is in the form of a 
 sonnet by Gombaud. 
 
294 THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 La voix qui retentit &c. 
 
 The most admired verse of Racine, 
 Je crains Dieu, cher Abner, &c. 
 
 is borrowed almost literally from Godeau. Cher 
 Abner favours the theft. The line preceding is 
 useless, and shews, as innumerable other instances 
 do, his custom of making the first yor the second, 
 and after it. He has profited much from the neg- 
 lected poets of your country, and wants energy 
 because he wants originality. You pause, M. 
 VAbhL 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 I cannot well believe, that if Boileau, to say 
 nothing of Racine, was a poet so faulty as you re- 
 present him, he would have escaped the censure 
 of such sound critics and elegant writers as Johnson 
 and AVarton. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 Add poets also ; the former so pow^erful that he 
 made the tempests sigh. . . 
 
 O'er the sad plains perpetual tempests sigh... 
 
 the latter, that he reduced the flames to the tem- 
 perature of new milk. 
 
 How burnt their bosoms with imrm patriot flame ! 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 9Q5 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 Well! what is amiss? 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 I perceive, my dear Abb^, that you slide easily 
 on the corruptions of our language. In fashionable 
 life we say, " I am very warm," never "I am 
 very hot:" the expression is wrong. Warmth is 
 temperate heat : we never say red-warm, but red- 
 hot; never burning-warm, but hurning-hot ; we 
 use a warming-pan for our beds, a heater of red- 
 hot iron for our tea-urns. The epithet of warm 
 applied to Jiame is worse than childish; for chil- 
 dren speak as they feel ; bad poets, from reminis- 
 cences and arrangements. Johnson had no feeling 
 for poetry: Warton was often led astray by a 
 feverish and weak enthusiasm. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 Johnson may not have been quite so learned as 
 some, whose celebrity is less, for I believe that 
 London is worse furnished with public libraries 
 of easy access, than any city in Europe, not ex- 
 cepting Constantinople, and his private one, from 
 his contracted circumstances, must have been 
 scanty. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 He was studious; but neither his weak eyes, 
 nor many other infirmities, on which very severe 
 
296 THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 mental disquietude worked incessantly, would allow 
 him all the reading he coveted : besides he was both 
 too poor and too wise to collect a large body of 
 authors. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 Ignorant men are often more ambitious than 
 the learned of copious libraries and curious books, 
 as the blind are fonder of sunshine than the sighted. 
 Surely the judgment of Johnson was correct, the 
 style elegant. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 I have spoken of his judgment ; it was alike in 
 all things. In regard to elegance of style, it ap- 
 pears to me that a sentence of Johnson is like that 
 article of dress which your nation has lately made 
 peace with ; divided into two parts, equal in length, 
 breadth, and substance, with a protuberance before 
 and behind. Warton's Essay on Pope is a cabinet 
 of curiosities, in which are many trifles worth 
 looking at, nothing to carry about or use. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 That Racine and Boileau were great borrowers 
 is undeniable. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 And equally so that they sometimes paid only 
 a small portion of the debt. 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 29t 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 Even your immortal Shakespear borrowed from 
 others. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 Yet he was more original than the originals. 
 He breathed upon dead bodies and brought them 
 into life. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 I think however that I can trace Caliban, that 
 wonderful creature, when I survey attentively the 
 Cyclops of Euripides. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 He knew nothing of Euripides or his Cyclops. 
 That poet, where he is irregular, is great ; and he 
 presents more shades and peculiarities of character, 
 than all the other poets of antiquity put together. 
 Yet in several scenes he appears to have written 
 principally for the purpose of inculcating his poli- 
 tical and moral axioms. Almost every character 
 introduces them, and in almost every place. There 
 is a regular barter of verse for verse ; no credit is 
 given for a proverb, however threadbare ; the ex- 
 change is paid on the nail for the commodity. 
 The dogmas, like valets de place, serve any master 
 and run to any quarter. Even when new, they 
 nevertheless are miserably flat and idle : how dif- 
 ferent from the striking sentences employed un- 
 
298 THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 sparingly by Pindar, which always come recom- 
 mended by some simple and appropriate ornament, 
 like images on days of festival in the temples. 
 Virgil and Ovid have interspersed them throughout 
 their works, with equal felicity. The dialogue of 
 Euripides is sometimes dull and heavy ; the con- 
 struction of his fable infirm and inartificial ; and 
 if in the chorus he assumes another form and be- 
 comes a more elevated poet, he still is at a loss to 
 make it serve the interests of the piece. Wearied 
 by his dialectics, and again refreshed by his chorus, 
 I cannot but exclaim 
 
 There be tzvo Richards in the field today. 
 
 Aristophanes, who ridicules him in his Comedies, 
 treats him disdainfully as the competitor of So- 
 phocles, and speaks probably the sense of the 
 Athenians in the meridian of their literature. If 
 however he was not considered by them as the 
 equal of Sophocles in dramatic power, still sensible 
 men in all ages will respect him, and the more so, 
 because they will fancy that they discover in him 
 greater wisdom than others have discovered : for 
 while many things in his tragedies are direct, and 
 many proverbial, others are allusive and vague, 
 occurring in various states of mind and tempera- 
 tures of feeling. There is little of the theatrical 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 299 
 
 in his works ; and his characters are more anxious 
 to shew their understandings than their sufferings, 
 Euripides came down farther into common life 
 than Sophocles, and he farther down than ^schy- 
 lus: one would have expected the reverse. But 
 the marvellous had carried ^schylus from the 
 earth, and he filled with light the whole region in 
 w^hich he rested. The temperate greatness and 
 pure eloquence of Pericles formed the moral con- 
 stitution of Sophocles, who had exercised with him 
 a principal magistracy in the republic; and the 
 demon of Socrates, not always unimportunate, 
 followed Euripides from the school to the theatre. 
 The decencies of the boudoir were unknown to 
 him : he w^ould have shocked your chambermaids. 
 Talthybius calls Polyxena a calf; her mother had 
 done the same. Hercules, in Alcestis, is drunk. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 This is horrible, if true. Virgil (to venture 
 nothing further about Racine), Virgil is greatly 
 more judicious in his Dido. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 The passion of Dido is always true to Nature. 
 Other women have called their lovers cruel : she 
 calls ^neas so, not chiefly for betraying and de- 
 serting her, but for hazarding his Hfe by encoun- 
 tering the tempests of a wintry sea. 
 
300 THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 " Even if it were not to foren lands and unknown habita- 
 tions that you were hastening, even if Troy were yet in ex- 
 istence, and you were destined thither, would you choose a 
 season like this? would you navigate a sea of which you are 
 ignorant, under the stars of winter ?" 
 
 I must repeat the lines, for the sake of pro- 
 posing an improvement. 
 
 Quinetiam hyherno moliris sidere classem, 
 Et mediis properas aquilonibus ire per altum... 
 Crudelis ! quod si non arva aliena domosque 
 Ignotas peteres, et Troja antiqua maneret, 
 Troja per undosum peteretur classibus aequor? 
 
 If liyhernum were substituted for undosum^ how 
 incomparably more beautiful would the sentence 
 be for this energetic repetition ! Adjectives end- 
 ing with osus express abundance and intensity to 
 such a degree, that some learned men derive the 
 termination from odi, the most potent and uni- 
 versal of feelings. If it be so, Jamosus, jocosiis, 
 nemorosuSy fabulosiiSi sabulosus, &c. must have 
 been a later brood. 
 
 Undosum^ with all its force, would be far from 
 an equivalent for hyhernum, even if the latter 
 held no fresh importance from apposition. 
 
 My admiration of the author of the ^neid, as 
 you see, is not inferior to yours: but I doubt 
 whether he has displayed on the xvhole such 
 poetical powers as the author of Alcestis, who far 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 301 
 
 excels in variety and peculiarity of character all 
 poets excepting Shakespear. He lias invented, it 
 is true, nothing so stupendous nor so awful as the 
 Prometheus : but who has ? The Satan of Milton 
 himself sinks below it ; for Satan, if he sometimes 
 appears with the melancholy grandeur of a fallen 
 Angel, and sometimes as the antagonist of Om- 
 nipotence, is often a thing to be thrown out of 
 the way, among the rods and foolscaps of the 
 nursery. 
 
 Still I wish that Virgil were a little more fol- 
 lowed by our sweepers of the Haram; he might 
 be, without diminution to their grace or dignity. 
 He has been once in his riddle : 
 
 Die quibus in terris (et eris mihi raagnus Apollo) 
 Tres pateat cceli spatium non amplius ulnas. 
 
 The family of Coelius, you know^, was of Verona, 
 and occasionally, it is probable, a visitant of Mantua. 
 He upon whose tomb the invention of Menalcas 
 was about to be exercised, is perhaps the same to 
 whom, fifteen years before, Catullus addressed two 
 of his lighter compositions. Now, Abbe, 
 
 " Know you the land. 
 
 Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit. 
 
 And the voice of the nightingale never is mute?" 
 
302 THE ABBE DELILLE ^ 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 Out upon it 1 I have it : a grocer's shop kept 
 by one Nightingale. It cannot be otherwise ; for 
 olives and citrons in their natural state are ugly 
 enough, but preserved and pickled they fairly beat 
 almonds and raisins, figs, pistachios, and prunes. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 I have heard the paradox, that he intended no 
 enigma. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 His enemies and rivals may assert it. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 They declare that he really means Turkey. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 Ha! ha! ha! spiteful rogues! If it were in- 
 deed not a man's house, but a region of the earth, 
 it must be one where there is no peach, apricot, 
 plum, raspberry, strawberry, cranberry, cherry, 
 grape, currant, or crab ; and I conceive that in such 
 a situation there can hardly be citron or olive. Then 
 the nightingale. .. He sings for a shorter season 
 than any other bird. His song continues few 
 weeks. There is something in it like the happi- 
 ness of man before the Fall ; vivid and exuberant, 
 but melancholy from its solitude, and from the 
 shades that we perceive are closing on it. 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 303 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 You have earned your release from doubt. What- 
 ever was the poet's first intention, he himself now 
 declares that he has no concern in Nightingale's 
 shop ; that his idea is not borrowed from Virgil, 
 and that the land, upon his faith. 
 
 Is the clime of the East, is the land of the Sun. 
 DELILLE. 
 
 Pray which? A pleasant release from doubt! 
 a release like a push given by a jailor to his pri- 
 soner in the cell, with a cry of " Get out, you 
 rogue r^ as he turns the key upon him. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 We may observe also that really 
 
 " The voice of the nightingale never is mute. " 
 DELILLE. 
 
 O yes surely. I am supported by BufFon. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 Songs may be mute, for songs may exist un- 
 sung; but voices exist only while they sound. 
 In the same poem I find that, 
 
 '' If ought his lips essay d to groan^ 
 The rushing billows choak'd the tone." 
 
 They need not take the trouble : I will answer 
 
304 THE ABBE DELUXE 
 
 for lips doing no harm in the way of groaning, let 
 them essay it as long as they list. 
 
 We have in England, at the present time, many 
 poets far above what was formerly thought medio- 
 crity ; but our national taste begins to require ex- 
 citement. Our poems must contain stro7ig things. 
 We call for essences, not for flowers. We run 
 across from the old grove and soft meadow, into 
 the ruined abbey, the Albanian fortress, and the 
 Sultan's garden. We cut down our oaks and plant 
 cypresses : we reprove our children for not calling 
 a rose a gul: we kick the first shepherd we meet, 
 and shake hands with the first cut-throat. We 
 still excite tears; but we conjure them forth at 
 the point of the dagger, and, if they come slower 
 than we could wish, we bully and blaspheme. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 Nothing is easier than to catch the air of ori- 
 ginality now blowing. Do not wonder that it 
 pleases the generality. You and I perhaps have 
 stopped, like the children and the servants, to 
 look at a fine transparency on a staircase, while 
 many, who called themselves professors, have passed 
 a Raphael by and have never noticed it. Let us 
 censure no one for being easily pleased, but let us 
 do the best we can. Whenever I find a critic or 
 satirist vehement against the writers of his age 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 305 
 
 and country, I attribute more of his inspiration to 
 vanity than to mahgnity, much as I may observe 
 of this. No good writer was ever long neglected ; 
 no great man overlooked by men equally great. 
 Impatience is a proof of inferior strength, and a 
 destroyer of what little there may be. Whether, 
 think you, would Shakespear be amused or mor- 
 tified, if he were sitting in the pit during the per- 
 formance of his best tragedy, and heard no other 
 exclamation from his next neighbour, than. How 
 beautifully those scenes are painted! what palaceSy 
 waterfalls, and rocks! 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 He, whose poems are worth all that have been 
 composed from the Creation to the present hour, 
 was so negligent or so secure of fame, as to preserve 
 no copy of them. Homer and he, the one by ne- 
 cessity, the other by choice, confided to the hearts 
 of men the treasures of their genius, which were, 
 like conscience, unengraved words. A want of se- 
 dulity, at least in claiming the property of thoughts, 
 is not among the deficiencies of our modern poets. 
 Some traveller, a little while ago, was so witty as 
 to call Venice Rome, not indeed the Rome of the 
 Tiber, but the Rome of the sea. A poet, warm 
 with keeping up the ball from gazette to gazette, 
 
 X 
 
306 THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 runs instantly to the printers, out of breath at so 
 glorious an opportunity of perpetuating his fame, 
 and declares to all Europe that he had called 
 Venice Rome the year before. We now perceive, 
 but too late for the laurel which they merited, 
 what prodigious poets were your Marat and Bona- 
 parte and Robespierre, with whom England one 
 day was Tyre, another day Carthage, and Paris 
 the Rome of the Seine. 
 
 We have wandered (and conversation would be 
 tedious unless we occasionally did so) far from 
 our subject : but I have not forgotten your Cyclops 
 nor my Caliban. The character of the Cyclops 
 is somewhat broad and general, but worthy of 
 Euripides, and such as the greatest of Roman 
 poets was incapable of conceiving : that of Caliban 
 is peculiar and stands single ; it is admirably ima- 
 gined and equally well sustained. Another poet 
 would have made him spiteful: Shakespear has 
 made the infringement of his idleness the origin 
 of his malice. He has also made him grateful: 
 but then his gratitude is the return for an indul- 
 gence granted to his evil appetites. Those who 
 by nature are grateful are often by nature vindic- 
 tive : one of these properties is the sense of kind- 
 ness, the other of unkindness. Religion and com- 
 
AND WALTER LANDOR. 307 
 
 fort require that the one should be cherished and 
 that the other should be suppressed. The mere 
 conception of the monster, without these qualities, 
 without the sudden impressions which bring them 
 vividly out, and the circumstances in which they 
 are displayed, would not be, to considerate minds, 
 so stupendous as it appeared to Warton, who little 
 knew that there is a nil admirari as requisite to 
 wisdom as to happiness. 
 
 No new fiction of a supernatural being exists in 
 poetry. Hurd traced the genealogy of the Faeries, 
 and fancied he made a discovery. The Sylphs 
 have only another name. Witches and wizards 
 and giants, apparently powerful agents, generally 
 prove the imbecility of the author who has any 
 thing to do with them. Dragons and demons 
 awaken our childish fancies, some of which remain 
 with us to the last. Dreams perhaps generated 
 them, superstition presented them with names and 
 attributes, and the poet brings them forth into 
 action. 
 
 Take your Boileau. Some morning, when we 
 are both of us quite at leisure, I will engage to 
 make out the full hundred of puerilities in your 
 grave, concise, elegant poet. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 There are excellences, my friend, in Boileau, 
 
 X 2 
 
808 THE ABBE DELILLE 
 
 of which you cannot judge so correctly as a native 
 can : for instance his versification. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 I would not creep into the secrets of a versifica- 
 tion, upon which even you, M. Delille, can ring 
 no changes; a machine which must be regularly 
 wound up at every six syllables, and the construc- 
 tion of which is less artificial than that of a cuckoo- 
 clock. The greater part of the heroic verses in 
 your language may be read with more facility as 
 anapestic than as iambic: there is not a syllable 
 which may not become either short or long, how- 
 ever it usually be pronounced in conversation. 
 The secret of conciseness I know and will com- 
 municate to you, so that you may attain it in the 
 same manner and with the same facility as Boileau 
 and Voltaire have done. 
 
 DELILLE. 
 
 Indeed it costs me infinite pains, and I almost 
 suspect that I have sometimes failed. 
 
 LANDOR. 
 
 Well then, in future you may be master of it 
 without any pains at all. Do what they did. 
 Throw away the little links and hinges, the little 
 cramps and dovetails, which lay upon the tables of 
 Homer and of Virgil, which were adjusted, with 
 equal nicety, by Cicero, Plato, and Demosthenes, 
 
AND WALTER LAN DOR. 309 
 
 and were not overlooked by Bossuet and Pascal ; 
 then dock the tail of your commas, and behold a 
 period. 
 
 The French are firmly persuaded that all poetry, to be quite 
 perfect, must be theirs or like it. 1 never conversed with one 
 of them on the subject, who did not remark to me the obliga- 
 tions that Milton lay under to the Abbe Delille, and Shak- 
 speare to Voltaire. Among the proofs of national vanity, not 
 indeed equal to this, but still amusing enough, is the declara- 
 tion of a grave writer on heraldry, that Raphael, Correggio, 
 Leonardo, were incapable of painting a Jleur de lisy and that 
 none but a Frenchman by birth and courage could arrive at 
 this summit of glory. His words are these : 
 
 J'estime qu il est fort difficile, de bien faire et representer 
 une fleur de lis mignonnement troussee, qui n'est peintre ex- 
 cellent et Francois de nation et de courage : car un Alle- 
 mand, un Anglois, Espagnol, et Italien, n'en s^auront venir a 
 son honneur^ pour la bien proportionner. — Theatre d'honneur 
 par Fauyn b. 2. c. 6. p. 185. 
 
 What is called a fleur de lis is in fact a spear-head. Chif- 
 flet wrote a treatise to prove that it was a bee. Joannes Fer- 
 randus Aniciensis composed an Epinicion pro liliis. It is won- 
 derful that painters so dexterous left any serious doubt whether 
 what they had drawn so accurately were a flower, a spear-head, 
 or a bee. 
 
 The good Abbe Delille entertained a sincere and high esteem 
 for Monsieur Milton, but felt assured that Adam and Eve, 
 Michael and Satan, could not be mignonnement trousses unless 
 by the hand of a Parisian. 
 
 I should be sorry to have debased these Conversations by 
 attention to a writer of so mean a cast as Boileau, if it might 
 
310 THE ABBE DELILLE, &c. 
 
 not be useful to some of our popular critics, who never sus- 
 pected that he was deficient in correctness of thought or ex- 
 pression, and who recommend him to the rising poets as a 
 perfect model, A grub, if you hook it with dexterity, may 
 catch a tunny. I throw mine upon the water, and leave it 
 there. 
 
 I 
 
CONVERSATION XVI, 
 
 THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER 
 
 AND 
 
 CAPO D'ISTRIA. 
 
THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER 
 
 AND 
 
 CAPO DaSTRIA. 
 
 CAPO D ISTRIA. 
 
 Your Majesty now perceives all the benefits of 
 the Holy- Alliance, and may remember my enu- 
 meration of them. Here is a fact for every word. 
 The Holy- Allies cannot retract: they have ad- 
 mitted the principle: they have gone to work 
 upon it. Austria possesses Italy: turbulence in 
 neighbouring states may be repressed by invasion : 
 there is not a monarch in Europe who denies it ; 
 not one who, whatever his fears, whatever his 
 impudence may be, will oppose by action or 
 word your long-meditated conquest of the Turkish 
 empire. 
 
 ALEXANDER. 
 
 Capo d'Istria, you are a Greek, and would en- 
 
314 THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER 
 
 gage me, prepared or unprepared, in war, for the 
 defence of your native country. 
 CAPO d'istria. 
 Pardon me, my emperor! a Greek, it is true, I 
 am, but you will find me not precipitate. The 
 country of a statesman is the council-board of his 
 prince. Let the pack bark in the kennel; but 
 the shepherd-dog sleeps upon the wallet of his 
 master. 
 
 ALEXANDER. 
 
 Come, give me your opinions, supposing war 
 inevitable. 
 
 CAPO d'istria. 
 
 First then, if war is inevitable, I must publish 
 in all the journals, on the testimony of merchants 
 and bankers, that the differences are all accom- 
 modated. Fifteen thousand roubles will purchase 
 you the principal gazetteers of England ; one thou- 
 sand those of France. The violence and pride of 
 the Turkish character will indeed at last break off 
 accommodation. Your good allies, at your earnest 
 entreaty, will zealously interfere, to avoid the ef- 
 fusion of blood. You must request their advice 
 how to avert this tremendous evil : you must weep 
 over the decrepid fathers of families, the virtuous 
 wives, the innocent children, the priests at the altar, 
 with God in their mouths, weltering in their blood. 
 
AND CAPO D'ISTRIA. 315 
 
 ALEXANDER. 
 
 How will France, England, Sweden, act upon 
 this occasion ? 
 
 CAPO d'istria. 
 
 Your Majesty must know that England is not 
 in a condition to equip twenty thousand troops, 
 and that the maintenance of such a force in the 
 field would cost her more than a hundred thou- 
 sand would cost Russia. Her last year's ex- 
 penses in the contest with France were three 
 times greater than all the expenses in all the cam- 
 paigns of Peter the Great, and her march to Paris 
 cost more than the building of Petersburgh. If 
 her ministers had ever been men of calculation, as 
 they should have been above all others from the 
 habits and wants of their country, they would have 
 avoided, as Walpole did, nearly all continental 
 wars, and would have been contented to throw in 
 a military and monied force, there only where its 
 weight and its celerity must turn the balance. 
 
 ALEXANDER. 
 
 England is a brilliant performer, but bad timist. 
 CAPO d'istria. 
 
 Employments in England are properties, holden 
 under certain families. Victories and conquests 
 are secondary objects in her wars. Against the 
 most consummate generals and the most enthu- 
 
316 THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER 
 
 siastic troops in Europe, was despatched an inex- 
 perienced young prince, in whom the soldiers 
 having no confidence, lost that which personal 
 courage and national pride had implanted in them- 
 selves. Every new disgrace and disaster was a 
 new reason for employing him. Expedition fol- 
 lowed expedition, defeat followed defeat. On an- 
 other occasion, republicans were taken out of the 
 prisons, and brigaded with royalists, to fight for 
 the king of France. They landed on the shores 
 of their country, and slew their comrades. The 
 city of Ferrol was to be attacked: neither the 
 general nor any person under him knew its forti- 
 fications or its garrison. They saw the walls, and 
 turned back ; although the walls, on the side where 
 they landed, were incapable of sustaining one dis- 
 charge of artillery, and the garrison consisted of 
 half an imperfect regiment ; and although the city 
 of Corunna, twenty miles distant, is commanded 
 by the hills above it, in that direction, with walls 
 even more feeble, and a garrison still more de- 
 fective. Even the state of Antwerp was unex- 
 amined when an attack was to be made asrainst it; 
 nay, the English ministers had never heard that 
 the island of Walcheren was unhealthy ; by which 
 ignorance they lost three thousand men. 
 
 The duke of Wellington himself, then untitled, 
 
AND CAPO D'ISTRIA. 317 
 
 was superseded by two old generals, one after the 
 other, at the moment when he had gained the 
 most arduous of his victories. Nelson's brave 
 heart was almost broken by persevering injustice 
 and by proud neglect. He returned, like another 
 Bellerophon, from unexpected and undesired suc- 
 cess. Constantinople, which never contains fewer 
 than forty thousand fighting men, was to be as- 
 sailed by four thousand English; a number not 
 sufficient to garrison the Seraglio, as your Majesty 
 will find next October. 
 
 The ministers of England have squandered away 
 the vast resources of their country among their sup- 
 porters and dependents. The people are worne down 
 with taxes, and hardly any thing short of an in- 
 vasion could rouse them again to war. Besides, in 
 times of discontent, it is dangerous to collect to- 
 gether so large an army as would be sufficient for 
 any important purpose. The armies of Europe 
 have not yet done all they are destined to do. 
 The pertinacity of rulers, in making them the in- 
 struments of their ambition, has made them the 
 arbiters of their fate. I would not speak so clearly, 
 if I were not convinced that your Majesty will 
 find full occupation for yours. Soldiers can never 
 stand idle long together: they must turn into 
 
318 THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER 
 
 citizens or into rebels. The Janisaries are only a 
 translation of the Pretorian-guards. 
 
 ALEXANDER. 
 
 This seems true : and certain I am that Eng- 
 land is not formidable to me just now. 
 CAPO d'istria. 
 
 Strike the blow and she will be less so. If she 
 attack you let her attack you in possession of 
 Turkey, not in writing a declaration of war. 
 Threaten her with exclusion for twenty years 
 from all your ports, if she moves. 
 
 ALEXANDER. 
 
 Her high spirit would not brook this language. 
 CAPO d'istria. 
 
 Her spirit must rise and fall with her con- 
 dition. She has thrown her enemy upon the 
 ground, but he will rise up first. In a time of 
 the greatest plenty England removes a tax upon 
 malt to the advantage of the brewer only. She 
 will proceed in conciliating first one trade then an- 
 other, until she sacrifices her sinking-fund^ which 
 ought to be sacred as the debt itself. It should 
 never have been diminished: on the contrary it 
 should have been augmented with whatever could 
 have been curtailed from unnecessary and ostenta- 
 tious offices. 
 
AND CAPO DlSTRIA. 319 
 
 ALEXANDER. 
 
 The interference of France is much to be ap- 
 prehended: do not you think so, Capo d'Istria? 
 CAPO d'istria. 
 
 The good king of France is occupied in rocking 
 to sleep the martial spirit of his children, as he 
 calls them. He is the most clear-sighted man in 
 his dominions ; and had he been king of France 
 five-and-thirty years ago, a reform, which might 
 afterwards have been done away, would have pre- 
 vented the revolution. The better part of his 
 army is favorable to the cause of Greece; and 
 the Spartan fife is pitched to the carmagnole. 
 France wants colonies; England has too many. 
 To England the most successful war is, on this 
 account, more disastrous than to her defeated ad- 
 versary: her conquests are the worst of evils to 
 her colonies, and the destruction of another's 
 commerce is a violent shock to hers. Cyprus, or 
 Egypt preferably, would abundantly compensate 
 France: either would accelerate the ruin of her 
 rival, or at least increase her distresses. France 
 will be persuaded by England to make some feeble 
 remonstrances, but your Majesty will be informed 
 of their import. Supposing, for nothing is im- 
 possible, that England should confide in the sin- 
 cerity of her neighbour, it could produce no more 
 
320 THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER 
 
 than an intemperance of language, the echoes of 
 which boisterousness would sound but feebly on 
 the shores of the Bosphorus. 
 
 ALEXANDER. 
 
 The spirit of your countrymen is not a spirit 
 which I am at all disposed to encourage, I abhorr 
 republicanism. 
 
 CAFO d'istria. 
 
 So your Majesty should. I feel no such abhor- 
 rence; but your Majesty shall find that all my 
 speculations are lowered down to policy and duty. 
 Leave the Greeks, my countrymen, to their own 
 efforts for a time: every day will produce some 
 new atrocity: mutual hatred will increase: mu- 
 tual efforts will be made incessantly: both par- 
 ties will exhaust themselves: but above all, the 
 Turkish cavalry, the strength of the empire, will 
 perish where it cannot act. Among the moun- 
 tains and defiles it will want both exercise and 
 provender. The Greeks, on becoming your sub- 
 jects, under whatever form of government, whether 
 absolute, mixt, (permit me an absurdity) or free, 
 will be heartily glad to repose; and granting 
 that their fibre still quivers, their strength will 
 be unable to trouble or molest you. Propose 
 to the king of Persia the invasion and possession 
 of the best Turkish provinces, such as Bagdad 
 
AND CAPO D'lSTRIA. 321 
 
 and Damascus ; offer him either a great or a small 
 force, whichever he chooses, of the infantry now 
 quartered on his borders. This will prove your 
 sincerity and ensure his success. You may me- 
 diate afterwards, and recover the whole, when the 
 sons contend for the kingdom. 
 
 ALEXANDER. 
 
 But Austria will not assist and may oppose me. 
 CAPO d'istria. 
 
 God grant it! Her assistence, at the best, 
 would only be in cutting up the prey ; but her 
 opposition would end in being cut up herself. 
 The united kingdoms of Poland and Hungary! 
 We must be fashionable, may it please your Ma- 
 jesty. . .wm fee? is the word of the day... unless we 
 talk of marriages. The next year may produce 
 that which must happen within the next twenty. 
 The Adriatic is the boundary of the Eastern em- 
 pire : the line above it is imaginary both to geo- 
 grapher and politician. 
 
 ALEXANDER. 
 
 I again acknowledge my apprehension of France, 
 both from her perpetual favour towards Turkey, 
 since the reign of Francis the first, and from her 
 jealousy of any continental superior. 
 CAPO d'istria. 
 
 Apparently there is reason from these motives ; 
 
 Y 
 
322 THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER 
 
 but others operate in a contrary direction. France 
 will be very cautious of raising up a military chief. 
 She remembers how much has been effected by 
 one little worthy of her confidence, one great only 
 by the littleness of his competitors. She remem- 
 bers that her king was imposed upon her by the 
 conqueror; and in vain will you demonstrate, as 
 you easily may, that she has produced no man so 
 temperate and wise within the memory of the 
 living:. The command of armies excites to am- 
 bition, and every officer expects promotion under 
 a new dynasty. The king will avoid this by the 
 preservation of peace, which is as necessary to him 
 as war ever was to his predecessor. 
 
 Let us now take another view of the subject, 
 and look beyond the king towards the army. 
 Three hundred thousand French bodies lay ex- 
 posed and stiff along your territory. Place the 
 French army between a Russian and a Turkish, 
 and say to it '^Frenchmen, here are those who 
 slew your companions in arms, impi^ovoked ag- 
 gressors ; and here, on the other side, are those 
 with whom hitherto you have lived in amity, the 
 slaughterous and. oppy^essors of the Greeks, those 
 children ofLeoJiidas and Epaminondas, the natio?i 
 whichfounded Marseilles and Toulon, Ajaccio and 
 Aleria, and left imprinted its f nest features on 
 
AND CAPO D'lSTllIA. 32o 
 
 ijour character :'' they would consult their glory 
 rather than their revenge, and their only hesita- 
 tion would be, whether it allowed them to attack 
 the weaker enemy. A glorious and great nation ! 
 A single spark fires and explodes them. 
 
 I must remark to your Majesty that Russia is 
 the sole country in the world whose policy is im- 
 mutable. Russia, like the star that shines above 
 her, must remain for ever a guide to steer by. 
 The policy of England has varied more frequently 
 than that of any other nation on record, because in 
 general a new administration deems it necessary to 
 change the system of the former. The persons 
 who now administer the affairs of that country, are 
 persons of humble birth and humbler genius, but 
 are maintained in their places by the timidity of 
 the aristocracy, and by the contempt of all classes 
 for the leaders of opposition. They will hazard 
 nothing : they are far more prudent (weak as they 
 are) than any past ministry for nearly half a cen- 
 tury. As we have entered into the French na- 
 tional feeling, so will we now into the English, 
 and I am confident of discovering that no hostility 
 is to be apprehended by your Majesty, from the 
 system of either cabinet or the spirit of either 
 people. 
 
 The Englishman, in all respects the contrary of 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER 
 
 his neighbour, is too great and too fierce a crea- 
 ture to be gregarious. He has little public honour, 
 much private. His own heart makes large de- 
 mands upon him, national glory none. The inner- 
 most regions of Hindostan, the wildest shores of 
 the American Lakes, should have repeated the 
 language of England. This is power; this is 
 glory : Rome acquired it, and civilized the world 
 by it ; with how much scantier stores of intellect, 
 how much less leisure, how much less intercourse, 
 how much less philanthropy, how much less 
 w^ealth ! England would not assist the Greeks 
 from any regard to their past glory, or with any 
 prospective view to her own, but because they 
 have suffered much and fought bravely. Wlien 
 the populace has pelted the king amidst his guards, 
 a ceremony not uncommon, and some have been 
 dismounted in the performance of their duty, they 
 have always been hailed with loud cheers. Let a 
 forener be attacked and defend himself in London, 
 he raises up an army in his favour by the first 
 effort of courage, and the brother of his antagonist 
 clears the ground and demands^er play for him : 
 such is the characteristic expression of this brave 
 unbloody people. All, in other countries, crowd 
 about the strong: he alone who prevails is in the 
 right; he alone who wants no assistence is as- 
 
AND CAPO D'ISTRIA. 325 
 
 sisted: the Englishman is the friend of the deso- 
 late and the defender of the oppressed. Hence 
 his hatred and contempt of those who presume to 
 an equality with him in other states, and the sud- 
 denness with which he breaks off all intercourse 
 from the few whom he has admitted to his society. 
 On these principles your Majesty will prepossess 
 a most powerful and generous people in your fa- 
 vour: and although the national interest is con- 
 cerned in maintaining the Turkish empire, the 
 popular mind will aid you in its overthrow. 
 
 On no other resolution than the conquest of 
 Turkey was it prudent in your Majesty to grant 
 the dominion of Italy to Austria. The occupation 
 of Naples does not require an army : four regi- 
 ments and four hangmen could keep the whole 
 peninsula in subjection. We wanted from all 
 governments an acknowledgement of the dogma, 
 that every ebullition of the public sentiment should 
 be compressed. We obtained it ; we saw it acted 
 on : the first regiment of Austria that marched to 
 Naples paved a road for your guards to Constan- 
 tinople. Why should we break it up again ? why 
 abandon a line of policy, both ends of which are 
 in our hands? Supposing, which is impossible, 
 that any continental power should dare to oppose 
 you, is there any that would be so powerful in 
 
3^6* THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER 
 
 hostility as the Greeks in amity ? Every male of 
 that nation, from puberty to decrepitude, would 
 take up arms; even her women, her bishops, her 
 hospodars. But France, England, Austria, might 
 confederate. Their confederation v/ould act more 
 feebly than the efforts of any one singly, and 
 would ruin the finances of the only state amongst 
 them which, at any time hereafter, might injure 
 you long or materially. They could not hold to- 
 gether three months, no, nor one ; the very first 
 would serve for the seed-time of discord. France 
 has a long account to settle with several of her 
 neighbours: they know it, and will keep them- 
 selves shut closely up at home. Sweden and 
 Prussia have one only guarantee for their in- 
 tegrity. Prussia may expect and obtain much, 
 particularly if England moves a foot. Whatever 
 your Majesty could take away from Sweden, is of 
 no value to you, and would be taken only as a 
 punishment for defection. She will therefor seek 
 to cultivate the friendship of a potentate, in- 
 terested more in preserving than in ruining her, 
 alone capable of either, and alike capable of both. 
 She sees the necessity of peace : for although her 
 soldiers have been at all times the best that ever 
 marched upon the earth, they never marched with- 
 out some great object; and none such is now 
 
AND CAPO D'ISTRIA. 327 
 
 before them. The Swedes are the most orderly 
 and the most civilized people on the continent. 
 Lovers as they are of their country, if they felt 
 any unnecessary v^eight of taxes, they w^ould change 
 their habitations, w^ell knowing that Swedes make 
 Sweden, in whichever hemisphere. The finest 
 countries in the world are still unoccupied. Avarice 
 hath seized a few bays, a few river-banks, a few 
 savannahs, a few mines, of America: the better 
 and greater part remains unoccupied. Emigration 
 has only begun: the colonists, at present there, 
 are merely av ant-couriers and explorers. What 
 rational creature would live where the earth itself 
 is taken away from him, by Nature, one-half of 
 the year, where he sees nothing but snow and sky 
 one-half of his lifetime, if the produce of his 
 labour and the exercise of his will were not per- 
 fectly his own? Are light and warmth worth 
 nothing? They cost much in every cold climate. 
 There must also be a great expenditure, in more 
 costly cloathing, in more copious food, in more 
 spirituous beverage, in more profuse and wasteful 
 hospitality. For solitude is intolerable even to 
 the morose and contemplative w^ithout warmth 
 or light. Every man then is severely taxed by 
 the North itself: rewards, comforts, enjoyments, 
 
S^ THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER 
 
 privileges, should be proposed and invented to 
 detain him; not impositions, not hardships. 
 Sweden, whoever be her king, whatever her con- 
 stitution, must avoid them, and must employ all 
 imaginable means of procuring, from her own 
 soil, her food, her raiment, and her luxuries. 
 She should interdict every unnecessary importa- 
 tion. Her worst land should be proved to be 
 capable of producing fruits, from which may be 
 extracted strong and delicious and salutary liquors. 
 Such is the beneficence of Providence, rarely well 
 seconded, and often thwarted and intercepted, 
 that the least fertile countries and the least genial 
 climates, would mature vinous fruits, and ad- 
 minister a beverage more w^holesome, and more 
 grateful, than fifty-nine parts in sixty of the 
 grape-wines, brewed in Italy and Spain. This is 
 perhaps the first time, since the reign of Cyrus, 
 that a minister of state ever talked on such mat- 
 ters. When I was twenty years younger I should 
 have come forward with fear and blushes, if I had 
 a word to say to my emperor on plums, cherries, 
 currants, and raspberries. But a labourer may 
 forget his weariness amidst the murmur of his 
 hives, and a citizen be attached to his native soil 
 by an apple-tree and a gooseberry-bush. Gar- 
 
AND CAPO D'ISTRIA. 329 
 
 deners are never bad subjects. Sweden will en- 
 courage agriculture, plantation, and fishery. The 
 latter is the most fertile of her possessions, and 
 wants no garrisons or encampments. These oc- 
 cupations will deaden excitability to war, with- 
 out injuring the moral and physical force by 
 which, whenever it is necessary, it may be sup- 
 ported. But she appears to me farther removed 
 from such a necessity than any other nation in the 
 world, and your Majesty may calculate, for the 
 remainder of your life, on her neutrality. 
 
 One argument answers all objections. If they 
 all agreed that Naples should be invaded, when 
 not a single act of violence had been committed, be- 
 cause the Neapolitans were turbulent, how greatly 
 more forcible is the reason, when a more power- 
 ful nation is not only more turbulent, but when 
 the same principles as those of the Neapolitans are 
 in action on one side, and a fanaticism in hostility 
 to Christianity on the other ! Your Majesty is 
 head of the Greek church : bishops and patriarchs 
 have been massacred by the Mahometans. It be- 
 comes not your dignity to listen to any accommo- 
 dation on such outrages. You might have par- 
 doned (which would have been too much) the 
 insult offered to your embassador ; you might have 
 yielded to the entreaties of your allies, in forbear- 
 
330 THE EMPEUOR ALEXANDER 
 
 ing from the same steps as had been taken by 
 Austria; you might have permitted the aggran- 
 disement of that powerful neighbour; but you 
 cannot abandon the church of God, placed under 
 your especial care and sole protection. 
 
 ALEXANDER. 
 
 Capo d'Istria ! is it you who talk so? 
 
 CAPO d'istria. 
 No; it is your Majesty. 
 
 ALEXANDER. 
 
 My armies cannot stirr in this season of the 
 year; the Turks can march all winter. 
 CAPO d'istria. 
 
 Let them : we shall have occupation enough in 
 preparing stores and shewing our sincerity. We 
 shall be compelled into the war when we are ready. 
 Wait only until after the Ramadan : the fierceness 
 of the Turks will subside by fasting, and differ- 
 ences will arise between the European and Asiatic 
 troops. 
 
 ALEXANDER. 
 
 We cannot speculate on the latter case, and our 
 soldiers also will fast... 
 
 CAPO d'istria. 
 
 Or not ; as your Majesty pleases. The Christian 
 is the only religion, old or new, in which indivi- 
 duals and nations can dispense, by another's per- 
 
AND CAPO D'lSTRIA. 331 
 
 mission, with their bounden duties ; such are fasts, 
 curtesies, crosses, genuflexions, processions, and 
 other bodily functions. 
 
 ALEXANDER. 
 
 This would be a religious war; and Islamism 
 may send into the field half a million of com^ 
 batants. 
 
 CAPO d'istria. 
 
 Then is victory ours. Devastated provinces 
 cannot furnish provisions to one-third of the num- 
 ber in one body, and they would fight not for 
 articles of faith, but for articles of food, Turk 
 against Turk, not against Greek and Russian. He 
 who has the best commissariate has the strongest 
 army. Your Majesty can bring into the field as 
 large a force as the enemy, a force better dis- 
 ciplined and better supplied : hence the main body 
 will be more numerous ; and with the main body 
 the business of the war will be effected. March 
 directly for Constantinople. All great empires 
 have been lost and gained by one battle, your own 
 excepted. The conquest of the Ottoman will be 
 atchieved by one : twenty would not win Rhodes. 
 He who ruined the Persians at Marathon was re- 
 pulsed from the little rock of Pares. I beg your 
 Majesty's pardon for such an offence against the 
 dignity of diplomacy, as a quotation of ancient 
 
332 THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER, &c. 
 
 history, at a time when the world abounds with 
 young attaches a la legation, all braver than Mil- 
 tiades, all more eloquent than Herodotus, all more 
 virtuous than Aristides, and all more wise than 
 Solon. Your Majesty smiles. I have heard their 
 patrons swear it upon their honour. 
 
 ALEXANDER. 
 
 The very thing on which such an oath should 
 be sworne ; the altar is worthy of the offering, and 
 the offering of the altar. 
 
 CAPO d'istria. 
 
 A great encounter within sight of Constan- 
 tinople throws the most distant dominions of the 
 sultan into your hands: Selim, the Prophet, and 
 Fate bend before you. Precedents are good for 
 all, even for Russia: but Russia has great advan- 
 tages, which other powers have never had, and 
 never will have. Remember, now and for ever, 
 that she alone can play deep at every table and 
 stake nothing. 
 
CONVERSATION XVIL 
 
 KOSCIUSKO 
 
 PONIATOWSKL 
 
KOSCIUSKO 
 
 AND 
 
 PONIATOWSKL 
 
 PONIATOWSKI. 
 
 A SHORT and hasty letter, brought by my 
 courier, will have expressed to you, general, with 
 what pleasure I obtained leave of absence for ten 
 days, that I might present you my affectionate 
 homage here in Switzerland. 
 
 KOSCIUSKO. 
 
 No courier can have arrived, sir; for we hear 
 the children at play in the street, and they would 
 have been earnest to discover what sort of creature 
 is a courier. 
 
 PONIATOWSKI. 
 
 I myself am no bad specimen of one : I have 
 traversed three kingdoms in five days; such a 
 power of attraction has Kosciusko on Poniatowski. 
 
336 KOSCIUSKO 
 
 KOSCIUSKO. 
 
 Poniatowski! my brave countryman, I embrace 
 you heartily. Sit down, rest yourself. . .not upon 
 that chair... the rushes are cut through in the 
 middle. . .the boys and girls come in, when I am 
 reading in the window or working in the garden, 
 and play their old captain these tricks. 
 
 PONIATOWSKI. 
 
 I must embrace you again, my general ! Always 
 the same kind, tender heart, the same simplicity 
 and modesty ! There is little of poetry or of in- 
 genuity in the idea that your nativity was between 
 the Lion and the Virgin. O with what enthu- 
 siasm would our legions follow you ! why not re- 
 turn amongst us and command us? 
 
 KOSCIUSKO. 
 
 Where is Poland? 
 
 PONIATOWSKI. 
 
 She rises from her ashes with new splendour: 
 in every battle she performs the most distinguished 
 part... do you sigh at hearing it! 
 
 KOSCIUSKO. 
 
 Poniatowski ! her blood flows for strangers, and 
 her heroism is but an interlude in the drama of 
 Ambition. She is intoxicated from the cup of 
 Glory to be dismembered with the less feeling of 
 her loss. When she recovers her senses, in vain 
 
AND PONIATOWSKI. 337 
 
 will she look around for compassion or for grati- 
 tude. Beyond a doubt I am a feeble and visionary- 
 politician; nevertheless I will venture to express 
 my opinion, that gratitude, although it never has 
 been admitted among the political virtues, is one; 
 that whatever is good in morals is also good in 
 politics; and that, by introducing it opportunely 
 and dexterously, the gravest of old politicians 
 might occasionally be disconcerted. Do not let 
 us be alarmed at the novelty: many have pre- 
 sumed to recommend the observance of Justice; 
 and Gratitude is nothing more than Justice in a 
 fit of generosity, and permitting a Love or a Genius 
 to carry off her scales. 
 
 PONIATOWSKI. 
 
 We live in an age when no experiments of this 
 kind are tried, and when all others are exhausted. 
 
 KOSCIUSKO. 
 
 True, we see nothing in battle but brute force, 
 nothing in peace but unblushing perfidy. War, 
 which gave its name to strategems, would recall 
 them, and cannot ; they are shut up within the 
 cabinet and counter, where they never should have 
 entered, and the wisest of them are such as would 
 disgrace the talents of a ringdropper. 
 
 If the person, to whom Fortune seems to have 
 given the d'^;;'^':al of mankind, had known any- 
 
 z 
 
338 KOSCIUSKO 
 
 thing of our national character, he would have 
 augmented the dominions of Poland, instead of 
 diminishing them: if he had known as much of 
 policy as a peasant or a professor, he would have 
 united with it Royal Prussia and Hungary, and 
 its southern boundaries would have been the Da- 
 nube and the Dnieper. Every German province, 
 excepting a few I am about to mention, would 
 have been erected into a kingdom, under the most 
 powerful or the most popular of its princes, its 
 nobles, its magistrates ; representatives would have 
 been elected, standing armies would have been 
 abolished. Thus the existence of the governors 
 and the prosperity of the governed would have 
 been his work, and that work w^ould have been in- 
 destructible. The erection of twenty kings in 
 twenty minutes would have abundantly gratified 
 his vanity. . .a consideration not unimportant when 
 we discourse upon crowned heads, and particularly 
 upon heads crowned recently, or indeed upon 
 heads of any kind subject to the vortices of powder. 
 The Scandinavian Peninsula should have been 
 strengthened by the junction of Denmark, Meck- 
 lenburgh, and Pomerania, forming a barrier against 
 the maritime force of England, and (united by 
 confederacy with Poland) against the systematic 
 and unsuspected march of Muscovite aggression. 
 
AND PONIATOWSKI. 839 
 
 No German kingdom should have contained much 
 more than one million of inhabitants. It was his 
 business to lessen not only the kingly authority 
 but the kingly name. 
 
 History has given us no example of a man whose 
 errors have been so manifold and so destructive. 
 I confess that I have been mistaken in foretelling 
 his downfall: I calculated from observations on 
 mankind in ages less effete. I could not calcu- 
 late the forces that resisted him, for I knew only 
 the military and financial force, and this but nu- 
 merically; I knew not by whom and where and 
 to what specific object it was to be applied. For- 
 tunate ! to spring up in a season of rankness and 
 rottenness, when every principle of vitality had 
 been extinguished in the state, either by the malaria 
 of despotism, or by the tempests of democracy; 
 when all who came against him from without were 
 weaker in judgment than himself, and when the 
 wildest temerity was equally sure of success as the 
 most prudent combinations and the best measured 
 conduct. No general, I believe, in the lowest de- 
 gree versed in war, has been consulted by the 
 principal of the belligerents ; this we know, persons 
 the least practised in it have been employed as 
 commanders in chief. The good people of Eng- 
 land is persuaded that to open a campaign is as 
 
 z 2 
 
340 KOSCIUSKO 
 
 easy as to open an oyster, and to finish it is a 
 thing to be done as quickly as to swallow one. 
 
 PONIATOWSKI. 
 
 England will alter her system from one of these 
 two causes. Either (at the end of twenty years 
 perhaps) all the families of her aristocracy will be 
 sufficiently enriched, which is the prime motive 
 in all her undertakings, or a serious and earnest 
 effort will be made against increasing danger, and 
 some general of capacity will at last be appointed 
 to satisfy the clamours of the people, and to keep 
 the government, or rather the governors, unshaken. 
 I have heard however that Pichegru and Du- 
 mourier have sometimes been consulted by that 
 cabinet. 
 
 KOSCIUSKO. 
 
 The name of the latter I remember in old ga- 
 zettes ; and I will readily believe that he may have 
 given his advice. Pichegru had no influence there ; 
 he received no marks of confidence, few of cour- 
 tesy. His wisdom, his modesty, his taciturnity, 
 his disdain of puppets in power, beating each other 
 head against head and chuckling each other's lan- 
 guage when uppermost, a disdain his stern coun- 
 tenance ill concealed, would be my proofs and 
 vouchers, if I had not also his own declaration. 
 He was incomparably the best general in Europe, 
 
AND PONIATOWSKI. 341 
 
 and could not often have failed in what he thought 
 expedient. He had however two great defects, 
 either of which might have brought his loyalty 
 into suspicion: he wore no other powder in his 
 hair than what it collected on a march ; and he 
 put on boots, when he should have put on buckles. 
 
 PONIATOW^SKI. 
 
 I have heard young Englishmen of distinction 
 say, that they could hardly suppose him to be a 
 Frenchman, unless from his ugliness : that he 
 spoke slowly, contradicted no one, interrupted no 
 one, delivered no opinion of his own unasked, nor 
 indeed at all when he could adduce another's, 
 never aimed at a witticism, never smiled at a mis- 
 fortune, an awkwardness, or a sneer, never sang, 
 never danced, never spat upon the carpet, or in 
 the presence of a lady, bowed ungracefully and 
 gravely, and had been seen to blush. 
 
 KOSCIUSKO. 
 
 They might have added, that he refused to 
 execute the decree of the Convention, when no 
 quarter was to be given them ; that he hazarded 
 his life for his humanity; and that he invaded and 
 conquered the richest country in the world, and 
 took not away from it one grain of gold. If he 
 had been facetious and eloquent he would have 
 
342 . KOSCIUSKO 
 
 been almost a Phocion : no other man in Europe 
 can be weighed against his scabbard. 
 
 PONIATOWSKI. 
 
 The French accuse him of betraying the Re- 
 public. 
 
 KOSCIUSKO. 
 
 He saw one thing clearly, and firmly believed 
 another. He saw that the French character could 
 retain no stamp of republicanism ; and he believed 
 that the Bourbons would be chastened by ad- 
 versity. As the Republic must die by a natural 
 death or a violent one, he preferred the former, 
 and he desired that the supreme magistracy should 
 return to that family which had the most orderly 
 and peaceable for its partisans. He knew enough 
 of the Bourbons, to be certain that they never 
 would recompense his services, and enough of 
 human nature in its most exalted state, to feel 
 that a man great as himself could alone be his re- 
 Warder. We hear many complaints of princes and 
 of fortune; but believe me, Poniatowski, there 
 never was a good or generous action that met with 
 much ingratitude. 
 
 PONIATOWSKI. 
 
 Is it possible you can say so ! you, to whom no 
 statues are erected, no hymns are sung in public 
 
AND PONIATOWSKI. 343 
 
 processions; you, who have no country ... and you 
 smile upon such injuries and such losses. 
 
 KOSCIUSKO. 
 
 My friend, I have lost nothing : I have received 
 no injury : I am in the midst of our country day 
 and night. Absence is not of matter: the body 
 does not make it. Absence quickens our love 
 and elevates our affections. Absence is the in- 
 visible and incorporeal mother of ideal beauty. 
 Were I in Poland, how many things are there 
 which would disturb and perhaps exasperate me ! 
 Here I can think of her as of some departed soul, 
 not yet indeed cloathed in light, nor exempted 
 from sorrowfulness, but divested of passion, re- 
 moved from tumult, and inviting to contemplation. 
 She is the dearer to me because she reminds me 
 that I have performed my duty towards her... 
 Permitt me to go on ... I said that a good or gene- 
 rous action never met with much ingratitude. I 
 do not deny that ingratitude may be very general ; 
 but even if we experience it from all quarters, 
 there is still no evidence of its weight or its in- 
 tensity. We bear upon our heads an immense 
 column of air, but the nature of things has ren- 
 dered us insensible of it altogether : have we not 
 also a strength and a support against what is 
 equally external, the breath of worthless men ? 
 
344 KOSCIUSKO, See. 
 
 Very far is that from being much or great, which 
 a single movement of self-esteem tosses up and 
 scatters. Slaves make out of barbarians a king or 
 emperor ; the clumsiest hand can fashion such mis- 
 shapen images ; but the high and discerning spirit 
 spreads out its wings from precipices, raises itself 
 up slowly by great efforts, acquires ease, velocity, 
 and might, by elevation, and suns itself in the 
 smiles of its Creator. 
 
CONVERSATION XVIII 
 
 MIDDLETON 
 
 MAGLIABECHI. 
 
M I D D L E T O N 
 
 AND 
 
 MAGLIABECHI. 
 
 MAGLIABECHI. 
 
 The pleasure 1 have enjoyed in your con- 
 versation, sir, induces me to render you such a 
 service, as never yet was rendered by an Italian 
 to a stranger. 
 
 MIDDLETON-. 
 
 You have already rendered me several such, M. 
 Magliabechi, nor indeed can any man of letters 
 converse an hour with you and not carry home 
 with him some signal benefit. 
 
 MAGLIABECHI. 
 
 Your life is in danger, M. Middleton. 
 
 MIDDLETON. 
 
 How! impossible! I offend no one, in public 
 or in private : I converse with you only : I avoid 
 all others, and above all, the busybodies of litera- 
 
348 MIDDLETON 
 
 ture and politics. 1 court no lady: 1 never go 
 to the palace: I enjoy no favours: I solicit no 
 distinctions : I am neither poet nor painter *, Surely 
 
 * Whatever is said on the envy of poets and painters, who 
 appear to be more subject to this distemper than any other 
 description of men, must owe its merit to the manner in which 
 it is expressed, and to the occasion on which it is brought 
 forward. The same idea is found in the lines below. 
 
 Si sint Invidia3 strigosiora 
 
 (Ut sunt) ubera pelle viperina. 
 
 Si sint flaccid iora quam vel utres 
 
 Queis tu admoveris os, amice Lotti, 
 
 Salsa halece meridieque siccum. 
 
 Quid mirum ? assidue trahenda praebet 
 
 Tot pictoribus atque tot poetis. 
 
 The verses were addressed to the rev. Dr. Lotti of Lizzano, 
 on the confines of the Modenese. This gentleman, the re- 
 puted son of the emperor P. Leopold, to ^yhom (if I may judge 
 from the coins) he bore a perfect resemblance, was the most 
 learned and courteous man I have ever conversed with in 
 Tuscany. He was rather fond of wine ; but with decorum. I 
 spent one of the happiest days of my life in his society, and was 
 about to repeat my visit the following summer, when I heard 
 that my quiet, inofi*ensive, beneficent friend had been stoned 
 to death by a parishioner. No inquiry was instituted by 
 government : he had nothing but erudition and virtue to re- 
 commend him, and the tears and blessings of the poor. I 
 asked how so unmerited a calamity could have befallen so 
 warm-hearted a creature, and in the decline of life : the reply 
 was, Chi sn? Jbrse uno sbnglio. " Who knows? perhaps it 
 was done by mistake." What a virtuous and happy people 
 must that be, to which such a loss is imperceptible ! I saw 
 him but three times, and lament it, more than I think it right 
 to express, at the distance of 'nearly two years. Rest thee 
 with God, kind, gentle, generous Lotti ! 
 
AND MAGLIABECHl. S49 
 
 then I, if any one, should be exempt from mahg- 
 nity and revenge. 
 
 MAGLIABECHI. 
 
 To remove suspense, I must inform you that 
 your letters are opened and your writings read by 
 the Police. The servant whom you dismissed for 
 robbing you, has denounced you. 
 
 MIDDLETON. 
 
 Was it not enough for him to be permitted to 
 plunder me with impunity? does he expect a re- 
 ward for this villainy? will his word or his oath 
 be taken ? 
 
 MAGLIABECHI. 
 
 Gently, M. Middleton. He expects no re- 
 ward : he received it when he was allowed to rob 
 you. He came recommended to you as an honest 
 servant by several noble families. He robbed 
 them all, and a portion of what he stole was re- 
 stored to them by the police, on condition that 
 they should render to the Government a mutual 
 service when called upon. 
 
 MIDDLETON. 
 
 Incredible baseness ! can you smile upon it, M . 
 Magliabechi! can you have any communication 
 with these wretches, these nobles, as you call them, 
 this servant, this police! 
 
 MAGLIABECHI. 
 
 My opinion was demanded by my superiors. 
 
350 MIDDLETON 
 
 upon some remarks of yours on the religion of 
 our country. 
 
 MIDDLETON. 
 
 I protest, sir, I copied them in great measure 
 from the Latin work of a learned German. 
 
 MAGLIABECHI. 
 
 True : I know the book : it is entitled Facetice 
 Facetiarum, There is some wit and some truth in 
 it ; but the better wit isg the more dangerous is it ; 
 and Truth, like the Sun, coming down upon us 
 too directly, may give us a brain-fever. 
 
 In this country, M. Middleton, we h^ixe jalou- 
 sies not only to our windows but to our breasts : 
 we admit but little light to either, and we live 
 the more comfortably for so doing. If we changed 
 this custom, we must change almost every other, 
 all the parts of our polity having been gradually 
 drawn closer and closer, until at last they form 
 an inseparable mass, of religion, laws, and usages. 
 We condemn as a dangerous error the doctrine of 
 Galileo, that the earth moves about the sun ; but 
 we condemn rather the danger than the error of 
 asserting it... 
 
 MIDDLETON. 
 
 Pardon my interruption. When I see the 
 doctors of your church insisting on a demonstrable 
 falsehood, have I not reason to believe that they 
 
AND MAGLIABECHI. 351 
 
 would maintain others less demonstrable, and more 
 profitable ? 
 
 MAGLIABECHI. 
 
 Among your other works I find a manuscript 
 on the inefficacy of prayer. I defended you to 
 my superiors by shewing that Cicero had asserted 
 things incredible to himself merely for the sake of 
 argument, and had probably written them before 
 he had fixed in his mind the personages to whom 
 they should be attributed in his dialogues; that, 
 in short, they were brought forward for no other 
 purpose than discussion and explosion. This im- 
 piety was forgiven. But every man in Italy has 
 a favorite saint, for whose honour he deems it 
 meritorious to draw (I had almost said the sword) 
 the stiletto. 
 
 MIDDLETON. 
 
 It would be safer to attempt dragging God 
 from his throne, than to splitt a spangle on their 
 petticoats, or to puff a grain of powder from their 
 perukes. This I know. Nothing in my writings 
 is intended to wound the jealousy of the Italians. 
 Truth, like the juice of the poppy, in small quan- 
 tities calms men, in larger heats and irritates 
 them, and is attended by fatal consequences in its 
 excess. For which reason, with plain ground be- 
 fore me, I would not expatiate largely, and often 
 
36J2 MIDDLETON 
 
 made an argument, that offered itself, give way 
 altogether and leave room for inferences. My 
 treatise on prayer vs^as not to be published in my 
 lifetime. 
 
 MAGLIABECHI. 
 
 And why at any time? Is not the mind ex- 
 alted by prayer, the heart purified, are not our 
 affections chastened, our desires moderated, our 
 enjoyments enlarged by this intercourse with the 
 Deity? and are not men the better, as certainly 
 they are the happier, for a belief that he interferes 
 in their concerns? They are persuaded that there 
 is something conditional between them, and that, 
 if they labour under the commission of crimes, 
 their voice will be inaudible as the voice of one 
 under the nightmair. 
 
 MIDDLETON. 
 
 I wished to demonstrate that we often treat 
 God in the same manner as we should treat some 
 doating or some passionate old man: we feign, 
 we flatter, we sing, we cry, we gesticulate. 
 
 MAGLIABECHI. 
 
 Worship him in your own manner, according 
 to the sense he has given you, and let those who 
 cannot exercise that sense, rely upon those who 
 can. Be convinced, M. Middleton, that you never 
 will supplant the received ideas of God: be no 
 
AND MAGLIABECHI. 353 
 
 less convinced that the sum of all your labours in 
 this field will be, to leave the ground loose beneath 
 you, and that he who comes after you will sink. 
 In sickness, in our last particularly, we all are 
 poor wTetches: we are nearly all laid on a level 
 by it: the dry rot of the mind supervenes, and 
 loosens w^hatever was fixt in it except religion. 
 Would you be so inhumane as to tell any friend 
 in this condition, not to be comforted? so inhu- 
 mane as to prove that the crucifix, which his wan- 
 dering eye finds at last its resting-place, is of the 
 very same material as his bedpost? 
 
 MIDDLETON. 
 
 Far be it from my wishes and from my thoughts, 
 to unhinge those portals through which we must 
 enter to the performance of our social duties : but 
 I am sensible of no irreligion, I acknowledge no 
 sorrow or regret, in having attempted to demon- 
 strate that God is totally and far removed from 
 our passions and infirmities. I would inculcate 
 entire resignation to the divine decrees, acquies- 
 cence in the divine wisdom, confidence in the 
 divine benevolence. There is something of frail 
 humanity, something of its very decrepitude, in 
 our ideas of God : we are foolish and ignorant in 
 the same manner, and almost to the same degree, 
 as those painters are, who append a grey beard to 
 
 A A 
 
354 MIDDLETON 
 
 his chin, draw wrinkles across his brow, and cover 
 him with a gaudy and flowing mantle. I admitt 
 the benefit and the necessity of enuring the mind 
 to repose upon the contemplation of the divine 
 perfections, and to purify itself by looking up- 
 wards to the purity of heaven : but I see neither 
 wisdom nor piety in the prayers of your Capuchins 
 and their besotted hearers to God and his Saints 
 for a Parmesan cheese, or a new pair of breeches, 
 
 MAGLIABECHI. 
 
 Prayer, at all times serviceable, may apparently 
 on some occasions be misapplied. Father Onesimo 
 Sozzifante, on his return from England, presented 
 to me a singular illustration of my remark. He 
 had resided some years in London, as chaplain to 
 the Sardinian envoy : in the firstfloor of his lodg- 
 inghouse dwelt Mr. Harbottle, a young clergy- 
 man, learned, of elegant manners, yet fond of fox- 
 hunting. Inconsistencies like these are found 
 nowhere but in your country: in others, those 
 who have enough for one side of the character, 
 have not enough for the opposite : you in general 
 are sufficiently wellstored to squander much of 
 your intellectual property, to neglect much, and 
 to retain much. 
 
 Mutual civilities had always passed between the 
 two ecclesiastics, and father Onesimo had received 
 
AMD MAGLIABECHI. 355 
 
 many invitations to dinner from his neighbour. 
 After the first, he had declined them, deeming 
 the songs and disputations in a slight degree in- 
 decorous. The party at this was clerical: and, 
 although he represented it as more turbulent in 
 its conclusion than ours are, and although there 
 were many warm disputants, chiefly on jockies or 
 leaders in parliament, he assured me he was much 
 edified and pleased, when, at the removal of the 
 dishes, all drank devoutly to old friendships. ** / 
 thought of y oil,'' ^ said he, ^'my dear MagUabechi, 
 for every one had then before his eyes the com- 
 placeiit guide of his youth. Mine shed a fe*w 
 tears ; at 'which my friends glanced one upon an- 
 other and smiled; for from an Englishmmi not 
 Shakspear, no, nor even the cimcifx, can extort a 
 tear." 
 
 Onesimo was at breakfast w4th Mr. Harbottle, 
 when an Italian ran breathless into the room, 
 kissed the father's hand, and begged him to come 
 instantly and attend a dying man. " We will go 
 together,'^ said Mr. Harbottle. Following their 
 informant, they passed through several lanes and 
 allies, and at last mounted the stairs of a garret, 
 in which was lying a youth, stabbed the night be- 
 fore by a Livornese, about one of those women 
 who excite the most quarrels and deserve the 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 MIDDLETON 
 
 fewest. " Leave me for a momenU'*^ said father 
 Sozzifante, " / must hear his coiifessionJ' Hardly 
 had he spoken, when out came all whom kindness 
 or piety or curiosity had collected, and he is in 
 paradise! was the exclamation. Mr. Harbottle 
 then entered, and was surprised to hear the worthy 
 confessor ask of the dead man whether he forgave 
 his enemy, and answer in another tone, '* Yes, 
 father, from my heart I pardo7i him.'^ On re- 
 turning, he remarked that it appeared strange to 
 him. " Sir," answered Onesimo, " the catholic 
 church e7ijoi7is forgiveness of injuries.'^ ^^ All 
 churches enjoin the same," replied Mr. Harbottle. 
 " He was unable to speak for himself," said the 
 father, " and therefor I answered for him like a 
 christian" 
 
 Mr. Harbottle, as became him, was silent. On 
 their return homeward they passed by a place 
 which, if I remember, is called New-gate, a gate, 
 above which, it appears, criminals are hanged. 
 At that veiy hour the cord was around the 
 neck of a wretch who was repeating the Lord's 
 prayer: the first words they heard were, *' Give 
 us this day our daily bread" The father looked 
 at his companion with awe, spreading his fingers 
 on his sleeve, and pressing it until he turned his 
 face towards him. They both pushed on; but. 
 
AND MAGLIABECHI. 357 
 
 such was the crowd, they could not pass the sup- 
 pliant before he had uttered, *' And lead us not 
 into temptation,^^ The good father stepped be- 
 fore Mr. Harbottle, and, lifting his hands above 
 his ears, would have said something ; but his com- 
 panion cried smartly, " / have seals to my *watch, 
 Signor Sozzifante, and there is fiever a fellow 
 hanged but he makes twenty Jit f 07^ it : pray walk 
 on," Fairly out of the crowd, " Poor sinful 
 soul!" said the father, ** ere this time thou art in 
 purgatory ! thy daily bread ! alas, thou hast eaten 
 the last mouthful ! thy temptation ! thou wilt find 
 but few there, I warrant thee, my son! Even 
 these divine words, Mr. Harbottle, may come a 
 little out of season, you perceive." 
 
 Mr. Harbottle went home dissatisfied : in about 
 an hour a friend of his from Oxford called on him ; 
 as the weather was warm, the door standing ajar, 
 Sozzifante heard him repeat the history of their ad- 
 venture, and add ; " I will be damned if in my firm 
 persuasion the fellow is not a Jesuit : I never should 
 have thought it : he humbugged me about the dead 
 man, and perhaps got another hanged to quiz me. 
 Would you believe it? he has been three good 
 years in getting up this farce, the first I have ever 
 caught him, and the last he shall ever catch me at." 
 Father Onesimo related to me these occur- 
 
358 MIDDLETON 
 
 rences, without a word of reproach or an accent 
 of illhumour. . " The English is a strong lan- 
 guage," said he placidly, " and the people, the 
 least deceivers in the world, are naturally the most 
 indignant at a suspicion of deceit. Mr. Har- 
 bottle, who, I dare to say, is ripened ere this time 
 into an exemplary and holy man, was then rather 
 litter for society than for the church. Do you 
 know," said he in my ear, although we were alone, 
 '* I have seen him pay his laundress (and there 
 was nothing between them) five shillings for one 
 week only! a sum that serves any cardinal the 
 whole winter-quarter... in April and May indeed, 
 from one thing or other, linen wants washing 
 oftener." 
 
 M. Middleton, I have proved my candour, I 
 trust, and my freedom from superstition: but he 
 that seeks will find : and perhaps he that in obsti- 
 nacy closeth his eyes long together, will open 
 them just at the moment when he shall meet what 
 he avoided. 
 
 I will inform you of some facts I know, shew- 
 ing the efficacy of prayer to saints. 
 
 Giacomo Pastrani of Genoa, a citizen not abun- 
 dant in the gifts of fortune, had however in his 
 possession two most valuable and extremely rare 
 things, a virtuous wife and a picture of his patron. 
 
AND MAGLIABECHI. 359 
 
 saint Giacomo^ by Leonardo. The wife had long- 
 been ill: her malady was expensive: their sub- 
 stance was diminishing : still no offers had tempted 
 him, although many had been made, to sell the 
 picture. At last, he refused to alienate it indeed, 
 but in favour of a worthy priest, and only as the 
 price of orations to the Virgin. " JV/io knows 
 how many it may require V^ said the holy man; 
 *' and it is difficult to make an oration which the 
 Virgin has not heard before: perhaps Jifty will 
 hardly do. Now fifty crowns would he little for 
 such protectio?i," The invalide, who heard the 
 conversation, wept aloud. ** Take it, take it,'' 
 said the husband, and wept too, lifting it from 
 the nail, and kissing for the last time the glass that 
 covered it. The priest made a genuflexion, and 
 did the same. His orations prevailed ; the wife 
 recovered. The priest, hearing that the picture 
 was very valuable, although the master was yet 
 uncertain, and that in Genoa there was no artist 
 who could clean it, waited for that operation until 
 he went to Milan. Here it was ascertained to 
 be the work of Leonardo, and a dealer gave him 
 four thousand crowns for it. He returned in 
 high glee at what had happened, and communi- 
 cated it to all his acquaintance. The recovered 
 woman, on hearing it, fell sick again immediately, 
 and died. Wishing to forget the sacrifice of her 
 
360 MIDDLETON 
 
 picture, she had prayed no more to saint Giacomo; 
 and the Virgin, we may presume, on that powerful 
 saint's intercession, had abandoned her. 
 
 Awful fact! M. Middleton. Now mark an- 
 other perhaps more so. 
 
 Angiolina Cecci, on the day before her nup- 
 tials, took the sacrament most devoutly, and im- 
 plored of our Florentine saint, Maria Bagnesi, to 
 whose family she was related, her intervention for 
 three blessings: that she might have one child 
 only; that the cavaliere servente, agreed on 
 equally by her father and her husband, might be 
 faithful to her ; and lastly that, having beautiful 
 hair, it never might turn grey. Now mark me. 
 Assured of success to her suit, by a smile, as she 
 believed, on the countenance of the saint, she 
 neglected her prayers and diminished her alms 
 henceforward. The moneybox, which is shaken 
 during the celebration of mass, to recompense the 
 priest for the performance of that holy ceremony, 
 was shaken aloud before her day after day, and 
 never drew a crazia from her pocket. She turned 
 away her face from it, even when the collection 
 was made to defray the arrears for the beatification 
 of Bagnesi. Nine months after her marriage she 
 was delivered of a female infant. I am afraid she 
 expressed some discontent at the dispensations of 
 Providence, for within an hour afterwards she 
 
AND MAGLIABECHI. 3GI 
 
 brought forth another of the same sex. She be- 
 came furious, desperate, sent the babes, without 
 seeing them, into the country, as indeed our ladies 
 very often do; and spake shghtingly and ma- 
 liciously of Saint Maria Bagnesi. The conse- 
 quence was a puerperal fever, which continued 
 several weeks, and was removed at great expense 
 to her family, in masses, waxcandles, and proces- 
 sions. Pictures of the Virgin, wherever they 
 were found by experience to be of more peculiar 
 and more speedy efficacy, were hired at heavy 
 charges from the convents: the Cordeliers, to 
 punish her pride and obstinacy, would not carry 
 theirs to the house for less than forty scudi. 
 
 She recovered; admitted her friends to con- 
 verse with her; raised herself upon her pillow, 
 and accepted some faint consolation. At last it 
 was agreed by her physicians that she might dress 
 herself and eat brains and liver. Probably she 
 was ungrateful for a benefit so signal and unex- 
 pected ; since no sooner did her cameriera comb 
 her hair than off it came by the handful. She 
 then perceived her error, but, instead of repairing 
 it, abandoned herself to anguish and lamentation. 
 Her cavaliere servente, finding her bald, meagre, 
 and eyesore, renewed his addresses to the mother. 
 The husband, with two daughters to provide for, 
 
362 MIDDLETON AND MAGtIABECHI. 
 
 the only two ever reared out of the many en- 
 trusted to those peasants, counted over again and 
 again the dowery, shook his head, sighed piteously, 
 and, hanging on the image of Bagnesi a silver 
 heart of ^ye ounces, which, knowing it to have 
 been stolen, he bought at a cheap rate of a Jew 
 upon the bridge, calculated that the least of im- 
 pending evils was, to purchase an additional bed 
 just large enough for one. 
 
 You ponder, M. Middleton: you appear asto- 
 nished at these visitations : you know my sincerity : 
 you fully credit me : I cannot doubt a moment of 
 your conviction : I perceive it marked strongly on 
 your countenance. 
 
 MIDDLETON. 
 
 Indeed, M. Magliabechi, I now discover the 
 validity of prayer to saints, and the danger of 
 neglecting them. Recommend me in yours to 
 Saint Maria Bagnesi. 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 NOTE TO CONVERSATION I. PAGE 12. 
 
 " Such as no Emperor of Germany can refuse.'' — Emperor 
 is the title usually given to the heads of the Germanic league : 
 but in fact there never was an emperor of Germany. Adrien 
 Valois^ in a letter to Albert Portner, writes thus, Legi Con- 
 ringii librum defnibus Imperii Germanici, cujus libri titulum 
 jure quis arguat... nullum enim usquam imperium Germanicum 
 fuit unquam^ nullum est hodieque j nee imperator, etiamsi in 
 Germania sedem liabeat^, Germanorum imperator est^ sed^ ut 
 ipse se more majorum appellat, rex Germanise et Romanorum 
 imperator. Here we see the rex is before the imperator : if in 
 the patents of Charles the fifth it is otherwise, the reason is 
 that the title of king is applied to the dominion of several 
 states which his ancestors had acquired more recently. Valois 
 proceeds, Si tamen Romanorum imperator vocari debet qui 
 urbi Romse non imperat, et ab episcopo ecclesise Romanse, 
 Romae, ac senatus populique Romani sententia, dudum desiit 
 consecrari. This letter is not printed among the works of 
 Valois or his brother, but is of unquestionable authenticity, 
 and may be found entire in the Amoenitates Literariae of 
 Schelhorn, Tom. V. p. 542. Valois was a good scholar, but 
 he errs in his latinity when he objects to the expression 
 imperium Germanicum, for that expression would be correct 
 whether Germany were governed by a king, an emperor, an 
 aristocracy, or a democracy. The Roman state was just as 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 much imperium Romanian under the consuls and tribunes as 
 under Tiberius or Caligula. The justice of the remark made 
 by Valois is proved by the patents of Charles V, which always be- 
 gan, CarolusV, divina favente dementia, Romanorum Imperator 
 Augustus, ac rex GermanicBy Hispaniarum, utriusque Sicilise, 
 Hierusalem, Hungariae, &c." The present emperor of Austria 
 formally laid down a title which never belonged to him : he 
 and all his ministers were ignorant of this, and I doubt whether 
 there was any statesman in all Europe who knew it. 
 
 NOTE TO CONVERSATION IT. PAGE 17. 
 
 " Botvls and ninepins for their Sunday-evening !' — Amuse- 
 ments were long permitted the English on Sunday evenings, 
 nor were they restricted until the puritans gained the ascen- 
 dency. Even labour on certain occasions, was not only allowed 
 but enjoined. By an order of Edward VI the farmer was 
 encouraged to harvest upon the Sunday, and in the same 
 article it is called a great offence to God to be scrupulous and 
 superstitious in foregoing such occupations. 
 
 NOTE TO CONVERSATION VIII. PAGE 105. 
 
 '^ That a hingdom shall have two chief magistrates." — 
 Casaubon must here be supposed to mean, two magistrates 
 each of whom pretended to power independently of the other. 
 For in Sparta were two kings ; and in Japan was a kind of 
 pope, reported, by those who are interested in the parallel, to 
 possess an equal authority with the emperor. Unquestionably, 
 where any such magistrate exists, a short time is requisite 
 for his growth into inordinate power: wherever there is an 
 hierarchy there will be usurpation. The Japanese pope, or 
 dairo, is reduced to order, and his chief legitimate privileges 
 are, the keeping of twelve wives, with as many concubines as 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 are necessary for the prosperity of the state and the interests 
 of religion. The number of these, no doubt, would be dimi- 
 nished, if no serious danger were to be apprehended from the 
 example of innovation, particularly in an age so prone to im- 
 morality and infidelity, and among a people of so little unction 
 and recueillement . 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 4, line h^for result, read insult. 
 
 52, line A, for sugarbakers, read sugarbakers' wives. 
 
 1 08, Note line 1 ^^for are, read is. 
 
 i 176, line 8,ybr qui dveri, read quid veri. 
 
 ' 221, line \0,Jor serviente, read servente, 
 
 =- 256, line 15 jjbr empoisonees, read empoisonnees. 
 
 276, line 19,ybr jour, read jours. 
 
 284, line S,Jbr Zetes, read Zeteo. 
 
 288, line 1 ,Jbr dourcurs, read douceurs. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY THOMAS DAVISON, WHITEFRIARS. 
 
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 atttrarg iWm antr Statesmen. 
 
 BY WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR, ESQ. 
 
 THE SECOND VOLUME. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED FOR TAYLOR AND HESSEY, 
 
 93, FLEET-STREET, 
 AND 13, WATERLOO-PLACE, PALL MALL. 
 
 1824. 
 
TO 
 
 GENERAL MINA, 
 
 SIR, 
 
 I INSCRIBE with your illustrious name 
 the second volume of these dialogues, not 
 because, of all the generals who have ap- 
 peared in our age, you have displayed the 
 greatest genius, the greatest constancy, 
 and, what is equally rare, the greatest con- 
 tempt of pleasure and titles and wealth 
 and offices, but because your energies have 
 been all exerted, under severe and unre- 
 mitting adversity, in defence of law and 
 civilization. Neither of these can exist 
 in that country where any one is above 
 them, and can dictate through any organ, 
 how far they shall go, when they shall 
 
VI DEDICATION. 
 
 speak, on whom they shall act feebly, on 
 whom strongly. All the nations of Europe 
 are in this condition, even those few the 
 forms of whose government bear the image 
 and superscription of Freedom. Turn 
 your eyes upon the only republic (for such 
 it is still called) now left in this quarter of 
 the globe, and where will you find readier 
 slaves to execute the mandates of De- 
 spotism? All conquerors and oppressors 
 have imposed an oligarchy, where it was 
 possible, some under one name, some under 
 another : such was imposed by Sparta on 
 the Athenians, such upon the Swiss, as now 
 upon the Spaniards, by France. Switzer- 
 land, the asylum once of the persecuted, 
 is hence become a mere porter's-lodge to 
 the great prison-house, Europe. Law and 
 Religion are the watch-words ! I am not 
 in a temper for irony, nor could you bear 
 it . . . but what is the reason, to speak 
 gravely, why religion and law are in a 
 
DEDICATION. vii 
 
 worse condition now than they were sev en- 
 teen centuries ago, while every other part 
 of human knowledge has been so much 
 improved ? It is because the two greatest 
 classes of men, two entire professions, and 
 governments, altogether, such as they are 
 constituted, are interested in maintaining 
 their abuses, and because the sceptre is 
 rather the prop of weakness than the 
 symbol of authority. Hence the cant to 
 keep the child quiet, and the indulgence 
 to let him grasp and beslaver and break 
 in pieces what is not his ... 
 
 Every state, however small, contains 
 more people than the wisest and most vir- 
 tuous prince can render happy ; why then 
 want more ? O ! but making them happy 
 is quite another thing : subjects are to 
 give happiness as a tribute, and to receive 
 it as a gratuity ... If few subjects bring 
 anxiety, many will bring more : if neither 
 the fewer nor Hhe numerous bring any. 
 
viii DEDICATION. 
 
 then the worth of them can be but small 
 to the proprietor : his want therefor is 
 childish, and should be corrected and 
 coerced like other childish wants. 
 
 You Spaniards have committed two great 
 errors : the first, in not removing to Cuba 
 six or seven hundred known and proven 
 traitors, condemning three or four of the 
 most eminent to death ; the second, in not 
 drawing closer the ties of affinity and com- 
 merce with Columbia, with a full acknow- 
 ledgment of her independence. The former 
 of these two duties can alone be questioned. 
 Remove the case out of Spain into Rome, 
 and ask yourself whether, if Lepidus had 
 been crushed while he could be, Rome 
 would not have been saved a hundred 
 thousand of her best citizens at the ex- 
 pense of one among the most worthless. 
 We should calculate for Humanity, and 
 not leave the account in her hands, lest 
 she drop it or lay it down. 
 
DEDICATION. ix 
 
 The insolence of Despotism will urge 
 her into schemes, if not subversive of her 
 power, injurious to her quiet. The Holy 
 Allies should in sound policy desire the 
 establishment of republics in Greece, con- 
 sidering that country as a mere drain, 
 whereby the ill humours of their subjects 
 may be carried off. It should serve them 
 as a galley of deportation, for those whose 
 opinions are dangerous ; just as America 
 is in regard to England : and there is also 
 this additional and paramount advantage, 
 that, if they should publish their senti- 
 ments, neither the kings nor their subjects 
 can read them : the former then cannot 
 be offended, nor the latter led astray. 
 
 I know not, sir, whether you are a pious 
 man, but if you are, you will see the finger 
 of Providence in the midst of the cala- 
 mities which distract your country. 
 
 Under it there springs forth in letters of 
 fire a warning to the nations, of whatso- 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 ever race, language, or rites, throughout 
 the new world, as (from the rapid vegeta- 
 tion, if I may say so, of its prosperity, 
 and from the dissimilarity in every fea- 
 ture to this of ours) it may now indeed be 
 called most emphatically . .to form instantly 
 a confederacy against external rule, against 
 all dependence and usurpation, against in- 
 stitutions not founded upon that equable, 
 sound, beneficent system, to which the 
 best energies of Man, the sterner virtues, 
 the milder charities, the comforts and sa- 
 tisfactions of life, its regulated and right 
 affections, the useful arts, the ennobling 
 sciences, with whatever is innocent in 
 glory or exalted in pleasure, owe their 
 origin, their protection, their progress, 
 and their maturity. Columbia, without 
 this invigorating shock, would have longer 
 lain dormant or restless : Washington, to 
 whom we principally are indebted for 
 what little is left of freedom in the uni- 
 
DEDICATION. xi 
 
 verse, would have set before her the bright 
 example, and Bolivar would have followed 
 it, in vain. She will receive into her bosom 
 those whom circumstances armed against 
 her, rather than jealousies or animosities 
 or antipathies ; and she will number among 
 her children, not only those who have stood 
 forward to defend her, but those also who, 
 confiding in her generosity, call upon her 
 in their adversities for defence. Eising 
 on the wreck of Spain, she will invite to 
 her from Europe those whom wars have 
 ruined, those whom commerce has de- 
 serted, those whom letters have cast into 
 dungeons, those whom the ancient institu- 
 tions of their country have blinded with 
 unseasonable love, and the new ones have 
 marked with reprobation. The veteran, 
 still bleeding for the king who banished 
 him, may rest his bones a little while on 
 her fresh turf, forbidden to repose them 
 
xii DEDICATION. 
 
 in death under that which covers his 
 father's. 
 
 Your unconquerable mind, sir, cannot 
 be depressed ; mine is, and perhaps ought 
 not to be. 
 
 God preserve you many years. 
 
 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 
 
 Florence, November, 1823. 
 
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS 
 
 IN 
 
 THE SECOND VOLUME. 
 
 I. Milton and Andrew Marvel 
 II. Washington and Franklin 
 
 III. Roger Ascham and the Lady Jane Grey 
 
 IV. Lord Bacon and Richard Hooker 
 V. General Lascy and the Curate Merino 
 
 VI. Pericles and Sophocles . 
 VII. Louis XIV and Father La Chaise 
 VIII. Cavaliere Puntomichino and Mr. Denis Eusebius 
 Talcranagh 
 IX. Samuel Johnson and Home Tooke 
 X. Andrew Hoffer, Count Metternich and the Em 
 
 peror Francis 
 XI. David Hume and John Home 
 
 Page 
 I 
 
 19 
 
 49 
 
 55 
 
 93 
 115 
 
 131 
 153 
 
 175 
 191 
 
 XII. Prince Maurocordato and General Colocotroni 2 1 1 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 XIII. Alfieri and Salomon the Florentine Jew . .237 
 
 XIV. Lopez Baiios and Romero Alpuente . .259 
 XV. Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn . . 275 
 
 XVI. Lord Chesterfield and Lord Chatham . .291 
 XVII. Aristoteles and Callisthenes , . .317 
 
 XVIII. Marcus TuUius Cicero and his brother Quiuctus 349 
 
CONVERSATION L 
 
 MILTON 
 
 ANDREW MARVEL. 
 
 VOL. ir. 
 
MILTON 
 
 AND 
 
 ANDREW MARVEL. 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 Friend Andrew, I am glad to hear that you 
 amuse yourself in these bad thues by the composi- 
 tion of a comedy, and that you have several plans 
 in readiness for others. Now let me advise you 
 to copy the better part of what the Greeks and 
 Romans called the old^ and to introduce songs 
 and music, which, suitable as they are to Tragedy, 
 are more so to the sister Muse. Furthermore, I 
 could desire to see a piece modeled in all parts 
 on the Athenian scheme, with the names and cha- 
 racters and manners of times past. For surely 
 you would not add to the immorality of the age, 
 by representing any thing of the present mode 
 upon the theatre. Although we are more abundant 
 in follies, which rather than vices are the ground- 
 
4 MILTON 
 
 work of comedy, we experience less disgust in 
 touching those of other times than of our own ; 
 and in a drama the most ancient would have the 
 most novelty. I know that all the periods and all 
 the nations of the world united have less variety 
 of character than we find in this one city : yet, as 
 you write to amuse yourself and a few learned 
 friends, I am persuaded you would gladly walk 
 out of it for once, and sit down to delineate a 
 Momus or a Satyr with at least as much com- 
 placency as a vulgar fopling or a partycoloured 
 buffoon. 
 
 O Andrew! although our learning raiseth up 
 against us many enemies among the low, and more 
 among the powerful, yet doth it invest us with 
 grand and glorious privileges, and grant to us a 
 largess of beatitude. We enter our studies, and 
 enjoy a society which we alone can bring together. 
 We raise no jealousy by conversing with one in 
 preference to another: we give no offence to the 
 most illustrious, by questioning him as long as we 
 will, and leaving him as abruptly. Diversity of 
 opinion raises no tumult in our presence: each 
 interlocutor stands before us, speaks, or is silent, 
 and we adjourn or decide the business at our 
 leisure. Nothing is past which we desire to be 
 present; and we enjoy by anticipation somewhat 
 
AND ANDREW MARVEL. 5 
 
 like the power which I imagine we shall possess 
 hereafter of sailing on a wish from world to world. 
 Surely you would turn away as far as possible from 
 the degraded state of our country; you would 
 select any vices and follies for description, rather 
 than those that jostle us in our country-walks, re- 
 turn w^ith us to our house-doors, and smirk on us 
 in silks and satins at our churches. 
 
 Come, my old friend ; take down your hortus- 
 siccus : the live plants you would gather do both 
 stink and sting: prythee leave them to wither 
 or to rot, or to be plucked and collated by more 
 rustic hands. 
 
 MARVEL. 
 
 I entertain an utter contempt for the populace, 
 whether in robes or tatters; whether the face be 
 bedawbed with cinnabar, or with dirt from the 
 allies and shops. It appears to me, however, that 
 there is as much difference between tragedy and 
 comedy as between the heavens and the clouds, 
 and that comedy draws its life from its mobility. 
 We must take manners as we find them, and draw 
 from the individual, not the species ; into which 
 fault Menander fell and seduced his followers. 
 The characters on which he raised his glory were 
 trivial and contemptible. 
 
 Dum fallax sennis, durus pater, improba lena 
 Vivent, dum meretrix blanda, Menander erit. 
 
6 MILTON 
 
 His wisdom towered high above them, and he 
 cloathed with smiles what Euripides charged with 
 spleen. The beauty of his moral sentences was 
 hurtful to the spirit of comedy, and I am con- 
 vinced that, if we could recover his w^orks, we 
 should find them both less facetious and less 
 dramatic than those of Plautus. Once, by way 
 of experiment, I attempted to imitate his man- 
 ner : I will give you a specimen : it is the best I 
 have. 
 
 Friendship, in each successive stage of life. 
 
 As we approach him, varies to the view : 
 
 In youth he wears the face of Love himself. 
 
 Of Love without his arrows and his wings ; 
 
 Soon afterwards with Bacchus and with Pan 
 
 Thou findest him, or hearest him resign 
 
 To some dog-pastor by the quiet fire. 
 
 With much good-will and jocular adieu. 
 
 His ageworn mule or brokenhearted steed. ^ 
 
 Fly not, as thou wert wont, to his embrace. 
 
 Lest, after one long yawning gaze, he swear 
 
 Thou art the best good fellow in the world. 
 
 But he had quite forgotten thee, by Jove ! 
 
 Or laughter wag his newly-bearded chin 
 
 At recollection of his childish hours. 
 
 But wouldst thou see, young man, his latest form. 
 
 When e'en this laughter, e'en this memory, fails ? 
 
 Look at yon figtree statue, golden once. 
 
 As all would deem it ; rottenness falls out 
 
 At every little chink the worms have made. 
 
 And if thou triest to lift it up again 
 
 It breaks upon thee : leave it, touch it not, 
 
 Its very lightness would encumber thee... 
 
 Come, thou hast seen it...tis enough... away ! 
 
AND ANDREW MARVEL. 7 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 This indeed is in the manner I would propose. 
 
 MARVEL. 
 
 Yet if it were spoken on our theatre, I should 
 be condemned as a man ignorant of the art... 
 and justly too... for it accords not with its com- 
 plexion. Inevitable events and natural reflexions, 
 but reflexions not exhibited before and events not 
 expected, please me better than the most demon- 
 strable facts, the most sober truths, the most 
 clever improbabilities, and the most acute repar- 
 tees. In comedy we should oftener raise re- 
 flexions than present them. 
 
 Now for plot. 
 
 Intricacy was always held necessary on the 
 modern stage, and the more so when delicacy was 
 the least. It was however so difficult to make the 
 audience keep watch and ward for it, and to com- 
 mand an uninterrupted attention for five whole 
 acts, that many of the best writers, from Terence 
 to the present age, have combined two plots, 
 hoping that what is twisted together will untwist 
 together, and leaving a great deal to the goodness 
 of Providence and to the faith and charity of their 
 fellow creatures. 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 True enough : your plotters bring many great 
 
8 MILTON 
 
 changes into many whole families, and sometimes 
 into several and distant countries, within the day ; 
 and, what is more difficult and incredible, send off 
 all parties well satisfied, excepting one scape-goat. 
 For my own share, I am contented with seeing 
 a fault wittily rebuked and checked effectually, 
 and think that surprising enough, considering the 
 time employed in doing it, without the forma- 
 tion of attachments, the begetting or finding of 
 children, bickerings, buffetings, deaths, marriages, 
 distresses, wealth again, love again, whims and 
 suspicions, shaking heads, and shaking hands. All 
 these things are natural, I confess it; but one 
 would rather breathe between them, and perhaps 
 one would think it no bad husbandry to put some 
 of them off until another season. The combina- 
 tion of them, after all, marvelous as it appears, is 
 less difficult to contrive than to credit. 
 
 MARVEL. 
 
 I have always been an idle man, and have read 
 or attended the greater part of the plays that are 
 extant, and will venture to affirm that, exclusive 
 of Shakespear's, and some Spanish pieces never 
 represented nor translated, there are barely half a 
 dozen plots amongst them, comic and tragic. So 
 that it is evidently a much easier matter to run 
 over the usual variations, than to keep entirely in 
 
AND ANDREW MARVEL. 9 
 
 another tune and to raise up no recollections. 
 Both in tragedies and comedies the changes are 
 pretty similar, and nearly in the same places. 
 You perceive the turns and windings of the road 
 a mile before you, and you know exactly the pre- 
 cipice down which the hero or heroine must fall : 
 you can discover with your naked eye, who does 
 the mischief and who affords the help ; where the 
 assassin bursts forth with the dagger, and where 
 the old gentleman shakes the crabstick over the 
 shoulder of his dissolute nephew. 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 I do not wish direction-posts to perplexities 
 and intrigues : I oppose this agrarian law, this 
 general-inclosure-act : I would not attempt to 
 square the circle of poetry ; and am avowedly a 
 nonjuror to the doctrine of grace and predestina- 
 tion in the drama. 
 
 MARVEL. 
 
 In my project, one action leads to and brings 
 about another, naturally but not necessarily. The 
 event is the confusion of the evil-doer, whose ma- 
 chinations are the sole means of accomplishing 
 what their motion seemed calculated to thwart and 
 overthrow. No character is introduced that doth 
 not tend towards the developement of the plot; 
 
10 MILTON 
 
 no one is merely prompter to a witticism or master 
 of the ceremonies to a repartee. 
 
 Characters in general are made subservient to 
 the plot: here the plot is made subservient to 
 the characters. All are real : I have only invited 
 them to meet, and bestowed on them those abilities 
 for conversation, without which a comedy might 
 be very natural, but would not possess the nature 
 of a comedy. I expose only what arises from the 
 headiness of unruly passions, or is precipitated by 
 the folly that verges upon vice. This exposure is 
 in the corner of a room, not in the stocks nor in 
 the marketplace. Comedy with me sits in an easy 
 chair, as Menander is represented by the statuary : 
 for it is as possible to be too busy on the scenic 
 theatre as it is on the theatre of life. To those 
 who admire the double plot and the machinery of 
 the rope-walk, I only say, Go to my betters "whom 
 you have so long neglected; carry off from them 
 as miu:h as you can bear ; you are then welcome 
 to rip up my sheet, and to sew a scene m where- 
 ever the needle will go through : in this manner y 
 the good may be made acceptable by the new, 
 and the new can be no loser by the good. 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 You say nothing about the chorus. I have in- 
 
AND ANDREW MARVEL. 11 
 
 troduced it, you know, in my Samson AgonisteSy 
 and intend to bring it forward in my Macbeth. 
 
 MARVEL. 
 
 Dear John ! thou art lucky in having escaped 
 two Stuarts ; and hickier still wilt thou be if thou 
 escapest one Macbeth. Contend with Homer, 
 but let Shakespear rest : drop that work ; prythee 
 drop it for ever: thou mayest appear as high as 
 he is (for who can measure either of you ?) if thou 
 wilt only stand some way off. 
 
 In tragedy the choruses were grave people called 
 upon, or ready without it, to give advice and con- 
 solation in cases of need. To set them singing 
 and moralizing amidst the dolefullest emergencies, 
 when the poet should be reporting progress, is 
 like sticking a ballad upon a turnstile to hasten 
 folks on. The comic poet called out his regular 
 chorus in imitation of the tragic, till the genius of 
 Menander took a middle flight between Aristo- 
 phanes and Euripides, Comedy had among the 
 ancients her ovations but not her triumphs. 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 Menander's form, which the Romans and French 
 have imitated, pleases me less than the older. He 
 introduced better manners, but employing no va- 
 riety of verse, and indulging in few sallies of mer- 
 
IS MILTON 
 
 riment, I incline to believe that he more frequently 
 instructed than entertained. 
 
 The verse itself of Aristophanes is a dance of 
 Bacchanals: one cannot read it with composure. 
 He had however but little true wit, whatever may 
 be asserted to the contrary. There is abundance 
 of ribaldry, and of that persecution by petulance 
 which the commonalty call banter. 
 
 MARVEL. 
 
 He takes delight in mocking and ridiculing the 
 manner of Euripides. In my opinion, if a modern 
 may form one upon the subject, he might, with 
 his ingenuity, have seized more points to let his 
 satire lighten on, and have bent them to his pur- 
 pose with more dexterity and address. 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 His ridicule on the poetry is misplaced, on the 
 manners is inelegant. Euripides was not less wise 
 than Socrates nor less tender than Sappho. There 
 is a tenderness which elevates the genius, there is 
 also a tenderness which corrupts the heart. The 
 latter, like every impurity, is easy to communicate ; 
 the former is difficult to conceive. Strong minds 
 alone possess it ; virtuous minds alone value it. I 
 hold it abominable to turn into derision what is 
 excellent. To render undesirable what ought to 
 
AND ANDREW MARVEL. 13 
 
 be desired, is the most mischievous and diabolical 
 of malice. To exhibit him as contemptible, who 
 ought, according to the conscience of the exhibitor, 
 to be respected and revered, is a crime the more 
 odious, as it can be committed only by great vio- 
 lence to his feelings, against the loud reclamations 
 of Justice and amongst the struggles of Virtue. 
 And what is the tendency of this brave exploit? 
 to cancel the richest legacy that ever was be- 
 queathed to him, and to prove his own bastardy in 
 relation to the most illustrious of his species. If 
 it is disgraceful to demolish or obliterate a tomb- 
 stone, over the body of the most obscure among 
 the dead ; if it is an action for which a boy would 
 be whipped, as guilty of the worst idleness and 
 mischief; what is it to overturn the monument 
 that Gratitude has erected to Genius, and to break 
 the lamp that is lighted by Devotion overagainst 
 the image of Love? The writings of the wise 
 are the only riches our posterity cannot squander : 
 why depreciate them? To Antiquity again... but 
 afar from Aristophanes. 
 
 MARVEL. 
 
 Our admiration of Antiquity is in part extra- 
 neous from her merits : yet even this part, strange 
 as the assertion may appear, is well founded. We 
 learn many things from the ancients which it cost 
 
14 MILTON 
 
 them no trouble to teach, and upon which they 
 employed no hnagination, no learning, no time. 
 Those amongst us who have copied them, have 
 not succeeded. To produce any effect on morals 
 or on manners, or indeed to attract any attention, 
 which, whatever be the pretext, is the principal 
 if not the only aim of most writers, and certainly 
 of all the comic, we must employ the language 
 and consult the habits of our age. We may in- 
 troduce a song without retrospect to the old 
 comedy ; a moral sentence, without authority from 
 the new. The characters, even on their improved 
 and purified stage, were, we know, of so vulgar 
 and uncleanly a cast, that, with all their fine re- 
 flexions, there was something like the shirt of 
 Lazarus patched with the purple of Dives. Do 
 not imagine I am a detracter from the glory of 
 our teachers, from their grace, their elegance, 
 their careful weeding away of small thoughts, that 
 higher and more succulent might have room. 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 No, Marvel, no. Between their poetry and 
 ours you perceive as great a difference as between 
 a rose and a dandelion. There is, if I may ex- 
 press myself so, without pursuing a metaphor till 
 it falls exhausted at my feet, a sort of refreshing 
 odour flying off it perpetually ; not enough to op- 
 
AND ANDREW MARVEL. 15 
 
 press or to satiate ; nothing is beaten or bruized ; 
 nothing smells of the stalk; the flower itself is 
 half-concealed by the Genius of it hovering round. 
 Write on the same principles as guided them. 
 
 MARVEL. 
 
 Yes ; but I would not imitate them further. I 
 will not be pegged down to any plot, nor follow 
 any walk, however well rolled, where the persons 
 of the drama cannot consistently lead the way. 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 Reasonable enough: but why should not both 
 comedy and tragedy be sometimes so disciplined 
 as may better fitt them for our closets? I allow 
 that their general intention is for action : it is also 
 the nature of odes to be accompanied by voices 
 and instruments. I only would suggest to you, 
 that a man of learning, with a genius suited to 
 comedy, may as easily found it upon antiquity, as 
 the tragedian of equal abilities his tragedy, and 
 that the one might be made as acceptable to the 
 study as the other to the stage. I would not 
 hamper you with rules and precedents. Comply 
 with no other laws or limits than such as are ne- 
 cessary to the action. There may be occasion for 
 songs; and there may not: besides, a poet may 
 be capable of producing a good comedy who is 
 incapable of composing a tolerable stanza; and. 
 
16 MILTON 
 
 on the other hand, Pindar himself might have been 
 lost in a single scene. 
 
 MARVEL. 
 
 True : but tell me, friend John, are you really 
 serious in your proposal of interspersing a few an- 
 tiquated words, that my comedy may be accept- 
 able to the readers of Plautus and Terence ? This 
 I hear. 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 I have, on several occasions, been a sufferer by 
 the delivery of my sentiments to a friend. Anti- 
 quated words, used sparingly and characteristically, 
 give often a force, and always a gravity to com- 
 positions. It is not every composition that admits 
 them : a comedy may in one character, but charily 
 and choicely. 
 
 There is in Plautus a great fund of language 
 and of wit : he is very far removed from our Shake- 
 spear, but resembles him more than any other of 
 the ancients. In reading him and Terence, my 
 delight arises not so materially from the aptitude 
 of character and expression, as from a clear and 
 unobstructed insight into the feelings and manners 
 of those times, and an admission into the con- 
 versations to which Scipio and Laelius attended. 
 
 MARVEL. 
 
 Now, what think you about the number of acts? 
 
AND ANDREW MARVEL. 17 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 There is no reason, in nature or in art, why a 
 drama should occupy five. Be assured, my friend 
 Andrew, the fifth-act-men will hereafter be thought 
 as absurd as the fifth-monarchy-men. The num- 
 ber of acts should be optional, like the number of 
 scenes, and the division of them should equally be 
 subordinate to the convenience of the poet in the 
 procession of his events. In respect to duration, 
 nothing is requisite or reasonable but that it should 
 not loiter nor digress, and that it should not ex- 
 haust the patience nor disappoint the expectation 
 of the audience. Dramatists have gone to work, 
 in this business, with so much less of wisdom than 
 of system, that I question, when they say a comedy 
 07^ tragedy in Jive acts, whether they should not 
 rather say m Jive scenes; whether, in fact, the 
 scenes should not designate the divisions, and the 
 acts the subdivisions : for, the scene usually changes 
 to constitute a new act, and when a fresh actor enters 
 we usually call it a new scene, I do not speculate 
 on any one carrying the identity of place, strictly, 
 throughout a whole performance, least of all a 
 tragedy, unless for the purpose of ridiculing some 
 late French critics. As a tragedy must consist of 
 opposite counsels and unforeseen events, if the 
 author should exhibit his whole action in one hall 
 
 VOL. II. c 
 
18 MILTON AND ANDREW MARVEL. 
 
 or chamber, he would be laughed to scorn. Co- 
 medy is not formed to astonish: she neither ex- 
 pects nor wishes great changes. Let her argue 
 rarely ; let her remark lightly ; if she reasons too 
 well, her audience will leave her, and reflect upon 
 it. Those generally are the most temperate, who 
 have large and well-stored cellars. You have every 
 thing at home, Andrew, and need not step out of 
 your way. Those shew that they possess much 
 who hold much back. 
 
 MARVEL. 
 
 Be not afraid of me : I will not push my 
 characters forward, and make them stare most 
 one upon another when they are best acquainted. 
 The union of wisdom with humour is unexpected 
 enough for me: I would rather see it than the 
 finest piece of arras slit asunder, or the richest 
 screen in Christendom overturned; than the cle- 
 verest trick that was ever played among the scenes, 
 or than a marriao-e that should surprize me like an 
 
 surpr 
 
 Abissinian's ^vith a Laplander. 
 
CONVERSATION IL 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 FRANKLIN, 
 
 c 2 
 
WASHINGTON 
 
 AND 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 Yes, Benjamin, let us render thanks to the 
 disposer of events, under whom, by the fortitude, 
 the wisdom, and the endurance of our Congress, 
 the affairs of America are brought at last to a tri- 
 umphant issue. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Do not refuse the share of merit due to your- 
 self, which is perhaps the largest. 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 I am not of that opinion: if I were, I might 
 acknowledge it to you, although not to others. 
 Suppose me to have made a judicious choice in 
 my measures ; the Congress then made a judicious 
 choice in me ; so that whatever praise may be al- 
 lowed me, is at best but secondary. 
 
2^ WASHINGTON 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 I do not believe that the world contams so 
 many men, who reason rightly, as New England. 
 Serious, religious, peaceable, inflexibly just and 
 courageous, their stores of intellect are not squan- 
 dered in the regions of fancy, or in the desperate 
 ventures of new-found and foggy metaphysics, 
 but warehoused and kept sound at home, and 
 ready to be brought forth in good and wholesome 
 condition at the first demand. Their ancestors 
 had abandoned their estates, their families, and 
 their country, for the obtainment of peace and 
 freedom, and they themselves were ready to tra- 
 verse the vast wildernesses of an unexplored conti- 
 nent rather than submitt to that moral degradation 
 which alone can satisfy the capriciousness of de- 
 spotism. Their gravity is converted into enthu- 
 siasm: even those amongst them who never, in 
 childhood itself, expressed in speech or countenance 
 a sign of admiration, express it strongly in their 
 old age at your exploits. 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 Benjamin, one would imagine that we both had 
 been educated in courts, and that I were a man 
 who could give, and you a man who could ask. 
 Prythee, my friend, be a philosopher in somewhat 
 more than books and bottles, and, as you have 
 
AND FllANKLIN. 23 
 
 learned to manage the clouds and lightnings, try 
 an experiment on the management of your fancies. 
 I declare, on my conscience, I do not know what 
 I have done extraordinary, unless we are forced 
 to acknowledge, from the examples to which we 
 have been accustomed, that it is extraordinary to 
 possess power and to remain honest. I believe it 
 may be so : but this was a matter of reflection with 
 me: by serving my country I gratified my heart 
 and all its wants. Perhaps I am not so happy a 
 creature as the fellow who smokes his pipe upon 
 the bench at the tavern-door; but I am as happy 
 as my slow blood allows ; and I keep my store of 
 happiness in the same temperature the whole year 
 round, by the double casement of action and in- 
 tegrity. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 I do not assert that there never was a general 
 who disposed his army in the day of battle with 
 skill equal to yours : that, in many instances, must 
 depend almost as much on his adversary as on 
 himself: but I assert that no man ever displayed 
 such intimate knowledge of his whole business, 
 guarded so frequently and so effectually against 
 the impending ruin of his forces, and shewed him- 
 self at once so circumspect and so daring. To 
 
24 WASHINGTON 
 
 have inoculated one half of your troops under the 
 eye of the enemy 
 
 WASHIXGTON. 
 
 Those actions are great, which require great 
 calculation, and succeed in consequence of its cor- 
 rectness ; those alone, or nearly alone, are called 
 so, which succeed without any. I knew the su- 
 pineness of the British general, his utter ignorance 
 of his profession, his propensity to gaming, to 
 drinking, in short to all the camp vices. I took 
 especial care that he should be informed of my 
 intention to attack him, on the very day when my 
 army was, from the nature of its distemper, the 
 most disabled. Instead of anticipating me, which 
 this intelligence, credited as it was, would have 
 induced a more skilful man to do, he kept his 
 troops unremittingly on the alert, and he himself 
 is reported to have been sober three days together. 
 The money which he ought to have employed in 
 obtaining just and necessary information, he lost 
 at cards ; and when he found that I had ventured 
 to inoculate my army and that the soldiers had 
 recovered, he little imagined that half the number 
 was at that moment under the full influence of 
 the disease. 
 
 Attribute no little of our success to the only 
 
AND FRANKLIN. 25 
 
 invariable policy of England, which is, to sweep 
 forward to the head of all her armaments the 
 grubs of rotten boroughs and the droppings of the 
 gamingtable; and, Benjamin, be assured that al- 
 though men of eminent genius have been guilty 
 of all other vices, none worthy of more than a 
 secondary name has ever been a gamester. Either 
 an excess of avarice, or a deficiency of what in 
 physics is called stimulus and excitability, is the 
 cause of it ; neither of which can exist in the same 
 bosom with genius, with patriotism, or with virtue. 
 Clive, the best English general since Marlborough, 
 was apparently an exception : but he fell not into 
 this degrading vice, until he was removed from 
 the sphere of exertion, until his abilities had begun 
 to decay, and his intellects in some measure to be 
 deranged. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 I quite agree with you in your main proposition, 
 and see no exception to it in Clive, who, although 
 he gained the most glorious victory that has been 
 obtained since the battle of Poictiers, was more 
 capable of ruining a country than of raising one. 
 Those who record that chess was invented in the 
 Trojan war, would have informed us if Ulysses, 
 Agamemnon, or Diomedes ever played at it ; which 
 
26 WASHINGTON 
 
 however is usually done without a stake, nor can 
 it be called in any way a game of chance. Gus- 
 tavus Adolphus and Eugene of Savoy, who hold, 
 I think I have heard you say, the most distin- 
 guished rank among the generals of modern na- 
 tions, and Marlborough who united with military 
 science an equal share of political sagacity and 
 dexterous conciliation, and Frederic of Prussia, 
 and Charles XII of Sweden, and William III of 
 England, had springs and movements within them- 
 selves, which did not require to be wound up every 
 night. They deemed it indecorous to be selvages 
 to an ell of green cloth, and scandalous to cast 
 upon a card what would cover a whole country 
 with plenteousness. 
 
 Gaming is the vice of those nations which are 
 too effeminate to be barbarous and too depraved 
 to be civilized, and which unite the worst qualities 
 of both conditions ; as for example the rags and 
 lace of Naples, its lazaroni and other titulars. 
 The Malays, I acknowledge, are less effeminate, 
 and in all respects less degraded, and still are 
 gamesters : but gaming with the Malays is a sub- 
 stitute for beetel; the Neapolitan games on a 
 full snuffbox. Monarchs should encourage the 
 practise, as the Capets have done constantly; for 
 
AND I'RANKLIN. 87 
 
 it l)rings the idle and rich into their capitals, holds 
 them from other intriijues and from more active 
 parties, makes many powerful families dependent, 
 and satisfies many young officers who would other- 
 wise w^ant employments. Republics, on the con- 
 trary, should punish the first offence with fine and 
 imprisonment, the second with a public whipping 
 and a year's hard labour, the third with deportation. 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 As you please in monarchies and republics : but 
 prythee say nothing of them in mixt governments : 
 do not affi'ont the earliest coadjutors and surest 
 reliances of our commonwealth. The leaders of 
 party in England are inclined to play : and what 
 was a cartouche but yesterday will make a rouleau 
 tomorrow. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Fill it then with base money, or you will be 
 overreached. They are persons of some reputation 
 for eloquence ; but if I conducted a newspaper in 
 that country, I should think it a wild speculation 
 to pay the wiser of them half a crown aday for 
 his most elaborate composition. When either shall 
 venture to publish a history, a dialogue, or even a 
 speech of his own, his talents will then be appre- 
 ciated justly. God grant (for our differences have 
 not yet annihilated the remembrance of our re- 
 
28 WASHINGTON 
 
 lationship) that England may r over have any more 
 painful proofs, any more lasting documents of 
 their incapacity. Since we Americans can suffer 
 no further from them, I speak of them with the 
 same indifference and equanimity as if they were 
 among the dead. 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 But come, come... the war is ended, God be 
 praised ! Objections have been raised against our 
 form of government, and assertions have been 
 added that the republican is ill adapted to a flou- 
 rishing or an extensive country. We know from 
 the experience of Carthage and of Holland that 
 it not only can preserve but can make a country 
 flourishing, when Nature herself has multiplied 
 the impediments, and when the earth and all the 
 elements have conspired against it. Demonstra- 
 tion is indeed yet w^anting that a veiy extensive 
 territory is best governed by its people: reason 
 and sound common sense are the only vouchers. 
 Many may fancy they have an interest in seizing 
 what is another's, but surely no man can suppose 
 that he has any in ruining or alienating his own. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Confederative states, under one president, will 
 never be all at once, or indeed in great part, de- 
 prived of their freedom. 
 
AND FRANKLIN. 29 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 Adventurers may aspire to the supreme power 
 illegally 5 but none can expect that the majority 
 will sacrifice their present interests to his ambi- 
 tion, in any confidence or hope of greater. He 
 never will raise a standing army, who cannot point 
 out the probable means of paying it, which no one 
 can do here; nor will an usurper rise up any 
 where, unless there are mines to tempt the adven- 
 turous and avaricious, or large and well-cultivated 
 estates to parcel out, and labourers to cultivate 
 them, or many slaves to seduce and embody, or 
 rich treasures to confiscate, or enemies to invade 
 whose property may be plundered. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 The objections bear much more weightily against 
 monarchical and mixt governments ; because these, 
 in wide dominions, are always composed of parts 
 considerably at variance in privileges and interests, 
 in manners and opinions, and the inhabitants of 
 which are not unreluctant to be employed one 
 against the other. Hence while we Americans 
 leave our few soldiers to the states where they were 
 levied, the kings of Europe will cautiously change 
 the quarters of theirs, and send them into pro- 
 vinces as remote as possible. When they have 
 ceased to have a home, they have ceased to have a 
 
30 WASHINGTON 
 
 country ; for all affinities are destroyed by break- 
 ing the nearest. Thrones are constructed on the 
 petrifaction of the human heart. 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 Lawless ambition has no chance whatever of 
 success where there are neither great standing 
 armies nor great national debts; (I am not speak- 
 ing of usurpation but of encroachment;) where 
 either of those exist, freedom must waste away, 
 and perish. We are as far from this danger, as 
 from the other. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Excellent pens have written, I know not from what 
 motive, that liberty is never more perfect or more 
 safe than under a mild monarch : History teaches us 
 the contrary. Where princes are absolute, more 
 tyranny is committed under the mild, than under 
 the austere : for the latter are jealous of power, 
 and entrust it to few ; the mild delegate it incon- 
 siderately to many: and the same easiness of temper 
 which allows them to do so, permits their ministers 
 and those under them to abuse the trust with im- 
 punity. It has been said that in a democracy 
 there are many despots, and that in a kingdom there 
 can be one only. This is false : in a republic the 
 tyrannical temper creates a check to itself in the 
 very person next it: but in a monarchy all en- 
 
AND FRANKLIN. 31 
 
 trusted with power become tyrannical by a nod 
 from above, whether the nod be of approbation or 
 of drowsiness. Royalty not only is a monster of 
 more heads, but also of more claws, and sharper. 
 It is amusing to find us treated as visionaries. 
 All the gravest nations have been republics, both 
 in ancient times and in modern. The Dutch, 
 the Venetians, the Spaniards, will always, unless 
 an insuperable force oppresses them, aspire to the 
 dignity of manhood; the Neapolitans and the 
 French will dream of it and shake it off. I shall 
 believe that a king is better than a republic, when 
 I find that a single tooth in a head is better than a 
 set, and that in its solitariness there is a warrant 
 for its strength and soundness. 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 Let us look forward ; let us consider what our 
 country will be, a century after our departure; 
 for the sound sense of our people, their speculative 
 habits, their room for enterprise around home, and 
 their distance from Europe, ensure to them, if not 
 a long continuance of peace, exemption from such 
 wars as can affect in any material degree their 
 character or their prosperity. We might have con- 
 tinued the hostilities until a part or even the whole 
 of Canada had been ceded to us. The Congress has 
 done, what, if my opinion had been asked, I should 
 
32 WASHINGTON 
 
 have strongly recommended. Let Canada be ours 
 when she is cultivated and enriched ; let not the 
 fruit be gathered prematurely ; indeed let it never 
 be plucked ; let it fall when our bosom can hold 
 it. This must happen within the century to come ; 
 I for no nation is, or ever has been, so intolerably 
 j vexatious to its colonies, its dependencies, and its 
 i conquests, as the British. I have known per- 
 sonally several governors, many of them honest and 
 sensible men, many of them of mild and easy cha- 
 racter, but I never knew one, nor ever heard of 
 any from older officers, who attempted at all to 
 conciliate the affections, or systematically to pro- 
 mote the interests, of the governed. Liberality 
 has been occasionally extended to them, but it has 
 been the liberality of a master towards a slave, and 
 only after grievous sufferings. Services have then 
 been exacted, not hard perhaps in themselves, but 
 in a manner to cancel all recollection, and deaden 
 all sense of kindness. What greater political, 
 what more incorrigible moral evil ! The French 
 and Spaniards act differently: they extract advan- 
 tage from their undisturbed possessions, appealing 
 to the generosity of their children, and softening 
 their commands by kind offices and constant at- 
 tentions. Wherever a French regiment is quar- 
 tered, there are balls and comedies j wherever an 
 
AND FRANKLIN. 33 
 
 English, there are disturbances in the street, and 
 duels. Give the Spaniard a bull-fight, and you 
 may burn his father at the stake, commending 
 him to the God of Mercy in a cassock painted 
 with the flames of hell. The English (and we their 
 descendants are the most deserving of the name) 
 require but justice. Whatever comes as a favour 
 comes as an affront. To what a pitch then must 
 our indignation be excited, when we are not per- 
 mitted even to pay that which is required of us, 
 unless we present it wdth the left hand, or upon 
 the nose, or from our knees amidst the mire ! The 
 orators of the British parliament, while they are 
 colouring all this insolence and injustice, keep the 
 understanding of the people at tongue's length. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 In good truth then the separation is no narrow 
 one. I have been present while some of them 
 have thrown up the most chaffy stuff two hours 
 together, and have never called for a glass of water. 
 This is contemplated as the summit of ability, and 
 he who is capable of performing it, is deemed 
 capable of ruling the two hemispheres. The rich 
 families that govern this assembly have made us 
 independent ; they have given us thirteen pro- 
 vinces, and they will people them all for us in less 
 
 VOL. II. D 
 
S4 WASHINGTON 
 
 than fifty years. Religious and grave men, for 
 none are graver or more religious than the beaten, 
 are praising the loving-mercies of God in loosemng 
 from their necks the mill-stone of America : other- 
 wise the national debt which has only been trebled, 
 would have soon been quintupled. What a bless- 
 ing to throw aside such an extent of coast, which 
 of itself would have required an immense navy for 
 its defence ! No one dreams that England in con- 
 federacy with America would have been so strong 
 in sailors, in ports, in naval stores, as to have be- 
 come (I do not say with good management, I say 
 in spite of bad) not invincible only, but invul- 
 nerable. 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 If she turns her attention to the defects of her 
 administration, in all its branches, she may recover 
 not much less than she has lost. Look at the 
 nations of Europe, and shew me one, despotic or 
 free, of which so large a portion is so barbarous 
 and wretched as the Irish. The country is more 
 fertile than Britain; the inhabitants are healthy, 
 strong, courageous, faithful, patriotic, and quick 
 of apprehension. No quality is wanting, which 
 constitutes the respectability of a state or the 
 happiness of individuals: yet from centuries of 
 
AND FRANKLIN. 35 
 
 misrule tliey are in a condition more hopeless than 
 any other nation or tribe upon the globe, civilized 
 or savage. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 There is only one direct way to bring them into 
 order, and that appears so rough, that it never 
 will be trodden. The chief misery arises from 
 the rapacity of the gentry as they are called, and 
 the nobility, who, to avoid the trouble of collect- 
 ing their rents from many poor tenants, and the 
 greater of hearing their complaints, have leased 
 their properties to what are called middle-men. 
 These harass their inferiors in the exact ratio of 
 their industiy, and drive them into desperation. 
 Hence slovenliness and drunkenness; for the ap- 
 pearance of ease and comfort is an allurement to 
 avarice. To pacify and reclaim the people, all 
 leases to middle-men must be annulled: every 
 cultivator must have a lease for life, and (at the 
 option of his successor) valid for as many years 
 afterwards as will amount in the whole to twenty- 
 one. The extent of ground should be propor- 
 tionate to his family and his means. To underlet 
 land should be punished by law as regretting. 
 Authority would here be strongly exercised, not 
 tyrannically, which never can be asserted of plans 
 sanctioned by the representatives of a people, for 
 
 D 2 
 
36 WASHINGTON 
 
 the great and perpetual benefit of the many, to 
 the small and transient inconvenience of the few. 
 Auxiliary to this reform should be one in church- 
 livings. They should all embrace nearly the same 
 number of communicants. Suppose three thou- 
 sand souls under each cure : a fourth part would 
 consist of the infirm and of children not yet pre- 
 pared for the reception of doctrine. The service, 
 as formerly, should be shorter, and performed 
 thrice each Sunday ; so that all might in turn be 
 present, and that great concourse would be avoided, 
 which frequently is the prelude to licentiousness 
 and brutality. Abolishing tithes, selling the pro- 
 perty of the crown, the church, and corporations, 
 I would establish a fund sufficient to allow each 
 clergyman, in addition to his house, one hundred 
 and forty pounds annually. The catholic priest 
 should have the same number of communicants, 
 and should receive a gratuity of fifty pounds an- 
 nually, and should also possess his parsonage- 
 house: offerings and gifts, as at present, would 
 accrue to him from the piety and gratitude of 
 his parishioners. The church, as established by 
 government, would be maintained in its supre- 
 macy, and the papal priest would be remu- 
 nerated not for his profession, but for services 
 done towards the state by his attention to the 
 
AND FRANKLIN. 57 
 
 morals of his communicants. If the English pay 
 forty pounds for taking up a felon, would they 
 not mllingly pay fifty for reclaiming a dozen ? I 
 would grant eight hundred pounds yearly to each 
 protestant bishop, obliging him to constant re- 
 sidence in his diocese ; four of these are sufficient : 
 I would grant two thousand to one arch-bishop. 
 The catholics should have the same number, and 
 their stipends should be the same; for although 
 the priests are ignorant and vulgar men in all 
 catholic countries, it is highly requisite for the 
 mainteDance of order, that the bishops and arch- 
 bishop here should possess whatever gives autho- 
 rity. Knowledge in some measure gives it, but 
 splendour in a much greater. Elagabalus would 
 attract more notice and lead after him more fol- 
 lowers than Lycurgus, and not merely from the 
 lower orders but also from the higher. 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 True enough : and indeed some of the wise be- 
 come as the unwise in the enchanted chambers of 
 Power, whose lamps make every face of the same 
 colour. Gorgeousness melts all mankind into one 
 inert mass, earning off and confounding and con- 
 suming all beneath it, like a torrent of lava, bright 
 amidst the darkness and dark again amidst the 
 light. 
 
38 WASHINGTON , 
 
 The reductions you propose would bring about 
 another: they would remove the necessity of a 
 standing army in that unfortunate country, and 
 further would enable the government to establish 
 three companies for fisheries, the herring, the cod, 
 and the whale. The population is already too 
 great, and is increasing, which of itself is the 
 worst of curses, unless when high civilization re- 
 gulates it, and the superflux must be diverted by 
 colonization, or occupied on the seas by com- 
 merce. Manufactures all tend to deteriorate the 
 species, but begin by humanizing it. Happy those 
 countries which have occasion for no more of them 
 than may supply the home consumption ! Na- 
 tional debts are evils, not so much because they 
 take away from useful and honest gains, as because 
 they create superfluous and dishonest ones, and 
 because, when carried as far as England would 
 carry hers, they occasion half the children of the 
 land to be cooped up in buildings which open into 
 the brothel and the hospital. 
 
 In assenting to you, I interrupted your proposi- 
 tions ; pray go on. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 I would permit no Englishman to hold in Ire- 
 land a place of trust or profit, whether in church 
 or state. I would confer titles and offices on 
 
AND FRANKLIN. 89 
 
 those Irish gentlemen, who resided in the country 
 on their properties: they would in time become 
 habituated to a regular and decorous mode of life : 
 The landlord and clergyman would in the begin- 
 ning lose something of current coin; but if you 
 consider that their lives, houses, and effects would 
 become safe, that provisions would be plentiful in 
 proportion to the sacrifices they made, and that in 
 no year would their rents and incomes fail, as they 
 now do at least twenty in each century, you would 
 find that their situation, like the situation of their 
 inferiors, would be much improved. 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 Many would exclaim against the injustice of 
 taking from one class alone a portion of its pro- 
 perty as insurance-money. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Not from one alone: all property should be 
 protected at its own cost: this is the right and 
 the object of all governments. The insurance is 
 two-fold ; that of the private man, and that of the 
 community : the latter is the main consideration, 
 I perceive nothing arbitrary, nothing novel, in its 
 principle^. If a government exerts the power of 
 
 * There is an argument wliich I could not attribute to 
 Franklin, because it is derived from an authority to which he 
 never appealed, and the words containing it are unlikely to 
 
40 WASHINGTON 
 
 taxing one trade or profession, it does the same 
 thing or more. Suppose it should levy a tax of 
 a hundred pounds on every man who begins 
 the business of apothecary or lawyer, is not the 
 grievance even heavier, as pressing on those whose 
 gains are yet uncertain, and to be derived from 
 others, than it would be if bearing upon those 
 whose emoluments are fixt, and proceed from 
 the government which regulates and circumscribes 
 them? But they have been accustomed, you will 
 say, to the enjoyment of more. So much clear 
 
 have lain within the range of his reading. I derive it from 
 the Aphorisms of Coiifessors, by Emanuel Sa: p. 528. 
 
 Le Pape peut revoquer la loi etablie par lui ou par prede- 
 cesseur, et oster mesme sans occasion les effects procedens 
 d'icelle, et le benefice valide a un chacun : car il a entiere dis- 
 position sur les benefices. 
 
 The king of England and Ireland, as head of the church, 
 succeeds by consent of Parliament to the disposal of benefices. 
 He surely can do in his own kingdom, what the Pope can do 
 in another's, where property is concerned. The religion of a 
 state is established for the correction of its morals, and its 
 morals are requisite to the maintenance of the laws. Religion 
 then, in the view of a statesman, is only a thing that aids and 
 assists the laws, removing from before them much of their 
 painful duties, and lessening (if good and eflTectual) the num- 
 ber of their ofiicers and executioners. So that, in political 
 economy there is between them a close and intimate connec- 
 tion, and both alike are subject to regulations in them from 
 the same authority. The salary of a clergyman should be as 
 much subject to the state, as the stipend of a custom-house 
 olficcr and exciseman. 
 
AND FRANKLIN. 41 
 
 gain for them. I hope they may have made a 
 liberal and wise use of the superfluity. Those, 
 who have done so, will possess minds ready to cal- 
 culate justly their own lasting interests, and the 
 interests of the community for whose benefit they 
 have been appointed. If there is any thing the 
 existence of which produces great and general evil, 
 and the abolition of which will produce great and 
 general good, in perpetuity, the government is not 
 only authorised by right but bound by duty to 
 remove it. Compensation should be made to the 
 middle-men for all losses; it should be made 
 even to the worst; these losses may as easily be 
 ascertained as those occasioned to proprietors and 
 tenants, through whose lands we open a road or a 
 canal. 
 
 Methods far short of what I indicate will be 
 adopted and will fail. Constitutional lawyers 
 (now England is persuaded that her judicature 
 and her parliament contains them, and even the 
 Irish too!) will assent that Ireland be subject to 
 martial law for thirty years in the century and to 
 little or none for the remainder, but will not 
 assent that every thing unlawful shall be also un- 
 necessary, and unprovoked. In consequence of 
 which, within the life-time of some in existence, 
 we shall have two millions of Irishmen in America, 
 
4f2 WASHINGTON 
 
 all reclaimed from their ferocity, by assuaging 
 their physical and moral wants, and addicted to 
 industry by the undisturbed enjoyment of its 
 sweets. Experience seems to have given no sort 
 of information to their rulers : they profit by no- 
 thing old, they venture on nothing new. If I 
 were a member of the British ministry, I should 
 think I acted wisely, not in attempting to prove 
 that the constitution is the best in the world, but 
 in demonstrating, if I could, the reverse. For in 
 proportion as they labour to extoll it, in the same 
 proportion do they oblige us to suppose them its 
 most impudent and outrageous violators, or, at 
 the least, ignorant of its spirit, and incapable of its 
 application. Otherwise how could this excellent 
 form be the parent of deformity? how could the 
 population where the country is so fertile and the 
 race so industrious contain a larger number of indi- 
 gent families, and those among the most laborious 
 and the most virtuous, than any other upon 
 earth? Such is the beneficence of the supreme 
 Power, unmixed evil, in its exposure to the air 
 and heavens, may contract or produce, by a cer- 
 tain stimulating agency, a somewhat of good, 
 however scantily and slowly; but evil never flows 
 from good unmixed. If the constitution were 
 what it is represented, its agents could not abuse 
 
AND FRANKLIN. 43 
 
 it ; and if its agents could not abuse it, America 
 would not have been, at this time, separated from 
 England, nor would Ireland have been condemned 
 to a massacre once at furthest in two generations ; 
 nor would the British people be more heavily 
 taxed in its comforts and its necessaries than the 
 Algerines and Turks, when its industry is so much 
 greater, and when its territory has not been oc- 
 cupied, nor invaded, nor endangered, by an enemy. 
 I suspect that its w^ars are systematical in their 
 periods, however little so in their conduct: that 
 they must recurr about every twenty years, as a 
 new generation springs up from the aristocracy, 
 for which all the great civil employments, however 
 multiplied, are insufficient, and which disdains all 
 other professions than the military and the naval. 
 The conduct of England towards us resembles 
 that of Ebenezer Pollock towards his eldest son 
 Jonas. Jonas had been hunting in the woods, 
 and had contracted a rheumatism in the face, 
 which drew it awry, and either from the pain it 
 occasioned or from the medicines he took to cure 
 it, rotted one of his grinders. Old Ebenezer was 
 wealthy, had little to do, or to care about, made 
 few observations on his family, sick or sound, and 
 saw nothing particular in his son's countenance. 
 However one dav after dinner, when he had eaten 
 
44 WASHINGTON 
 
 heartily, he said to Jonas, " Son Jonas, methinks 
 thy appetite is not over-keen: pick and welcome 
 the other half of that hog's-foot." 
 
 ** Father, '' answered he, "I have had a pain in 
 my tooth the last fortnight ; the northerly wind 
 does it no good today: I would rather, if so be 
 that you approve of it, eat a slice of yon fair 
 cheesecake in the closet/' 
 
 " Why what ails the tooth?" said Ebenezer. 
 
 " Nothing more," replied Jonas, " than that I 
 cannot chew with it what I used to chew." 
 
 " Drive a nail in the wall," quoth stoutly and 
 courageously Ebenezer, "tie a string to one end 
 and lace the other round thy tooth." 
 
 The son performed a part of the injunction, 
 but could not very dexterously twist the string 
 around the grinder, for his teeth were close and 
 the cord not over-fine. Then said the father 
 kindly, '' Open thy mouth, lad! give me the 
 twine: back thy head: back it, I tell thee, over 
 the chair." 
 
 "Not that, father, not that... the next," cried 
 Jonas. 
 
 " What dost mean?" proudly and impatiently 
 said Ebenezer. " Is not the string about it? dost 
 hold my hand too, scape-grace? dost give me all 
 this trouble for nought?" 
 
AND FRANKLIN. 45 
 
 *' Patience now, father/' meekly said Jonas, 
 with the cord across his tongue..." let me draw 
 my tooth my own way." 
 
 " Follow thine own courses, serpent!" indig- 
 nantly exclaimed Ebenezer..." as God's in Boston, 
 thou art a most wilful and undutiful child." 
 
 " I hope not, father." 
 
 " Hope not! rebel! Did not I beget thee, and 
 thy teeth, one and all? have not I lodged thee, 
 cloathed thee, and fed thee, these forty years, come 
 Candlemas? and now, I warrant ye, all this bustle 
 and backwardness about a rotten tooth ! should I 
 be a groat the richer for it, out or in?" 
 
 WASHINGTOX. 
 
 Dignity in private men and in governments has 
 been little else, than a stately and stiff perseverance 
 in oppression; and spirit, as it is called, little 
 else than the foam of hard-mouthed insolence. 
 Such at last is become the audacity of Power, from 
 a century or more of holidays or riot, it now com- 
 plains that you deprive it of its prerogative, if you 
 limit the exercise of its malignant passions. I 
 lament that there are those who can learn no 
 lesson of humanity, unless we write it broadly 
 with the point of the sword. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Let us hope however that we may see the 
 
46 WASHINGTON 
 
 day, when these scholars shall be turned out of 
 school. 
 
 I understand that some remarks on the government of the 
 church in Ireland have been offered to Parliament^ I know 
 not by what Scotch member^ much resembling those which I 
 attribute to Franklin. The dialogue was sent to England for 
 l^ublication long before, but although I required no partici- 
 pation of profit by it, some printers were reluctant to under- 
 take it from the unfashionableness of the sentiments, and 
 others from the obscurity of the author. It has passed through 
 several hands -, so that many things, it is reasonable to sup- 
 pose, may have transpired, partly from the extravagance of 
 the matter, and partly from the peculiarity of the style. What 
 has been represented to me as the most visionary and absurd, 
 is, the supposition that the catholic church in England, or 
 elsewhere, could ever admitt any directing power which ema- 
 nates not from the bishop of Rome. 
 
 I would dogmatize with none ; I would dispute Avith few : 
 instead of either, I transcribe some sentiments from Carrion, 
 a catholic author... Itaque instituit Gregorius ^;er cceremonias 
 Ecclesice statum in concordiam revocare. Orta est et contentio 
 hoc tempore de pimatu : voluit enim Mauritius Caesar, ut 
 patriarcha Constantinopolitanus cecumenicus, sive Episcopus 
 universalis, in Ecclesia Christiana diceretur. Sed Gregorius 
 id suo adsensu comprobare non voluit, et Christiana constantia 
 usus scripsit, Neminem id sibi arrogare dehere ut inter Chri- 
 stianas Episcopus universalis velit nominari. Anno Christi 
 DLXXXIV. Chron: lib. iv. p. 272. Venetiis ad signum 
 Spei 1548. 
 
 Bonifacius the third obtained from the emperor Phocas, 
 who had assassinated his master and benefactor Mauritius, 
 that he should be styled CEcumenicus or Universal Bishop. 
 It is worthy of remark, that the popes have obtained every 
 
AND FRANKLIN. 47 
 
 fresh accession of power from usuriwrsj and that for the first 
 six liundred years, however dark and turbulent, tliey abstained 
 from tliose pretensions which they have since so pertinaciously 
 asserted. The ambition of Bonifacius raised up that of a 
 nuich wiser and still bolder impostor. The churches of the 
 east received with scorn and anger the intelligence of this 
 usurpation j and the spirit of discord, which never breathed 
 so violently and so uninterruptedly in any other religion, and 
 \vhich has not intermitted one moment in the eighteen hun- 
 dred years since peace and goodwill towards man was first 
 preached upon earth, induced an Arab to collect a few of his 
 countrymen, disbanded and defrauded by Heraclius, and to 
 preach to them plainer doctrines. Provinces, kingdoms, em- 
 pires, yielded to him; and while Arians and Catholics were 
 fighting for Christ against the command of Christ, the more 
 populous, warlike, and civilized part of the world revolted from 
 both standards. In that which still countenances the system, 
 about a sixth of the wealth is possessed by the clergy, for 
 teaching what every mother is capable of inculcating, and 
 what Christ taught plainly once for all. To favour the esta- 
 blishment of this order, it was necessary to reverse the pro- 
 phecy of Isaiah ; instead of making the rough smooth, to make 
 the smooth rough, and to excite disputes on words, unintelli- 
 gible and unimportant. Hence we find perpetually the terms, 
 pernicious errors, impious doctrines, execrable heresies 3 but 
 are rarely told of the perniciousness, impiety, and execrable- 
 ness of cruelty, malice, falsehood, lust, ambition. Hence the 
 people are not permitted to read the precepts of Christ, but 
 are ordered to believe the legend of Saint Hanherchief ov Saint 
 Eleventhousand, to embrace the holy faith of an enthusiast 
 who gravely tells us he believes a thing because it is impossi- 
 ble, and to place the same confidence in a lying old dotard 
 who asserts that he filed his teeth in order to speak Hebrew. 
 
 While there are religious establishments paid by the peo])le, 
 against their consent, or even partially with it, there will 
 always be dissatisfaction and discontent. Unliaj)pily most of 
 Christ's doctrines are 8ui)erseded : there is one ^^hich was 
 
48 WASHINGTON AND FRANKLIN. 
 
 never in fashion, and which, wiiere all are good, is among the 
 best: Coinmune with thine own heart in thy chamber^ and he 
 still. This, if attended to, would put the bishops' bench on 
 three legs j but it would empty our poor-houses, fill our ma- 
 nufactories, and pay our debt. 
 
 When certain men are loudest, they feel least. Indeed 
 there is a great deal less bigotry in the world, than is usually 
 supposed, and a great deal more insincerity. Our faith is of 
 little moment to those who declame against itj they are 
 angry, not at our blindness, as they call it, but that the blind 
 man will trust his own dog and staff rather than theirs, and, 
 above all, that he will carry the scrip. This is wilfulness in 
 him ; they would fain open his eyes to save him from the sin 
 of such wilfulness J and they break him a limb or two because 
 he will not take them for his oculists. 
 
 Love of power resides in the heart of every man, and is well 
 regulated and discreet in few. Accompanied by genius, it 
 is also too frequently accompanied by pride and arrogance. 
 Although it assumes to itself the highest character, it is really 
 among the weakest of our affections. Those who differ from 
 the domineering party are always stigmatized by them with 
 the name of sectaries 3 and what reflecting man has not re- 
 marked the force that lies in a name ? Yet when the Pope 
 called Luther a sectary, a little learning would have shewn 
 him that the title better suited himself, and that, according to 
 Cato the elder, Sedarius j^orcus est qui gregem prcecedens 
 ducit. 
 
CONVERSATION III. 
 
 ROGER ASCHAM 
 
 THE LADY JANE GREY. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
ROGER ASCIIAM 
 
 AND 
 
 THE LADY JANE GREY, 
 
 ASCHAM, 
 
 Thou art going, my dear young lady, into a 
 most awful state ; thou art passing into matrimony 
 and great wealth. God hath willed it so: submitt 
 in thankfulness. 
 
 Thy affections arc rightly placed and well dis- 
 tributed. Love is a secondary passion in those 
 who love most, a primary in those who love 
 least. He who is inspired by it in a great degree, 
 is inspired by honour in a greater : it never reaches 
 its plenitude of growth and perfection, but in the 
 most exalted minds . . . Alas ! alas ! 
 
 JANE. 
 
 What ailetli my virtuous Ascham? what is 
 amiss? why do I tremble? 
 
52 KOGEK ASCHAM 
 
 ASCHAM. 
 
 I see perils on perils which thou dost not see, 
 although thou art wiser than thy poor old master. 
 And it is not because Love hath blinded thee, for 
 that surpasseth his supposed omnipotence, but it 
 is because thy tender heart having always leaned 
 affectionately upon good, hath felt and known 
 nothing of evil. 
 
 I once persuaded thee to reflect much ; let me 
 now persuade thee to avoid the habitude of reflec- 
 tion, to lay aside books, and to gaze carefully and 
 stedfastly on what is under and before thee. 
 
 JANE. 
 
 I have well bethought me of all my duties : O 
 how extensive they are! what a goodly and fair 
 inheritance ! But tell me, wouldst thou command 
 me never more to read Cicero and Epictetus and 
 Polybius? the others I do resign unto thee: 
 they are good for the arbour and for the gravel- 
 walk: but leave unto me, I beseech thee, my 
 friend and father, leave unto me, for my fireside 
 and for my pillow, truth, eloquence, courage, 
 constancy. 
 
 ASCHAM. 
 
 Read them on thy marriagebed, on thy child- 
 bed, on thy deathbed! Thou spotless undroop- 
 ing lily, they have fenced thee right well ! These 
 
AND THE LADY JANE GREY. 53 
 
 are the men for men: these are to fashion the 
 bright and blessed creatures, O Jane, whom God 
 one day shall smile upon in thy chaste bosom... 
 Mind thou thy husband. 
 
 JANE. 
 
 I sincerely love the youth who hath espoused 
 me; I love him with the fondest, the most soli- 
 citous affection. I pray to the Almighty for his 
 goodness and happiness, and do forget at times, 
 unworthy supplicant! the prayers I should have 
 offered for myself. O never fear that I will dis- 
 parage my kind religious teacher, by disobedience 
 to my husband in the most trying duties, 
 
 ASCHAM. 
 
 Gentle is he, gentle and virtuous : but time will 
 harden him : time must harden even thee, sweet 
 Jane ! Do thou, complacently and indirectly, lead 
 him from ambition. 
 
 JANE. 
 
 He is contented with me and with home. 
 
 ASCHAM. 
 
 Ah Jane, Jane ! men of high estate grow tired 
 of contentedness. 
 
 JANE. 
 
 He told me he never liked books unless I read 
 them to him. I will read them to him every 
 evening: I will open new worlds to him, richer 
 
54 ROGER ASCHAM, &c. 
 
 than those discovered by the Spaniard ; I will con- 
 duct him to treasures...© what treasures !... on 
 which he may sleep in innocence and peace. 
 
 ASCHAM. 
 
 Rather do thou walk with him, ride with him, 
 play with him, be his faery, his page, his every 
 thing that love and poetry have invented; but 
 watch him well, sport with his fancies ; turn them 
 about like the ringlets round his cheeks; and if 
 ever he meditate on power, go, toss up thy baby 
 to his brow, and bring back his thoughts into his 
 heart by the music of thy discourse. 
 
 Teach him to live unto God and unto thee: 
 and he will discover that women, like the plants 
 in woods, derive their softness and tenderness from 
 the shade. 
 
CONVERSATION IV, 
 
 LORD BACON 
 
 AND 
 
 RICHARD HOOKER. 
 
LORD BACON 
 
 AND 
 
 RICHARD HOOKER. 
 
 BACON. 
 
 Hearing much of your worthiness and wisdom, 
 master Richard Hooker, I have besought your 
 comfort and consolation in this my too heavy 
 affliction : for we often do stand in need of hear- 
 ing what we know full well, and our own balsams 
 must be poured into our breasts by another's hand. 
 Withdrawn as you live from court and courtly 
 men, and having ears occupied by better reports 
 than such as are flying about me, yet haply so 
 hard a case as mine, befalling a man heretofore 
 not averse from the studies in which you also take 
 delight, may have touched you with some concern. 
 
 HOOKER. 
 
 I do think, my lord of Verulam, that, un- 
 
58 LORD BxVCON 
 
 happy as you appear, God in sooth has foregone 
 to chasten you, and that the day which in his wis- 
 dom he appointed for your trial, was the very day 
 on which the king's majesty gave unto your ward 
 and custody the great seal of his English realm. 
 And yet perhaps it may be, let me utter it with- 
 out oflPence, that your features and stature were 
 from that day forward no longer what they were 
 before. Such an effect do power and rank and 
 office produce even on prudent and religious 
 men. 
 
 A hound's whelp howleth if you pluck him up 
 above where he stood : man, in much greater peril 
 of falling, doth rejoice. You, my lord, as befitteth 
 you, are smitten and contrite, and do appear in 
 deep wretchedness and tribulation, to your servants 
 and those about you; but I know that there is 
 always a balm which lies uppermost in these afflic- 
 tions, and that no heart rightly softened can be 
 very sore. 
 
 BACON. 
 
 And yet, master Richard, it is surely no small 
 matter, to lose the respect of those who looked up 
 to us for countenance, and the favour of a right 
 learned king, and, O master Hooker ! such a power 
 of money ! But money is mere dross. I should 
 always hold it so, if it possessed not two qualities ; 
 
AND RICHATID HOOKER. 59 
 
 that of making men treat us reverently, and that 
 of enablmg us to help the needy. 
 
 HOOKER. 
 
 The respect, I think, of those who respect us 
 for what a fool can give and a rogue can take 
 away, may easily be dispensed with : but it is in- 
 deed a high prerogative to help the needy; and 
 when it pleases the Almighty to deprive us of it, 
 let us believe that he foreknows our inclination to 
 negligence in the charge entrusted to us, and that 
 in his mercy he has removed from us a most fear- 
 ful responsibility. 
 
 BACON. 
 
 I know a number of poor gentlemen to whom I 
 could have rendered aid. 
 
 HOOKER. 
 
 Have you examined and sifted their worthiness ? 
 
 BACON. 
 
 Well and deeply. 
 
 HOOKER. 
 
 Then must you have known them long before 
 your adversity, and while the means of succouring 
 them were in your hands. 
 
 BACON. 
 
 You have circumvented and entrapped me, 
 master Hooker. Faith ! I am mortified... you the 
 schoolman, I the schoolboy! 
 
60 LORD BACON 
 
 HOOKER. 
 
 Say not so, my lord. Your years and wisdom 
 are abundantly more than mine, your knowledge 
 higher, your experience richer. Our wits are not 
 always in blossom upon us. When the roses are 
 overcharged and languid, up springs a spike of 
 rue. Mortified on such an occasion ! God fore- 
 fend it ! But again to the business ... I should 
 never be over-penitent for my neglect of needy 
 gentlemen, who have neglected themselves much 
 worse. They have chosen their profession wath 
 its chances and contingences. If they had pro- 
 tected their country by their courage, or adorned 
 it by their studies, they would have merited, and, 
 under a king of such learning and such equity, 
 would have received in some sort their reward. I 
 look upon them as so many old cabinets of ivory 
 and tortoiseshell, scratched, flawed, splintered, 
 rotten, defective both within and without, hard to 
 unlock, insecure to lock up again, unfit to use. 
 
 BACON. 
 
 Methinks it beginneth to rain, master Richard. 
 What if we comfort our bodies with a small cup 
 of wine against the ill temper of the air. 
 
 Wherefor in God's name are you afFrightened ? 
 
 HOOKER. 
 
 Not so, my lord, not so. 
 
AND RICHARD HOOKER. Gl 
 
 BACON. 
 
 What then affects you? 
 
 HOOKER. 
 
 Why indeed, since your lordship interrogates 
 me... I looked, idly and imprudently, into that 
 rich bufFette ; and I saw, unless the haze of the 
 weather has come into the parlour, or my sight is 
 the worse for last night's reading, no fewer than 
 six silver pints. Surely six tables for company 
 are laid only at coronations. 
 
 BACON. 
 
 There are many men so squeamish, that for- 
 sooth they would keep a cup to themselves, and 
 never communicate it to their neio-hbour or best 
 friend ; a fashion which seems to me offensive in an 
 honest house, where no disease of ill repute ought 
 to be feared. We have lately, master Richard, 
 adopted strange fashions; we have run into the 
 wildest luxuries. The lord Leicester, I heard it 
 from my father... God forefend it should ever 
 be recorded in our history . . . when he entertained 
 queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth-castle, laid before 
 her Majesty a fork of pure silver. I the more 
 easily credit it, as master Thomas Coriatt doth 
 vouch for having seen the same monsterous sign 
 of voluptuousness at Venice. We are surely the 
 especial favorites of Providence, when such wan- 
 
62 LORD BACON 
 
 tonness hath not melted us quite away. After 
 this portent, it would otherwise have appeared in- 
 credible, that we should have broken the Spanish 
 Armada ! 
 
 Pledge me : hither comes our wine. 
 
 Dolt ! villain ! is not this the beverage I reserve 
 for myself? 
 
 The blockhead must imagine that malmsey runs 
 in a stream under the ocean, like the Alpheus. 
 Bear with me, good master Hooker, but verily I 
 have little of this wine, and I keep it as a medi- 
 cine for my many, and growing infirmities. You 
 are younger; weaker drink is more wholesome for 
 you. The lighter ones of France are best of all 
 accommodated by Nature to our constitutions, 
 and therefor she hath placed them so within our 
 reach, that we have only to stretch out our necks, 
 in a manner, and drink them from the vat. But 
 this malmsey, this malmsey, flies from centre to 
 circumference, and makes youthful blood to boil. 
 
 HOOKER. 
 
 Of a truth, my knowledge in such matters is but 
 spare. My lord of Canterbury once ordered part 
 of a goblet containing some strong Spanish wine to 
 be taken to me from his table, when I dined by 
 sufference with his chaplains, and although a most 
 discreet prudent man, as befitteth his high station. 
 
AND RICHARD HOOKER. 63 
 
 was not so chary of my health as your lordship. 
 Wine is little to be trifled with, physic less. The 
 Cretans, the brewers of this malvasy, have many 
 aromatic and very powerful herbs amongst them. 
 On their mountains, and notably on Ida, grows 
 that dittany which works such marvels, and which 
 perhaps may give activity to this hot medicinal 
 drink of theirs. I would not touch it, knowingly : 
 an unregarded leaf dropped into it above the or- 
 dinary might add such puissance to the concoc- 
 tion as almost to break the buckles in my shoes : 
 since we have good and valid authority, that the 
 wounded hart, on eating thereof, casts the arrow 
 out of his haunch or entrails, although it stuck a 
 palm deep. 
 
 BACON. 
 
 When I read of such things I doubt them. 
 Religion and politics belong to God, and to God's 
 vicegerent the king: we must not touch upon 
 them unadvisedly : but if I could procure a plant 
 of dittany on easy terms, I would persuade my 
 apothecary and my gamekeeper to make some ex- 
 periments. 
 
 HOOKER. 
 
 I dare not distrust what grave writers have de- 
 clared, in matters beyond my knowledge. 
 
64 LORD BACON 
 
 BACON. 
 
 Good master Hooker, I have read many of your 
 reasonings, and they are admirably well sustained : 
 added to which, your genius has given such a 
 strong current to your language, as can come only 
 from a mighty elevation and a most abundant 
 plenteousness. Yet forgive me, in God's name, 
 my worthy master, if you descried in me some 
 expression of wonder at your simplicity. We are 
 all weak and vulnerable somewhere : common men 
 in the higher parts ; heroes, as was feigned of 
 Achilles, in the lower. You would define to a hair's 
 breadth, the qualities, states, and dependencies, 
 of Principalities, Dominations, and Powers; you 
 would be unerring about the Apostles and the 
 Churches; and 'tis wonderful how you wander 
 about a potherb. 
 
 HOOKER. 
 
 I know my poor weak intellects, most noble 
 lord, and how scantily they have profited by all 
 my hard painstaking. Comprehending few things, 
 and those imperfectly, I say only what others have 
 said before, wise men and holy ; and if, by passing 
 through my heart into the wide world around me, 
 it pleaseth God that this little treasure shall have 
 lost nothing of its weight and pureness, my exulta- 
 
AND RICHARD HOOKER. 65 
 
 tion is then the exultation of humility. Wisdom 
 consisteth not in knowing many things ; nor even 
 in knowing them thoroughly; but in choosing 
 and in following what conduces the most certainly 
 to our lasting happiness and true glory. And 
 this wisdom, my lord of Verulam, cometh from 
 above. 
 
 BACON. 
 
 I have observed, among the well informed and 
 the ill informed, nearly the same quantity of in- 
 firmities and follies : those who are rather the wiser 
 keep them separate, and those who are wisest of 
 all keep them better out of sight. Now examine 
 the sayings and writings of the prime philosophers ; 
 and you will often find them, master Richard, to 
 be untruths made to resemble truths : the business 
 with them is to approximate as nearly as possible 
 and not to touch it : the goal of the charioteer is 
 evitata fervidis rotis, as some poet saith. But 
 we who care nothing for chaunts and cadences, 
 and have no time to catch at applauses, push for- 
 ward over stones and sands straitway to our object. 
 I have persuaded men, and shall persuade them for 
 ages, that I possess a wide range of thoughts un- 
 explored by others and first thrown open by me, 
 with many fair inclosures of choice and abstruse 
 knowledge. I have incited and instructed them 
 
 VOL. II. F 
 
66 LOUD BACON, &C. 
 
 to examine all subjects of useful and rational in- 
 quiry : very few that occurred to me have I myself 
 left untouched or untried. One however hath 
 almost escaped me, and surely one worth the 
 trouble. 
 
 HOOKER. 
 
 Pray, my lord, if I am guilty of no indiscretion, 
 what may it be? 
 
 BACON. 
 
 Francis Bacon. 
 
 Lest it be thought that authority is wanting for the strong || 
 
 expression of Hooker on the effects of dittany, I referr the 
 reader to the curious treatise of Plutarch on the reasoning j 
 
 faculties of animals, in which, near the end, he asks " Who 
 instructed the deer, wounded by the Cretan arrow, to seek 
 for dittany ? on the tasting of which herb, the bolts fall imme- 
 diately from their bodies." 
 
 I do not remember to have read in other authors that the 
 effect is quite so instantaneous 5 and I have not leisure for an 
 index-hunt ... a good half-hour's work. 
 
CONVERSATION V, 
 
 GENERAL LASCY 
 
 THE CURATE MERINO 
 
 f2 
 
GENERAL LASCY 
 
 AND 
 
 THE CURATE MERINO. 
 
 MERINO. 
 
 General, we have fought in the same cause, 
 and I shall be sorry if our sentiments at last 
 diverge. What is peace, if there be not concord ? 
 
 LASCY. 
 
 Enthusiasm makes way for reflection, and re- 
 flection leads to that concord which we both de- 
 sire. We think first of our wrongs, and afterwards 
 of our rights. Injustice may become, where there 
 is anything to be stirred, a lighter evil to the 
 sufferer than to the worker. 
 
 MERINO. 
 
 We talk of the people and of parliaments, and, 
 as it appears to me, are blindly following the rest- 
 less and changeful French. In fact we are ready 
 in our politics to build up a tower of Babel. Shall 
 these miscreants persuade us that they are the 
 
70 GENERAL LASCY 
 
 cleverest people in the world, by sweetening us 
 a cup of chocolate with a bunch of turnips or a 
 truss of hay, or by whipping us off a leg while 
 we are saying an ave-maria. Let them instruct 
 us in surgery and chemistry, but let them always 
 be considered as our inferiors in morality and 
 government. 
 
 LASCY. 
 
 Here, seHor Curado, we agree perfectly. Pros- 
 perity has made them so giddy, adversity cannot 
 sober them. The varnish, that once covered their 
 sharp and shallow character, cracked off in the 
 dogdays of the revolution, and they have lost the 
 greatest of their virtues, their hypocrisy. Although 
 I have fought against them and against their par- 
 tisans, while they were under the same banners, 
 yet I would gladly see all Spaniards in amity and 
 at home. The French faction, as you call it, 
 fought for the same object as we did. 
 
 MERINO. 
 
 How ! they fought for our beloved Ferdinand ! 
 
 LASCY. 
 
 They fought for our beloved Spain, for her in- 
 dependence, for her freedom. Ought they to be 
 persecuted, because they were betrayed? Should 
 we murder a man, because he has fallen into a 
 pit? or starve him to death, because he has gone 
 
AND THE CURATE MERINO. 71 
 
 for bread to another baker than ours? and liberty 
 is surely, like bread, an article of the first neces- 
 sity to a Spaniard. 
 
 MERINO. 
 
 They followed not their lawful king. 
 
 LASCY. 
 
 Did we? did any wise man? did not all im- 
 plore him to remain? did not all deprecate and 
 detest that lowest of degradation, which he neither 
 scorned nor shunned, but ran into and courted ? 
 
 MERINO. 
 
 It was God's will. As for those rebels, the 
 finger of God . . . 
 
 LASCY. 
 
 Prythee, seizor Curado, let God's finger alone. 
 Very worthy men are apt to snatch at it upon 
 too light occasions : they would stop their tobacco- 
 pipes with it, if they could. If Spain, in the 
 opinion of our late opponents, could have obtained 
 a free constitution by other means, they never 
 would have joined the French. True, they per- 
 sisted : but how few have wisdom or courage enough 
 to make the distinction between retracting an error 
 and deserting a cause 1 He who declares himself 
 a party-man, let his party profess the most liberal 
 sentiments, is a registered and enlisted slave: he 
 begins by being a zealot, and ends by being a 
 
72 GENERAL LASCY 
 
 dupe: he is tormented by regret and anger; yet 
 is he incapable, from shame and irresolution, of 
 throwing off the badge and livery under which he 
 sweats and fumes, as though under the empoisoned 
 garment of the Centaur. 
 
 MERINO. 
 
 How much better is it to abolish all parties, by 
 fixing a legitimate king at the head of affairs ! 
 
 LASCY. 
 
 The object, thank God, is accomplished. Fer- 
 dinand is returning to Madrid, if perverse men do 
 not mislead him. 
 
 MERINO. 
 
 And yet there are Spaniards mad enough to 
 talk of cortes and chambers of peers. 
 
 LASCY. 
 
 Of the latter I know nothing : but I know that 
 Spain formerly was great, free, and happy, by the 
 administration of her cortes ; and as I preferr in 
 policy old experiments to new ones, I should not 
 be sorry, if the madness, as you call it, spread in 
 that direction. 
 
 There are many forms of government, but only 
 two kinds ; the free and the despotic : in the one 
 the people has its representatives, in the other not. 
 Freedom, to be, must be perfect: the half- free 
 can no more exist, than the half-entire. Re- 
 
AND THE CURATE MERINO. 73 
 
 straints laid by a people on itself are sacrifices 
 made to Liberty, and it never exerts a more bene- 
 ficent or a greater power than in imposing them. 
 The nation that pays taxes without its own con- 
 sent is under slavery : whosoever causes, w^hosoever 
 maintains, that slavery, subverts or abets the sub- 
 version of social order. Whoever is above the law 
 is out of the law, just as evidently as whoever is 
 above this room is out of this room. If men will 
 outlaw themselves by overt actions, we are not to 
 condemn those who remove them by the means 
 least hazardous to the public peace. If even my 
 daughter brought forth a monster, I could not 
 arrest the arm that should smother it : and mon- 
 sters of this kind are by infinite degrees less per- 
 nicious, than such as rise up in society by violation 
 of law. 
 
 In regard to a chamber of peers, Spain does not 
 contain the materials. What has been the edu- 
 cation of our grandees? how narrow the space 
 between the hornbook and the sanbenito ! The 
 English are amazed and the French are indig- 
 nant that we have not imitated their constitutions. 
 All constitutions formed for the French are pro- 
 visionary. Whether they tripp or tumble, whe- 
 ther they stepp or slide, the tendency is direct to 
 slavery: hone but a most rigid government will 
 
74 GENERAL LASCY 
 
 restrain them from cruelty or from mischief: they 
 are scourged into good humour, and starved into 
 content. I have read whatever I could find written 
 on the English constitution. It appears to me, 
 like the Deity, an object universally venerated, but 
 requiring a Revelation. I do not find the house 
 of peers, as I expected to find it, standing be- 
 tween the king and people. Throughout a long 
 series of years it has been only twice in opposition 
 to the Commons : once in declaring that the slave- 
 trade ought not to be abolished; again in de- 
 claring that those who believed in transubstantia- 
 tion were unfit to command an army or to decide 
 a cause. 
 
 MERINO. 
 
 Into what extravagances does infidehty lead 
 men, otherwise not unwise 1 Blessed virgin of 
 the thousand pains, and great Santiago of Com- 
 postella, deign to bring that benighted nation back 
 again to the right path ! 
 
 LASCY. 
 
 On deity we reason by attributes, on govern- 
 ment by metaphors. Wool or sand, embodied, 
 may deaden the violence of what is discharged 
 against the walls of a city : hereditary aristocracy 
 has no such virtue against the assaults of despotism, 
 which on the contrary it will maintain in op- 
 
AND THE CURATE MERINO. 75 
 
 position to the people ; since its power and wealth, 
 although they are given hy the king, must be given 
 from the nation, and the latter has not an interest 
 in enriching it, the former has. All the countries 
 that ever have been conquered, have been surren- 
 dered to the conqueror by the aristocracy, which 
 stipulates for its own property, power, and rank, 
 yielding up the men, cattle, and metals, on the 
 common. Nevertheless in every nation the pro- 
 ject of an upper chamber will be warmly cherished. 
 The richer aspire to honours, the poorer to pro- 
 tection. Every family of wealth and respectability 
 wishes to count a peer among its relatives, and, 
 where the whole number is yet under nomination, 
 every one may hope it. Those who have no occa- 
 sion for protectors desire the power of protecting, 
 and those who have occasion for them desire them 
 to be more efficient. 
 
 You would imagine that the British peers have 
 given their names to beneficent institutions, wise 
 laws, and flourishing colonies : no such thing : in 
 stead of which, a slice of meat between two slices 
 of bread derives its name from one, a tumble of 
 heels over head, a feat performed by beggar-boys 
 on the roads, from another. The former, I pre- 
 sume, was a practical commentator on the Roman 
 fable of the belly and the members, and maintained 
 
76 GENERAL LASCY 
 
 with all his power and interest the supremacy of 
 the nobler part ; and the latter was of a family, in 
 which the head notoriously was lighter than the 
 legs. Others divide their titles with a waistcoat, 
 a bonnet, and a boot ; the more illustrious with 
 some island inhabited by sea-calves. 
 
 MERINO. 
 
 I deprecate such importations into our mon- 
 archy. God forbid that the ermine of his Catholic 
 Majesty be tagged with the sordid tail of such a 
 rough monster as feudality* 
 
 LASCY. 
 
 If kings, whether by reliance on external force, 
 by introduction of external institutions, or by mis- 
 application of what they may possess within the 
 realm, shew a disposition to conspire with other 
 kings against its rights, it may be expected that 
 communities will, some secretly and others openly, 
 unite their moral, their intellectual, and, when op- 
 portunity permits it, their physical powers against 
 them. If alliances are holy, entered into upon 
 the very soil just usurped, surely not unholy are 
 those which are formed for defence against all 
 kinds and all methods of spoliation. If men are 
 marked out for banishment, for imprisonment, for 
 slaughter, because they assert the rights and de- 
 fend the liberties of their country, can you wonder 
 
AND THE CURATE MERINO. 77 
 
 at seeing, as you must ere long, the confederacy of 
 all free countries, formed for the apprehension or 
 extinction of whoever pays, disciplines, or directs, 
 imder whatsoever title, those tremendous masses 
 of human kind, which consume the whole produce 
 of their native land in depopulating another ? Is 
 it iniquitous or unnatural, that laws be opposed 
 to edicts, and constitutions to despotism ? O senor 
 Merino, there are yet things holy: all the bar- 
 barians and all the autocrats in the universe cannot 
 make that word a byword to the Spaniard. Yes, 
 there may be holy alliances ; and the hour strikes 
 for their establishment. This beautiful earth, 
 these heavens in their magnificence and splendour, 
 have seen things more lovely and more glorious 
 than themselves. The throne of God is a speck of 
 darkness, if you compare it with the heart, that 
 beats only, and beats constantly, to pour forth its 
 blood for the preservation of our country. In- 
 vincible Spain! how many of thy children have 
 laid this pure sacrifice on the altar ! The Deity 
 has accepted it... and there are those who would 
 cast its ashes into the winds. 
 
 If ever a perverseness of character, or the perfidy 
 taught in courts, should induce a king of Spain to 
 violate his oath, to massacre his subjects, to pro- 
 scribe his friends, to imprison his defenders, to 
 
78 GENERAL LASCY 
 
 abolish the representation of the people, Spain 
 will be drawn by resentment to do what Policy in 
 vain has whispered in the ear of Generosity. She 
 and Portugal will be one ; nor will she be sensible 
 of any disgrace in exchanging a prince of French 
 origin for a prince of Portuguese. 
 
 MERINO. 
 
 Educated as kings are, we cannot wonder if 
 they see a chimera in a popular assembly. 
 
 LASCY. 
 
 Those who refuse to their people a national and 
 just representation, calling it a chimera, will one 
 day remember that he who purchases their affec- 
 tions at the price of a chimera, purchases them 
 cheaply: and those who, having promised the 
 boon, retract it, will put their hand to the sig- 
 nature, directed by a hand of iron. State after 
 state comes forward in asserting its rights, as 
 wave follows wave; each acting upon each; and 
 the tempest is gathering in regions where no mur- 
 mur or voice is audible. Portugal pants for free- 
 dom, in other words is free. With one foot in 
 England and the other in Brazil, there was danger 
 in withdrawing either: she appears however to 
 have recovered her equipoise. Accustomed to fix 
 her attention upon England, wisely will she act if 
 she imitates her example in the union with Ire- 
 
AND THE CURATE MERINO. 79 
 
 land ; an union which ought to cause no other re- 
 gret than in having been celebrated so late. If on 
 the contrary she believes that national power and 
 prosperity are the peculiar gifts of independence, 
 she must believe that England was more powerful 
 and prosperous in the days of her heptarchy than 
 fifty years ago. Algarve would find no more ad- 
 vantage in her independence of Portugal, than 
 Portugal would find in continuing detached from 
 the other portions of the peninsula. There were 
 excellent reasons for declaring her independence 
 at the time; there now are better, if better be 
 possible, for a coalition. She, like ourselves, is in 
 danger of losing her colonies: how can either 
 party by any other means retrieve its loss ? Nor- 
 mandy and Britanny, after centuries of war, joined 
 the other provinces of France : more centuries of 
 severer war would not sunder them. We have no 
 such price to pay. Independence is always the senti- 
 ment that follows liberty ; and unfortunately it is 
 always the most ardently desired by that country, 
 which, supposing the administration of law to be 
 similar and equal, derives the greatest advantage 
 from the union. According to the state of society 
 in two countries, to the justice or injustice of go- 
 vernment, to proximity or distance, independence 
 
80 GENERAL LASCY 
 
 may be good or bad. Normandy and Britanny 
 would have found it hurtful and pernicious : they 
 would have been corrupted by bribery, and over- 
 run by competitors, the more formidable and the 
 more disastrous from a parity of force. They had 
 not however so weighty reasons for an union with 
 France, as Portugal has with Spain. 
 
 MERINO. 
 
 To avoid the collision of king and people, I 
 wish an assembly to be composed of the higher 
 clergy and principal nobility. 
 
 LASCY. 
 
 What should produce any coll ision, any dissension 
 or dissidence between king and people ? Is all the 
 wisdom of a nation less than an individual's ? Can it 
 not see its own interests ? and ought he to see any 
 other? Surround the throne with state and lustre, 
 but withhold from it the means of corruption, which 
 must overflow upon itself, and sapp it. To no in- 
 tent or purpose can they ever be employed, unless 
 to subvert the constitution ; and beyond the paling 
 of a constitution a king Y^ferce naturce. Look at 
 Russia and Turkey : how few of their czars and 
 sultans have died a natural death! unless indeed 
 in such a state of society the most natural death 
 of all is a violent one. I would not accustom 
 
AND THE CURATE MERINO. 81 
 
 men to daggers and poisons; for which reason, 
 among others, I would remove them as far as pos- 
 sible from despotism. 
 
 To talk of France is nugatory : England then, 
 where more causes are tried within the year, than 
 among us within ten, has only twelve judges, cri- 
 minal and civil, in her ordinary courts. A cul- 
 prit, or indeed an innocent man, may lie three 
 months in prison before his trial, on suspicion of 
 having stolen a petticoat or pair of slippers. As 
 for her civil laws, they are more contradictory, more 
 dilatory, more complicated, more uncertain, more 
 expensive, more inhumane, than any now in use 
 among men. All who appeal to them for redress 
 of injury, suffer an aggravation of it ; and when 
 Justice comes down at last, she alights on ruins. 
 Public opinion is the only bulwark against oppres- 
 sion, and the voice of wretchedness is upon most 
 occasions too feeble to excite it. 
 
 MERINO. 
 
 Democracy itself must be contented with the 
 principal features of the English constitution. The 
 great leaders are not taken from the ancient fa- 
 milies. 
 
 LASCY. 
 
 These push forward into parliament young per- 
 
 VOL. II. G 
 
82 GENERAL LASCY 
 
 sons of the best talents they happen to pick up, 
 whether at a ball or an opera, at a gaming-table 
 or a college-mess, who from time to time, accord- 
 ing to the offices they have filled, mount into the 
 upper chamber and make room for others : but it 
 is understood that in both chambers they shall 
 distribute honours and places at the command of 
 their patrons. True indeed, the ostensible heads 
 are not of ancient or even of respectable parentage. 
 The more wealthy and powerful peers send them 
 from their boroughs into the house of commons, 
 as they send race-horses from their stables to New- 
 market, and cocks from their training-yards to 
 Doncaster. This is, in like manner, a pride, a 
 luxury, a speculation. Even bankrupts have been 
 permitted to sit there, men who, when they suc- 
 ceeded, were a curse to their country, worse than 
 when they failed*. 
 
 Let us rather collect together our former insti- 
 tutions, cherish all that brings us proud remem- 
 brances, brace our limbs for the efforts we must 
 make, train our youth on our own arena, and 
 
 * The opinions on our house of Commons which I have attri- 
 buted to Lascy, are those of a contemptuous Spaniard^ not per- 
 fectly well informed: we know better; but his character re- 
 quired them so. My own veneration for that assembly may 
 be found expressed at the conclusion of the third Dialogue. 
 
AND THE CURATE MERINO. 83 
 
 never deem it decorous to imitate the limp of a 
 wrestler writhing in his decrepitude. 
 
 The chamber of peers in England is the dor- 
 mitory of Freedom and of Genius. Those who 
 enter it have eaten the lotus and forget their 
 country. A minister, to suit his purposes, may 
 make a dozen, or a score, or a hundred, of peers 
 in a day: if they are rich they are inactive; if 
 they are poor they are dependent. In general he 
 chooses the rich, who always want something ; for 
 wealth is less easy to satisfy than poverty, luxury 
 than hunger : he can dispense with their energy 
 if he can obtain their votes, and they never abandon 
 him unless he has contented them. 
 
 MERINO. 
 
 Impossible ! that any minister should make 
 twenty, or even ten peers, during one convocation. 
 
 LASCY. 
 
 The English, by a most happy metaphor, call 
 them batches, seeing so many drawn forth at a 
 time with all the rapidity of loaves from an oven, 
 and moulded to the same ductility by less mani- 
 pulation. A minister in that system has equally 
 need of the active and the passive, as the creation 
 has equally need of males and females. Do not 
 imagine I would discredit or depreciate the house 
 of peers : never will another land contain one com- 
 
84 GENERAL LASCY '' V ^ 
 
 posed of characters in general more honorable j 
 more distinguished for knowledge, for charity, for 
 generosity, for equity ; more perfect in all the duties 
 of men and citizens. Let it stand ; a nation should 
 be accustomed to no changes, to no images, but of 
 strength and duration : let it stand then, as a lofty 
 and ornamental belfry, never to be taken down or 
 lowered, until it threatens by its decay the congre- 
 gation underneath: but let none be excommuni- 
 cated who refuse to copy it, whether from faulti- 
 ness in their foundation, or from deficiency in 
 their materials. Different countries require dif- 
 ferent governments. Is the rose the only flower 
 in the garden? is Hesperus the only star in the 
 heavens ? 
 
 England in the last twenty years has undergone 
 a much greater revolution than any she struggled 
 to counteract : a revolution more awful, more per- 
 nicious, more hopeless. Half a century ago she 
 was represented chiefly by her country -gentlemen : 
 Pitt made the richer peers, the intermediate pen- 
 sioners, the poorer exiles; and his benches were 
 overflowed with honourables from the sugar-cask 
 and indigo-bag. He changed all the features both 
 of mind and matter. Old mansions were con- 
 verted into workhouses and barracks: children 
 who returned from school at the holidays, stopped 
 
AND THE CURATE MERINO. 85 
 
 in their own villages and asked why they stopped. 
 More oaks followed him than ever followed Or- 
 pheus ; and more stones, a thousand to one, leaped 
 down at his voice than ever leaped up at Am- 
 phion's. The weakest of mortals was omnipotent 
 in parliament : he dreamed in his drunkenness 
 that he could compress the spirit of the times, and 
 he rendered the wealthiest of nations the most dis- 
 tressed. The spirit of the times is only to be 
 made useful by catching it as it rises, to be ma- 
 naged only by concession, to be controlled only 
 by compliancy. Like the powerful agent of late 
 discovery, that impells vast masses across the ocean 
 or raises them from the abysses of the earth, it 
 performs everything by attention, nothing by force, 
 and is fatal not only from coercion but from neg- 
 lect. That government is the best which the 
 people obey the most willingly and the most wisely : 
 that state of society, in which the greatest number 
 may live and educate their families becomingly, 
 by unrestrained bodily, and unrestrained intel- 
 lectual exertion ; where superiority in office springs 
 from worth, and where the chief magistrate has no 
 higher interest in perspective, than the ascendency 
 of the laws. Nations are not ruined by wars : for 
 convents and churches, palaces and cities are not 
 nations. The Messenians and Jews and Aran- 
 
S6 GENERAL LASCY 
 
 canians saw their houses and temples levelled with 
 the pavement: the mightiness of the crash gave 
 the stronger mind a fresh impulse, and it sprang 
 high above the flames that consumed the last frag- 
 ment. The ruin of a country is not the blight of 
 corn, nor the weight and impetuosity of hailstones ; 
 it is not inundation nor storm, it is not pestilence 
 nor famine; a few years, perhaps a single one, 
 may cover all traces of such calamity: but that 
 country is too surely ruined, in which morals are 
 lost irretrievably to the greater part of the rising 
 generation ; and there are they about to sink and 
 perish, where the ruler has given, by an unre-. 
 pressed and an unreproved example, the lesson of 
 bad faith. 
 
 MERINO. 
 
 Sir, I cannot hear such language. 
 
 LASCY. 
 
 Why then converse with me? Is the fault 
 mine if such language be offensive ? Why should 
 intolerance hatch an hypothesis, or increase her own 
 alarm by the obstreperous chuckle of incubation ? 
 
 MERINO. 
 
 Kings stand in the place of God amongst us. 
 
 LASCY. 
 
 I wish they would make way for the owner. 
 They love God only when they fancy he has 
 
AND THE CURATE MERINO. 8T 
 
 favoured their wild passions, and fear him only 
 when they must buy him off. If indeed they be 
 his vicegerents on earth, let them repress the 
 wicked and exalt the virtuous. Wherever in the 
 material world there is a grain of gold, it sinks to 
 the bottom; chaff floats over it: in the animal, 
 the greatest and most sagacious of creatures hide 
 themselves in woods and caverns, in morasses and 
 in sohtudes, and we hear first of their existence 
 when we find their bones. Do you perceive a resem- 
 blance anywhere ? If princes are desirous to imi- 
 tate the Governor of the universe, if they are 
 disposed to obey him, if they consult religion or 
 reason, or, what oftener occupies their attention, 
 the stability of power, they will admitt the insti- 
 tutions best adapted to render men honest and 
 peaceable, industrious and contented. Otherwise, 
 let them be certain that, although they themselves 
 may escape the chastisement they merit, their 
 children and granchildren will never be out of 
 danger or out of fear. Calculations on the in- 
 tensity of force are often just, hardly ever so those 
 on its durability. 
 
 MERINO. 
 
 As if truly that depended on men! a blow 
 against a superintending Providence ! It always 
 
88 GENERAL LASCY 
 
 follows the pestilential breath that would sully the 
 majesty of kings. 
 
 LASCY. 
 
 Senor Merino, my name, if you have forgotten 
 it, is Lascy: take courage and recollect yourself. 
 The whole of my discourse has tended to keep 
 the majesty of kings unsullied by preserving their 
 honour inviolate. Any blow against a superin- 
 tending Providence is too insane for reproach, too 
 impotent for pity: and indeed what peril can by 
 any one be apprehended for the Almighty, when 
 he has the curate Merino to preach for him and 
 the Holy Inquisition to protect him ? 
 
 MERINO. 
 
 I take my leave, general. May your Excel- 
 lency live many years 1 ... I breathe the pure street- 
 air again . . . Traitor and atheist ! I will denounce 
 him: he has shaved for the last time: he shall 
 never have Christian burial. 
 
 I wrote an inscription for the cenotaph of Lascy, wliich I 
 will insert here, together with some others composed for those 
 who have fallen the first victims of the Holy Alliance or its 
 priests. 
 
A^B THE CURATE IMERINO. 89 
 
 Pro Coenotaphio Lacii ducis. 
 
 IN . MINORE . BALEARIUM . JACET . CORPUS . LACII 
 
 PRAECLARI . DUCIS . VIRI . INTEGERRIMI 
 
 CUJUS . SI . PATRIAM . ET . RES . GESTAS 
 
 ET . GERENDARUM . CONSIDERES . CAUSAS 
 
 NECESSE . NON . EST . ADDERE 
 
 FUISSE . REGIO . FERNANDI . JUSSU 
 
 QUEM . SALVUM . FECERAT . INTEREMPTUM 
 
 HOC . HABE . LECTOR 
 
 QUOD . PERCUSSORIBUS . ET . REGE . VIVENTIBUS 
 
 UBI . DEBET . INSCRIBI . NON . POTEST 
 
 VOS . AUTEM . QUI . VOBIS . LIBERT ATEM 
 
 IN . ALTERA . TERRARUM . PARTE . VINDICATIS 
 
 RECORDAMINI . HUNC . MERITIS . VESTRUM . ESSE 
 
 ATQUE . ITA . VOS . ET . CONJUGES . ET . LIBEROS 
 
 JUVET . DEUS 
 
 STATUAM . EJUS . PRO . FOCIS . PONITOTE. 
 
 Pro Ccenotaphio Porlierii ducis. 
 
 SUB . MARMORE . HOC . JACERET 
 
 SI . SINERET . REX . FERNANDUS 
 
 CADAVER . TRUNCUM . PORLIERII 
 
 PRO . EODEM . REGE . DIMICABAT . QUI 
 
 DUM . E . TYRANNI . VICINI . COGNATIS 
 
 IN . MATRIMONIUM . DARI . QUAMLIBET . SIBI . PETERET 
 
 DOLO . CAPTUS . EST . ET . GALLIAM . VI . ABDUCTUS 
 
 GALLICO . EXERCITU . A . BRITANNIS . DELETO 
 
 IPSO . AUTEM . FERNANDO . LIBERATO 
 
 JURAVIT . LEGES . PATRIAE . PRISTINAS . RESTITUERE 
 
 NE . FALSO . JURARET . REX 
 
 PUGNATURUS . ERAT . ITERUM . PORLIERIUS 
 
 QUAEDAM . EST . PRUDENTIA 
 
 QUAE . NEC . STRENUIS . NEC . PROBIS 
 
 CONVENIT . ET . PORLIERIO . SOLA . DEFUIT 
 
 CUM . OMNIBUS . AD . XXX . CAPITUM . MILLIA 
 
 QUI . COLUERANT . LITERAS 
 
 VEL . PATRUM . CONSULTA . SERVARANT 
 
 VEL . SANGUINEM . SUUM . PRO . FERNANDO 
 
90 GENERAL LASCY 
 
 DEVOVERANT . PRIMI . FUDERANTQUE 
 
 VINCTUS . EST . CLUSUS . IN . CARCERE . AMICIS . LIBRIS 
 
 VITAE . DENIQUE . OMNI . COMMODO 
 
 OMNI . CONSOLATIONE . PRIVATUS 
 
 ET . NECE . VIOLENTA . ATQ.UE 
 
 ID . SI . BONIS . ACCIDERE . QUEAT . INF AMI 
 
 JUSSU . FERNANDI . SUI . TRUCIDATUS. 
 
 REPUTATE . VOBISCUM . REGES . VICTORES 
 
 PUBLICI . UT . VULTIS . APPELLARI . JURIS . VINDICES 
 
 INDIGNA . PERPETI . VOS . HAUD . SOLOS . POSSE 
 
 PECCARE . HAUD . SOLAM . LIBERTATEM. 
 
 CALVUS . ROSAS 
 QUUM . TORMENTO . ALLIGATUS . ESSET . QUUMQUE 
 ARTIUM . NEXUS . DIRUMPERENTUR . NEC . TAMEN . DE- 
 SPONDERET . ANIMUM . NEC . VOCEM . EMITTERET . RO- 
 GAT US . A . CARNIFICE . ET . A . SACRIFICULO . NUMQUID 
 FATERETUR . POSSE . ENIM . SI . VELLET . LOQUI • • • • HOC 
 POSSUM . INQUIT. . . -CALVUS . ROSAS . EADEM . CONSTAN- 
 TIA . MEMBRIS . OMNIBUS . FRACTIS . MORITURUS . EST 
 QUA . CAESARAEAM . AUGUSTAM . DEFENDIT . ET . AD 
 ULTIMUM . USQUE . VITAE . SPIRITUM . TYRANNORUM 
 LIBIDINI . OBSISTET . DERIDEBIT . IMPOTENTIAM 
 
 PROGREDERE . SI . CIVIS . ES . ET . ESSE . TANTI . GAUDE. 
 SI . PEREGRINUS . ES . PARCE . SAXO. 
 
 ZORRAQUIN . DUX . HEIC . JACET 
 APUD . VICUM . UT . DICITUR . URBS . MUNITA . TARRA- 
 
 CONENSEM 
 
 A .GALLIS .VULNERATUS . AD . ATHAN AGIAM .ASPORTATUS 
 
 IN . SINUM . LACRYMAS . QUUM . ACCEPISSET 
 
 IMPERATORIS . MIN^ 
 
 QUAS . PRIMAS . POST . INFANTIAM 
 
 VIR . CONST ANS , FUDERAT 
 
 PATRI^ . VITAM . DEDIT . EJUSDEMQUE . MEMORIAM. 
 
 Pro monumento super milites regis jussu interemptos. 
 
 VIATOR 
 OSS A . QUAE . CALCAS REGIS . FERNANDI . JUSSU.FRACTA 
 TORMENTIS . ERANT . PRO . PARENTIBUS . ET . LIBERIS 
 
AND THE CURATE MERINO. 91 
 
 PRO . ARIS . ET . FOCIS . PRO . LEGIBUS . ET . REGE . PUG- 
 NAVIMUS . EMERITI . LUBENTER . QUIESCEREMUS . LI- 
 BERTATE . PARTA . QUIESCIMUS . AMISSA . PERLUBEN- 
 TER. 
 
 The slaughterer should be commemorated as well as the 
 slaughtered. The following verses were written, when he, 
 who is the subject of them, was reported to have been flying 
 to Rome. 
 
 Vos Flavii manes concedite, vosque Neronis. 
 
 Nobilior vobis improbitate venit. 
 Fortes, salva fuit per quos sua vita, tyrannus 
 
 Exilio, vinclis, carnificique dedit. 
 En venit ille fugax, qui semper ab hoste minaci 
 
 Abdidit os pavidum, deseruitque suos. 
 Parce tui simili, (si scis ignoscere, parces) 
 
 Huic miserae muscae, frater acerbe Titi. 
 Ne premat invidia, O soboles extrema Neronum. 
 
 Abscondat profugo fida latrina caput ! 
 Sin minus, ultorum toties qui videris uncum, 
 
 Tibri, sit huic limus mollis, et unda levis. 
 
 Pro statua Cosciusconis in Soleta Helvetiorum. 
 
 HOC . IN . OPPIDO . E . VITA . MIGRAVIT . IMPERATOR . ILLE 
 QUI . CONST ANTIA . ET . CAUSA . SUA . FRETUS 
 
 ET . DEI . OPT : MAX : JUSTITIA 
 
 NEC. DESPERAVIT . IN . PESSIMIS . TEMPORIBUS 
 
 NEC . SUOS . DESPERARE . PASSUS . EST 
 
 THADDEUS . COSCIUSCO 
 
 PRO . SARMATIAE . ET . AMERICAE . LIBERT ATE 
 
 VULNERIBUS.MULTIS.ET.GRAVIBUS .QUUM. LABORARET 
 
 IN . HELVETIAM . SECESSIT 
 
 ET . AEGRIMONIA . OB . AMISS AM . PATRIAM . ATQUE . OB 
 
 INCOMMODA . REIPUBLICAE . CONFECTUS . EST. 
 
 HEIC . O . HOSPES . UBI . NEMO • TE . REPREHENDET 
 
 STRENUUM . LIBERT ATIS . VINDICEM . VENERATOR 
 
 SI . DANUBIUM . VERSUS . AUT . PADUM . PROFICISCERIS 
 
 REFERRE . SALTEM . FAS . ERIT . CIVIBUS . TUIS 
 
 PROBUM . LIBERALEM . PERURBANUM . EUM . FUISSE 
 
 ET . SAPIENTEM . ET . ERUDITUM. 
 
92 GENERAL LASCY AND THE CURATE MERINO. 
 
 It would be unjust to praise the stranger and neglect our 
 countryman. Although no persecution hastened the death 
 of the illustrious commander who is celebrated in the follow- 
 ing lineS;, a just sense of his merits induces me to insert 
 them. 
 
 Mortuus est ChatamuS;, quondam telliu*e Batava 
 
 Nobilis...armato capta culina fuit. 
 Per totum ille diem solitus producere somnos, 
 
 Excitus est centum quum cecinere tubee. 
 Clamat, et invictas dum tendit in sethera palmas, 
 
 Jupiter ! id soles hac regione nitent. 
 Nondum finierant, oculos quum clausit ovanti 
 
 Hac qua nunc premitur vix minus alta quies. 
 Vos frontem anguillae, frontem vos cingite betae ! 
 
 II li non faciet laurea sicca patris. 
 
 The expression in the last verse, which appears modern, is 
 imitated from Propertius : 
 
 Non faciet capiti dura corona meo. 
 
CONVERSATION VI. 
 
 ^ 
 
 PERICLES 
 
 SOPHOCLES. 
 
PERICLES 
 
 AND 
 
 SOPHOCLES. 
 
 PERICLES. 
 
 O Sophocles ! is there in the world a city so 
 beautiful as Athens ? Congratulate me, embrace 
 me; the Piraeus and the Poecile are completed 
 this day*; my glory is accomplished; behold it 
 founded on the supremacy of our fellow-citizens. 
 
 * Their decorations only ; for the structures were finished 
 before. The propyleea of Pericles were entrances to the 
 citadel : other works of consummate beauty were erected as 
 decorations to the city^ but chiefly in the Poecile^ where also 
 was seen the temple of Cybele, and her statue by Phidias. 
 All the public works of London, and of Paris, would not form 
 a third of the Piraeus, the length of which exceeded six miles, 
 the highth was sixty feet, not reckoning the foundation, and the 
 breadth at top about twelve : it was of square stones, fastened 
 together by cramps of iron and insertions of lead : it was con- 
 tinued by two walls, one of four miles, the other somewhat 
 less, each adorned with statues and propylaea. 
 
 The Romans did less in their city than in their colonies. 
 
96 PERICLES 
 
 SOPHOCLES. 
 
 And it arises, O Pericles, the more majestically 
 from the rich and delightful plain of equal laws. 
 
 The greatest of their works was their wall against the Cale- 
 donian s^, the most majestic and solid was their bridge across 
 the Danube. In theatres they excelled the Athenians; those 
 at Athens were worthy of Pollio and Seneca, those at Rome of 
 ^schylus and Sophocles. The Romans at all periods have 
 built out of ruins. A band of robbers and outcasts found on 
 the banks of the Tiber a city so little dilapidated, that it 
 served them to inhabit : a place which some pestilence had de- 
 vastated, or which the inhabitants had abandoned for its in- 
 salubrity. They roofed the houses with sedge and rushes^ 
 contracted the vast circumference of the walls, and amidst 
 these occupations grew somewhat more orderly and civilized. 
 As however from their habits of life they had brought few women 
 with them, these they took by fraud and violence from their 
 unwarlike neighbours. The Italians, who, whatever the Roman 
 historians, to increase the glory of the conqueror, may repre- 
 sent them, were always the least martial and the least enter- 
 prising of the Europeans, could not recover their wives and 
 daughters, and soon made peace with their violators. No 
 splendid house, no ample temple, was erected for five hundred 
 years : so barbarous was the genius of the people. The mag- 
 nificence of Corinth and of Syracuse, the two most elegant and 
 splendid cities that ever rose from the earth, had left no im- 
 pression on their conquerors : their cups were of gold, while 
 their temples and the Gods within them were of stone and 
 clay. Lucullus was the first amongst them who had any idea 
 of magnificence in architecture. Julius Caesar, to whom Glory 
 in all her forms was more familiar than his own Penates, fell a 
 victim to his ambition, and left nothing memorable in Rome 
 but Pompey's statue. Augustus did somewhat in adorning 
 the city 3 but Augustus was no Pericles. Tiberius, melan- 
 choly at the loss of a wife torn away from him by policy, sank 
 
AND SOPHOCLES. 97 
 
 The Gods have bestowed on our statuaries and 
 painters a mighty power, enabling them to restore 
 
 into that dreadful malady which invaded all branches of the 
 Claudian family, and, instead of embellishing Rome, darkened 
 it with disquietudes and suspicions, and retired into a solitude 
 which his enemies have peopled with monsters, such as, reason 
 and reflection must convince us^ were incompatible with the 
 tenderness of his grief; and his mental powers were not always 
 estranged. Nero, a most virtuous and beneficent prince, was 
 soon aflfected by the same insanity, acting differently on his 
 heart and intellect ; he never lost sight of magnificence ; he 
 erected a palace before which all the splendours of Pericles 
 fade away. Plutarch tells us, in the life of Publicola, that he 
 had seen at Athens the columns of Pentelican marble for the 
 temple of Jupiter Capitolinus; that their thickness was re- 
 duced at Rome, to the great injury of their proportions ; and 
 that the gilding of the whole edifice cost twelve thousand 
 talentfe, above two millions sterling. There were rooms in the 
 palace of Nero as large, the ground on which it stood was 
 thirty times the extent, the gilding as rich or richer. The 
 masters of the world trembled to enter it and commanded its 
 destruction, removed the works of Phidias and of Praxiteles, of 
 Scopas and of Lysippus, of Apelles and of Zeuxis, of which pro- 
 bably all that were extant were assembled here, poured forth 
 the lava of gold, from its cielings, its arches, and its archi- 
 traves, and constructed out of its kitchens and stables a bath 
 and amphitheatre for the Roman people. The conflagration 
 of Rome, if the mention of it may be admitted here, I believe 
 to have arisen from the same cause as the conflagration of 
 London, the necessity of purifying the city after an endemical 
 disease, and of leaving no narrow streets in the centre for its re- 
 currence. The extreme love which the populace bore towards 
 Nero during his whole life and long afterwards is a proof that 
 they did not attribute it to his cruelty and caprice, and that 
 the losses of all were abundantly recompensed by his wealth 
 and liberality. Nothing was left for Hadrian but to copy the 
 VOL. n, H 
 
98 PERICLES 
 
 our ancestors unto us, some in the calm of thought, 
 otheirs in the tumult of battle, and to present them 
 before our children when we are gone. 
 
 finer works of the Athenians, which he brought together 
 under his eye. Architecture then sank for ages. 
 
 The Moors introduced a kind of civility far preferable to 
 any in existence among the later Romans, and a style of archi- 
 tecture more fanciful and ornamental, which also had this ad- 
 vantage, that it brought with it no recollections or ideas of 
 deterioration and decline. The cathedrals in Spain are the 
 most exquisite models of it ; and illuminated books, which the 
 Arabs, Turks, and Persians, still prize highly, gave, I imagine, 
 those ideas on which the English raised so many noble edifices 
 in their own country and in France, correcting by them the 
 heavier and more confused masses of Italy; a style which still 
 prevails. 
 
 Parcius ista Italis tamen objicienda. 
 
 In London with St. Paul's and St. Stephen's before us, in 
 Bath with Queen's-square, the Crescent, and the Circus (to 
 which last nothing in Rome or in the world is equal), we build 
 cottages like castles, and palaces like cottages ; and where the 
 edifice is plain and simple, the Avindow is a hole knocked in 
 the wall, looking like an eye M'ithout eyebrow or lashes, or 
 else is situated in the midst of an arch, as if a ruin had been 
 patched up to receive it. 
 
 Let us reflect one moment more on Athens. A city not 
 much larger than Liverpool or Bristol, and all whose inhabit- 
 ants might have been lost in Syracuse, produced within the short 
 period of two centuries, reckoning from the battle of Mara- 
 thon, a greater number of exquisite models in war, philosophy, 
 patriotism, eloquence, and poetry ; in the semi-mechanical arts 
 which always accompany or follow them, sculpture and paint- 
 ing ; and in the first of the mechanical, architecture, than all 
 the remainder of the universe in six thousand vears. She 
 
AND SOPHOCLES. 99 
 
 PERICLES. 
 
 Shall it be so ? Alas, how worthless an incum- 
 brance, how wearisome an impediment is life, if it 
 separate us from the better of our ancestors, not 
 in our existences only, but in our merits! We 
 are little by being seen among men ; because that 
 phasis of us only is visible which is exposed towards 
 them and which most resembles them ; we become 
 greater by leaving the world, as the sun appears 
 to be on descending below the horizon. Strange 
 reflection! humiliating truth! that nothing on 
 earth, no exertion, no endowment, can do so much 
 for us as a distant day. And deep indeed, O 
 Sophocles, must be the impression made upon thy 
 mind by these masterly works of art, if they anni- 
 hilate in a manner all the living ; if they lower in 
 thee that spirit, which hath often aroused by one 
 touch, or rather flash, the whole Athenian people 
 at thy tragedies, and force upon thee the cold and 
 ungenial belief, the last which it appears to be their 
 
 rises up again and is pushed back by common consent. The 
 rulers of nations seem to think they have as much interest in 
 abolishing all traces of her, if they can, as Alexander had to 
 demolisb (which he did) the monuments of the Argonautic ex- 
 pedition. Darius thought differently : had he less or more to 
 fear } He established and cemented, by means of Mardonius, 
 a republican form of government in all the Grecian cities of 
 Ionia... There is policy in content both in keeping and in 
 causing it. 
 
 H 2 
 
lUU PERICLES 
 
 nature to inculcate, that while our children are in 
 existence it can cease to be amongst them. 
 
 SOPHOCLES. 
 
 I am only the interpreter of the heroes and 
 divinities who are looking down on me. \yhen I 
 survey them I remember their actions, and when 
 I depart from them I visit the regions they illus- 
 trated. 
 
 Neither the Goddesses on Ida nor the Gods be- 
 fore Troy were such rivals as our artists. jiEschylus 
 hath surpassed me^: I must excell ^schylus. 
 O Pericles, thou conjurest up Discontent from 
 the bosom of Delight, and givest her an elevation 
 of, mien and character she never knew before: 
 thou makest every man greater than his neighbour, 
 and not in his own eyes but in another's. We 
 still want historians: thy eloquence will form the 
 style, thy administration will supply the materials. 
 Beware, O my friend, lest the people hereafter be 
 too proud of their city, and imagine that to have 
 been born in Athens is enough. 
 
 * Sophocles gained the first prize for which he contended 
 with jEschylus, and was conscious that he had not yet de- 
 served the superiority, which enthusiasm on the one side and 
 jealousy on the other are always ready to grant a vigorous 
 young competitor. The character of Sophocles was frank and 
 liberal on all occasions, and was remarkably proved so on the 
 death of his last rival Euripides. 
 
AND SOPHOCLES. 101 
 
 PERICLES. 
 
 . And this indeed were hardly more irrational, 
 than the pride which cities take sometimes in the 
 accident of a man's birth within their walls, of a 
 citizen's whose experience was acquired, whose vir- 
 tues were fostered, and perhaps whose services 
 were performed, elsewhere. 
 
 SOPHOCLES. 
 
 They are proud of having been the cradles of 
 great men, then only, when great men can be no 
 longer an incumbrance or a reproach to them. 
 Let them rather boast of those who spend the last 
 day in them than the first: this is always acci- 
 fe dental, that is generally by choice; for, from 
 
 something like instinct, we wish to close our eyes 
 upon the world in the places we love best, the 
 child in its mother's bosom, the patriot in his 
 country. When we are born we are the same as 
 all others: at our decease we may induce our 
 friends, and oblige our enemies to acknowledge 
 that all others are not the same as we. It is folly 
 to say, Death levels the whole human race : for it 
 is only when he hath stripped men of every thing 
 external, that their deformities can be clearly dis- 
 covered or their worth correctly ascertained. Gra- 
 titude is soon silent; a little while longer and 
 Ingratitude is tired, is satisfied, is exhausted, or 
 
102 PERICLES 
 
 sleeps ; lastly fly off the fumes of partyspirit, the 
 hottest and most putrid ebullition of selflove. 
 We then see before us, and contemplate calmly, 
 the creator of our customs, the ruler of our pas- 
 sions, the arbiter of our pleasures, and under the 
 Gods, the disposer of our destiny. What then, I 
 pray thee, is there dead ? nothing more than that 
 which we can handle, cast down, bury ; and surely 
 not he who is yet to progenerate a more numerous 
 and far better race, than during the few years it 
 was permitted us to converse with him. 
 
 PERICLES. 
 
 When I reflect on Themistocles, on Aristides, 
 and on the greatest of mortal men, Miltiades, I 
 wonder how their countrymen can repeat their 
 names, unless in performing the office of ex- 
 piation*. 
 
 * There are some who may deem this reflection unsuitable 
 to the character of Pericles. I wish it were so: I would 
 gladly have suppressed it. He saw injustice in others^ and 
 hated it ; yet he caused the banishment of Cimon, as great a 
 man as any of the three: it is true he had afterwards the 
 glory of proposing, and of carrying to Sparta, the decree of 
 his recall. Let us contemplate the brighter side of his cha- 
 racter, such as it appeared at the time when I describe it, his 
 eloquence, his wit, his clemency, his judgement and firmness 
 in friendship, his regularity, his decorousness, his domesticity j 
 let us then unite him with his predecessor, and acknowledge 
 that such illustrious rivals never met before or since, in enmity 
 or in friendship. 
 
AND SOPHOCLES. 103 
 
 SOPHOCLES. 
 
 Cities are ignorant that nothing is more dis- 
 graceful to them, than to be the birthplaces of the 
 illustriously good, and not afterwards the places 
 of their residence; that their dignity consists in 
 adorning them with distinctions, in entrusting to 
 them the regulation of the commonwealth, and 
 not in having sold a crust or cordial to the nurse 
 or midwife. 
 
 PERICLES. 
 
 O Jove and Minerva! grant a right mind to 
 the Athenians ! If throughout so many and such 
 eventful ages they have been found by you de- 
 serving of their freedom, render them more and 
 more w^orthy of the great blessing you bestowed 
 on them ! May the valour of our children defend 
 this mole for ever ; and constantly may their pa- 
 triotism increase and strengthen among these glo- 
 rious reminiscences! Shield them from the jea- 
 lousy of neighbouring states, from the ferocity of 
 barbarian kings, and from the perfidy of those 
 who profess the same religion ! Teach them that 
 
 Could the piety attributed to Pericles have belonged to a 
 scholar of Anaxagoras ? Eloquent men often talk like reli- 
 gious men : and where could the eloquence of Pericles be more 
 enflamed by enthusiasm, than in the midst of his propylaea, at 
 the side of Sophocles and before the Gods of Phidias ? 
 
104 PERICLES 
 
 between the despot and the free all compact is a 
 cable of sand, and alliance most unholy ! and, O 
 givers of power and wisdom! remove from them 
 the worst and wildest of illusions, that happiness, 
 liberty, virtue, genius, will be fostered or long re- 
 spected, much less attain their just ascendency, 
 under any other form of government 1 
 
 SOPHOCLES. 
 
 May the Gods hear thee, Pericles, as they have 
 always done! or may I, reposing in my tomb, 
 never know that they have not heard thee ! 
 
 I smile on imagining how trivial would thy 
 patriotism and ideas of government appear to 
 Chlorus. And indeed much wiser men, from the 
 prejudices of habit and education, have under- 
 valued them, preferring the dead quiet of their 
 wintry hives to our breezy spring of life and busy 
 summer. The countries of the vine and olive are 
 more subject to hailstorms than the regions of the 
 north : yet is it not better that some of the fruit 
 should fall than that none should ripen? 
 
 PERICLES. 
 
 Quit these creatures; let them lie wanii and 
 slumber; they are all they ought to be, all they 
 can be : but prythee who is Chlorus, that he should 
 deserve to be named by Sophocles? 
 
AND SOPHOCLES. 105 
 
 SOPHOCLES. 
 
 He was bora somewhere on the opposite coast 
 t)f Euboea, and sold as a slave in Persia to a man 
 who dealt largely in that traffic, and who also had 
 made a fortune by displaying to the public four 
 remarkable proofs of ability: first, by swallowing 
 at a draught an amphora of the strongest wine ; 
 secondly, by standing up erect and modulating 
 his voice like a sober man when he was drunk; 
 thirdly, by acting to perfection like a drunken 
 man when he was sober ; and fourthly, by a most 
 surprising trick indeed, which, it is reported, he 
 learnt in Babylonia: one would have sworn he 
 had a blazing fire in his mouth ; take it out, and 
 it is nothing but a lump of ice. The king, before 
 whom he was admitted to play his tricks, hated 
 him at first, and told him that the last conjuror had 
 made him cautious of such people, he having been 
 detected in filching from a royal tiara one of the 
 weightiest jewels... but talents forced their way. 
 As for Chlorus, I mention him by the name under 
 which 1 knew him ; he has changed it since : for 
 although the dirt wherewith it was encrusted kept 
 him comfortable at first, when it cracked and began 
 to crumble it was incommodious. 
 
 The barbarians have commenced, I understand, 
 
106 PERICLES 
 
 to furbish their professions and vocations with 
 rather whimsical skirts and linings : thus for in- 
 stance a chessplayer is lion-hearted and liorship- 
 ful; a drunkard is serenity and highness ; a hunter 
 of fox, badger, polecat, iitchew and weazel, is ex- 
 cellency and right honourable ; while, such is the 
 delicacy of distinction, a rat-catcher is considerably 
 less: he however is illustrious , and appears, as a 
 tail to a comet, in the train of a legation, holding 
 a pen between his teeth, to denote his capacity 
 for secretary, and leading a terrier in the right 
 hand, and carrying a trap baited with cheese and 
 anise-seed in the left. 
 
 It is as creditable amonof them to lie with dex- 
 terity as it is common among the Spartans to steal. 
 Chlorus, who performed it with singular frank- 
 ness and composure, had recently a cock's feather 
 mounted on his turban, in place of a hen's, and 
 the people was commanded to address him by 
 the title of most noble. His brother Alexaretes 
 was employed at a stipend of four talents to detect 
 an adultress in one among the royal wives: he 
 gave no intelligence in the course of several months : 
 at last the king, seeing him on his return, cried 
 angrily, " JVhat hast thou been doing f hast thou 
 never found her out?'' He answered, '' Thy ser- 
 
AND SOPHOCLES. 107 
 
 vant, O king^ hath been doing more than finding 
 out an adultress: he hath^ O kingy been making 
 07ieJ\ 
 
 PERICLES. 
 
 I have heard the story, with this difference, that 
 the bed-embassador being as scantily gifted with 
 spirit and facetiousness as with perspicacity and 
 attention, the reply was framed satirically by some 
 other courtier, who, imitating his impudence, had 
 forgotten his incapacity. But about the reward 
 of falsehood, that is wonderful, when we read that 
 formerly the Persians were occupied many years 
 in the sole study of truth. 
 
 SOPHOCLES. 
 
 How difficult then must they have found itl 
 no wonder they left it off the first moment they 
 could conveniently. The granfather of Chlorus 
 was honest : he carried a pack upon his shoulders, 
 in which pack were contained the coarser linens 
 of Caria: these he retailed among the villages of 
 Asia and Greece, but principally in the islands. 
 He died : on the rumour of war, the son and 
 granson, then an infant, fled: the rest is told. 
 In Persia no man inquires how another comes to 
 wealth or power, the suddenness of which appears 
 to be effected by some of the demons or genii of 
 their songs and stories. 
 
108 PJCRICLES 
 
 PERICLES. 
 
 The ideas of such a man on government must 
 be curious : I am persuaded he would far preferr 
 the Persian to any ... I forgot to mention that, 
 according to what I hear this morning, the great 
 king has forbidden all ships to sail within thirty 
 parasangs of his coasts, and has also claimed the 
 dominion of half ours. 
 
 SOPHOCLES. 
 
 Where is the scourge with which Xerxes lashed 
 the ocean ? were it not better laid on the shoulders 
 of a madman than placed within his hand ? 
 
 PERICLES. 
 
 Immoderate power, like other intemperance, 
 leaves the progeny weaker and weaker, until Na- 
 ture, as in compassion, covers it with her mantle 
 and it is seen no more, or until the arm of in- 
 dignant man sweeps it from before him. 
 
 We must, ere long, excite the other barbarians 
 to invade the territories of this, and before the 
 cement of his new acquisitions shall have hardened. 
 Large conquests break readily off from an empire, 
 by their weight, while smaller stick fast. A wide 
 and rather waste kingdom should be interposed 
 between the policied states and Persia... by the 
 leave of Chlorus. Perhaps he would rather, in 
 his benevolence, unite us with the great and happy 
 
AND SOPHOCLES. 109 
 
 family of his master: perhaps you or I, my So- 
 phocles, may be invited to repose our legs a little 
 in the same stocks with Dorkas, or even to eat at 
 the same table. Despots are wholesale dealers in 
 equality; and, father Jupiter, was ever equality 
 like this? 
 
 SOPHOCLES. 
 
 After all, my dear Pericles ... do excuse my 
 smile... is not that the best government, which, 
 whatever be the form of it, we ourselves are called 
 upon to administer? 
 
 PERICLES. 
 
 The Piraeus and the Poecile have a voice of 
 their own, wherewith to answer thee, O Sophocles ! 
 and the Athenians, exempt from war, famine, 
 taxes, debts, exiles, fines, imprisonment, delivered 
 from monarchy, from oligarchy, and from anarchy, 
 walking along their porticos, inhaling their sea- 
 breezes, crowning their Gods daily for fresh bless- 
 ings, and their children for deserving them, reply 
 to this voice by the symphony of their applause 
 ...Harkl my words are not idle. Hither come 
 the youths and virgins, the sires and matrons; 
 hither come citizen and soldier... 
 
 SOPHOCLES. 
 
 A solecism from Pericles ! Has the most elo- 
 
110 PERICLES 
 
 quent of men forgotten the Attic language? has 
 he forgotten the language of all Greece ? can the 
 father of his country be ignorant that he should 
 have said hither cojiies ? for citizen and soldier is 
 one. 
 
 PERICLES. 
 
 The fault is graver than the reproof, or indeed 
 than simple incorrectness of language: my eyes 
 misled my tongue : a large portion of the citizens 
 is armed. 
 
 what an odour of thyme and bay and myrtle, 
 and from what a distance, bruized by the pro- 
 cession ! 
 
 SOPHOCLES. 
 
 What regular and full harmony ! What a splen- 
 dour and effulgence of white dresses ! painful to 
 aged eyes and dangerous to young. 
 
 PERICLES. 
 
 1 can distinguish many voices from among 
 others : some of them have blessed me for defend- 
 ing their innocence before the judges; some for 
 exhorting Greece to unanimity; some for my 
 choice of friends. Ah surely those sing sweetest ! 
 those are the voices, O Sophocles! that shake my 
 heart with tenderness, a tenderness passing love, 
 and excite it above the trumpet and the cymbal. 
 
AND SOPHOCLES. Ill 
 
 Return we to the Gods: the crowd is waving the 
 branches of olive, calling us by name, and closing 
 to salute us. 
 
 SOPHOCLES. 
 
 O citadel of Minerva, more than all other 
 citadels, may the Goddess of wisdom and of 
 war protect thee ! and never may strange tongue 
 be heard within thy walls, unless from captive 
 king! 
 
 Live, Pericles ! and inspire into thy people the 
 soul that once animated these heroes round us. 
 
 Hail, men of Athens ! pass onward ; leave me ; 
 I follow. Go ; behold the Gods, the Demigods, 
 and Pericles! 
 
 The colours of thy waves are not the same 
 
 Day after day, O Neptune ! nor the same 
 
 The fortunes of the land wherefrom arose 
 
 Under thy trident the brave friend of man. 
 
 Wails have been heard from women, sterner breasts 
 
 Have sounded with the desperate pang of grief. 
 
 Gray hairs have strewn these rocks : here Egeus cried, 
 
 " O Sun ! careering o'er the downs of Sipylus, 
 If desolation (worse than ever there 
 Befell the mother, and those heads her own 
 Would shelter, when the deadly darts flew round) 
 Impend not o'er my house, in gloom so long, 
 Let one swift cloud illumined by thy chariot 
 Sweep oflf the darkness from that doubtful sail !" 
 
112 PERICLES 
 
 Deeper and deeper came the darkness down ; 
 The sail itself was heard -, his eyes grew dim : 
 His knees tottered beneath him ...but availed 
 To bear him till he plunged into the deep. 
 
 Sound, fifes ! there is a youthfulness of sound 
 In your shrill voices . . . sound again, ye lips 
 That Mars delights in ... I will look no more 
 Into the times behind for idle goads 
 To stimulate faint fancies . . . hope itself 
 Is bounded by the starry zone of glory j 
 On one bright point we gaze, one wish we breathe 
 
 Athens ! be ever, as thou art this hour, 
 Happy and strong, a Pericles thy guide. 
 
 The Persian despots contented themselves with debasing 
 the souls of the nations whom they had enslaved ; but do not 
 appear to have been very covetous of their purses. Herodotus 
 calls their taxation of the Ionian states a tranquillizing and 
 pacificatory measure. In this respect the world has grown 
 wiser as it has grown older. Appiau states that Pompey im- 
 posed on the Syrians and Cilicians a hundredth of their in- 
 come. Hadrian was accused of great severity towards the 
 Jews, for having somewhat augmented the rate which Vespa- 
 sian had fixed, and which, according to Zonaras and Xiphilinus, 
 was two drachmas on each (about eighteen pence). Strabo 
 remarks that Egypt brought a revenue of one hundred and 
 eighty thousand pounds to the father of Cleopatra, which sum 
 Augustus doubled. Paterculus says, that Gaul paid more 
 than Egj^t. According to Suetonius and Eutropius, Cesar 
 imposed on Gaul a tax of twentyfour thousand pounds, which 
 
AND SOPHOCLES. 113 
 
 Lipsius thinks an error, and quadruples the amount. He 
 estimates the revenue drawn by Rome from Asia, Spain, 
 Greece, Illp-ia, and the other provinces, at six millions ster- 
 ling. He inclines to exaggeration. Plutarch, in the life of 
 Pompey, informs us that he levied from Asia one hundred 
 and ninetytwo thousand pounds. Marcus Antonius exacted 
 from the same country, at one time, the tribute of ten years, 
 about three million six hundred thousand pounds, reproach- 
 ing the nations that they had paid as much to Brutus and 
 Cassius in two. When Augustus was declared commander in 
 chief against him, the senate, according to Xiphilinus, ordered 
 that all citizens and others should pay a property-tax of a 
 txventieth, and that all senators should besides pay four oboli 
 (sixpence) for each chimney. Dion Cassius goes farther; and 
 adds that they also paid two oboli for every tile of their houses 
 both in town and country. Antonius and Augustus were the 
 first that imposed a tax on slaves : it amounted to less than 
 ten shillings for each. When they imposed one upon wills, it 
 caused an insurrection ... We are better subjects than they 
 were, although they enjoyed under an holy alliance the bene- 
 fits of regular government, and had been accustomed to the 
 salutary discipline of proscription. 
 
 VOL. ir. 
 
CONVERSATION VIL 
 
 LOUIS XIV 
 
 FATHER LA CHAISE. 
 
 I 2 
 
LOUIS XIV 
 
 FATHER LA CHAISE, 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Father, there is one thing which I never have 
 confessed; sometimes considering it ahnost as a 
 light matter, and sometimes seeing it in its true 
 colours. In my wars against the Dutch I com- 
 mitted an action... 
 
 LA CHAISE. 
 
 Sire, the ears of the Lord are always open to 
 those who confess their sins to their confessor. 
 Cruelties and many other bad deeds are perpetrated 
 in war, at which we should shudder in our houses 
 at Paris. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 The people who were then in their houses did 
 shudder, poor devils ! It was ludicrous to see how 
 such clumsy figures skipped, when the bombs fell 
 
118 LOUIS XIV 
 
 amongst their villages, in which the lower part 
 of the habitations was under water, and children 
 looked from the upper windows, between the legs 
 of calves and lambs, and of the old household 
 dog, struggling to free himself, as less ignorant of 
 his danger. Loud shrieks were sometimes heard, 
 when the artillery and other implements of war 
 were silent ; for fevers raged within their insulated 
 walls, and wives execrated their husbands, with 
 whom they had lived in concord and tenderness 
 many years, when the father enforced the necessity 
 of throwing their dead infant into the lake below. 
 Our young soldiers on such occasions exercised 
 their dexterity, and took their choice ; for the 
 whole family was assembled at the casement, and 
 prayers w^re read over the defunct, accompanied 
 with some firm and wdth some faultering responses. 
 By these terrible examples God punished their 
 heresy. 
 
 LA CHAISE. 
 
 The Lord of Hosts is merciful: he protected 
 your Majesty in the midst of these terrors. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 He sustained my strength, kept up my spirits, 
 and afforded me every day some fresh amusement, 
 in the midst of this rebellious and blasphemous 
 people, who regularly, a quarter before twelve 
 
AND FATHER LA CHAISE. 119 
 
 o'clock, knowing that mass was then performed 
 amongst us, sang their psalms. 
 
 LA CHAISE. 
 
 I cannot blame a certain degree of severity on 
 such occasions : on much slighter, we read in the 
 Old Testament, nations were smitten with the 
 edge of the sword. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 I have wanted to find that place, but my Testa- 
 ment was not an old one; it was printed at the 
 Louvre in my own time. As for the edge of the 
 sword, it was not always convenient to use that ; 
 they are stout fellows: but our numbers enabled 
 us to starve them out, and we had more engineers, 
 and better. Besides which, I took peculiar venge- 
 ance on some of the principal families, and on 
 some amongst the most learned of their professors : 
 for if any had a dissolute son, who, as dissolute 
 sons usually are, was the darling of the house, I 
 bribed him, made him drunk, and converted him. 
 This occasionally broke the father's heart : God's 
 punishment of stubbornness ! 
 
 LA CHAISE. 
 
 Without the especial grace of the Holy Spirit, 
 such conversions are transitory. It is requisite to 
 secure the soul while we have it, by the exertion 
 of a little loving-kindness. I would deliver the 
 
120 LOUIS XIV 
 
 poor stray creatures up to their Maker straitway, 
 lest he should call me to account for their back- 
 sliding. Heresy is a leprosy, which the whiter it 
 is the worse it is. Those who appear the most 
 innocent and godly, are the very men who do the 
 most mischief, and hold the fewest observances. 
 They hardly treat God Almighty like a gentle- 
 man, grudge him a clean napkin at his own table, 
 and spend less upon him than upon a christmas 
 dinner. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 O father La Chaise! you have searched my 
 heart; you have brought to light my hidden 
 offences. Nothing is concealed from your pene- 
 tration. I come forth like a criminal in his chains. 
 
 LA CHAISE. 
 
 Confess, sire, confess ! I will pour the oil into 
 your wounded spirit, taking due care that the 
 vengeance of heaven be satisfied by your atonement. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Intelligence was brought to me that the cook 
 of the English general had prepared a superb 
 dinner, in consequence of what that insolent and 
 vainglorious people are in the habit of calling a 
 success. We shall soon see, exclaimed I, who is 
 successful: God protects France. The whole army 
 shouted, and, I verily believe, at that moment would 
 
AND FATHER LA CHAISE. 121 
 
 have conquered the world. I deferred it: my 
 designs lie in my own breast. Father, I never 
 heard such a shout in my life : it reminded me of 
 Cherubim and Seraphim and Arcangels. The 
 infantry cried with joy, the horses capered and 
 neighed, and broke wind right and left, from an 
 excess of animation. Leopard-skins, bear-skins, 
 Genoa velvet, Mechlin ruffles, Brussels cravats, 
 feathers and fringes and golden bands, up in the 
 air at once; pawings and snortings, threats and 
 adjurations, beginnings and ends of songs. 1 was 
 Henry and Cesar, and Alexander and David, and 
 Charlemagne and Agamemnon...! had only to 
 give the word; they would swim across the 
 Channel, and bring the tyrant of proud Albion 
 back in chains. All my prudence was requisite 
 to repress their ardour. 
 
 A letter had been intercepted by my scouts, 
 addressed by the wife of the English general to 
 her husband. She was at Gorcum ; she informed 
 him that she would send him a glorious mincepie^ 
 for his dinner the following day, in celebration of 
 his victory. " Devil incarnate," said I on reading 
 the despatch, " I will disappoint thy malice." I 
 was so enraged, that I went within a mile or two 
 of cannon-shot; and I should have gone within 
 
122 LOUIS XIV 
 
 half a mile if my dignity had permitted me, or if 
 my resentment had lasted. I liberated the mes- 
 senger, detaining as hostage his son, who accom- 
 panied him, and promising that if the mincepie 
 was secured, I would make him a chevalier on the 
 spot. Providence favoured our arms. But un- 
 fortunately there were among my staff- officers 
 some who had fought under Turenne, and who, 
 I suspect, retained the infection of heresy. They 
 presented the 7nincepie to me on their knees, and 
 I ate. It was Friday. I did not remember the 
 day, when I began to eat; but the sharpness of 
 the weather, the odour of the pie, and something 
 of vengeance springing up again at the sight of it, 
 made me continue after I had recollected: and 
 for my greater condemnation, I had enquired that 
 very morning of what materials it was composed. 
 God set his face against me, and hid from me 
 the light of his countenance. I lost victory after 
 victory, nobody knows how ; for my generals were 
 better than the enemy's, my soldiers more nu- 
 merous, more brave, more disciplined. And, ex- 
 traordinary and awful! even those who swore to 
 conquer or die, ran back again like whelps just 
 gelt, crying, It is the first duty of a soldier to see 
 his king in safety, I never heard so many fine 
 
AND FATHER I.A CHAISE. 123 
 
 sentiments, or fewer songs. My stomach was out 
 of order by the visitation of the Lord. I took the 
 sacrament on the Sunday. 
 
 LA CHAISE. 
 
 The sacrament on a Friday's gras! I should 
 have recommended an enema first, with a de 
 profujidis, a miserere^ and an eructavit cor meum, 
 and lastly a little oil of ricina, which admini- 
 stered by the holy and taken by the faithful is 
 almost as efficacious in its way as that of Rheims. 
 Penance is to be done : your Majesty must fast : 
 your Majesty must wear sackcloth next your 
 skin, and carry ashes upon your head before the 
 people. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Father, I cannot consent to this humiliation: 
 the people must fear me. What are you doing 
 with those scissars and that pill? I am sound in 
 body; give it Villeroy or Richelieu. 
 
 LA CHAISE. 
 
 Sire, no impiety, no levity, I pray. In this 
 pill, as your Majesty calls it, are some flakes of 
 ashes from the incense, which seldom is pure gum : 
 break it between your fingers, and scatter it upon 
 your peruke : well done : now take this. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Faith! I have no sore on groin or limb. A 
 black plaister! what is that for? 
 
IM LOUIS XIV 
 
 LA CHAISE. 
 
 This is sackcloth. It was the sack in which 
 Madame de Maintenon put her knitting, until the 
 pins frayed it. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 I should have believed that sackcloth means... 
 
 LA CHAISE. 
 
 No interpretations of scripture, I charge you 
 from authority. Sire. Put it on your back or bosom. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 God forgive me, sinner! It has dropped down 
 into my breeches : will that do ? 
 
 LA CHAISE. 
 
 Did it, in descending, touch your back, belly, 
 ribs, breast, or shoulder, or any part that needs 
 mortification, and can be mortified without scandal? 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 I placed it between my frills. 
 
 LA CHAISE. 
 
 In such manner as to touch the skin sensibly? 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 It tickled me, by stirring a hair or two. 
 
 LA CHAISE. 
 
 Be comforted then ; for people have been tickled 
 to death. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 But, father, you remitt the standing in presence 
 of the people ? 
 
AND FATHER LA CHAISE. 125 
 
 LA CHAISE. 
 
 Indeed I do not. Stand at the window, son of 
 St. Louis! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 And perform the same ceremonies? no, upon 
 my conscience! My ahnoner. 
 
 LA CHAISE. 
 
 They are performed. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 But the people will never know what is on my 
 head or in my breeches. 
 
 LA CHAISE. 
 
 The penance is performed so far: tomorrow is 
 Friday: one more rigid must be enforced. Six 
 dishes alone shall come upon the table; and, 
 although fasting does not extend to wines or 
 liqueurs, I order that three kinds only of wine be 
 presented, and three of liqueur. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 In the six dishes is soup included? 
 
 LA CHAISE. 
 
 Soup is not served in a dish ; but I forbid more 
 than three kinds of soup. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Oysters of Concale . . . 
 
 LA CHAISE. 
 
 Those come in barrels: take care they be not 
 dished. Your Majesty must either eat them raw 
 
126 LOUIS XIV 
 
 from the barrel, or dressed in scallop, or both; 
 but beware, I say again, of dish in this article, as 
 your soul shall answer for it at the last day. There 
 are those who would prohibit them wholly. I 
 have experienced...! mean in others ... strange 
 uncouth effects therefrom, which, unless they 
 shadow forth something mystical, it were better 
 not to provoke. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Pray, father, why is that frightful day which 
 you have mentioned just now, and which I think 
 I have heard mentioned before, called the last? 
 when the last in this life is over before it comes, 
 and when the first in the next is not begun. 
 
 LA CHAISE. 
 
 It is called the last day by the Church, because 
 after that day the Church can do nothing for the 
 sinner. Her saints, martyrs, and confessors, can 
 plead at the bar for him the whole of that day 
 until sunset, some say until after angelus ; then 
 the books are closed, the candles put out, the doors 
 shut, and the key turned : the flames of Purgatory 
 then sink into the floor, and would not wither a 
 cistus-leaf, full-blown and shed: there is nothing 
 left but heaven and hell, songs and lamentations. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Permitt me to ask another question of no less 
 importance, and connected with my penance. The 
 
AND FATHER LA CHAISP:. 127 
 
 bishop of Aix in Provence has sent me thirty fine 
 quails . . . 
 
 LA CHAISE. 
 
 There are naturalists who assert that quails 
 have fallen from heaven, like manna. Externally 
 they bear the appearance of birds, and I have eaten 
 them in that persuasion. If however any one, 
 from grave authority, is convinced of the contrary, 
 or propends to believe so, and eats thereof, the 
 fault is venial. I conferred with Tamburini on 
 this momentous point. He distinguishes between 
 quails taken in the field, or quails taken in the air 
 as they descend or pass, and tame quails, bred 
 within coops and enclosures, which are begotten 
 in the ordinary way of generation, and whose sub- 
 stance in that case must be different. I cannot 
 believe that the bishop of Aix would be the con- 
 servator of creatures so given to fighting and wan- 
 tonness; but rather would opine that his quails 
 descended somewhere in his diocese, and perhaps 
 as a mark of divine favour to so worthy a member 
 of the Church. It is safer to eat them after twelve 
 o'clock at night; but where there is purity and 
 humility of spirit, I see not that they are greatly 
 to be dreaded. 
 
128 LOUIS XIV 
 
 The fiction of the quails^ at the conclusion of this dialogue, 
 will appear extravagant to those only who are in ignorance 
 that such opinions have prevailed, not among casuists alone 
 but among philosophers. A case more immediately in point 
 is this. The Carthusians, to whom animal food is forbidden, 
 whereby they mean solely the flesh of quadrupeds and of birds, 
 may nevertheless eat the gull ; it may be eaten by all catholics, 
 even in Lent. I know not whether from this permission, and 
 the acceptance of it, we derive our English verb and noun : I 
 think it probable. 
 
 We often lay most stress on our slightest faults, and have 
 more apprehension from things unessential than from things 
 essential... When Lord Tylney was on his deathbed, and had 
 not been shaved for two days, he burst suddenly into tears, 
 and cried to his valet, "Are not you ashamed to abandon 
 me? would you let me go this Jigure into the presence of my 
 Maker ?" 
 
 He was shaved, and (I hope) presented. 
 * * -x- * 
 
 Louis XIV is the great exemplar of kingship, the object of 
 almost religious worship to countless declamers against the 
 ferocity of the people. The invasion of Holland, the confla- 
 gration of the Palatinate, the revocation of the edict of Nantes, 
 have severally been celebrated, by French poets, French hi- 
 storians, French jurists, and French bishoj)S. The most un- 
 provoked act of cruelty on record was perpetrated by another 
 king of France. I transcribe the words of an historian^ the 
 defender and panegyrist of them all, Bussieres. Victi Bulgari, 
 et ex sociis in servitutem rapti, mox eorum plures relicta 
 patria exulatum ultro abierunt. Ex iis ad novem millia, ux- 
 oribus liberisque impliciti, a Dagoberto sedes petunt . , . Jussi 
 per hyemem hairere in Bavaria dum amplius rex deliberaret, 
 in plures urbes domosque sparsi sunt ; tum novo barbaroque 
 facinore una nocte caesi omnes simul. Quippe Dagobertus im- 
 mani consiUo Boiarios jubet, singulos sicis hospitibus necem 
 inferre, rcUione nulla cstatis aut sexus ; et qua truculentia im- 
 peratum, obtemperatum eadem, Condicta nocte miseri ho- 
 
AND FATHER LA CHAISE. 129 
 
 mines in asylo somni obtruncantur, imbelles feminae, insontes 
 pueri; totque funera hilaritati fuerunt, non luctui...This 
 forms a peculiar feature in the national character, inde- 
 structible amidst all forms of government. It is amusing to 
 read our Jesuit's words in the sequel. Ad beneficiorum fontem 
 se convertit, multaque dona elargitus templis, emendahat see- 
 lera liber alitate ...to priests and monks... Nee Dagoberto libe- 
 ralitas pia frustra fuit : siquidem sancti quos in vivis multum 
 coluerat, Dionysius, Mauritius, et Martinus, oblati sunt Jo- 
 anni monacho vigilant i, regis animam eripientes e potestate 
 daemonum saevisque tormeutis, eamque secum in coeli regiam 
 deducentes. 
 
 VOL. 11. 
 
CONVERSATION VIIL 
 
 CAVALIERE PUNTOMICHINO 
 
 MR. DENIS EUSEBIUS TALCRANAGH. 
 
 K 'Z 
 
CAVALIERE PUNTOMICHINO 
 
 AND 
 
 MR. DENIS EUSEBIUS TALCRANAGH. 
 
 The Cavaliere Puntomichino was the last male 
 representative of an ancient family. He was an 
 honest and rich man : so that, when his intention 
 was understood at Florence of traveling to Eng- 
 land, it excited suspicion in some, and surprise in 
 all; for Italians of that description were never 
 known amongst them to have crossed the Channel. 
 He went however, and remained there several 
 years, reading our best authors, and wondering, as 
 he informed me, at one thing only, which is, that 
 there could really be in the whole human race so 
 prodigious a diversity, as he found in almost every 
 five individuals whom he conversed with in our 
 metropolis. 
 
 " I have often observed," said he, ** more variety 
 
134 CAVALIERE PUNTOMICHINO 
 
 in a single household, than I believe to exist in 
 all Italy." 
 
 He never had about him the slightest taint of 
 affectation, yet became he singular, and glaringly 
 so, at his first introduction to the academy of La 
 Crusca: for he asserted three paradoxes: first, 
 that no sentence in a comedy should exceed a fair 
 page in octavo ; secondly, that no witticism should 
 be followed by an explanation, in the dialogue, of 
 more than two pages; and thirdly, that Shake- 
 spear had nearly or quite as much humour as 
 Goldoni. Henceforward he was a worthy man, 
 but an oddity. His claim to the literary cha- 
 racter I shall forbear to discuss ; although I have 
 many papers, not indeed of his own writing, but 
 addressed to him by others, some of which go so 
 far as to call him a nightingale, some a great 
 doctor, some an eagle, some a phenix, some a sun, 
 and one both a sun and a phenix. But this last 
 was written by a rival of him who wrote the pre- 
 ceding, and therefor its accuracy may be suspected, 
 and it was declared by the academy to be more in- 
 genious than correct. 
 
 His sedentary life had been unfriendly to his 
 health, and he was seized in the beginning of this 
 winter with repeated and severe attacks in the 
 breast. As he had inherited a good property, 
 
AND MR. DENIS EUSEBIUS TALCRANAGH. 135 
 
 and had collected many rare books, nearly all 
 the canons and professors began to write tinbutes, 
 monodies, elegies, musce plangentes, Etrurico luctus, 
 and consolations to his heir, a very distant relative, 
 whose brother, in the time of the French govern- 
 ment, had been hanged for robbery at the age of 
 eighteen, proving, as others have done in various 
 ways, that misfortune is attendant on early eleva- 
 tion. He himself was in the galleys at Pisa for 
 the murder of his father-in-law, who had educated 
 him and had promised to leave him his estate* 
 On the death of the cavaliere, it was foreseen that 
 he, too late indeed for his happiness and sensibility, 
 would be found innocent of an offence, for which 
 the French laws in their precipitancy had con- 
 demned him. The proofs of this innocence were 
 produced, the patron found, the sum stipulated, 
 when the cavaliere, whose decease had been ex- 
 pected daily, died. On opening his will, it ap- 
 peared that he had destined all his property to the 
 maintenance of soldiers' widows and the redemption 
 of slaves from Barbary. Devils ! and cazzo and cap- 
 pari ! and Bacco ! tripped up and exploded the 
 muses and Etruria. The Pisan professor, their chore- 
 gus, who, printer no less than professor and poet, 
 had already struck off his Lamentation, spoke 
 more calmly and reasonably than the rest, saying 
 
136 CAVALIERE PUNTOMICHINQ 
 
 manfully, Gabriel, take down those sheets in 
 papal quarto, and throw them upon the Codes of 
 Napoleon,., the thing wont do. The expected 
 and expecting heir was accused of falsifying the 
 evidences, and fresh severities were added, for his 
 attempts to corrupt justice. 
 
 Let me now revert to my first acquaintance 
 with the cavaliere. I never in my life accepted a 
 letter of introduction, nor ever expressed a wish, 
 whatever I might have felt, for any man's society. 
 By some accident this peculiarity was mentioned 
 to Puntomichino, and he called on me immedi- 
 ately. Returning his visit, I found him in the 
 library: several English books were upon the 
 table, and there was seated at the window a young 
 gentleman of easy manners and fashionable appear- 
 ance, Mr. Denis Eusebius Talcranagh, of Castle- 
 Talcranagh andof Skurrymore-Park, county Down, 
 and first cousin, as he informed me, of Lord Cow- 
 slipmead, of Dove's-nest-Hall, county Meath, a 
 great fire-eater. I bowed: on which he fancied 
 that I had known his lordship intimately. On 
 my confessing the contrary, he appeared at first 
 rather mortified and suq:)rised. You must how- 
 ever have heard something, in your earlier days, 
 of Sir Roderic James O'Rowran, my great uncle, 
 who whenever he entered an inn with his friends. 
 
AND MR. DENIS EUSEBIUS TALCRANAGH. 137 
 
 placed himself at the head of the table, and cried, 
 ^^ whiskey and pistols for eight T' It was now 
 my turn to be mortified, and I could only reply 
 that there were many men of merit whom it had 
 never been my fortune to know. Then, sir, said 
 he, ten guineas to one you never xvere in Ireland 
 in your life ; for you must have known him if you 
 had met him, whether you would or not. There 
 was an infinity of good-humour in Mr. Talcra- 
 nagh ; and if his ideas were not always luminous 
 and perspicuous, they often came forth with a 
 somewhat of prismatic brilliancy. He gave a de- 
 cided preference to the writers of his own coun- 
 try over all others, which, he said, we authors are 
 not apt to do, I then discovered that I had been 
 conversing with a literary man, who had published 
 an imperial folio of eleven pages on the Irish wolf- 
 dog. / sold all my copies, said he, and bought a 
 tilbury and a leash of setters. And now, sir, if 
 ever you shoidd print any thing, take my advice ; 
 cuts in wood or cuts in stone, and a black-letter 
 title-page for your life ! I did it, without a knoxc- 
 ledge ofpyinter or publisher , , ,to be sure, I was 
 master of my subject, which goes a great way ; 
 and then indeed I had a pair of ed^traordinary 
 capital buckskins, xvhich, it is true, began to 
 
138 CAVALIERE PUNTOMICHINO 
 
 carry on the surface^ as Southei/ says of Flemish 
 scenery, 
 
 " a grey and xuillovoy hue" 
 
 but which I found a fellow in Cockspur-street who 
 could clean neatly, and these I sent with my best 
 
 compliments to the prime hand in the 
 
 Review, taking care to leave by accident a bran- 
 new guinea in the watch-pocket. This was enough ; 
 
 I went 710 farther in ea^penditure, although 
 
 was constantly at the heels of my groom Honorius, 
 pressing him to write a critique on the Wolfdog 
 
 of Erin for the since I from 
 
 igno7^a7ice of custom was too proud to do it, and 
 assuring hi7n that, look as he might and shake his 
 head as he woidd, he was no Jew and would do 
 the thing reasonably. Sir, added he smartly, are 
 you afrie7id to dogs ? 
 
 " A thousand thanks to you, Mr. Talcranagh," 
 cried I, " for asking me a question which I can 
 answer in the affirmative. There is a sort of free- 
 masonry amongst us, I verily believe ; for no dog, 
 except a cur, a pug, or a turnspit, ever barks at 
 me : they and children love me universally : I have 
 more than divisum imperium : these form the best 
 part of the world." 
 
AND MR. DENIS EUSEBIUS TALCUANAGH. 139 
 
 Add the women^ shouted he aloud, and here is 
 my hand for you. We saluted cordially. 
 
 '^ Indeed," said I, '' Mr. Talcranagh, you have 
 reason to be proud of your countrywomen, for 
 their liveliness, their beauty, and their genius. The 
 book before us, which you were looking into, 
 abounds in eloquence, philosophy, and patriotism ; 
 there is nothing of commonplace, nothing of 
 sickly sentiment, nothing of insane enthusiasm. I 
 read warily; and whenever I find the writings of 
 a lady, the first thing I do, is to cast my eyes 
 along her pages, to see whether I am likely to be 
 annoyed by the traps and spring-guns of inter- 
 jections, and if I happen to espy them, I do not 
 leap the paling. In these volumes I see much to 
 admire, and nothing that goads or w^orries me into 
 admiration." 
 
 " Gentlemen," said the cavaliere, " I am as warm 
 an admirer of Lady Morgan as either of you, and 
 if she had consulted me on a few matters and per- 
 sons, I could have rendered her some service by 
 setting her right. Travelers are profuse of praise 
 and censure, in proportion as they have been 
 civilly or indecorously received, not inquiring nor 
 caring whether the account be quite correct, if the 
 personages of whom they write be of distinguished 
 station \ for censure no less than praise requires a 
 
140 CAVALIERE PUNTOMICHINO 
 
 subject of notoriety. Lady Morgan has spoken 
 of our patriots, the Russels of our city. 
 
 There may formerly have been a virtuous or a 
 brave citizen in the family so extolled by her, 
 and indeed in what family has there not been, 
 earlier or later? but if those who now compose 
 it are called Russels, with equal right may the 
 cast horses of a sandcart be called Bucephali. 
 Strangers are disposed to consider us as the vilest 
 and most contemptible race in Europe, and they 
 must appear to have reason on their side, if such 
 creatures are taken for the best of us. Patriotism 
 has here a very different meaning from what it has 
 in England. A patriot, with us, is a man who is 
 unfriendly to all established government, and who, 
 while he flatters a native prince, courts over an 
 invader. His only grievances are, to pay taxes 
 for the support, and to carry arms for the defence, 
 of his country. He would loosen all the laws, as 
 impediments to the liberty of action, with a re- 
 serve of those which secure to him the fruits of 
 rapine and confiscation: those are provident and 
 conservative, and enthroned in light by the phi- 
 lanthropy of the age. Hospitality is the virtue of 
 barbarians . . .'' 
 
 ** Blood and hounds T' cried indignantly my 
 young friend, ^' I would ask him, whoever he is, 
 
AND MR. DENIS EUSEBIUS TALCRANAGH. 141 
 
 whether that was meant for me. If there is bar- 
 barism in a bottle of claret, there is as much of it 
 in a corked as in an uncorked one." 
 
 " Sir," replied mildly Puntomichino, " I could 
 shew you a Russel of the Italian school, who re- 
 ceived unusual civilities in England, and of all 
 those gentlemen there who treated him with at- 
 tention and kindness, of all those with whom he 
 dined constantly, not a single one, or any relative, 
 was ever invited in his houses, even to a glass 
 of stale barley water or sugarless lemonade." 
 
 " Cavaliere," said I, ** we more willingly give 
 invitations than accept them: I speak of others, 
 not of myself, for I have never been tempted to 
 dine from home these last ten years ; yet, although 
 I am neither rich nor convivial, and hardly social, 
 I have given at least a hundred in the time, if not 
 superb, at least not sordid; and those who knew 
 me long ago, say, Landor is become a miser... his 
 father did otherwise." 
 
 " Cappari!" exclaimed Puntomichino; *' this 
 whole family, with thirty thousand crowns of in- 
 come, has not done a ninetieth part of it within the 
 memory of man." 
 
 ''Faith! then," interrupted Talcranagh, "it 
 must have come into the Russels by a forced adop- 
 
142 CAVALIERE PUNTOMICHINO 
 
 tioii. The Russels of England are of opinion, 
 right or wrong, that the first thing are good 
 principles, and the next... good cheer. I wish, 
 sir," said he, looking mildly and somewhat mourn- 
 fully at me, *' I had not heard you say what you 
 did : I began to think well of you, I know not 
 why... and I doubt not still, God forbid I should, 
 that you are a worthy and conscientious man ; but 
 I would fain have thought well of you. As for 
 that other, I thank him for teaching me, what I 
 never should have learned at home, that a fellow 
 may be a good patriot with a very contracted heart, 
 and as much ingratitude as he can carry to market. 
 Why! you might trust a Correggio across his 
 kitchen -chimney on christmas-day: aye, Signor 
 Puntomichino ?" 
 
 *' Gentlemen," said our host, " under the 
 least vindictive of princes we may talk as loudly 
 as we please of liberty, which we could not do 
 without fear and trembling when we were in the 
 full enjoyment of it. What are you pondering so 
 gravely, Mr. Talcranagh ?" 
 
 "Woe!" replied he, "woe to the first family 
 that ever dines yonder! Let them each take a 
 bottle of thieves-vinegar, against the explosion of 
 mould from the grand evolution of the tablecloth. 
 
AND MR. DENIS EUSEBIUS TALCRANAGH. 143 
 
 But about your ministers, there are some things 
 not entirely to my mind, neither : your prince, I 
 dare to say, knows nothing about them." 
 
 "Our ministers are liberal, my young friend. 
 They have indeed betrayed in succession all the 
 sovrans who have employed them, yet they let 
 every man do his best or his worst; and if you 
 are robbed or insulted, you may insult or robb 
 again: all parties enjoy the same plenitude of 
 power." 
 
 " Plenitude ! by my soul, Sir Cavaliere, and a 
 trifle, I think, to spare. One of them a few days 
 ago did what a king of Great Britain and Ireland 
 would not dare to do, and which, if the first 
 potentate on earth had done in London, he would 
 have been kicked down the stairs for his impu- 
 dence. The exhibition of pictures at your Aca- 
 demy was announced as opening to the public at 
 ten. His Excellency entered alone, and remained 
 in the principal apartment until two, the doors of 
 which were locked to others. If it had been pos- 
 sible for him to have acted so amongst us, he would 
 have been tossed in a blanket till the stars blinked 
 upon him ; the people would have perfumed his frill 
 and ruffles abundantly with home-made essences, 
 would have added new decorations to his waist- 
 
144 CAVALIERE PUNTOMICHINO 
 
 coatful of orderSy and would have treated his 
 eagles with more eggs than they could swallow. 
 
 '' Believe me, sirs, our government, which would 
 be a detestable one for the English, is an excellent 
 one for us. Every day in London brings with it 
 what to a stranger looks like a rebellion, or at best 
 a riot : no mischief is done thereby : your strength, 
 which causes this irregularity, sustains you: but 
 weak bodies bear little fermentation." 
 
 " Wisely thought and well expressed. I am con- 
 vinced that if we had not a riot now and then in 
 Ireland, we should be as mopish and sullen as 
 the English, or as insincere and ferocious as the 
 French. And I have observed, Signor Cavaliere, 
 that, strange as it may appear, whenever there has 
 been much of a riot there has been sunshine. 
 Smile as you will, Mr. Landor, I swear to the 
 fact." 
 
 " Your assertion, Mr. Talcranagh, is quite suf- 
 ficient : but is it impossible that the fine weather 
 may have brought together a great concourse of 
 people to the fair or festival, and that whiskey or 
 beauty or politics or religion may have incited 
 them to the exertion of their prowess?" 
 
 *' There are causes that we know, and there are 
 causes that we know not. Inquiry and reflection 
 
AND MR. DENIS EUSEBIUS TALCRANAGH. 145 
 
 are sensible things, but there is nothing like ex- 
 perience, nothing Hke seeing with one's own eyes. 
 We must live upon the spot to judge perfectly and 
 to collect all the evidences. Philosophy ought to 
 lead us, but only to a certain point; there we 
 leave her, and joy go with her. I have seen im- 
 pudent rogues in Dublin, and have fancied that 
 the world could not match them : now what think 
 you of a set of fellows, w ith coats without a collar, 
 who take us by the hand, and say with the gravest 
 face upon earth, * The elements shall be elements 
 no longer,' and strip them one after another of 
 
 their title-deeds, as easily as Lord 
 
 stripped the of . It is 
 
 enough to make one grave to think on this abuse 
 of intellect. The acutest men may be much mis- 
 taken even after long experience. I assure you, 
 I have found grossly inaccurate the first piece of 
 information given me by a very cautious old tra- 
 veler. He mentions the honesty of the Savoyards 
 and the thievery of the Italians : now here have I 
 been a fortnight, safe and sound, and have not 
 lost a hair. I had not been twentyfour hours in 
 Savoy when they had the meanness to steal my 
 hatband. In future I shall be persuaded how 
 illusory are sketches of national character. As 
 for systems... come, Signor Cavaliere, you have 
 
 VOL. II. L 
 
146 CAVA LIE RE PUNTOMICHINO 
 
 weighed them well; I have not patience to talk 
 about them : conclusions are drawn even from skin 
 and bones ; eyes, noses, teeth ; they will soon come 
 (saving your presence) to..." 
 
 '' I know not what they will come to," was the 
 spirited and timely reply of the cavaliere, " but I 
 can mention as wonderful a fact as the sunshine 
 elicited by shilelahs. My father was a physiogno- 
 mist, and when Lavater first published his work, 
 * Now,' cried he, rubbing the palms of his hands 
 together, ' men begin to write again as they should 
 do.' He insisted that a man's countenance, in all its 
 changes, indicated his virtues or vices, his capa- 
 cities or defects. The teeth, among other parts, 
 were infallible indexes: they were in the human 
 visage what consonants are in the alphabet, the 
 great guides, the plain simple narrators. Amidst 
 his apophthegms was, never trust a man with a 
 twisted tooth. In fact, of all I had ever seen, and 
 of all I have ever seen since, under that descrip- 
 tion, not an individual has proved worthy of trust. 
 I once inquired of my father, with submission, 
 whether age or accident might not alter the in- 
 dications. By no means, exclaimed he empha- 
 tically ; if the indications are changed, the cha- 
 racter is changed: God, before he removed the 
 markf removed the taint. He remarked that, 
 
AND MR. DENIS EUSEBIUS TALCRANAGH. 147 
 
 where the teeth turned inward, there was wari- 
 ness, selfishness, avarice, inhumanity; where they 
 turned outward, there was lasciviousness, gaming, 
 gluttony. I then doubted these indications, and 
 imagined that a part of the latter was taken up 
 against a priest, not indeed in high reputation for 
 sobriety or continence, who had offended my father 
 in a tender quarter. My father had erected a 
 stile for the convenience of his peasants ; but the 
 inscription was so prolix^, that he was forced to 
 engrave the conclusion of it upon the church- 
 
 * Lest an inscription on a stile should surpass the faith of 
 my reader, I will transcribe one literally, on a prince changing 
 horses at a villa, to the intent, as it says expressly, that all 
 men and nations and ages should know it. 
 
 Honori Ferdinandi III. Aust: 
 
 qui ad veterem Etruriae dominationem redux 
 
 in hoc Capponianae gentis praetorio 
 
 XV. Kal. Octob. mdcccxiv. 
 
 tantisper substitit, 
 
 dum rhedaj itinerariai regalis substitueretur, 
 
 qua urbem principem inter communes plausus 
 
 et gaudii lacrimas introiret ; 
 
 herisque ob faustitatem eventus 
 
 dignitatemque sibi locoque ab hospite magno impertitam 
 
 laititia elatis 
 
 pristinam benevolentiam comitate alloquii 
 
 gratique animi signiticatione declaravit ; 
 
 Marchio Petrus Robcrtus Capponius 
 
 ad memoriam facti postgenitis omnibus tradendam. 
 
 l2 
 
148 CAVALIEIlp: rUNTOMlCHINO 
 
 pdrch. The Latin, as the priest acknowledged, 
 was very classical, but he requested that it might 
 be removed to our dovecote, which was farther 
 off, and not by the side of any road. The exoteric 
 teeth of the reverend gentleman had by some un- 
 known accident received a blow, which adjusted 
 them between the two extremes; and my father 
 was asked in joke whether he had a better opinion 
 of his spiritual guide since his improvement in 
 dentition. * Indeed I have,' he answered gravely ; 
 ' for so sudden and so great a change, whether 
 brought about by the organic mutations of the 
 frame, or by an irresistible stress, with which cer- 
 tain sentiments or sensations may bear upon it, 
 must be accompanied by new powers, greater or 
 smaller, and by new qualities and propensities. 
 Some internal struggle may, in length of time, have 
 produced an effect not only on the fibres but also 
 through them on the harder part of the extremities.' 
 The favorable opinion of my father was carried to 
 the priest ; who lamented, he said, no dispensation 
 of Providence, by which he conciliated the better 
 sentiments of so enlightened and charitable a man. 
 He was soon a daily visitant at the house ; he en- 
 tered into the studies of his Excellency, read his 
 observations, praised them highly, and by degrees 
 had the courage to submitt to so experienced a 
 
AND MR. DENIS EUSEBIUS TALCRANAGH. 149 
 
 master a few remarks of his own. He pursued 
 them farther : and I should blush to relate, if all 
 Florence did not know it, that my stepmother, a 
 young lady of twentyfour, aided him too deeply 
 in his investigations, and confirmed my father, 
 although not exactly by working the problem as 
 he would have recommended, that an internal 
 struggle may produce an effect, not only on the 
 fibres, but also, through them, on the harder part 
 of the extremities. Then too became it public, 
 that another husband had been the holy man's 
 dentist, in consequence of too close an application 
 to similar studies in his house." 
 
 " Why! howl whatl do you talk in this tone 
 and manner! did not you nor your father flea the 
 devil alive? did not you spigot him nor singe 
 him?" 
 
 *' I was at school: my father took his wife to 
 Sienna; proof enough that he resented the injury. 
 In our country, as you know, every lady of quality 
 has her cavaliere servente, and you cannot pay 
 a higher compliment to a man of rank than by 
 calling him, in polite language, a son of a whore, 
 which, if I remember, is somewhat like an affront 
 in England, and not even the commonest person 
 would thank you for it. Here however it serves 
 to distinguish the superior order from the lower, 
 
150 CAVALIERE PUNTOMICHINO 
 
 who aspire to nothing better than the liberty to 
 stick their kneebuckles on their coats with a tag 
 of scarlet. My father, as you may suppose, was 
 indignant, that a priest out of the gates, neither a 
 canonico nor a maestro di casa, should beget his 
 children, and aspire, as he would have done by de- 
 grees, (for impudence is never retrogressive) to 
 conduct his lady to her carriage. I have many 
 books in which is the text written with his own 
 hand, * Never trust a man with a twisted tooth ;' 
 but I have searched in vain for any such sentence 
 as ' Trust a man with an untwisted one.' His 
 enthusiasm seems to have cooled, from the time 
 that he found a scholar so capable of his place." 
 
 I have reported this Conversation in a manner 
 differing from the rest. If illustrious characters 
 have been invited to my entertainment, 
 
 Locus est et pluribus umbris. 
 
 The meaner of us have spoken but seldom, and 
 indeed I have suppressed the greater part of my 
 own remarks, and several of Mr. Talcranagh's. A 
 conversation with a young Irishman of good na- 
 tural abilities, and among no race of men are those 
 abilities more general, is like a forest-walk ; in which, 
 while you are delighted with the healthy fresh air 
 and the green unbroken turf, you must stop at 
 
AND MR. DENIS EUSEBIUS TALCRANAGH. 151 
 
 every twentieth step to extricate yourself from 
 a briar. You acknowledge that you have been 
 amused, but that you rest willingly, and that you 
 would rather not take the same walk on the 
 morrow. 
 
CONVERSATION IX 
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
 
 AND 
 
 HORNE TOOKE. 
 
SAMUEL JOHNSON 
 
 AND 
 
 HORNE TOOKE. 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 Permitt me to congratulate you, Dr. Johnson, 
 on the completion of your great undertaking : my 
 bookseller sent me your Dictionary the day it 
 issued from the press, and it has exercised ever 
 since a considerable part of my time and atten- 
 tion. 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 Who are you, sir? 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 My name is Home Tooke. 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 What is my Dictionary, sir, to you ? 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 A treasure, I doubt not. 
 
15G SAMUEL JOHNSON 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 Keep it then at home and to yourself, sir, as 
 you would any other treasure, and talk no more 
 about it than you would about that. 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 Doctor, my studies have led me some little way 
 into etymology, and I am interested in whatever 
 contributes to the right knowledge of our lan- 
 guage. 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 Sir, have you redd our old authors? 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 I have redd all of them that are printed and 
 extant. 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 Prodigious ! do you speak truth ? 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 To the best of my belief. 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 Sir, how could you, a firebrand tossed about by 
 the rabble, a restless spirit, a demogorgon, find 
 leisure for so much reading ? 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 The number of English books printed before 
 the accession of James the first is smaller than 
 you appear to imagine, and the manuscripts, I be- 
 lieve, are not numerous; certainly in the libraries 
 
AND HORNE TOOKE. 157 
 
 of our Universities they are rather scanty. I wish 
 you had traced in your preface the changes made 
 in the language these last three centuries, for 
 which about three pages would have been suf- 
 ficient. Our spelling hath undergone as many 
 changes as the French, and worse. 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 The old writers had strange and arbitrary ways 
 of spelling, which makes them appear more bar- 
 barous than they really are. 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 You have now brought me to a question, which, 
 if you will favour me a few moments, we will dis- 
 cuss. I perceive that you preferr the spelling of 
 our gentlemen and ladies now flourishing, to that 
 of Middleton and Milton. 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 Middleton is not so correct a writer as you 
 fancy. He was an infidel, sir, and, what is worse, 
 a scoffer. 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 You will acknowledge that we have nothing so 
 classical in our language as his Life of CicerOy 
 nothing at once so harmonious and so unaffected. 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 Do you assert that Izaac Walton, who also 
 wrote biography, is not equally unaffected? 
 
158 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 Unaffected he is, and equally so, but surely less 
 harmonious. Allow me to join with you in ad- 
 miration of this most natural writer and most vir- 
 tuous man, whose volumes I read with greater 
 pleasure than any excepting Shakespear's. There 
 is indeed, as you appear to indicate, no similitude 
 between them ; no more, I confess it, than there 
 is between a cowslip and the sun that shines upon 
 it; but there is a perpetually pleasant light, if 
 I may use the expression, reflected from every 
 thought and sentence, and no man ever redd him 
 without being for a time both happier and better. 
 I, like yourself, have detected a few inaccuracies 
 in Middleton; not in his reasonings and con- 
 clusions, for in these he is clear and strong, but 
 in expressions of small importance. He says in 
 his Letter from Rome, ** The temple of some 
 heathen deity or that of the Paphian Venus," 
 p. 134. as if the Paphian Venus was not a heathen 
 deity. " Popery, *i£Mch abounds with instances 
 of the grossest forgeries both of saints and reliques, 
 which have been imposed for genuine^ kc," p. I7I. 
 To have been forgeries, they must have been im- 
 posed for genuine: here is also a confusion in the 
 repetition of which, relating to two subjects; as 
 again " The prejudices *which the authority of so 
 
AND HORNE TOOKE. 159 
 
 celebrated a writer may probably inject to the dis- 
 advantage of my argument, which^ &c." p. 224. 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 If Warburton had been elegant in language as 
 he was acute in argument, he would have exposed 
 to ridicule such an expression as i7iject a pre- 
 judice. 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 His acuteness seems usually to have forsaken 
 him the moment he lost his malignity. Nothing 
 is weaker than his argument on this question, no- 
 thing more inelegant than his phraseology. Our 
 pugnacious bishop, although he defended the divine 
 legation of Moses, would have driven the chariot 
 of Pharaoh against him into the Red-sea. You 
 remember the verses, I know not by whom. 
 
 If Warburton by chance should meet 
 The twelve apostles in the street. 
 He 'd pick a quarrel with 'em all, 
 And shove his Saviour from the wall. 
 
 He says, in allusion to Middleton, " How many 
 able writers have employed their time and learn- 
 ing to prove christian Rome to have borrowed 
 their superstitions from the pagan city ?" He means 
 her superstitions, and not the superstitions of the 
 able writers, which the words, as they stand, de- 
 signate. He surely could not dissent from Mid- 
 
160 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
 
 dleton, with whom nearly all the papists agree, 
 drawing, however far different inferences. 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 On this ground I go with Middleton ; he states 
 an historical fact: he states a thing visible: but 
 while he pretends to approach Religion for the 
 sake of looking at her dress, he stabs her. Come, 
 sir ! come, sir ! philology rather than this ! 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 A little more then of philology : but first let 
 me suggest to you that no stab, my good doctor, 
 can inflict a dangerous wound on Truth. Homer 
 had probably the design of impressing some such 
 sentiment, when he said that celestial bodies sooa 
 unite again. If you have ever had the curiosity 
 to attend a course of lectures on chemistry, or 
 have resided in the house of any friend who cul- 
 tivates it, you may perhaps have observed how a 
 single drop of colourless liquid, poured on another 
 equally colourless, raises a sudden cloud and pre- 
 cipitates it to the bottom. So unsuspected false- 
 hood, taken up as pure and limpid, is thrown into 
 a turbid state by a drop ; and it does not follow- 
 that the drop must be of poison. Middleton is 
 once or twice vulgar: he writes "/or good and 
 all,^^ p. 286. This is somewhat in the manner of 
 your friend Edmund Burke, who uses the word 
 
AND HORNE TOOKE. 161 
 
 anotherguess ; in which expression are both vul- 
 garity and ignorance; the real term is another- 
 guise ^ there is nothing o^ guessing. 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 Edmund Burke, sir, is so violent a reformer 
 that I am confident he will die a tory. I am sur- 
 prised that any thing he does or says should en- 
 counter your disapprobation. He, sir, and Junius 
 should have been your favorites, if indeed they 
 are not one and the same: for Edmund writes 
 better when he writes for another, and any cha- 
 racter suits him rather than his own. Shenstone, 
 when he forgot his Strephons and Corydons, and 
 followed Spenser, became a poet. Your old an- 
 tagonist Junius (what makes you smile, sir?) wears 
 an elegant sword-knot, and swaggers bravely. What 
 think you ? 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 Of Junius I would rather say little, for more 
 reasons than one. His words are always elegant, 
 his sentences always sonorous, his attacks always 
 vigorous, and rarely (although I may be a sufferer 
 by asserting it) misplaced. Still however those 
 only can be called great writers, who bring to 
 bear on their subject more than a few high faculties 
 of the mind. I require in him whom I am to 
 acknowledge so, accuracy of perception, variety of 
 
 VOL. II. M 
 
162 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
 
 mood, of manner, and of cadence, imagination, 
 reflection, force, sweetness, copiousness, depth, 
 perspicuity. I require in him a princely negli- 
 gence of little things, and the proof that although 
 he hath seized much, he hath also left much un- 
 appropriated. Let me see nothing too trim, no- 
 thing quite incondite. Equal solicitude is not 
 to be exerted upon all ideas alike; some are 
 brought into the fullness of light, some are ad- 
 umbrated: so on the beautiful plant of our con- 
 servatories, a part is in fruit, a part in blossom; 
 not a branch is leafless, not a spray is naked. 
 Then come those graces and allurements, for 
 which we have few and homely names, but which 
 among the ancients had many, and expressive of 
 delight and of divinity, illecebrce, veneres: these, 
 like the figures that hold the lamps on staircases, 
 both invite us and shew us the way up : for, write 
 as wisely as we may, we cannot fii^ the minds of 
 men upon our writings, unless we take them gently 
 by the ear. 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 Here we meet and agree, but you exact too 
 much: you include too many great properties 
 within your stipulations. 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 In Junius several of these were uncalled-for; 
 
AND HORNE TOOKE. 163 
 
 some that would have been welcome were away ; 
 and in my opinion he is hardly a great writer in 
 whom any thing that is great is wanting. 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 Sometimes even Cicero himself is defective both 
 in ratiocination and in euphony. 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 The two most perfect writers (I speak of style) 
 are Demosthenes and Pascal ; but all their writings 
 put together are not worth a twentieth part of 
 what remains to us of Cicero j nor can it be ex- 
 pected that the world will produce another (for 
 the causes of true eloquence are extinct) who shall 
 write at the same time so correctly, so clearly, so 
 delightfully, so wisely. 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 Let him give way, sir, let him give way, for 
 your rump-parliament and regicide. The causes 
 of true eloquence are extinct ! I understand you, 
 sir: rump and regicide for ever! 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 Doctor, I am not one of those who would 
 agitate so idle a question, as, whether it is the 
 part of a contemptible man, much less whether it 
 is that of a criminal one, to scoff at superstitions 
 forbidden by the religion of our country, or to 
 punish with death and ignominy, a torturer, a 
 
164 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
 
 murderer, a tyrant, a violator of all his oaths, and 
 a subverter of all his laws ! 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 That sentence, sir, is too graceful for mouths 
 like yours. Burn, sink, and destroy are words of 
 better report from the hustings. 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 I presume you mean, doctor, when they are 
 directed by pious men, against men of the same 
 language and lineage: for words, like cyphers, 
 have their value from their place. I am sorry 
 that you seem offended. 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 It is the nature of the impudent never to be 
 angry. 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 Impudence, I find, is now for the first time in- 
 stalled among the christian virtues. 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 No, sir: impudence is to virtue what cynicism 
 is to stoicism : nothing is harder or crueller j no- 
 thing seems less so. 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 Doctor, let me present to you this cup of tea. 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 Whyl the man wears upon his mind an odd 
 party-coloured jacket j half courtier, half rebel. 
 
AND HORNE TOOKE. 165 
 
 I do not think I have flattered him very much, 
 yet he bowed as if he was suing me to dance with 
 him. 
 
 Mr. Tooke, let us avoid these thorns and 
 brambles ... come forth, sir, and fight your battle 
 with Dyche. Wliat have you to say against our 
 manner of spelling ? 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 Persons very unlearned, such as Swift and 
 others, have from their natural acuteness per- 
 ceived the utility oi fixings as they call it, our 
 language. This is impossible in any: but it is 
 possible to do much, and an authority like yours 
 would have effected it, in perpetuating the or- 
 thography. On the contrary, I observe in your 
 Dictionary some quotations, in which the words 
 are spelt differently from what I find them in the 
 originals ; nor have you admitted all those in Lit- 
 tleton, who compiled his Latin Dictionary at a 
 recent period. 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 First, I wrote the words as people now receive 
 them; then, as to Littleton, many of his are 
 vulgar. 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 The more English for that: no expression, be 
 it only free from indecency, is so vulgar, that a 
 
166 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
 
 man of learning and genius may not formerly have 
 used it : but there are many so frivolous and fan- 
 tastical, that they cannot, to the full extent of the 
 word, ever become vulgar. There are but three 
 places where such bad language is tolerated and 
 acknowledged; the boxing-ring, the race-course, 
 and the House of Commons. 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 I could wish our Senate to have deserved as 
 well of ours as the Roman did of theirs. Illi- 
 terate men, and several such are among the cor- 
 respondents of Cicero, write with as much urbanity 
 and purity as himself, and it is remarkable that 
 the only one of them defective in these qualities 
 is Marcus Antonius. But pray give me some in- 
 stances in which the old spelling should be re- 
 tained, for I am unwilling to suppose that you 
 would innovate. 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 Many must escape me, and others are but ana- 
 logical: I will then bring forward only those 
 which occurr principally. The very word which 
 has just passed my lips, occurr, is written impro- 
 perly with a single r. The impropriety is demon- 
 strated by its preterite, which would be occur ed, 
 for the sign of the preterite is ed, in similar verbs, 
 not red, Tlie same may be remarked on the verbs 
 
AND HORNE TOOKE. 167 
 
 7'ebeU compel, &c. aver, demur, appal, acquit, 
 permit, refit, confer, &;c. If these were printed 
 as they ought to be, strangers would more easily 
 know that the accent is on the final syllable. We 
 ourselves in some instances have lost the right 
 accent of words. In my youth he would have 
 been ridiculed who placed it upon the first syl- 
 lable of corifiscated, contemplative, at which the 
 ear revolts: in many other compounds we thrust 
 it thus back with equal precipitancy and rude- 
 ness. 
 
 If we take away a letter from those I have 
 stated, we add one with as little discernment to 
 therefor and xvherefor : we should as reasonably 
 write thereofe, xvhereoje, thereine, xvhereine : 
 strictly, it would be better to take away one e 
 more, and write therfor, &c. I know the origin 
 of the error ; the origin may eapkme, but not ex- 
 cuse. It is this : the ancients wrote t/ierforre : 
 the useless r was removed from an infinity of 
 words, and those who removed it in this instance, 
 were little aware that they had better left it, un- 
 less they also took away the e, Middleton writes 
 declame, and elegantly. Milton writes sovran and 
 foren, equally so: for neither the pronunciation 
 nor the etymology authorizes the vitiated mode in 
 
168 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
 
 common use. These writers may be considered 
 as modern, and must be considered as learned and 
 eloquent. Until men who are more so write dif- 
 ferently, these shall be my guides. HeightJi and 
 neighbour should be written highth and niglihour : 
 the former comes from Jiigh, not heigh I the latter 
 from nigh, not neigh. 
 
 Rind, bind, mind, jind, mud (the verb), kind, 
 hVmd, Sec. are better written as they were formerly, 
 with a final e, as also child, wild, mild; that the 
 sound may accord with the spelling, which should 
 always be the case where no very powerful reason 
 intei-poses its higher authority. I do not see why 
 little, able, probable, &c. should not be written 
 littel, ahil, probabil : as civil forms civility^ so abil 
 forms ability, probabil forms probability : the 
 others, as we corruptly use them, form ablety and 
 probablety. There is also another reason: in 
 verse there is an hiatus when they come before a 
 vow^el, which hiatus could not exist if we followed 
 what analogy prescribes. I strongly object to 
 subtle and subtlety, and would propose subtil and 
 subtility. Those who polish language, like those 
 who clean pictures, often rubb away the true 
 colouring. Roughness, you will tell me, is re- 
 moved by the process of the moderns. I could 
 
AND HORNE TOOKE. 169 
 
 adduce no few instances to the contrary. Now 
 do you imagine that the fashionable way of writing 
 empress's son, if we could pronounce it accord- 
 ingly, would be better than empressis ? No other 
 language in the world (for though the serpent 
 could once speak he could never write) presents 
 four esses in conjunction. The final s hath no- 
 thing to do with, what Addison and others have 
 substituted for it, his : it is among our few de- 
 clined cases. 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 Who would not rather say son of the empress ? 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 I talk of what exists in the language, not of 
 what is best in it : nor indeed would your altera- 
 tion be preferable in all contingencies. What, for 
 instance, think you of this? *' We have heard of 
 the ill state of health of the son of the empress 
 of Russia J' The double genitive ought to be 
 avoided as much as possible in all composition : it 
 has however a worse effect in modern languages 
 than in ancient. To ours the ancient termination 
 designating it, is highly advantageous. It has not 
 only two genitives, but, let me also remark to 
 you, it has a greater variety of sounds in it than 
 any other I know. 
 
170 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 Surely not than the Greek. 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 Beyond a question; if you acknowledge that 
 the Greeks, who have never lost their language, 
 know how to pronounce it better than we do. 
 Their diphthongs are almost insensibly so: we 
 give to their ai and oi our own deepmouthed 
 tone, our own exclusively, as is that of i in 
 mine, &c. 
 
 Returning to the s, although we have one word 
 of nine letters in which it occurs five times, and 
 another of only eight in which it appears as often 
 (^possesses and assesses J, yet I once from curiosity 
 examined a hundred verses in Shakespear and the 
 same number in Sophocles, and found it more fre- 
 quent in the latter. If I had counted the e^es 
 and a:is, the zeds and zetas, and the psis, which 
 contain it, the difference would have been still 
 greater. It is true, the Greek iambic contains 
 more syllables than ours, but the number of letters 
 is very nearly the same in each. 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 I am unsatisfied, after all, that the English 
 is, whether joined to the word or disjoined 
 from it, whether in full or in contraction, 
 
AND HORNE TOOKE. 171 
 
 may not be his, as our grammarians have sup- 
 posed. 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 That it has not relation to his, may be demon- 
 strated, by its being common to both male and 
 female, to both singular and plural : we say not 
 only Edzvin's book, but Emma's book, and, with 
 as little hesitation, men's minds. 
 
 There are some words which, if we receive 
 them, we cannot spell rightly ; they have been so 
 perverted by custom: such are amaze, a ne'wt ; 
 the first of which was a maze, the last an evet So 
 the French affaire, and the Italian affare ; a f aire, 
 a fare ; demonstrable in the latter by the earlier 
 word, still equally in common use, facenda, res 
 facienda. We see written mantua-m2ikev, for man- 
 teaU'Viisikev, a vulgar and ludicrous error : we see 
 also ameliorate for meliorate, although one would 
 reasonably suppose that it signified the reverse. 
 We write posthumous, in the silly opinion that the 
 word is derived from yost and humus : the termi- 
 nation in fact is nowise different from that of 
 majcumus and optumus, in the Latin, although, 
 by one of the chances so common in language, it 
 has escaped that change in the middle syllable 
 which the others have undergone. There are 
 also some few inaccuracies, wherinto our most 
 
nS SAMUEL JOHNSON 
 
 applauded speakers, and our least objectionable 
 writers, have fallen. For instance, / had rather 
 not go : you had better not do it. This error 
 arises from ambiguity of sound ...Fd rather, or 
 Pou'd rather; contractions of U'ouldy and pro- 
 nounced more like had. We often hear, the first 
 amongst them, 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 Well, why not? 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 Because what h first or before, is not amo7igst. 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 You might argue then that what is before is not 
 of and that it has ceased to be so when, in the 
 nautical phrase, it has parted company : yet surely 
 you do not object to the expression, " the first of 
 them." 
 
 TOOKE. 
 
 It has not ceased to be of by being befo7^e : for 
 of i^ off, however we may, for obvious reasons, 
 separate them in the parts of speech. You toss 
 your head about, doctor : is there fcenum in 
 cornu? must I make my escape? or will you 
 accept my apology for so deep an encroachment 
 on your time and patience ? 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 If your arguments were always as just and in- 
 
AND HORNE TOOKK. 173 
 
 nocent, I should not decline your conversation, 
 but on the contrary should solicit from you a cata- 
 logue of such peculiarities and defects, as a pro- 
 found insight into our language, and a steady 
 investigation of its irregularities and intricacies, 
 have enabled you to remark. 
 
CONVERSATION X, 
 
 ANDREW HOFFER, COUNT METTERNICH, 
 
 THE EMPEROR FRANCIS. 
 
ANDREW HOFFER, 
 COUNT METTERNICH, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE EMPEROR FRANCIS. 
 
 METTERNICH. 
 
 Who are you, man? I hear you have brought 
 some intelligence from the Tyrol. Be brief; I 
 have little time for audiences, and am surprised 
 that you should have required one, although you 
 mountaineers are somewhat used to liberties. What, 
 in few words, have you brought from your country ? 
 
 HOFFER. 
 
 This. 
 
 METTERNICH. 
 
 No enigmas : at the court of Vienna we under- 
 stand no other than plain language. 
 
 HOFFER. 
 
 Your Excellency commanded me to be brief: I 
 was so. This is the heron's feather which moved 
 merrily over the Alps when not an eagle's was 
 
 VOL. II. N 
 
178 ANDREW HOFFER, COUNT METTERNICH, 
 
 Stirring. If the slaughter of thirty thousand ene- 
 mies is worth a recompense, I come, at the instiga- 
 tion of those who followed me, to ask one. 
 
 METTERNICH. 
 
 I expected it : never was an audience asked of 
 me, or of any other minister, which did not begin 
 or end so. But, friend, many years of war have 
 exhausted the treasury, England is penurious, and 
 we have innumerable young men, of high rank 
 and great promise, disappointed in their hopes of 
 preferaient : besides, who ordered you to take up 
 arms? 
 
 HOFFER. 
 
 My oath of allegiance, the voice of my country, 
 my hatred of the French, and my contempt of 
 the Italians, by whom principally our towns and 
 villages were garrisoned. 
 
 METTERNICH. 
 
 You would fain be another William Tell, 
 
 HOFFER. 
 
 As willingly as William Tell, now among the 
 saints in heaven, would, if he were living, be an- 
 other Andrew^ HofFer. We are creatures too 
 humble for jealousy: we have neither rank nor 
 beauty, neither silk breeches nor powdered wig; 
 we write no poems, challenge no club for atten- 
 tion, and solicit no clerk for preferment. 
 
AND THE EMPEROR FRANCIS. 170 
 
 METTERNICH. 
 
 I have read your name in the French gazettes, 
 and you have just now mentioned it, I think, but 
 really I quite forget what it may be. 
 
 HOFFER. 
 
 Andrew HofFer ! 
 
 METTERNICH. 
 
 Such is the tenderness of the emperor my master 
 for those who have served him faithfully, that, 
 although you are no longer his subject, still, as 
 you are a person of known bravery, and of some 
 repute in your neighbourhood, if you will only 
 change your name and enter into the service as 
 an Austrian, I myself will venture to mention 
 you as worthy of the earliest promotion, and, 
 within three or four years at farthest, I entertain 
 the best founded hopes that you may be made a 
 corporal. 
 
 HOFFER. 
 
 Excellent sir, I do not ask so much. 
 
 METTERNICH. 
 
 A little money, if I could dispose of it, should 
 not be wanting . . . but . . . 
 
 HOFFER. 
 
 Pardon me, sir, an interruption to the current 
 of your kindness. I have grain and wine, under 
 a certain rock I could mention, with two hundred 
 
 N 2 
 
180 ANDREW HOFFER, COUNT METTERNICH, 
 
 crowns, and my freehold may be valued at twelve 
 hundred more, and I have children who are brave 
 and healthy, who love their father and fear God. 
 
 METTERNICH. 
 
 You want something, and it is neither money 
 nor promotion. I believe I am as acute as most 
 people, yet here I confess my dulness. 
 
 HOFFER. 
 
 If I have devoted my little property, which is 
 always dearer to the possessor than a great one, as 
 every shrub and hillock is familiar to him, and 
 the scene of some joviality, some tenderness, or 
 some kindness; if I have hazarded and exposed 
 my life in all places and seasons, for him whom 
 we both are serving, grant me only a cell or a 
 dungeon in this city. I have a country to defend, 
 I have a family to educate, I have duties to teach 
 and to perform ; and your Excellency knows that 
 the French police has traced me into the Austrian 
 states, and has demanded that I should be delivered 
 up. Never shall this happen. I could not pre- 
 serve the dominions of my master, but I will pre- 
 serve his honour. Little did I ever dream of 
 prisons : to us Tyrolese they are horrible as hell, 
 and like hell the abodes of crime only; but he 
 whom I have sworn to obey must do nothing un- 
 w^orthy of his name and station. Rather would I 
 
AND THE EMPEROR FRANCIS. 181 
 
 waste away my strengtli in this dreary asylum, 
 rather would I live among the unholy and unjust, 
 rather would I, if such be God's ordinance, lose 
 the blossoming of my brave lads at home, which 
 is worth a thousand times more, not only than all 
 the future, but than all the past of life. There are 
 those about them who will tell them of me, and 
 there are places to take them into, on the cliffs 
 and in the vallies, in many a copse and craggy 
 lane, where my name, summer or winter, will sound 
 in their ears right well. 
 
 METTERNICH. 
 
 Mr. Hoffer, I cannot enter into these discus- 
 sions. It appears by your own acknowledgement 
 that there will be little loss on either side. Your 
 children will be taken care of, you say, whatever 
 may happen, and a trifle at most can be the damage 
 to your affairs. What then do you miss ? 
 
 HOFFER. 
 
 The sight of my native hills, my homestead, 
 my gardenplot of sweet herbs, the young apple- 
 trees in my croft, the friends of my youth, the 
 companions of my dangers, and the associates of 
 many a freak and frolic, requiring no less enter- 
 prise. I lose above all... but alas! what are the 
 children of the great to them ! You stared at me, 
 sir count, when I spoke to you of mine. One 
 
182 ANDREW HOFFER, COUNT METTERNICH, 
 
 would imagine t\\2it family meaned coaches, horses, 
 grooms, liveries, and gravy-spoons : one would ima- 
 gine there were some indecency in the word child. 
 Believe me, sir, they are different things with us 
 from what they are with you. If you happen to 
 cherish them, it is that they may carry a lily, a 
 lion, a bear, a sei-pent, a bird, when you have done 
 with it. I love in them, yes, beyond my own soul, 
 God forgive me! the very worst things about 
 them; their unparriable questions, triumphant 
 screams, and boisterous embraces. It is true, I 
 never talked of them before so ; but they are now 
 beyond hale or whistle far enough. 
 
 METTERNICH. 
 
 I shall be happy to expedite the business of 
 your petition, from w^hich it appears to me, my 
 friend, you have somewhat deviated, forgetting 
 the exact place and circumstances where you are. 
 
 HOFFER. 
 
 Excuse me, sir, once more : I acknowledge my 
 error : I have been discoursing as if all the cloth 
 in the world were of one colour and one fineness, 
 and as if a man who goes upon two legs were 
 equal to one who goes upon eight or sixteen, with 
 a varnished plank betwixt, and another man's rear 
 at his nostrils. 
 
AND THE EMPEROK FRANCIS. 183 
 
 METTERNICH. 
 
 The brute! Others may have the same pre- 
 tensions as you, and it would be difficult to pro- 
 tect all we would favour. 
 
 HOFFER. 
 
 I stand alone in this proscription. Pretensions 
 I have none: my country has used me as she 
 would a trumpet: I was in her hands what she 
 wished me to be and what she made me. Whe- 
 ther her brave hearts followed me or followed this 
 feather, what matters it? I am not better than 
 those of them who are with God : had I been so, 
 he would have called me among the first. Those 
 who are yet living wish to reserve me for another 
 day, if another, such as brave men pant for, is 
 decreed us. 
 
 FRANCIS, entering. 
 
 Sit still: who is that man, count, stroking his 
 cock's feather with his fore-finger? 
 
 METTERNICH. 
 
 It is the Andrew. . .HofFer. . .1 think it is written. 
 
 FRANCIS. 
 
 I wish we were fairly rid of him. 
 
 HOFFER. 
 
 Sir, your countenance did not inspire me in the 
 beginning with much confidence. When you en- 
 
184 ANDREAV HOFFER, COUNT METTERNICH, 
 
 tered, I observed that you dared not meet an 
 honest man's eye. 
 
 METTERNICH. 
 
 Audacious ! do you know . . . 
 
 FRANCIS. 
 
 We may draw something from him : let him go 
 on. Are we safe, Metternich ? He is a strong 
 rogue : I do not like his looks. 
 
 HOFFER. 
 
 It becomes not me to be angry with any one ; but 
 until I asked a favour from you, it would have 
 been well in you to leave his Excellency to his 
 own kind intentions. The little good that drips 
 from the higher sources, is intercepted or cor- 
 rupted by secretaries, clerks, valets, and other such 
 people as you. 
 
 FRANCIS. 
 
 What does he want? 
 
 METTERNICH. 
 
 A place in prison. 
 
 FRANCIS. 
 
 Give him it. 
 
 HOFFER. 
 
 I thank you, friend. If you are idle, as you 
 seem to be, pray shew me the way : come along : 
 we are losing time. 
 
AND THE EMPEROR FRANCIS. 185 
 
 FRANCIS. 
 
 Make out the order : send him off. 
 
 HOFFER. 
 
 The gentleman is gone then! He gave his 
 advice very fluently, almost as if he directed. 
 When I would have embraced him for his readi- 
 ness to serve me, his breath drove me back. O 
 for a fresh pipe of tobacco! a bundle of sweet 
 hay! a sprig of thyme! a bean-flower. Other crea- 
 tures have each his own peculiar ill savour, and 
 that suffices for the whole of him ; but men, and 
 in particular those of cities, have beds and par- 
 terres and plots and knots of stinks, varying in 
 quality from the dells and dingles to the moun- 
 tain-top. There are people who stink heart and 
 soul : their bodies are the best of them. Away 
 with these fellows ! I would not be a materialist 
 if I could help it; I was educated in no such 
 bestiality; but is it possible that God should 
 ever have intended such spirits as these to be im- 
 mortal ? 
 
 METTERNICH. 
 
 Friend, it is not permitted in any public office 
 to exceed the business to be transacted there. I 
 will venture to pronounce that yours is the first 
 reflection ever made in one; and it affords no 
 proof of your delicacy or discretion. If you wish 
 
186 ANDREW HOFFER, COUNT METTERNICH, 
 
 protection, never hazard a remark of any kind, 
 unless you intend it for publication : in that case 
 the censor will judge of its propriety, and it may 
 do you no hann. Write freely ; write every thing 
 you please : high souls are privileged at Vienna. 
 
 Soldier, take this note to the governor, as di- 
 rected : you may accompany him, Mr. HofFer. 
 
 HOFFER. 
 
 To the governor! Do favour me, sir, with a 
 prison. 
 
 METTERNICH. 
 
 I do so. 
 
 HOFFER. 
 
 But without sending me to his excellency the 
 governor of the city. 
 
 METTERNICH. 
 
 My note is addressed to the governor of the 
 prison. 
 
 HOFFER. 
 
 What! are jailers called governors? 
 
 METTERNICH. 
 
 God's blood ! the fellow asks questions : he exa- 
 mines ranks and dignities. Fare you well, Mr. 
 HofFer : God preserve you, in reward of your zeal 
 and fidelity. 
 
 FRANCIS (returning). 
 
 Is he gone? 
 
AND THE EMPEROR FRANCIS. 187 
 
 METTERNICH, 
 
 This instant, sire. 
 
 FRANCIS. 
 
 The French minister is very urgent in the busi- 
 ness : what is to be done ? 
 
 METTERNICH. 
 
 I am afraid, he must be surrendered. 
 
 FRANCIS. 
 
 The empress says that all Europe would cry out 
 against it, as an action the most ungenerous and 
 ungrateful : such are her words. 
 
 METTERNICH. 
 
 With your Majesty's permission, I not only 
 would oppose to them the opinion of all the arch- 
 dukes and of the whole aulic council, but could 
 also prove the contraiy by plain and irrefragable 
 arguments. Ungenerous it cannot be, because he 
 desired no reward, and none was in question. 
 Ungrateful it cannot be; for kings and emperors 
 are exempt by the nature of things from that 
 odious vice. It is the duty of all subjects to do 
 their utmost for the advantage of the prince : no- 
 thing is owing to them for an act of duty : duty 
 is the payer, not the receiver. Whatever is ac- 
 corded by a sovran to his vassal is granted by 
 special favour ; a signification of being pleased, a 
 testimonial of being served, a patent to the person 
 
188 ANDREW HOFFER, COUNT METTERNICH, 
 
 thus gratified that he is at full liberty to serve and 
 please again. There can be gratitude only where 
 there are obligations and duties; and to suppose 
 any in reciprocity between prince and people, is 
 rank jacobinism. 
 
 FRANCIS. 
 
 Insurgents talk always of their country ; a term 
 which I would willingly never hear at all, and 
 which no good subject ever utters in the first 
 place. Emperoi' and country^ king and country y 
 we may bear; but hardly; although I have been 
 assured that such phrases are uttered by many 
 well-meaning men : but who ever heard of country 
 and emperor, country and king? The times are 
 bad enough ; still the subversion of right principles 
 is not yet universal and complete. 
 
 METTERNICH. 
 
 What orders then would your Majesty give, 
 relating to this Andrew Hoffer? 
 
 FRANCIS. 
 
 He appears an irreverent, rash, hot-headed man: 
 he could however be kept in order, as I said yes- 
 terday, by entering into one of my Austrian regi- 
 ments, by going into Transylvania, or by lying a 
 few years in the debtor's prison ; and perhaps the 
 French government, after a time, would be satis- 
 fied with the arrangement. To deliver him up, 
 
AND THE EMPEROR FRANCIS. 189 
 
 is, after all, the more conformable to the desires 
 of Bonaparte ; and he can do me more injury than 
 HofFer can do me good. 
 
 METTERNICH. 
 
 Your Majesty has contemplated the matter in 
 its true political point of view, and is persuaded 
 that those few diamonds, of which I informed 
 your Majesty as usual, have no influence on my 
 sentiments. I would not even deliver my opinion ; 
 but hearing your Majesty's, it is my duty to see 
 that your imperial will and pleasure be duly exe- 
 cuted. 
 
 The following hendecasyllables were A\Titten on the sur. 
 render of Andrew Hoffer to the French. 
 
 Hoffer, quot misero vigere saeclo 
 
 Nuper vidimus, baud secunde cuiquam. 
 
 Quid profecerit ista tanta virtus ! 
 
 An belli socius supersit unus 
 
 Qui tecum fuerit jugis nivosis, 
 
 Dum subter larices nigrasque pinus 
 
 Coelo sidera concidunt inani ? 
 
 Clusus carcere providis amicis, 
 
 Ut longam effugeres manum tyranni ; 
 
 A quo proderis ? ah ! quid hoc rogemus ? 
 
 Natam tradiderat prius latroui. 
 
 Atqui mollior ala servitutis 
 
 Certe gentibus incubat receptis . . . 
 
 Quod ferrum fuit antea, ecce plumbum ! 
 
CONVERSATION XI. 
 
 DAVID HUME 
 
 JOHN HOME. 
 
DAVID HUME 
 
 AND 
 
 JOHN HOME. 
 
 HUME. 
 
 We Scotchmen, sir, are somewhat proud of 
 our families and relationships: this is however a 
 nationality which perhaps I should not have de- 
 tected in myself, if I had not been favoured with 
 the flattering present of your tragedy. Our names, 
 as often happens, are spelt differently; but I 
 yielded with no reluctance to the persuasion, 
 that we are, and not very distantly, of the same 
 stock. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 I hope, sir, our mountains will detain you 
 amongst them some time, and I presume to pro- 
 mise you that you will find in Edinburgh a society 
 as polished and literate as in Paris. 
 
 VOL. II. o 
 
194 DAVID HUME 
 
 HUME. 
 
 As literate I can easily believe, my cousin, and 
 perhaps as polished, if you reason upon the in- 
 gredients of polish: but there is certainly much 
 more amenity and urbanity at Paris than any- 
 where else in the world, and people there are less 
 likely to give and take offence. All topics may 
 be discussed without arrogance and supercilious- 
 ness : an atheist would see you worship a stool, or 
 light a candle at noon, without a sneer at you ; 
 and a bishop, if you were well-dressed and per- 
 fumed, would argue with you calmly and serenely 
 though you doubted the whole Athanasian creed. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 So much the worse : God forbid we should ever 
 experience this lukewarmness in Scotland. 
 
 HUME. 
 
 God, it appears, has forbidden it : for which 
 reason, to shew my obedience and submission, I 
 live as much as possible in France, where at pre- 
 sent God has forbidden no such thing. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 Religion, my dear sir, can alone make men 
 happy and keep them so. 
 
 HUME. 
 
 Nothing is better calculated to make men happy 
 than religion, if you will allow them to manage it 
 
AND JOHN HOME. 195 
 
 according to their minds ; in which case the strong 
 men hunt down others, until they can fokl them, 
 entrapp them, or noose them. Here however let 
 the discussion terminate. Both of us have been 
 in a cherry orchard, and have observed the advan- 
 tages of the jacket, hat, and rattle. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 Our reformed religion does not authorize any 
 line of conduct diverging from right reason: we 
 are commanded by it to speak the truth to all 
 men. 
 
 HUME. 
 
 Are you also commanded to hear it from all 
 men? 
 
 HOME. 
 
 Yes, let it only be proved to be truth. 
 
 HUME. 
 
 I doubt the fact : on the contrary, you will not 
 even let it be proved : you resist the attempt : you 
 blockade the preliminaries. Religion, as you prac- 
 tise it in Scotland, in some cases is opposite to 
 reason and subversive of happiness. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 In what instance? 
 
 HUME. 
 
 If you had a brother whose wife was unfaithful 
 to him, without his suspicion, if he lived with her 
 
 o 2 
 
196 DAVID HUME 
 
 happily, if he had children by her, if others of 
 which he was fond could be proved by you, and 
 you only, not to be his, what would you do? 
 
 HOME. 
 
 O the strumpet ! we have none such here, ex- 
 cepting the wife indeed (as we hear she is) of a 
 little lame blear-eyed lieutenant, brought with him 
 from Sicily, and bearing a ^ee Etna of her own 
 about her, and truly no quiescent or intermittent 
 one, which Mungo Murray (the apprentice of 
 Hector Abercrombie) tells me has lolled over 
 upon half the young dissolutes in the parish. 
 
 HUME. 
 
 But, if you had one such . . . 
 
 HOME. 
 
 Out upon her ! should my brother cohabit with 
 her? should my nephews be defrauded of their 
 patrimony by bastards ? 
 
 HUME. 
 
 You would then destroy his happiness, and his 
 children's; for, supposing that you preserved to 
 them a scanty portion more of fortune (which you 
 could not do), still the shame they would feel from 
 their mother's infamy would much outweigh it. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 I do not see clearly that this is a question of 
 religion. 
 
AND JOHN HOME. 197 
 
 HUME. 
 
 All the momentous actions of religious men are 
 referable to their religion more or less nearly ; all 
 the social duties, and surely these are implicated 
 here, are connected with it. 
 
 Suppose again that you knew a brother and 
 -sister, who, born in different countries, met at 
 last, ignorant of their affinity, and married. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 Poor blind sinful creatures ! God be merciful 
 to them ! 
 
 HUME. 
 
 I join you heartily in the prayer, and would 
 only add to it, man be merciful to them also ! 
 Imagine them to have lived together ten years, to 
 have a numerous and happy family, to come and 
 reside in your parish, and the attestation of their 
 prior relationship to be made indubitable to you, 
 by some document which alone could establish 
 and record it ; what would you do ? 
 
 HOME. 
 
 I would snapp asunder the chain that the devil 
 had ensnared them in, even if he stood before me, 
 imploring God to pardon them, and to survey 
 with an eye of mercy their unoffending bairns. 
 
 HUME. 
 
 And would not you also be disposed to behold 
 them with an eye of the same materials ? 
 
198 DAVID HUME 
 
 HOME. 
 
 Could I leave them in mortal sin ? a prey to 
 the ensnarer of souls ! No ; I would rush be- 
 tween them, as with a flaming sword; I would 
 rescue them by God's help from perdition. 
 
 HUME. 
 
 What misery and consternation would this re- 
 scue bring with it ! 
 
 HOME. 
 
 They would call upon the hills to cover them, 
 to crush and extinguish their shame. 
 
 HUME. 
 
 Those who had lived together in love and in- 
 nocence and felicity ! A word spoken to them by 
 their pastor brings them into irremediable guilt 
 and anguish. And you would do this ? 
 
 HOME. 
 
 The laws of God are above all other laws : his 
 ways are inscrutable : thick darkness covers his 
 throne. 
 
 HUME. 
 
 My cousin, you who have wiitten so elegant 
 and pathetic a tragedy, cannot but have redd the 
 best contrived one in existence, the Edipus of 
 Sophocles. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 It has wrung my heart, and has deluged my 
 eyes. 
 
AND JOHN HOME. 199 
 
 HUME. 
 
 Which would you rather do *, cause and excite 
 those sufferings, or assuage and quell them ? 
 
 HOME. 
 
 Am I a Scotchman or an islander of the 
 Red-sea, that a question like this should be asked 
 me ? 
 
 HUME. 
 
 You would not then have given to Edipus 
 that information which drove him and Jocasta to 
 despair. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 To him no: but as a christian and a minister 
 of the gospel, I am commanded to defy the devil, 
 and to burst asunder the bonds of sin. * 
 
 HUME. 
 
 I am certain you would be greatly pained in 
 doing it. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 I should never overcome the grief and anxiety 
 so severe a duty would cause me. 
 
 HUME. 
 
 You have now proved better than I could have 
 done in twenty Essays, that, if morality is not 
 religion, neither is religion morality. Either of 
 them, to be good, (and the one must be and the 
 
200 DAVID HUME 
 
 other should be so) will produce good effects from 
 the beginning to the end, and be followed by no 
 remorse or repentance. 
 
 To produce as much happiness as we can, and 
 to prevent as much misery, is the proper aim and 
 end of all true morality and all true religion. 
 
 Only give things their right direction : there is 
 room y do but place and train them well. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 What ! room for vice and wickedness ? 
 
 HUME. 
 
 There was a time when what is wine was not 
 wine, when what is vinegar was not vinegar, when 
 what is corruption was not corruption. That 
 which would turn into vice, may not only not 
 turn into it, but may, by discreet and attentive 
 management, become the groundwork of virtue. 
 A little watchfulness over ourselves will save us a 
 great deal of w^atchfulness over others, and will 
 permitt the kindliest of religions to dropp her 
 inconvenient and unseemly talk, of enmity and 
 strife, cuirasses and breastplates, battles and ex- 
 terminations. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 These carnal terms are frequent in the books of 
 the Old Testament. 
 
AND JOHN HOME. ^01 
 
 HUME. 
 
 Because the books of the Old Testament were 
 written when the world was much more barbarous 
 and ferocious than it is at present ; and all legis- 
 lators must accommodate their lano-uase to the 
 customs and manners of the country. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 Apparently you would rather abolish the strong 
 language and forcible expressions of our pious re- 
 formers than the abominations at which their souls 
 revolted. I am afraid you would hesitate as little 
 to demolish kirks, as convents, to drive out mini- 
 sters, as monks. 
 
 HUME. 
 
 I would let ministers and their kirks alone. I 
 would abolish monasteries ; but gradually and hu- 
 manely; and not until I had discovered how and 
 where the studious and pious could spend their 
 time better. I hold religion in the lio-ht of a 
 medal, which has contracted rust from ages. This 
 rust seems to have been its preserver for many 
 centuries, but after some few more will certainly 
 be its consumer, and leave no vestige of effigy or 
 superscription behind : it should be detached care- 
 fully and patiently, not ignorantly and rudely 
 scoured off. Happiness may be taken away from 
 many with the design of communicating it to 
 
302 DAVID HUME 
 
 more : but that which is a grateful and refreshing 
 odour in a limited space, would be none whatever 
 in a larger ; that which is comfortable warmth to 
 the domestic circle, would not awaken the chirp- 
 ing of a cricket, or stimulate the flight of a butter- 
 fly, in the forest; that which satisfies a hundred 
 poor monks, would, if thrown open to society at 
 large, contribute not an atom to its benefit and 
 emolument. Placid tempers, regulated habitudes, 
 consolatory visitations, are suppressed and destroyed, 
 and nothing rises from their ruins. Better let the 
 cell be standing than level it only for the thorn 
 and nettle. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 AVhat good do these idlers, with their cords and 
 mallets, or, if you please, with those regularities ? 
 
 HUME. 
 
 These have their value, at least to the possessor 
 and the few about him. Ask rather, what is the 
 worth of his abode to the prince or to the public ? 
 who is the wiser for his cowl, the warmer for his 
 frock, the more contented for his cloister, when 
 they are taken from them? Monks, it is true, 
 are only as stars that shine upon the desert : but 
 tell me, I beseech you, who caused such a desert 
 in the moral world, and who rendered so faint a 
 light, in some of its periods, a blessing? Ignorant 
 
AND JOHN HOME. 203 
 
 rulers, must be the answer, and inhuman laws. 
 These should cease to exist some time before their 
 antidotes, however ill-compounded, are cast away. 
 If we had lived seven or eight centuries ago, 
 John Home would probably, at this hour, have 
 been saying mass at the altar, and David Hume, 
 fatter and lazier, would have been pursuing his 
 theological studies in the convent. We are so 
 much the creatures of times and seasons, so modi- 
 fied and fashioned by them, that the very plants 
 upon the wall, if they were as sensible as some 
 suppose them to be, would laugh at us. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 Fantastic forms and ceremonies are rather what 
 the true philosopher will reprehend. Stripp away 
 these, reduce things to their primitive state of 
 purity and holiness, and nothing can alter or shake 
 us, clinging, as we should do, to nothing but the 
 anchor of Faith. 
 
 HUME. 
 
 People clung to it long ago; but many lost 
 their grasp, benumbed by holding too tight. The 
 church of Scotland brings close together the objects 
 of veneration and abhorrence. The evil principle, 
 or devil, was, in my opinion, hardly worth the ex- 
 pense of his voyage from Persia ; but, since you 
 
204 DAVID HUME 
 
 have him, you seem resolved to treat him nobly, 
 hating him, defying him, and fearing him neverthe- 
 less. I would not however place him so very near 
 the Creator, let his pretensions, from custom and 
 precedent, be what they may. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 He is always marring the fair works of our hea- 
 venly Father : in this labour is his only proximity. 
 
 HUME. 
 
 You represent him as spurring men on to wick- 
 edness, from no other motive than the pleasure 
 he experiences in rendering them miserable. 
 
 HOME, 
 
 He has no other, excepting his inveterate spite 
 and malice against God, from which indeed, to 
 speak more properly, this desire originates. 
 
 HUME. 
 
 Has he lost his wits, as well as his station, that 
 he fancies he can render God unhappy by being 
 spiteful and malicious? You wrong him greatly; 
 but you wrong God more: for in all Satan's at- 
 tempts to seduce men into wickedness, he leaves 
 every one his free-will and liberty, either to resist 
 or yield; but the heavenly Father, as you would 
 represent him, predestines the greater part of 
 mankind to everlasting pains and torments ante- 
 
AND JOHN HOME. 205 
 
 cedeiitly to corruption or temptation. There is 
 no impiety in asking you which is the worst : for 
 impiety most certainly does not consist in setting 
 men right on what is demonstrable in their re- 
 ligion, nor in shewing them that God is greater 
 and better, than, with all their zeal for him, they 
 have ever thought him. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 This is to confound religion with philosophy, 
 the source of every evil, and of every error. 
 
 HUME. 
 
 Religion is the elder sister of philosophy; on 
 whatever subjects they may differ, it is unbecoming 
 in either to quarrel, and most of all so about their 
 inheritance. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 And have you nothing, sir, to say against the 
 pomps and vanities of other worships, that you 
 should assail the institutions of your native country? 
 To fear God, I must suppose then, is less merito- 
 rious, than to build steeples, and embroider sur- 
 plices, and compose chaunts, and blow the bellows 
 of organs. 
 
 HUME. 
 
 My dear sir, it is not that God is delighted 
 with hymns and instruments of music, or that he 
 prefers base to tenor or tenor to base, or Handel 
 
206 DAVID HUME 
 
 to Giles Halloway, that nations throng to cele- 
 brate in their churches his power and his bene- 
 ficence : it is not that Inigo Jones, or Christopher 
 Wren, could erect to him an habitation more 
 worthy of his presence, than the humblest cottage 
 or the loneliest moor : it is that the best feelings, 
 the highest faculties, the greatest wealth, should 
 be displayed and exercised in the patrimonial pa- 
 lace of every family united . . . for such are churches 
 both to the rich and poor. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 Your hand, David ! Pardon me, sir ; the sen- 
 timent carried me beyond custom; for it recalled 
 to me the moments of blissful enthusiasm when I 
 was writing my tragedy, and charmed me the 
 more as coming from you. 
 
 HUME. 
 
 I explain the causes of things, and leave them. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 Go on, sir, pray go on ; for here we can walk 
 together. Suppose that God never heard us, 
 never cared for us : do those hear you, whose ex- 
 ploits you celebrate at public dinners, our Wallaces 
 and Bruces ? Yet are not we the braver, the more 
 generous, the more grateful ? 
 
 HUME. 
 
 I do not see clearly how the more grateful : but 
 
AND JOHN HOME. 207 
 
 I would not analyse by reducing to a cinder a 
 lofty sentiment. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 Every act of Gratitude is rewarded by repro- 
 duction. Justice is often pale and melancholy; 
 but Gratitude, her daughter, is constantly in the 
 flow of spirits and the bloom of loveliness. You 
 call out to her when you flmcy she is passing, you 
 want her for your dependents, your domestics, 
 your friends, your children. The ancients, as you 
 know, habitually asked their gods and goddesses, 
 by which of their names it was most agreeable to 
 them to be invoked: now let Gratitude be, what 
 for the play of our fancy, we have just imagined 
 her, a sensible living power; I cannot think 
 of any name more likely to be pleasing to her, 
 than Religion. The simplest breast often holds 
 more reason in it than it knows of, and more 
 than Philosophy looks for or suspects. We almost 
 as frequently despise what is not despicable as we 
 admire and reverence what is. No nation in the 
 world was ever so enlightened, and in all parts 
 and qualities so civilized as the Scotch. Why 
 would you shake or unsettle or disturb those prin- 
 ciples, which have rendered us peaceable and con- 
 tented ? 
 
208 DAVID HUME 
 
 HUME. 
 
 I would not by any means. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 Many of your writings have evidently such a 
 tendency. 
 
 HUME. 
 
 Those of my writings to which you referr will 
 be read by no nation : a few speculative men will 
 take them, but none will be rendered more gloomy, 
 more dissatisfied, or more unsocial by them. 
 Rarely will you find one who, five minutes together, 
 can fix his mind even on the surface: some new 
 tune, some idle project, some light thought, some 
 impracticable wish, will generally run, like the 
 dazzling haze of summer on the dry heath, betwixt 
 them and the reader. A bagpipe will swallow 
 them up, a strathspey will dissipate them, or Ro- 
 mance with the death-rattle in her throat will drive 
 them away unto dark staircases and charnelhouses. 
 
 You and I, in the course of our conversation, 
 have been at variance, as much as discreet and 
 honest men ought to be : each knows that the other 
 thinks differently from him, yet each esteems the 
 other. I cannot but smile when I reflect that a 
 few paces, a glass of wine, a cup of tea, conciliate 
 those whom Wisdom would keep asunder. 
 
AND JOHN HOME. 209 
 
 HOME. 
 
 No wonder you scoff emphatically as you pro- 
 nounce the word wisdom, 
 
 HUME. 
 
 If men would permitt their minds, like their 
 children, to associate freely together, if they could 
 agree to meet one another with smiles and frank- 
 ness, instead of suspicion and defiance, the com- 
 mon stock of wisdom and of happiness would be 
 centupled. Probably those very two men who 
 hate each other most, and whose best husbandry 
 is to sow burs and thistles in each other's path, 
 would, if they had ever met and conversed fami- 
 liarly, have been ardent and inseparable friends. 
 The minister who may order my book to be burnt 
 tomorrow by the hangman, if I, by any accident, 
 had been seated yesterday by his side at dinner, 
 might perhaps in another fortnight recommend 
 me to his master for a man of such gravity and 
 wisdom as to be worthy of being a privy counsellor, 
 and might conduct me to the treasury bench. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
I 
 
 CONVERSATION XII 
 
 PRINCE MAUROCORDATO 
 
 GENERAL COLOCOTKONI. 
 
PRINCE MAUROCORDATO 
 
 AND 
 
 GENERAL COLOCOTRONL 
 
 MAUROCORDATO. 
 
 General, I have received from an Englishman, 
 who resides at Florence, a military map of Greece 
 in which all those places are accurately marked 
 where great battles have been fought, and to which 
 a topographical description is added, wherever it 
 was to be found either in ancient historians or 
 modern travellers. 
 
 COLOCOTRONI. 
 
 The ancients, who excell us in most things of 
 importance, excell us principally in military science. 
 Every great general was a great inventor. Within 
 the memory of man, I believe, not a strategem has 
 been thought of, by any one in Europe, be it old 
 or new, original or borrowed. Campaigns are 
 formed as much by a receit as custards, and sieges 
 
214 PRINCE MAUROCORDATO 
 
 as cheesecakes. I know the better part of Greece 
 perfectly, and only wish your English friend could 
 devise the means for me, of bringing my enemy 
 where beaten enemies were brought formerly. 
 
 The Greeks have performed, in the last three 
 years, as many arduous actions as their ancestors 
 ever performed within the same period, and have 
 shewn a constancy such as they have never ex- 
 hibited since the days of Pericles. The British 
 force is composed of three nations, each striving 
 for preeminence in valour. Hence whenever a 
 large body of troops is assembled, there must be a 
 considerable portion of each, and vigour is exerted 
 by all ; but when smaller detachments of one na- 
 tion are sent out on what they call diversions, we 
 generally find them fail; there being no such 
 spirit, or at best a very faint one, of rivalry and 
 emulation. It cannot be dissembled that all the 
 victories of the English, in the last fifty years, 
 have been gained by the high courage and steddy 
 discipline of the soldier ; and the most remarkable, 
 where the prudence and skill of the commander 
 were altogether wanting. Place any distinguished 
 general of theirs, where Murillo was placed in 
 America, Mina in Spain, and then inform me what 
 are your hopes, and whether you expect from him 
 the same activity and the same expedients. What- 
 
AND GENERAL COLOCOTRONI. 215 
 
 ever is done by the English, is done by open force, 
 to which nothing is precursory or subsidiary. Our 
 enemies the Turks are somewhat of this character. 
 Now I lay it down as a maxim, that the weaker 
 of two powers at variance should never employ 
 the same weapons as the stronger : when it cannot 
 find better, at least it should look for what are 
 very different and very unexpected. If we Greeks 
 ever form our regiments on the model of the En- 
 glish, we shall lose half our strength. By good 
 fortune, our troops are composed of men united 
 by blood or neighbourhood, and partly put into 
 motion by the spirit of love and concord, partly 
 by emulation ; for the different regions of Greece, 
 you know, are just as much rivals now as they 
 were anciently. In no other part of Europe is 
 there in the military establishment the least con- 
 sideration of moral force: vices and virtues are 
 equally compressed: men are filed and packeted 
 like pins and needles, according to their length: 
 an inch in stature divides two brothers, two friends, 
 two rivals in the affections of the same mistress, 
 leaving room for the union of the brave man and 
 the coward. Nothing that is ridiculous, absurd, 
 injurious, or offensive, is omitted in the modern 
 practise : and if your English commentator draws 
 his conclusions from it, and recommends it to our 
 
216 PRINCE MAUROCORDATO 
 
 imitation, we have only to thank him for his kind 
 intention. 
 
 Greece has much to do, much not to do. God, 
 who hath restored her miraculously to her enthu- 
 siastic and vigorous youth, will guide and protect 
 her in it, and will open by degrees before her all 
 the sources of knowledge, and all the means of im- 
 provement and prosperity. 
 
 MAUROCORDATO. 
 
 The paper I hold in my hand recommends the 
 very thing on which you particularly insist, the 
 diversity of weapon ; nor does the author quote 
 an English authority, but the authority of a far 
 more illustrious character than any Englishman , 
 hath shewn himself within the recollection of the * 
 living, and who suggested it to his country, Ame- 
 rica, when she was about to contend with a military 
 force, to which hers was disproportionate both in 
 numbers and in discipline. The interest, says my 
 correspondent, I feel and have always felt, in the 
 fortune of those who struggle to be free, persuades 
 me to submitt some reflections, perhaps not unim- 
 portant to your country. If they were entirely 
 my own, adds he, I might hesitate more to offer 
 them, although of late years I have studied these 
 matters with some attention and have examined 
 them with some industry. Franklin proposed to 
 
AND GENERAL COLOCOTRONI. 217 
 
 the consideration of the Anglo-Americans, whether 
 the bow be not a more effectual weapon than the 
 musket. Its lightness, the ease with which it may 
 be kept dry, with which it may be concealed and 
 recovered, with which it may be laden and dis- 
 charged, with which it may be preserved in order, 
 or replaced, are not its only advantages. 
 
 Patriotic as are the Greeks, there are many who, 
 on receiving a musket from the government, would 
 be induced to return home, that they might rather 
 employ it in the chase than in battle. The bow, 
 at least in the beginning, would not serve the pur- 
 pose, and would never hold forth such an induce- 
 ment. 
 
 When ammunition is exhausted in the villages 
 and in the mountains, where we fight most fre- 
 quently, the soldier can find no more, and is no 
 longer a soldier for some days ; while every wood 
 and thicket, every house and shed, produces the 
 material of arrows. 
 
 Youths, from their tender age or from their 
 idle habits, incapable of carrying heavy arms, would 
 carry a bow, it being no impediment either in 
 attack or flight, and, being thrown away, it is little 
 loss to them, and no advantage to the enemy. 
 
 The advice of Franklin was not rejected because 
 it was irrational or reprehensible, but because the 
 
218 PRINCE MAUROCORDATO 
 
 Anglo-Americans were nearly all well exercised 
 in the management of iire-arms, and because they 
 found in the cities a superabundance of ammuni- 
 tion. It is not so in Greece ; the choice is yet to 
 be made, and you will surely make it, says our 
 friend, of that material, which is at once the most 
 plentiful and the most easy to work, that in which 
 the exercise is the least laborious, and the attain- 
 ment of skill the least difficult. 
 
 Suppose two kinds of arms, or, if you please, 
 two kinds of tactics, equally good: if either of 
 these be unexpected by the enemy, that is pre- 
 ferable. Even the worse, and considerably so, the 
 first time it is practised, will give the advantage 
 to those who employ it, unless its defects be too 
 evident. 
 
 The ancients, he thinks with you, reasoned 
 much more and much better on this business than 
 the moderns, and they always used a great diversity 
 of weapons in the same army, the advantage of 
 which is demonstrated by Folard in his commentary 
 on Polybius. 
 
 The arrow acts in three manners ; rectilinearly, 
 curvilinearly, and perpendicularly; the musket- 
 ball in one only, the rectilinear. 
 
 Twelve arrows are discharged before the musket 
 can be discharged the third time, even supposing 
 
AND GENERAL COLOCOTRONI. ^19 
 
 that it is always clean, and that it never misses 
 fire. 
 
 The musket without bayonet, as are many of 
 ours, is very inconvenient; for we must often 
 draw the sword, and then what becomes of it? 
 while the bow, thrown in a moment across the 
 shoulder, leaves the right-hand at liberty, and the 
 body unencumbered, for all the other ways of de- 
 fence or of attack. 
 
 The Turks fight in close array; so that every 
 arrow strikes either man or horse; and it is re- 
 markable that a moderate puncture makes the 
 horse intractable, while to a severe musket-shot he 
 often seems for a time insensible. 
 
 The report of fire-arms by night or in ambus- 
 cade betrays the soldier; the arrow not. Even 
 by day it sometimes is expedient that Death come 
 veiled. 
 
 The lock of fire-arms is the most important 
 part of them, and is the most liable to injury, 
 from a blow, from a fall, or from service. The 
 musket is composed of many parts, all subject to 
 be detached or loosened, some to be lost, as the 
 rod and the flint, and the loss may not be perceived 
 until it is fatal. 
 
 If any considerable body of archers, well sup- 
 
220 PRINCE MAUROCORDATO 
 
 ported, drew upon an unprepared enemy, (and all 
 at this day are so) they would gain, if not the 
 battle, the advantage. No fire could produce such 
 destruction, such confusion, or leave effects so im- 
 mediately visible, so generally appalling. 
 
 He who carries a bow instead of a musket, may 
 also carry provisions for five entire days; an in- 
 calculable advantage in a country laid waste on 
 all sides, and which will enable him, in most situa- 
 tions, to choose and change his encampment as he 
 pleases. When a foot soldier thus armed has 
 taken the horse of an enemy, he may mount and 
 use him, should circumstances require it, which 
 he could not do with musket and bayonet, even 
 in case of necessity. 
 
 The bow has no need of cleaning ; the musket 
 has need of it every day ; and after a march or an 
 engagement, when it may want it most, the soldier 
 feels little inclination to this surcharge of labour, 
 and often has not tow, sometimes not water, as 
 ours experienced on the mountains very frequently 
 last summer, when even in the plains occasionally 
 there was barely a sufiiciency to quench their 
 thirst. 
 
 By the lightness of this weapon, and the little 
 danger there is of its sounding loud by striking 
 
AND GENERAL COLOCOTKONI. 521 
 
 against any thing, ammunition-waggons and stores 
 may be set on fire, applying to the arrow inflam- 
 mable substances. 
 
 The Turks are still masters of cities and for- 
 tresses which we must take. No nation defends 
 a place so obstinately and courageously as they do. 
 Here the bow is greatly a better weapon than the 
 musket : for in the hurry of firing on those who 
 mount to the assault, few balls are perfectly well 
 rammed ; hence they fall out or fall inoffensively : 
 and nothing is more difficult than to hit a man, 
 aiming at him perpendicularly. The arrow on 
 this occasion would seldom miss. 
 
 COLOCOTRONI. 
 
 These observations are worth attention. What 
 have you besides ? 
 
 MAUROCORDATO. 
 
 The observations on defensive armour are ori- 
 ginal and important. Even so late as the reign 
 of Louis XIV the officer wore it. In the battle 
 of Waterloo, more glorious to the victor than any 
 since that of Leuctra, (if perhaps you except two 
 others won in distant times by the same nation, at 
 Poictiers and at Blenheim) three regiments of 
 light cavalry in succession were ordered to attack 
 the French cuirassiers. Each made several charges, 
 and lost the greater part of its men, in killed or 
 
222 PRINCE MAUROCORDATO 
 
 wounded. This, continues my author, belongs to 
 history, and shall find its place there, together 
 with the enquiries and reflections it excites ... an 
 imprudence unexampled! If, adds he, these En- 
 glish regiments had been defended by the armour 
 I am about to propose for yours, they would have 
 lost much fewer, and, although no troops are 
 braver, more expert, or better disciplined, than 
 the French cuirassiers, would probably have re- 
 pulsed them : for the English horses were fresher, 
 not having surmounted such acclivities, nor having 
 toiled so long over a deep and tenacious clay. 
 
 Su2:)pose it possible to discover a substance on 
 which the seasons have little or no effect ; which 
 resists heat, cold, moisture... iron does not. 
 
 Suppose it possible to discover a substance which 
 leaves every limb its elasticity, its full play and 
 action . . . iron does not. 
 
 Suppose it possible to discover a substance in 
 which the soldier, if necessary, may sleep... in 
 iron he cannot. 
 
 In fact, general, he recommends the use of 
 cork armour; the usual thickness of which ma- 
 terial is sufficient to resist the bayonet, and which 
 a musket-ball will rarely penetrate. By employing 
 this, the soldier who cannot swim has all the ad- 
 vantages of him who can: he may be knocked 
 
AND GENERAL COLOCOTRONI. 223 
 
 down in it, but he will not be killed nor badly 
 wounded: seldom will a particle of it enter the 
 flesh, and in case it should, no substance whatever 
 is so easily extracted or so perfectly, nor will there 
 ever be those contusions which are often mortal in 
 the head: for although the sabre does not pene- 
 trate the metal helmet, it indents it so deeply as 
 to produce the same effect. We have experienced 
 the dizziness that the helmet occasions in a few 
 hours of exertion : this destroys both activity and 
 strength. Nothing is so cool to the head as cork, 
 or presents so equal and wholesome a temperature 
 in all seasons. Its additional weight is imper- 
 ceptible to the horse, nor is the dismounted soldier 
 lost, as the steel-cased cuirassier is. This armour 
 is cheap and durable ; it occupies no time in clean- 
 ing, no time in putting on : every one can mend 
 or replace it. 
 
 Some other of the projects must be left to the 
 discretion of our Government: they are political 
 rather than military ; they are calculated to act in- 
 stantaneously and effectually. The author himself 
 says on them, ** There are circumstances in which 
 Themistocles should be heard before Aristides, 
 and indeed without him." 
 
 He recommends that the Acro-corinthos, and 
 some other positions, should be flanked with strong 
 
224 PRINCE MAUROCORDATO 
 
 Martello towers, and gives an account of an English 
 ship ofseventy-four guns, utterly ruined off Corsica 
 by such a tower, mounting one only. Here is 
 also a proposal to construct, or rather to employ, 
 for we have them in all our ports, gunboats similar 
 to those used by the Russians in the battle of 
 Tchesme. 
 
 COLOCOTRONI. 
 
 I hope we are not yet reduced to imitate the 
 Russians in any thing. The least inventive of all 
 the human races, and the most hostile to all in- 
 ventions, can hardly be presented to Greeks for a 
 model, by one who appears well acquainted with 
 our history, with our capacities, and with our 
 wants. 
 
 MAUROCORDATO. 
 
 He informs me that the invention of this is due 
 to his countryman and friend. General Bentham, 
 a man equally distinguished for courage, humanity, 
 and science, and whose brother I have heard re- 
 presented as the only true philosopher of his nation 
 since Locke. 
 
 COLOCOTRONI. 
 
 Prince, I know almost as little of philosophy or 
 philosophers, as the emperor of Turkey, or Mo- 
 rocco, or Austria. War is my pursuit: come to 
 the point ; let me see his project. I may recom- 
 
AND GENERAL COLOCOTRONI. 225 
 
 mend it: for the wisest men and most useful 
 things want recommendation; and the tongue of 
 the fool is often requisite to the inventions of the 
 wise. 
 
 MAUROCORDATO. 
 
 General Bentham commanded the naval arma- 
 ment of Russia at the battle of Tchesme, under 
 (in politics this word usually means over) prince 
 Potemkin. Gunboats had always been built solidly, 
 with strong traverses, to prevent the recoil of the 
 gun. Hence, after every fire, the motion of the 
 vessel was so violent and of so long continuance, 
 that the discharges were intermitted and uncertain. 
 One would imagine that very little experience was 
 requisite to demonstrate how, leaving the cannon 
 to its recoil, and the vessel to its own action upon 
 the water, no violent shock could be given, and 
 how the succeeding discharges would be more rapid 
 and more easily directed. Instead of the old gun- 
 boat, constructed at much expense and soon ruined, 
 he placed heavy cannon upon barks deemed before 
 incapable of bearing them : but it was soon ap- 
 parent that on still water, they were adequate to 
 destroy the most formidable ships of the line. The 
 general shewed the troops and mariners, that the 
 water itself gives the proper degree both of reces- 
 sion and of resistence, without danger to the can- 
 
 VOL. II. Q 
 
226 PRINCE MAUROCORDATO 
 
 noneer or detriment to tlie boat. The advantages 
 of the invention are these. The boats, if they are 
 to be built, do not cost a fifth of the others : that 
 worse timber and a smaller quantity of it will 
 serve : that all, even the lightest, may be adapted 
 in little time : that merchant-ships taken from the 
 enemy may be converted into them. 
 
 COLOCOTRONT. 
 
 Do the English use them constantly? for in 
 these matters they have more authority with me 
 than in others. 
 
 MAUROCORDATO. 
 
 They do not : because they have no need of 
 gunboats on their coasts, commanding, as they do, 
 the ocean : because too their seas are tempestuous, 
 and their expeditions for the greater part distant : 
 and because they are reluctant that their enemies 
 should acquire from them the benefit of an inven- 
 tion, by which they themselves could not profit in the 
 same degree. The small gunboat not presenting 
 its side to an enemy, the Turk, the worst of can- 
 noneers, would hardly ever strike it ; while it would 
 rarely miss him, and would never fail to discourage 
 where it might not disable. 
 
 My correspondent is particularly urgent that 
 every mariner and soldier on board should be anned 
 with a bow, and with a longer and heavier pike 
 
AND GENERAL COLOCOTRONI. 227 
 
 than any in common use. Recurring to actions 
 by land, he observes that the length of the pike 
 gave the victory to the Greeks in the first battle 
 against Xerxes, when the Immortals of that auto- 
 crat were repulsed by the Lacedemonians, accord- 
 ing to Herodotus, from this cause only. The bow 
 is recommended at sea still more earnestly, and in 
 our gunboats and small vessels most particularly, 
 from the necessity of loading them lightly with 
 ammunition. 
 
 COLOCOTRONI. 
 
 Should any of these suggestions be introduced, 
 it must be done suddenly, secretly, and diffusively. 
 
 MAUROCORDATO. 
 
 The political reflections of my correspondent 
 will be the subject of some future consideration. 
 To obtain our independence, he would propose to 
 the Turk the same annual subsidy as comes into 
 the treasury at present, which is little more than 
 a fifth of what is levied: he would engage that 
 we should admitt into our ports no vessel of a 
 potentate at war with Turkey, and that we should 
 sign no treaty of alliance with any one upon hei- 
 confines: he would consent that all the Greeks in 
 Asia and other parts should be united in the ter- 
 ritory bounded on the north by Olympus and the 
 Ceraunians, on the East by the Egean sea, and in- 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 PRINCE MAUROCORDATO 
 
 eluding Crete. Property should be exchanged 
 by Turkish and Greek commissioners, aided by 
 the consuls of France, England, and Sweden, and 
 the contract should be terminated in three years 
 in all parts of both countries. 
 
 He informs me that many Christian and Jewish 
 families have still the records of places in Crete, 
 where the treasures of private houses, as also of 
 churches and of convents, were deposited on its 
 subjugation. Turkey does not derive one hundred 
 and eighty thousand zecchins annually from the 
 conquest. She would readily compromise in a few 
 years, probably on the breaking out of the first 
 war, for the tax stipulated, and accept ten or twelve 
 years purchase. Indeed on her expressing any 
 doubt of security in our faith, we might offer as 
 much, with no fear of refusal, and could obtain it 
 from England. So moderate a debt would rather 
 be a bond to unite us than a burden. 
 
 COLOCOTRONI. 
 
 A society of Englishmen, no less patriotic, has 
 kindly sent to me three hundred bibles, in readi- 
 ness for the next campaign ; with an exhortation 
 to prohibit all dancing in private houses, unless 
 among persons of a certain age and rank; 
 a remonstrance against the letting of urine at 
 the corners of streets, or lanes, or stable doors; 
 
AND GENERAL COLOCOTRONI. 229 
 
 and a form of prayer to be offered up in our 
 churches. 
 
 MAUROCORDATO. 
 
 Instead of this latter, our patriarch may be re- 
 quested to insert in the Litany a petition to the 
 Almighty, that, in the bowels of his compassion, 
 it may please him to retain in the government of 
 the Seven Isles his Excellency Sir Thomas Mait- 
 land, so that the people shall never cease to sigh 
 for union with us ; and that likewise, in his in- 
 finite mercy, he may remove all impediment to 
 his Excellency, by removing for ever Lord Guild- 
 ford, in whose presence Learning would almost 
 forget her losses, and dismembered Greece her suf- 
 ferings. 
 
 COLOCOTRONI. 
 
 Greece, whatever arms she takes up, may look 
 forward to years of agony, and to more enemies 
 than the Turk. All the old governments in 
 Europe will attempt to increase our difficulties, 
 and, when they have augmented them to the 
 utmost in their power, will point them out as 
 the natural fruits of insubordination, for such 
 they call resistence, which is the more criminal 
 in their eyes the longer and the more patiently 
 you have borne oppression. Happily we have 
 no allie: we have an oppressor the less. If 
 
230 PRINCE MAimOCORDATO 
 
 Spain or Portugal liad any, that allie would 
 model the adopted form of government ; in other 
 words, would change the features without dimi- 
 nishing the weight of slavery. Providence, I 
 trust, will favour our exertions: I would propose 
 then to leave a wide space between us, and the 
 dominions of a government more systematically 
 and more degradino;lv tvrannical. Indio^nant as 
 
 CD CD )/ m O 
 
 we justly are at the unworthy treatment we have 
 received, and conscious, as we cannot but be, that 
 we are the undegenerate descendents of a people, 
 w^hich never since the foundation of the world 
 hath beheld a rival in o;lorv, we must acknowledo-e 
 that no conqueror is milder than the Turkish, 
 no religion more tolerant, no judge more dispas- 
 sionate, no law more equitable. But many coun- 
 tries, once Grecian, lie desolate : Crete can hardly 
 discover the traces of five amidst her hundred cities. 
 True; islands, which when free are the happiest 
 of countries, are the most miserable when they 
 are subjected. For the subjection endured under 
 modern governments, is far different in its effects 
 from that endured under our ancestors and the 
 Romans. Towns, harbours, and marts, arose 
 upon it : be my witnesses on one side, Cyprus, 
 Lesbos, Chios, and ye starry host of Cyclades! 
 stand on the other, Sicilv, Sardinia, Ireland, with 
 
A^'D GENERAL COLOCOTllONI. 231 
 
 your herds of mendicants, your bands of robbers, 
 your pestiferous marshes, and your deserted ports. 
 What countries are naturally more fertile? what 
 more wretched ? Wild theories have not rendered 
 them so; and yet the only mischiefs to be ex- 
 tirpated are wild theories. The cities of the 
 Valtelline, under the protection of Switzerland, 
 Ragusa, Genoa, Venice, had enjoyed a long pros- 
 perity, all several hundred, some past a thousand 
 years, and one had arrived, by its prudence and 
 wisdom, at an age which appeared forbidden to 
 human institutions, when suddenly a sage, too au- 
 tocratical to be taught any thing by sages of an- 
 other class, draws around his shoulders a cat-skin 
 hung with saints, and is informed, as he swallows 
 his morning draught of brandy, that if they really 
 were happy, they were happy from wild theories, 
 and must be all corrected. Tyranny alone has 
 rights; usurpation alone has privileges. ** You 
 I shall enchain Poland; 7/oii shall do with Italy 
 * and with Illyria what you please; 2/ou shall dis- 
 ■ member free and happy Saxony." " Vv hat ! no 
 more? my brothers 1" ** Wait a little, our brother, 
 wait a little! W^ait, our brother, four years at 
 farthest: then advance: you will be hailed as a 
 deliverer from within and from without. 
 
 " His most christian Majesty is anxious to re- 
 
9,32 PRINCE MAUROCORDATO 
 
 cover the influence of his family in Spain: the 
 English, who waged war to prevent it from having 
 any, are not in a condition to interpose the slightest 
 impediment, and the ministers are more interested 
 in suppressing what are called constitutions, than 
 in maintaining the dignity of their throne." 
 
 Thus argue the holy Allies. 
 
 England is indeed the only country in the world 
 where the ministers are chosen from their dissi- 
 militude to the people. I never think of them 
 without the idea of the bear ridden by the monkey ; 
 the strong by the weak, the grave by the pert, 
 the quiet by the mischievous. Since the time of 
 Pitt the First (in this manner will politicians teach 
 historians to write) she has been governed, with 
 hardly an interval, by the most inordinate and 
 desperate gamesters that ever her subscription- 
 houses drove pennyless down stairs. 
 
 MAUROCORDATO. 
 
 There is an axiom, that the best if corrupted 
 is the worst. It grieves me to think of England, 
 once the favorite of Liberty, and sitting in light 
 alone. All the French, however, cannot have 
 lost entirely that spirit with which twenty millions 
 were animated so lately. His most christian 
 Majesty is said in the chamber of deputies to be 
 destined by Providence to close the abyss of re- 
 
AND GENERAL COLOCOTRONI. 233 
 
 volutions. He may perhaps close that abyss (as 
 he would any other) by falling into it. 
 
 COLOCOTRONI. 
 
 To rise against oppression ; to teach our children 
 their duties and their rights; to remind them of 
 their ancestors, and to rescue them from the se- 
 raglio, these are crimes ! They are crimes, in the 
 eyes of whom? of those who profess the religion 
 of Christ! holy men! sacred allies! apostolic! 
 catholic! We, Maurocordato, are inconsiderate, 
 rash, frantic \ for what gain we by our vigils, fasts, 
 and toils ; by our roofless houses, our devastated 
 farms, our long marches, our broken sleep upon 
 the snowy mountains, unless it be the approbation 
 of our fathers now in bliss, and the consolatory 
 hope of it from our posterity ? The rest of Europe 
 is reduced to slavery, one heroic race excepted: 
 God alone can foresee the termination of our con- 
 flict y but of this we both are certain ; that, whenever 
 we fall, in whatever part of Greece our bodies lie, 
 they will lie by the side of those who have defended 
 the same cause ; and that there is not a pillar, in 
 ancient days erected by a grateful country, that 
 does not in its fragments tell our story. 
 
234 PRINCE MAUROCORDATO 
 
 The emperor of Russia has had the address, by the con- 
 gress of Veroua, to involve the states of Europe in war again. 
 He will within a year or two be able to put into execution his 
 project on the side of Turkey, having first enfeebled Persia, 
 by pushing her forward so precipitately. I foresaw and fore- 
 told all this. In the animal world the insects have the largest 
 empire, in the political the Russians. The dominions of the 
 czar extend over a space equal to a third of the old world, the 
 parent of so many vast empires, uncounted tribes, and un- 
 known generations, and are seven times larger than the nearest 
 planet, including in the calculation all its gulphs and oceans. 
 His subjects are educated in blind submission to his will ; and 
 at least two millions of them either are soldiers, or may be- 
 come so without any loss to agriculture and the other arts. 
 Is there then no danger to Europe from so enormous a power, 
 put into motion and directed by ministers who have been 
 raised from obscurity and want, who have abjured their coun- 
 try, and who must flourish on the decomposition of others ? 
 How large a portion of North -America has been publickly 
 claimed by the autocrat, the dominions of Spain, of England, 
 and of the United- States, from the thirty-first to the sixtieth 
 degree ! enough to constitute three great empires. 
 
 No nation seems yet to have divined the importance of Cali- 
 fornia: the Russians are destined to teach it... The wisest 
 work on political relations is that of my old acquaintance the 
 late Governor Pownal...too wise ever to be adopted by our 
 government, even if no impediments had been thrown in the 
 way since it was written. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 The notes I intended for this Conversation were numerous ; 
 but as they contained some particulars which I think it im- 
 prudent to divulge at present, I shall insert some verses in 
 their place, not very remote from the subject. 
 
 TO CORINTH. 
 
 Queen of the double sea, beloved of him 
 
 Who shakes the world's foundations, thou hast seen 
 
AND GENERAL COLOCOTRONI. 235 
 
 Glory in all her beauty, all her forms j 
 Seen her walk back Mith Theseus when he left 
 The bones of Sciron bleaching to the wind. 
 Above the ocean's roar and cormorant's flight. 
 So high that vastest billows from above 
 Shew but like herbage waving in the mead ; 
 Seen generations throng thine Isthmian games. 
 And pass away... the beautiful, the brave. 
 And them who sang their praises. 
 
 But, O Queen, 
 Audible still (and far beyond thy cliiFs) 
 As when they first were uttered, are those words 
 Divine which praised the valiant and the just. 
 And tears have often stopt, upon that ridge 
 So perilous, him who brought before his eye 
 The Colchian babes. 
 
 " Stay ! spare him ! save the last ! 
 Medea ! ... is that blood ? again ! it drops 
 From my imploring hand upon my feet . . . 
 I will invoke the Eumenides no more, 
 I will forgive thee, bless thee, bend to thee 
 In all thy wishes... do but thou, Medea, 
 Tell me, one lives." 
 
 " And shall I too deceive ?" 
 Cries from the fiery car an angry voice ; 
 And swifter than two falling stars descend 
 Two breathless bodies : warm, soft, motionless. 
 As flowers in stillest noon before the sun. 
 They lie three paces from him : such they lie 
 As when he left them sleeping side by side, 
 A mother's arm round each, a mother's cheeks 
 Between them, flushed with happiness and love. 
 He was more changed than they were ... doomed to shew 
 Thee and the stranger, how defaced and scarred 
 Grief hunts us down the precipice of years, 
 And whom the faithless prey upon the last. 
 
a36 PRINCE MAUROCORDATO, &c. 
 
 To give the inertest masses of our Earth 
 Her loveliest forms was thine, to fix the Gods 
 Within thy walls, and hang their tripods round 
 With fruits and foliage knowing not decay. 
 A nobler work remains : thy citadel 
 Invites all Greece ; o'er lands and floods remote 
 Many are the hearts that still beat high for thee : 
 Confide then in thy strength, and unappalled 
 Look down upon the plain, while yokemate kings 
 Run bellowing, where their herdsmen goad them on 
 Instinct is sharp in them and terror true. 
 They smell the floor whereon their necks must lie. 
 
CONVERSATION XIIL 
 
 ALFIERI 
 
 SALOMON, THE FLORENTINE JEW. 
 
ALFIERl 
 
 AND 
 
 SALOMON, THE FLORENTINE JEW. 
 
 ALFIERl. 
 
 Let us walk to the window, Signor Salomon. . . 
 and now, instead of the silly simpering compli- 
 ments repeated at introductions, let me assure you 
 that you are the only man in Florence with whom 
 I would willingly exchange a salutation. 
 
 SALOMON. 
 
 I must think myself highly flattered, Signor 
 Conte, having always heard that you are not only 
 the greatest democrat, but also the greatest aristo- 
 crat, in Europe. 
 
 ALFIERL 
 
 These two things, however opposite, as your 
 smile would indicate, are not so irreconcilable as 
 you imagine. I see no aristocracy in the children 
 of sharpers from behind the counter, nor, placing 
 
240 ALFIERI 
 
 the matter in the most favorable point of view, in 
 the descendents of free citizens, who accepted 
 from any vile enslaver, French, Spanish, German, 
 priest or monk, with a honeycomb on his head 
 and a key at his girdle, the titles of counts and 
 marquisses. In Piedemont the matter is different : 
 we must either have been the rabble or their lords : 
 we were military; and we retain over the popu- 
 lace the same rank and spirit as our ancestors held 
 over the soldiery. 
 
 SALOMON. 
 
 Signor Conte, I have heard of levelers, but I 
 have never seen one: all are disposed to level 
 down, but nobody to level up. As for nobility, 
 there is none in Europe, beside the Venetian. 
 Nobility must be self-constituted and independent : 
 the free alone are noble ; slavery, like death, levels 
 all. The English come nearest to the Venetian : 
 they are independent, but want the main charac- 
 teristic, the self-constituted. You have been in 
 England, Signor Conte, and can judge of them 
 better than I can. 
 
 ALFIERI. 
 
 England, as you know, is governed by Pitt, the 
 most insidious of her republicans, and the most 
 hostile to aristocracy. Jealous of power, and dis- 
 trustful of the people that raised him to it, he 
 
AND SALOMON. 241 
 
 enriches and attaches to hmi the commercial part 
 of the nation, by the most wasteful prodigality 
 both in finance and war, and he loosens from the 
 landed all the leading proprietors, by raising them 
 to the peerage. Nearly a third of the lords have 
 been created by him, and shew themselves de- 
 votedly his creatures *, Pitt possesses not the ad- 
 vantage possest by insects, which, if they see but 
 one inch before them, see that inch distinctly. He 
 knows not that the machine which at present runs 
 on so briskly, will fall to pieces the moment it stops. 
 He will indeed carry his point in debasing the 
 aristocracy, but he will equally debase the people. 
 Undivided power he will continue to enjoy ; but, 
 after his death, none will be able to say from any 
 visible proof or appearance, how glorious a people 
 did he govern ! He will have changed its cha- 
 racter in all ranks and conditions. After this it 
 is little to say that he will have exalted its rival, 
 who, without his interposition, would have sunk 
 
 * All this refers to a state of things belonging to history, 
 but past away fi'om us ; it being evident that nothing can be 
 more respectable than the present English nobility. Alfieri 
 spoke scornfully and disdainfully 3 because he was generally 
 ill received in England; for although he was at that time 
 the greatest man in Europe, he was not acknowledged or 
 known to be so. 
 
 VOL. II. R 
 
242 ALFIERI 
 
 under distress and crime. But intei^position was 
 necessary to his aggrandisement, enabling him to 
 distribute in twenty years, if he should live so 
 long, more wealth among his friends and partisans, 
 than has been squandered by the uncontrolled 
 profusion of French monarchs, from the first Louis 
 to the last. 
 
 SALOMON. 
 
 How happens it that England, richer and more 
 powerful than all other states, should still contain 
 fewer nobles ? 
 
 ALFIERI. 
 
 The greater part of the English nobility has 
 neither power nor title. Even those who are 
 noble both de jure and de facto, the hereditary 
 lords of manors with large estates attached to 
 them, claim no titles, at home or abroad. Hence 
 in all foren countries the true English gentleman 
 is placed below his rank, which naturally and ne- 
 cessarily is far higher than that of your slipshod 
 counts and lottery-office marquisses, whose game- 
 keepers with their high plumes, cocked hats, and 
 hilts of rapiers, have no other occupation than to 
 stand behind the carriage, if the rotten plank will 
 bear them ; whose game is the wren and the red- 
 breast, and whose beat is across the market. 
 
AND SALOMON. 243 
 
 Father Menestrier, who, both as a Frenchman 
 and as a Jesuit, speaks very contemptuously of 
 English nobility, admits the gentlemen to this 
 dignity. Their property, their information, their 
 political influence, and their moral character, place 
 them beyond measure above the titularies of this 
 country, be the rank what it may; and it is a 
 remarkable proof of moderation in some, and of 
 contemptuousness in others, that they do not 
 openly claim from their king, or assume without 
 any such intervention, the titles arising from 
 landed wealth, which conciliate the attention and 
 civility of all classes, and indeed of all individuals, 
 abroad. 
 
 It is among those who stand between the peer- 
 age and the people, that there exists a greater 
 mass of virtue and of wisdom than all the rest of 
 the universe contains. Much of their dignified 
 simplicity may be attributed to the plainness of 
 their religion, and, what will always be imitated, 
 to the decorous virtue of their king ; for whatever 
 may be the defects of either, if we compare them 
 with others round us, they are excellent. 
 
 SALOMON. 
 
 A young religion jumps upon the shoulders 
 of an older one, and soon becomes like her, by 
 
 r2 
 
544 ALFIEEI 
 
 mockery of her tricks, her cant, and her decrepi- 
 tude. Meanwhile the old one shakes with in- 
 dignation, and swears there is neither rehition- 
 ship nor likeness. Was there ever a religion 
 in the world that was not the true religion, or 
 was there ever a king that was not the best of 
 kings? 
 
 AiriEEI. 
 
 In the latter ca,se we must have arrived ven,' 
 nigh to perfection; since it is e\ident from the 
 authority of the gravest men, theologians, pre- 
 sidents, judges, corporations, universities, senates, 
 that every prince is still better than his father, of 
 blessed memory no'd: nith God. If they continue 
 to rise thus transcendently, earth in a little time 
 will be incapable of holding them, and higher 
 heavens must be raised upon the highest heavens 
 for their reception. The luniber of our Italian 
 courts, the most crazy part of which is that which 
 rests upon a red cushion in a gilt chair, ^^ith stars 
 and sheep and crosses dangling irorn it, must be 
 approached as Artaxerxes and Domitian. These 
 automatons, we are told, nevertheless, are very 
 condescending. Poor fools who tell us it! igno- 
 rant that where on one side is condescension, on 
 the other side must be baseness. The rascals have 
 
AND SALOMON. 245 
 
 ruined mv physiognomy. I wear an habitual 
 sneer upon my face, God confound them for it! 
 even when I whisper a word of love in the prone 
 
 ear of my douna^, 
 
 SALOMON. 
 
 This temper or constitution of mind I am afraid 
 may do injury to your works. 
 
 ALFIERI. 
 
 Surely not to all: my satire at least must be 
 
 the better for it. 
 
 SALOMON. 
 
 I think differently. No satire can be excellent 
 where displeasure is expressed with acrimony and 
 vehemence. When satire ceases to smile it should 
 be momentarily, and for the purpose of inculcating 
 a moral. Juvenal is hardly more a satirist than 
 Lucan : he is indeed a vigorous and bold declaimer, 
 but he stamps too often, and splashes up too much 
 filth. We Italians have no delicacy in wit, we 
 have indeed no conception of it; we fancy we 
 must be weak if we are not oflPensive. The scream 
 of Pulcinello is imitated more easily, than the 
 masterly strokes of Plautus, or the sly insinuations 
 of Catullus and of Flaccus. 
 
 * She who was the dojina of Alfieri is now the donna of a 
 French picture-dealer, a maker and render of Poussins. 
 
246 ALFIERI 
 
 ALFIERI. 
 
 We are the least witty of men because we are 
 the most trifling. 
 
 SALOMON. 
 
 You would persuade me then that to be witty 
 one must be grave : this is surely a contradiction. 
 
 ALFIERI. 
 
 I would persuade you only, that banter, pun, 
 and quibble, are the properties of light men and 
 shallow capacities ; that genuine humour and true 
 wit require a sound and capacious mind ; which is 
 always a grave one. Contemptuousness is not in- 
 compatible with them ; worthless is that man who 
 feels no contempt for the worthless, and weak 
 who treats their emptiness as a thing of weight. 
 At first it may seem a paradox, but it is perfectly 
 true, that the gravest nations have been the wit- 
 tiest; and in those nations some of the gravest 
 men: in England Swift and Addison, in Spain 
 Cervantes. Rabelais and La Fontaine are re- 
 corded by their countrymen to have been re'- 
 veurs. 
 
 SALOMON. 
 
 It is indeed a remarkable thing that such should 
 be the case among the moderns : it does not appear 
 to have been so among the ancients. 
 
AND SALOMON. 247 
 
 ALFIERI. 
 
 I differ from you, M. Salomon. When we 
 turn toward the Athenians, we find many comic 
 ^vi'iters but few facetious. Menander, if we may 
 judge from his fragments, had less humour than 
 Socrates, and Aristophanes himself than Phocion. 
 Among the Romans, the gravest of nations after 
 the English, I think Cicero =^ and Catullus were 
 the wittiest. The former, from his habits of life 
 and studies, must have been grave ; and the latter 
 we may believe to have been so, from his being 
 tender and impassioned in the more serious part 
 of his poetry. 
 
 SALOMON. 
 
 This to me is no proof; for the most tender 
 and impassioned of all poets is Shakespear, who 
 certainly w^as himself far removed from gravity, 
 however much of it he imparted to some personages 
 of his drama. 
 
 ALFIERI. 
 
 That Shakespear was gay and pleasurable in 
 
 * Quintiliau says of Demosthenes, non displicuisse illi jocos, 
 sed non contigisse. In this he was much less fortunate than 
 Phocion and Cicero. Facility in making men smile occa- 
 sionally gives a natural air to a great orator, and adds thereby 
 much effect to what he says, provided it come discreetly. It 
 is in him somewhat like affability in a prince ; excellent, if 
 used with caution. Every one must have perceived how fre- 
 quently those are brought over by a toucli of humour, who 
 have resisted the force of argument and entreaty. 
 
248 ALFIERI 
 
 conversation I can easily admitt, for there never 
 was a mind at once so plastic and so pliant ; but, 
 without much gravity, could there have been that 
 potency and comprehensiveness of thought, that 
 depth of feeling, that creation of imperishable 
 ideas, that sojourn in the souls of other men? 
 He was amused in his workshop ; such was society ; 
 but when he left it, he meditated most intensely 
 upon those limbs and muscles on which he was 
 about to bestow new action, grace, and majesty; 
 and so great an intensity of meditation must have 
 strongly impressed his whole character. 
 
 SALOMON. 
 
 I imagine it to have been an Englishman who 
 composed on the Florentines the lines I am about 
 to repeat ; I heard them from one ; and they tend 
 to illustrate the peculiar humour of that nation, 
 
 Giunto in Firenze, ammirava un Inglese 
 
 Ne campanil ne duomo ne tribuna 
 
 Di Venere, che intorno a se raduna 
 Le gvazie di ogni secolo e paese, 
 Non la Sabina e il rapitor feroce, 
 
 Palazzo Vecchio ne Palazzo Pitti,.,. 
 II popolo ammirava, ... e, ad alta voce, 
 
 Ma ! come queste merde stanno dritte. 
 
 You will however allow that we have no proof 
 of gravity in Horace or Plautus. 
 
 ALFIERI. 
 
 On the contrary I think we have many. Horace, 
 
AND SALOMON. 24& 
 
 like all the pusillanimous, was malignant: like all 
 courtiers, he yielded to the temper of his masters* 
 His lighter touches were agreeable less to his own 
 nature than to the nature of Augustus and Me- 
 cenas, both of them fond of trifling; but in his 
 Odes and his Discourses there is more of gravity 
 than of gaiety. That he was libidinous is no proof 
 that he was playful ; for often such men are even 
 melancholic. 
 
 Plant us, who appears to me to have been by far 
 the first of comic writers, rich in language, rich in 
 reflection, rich in character, rich in humour, is 
 oftener grave than could have suited the inclina- 
 tions of a coarse and tumultuous populace. What 
 but the strong bent of his nature could have moved 
 him to it? 
 
 SALOMON. 
 
 The French are witty. 
 
 ALFIERI. 
 
 This I concede to them; and no person will 
 accuse me of partiality in their favour. They are 
 witty ; and when they discover a witty thing, they 
 value it so highly, that they reserve it for the 
 noblest purposes, such as tragedies, sermons, and 
 funeral orations. Whenever a king of theirs is 
 inaugurated at Rheims, a string of witty things is 
 
250 ALFIERI 
 
 prepared for him during his whole reign, regularly 
 as the civil list ; regularly as menageries, oratories, 
 orangeries, wife, confessor, waterworks, fireworks, 
 gardens, parks, forests, and chases. Sometimes one 
 is put into his mouth when he is too empty, some- 
 times when he is too full ; but he always hath his 
 due portion, take it when or how he may. A de- 
 cent one, somewhat less indeed than that of their 
 sovran, is reserved for the princes of the blood; the 
 greater part of which is usually packed up with their 
 camp-equipage ; and I have seen a label to a bon 
 mot^ on which was written, Brillant comme la re- 
 po72se de Henri IV, quand,,. 
 
 We Italians sometimes fall into what, if you 
 will not call them witticisms, you may call the 
 plasma of witticisms, upon their ground, by mere 
 mistake, and against our genius. Reading in a 
 gazette, Hier le roi a travaille avec ses ministres, 
 and knowing the man's character, a young courtier 
 cried innocently, " What! his Most Christian 
 Majesty condescends to dine with his subjects! 
 and they joke upon it!" In another, Les enfans 
 de France se promenent en carosse c§(T., his sister 
 enquired of her confessor how many there were of 
 them:' he answered " Twentyfour or twentyfive 
 millions." A blunder, by its very stumbling, is 
 
AND SALOMON. 251 
 
 often carried a little beyond the plain sense that was 
 aimed at, and falls upon something which, if it be 
 not wit, is invested with its qualities and powers. 
 
 SALOMON. 
 
 I have had occasion to observe the obtuseness 
 of the Tuscans in particular on these matters. 
 Lately I lent my Moliere to a man of talents, and 
 when he returned the volumes, I asked him how 
 he liked them: Per Bacco, he exclaimed, the 
 names are very comical, SganarelU, and those 
 others » They who have no wit of their own, are igno- 
 rant of it when it occurs, mistake it, and misapply 
 it. A sailor found upon the shore a piece of 
 amber, too large to be put into his jacket. He 
 carried it home under his arm, and, as he was fond 
 of fiddling, began to rubb it across the strings of 
 his violin. It would not serve. He then broke 
 some pieces off, boiled them in blacking, and found 
 to his surprise and disquiet that it gave no fresh 
 lustre to the shoe. What are you about? cried 
 a messmate ... 5we// it man; it is amber. The 
 devil take it, cried the finder, I fancied it was rosin, 
 and he threw it into the sea. We despise what we 
 cannot use. 
 
 ALFIERI. 
 
 Your observations on Italian wit are correct. 
 
252 ALFIERI 
 
 Even our comedies are declamatory : long speeches 
 and inverted sentences overlay and stifle the elas- 
 ticity of humour. The great Machiavelli is, what- 
 ever M. de Voltaire may assert to the contrary, a 
 coarse comedian ; hardly better than the cardinal 
 Bibiena, poisoned by the Holiness of our Lord, 
 pope Leo, for wearying him with wit*. 
 
 * If Cardinal Bibiena was poisoned by Leo^ an opinion to 
 which the profligacy of the pope gave rise, and the malignity 
 of men reception, it should be recorded in justice to his Holi- 
 ness that he wished to protect the family. I find among the 
 letters of Bembo a very beautiful and energetic one, written 
 in the name of Leo to Francis I. There is something not 
 unsuspicious in the mode of expression. He repeats that, 
 although Bibiena thinks himself sure of dying, there appears 
 to be no immediate danger ...if it should happen, 8^c. I collect 
 below the similar expressions. 
 
 Cum Bernardus Bibiena cardinalis aliquot jam dies ex 
 stomacho laboret, magisque timore qiiodam suo quam morbi vi 
 urgente, brevi se existimet moriturum...Quanquam enim 
 nihildum sane video, quo quidem de illius vita sit omnino 
 magnopere timendum ... Yet he goes on rather less securely... 
 Si id accidat quod ipse suspicatur, tua in ilium munifi- 
 centia tuumque praeclarum munus non statim neque una 
 cum ipsius vita extinguatur, praesertim cum ei tam breve 
 temporis spatium illo ipso tuo munere frui licuerit, ut ante 
 amissum videri possit quam quale quantumve fuerit percipi 
 ab illo cognoscive potuerit . . . Ut ipse, si moriendum ei 
 sit, &c. 
 
 The Italians are too credulous on poison, which at one 
 period was almost a natural death amongst them. English- 
 men were shocked at the confidence with which they asserted 
 
AND SALOMON. 253 
 
 SALOMON. 
 
 His Holiness took afterwards a stirrup-cup of 
 the same brewery, and never had committed the 
 same oflPence, poor man ! 
 
 it of two personages, who occupied in the world a rank and 
 interest due to neither, and one of whom died in England, 
 the other in her dependencies. 
 
 The last words of the letter make me an unbeliever of Leo's 
 guilt in this business. What exquisite language ! what ex- 
 pressions of zeal and sincerity ! 
 
 Quae quidem omnia non tani propterea colligo, quod non 
 illud unum existimem apud te plurimum valiturum, amorem 
 scilicet erga ilium tuum, itemque iucredibilem ipsius in te 
 cultum, quod initio dixi^ sed ut mihi ipse, qui id magnopere 
 cupio, satisfaciam ; ne perfamiliari ac pernecessario meo, mihi- 
 que charissimo, ac suavissimo atque in omni vitae munere pro- 
 batissimo, mea benevolentia meusque amor hoc extremo ejus 
 vitae tempore, si hoc extremum erit, plane defuisse videatur. 
 
 In the tenth book of these epistles there is one addressed to 
 the cardinal, by which the church of Loretto is placed under 
 his care, with every mark of friendship and partiality. 
 
 De tua enim in Divam pietate, in rem Romanam studio, in 
 me autem, cui quidem familiaeque meae omnia paene usque a 
 puero summae cum integritatis et fidei, tum vero curae atque 
 diligentiae egregia atque praeclara officia praestitisti, perveteri 
 observantia voluntateque admonitus, nihil est rerum omnium 
 quod tibi recte mandari credique posse non existimem. 
 
 It is not in human nature^ I think, that a man ever capable 
 of these feelings towards any one, should poison him afterwards, 
 when no powerful interest or deep revenge was to be gratified : 
 the opinion nevertheless has prevailed ; and I attribute it to a 
 person not altogether free from malignity, a scorner of popes and 
 princes, and especially hostile to the Medicean family. 
 
254 ALFIERl 
 
 ALFIERI. 
 
 Indignation and contempt may be expressed in 
 other poems than such as are usually called satires. 
 Filicaia, in his celebrated address to Italy, steers 
 a middle course. 
 
 SALOMON. 
 
 True, he is neither indignant nor contemptuous : 
 but the verses of Michel- Angelo would serve 
 rather for an example, added to which they are 
 much better. 
 
 ALFIERI. 
 
 In fact the former part of Filicaia's is verbose 
 and confused: let us analyse them. 
 
 Italia, Italia, o tu cui die' la sorte 
 Dono infelice di bellezza, onde hai 
 Funesta dote d* infiniti guai, 
 Che in fronte scritti per gran dogl'ia porti. 
 
 Fate gives the gift, and this gift gives the dowery, 
 which dowery consists of infinite griefs, and these 
 griefs Italy carries written on her brow, through 
 great sorrow! 
 
 Deh, fosti tu men bella o ahnen piu forte ! 
 Men and almen sound wretchedly: he might 
 have written oppur. There are those who would 
 persuade us that verbal criticism is unfair, and 
 that few poems can stand it. The truth of the 
 
AND SALOMON. 255 
 
 latter assertion by no means establishes the former : 
 all good criticism hath its foundation on verbal. 
 Long dissertations are often denominated criti- 
 cisms, without one analysis ; instead of which it is 
 thought enough to say ; " There is nothing Jiner 
 in our language.,. "we can safely recommend... 
 imbued "with the true spirit... destined to immor- 
 tality,'' &c. 
 
 A perfect piece of criticism must shew where a 
 work is good, or bad ; ivhy it is good, or bad ; in 
 what degree it is good, or bad ; must also shew in 
 what manner and to what extent the same ideas 
 or reflections have come to others, and, if they be 
 cloathed in poetry, why, by an apparently slight 
 variation, what in one author is mediocrity, in an- 
 other is excellence. I have never seen a critic, I 
 do not say of Florence or of Pisa, but of Milan or 
 Bologna, where letters are cultivated with more 
 assiduity and success, who did not commend and 
 admire the sonnet of Cassiani on the rape of Pro- 
 serpine, without a suspicion of its manifold and 
 grave defects. Few sonnets are indeed so good; 
 but if we examine it attentively, we shall discover 
 its flaws and patches. 
 
 Die' un alto strido, gitto i fiori, e volta 
 Air improvisa mano che la cinse, 
 Tutta in seper la tema ondeju colta 
 La Siciliana vergine si strinse. 
 
^56 ALFIERI 
 
 The hand is inadequate to embrace a body: 
 strime, which comes after, would have done better. 
 The two last verses tell only what the two first 
 had told; and feebly; nothing can be more so 
 than the tema ondefii colta, 
 
 II nero dio la calda bocca involta 
 D'ispido pelo a ingordo baccio spinse, 
 E di stigia fuHgin con la folta 
 Barba Teburnea gola e il sen le tinse. 
 
 Does this describe the brother of Jupiter? does it 
 not rather the devils of our carneval, than him at 
 whose side, upon asphodel and amaranth, the sweet 
 Persephone sits pensively contented, in that deep 
 motionless quiet, which mortals pity and which the 
 Gods enjoy ; than him who, under the umbrage of 
 Elysium, gazes at once upon all the beauties that 
 on earth were separated by times and countries . . 
 Helena and Eriphyle, Poiyxena and Hermione, 
 Deidamia and Deianira^ Leda and Omphale, 
 Atalanta and Cydippe, Laodamia, with her ann 
 around the neck of a fond youth, whom she still 
 seems afraid of losing, and apart, the daughters 
 of Niobe, though now in smiles, still clinging to 
 their parent; and many thousands more, each of 
 whom is worth the dominions, once envied, of both 
 brothers? 
 
AND SALOMON. i357 
 
 SALOMON. 
 
 These images are better than satires ; but con- 
 tinue, in preference to all other thoughts or pur- 
 suits, the noble career you have entered. Be 
 contented, Signor Conte, with the glory of our 
 first great dramatist, and neglect altogether any 
 inferior one. Why vex and torment yourself about 
 the French? They buzz and are troublesome 
 while they are swarming ; but the master will soon 
 hive them. Is the whole nation worth the worst 
 of your tragedies? All the present race of them, 
 all the creatures in the world which excite your 
 indignation, will lie in the grave, while young 
 and old are clapping their hands or beating their 
 bosoms at your Bruto Primo, Consider, to make 
 one step further, that kings and emperors should 
 in your estimation be but as grasshoppers and 
 beetles : let them consume a few blades of your 
 clover, without molesting them, without bringing 
 them to crawl on you and claw you. The dif- 
 ference between them and men of genius, is almost 
 as great as between men of genius and those higher 
 Intelligences who act in immediate subordination 
 to the Almighty. Yes, I assert it, without flat- 
 tery and without fear, the Angels are not higher 
 above mortals, than you are above the proudest 
 that trample on them. 
 
 VOL. II. s 
 
258 ALFIERI AND SALOMON. 
 
 ALFIERI. 
 
 I believe, sir, you were the first in commending 
 my tragedies. 
 
 SALOMON. 
 
 He who first praises a good book becomingly is 
 next in merit to the author. 
 
 ALFIERI. 
 
 As a writer and as a man I know my station : 
 if I found in the world five equal to myself, I 
 would walk out of it, not to be jostled. 
 
 I must now, Signor Salomon, take my leave of 
 you; for his Eminence my coachman and their 
 Excellencies my horses are waiting. 
 
CONVERSATION XIV. 
 
 LOPEZ BANGS 
 
 AND 
 
 ROMERO ALPUENTE. 
 
 s2 
 
LOPEZ BANGS 
 
 AND 
 
 ROMERO ALPUENTE. 
 
 BANGS. 
 
 At length, Alpuente, the saints of the holy 
 alliance have declared war against us. 
 
 ALPUENTE. 
 
 I have not heard it until now. 
 
 BANGS. 
 
 They have directed a memorial to the King of 
 France, inviting him to take such measures as his 
 Majesty in his wisdom shall deem convenient, in 
 order to avert the calamities of war and the dan- 
 gers of discord from his frontier. 
 
 ALPUENTE. 
 
 God forbid that so great a king should fall upon 
 us ! O Lord, save us from our enemy, who would 
 eat us up quick, so despitefully and hungrily is he 
 set against us. 
 
262 LOPEZ BANGS 
 
 BANGS. 
 
 Read the manifesto . . . why do you laugh ? is not 
 this a declaration of hostilities ? 
 
 ALPUENTE. 
 
 To Spaniards, yes. I laughed at the folly and 
 impudence of men, who, for the present of a to- 
 bacco-box with a fool's head upon it, string toge- 
 ther these old peeled pearls of diplomatic eloquence, 
 and foist them upon the world as arguments and 
 truths. Do kings imagine that they can as easily 
 deceive as they can enslave? and that the mind 
 is as much under their snaffle, as the body is under 
 their axe and halter? Shew me one of them, 
 Lopez, who has not violated some promise, who 
 has not usurped some territory, who has not op- 
 pressed and subjugated some neighbour: then I 
 will believe him, then I will obey him, then I will 
 acknowledge that those literary heralds who trumpet 
 forth his praises with the newspaper in their hands, 
 are creditable and upright and uncorrupted. The 
 courage of Spain delivered these wretches from the 
 cane and drum-head of a Corsican : which of them 
 did not crouch before him? which did not flatter 
 him? which did not execute his orders? which 
 did not court his protection ? which did not solicit 
 his favour ? which did not entreat his forbearance ? 
 which did not implore his pardon? which did not 
 
AND KOMERO ALPUENTE. 26S 
 
 abandon and betray him ? No ties either of blood 
 or of religion led or restrained these neophytes In 
 holiness. And now forsooth the calamities of war 
 and the dangers of discord are to be averted, by 
 arming one part of our countrymen against the 
 other, by stationing a military force on our fron- 
 tier, for the reception of murderers and traitors 
 and incendiaries, and by pointing the bayonet and 
 cannon in our faces. When we smiled at the in- 
 sults of a beaten enemy, they dictated terms and 
 conditions. At last his most christian majesty 
 tells his army, that the nephew of Henry the fourth 
 shall march against us... with his feather. 
 
 BANGS. 
 
 Ah ! that weighs more. The French army will 
 march over fields which cover French armies, and 
 over which the oldest and bravest part of it fled in 
 ignominy and dismay, before our shepherd-boys 
 and hunters. What the veterans of Napoleon 
 failed to execute the household of Louis will accom- 
 plish. Parisians! let your comic-opera-house lie 
 among its ruins ; it cannot be wanted this season. 
 
 ALPUENTE. 
 
 Shall those battalions which fought so many 
 years for freedom, so many for glory, be supple- 
 mentary bands to barbarians from Caucasus and 
 Imaus? shall they shed the remainder of their 
 
264 LOPEZ BANGS 
 
 blood to destroy a cause, for the maintenance of 
 which they offered up its first libation? Time 
 will solve this problem, the most momentous in 
 its solution that ever lay before man. If we are 
 conquered, of which at present I have no appre- 
 hension, Europe must become the theatre of new 
 wars, and be divided first into three parts, after- 
 wards into two, and the next generation will see 
 all her states and provinces the property of one 
 autocrat, and governed by the most ignorant and 
 lawless of her nations. 
 
 BANGS. 
 
 Never was there a revolution, or material change 
 in government, effected with so little bloodshed, 
 so little opposition, so little sorrow or disquietude, 
 as ours. Months had passed away, years were rolling 
 over us, institutions were consolidating, supersti- 
 tion was relaxing, ingratitude and perfidy were as 
 much forgotten by us, as our services and sufferings 
 were forgotten by Ferdinand, when emissaries and 
 gold and arms, and Faith, inciting to discord and 
 rebellion, crossed our frontier. The religion of 
 Constantine and of Charlemagne, falsely called the 
 christian, and subversive of its doctrines and its 
 benefits, roused brother against brother, son against 
 father, and our fortresses were garnished with 
 the bayonets of France, and echoed with the watch- 
 
AND ROMERO ALPUENTE. 265 
 
 words of the Vatican. If Ferdinand had regarded 
 his oath, and had acceded, in our sense of the 
 word faith, to the constitution of his country, 
 from which there hardly was a dissentient voice, 
 among the industrious and the unambitious, among 
 the peaceable and the wise, would he have eaten 
 one dinner with less appetite, or have embroidered 
 one petticoat with less taste? would the saints 
 along his chapel-walls have smiled upon him less 
 graciously, or would thy tooth, holy Dominic, 
 have left a less pleasurable impression on his lips? 
 Only two strong truths could have shocked him, 
 instead of the many personal ones he drew upon 
 his headj namely, that damnable does not mean 
 combustible, and that there is the worst heresy 
 where is imposture for the sake of power or profit. 
 Such truths however are now, it appears, to be 
 bundled up with gorse, broom, and hazel; and 
 he who exposed the mysteries of the Inquisition, 
 may soon be a prisoner in its lowest chambers, 
 having been expelled from the territory, as might 
 be expected, of the most christian king. His 
 most christian majesty demands that Ferdinand 
 the seventh may give his people those institutions 
 which they can have from him only. Yes, these 
 are his expressions, Alpuente ; these the doctrines 
 
266 JLOPEZ BANGS 
 
 for the propagation of which our country is to be 
 invaded with fire and sword ; this is government, 
 this is order, this is faith! Ferdinand was at 
 liberty to give us his institutions : he gave them : 
 what were they? the inquisition in all its terrors, 
 absolute and arbitrary sway, scourges and proces- 
 sions, monks and missionaries, and a tooth of saint 
 Dominic to crown them all. Our priests are more 
 powerful than God himself. So strange and in- 
 tractable a creature was man, not only when he 
 was made but when he was making, that God 
 rested himself immediately after the operation: 
 now, Senor, here comes before you, from Astorga 
 or Las Kerreras, a clever young prig of a priest- 
 ling, puts a wafer into a watchcase, lifts it up half 
 an ell above the louse-roost, and, by the body of 
 Saint lacomo, out come a brace or leash of Gods 
 created at a word, and astart at the tinkling of a 
 bell. To support the throne that crushes us, and 
 the altar that choaks us, march forward the war- 
 like Louis and the preux Chateaubriant, known 
 among his friends to be firm in belief, as Hobbes, 
 Talleyrand, or Spinoza; and behold them ad- 
 vancing side by side against the calm opponents 
 of Roman bulls and French charts. Although 
 his majesty be brave as Maximin at a breakfast. 
 
AND ROMERO ALPUENTE. 267 
 
 he will find it easier to eat his sixtyfour cutlets 
 than to conquer Spain. I doubt whether the same 
 historian shall have to commemorate both exploits. 
 
 ALPUENTE. 
 
 An imprudent step, amidst armies raised for the 
 defence of other principles, may be ruinous to his 
 dynasty. 
 
 BANGS. 
 
 Principles do not much influence the unprin- 
 cipled, nor mainly the principled. We talk on 
 principle, but we act on interest. The French 
 army will find little plunder; and the French 
 people must endure new taxes and impositions. 
 A Spanish war may precipitate Louis XVIII 
 where an American war dragged in its conse- 
 quences Louis XVI, to a fate which, if he had 
 not experienced it, he would be acknowledged to 
 have deserved. 
 
 ALPUENTE. 
 
 In wars the least guilty are the sufferers. In 
 these, as in every thing, we should contract as 
 much as possible the circle of human misery. The 
 deluded and enslaved should be so far spared as 
 is consistent with security: the most atrocious of 
 murderers and incendiaries, the pui-veyors and 
 hirers of them, should be removed at any expense 
 
268 LOPEZ BANGS 
 
 or hazard. If we shew little mercy to the robber 
 who enters a house by force, and if less ought to 
 be shewn to him who should enter it in the season 
 of distress and desolation, what portion of it ought 
 to be extended towards those who assail every 
 house in our country? How much of crime and 
 wretchedness may often be averted, how many 
 years of tranquility may sometimes be ensured to 
 the world by one wellchosen example! Is it 
 not better than to witness the grief of the vir- 
 tuous for the virtuous, and the extinction of 
 those bright and lofty hopes, for which the best 
 and wisest of every age contended? AVhere is 
 the man, w^orthy of the name, who would be less 
 affected at the lamentation of one mother for 
 her son, slain in defending his country, than at 
 the extermination of some six or seven usurpers, 
 commanding or attempting its invasion ? National 
 safety legitimates every mean employed upon it. 
 Criminals have been punished differently in dif- 
 ferent countries: but all enlightened, all honest, 
 all civilized men must agree Xi'ho are criminals. 
 The Athenians w^ere perhaps as well-informed 
 and intelligent as the people on lake Ladoga : they 
 knew nothing of the knout, I confess, and no 
 family amongst them boasted a succession of as- 
 
AND ROMERO ALPUENTE. 269 
 
 sassins, in wives, sons, fathers, and husbands ; but 
 he who endangered or injured his country was con- 
 demned to the draught of hemlock. They could 
 punish the offence in another manner ; if any 
 nation cannot, shall that nation therefore leave it 
 unpunished? and shall the guiltiest of men enjoy 
 impunity, from a consideration of modes and 
 means? Justice is not to be neglected because 
 what is preferable is unattainable. A housebreaker 
 is condemned to die, a city-breaker is celebrated 
 by an inscription over the gate. The murder of 
 thousands, soon perpetrated and past, is not the 
 greatest mischief he does: it is followed by the 
 baseness of millions, deepening for ages. Every 
 virtuous man in the universe is a member of that 
 grand Amphictyonic council, which should pass 
 sentence on the too powerful, and provide that it 
 be duly executed. It is just and it is necessary, 
 that those who pertinaciously insist on an unna- 
 tural state of society, should suffer by the shock 
 things make in recovering their equipoise. 
 
 We may indeed avoid a war if we will adopt 
 the rickety children of our neighbours : if we will 
 only build a house of peers we may live quietly in 
 our own. 
 
 BANCS. 
 
 A peerage I consider as the parkpaling of de- 
 
270 LOPEZ BANGS 
 
 spotism ; arranged to keep in creatures tame and 
 wild for diversion and luxury, and to keep out 
 the people. Kings are to peerages, what poles 
 are to ropedancers, enabling them to play their 
 tricks above the heads of the people with greater 
 confidence and security^. The wisest and the 
 most independent of the English parliaments de- 
 clared the thing useless. If the opinion of that 
 nation is now favorable to it, let us respect it, but 
 let us also teach that nation to respect ours, always 
 less biassed by private interests and less addicted 
 to party. The principal gods of antiquity had 
 each his favorite tree; and some nations too, the 
 English for example, theirs... the oak. The Spa- 
 niard has rather the qualities of the cedar : patient 
 of cold and heat, nourished on little, lofty and 
 dark, unbending and incorruptible. 
 
 Nothing should stand between the people and 
 the chief magistrate: the laws alone should be 
 checks : a free people can acknowledge no other. 
 In these religion is included, which indeed is the 
 great law-head whence they all emanate. It is 
 written in the heart of every man ; but it is often 
 
 * This (as must be evident from the Commentary of judge 
 Blackstone^ and from the sermons of many dignitaries of the 
 church) is inapplicable to England. 
 
AND ROMERO ALPUENTE. 271 
 
 SO misspelt as to become a matter of contest, by 
 the notaries that would traffic in transcribing it. 
 
 The French, ridiculous as it may appear, would 
 be our teachers. Let us not envy them the facility 
 with which they build up constitutions and pull 
 them down again, with which they take oaths and 
 counter-oaths, with which while they violate honesty 
 they declame on honour ; let us only ask of them 
 who of their most applauded public men has not 
 been both traitor and perjurer ; who among them 
 has not been the deserter of his country or its de- 
 luder. Ingratitude, the most odious of crimes in 
 other countries, is not even a blemish there: the 
 sign of the cross laid over the uniform heals it 
 perfectly. Read over the list of marshals : which 
 of them has not abandoned his benefactor? which 
 of them does not drink to the health of Louis from 
 wine poured out to them by Napoleon? 
 
 Dignity without pride was formerly the charac- 
 teristic of greatness: the revolution in morals is 
 completed, and it is now pride without dignity. 
 Republics give commissions for robbery, and de- 
 spots give keys to secure it; so that every thief, 
 issuing from the foul and slippery allies of politics, 
 is glad to creep under the ermine. Look again at 
 the French marshals, whose heads are now peep- 
 ing out from it, in quest of fresh plunder! to 
 
272 LOPEZ BANGS 
 
 which of all the number does not my remark 
 apply, even of those whose palms and foreheads 
 are the least deeply branded ? 
 
 France is strong by the weakness of Spain, in 
 some degree ; and the elder branch of the Bourbons 
 has always had the means of inculcating this truth 
 on the younger, and of indemnifying it for its 
 acquiescence : if your people are flourishing they 
 will be strong ; if they are strong they will be tur- 
 bulent: the richer they are, the poorer will you 
 be. Let them recover their rights, as they call 
 them, and you will lose your mines and your chases. 
 The most wretched nations make the most splendid 
 kings, as the thinnest rags the most lustrous 
 
 paper. 
 
 •• 
 
 ALPUENTE.* 
 
 England, I trust, will exert her influence and 
 her authority. She loses what France gains. 
 
 BANGS. 
 
 There are two which you cannot trust at once ; 
 Experience and England. She seems resolved to 
 adopt the principles of the holy alliance ; her king, 
 it is said, has approved them, and has expressed 
 his regret that the Constitution did not permitt 
 him to enter into the confederacy : the first time, I 
 believe, that a king of England has openly re- 
 gretted the precautions imposed on him, by the 
 
AND ROMERO ALPUENTE. 273 
 
 constitution which placed his family on the throne. 
 If we should go farther than we have done, if we 
 should vote, on proofs of treason, that our king 
 has abdicated his, will England condemn in us 
 what in herself she glorifies? No, England will 
 not condemn us, but her government will abandon 
 us. 
 
 ALPUENTE. 
 
 Yet at this moment she could obtain from us 
 more than all her wars have given her. By the 
 cession of a fortress, from which she derives no 
 other advantage than the appointment of an old 
 drowsy governor to about one hundred thousand 
 crowns yearly, she might possess our African har- 
 bours, which alone would give her the dominion 
 both of the Atlantic sea and of the Mediterra- 
 nean: she might also, for other trifling sacrifices, 
 which in the end w^ould strengthen and enrich 
 her, be mistress of that American island which 
 secures and provisions all the others, if well ma- 
 naged, and which gives her advantages, beyond her 
 calculation, in those dreadful conflicts that must 
 decide hereafter whether the mother or the daughter 
 shall be mistress of the seas. 
 
 BANGS. 
 
 Spain once ruled themj England rules them 
 
 VOL. II. T 
 
274 LOPEZ BANGS, &c. 
 
 now: Spain was as confident that her supremacy 
 would be eternal as England now is. From the 
 time that we adopted a French family and French 
 principles we began to decay, and it is in vain that 
 purblind politicians seek the germs of our corrup- 
 tion in America. Let us, Alpuente, rather look 
 to that country for regeneration. There the 
 Spaniard shoots up again: there also we per- 
 haps may lay our bones at last. 
 
 ALPUENTE. 
 
 Eighty years have thrown their burden upon 
 mine : they are not worth the freight. I can still 
 watch for my country : I can still mount guard. 
 No voice is such an incentive to valour as the 
 feeble voice of age; neither flag nor trumpet 
 marshals it, like a man of eighty dead on his 
 threshold. 
 
^^ 
 
 CONVERSATION XV, 
 
 HENRY VIII 
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 t2 
 
HENRY VIII 
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Dost thou know me, Nanny, in this yeoman's 
 dress? Blood! does it require so long and vacant 
 a stare to recollect a husband, after a week or two? 
 No tragedy-tricks with me! a scream, a sob, or 
 thy kerchief a trifle the wetter, were enough. 
 Why! verily the little fool faints in earnest. 
 These whey faces, like their kinsfolk the ghosts, 
 give us no warning. Hast had water enough upon 
 thee ? take that then ... art thyself again ? 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 Father of mercies ! do I meet again my husband, 
 as was my last prayer on earth ! do I behold my 
 beloved lord ... in peace . . . and pardoned, my part- 
 ner in eternal bliss ! It was his voice. I cannot 
 
278 HENRY VIII 
 
 see him . . . why cannot I ? O why do these pangs 
 interrupt the transports of the blessed ! 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Thou openest thy arms : faith ! I came for that : 
 Nanny, thou art a sweet slut^: thou groanest, 
 
 ^ Henry was not unlearned, nor indifferent to the costlier 
 externals of a gentleman, but in manners and language he 
 was hardly on a level with our ostlers of the present day. He 
 was fond of bearbaitings and other such amusements in the 
 midst of the rabble, and would wrestle with Francis 1. His 
 reign is one continued proof, flaring and wearisome as a Lap- 
 land summer-day, that even the English form of government, 
 under a sensual king with money at his disposal, may serve 
 only to legitimatize injustice. The Constitution was still in- 
 sisted on, in all its original strength and purity, by those who 
 had abolished many of its fundamental laws, and had placed 
 the remainder at the discretion of the king. It never has 
 had a more zealous advocate than Empson. This true patriot 
 of legitimacy requested on his trial, that, '' if he and Dudley 
 were punished, it might not be divulged to other nations, lest 
 they should inferr that the final dissolution of the English 
 government was approaching." 
 
 On the government and king, only one opinion now sub- 
 sists: but perhaps there are some who, from malignity or 
 scanty knowledge, doubt the innocence of Anne Boleyn. In 
 fact she was too innocent for her station. The frank and un- 
 suspicious gaiety of her temper, the restless playfulness of 
 high spirits, which we often saw formerly in the families of 
 country gentlemen, first captivated the affections and after- 
 wards raised the jealousy of Henry. There is no instance in 
 any public trial (not even where the defendent was acquitted) 
 of accusations so improbable and ill-supported. Those who 
 entertain no doubt whatever of her purity, acknowledge her 
 indiscretion : but if indiscretion is far removed from all in- 
 decency, from all injury to others, why censure it? What 
 
AND ANNE BOLEYN. 279 
 
 wench: art in labour? Faith! among the mis- 
 takes of the night, I am ready to think ahnost 
 that thou hast been drinking, and that I have 
 not. 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 God preserve your Highness: grant me your 
 forgiveness for one slight offence: my eyes were 
 heavy; I fell asleep while I was reading; I did 
 not know of your presence at first, and when I 
 did I could not speak. I strove for utterance ; I 
 wanted no respect for my liege and husband. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 My pretty warm nestling, thou wilt then lie! 
 thou wert reading and aloud too, with thy saintly 
 cup of water by thee, and . . . what ! thou art still 
 girlishly fond of those dried cherries ! 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 I had no other fruit to offer your Highness the 
 first time I saw you, and you were then pleased 
 to invent for me some reason why they should be 
 
 they call indiscretion in an unfortunate queen they would call 
 affability in a fortunate one. Lightness of spirits, which had 
 made all about her happy the whole course of her life^ made 
 her so the last day of it. Nothing I have written or could 
 write on her, is so affecting as the few words she spoke to the 
 constable of the tower, " laughing heartily.'' She was be- 
 headed on the nineteenth of May, and Henry on the morrow 
 married Jane Seymour. 
 
280 HENRY VIII 
 
 acceptable. I did not dry these: may I present 
 them, such as they are ? we shall have fresh next 
 month. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Thou art always driving away from the dis- 
 course. One moment it suits thee to know me, 
 another not. 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 Remember, it is hardly three months since I 
 miscarried ^ ; I am still weak and liable to swoons. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Thou hast however thy bridal cheeks, with 
 lustre upon them when there is none elsewhere, 
 and obstinate lips, resisting all impression : but, now 
 thou talkest about miscarrying, who is the father 
 of that boy ? 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 Yours and mine... he who has taken him to his 
 
 * Anne Boleyn miscarried of a son January the twenty- 
 ninth, 1536: the king concluded from this event that his 
 marriage was disagreeable to God. He had abundance of 
 conclusions for believing that his last marriage was disagreeable 
 to God, whenever he wanted a fresh one, and was ready in 
 due time to give up this too with the same resignation ; but 
 he never had any conclusions of doing a thing disagreeable to 
 God when a divorce or decapitation was in question. Cruelty, 
 which, if not the only sin, is certainly the greatest, has been 
 overlooked as one altogether by the zealots of religion. 
 
AND ANNE BOLEYN. 281 
 
 own home, before (like me) he could struggle or 
 cry for it. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Pagan, or worse, to talk so ! He did not come 
 into the world alive : there was no baptism. 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 I thought only of our loss : my senses are still 
 confounded. I did not give him my milk, and 
 yet I loved him tenderly ; for I often fancied, had 
 he lived, how contented and joyful he would have 
 made you and England. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 No subterfuges and escapes...! warrant, thou 
 canst not say, whether at my enterance, thou wert 
 waking or wandering. 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 Faintness and drowsiness came upon me sud- 
 denly. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Well, since thou really and truly sleepedst, what 
 didst dream of? 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 I begin to doubt whether I did indeed sleep. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Ha! false one... never tw^o sentences of truth 
 together... but come, what didst think about, 
 asleep or awake? 
 
2S2 HENRY VIII 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 I thought that God had pardoned me my 
 offences, and had received me mito him. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 And nothing more ? 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 That all my prayers had been heard, and that 
 all my wishes were accomplishing: the angels 
 alone can enjoy more beatitude than this. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Vexatious little devil! she says nothing now 
 about me, merely from perverseness . . . Hast thou 
 never thought about me, nor about thy falsehood 
 and adultery? 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 If I had committed any kind of falsehood, in 
 regard to you or not, I should never have rested 
 until I had thrown myself at your feet and 
 obtained your pardon: but if ever I had been 
 guilty of that other crime, I know not whether 
 I should have dared to implore it, even of God's 
 mercy. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Thou hast heretofore cast some soft glances 
 upon Smeaton ; hast thou not ? 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 He taught me to play on the virginals, as you 
 
AND ANNE BOLEYN. 2cS3 
 
 know, when I was little, and thereby to please 
 your Highness. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 And Brereton and Norris, what have they 
 taught thee? 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 They are your servants, and trusty ones. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Has not Weston told thee plainly that he loved 
 thee? 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 Yes; and... 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 What didst thou? 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 I defied him. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Is that all ? 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 I could have done no more if he had told me 
 that he hated me. Then indeed I should have 
 incurred more justly the reproaches of your High- 
 ness : I should have smiled. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 We have proofs abundant : they shall one and 
 all confront thee... aye, clap thy hands and kiss 
 my sleeve, harlot ! 
 
284 HENRY VIII 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 that so great a favour is vouchsafed me 1 
 my honour is secure ; my husband will be happy 
 again ; he will see my innocence. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Give me now an account of the monies thou 
 hast received from me, within these nine months : 
 I want them not back : they are letters of gold in 
 record of thy guilt. Thou hast had no fewer 
 than fifteen thousand pounds within that period, 
 without even thy asking ; what hast done with it, 
 wanton ? 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 1 have regularly placed it out to interest. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Where? I demand of thee. 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 Among the needy and ailing. My lord arch- 
 bishop has the account of it, sealed by him weekly ^ : 
 I also had a copy myself: those who took away 
 
 * The duke of Norfolk obtained an order that the arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury should retire to his palace of Lambeth 
 on the queen's trial. Burnet says that she had distributed, 
 in the last nine months of her life, between fourteen and fif- 
 teen thousand pounds among the poor; a sum equal in 
 value to nearly ten times the amount at present. It tends 
 to prove how little she could have reserved for vanities or for 
 favorites. 
 
AND ANNE BOLEYN. 285 
 
 my papers may easily find it, for there are few 
 others, and all the rest lie open. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Think on my munificence to thee; recollect 
 who made thee... dost sigh for what thou hast 
 lost? 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 I do indeed. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 I never thought thee ambitious ; but thy vices 
 creep out one by one. 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 I do not regrett that I have been a queen and 
 am now no longer so, nor that my innocence is 
 called in question by those who never knew me: 
 but I lament that the good people, who loved me 
 so cordially, hate and curse me ; that those who 
 pointed me out to their daughters for imitation, 
 check them when they speak about me ; and that 
 he whom next to God I have served with most 
 devotion, is my accuser. O my lord, my husband, 
 and king ! the judgements of God are righteous : 
 on this surely we all must think alike. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 And what then? speak out... again I com- 
 mand thee, speak plainly ... thy tongue was not 
 so torpid but this moment. 
 
^2S6 HENRY VIII 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 If any doubt remains upon your royal mind of 
 your equity in this business ; should it haply seem 
 possible to you that passion or prejudice, in your- 
 self or another, may have warped so strong an 
 understanding, do but supplicate the Almighty to 
 strengthen and enlighten it, and he will hear you. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 What! thou wouldst fain change thy quarters, 
 aye? 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 My spirit is detached and ready, and I shall 
 change them shortly, whatever your Highness 
 may determine. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Yet thou appearest hale and resolute, and (they 
 tell me) smirkest and smilest to them all. 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 The withered leaf catches the sun sometimes, 
 little as it can profit by it ; and I have heard stories 
 of the breeze, that sets in when daylight is about 
 to close, and how constant it is, and how refresh- 
 ing. My heart indeed is now sustained strangely : 
 it became the more sensibly so from that time for- 
 ward, when power and grandeur and all things 
 terrestrial were sunk from sight. Every act of 
 kindness from those about me gives me satisfac- 
 
AND ANNE BOLEYN. 287 
 
 tion and pleasure, such as I did not feel formerly. 
 I was worse before God chastened me; yet I was 
 never an ingrate. What pains have I taken to 
 find out the village-girls, who placed their posies 
 in my chamber ere I arose in the morning! how 
 gladly would I have recompensed the forester who 
 lit up a brake on my birthnight, which else had 
 warmed him half the winter ! But these are times 
 past : I was not queen of England. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Nor adulterous, nor heretical. 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 God be praised ! 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Learned saint, thou knowest nothing of the 
 lighter, but perhaps canst inform me about the 
 graver of them. 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 Which may it be, my liege ? 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Which may it be, pestilence ! I marvel that 
 the walls of this tower do not crack around us at 
 such impiety. 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 I would be instructed by the wisest of theolo- 
 gians ; such is your Highness. 
 
288 HENRY VIII 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Are the sins of the body, foul as they are, com- 
 parable to those of the soul ? 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 When they are united they must be worst. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Go on, go on: thou pushest thy own breast 
 against the sword : God has deprived thee of thy 
 reason for thy punishment. I must hear more ; 
 proceed, I charge thee. 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 An aptitude to believe one thing rather than 
 another from ignorance or weakness, or from the 
 more persuasive manner of the teacher, or from his 
 purity of life, or from the strong impression of a 
 particular text at a particular time, and various 
 things besides, may influence and decide our 
 opinion; and the hand of the Almighty, let us 
 hope, will fall gently on human fallibility. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Opinion in matters of faith ! rare wisdom ! rare 
 religion ! Troth ! Anne, thou hast well sobered 
 me: I came rather warmly and lovingly; but 
 those light ringlets, by the holy rood, shall not 
 shade this shoulder much longer. Nay, do not 
 start; I tapp it for the last time, my sweetest. 
 
AND ANNE BOLEYX. 280 
 
 If the Church permitted it, thou shouldst set 
 forth on the long journey with the eucharist be- 
 tween thy teeth, however loth. 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 Love your Elizabeth, my honoured Lord, and 
 God bless you ! She will soon forget to call me ; 
 do not chide her; think how young she is*. 
 
 Could I, could I kiss her, but once again ! it 
 would comfort my heart... or break it. 
 
 * Elizabeth was not quite three years old at her mother's 
 death, being born the seventh of September, 1533. 
 
 It does not appear that the Defender of the Faith brought 
 his wife to the scaffold for the good of her soul, nor that she 
 was pregnant at the time, which would have added much 
 to the merit of the action, as there is the probability that 
 the child would have been heretical. Caspar Scioppius, who 
 flourished in the same century, says, in his Classicum belli 
 sacri, that the children of heretics should not be pardoned, 
 lest, if they grow up, they be implicated in the wickedness of 
 their parents, and perish eternally. 
 
 Literature and Religion seem to have been contending one 
 hundred years unintermittingly, which of them should be 
 most efficient in banishing all humanity and all civility from 
 the world, the very things which it was their business to 
 propagate and preserve, and without which they not only 
 are useless but pernicious. Scioppius stood as bottle- 
 holder to both in all their most desperate attacks. He, who 
 
 VOL. II. U 
 
290 HENRY VIII AND ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 was so munificent to children, in little faggots, little swords, 
 and little halters^ gave also a chrishnas-hox to our king James I. 
 Alexipharmacum regium Jelli draconum et veneno aspidum, 
 sub Philippi Morncei de Plcssis niipera papains historia abdito, 
 appositum, et serenissimo Domino, Jacobo Magnce Britannice 
 regi, strense Januariae loco, muneri missum. From the in- 
 exhaustible stores of his generosity, he made another such 
 present to this monarch. Collyrium Regium, Britannice regi, 
 graviter ex oculis laboranti, muneri missum. 
 
 Sir Henry Wootton, who found him in Madrid, to requite 
 him for his christmas-box and box of salve, ordered him to 
 be whipped without a metaphor; on which Lavanda says. 
 Quid Hispane calleat Scioppius baud scio ; si quid tamen istius 
 linguae in ipso fuit, tunc opinor exseruit maxime quando in 
 Hispania Anglice vapulavit. 
 
 The remedies of Henry were more infallible, and his gifts 
 more royal. 
 
CONVERSATION XVI. 
 
 LORD CHESTERFIELD 
 
 AND 
 
 LORD CHATHAM 
 
 u 2 
 
LORD CHESTERFIELD 
 
 AND 
 
 LORD CHATHAM. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 It is true, my lord, we have not always been of 
 the same opinion, or, to use a better, truer, and 
 more significant expression, of the same side in 
 politics, yet I never heard a sentence from your 
 Lordship which I did not listen to with deep at- 
 tention. I understand that you have written some 
 pieces of admonition and advice to a young re- 
 lative : they are mentioned as being truly excellent : 
 I wish I could have profited by them when I was 
 composing mine on a similar occasion. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 My lord, you certainly would not have done it, 
 even supposing they contained, which I am far 
 from believing, any topics that could have escaped 
 your penetrating view of manners and morals ; for 
 your Lordship and I set out diversely from the 
 
294 LORD chp:sterfield 
 
 very threshold. Let us then rather hope that 
 what we both have written, with an equally good 
 intention, may produce its due effect*, which in- 
 deed, I am afraid, may be almost as doubtful, if 
 we consider how ineffectual were the cares and 
 exhortations, and even the daily example and high 
 renown, of the most zealous and prudent men, on 
 the life and conduct of their children and dis- 
 ciples. Let us however hope the best rather than 
 fear the worst, and believe that there never was a 
 right thing done or a wise one spoken in vain, 
 although the fruit of them may not spring up in 
 the place designated or at the time expected. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 Pray, if I am not taking too great a freedom, 
 give me the outline of your plan. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 Willingly, my lord: but since a greater man 
 than either of us has laid down a more compre- 
 hensive one, containing all I could bring forward, 
 would it not be preferable to consult it? I differ 
 in nothing from Locke, unless it be that I would 
 recommend the lighter as well as the graver part 
 of the ancient classics, and the constant practise 
 of imitating them in early youth. This is no 
 change in the system, and no larger an addition 
 than a woodbine to a sacred grove. 
 
AND LORD CHATHAM. S95 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 I do not admire Mr. Locke. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 Nor I: he is too simply grand for admiration: 
 I contemplate and revere him. Equally deep 
 and clear, he is both philosophically and gramma- 
 tically the most elegant of English writers. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 If I expressed by any motion of limb or feature 
 my surprise at this remark, your Lordship I hope 
 will pardon me a slight and involuntary transgres- 
 sion of my own precept. I must entreat you, 
 before we move a step further in our inquiry, to 
 inform me whether I am really to consider him, 
 in style, the most elegant of our prose authors. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 Your Lordship is capable of forming an opinion 
 on this point certainly no less correct than mine. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 Pray assist me. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 Education and grammar are surely the two 
 dryest of all subjects on which a conversation can 
 turn: yet, if the ground is not promiscuously 
 sown, if what ought to be clear is not covered, if 
 what ought to be covered is not bare, and above 
 all if the plants are choice ones, we may spend a 
 
29G LOKD CHESTERFIELD 
 
 few moments on it not unpleasantly. It appears 
 then to me, that elegance in prose composition is 
 mainly this : a just admission of topics and of 
 words; neither too many nor too few of either; 
 enough of sweetness in the sound to induce us to 
 enter and sit still ; enough of illustration and re- 
 flection to change the posture of our minds when 
 they would tire, and enough of sound matter in 
 the complex to repay us for our attendence. I 
 could perhaps be more logical in my definition, and 
 more concise ; but am I at all erroneous ? 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 I see not that you are. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 My ear is well satisfied with Locke: I find 
 nothing idle or redundant in him. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 But, in the opinion of you graver men, would 
 not some of his principles lead too far? 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 The danger is that few will be led by them far 
 enough : most w^ho begin with him stop short, 
 and, pretending to find pebbles in their shoes, 
 throw themselves down upon the ground and com- 
 plain of their guide. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 What then can be the reason whv Plato, so 
 
AND LORD CHATHAM. 297 
 
 much less intelligible, is so much more quoted 
 and applauded? 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 The difficulties we never trie are no difficulties 
 to us. Those who are upon the summit of a 
 mountain know in some measure its altitude, by 
 comparing it with all objects around ; but those 
 who stand at the bottom and never mounted it, 
 can compare it with few only, and with those im- 
 perfectly : so fares it with Plato and his readers 
 on one side, and with Plato and his talkers on the 
 other. Until a short time a^o I could have con- 
 versed more fluently about him than I can at pre- 
 sent : I had read all the titles to his dialogues and 
 several scraps of commentary; these I have now 
 forgotten, and am indebted to long attacks of the 
 gout for what I have acquired instead. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 A very severe school-master ! I hope he allows 
 a long vacation. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 Severe he is indeed, and although he sets no 
 example of regularity, he exacts few observances 
 and teaches many things. Without him I should 
 have had less patience, less learning, less reflection, 
 less leisure; in short, less of every thing but of 
 sleep. 
 
298 LORD CHESTEHFIELD 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 Plato, I see from the Latin version, lies open 
 on the table : the paragraphs marked with pencil, 
 I presume, are fine passages. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 I have noted those only which appeared repre- 
 hensible, and chiefly where he is disingenuous and 
 malicious. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 They indeed ought to be the most remarkable 
 of all in the works of a philosopher. If the malice 
 is against those who are thought greater or as 
 great, it goes towards the demonstration that 
 they are so: if on the contrary the objects of it 
 are inferior to himself, he cannot take them up 
 without raising them: unworthy of notice, they 
 are greatly more unworthy of passion. Surely no 
 philosopher would turn to an opposite conclusion 
 from that which in the commencement he had 
 designed to prove ; as here he must do. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 He avoids all open hostility to Democritus and 
 Xenophon and Aristoteles, but I fancy I have 
 detected him in more than one dark passage, with 
 a dao;o;er in his hand and a bitter sneer on his 
 countenance. I know not whether it has been 
 observed before that these words are aimed at the 
 
AND LORD CHATHAM. 299 
 
 latter, the citizen of another state and the com- 
 mentator of other laws. 
 
 0J5'' ajtiSvyAX (Ts ccXXt); itoKs'jo; ov^" oiXKwv voij^oov eXa^ey 
 
 The compliment is more injurious to Socrates, for 
 whom it was intended, than the insinuation to 
 Aristoteles. But the prime object of his hatred, 
 open here and undissembled, is Prodicus, author 
 of the beautiful allegory in which Pleasure and 
 Virtue offer themselves to the choice of Hercules. 
 In one place he mentions him with Polus and 
 many others : the least difficult and least inge- 
 nious of malignant expressions, where great genius 
 is the subject of calumny and invective. One 
 hardly could imagine that he had the assurance 
 and effrontery to call Epicharmus the chief of 
 comic writers, before a people who that very day 
 perhaps had been at a comedy of Aristophanes. 
 The talent of Epicharmus lay in puns and ri- 
 baldry, and Hiero punished him for immodest 
 conversation. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 I have read somewhere that, when Plato was 
 young, it was predicted of him, from his satirical 
 vein, that he would become in time a substitute 
 for Archilochus. 
 
300 LORD CHESTERFIELD 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 Athenaeus, I think, has recorded it. I do not 
 find so much wit as I expected; and, to speak 
 plainly, his wit is the most tiresome and dull part 
 of him : for who can endure a long series of con- 
 versations full of questions to entrap a sophist? 
 Why not lead us to the trap at once by some un- 
 expected turn? There is more ingenuity and 
 more gracefulness in a single paper of the Spec- 
 tator, than in six or eight of these dialogues, in 
 all which, excepting the Phcedo, I was disap- 
 pointed. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 The language is said to be very masterly and 
 sonorous. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 AuVo xa5' OLUTQ ucautuj^ Koctd rocvrcc ^'x^h y-o(.i ovStitOTa 
 ou^oLiJ.Ms dKXolujinv ov^i^iav hUy^zrcii. Phaedo, 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 Come, come, my lord ; do not attempt to per- 
 suade me, that an old woman's charm to cure a 
 corn or remove a wart, or a gypsey-girPs to catch 
 a sixpence, is Plato's Greek. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 Look yourself. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 I have forgotten the characters pretty nearly: 
 
AND LORD CHATHAM. 301 
 
 faith ! they appear to me, from what I can pick 
 up, to correspond with the sounds you gave them. 
 Jupiter, it is said by the ancients, would have 
 spoken no other language than that of Plato: if 
 ever Jupiter uttered such sounds as these, it could 
 be only when he was crossing the Hellespont. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 What do you think of this jingle? UpcZroy 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 I really thought that his language was accurate 
 and harmonious to the last deo^ree. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 Generally it is so: his language is the best 
 of him. We moderns are still children in our 
 tongues, at least we English. For my own part, I 
 always spoke in parliament what I considered the 
 most effectual to persuade my hearers, without a 
 care or a thought touching the structure of my 
 sentences : but knowing that the ancient orators 
 and writers laid the first foundation of their glory 
 upon syllables, I was surprised to find no fewer 
 than nine short ones together in this ambitious 
 and eloquent author. . . av^pas diro^e^oycii/.ocx.orss. Phaedo. 
 The accents, which were guides to them, although 
 unwritten, may have taken off somewhat from this 
 peculiarity, and may have been a sort of support 
 
308 LORD CHESTERFIELD 
 
 to the feebleness of the sound. Xo mod en i •- 
 gnage can admitt the con c : : ^ : : ^ / : ii y ^ u i li ; 
 and the Latin was so inadei^ " . - t> of 
 
 them, that it produced, I b . _ : .:. _ 1- 
 
 fiambic in the times of its strL/.j:?. and fertility, 
 which poem required them in greater numbers, 
 and closer together than any other, but did not 
 receive nine conjointly. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 Cicero was himseil^ a trider in c ' -. and 
 
 whoever thinks mnch ab u^ rh; n wii. . c^ e ^o, 
 if indeed the very thou^-l:: v.^c-n it enters is not 
 trifling. 
 
 CHATHAM, 
 
 I am not sure that ir i> : :■:■-: an orderly and 
 sweet sentence, by gaining our ear, conciliates our 
 affections; and the voice of a beggar has on en 
 more effect upon us than his distress. \our men- 
 tion of Cicero on :1 '^ ::^: ". :v ::: ::- me f his 
 Ofortunatamnatu,. >:. ;. A : ;. Playiul 
 
 as he was in his vanity, I do not believe the verse is 
 his : but Plato wrote :.;>.a.:v -zc a^TtcV aJ r^h ^^h s-*/ 'y^rzi 
 rz^'Tz. kc. As for wit, what think you of this 1^ / 
 am ready ^ O SocrateSy io give r'-j-'j 
 strangers^ tojlea me worse than they ' :e, 
 
 \f the fiemng ends not in a hide, as that of Mar- 
 was cUd, but m virtue. Or what think vou of a 
 
AND LORD CHATHAM. 303 
 
 project to make a doll and dedicate it to Me- 
 mory? The stuff that follows is worse still. 
 Towards the end of the volume, in the Gorgias, 
 Polus says to Socrates, Do not you see Archelaus, 
 son of Perdiccas, i^eigning over the Macedonians? 
 to which Socrates replies. If I do not see him, 
 I hear- of him. 
 
 In the beginning of the same dialogue, Gorgias, 
 at the request of Socrates to be brief, assents to 
 his propositions, twice, by using the monosyllable : 
 whereupon Socrates says, / admire your replies, 
 Gorgias: they are as short as they can he. If 
 the same monosyllable had been the answer to 
 several questions in succession, and if those ques- 
 tions had been complicated and intricate, then, 
 and then only, the remark had been wellplaced. 
 
 You remember, my Lord, the derivations made 
 by Swift, of Agamemnon, and other names of 
 heroes. These are hardly more absurd and ridi- 
 culous than almost all made by Plato, and attri- 
 buted with great complacency to Socrates, of 
 the same and similar, and are much less literal. 
 It is incredible how erroneous were the most 
 learned, both among the Greeks and Romans, on 
 the origin of words. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 I have heard it reported that our own lexico- 
 
304 LORD CHESTERFIELD 
 
 graphers are subject to the same animadversion: 
 but I can judge more adequately of bad reasoning 
 or bad wit. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 A very little of the latter tires and nauseates ; 
 but in the former there is generally something to 
 exercise the ingenuity. I have seen persons who 
 could employ a moment or two unreluctantly in 
 straightening a crooked nail : with about the same 
 labour and interest I would hammer upon an in- 
 exact thought. Here is one, which I wonder that 
 Cicero, in mentioning the dialogue, has failed to 
 remark. Our philosopher divides rhetoric into 
 the true and the false ; as if any part of a defini- 
 tion or description were to be founded on the de- 
 fects of what is defined or described. Rhetoric 
 may be turned to good or bad purposes ; but this 
 is no proof or indication that it must be divided 
 into good and bad : the use of a thing is not the 
 thing itself; how then is the abuse? 
 
 The wit of Plato's dialogues is altogether of a 
 single kind, and of that which in a continuance is 
 the least welcome ; for irony is akin to cavil ; and 
 cavil, as the best wit either is goodnatured or 
 wears the appearance of goodnature, is nearly its 
 antipode. Plato has neither the grace of Xeno- 
 phon nor the gravity of Cicero, who tempers it 
 
AND LORD CHATHAM. 305 
 
 admirably with urbanity and facetiousness. The 
 characteristic of my author is, the dexterity and 
 ease with which he supports and shifts an argu- 
 ment, and exhibits it in all its phases. Neverthe- 
 less, a series of interrogations, long as he draws 
 them out for this purpose, would weary me in 
 one dialogue ; he continues them in twenty, with 
 people of the same description, on the same subjects. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 It is rather an idle thing, for an old gentleman 
 in a purple robe, to be sticking pins in every chair 
 on which a sophist is likely to sit down ; and rather 
 a tiresome and cheerless one, to follow and stand 
 by him, day after day, in the cold, laying gins for 
 tom-tits. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 In general, I own, he did so : but both he and 
 Aristoteles turned occasionally their irony (of 
 which indeed the latter had little) where irony is 
 best employed J against false piety, against that 
 which would be the substitute and not the support 
 of morality. 
 
 The Greek language, more courteous than the 
 Roman or the French or ours, and resembling in this 
 property the Italian, in addressing a person, had 
 ready, among other terms, w Q<xv[j.d<rie and w Bsxrio-rs, 
 Socrates meets an orderly good man, who, from 
 
 VOL. II. X 
 
LORD CftESTERFIELD 
 
 respect to the laws, is going to accuse his own 
 father of a capital crime, as he imagines it to be ; 
 and, doubting if he understood him, asks o <ros, cJ 
 BeAr/crf; Aristoteles, in the eighth book of his 
 Ethics, gravely says that children ought to see 
 no indecent statue or picture, unless it represent 
 some God committing the obscenity. 
 
 In regard to their philosophy, and indeed to 
 that of the ancients in general, there was little of 
 sound and salutary which they did not derive from 
 Democritus or from Pythagoras ; from the former 
 Aristoteles drew most, from the latter Plato. 
 Cicero says improperly of Socrates, what is re- 
 peated every day in schools and colleges, that he 
 first drew down Philosophy into private houses: 
 Pythagoras had done so, more systematically and 
 more extensively. Upon his tenets and his dis- 
 cipline were founded many institutions of the 
 earlier and quieter converts to Christianity. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 There is, I remember, a very dangerous doc- 
 trine attributed to this Democritus whom you 
 mentioned before him ; he said that governments 
 should have two supporters, rewards and punish- 
 ments. Now twelve hangmen, and even twelve 
 judges, may be paid: but Mansfield, I suspect, 
 would committ any man to Bridewell or the pil- 
 
AND LORD CHATHAM. 307 
 
 lory, who had broached a declaration so seditious, 
 as that people of ordinary business, unhired for 
 it, should be paid for doing their duty. National 
 debts, he would inform the jury, are not to be 
 aggravated by such idle and superfluous expendi- 
 ture, encreased at any man's option. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 I know not what my lord Mansfield, a worse 
 enemy to our constitution than even that degraded 
 and despicable prince for whose service he was 
 educated, may think or dictate on the subject, but 
 among all the books I ever read in which rewards 
 and punishments are mentioned, 1 never found 
 one where the words come in any other order than 
 this; rewards first, then punishments: a plain 
 evidence and proof to my humble understanding, 
 that in the same succession they present themselves 
 to the unperverted mind. We mention them not 
 only in regard to our polity, but in contemplation 
 of a better state hereafter; and there too they 
 occurr to us as upon earth. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 In the pleadings of Mansfield, in his charges, 
 in his decisions, in his addresses to parliament, I 
 have heard nothing so strikingly true as these 
 observations of your Lordship, and I wish I had 
 heard nothing so novel. 
 
 X 2 
 
308 LORD CHESTERFIELD 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 I, in the name of our country, unite with you, 
 my lord, in this wish. Let us trace again the 
 more innocent wanderings of a greater man, I 
 know not whether less prejudiced, but certainly 
 less profligate and corrupt. 
 
 Socrates in the Gorgias is represented as saying, 
 that he believes the soul and body both to exist 
 in another state, although separately; the body 
 just as it was in life, with all its infirmities, wounds, 
 and distortions. This would be great injustice; 
 for hence a long life, rendered so by frugality and 
 temperance, would acquire, in part of its recom- 
 pense, the imbecility of age, with deafness, blind- 
 ness, and whatever else is most afflictive and op- 
 pressive in that condition. The soul carries upon 
 its back the marks of floggings and bruizes and 
 scars, contracted by perjuries on earth, and by 
 the delivery in court of unjust sentences ; such I 
 believe, in this place, the meaning of d§mai, and 
 not merely any common acts of injustice. The 
 utility of such exposures in another life, he says, 
 arises from example to others. But in what man- 
 ner can they profit by this example? from what 
 wickedness can they be deterred by these scenes 
 of terror? Ideas as idly fanciful, as childishly 
 silly, as his description of the infernal rivers, which 
 
AND LORD CHATHAM. 309 
 
 he derived from the poets, and which, without 
 line or level, he led over places just as unfruitful 
 afterwards as before. Returning to this strange body 
 of his, it cannot be supposed an inert substance : the 
 words after death mean after this life upon earth. 
 If he would say that it were inert, he must sup- 
 pose it to be motionless : when did it become so ? 
 Strange that it should have motion to reach Tar- 
 tarus and should then lose it. If so, of what use 
 could it be ? He does not say it, nor mean it, I 
 imagine. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 On some occasions, it appears, he leaves off 
 meaning very abruptly. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 It is not wonderful or strange that Aristoteles 
 should ridicule his vagaries. Nothing can be more 
 puerile and contemptible than the ideas he attri- 
 butes to Socrates on future punishments : among 
 the rest, that the damned appeal by name to those 
 whom they have slain or wronged, and are dragged 
 backwards and forwards from Tartarus to Cocytus 
 and Periphlegethon, until the murdered or in- 
 jured consent to pardon them. So the crime is 
 punished, not according to its heinousness, but 
 according to the kindness or severity of those who 
 suffered by it. Now the greater crime is com- 
 
310 LORD CHESTERFIELD 
 
 mitted in having slain or injured the generous and 
 kind man ; the greater punishment is inflicted for 
 injuring or slaying the ungenerous and unkind. 
 
 He was fond of puns too, and the worst and com- 
 monest, those on names, "h^o-sv oJv fxoi kol) h tm jj^v^uj 
 
 TtpQl/.Yi^oviJ^BVog, &C. and below dXXa KaXX/a rcu xaXcu, &C. 
 
 The worst is, that he attributes the silliest of 
 sophistry and the basest of malignity to Socrates. 
 A wise and virtuous man may have the misfortune 
 to be at variance with a single great author among 
 his contemporaries; but neither a virtuous nor a 
 wise one can be drawn into hostilities against all 
 the best: he to whom this happens must be im- 
 prudent or weak or wicked. Impudence may 
 prompt some to tell you, that, with prodigious 
 manhness and self-devotion, they hazard to cut 
 their feet and break their shins by stemming the 
 current, but that the perilous state of literature 
 calls aloud on them, and that they encounter it 
 equally for the public good, and the correction of the 
 weak writer: but the public good, in my opinion, 
 is ill promoted by telling men that all their other 
 teachers are worth nothing, and that to be con- 
 tented is to be dull, to be pleased is to be foolish ; 
 nor have I remarked or heard of any instance 
 where morals have been improved by scurrility, 
 
AND LORD CHATHAM. 311 
 
 diffidence calmed, encouraged, sustained, and led 
 forth, by violence, or genius exalted by contempt. 
 I am sorry that this very great man should have 
 partaken the infirmities of the very least in their 
 worst propensities. This principally has induced 
 me to shew you, that, within the few pages you 
 see between my fingers, he has committed as grave 
 faults in style and sentiment, not only as Prodicus, 
 but (I will believe) as Polus. We hear from the 
 unprejudiced, that Prodicus, like our master Locke, 
 was exact in his definitions ; we know that he ar- 
 rived at the perfection of style ; and our gratitude 
 is due to him for one of the most beautiful works 
 delivered to us from antiquity. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 Your Lordship has shewn me that a divine 
 man, even with a swann of bees from nose to chin, 
 may cry loud and labour hard, and lay his quar- 
 ter-staff about him in all directions, and still be a 
 very indifferent buffoon. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 Buffoonery is hardly the thing wherein a man 
 of genius would be ambitious to excell; but, of 
 all failures, to fail in a witticism is the worst ; and 
 the mishap is the more calamitous, in a drawn-out, 
 detailed, and written one. 
 
312 LORD CHESTERFIELD 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 Plato falls over his own sword ; not by hanging 
 it negligently or loosely, but by stepping with it 
 awkwardly ; and the derision he incurs is propor- 
 tionate to the gravity of his gait. Half the plea- 
 sure in the world arises from malignity, and little 
 of the other half is free from its encroachments. 
 Those who enjoyed his smartness and versatility 
 of attack, laugh as heartily at him as with him, 
 demonstrate that a great man upon the ground is 
 lower than a little man upon his legs, and con- 
 clude that the light of imagination leads only to 
 gulphs and precipices. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 We however, with greater wisdom and higher 
 satisfaction, may survey him calmly and reve- 
 rentially, as one of lofty, massy, comprehensive 
 mind, whose failings myriads have partaken, whose 
 excellences few; and we may consider him as an 
 example, the more remarkable and striking to 
 those we would instruct, for that veiy inequality 
 and asperity of character, which many would ex- 
 aggerate, and some conceal. Let us however 
 rather trust Locke and Bacon ; let us believe the 
 one to be a wiser man, and the other both a wiser 
 and better. I declare to you, I should have the 
 
AND LORD CHATHAM. 313 
 
 courage to say the same thing, if they were living, 
 and expelled from court and Christchurch. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 We think more advantageously of artificial dig- 
 nities while the bearers are living, more advan- 
 tageously of real when they are dead. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 The tomb is the pedestal of greatness. I make 
 a distinction between God's great and the king's 
 great. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 Very rightly. Non bene conveniunt nee in una 
 sede morantiir. So much the worse for both par- 
 ties. Compliments are in their place only where 
 there is full as much of weakness as of merit, so 
 that when I express my admiration to your lord- 
 ship, all idea of compliment must vanish. Permitt 
 me then to say that I have always been much 
 gratified at this among your other great qualities, 
 that, possessing more wit than perhaps any man 
 living, you have the moderation to use it rarely, 
 and more often in friendship than in enmity. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 Profligate men and pernicious follies may fairly 
 and reasonably be exposed ; light peculiarities may 
 also be exhibited ; but only in such a manner that 
 he who gave the prototype would willingly take 
 
314 LORD CHESTERFIELD 
 
 the copy. But in general he who pursues another 
 race of writers, is little better than a foxhunter 
 who rides twenty miles from home for the sport : 
 what can he do with his game when he has caught 
 it ? As he is only the servant of the dogs, so the 
 satirist is only a caterer to the ferocious or false 
 appetites of the most indiscriminating and brutal 
 minds. Does he pretend that no exercise else is 
 good for him ? he confesses then an unsoundness 
 in a vital part. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 Reflections such as these induced me long ago 
 to preferr the wit of Addison and La Fontaine 
 to all other: it is more harmless, more gay, and 
 more insinuating. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 Our own language contains in it a greater 
 quantity and a greater variety of wit and humour, 
 than all the rest of all ages and countries, closing 
 only Cervantes, the Homer of irony, and not 
 only of sharper and better-tempered wit than he 
 who lies before me, but even of an imagination 
 more vivid and poetical, a sounder too and shrewder 
 philosopher. It must be conceded that we moderns 
 are but slovens in composition, or ignorant for 
 the most part of its regulations and laws ; but we 
 may insist that there have been amongst us those. 
 
AND LORD CHATHAM. 315 
 
 to whom, in all the higher magistratures of in- 
 tellect, the gravest of them would have risen up, 
 and whom they would have placed with proper 
 deference at their side. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 I am happy, my lord, and grateful to you, that 
 the conversation has taken a different turn from 
 what I had expected. I came to receive some 
 information from you on what might be profitable 
 in the education of the young, and you have given 
 me some which could be greatly so in that of the 
 old. My system, I know, cannot be quite accord- 
 ing to your sentiments, but as no man living hath 
 a nobler air or a more dignified demeanour than 
 your Lordship, I shall be flattered by hearing that 
 what I have written on politeness meets in some 
 degree your approbation, 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 I believe you are right, my lord. What is su- 
 perficial in politeness, what we see oftenest, and 
 what people generally admire most, must be laid 
 upon a cold breast or will not stand: but what- 
 ever is most graceful in it can be produced only by 
 the movements of the heart. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 I believe these movements are to be imitated, 
 and as easily as those of the feet; and that all 
 
316 LORD CHESTERFIELD AND LORD CHATHAM. 
 
 good actors must beware of being moved too 
 much from within. My lord, I do not enquire 
 of you whether that huge quarto is the bible, for 
 I see the letters on the back. 
 
 CHATHAM. 
 
 I did not imagine your Lordship was so re- 
 ligious : I am heartily glad to witness your vene- 
 ration for a book, which, to say nothing of its 
 holiness or authority, contains more specimens 
 of genius and of taste than any other volume in 
 existence. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 I kissed it from no such motive: I kissed it 
 preparatorily to swearing on it, as your Lordship's 
 power and credit is from this time forward at my 
 mercy, that I never will divulge, so help me 
 God! the knowledge I possess of your reading 
 Greek and philosophy. 
 
 Lord Chatham left two sons : one inherited his pension, 
 the other his power, neither of them his virtues, his manners, 
 or his abilities ; yet each fancied that he had the better part 
 of the inheritance. 
 
CONVERSATION XVIL 
 
 ARISTOTELES 
 
 CALLISTHENES. 
 
ARISTOTELES 
 
 AND 
 
 CALLISTHENES. 
 
 ARISTOTELES. 
 
 I REJOICE, O Callisthenes, at your return; 
 and the more as I see you in the dress of your 
 country, while others, who appear to me of the 
 lowest rank, by their language and their physio- 
 gnomy, are arrayed in the Persian robe, and mix 
 the essence of rose with pich. 
 
 CALLISTHENES. 
 
 I thank the Gods, O Aristoteles, that I em- 
 brace you again; that my dress is a Greek one 
 and an old one ; that the conquests of Alexander 
 have cost me no shame, and have encumbered me 
 with no treasures. 
 
 ARISTOTELES. 
 
 Jupiter! what then are all those tapestries, for 
 
320 AUISTOTELES 
 
 I will not call them dresses, which the slaves are 
 carrying after you, in attendence (as they say) on 
 your orders? 
 
 CALLISTHENES. 
 
 They are presents from Alexander to Xeno- 
 crates; by which he punishes, as he declared to 
 the Macedonians, both me and you: and I am 
 well convinced that the punishment will not ter- 
 minate here, but that he, at once so irascible and 
 so vindictive, will soon exercise his new dignity 
 of godship, by breaking our heads, or, in the wis- 
 dom of his providence, by removing them an arm's 
 length from our bodies. 
 
 ARISTOTELES. 
 
 On this subject we must talk again. He has 
 really punished me by his splendid gifts to Xeno- 
 crates, for he obliges me also to send him the best 
 tunic I have ; and you know that in my wardrobe 
 I am, as appears to many, unphilosophically splen- 
 did. There are indeed no pearls in this tunic, 
 but golden threads pursue the most intricate and 
 most elegant design, the texture is the finest of 
 Miletus, the wool is the softest of Tarentum, and 
 the purple is Hermionic. He will sell Alexan- 
 der's dresses, and wear mine ; the consequence of 
 which will be imprisonment or scourges. 
 
AND CALLISTHENES. 321 
 
 CALLISTHENES. 
 
 A provident God forsooth in his benefits, our 
 Alexander ! 
 
 ARISTOTELES. 
 
 Much to be pitied if ever he returns to his 
 senses ! Justly do we call barbarians the wretched 
 nations that are governed by kings ; and amongst 
 them all the most deeply plunged in barbarism is 
 the ruler. Let us take any favorable specimen ; 
 Cyrus for instance, or Cambyses, or this Alex- 
 ander: for however much you and I may despise 
 him, seeing him often and nearly, he will perhaps 
 leave behind him as celebrated a name as they. 
 He is very little amidst philosophers, but very 
 great amidst monarchs. Is he not undoing with 
 all his might, what every wise man, and indeed 
 every man in the order of things, is most soli- 
 citous to do ? namely, does he not abolish all kindly 
 and affectionate intercourse? does he not draw a 
 line of distinction (which of all follies and absur- 
 dities is the wildest and most pernicious) between 
 fidelity and truth ? In the hour of distress and 
 misery the eye of every mortal turns to friend- 
 ship: in the hour of gladness and conviviality 
 what is our want ? 'tis friendship. AVhen the heart 
 overflows with gratitude, or with any other sweet 
 and sacred sentiment, what is the word to which 
 
 VOL. II. Y 
 
322 ARISTOTELES 
 
 it would give utterance ? my friend. Having thus 
 displaced the right feeling, he finds it necessary 
 to substitute at least a strong one. The warmth, 
 which should have been diffused from generosity 
 and mildness, must come from the spiceman, the 
 vintner, and the milliner : he must be perfumed, 
 he must be drunk, he must toss about shawl and 
 tiara. One would imagine that his first passion, 
 his ambition, had an object : yet, before he was a 
 God, he prayed that no one afterwards might pass 
 the boundaries of his expedition, and he destroyed 
 at Abdera, and in other places, the pillars erected 
 as memorials by the Argonauts and by Sesostris"^. 
 Perhaps you were present, when Alexander ran 
 
 * On the Argonautic expedition I had introduced a few 
 remarks which interrupted the main current of the dialogue. 
 The Greeks were fond of attributing to themselves all the 
 great actions of remote antiquity: thus they feigned that Isis, 
 the daughter oflnachus, taught the Egyptians laws and letters, 
 &c, &c. I doubt whether the monuments and actions attri- 
 buted to the Argonauts were not really those of Sesostris or 
 Osiris or some other eastern conqueror ; and even whether the 
 tale of Troy divine be not, in part at least, translated. Many 
 principal names, evidently not Grecian, and the mention of a 
 language spoken by the Gods, in which the rivers and other 
 earthly things are called differently from what they are called 
 among men, are the foundations of my belief. The Hindoos, 
 the Egyptians, and probably the Phrygians, (a very priestly 
 nation) had their learned language quite distinct from the 
 vulgar. 
 
AND CALLISTHENES. 323 
 
 around the tomb of Achilles in honour of his me- 
 mory: if Achilles were now living, or any hero 
 like him, Alexander would swear his perdition. 
 Neither his affection for virtue nor his enmity to 
 vice is pure or rational. Observation has taught 
 me that we do not hate those who are worse than 
 ourselves because they are worse, but because we 
 are liable to injury from them, and because (as 
 almost always is the case) they are preferred to 
 us ; while those who are better w^e hate purely for 
 being so. After their decease, if we remitt our 
 hatred, it is because then they are more like virtue 
 in the abstract than virtuous men, and are fairly 
 out of our way. 
 
 As for the wisdom of Alexander, I do not ex- 
 pect from a Macedonian the prudence of an Epa- 
 minondas or a Phocion ; but educated by such a 
 father as Philip, and having with him in his army 
 so many veteran captains, it excited no small ridi- 
 cule in Athens, when it was ascertained that he 
 and Darius, then equally eager for combat, missed 
 each other's army in Cilicia. 
 
 CALLISTHENES. 
 
 He has done great things, but with great means : 
 the generals you mention overcame more difficul- 
 ties with less, and never were censured for any 
 failure from deficiency of foresight. 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 ARISTOTELES 
 
 ARISTOTELES. 
 
 There is as much difference between Epami- 
 nondas and Alexander as between the Nile and a 
 winter torrent: in the latter there is more im-. 
 petuosity, foam, and fury; more astonishment 
 from spectators; but it is followed by devastation 
 and barrenness : in the former there is an equable, 
 a steddy, and perennial course, swelling from its 
 ordinary state only for the benefit of mankind, 
 and subsiding only when that has been secured. 
 
 I have not mentioned Phocion so often as I 
 ought to have done ; but now, Callisthenes, I will 
 acknowledge that I consider him as the greatest 
 man upon earth. He foresaw long ago what has 
 befallen our country ; and while others were pro- 
 ving to you that your wife, if a good woman, 
 should be at the disposal of your next neighbour, 
 and that if you love your children you should 
 procure them as many fathers as you can, Phocion 
 was practising all the domestic and all the social 
 duties. 
 
 CALLISTHENES. 
 
 I have often thought that his style resembles 
 yours... are you angry? 
 
 ARISTOTELES. 
 
 I will not dissemble to you that mine was formed 
 upon his. Polieuctus, by no means a friend to 
 
AND CALLISTHENES. 325 
 
 him, preferred it openly to that of Demosthenes, 
 for its brevity, its comprehensiveness, and its 
 perspicuity. There is somewhat more of pomp 
 and solemnity in Demosthenes, and perhaps of 
 harmony, but in Phocion there is all the acuteness 
 of Pericles, all the wit of Aristophanes. He con- 
 quered with few soldiers, and he convinced with 
 few words... I know not what better description I 
 could give you either of a great captain or great 
 orator. Now imagine for a moment the mischief 
 which the system of Plato, just alluded to, would 
 produce. First that women should be common. 
 We hear that amongst the Etrurians they were 
 so, and perhaps they are so still 5 but of what illus- 
 trious action do we read, ever performed by that 
 ancient people ? Thousands of years have elapsed 
 without a single instance on record, of courage or 
 generosity. With us one word, altered only in 
 its termination, signifies hoih. father and country : 
 can he who is ignorant of the one be solicitous 
 about the other? Never was there a true patriot 
 who was not also, if a father, a kind one : never 
 was there a good citizen who was not also an obe- 
 dient and reverential son. Strange, to be am- 
 bitious of pleasing the multitude, and indifferent 
 to the delight we may afford to those most near 
 
326 ARISTOTELES 
 
 to US, our parents and our children ! Ambition 
 is indeed the most inconsiderate of passions, none 
 of which are considerate ; for the ambitious man, 
 by the weakest inconsistency, proud as he may be 
 of his faculties and impatient as he may be to dis- 
 play them, prefers the opinion of the ignorant to 
 his own. He would be what others can make 
 him, and not what he could make himself without 
 them. Nothing in fact is consistent and unam- 
 biguous but virtue. 
 
 Plato would make wives common, to abolish 
 selfishness! the very mischief which above all 
 others it would directly and immediately bring 
 forth. There is no selfishness where there is a 
 wife and family : the house is lighted up by the 
 mutual charities : every thing atchieved for them 
 is a victory, every thing endured for them is a 
 triumph. How many vices are suppressed, that 
 there may be no bad example! how many ex- 
 ertions made, to recommend and inculcate a good 
 one ! Selfishness then is thrown out of the ques- 
 tion. He would perhaps make men braver by his 
 exercises in the common field of affections. Now 
 bravery is of two kinds; the courage of instinct 
 and the courage of reason : animals have more of 
 the foi'mer, men more of the latter ; for I would 
 
I 
 
 AND CALLISTHENES. 327 
 
 not assert, what many do, that animals have no 
 reason, as I would not that men have no instinct. 
 Whatever creature can be taught, must be taught 
 by the operation of reason upon reason, small as 
 may be the quantity called forth, or employed in 
 calling it, and of however coarse matter may be 
 the means. Instinct has no operation but upon 
 the wants and desires. Those who entertain a 
 contrary opinion, are unaware how inconsequently 
 they speak, when they employ such expressions as 
 these, *' We are taught by instinct," Courage, 
 so necessaiy to the preservation of states, is not 
 weakened by domestic ties, but is braced by them. 
 Much is gained both on the side of reason and on 
 the side of instinct. All creatures protect their 
 young while they know it to be theirs, and neglect 
 it when the traces of that memory are erased. 
 Man cannot so soon lose the memory of it, be- 
 cause his recoUective faculties are more compre- 
 hensive and more tenacious, and because, while in 
 the brute creation the parental love, which in most 
 animals is only on the female side, lessens after 
 the earlier days, his increases as the organs of the 
 new creature are developed. There is a desire of 
 property in the wisest and best men, which Nature 
 seems to have implanted as conservative of her works, 
 and which also is necessary to encourage and keep 
 
328 ARISTOTELES 
 
 alive the arts. Phidias and our friend Apelles 
 would never have existed as the Apelles and Phi- 
 dias they appear, if property (I am ashamed of 
 the solecism which Plato now forces on me) were 
 common. A part of his scheme indeed may be 
 accomplished in select and small communities, 
 holden together by some religious bond, as we 
 find among the disciples of Pythagoras : but this 
 incomparable man never taught his followers that 
 prostitution is a virtue, much less that it is the 
 summit of perfection. They revered him, and 
 most deservedly, as a father . . as what father? not 
 such as Plato would fashion, but as a parent who 
 had gained authority over his children, by his 
 assiduous vigilance, his tender and peculiar care, 
 in separating them, as far as possible, from what- 
 ever is noxious, in an intercourse with mankind. 
 
 To complete the system of selfishness, idleness, 
 and licentiousness, the republican triad of Plato, 
 nothing was wanting but to throw all property 
 where he had thrown the wives and children. 
 Who then should curb the rapacious ? who should 
 moderate the violent? The weaker could not 
 work, the stronger would not. Food and raiment 
 would fail; and we should be reduced to some- 
 thing worse than a state of nature ; into a state of 
 nature we can never be cast back, any more than 
 
AND CALLISTHENES. 329 
 
 we can become children again. Civilization sud- 
 denly retrograde, generates at once the crimes and 
 vices, not only of all its stages, but of the state an- 
 terior to it, without a single one of its advantages, 
 if it indeed have any. Plato would make for ever 
 all the citizens what we punish with death a single 
 one for being once. He was a man of hasty fancy 
 and slow reflection ; more different from Socrates 
 than the most violent of his adversaries. If 
 he had said that in certain cases, a portion of 
 landed property should be divided amongst the 
 citizens, he had spoken sagely and equitably. 
 After a long war, when a state is oppressed by 
 debt, and when many, who have borne arms for 
 their country, have also consumed their patrimony 
 in its service, these, if they are fathers of families, 
 should receive allotments from the estates of others 
 who are not so, and who either were too young 
 for warfare, or were occupied in less dangerous 
 and more lucrative pursuits. It is also conducive 
 to the public good, that no person should possess 
 more than a certain and definite extent of land, to 
 be limited by the population and produce : else the 
 freedom of vote or the honesty of election must be 
 extinguished, and the least active members of the 
 community will occupy those places which require 
 
330 ARISTOTELES 
 
 the most activity. This is peculiarly needful in 
 mercantile states, like ours, that every one may 
 enjoy the prospect of becoming a landholder, and 
 that the money accruing from the sale of what is 
 curtailed on the larger properties, may again fall 
 into commerce. A state may eventually be re- 
 duced to such distresses by war, even after vic- 
 tories, that it shall be expedient to deprive the 
 rich of whatever they possess, beyond that which 
 is requisite for the decent and frugal sustenance of 
 a family. This extremity it is difficult to foresee ; 
 nor do I think it is arrived at, until the indus- 
 trious and well-educated, in years of plenty, are 
 unable by their best exertions to nourish and in- 
 struct their children . . a speculative case, which it 
 cannot be dangerous or mischievous to state ; for 
 certainly when it occurs, the sufferers will appeal 
 to the laws and forces of Nature, and not to the 
 schools of rhetoric or philosophy. No situation 
 can be imagined more painful or more abominable 
 than this : while many, and indeed most, are more 
 so, than that to which the wealthier would be re- 
 duced in amending it; since they would lose no 
 comforts, no conveniences, no graceful and unen- 
 cumbering ornaments of life, and very few luxuries, 
 all which would be abundantly compensated to the 
 
AND CALLISTHENES. 331 
 
 generality of them, by smoothening their mutual 
 pretensions, and by extinguishing the restless spirit 
 of their rivalry. 
 
 CALLISTHENES. 
 
 The visions of Plato have led to Reason : I 
 marvel less that he should have been so extrava- 
 gant, than that he should have scattered on that 
 volume so little of what we admire in his shorter 
 Dialogues. 
 
 ARISTOTELES. 
 
 I respect his genius, which however has not ac- 
 companied all his steps in this discussion; nor 
 indeed do I censure in him what has been con- 
 demned by Xenophon; who wonders that he 
 should attribute to Socrates lono^ dissertations 
 on the soul, and other abstruse doctrines, when 
 that singularly acute reasoner discoursed with his 
 followers on topics only of plain utility. For it is 
 requisite that important things should be attri- 
 buted to important men ; and a sentiment would 
 derive but small importance from the authority of 
 Crito or Phaedo. A much greater fault is attri- 
 butable to Xenophon himself, who has not even 
 preserved the coarse features of nations and of 
 ages in his Cyropaedia. 
 
 A small circle of wise men should mark the 
 
332 ARISTOTELES 
 
 rise of mind, as the Egyptian priests marked the 
 rise of their river, and should leave it chronicled 
 in their temples. Cyrus should not discourse like 
 Solon. 
 
 CALLISTHENES. 
 
 You must also then blame Herodotus. 
 
 ARISTOTELES. 
 
 If I blame Herodotus, whom can I commend? 
 He reminds me of Homer by his facility and his 
 variety, and by the suavity and fulness of his lan- 
 guage. His view of history was, nevertheless, like 
 that of the Asiatics, who write to instruct and 
 please. Now truly there is little that could in- 
 struct, and less that could please us, in the actions 
 and speeches of barbarians, from among whom the 
 kings alone come forth visibly. Delightful tales 
 and apposite speeches are the best things you 
 could devise; and many of these undoubtedly 
 were current in the East, and were collected by 
 Herodotus; some, it is probable, were invented 
 by him. It is of no importance to the world, 
 whether the greater part of historical facts, in such 
 countries, be true or false ; but they may be ren- 
 dered of the highest, by the manner in which a 
 writer of genius shall represent them. If history 
 were altogether true, it would be not only un- 
 
AND CALLISTHENES. 333 
 
 dignified but unsightly : great orators would often 
 be merely the mouthpieces of prostitutes, and 
 great captains would be hardly more than the gla- 
 diators of buffoons. The prime movers of those 
 actions which appall and shake the w^orld, are ge- 
 nerally the vilest things in it ; and the historian, 
 if he discovers them, must conceal them or hold 
 them back. 
 
 CALLISTHENES. 
 
 Pray tell me whether, since I left Athens, your 
 literary men are busy. 
 
 ARISTOTELES. 
 
 More than ever . . as the tettinx chirps loudest 
 in time of drought. Amongst them we have some 
 excellent writers, and such as under Minerva will 
 keep out the Persian tongue from the Piraeus. 
 Others are preferred to lucrative offices, are made 
 ambassadors and salt-surveyors, and whatever else 
 is most desirable to common minds, for proving 
 the necessity of more effectual (such is always the 
 preamble) and less changeful laws, such as those 
 of the Medes and Indians. Several of these 
 orators, whose granfathers were in a condition 
 little better than servile, have had our fortunes and 
 lives at their disposal, and are now declaiming on 
 the advantages of what they call regular govern- 
 
334 AUISTOTELES 
 
 ment. You would suppose they mean that perfect 
 order which exists when citizens rule themselves, 
 and when every family is to the republic what 
 every individual is to the family; a system of 
 mutual zeal and mutual forbearance. No such 
 thing : they mean a government with themselves 
 at the head, and such as may ensure to them im- 
 punity for their treasons and peculations. One 
 of them a short time ago was to consult with 
 Metanyctius, a leading man among the Thra- 
 cians, in what manner, and by what instalments, 
 a sum of money, advanced to the latter by our 
 republic, should be repaid. Metanyctius burst 
 into a loud fit of laughter on reading the first 
 words of the decree. D'me tcith me, said he, 
 mid we will coiiclude the business when we are 
 alone. The dinner was magnificent; which in 
 all such business is the best economy: few con- 
 tractors or financiers can afford to give a plain 
 one. Your repuhlic, said Metanyctius, is no 
 longer able to eiiforce its claim ; and we are as little 
 likely to want your assistence in future, as you 
 would he inclined to afford it, A seventh of the 
 amount is at my disposal: you shall possess it. 
 I shall e?ijoy about the same emolument for my 
 fidelity to my worthy masters. The return of 
 
AND CALLISTHENES. 
 
 peace is so desirable, and regular government so 
 divine a blessi?ig, added to which, your country- 
 men are become of late so indifferent to inquiry 
 into what the factions would call abuses, that, I 
 pledge my experience, you will returii amidst 
 their acclamations and embraces. 
 
 Our negotiator became one of the wealthiest 
 men in the world, although wealth is now accu- 
 mulated in some families to such an amount, as 
 our ancestors, even in the age of Croesus or of 
 Midas, would have deemed incredible. For wars 
 drive up riches in heaps, as winds drive up snows, 
 making and concealing many abysses. 
 
 Metanyctius was the more provident and the 
 more prosperous of the two. I know not in what 
 king's interest he was, but probably the Persian's ; 
 be this as it may, it was resolved for the sake of 
 good understanding (another new expression) and 
 good neighbourhood, to abolish the name of re- 
 public thi'oughout the world. This appeared an 
 easy matter. Our negotiator rejoiced in the promise 
 exacted from him, to employ all his address in 
 bringing about a thing so desn-able : for republic 
 sounded in his ears like retribution. It was then 
 demanded that all laws should be abolished, and 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
336 ARISTOTELES 
 
 that kings should govern at their sole discretion. 
 This was better still, but more difficult to accom- 
 plish. He promised it however ; and a large 
 body of barbarian troops was raised in readiness to 
 invade our territory, when the decree of Alex- 
 ander reached the city, ordering that all the states 
 both of Greece and Asia should retain their pris- 
 tine laws. The conqueror had also found letters 
 and accounts, which his loquacity would not allow 
 him to keep secret ; and our negotiator, whose 
 opinion (a very common one) was, that exposure 
 alone is ignominy, at last # # ^ # # 
 # # # # ^ # # 
 
 CALLISTHENES. 
 
 Tell me, Aristoteles, for the question much in- 
 terests me, are you happy in the midst of Mace- 
 donians, Illyrians, and other strange creatures, at 
 which we wonder when we see their bodies and 
 habiliments so like ours ? 
 
 ARISTOTELES. 
 
 Dark reflections do occasionally come, as it were 
 by stealth, upon my mind, but philosophy has 
 power to dispell them. I care not whether the 
 dog that defends my house and family be of the 
 Laconian breed or the Molossian : if he steals my 
 
AND CALLISTHENES. 337 
 
 bread or bites the hand that offers it, I strangle 
 liim or cut his throat, or engage a more dexterous 
 man to do it, the moment I catch him sleeping. 
 
 CALLISTHENES. 
 
 The times are unfavorable to knowledge. 
 
 ARISTOTELES. 
 
 Knowledge and wisdom are different : we may- 
 know many new things without an encrease of wis- 
 dom ; but it would be a contradiction to say that 
 we can know any thing new without an encrease of 
 knowledge. The knowledge that is to be acquired 
 by communication, is intercepted or impeded by 
 tyranny. I have lost an ibis or perhaps an hippo- 
 potamos by losing the favour of Alexander; he 
 has lost an Aristoteles. He may deprive me of 
 life ; but in doing so, he must deprive himself of 
 all that he has ever been contending for . . . of glory : 
 and even a more reasonable man than he, will 
 acknowledge that there is as much difference be- 
 tween life and glory, as there is between an ash- 
 flake from the brow of Etna, and the untamable 
 and eternal fires within its center. I may lose 
 disciples : he may put me out of fashion ; a tailor's 
 lad can do as much. He may forbid the reading 
 of my works ; less than a tailor's lad can do that : 
 idleness can do it, night can do it, sleep can do it, 
 
 VOL. II. z 
 
338 ARISTOTELES 
 
 a sunbeam rather too hot, a few hailstones, a few 
 drops of rain, a call to dinner. By his wealth 
 and power he might have afforded me oppor- 
 tunities of improving some branches of science, 
 which I alone have cultivated with assiduity and 
 success. Fools may make wise men wiser more 
 easily than wise men can make them so. At all 
 events, Callisthenes, I have prepared for myself a 
 monument, from which perhaps some atoms may 
 be detached by time, but which will retain its 
 magnificence and the traces of its symmetry, when 
 the substance and site of Alexander's shall be for- 
 gotten. Who knows but that the very ant-hill 
 wheron I stand, may preserve its figure and con- 
 texture, when the sepulchre of this Macedonian 
 shall be the solitary shed of some robber, or the 
 manger of mules and camels ! If I live I will 
 leave behind me the history of our times, from the 
 accession of Philip to the decease of Alexander . . 
 for our comet must disappear soon; the moral 
 order of the world requires it. How happy and 
 glorious was Greece at the commencement of the 
 period ! how pestilential was the folly of those 
 rulers, who rendered, by a series of idle irritations 
 and untimely attacks, a patient for Anticyra, the 
 arbiter of the universe ! 
 
AND CALLISTHENES. SSO 
 
 I will now return with you to Plato, whose 
 plan of government, by the indulgence of the 
 gods, has lain hitherto on their knees. 
 
 CALLISTHENES. 
 
 I was unwilling to interrupt you, otherwise I 
 should have remarked the bad consequences of 
 excluding the poets from his commonwealth ; not 
 because they are in general the most useful mem- 
 bers of it, but because we should punish a song 
 more severely than a larceny. There are verses 
 in Euripides such as every man utters who has 
 the tooth-ache : and all expressions of ardent love 
 have the modulation and emphasis of poetry. What 
 a spheristerion is opened here to the exercise of 
 informers ! we should create more of these than 
 we should drive out of poets. Judges would 
 oflen be puzzled in deciding a criminal suit ; for, 
 before they could lay down the nature of the 
 crime, they must ascertain what are the qualities 
 and quantities of a dithyrambic. Now, Aristoteles, 
 I suspect that even you cannot do this: for I 
 observe in Pindar a vast variety of commutable 
 feet, sonorous, it is true, in their cadences, but 
 irregular and unrestricted. You avoid, as all good 
 writers do carefully, whatever is dactylic, for the 
 dactyl is the bindweed of prose, but I know not 
 what other author has trimmed it with such frugal 
 
 z 2 
 
S40 ARISTOTFXES 
 
 and attentive husbandry^. One alone, in writing 
 or conversation, would subject a man to violent 
 suspicion of bad citizenship ; and he who should 
 employ it twice in a page or an oration, would be 
 deemed so dangerous and desperate a malefactor, 
 that it might be requisite to dig a pitfall or to lay 
 an iron trap for him, or to noose him in his bed, 
 
 * The remark I attribute to Callisthenes on the freedom of 
 Aristoteles from pieces of verse in his sentences is applicable 
 to Plato, and surprisingly so, if we consider how florid and 
 decorated is his language. Among the Romans T. Livius is 
 the most abundant in them. Among the Greeks there is a 
 curious instance in the prefatory words of Dionysius of Hali- 
 carnassus. 
 
 ^vasws Srj v6[/.o$ oLTtoi^i Mivhs, ov cvSeis xaraAuVsf ^lOoVoj, 
 o.pyziv ds) Tujv Titroviuv rovs xpslrrovas. 
 
 All these words appear to have been taken from some tra- 
 gedy : the last constitute a perfect iambic ; and the preceding, 
 with hardly a touch, assume the same appearance : the diction 
 too is quite poetical : uTTdTi Kor/o; ...xaraXvasif &c. 
 
 ^ Kp'/ziv us) rdtjv rirtovuiv rovg "KpsWrovag, 
 
 The original must be very ancient : in the Gorgias of Plato 
 is the same idea in nearly the same words ; and as Plato was 
 a great spheterizer (for borrowing and stealing, in speaking of 
 philosophers, are indecorous terms), I rather think he took it 
 from the poet than the poet from him. — AtjAo? 5's rccurcc ttoX- 
 XaLyjJv on ovroog sx^iy >ccx,) h rolg oi^^Koig ^(^015, kou tujv dv- 
 
 QfWTTWV kv OXOCIS TOAS TlOKSfrt KOLl yhB<nVy on OVTCO TO ^Ixaictv 
 
 KEK^iroLi, rov K'^elrrcu rov r^rrovo; af%£/v xal itXiov £%eiv. 
 This law has not only been violated but reversed. 
 
AND CALLISTHENES. 34I 
 
 Throughout all your works there is certainly no 
 sentence that has not an iambic in it ; now our 
 grammarians tell us that one is enough to make a 
 verse, as one theft is enough to make a thief: an 
 informer then has only to place it last in his bill 
 of indictment, and not Minos himself could ab- 
 solve you. 
 
 ARISTOTELES. 
 
 They will not easily take me for a poet. 
 
 CALLISTHENES. 
 
 Nor Plato for any thing else: he would be like 
 a bee caught in his own honey. 
 
 ARISTOTELES. 
 
 I must remark to you, Callisthenes, that among 
 the writers of luxuriant and florid prose, however 
 rich and fanciful, there never was one who wrote 
 good poetry. Imagination seems to start back 
 when they would lead her into a narrower walk, 
 and to forsake them at the first prelude of the 
 lyre. 
 
 Plato has written much poetry, of which a few 
 epigrams alone are remembered. He burned 
 his iambics, but not until he found that they 
 were thoroughly dry and withered. If ever a 
 good poet should excell in prose, we, who know 
 how distinct are the qualities, and how great must 
 be the comprehension and the vigour that unites 
 
342 ARISTOTELES 
 
 them, shall contemplate him as an object of won- 
 der, and almost of worship. This is remarkable 
 in Plato : he is the only florid wTiter who is ani- 
 mated. He will always be ardently admired by 
 those w^ho have attained a considerable share of 
 learning and little of precision ; from the persua- 
 sion that they miderstand him, and that others do 
 not; for men universally are ungrateful towards 
 him who instructs them, unless in the hours or 
 in the intervals of instruction he present a sweet 
 cake to their self-love. 
 
 CALLISTHENES. 
 
 I never saw two men so different as you and he. 
 
 ARISTOTELES. 
 
 Yet many of those very sentiments in which we 
 appear most at variance, can be drawn together 
 until they meet. I had represented excessive 
 wealth as the contingency most dangerous to a 
 republic: he took the opposite side, and asserted 
 that poverty is more so^. Now wherever there 
 is excessive wealth, there is also in the train of it 
 excessive poverty ; as where the sun is brightest the 
 shade is deepest. Many republics have stood for 
 
 * It is evident that Aristoteles wrote his Politica after 
 Plato, for he alludes to a false opinion of Plato's in the pro- 
 oemium : but many of the opinions must have been promulgated 
 by btith, long Ijcfore the publication of their works. 
 
AND CALLISTHENES. 343 
 
 ages, while no citizen of them was very rich, and 
 while on the contrary most were very poor ; but 
 none hath stood so long, after that many, or in- 
 deed a few, have grown inordinately rich. Wealth 
 causes poverty, then irritates it, then corrupts it; 
 so that throughout its whole progress and action 
 it is dangerous to the state. Plato defends his 
 thesis with his usual ingenuity ; for if there is no- 
 where a worse philosopher, there is hardly any- 
 where a better writer. He says, and truly, that 
 the poor become wild and terrible animals, when 
 they no longer can gain their bread by their 
 trades and occupations ; and that, laden to excess 
 with taxes, they learn a lesson from Necessity 
 which they never would have taken up without 
 her. Upon this all philosophers, all men of com- 
 mon sense indeed, must think alike. Usually, if 
 not always, the poor are quiet, while there is 
 amongst them no apprehension of becoming 
 poorer, that is, while the government is not op- 
 pressive and unjust: but the rich are often the 
 most satisfied while the government is the most 
 unjust and oppressive. In all civil dissensions we 
 find the wealthy lead forth the idle and dissolute 
 poor against the honest and industrious ; and ge- 
 nerally with success, because the numbers are 
 
344 ARISTOTELES 
 
 greater in calamitous times; because this party 
 has ready at hand the means of equipment ; be- 
 cause the young and active, never prone to re- 
 flection, are influenced more by the hope of a 
 speedy fortune than by the calculation of a slower ; 
 and because there are few so firm and independent 
 as not to rest willingly on patronage, or as not to 
 preferr that of the most potent. 
 
 In writing on government we ought not only 
 to search for what is best but for what is prac- 
 ticable. Plato has done neither, nor indeed has he 
 searched at all, but instead of it, has thought it 
 sufficient to stud a plain argument with an end- 
 less variety of bright and prominent topics. Now 
 diversity of topics has not even the merit of in- 
 vention in all cases ; but he is the most inventive 
 who finds most to say upon one subject, and ren- 
 ders all of it applicable and useful. Splendid 
 things are the most easy to find and the most dif- 
 ficult to manage. If I order a bridle for my 
 horse, and he of whom I order it brings me rich 
 trappings in place of it, do I not justly deem it an 
 importunate and silly answer to my remonstrances 
 when he tells me that the trappings are more 
 costly than the bridle? 
 
 Be assured, my Callisthenes, I speak not from 
 
AND CALLISTHENES. 345 
 
 any disrespect to a writer so highly and so justly 
 celebrated. I wish so extraordinary a man as he 
 had been equally exempt from contemptuousness 
 and malignity. We have conversed at other times 
 on his conduct towards Xenophon, and indeed 
 towards all the other more eminent disciples of 
 Socrates. I had collected the documents on which 
 I formed an exact account of all the most flourish- 
 ing states, and of the manners, laws, and customs, 
 by which they were so, being of opinion that no 
 knowledge is so useful to a commonwealth as this. 
 I had also, as you remember, drawn up certain 
 rules for poetry, taking my examples from Homer 
 principally, and from our great dramatists. Plato 
 immediately forms a republic in the clouds, to 
 overshadow all mine at once, and descends only 
 to kick the poets through the streets. Homer, 
 the chief object of my contemplation, is the chief 
 object of his attack. I acknowledge that the lower 
 and middle order of poets are in general the worst 
 members of society ; but the energies which exalt 
 one to the higher, enable him not only to adorn 
 but to protect his country. Plato says, the gods are 
 degraded by Homer: yet Homer has omitted 
 those light and ludicrous tales of them, which 
 rather suit the manners of Plato than his. He 
 
346 ARISTOTELES 
 
 thought about the gods, I suspect, just as you and 
 I do, and cared as little how Homer treated 
 them; yet, with the prison of Socrates before 
 his eyes, and his own Dialogues under them, he 
 had the cruelty to cast forth this effusion against 
 the mild Euripides. His souls and their occu- 
 pancy of bodies are not to be spoken of with 
 gravity, and, as I am inclined for the present 
 to keep mine where it is, I will be silent on the 
 subject. 
 
 CALLISTHENES. 
 
 I must inform you, my friend and teacher, that 
 your Macedonian pupil is likely to interrupt your 
 arrangements in that business. I am informed, 
 and by those who are always credible in such 
 assertions, that, without apologies, excuses, and 
 prostrations, Aristoteles will follow the shades of 
 Clitus and Parmenio. There is nothing of which 
 Alexander is not jealous ; no, not even eating and 
 drinking. If any great work is to be destroyed, 
 he must do it with his own hands. After he had 
 burned down the palace of Cyrus, the glory of 
 which he envied a strumpet, one Polemarchus 
 thought of winning his favour by destroying the 
 tomb: he wept for spite and hanged him. Those 
 who are jealous of power, are so from a conscious- 
 
AND CALLISTHENES. 347 
 
 ness of strength: those who are jealous of wisdom, 
 are so from a consciousness of wanting it. Weak- 
 ness has its fever... but you appear grave and 
 thoughtful. 
 
 ARISTOTELES. 
 
 The barbarians no more interest me than a 
 shoal of fishes. 
 
 CALLISTHENES. 
 
 I entertain the same opinion. 
 
 ARISTOTELES. 
 
 Of their rulers equally ? 
 
 CALLISTHENES. 
 
 Yes, certainly; for amongst them there can be 
 no other distinction than in titles and in dress. 
 A Persian and a Macedonian, an Alexander and 
 a Darius, if they oppress the liberties of Greece, 
 are one. 
 
 ARISTOTELES. 
 
 Now, Callisthenes ! if Socrates and Anytus were 
 in the same chamber, if the wicked had mixed 
 poison for the virtuous, the active in evil for the 
 active in good, and some divinity had placed it in 
 your power to present the cup to either, and, 
 touching your head, should say. This head also is 
 devoted to the Eumenides if the choice be wrong, 
 what would you resolve? 
 
348 ARISTOTELES AND CALLISTHENES. 
 
 CALLISTHENES. 
 
 To do that by command of the god which I 
 would likewise have done without it. 
 
 ARISTOTELES. 
 
 Bearing in mind that a myriad of kings and 
 conquerors is not worth the myriadth part of a 
 wise and virtuous man, return, Callisthenes, to 
 Babylon, and see that your duty be perfonned. 
 
CONVERSATION XVIII, 
 
 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 HIS BROTHER QUINCTUS. 
 
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 AND 
 
 HIS BROTHER QUINCTUS. 
 
 MARCUS. 
 
 The last calamities of our country, my brother 
 Quinctus, have again united us; and something 
 like the tenderness of earlier days appears to have 
 returned, in the silence of ambition and in the 
 subsidence of hope. It has frequently occurred 
 to me how different we all are, from the moment 
 when the parental roof bursts asunder, as it 
 were, and the inmates are scattered abroad, and 
 build up here and there new families. Many, 
 who before lived in amity and concord, are then 
 in the condition of those who, on receiving the 
 intelligence of some shipwreck on the shore, col- 
 lect together busily for plunder, and quarrel on 
 touching the first fragment. 
 
352 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 QUINCTUS. 
 
 We never disagreed on the division of any pro- 
 perty, unless indeed the state and its honours may 
 be considered as such; and although in regard 
 to Cesar, our fortune drew us different ways lat- 
 terly, you will remember my anxiety to procure 
 you the consulate and the triumph. Our political 
 views, Marcus, have always been similar, and ge- 
 nerally the same. You indeed were somewhat 
 more aristocratical and senatorial; and this pre- 
 judice has ruined both. As if the immortal Gods 
 took a pleasure in confounding us by the difficulty 
 of our choice, they placed the best men at the 
 head of the worst cause. Decimus Brutus and 
 Porcius Cato held up the train of Sylla ; for the 
 late civil wars were only a continuation of those 
 which the old dictator seemed for a time to have 
 extinguished, in blood and ruins. His faction 
 was in authority when you first appeared at Rome : 
 and although among your friends, and sometimes 
 in public,, you have spoken as a Roman should 
 speak of C. Marius, a respect for Pompeius, the 
 most insincere of men, made you silent on the 
 merits of Sertorius; than whom there never was 
 a better man in private life, a magistrate more 
 upright, a general more vigilant, a citizen more 
 
AND HIS BROTHER QUINCTUS. i^rJ{^ 
 
 zealous for the prerogative of our republic. Caius 
 Cesar, the later champion of the same party, over- 
 came difficulties almost equally great, and, having 
 acted upon a more splendid theatre, may perhaps 
 appear at a distance a still greater character. 
 
 MARCUS. 
 
 He will seem so to those only, who place tem- 
 perance and prudence, fidelity and patriotism, 
 aside from the component parts of greatness. 
 Cesar, of all men, knew best when to trust for- 
 tune: Sertorius never trusted her at all, nor 
 marched a step along a path he had not explored. 
 The best of Romans slew the one, the worst the 
 other: the death of Cesar was that which the 
 wise and virtuous would most deprecate for them- 
 selves and their children ; that of Sertorius what 
 they would most desire. And since, Quinctus, 
 we have seen the ruin of our country, and her 
 enemies are intent on ours, let us be grateful that 
 the last years of life have neither been useless nor 
 inglorious, and that it is likely to close, not under 
 the condemnation of such citizens as Cato and 
 Brutus, but as Lepidus and Antonius. It is with 
 more sorrow than asperity that I reflect on Caius 
 Cesar. O! had his heart been unambitious as 
 his style, had he been as prompt to succour his 
 country as to enslave her, how great, how m- 
 
 VOL. II. ^ ^ 
 
354 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 comparably great, were he ! Then perhaps at this 
 hour, O Qumctus, and in this villa, we should 
 have enjoyed his humorous and erudite discourse ; 
 for no man ever tempered so seasonably and so 
 justly the materials of conversation. How grace- 
 ful was he ! how unguarded ! His whole character 
 was uncovered; as we represent the bodies of 
 heroes and of gods. Him I shall see again ; and, 
 while he acknowledges my justice, I shall acknow- 
 ledge all his virtues and contemplate them un- 
 clouded. I shall see again our father, and Mutius 
 Scevola, and you, and our sons, and the ingenuous 
 and faithful Tyro. He alone has power over my 
 life, if any has, for to him I confide my writings. 
 And our worthy M. Brutus will meet me, whom 
 I will embrace among the first ; for if I have not 
 done him an injury I have caused him one. Had 
 I never lived, or had I never excited his envy, he 
 might perhaps have written as I have done ; but, 
 for the sake of avoiding me, he caught both cold 
 and fever. Let us pardon him ; let us love him ; 
 with a weakness that injured his eloquence, and 
 with a softness of soul that sapped the constitution 
 of our state, he is still no unworthy branch of that 
 family, which will be remembered the longest 
 among men. 
 
 O happy day, when I shall meet my equals, 
 
AND HIS BROTHER QUINCTUS. S55 
 
 and when my inferiors shall trouble me no 
 more ! 
 
 Man thinks it miserable to be cut off in the 
 midst of his projects; he should rather think it 
 miserable to have formed them : for the one 
 is his own action, the other is not ; the one was 
 subject from the beginning to disappointments 
 and vexations, the other ends them. And what 
 truly is that period of life in which we are not in 
 the midst of our projects ? They spring up only 
 the more rank and wild, year after year, from 
 their extinction or from their change of form, as 
 herbage from the corruption and dying down of 
 herbage. I will not dissemble that I upheld the 
 senatorial cause, for no other reason than that my 
 dignity was to depend on it. Had the opposite 
 party been triumphant, and the senate been abo- 
 lished, I should never have had a Catihnarian 
 conspiracy to quell, and few of my orations would 
 have been delivered. Without a senate what 
 Verres ?. . . 
 
 QUINCTUS. 
 
 Do you believe that the Marian faction would 
 have annulled our order ? 
 
 MARCUS. 
 
 I believe that their safety would have required 
 its ruin, and that their vengeance, not to say their 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 equity, would have accomplished it. The civil 
 war was of the senate against the equestrian order 
 and the people, and was maintained by the wealth 
 of the patricians, accumulated in the time of Sylla, 
 by the proscription of all whom violence made, 
 or avarice called, its adversaries. It would have 
 been necessary to confiscate the whole property of 
 the order, and to banish its members from Italy. 
 Any measures short of these would have been in- 
 adequate to compensate the people for their losses, 
 nor would there have been a sufficient pledge for 
 the maintenance of tranquility. The exclusion 
 of three hundred families from their estates, which 
 they had acquired in great part by rapine, and 
 their expulsion from a country which they had 
 inundated with blood, would have prevented that 
 partition-treaty, whereby are placed in the hands 
 of three men the properties and lives of all. 
 
 There should in no government be a contrariety 
 of interests. Checks are useful ; but it is better 
 to stand in no need of them. Bolts and bars are 
 good things ; but would you establish a college of 
 thieves and robbers to try how good they are? 
 Misfortune has taught me many truths, which a 
 few years ago I should have deemed suspicious 
 and dangerous. The fall of Rome and of Car- 
 thage, the form of whose governments was almost 
 
AND HIS BROTHER QUINCTUS. 357 
 
 the same, has been occasioned by the divisions of 
 the ambitious in their senates: for we conscript 
 fathers call that ambition which the lower ranks 
 call avarice: in fact the only difference is, that 
 the one wears fine linen, the other coarse; one 
 covets the government of Asia, the other a flask 
 of vinegar. The people were indifferent which 
 side prevailed, until their houses, in that country 
 were reduced to ashes, in this were delivered to 
 murderers and gamesters. 
 
 QUINCTUS. 
 
 Painful is it to reflect, that the greatness of 
 nearly all men originates from what has been 
 taken by fraud or violence out of the common 
 stock. The greatness of states, on the contrary, 
 depends on the subdivision of property, chiefly of 
 the landed, in very moderate portions; on the 
 frugal pay of all functionaries, chiefly of those 
 who possess a property ; and on unity of interests 
 and designs in all classes. Where provinces are 
 allotted, not for the public service, but for the en- 
 richment of private families, where consuls wish 
 one thino; and tribunes wish another, how can 
 there be prosperity or safety? If Carthage, whose 
 government (as you observe) much resembled ours, 
 had allowed the same rights to all the inhabitants 
 of Africa, had she been as zealous in civilizing as 
 
S5S MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 in coercing them, she would have ruined our com- 
 monwealth and ruled the world. Rome found all 
 the rest of Italy more cultivated than herself, but 
 corrupted for the greater part by luxury, ignorant 
 of militaiy science, and more patient of slaveiy 
 than of toil. She conquered ; and in process of 
 time infused into them somewhat of her spirit, 
 and imparted to them somewhat of her institutions. 
 Nothing was then wanting to her policy, but only 
 to grant voluntarily what she might have foreseen 
 they would unite to enforce, and to have consti- 
 tuted a social body in Italy. This would have 
 rendered her invincible. Ambition would not 
 permitt our senators to divide with others the 
 wealth and aggrandisement arising from authority : 
 and hence our worst citizens are become our rulers. 
 The same error was committed by Sertorius, but 
 from purer principles. He created a senate in 
 Spain, but admitted no Spaniard. The practise 
 of disinterestedness, the force of virtue, in despite 
 of so grievous an affront, united to him the bravest 
 and most honorable of nations. If he had granted 
 to them what was theirs by nature, and again due 
 to them for benefits, he would have had nothing 
 else to regrett, than that they had so often broken 
 our legions, and covered our commanders with 
 shame. 
 
AND HIS BROTHER QUINCTUS. 359 
 
 MARCUS. 
 
 The moral like the physical body has not always 
 the same wants in the same degree. We put off 
 or on a greater or less quantity of cloathes, accord- 
 ing to the season ; and it is to the season that 
 we must accommodate ourselves in government, 
 wherin there are only a few leading principles 
 which are never to be disturbed. I now perceive 
 that the laws of society in one thing resemble the 
 laws of perspective: they require that what is 
 below should rise gradually, and that what is 
 above should descend in the same proportion, but 
 not that they should touch. Still less do they 
 inform us, what is echoed in our ears by new 
 masters from camp and schoolroom, that the wisest 
 and best should depend on the weakest and worst 5 
 or that, when individuals, however ignorant of 
 moral discipline and impatient of self-restraint, 
 are deemed adequate to the management of their 
 affairs at twenty years, a state should never be so; 
 that boys should come out of pupilage, that men 
 should return to it ; that people in their actions 
 and abilities so contemptible as the triumvirate, 
 should become by their own appointment our 
 tutors and guardians, and shake their scourges 
 over Marcus Brutus, Marcus Varro, Marcus Tullius. 
 The Romans are hastening back, I see, to the 
 
360 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 government of absolute kings, whether by that name 
 or another is immaterial, which no virtuous and 
 dignified man, no philosopher of whatever sect, has 
 recommended, approved, or tolerated, and than 
 which no moralist, no fabulist, no visionary, no 
 poet, satirical or comic, no Fescennine jester, no 
 dwarf or eunuch (the most privileged of privi- 
 leged classes), no runner at the side of a triumphal 
 car, in the utmost extravagance of his licentious- 
 ness, has imagined any thing more absurd, more 
 indecorous, or more insulting. What else indeed 
 is the reason why a nation is called barbarous by 
 the Greeks and us? This alone stamps the cha- 
 racter upon it, standing for whatever is monstrous, 
 for whatever is debased. 
 
 What a shocking sight should we consider an 
 old father of a family, led in chains along the 
 public street, with boys and prostitutes shouting 
 after him! and should we not retire from it 
 quickly and anxiously? A sight greatly more 
 shocking now presents itself: an ancient nation is 
 reduced to slavery, by those who vowed, before 
 the people and before the altars, to defend her. 
 And is it hard for us, O Quinctus, to turn away 
 our eyes from this abomination? or is it necessary 
 for a Gaul or an Illyrian to command us that we 
 close them on it ? 
 
AND HIS BROTHER QUINCTUS. 361 
 
 I am your host, my brother, and must recall 
 you to pleasanter ideas. How beautiful is this 
 Formian coast ! how airy this villa ! Ah whither 
 have I called back your reflections ! it is the last 
 of ours perhaps w^e may ever see. Do you re- 
 member the races of our children along the sands, 
 and their consternation when Tyro cried ** the 
 Lcestrygons ! the LcBStrygons T' He little thought 
 he prophesied in his mirth, and all that poetry 
 has feigned of these monsters should in so few 
 years be accomplished. The other evening, an 
 hour or two before sunset, I sailed quietly along 
 the coast, for there w^as little wind, and the still- 
 ness on shore made my heart faint within me. 
 I remembered how short a time ago I had con- 
 versed with Cato in the walks around the villa of 
 Lucullus, whose son, such was the modesty of 
 the youth, followed rather than accompanied us. 
 There is something of softness, not unallied to 
 sorrow, in these mild winter days and their humid 
 sunshine. I know not, Quinctus, by what train 
 or connection of ideas they lead me rather to the 
 past than to the future; unless it be that, when 
 the fibres of our bodies are relaxed, as they must 
 be in such weather, the spirits fall back easily 
 upon reflection, and are slowly incited to expecta- 
 tion. The memory of those great men, who con- 
 
362 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 solidated our republic by their wisdom, exalted 
 it by their valour, protected and defended it by 
 their constancy, stands not alone nor idly: they 
 draw us after them, they place us with them. O 
 Quinctus ! I wish I could impart to you my firm 
 persuasion, that after death we shall enter into 
 their society: and what matters if the place of 
 our reunion be not the capitol or the forum, be 
 not Elysian meadows or Atlantic islands ? Locality 
 has nothing to do with mind once free. Carry 
 this thought perpetually with you, and death, 
 whether you believe it terminates our whole exist- 
 ence or otherwise, will lose, I will not say its 
 terrors, for the brave and wise have none, but its 
 anxieties and inquietudes. 
 
 QUINCTUS. 
 
 Brother, when I see that many dogmas in re- 
 ligion have been invented to keep the intellect in 
 subjection, I may fairly doubt the rest. 
 
 MARCUS. 
 
 Yes, if any emolument be derived from them to 
 colleges of priests. But surely he deserves the 
 dignity and the worship of a god, who first in- 
 structed men that by their own volition they 
 might enjoy eternal happiness j that the road to 
 it is most easy and most beautiful, such as any 
 one would take by preference, even if nothing 
 
AND HIS BROTHER QUINCTUS. 363 
 
 desirable were at the end of it. Neither to give 
 nor take offence, are surely the two things most 
 delightful in human life : and it is by these two 
 things that eternal happiness may be attained. 
 We shall enjoy a future state accordingly as we 
 have employed our intellect and our affections. 
 Perfect bhss can be expected by few; but still 
 fewer will be so miserable as they have been 
 here. 
 
 QUINCTUS. 
 
 A belief to the contrary, if we admitt a future 
 life, would place the gods beneath us in their best 
 properties, justice and beneficence. 
 
 MARCUS. 
 
 Belief in a future life is the appetite of reason ; 
 and I see not why we should not gratify it as 
 unreluctantly as the baser. Religion does not 
 call upon us to believe all the fables of the vulgar, 
 but on the contrary to correct them. 
 
 QUIXCTUS. 
 
 Otherwise, overrun as we are in Rome by 
 foreners of all nations, and ready to receive, as we 
 have been, the buffooneries of Syrian and Egyp- 
 tian priests, our citizens may within a few years 
 become not only the dupes, but the tributaries, of 
 these impostors. The Syrian may scourge us 
 until we join him in his lamentation of Adonis ; 
 
364 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 and the Egyptian may tell us that it is unholy to 
 eat a chicken, and holy to eat an egg-, while a 
 sly rogue of Judaea whispers in our ear, " That is 
 superstition : you go to heaven if you pay me a 
 tenth of your harvests,'' This, I have heard Cn. 
 Pompeius relate, is done in Judasa. 
 
 MARCUS. 
 
 Yes, but the tenth paid all the expenses both 
 of civil government and religious ; for the magi- 
 stracy was (if such an expression can be repeated 
 with seriousness) theocratical. In time of peace 
 a decimation of property would be intolerable ; 
 but the Jews have been always at war, natives of 
 a sterile country and neighbours of a fertile one, 
 acute, meditative, melancholy, morose. I know 
 not whether we ourselves have performed such 
 actions as they have, or whether any nation has 
 fought with such resolution and pertinacity. We 
 laugh at their worship ; they abominate ours : in 
 this I think we are the wiser ; for surely on spe- 
 culative points it is better to laugh than to abo- 
 minate. But whence have you brought your eggs 
 and chickens ? I have heard our Varro tell many 
 stories about the Egyptian ordinances, but I do 
 not remember this. 
 
 QUINCTUS. 
 
 Indeed the distinction seems a little too absurd 
 
AND HIS BROTHER QUINCTUS. 365 
 
 even for the worshippers of cats and crocodiles. 
 Perhaps I may have wronged them : the nation I 
 may indeed have forgotten, but I am certain of 
 the fact. I place it in the archives of superstition ; 
 you may deposit it in its right cell. Some eastern 
 nations are so totally subjected to the priesthood, 
 that a member of it is requisite at birth, at death, 
 and, by Thalassius ! at marriage itself: he can 
 even inflict pains and penalties, he can oblige you 
 to tell him all the secrets of the heart, he can call 
 your wife to him, your daughter to him, your 
 blooming and innocent son ; he can absolve from 
 sin ; he can exclude from pardon. 
 
 MARCUS. 
 
 Now, Quinctus, egg and chicken, cat and cro- 
 codile, disappear and vanish : you repeat impossi- 
 bilities : mankind, in its lowest degradation, has 
 never been depressed so low. The savage would 
 strangle the impostor that attempted it, the 
 civilized man would scourge him and hiss him 
 from society. Come, come, brother ! we may 
 expect such a state of things whenever we find 
 united the genius of the Cimmerian and the 
 courage of the Troglodyte. Religions wear out, 
 cover them with gold or case them with iron, as 
 you will. Jupiter is now less powerful in Crete 
 than when he was in his cradle there, and spreads 
 
366 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 fewer terrors at Dodona than a shepherd's cur. 
 Proconsuls have removed from Greece, from Asia, 
 from Sicily, the most celebrated statues ; and it 
 is doubted at last whether those deities are in 
 heaven whom a cart and a yoke of oxen have 
 carried away on earth. When the civil wars are 
 over, and the minds of men become indolent and 
 inactive, as is always the case after great excite- 
 ment, it is not improbable that some novelties 
 may be attempted in religion : but, as my prophe- 
 sies in the course of all the late events have been 
 accomplished, so you may believe me when I pro- 
 gnosticate that our religion, although it should be 
 disfigured and deteriorated, will continue in many 
 of its features, in many of its pomps and ceremo- 
 nies, the same. Sibylline books will never be 
 wanting, while fear and curiosity are inherent in 
 the composition of man. And there is something 
 consolatory in this idea: for whatever be your 
 philosophy, you must acknowledge that it is plea- 
 sant to think, although you know not wherefor, 
 that, when we go away, things visible, as things 
 also intellectual, will remain in great measure as 
 we left them. A slight displeasure would be felt 
 by us, if we were certain that after our death our 
 houses would be taken down, though not only no 
 longer inhabited by us, but probably not destined 
 
AND HIS BROTHER QUINCTUS. 3G7 
 
 to remain in the possession of our children ; and 
 that even these vineyards, fields, and gardens, were 
 about to assume another aspect. 
 
 QUINCTUS. 
 
 The sea and the barren rocks will remain for 
 ever as they are: w^hatever is lovely changes. 
 Misrule and slavery may convert our fertile plains 
 into pestilential marshes; and whoever shall ex- 
 clame against the authors and causes of such de- 
 vastation, may be proscribed, slain, or exiled. 
 Enlightened and virtuous men, painfullest of 
 thoughts ! may condemn him : for a love of se- 
 curity accompanies a love of study, and that by 
 degrees is adulation w^hich was acquiescence. Cruel 
 men have always at their elbow the supporters of 
 arbitraiy power ; and although the cruel are seldom 
 solicitous in what manner they may be represented 
 to posterity, yet^ if any one amongst them be rather 
 more so than is customary, some projector will 
 whisper in his ear an advice like this. ** Oppress, 
 fine, imprison, and torture, those who (you have 
 reason to suspect) are or may be philosophers or 
 historians : so that, if they mention you at all, 
 they will mention you with indignation and ab- 
 horrence. Your object is attained: few will im- 
 plicitly believe them ; almost alJ will acknowledge 
 that their faith should be suspected, as there are 
 
368 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 proofs that they wrote in irritation. This is better 
 than if they spoke of you slightingly, or cursorily, 
 or evasively. By employing a hangman extraor- 
 dinary, you purchase in perpetuity the title of a 
 clement prince." 
 
 MARCUS. 
 
 Quinctus, you make me smile, by bringing to 
 my recollection that, among the marauders of 
 Pindenissus, was a fellow called by the Romans 
 Fcedirupa, from a certain resemblance no less to 
 his name than to his character. He commanded 
 in a desert and sandy district, which his father 
 and granfather had enlarged by violence ; for all 
 the family had been robbers and assassins. Several 
 schools had once been established in those parts, 
 remote from luxury and seduction, and several 
 good and learned men taught in them, having 
 fled from Mithridates. Fcedirupa assumed on a 
 sudden the air and demeanour of a patriot, and 
 hired one Gentius to compose his rhapsodies on 
 the love of our country, with liberty to promise 
 what he pleased. Gentius put two hundred pieces 
 of silver on his mule, rode to the schools, ex- 
 hibited his money, and promised the same gratuity 
 to every scholar who would arm and march forth 
 against the enemy. The teachers breathed a free 
 and pure spirit, and, although they well knew the 
 
AND HIS BROTHER QUINCTUS. 369 
 
 knavery of Gentius, seconded him in his mission. 
 Gentius, as was ordered, wrote down the names 
 of those who repeated the most frequently that of 
 country, and the least so that of Fcedirupa. Even 
 rogues are restless for celebrity. The scholars 
 performed great services against the enemy: on 
 their return they were disarmed ; the promises of 
 Foedirupa were disavowed ; the teachers were 
 thrown into prison, accused of violating the an- 
 cient laws, of perverting the moral and religious 
 principles, and finally of abusing the simplicity of 
 youth, by illusory and empty promises. Gentius 
 drew up against them the bills of indictment, and 
 offered to take care of their libraries and cellars 
 while they remained in prison. Foedirupa cast 
 them all into dungeons; but, drawing a line of 
 distinction much finer than the most subtile of 
 them had ever done, / will not kill them, said 
 he; / xvill only frighten them to death. He 
 became at last rather less cruel... and starved them. 
 Only one was sentenced to lose his head : Gentius 
 comforted him upon the scaffold, by reminding 
 him how much worse he would have fared under 
 Mithridates, who would not only have commanded 
 his head to be cut off, but also to be carried on a 
 pike, and by assuring him that, instead of such 
 wanton barbarity, he himself would carry it to 
 
 VOL. II. B B 
 
370 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 the widow and her children, within an hour after 
 their conference at farthest. The last words 
 moved him little ; he hardly heard them : his 
 heart and his brain throbbed in agony at the 
 sound of children, of widow. He threw his head 
 back; tears rolled over his temples, and dripped 
 from his grey hair. Ah my dear friend^ said 
 Gentius, have I urvwitt'mgly touched a tender 
 paiH? he manful ; dry your eyes ; the children 
 are yours no longer ; rvhy be concer7iedfor "what 
 you can never see again ? My good old friend, 
 added he, Jiow many kind letters to me has this 
 ring of yours sealed formerly ! then, lifting up 
 the hand, he drew it slowly off, overcome by an 
 excess of grief, through which it fell into his 
 bosom, and to moderate which he was forced to 
 run aw^ay, looking as he fled through the corner 
 of his eye at the executioner, who seemed to 
 grudge his escape. The rogue was stoned to 
 death by those he had betrayed, not long before 
 my arrival in the province ; and an arrow from an 
 unseen hand did justice on Foedirupa. 
 
 I return amidst these home scenes. 
 
 On the promontory of Misenus is yet standing 
 the mansion of Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi ; 
 and, whether from reverence of her virtues and 
 exalted name, or that the Gods preserve it as a 
 
AND HIS BROTHER QUINCTUS. 371 
 
 monument of womanhood, its exterior is unchanged. 
 Here she resided many years, and never would be 
 induced to revisit Rome after the murder of her 
 younger son. She cultivated a variety of flowers, 
 and naturalized several plants, and brought toge- 
 ther trees from vale and mountain, trees unpro- 
 ductive of fruit, but affording her, in their super- 
 intendence and management, a tranquil and ex- 
 pectant pleasure. We read that the Babylonians 
 and Persians were formerly much addicted to 
 similar places of recreation. I have no knowledge 
 in these matters^; and the first time I went 
 thither, I asked many questions of the gardener's 
 boy, a child about nine years old. He thought 
 me still more ignorant than I was, and said, 
 among other such remarks, / do not know what 
 they call this plant at Rome, or whether they have 
 it there; hut it is among the commonest here, beau- 
 tiful as it is, and we call it cytisus. 
 
 Thank you, child! said I smiling; and, point- 
 ing towards two cypresses, pray, what do you 
 call those high and gloomy trees, at the extremity 
 of the avenue, just above the precipice ? 
 
 * Cicero in a letter to his brother says. Item de hortis quod 
 me admones, nee fui unquam valde cupidus, et nunc domus 
 suppeditat mihi hortorum amcenitatem. Ad Q. Fratr. I. 3. 
 
 ep. 4. 
 
 B B 'I 
 
372 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 Others like them, replied he, are called cy- 
 presses ; but these, I know not why, have always 
 been called Tiberius and Caius. 
 
 QUINCTUS. 
 
 Of all studies the most delightful and the most 
 useful is biography. The seeds of great events 
 lie near the surface ; historians delve too deep for 
 them. No history was ever true : but lives I have 
 read which, if they were not so, had the appear- 
 ance, the interest, and the utility of truth. 
 
 MARCUS. 
 
 I have collected facts about Cornelia, worth 
 recording; and I would commemorate them the 
 rather, as, while the Greeks have had amongst 
 them no few women of abilities, we can hardly 
 mention two. 
 
 QUINCTUS. 
 
 Yet ours have advantages which theirs had 
 not. Did Cornelia die unrepining and con- 
 tented ? 
 
 MARCUS. 
 
 She was firmly convinced to the last, that an 
 agrarian law would have been both just and bene- 
 ficial ; and was consoled that her illustrious sons 
 had discharged at once the debt of nature and of 
 patriotism. Glory is a light that shines from us 
 on others, and not from others on us. She was 
 
AND HIS BROTHER QUINCTUS. 373 
 
 assured that future ages would render justice to 
 the memory of her children ; but she thought 
 they had already received the highest approbation 
 when they had received their own. If anything 
 still was wanting, their mother gave it. 
 
 Your remark on the preeminence of biography 
 over history is just; and yet how far below the 
 truth is even the best written representation of 
 those upon whose minds the Gods or the Muses 
 vouchsafe to descend ! How much greater would 
 the greatest man appear, if any one about him 
 could perceive those innumerable filaments of 
 thought, which break as they arise from the brain, 
 and the slenderest of which is worth all the wisdom 
 of many, at whose discretion lies the felicity of 
 nations! This in itself is impossible; but there 
 are fewer who consider and contemplate what 
 comes in sight, as it were, and disappears again 
 (such is the conversation of the wise), than who 
 calculate those stars that are now coming forth 
 above us : scarx^ely one in several millions can ap- 
 portion, to what is exalted in mind, its magnitude, 
 place, and distance. We must be contented to 
 be judged by that which people can discern and 
 handle : that which they can have amongst them 
 most at leisure, is most likely to be well examined 
 and duly estimated. Whence I am led to believe 
 
374 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 that my writings, and those principally which in- 
 struct men in their rights and duties, will obtain 
 me a solider and more extensive reputation than I 
 could have acquired in public life, by busier and 
 harder and more anxious labours. Public men 
 appear to me to live in that delusion, which, So- 
 crates in the Phcedo would persuade us, is common 
 to all our species. We live in holes, says he, 
 and fancy that 'we are living in the highest parts 
 of the earth. What he says physically, I would 
 say morally: judge whether my observation is not 
 at least as reasonable as his hypothesis; and in- 
 deed, to speak ingenuously, whether I have not 
 converted what is physically false and absurd into 
 what is morally true and important. 
 
 QUINCTUS. 
 
 True, beyond a question, and important as 
 those whom it concerns will let it be. They who 
 stand in high stations, wish for higher; but they 
 who have occupied the highest of all, often think 
 with regret of some more pleasant one which they 
 have left below. Servius Tullius, a prudent man, 
 dedicated to Fortune what w^e call the narrow 
 temple, with a statue in proportion, expressing, 
 no doubt, his idea, that Fortune in the condition 
 of mediocrity is more reasonably than in any other 
 the object of our vows. He could have given her 
 
AND HIS BROTHER QUINCTUS. 375 
 
 as magnificent a name and as magnificent a re- 
 sidence as any she possesses; you know she has 
 many of both : but he wished perhaps to try whether 
 for once she would be as favorable to wisdom as 
 to enterprise^. 
 
 MARCUS. 
 
 If life allows us time for the experiment, let us 
 also try itt. 
 
 I have performed one action, I have composed 
 some few things, which posterity, I would fain 
 
 * Plutarch, in his Problems, offers several reasons, all dif- 
 ferent from this. 
 
 f That Cicero in his later days began to think a private 
 life j^referable to a public, and that his philosophical no less 
 than his political opinions were unstable, is shewn in few 
 places so evidently and remarkably, as in the eighth book of 
 his epistles. 
 
 ^' Nam omnem nostram de republica curam, cogitationem 
 de dicenda in senatu sententia, &c., abjecimus, et in Epicuri 
 nos, adversarii nostri, castra, conjecimus." 
 
 Demosthenes in his later days entertained the same opinion. 
 He said that, if there were two roads, the one leading to 
 government, the other to death, a prudent man would choose 
 the latter. 
 
 The most wonderful thing in human nature is the variance 
 of knowledge and will, where no passion is the stimulant; 
 whence that system of life is often chosen and persevered in, 
 which a man is Avell convinced is neither the best for him nor 
 the easiest. Every action must have its motive; but weak 
 motives are sufficient for weak minds ; and whenever we see 
 one which we believed a stronger moved habitually by what 
 appears inadequate, we may be certain that there is, to bring 
 a metaphor from the forest, more top than root. 
 
376 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 believe, will not suffer to be quite forgotten. 
 Fame, they tell you, is air ; but without air, there 
 is no life for any ; without fame, there is none for 
 the best. And yet, who knows whether all our 
 labours and vigils may not at last be involved in 
 oblivion! What treasures of learning must have 
 perished, which existed long before the time of 
 Homer! For it is utterly out of the nature of 
 things, that the first attempt in any art or science 
 should be the most perfect : such is the Iliad. 1 
 look upon it as the sole fragment of a lost world. 
 Grieved indeed I should be to think, as you have 
 heard me say before, that an enemy might possess 
 our city five thousand years hence; yet when I 
 consider that soldiers of all nations are in the 
 armies of the triumvirate, and that all are more 
 zealous for her ruin than our citizens are for her 
 defence, this event is not unlikely the very next. 
 The worst of barbarism is that which arises, not 
 from the absence of laws, but from their corrup- 
 tion. So long as virtue stands merely on the 
 same level with vice, nothing is amiss ; few govern- 
 ments in their easy decrepitude care for more; 
 but when rectitude is dangerous and depravity 
 secure, then eloquence and courage, the natural 
 pride and safeguard of states, become the strongest 
 and most active instruments in their overthrow. 
 
AND HIS BROTHER QUINCTUS. 377 
 
 QUINCTUS. 
 
 I see the servants have lighted the lamps in the 
 house earlier than usual, hoping, I suppose, we 
 shall retire to rest in good time, that tomorrow 
 they may prepare the festivities for your birthday. 
 Within how few minutes has the night closed in 
 upon us! nothing is left discernible of the pro- 
 montories, or the long irregular breakers under 
 them : we have before us only a faint glimmering 
 from the shells in our path, and from the blossoms 
 of the arbutus. 
 
 MARCUS. 
 
 The Circean hills, and the island of Parthenope, 
 and even the white rocks of Anxur, are become 
 undistinguishable. We leave our Cato and our 
 Lucullus, we leave Cornelia and her children, the 
 scenes of friendship and the recollections of great- 
 ness, for Lepidus and Octavius and Antonius; 
 and who knows whether this birthday^, between 
 
 * It never came: Cicero was murdered on the nineteenth 
 of January, the eve of his birthday, by the holy allies of that 
 age; among whom however none broke his promise to the 
 supporters of his power ; none disowned the debts he had con- 
 tracted to redeem himself from slavery ; none sold rotten ships 
 for sound 3 none employed the assassins of his father ; none 
 prostituted his daughter; none proclaimed that he had no 
 occasion for liberal and learned men; none proscribed the 
 party by which his life was saved and his authority esta- 
 
378 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 which and us only one other day intervenes, may 
 not be, as it certainly will be the least pleasurable, 
 the last! 
 
 If life is a present, which any one, foreknowing 
 its contents, would have willingly declined, does 
 it not follow that any one would as willingly give it 
 up, having well tried what they are? I speak of 
 the wise and reasonable, the firm and virtuous, 
 not of those who, like bad governors, are afraid of 
 laying down the powers and privileges they have 
 been proved unworthy of holding. Were it cer- 
 tain that, the longer we live, the wiser we become 
 and the happier, then indeed a long life would be 
 desirable; but since on the contrary our mental 
 strength decays, and our enjoyments of every 
 kind not only sink and cease, but diseases and 
 sorrows come in place of them, if any wish is wise, 
 it is surely the wish that we should go away, un- 
 shaken by years, undepressed by griefs, and un- 
 despoiled of our better faculties. Life and death 
 appear more certainly ours than whatsoever else : 
 and yet hardly can that be called so, w^hich comes 
 without our knowledge and goes without it; or 
 
 Wished; none called cowardice decent order, perfidy right 
 reason, or cruelty true religion. Yet they were rather bad 
 men in their day, at least the losers. 
 
AND HIS BROTHER QUINCTUS. 379 
 
 that which we cannot put aside if we would, and 
 indeed can anticipate but little. The former there 
 are few who can regulate in any way, none who 
 can order what it shall receive or exclude. What 
 value then should be placed upon it by the wise, 
 when duty or necessity calls him away? or what 
 reluctance should he feel on passing into a state, 
 where at least he must be conscious of fewer 
 checks and inabilities ? Such, my brother, as the 
 brave commander, when from the secret and dark 
 passages of some fortress, wherein implacable ene- 
 mies besieged him, having performed all his duties 
 and exhausted all his munition, he issues at a di- 
 stance into open day. 
 
 Every thing has its use; life to teach us the 
 contempt of death, and death the contempt of 
 life. Glory, which among all things between 
 stands eminently the principal object, although it 
 has been considered by some philosophers as mere 
 vanity and deception, moves those great intellects 
 which nothing else could have stirred, and places 
 them where they can best and most advantageously 
 serve the commonwealth. Occasion may have 
 been wanting to some ; I grant it : they may have 
 remained their whole lifetime, like dials in the 
 shade, always fit for use and always useless; but 
 this must occurr either in monarchal governments, 
 
380 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 or where persons occupy the first stations who 
 ought hardly to have been admitted to the se- 
 condary, and whom Jealousy has guided more 
 frequently than Justice. 
 
 It is true there is much inequality, much in- 
 considerateness, in the distribution of fame. The 
 principles, according to which honour ought to be 
 conferred, are not only violated, but often in- 
 verted. Whoever wishes to be thought great 
 among men, must do them some great mischief. 
 The longer he continues in doing things of this 
 sort, the more he will be admired. The features 
 of Fortune are so like those of Genius as to be 
 mistaken by almost all the world. We whose 
 names and works are honorable to our country, 
 and destined to survive her, are less esteemed 
 than those who have accelerated her decay; yet 
 even here the sense of injury rises from and is 
 accompanied by a sense of merit, the tone of which 
 is deeper and predominant. 
 
 When we have spoken of life, death, and glory, 
 we have spoken of all important things, except 
 friendship: for eloquence and philosophy, and 
 other inferior attainments, are either means con- 
 ducible to life and glory, or antidotes against the 
 bitterness of death. We cannot conquer fate and 
 necessity, but we can yield to them in such a 
 
AND HIS BROTHER QUINCTUS. 881 
 
 manner as to be greater than if we could. I 
 have observed your hnpatlence: you were about 
 to appeal in favour of virtue: but virtue is in- 
 cluded in friendship, as I have mentioned in my 
 Laelius, nor have I ever separated it from philoso- 
 phy or from glory. On friendship, in the present 
 condition of our affairs, I would say little. Could 
 I begin my existence again, and, what is equally 
 impossible, could I see before me all I have seen, 
 I would choose few acquaintances, fewer friend- 
 ships, no familiarities. This rubbish, for such it 
 generally is, collecting at the base of an elevated 
 mind, lessens its highth and impairs its character. 
 What requires to be sustained, if it is greater, 
 falls ; if it is smaller, is lost to view by the inter- 
 vention of its supporters ^, 
 
 * These are the ideas of a man deceived and betrayed by 
 almost every one he trusted. But if Cicero had considered, 
 as I have often done, that there never was an elevated soul or 
 warm heart since the creation of the world, which has not 
 been ungenerously and unjustly dealt with, and that ingrati- 
 tude has usually been in a fair proportion to desert, his vanity 
 if not his philosophy would have buoyed up and supported him. 
 He himself is the most remarkably rich and redundant in such 
 instances. To set Pompey aside, as a man ungrateful to all, he 
 had spared Julius Cesar in his consulate, when, according to the 
 suspicions of History, he was implicated in the conspiracy of 
 Catiline. Clodius, Lepidus, and Antonius, had been admitted 
 to his friendship and confidence: Octavius owed to him his 
 popularity and estimation : Philologus, whom he had fed and 
 
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 I contemplate with satisfaction the efforts I 
 have made to serve my country: but the same 
 eloquence, the merit of which not even the most 
 barbarous of my adversaries can detract from me^ 
 would have enabled me to elucidate large fields of 
 philosophy, hitherto untrodden by our country- 
 men, and in which the Greeks have wandered 
 widely or worked unprofitably. 
 
 QUINCTUS. 
 
 Excuse my interruption. I heard a few days 
 ago a pleasant thing reported of Asinius Pollio. 
 He said at supper, your language is that of an 
 Allobrox. 
 
 MARCUS. 
 
 After supper, I should rather think, and with 
 Antonius. Asinius, urged by the strength of in- 
 stinct, picks from amidst the freshest herbage the 
 dead and dry thistle, and doses and dreams about 
 it where he cannot find it... Acquired, it is true, 
 I have a certain portion of my knowledge, and 
 consequently of my language, from the Allo- 
 broges: I cannot well point out the place; the 
 walls of Romulus, the habitations of Janus and of 
 
 instructed, pointed out to his murderers the secret path he 
 had taken to avoid them : and Popilius, their leader, had by 
 his eloquence been saved from the punishment of one parricide 
 that he might committ another. 
 
AND HIS BROTHER QUINCTUS. 383 
 
 Saturn, and the temple of Capitoline Jove, which 
 the confessions I extorted from their ambassadors 
 gave me in my consulate the means of saving, 
 stand at too great a distance from this terrace. 
 
 QUINCTUS. 
 
 To leave behind us our children, if indeed they 
 will be permitted to stay behind, is painful. 
 
 MARCUS. 
 
 Among all the contingencies of life, it is that 
 for which we ought to be the best prepared, as 
 the most regular and ordinary in the course of 
 nature. We bequeathe to ours a field illuminated 
 by our glory and enriched by our example : a 
 noble patrimony, and beyond the jurisdiction of 
 Praetor or proscriber. Nor indeed is our fall itself 
 without its fruit to them : for violence is the cause 
 why that is often called a calamity which is not 
 so, and repairs in some measure its injuries by ex- 
 citing to commiseration and tenderness. The 
 pleasure a man receives from his children resembles 
 that which with more propriety than any other we 
 may attribute to the Divinity: for to suppose 
 that his chief satisfaction and delight should arise 
 from the contemplation of what he has done or 
 can do, is to place him on a level with a runner 
 or a wrestler. The formation of a world, or of a 
 thousand worlds, is as easy to him as the formation 
 
384 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 of an atom. Virtue and intellect are equally his 
 production ; but he subjects them in no slight de- 
 gree to our volition. His benevolence is gratified 
 at seeing us conquer our wills and rise superior to 
 our infirmities ; and at tracing day after day a 
 nearer resemblance in our moral features to his. 
 We can derive no pleasure but from exertion ; he 
 can derive none from it; since exertion, as we 
 understand the word, is incompatible w4th omni- 
 potence. 
 
 QUINCTUS. 
 
 Proceed my brother. In all temptations of 
 mind and feeling, my spirits are equalized by your 
 discourse; and that which you said with rather 
 too much brevity of our children, soothes me 
 greatly. 
 
 MARCUS. 
 
 I am persuaded of the truth in what I have 
 spoken. And yet — ah Quinctus ! there is a tear 
 that Philosophy cannot diy, and a pang that will 
 rise as we approach the Gods. 
 
 They, who have given us our afiPections, permitt 
 us surely the uses and the signs of them. Immo- 
 derate grief, like every thing else immoderate, is 
 useless and pernicious ; but if we did not tolerate, 
 and endure it, if we did not prepare for it, meet 
 it, commune with it, if we did not even cherish 
 
AND HIS BROTHER QUINCTUS. S85 
 
 it in its season, much of what is best in our 
 faculties, much of our tenderness, much of our 
 generosity, much of our patriotism, much also of 
 our genius would be stifled and extinguished. 
 
 When I hear any one call upon another to be 
 manly and to restrain his tears, if they flow from 
 the social and the kind affections, I doubt the 
 humanity and distrust the wisdom of the coun- 
 seler. If he were humane, he would be more in- 
 clined to pity and to sympathize than to lecture 
 and to reprove ; and if he were wise, he would 
 consider that tears are given us by nature as a 
 remedy to affliction, although, like other remedies, 
 they should come to our relief in private. Philo- 
 sophy, we may be told, would prevent the tears 
 by turning away the sources of them, and by rais- 
 ing up a rampart against pain and sorrow. I am 
 of opinion that Philosophy, quite pure and totally 
 abstracted from our appetites and passions ; in- 
 stead of serving us the better for being so, would 
 do us little or no good at all. We may receive 
 so much light as not to see, and so much philo- 
 sophy as to be worse than foolish. 
 
 My eloquence, whatever (with Pollio's leave) it 
 may be, would at least have sufficed me to explore 
 these tracts of philosophy, which the Greeks, as I 
 said, either have seldom coasted or have left un- 
 
 VOL. II. ^ ^ 
 
386 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 settled. Although I think I have clone somewhat 
 more than they have, I am often dissatisfied with 
 the scantiness of my stores and the limits of my 
 excursions. Every question has given me the 
 subject of a new one; the last has always been 
 better than the preceding, and, like Archimedes, 
 whose tomb appears now before me as when I first 
 discovered it at Syracuse, I could almost ask of 
 my enemy time to solve my problem. 
 
 Quinctus! Quinctus! let us exult with joy: 
 there is no enemy to be appeased or avoided. 
 We are moving forwards, and without exertion, 
 thither where we shall know all w^e wish to know, 
 and how greatly more than, whether in Tusculum 
 or in Formiae, in Rome or in Athens, we could 
 ever hope to learn! 
 
 Some of the opinions attributed to Cicero in this dialogue, 
 and particularly those on the agrarian law, are at variance 
 with what he has expressed, not only in his orations, but also 
 in his three books De Officiis, which he appears to have 
 written under a strong fear that either this or something 
 similar would deprive him of his possessions. Hence he speaks 
 of the Gracchi with an asperity which no historian has 
 countenanced, and of Agis, the most virtuous king on record, 
 without a word of commendation or of pity. When however 
 he perceived that in the midst of dangers his property was 
 untouched, it must have occurred to so sagacious a reasoner, 
 
AND HIS BROTHER QUINCTUS. 387 
 
 that, if an agrarian law had been enacted, the first triumvirate 
 could never have existed, and that he himself had remained, 
 as he ought to have been, the leader of the commonwealth. It 
 is to be lamented, but it is also to be pardoned in him, that 
 with such feelings he should have mentioned Crassus as a man 
 whom he did not hate, and should have spoken of Cesar thus: 
 Tanta in eo peccandi libido fuit, ut hoc ipsum eum delectarct, 
 peccare. Yet Cesar after the battle of Pharsalia did evil from 
 necessity, good from choice; and then as little evil as was 
 possible, and more good than was politic. Of Crassus, whom 
 he did not hate, he says... Qui videt domi tuae pariter accu- 
 satorum atque judicum consociatos greges, qui nocentes et pe- 
 cuniosos reos eodem te auctore corruptelam judicii molientes, 
 qui tuas mercedum pactiones in patrociuiis, intercessiones pecu- 
 niarum in coitionibus candidatorum, dimissiones libertorum 
 ad foenerandas diripiendasque provincias ; qui expulsiones vi- 
 cinorum j qui latrocinia in agris ; qui cum servis, cum libertis, 
 cum clientibus societates ^ qui possessiones vacuas; qui jjro- 
 scriptiones locupletum ; qui caedes municipiorum ; qui illam 
 Sullani temporis messem recordetur ; qui testamenta subjecta, 
 qui sublatos tot homines, qui denique omnia venalia, delectum, 
 decretum, alienam, suam sententiam, forum, domum, vocem, 
 silentium. 
 
 The description of such a state is sufficient to recommend 
 its abolition. He illustrates it further. Desitum est videri quid- 
 quam in socios iniquum, cum extitisset etiam in cives tanta 
 crudelitas . . .Multa prseterea commemorarem uefaria in socios, si 
 hoc uno sol quidquam vidisset indignius . . . Optimatibus tuis nihil 
 confido. Sed video nullam esse rempublicam, nullum senatum, 
 nulla judicia, nullam in ullo nostrum dignitatem ... .Ture 
 igitur plectimur: nisi enim multorum impunita scelera tulis- 
 semus, &c....Non igitur utilis ilia L. Philippi Q. filii sen- 
 tentia, quas civitates L. Sulla pecunid acceptd ex SC. libera- 
 visset, ut hse rursus vectigales essent, neque his pecuniani 
 quam pro libertate dedissent redderemus: turpe imperio ! 
 piratarum enim melior fides quam senatus. It follows then, ^ 
 fortiori, that if pirates should be destroyed, the senate should. 
 
 C C 2 
 
o88 MARCUS TUIJJUS CICKRQ 
 
 Cicero never entertained long together tlie same opinion of 
 Pompey : a little before the death of Clodius he writes thus. 
 PompeiuS:, nostri amores, quod mihi summo dolori est, ipse se 
 afflixit. Soon after thus. Pompeius a me valde contendit de 
 reditu in gratiam ; sed adhuc nihil profecit, nee, si ullam 
 partem libertatis tenebo, proficiet. He speaks of him to 
 Atticus as follows. Non mihi satis idonei sunt auctores iiqui 
 a te probantur ; quod enim unquam in republica forte factum 
 extitit ? aut quis ab iis ullam rem laude dignam desiderat ? 
 nee mehercule laudandos existimo qui trans mare belli parandi 
 causa profecti sunt... Quis autem est tanta quidem de re quin 
 varie secum ipse disputet? Simul et elicere cupio sententiam 
 tuam ; si manet, ut lirmior sim, si mutata est, ut tibi assen- 
 tiar...The character and designs of Pompey and his legiti- 
 mates are developed thus. Mirandum in modum Cneius noster 
 Sullani regni similitudinem concupiWt. Consilium est suf- 
 focare urbem et Italiam fame ; deinde agros vastare, urere. 
 Promitto tibi, si valebit, tegulam ilium in Italia nullam relic- 
 turum. Mene igitur socio .^ contra mehercule meum judicium, 
 et contra omnium antiquorum auctoritatem ...Quee minae mu- 
 nicipiis ! quae nominatim viris bonis ! quae denique omnibus 
 qui remansissent ! quani crebro illud, Sulla potiiit, ego non 
 potero. 
 
 The conduct of the Gracchi was approved by the wisest 
 and most honest of their contemporaries. Laelius, the friend 
 of Scipio, desisted from his support of Tiberius, only when, as 
 Plutarch says, he was compelled by the apprehension of greater 
 evil. But surely a man so prudent as Laelius must have fore- 
 seen all the consequences, and have known the good or the 
 evil of them, and would not have desisted when, the matter 
 having been agitated, and the measure agreed on, ever)' danger 
 was over from taking it, and the only one that could arise was 
 from its rejection, after that the hopes and expectations of the 
 people had been stimulated and excited. Hence I am induced 
 to believe that Scipio, in compliance with the wishes of the 
 senate, persuaded his friend to desist from the undertaking. 
 Cicero, in mentioning it, expresses himself in these words... 
 
AND IIIS BllOTHKil QUINCTUS. 389 
 
 Duo sapientissimos et clarissimos fratres, Publium (Tassuni 
 et Publium Scaevolam, aiunt Tiberio Graccho auctores le<rum 
 fuisse, alterum quidem_, ut videmus, palani, alteram, ut suspi- 
 camur, obscurius. Acad. Quaest. iv. Mutianus Crassus, the 
 brother of Publius, and Appius Claudius, were also his sup- 
 porters. It is beyond all doubt that he was both politic and 
 equitable in his plan of dividing among the poorer citizens, 
 whose debts had been incurred by services rendered to their 
 country, the lands retained by the rich, in violation of the 
 Licinian law. He was called unjust towards the inhabitants 
 of Latium and the allies, in proposing to deprive them of that 
 which the Romans had given them, but instead of which, to 
 indemnify themselves for the grant, they had imposed a tribute. 
 Gracchus M'ished to allay the irritation of the people, and to 
 render them inoffensive to the state, by giving them useful occu- 
 pations in the cares and concerns of property. The Latins and 
 allies would have been indemnified: for the tax imposed on 
 them would have been removed, and the freedom of the city 
 granted to them. The senate would perhaps have been some- 
 what less hostile to Gracchus, if he had not also proposed that 
 the money left by Attains to the Roman people should go to 
 its destination. They were stimulated, if not by interest, by 
 power, to invoke the assistence of Scipio against the popular 
 party; and he was conducted home by them the day before his 
 death; which appears rather to have been hastened by the fears 
 and jealousy of the senate, than by the revenge of the opposi- 
 tion, none of whom at that time could have had access to him, 
 his house being filled and surrounded by their enemies. The 
 senate had reasons for suspicion of Scipio. They dreaded the 
 dictatorial power which was about to be conferred on him, in 
 order that he might settle the commonwealth : they were dis- 
 satisfied at the doubts he entertained of any guilt in Gracchus, 
 of whom he declared his opinion that he was justly slain if he 
 had attempted to possess the supreme power : which expres- 
 sion proves that he doubted, or rather that he disbelieved it, 
 and is equivalent to the declaration that he did not deserve 
 death for any other of his actions or intention.s. They also 
 
390 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 clearly saw that a man of his equity and firmness would not 
 leave unpunished those who had instigated Popilius Laenas, 
 Opimius, and Metellus to their cruelties against the partisans 
 of Gracchus. Opimius alone had put to death by a judicial 
 process no fewer than three thousand Roman citizens, whose 
 only crime was that of demanding what had been left them by 
 Attalus, and promised them by the legitimate rulers of the 
 state. 
 
 Since the composition of my Dialogue, I have read the 
 newly found treatise of Cicero, De Re Puhlica. It induces 
 me to alter nothing of what I had \vi*itten, but on the con- 
 trary, supplies me with a few more sentences of illustration 
 from him, and subjects of remark. It is amusing to see with 
 what eagerness a sentence that leans towards kingship is 
 seized by the editor. He exclaims, Notabile Ciceronis dic- 
 tum de monarchise prsestantia! quam in sententiam plerique 
 seu veteres seu recentiores politici pedibus eunt. The sen- 
 tence is. Nam ipsum regale genus civitatis non modo non 
 est reprehendendum, sed baud scio an reliquis simplic'ibus 
 longe anteponendum, si ullum probarem simplex reipublicae 
 genus : sed ita quoad statum suum retinet; is est autem status, 
 ut unius perpetua potestate et justitia, omnique sapientia, 
 regatur salus et sequabilitas et otium civium. Certainly, if 
 a king were perfectly just and perfectly wise, his government 
 would be preferable to any other ; but it is childish to specu- 
 late on any such occurrence, with the experience of ages be- 
 fore us, leading us to so different a conclusion. Scipio speaks 
 of a republic with a king presiding over it; the editor talks 
 of monarchy, as we understand the word. Scipio adds, De- 
 sunt omnino ei populo multa qui sub rege est, in prim is liber- 
 tas, quce non in eo est ut Justo utamur domino, sed ut nulla. 
 Can any thing be more temperate and rational than these 
 expressions ? the first of which designate only the utility of the 
 form, and that conditionally, and the last give an excellent 
 reason why even the form itself should not be admitted, proving 
 the utility of the form to be incomparably less than what must 
 be given up for it. In going on, he praises L. Brutus, vir 
 
AND HIS BllOTHER QUINCTUS. 391 
 
 ingenio et virtute praestans, &c. primusque in hac civitatc 
 docuit in conservanda civium libertate esse privatum neuiiueni. 
 This the editor calls irmnanem injustamque sentcntinm ! 
 Yet Cicero in his own person uses nearly the same words in 
 an epistle of the younger Brutus. (Epist. x. ad Faniiliarcs.) 
 Nullo publico consilio rempublicam liberasti, quo etiam est 
 ilia res major et clarior. The same opinion is also given by 
 him in the Tusculan Questions. Nunquanj privatum esse 
 sapientem, &c. (iv.) Scipio, in commending the advantages 
 that, under conditions quite problematical, may attend the go- 
 vernment of one chief magistrate, adds, Sed tamen inclinatum 
 et quasi promim ad perniciosissimum statum : and afterwards, 
 Quis enim hunc hominem rite dixerit, qui sibi cum suis 
 civibus, qui denique cum omni hominum genere nullam juris 
 communionem, nullam humanitatis societatem velit? 
 
 The education of kings leaves few either wise or honest. 
 The better citizens receive the better education: they are 
 mutual checks one upon another, while kings are mutual 
 guards and fosterers of each other's tyranny. That in fact, 
 whatever it be, is the best form of government, which the 
 most effectually excludes the wicked and unwise, and the 
 most readily admits the wise and virtuous : the two worst are 
 ochlocracy and despotism, both for the same reason : in both 
 there is vis consili expers. Ochlocracy is the more tolerable 
 as being the more transient ; one always passes into the other, 
 as its first step. Scipio argues weakly, and Cicero perhaps 
 intends that he should do so, in saying, Illud tamen non 
 adsentior tibi, praestare regi optimates: si enim sapientia 
 est quae gubernat rem publicam, quid tandem interest 
 haec in uno-ne sit an in pluribus ? Here is a j^etitio 
 principii which on no account can be granted. It is surely 
 more probable that wisdom should reside among many, and 
 those the best educated and of mature age, than with one 
 only, and him the worst educated, often of age not mature, 
 and more often bearing thick upon him throughout life the 
 vices of youth and the inconsiderateness of childluxMl. If 
 Cicero spoke sincerely, he was both foolish and Hagitious in 
 
392 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 
 
 praising those who slew Cesar ; for never was there a man so 
 capable of governing alone and well. I will not believe that 
 he was led astray by Plato, who asserts in his fourth book that 
 it is of little consequence whether a state be governed by 
 many or one, if that one is obedient to the la\^ s. Surely a 
 king can more easily find those who will assist him in sub- 
 verting them than simple citizens can, and is usually more 
 inclined to do it, and is more easily persuaded that it is his 
 interest. Aristoteles, as usual, speaks less idly : what is re- 
 markable is, that his opinion squares perfectly with the Epi- 
 curean doctrine. TsXoc ^h o-lv tuoXscvs ro s-J Kfv rovJo 5' s(rri 
 to Kyjv £'jOcx,itx6yuj$ xcc) kolams. Now this is impossible under 
 men worse and less vise (as hath been the case nine 
 hundred and thirty years in the thousand) than those who 
 occupy the middle ranks in life, to say nothing of those who 
 are uncontaminated by their example and undebased by their 
 tyranny ; such men as would exist if thei/ did not. Govern- 
 ments, after all, must be constituted according to the habits 
 and propensities of the governed, in which the moral springs 
 from the physical. The Arab must always be free, the French- 
 man never : in the Spaniard there still exists what might be 
 expected from the union of Saracen and Goth ; in the English- 
 man, from that of Norman and Saxon. The Greek retains, 
 and displays magnificently, his ancient character : combina- 
 tions of various kinds militate against the Roman. All traces 
 of ancient institutions have been effaced for ages, excepting in 
 religion. The Roman people was merely the people of one city ; 
 its physical peculiarities could not extend themselves, and 
 were entirely lost in a succession of conquerors. But the voice 
 of History refutes the conclusion which certain writers would 
 draw from the celebrated treatise of Cicero, and teaches us 
 that the republican form of government was best adapted to 
 the nation, and that under it the Romans were virtuous and 
 powerful, to a degree which they never attained under kings 
 and emperors. Augustus lost his army in Germany, and 
 commemorated by a trophy the capture of a few castles on the 
 Alps: so greatly and so suddenly had fallen the glory of 
 
AND HIS BROTHER QUINCTUS. 393 
 
 Rome, although ruled by a sagacious prince, when the discre- 
 tion of one was substituted for the counsels and interests and 
 energies of many. 
 
 It has been the fashion, and not only of late years, but for 
 ages, to represent the Roman form of government as aristocrati- 
 cal : this is erroneous : Cicero himself says, nihil sacrosanctum 
 esse potest, nisi quod plebs populusve jusserit. The people 
 chose all the great functionaries, excepting the interrex ; he 
 appointed the dictator, who is falsely thought to have pos- 
 sessed absolute power, even during the short period for which 
 he was created. When Fabius Maximus would have punished 
 Minutius, the tribunes interposed their authority. The sena- 
 torial formula, Vicleant Consules ne quid detrimenti capiat Res 
 Publicay has misled many, and indeed misled even Cicero 
 himself, who offended against the forms of law when he saved 
 the commonwealth from Catilina. The supreme power was 
 never legally in the consuls, but constantly in the tribunes of 
 the people ; so that Sigonius is wrong in his assertion, Con- 
 sules ah omnibus magistratibus concionem avocare potuisse, ab 
 Us neminem. Nothing is more common than the interference 
 of the tribunes against the consuls. T. Livius (1. xliv.) re- 
 lates that the effects of Tiberius Gracchus the elder, who had 
 been consul and censor, were consecrated (which in arbitrary 
 governments is called conJi>^catedj because he had disobeyed 
 an order of the tribune L. Flavius ; a tribune committed to 
 prison the consul Metellus ; the censor Appius was punished 
 in the same manner by the same tribunitian authority. Carbo, 
 who had been thrice consul, was condemned to death by Pom- 
 pey from the tribunitian chair. Drusus, as tribune, sent the 
 consul Philippus to prison with a halter round his neck, 
 obtritd gula (Florus, civ.). One Vectius was slain for not 
 rising up before the tribune. 
 
 With all these facts (1 must believe it) in his memory, 
 Cicero still would consider the legitimate government of Rome 
 as an aristocracy 3 for otherwise how could he himself be 
 aristocratical, which he avows he was ? He wrote his treatise 
 De Republicd ten years before his death, when the greater 
 
394 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO, &c. 
 
 and more costly part of his experience was wanting. In the 
 dialogue he is represented as on the verge of a political world, 
 of which he had been the mover and protector, while the 
 elements of it announce to him that it is bursting under his 
 feet. 
 
 He is hardly to be called inconsistent, who, guided by the 
 experience of recent facts, turns at last to wiser sentiments, 
 opposite as they may be to those he entertained the greater 
 part of his life. If any one shall assert that I attribute to 
 Cicero an inconsistency unwarranted by his writings, my 
 answer is, that there is manifestly a much greater between 
 the facts he states in these quotations, and the conclusions he 
 appears by his line of policy to have drawn from them ; and 
 that, taking his own statement, I do no injustice to his dis- 
 cernment and ratiocination, in bringing home to him a new 
 inference. Whatever be the defects and weaknesses of this 
 memorable and truly glorious man, I disclose them with 
 feelings far different from exultation: I mention them 
 hesitatingly, reluctantly, and with awe 3 for in comparison 
 with the meanest, the most negligent of his productions, 
 how inelegant, rude, and barbarous is the most elaborate 
 composition, the most applauded eloquence of our times ! 
 
/ have occasionally, but rarely, scattered a few 
 verses amongst the Dialogues, Thejblloxcing, 
 connected in subject with much, and in spirit 
 with all that has gone before, may stand here 
 as a voluntary to close the work. 
 
 We are what suns and winds and waters make us ; 
 The mountains are our sponsors, and the rills 
 Fashion and win their nursling with their smiles. 
 But where the land is dim from tyranny, 
 There tiny pleasures occupy the place 
 Of glories and of duties ; as the feet 
 Of fabled faeries when the sun goes down 
 Trip o'er the grass where wrestlers strove by day. 
 Then Justice, called the eternal one above, 
 Is more inconstant than the buoyant form 
 That bursts into existence from the froth 
 Of ever-varying ocean : what is best 
 Then becomes worst; what loveliest, most de- 
 formed. 
 The heart is hardest in the softest climes, 
 The passions flourish, the affections die. 
 O thou vast tablet of these awful truths, 
 
396 
 
 That fillest all the space between the seas, 
 Spreading from Venice's deserted courts 
 To the Tarentine and Hydruntine mole, 
 What lifts thee up? what shakes thee? tis the 
 
 breath 
 Of God ! awake, ye nations ! spring to life ! 
 Let the last work of his righthand appear 
 Fresh with his image... Man. 
 
 Thou recreant slave 
 That sittest afar off and helpest not, 
 O thou degenerate Albion! with what shame 
 Do I survey thee, pushing forth the spunge 
 At thy spear's length, in mockery at the thirst 
 Of holy Freedom in his agony, 
 And prompt and keen to pierce the wounded side ! 
 
 Must Italy then wholly rot away 
 Amidst her slime, before she germinate 
 Into fresh vigour, into form again? 
 What thunder bursts upon mine ear ! some isle 
 Hath surely risen from the gulphs profound. 
 Eager to suck the sunshine from the breast 
 Of beauteous Nature, and to catch the gale 
 From golden Hermus and Melsena's brow. 
 A greater thing than isle, than continent, 
 Than earth itself, than ocean circling earth, 
 Hath risen there j regenerate Man hath risen. 
 
397 
 
 Generous old bard of Chios ! not that Jove 
 Deprived thee in thy latter days of sight 
 Would I complain, but that no higher theme 
 Than a disdainful youth, a lawless King, 
 A pestilence, a pyre, awoke thy song, 
 When on the Chian coast, one javelin's throw 
 From where thy tombstone, where thy cradle stood, 
 Twice twenty self-devoted Greeks assailed 
 The naval host of Asia, at one blow 
 Scattered it into air... and Greece was free... 
 And ere these glories beamed, thy day had closed. 
 
 Let all that Elis ever saw give way. 
 All that Olympian Jove e'er smiled upon. 
 The Marathonian columns never told 
 A tale more glorious, never Salamis, 
 Nor, faithful in the centre of the false, 
 Plataea, nor Anthela, from whose mount 
 Benignant Ceres wards the blessed Laws, 
 And sees the Amphictyon dip his weary foot 
 In the warm streamlet of the strait below*. 
 
 Goddess 1 although thy brow was never reared 
 Among the Powers, that guarded or assailed 
 Perfidious Ilion, parricidal Thebes, 
 Or other walls whose w^ar-belt e'er inclosed 
 
 * Tlie Amphictyons met annually in the temple of Ceres 
 near Anthela. 
 
398 
 
 Man's congregated crimes and vengeful Pain, 
 Yet hast thou touched the extremes of grief and 
 
 joy... 
 Grief upon Enna's mead and Hell's ascent, 
 A solitary mother... joy beyond, 
 Far beyond, that thy woe, in this thy fane : 
 The tears were human, but the bliss divine. 
 
 I, in the land of strangers, and deprest 
 With sad and certain presage for my own. 
 Exult at hope's fresh dayspring, though afar. 
 There where my youth was not unexercised 
 By chiefs in willing war and faithful song : 
 Shades as they were, they were not empty shades, 
 Whose bodies haunt our world and blear our sun . . . 
 Obstruction worse than swamp and shapeless sands. 
 Peace, praise, eternal gladness, to the souls 
 That, rising from the seas into the heavens, 
 Have ransomed first their country with their blood ! 
 
 O thou immortal Spartan ! at whose name 
 
 The marble table sounds beneath my palms, 
 
 Leonidas ! even thou wilt not disdain 
 
 To mingle names august as these with thine ; 
 
 Nor thou, twin star of glory, thou whose rays 
 
 Streamed over Corinth on the double sea, 
 
 Achaian and Saronic ; whom the sons 
 
 Of Syracuse, when Death removed thy light, 
 
399 
 
 Wept more than slavery ever made them weep, 
 But shed (if gratitude is sweet) sweet tears . . . 
 For the hand that then poured ashes o'er their 
 
 heads 
 Was loosened from its desperate chain by thee. 
 
 What now can press mankind into one mass, 
 For Tyranny to tread the more secure ? 
 From gold alone is draw^n the guilty wire 
 That Adulation trills : she mocks the tone 
 Of Duty, Courage, Virtue, Piety, 
 And under her sits Hope ! O how unlike 
 That graceful form in azure vest arrayed. 
 With brow serene, and eyes on heaven alone 
 In patience fixt, in fondness unobscured ! 
 What monsters coil beneath the spreading tree 
 Of Despotism ! what wastes extend around ! 
 What poison floats upon the distant breeze ! 
 But who are those that cull and deal its fruit? 
 Creatures that shun the light and fear the shade, 
 Bloated and fierce. Sleep's mien and Famine's 
 
 cry... 
 Rise up again, rise in thy dignity. 
 Dejected Man, and scare this brood away. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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