Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN f A MODERN PYRAMID TO COMMEMORATE A SEPTUAGTNT OF WORTHIES. A MODERN PYRAMID: TO COMMEMORATE A SEPTUAGINT OF WORTHIES. BY MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, ESQ. M. A. OF CHRISTCHURCH, OXFORD: AUTHOR OP " PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY," ETC. LONDON : JOSEPH RICKERBY, SHERBOURN LANE, KING WILLIAM STREET, CITY. 1839. LONDON t PRINTED BY JOSEPH RICK 6HERBCI RN IANK. Page PREFACE . ix THE VISION 1 I. ABEL . . . . 11 II. ENOCH . 16 III. ZOROASTER . 20 IV. ABRAHAM 23 v. SEMIRAMIS . . 28 VI. JOSEPH . 32 VII. MOSES . 35 VIII. DAVID 39 IX. SOLOMON . 43 X. HOMER 47 XI. ISAIAH . 53 XII. SOLON 60 XIII. .ESOP . 64 XIV. SAPPHO , 70 XV. PYTHAGORAS . 77 XVI. CONFUCIUS 84 XVII, , PINDAR . 89 CONTENTS. Page XVIII. ARI8TIDE8 ... 94 XIX. .ESCHYLUS . . .97 XX. HERODOTUS . . . 103 XXI. HIPPOCRATES . . . 109 XXII. THUCYDIDES . . . 113 XXIII. SOCRATES . . . .117 XXIV. PLATO .... 121 XXV. DEMOSTHENES . . . 124 XXVI. ARISTOTLE . . 127 XXVII. PHOCION .... 130 XXVIII. PHIDIAS . . . ' . . . 139 XXIX. EPICURUS . . . 144 XXX. MARCELLU8 . . . 147 XXXI. HIPPARCHUS . 151 XXXII. CORNELIA . . . 155 XXXIII. VIRGIL . . . 168 XXXIV. HORACE . . . .163 XXXV. MARY THE VIRGIN . . 170 THE TOP8TONE. . . . 174 XXXVI. ST. JOHN . . . 179 XXXVII. ST. PAUL .... 185 XXXVIII. ZENOBIA . . .191 XXXIX. COLOMBA . . . .194 XL. BEDE . . . .198 XLI. CHARLEMAGNE . . . 201 XLII. HAROON ALRA8CHID . . 206 XLIII. ALFRED . 209 CONTENTS. Page XLIV. DANTE . . 212 XLV. TELL . . . 217 XLVI. PETRARCH . . 221 XLVII. COLUMBUS . . . 226 XLVIII. RAFFAELLE . . 230 XLIX. BAYARD . . . 234 L. LUTHER . . 238 LI. JANE GREY . . 241 LII. SHAKSPEARE . . 245 LIII. CERVANTES . . 248 LIV. HARVEY . . 251 LV. EVELYN . . . 255 LVI. MILTON . . 258 i.VII. ISAAK WALTON . . 262 LVIII. ISAAC NEWTON . . 267 L1X. FENELON . . . 271 LX. CZAR PETER . . 275 LXI. HANDEL . . . 278 LXII. WESLEY . . 284 LXIII. LINNJEUS . . . 287 LXIV. JOHNSON . . 290 . LXV. GALVANI . . . 293 LXVI. WASHINGTON . . 298 LXVII. HOWARD . . . 303 LXVIII. KLOPSTOCK . . 308 LXIX. NELSON . . . 312 LXX FELIX NEFF . 317 " VIRTUTEM INCOLUMEM ODIMUS, SUBLATAM EX OCULIS QUJERIMUS INVIDI." HORACE. ' THE MULTITUDE OF THE WISE IS THE WELFARE OF THE "WORLD." SOLOMON. PREFACE. A PREFACE is allowed to be the writer's privilege, and a short one is believed to be the reader's plea- sure: the former, because a little explanation and excuse are matters alike of private benefit and of public courtesy ; the latter, because much of these should be left to the suggestions of a charitable world, and curiosity be taxed with no delay on the threshold of a new book. It may, then, be acceptable, as well as advantage- ous, briefly to answer a few probable objections on the surface. If any one, looking through the vista of past ages, and taking note of the goodly company of admirable men who from time to time have done honour to humanity, shall accuse us, as perhaps he X PREFACE. may, of an unwise selection, let him be content to know that our worthies, as a whole, have been chosen in furtherance of one special plan, and taken as individuals, were men generally excellent in their generation. If a protest be made, as perhaps it will, against a mingling of characters and subjects, sacred with profane, let it be noted, that, the order of time having been followed, such a mixture was unavoid- able. If the moral of the book be sought for, let it be found in the perusal : and if a man desire to judge aright, let him in candour hear us to the end. By some minds, the very different styles of the introductory Vision and succeeding pages will be objected as incongruous ; let such consider the dif- ference of subjects, and neither expect Fancy to be wingless, a mere Musa pedestris, nor Judgment to walk in Mercury's talaria. With respect to the prose portion of the volume, many readers may be disappointed at finding it made up of brief essays, mixing fact with specula- tion, instead of sober biography condensed from En- cyclopaedias ; many more will most assuredly be PREFACE. Xi offended at the exhibition of the author's politics, although these are not the result of party spirit, but of deliberate conviction ; some again may think dif- ferently on religious topics, or vote for their exclu- sion altogether; others may draw opposite infer- ences from the same historical questions; while a last class of hypothetical readers may perceive evil where none was meant, or overlook what is intended As to the poetical part, objections may be urged against the exclusive adoption of the sonnet, in pre- ference to the varieties of lyric composition : but the writer has aimed at uniformity, and has selected that mode which he hoped was the most classical, although he has felt it greatly the most difficult. Where translations occur, those who are not con- versant with the classics, and with ancient metres, will have more to bear with, than even the scholar, who may truly accuse us of injustice : the idea of ren- dering a poet syllable for syllable in his own rhythm is believed to be a new one, and the wiser part of mankind looks upon novelty with suspicion : at any Xii . PREFACE. rate, no more of these close versions have been here presented, than were necessary for making the experiment. To conclude, let us remember the lesson taught by the too complaisant painter, and not hope for impossible unanimity; let the writer's fashion be as unshackled as the reader's judgment ; for he, who attempts to please all, will only compromise his own honesty, and may fail in pleasing any. THE VISION BEING INTRODUCTORY. I WAS walking in my garden at noon : and I came to the sun-dial, where, shutting my book, I leaned upon the pedestal, musing ; so the thin shadow pointed to twelve. Of a sudden, I felt a warm sweet breath upon my cheek, and, starting up, in much wonder beheld a face of the most bewitching beauty close beside me, gazing on the dial : it was only a face ; and with earnest fear I leaned, stedfastly watching its strange loveliness. Soon, it looked into me with its fascinat- ing eyes, and said mournfully, " Dost thou not know me ?" but I was speechless with astonishment: then it said, "Consider :" with that, my mind rushed into me like a flood, and I looked, and considered, and speedily vague outlines shaped about, mingled with floating gossamers of colour, until I was aware that a glorious living creature was growing to my know- ledge. So I looked resolutely on her, (for she wore the garb of woman,) gazing still as she grew: and again 2 THE VISION. she said mildly, " Consider : " then I noted that from her jewelled girdle upwards, all was gorgeous, glist- ening, and most beautiful ; her white vest was rarely worked with living flowers, but brighter and sweeter than those of earth ; flowing tresses, blacker than the shadows cast by the bursting of a meteor, and, like them, brilliantly interwoven with strings of light, fell in clusters on her fair bosom ; her lips were curled with the expression of majestic triumph, yet wreathed winningly with flickering smiles ; and the lustre of her terrible eyes, like suns flashing dark- ness, did bewilder me and blind my reason : Then I veiled mine eyes with my clasped hands ; but again she said, " Consider ;" and bending all my mind to the hazard, I encountered with calmness their steady radiance, although they burned into my brain. Round about her sable locks was as it were a chaplet of fire ; her'right hand held a double-edged sword of most strange workmanship, for the one edge was of keen steel, and the other as it were the strip of a peacock's feather; on the face of the air about her were phantoms of winged horses, and of racking-wheels : and from her glossy shoulders waved and quivered large dazzling wings of irri- descent colours, most glorious to look upon. So grew she slowly to my knowledge ; and as I stood gazing in a rapture, again she muttered sternly, " Consider !" Then I looked below the girdle upon her flowingt$>es: and behold they were of dis- mal hue, and oft-the changing surface fluttered fearful THE VISION. 3 visions : I discerned blood-spots on them, and ghastly e^-es glaring from the darker folds, and, when these rustled, were heard stifled moanings, and smothered shrieks as of horror: and I noted that she stood upon a wreath of lightnings, that darted about like a nest of young snakes in the midst of a sullen cloud, black, palpable, and rolling inwards as thick smoke from a furnace. Then said she again to me, " Dost thou not know me ?" and I answered her, " O Wonder, terrible in thy beauty, thy fairness have I seen in dreams, and have guessed with a trembling spirit that thou walk- est among fears ; art thou not that dread Power, whom the children of men have named Imagination ?" And she smiled sweetly upon me, saying, " Yea, my son : " and her smile fell upon my heart like the sun on roses, till I grew bold in my love and said, " O Wonder, I would learn of thee ; show me some strange sight, that I may worship thy fair majesty in secret." Then she stood like a goddess and a queen, and stretching forth her arm, white as the snow and glit- tering with circlets, slowly beckoned with her sword to the points of the dial. There was a distant rush- ing sound, and I saw white clouds afar off dropping suddenly and together from the blue firmament all round me in a circle : and they fell to the earth, and rolled onwards, fearfully convergingto where I stood; and they came on, on, on, like the galloping cavalry of heaven ; pouring in on all sides as huge cataracts B 2 4 THE VISION. of foam ; and shutting me out from the green social world with the awful curtains of the skies. Then, as my heart was failing me for fear, and for looking at those inevitable strange oncomings, and the fixt eyes of my queenlike mistress, I sent reason from his throne on my brow to speak with it calmly, and took courage. So stood I alone with that dread beauty by the dial, and the white rolling wall of cloud came on slowly around with suppressed thunderings, and the island of earth on which I stood grew smaller and smaller every moment, and the garden-flowers faded away, and the familiar shrubs disappeared, until the moving bases of those cold mist-mountains were fixed at my very feet. Then said to me the glorious Power, standing in stature as a giant, " Come ! why tarriest thou ? Come !" and instantly there rushed up to us a huge golden throne of light fillagree-work, borne upon seven pinions, whereof each was fledged above with feathers fair and white, but underneath they were ribbed batlike, and fringed with black clown : and all around fluttered beautiful winged faces, mingled and disporting with grotesque figures and hideous imps. Then she mounted in her pomp the steps of the throne, and sat therein proudly. Again she said to me, " Come ! " and I feared her, for her voice was terrible ; so I threw myself down on the lowest of the seven golden steps, and the border of her dark robe touched me. Then was I full of dread, hemmed about with horrors, and the pinions THE VISION. 5 rustled together, and we rushed upward like a flame, and the hurricane hastened after us : my heart was as a frozen autumn-leaf quivering in my bosom, and I looked up for help and pity from the mighty Power on her throne ; but she spurned me with her black- sandalled foot, and I was thrust from my dizzy seat, and in falling clutched at the silver net-work that lay upon the steps as a carpet, and so I hung; my hands were stiffly crooked in the meshes like eagle's talons, my wrists were bursting, the bones of my body ached, and I heard the chill whisper of Death, (who came flitting up to me as a sheeted ghost,) bid- ding my poor heart be still : yet I would live on, I would cling on, though swinging fearfully from that up-rushing throne ; for my mind was unsubdued, and my reason would not die, but rebelled against his mandate. And so the pinions flapped away, the dreadful cavalcade of clouds followed, we broke the waterspout, raced the whirlwind, hunted the thunder to his caverns, rushed through the light and wind- tost mountains of the snow, pierced with a crash the thick sea of ice, that like a globe of hollow glass separates earth and its atmosphere from superambient space, and flying forward through the airless void, lighted on another world. Then triumphed my reason, for I stood on that si- lent shore fearless though alone, and boldly up- braided the dread Power that had brought me thither, " Traitress, thou hast not conquered ; my mind is still thy master, and if the weaker body failed 6 THE VISION. me, it hath been filled with new energies in these quickening skies : I am immortal as thou art ; yet shalt thou fear me, and heed my biddings : where- fore hast thou dared ?" but my wrathful eye looked on her bewitching beauty, and I had no tongue to chide, as she said in the sobriety of loveliness, " My sou, have I not answered thy prayer ? yet but in part ; behold, I have good store of precious things to show thee : " with that, she kissed my brow, and I fell into an ecstacy. I perceived that I was come to the kingdom of disembodied spirits, and they crowded around me as around some strange creature, clustering with earnest looks, perchance to enquire of me somewhat from the world I had just left. Although impalpable, and moving through each other, transparent and half-in- visible, each wore the outward shape and seeming garments he had mostly been known by upon earth : and my reason whispered me, this is so, until the re- surrection ; the seen material form is the last idea which each one hath given to the world, but the glorified body of each shall be as diverse from this, yet being the same, as the gorgeous tulip from its brown bulb, the bird of paradise from his spotted egg, or the spreading beech from the hard nut that had imprisoned it. Then Imagination stood with me as an equal friend, and spake to me soothingly, saying, " Knowest thou any of these ? " and I an- swered, " Millions upon millions, a wide-spread inun- dation of shadowy forms, from martyred Abel to the THE VISION. 7 still-born babe of this hour I behold the gathered dead ; millions upon millions, like the leaves of the western forests, like the blades of grass upon the' prairie, they are here crowding innumerable : yet should my spirit know some among them, as having held sw r eet converse with their minds in books ; only this boon, sweet mistress, from yonder mingled har- vest of the dead, in grace cull me mine intimates, that I may see them even with my bodily eyes." So she smiled, and waved her fair hand : and at once, a few, a very few, not all worthiest, not all best, came nearer to me with looks of love ; and I knew them each one, for I had met and somewhile walked with each of them in the paths of meditation ; and some appeared less beatified than others, and some even meanly clad as in garments all of earth, yet I loved them more than the remainder of that crowded world, though not equally, nor yet all for merit, but in that I had sympathy with these as my friends. And each spake kindly to me in his tongue, so that I stood entranced by the language of the spirits. Then said my bright-winged guide, " Hast thou no word for each of these ? they love thy greeting, and would hear thee." But I answered, " Alas, beautiful Power, I know but the language of earth, and my heart is cold, and I am slow of tongue : how should I worthily address these great ones ? " So with her finger she touched my lips, and in an inspiration I spake the language of spirits, where the thoughts are as incense to the mind, and the words winged 8 THE VISION. music to the ear, and the heart is dissolved into streams of joy, as hail that hath wandered to the tropics : in sweetness I communed with them alj, and paid my debt of thanks. And behold, a strange thing, changing the aspect of my vision. It appeared to me, in that dreamy dimness, whereof the judgment enquireth not and reason hath no power to rebuke it, that while I was still speaking unto those great ones, the several greetings I had poured forth in my fervour, being as it were flowing lava from the volcano of my heart, became embodied into mighty cubes of crystal ; and in the midst of each one severally flickered its spiritual song, like a soul, in characters of fire. So I looked in admiration on that fashioning of thoughts, and while T looked, behold, the shining masses did shape up, growing of themselves into a fair pyramid : and I saw that its eastern foot was shrouded in a mist, and the hither western foot stood out clear and well defined, and the topstone in the middle was more glorious than the rest, and inscribed with a name that might not be uttered ; for whereas all the remainder had seemed to be earthborn, mounting step by step as the self-built pile grew wondrously, this only had appeared to drop from above, neither had I welcomed the name it bore in that land of spirits ; nevertheless, I had perceived the footmarks of Him, with whose name it was engraved, even on the golden sands of that bright world, and had wor- shipped them in silence with a welcome. THE VISION. Thus then stood before me the majestic pyramid of crystal, full of characters flashing heavenly praise ; and I gloried in it as mine own building, hailing the architect proudly, and I grew familiar with those high things, for my mind in its folly was lifted up, and looking on my guide, I said, " O Lady, were it not ill, I would tell my brethren on earth of these strange matters, and of thy favour, and of the love all these have shown me ; yea, and I would re- count their greetings and mine in that sweet lan- guage of the spirits." But the glorious Wonder drew back majestic with a frown, saying, "Not so, presumptuous child of man ; the things I have shewn thee, and the greetings thou hast heard, and the songs wherewith I filled thee, cannot worthily be told in other than the language of spirits : and where is the alphabet of men that can fix that un- earthly tongue, or how shouldst thou from hence- forth, or thy fellows upon earth, attain to its delicate conceptions ? behold, all these thine intimates are wroth with thee ; they discern evil upon thy soul : the place of their sojourn is too pure for thee." Then was there a peal of thunder, like the burst- ing of a world, whereupon all that restless sea of shadows, and their bright abode, vanished suddenly ; and there ensued a flood of darkness, peopled with shoaling fears, and I heard the approach of hurrying sounds, with demoniac laughter, and shouts coming as for me, nearer and louder, saying, " Cast out ! Cast out ! " and it rushed up to me like an unseen army, and I fled for life before it, until I came to the ex- 10 THE VISION. treme edge of that spiritual world, where, as I ran looking backwards for terror at those viewless hunters, I leaped horribly over the unguarded cliff, and fell whirling, whirling, whirling, until my senses failed me When I came to myself, I was by the sun-dial in my garden, leaning upon the pedestal, and the thin shadow still pointed to twelve. In astonishment, I ran hastily to my chamber, and strove to remember the strains I had heard. But, alas, they had all passed away : scarcely one dis- jointed note of that rare music lingered in my me- mory: I was awakened from a vivid dream, whereof the morning remembered nothing. Nevertheless, I toiled on, a rebel against that fearful Power, and de- prived of her wonted aid : my songs, invita Minerva, are but bald translations of those heavenly welcom- ings : my humble pyramid, far from being the vi- sioned apotheosis of that of a Cephren, bears an unam- bitious likeness to the meaner Asychian, the charac- teristic of which, barring its presumptuous motto, must be veiled in one word from Herodotus, (2-136,) to save the bathos of translation, the cabalistic Thus, in mere human guise, as of men, and to men, in much weakness and diffidence, the following pages have grown under my pen ; and that the chil- dren of my brain be not quite friendless, they are commended, candid reader, to thy favour. n THE fresh young world rejoic'd in its sweet prime, And all around was peace ; the leprous spot On her fair forehead Nature heeded not, So beauteously she smiled in love sublime : Yet, even then, upon thy gentle form Rush'd the black whirlwind of a brother's crime, Breaking that calm of universal love With the fierce blast of murder's pitiless storm, Awroth at goodness ; thee, truth's stricken dove, First victim of oppression's iron feet, Religion's earliest martyr, slain by pride And man's self-righteousness, with praises meet Thee would my soul's affection humbly greet, Trusting the Lamb whereon thy faith relied. 12 ABEL. Although we have no specific account in holy writ of the origin of sacrifices, still from allusion we may infer that they were in the earliest ages divinely instituted. Those who oppose the Christian doctrine of redemption are driven into many absur- dities to account for the universality of a notion so repugnant to nature and to reason, as that of destroy- ing the lives of innocent brute creatures, and offering them up to the just Creator in atonement for the sins of men. It is, in fact, impossible to account for it on any other principle than this ; that God, in the promise to Eve of the seed that should bruise the serpent's head, revealed a vicarious Saviour, and ordained that a perpetual faith of the fulfilment of that promise should be kept alive by sacrifice. It is probable that our first parents used the or- dinance immediately after the curse pronounced upon the earth ; for we read that they were clad in coats of skins, which implies slain animals ; and we know that flesh was not given to man for food until the blessing bestowed upon Noah after the flood. The learned Hugo Grotius, and others, profess to see nothing of a sacrificial and bloody rite, in Abel bringing the firstling of his flock and of the fat ABEL. 13 thereof, to which, as unto Abel, the Lord had re- spect: they interpret it, as a simple presentation of a lamb, and ewe's milk, in acknowledgment of a shepherd's gratitude for increase : but to this per- nicious notion, one word from St. Paul affords suf- ficient answer ; in Hebrews, xi. 4, he calls Abel's offering, a Qvoia, which can mean nothing else than strictly a slain sacrifice ; the idea of Porphyry that its root is OV/AIUM being a grammatical absur- dity. The subject throughout is one of deep im- portance, and has been ably discussed by many theologians : let us briefly pursue a few other pass- ing thoughts. A more fearful proof of the fallacy involved in the popular saying, " Nemo repente fuit turpissimus," could not be met with than that afforded by the in- stance of Cain. Sin had indeed entered into the world, and death by sin ; but the first dereliction of duty was as innocence itself compared with the first recorded crime, The primal act of disobedience had some seeming excuses ; the human frailty of coveting a thing forbidden ; the intrinsic worth of that knowledge, which, doubtless, was to have been withheld only for a while, as an evidence of self- denying duty ; and chiefly, the subtlety of an un- suspected tempter in the case of Eve, and every im- pulse of natural affection in that of Adam. The French have a juster saying than the Latins, " C'est le premier pas qui coute ;" for the first, to human 14 judgment, half- venial fault soon grew up to the heinous magnitude of atrocious crime : the egg of the cockatrice was barely laid, before the full-fledged monster was brooding over the habitations of men. Gentle Abel, the accepted worshipper of a God then familiar with his creatures, for the sole cause of su- perior goodness, was murdered in the eye of day by his only brother ; a crime for which in all its features the world has not furnished a parallel. There is, without doubt, much of hidden intention and instruction in the account of Abel's death, Gen. iv. 3, &c. Jehovah had instituted sacrifice as the legitimate mean of approach to Him by fallen crea- tures, and Abel, in obedience to the ordinance, offered with acceptance a lamb ; whereas Cain made the unwelcome, because unlawful, offering of fruits : conveying in apt images the covenant of grace and the covenant of works, the systems of revealed and of natural religion. Hebrews, xi. 4, " By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain," &c., furnishes proof that Abel was a spiritual worshipper, who per- ceived the real meaning of a sacrifice, and it is there- fore somewhat remarkable that the Greek church, which has celebrated, if not canonized, every other worthy of scripture, has omitted " righteous Abel." Probably few readers will need to be reminded of the poem on the death of Abel, by Gessner of Zu- ABEL. 15 rich, although it is now not so popular as its pastoral beauty, and occasionally its epic sublimity deserves. Our English translation by Mary Collyer is replete with accurate elegance, and falls little short of the original : a praise not common, nor easily to be de- served. Abel is the only unmarried person whom we read of among the antediluvians. Even in that age of the world when increase was accounted the greatest of blessings, the first and most favoured martyr-ser- vant of God is taken from the earth arid leaves no image of himself: assuredly, to preach the lesson that even the best of human treasures are but second- ary to those which are spiritual. Every other of the earliest men, whether bad as Cain, or virtuous as Seth, " begat sons and daughters :" but of Abel, the fairest character of all, the decree went forth from the chancery of heaven, " Write this man childless." It certainly appears to the writer an oversight in the structure of Gessner's Poem, to have bestowed a Thirza upon Abel : he should have been left isolated, as the first type of Christ, whom however the Romish Church has had the absurd audacity to betroth to one of her pseudo-saints. e & $ c $, OF whom earth was not worthy ; for alone Among the dense degenerate multitude, Witness to truth, and teacher of all good, Enoch, thy solitary lustre shone For thrice an hundred years, in trust and love Walking with God : so sped thy blameless life That He, thy worship, justly could approve His patriarch-servant, and when sinners scofF'd The bold prophetic woe with judgment rife Or hurl'd at thee their threatened vengeance oft, From those fell clamours of ungodly strife God took thee to himself; behold on high The car of dazzling glory, borne aloft, Wings the blest mortal thro' the startled sky ! ENOCH. 17 Enoch, the seventh from Adam, is mentioned by St. Paul in Hebrews, xi. 5, as having " pleased God;" by St. Jude, 14, as having been a prophet of Christ's coming, and a preacher against the un- godliness of the world ; and by Moses, in Genesis, v. 22, as having walked with God three hundred years, " and he was not, for God took him." The good Horatian rule of reason's discovery, " Nee Deus intersit,nisi dignus vindice nodus incident," by which indeed all divine interposition has been regulated, (take as examples the raising of Lazarus, where the voice that awoke the dead unbound not the grave- clothes, and that of Jairus's daughter, where the god-like command, " Talitha cumi," is succeeded by the homely direction, " give her something to eat,") this acknowledged rule of economized power would induce us to believe that holy Enoch was translated to heaven on account of persecution on earth ; that he was taken away from the evil to come, and res- cued from the hands of murderous and wicked men. It is true indeed that in Elijah's case, 2 Kings, ii. 11, there appears no such necessity ; but we must re- member that Elias " went up by a whirlwind into heaven," that he might be the immediate harbinger of Christ to judgment, Malachi, iv. 5, although in- 18 ENOCH. deed he was typified at the first advent by John the Baptist, Matt. xi. 14 ; also for the purpose of re- presenting " the goodly company of the prophets" at Christ's transfiguration, Mark, ix. 4. Perhaps Enoch may, in this light, be regarded as a represen- tative of the patriarchal era. As in the case of Jonah, the history of whom the ancients have recorded in their accounts of Arion, so, by a like evident adaptation of the name, they have preserved the traditional memory of Enoch in the story of one Annachus, who is said by the Greeks to have foretold Deucalion's flood; (which, however, is not believed to be identical with Noah's.) There is nothing more interesting in classical read- ing, than the discovery of these incidental confir- mations of Scripture. St. Jude in the well-known passage quotes the book of Enoch ; but whether in so doing he intended to recommend it as authentic and inspired, is more than questionable : as well might we argue for the canon- ical reception of the works of Menander, because St. Paul incidentally cites one of his verses, and there- fore those who would reject the book of Jude in consequence, are guilty of great absurdity. Many of the fathers, and among them Tertullian, thought most highly of the prophecy attributed to Enoch : but the great stream of commentators and critics, headed by Augustine and Scaliger, consider that it bears evident marks of fabulous Rabbinism, or spu- rious Platonism. It is probable that some few of ENOCH. 19 the genuine traditional sayings of the translated patriarch, as that quoted by St. Jude, are imbedded in the mass of mingled materials, known by the name of Enoch's prophecy. The luxuriant imaginations of Eastern writers have invented many wonderful matters concerning Enoch, but like most traditional or Talmudic stories, they are little worthy of repetition. Among other things, they pretend that he received direct from heaven thirty manuscripts on astrology, and other secret sciences, and that he was an adept in all kinds of knowledge : but there is no need to transplant such puerilities on the shores of the sober West. 20 FATHOMLESS past ! what precious secrets lie Gulph'd in thy depths, how brave a mingled throng Fathers of wisdom, bards of mighty song, Hearts gushing with warm hopes, and feelings high, Lovers, and sages, prophets, priests, and kings, Sleep nameless in thy drear obscurity : Fathomless past! the vague conception brings, Amid thick-coming thoughts of olden things, Hoar Zoroaster, as he walked sometime In shadowy Babel, and around him stood The strangely-mitred earnest multitude Listening the wonders of his speech sublime: Hail, mantled ghost, I track thy light from far, On the chaotic dark an exiled star. ZOROASTER. 21 Zoroaster, probably a made name, signifying in Hebrew with a Greek termination, banished star, is supposed by many to have lived about 2300 A. C. The history of this ancient astronomer and sage is little known, and it is difficult to separate his identity from others who have borne the like name : but there has come down to us generally a tradition of his great and acknowledged superiority over his cotemporary world. We read, that whereas open idolatry had enslaved the rest of men, Zoroaster alone preached the sublime doctrine of a one invisible Deity, admitting fire to be his emblem. There are said to be still in the East numerous tribes who follow him as their teacher, and when one man has exercised dominion over his fellows for upwards of four thousand years, it is only reasonable to sup- pose that he was excellent in his generation, and for the times in which he lived, enlightened. It is, no doubt, a vexata quaestio whether or not Zoroaster of Bactria, or Zoroaster of Babylon, be the greater man, and the founder of the sect : if so, his date must be brought nearer to us by almost two thousand years : but the silence of history gives us the privi- lege of choice. Learned men have variously supposed Ham, Moses, 22 ZOROASTER. Osiris, Mithras, and several others, to have been re- spectively the same person as Zoroaster : with more probability Dr. Adam Clarke thinks him identical with Belteshazzar, or Daniel. Sir Walter Raleigh, in that work of infinite research, his " History of the World," lib. i. ch. 11, seems inclined to consider him a genuine Chaldrean sage of the most remote antiquity. By way of giving the reader a specific instance of the teaching of this ancient worthy, the following apt extract from Lord Lindsay's entertaining book on Egypt, (i. 185,) is here added: " The God, says the patriarchal Zoroaster, in his noble enumeration of the Almighty's attributes, is represented having a hawk's head : He is the Best, Incorruptible, Eternal, Unmade, Indivisible, most unlike every thing, the Author of all good, the Wisest of the wise." The mystical part of such theology consisting of emblems, a hawk, for example, figuring perfection of sight, or omniscience, and swiftness of presence, or ubiquity, speedily, as was natural, degenerated into common idolatry ; but assuredly the description given above of the Supreme Being by a native of heathen Baby- lon is among the most sublime ever penned by mor- tal hand. In fact, the worst conceptions of the Deity were most rife among men at that period of the world's history, which was equally remote from the patri- archal and the Christian eras. The idolatry of ex- treme antiquity was not the gross system which it afterwards became. 23 HAIL, friend of God, the paragon of faith ! Simply to trust, unanswering to obey, This was thy strength ; and happy sons are they Father, who follow thee thro' life and death, Ready at His mysterious command The heart's most choice affectionate hopes to slay With more than martyr's suicidal hand, Their sole sufficing cause, Jehovah saith, Their only murmured prayer, His will be done : Ev'n so, thy god-like spirit did not spare Thy cherished own, thy promised only son, Trusting that He, whose word was never vain, Could raise to life the victim offered there, And to the father give his child again. 24 ABRAHA3*. Scripture is full of moral tests : it is capable of infinite misconceptions ; it is easily perverted, if men will ; and the things which should have been for their health, are unto them an occasion of falling. There is doubtless something of providential intent in the contemptible facility which the highest themes afford for the lowest humour ; nothing is more easy than for a scoffer to draw poison from the fountain of truth. In exemplification of this, it will be sufficient to take for a moment the infidel view of the case of Abraham's intended sacrifice, if only to act as a foil to the Christian's interpretation. What ? are we to receive for an exemplar of moral conduct a man, who could deliberately attempt the murder of his only child ? are we to be told that a merciful Deity, and not some Moloch of a madman's heated fancy, com- manded the bloody rite ? are we to admire the dupli- city of the speeches, " We will go yonder, and wor- ship, and come again unto you, My son, God will provide himself a lamb ?" To these, and such objections our answer is uniform : the apparent evil is merely a reflection of the unbeliever's heart ; if he will but see with our eyes, the dark pic- ture will be as the brightness of noonday. Abra- ABRAHAM. 2 hain, the only witness upon earth of a loving and true God, was called upon to give proof that he re- lied implicitly upon His promises, power, and good- ness. He was commanded to deliver up the child, in whom all the earth was eventually to be blessed, as a sacrifice to Him who gave him : and the patri- arch cheerfully obeyed, though we may readily be- lieve not without the struggles of paternal agony, first, because he questioned not for a moment the right of the Creator to command, nor the ultimate mercy, wisdom, and propriety of the mandate ; and secondly, because (as we learn from Heb. xi. 19) he accounted that God was able to raise his son up even from the dead, and fully expected that it should be so. He meant what he said in "we will come back;" for he trusted in the restoration of his son : he stopped not to reason about moral fitness, for he knew that God had spoken : and he rightly regarded that the mercy of his Maker would provide himself a lamb, or if indeed the rite must be paid, and Isaac must be that lamb, He would restore uninjured the seed of promise. When to all this, we add the af- fecting beauty and aptitude of the whole scene as applicable to the persons of the adorable Trinity in the scheme of salvation, of which it is more than pro- bable that the patriarch had a due conception, we see the sacrifice of Isaac in the light of an act at once most pious, most admirable and most heroic. Many of the profane writers speak of Abraham: Berosus calls him " just, and great, and skilled in c 20 ABRAHAM. heavenly things;" Melo, the Jew hater, confirms Genesis in every particular of this patriarch's life : and so does Eupolemus, with other names little known to the general reader. Josephus, I. 8. 2, informs us that Abraham " communicated to the Egyptians the art of arithmetic, and the science of astronomy, with which they were previously unacquainted ; and that Egypt was indebted for its wisdom to Chaldaea, as Greece was to Egypt :" many fables of the East are full of allusions to this patriarch's knowledge, power, and piety. The whole chapter of the great Jewish historian and general, which relates to the offering of Isaac, the 13th of the 1st book, is most beautiful, and places the conduct of both father and son in a very touching and amiable light : the father, in that " he thought it was not right to disobey God in anything;" the son, in that being " twenty-five years old," he " went immediately of himself to the altar to be sa- crificed :" and Josephus adds the words of the Al- mighty, saying, " It is not out of a thirst for human blood thou wert commanded to slay thy son, neither because God wished to deprive thee of him as a father, but to try and prove thee, whether indeed thou wouldst obey to the uttermost." We may remark that Josephus makes no mention of the figurative re- surrection, implied in the return of Isaac unharmed. Bishop Warburton thinks, that the saying of our Lord, " Abraham saw my day," &c., is a proof that in the name Jehovah-jireh, given to the mount on ABRAHAM. 27 which Jesus afterwards suffered, Abraham prophe- sied the manifestation on the cross of incarnate Godhead. It is interesting to perceive, that the wise heathen, Seneca, entertains the same just ideas of implicit obe- dience which are so eminently characteristic of the Father of the faithful. The philosopher is found to speak as follows : " A law [or a mandate] should be brief, that it may be more easily retained by the un- learned, as if it were a voice sent from the gods : it should command, not argue, for nothing seems to me more frigid, or more foolish, than a law with a rea- son : tell me what you would have me do, I will not dispute about it, but obey, for in a law I require not reasons, but authority." So thought Seneca, and so did Abraham : if the mandate come indeed from heaven, Faith is not to wait for the tortoise step of Reason : her office, her nature, her name, imply not merely credence, but obedience. 28 STUPENDOUS Babylon ! before mine eyes Thy mountain walls, and marble terraces, Domes, temples, tow'rs, and golden palaces In visioned recollection grandly rise Huge and obscure, as icebergs in a cloud ; And mingling there a dense barbaric crowd Throng thy triumphal car with eastern state Moon of the world, Semiramis the Great ! Ambiguous shade of majesty supreme Upon the night of ages limn'd sublime, We think of thee but as a glorious dream, And, waiving those dark hints of unproved crime, Fain would we hope thee great and good combin'd To hail thee patriot Queen, and mighty Mind. SEMIRAMIS. "29 The supercilious detraction which female character almost invariably meets with in the masculine page of history is several times alluded to in this volume. Greatness, especially when manifested in the weaker sex, has always been a target for the envenomed darts of envy ; " Ssevius ventis agitatur ingens " Pinus, et celsse graviore casu " Decidunt turres, feriuntque summos Fulgura montes." but it is surely more philosophical, as well as more charitable to conclude that popular opinion would never long endure the blasting rule of monsters of depravity ; at least, in the absence of " most damn- ing proof," we ought not to believe that unequalled greatness is closely allied with unparalleled wicked- ness. If we are to credit the voice of common fame in both instances, there is much of similarity be- tween Assyrian Semiramis and Catherine Alexiewna II. of Russia, both in their public and private cha- racters : but, however opinions may be permitted to differ as to their respective moral delinquencies, no man would be hardy enough to affirm that they were not magnificent sovereigns, and the ruling spirits of 30 SEMIRAMIS. their several eras. Semiramis is supposed to have lived about 1965 before Christ, and to have reigned twenty-five years : she is accused of many crimes, but would appear to have lived in the affection of her sub- jects, and to have died with their worship. The gallant Raleigh does not scruple to say, (i.182,) " As for her vicious life I ascribe the report thereof to the envious and lying Grecians : for delicacy and ease do more often accompany licentiousness in men and women, than labour and hazard do : and if the one half be true which is reported of this lady, then there never lived any prince or princess more worthy of fame than Semiramis was." It is commonly accounted a mark of high civilization, especially when we consider the antiquity of eastern prejudices respecting women, to find female sovereigns in the list of Assyrian, Egyp- tian, and Abyssinian monarchs ; and, if we had not even now extant the mouldering ruins of gigantic enterprise to witness it, this fact is alleged enough to render credible much that we hear of ancient excel- lence in the arts and sciences : it must however be taken merely as an evidence of high gallantry; for it is questioned by many wise men, adhuc sub judice lis, whether, as to female domination, the Salique law of good King Pharamond is or is not in effect one very wholesome for the interests of society, and strictly accordant with the revealed doctrine of headship. Mrs. Jameson's testimony upon this point is very decided : that lady says in her preface to the Lives of Female Sovereigns, " On the whole, it seems in- SEMIRAMIS. 31 disputable that the experiments hitherto made in the way of female government have been signally unfortunate; and that women called to empire have been, in most cases, conspicuously unhappy or criminal. So that, were we to judge by the past, it might be decided at once, that the power which belongs to us, "as a sex, is not properly, or naturally, that of the sceptre or the sword." This candid admission from one so competent, and, upon prin- ciples of human nature, in such a case so un- willing a witness, must have considerable weight : and in reference to the subject, it cannot escape the observation of some, that the prophet Isaiah enumerates among the woes of Israel, chap. iii. 12, " As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them." The condition of Spain and Portugal in our own day illustrates the cause and consequence. It will be profitable however to consider on the other hand, that the peculiar constitution which Tacitus lauds as the best, (Ann. iv. 33) is one almost independent of the advantages or disadvantages of sex ; that Edmund Burke was philosophically justified in his seeming paradox concerning the crown; and that, even if the verdict of history has hitherto been unsatis- factory, (a position which many think they have a right to dispute,) still the future is ever a fair field of hope open to all, arid moderns possess the incalculable advantage of being competent to profit by the errors of their ancestors. 32 THE true nobility of generous minds, Equal to either conquest, weal or woe, Triumphant over fortune, friend or foe, In thee, pure-hearted youth, its pattern finds : Child best-beloved of Israel's green old age, Innocent dreamer, persecuted slave, Good steward, unguilty captive, honour'd sage Whose timely counsel rescued from the grave Egypt's bronze children, and those exiled few Dwelling at Goshen, Ruler, born to save, How rich a note of welcome were thy due, O man much tried, and never found to fail ; Young, beauteous, mighty, wise and chaste and true. Hail, holy prince, unspotted greatness, hail ! 33 The idea of types being once given to the stu- dent of Scripture, examples of this kind of acted prophecy will rise to his mind in rich abundance. It requires very little either of imaginative power, or ingenious learning, to perceive at once the ulti- mate intentions of Joseph's chequered history ; every fact in his life, as in that of many other patriarchs of old time, being obviously typical of some circum- stance in the life of our Saviour. The subject is an extremely full one, and better fitted for a religious treatise than a few discursive remarks : it has more- over been so frequently and so well explained by divines, that further notice here might be deemed supererogatory. The memorv of Joseph, as a great public bene- factor, is cherished in Egypt to this day, and his personal beauty, alluded to in Genesis, xxxix. t>, has ever been proverbial in the East. According to the learned Sir John Marsham, Joseph was the chief officer, or grand vizier of no less than four of the Pharaohs ; unfamiliar names, which it would serve no purpose to transcribe. It has more of interest to perceive that the consequen- ces of Joseph's dealing in the famine exist in Egypt to this very day ; for (Genesis, xlvii. 20) " Joseph bought c 5 34 JOSEPH. all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh ; the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine pre- vailed over them ; so the land became Pharaoh's," remaining so to this hour : the fellahs, or native in- habitants, being merely occupiers of the soil, the property of which is nominally in the Sultan, but actually vested in the present Pacha. Compare also Herodotus, Euterpe, 109, where the soil is all said to belong to the king of Egypt. Some of the hieroglyphical histories still extant on the walls of tombs in Thebes and Beni Hassan, possess a remarkable interest from their apparent re- ference to the sojourn of the Jews : in particular, there is figured in Wilkinson's Egypt, (2. 296.) a fresco picture, which has been supposed to represent the arrival of Jacob and his family on the invitation of Joseph. 35 How should I greet thee, God's ambassador, Great shepherd of the people, how proclaim In worthiest song thy more than human fame Meek bard yet princely, vengeful conqueror, Leader, and lawgiver ? thy hallowed name E'en now with fears the captive bosom fills, Though the dear love of thy grand Antitype In glad assurance thro' that bosom thrills : Alas, thy faithless tribes, for judgment ripe, Chose Ebal and the curse ; didst thou not heed When these thy children dared the dreadful deed Whereathighnoonwasblind, nor blessthe grace, That shall that stain from crime's dark record wipe, And love once more the long-rejected race ? 36 MOSES. A theme like the present should not be approached without a deep sense of veneration : Moses is emi- nently a sacred character, and the inspired writers ought perhaps, in one view of the case, to stand quite aloof from the mere human herd, among whom they are here chronologically mingled. It would give the writer much pain to be accused of in- stituting any improper comparisons between idol- atrous heathens, and the noted servants of the Most High ; such is far from his intention : on principle however, he would not exclude holy men of God from a brief catalogue of worthies ; and he did not wish to exclude all others : it is hoped that no very objectionable names will be found among the writer's favourites ; but it should always be remembered that we are to judge of men with reference to the circumstances round them ; and as men, with regard to their influence on their fellows, whether beneficial or otherwise. In this light, many names, seemingly incongruous, will be found admissible ; and perhaps the writer ought to state, in apology for the somewhat miscel- laneous list of contents, that he generally pro- fesses to touch upon his favourite authors, studies, MOSES. 37 or notions. And with this clue, lector benevole, speed thou on thy way. Of Moses, nothing need here be repeated which can be found in the inspired volume : the date of his birth is disputed, but it is probably cor- rect to fix it at 1570, B. C. : he died at the age of one hundred and twenty, and to prevent idol- atry of his remains, it is said, in Deut. xxxiv. 6, that " the Lord buried him, and no man knoweth of his sepulchre." It is very interesting to find Herodotus bear- ing testimony to the consequences of the plagues of Egypt ; also Diodorns Siculus, and Strabo, con- firming holy writ in many particulars. From the extreme antiquity of the works of Moses, it has long been an objection raised by sceptics, that the only method of writing then known was engraving on stones, arid that the volu- minous character of the Pentateuch rendered this impossible : hence they infer that the books of Moses cannot be genuine or authentic, but the traditionary compilation of some later hand. But all this is founded on the extravagant assumption that every word was sculptured upon tables of stone : an idea now completely subverted by the fact, which the hieroglyphical researches of M. Cham- pollion have established, that the use of papyrus was long anterior to the age of Moses ; there being now extant at Turin an Egyptian writing on pa- pyrus, expounded to be an act of Thutmothsis III., 38 and accounted two hundred years older than the time of the Pharaoh, in whose reign Moses flourished. There can be no doubt, however, that some pas- sages have been added to the original text, by Joshua, or Ezra ; as for example the account of the death of Moses, which closes Deuteronomy. In Graves on the Pentateuch the enquirer will find every objection honestly stated, and luminously solved. From the very curious passage in St. Jude, con- cerning " Michael the archangel disputing with Satan about the body of Moses," taken in connection with the transfiguration on the mount, it has been imagined that Moses is one of those who, with Enoch, Elias, and our Saviour, are not in the state of disembodied spirits, but in that of the perfect re- surrection. 39 IT is not for thy throne and diadem, Nor for the prowess of thy ruddy youth, Nor skill with gentle minstrelsy to soothe The spirit in its griefs, and banish them, We count thee blest ; these lesser stars of praise May well in lustrous beauty round thee blaze, Anointed monarch of Jerusalem ; But, that omniscient truth hath titled thee Man after God's own heart, this name alone Doth, to its highest, mortal glory raise, And leave us wondering here : O favoured one, As to my Saviour's symbol, reverent And with such worship as befitteth me, So would I greet thee, royal penitent. 40 DAVID. The types of our Lord Christ, which so remark- ably pervade the historical books of the Old Tes- tament, and indeed, (if it be not improper to say so,) constitute to us their chief value, form a system as worthy of the philosopher's attention as of the less reasoning acceptance of unlearned Christians. A most favourite principle it is in human nature, to follow examples ; and this fact explains the popular power of analogical argument, and the love of biography of which most men are sensible. A type was a form of setting Christ before men exactly adapted to their social nature, and the pre-eminence of David, the Beloved, (as his name signifies,) in this respect, has been the theme of divines in all ages. However, there is still very much of the antitypical scheme to be made up : we are yet to hear of " bringing the King back;" and doubtless, every minute incident, as of Shimei, and Barzillai, &c., will be found to have its national counterpart hereafter. To explain allusions in sonnets that concern such characters would be to cast an imputation on the reader. Once for all, it is far from the intention of these sections to comment upon every phrase and image, DAVID. 41 or with the blotting finger of notation to point out all the secret sense. Such a plan would generate more prose than the poetry could carry, and would be a method of swelling the volume, despicable from its very ease : added to which, it is more complimentary to the reader, and for that cause more worthy of the writer, to leave many things unexplained. In general, allusions will be obvious enough. Many subjects, briefly touched upon in these cursory remarks, would require a treatise for their several elucidation ; and the author has felt great difficulty in sufficient condensation : he is sensible that in some instances he may not have said enough to defend his positions from every opponent, (as perhaps, on Scriptural revision,) but it is really from the pressure of many matters : arguments and examples might often have been multiplied, but where one or two have been thought sufficient, the excess has been rejected : in fact among these brief essays, there will frequently be found little more than the seeds of thoughts, which he that so wills may cultivate at leisure : from the multi- tude of topics, and to produce variety, they are necessarily discursive : the opportunity has been taken to introduce original translations, and leave has been usurped to ramble at will to any subject at all connected with the character under consider- ation : in a word, while the author would acknow- ledge with gratitude the general debt which he 42 owes to the labour and genius of others, still he has endeavoured, often to the reader's loss, to avoid transcription from popular manuals, from a sense that to increase the bulk of a volume by such me- thods is not quite honest, and even if it were, would savour too strongly of inglorious ease. 43 WHO hath not heard the trumpet of thy fame ? Or is there that sequestered dismal spot Where thy far-echoed glory soundeth not ? The tented Arab still among his mates In wondrous story chaunts thy mighty name ; Thy marvels yet the fakir celebrates, Yea, and for Solomon's unearthly power The sorcerer yells amid his deeds of shame, Rifling the dead at midnight's fearful hour : Not such thy praise ; these savour of a fall Which penitence should banish from the mind ; We gladlier on thy sainted wisdom call, And greet thee with the homage of mankind Wisest, and mightiest, and first, of all. 44 SOLOMON. Concerning Solomon so much is commonly known, that there is little excuse here to repeat the les- sons of our childhood. We assuredly have dis- tinct traces of his apostacy, and of the dreadful manner by which it was manifested, namely sor- cery and other ramifications of the black art, in the fact that even now among the mysteries of Egyptian, Chinese, and Asiatic magic, the name of Solyman, or Zuleyman, is still prominent, as a ruler of the spirits : see, in exemplification, the eighth and ninth of the Arabian Nights. There can be little doubt that with all the bold ambition of a towering mind, permitted for wise purposes to break into brief rebellion, Solomon practised those evil arts; and the writer at least feels as little doubt that witchcraft and its like were in those ages of the world possible and real crimes ; that in fact, a league could be entered into with wicked spirits, and, if such guilt be now set out of the pale of Christendom, there is no telling how far it may actually exist within the bounds of Paynimrie : consult Mr. Lane's account of Egyptian magic, and that of other writers from the East. It occurs forcibly to the mind, how different SOLOMON. 45 from the better choice of Solomon, would have been that of every Mr. Worldly-Wiseman of the age. There is a certain class of men among us, and it is to be lamented a class very large and very spread- ing, in whose estimation money and money's-worth constitute the only riches ; they are, in the words of Young, " Bit by the rage canine of dying rich ; " the scales of their judgment, Aladdin-like, weigh nothing but gold ; they throw in no make-weight, as Brennus did ; (see Plutarch's Life of Camillus ;) their rule of life is " facias rem, Si possis, recte, si non, quocunque modo rem ;" mental gifts, and spiritual privileges are viewed by minds so grovel- ling, merely as lucrative means to that all-absorbing end ; they hold religiously that " money makes the man ; " they consider not what inward wealth may be the very beggar's portion; they heed not what heart-poverty may gnaw the vitals of a Croesus. There are many poor rich men, and there are many rich poor men : the age needs to be converted from idolatry in this matter, for the image of Ne- buchadnezzar still has its million devotees. The wise man will feel richer in home happiness, in the love of nearest and dearest, in the power of religion, the peace of his conscience, the strength of his mind, and the luxuriance of his imagination, than " in thousands of gold and silver : " to use the beautiful language of Transatlantic Willis, 46 SOLOMON. " He from the eyrie of his eagle thought Looks down on monarchs ; " whereas the mere idolater of gold, the Gallio caring for none of these things, who is incapable of great hopes, and generous sentiments, heaps up only un- satisfying treasure, and has just mind enough to make him miserable. " Wisdom is the principal thing : get wisdom, and with all thy getting get understanding." The choice of Hercules, virtue in preference to pleasure, handed down to us by Xenophon, is as well known among the Greeks, as that of Solomon, wisdom before riches, among the Jews : and it is impossible to say how far the profane hero is indebted for the credita- ble anecdote to the sacred king. The habit of Greece, one more useful than honest, was to appropriate to her own shores every thing in history or fable which should have more rightfully redounded to the honour of her neighbours. 47 THOU poor and old, yet ever rich and young, Ye sunless eyeballs, in all wisdom bright, Travel- stain' d feet, and home-unwelcomed tongue, That for a pauper's pittance strayed, and sung, Where after-times the frequent acolyte Tracked those faint steps with worship, at what time And where, thou untaught master, did the strings Of thine immortal harp echo sublime The rage of heroes, and the toil of kings ? Uncertain shadow of a mystic name, The world's dead praise, as Hellas' living shame, There is a mystery brooding on thy birth, That thee its own each willing soil may claim ; Thy fatherland is all the nattered earth. 48 HOMEK. Homer, a personage whose very name is a riddle, (being not impossibly the Hebrew word homerim, anglice " words," or as likely the Greek Sjujjpoe, " blind,") is supposed to have flourished A. C. about 900. His principal works are too well known to need mention, further than that the main subjects of the Iliad turn upon the wrath of Achilles, Ajax, Agamemnon, and others ; and that the Odyssey treats of the adventures of the king of Ithaca, and his com- panions, when returning to their homes, after the fall of Troy. Some learned men have gone the length of- conjecturing that Solomon might have written the poems known by the name of " Homer," or " Epic," (words of similar signification in Hebrew and Greek,) during the period of his idolatrous apostacy: but this would appear to be little better than an ingeni- ous expansion of the argument implied in the possible etymology of the name. With respect to the birth-place of the poet, it is well known that many cities of Greece (" Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Ithaca, Pylus, Argos, Athena,") in after-ages con- tended for the honour of his birth, by way of self- aggrandisement ; but perhaps, if the truth were told, all have equal claims, the fact being that there is no credible evidence on the subject ; for to look ex- HOMER. 49 ternally, we have nothing but the assertions of inter- ested candidates; and internally there is perhaps no poet in any age who has communicated so little of himself in his works as Homer: it is also matter of history that the author of those immortal poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, received divine honours in the very spots where it is likely that he had wandered as a homeless, and some think sightless, bard. For the matter of blindness, however, we have not the same satisfactory record of the fact, as that so beautifully furnished by our own Homer, Milton, in his indivi- dual case ; but the wanderings are credible enough, for troubadours, (to use an anachronism in terms,) and the oral diffusion of poetry are common to infant so- ciety in every land. It is just possible that the poems which have come down to us from antiquity under the name of Homer, may, as to their genuineness and authenticity, be analogous to those we have in modern times received under the name of Ossian : namely, in both having been a collection of detached pieces, cemented and digested into one by a diligent master-hand ; and one meaning of the word o^irjpo^, " joined together," would seem to favour the notion. But after all, it is equally probable, if not more so, that one master-hand wrote it all, for unity of design and consistency of execution are generally apparent throughout, and the art of writing is doubtless of ex- treme antiquity in the East : indeed, the symbolizing his ideas would appear to be an invention which unassisted man could never have arrived at; and we D 50 HOMEE. have some grounds, from Genesis, ch. ii. vv. 19, 20, to believe that signs of thought were a matter of revela- tion to the first man. The writer has ventured to subjoin a very close translation, in English hexameters, of the episode concerning the dog of Ulysses, in Od. lib. xvii. line 290, &c. The story is full of nature, and will give the reader, who is unacquainted with Greek, a truer idea of Homer's mind than many passages better known. The metre being the same as in the origi- nal, and the version almost word for word, will, it is hoped, give the subject additional interest. Thus to each other spake they ; but the hound, as he lay in his weakness, Pricked up his ears and his head, poor Argus of patient Ulysses; Him had his master rear'd, but not sported with ; parting beforehand To the devoted Troy : so, formerly did the young gallants Hunt him to chase the wild goats, and the timorous hare, and the roebuck. But, he had long been cast out, grown old, and his lord being absent, Lying on heaps of filth, dropped there by the mules and the oxen Outside his master's door, from which to the farm of Ulysses Servants would clear it away for manure, while cruelly leaving Argus, the fine old dog, full of sores and covered with ver- min. HOMER. 51 Still, when now, the poor creature beheld Ulysses approach- ing, He lay back his ears, and fawn'd with his tail in faithful affection, But rose not, nor nearer could get to his own dear master All for neglect and age : and the king, unobserved by the swineherd, Brushing away his tears at the sight, immediate address'd him. Surely Eumseus, 'tis strange, this dog lies here on the dung- heap, He seems to be fine in his form and his breed, yet one thing I know not If he be fleet, for starving he lies, a shame to his masters, Or if he be a slow hound, such as man often makes his com- panion And for his own delight for awhile is accustomed to pamper. Him then answered straight, even thou, Eumaeus the swine- herd: Truly, I heed not : the dog is a man's who has died on his travels. Were he the same but now, in shape, and power, and courage, As when Ulysses, starting for Ilium, left him behind him, Quickly, I wot, would you wonder, to see his muscle and For not a beast could escape him, which he but once got a sight of, All the dark forest through ; the hound had the cunning to track them. Now, misfortune in turn catches him ; for the king his old master Perish'd away from home; and the careless damsels forget him. For that, servants, whenever a master ceases to govern, D 2 52 HOMER. Will not afterwards heed to perform the task of their duty ; And because farseeing Jupiter steals away half a man's virtue Soon as the baneful morn of servitude darkens upon him. So saying he went in to the fair and populous mansion, Straight going up to the hall to seek the illustrious wooers. But, for poor Argus, the fate of black death had utterly seiz'd him, When, in his twentieth year, he saw for a moment Ulysses. 53 HEAR him, sore-travailling mother, patient earth, Hear the glad eloquence of this thy son ; The times of want and woe are well nigh done, And old creation springs to second birth, Toil's rest, care's cure, and melancholy's mirth : O golden sabbath of the world, speed on ; Why tarrieth nature's king ? the woods, the waves, The waiting righteous in their prison-graves, The moan of famine, and the shriek of fear, Entreat thy coming, O desire of all, Theme of Isaiah's hope, in praise appear ! Great monarch, take thy universal crown, Even so, quickly : shall thy people call In vain ? O rend the heavens, and come down ! 54 ISAIAH. Holy Scripture is full of promises to material cre- ation. The earth has not yet held jubilee. The Jewish nation has not yet reaped the harvest of its hopes, and the glories of Solomon cannot fairly be consi- dered as a fulfilment even of antecedent promises : while all those which succeed clearly point to that golden age of the Jewish monarchy, as having been merely typical. The light that lighteneth the Gen- tiles, hath yet to be the glory of his people Israel. If a son of Abraham should, through grace, and from conviction, close with Christianity, still he ought never to give up his national expectations, nor his nation. Paul confessed himself a Jew ; Jesus was a Jew ; and although the name has, for the fulfil- ment of prophecy, fallen into contempt, " a hissing and a reproach," it shall yet, in similar fulfilment, be a synonyme for all that is good, great, and glorious on the renovated earth. " Ten men shall lay hold on the mantle of one man that is a Jew, and shall say, we will go with thee, for we have heard that God is with thee." The seven concluding chapters of Isaiah, as indeed one half of the Bible directly or indirectly, may be referred to as elucidatory of millenial expect- ations. ISAIAH. 55 In some remarks hereafter made upon St. John and St. Paul, the opportunity has been taken, (it is hoped in unfeigned humility, and with a real desire of doing good,) to comment upon the propriety of revising, by an authorized list of corrigenda, a few passages in our translation of the Scriptures. The subject of Isaiah offers another favourable occasion for alluding to this important topic ; and although the writer would confess at once that he has not the bib- lical learning requisite to do it anything like justice, still he wishes, by the publication of these hints, to induce others, more able, to follow up the matter. As examples of errors, which are familiar to many, let the following be taken : Is. ix. 3, where " Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy ; they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest," &c. should be rendered, " Thou hast multiplied the nation, and increased its joy," &c. the Hebrew word " lo," spelt with an aleph or a vau, having both con- tradictory meanings. So again in Is. xxxiii. 2, " O Lord, be gracious unto us; we have waited for thee : be thou their arm every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble," it is manifest that " their" is an error for " our," the latter reading being not merely supported by the sense of the context, but by the best authorities. Again, Is. liii. 8, " from prison and from judgment," which was not literally verified, should be more accurately, " by distress and judg- ment," as in the margin ; (indeed the marginal read- ing is often the more preferable :) also, in the same 56 ISAIAH. chapter, ver. 9, where the better version is, " His death was appointed with the wicked, and with the rich man was his tomb :" an exact prophecy which our common translation confounds. Many other in- stances of such faults might be given. The next class is of incorrect punctuation, which frequently quite destroys the sense : turn to Zech. ix. 1, where we find, " The burden of the word of the Lord in the land of Hadrach, and Damascus shall be the rest thereof: when the eyes of men, as of all the tribes of Israel, shall be toward the Lord :" the true reading is submitted to be, " The burden of the word of the Lord in the land of Hadrach andDamascus : the rest thereof shall be, when," &c. Once more ; Joel, ii. 14, should probably be rendered thus, " Who know- eth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him ? A meat offering, a drink offering, unto the Lord our God ! blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast," &c., where by understanding the word " bring" before " a meat offering,'' &c., obscurity is avoided, and the passage stands out in all its eloquence. A third class of corrigenda is one of less import- ance, but still its popular influence does great injury to the cause of religion : allusion is made to such need- lessly bald translations, as " a bottle in the smoke" for a wine-skin ; " why hop ye so, ye high hills," for " exult ye," in the Prayer-book psalms : " butter and honey shall he eat," for curd and honey; or still worse, that bathos in the sublime hymn of Deborah, Judges, v. " she brought forth butter in a lordly dish :" ISAIAH. 57 also Is. xxxvii. 36, " when they arose early in the morning, behold they were all dead corpses," where the least care in the world, as the use of " former and latter," " these and those," or" Jews and Assyrians," would save the absurdity of the two theys ; it would only be to treat Scripture as fairly as another trans- lated book : also, such a case, as making the good Samaritan give " two pence," and the master of the vineyard " a penny a day;" for however it may by an antiquarian be remembered that the English silver penny had its ancestor in the Roman denarius, the common hearer goes away with false and mean im- pressions : lastly, under this head might appear se- veral sentences which in the lapse of time have be- come indelicate. But instances of possible amendments may be mul- tiplied to a great amount; some others are mentioned hereafter; and doubtless every sensible reader of the Bible has met with many. Still, while such an one has lamented the evil, he has perceived, with king Alfred, the danger of touching what is good, though to make it better, and of tampering with our present version, even to improve it : a sentiment with which the writer partially sympathizes. Nevertheless, it should be recollected that the present translation of James the First has several times been revised already, as, in 1683, 1711, and even so lately as 1769; also that a living language is very variable, and cannot long be accounted standard ; and, conclusively, that some- thing still remains to be done, and that for the honour 58 of religion and the furtherance of truth all stumbling- blocks which can be cleared away, should be cleared away, in spite of danger : " these little things are great to little men," and with all our intellectual progres- sion, we do not yet perceive that " mind, the stand- ard of the man," has grown to be a giant. Without controversy, the greatest care should be taken that so responsible a task fall only to the lot of orthodox, pious, and learned persons ; that as little alteration be made as possible ; and, in fact, as is again suggested hereafter, that the revision should be presented to the public in the shape of a list of au- thorized errata and corrigenda, (perhaps under various heads, as, necessary, expedient, philological, and merely elegant,) which might be issued in pamphlets of different sizes, and bound up with our present Bibles, at the discretion of individuals. The danger to be apprehended from conflicting statements, and heterodox versions, might be, and ought to be ren- dered null and void by the power of parliament : a Christian and a Protestant nation, (if indeed we may now be called so,) has no higher duty nor greater privilege than to keep the Scriptures of truth as pure and perfect as human frailty will permit. One word more : no man of any taste or feeling would think of modernizing the version. Perhaps it may be considered objectionable, that a topic of such weight should be thus slightly touched in a few discursive remarks, and in a volume of such mixed materials : but the writer has elsewhere al- ISAIAH. 59 luded to the difficulties he labours under in the way of condensation, and is really anxious, as far as in his power lies, to stimulate some less feeble hand to the useful and honourable task of a critical emendation. Finally, if in these days of general reform, he be ac- counted to have erred in mooting the subject at all, or be wrong in any of his instances, (for the argu- ment remains the same, should there exist but one error,) he is bold to deprecate in this matter personal reproof, and offers his motive to shield his indiscre- tion. Magna est veritas, et praevalebit : there is great weakness in concealing faults : our strength lies in amending them. A fit and unsuperstitious faith in the authorized version, which is generally most ac- curate, would be strengthened, rather than shaken, by so wholesome a measure ; and if we had such a translation of the Sacred Scriptures, as would do jus- tice to its original, many of the strong holds of mo- dern infidelity would totter to their foundations, and in nine cases out of ten the scoff of the blasphemer would be silenced. 60 To know thyself, a knowledge beyond price, Which some of this world's wisest cannot learn, To search the heart, and keenly there discern Even among its flowers of Paradise The watchful subtle snake of cherished vice And thus aware, to fly it, nor to fan Those guilty sparks that else shall scorch and burn Thine innocence, this is thy wisdom, Man : This, had no messenger of grace aloud Proclaimed it for thy weal, of yonder sage Separate in glory from that white-robed crowd, Thou long hadst learnt : Solon, from age to age One short full phrase a noble proof supplies That thou wert wise as good, and good as wise. SOLON. 61 It must be confessed that the accurate biographer, Plutarch, makes no mention of the great moral rule, by which the superiority of Solon is popularly tested among us. TvwOi atavrov is known by every school- boy to be the saying attributed to this chief of the seven wise men of Greece, and we may safely de- clare that upon this traditionary phrase rests the ge- neral appreciation of Solon's character. Self-know- ledge lies at the very foundation of moral philosophy, and if Christian ethics spring from that better know- ledge of a God, holy, just, merciful and true, still, by reflection and contrast we arrive at the useful, because humbling conviction of our comparative worthlessness. It is indeed a great argument of true wisdom in a heathen, to find him choosing as his motto, " Know thyself:" with what light and power it shines forth from the sayings of those rival six ! Bias makes the easy discovery, that " most men are wicked ;" the worldly Pittacus bids, "watch your opportunity;" pru- dent Thales forewarns of " the dangers of suretyship ;" Cleobulus casts a dead weight upon rising talent and virtue, by professing that " moderation is best ;" Pe- riander glories in a physical fact, that " to industry all things are possible;" and plagiarist Chilo only echoes the well-authenticated sentiment of Solon 6-2 SOLON. himself, when, praising Tellus the Athenian, and teaching vain-glorious Croesus the instability of greatness and wealth, he bids the Lydian son of Alyattes " to look to the end of life." Truly, the two words of Solon outweigh all the rest for practical wisdom, and many a volume could not exhaust the fullness of yvuOi atavrov. Solon was a descendant of the celebrated Cadmus, the last king of Athens, and flourished in the seventh and sixth centuries before Christ: the popular ac- counts of him are accessible, if not familiar, to all; but it may not be so well known that even to us, the " ex- tremis orbe Britannis," the wisdom of the sovereign legislator and archon of Athens has furnished laws : his original " kyrbes," (as the triangular tablets were called on which his code was written,) survived to the time when the twelve Roman tables were com- posed, and were incorporated into them ; these, again formed the ground-work of the laws of Justinian, many canons of which are in force in our own civil and ecclesiastical courts. " The law commonly called the civil law, had its birth in Rome; and was first written by the Decemviri, three hundred and three years after the foundation of the city. It was compounded as well out of the Athenian and other Grecian laws, as out of the ancient Roman customs and laws regal." So far Sir Walter Raleigh, lib. ii. c. 4: we learn from other places, that the kyrbes of Solon were the staple and substance of the twelve tables of Rome. SOLON. 63 Solon is known to history as a poet as well as a lawgiver ; indeed it is said that his laws were written in verse, in order that the Athenians might more readily remember them : a striking contrast to our own verbose and unintelligible enactments, where words appear to be multiplied for the sole purpose of " darkening knowledge." There is a story told of him, which will afford an opportunity of pre- senting the reader with a fragment of his elegiac poetry. The Athenians having decreed that any one who should propose the recovery of Salamis from the Megarensians should be put to death, Solon, considering the decree dishonourable, had the patriotism to disobey it, and at the same time had the prudence to evade the law by feigning madness: accordingly he composed an elegy, and rushing into the agora in the dress worn by the insane, de- claimed in a seeming inspiration against the mea- sure : the poem began as follows, Never was this fair city by Providence doom'd to be ruin'd, Nor have the blest living gods deeply deterrain'd its end ; For a magnanimous warden, and born of a powerful father, Pallas, Athenian queen, stretches above us a shield : But by their own vile deeds to destroy that glorious city, Such is her children's will, bribed by her enemies' gold. K. T. X. There may not be sufficient interest to warrant fur- ther rendering : let it be enough to know that the at- tempt of Solon succeeded in raising to higher senti- ments the variable populace. A GARDEN of ungathered parable Lies ripe around us, in fair-figured speech Blooming, like Persian love-letters, to teach Dull-hearted man where hidden pleasures dwell : Its fruits, its flowers, of love and beauty tell, And, as quick conscience wings the thought, to each Doth all our green sweet world sublimely preach Of wisdom, truth, and might, unutterable : For thee,poor Phrygian slave, mind's free-bora son, In whose keen humour nought of malice lurk'd While good was forced at wit's sarcastic fire, The world should pay thee thanks, for having work'd That garden first, and well the work is done, A labourer full worthy of his hire. 65 Of JSsop's life we have little certain information. One Planudes, indeed, gives us a number of apocry- phal anecdotes, all bearing upon his wit and ugliness, and in general derogatory to the philosophical gran- deur of a certain Xanthus, otherwise Idmon, who appears to have been the but of his too satirical slave. The time at which ^Esop lived is generally stated to be about 600 A. C. ; and tradition tells of him that he originally came from Phrygia, was sold in Athens as a slave, actually at so low a sum as three copper oboli, through his clever defence of Samos obtained his manumission, became known to Solon, and through him, shared the bounty of Crcesus. His death is reported to have been owing to the exasperation of the people of Delphi, whose enmity he had excited by hindering the tide of gold from flowing into their coffers, and ridiculing their priestcraft in a fable : it is said that they managed to accuse him of sacrilege, by concealing a cup of gold among his baggage, as in Benjamin's case, and then hurried the condemned innocent man to the dreadful death of their Parnas- sian precipice. St. Jerome instances ^Esop as one of the most unfortunate of men ; for his birth, state, and death were alike miserable ; in that he was born deformed, 66 lived a slave, and died the death of a criminal. Yet did the holy father judge of him too much with the mind of a pagan Solon; for though deformed in body, he was a proper man in intellect, though a slave in condition, a freeman in soul, though visited by death in his worst shape, yet visited innocently. Verily, there are many fair, many free, many quietly dying who might find much to envy in foul, fettered, persecuted ^Esop. Even the accounts of his extreme deformity, as we have them, are very questionable : but there is some little antecedent probability of it ; for dwarfs and hunchbacks have almost universally been famous for a cunning spirit, whether shown in the form of illnatured and acrimonious sarcasms, or manifested by " quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles." Of this established fact in human nature, many writers of fiction have availed themselves, and no novel reader can be at a loss for examples. The name ^Esopus is said to be synonimous with ^Ethiops, in allusion to his black complexion ; but it seems nearer allied to Asopus, a river in Asia : the great fabulist of anti- quity is reported also to have been visited with the like affliction under which Moses, Paul, and other great men of old have laboured, impediment of speech ; but if we reflect how often his extemporaneous elo- quence served him in good stead, we shall see rea- son to reject the tradition. Is it necessary to explain the allusion to a " Per- sian love-letter ? " the phrase is, perhaps, scarcely a 67 correct one, but it may serve to convey the poetical idea of the children of the East, to whom every bunch of flowers tells its imaginative tale. In reference to the priority of .^Esop in fable, it should be stated, that, strictly, the first fable on record is that mentioned in the book of Judges, where Jotham admonishes the populace in the parable of the bram- ble, king of trees: this took place A. C. 1236. He- siod also has been called the father of fable : but if we look into extreme antiquity, we shall find that the true originators of the fabulous were the in- ventors of hieroglyphics, and that to wonderful Egypt we must turn for the idea of symbolizing man and his passions by the brute creation. It is a curious coincidence in connexion with this idea, that when the Delphians were plagued for the murder of Msop, the oracle commanded them to raise to him a commemorative pyramid. It is difficult to say which of the fables that pass under ^Esop's name can be truly ascribed to him : the common collections are by various authors, mostly by Phsedrus,who lived in the Augustan age : however, as the two following pieces are among the less known, and very short, and even for that cause more likely to be ^Esop's, the author has rendered them as below. It would be uncandid in any person to cavil about a lighter piece being introduced in its proper place, merely because matters of sacred im- port are discussed in their proper places : such an objector should apply to himself that immortal sen- 68 tence, which might have been Terence's epitaph, " Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto." A very wise man built himself A very little house : His neighbour, pufFd with pride of pelf, Cries out, How now, my sordid elf, 'Twill barely hold your learned self Together with a mouse : The very wise man made reply ; It suits my private ends, It's big enough for me ; and I Will do my utmost, by and by, To show my hospitality, And Jill it with true friends. Of course, the writer is aware that Phaedrus has called the wise man above, Socrates, who coming much after JSsop, could not have been named in one of his fables : but this is interpolated by the Thra- cian freedman, part of whose work is, in fact, a loose paraphrase of ^Esop. The following is very likely to have been spoken to the Athenians, by the hunch- back himself. Ages ago, beneath their care to be, The blessed gods chose each his special tree. Jove took the oak, and Cybele the fir, As for fair Venus, myrtle best pleased her, Hercules chose the poplar, Phoebus bay, Minerva, wondering, then began to say, " Why take the barren trees ? you judge amiss ;" Jove answered her, " Our reason's mainly this, We would not have our honours bought and sold:" Quoth she, again, " By Styx, when all is told, I love not glories, useless branch and root, Give me the olive, with both leaves and fruit." We may well imagine such a fable would gratify, much and harmlessly, the vain-glorious people of Athens. 70 a THE poisonous tooth of time, O shepherdess, Hath killed thy thousand vines ; a few scarr'd shoots Alone are green above the withered roots, And thence we cherish an admiring guess Of what the rich ripe vintage should have been: Poor muse, they do thee wrong ; they have not Those records lost of truth and tenderness, They have not read thy heart, but harm thee still Where, as unknown, their charity should bless, Tainting thy memory with whispered ill : Yet are those snatches of thy musical songs Full of warm nature, and impassioned truth, Love, beauty, sweetness, and eternal youth : Sappho, we praise thee rather for thy wrongs. 71 Virgil in Georgic ii. 379, speaking of the cultiva- tion of the vine, complains how much " Nocuere greges, durique venenum Dentis, et aclmorso signata in stirpe cicatrix :" and it is well known that fig-trees and vines seldom recover from the gnawing of a goat. The application is obvious to " tempus edax rerum," which, in truth, of all fair Sappho's nine books of songs, hymns, ele- gies, and epigrams, has grudgingly and barely spared us two imperfect odes, and a few scattered fragmentary lines. Under these circumstances, and especially as the little we have left is full of the most touching sentiment, and sweet expression, it is contended that the world has been very uncharitable to the moral memory of this poetess. Her love, deep as the shades and strong as death, was not necessarily cri- minal; those ministering handmaids, who tended the steps of " the tenth muse," were in all likelihood no worse, nor other, than innocent admiring pupils, who strove to follow in the steps of her poetic fame. But, truth to tell, man, as lord of the creation, is ever jea- lous of female superiority ; and doubtless, this is an adequate reason for the fact, that almost no woman of learning or eminence has come down to our hear- ing with an unblemished reputation ; without a di- 72 SAPPHO. rect avowal to vindicate every individual, take, as examples, Semiramis, Aspasia, Cleopatra, and even Sheba's queen, Tyrian Elissa, surnamed Dido, or the great, and the learned Platonist Hypatia : poor Sap- pho has suffered more than others, because her crime has been to have excelled in what men ac- count especially their high prerogative, literary com- position ; and it would not be difficult to mention many female names in modern times, (for one, Lady M. W. Montague,) that have been aspersed in like manner, and for a like reason : it would be improper to allude strikingly to more recent instances, but they will readily occur to the sagacious reader : envy has made sad havock with the character of many an authoress. We have but few knights-errant who will throw down the gauntlet on behalf of the fairer can- didates for literary fame ; our chivalry seldom goes the length of assisting the sex that should obey, in the acquisition of mental excellence, which is in fact the art of ruling: we want some Arcadian Sydney, who will joust for the fair oppressed with his pen : such an one was the gallant Sir Walter Raleigh, as we have seen in the case of Semiramis. Lesbian Sap- pho, the thesis of this episode, flourished about 600 A. C. Many have thought, without much reason, that there have existed two celebrated women of the name ; there was probably but one, and that one is said to have flung herself into the sea from a moun- tain in the island of Leucadia, a victim to disappointed love for Phaon, the handsome sailor of Mitylene. It is a strange fact, and exemplifies well the debt SAPPHO. 73 we owe to the printing-press, to know that so lately as the time of Augustus, the works of Sappho were ex- tant complete : as it is, whether from the conflagra- tion at Alexandria, or otherwise, we have literally nothing left, but what the admiring ancients have incidentally quoted in their writings. Dionysius of Halicarnassus has preserved to us the following " Hymn to Venus," which has been attempted lite- rally, in the sapphic metre. Throned on the rainbow, goddess Aphrodite, Daughter of Zeus, wile-weaver, I beseech thee, Neither with fears nor sorrows, O thou dread one, Thrall my poor bosom ; But hither speed, as oft in other seasons Heeding with grace my suppliant invocation Thou wert propitious, coming from the golden Dome of the Father, In thy light chariot harness'd by the sparrows Which o'er the dark earth skimmingly did bear thee, Quivering thence with rapid wing to heaven Thro' the mid aether : Swiftly they came ; and thou, the everblessed, Smiling with godlike countenance serenely, Askedst me what I suffer' d then, and wherefore Now I invoke thee; 74 SAPPHO. And chiefly this, what most of all I long for In my hot mind, and whom I would entangle In the strong meshes of my love ; O Sappho, Who is it slights thee ? For if he flees her, swiftly will she follow ; If he receive not gifts, yet will she give them ; If he love not, yet quickly will she kiss him, Yea, tho' unwilling. Come to me then, and save me from my sorrows Hard to be borne, and what my soul desires Done see thou done, O goddess, and my champion Be thou for ever. The classical reader will not require to be told, that it is little to the advantage of Sappho, to ren- der the burning thoughts of that inspired poetess into a language so little majestic as our own, and that too, totidem verbis. Those who have the origi- nals at hand, and are competent to the task, will no doubt institute comparisons : let them bear in mind that the learned Gerard Vossius of Dort has pro- nounced the sweetness of Sappho unapproachable ; that of some words there are various readings ; and that the genius of the English tongue is little adapted to the rigid rules of scanning : a derivative language must be dead, stiff and cold, before it can attain to the certainty of metre ; instance among the ancients Homer and Ennius, and with us, the seeming laxity SAPPHO. 75 of Chaucer : yet were these exact versifyers accord- ing to the rules of their own day. The following fragment of a love-song requires even more apology, as it has been cited by Longinus in exemplification of the beautiful sublime : the monstrous slander con- nected with it needs no repetition; it is quite suf- ficient to conceive that the poetess was speaking in the person of an imaginary pair, without accusing her of misplaced affections. Equal to gods in beatific rapture Seems the too favour'd lover, who beside thee Fondly reclines, and whispering thee softly Waits the sweet answer, Sunnily smiling then : ah me ! that bright look Pierces my heart, weak flutterer in my bosom, Soon as I see thy fairness, am I stricken Silent and breathless; Then flow my words with utterance incoherent, Over my skin the thrilling fire rushes, Dimm'd are mine eyes, my ringing ears are deafen'd With hollow boomings, Then am I bathed in chilly dews, a trembling Seizes me, paler am I than the flower Faint with the sun, weak, motionless, and helpless, Languidly dying, Yet must I dare to tell my love E2 76 SAPPHO. And this is all that has come down to us of an ode full of unutterable feeling. It is currently re- ported that by these stanzas the physician of An- tiochus Soter tested the love of the latter for Stra- tonice : but surely nature was a poetic teacher nearer at hand than even her sweet handmaid Sappho : such symptoms are not to be learnt from books. It might be more courtly to profess obligation to a fashionable ode, than to the humbler skill of perceiv- ing the weakness of humanity. 77 RARE Egypt, not thine own sweet-watered Nile, Thy Memphis, nor those seated giants twain, Not golden Thebes, nor Luxor's stately fane, Nor Pyramids eterne of mountain pile, Exhaust thy glories gone : thy grander boast Was learning, and her sons, who thronged of old To draw fair knowledge from thy generous coast, Nor drew in vain, but drank the blessed draught ; And deepest hath this noble Samian quafFd Who walketh with me now in white and gold ; Wear thou indeed that crown, mysterious sage, Whose soaring fancy, with deep diving thought, Hath pour'd mind-riches over every age, And charm' d a world Pythagoras hath taught. 78 PYTHAGORAS. The learning of the Egyptians has almost fallen into a proverb. It has become trite to allude to Moses, or to bring forward authorities on a point so little disputed. An hour's attention well directed in the British Museum will convey to the reader a far more amusing and instructive proof of the wonderful state of early Egyptian art, than could be arrived at by a whole library of dry treatises, deprived of the potent teaching of the eye. From whatever quarter the Egyptians derived their extraordinary knowledge, and so precocious withal, it is certain that nearly all other nations have been nurtured at the breasts of their wisdom. Israel, Greece, Etruria, Edom, Susa, nay not impossibly Mexico, and our own Cyclopian Druids, derived knowledge and arts of all kinds from Egypt, that country which now, in fulfilment of pro- phecy, has so strangely become the vilest of king- doms. That all the great peculiarities in the teach- ing of Pythagoras had their root at least in the twenty- two years of instruction which he passed in the Theban temples is demonstrable, if not at once ad- mitted : the theories of astronomy, and cosmogony, of transmigration, of mystic signs, and therefore the philosopher's favourite notion of numbers sym- bolizing all things algebraically, nay, of the musical PYTHAGORAS. 79 scale so confidently given to him, (for surely the harpers on the wall of the royal tomb at Thebes were there anterior to the sojourn of Pythagoras in Egypt,) all the above, and more, were to be learnt of the priests at Memphis and Thebes, as we now Imow from their hieroglyph ical chambers. Nevertheless, after so great a deduction, there can be very little doubt that Pythagoras was one of the wisest unin- spired men that ever lived ; " vir praestanti sapientia," as Cicero calls him : the influence he held over the world was unbounded, and has not yet ceased ; he is still in many respects " the philosopher," and his avrog 0a is often still despotic from its truth. The subject of Pythagoras offers a most inviting opportunity for many discussions on speculative points ; a whole harvest of thought starts up in the furrows of the mind, ripe for the sickle ; but we have in this place little room to garner them. Otherwise, we might at length pursue the interesting enquiry how far the illustrious Samian may have been in- debted for some of his religious theories to a pos- sible interview with captive Jews at Babylon : a question analogous to the connection of Isaiah, the Sibylline books, and the fourth Eclogue of Virgil. We might enter into the recondite philosophy of his doctrine of numbers : the general depth and truth of his metaphysical theories : the exact correspon- dence observed by Clement to exist between the ecclesiastic orders of the Hebrews, and the different ranks of the Pythagorean proselytes: the human 80 PYTHAGORAS. causes of his wonderful success in reforming luxu- rious Crotona : the wisdom of appropriating the white robe, the crown of gold, a mysterious secresy, and the assumption of semi-divinity. We might re- buke the morality, while admiring the sagacity, of the falsehood he practised on the world, by immuring himself in a cave for many days, until pallid and emaciated, the glorious impostor returned as with messages from Hades. We might narrate the extra- ordinary coincidence perceptible between the musi- cal genius of Handel and Pythagoras, in the inven- tion of the monochord from the same cause which has bequeathed to us the " Harmonious Black- smith." Lastly, we might descant at the length which the atrocity deserved, on the shameful fact that the envy of a malicious populace, headed by Cylon and other demagogues, starved this great phi- losopher to death in the temple of the Muses, solely because he numbered men of rank and property among his disciples. Of all the above thus briefly : a few more facts of moment, and little known, deserve to be repeated. Several lives of Pythagoras were written ; as by Diogenes Laertius of Cilicia, by Syrian lamblichus, and by Melek, surnamed Porphyry. That of lam- blichus, although most dealing in the marvellous, has an extraordinary interest, when we know that it was written by command of Julian the Apostate in order to rival the inspired histories of our Lord Christ : accordingly, it is full of miracles, lacking only the PYTHAGORAS. 81 internal evidences of utility and fitness, and the ex- ternal evidence of attestation. Vain and besotted man, to institute comparisons between Christ rais- ing the dead, and Pythagoras appearing at Elis with a gilt thigh ; between the wonders of merciful om- nipotence, and the puerile natural magic of reflect- ing letters of blood through a glass upon the moon ! Truly, great Pythagoras, thy fame is little indebted to so judicious a biographer : let us in conclusion turn to better things. The learned and witty Platonist, Hierocles of Alexandria, has devoted a volume to comment upon the traditional sayings of Pythagoras, many of which go far to illustrate this teacher's wis- dom. Let us first take from the Commentary, (p. 342, of ed. 1673,) the origin of the name. " Aris- tippus, quoted by Laertius, says of the word, Py- thagoras, that it was given to him because he preached truth as surely as Apollo ; quasi, TrvBiug ayoptviiv :" similarly, in the Christian Church, John of Antioch was named from his eloquence Chrysos- tom, or golden-mouthed. Next, concerning the much disputed point as to the authorship of the Pythagorean verses, which have been ascribed to Epicharmus of Cos, and others, let us hear the tes- timony of Jerome : " Whose then are these golden sayings ? are they not those of Pythagoras ? in which briefly are contained all his dogmas." Pro- clus also, or Procles, and Clement of Alexandria are of the same opinion : contrary are Chrysippus, Plu- tarch, Galen, and others. However disputed the 5 82 PYTHAGORAS, question of the authorship of the seventy-one golden verses may be, (called golden, be it remembered, not for the elegance of their composition or beauty of their flow, a popular notion which is quite erroneous, but for their purity of sentiment, and practical wis- dom,) all will agree that they convey the doctrines of Pythagoras honestly ; as for the symbols, and dis- jointed sayings, these all are believed to be tradition- ally authentic. The reader will not be displeased to have a speci- men of Pythagorean morals as contained in these golden verses, in their own metre : to transcribe the whole might be accounted more tedious than their curiosity would warrant. First, honour thou the immortal gods, as a law of thy being : Next, religiously keep thine oath, and reverence heroes : Pay thou then the respect that is due to the dead, and their demons : Then honour those who begat thee, and let thy nearest be dearest : After all these get a friend, whoever is foremost in virtue : Yield to the modest excuse, and bow to the deeds of the useful : Hate not a friend, and cast him not off, for trivial offences : Do thy best ; for fate dwells near to the line of thy power : See thou observe the above. Strive also to compass as follow : Conquer thy hunger, thy sloth, and thy lust; be master of anger: Do no deed of disgrace, whether others witness thine actions, Or thy conscience alone ; above all things honour thy con- science. In a similar strain of moral excellence, varied by sectarian peculiarity, runs the whole poem. One or PYTHAGORAS. 83 two of the riddles or symbols of Pythagoras are pre- sented ; they are too curious and too seldom to be met with to need apologetic introduction. " Sacri- fice and worship with naked feet ; " an evident allu- sion to Moses at the burning bush, and emblematical of renouncing the merit of works. " Speak not of Pythagorean doctrines in the dark : " meaning, with- out the light of initiation. " Stir not the fire with a sword," doubtless intended of angry contests, as " add not fuel to flame," with us. " Leap not over the yoke," applicable to the case of not resisting provi- dences. " Wear not a ring," whether because among the Egyptians it symbolized etei'nity, or was a mark of rank, and so of pride, among the ancients, (see James, ii. 2,) does not appear. " Cut not a stick by the way," but go on your journey prepared. " Give not your right hand to any one;" so Polonius, in Hamlet, " do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade." " Eat not your heart," as the silent La Trappist, or lonely Stylite. " Abstain from beans," perhaps, because unwholesome, as pork was forbidden to the Jews ; perhaps, meddle not with politics, because the bean was sometimes used for balloting : but more likely, from some hieroglyphical secret of Egypt now beyond our reach. The symbols extend to thirty- nine, and some have thought that Pythagoras de- rived them from the priestess of the sacred island Delos. 84 FOR thou art worthy, Seric Socrates, Of the bright robe, and that fair coronet, Meed of true goodness, on thy forehead set, Worthy to walk in equal bliss with these Thy peers, in Hades' dreamy valley met ; For thine were pure and patriot services High worth, and generous love of doing good, Gilding the darkness of a barbarous clime That paid thee wages of ingratitude, After the Balaam cunning of a foe Had drown'd thine efforts in adulterous crime For righteous weal exchanging sinful woe : Witness, ye spirits of the good and wise, None recks of greatness till the great man dies. CONFUCIUS. 85 The substance of our motto, " We think scorn of goodness, while living familiarly with us, but praise and admire it when taken from us," a sentiment ex- pressed by a diviner teacher in the saying, " No man is a prophet in his own country, nor in his father's house," was strangely exemplified in Confu- cius. This great man, who would have been a light in morals, and a champion in accomplishments even among the philosophers of Greece, flourished in wis- dom among a people degraded by the grossest idola- tries, about the sixth century before Christ. He was a native of Loo, one of the provinces of China, and was of royal descent. In this quarter of the world so little is popularly known of him, that it would not be difficult to find men of acquirements seriously imagining that Confutsee was a fabulous hero ; but on consulting history it will be found that his character, for purity of life, genius, learning, sim- plicity, disinterested patriotism, and contempt of mere wealth, was one of the brightest ever produced by the heathen world. In addition to natural quali- fications, there are some singular parallels to be drawn between Confucius and Socrates. Both were remarkably reformers of morals, and teachers of youth ; both were accused of atheism for rejecting 86 CONFUCIUS. the absurdities of pagan worship, and substituting natural religion ; both made some advances even in anticipation of revealed truth ; both were in life cast off, and in death all but worshipped by their coun- tries ; and both may be regarded as martyrs, although the death of Confucius was only a violent one ethic- ally speaking, for he died of grief that " he did no good, that his efforts were in vain, and the travail of life useless:" to complete the picture, both died nearly at the same age. The reader will remember that Balaam recom- mended Balak (according to the New Testament commentary) to destroy the Israelites by alienating them from God by means of the Moabitish women : a fiendish counsel in which he was unwittingly fol- lowed by the king of a neighbouring province to that of Confucius, who undid all the reforms of the phi- lanthropist by inundating his native country with the most abandoned females: in the same way Capua was a Cannae to Hannibal; and indeed to Assyria under Sardanapalus, to the Greek states, the Roman empire, nay to the whole world in all ages, the same evils have ever operated for destmction, the same " Stetere causa?, cur. perirent Funditus, imprimeretque muris Hostile aratrum exercitus in- solens." It is remarkable, that although Confucius left but one immediate descendant, a grandson, his posterity through seventy generations have lived and multiplied even to this clay. They are said to enjoy many ho- CONFUCIUS. 87 nours and immunities as the kith and kin of a sage, who in his own day was a wandering exile, and a per- secuted preacher of righteousness: and Confucius himself is now an object of idolatry to his indebted countrymen. Dr. Morrison has furnished us with some curious particulars relative to this extraordinary man: as, that miracles and wonders happened at his birth; that he was born with an inscription on his breast, signifying " universal lawgiver ;" that (like Saul, and Museeus,) he grew to a gigantic size ; that he was a prophet, and was warned of his own dissolution by a dream; and the like. It is well known that the stable rule of government, founded on the fifth com- mandment, as it has for ages existed in China, mainly originated with Confucius, whose sacred books on Education, Moderation, and Conversation turn chiefly on the principle of filial duty : a system alike in accordance with nature, reason, and religion, although in common with all others, liable to abuse. The sayings of Confucius, which have come down to us, confirm his fame : almost in so many words, he (as also indeed did Milesian Thales,) gave the golden rule of conduct, " Do as you would be done by ;" his sentiments on life, society, character, and virtue, were admirable: and that he thought well politically, take as an example the following sentence out of his Lungyieu, ch. xvii. 15. "A mean man cannot serve his king : for when he is out of office his only object is to obtain it, and when he 88 CONFUCIUS. is in office, his only care is to keep it. In the un- principled dread of losing his place, he is ready to go all lengths." Confucius himself was an eminent example of disinterestedness : for, finding his efforts for his country's good thwarted by the profligate conduct of the king and court of Loo, he threw up his dignities and offices, and became a private but in- fluential teacher of morals in more temperate Siam : a conduct w r orthy of imitation, so as pique be not mistaken for proper self-respect, nor obstinate selfish- ness for uncompromising patriotism. 89 YE harp -controlling hymns! triumphant praise, That heralded to his delighted home The blushing victor of departed days From Elis, or Nemaea, or the dome Of sacred Delphi, spirit-stirring songs, Even now your echoes linger on mine ears, And to your Theban father still belongs That name, time-honoured twice a thousand years, King of the sounding lyre : nor alone For music be thy praise, but for a heart Strung with affections of deep -thrilling tone And patriot feelings that in lightning dart Through the mute souls of all, with charmed sus- pense, Listening in love thy honied eloquence 90 PINDAR. The avast