PRIVATE LIBRARY J 4 ( .Mi, Book \ what is it in tins world of yours That makes it fatal to be wed to you? Oh \ why With cypress branches have you wreathed your bowers Ana made your best interpreter a sigh? *:-r FAMOUS BIOGRAPHY. CONTAINING FREDERICK THE GREAT BY T. B MACAULAY. ROBERT BURNS. BY THOMAS CARLYI.K. MAHOMET : BY GIBBON. JOAN OF ARC ; BY MICIIKLKT. HANNIBAL BY THOMAS ARNOLD. JULIUS OS5SAR: BY H. G. Li UDELL. OLIVER CROMWELL- BY LAMARTINR. WILLIAM PITT: BY T. B. SlACAOLAT. MARTIN LUTHER: BY BUNSEN. MARY QUEEN OF SCOTTS : BY LAMARTINE. COLUMBUS : BY LAMARTINE. VITTORIA COLONNA : BY T. A. TROLJ.OPE. NEW YORK. JOHN B. ALDEN, PUBLISHER, 1883. FREDERICK THE GREAT, TUB Prussian monarchy, the youngest of the great European States, but in population and in revenue the fifth amongst them, and in art, science, and civilization entitled to the third, if not the second place, sprang from an humble origin. About the beginning of th fifteenth century, the marquisate of Brandenburg was bestowed by tJe Emperor Sigismund on the noble family of Hohenzollern. In the sixteenth century that family embraced the Lutheran doctrines. Early in the seventeenth century it obtained from the King of PoLui.1 the investiture of the duchy of Prussia. Even after this accession of territory, the chiefs of the house of Hohenzollern hardly ranked with the Electors of Saxony and Bavaria. The soil of Brandenburg was, for the most part, sterile. Even around Berlin, the capital of the province, and around Potsdam, the favorite residence of the Mar- graves, the country was a desert. In some tracts the deep sand could with difficulty be forced by assiduous tillage to yield thin crops of rye and oats. In other places, the ancient forests, from which I lie conquerors of the Roman empire had descended on the Danube, iv mained untouched by the hand of man. Where the soil was rich it was generally marshy, and its insalubrity repelled the cultivators whom its fertility attracted. Frederick William, called the CJreat Elector, was the prince to whose policy his successors have agreed to ascribe their greatness. He acquired by the peace of Westphalia sev- eral valuable possessions, and among them the rich city and district of Magdeburg ; and lie left to his son Frederick a principality as con- siderable as any which was not called a kingdom. Frederick aspired to the stylo of royalty. Ostentatious and pro- fuse, negligent of his true interests and of his high duties, insatiably eager for frivolous distinctions, he added nothing to the real weight of the State which he governed ; but he gained the great object of his life, the title of king. In the year 1700 he assumed this new dig- nity. He had on that occasion to undergo all the mortifications which fall to the lot of ambitious upstarts. Compared with the other crowned heads of Europe, he made a figure resembling that which a Nabob or a Commissary, who had bought a title, would make in the company of Peers whose ancestors had beeu attainted for treason the 2064O95 FREDERICK THE GREAT. The nvy of th class which he quitted, and the civil scorn of th [ass into which he intruded himself, were marked in very significant ways. The elector of Saxony at first refused to acknowledge the new majesty. Louis the Fourteenth looked down on his brother king with an nir not unlike that with which the count in Moliere's play regards Monsieur Jotirdain, just fresh from the mummery of being made a gentleman. Austria exacted large sacrifice in return for her recogni- tion, and at last gave it ungraciously. Frederick was succeeded by his son, Frederick William, a prince who must be allowed to have possessed some talents for administration, but whose character was disfigured by the most odious vices, and whose eccentricities were such as had never been seen out of a mad- house. He was exact and diligent in the transaction of business, and he was the first who formed the design of obtaining for Prussia a place among the European powers, altogether out of proportion to her extent and population, by means of a strong military organization. Strict economy enabled him to keep up a peace establishment of sixty thousand troops. These troops were disciplined in such a manner, tliat, placed beside them, the household regiments of Versailles and St. James would have appeared an awkward squad. The master of such a force could not but be regarded by all his neighbors as a for- midable enemy and a valuable ally. But the mind of Frederick William was so ill-regulated that all his inclinations became passions, and all his passions partook of the char airier of moral and intellectual disease. His parsimony degenerated into sordid avarice. His taste for military pomp and order became a mania, like that of a Dutch burgomaster for tulips. While the en- voys of the ceurt of Berlin wero in a state of such squalid poverty as moved the laughter of foreign capitals while the food of the royal family was so bad that even hunger loathed it no price was thought too extravagant for tall recruits. The ambition of the king was to form a brigade of giants, and every country was ransacked by his agents for men above the ordinary stature. These researches were Dot confined to Europe. No head that towered above the crowd in the Iwixaiars of Aleppo, of Cairo, or of Surat, could escape the crimps of Frederick William. One Irishman more than seven feet high, who waus picked up hi London hy the Prussian ambassaidor, received u bounty of nearly 1,300 sterling very much more than the ambas- sador's salary. This extraivagance was the more absurd because a stout youth of five feet eight, who might have been procured fora few dollairs, would in all probability have been a much more valuable soldier. But to Frederick William this huge Irishman was what a brass Otho or a Vinegar Bible is to a collector of a different kind.* * Carlyle thus describes the PotsAam Regiment : " A Potsdam Giant Regiment, each H the world never saw before or Bince. Thr Battalions of them two ul- WMrg how at Potsdam doing formal life-guard dnty, the third at Brandenburg on *fll, 100 to (M BaUIlton-2,400 BOOB of Anak in all. SuWimo euowtfa, hagely p*f FREDERICK THE GKBAT. a ii is remarkable that, though the main end of Frederick William's administration was to have a military force, though his reign forms an important epoch in the history of military discipline, and though his dominant passion was the love of military display, he was yet one of the most pacific of princes. We are afraid that his aversion to war was not the effect of humanity, but was merely one of his thousand whims. His feeling about his troops seems to have resembled a miser's feeling about his money. Ho loved to collect them, to count them, to see them increase, but ho could not find it in his heart to break in upon the precious hoard. He looked forward to some future time when his Patagonian battalions were to drive hostile infan/try be- fore them like sheep. But this future time was always receding, and it is probable that if his life had been prolonged thirty years his su- perb army would never have seen any harder service than a sham fight in the fields near Berlin. But the great military means which he had collected were destined to be employed by a spirit far more daring and inventive than his own. Frederick, surnamed the Great, son of Frederick William, was born in January, 1712. It may safely be pronounced that he had re- ceived from nature a strong and sharp understanding, and a rare firm- news of temper and intensity of will. As to the other parts of his character, it is difficult to say whether they are to be ascribed to na- ture or to the strange training which he underwent. The history of his boyhood is painfully interesting. Oliver Twist in the parish work- house, Smiko at Dotheboys Hall, were petted children when compared with this wretched heir-apparent of a crown. The nature of Fivder irk William was hard aud bad, and the habit of exercising arliii rary power had made him frightfully savage. His rage constantly vented feet to the royal eye, such a mass of shining giants, in their long-drawn ivgularitioH mid mathematical manceuvrlngs, like some streak of Promethean lightning, realized hero at last in the vulgar dunk of things. "Truly they are. men supreme in discipline, in beauty of equipment, and the shortest man of them rises : I think, toward seven feet ; B >mo are nearly nine feet high. Men from all countries ; a hundred and odd come mutually, as wo saw, from Uussia u very precious windfall ; the rest have been collected, crimj>ed, purchased out of every European country at enormous expense, not to speak of other trouble to His Majesty. James Kirkman, an Irish recruit of good inches, cost him 1,200 before he could be got inveigled, shipped, and brought safe to hand. The docti i ments are yet in existence ; and (he portrait of this Irish fellow-citizen himself,' who is by no means a beautiful man. Indeed, they are. all portrayed all the pri- vate* of this distinguished Regiment are, if anybody cared to look at them. 'Ite- divanoff from Moscow ' seems of fur better bone than Kirkman, though still more piolirl of aspect. One Hohmann, a born Prussian, was so tall you could not, though you yourself tall, touch his bare crown with your hand ; August the Strong of Poland tried on one occasion and could not. Before Hohmann turned up, there had been Jonae, the Norwegian Blacksmith,' also a dreadfully tall monster. Giant ' Mac- dell ' who was to be married, no consent awked on either side, to the tall young Woman, which latter turned out to be a decrepit ofti woman (all Jest-Rooks know tho myth) he also was an Irish giant, his name probably M'Dow.'l. This Hohmann was now Fl&qlemann ('fugleman' as we have n'med it, leader of the file), t.h fiuttest of fee Jteifiment, A very pwuntftiu of pipeclayed, flesh awl bomv" FREDERICK THE GREAT. it/ak to nobody but some few, and is not popular and affable ; and cuts L'rinuiues with his face, as if he were a fool ; and does my will in nothing BJileea held to itby force: nothing out of love ; and has pleasure in nothin " but >wing his own whims (own Kapf) no use to him iu any thing else. This ia tU . 11., pp. 47, 48.) S'flEDERICK THE GREAT. <5 inch that, to Iwrrow the energetic language of Lord- Keeper fovon- try, "the depraved nature of man, which of itself carrieth man to all other sin, abhorreth them." But the offences of his youth were not characterized by any peculiar turpitude. They excited, however, transports of rage in the king, who hated all faults except those to which he was himself inclined, and who conceived that he made am- ple atonement to Heaven for his brutality, by holding the softer pas- sions in detestation. The Prince-Royal, too, was not one of those who are content to take their religion on trust, lie asked pu/./.lmg questions, and brought forward arguments which seemed to savor of something different from pure Lutherauism. The king suspected that his son was inclined to be a heretic of some sort or other, whether Calvinist or Atheist, his majesty did not very well know. The ordi- nary malignity of Frederick William was bad enough. He now thought malignity a part of his duty as a Christian man, and all the conscience that he had stimulated his hatred. The flute was broken the French books were sent out of the palace the prince was kicked and cudgelled and pulled by the hair. At dinner the plates were hurled at his head sometimes he was restricted to bread and water sometimes he was forced to swallow food so nauseous that he could not keep it on his stomach. Once his father knocked him down, dragged him along the floor to a window, and was with diffi- culty prevented from strangling him with the cord of the curtain. The queen, for the crime of not wishing to see her son murdered, was subjected to the grossest indignities. The Princess Wilhelmiiia, who took her brother's part, was treated almost as ill as Mrs. Brownrigg's Apprentices. Driven to despair, the unhappy youth tried to run away ; then the fury of the old tyrant rose to madness. The prince was sui officer in the army ; his flight was therefore desertion, and, in the moral code of Frederick William, desertion was the highest of all crimes. "Desertion," says this royal theologian in one of his half- crazy letters; " is from hell. It is a work of the children of the devil. No child of God could possibly be guilty of it." An accomplice of the prince, in spite of the recommendation of a court-martial, was mercilessly put to death. It seemed probable that the prince himself would suffer the same fate. It was with difficulty that the inteives sion of the States of Holland, of the Kings of Sweden and Poland, and of the Emperor of Germany, saved the house of Brandenburgh from the stain of an unnatural murder. After months of cruel sus- pense, Frederick learned that his life would be spared. He remained, however, long a prisoner ; but he was not on that account to be pitied. He found in his jailors a tenderness which he had never found in his father ; his table was not sumptuous, but he had wholesome food in sufficient quantity to appease hunger; he could read the J Jen rind A without being kicked, and play on his flute without having it broken erer his head. Whan his confinement terminated, he was a man. He liad nearly FREDERICK THE GREAT. completed his twenty-first year, and could scarcely, even by such a parent, as Frederick William, be kept much longer under the re si.niints which had made his boyhood miserable. Suffering had ma- tured his understanding, while it had hardened his heart and soured his tem|M-r. He had learnt self-command and dissimulation; he af I'erted to conform to some of his father's views, and submissively ac- cepted a wife, who was a wife only in name, from his father's hand. He .also served with credit, though without any opportunity of ac- quiring brilliant distinction, under the command of Prince Eugene, (luring a campaign marked by no extraordinary events. He was now permitted to keep a separate establishment, and was therefore able to indulge with caution his own tastes. Partly in order to conciliate the king, and partly, no doubt, from inclination, he gave up a portion of his time to military and political business, and thus gradually ac- quired such an aptitude for affairs as his most intimate associates were not aware that ho possessed. His favorite abode was at Rheinsbcrg, near the frontier which separates the Prussian dominions from the duchy of Mecklenburg. Rlu-insberg is a fertile and smiling spot, in the midst of the sandy \v:iHle <>f (.lie Marquisate. The mansion, surrounded by woods of oak and lieech, l(x>ks out upon a spacious lake. There Frederick amused himself by laying out gardens in regular alleys and intricate mazes, by building obelisks, temples, and conservatories, and by collecting rare fruits and llowers. His retirement was enlivened by a I'cwc.om- panions, among whom he seems to have preferred those who, by birth or extraction, were French. With these inmates he dined and supped well, drank freely, and amused himself sometimes with concerts, sometimes with holding chapters of a fraternity which he called the. Order of Bayard ; but literature was his chief resource. His education had been entirely French. The long ascendency which Louis XIV. had enjoyed, and the eminent merit of the tragic aaq comic, dramatists, of the satirists, and of the preachers who hail flour- ished under that magnificent prince, had made the French language predominant in Europe. Even in countries which had a national literature, and which could boast of names greater than those of Ra- cine, of Moliere, and of Massillon in the country of Dante, in the country of Cervantes, in the country of Hhakspeare and Milton the intellectual fashions of Paris had l>een to a great extent adopted. Herman y lind not yet produced a single masterpiece of poetry or elo- quence. In (iennany, therefore!, the French taste reigned without rival and without limit. Every youth of rank was taught to speak and write French. That he should speak and write his own tongue with politeness, or even with accuracy and facility, was regarded as comparatively an unimportant object. Even Frederick William, with nil his rugged Saxon prejudices, thought it necessary that his chil- dren should know French, and quite unnecessary that they should l>e woll verw-d in (lennan. Tlie Latin was positively interdicted. "My FREDERICK THE GREAT. v gon," His Majesty wrote, "sliall not learn Latin; arid, more thttu that, I will not suffer anybody even to mention such a thing to inc." One of the preceptors ventured to read the Golden Bull in the original with the Prince- Royal. Frederick William entered the room, and broke out in his usual kingly style, " Rascal, what are you at there? " " Please Your Majesty," answered the preceptor, " I was explain, ing the Golden Bull to His Royal Highness." " I'll Golden Bull you, you rascal," roared the majesty of Prussia Up went the king's cane, away ran the terriiit d instructor, and Fred- erick's classical studies ended forever. He now and then affected to quote Latin sentences, and produced such exquisite Ciceronian ph nisei as these: " Stante pede morire" " D gustibus non est disputan dus " " Tot verbas tot spondera." Of Italian, he had not enough to read a page of Metastasio with ease, and of Spanish -and English, he did not, as far as we are aware, understand a single word. As the highest human compositions to which he had access were those of the French writers, it is not strange that his admiration for those writers should have been unbounded. His ambitious and eager temper early prompted him to imitate what he admired. The wish, perhaps, dearest to his heart was, that he might rank among tl.< masters of French rhetoric and poetry. He wrote prose and verse as indefutigably as if he had been a starving hack of Cave or Osborn ; but Nature, which had bestowed on him in a large measure the talents of a captain and of an administrator, had withheld from him those higher and rarer gifts, without which industry labors in vain to produce immortal eloquence or song. And, indeed, had he been blessed with more imagination, wit, and fertility of thought than he appears to have had, he would still have been subject to one great disadvantage, which would, in all probability, hare forever prevented him from taking a high place among men of letters. He had not the full command of any language. There was no machine of thought which he could employ with perfect ease, confidence, and free- dom. He had Gorman enough to scold his servants or to give the word of command to his grenadiers ; but his grammar and pronun- ciation were extremely bad. He found it difficult to make out the meaning even of the simplest German poetry. On one occasion a ver- sion of Racine's IpfyigGnie was read to him. He held the French original in his hand ; but was forced to own that, even with such help, he could not understand the translation. Yet though he had neglected his mother tongue in order to bestow all his attention on French, his French was, after all, the French of a foreigner. It was necessary for him to have always at his beck some men of letters from Paris to point out the solecisms and false rhymes, of which, to the last, he was frequently guilty. Even had he possessed the poetic faculty of which, as far as we can judge, he was utterly destitute the waat of a language would have prevented him from 8 FREDERICK THE (JREAT. Ving a great poet. No noble work of imagination, as far as we can recoiled, was ever comi>osed by any man, except in a dialect which he bad learned without remembering bow or when, and which he had s|M>ken with perfect ease before he had ever analyzed its structuiv. Romans of great talents wrote Greek verses ; but how many of those verses have deserved to live ? Many men of eminent genius have;, in modern times, written Latin poems; but, as far as we are aware-, ,ni>no of those poems, not even Milton's, can be ranked in the first class of art, or even very high in the second. It is not strange, therefore, that in the French verses of Frederick, we can iind nothing beyond the reach of any man of good parts and industry nothing al>ve the level of Newdigate and Seatonian poetry. His best pieces may perhaps rank with the worst in Dodsley's collection. In history he succeeded better. We do not, indeed, find in any part of his voluminous -Memoirs either deep reflection or vivid painting. Hut tlie narrative is distinguished by clearness, conciseness, good sense, and a certain air of truth and simplicity, which is singularly graceful in a man who, having done great things, sits down to relate them. On the whole, however, none of his writings are so agreeable to us as bis Litters; particularly those which are written with earnestness, and are not embroidered with verses. It is not strange that a young man devoted to literature, and ac- quainted only with the literature of France, should have looked with profound veneration on the genius of Voltaire. Xor is it just to con (leiuii him for this feeling. "A man who has never seen the sun." says Calderon in one of his charming comedies, "cannot be blamed for thinking that no glory can exceed that of the moon. A mm who has seen neither moon nor sun cannot be blamed for talking of the unrivaled brightness of the morning star.'' Had Frederick been able to read Homer and Milton, or even Virgil and Tasso, his admira ti-iri of the 11,'nnade would prove that he was utterly destitute of the power of discerning what is excellent in art. Had he been familiar with Sophocles or Shakspeare, we should have expected him to ap- preciate %cel off his Kinghood and stand before God Almighty no better than a naked beggar. Roloff's prognostics are not so encouraging as the King had hoped. Surely this King 'never look or coveted what was not his : kept true to his marriage-row, in spite of horrible examples eve ywhere ; believed the Bible, hon- ored the Preacliers, went diligently to Church, and tried to do what he understood Ged'a commandment* were '! ' To all which Roloff, a courageous, pious man, an- 10 FREDERICK THE GREAT. ness and dignity worthy of a better and wiser man ; and Frederick, who had just completed his twenty-eighth year, became King of PruB- niti. 1 1 is character was little understood. That he had good abilities, indeed, n<> person who had talked with him or corresponded with him could doubt, Hut the easy, Epicurean life which he had led, his lovo of i,'ood cookery and good wine, of music, of conversation, of light literature, led many to regard him as a sensual and intellectual vo- luptuary. His habit of canting about moderation, peace, lil>erty, and the happiness which a grxxl mind derives from the happiness of oth- ers, had imposed on some who should have known better. Those who thought, liest of him expected a Telemachus after Fenelon's pat- tern. Others predicted the approach of a Mediccan age an age pro- pitious to learning and art, aud not unpropitious to pleasure. Nobody h:ul the least suspicion that a tyrant of extraordinary military and iMilith-al talents, of industry more extraordinary still, without fear, without faith, and without, mercy, had ascended the throne. The disappointment of Fal staff at his old boon companion's corona- tion was not more bitter than that which awaited some of the in- mates of Rheinslwrg, They. had long looked forward to the accession of their patron, as to the day from which their own prosperity and greatness was to date. They had at last reached the promised land, the land which they had figured to themselves as llowing with milk and honey, and they found it a desert. " No more of these fooleries," w:ts the short, sharp admonition given by Frederick to one of them. It soon became plain that, in the most important points, the new sovereign Ixire a strong family likeness to his predecessor. There was a wide difference bet ween the father and the son as respected ex- tent and vigor of intellect, speculative- opinions, amusements, studies, outward demeanor. But the groundwork of the character was the same in both. To both were common the love of order, the love of business, the military taste, the parsimony, the imperious spirit, the ewers with discreet words and shakings of the head. 'Did I behave ill then, did I i'vi-r do injustice ? ' Roloff mentions Huron Schlubhut, the defalcating Amtmann, hinged at. Konigsberg without even a trial. 'He had no trial ; but was there any doubt //, had Justice y A public thief, confessing he had stolen the taxes IK; was s< : t to gather ; Insolently offering, as if that were all, to repay the money, and saying, It wan not Matter (good manners) to hang a nobleman!' Roloff shakes his head, I <> violent, Your Majesty, and savoring of the tyrannous. The poor King must re|H'Tit . 'Well _is there any thing more ? Out with it, then ; better now than toolntc !' tain building operations of an oppressive character come under review. 1 And then there is forgiveness of enemies ; Your Majesty is bound to for- . ' mere m lorsjiveness or enemies ; Your Majesty is hound to ror- BU men, or how can you ask to be forgiven ?' ' Well I will ; I do. You K.rkiu pHcttj and sincerity : sne.h as we rarely get right of among the. modern son* of LdMn, among the crowned tons nearly never. At parting he said to KoloiT, 'von U>. He) do not spare me : >t i right. You do your duty like au Vionent Christian FREDERICK THE GREAT. 11 iemper in: table even to ferocity, tho pleasure in the pain and hu- miliation of others. But those propensities had in Frederick Wil- liam partaken of the general unsoundness of his mind, and wore a very different aspect when found in company with the strong and cultivated understanding of his successor. Thus, for example, Freder- ick was as anxious as any prince could be about the efficacy of his army. But this anxiety never degenerated into a monomania, like that which led his father to pay fancy- prices for giants. Frederick vras as thrifty about money as any prince or any private man ought to l>e. But he did not conceive, like his father, that it was worth while to eat unwholesome cabbages for the sake of saving four or five rix dollars in the year. Frederick was, we fear, as malevolent as his father ; but Frederick's wit enabled him often to show his malevolence in ways more decent than those to which his father resorted, and to inflict misery and degradation by a taunt instead of a blow. Frederick, it is true, by no means relinquished his hereditary privilege of kicking and cudgelling. His practice, however, as to lhat matter differed in some important respects from his father's. To Frederick William, the mere circumstance that any persons whatever, men, women, or children, Prussians or foreigners, were within reach ef his toes and of his cane, appeared to be a sufficient reason for pro- ceeding to belabor them. Frederick required provocation as well as vicinity ; nor was he ever known to inflict this paternal species of correction on any but his born subjects ; though on one occasion M. Thiebault had reason during a few seconds to anticipate the high honor of being an exception to this general rule. The character of Frederick was still very imperfectly understood either by his subjects or by his neighbors, when events occurred which exhibited it in a strong light. A few months after his acces- sion died Charles VI. , Emperor of Germany, the last descendant in the male line of the house of Austria. Charles left no son, and had long before his death relinquished all hopes of male issue. During the latter part of his life his principal object had been to secure to his descendants in the female line the many crowns of the house of Hapsbnrg. With this view, he had promulgated a new law of succession widely celebrated throughout Europe under the name of the " Pragmatic Sanction." By virtue of this decree, his daughter, tho Archduchess Maria Theresa, wife of Francis of Lorraine, succeeded to the dominions of her ancestors. No sovereign has ever taken possession of a throne by a clearer title. All tho politics of the Austrian cabinet had during twenty years been directed to one single end the settlement of the succes- sion. From every person whose rights could l>c considered as injuri- ously affected, renunciations in the most solemn form had been ob- tained. Tli new law had been ratified by the Estates of all the king- doms and principalities which made up the great Austrian monarchy. England, Franc*, Spain, Russia, Pokuid, Prussia, Sweden, Denmark, U FREDERICK THE GREAT. the Germanic body, had bound themselves by treaty to maintain th "Pragmatic Sanction." That instrument was placed under the pro- trction of the public faith of the whole civilized world. Kven if no positive stipulations on this subject had existed, the arrangement was one which no good man would have been willing to disturb. It was a peaceable arrangement. It was an arrangement acceptable to the great population whose happiness was chiefly con- cerned. It was an arrangement which made no change in the distri- lniiion of power among the states of Christendom. It was an ar- rangement which could be set aside only by means of a general war ; and, if it were set aside, the effect would be that the equilibrium of Europe would be deranged, that the loyal and patriotic feelings of millions would be cruelly outraged, and that great provinces which had IN TH united for centuries would be torn from each other by main force. The sovereigns of Europe were therefore bound by every obligation which those who are intrusted with power over their fellow-creatures ought to hold most sacred, to respect and defend the right of the Archduchess. Her situation and her personal qualities were such as might bo expected to move the mind of any generous man to pity, admiration, and chivalrous tenderness. She was in her twenty-fourth year. Her form was majestic, her features beautiful, her counte- nance sweet and animated, her voice musical, her deportment gracious and dignified. In all domestic relations she was without reproach. She was married to a husband whom she loved, and was on the point c.f giving birth to n. child when death deprived her of her father. The lo-^s <>f a parent and the new cares of the empire were too much for her in the delicate state of her health. Her spirits were depressed and her check lost its bloom. Vet it seemed that she had little cause for anxiety. It seemed that justice, humanity, and the faith of treaties would have their due weight, and that the settlement so solemnly guaranteed would l>e quietly carried into effect. England, Russia, Poland, and Holland declared in form their intentions to adhere to their engagements. The Krench ministers made a verbal declaration to the same e(Te<*. Hut from no quarter did the young Queen of Hungary receive strong er assurances of friendship and support than from the King of Prus- sia. he King of Prussia, the " Anti-Machiavel," had already fully determined to commit the great crime of violating his plighted faith, of robbing the ally whom he was bound to defend, and of plunging all Europe into a long, bloody, and desolating war, and all this for DUO .-nd whatever except, that he might extend his dominions and see his name in the gazettes. He determined to assemble a great army with and semvy to invade Silesia before Maria Theresa should b apprized of his dewign. and to add that rich province to his kingdom. We will not condescend to refute at length the pleas . . . [put FREDERICK THE GREAT. 18 forth by] Doctor Preuss. They amount to thin that the house of Brandenburg had some ancient pretensions to Silesia, and had in the previous century been compelled by hard usage on the part of tha court of Vienna, to waive those pretensions. It is certain that who- ever might originally have been in the right Prussia had submitted. Prince after prince of the house of Brandenburg had acquiesced in the existing arrangement. Nay, the court of Ber.in had rerr-ntly been allied with that of Vienna, and had guaranteed the integrity of the Austrian States. Is it not perfectly clear that if antiquated claims are to be set up against recent treaties and long possession, the world can never be at peace for a day? The laws of all nations have wisely established a time of limitation, after which titles, however illegitimate in their origin, cannot be questioned. It is felt by every- body that to eject a person from his estate on the ground of some in- justice committed in the time of the Tudors, would produce ail the evils which result from arbitrary confiscation, would make all prop- erty insecure. It concerns the commonwealth so runs the legal maxim that there be an end of litigation. And surely this maxim is at least equally applicable to the great commonwealth of Slates, for in that commonwealth litigation means the devastation of prov- inces, the suspension of trade and industry, sieges like those of Bada- joz and St. Sebastian, pitched fields like those of Eylau and Boro- dino. We hold that the transfer of Norway from Denmark to Sweden was an unjustifiable proceeding ; but would the King of Den- mark be therefore justified in landing without any new provocation in Norway, and commencing military operations there? The King of Holland thinks, no doubt, that he was unjustly deprived of the ISel- gian provinces. Grant that it were so. Would he, therefore, be justified in marching with an army on Brussels? The case against Frederick was still stronger, inasmuch as the injustice of which he complained had been committed more than a century before. Nor must it be forgotten that he owed the highest personal obligations to the house of Austria. It may be doubted whether his life had not been preserved by the intercession of the prince whose daughter he was about to plunder. To do the king justice;, lie pretended to no more virtue than he had. In manifestoes he might, for form's sake, insert some idle storie* about his antiquated claim on Silesia ; but in his conversations and Memoirs he took a very different tone. To quote his own words ' Ambition, interest, the desire of making people talk about mo, carried the day, and I decided for war." Having resolved on his course, he acted with ability and vigor. It was impossible wholly to conceal his preparations, for throughout the Prussian territories regiments, guns, and baggage were in motion. The Austrian envoy at Berlin apprized his court of these facts, and expressed a suspicion of Frederick's designs ; but the ministers of Maria Theresa refused to give credit to so black an imputatten on a 14 FREDERICK TEE GREAT. yuan* prince who was known chiefly by his high professions of in- tegrity mid philanthropy. " Wo will not," they wrote, "we cannot believe it." In the meantime the Prussian forces had been assembled. With- out any declaration of war, without any demand for reparation, in the very act of pouring forth compliments and assurances of good- will, Frederick commenced hostilities. Many thousands of his troops were :\.-tually in Silesia before the Queen of Hungary knew that he lr,d set up any claim to any part of her territories. At length he sent her a message which could be regarded only as an insult. If she would but let him have Silesia, he would, he said, stand by her against any power which should try to deprive her of her other do- minions : :us if he was not already bound to stand by her, or as if his new promise could be of more value than the old one ! It w:us the, depth of winter. The cold was severe, and the roads deep in mire. But the Prussians passed on. Resistance was impos- sible. The Austrian army was then neither numerous nor ellicient. The small portion of that army which lay in Silesia was unprepared for hostilities. Ologau was blockaded ; Breslau opened its gates ; Ohlau was evacuated. A few scattered garrisons still held out ; but the whole open country was subjugated ; no enemy ventured to en- counter the king in the field ; and before the end of January, 1741, he returned to receive the congratulations of his subjects at Ber in. Had the Silesian question been merely a question between Freder- ick and Maria Theresa, it would be impossible to acquit the Prussian King of gross pcriidy. But when we consider the effects which his ]M)licy produced, and could not fail to produce, on the whole commu- nity of civili/ed nations, we are compelled to pronounce a condemna- tion s.ill more seven;. Till he began the war it seemed possible, even probable, that the peace of the world would bo preserved. The plunder of the great Austrian heritage was indeed a strong tempta- tion ; and in more than one cabinet ambitious schemes were already meditated. But the treaties by which the " Pragmatic Sanction " had hem guartmieed wen; express and recent. To throw all Europe into confusion for a purpose clearly- unjust was no light matter. England was true to her engagements. The voice of Fleury had always been Tor peace. He had a conscience, lie was now in extreme old age, und was unwilling, after a life which, when his situation was con .sidured, must be pronounced singularly pure, to carry the fresh stain of a great crime Iteforo the tribunal of his Clod. Even the vain and unprincipled Belle Isle, whoso whole life was one wild day dream of "-)tic|ueM, and sjxdiation, felt that France, bound as she was by solemn stipulations, could not without disgrace make a direct attack on the Austrian dominions. Charles, Elector of Bavaria, pretended that he had a right to a large part of the inheritance which the " Pragmatic Sanction " gave to the Queen of Hungary, but ho was not sufficiently jxnverful to raovu without support. It might, therefore, not un- FREDERICK THE GREAT. 15 reasonably be expected tliat after a short period of restlessness, all the potentates of Christendom would acquiesce in the arrangement* mado by the late emperor. But the selfish rapacity of the King of Prussia gave thw signal to his neighbors. His example quieted their genso of shame. His success led them to underrate the, difficulty of dismembering the Austrian monarchy. The whole world sprang to arms. On the head of Frederick is a.l the blood which was shed in a war which raged during many years and in every quarter of the globe the blood of the column of Fontenoy, the blood of the brave mountaineers who were slaughtered at Culloden. The evils produced by this wickedness were felt in lands where the name of Prussia was unknown ; and, in order that he might rob a neighbor whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel, and red men scalped each other by the great lakes of North America. Silesia had been occupied without a battle ; but the Austrian troops were advancing to the relief of the fortresses which still held out. In the spring Frederick rejoined his army. He had seen little of war, and had never commanded any great body of men in the field. It is not, therefore, strange that his first military operations showed little of that skill which, at a later period, was the admira- tion of Europe. What connoisseurs say of some pictures painted by Raphael in his youth, may be said of this campaign. It was in Frederick's early bad manner. Fortunately for him, the generals to whom lie was opposed were men of small capacity. The discipline of his own troops, particularly of the infantry, was unequalled in that age ; and some able and experienced officers were at hand to assist him with their advice. Of these, the most~distinguishod was Field-Marshal Schwerin a brave adventurer of Pomeranian extrac- tion, who luid served half the governments in Europe, had borne the commissions of the States-General of Holland and of the Duke of Mecklenburg, and fought under Marlborough at Blenheim, and had been with Charles the Twelfth at Bender. Frederick's first battle was fought at Molwicz, and never did tho career of a great commander open in a more inauspicious manner. His army was victorious. Not only, however, did lie not establish his title to the character of an able general, but he was so unfortu- nate as to make it doubtful whether he possessed the vulgar courage of a soldier. The cavalry which he commanded in person was put to flight. Unaccustomed to the tumult and carnage of a field of bat- tle, he lost his self-possession, and listened too readily to those who urged him to save himself. His English gray carried him many miles fiom the field, while Schwerin, though wounded in two places, manfully upheld the day. The skill of tho old Field -Marshal and the steadiness of the Prussian battalions prevailed ; and the Austrian army was driven from the field with the loss of eight thousand men. The news was carried late at night to a mill in which the king had taken shelter. It gave him a bitter pang. Ho woa successful : brrt 1 FREDERICK THE GREAT. he owed his success to dispositions which others had made, and to th valor of nidi wlio had fought while he was flying. So unpromising \V:LS tin- first appearance of the greatest warrior of that age ! The battle of Molwitx was the signal for a general explosion throughout Europe. Havana took up arms. France, not yet declar- ing herself a principal inr the war, took part in it as an ally of Bava- via. The two great statesmen to whom mankind had owed many of tranquillity disappeared about this time from the scene ; but not till they had both been guilty of the weakness of sacrificing their sense of justice and their love of peace in the vain hope of pre- serving their power. Fleury, sinking under age and infirmity, wa borne down by the impetuosity of Belle-Isle. Walpole retired from the service of his ungrateful country to his woods and paintings at lloughtoii, and his power devolved on the daring and eccentric Car- teret. As were the ministers, so were the nations. Thirty years during which Europe had, with few interruptions, enjoyed repose, had prepared the public, mind for great military efforts. A new gen- eration had grown up, which could not remember the siege of Turin .or the slaughter of Malplaquet ; which knew war by nothing but its trophies ; and which, while it looked with pride on the tapestries at Blenheim, or the statue in the " Place of Victories," little thought by what privations, by what waste of private fortunes, by how many bitter teai-s, conquests must be purchased. Kor a time fortune seemed adverse to the Queen of Hungary. Frederick invaded .Moravia. The French and Bavarians penetrated into Hohemia, and were there joined by the Saxons. Prague was taken. The Elector of Bavaria was raised by the suffrages of his colleagues to the Imperial throne a throne which the practice of centuriwK had almost entitled the house of Austria to regard as an hereditary possession. Yet was the spirit of the haughty daughter of the CVsars unbroken. Hungary was still hers by an unquestionable title ; and although her ancestors had found Hungary the most mutinous of all their king- doms, she resolved to trust herself to the fidelity of a people, rude indeed, turbulent, and impatient of oppression, but brave, generous, and simple hearted. In the midst of distress and peril she had given bin. 1 1 to a son, afterwards the Kmperor Joseph the Second. Scarcely h;id she risen from her couch, when she hastened to Pressburg. There, in the sight of an innumerable multitude, she was crowned with the crown and robed with the robe of St. Stephen. No specta- tor could restniin his tears when the beautiful young mother, still weak from child-bearing, rode, after the fashion of her fathers, up the .Mount of Defiance,, unsheathed the ancient sword of state, shook it towards north and south, east and west, and, with a glow on her pale fare, challenged the four corners of the world to dispute her rights and those of her l>oy. At the first sitting of the Diet she jip. clad in devp mourning for her father, and in pathetic and dig- FREDERICK THE GREAT. n nified words implored lior people to support her just cause. Mag- nates and deputies sprang up, half drew their sabres, and with eager, voices vowed to stand by her with their lives and fortunes. Till then her firmness had never once forsaken her before the public eye, but at that shout she sank down upon her throne, and wept aloud. Still more touching was the sight when, a few days later, she came Ix'foro the Kstates of her realm, and held up before them the little Archduke in her arms. Then it was that the enthusiasm of Hungary broke forth into that war-cry which soon resounded throughout Europe, " Let us die for our King, Maria Theresa ! " In the mean time, Frederick was meditating a change of policy. He had no wish to raise France to supreme power on the continent, at the expense of the house of Ilapsburg. His first object was to rob the Queen *bf Hungary. His second was that, if possible, no- body should rol) her but himself. He had entered into engagements with the powers leagued against Austria ; but these engagements were in his estimation of no more force than the guarantee formerly given to the " Pragmatic Sanction." His game was now to secure his share of the plunder by betraying his accomplices. Maria Theresa was little inclined to listen to any such compromise ; but the English government represented to her so strongly the necessity of buying oft' so formidable an enemy as Frederick, that she agreed to negotiate. The negotiation would not, however, have ended in a treaty, had not, the arms of Frederick been crowned \tith a second victory. Prince Charles of Lorraine, brother-in-law to Maria Theresa, a bold and ivtive, though unfortunate general, gave battle to the Prussians at Chotusitz, and was defeated. The king was still only a learner of the military art. He acknowledged, at a later period, that his suc- cess on this occasion was to be attributed, not at all to his own gen- eralship, but solely to the valor and steadiness of his troops, lie completely effaced, however, by his courage and energy, the stain which Molwitx had left on his reputation. A peace, concluded under the English mediation, was the fruit of this battle. Maria Theresa ceded Silesia ; Frederick abandoned his allies ; Saxony followed his example ; and the queen was left at lib erty to turn her whole force against France and Bavaria. She was everywhere triumphant. The French were compelled to evacuate Bohemia, and with difficulty effected their escape. The whole line of their retreat might be tracked by the corpses of thousands who died of cold, fatigue, and hunger. Many of those who rmched their country carried with them seeds of death. Bavaria was overrun by bands of ferocious warriors from that bloody " debatable land " which lies on the frontier between Christendom and Islam. The terrible names of the Pandoor, the Croat, and the Hussar then first became familiar to western Europe. The unfortunate Charles of Bavaria, vanquished by Austria, betrayed by Prussia, driven from his heredi- tary states, and neglected by his allies, was hurried by shame ant? 18 FREDERICK THE GREAT. remorse to an untimely find. An English army appeared in the hran of (Jet-many, and defeated the French at Dettingen. The Austrian captains already began to talk of completing the work of Marllx>r- ough and Kugene, and of compelling France to relinquish Alsace ana the Three Bishoprics. The court of Versailles, in this peril, looked to Frederick for help, lie had Ix-on guilty of two great treasons, perhaps he might bo in- liici-d to commit a third. The Duchess of Chateauroux then held tho chief influence over the feeble Louis. She determined to send an agent to Berlin, and Voltaire was selected for the mission. lie eagerly undertook the task ; for, while his literary fame filled all Europe, he was troubled witli a childish craving for political distinc- tion. He was vain, and not without reason, of his address, and of his insinuating eloquence ; and he flattered himself that he pos- sessed boundless influence over the King of Prussia. The truth was that he knew, as yet, only one corner of Frederick's character. Ho was well acquainted with all the petty vanities and affectations of tho poetaster ; but was not aware that these foibles were united with all the talents and vices which lead to success in active life ; and that the unlucky versifier who l>ored him with reams of middling Alexan- drians, was tho most vigilant, suspicious, and severe of politicians. Voltaire was received with every mark of respect and friendship, wits lodged in the palace, and had a seat daily at the royai table. The negotiation was of an extraordinary description. Nothing can U- conceived more whimsical than the conferences which took place IM-I ween the first literary man and the first practical man of the age, whom a strange weakness had induced to exchange their parts. The great poet would talk of nothing but treaties and guarantees, and the neat king of nothing but metaphors and rhymes. On one occasion Voltaire put into his Majesty's hand a paper on the state of Euro]*-, and received it back with verses scrawled on the margin. In secret Ihey both laughed at each other. Voltaire did not spare the king's poems; and the king hsis left on record his opinion of Voltaire's diplomacy. "lie luul no credentials," says Frederick, "and the whole mission was a joke, a mere farce." Hut what the influence of Voltaire could not effect, the rapid pro- gress of the Austrian arms effected. If it should be in the power of Maria Theresa and George the Second to dictate terms of peace to IMMMCC, what chance was there that Prussia would long retain Sile- sia? Frederick's conscience told him that he had acted perfidiously and inhumanly towards the Queen of Hungary. That her resentment was strong she had given ample proof, and of her respect for treaties heiadged by his own. (iiiarantees, he said, were filigree, pretty to look at, but too brittle to bear the slightest pressure. He thought it his safest course to ally himself Hosely to France, and again to attack the Empress Queen. Accordingly, in the autumn of 1744, without notice, without auy decent pretext, he recommenced hostilities. FREDERICK THE GREAT. IS marclied through the electorate of Saxony without troubling himself about the permission of the Elector, invaded Bohemia, took Prague, and even menaced Vienna. It was now that, for the first time, he experienced the inconsist- ency of fortune. An Austrain army under Charles of Lorraine threatened his communications with Silesia. Saxony was all in arms behind him. He found it necessary to save himself by a retreat. He afterwards owned that his failure was the natural effect of his own blunders. No general, he said, had ever committed greater faults. | It must l>e added, that to the reverses of this campaign he always as-' cribed his subsequent successes. It was in the midst of difficulty and disgrace that he caught the first clear glimpse of the principles of the military art. The memorable year of 1745 followed. The war raged by sea and land in Italy, in Germany, and in Flanders ; and even England, after many years of profound internal quiet, saw, for the last time, hostile armies set in battle array against each other. This year is memorable in the life of Frederick, as the date at which his noviciate in the art of war may be said to have terminated. There have been great captains whose precocious and self-taught military skill resem- bled intuition. Conde, Clive, and Napoleon are examples. But Frederick was not one of these brilliant portents. His proficiency in military science was simply the proficiency which a man of vigorous faculties makes in any science to which he applies his mind with earnestness and industry. It was at Hohenfreidberg that lie first proved how much he had profited by his errors and by their conse- quences. His victory on that day was chiefly due to his skilful disjtosi- tions, and convinced Europe that the prince who, a few years before, had stood aghast in the rout at Molwitz, had attained in the military art a mastery equalled by none of his contemporaries, or equalled by Saxo alone. The victory of Hohenfriedberg was speedily followed by that of Sorr. In the mean time, the arms of France had l>een victorious in the Low Countries. Frederick had no longer reason to fear that Maria Theresa would l>e able to give law to Europe, and helmgan to medi- tate a fourth breach of his engagements. The court of Versailles was alarmed and mortified. A letter of earnest expostulation, in thu handwriting of Louis, was sent to Berlin ; but in vain. In tho autumn of 1745, Frederick made peace with England, and, before the close of the year, with Austria also. The pretensions of Charle.sof Bavaria could present no obstacle to an accommodation. That un- happy prince was no more ; and Francis of Lorraine, the husband of Maria Theresa, was raised, with the general consent of the Germanio body, to the Imperial throne. Prussia was again at peace ; but the European war lasted till, in the year 1748, it was terminated by the treaty of Aix la Chapelle. Of all the powers that had taken ^>art in it, the only gainer was Fred- so FKKDERICK THE CJKKAT. erick. Not only had he added to his patrimony the fino province oj Silesia ; he had' by his unprincipled dexterity, succeeded so well iii alternately depressing the scale of Austria and that of France, that tic \\as generally regarded as holding the balance of Europe a high dignity (or one who ranked lowest among kings, and whose great- grandfather had been no more than a margrave. By the public the Kinir of Prussia was considered as a politician destitute alike of morality and decency, insatiably rapacious, and shamelessly false ; nor was the public, much in the wrong. He was at t lie same time billowed to be a man of parts a rising general, a shrewd negotiator and administrator. Those qualities, wherein he surpassed all man- kind, were as yet unknown to others or to himself; for they were qualities which shine out only on & dark ground. His career had hitherto, with little interruption, been prosperous ; and it was only in adversity, in adversity which seemed without hope or resource, in adversity that would have; overwhelmed even men celebrated for stre.^th of mind, that his real greatness could be shown. lie had from the commencement of his reign applied himself to public business after a fashion unknown among kings Louis, the XIV., indeed, had been his own prime minister, and had exercised a general superintendence over all the departments of the government ; but this was not sufficient for Frederick. He was not content with being his own prime minister he would be his own sole minister. I'mlcr him there was no room, not merely for a Richelieu or a Ma- /.a rin, but for a Colbert, a Louvois, or a Torcy. A love of labor lot- its own sake, a restless and insatiable longing to dictate, to intermed- dle, to make his power felt, a profound scorn and distrust of his I'd low creatures, indisposed him to ask counsel, to confide important, secrets, to delegate ample powers. The highest functionaries under his government were mere clerks, and were not so much trusted by him as valuable clerks are often trusted by the heads of departments. He was his own treasurer, his own commander- in-chief, his own in- tendant of public, works ; his own minister for trade and justice, for home affairs and foreign affairs ; his own master of the horse, steward and chamberlain. Matters of which no chief of an office in any other government would ever hear, were, in this singular monarchy, de- cided by the king in person. If a traveller wished for a good place to see a review, he had to write to Frederick, and rceived next day, from a royal messenger, Frederick's answer signed by Frederick's own hand. This was an extravagant, a morbid activity. The pub- lic business would assuredly have been better done if eacli depart- ment Ind Iweii put under a man of talents and integrity, and if the king had contented himself with a general control. In this manner the advantages which belong to unity of design, and the advantages which In-long to the division of lalwr, would have been to a great ex- tent combined. But such a system would not have suited the pocii- liar tomj>or of Frederick. lie could tolerate no will, no reason in th FREDERICK THE GREAT. 31 state save his own. He wished for no abler assistance than that of penmen who had just understanding enough to translate, to trans- cribe, to make out his scrawls, and to put his concise Yes and No into an official form. Of the higher intellectual faculties, there is as much in a copying machine or a lithographic press as he required from a secretary of the cabinet. His own exertions were such as were hardly to be expected from :i human body or a human mind. At Potsdam, his ordinary residence, he rose at three in summer and four in winter. A page scxm ap- peared, with a large basketful of all the letters which had arrived for the king by the last courier dispatches from ambassadors, reports from officers of revenue, plans of buildings, proposals for draining marshes, complaints from persons who thought themselves aggrieved, applications from persons who wanted titles, military commissions, and civil situations. He examined the seals with a keen eye ; for ho was never for a moment free from the suspicion that some fraud might be practised on him. Then ho read the letters, divided them into several packets, and signified his pleasure, gene; rally by a mark, often by two or three words, now and and then by some cutting epigram. By eight he had generally finished this part of his task. The adjutant -general was then in attendance, and received instruc- tions for the day as to all the military arrangements of the kingdom. Then ihe king went ;o review his guards, not as kings ordinarily re- view their guards, but witli. the minute attention and severity of an old drill-sergeant. In the mean time the four cabinet secretaries hud been employed in answering the letters on which the king had that morning signified his will. These unhappy men were forced to work all the year round like negro slaves in the time of the sugar-crop. They never had a holiday. They never knew what it was to dine. It was necessary that, before they stirred, they should finish the whole of their work. The king, always on his guard against treachery, took from the heap a handful at random, and looked into them to see whether his instructions had been exactly followed. This was no bad security against foul play on the part of the secretaries ; for if one of them were detected in a trick, he might think himself for- tunate it' lie escaped with five years' imprisonment in a dungeon. Frederick then signed the replies, and all were sent oil the samo evening. The general principles upon which this strange government wa;i conducted deserve attention. The policy of Frederick was essentially (the same as his father's ; but Frederick, while ho carried that policy to lengths to which his father never thought of carrying it, cleared it at the same time from the absurdities with which his father had en- cumbered it. The king's first object was to have 'a great, efficient, and well-trained army. He had a kingdom which in extent and population was hardly in the second rank of European powers ; and yet he aspired to a place not inferior to that of the sovereigns of Eng 22 FREDERICK THE GREAT. land, Franco, and Austria. For that end it was necessary that Prus- sia should be all sting. Louis XV., with five times as many subjects us Frederick, and moro than five times as large a revenue, had not a more formidable army. The proportion which the soldiers in Prus- sia bore to Ihe people seems hardly credible. Of the males in tho vigor of life, a seventh part were probably under arms ; and this great force had, by drilling, by reviewing, and by the unsparing use of cane and scourge, been taught to perform all evolutions with a rapidity and a precision which would have astonished Villars or Eugene. The elevated feelings which are necessary to the best kind of army were then wanting to the Prussian service. In those ranks were not found the religious and political enthusiasm which inspired the pikeinen of Cromwell the patriotic ardor, the thirst of glory, the devotion to a great leader, which inflamed the Old (iuard of Napo- leon. But in all the mechanical parts of the military calling, the Prussians were as superior to the English and French troops of tli&t day as thu English and French troops to a rustic malitia. Though the pay of the Prussian soldier was small, though every rix dollar of extraordinary charge was scrutinized by Frederick with a vigilance and suspicion such as Mr. Joseph Hume never brought to the examination of an army-estimate, the expense of such an estab lishment was, for the means of the country, enormous. In order that. it might not be utterly ruinous, it was necessary that every other- ex- pense should be cut down to the lowest^ possible point. Accordingly, Frederick, though liig dominions bordered on the sea, had no navy. He neither had nor wished to have colonies. His judges, his fiscal officers, were meanly paid. His ministers at foreign courts walked on foot, or drove shabby old carriages till the axeltrees gave way. Even to his highest diplomatic agents, who resided at London and Paris, he allowed less than a thousand pounds sterling a year. The royal household was managed with a frugality unusual in tho estab- lishments of opulent subjects unexampled in any other palace. The king loved good (fating and drinking, and during great part of Ins life took pleasure in .seeing his table surrounded by guesls ; yet the whole charge of his kitchen was brought within the sum of two thousand pounds sterling a year. He examined every extraordinary item with a care which might be thought to suit the mistress of a boarding house better than a great prince. When more than four rix dollars wen! asked of him for a hundred oysters, he stormed as if he had heard that one of his generals had sold a fortress to the Km press <.^ieen. Not a bottle of champagne was uncorked without his ( express order. The game of the royal parks and forests, a serioiw head of expenditure in most, kingdoms, was to him a source of profit. The whole was farmed out ; and though the farmers were almost ruined by their contract, the king would grant them no remission. His wardrobe consisted of one fine gala dress, which lasted him all his life ; of two or three old ooate fit for Monmouth street, of /ellow FREDERICK THE GREAT. 23 waistcoats soiled with snuff, and of huge l>oots embrowned by time. One taste alone sometimes allured him beyond the limits of parsi- mony, nay, even beyond the limits of prudence the taste for build- ing. In all other things his economy was such as we might cau by a harsher name, if we did not reflect that his funds were drawn from a heavily taxed people, and that it was impossible for him without cxeessive tyranny to keep up at once a formidable army and a ;-:pIei>- <1'<1 court. Considered as an administrator, Frederick had undoubtedly many titles to praise. Order was strictly maintained throughout bis do- minions. Property was secure. A great liberty of speaking and of writing was allowed. Confident in the irresistible strength derived from a great army, the king looked down on malcontents and libellers with a wise disdain, and gave little encouragement to spies and 5n- f; Tiiiers. When he was told of the disaffection of one of his sub- jects, he inerely asked, " How many thousand men can he bring into fhelieldV" Ho once saw a crowd staring at something on a wall. He rode up, and found that the object of curiosity was a scurrilous placard against himself. The placard had been posted up so high that it waa not easy to rend it. Frederick ordered his attendants to take it down and put it lower. "My people and 1," he said, " have ,"omo to an agreement which satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please." No person would have dared to publish in London satires on 'George II. approaching to 'the atrocity of those satires on Frederick which the booksellers at Berlin sold with impunity. One bookseller sent to the palace a copy of the most stinging lampoon that perhaps was ever written in the world, the "Memoirs of Voltaire," published by Beaumarchais, and asked for his Majesty's orders. " Do not advertise it in an offensive manner," said the king; "but sell it by all means. I hope it will pay you well. 1 ' F;ven among statesmen accustomed to the license of a free press such steadfastness of mind as this is not very common. It is due also to the memory of Frederick to say that he earnestly labored to secure to his people the great blessing of cheap and speedy justice. He was one of the first rulers who abolished the cruel and absurd practice of torture. No sentence of death pronounced by the ordinary tribunals was executed without his sanction ; and his sanc- tion, except in cases of murder, was rarely given. Towards his troops he acted in a very different manner. Military offences were punished with such barbarous scourging that to be shot was consid- ered by the Prussian soldier as a secondary punishment. Indeed, the principle which pervaded Frederick's whole policy was this that the more sever! y the army is governed, the safer it is to treat tho rest, of the community with lenity. Religious persecution was unknown under his government unless Borne foolish and unjust restrictions which lay upon the Jews may bo as forming an exception. His policy with respect to the 24 FREDERICK THE GREAT. Catholics of Silesia presented an honorable contrast to the pwlicy which, under very similar circumstances, England long followed with respect to the Catholics of Ireland. Every form of religion and irroligion found an asylum in his states. The scoffer whom Parlia mentsol' Prance had sentenced to acruel death was consoled l>y a com ission in the Prussian service. The Jesuit who could show his face no where else who in Britain was still subject to penal laws, who wax ])roscril>ed by France, Spain, Portugal, and Naples, who had been given up even by the Vatican found safety and the means of sub- sistence in the Prussian dominions. Most of the vices of Frederick's administration resolve themselves into one vice the spirit of meddling. The indefatigable activity of his intellect, his dictatorial temper, his military habits, all inclined him to this great fault. He drilled his people as he drilled his grena- diers. Capital and industry \\ere diverted from their natural direc- tion by a crowd of preposterous regulations. There was a monopoly of coffee, a monopoly of tobacco, a monopoly of refined sugar. The public money, of which the king was generally so sparing, was lavishly spent in plowing bogs, in planting mulberry-trees amidst the sand, in bringing sheep from Spain to improve the Saxon wool, in bestowing prizes for fine yarn, in building manufactories of porcelain, manufactories of carpets, manufactories of hardware, manufactories of lace. Neither the experience of other rulers nor his own could ever teach him that something more than an edict and a grant of pub- lic money is required to create a Lyons, a Brussels, or a Birmingham. For his commercial policy, however, there is some excuse. He had on his side illustrious examples and popular prejudice. (Jrievously aa he erred, he erred in company with his ago. In other depart- ments his meddling was altogether without apology. He interfered with the course of justice as well as with the course of trade, and set up his own crude notions of equity against the law as expounded by the unanimous voice of the gravest magistrate. It never occurred to him that a body of men whose lives W,TO passed in adjudicating on q motions of civil right, were more likely to form correct opinions on such questions than a prince whose attention was divided between a thousand objects and who had probably never read a law-book through. The resistance opposed to him by the tribunals inflamed him to fury. He reviled his Chancellor. He kicked the shins of his Judges. He did not, it is true, intend to act unjustly. He firmly be- lieved that he was doing right and defending the cause of the poor against, the wealthy. Yet this well-meant meddling probably did far more harm than all the explosions- of his evil passions during th whole of his long reign. We could make shift to live under a de- bauchee or a tyrant, but to be ruled by a busybody is more than hu- man nature can bear. The same passion for directing and regulating appeared in erery part of the king's policy. Every lad of a certain station in life was FREDERICK THE GREAT. 25 forced to go to certain schools within the Prussian dominions. If a young Prussian repaired, though but for a few weeks, to Leyden or Gottingen for the purpose of study, the offence was punished with civil disabilities, and sometimes with confiscation of property. No- body was to travel without the royal permission. If the permission were granted, the pocket-money of the tourist was fixed by royal or dinances. A merchant might take with him two hundred and fifty irix dollars in gold, a noble was allowed to take four hundred ; for it may be observed, in passing, that Frederick studiously kept up the old distinction between the nobles and the community. In specula- lion he was a French philosopher, but in action a German prince. 11^, talked and wrote about the privileges of blood in the style of Kieyes ; but in practice no chapter in the empire looked with a keener r'ye to genealogies and quarterings. Such was Frederick the ruler. But there was another Frederick, the Frederick of lUieinsbnrg, the fiddler and the flute-player, the poetaster and metaphysician. Amidst the cares of the state the king had retained his passion for music, for reading, for writing, for liter- ary society. To these amusements he devoted all the time lie could snatch from the business of war and government ; and perhaps more light is thrown on his character by what passed during his hours of relaxation than by his battles or his laws. It was the just boats t of Schiller, that in his country no Augustus, no Loren/.o, had watched over the infancy of art. The rich and en- ergetic; language; of Luther, driven by the Latin from the schools of pedants, and by the French from the palaces of kings, had taken refuge among the people. Of the powers of that language Frederick had no notion. He generally spoke of it, and of those who used it, with the contempt of ignorance. His library consisted of French books ; at his table nothing was heard but French conversation. The associates of his hours of relaxation were, for the mast part, foreigners. Britain furnished to the royal circle two distinguished men, born in the highest rank, and driven by the civil dissensions from the land to which, under happier circumstances, their talents and vi rtues might have been a source of strength and glory. George Keith, Earl Marischal of Scotland, had taken arms for the house of Stuart in 1715, and his younger brother James, then only seventeen years old, had fought gallantly by his side. When all was lost they re- tired to the Continent, roved from country to country, served under many standards, and so bore themselves as to win the respeet and good-will of many who had no love for the Jacobite cause. Their long wanderings terminated at Porsdam ; nor had Frederick any as- sociates who deserved or obtained so large a share of his esteem. They were not only accomplished men, but nobles and warriors, capable of serving him in war and diplomacy, as well as of amusing him at supper. Alone of all his companions, they appear never to liave had reason to complain of his demeanor to wards', them. Sorn Jfl FREDKKICK THE OREAT. of those who knew the palace best pronounced that the Lord Mari .schal was the only human being whom Frederick ever really loved. Italy sent to the parties at Potsdam the ingenious and amiable Al- garotti and Bastiani, the most crafty, cautious, and servile of Abbes. But the greater part of the society which Frederick had assembled round him was drawn from France. Maupertuis had acquired some celebrity by the journey which ho made to Lapland, for the purpose of ascertaining by actual measurement the shape of our planet. lie was placed in the chair of the Academy of Berlin, a humble imitation of the renowned Academy of Paris. Baculard D'Arnaud, a young jxu.'t, who was thought to have given promise of great tilings, had been induced to quit the country and to reside at the Prussian court. The Marquess D'Argens was among the king's favorite companions, on account, it would seem, of the strong opposition between their characters. The parts of D'Argens were good and his manners those of a finished French gentleman ; but his whole soul was dissolved in sloth, timidity, and self-indulgence. His was one of that abject class of minds which are superstitious without being religious. Hating Christianity with a rancour which made him incapable of rational inquiry, unable to see in the harmony and beauty of the universe the traces of divine power and wisdom, he was the slave of dreams and omens would not sit down to the table with thirteen in company, turned pale if the salt fell towards him, begged his guests not to cross their knives and forks on their plates, and would not for the world commence a journey on Friday. His health was a subject of constant anxiety to him. Whenever his head ached or his pulse beat quick, his dastardly fears and effeminate precautions were the jest of all Berlin. All this suited the lung's purpose admirably. He wanted somebody by whom he might be amused, and whom he might de- spise. When he wished to pass half an hour in easy, polished con- versation, D'Argens was an excellent companion ; when he wanted to vent his spleen and contempt, D'Argens was an excellent butt. With these associates and others of the same class, Frederick loved to spend the time which he could steal from public cares. He wished his supper-parties to be gay and easy ; and invited his guests to lay aside all restraint, and to forget that ho was at the head of a hundred and sixty thousand soldiers, and was absolute master of the life and liberty of all who sat at meat with him. There was therefore at these meetings the outward show of ease. The wit and learning of the company were ostentatiously displayed. The discussions on his- tory and literature were often highly interesting. But the al>surdity of all the religions known among men was the chief topic of conver- sation ; and the audacity with which doctrines and names venerated throughout Christendom wen; treated on these occasions, startled even persons accustomed to the society of French and English free- thinkers. But real liberty or real affection was in this brilliant so- ciety not to be found, Absolute kings seldom bare fricada: and FREDERICK THE GREAT. 27 Frederick's faults were such as, even where perfect equality exists, xnake friendship exceedingly precarious. He had, indeed, many qualities which on the first acquaintance were captivating. His conversation was lively, his manners to those whom he desired to please were even caressing. No man could chatter with more delicacy. No man succeeded more completely in inspiring those who approached him with vague hopes of some great advantage from his kindness. But under this fair exterior he was a tyrant suspi- cious, disdainful, and malevolent. He had one taste which may be pardoned in a boy, but which, when habitually and deliberately in- dulged in a man of mature age and strong understanding, is almost invariably the sign of a bad heart a taste for severe practical jokes. If a friend of the king was fond of dress, oil was flung over his rich- est suit. If he was fond of money, some prank was invented to make him disburse more than he could spare. If he was hypochondriacal, he was made to believe that he had the dropsy. If he particularly set his heart on visiting a place, a letter was forged to frighten him from going thither. These things, it may be said, are trifles. They are so ; but they are indications not to be mist;',ken of a nature to which the sight of human suffering and hijman degradation is an agreeable excitement. Frederick had a keen eye for the foibles of others, and loved to Communicate his discoveries. Ho had some talent for sarcasm, and considerable skill in detecting the sore places where sarcasm would be most actually felt. His vanity, as well as his malignity, found gratification in the vexation and confusion of those who smarted un- der his caustic jests. Yet in truth his success on these occasions be- longed quite a,s much to the king as to the wit. We read that Corn- modus descended, sword in hand, into the arena against a wretched gladiator, armed only with a foil of lead, and, after shedding the blood of the helpless victim, struck medals to commemorate the in- glorious victory. The triumphs of Frederick in the war of rapartee were much of the same kind. How to deal with him was the most puzzling of questions. To appear constrained in his presence was to disobey his commands and to spoil his amusement. Yet if his asso- ciates were enticed by his graciousness to indulge in the familiarity of a cordial intimacy, he was certain to make them repent of their pre- sumption by some cruel humiliation. To resent his affronts wa,s per- ilous ; yet not to resent them was to deserve and to invite them. In his view, those who mutinied were insolent and ungrateful ; those who submitted were curs made to receive l>ones and kickings with the same fawning patience. It is, indeed, difficult to conceive how any thing short of the rage of hunger should have induced men to bear the misery of being the associates of the Great King. It was no lu- crative post. His Majesty was as severe and economical in his friend- ships as in the other charges of his establishment, and as unlikely to give a rix dollar too much for his guet.a as for lua dinners. 28 FREDERICK TJE GREAT. which he allowed to a poet or a philosopher was the very smallest sum for which such poet or philosopher could be induced to sell him srlf into slavery ; and the bondsman might think himself fortunate it what had been so grudgingly given was not, after years of suffer- ing, rudely and arbitrarily withdrawn. 1'otsdam was, in truth, what it was called by one of its most illus- trious inmates, the Palace of Alcina. At the first glance it seemed to IM- a delightful spot, where every intellectual and physical enjoyment awaited the happy adventurer. Every new coiner was received with eager hospitality, intoxicated with flattery, encouraged to expect pros- perity and greatness. It was in vain that a long succession of favor- itcs win) had entered that abode with delight and hope, and who, after a short term of delusive happiness, had been doomed to expiate their fully by years tf wretchedness and degradation, raise their voices to warn the aspirant who approached the charmed threshold. Some had wisdom enough to discover the truth early and spirit enough to fly without looking back ; others lingered on to a cheerless and unhon- ored old age. We have no hesitation in saying that the po rest autlx>r of that time in London, sleeping on a bulk, dining in a cellar, with a cravat of paper, and a skewer for a shirt-pin, was a happier man than nnv of the literary inmates of Frederick's court. But of all who entered the enchanted garden in the inebriation of delight, and quitted it in agonies of rage and shame, the, most re- markable was Voltaire. Many circumstances had made; him desirous of finding a homo at a distance from his country. His fame had raised him up enemies. His sensibility gave them a formidable ad- vantage over him. They were, indeed, contemptible assailants. Of all that they wrote against him, nothing has survived except what he has himself preserved. But the constitution of his mind resembled the constitution of those bodies in which the slightest scratch of a bramble or the bite of a gnat never fails to fester. Though his repu- tation was rather raised than lowered by the abuse of such writers as Kn'ron and Desfontaines though the vengeance which he took on Kreron and Desfontaines was such that scourging, branding, pillory- ing, would have been a trifle to it there is reason to believe that they gave him far more pain than ho ever gave them. Though he en joyed during his own lifetime the reputation of a classic though he was extolled by his contemporaries above, all poets, philosophers, and his- toiiiins though his works were read with much delight and admira- tion at Moscow and Westminster, at Florence and Stockholm, as at I'aris itself, he was yet tormented by that restless jealousy which should seem to belong only to minds burning with the desire of fame,' and yet conscious of impotence. To meiv of letters who could by no possibility bo his rivals, he was, if they behaved well to him," not merely just, not merely courteous, but often a hearty friend and a munificent Iwmefactor. But to every writer who rose to a celebrity approaching his own, he became either a disguised or an avowed ejie- FREDERICK THE GREAT. 20 my. He slyly depreciated Montesquieu and Buffon. He publicly and with violent outrage made w!\r on Jean Jacques. Nor had he the art of hiding his feelings under the semblance of good-humor or of con- tempt. With all his great talents and all his long experience of th world, he had no more self-command than a petted child or an hys- terical woman. Whenever he was mortified, he exhausted the whole rhetoric of anger and sorrow to express his mortification. His tor- rents of bitter words his stamping and cursing his grimaces and his tears of rage were a rich feast to those abject natures whose de- light is in the agonies of powerful spirits and in the abasement of im-' mortal names. These creatures had now found out a way of galling him to the very quick. In one walk, at least, it had been admitted by envy itself that he was without a living competitor. Since Racine had been laid among the great men whose dust made the holy pro- cinct of Port-Royal holier, no tragic poet had appeared who could con- test the palm with the author of Zaire, of Alzire, and of Merope. At length a rival was announced. Old Crebillion, who many years before had obtained some theatrical success, and who had long been forgotten, came forth from his garret in one of the meanest lanes near the Rue St. Antoine, and was welcomed by the acclamations of envious men of letters and of a capricious populace. A tiling called Catiline, which he had written in his retirement, was acted with boundless applause. Of this execrable piece it is sufficient to say that the plot turns on a love affair, carried on in all the forms of Scudery, between Catiline, whose confident is the Praetor Lentulus, and Tullia, the daughter of Cicero. The theatre resounded with ac- clamations. The king pensioned the successful poet ; and the coffee- houses pronounced that Voltaire was a clever man, but that the real tragic inspiration, the celestial fire which glowed in Corneilleand Ra- cine, was to be found in < Yebilliwn alone. The blow went to Voltaire's heart. Had his wisdom and fortitude been in .proportion to the fertility of his intellect, and to the bril- liancy of his wit, he would have seen that it was out of the power of all the puffers and detractors in Europe to put Catilin* above Z/riri' ; but he had none of the magnanimous patience with which Milton and Bentley left their claims to the unerring judgment of lime. He f-ngerly engaged in an undignified competition with Crebillion, ami produced a series of plays on the same subjects which his rival had treated. These pieces were coolly received. Angry with the court, angry with the capital, Voltaire began to find pleasure in the prospect, of exile. His attachment for Madame de Chatelet long prevented him from executing his purpose. Her death set him at liberty ; and he determined to take refuge at Berlin. To Berlin he was invited bya series of letters, couched in terms of the most enthusiastic friendship and admiration. For once the rigid parsimony of Frederick seemed to have relaxed. Orders, honorable offices, a liberal pension, a well-served tablo, stately apartment* under HO FREDERICK THE GREAT. a royal roof, wcm offered in return for the pleasure and honor which we iv filleted from the society of the first wit of the age. A thou- si\d louis wore remitted for the charges of the journey. No ambass- ndor setting out from Berlin for a court of the first rank had ever Urn more amply supplied. But Voltaire was not satisfied. At a later ]>eriol' which the other was most impatient; and they were, in different ways, the most impatient of mankind. Fred- erick was frugal, almost niggardly. When he hud secured his play- thing he began to think that he had bought it too dear. Voltaire, on the other hand, was greedy, even to the extent of impudence and knavery ; and conceived that the favorite of a monarch who had bar- rels full of gold and silver laid up in cellars, ought to make a fortune which a receiver-general might envy. They soon discovered each other's feelings. Both were angry, and a war began, in which Fred- erick stooped to Ihc part of Harpagon, and Voltaire to that of Scapin. It is humiliating to relate that the great warrior and statesman gave orders that his guest's allowance of sugar and chocolate should be curtailed. It is, if possible, a still more humiliating fact, that Vol- taire indemnified himself by pocketing the wax candles in the royal anti-chamber. Disputes about money, however, were not the most serious disputes of these extraordinary associates. The sarcasm soon galled the sensitive temper of the poet. D'Arnaud and D'Argens, Guichard and La Metrie, might, for the sake of a morsel of bread, be willing to bear the insolence of a master ; but Voltaire was of another order. He knew that he was a potentate as well as Fred- erick; that his European reputation, and his incomparable power of covering whatever he hated with ridicule, made him an object, of dread even to the leaders of armies and the rulers of nations. In truth, of all the intellectual weapons which have ever been wielded by man, the most terrible was the mockery of Voltaire. Bigots and tyrants, who had never been moved by the wailing and cursing of millions, turned pale at his name. Principles unassailable by reason principles which had withstood the fiercest attacks of power, the most valuable truths, the most generous sentiments, the noblest and most graceful images, the purest reputations, the most august insti- tutions began to look mean and loathsome as soon as that withering smile was turned upon them. To every opponent, however strong in his cause and his talents, in his station aud his character, who ven- tured to encounter the great scoffer, might be addressed the caution which w*s given of old to the Archangel : A.B. 2 3J FREDERICK THE GREAT. " I forewarn thee, shun His deadly arrow ; neither vainly hope To be invulnerable in those bright arms, Though temper'd heavenly ; for that fatal dint, Save Him who reigns above, none can resist." We cannot pause to recount how often that rare talent was exer- cised against rivals worthy of esteem how often it was used to crush and torture enemies worthy only of silent disdain how often it \\-as perverted to the more noxious purpose of destroying the last solace of earthly misery and the last restraint on earthly power. Neither can we pause to tell how often it was used to vindicate jus- tice, humanity, and toleration the principles of sound philosophy, the principles of free government. This is not the place for a full character of Voltaire. Causes of quarrel multiplied fast. Voltaire, who, partly from love of money and partly from love of excitement, was always fond of stockjobbing, became implicated in transactions of at least a dubious character. The king was delighted at having such an opportunity to humble his guest ; and bitter reproaches and complaints were ex- changed. Voltaire, too, was soon at war with the other men of let- ters who surrounded the king ; and this irritated Frederick, who, however, had himself chiefly to blame : for, from that love of tor- menting which was in him a ruling passion, lie perpetually lavished extravagant praises on small men and bad books, merely in'order that lie might enjoy the mortification and rage which on such occasions Voltaiiv took no pains to conceal. His Majesty, however, soon had reason to regret the pains which he had taken to kindle jealousy among the members of his household. The whole palace was in a ferment with literary intrigues and cabals. It was to no purpose that the imperial voice, which kept a hundred and sixtv thousand soldiers in order, was raised to quiet the contention of the exasperated wits. It was far easier to stir up such a storm than to lull it, Nor was Frederick, in his capacity of wit, by any means without his own share of vexations. He had sent a large quantity of verses to Vol- taire, and requested that they might be returned with remarks and correction. "See," exclaimed Voltaire, "what a quantity of his dirty linen the king has sent me to wash!" Talebearers were not wanting to cany the sarcasm to the royal ear, and Frederick was as much incensed as a Grub Street writer who had found his name in the " Punciad." Tins could not last. A circumstance which, when the mutual re- gard of the friends was in its first glow, would merely have been matter for laughter, produced a violent explosion. Maupertuis en- joyed as much of Frederick's good-will as any man of letters II was President of the Academy of Berlin, and stood second to Voltaire though at an immense distance, in the literary society which had beeu assembled at the Prussian court. Frederick had, by playin-- foi FREDERICK THE" GREAT. 33 his own amusement on the feelings of the two jealous and vainglori- ous Frenchmen, succeeded in producing a bitter enmity between them. Voltaire resolved to set his mark, a mark never to be effaced, on the forehead of Maupertuis ; and wrote the exquisitely ludicrous diatribe of Doctor Akakin. He showed this little piece to Frederick, who had too much taste and too much malice not to relish such deli- cious pleasantry. In truth, even at this time of day. it is not easy for any person who has the least perception of the ridiculous to read the jokes on the Latin city, the Patagonians, r.nd the hole to the cen- ter of the earth, without laughing till he cries. But though Freder- ick was diverted by this charming pasquinade, he was unwilling that it should get abroad. His self-love was interested. He had selected Maupertuis to fill the Chair of his Academy. If all Europe were taught to laugh at Maupertuis, would not the reputation of the Acad- emy, would not even the dignity of its royal patron be in some de- gree compromised ? The king, therefore, begged Voltaire to sup- press his performance. Voltaire promised to do so, and broke his word, The diatribe was published, and received witli shouts of mer- riment and applause by all who could read the French language. The king stormed, Voltaire, with his usual disregard of truth, pro- tested his innocence, and made up some lie about a printer or an amanuensis. The king was not to be so imposed upon. He ordered the pamphlet to be burned by the common hangman, and insisted upon having an apology from Voltaire, couched in the most abject terms. Voltaire sent back to the king his cross, his key, and the patent of his pension. After this burst of rage, the strange pair be- gan to be ashamed of their violence, and went through the forms of reconciliation. But the breach was irreparable ; and Voltaire took his. leave of Frederick forever. They parted with cold civility ; but their hearts were big with resentment, Voltaire had in his keeping a volume of the kind's poetry and forgot to return it. This was, we believe, merely one of the oversights which men setting out upon a journey often commit. That Voltaire could have meditated plagiar- ism is quite incredible. He would not, we are confident, for the half of Frederick's kingdom, have consented to father Frederick's verses. The king, however, who rated his own writings much above their value, and who was inclined to see ail Voltaire's actions in the worst light, was enraged to think that his favorite compositions were in the hands of an enemy, as thievish as a daw and as mischievous as a monkey. In the anger excited by tlrs thought, he lost sight of reason and decency, and determined on committing an outrage at once odi- ous and ridiculous. Voltaire had reached Frankfort. His niece, Madame Denis, came thither to meet him. He conceive:! himself secure from the power of his late master, when he was arrested by order of the Prussian resi- dent. The precious volume was delivered up. But the Prussian Agents had no doubt been instructed not to let Voltaire escape without 84 FREDERICK THE GREAT. somo gross indignity. He was confined twelve days in a wretched hovel. Sentinels with fixed bayonets kept guard over him. His (1 through the mire by the soldiers. Sixteen hun- dred dollars were extorted from him by his insolent jailers. It is ab- surd in Miy that this outrage is not to be attributed to the king. Was anybody punished for it? Was anybody called in question for it? Was it , not consistent with Frederick's character ? Was it not of a piece with his conduct on other similar occasions '! Is it not notorious that he repeatedly gave private directions to his officers to pillage and demolish tin- houses of persons against whom he had a grudge char-ing them at the same time to take their measure in such a way thatnis name might not be compromised? He acted thus towards Count Buhl in the Seven Years' War. Why should we believe that he would have been more scrupulous with regard to Voltaire ? When at length the illustrious prisoner regained his liberty, the prospect before him was but dreary. He was an exile both from the country of his birth and from the country of his adoption. The French government had taken offence at his journey to Prussia, and would not permit him to return to Paris; and in the vicinity of Prussia it was not safe for him to remain. He took refuge on the beautiful shores of Lake Leman. There, ]oo>eci from every tie which had hitherto restrained him, and having little to hope or to fear from courts and churches, he began his long war against, all that, whether for good or evil, had authority over man ; for what Burke said of the Constituent Assembly was emi- nently true of this its great forerunner. He could not build he could only pull down ; he was the very Vitruvius of ruin. He has bequeathed to us not a single doctrine to be called by his name, not a single addition to the stock of our positive knowledge. But no human ! ever left behind him so vast and terrible a wreck of truths and falsehoods of things noble and things base of things useful and things pernicious. From the time when his sojourn beneath the Alps commenced, the dramatist, the wit, the historian, was merged in a more important character. He was now the patriarch, t :<> founder of a sect, the chief of a conspiracy, the prince of a wide intellectual commonwealth. lie often enjoyed a pleasure dear to the t i >etter part of his nature the pleasure of vindicating innocence 'which had no other helper, of repairing cruel wrongs, of punishing tyranny in high places. He had also the satisfaction, not less accept able to Ids ravenous vanity, of hearing terrified Capuchins call him the Antichrist. But whether employed in works of benevolence or in works of mischief, he never forgot Potsdam and Frankfort ; find ho listened anxiously to every murmur which indicated that a tempest was gathering in Europe, and that his vengeance was at hand. He soon had his wish. Maria Theresa had never for a moment forgotten the great wrong which she had received at the hand of Frederick. Voting and delicate, Just left an -orphan, just about to be FREDERICK THE GREAT. 85 a mother, she had been compelled to fly from the ancient capital of her race ; she had seen her fair inheritance dismembered by robbers, and of those robbers he had been the foremost. Without a pretext, without a provocation, in defiance of the most sacred engagements, he had attacked the helpless ally whom he was bound to defend. The Empress-Queen had the faults as well as the virtues which are connected with quick sensibility and a high spirit. There was no peril which she was not ready to brave, no calamity which she was not ready to bring on her subjects, or on the whole human race, if only she might once taste the sweetness of a complete revenge. Re- venge, too, presented itself to her narrow and superstitious mind in the guise of duty. Silesia had been wrested not only from the house of Austria, but from the Church of Rome. The conqueror had, indeed, permitted his new subjects to worship God after their own fashion ; but this was not enough. To bigotry it seemed an intolerable hardship that the Catholic Church, having long enjoyed ascendancy, should be compelled to content itself with equality. Nor was this the only circumstance which led Maria Theresa to regard her enemy as the enemy of God. The profaneness of Frederick's writings and conversation, and the frightful rumors which were circulated respecting the immoralities of his private life, naturally shocked a woman who believed witli the firmest faith all that her confessor told her, and who, though surrounded by tempta- tions, though young and beautiful, though ardent in all her passions, though possessed of absolute power, had preserved her fame unsul- lied even by the breath of slander. To recover Silesia, to humble the dynasty of Hohenzollern to the dust, was the great object of her life. She toiled during many years for this end, with zeal as indefatigable as that which the poet ascribes to the stately goddess who tired out her immortal horses in the work of raising the nations against Troy, and who offered to give up to destruction her darling Sparta and Mycenae, if only she might once see the smoke going up from the palace of Priam. With even such a spirit did the proud Austrian Juno strive to array against her foe a coalition such as Europe had never seen. Nothing would con- tent her but that the whole civilized world, fr m the White Sea to the Adriatic, fr m the Bay of Biscay to the pastures of the wild horses of Tana is, should be combined in arms against one petty state. She early succeeded by various arts in obtaining the adhesion of Russia. An ample share of spoils was promised to the King of Po- land ; and that prince, governed by his favorite, Count Buhl, readily promised the assistance of the Saxon forces. The great difficulty was with France. That the houses of Bourbon and of Hapsburg should ever cordially co-operate in any great scheme of European policy had long been thought, to use the strong expression of Frederick, just as im- possible as that fire and water should amalgamate. The whole his tory of the Continent, during two centuries and a half, had been tLi W FREDERICK THE GREAT. history of the mutual jealousies and enmities of France and Austria. Since the administration of Richelieu, above all, it had been consid- ered as the plain policy of the most Christian king to thwart on all < m-ions the court of Vienna, and to protect' every member of the Germanic body who stood up against the dictation of the Coesars. Common sentiments of religion had been unable to mitigate this strong antipathy. The rulers of France, even while clothed in the Kornan purple, even while persecuting the heretics of Rochelle and' Auvergne, had still looked witli favor on the Lutheran and Calvin- istic princes who were struggling' against the chief of the empire. If the French ministers paid any respect to the traditional rues handed down to them through many generations, they would have acted towards Frederick as the greatest of their predecessors acted towards Gu-4avus Adolphus. That there was deadly enmity between Prussia and Austria, was of itself a sufficient reason for close friend- ship between Prussia and France. With France, Frederick could never have any serious controversy. His territories were so situated, that his ambition, greedy and unscrupulous as it was, could never im- pel him to attack her of his own accord. He was more than half a Frenchman. He wrote, spoke, read nothing but French ; he de- lighted in French society. The admiration of the French he pro- posed to himself as the best reward of all his exploits. It seemed in- credible that any French government, however notorious for levity or stupidity, could spurn away such an ally. The court of Vienna, however, did not despair. The Austrian dip- lomatists propounded a new scheme of politics, which, it must be owned, was not altogether without plausibility. The great powers, according to this theory, had long been under a delusion. They had looked on each other as natural enemies, while in truth they were natural allies. A succession of cruel wars had devastated Europe, had thinned the population, had exhausted the public resources, had loaded governments with an immense burden of debt ; and when, af- ter two hundred years of murderous hostility or of hollow truce, the illustrious houses whose enmity had distracted the world sat down to count their gains, to what did the real advantage on either side amount? Simply to this, that they kept each other from thriving. It was not the King of France, it was not the Emperor, who had reaped the fruits of the Thirty Years' War, of the War of the Grand Alliance, of the War of the Pragmatic Sanction. Those fruits have been pilfered by States of the second and third rank, which, secured against jealousy by their insignificance, had dexterously aggrandized themselves while pretending to serve the animosity of the great chiefs of Christendom. While the lion and tiger were tearing each other, the jackal had run off into the jungle with the prey. The real gainer by the Thirty Years' War had been neither France nor Austria, but Sweden. The real gainer by the War of the Grand Alliance had been neither France nor Austria, but Savoy. The real gainer bj the FREDERICK THE GREAT. 37 War of the Pragmatic Sanction had been neither France nor Austria, but the upstart of Brandenburg. Of all these instances, the last was the most striking : France had made great efforts, had added largely to her military glory and largely to her public burdens ; and for what end? Merely that Frederick might rule Silesia. For this, and this alone, one French army, wasted by sword and famine, had perished in Bohemia ; and another had purchased, with floods of the noblest blood, the barren glory of Fontenoy. And this prince, for whom France had suffered so much, was he a grateful, was he even an hon- est ally ? Had he not been as false to the court of Versailles as to the -*ourt of Vienna ? Had he not played on a large scale the same part which, in private life, is played by the vile agent of chicane who sets his neighbors quarrelling, involves them in costly and interminable litigation, and betrays them to each other all round, certain that, whoever may be ruined, he shall be enriched ? Surely the true wis- dom of the great powers was to attack, not each other, but this com- mon barrator, who, by inflaming the passions of both, by pretending to serve both, and by deserting both, had raised himself above the station to which he was born. The great object of Austria was tore- gain Silesia ; the great object of France was to obtain an accession of territory on the side of Flanders. If they took opposite sides, there- suit would probably be that, after a war of many years, after the slaughter of many thousands of brave men, after the waste of many millions of crowns, they would lay down their arms without having achieved either object ; but if they came to an understanding, there would be no risk and no difficulty. Austria would willingly make in Belgium such cessions as France could not expect to obtain by ten pitched battles. Silesia would easily be annexed to the monarchy of which it had long been a part. The union of two such powerful gor- ernments would at once overawe the King of Prussia. If he resisted, one short campaign would settle his fate. France and Austria, long accustomed to rise from the game of war both losers, would, for the first time, both be gainers. There could be no room for jealousy be- tween them. The power of both would be increased at once ; the equilibrium between them would be preserved ; and the only sufferer would be a mischievous and unprincipled buccaneer, who deserved no tenderness from either. These doctrines, attractive for their novelty and ingenuity, soon be- came fashionable at the supper-parties and in the coffee-houses of Paris, and were espoused by every gay marquis and every facetious abbe who was admitted to see Madame de Pompadour's hair curled and powdered. It was not, however, to any political theory that the strange Coalition between France and Austria owed its origin. The real motive which induced the great continental powers to forget their old animosities and their old state maxims, was personal aver- ion to the King of Prussia. This feeling was strongest in Maria Theresa ; but it was by no means confined to her. Frederick, in some 88 FREDERICK THE GREAl'. respects a good master, was emphatically a bad neighbor. That l*e was hard in all his dealings and quick to take all advantages was not his most odious fault. His bitter and scoffing speech had inflicted keener wounds than his ambition. In his character of wit he was under less restraint than even in his character of ruler. Satirical verses against all the princes aud ministers of Europe were ascribed to his pen. In his letters and conversation he alluded to the greatest potentates of the age in terms which would have better suited Colle, in a war of repartee with young Crebillion at Pelletier's table, than a great sovereign speaking of great sovereigns. About women he was in the habit of expressing himself in a manner which it was im- possible for the meekest of women to forgive ; and, unfortunately for him, almost the whole continent was then governed by women who were by no means conspicuous for meekness. Maria Theresa herself bad not escaped his scurrulous jests ; the Empress Elizabeth of Rus- sia knew that her gallantries afforded him a favorite theme for ri- baldry and invective ; Madame de Pompadour, who was really the head of the French government, had been even more keenly galled. She I ad attempted, by the most delicate flattery, to propitiate the King of Prussia, but her messages had drawn from him only dry and sar- castic, replies. Tlie Empress-Queen took a very different course. Though the haughtiest of princesses, though the most austere of matrons, she forgot in h^r thirst for revenge both the dignity of her race and the purity of her character, and condescended to flatter the low-born and low-minded concubine, who, having acquired influence by prostituting herself, retained it by prostituting others. Maria Theresa actually wrote with her own hand a note full of expressions of esteem and friendship to her dear cousin, the daughter of the butcher Poisson, the wife of the publican D'Etioles, the kidnapper of young girls for the Parc-aux-cerfs a strange cousin for the descendant of so many Emperors of the West ! The mistress was completely gained over and easily carried her point with Louis, who had, indeed, wrongs of his own to resent. His feelings were not quick ; but con- tempt, says the e istern proverb, pierces even through the shell of the tortoise ; and neither prudence nor decorum had ever restrained Fred- erick from expressing his measureless contempt for tfie sloth, the im- becility, and tin- baseness of Louis. France was thus induced to join the coalition ; and the example of France determined the conduct of Sweden, then completely subject to French influence. The enemies of Frederick were surely strong enough to attack him opcniy, but they were desirous to add to all their other advantages I vantage of a surprise. He was not, however, a man to be taken off his guard. He had tools in every court ; and he now received. from Vi- mill, from Dresden, and from Paris, accounts so circumstan- tial and so consistent, that he could not doubt of his danger. lie learnt that he was to be assailed at once by France, Austria, Russia, Saxony, Sweden, and the Germanic body"; that the greater part of FREDERICK THE GREAT. 39 his dominions was to be portioned out among his enemies ; that France, which from her geographical position could not directly* share in his spoils, was to receive an equivalent in the Netherlands ; that Austria was to have Silesia, and the czarina East Prussia ; that Au- gustus of Saxony expected Madgeburg ; and that Sweden would be rewarded with part of Pomerania. If these designs succeeded, the house of Bradenburg would at once sink in the European system to a .place lower than that of the Duke of Wurtemhurg or the Margrave of Baden. And what hope was there that these designs would fail 1 No such union of the continental powers had been seen for ages. A less for- midable confederacy had in a week conquered all the provinces of Venice, when Venice was at the height of power, wealth, and glory. A less formidable confederacy had compelled Louis the Fourteenth to bow down his haughty head to the very earth. A less formidable confederacy has, within our own memory, subjugated a still mightier empire and abased a still prouder name. Such odds had never been heard of in war. The people who Frederick ruled were not five mil- lions. The population of the countries which were leagued against him amounted to a hundred millions. The disproportion in wealth was at least equally great. Small communitias, actuated by strong sentiments of patriotism or loyalty, have sometimes made head against great monarchies weakened by factions and discontents. But small as was Frederick's kingdom, it probably contained a greater number of disaffected subjects than were to be found in all the States of his enemies, Silesia formed a fourth part of his dominions ; and from the Silesians, born under the Austrian princes, the utmost that he could expect was apathy. From the Silesian Catholics he could hardly expect anything but resistance. Some States have been enabled, by their geographical position, to defend themselves with advantage against immense force. ' The sea has repeatedly protected England against the fury of the whole Con- tinent. The Venetian government, driven from its possessions on the land, could still bid defiance to the confederates of Cambray from the arsenal amidst the lagoons. More than one great and well- appointed army, which regarded the shepherds of Switzerland as an easy prey, has perished in the passes of the Alps. Frederick had no such advantage. The form of his States, their situation, the nature of the ground, all were against him. His long, scattered, straggling territory seemed to have been shaped with an express view to the convenience of invaders, and was protected by no sea, by no chain of hills. Scarcely any corner of it was a week's march from the terri- tory of the enemy. The capital itself, in the event of war, would be constantly exposed to insult. In truth, there was hardly a politician or a soldier in Europe who doubted that the conflict would be termi- nated in a very few days by the prostration, of the house of Branden- burg, 40 FREDERICK THE GREAT. Nqr was Frederick's own opinion very different. He anticipated nothing short of his own ruin, and of the ruin of his family. Yet there was still a cfaAnce. a slender chance of escape. His States had at least the advantage'of a central position ; his enemies were widely separated from each other, and could not conveniently unite their overwhelming f&rces on one point. They inhabited different climates, and it was probable that the season of the year which would be best suited to the military operations of one portion of the league, would be unfavorable to those of another portion. The Prusssan monarchy, too, was free from some infirmities which were found in empires f-\r more extensive and magnificent. Its effective strength for a desper- ate struggle was not to be measured merely by the number of square mile.s or the number of people. In that square but well-knit and well-exercised body, there was nothing but sinew and muscle and bone. No public creditors looked for dividends. No distant colonies required defence. No court, filled with flatterers and mistresses, de- voured the pay of fifty battalions. The Prussian army, though far inferior in number to the troops which were about to be opposed to it, was yet strong out of all proportion to the extent of the Prussian dominions. It was also admirably trained and admirably officered, accustomed to obey and accustomed to conquer. The revenue was not only unencumbered by debt, but exceeded the ordinary outlay in time of peace. Alone of all the European princes, Frederick had a treasure laid up for a day of difficulty. Above all, he was one and his enemies were many. In their camps w T ould certainly be found the jealousy, the dissension, the slackness inseparable from coalition ; on his side was the energy, the unity, the secrecy of a strong dictator* ship. To a certain extent the deficiency of military means might be supplied by the resources of military art. Small as the king's army was, when compared with the six hundred thousand men whom the confederates could bring into the field, celerity of movement might in .some degree compensate for deficiency of bulk. It is thus just possi- ble that genius, judgment, resolution, and good luck united might protract the struggle during a campaign or two ; and to gain even a month was of importance. It could not be long before the vices which are found in all extensive confederacies would begin to show themselves. Every member of the league would think his own share of the war too large, and his own share of the spoils too small. Com- plaints and recrimination would abound. The Turk might stir on the Danube ; the statesmen of France might discover the error which they had committed in abandoning the fundamental principles of their na- tional policy. Above all,' death might rid Prussia of its most for- midable enemies. The war was the effect of the personal aversion with which three or four sovereigns regarded Frederick ; and the de- cease of any of those sovereigns might produce a complete revolution in the state of Europe. In the midst of an horizon generally dark and stormy, Frederick FREDERICK THE GREAT. 4l ould discern one bright spot. The peace which had been concluded between England and France in 1748 had been in Europe no more than an armistice ; and not even been an armistice in the other quarters of the globe. In India the sovereignty of the Carnatic was disputed between two great Mussulman houses ; Fort Saint George had laken the one side, Pondicherry the other ; and in a series of battles and sieges the troops of Lawrence and Clive had been opposed to those of Dupleix. A struggle less important in its consequence, but not less likely to produce immediate irritation, was carried on between those French and English adventurers who kidnapped negroes and collected gold dust on the coast of Guinea. But it was in North America that the emulation and mutual aversion of the two nations were most con- spicuous. The French attempted to hem in the English colonists by a chain of military posts, extending from the great Lakes to the mouth of the Mississippi. The English took arms. The wild abori- ginal tribes appeared on each side mingled with the "Pale Faces." attles were fought ; forts were stormed ; and hideous stories about stakes, scalpings, and death songs reached Europe, and inflamed that national animosity which the rivalry of ages had produced. The dis- putes between France and England came to a crisis at the very time when the tempest which had been gathering was about to burst on Prussia. The tastes and interests of Frederick would have led him, if he had been allowed an option, to side with the house of Bourbon. But the folly of the court of Versailles left him no choice. Franco became the tool of Austria, and Frederick was forced to become the ally of England. He could not, indeed, expect that a power which covered the sea with its fleets, and which had to make war at once on the Ohio and the Ganges, would be able to spare a large number of troops for operations in Germany. But England, though poor com- pared with the England of our time, was far richer than any country on the Continent. The amount of her revenue and the resources which she found in her credit, though they may be thought small by a generation which has seen her raise a hundred and thirty millions in a single year, appeared miraculous to the politicians of that age. A very moderate portion of her wealth, expended by an able and economical prince, in a country where prices were low, would be sufficient to equip and maintain a formidable army. Such was the situation in which Frederick found himself. He saw the whole extent of his peril. He saw that ther* was still a faint possibility of escape ; and, with prudent temerity, he determined to strike the first blow. It was in the month of August, 175(5, that the great war of the Seven Years commenced. The king demanded of the Empress-Queen a distinct explanation of her intentions, and plainly told her that he should consider a refusal as a declaration of war. " I want,'' he said, " no answer in the style of an oracle." He received an answer at once haughty and evasive. In an instant, the rich e'ectorate of Saxony was overflowed by sixty thousand Prussian FREDERICK THE GREAT. troops. Augustus with Ins army occupied a strong position at Pirn< The Queen of Poland was at Dresden. In a few days Pirna waa Mo<-k:i(k'(l and Dresden was taken. The object of Frederick was to obtain possession of the Saxon State Papers ; for those papers, he well knew, contained ample proofs that though apparently an aggressor, he was really acting in self-defence. The Queen of Poland, as well acquainted as Frederick with the importance of those documents, had packed them up, had concealed them in her bed-chamber, and was about to send them off to Warsaw, when a Prussian officer made his appearance. In the hope that no soldier would venture to outrage a lady, a queen, a daughter of an emperor, the mother-in-law of a dauphin, she placed herself before the trunk, and at length sat down on it. But all resistance was vain. The papers were carried to Fred- erick, who found in them, as he expected, abundant evidence of the designs of the coalition. The most important documents were in- stantly published, and the effect of the publication was great. It was clear that, of whatever sins the King of Prussia might formerly have been guilty, he was now the injured party, and had merely an- ticipated a blow intended to destroy him. The Saxon camp at Pirna was in the mean time closely invested ; but the besieged were not without hopes of succor. A great Austrian army under Marshal Brown \\as about to pour through the passes which separate Bohemia from Saxony. Frederick left at Pirna a force sufficient to deal with the Saxons, hastened into Bohemia, encountered Brown at Lowositz, and defeated him. This battle decided the late of Saxony. Augustus and his favorite, Buhl, fled to Poland. The whole army of the electorate capitulated. From that time till the end of the war, Frederick treated Saxony as a part of his dominions, or, rather, he acted towards the Saxons in a manner which may serve to illustrate the whole meaning of that tremendous sentence sub- jtrtnx t/i/H/mtiit KIIOS, riles tanqiiam alienos. Saxony was as much in his power as Bradenburg ; and he had no such interest in the welfare ol Saxony as he had in the welfare of Bradenburg. He accordingly levied troops and exacted contributions throughout the enslaved pro- vince, with far more rigor than in any part of his own dominions. Seventeen thousand men who had been in the camp at Pirna were half compelled, half persuaded, to enlist under their conqueror. Tims within a few weeks from the commencement of hostilities, one of the confederates had been disarmed, and his weapons pointed against the rest. The winter put a stop to military operations. All had hitherto gone well. Mut the real tug of war was still to come. It was easy 'to foresee that the year 1757 would be a memorable era in the history of Europe. The scheme for the campaign was simple, bold, and judicious. The Duke of Cumberland with an English and Hanoverian army was in Western Germany, and might be able to prevent the French FREDERICK THE GREAT. 43 troops from attacking Prussia. The Russians, confined -by their snows, would probably not stir till the spring was far advanced. Saxony was piostrated. Sweden could do nothing very important. During- & 1'ew months Frederick would have to deal with Austria alone. Even thus the odds were against him. But ability and cour- age have often triumphed against odds still more formidable. Early in 1757 the Prussian army in Saxony began to move. Through four defiles in the mountains they came pouring into Bo- , hernia. Prague was his first mark ; but the ulterior object was prob- ably Vienna. At Prague lay Marshal Brown with one great army. Daun, the most cautious and fortunate of the Austrian captains, was advancing with another. Frederick determined to overwhelm Brown before Daun should arrive. On the sixth of May was fought, under those walls which a hundred and thirty years before had witnessed the victory of the Catholic league and the flight of the unhappy Pala- tine, a battle more bloody than any which Europe saw during the long interval between Malplaquet and Eylau. The king and Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick were distinguished on that day by their valor and exertions. But the chief glory was with Schwerin. When the Prussian infantry wavered, the stout old marshal snatched the colors from an ensign, and, waving them in the air, led back his regiment to the charge. Thus at seventy-two years of age he fell in the thickest of the battle, still grasping the standard which bears the black eagle on the field argent. The victory remained with the king. But it had been dearly purchased. Whole columns of his bravest warriors had fallen. He admitted that he had lost eighteen thousand men. Of the enemy, twenty-four thousand had been killed, wounded, or taken. Part of the defeated army was shut up in, Prague. Part fled to join the troops which, under the command of Daun, were now close at hand. Frederick determined to play over the same game which had succeeded at Lowosit/.. He left a large force to besiege Prague, and at the head of thirty thousand men he marched against Daun. The cautious marshal, though he had great superiority in numbers, would risk nothing. He occupied at Kolin a position almost impregnable, and awaited the attack of the king. It was the 18th of June a day which, if the Greek superstition still retained its influence, would be held sacred to Nemesis a day on which the two greatest princes and soldiers of modern times were taught by terrible experience that neither skill nor valor can fix the inconstancy of fortune^ The battle began before noon ; and part of the Prussian army mamtained the contest till after the midsummer sun had gone down. But at length the king found that his troops, having been repeatedly driven back with frightful carnage, could no longer be led to the charge. He was with diiliculty persuaded to quit the field. The officers of his personal staff were under the necessity of expostulating with him, and one of them took the liberty t say, 44 FREDERICK THE GREAT\ " Does your Majesty mean to storm the batteries alone?" Thirteen thousand of his bravest followers had perished. Nothing remained for him but to retreat in good order, to raise the siege of Prague, and to hurry his army by different routes out of Bohemia. This stroke seemed to be final. Frederick's situation had at best been such, that only an uninterrupted run of good luck could save him, as it seemed, from ruin. And now, almost in the outset of the contest, he had met with a check which, even in a war between equal powers, would have been felt as serious. He had owed much to the opinion which all Europe entertained of his army. Since his acces- sion, his soldiers had in many successive battles been victorious over the Austrians. But the glory had departed from his arms. All whom his malevolent sarcasms had wounded made haste to avenge themselves by scoffing at the scoffer. His soldiers had ceased to con- fide in his star. In every part of his camp his dispositions were severely criticised. Even in his own family he had detractors. His next brother William, heir-presumptive, or rather, in truth, heir-ap- parent to the throne, and great-grandfather of the present king, could not refrain from lamenting his own fate and that of the house of Hohenzollern, once so great and so prosperous, but now, by the rash ambition of its chief, made a by- word to all nations. These com- plaints, and some blunders which William committed during the re- treat from Bohemia, called forth the bitter displeasure of the inex- orable king. The prince's heart was broken by the cutting reproaches of his brother ; he quitted the army, retired to a country seat, and in a short time died of shame and vexation. It seemed that the king's distress could hardly be increased. Yet at this moment another blow not less terrible than that of Kolin fell upon him. The French under Marshal D'Estrees had invaded Ger- many. The Duke of Cumberland had given them hat-tie at Hasteiu- beck, and had been defeated. In order to save the Electorate of 1 Inn- over from entire subjugation, he had made, at Clostern Severn, an ar- rangement with the French generals, which left them at liberty to turn their arms against the Prussian dominions. That nothing might be wanting to Frederick's distress, he lost his mother just at this time ; and he appears to have felt the loss more tliau was to be expected from the hardness and severity of his char- acter. In truth, his misfortunes had now cut to the quick. The mocker, the tyrant, the most rigorous, the most imperious, the most cynical of men, was very unhappy. His face was so haggard and his Conn so thin, that when on his return from Bohemia he passed through Leipsic, the people hardly knew him again. His sleep was broken ; the ti-urs in spite of himself often started into his eyes ; and the gravo begun to present itself to his agitated mind as the 'best ref- uge from misery and dishonor. His resolution was fixed never to be taken alive, and never to make peace on condition of descending from his place among the powers of Europe. He saw nothing left for him FREDERICK THE GREAT. 45 xcept to die ; and lie deliberately chose his mode of death. He always carried about with him a sure and speedy poison in a small glass case ; and to the few in whom he placed confidence he made no mystery of his resolution. But we should very imperfectly describe the state of Frederick's mind, if we left out of view the laughable peculiarities which con- t rust ( -d so singularly with the gravity, energy, and harshness of his character. It is difficult to say whether the tragic or the comic pre- dominated in the strange scene which was then acted. In the midst of all the great king's calamities, Ms passion for writing indifferent poetry grew stronger and stronger. Enemies all around him, despair in his heart, pil.s of corrosive sublimate hidden in his clothes, he poured forth hundreds upon hundreds of lines, hateful to gods and men the insipid dregs of Voltaire's Hippocrene the faint echo of the lyre of Chaulieu. It is amusing to compare what he did during the last months of 1757 with what he wrote during the same time. It may be doubted whether any equal portion of the life of Hannibal, of Caesar, or of Napoleon, will bear a comparison with that short ?-riod, the most brilliant in the history of Prussia and of Frederick. et at tliis very time the scanty leisure of the illustrious warrior was employed in producing odes and epistles, a little better than Cibber's, and a little worse than Ilayley's. Here and there a manly sentiment, which deserves to be in prose, makes its appearance in company with Prometheus and Orpheus, Elysium and Acheron, the plaintive Philo- mel, the poppies of Morpheus, and all the other frippery which, like a robe tossed by a proud beauty to her waiting-women, has long IK -en contemptuously abandoned by genius to mediocrity. We hardly know any instance of the strength and weakness of human nature so striking and so grotesque as the character of this haughty, vigilant, resolute, sagacious blue-stocking, half Mithridates and half Trissotin, bearing up against a world in arms, with an ounce of poison in one pocket and a quire of bad verses in the other. Frederick had some time before made advances towards a recon- ciliation with Voltaire, and some civil letters had passed between them. After the battle of Kolin their epistolary intercourse became, at least in seeming, friendly and confidential. We do not know any collection of letters which throw so much light on the darkest and most intricate parts of human nature as the correspondence of these strange beings after they had exchanged forgiveness. Both felt that the quarrel had lowered them in the public estimation. They ad- mired each other. They stood in need of each other. The great king wished to be handed down to posterity by the great writer. The great writer felt himself exalted by the homage of the great king. Yet the wounds which they had inflicted on each other were too deep to be effaced, or even perfectly healed. Not only did the scars remain ; the sore places often festered and bled afresh. The letters consisted for tlie most part of compliments, th*nks, 46 FREDERICK THE GREAT. offers of service, assurances of attachment. But if anything brought back to Kn-derick's recollection the cunning and mischievous pTenks In which Voltaire had provoked him, some expression of contempt and displriisurc broke forth in the midst of his eulogy. It was much worse when anything recalled to the mind of Voltaire the outrages wlurh he and his kinswoman had suffered at Frankfort. All at once liis (lowing panegyric is turned into invective. " Remember how you Iwhavedto me. For your sake I have iost Jie favor of my king. For your sake I am an exile from my country. I loved you.. 1 i rusted myself to you. I had no wish but to end my life in your service. And what was my reward? Stripped of all you hud bestowed on me, the key, the order, the pension, I was forced to fly from your territories. 1 was hunted as if I had been a deserter from your grenadiers. I was arrested, insulted, plundered. My niece was dragged in the mud of Frankfort by your soldiers us if she had been some wretched follower of your camp. You have great talents. You have good qualities. But you have one odious vice. You delight in the abasement of your fellow-creatures. You have brought disgrace on the name of philosopher. You have given some color to the slanders of the bigots who say that no confidence can bo placed in the justice or humanity of those who reject the ( 'hristian faith." Then the king answers with less heat, but with equal sever- ity : " You know that you behaved shamefully in Prussia. It is well for you that you had to deal with a man so indulgent to the infirm- ities of genius as lam. You richly deserved to see the inside of a dungeon. Your talents are not more widely known than your faith- lessness and your malevolence. The grave itself is no asylum from your spite. Maupertuis is dead; but you still go on calumniating and deriding him, as if you had not made him miserable enough while he was living. Let us have no more of this. And, above all, let me hear no more of your niece. I am sick to death of her name. 1 can bear with your faults for the sake of your merits ; but she has not written Mahomet or Merope." An explosion of this kind, it might be supposed, would necessarily put an end to all amicable communication. But it was not so. After (very outbreak of ill-humor this extraordinary pair became more lov- ing than before, and exchanged compliments and assurances of mutual regard with a wonderful air of sincerity. It may well be supposed that men "who wrote thus to each other were not wry guarded in what they said of each other. The English ambassador. .Mitchell, who knew that the King of Prussia was con- stantly writing to Voltaire with the greatest freedom on the most im- portamt subjects, was amazed to hear His Majesty designate this highly-favored correspondent as a bad-hearted fellow, the greatest rascal on th face of the earth. And the language which the poet held about the king was not much more respectful. It would probably have puzzled Voltaire himself to say what was FREDERICK THE GREAT. 47 lite real feeling towards Frederick. It was compounded of all senti- ments, from enmity to friendship, and from scorn to admiration ; and the proportions in which these elements were mixed Changed every moment. The old patriarch resembled the spoilt ehild who screams, stamps, cuffs, laughs, kisses, and cuddles within one-quarter of an hour. His resentment was not extinguished ; yet he was not without 'sympathy for his old friend. As a Frenchman, he wished success to the arms of his country. As a philosopher, IK; was anxious for the stability of a throne on which a philosopher sat. He longed both to save and to humble Frederick. There was one way, and only one, in which all his conflicting feelings could at once be gratified. If Fred- erick were preserved by the interference of France, if it were known thaffor that interference he was indebted to the mediation of Vol- taire, this would indeed be delicious revenge ; this would indeed be to heap coals of fire on that haughty head. Nor did the vain and rest- less poet think it impossible that he might, from his hermitage near the Alps, dictate peace to Europe. D'Estrees had quitted Hanover, and the command of the French army had been entrusted to the Duke of Richelieu, a man whose chief distinction was derived from his MI cress in gallantry. Richelieu was, in truth, the most eminent of that race of seducers by profession who furnished Crebillion the younger and La Clos with models for their heroes. In his earlier days, the royal house itself had not been secure from his presumptu- ous love. He was believed to have carried his conquests into ihe family of Orleans ; and some suspected that he was Hot unconcerned in the mysterious remorse which imbitterecl the last hours of the charming mother of Louis the Fifteenth. But the duke was now fifty years old. With a heart deeply corrupted by vice, a head long ac- customed to think only on trifles, an impaired constitution, an im- paired fortune, and, worst of all, a very red nose, he was entering on a dull, frivolous, and unrespected old age. Without one qualification for military command except that personal courage which was com- mon to him and the whole nobility of France, he had been placed at the head of the army of Hanover ; and in that situation he did his best to repair, by extortion and corruption, the injury which he had done to his property by a life of dissolute profusion. The Duke of Richelieu to the end of his life hated the philosophers as a sect not for those parts of their system which a good and wise man would have condemned, but for their virtues, for their spirit of free inquiry, and for their hatred of those social abuses of which he was himself the personification. But he, like many of those who thought with him, excepted Voltaire from the list of proscribed writers. He frequently sent flattering letters to Ferney. He did the patriarch the honor to borrow money of him, and even carried his condescending friendship so far as to forget to pay interest. Voltaire thought that it might be in his power to bring the duke and the King of Prussia into communication with each other. He wrote earnestly 48 FREDERICK T.iE GREAT. both ; and he so far succeeded that a correspondence between them was commenced But it was to very different means that Frederick was to owe his de- liverance. At the beginning of November, the net seemed to have closed completely round him. The Russians were in the field, and were spreading devastation through his eastern provinces. Silesia was overrun by the Austrians. A great French army was advancing from the west under the command of Marshal Soubise, a prince of the great Armorican house of Rohan. Berlin itself had been taken and plundered by the Croatians. Such was the situation from which Frederick extricated himself, with dazzling glory, in the short space of thirty days. He marched first against Soubise. On the 5th of November the armies met at Rosbach. The French were two to one ; but they \\ere ill-disciplined, and their general was a dunce. The tactics of Freder- ick and the well-regulated valor of the Prussian troops obtained a eomplete victory. Seven thousand of the invaders were made pris- oners. Their guns, their colors, their baggage, fell into the hands of the conquerors. Those who escaped fled as confusedly as a mob scat- tered by cavalry. Victorious in the west, the king turned his anus towards Silesia. In that quarter everything seemed to be lost. Bres- lau had fallen ; and Charles of Lorraine, with a mighty power, held the whole province. On the 5th of December, exactly one month af- ter the battle of Rosbach, Frederick, with forty thousand men, and Prince Charles, at the head of not less than sixty thousand, met at Leuthen hard by Breslau. The king, who was, in general, perluqw too much inclined to consider the common soldier as a mere machine, resorted, on this great day, to means resembling those which Bona- parte afterwards employed with such signal success for the purpose of stimulating military enthusiasm. The principal officers were con- voked. Frederick addressed them with great force and pathos, and directed them to speak to their men as he had spoken to them. When the armies were set in battle array, the Prussian troops were in a state of fierce excitement ; but their excitement showed itself after the fashion of a grave people. The columns advanced to the attack chanting, to the sound of drums and fifes, the rude hymns of the old Saxon Herhholds. They had never fought so well ; nor had the genius of their chief ever been so conspicuous. "That battle," said ^apoleon, "was a masterpiece. Of itself it is sufficient to entitle Frederick to a place in the first rank among generals." The victory was complete. Twenty-seven thousand Austrians were killed, wounded or taken ; fifty stand of colors, a hundred guns, four thousand wagons, fell into the hands of the Prussians. Breslau opened its gates ; Si- lesia was reconquered ; Charles of Lorraine retired to hide las shame and sorrow at Brussels ; and Frederick allowed his troops to take gome repose in winter quarters, after a campaign to the vicissitudes of which it will be difficult to tad any parallel in anint or modern history. FREDERICK THE GREAT. 40 The king's fame filled all the world. He liad, during the last year, maintained a contest, on terms of advantage, against three powers, the weakest of which had more than three times his resources. He had fought four great pitched battles against superior forces. Three of these battles he had gained ; and the defeat of Koliu, repaired as it had been, rather raised than lowered his military renown. The victory of Leutheu is, to this day, the proudest on the roll of Prus- sian fame. Leipsic, indeed, and Waterloo, produced more important consequences to mankind. But the glory or Leipsic must be shared by the Prussians with the Austriaus and Russians ; and at Waterloo the British infantry bore the burden and heat of the day. The vic- tory of Rosbach was, in a military point of view, less honorable than that of Leuthen, for it was gained over an incapable general and a disorganized army. But the moral effect which it produced was im- mense. All the preceding triumphs of Frederick had been triumphs over Germans, and could excite no emotions of natural pride among the German people. It was impossible that a Hessian or a Hanoverian could feel any patriotic exultation at hearing that Pomeranians slaughtered Moravians, or that Saxon banners had been hung in the churches of Berlin. Indeed, though the military character of the Germans justly stood high throughout the world, they could boast of no great day which belonged to them as a people ; of no Agincourt, of no Baunockburn. Most of their victories had been gained over each other ; and their most splendid exploits against foreigners 1 ad been achieved under the command' of Eugene, who was himself a foreigner. The news of the battle of Rosbach stirred the blood of the whole of the mighty population from the Alps to the Baltic, and from the borders of Courtland to those of Lorraine. Westphalia and Lower Saxony had been deluged by a great host of strangers, whose speech was unintelligible, and whose petulant and licentious manners had excited the strongest feelings of disgust and hatred. That great host had been put to flight by a small band of German warriors, led by a prince of German blood on tluvside of father and mother, and marked by the fair hair and the clear blue, eye of Germany. Never since the dissolution of the empire of Charlemagne had the Teutonic race won such a field against the French. The tidings called forth a general burst of delight and pride from the whole of the great family which spoke the various dialects of the ancient language of Arminius. The fame of Frederick began to supply, in some degree, the place of a common government and of a common capital. It became a rallying point for all true Germans a subject of mutual congratulations to the Bavarian and the Westphalian, to the citizen of FrankfWt and the citizen of Nuremburg. Then first it was manifest that the Germans were truly a nation. Then first was discernible that patriotic spirit which, in 1813, achieved the great deliverance of central Europe, and which still guards, and long will guard against foreign ambition, the old freedom of the Rhine. 60 FREDERICK THK (IREAT. Nor were the effects produced by that celebrated day merely politi cal. The greatest masters of German poetry and eloquence have ad- mitted that, though the great king neither valued nor understood his native language, though he looked on France as the only seat of taste and philosophy, yet, in his own despite, he did much to emancipate the genius of his countrymen from the foreign yoke; and that, in the act of vanquishing" Soubise, he was unintentionally rousing the spirit which soon began to question the literary precedence of Boileau and Voltaire. So strangely do events confound all the plans of man ! A prince who read only French, who wrote only French, who ranked as a French classic, became, quite unconsciously, the means of liberat- ing half the Continent from the dominion of that French criticism <>f which he was himself to the end of his life a slave. Yet even the enthusiasm of Germany in favor of Frederick hardly equalled the enthusiasm of England. The birthday of our ally was celebrated with as much enthusiasm as that of our own sovereign, and at night the streets of London were in a blaze with illuminations. Portraits of the Hero of Rosbach, with his cocked hat and long pigtail, were in every house. An attentive observer will, at this day, find in the parlors of old-fashioned inns, and in the portfolios of printsellers, twenty portraits of Frederick for one of George II. The sign-paint- ers were everywhere employed in touching up Admiral Vernon into the King of Prussia. Some young Englishmen of rank proposed to visit Germany as volunteers, for the purpose of learning the art of war under the greatest of commanders. This last proof of British attachment and admiration Frederick politely but firmly declined. His cam]) was no place for amateur students of military science. The Prussian discipline was rigorous even to cruelty. The officers, while in the field, were expected to practice an abstemiousness and self-de- nial such as was hardly surpassed by the most rigid monastic orders. However noble their birth, however high their rank in the service, they were not permitted to eat from anything better than pewter. It was a high crime even in a count and field-marshal to have a single silver spoon among his baggage. Gay*young Englishmen of twenty thousand a year, accustomed to liberty and to luxury, would not easi- ly submit to these Spartan restraints. The king could not venture to keep them in order as he kept his own subjects in order. Situ- ated as he was with respect to England, he could not well imprison or shoot refractory Howards and Cavendishes. On the other hand, the example of a few fine gentlemen, attended by chariots and livery servants, eating in plate, and drinking champagne and toky, was enough to corrupt his whole army. He thought it best to make a stand at first, and civilly refused to admit such dangerous companions among his troops. The help of England was bestowed in a manner far more useful and more acceptable. An annual subsidy of near seren hundred thousand pounds enabled the king to add probably more than fifty FREDERICK THE GREA^. 51 thousand men to his army. Pitt, now at the height of power and popularity, undertook" the task of defending Western Germany against France, and asked Frederick only for the loan of a general. The general selected was Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, who had attained high distinction in the Prussian service. He was put at the head of an army, partly English, partly Hanoverian, partly composed of mercenaries hired from the petty princes of the empire. He soon vindicated the choice of the two allied courts, and proved himself the, second general of the age. Frederick passed the winter at Breslau, in reading, writing, and preparing for the next campaign. The havoc which the war had made among his troops was rapidly repaired, and in the spring of 1758 he was again ready for the conflict. Prince Ferdinand kept the French in check. The king, in the mean time, after attempting against the Austrians some operations which led to no very important result, marched to encounter the Russians, who, slaying, burning,' and wasting whatever they turned, had penetrated into the heart of his realm. He gave them battle at Zorndorf, near Frankfort on the Oder. The tight was long and bloody. Quarter was neither given nor taken ; for the Germans -and Scythians regarded each other with bitter aversion, and the sight of the ravages committed by the half- savage invaders had incensed the king and his army. The Russians were overthrown with great slaughter, and for a few months no fur- ther danger was to be apprehended from the east. A day of thanksgiving was proclaimed by the king, and was cele- brated with pride and delight by his people. The rejoicings in Eng- land were not less enthusiastic or less sincere. This may be selected as the point of time at which the military glory of Frederick reached the zenith. In the short space of three-quarters of a year he had won three great battles over the armies of three mighty and warlike monarchies France, Austria, and Russia. But it was decreed that the temper of that strong mind should be tried by both extremes of fortune in rapid succession. Close upon this bright series of triumphs came a series of disasters, such as would have blighted the fame and Itroken the heart of almost any other commander. Yet Frederick, in the midst of his calamities, was still an object of admiration to his subjects, his allies, and his enemies.- Overwhelmed by adversity, sick of life, he still maintained the con- test, greater in defeat, in flight, and in what seemed hopeless ruin, than on the fields of kis proudest victories. Having vanquished the Russians, he hastened into Saxony to op- pose the troops of the Empress-Queen, commanded by Daun, the most cautious, and Laudohn, the most inventive and enterprising of her generals. These two celebrated commanders agreed on a scheme, in which the prudence of the one and the vigor of the other seem to have happily combined. At dead of night they surprised the king im his camp at Hochkirchen. His presence of mind saved his troops 83 FREDERICK THE from destruction, but nothing could save them from defeat and severe ]<>ss. Marshal Keith was among the slain. The first roar of the guna roused the noble exile from his rest, and he was instantly in the front of the battle. He received a dangerous wound, but refused to quit the field, and was in the act of rallying his broken troops, when an Austrian bullet terminated his checkered and eventful life. The misfortune was serious. But, of all generals, Frederick un- derstood best how to repair defeat, and Daun understood least how to iin i trove victory. In a few days the Prussian army was as formid- able as before the battle. The prospect was, however, gloomy. An Austrian army under General Harsch had invaded Silesia, and in- vested the fortress of Neisse. Daun, after his success at Hochkirchen, had \vrittentoHarsch in very confident terms: "Go on with your operations against Neisse. Be quite at ease as to the king. I will give you a good account of him." In truth, the position of the Prus- sians was full of difficulties. Between them and Silesia lay the vic- torious army of Daun. It was not easy for them to reach Silesia at all. If they did reach it, they left Saxony exposed to the Austrians. But the vigor and activity of Frederick surmounted every obstacle. He made a circuitous march of extraordinay rapidity, passed Daun, hastened into Silesia, raised the seige of Neisse, and drove Harsch into Bohemia. Daun availed himself of the king's absence to attack Dresden. The Prussians defended it desperately. The inhabitants of that wealthy and polished capital begged in vain for mercy from the garrison within and from the beseigers without. The beautiful suburbs were burned to the ground. It was clear that the town, if won at all, would be won street by street by the bayonet. At this con- juncture came news that Frederick, having cleared Silesia of his ene- mies, was returning by forced marches into Saxony. Daun retired from before Dresden and fell back into the Austrian territories. The king, over heaps of ruins, made his triumphant entry into the un- hajipy metropolis, which had so cruelly expiated the weak and perfid- ious policy of its sovereign. It was now the 20th of November. The cold weather suspended military operations, and the king again took up his winter-quarters at Breslau. The third of the seven terrible years was over, and Frederick still .stood his ground. He had been recently tried by domestic as well as by military disasters. On the 14th of October, the day on which he was drt'eated at Hochkirchen, the day on the anniversary of which, forty -eight years later, a defeat far more tremendous laid the Prus- sian monarchy in the dust, died Wilhelmina, Margravine of Ban? nth. From the portraits which we have of her, by her own han , and by ihe hands of the most discerning of her contemporaries, we should pronounce her to have been coarse, indelicate, and a good hater, but n 't destitute of kind and generous feelings. Her mind, naturally strong and observant, had been highly cultivated ; and she was, and deserved to be, Frederick's favorite sister He felt the loss as nmclj FREDERICK THE GREAT. 53 as it was in his iron nature to feel the loss of anything but a province or a battle. At Breslau during the winter he was indefatigable in his poetical labors. The most spirited lines perhaps that he ever wrote are to b found in a bitter lampoon on Louis and Madame de Pampadour, which he composed at this time and sent to Voltaire. The verses were, indeed, so good, that Voltaire was afraid that he might himself be suspected of having written them, or at least of having corrected them ; and partly from fright partly, we fear, from love of mischief sent them to the Duke of Choiseul, then prime minister of France. Ohoiseul very wisely detennined to encounter Frederick at Freder- ick's own weapons, and applied for assistance to Palissot, who had some skill as a versifier, and who, though he had not yet made him- self famous by bringing Rousseau and Helvetius on the stage, was known to possess some little talent for satire. Palissot produced some very stinging lines on the moral and literary character of Frederick, and these lines the duke sent to Voltaire. This war of couplets, fol- lowing close on the carnage of Zorndorf and the conflagration of Dresden, illustrates well the strangely compounded character of the King of Prussia. At this moment he was assailed by a new enemy. Benedict XIV., the best and wisest of the two hundred and fifty successors of St. Peter, was no more. During the short interval between his reign and that of his disciple Ganganelli, the chief seat in the Church of Rome was filled by Rezzonico, who took the name of Clement XIII. This absurd priest determined to try w at the weight of his authority could effect in favor of the orthodox Maria Theresa against a heretic king. At the high mass on Christmas-day, a sword with a rich belt and scabbard, a hat of crimson velvet lined with ermine, and a dove of pearls, the mystic symbol of the Divine Comforter, were solemnly blessed by the supreme pontiff, and were sent with great ceremony to Marsha] Daun, the conqueror of Kolin and Hochkirchen. This mark of favor had more than once been bestowed by the Popes on the great champions of the faith. Similar honors had been paid, more than six centuries earlier, by Urban II. to Godfrey of Bouillon. Similar hon- ors had been conferred n Alba for destroying the liberties of the Low Countries, and on John Sobiesky after the deliverance of Vienna. But the presents which were received with profound reverence by the Baron of the Holy Sepulchre in the eleventh century, and which had not wholly lost their value even in the seventeenth century, appeared inexpressibly ridiculous to a generation which read Montesquieu and Voltaire. Frederick wrote sarcastic verses on the gifts, the giver, and the receiver. But the public wanted no prompter ; and a universal roar of laughter from Petersburg to Lisbon reminded the Vatican that the age of crusades was over. The fourth campaign, the most disastrous of all the campaigns of this fearful war, had now opened. The Austrians filled Saxony, and 54 FREDERICK THE GREAT. miaced Berlin. The Russians defeated the king's grnorr.ls on th Oder, threatened Silesia, effected a junction with Laiulohn, and im- trenchcd themselves strongly at Kunersdorf. Frederick hastened to attack them. A great battle was fought. During the earlier part of the day everything yielded to the impetuosity of the Prussians, and to the skill of their chief. The lines were forced. Half the Russian guns were taken. The king sent off a courier to Berlin with two lines, announcing a complete victory. But, in tho mean time, the stubborn Russians, defeated yet unbroken, had taken up their stand in an almost impregnable position, on an eminence where the Jews of Frankfort were wont to bury their dead. Here the battle re-om- menced. The Prussian infantry, exhausted by six hours of hard fighting, under a sun which equalled the trophical heat, were yet brought up repeatedly to the attack, but in ^ain. The king led three charges in person. Two horses were killed ruder him. The officers of his staff fell all around him. His coat was pierced by several bullets. All was in vain. His infantry wai driven back with fright- ful slaughter. Terror began to spread fast from man to man. At that moment, the fiery cavalry of Laudolm, still fresh, rushed on the wavering ranks. Then followed a universal rout. Frederick him- self was on the point of falling into the hands of the conquerors, and was with difficulty saved by a gallant officer, who, at the head of a handful of Hussars, made good a diversion of a few minutes. Shattered in body, shattered in min^, the king reached that night a village which the Cossacks had plundered ; and there, in a ruined and deserted farm-house, flung himself on a heap of straw. He had sent to Berlin a second dispatch very different from his first : " Let the royal family leave Berlin. Send the archives to Potsdam. The town may make terms with tV enemy." The defeat was in truth overwhelming. Of fifty thousand men, who had that morning marched under the black eagles, not three thousand remained together. The king bethought him again of his corrosive sublimate, and wrote to bid adieu to his friends, and to give directions as to the measures to be taken in the event of his death; ' I have no resource ]ft" such is the language of one of his let- tors " all is lost. I will not survive the ruin of my country. Fare- well, forever." Hut the mutual jealousies of the confederates prevented them from following up their victory. They lost a few days in loitering an 1 Squabbling ; and a few days improved by Frederick were worth" more than the years of other men. On the 'morning after the battle, ho had got together eighteen thousand of his troops. Very soqn his fonv amounted to thirty thousand. Guns were procured from the neighboring fortresses ; and there was again an army. Berlin was, for I lie present, safe ; but calamities came pouring on the king in un- interrupted succession. One of his generals, with a large body of troops, was taken at Maxeu ; another was defeated at Meiseu ;"auj FREDERICK THE GREAT. &5 when at length the campaign of 1759 closed, in the midsft of a rig orous winter, the situation of Prussia appeared desperate. The only consoling circumstance was, that in the West Ferdinand of Brims wick had been more fortunate than his master ; and by a series of ex- ploits, of which the battle of Minden was the most glorious, had re moved all apprehension of danger on the side of France. The fifth year was now about to commence. It seemed impossible that the Prussian terri ories, repeatedly devasted by hundreds of thou- sands of invaders, could longer support the contest. But the king car ried on war as no European power has ever carried on war, except the Committee of Public Safety during the great agony of the French Revolution, lie governed his kingdom as he would have governed a besieged town, not caring to what extent property was destroyed, or the pursuits of civil life suspended, so that he did but make head against the enemy As long as there was a man left in Prussia, that man might carry a musket as long as there was a horse left, that horse might draw artillery The coin was debased, the civil function- aries were left unpaid , in some provinces civil government altogether ceased to exist. But there were still rye-bread and potatoes ; there were still lead and gunpowder ; and, while the means of sustaining and destroying life remained, Frederick was determined to fight it out to the very last. The earlier part of the campaign of 1760 was unfavorable to him. Berlin was again occupied by the enemy. Great contributions were levied on the inhabitants, an 1 the royal palace was plundered. But at length, after two years of calamity, victory came back to his arms. At Lignitz he gained a great battle over Laudohn ; at Torgau, after a day of horrible carnage, he triumphed over Daun. The fifth year closed and still the event was in suspense. In the countries where the war had raged, the misery and exhaustion were more appalling than ever ; but still there were left men and beasts, arms and food, and still Frederick fought on. In truth he had now been baited into savageness. His heart was ulcerated with hatred. The implara! le resentment with which his enemies persecuted him, though originally provoked by his own unprincipled ambition, excited in him a thirst for vengeance which he did not even attempt to conceal. "It is hard," he says in one of his letters, " for a man to bear what I bear. I begin to feel that, as the Italians say, revenge is a pleasure for the gods My philosophy is worn out by suffering. I am no saint like those of whom we read in the legends ; and I will own that I should die content if only I could first inflict a portion of the misery which I endure." Borne up by such feelings, he strugglad with various success, but ponstant glory, through the campaign of 1761. On the whole, the result of this campaign was disastrous to Prussia. No great battle was gained by the enemy ; but, in spite of the desperate bounds of the hunted tiger, the circle of pursuers was fast closing round him. 56 FREDERICK THE GREAT. Laudohn had surprised, the important fortress of Schweidnitz. Wrtli that fortress, half of Silesia and the command of the most important defiles through the mountains, had been transferred to the Austrians. The Russians had overpowered the king's generals in Pomerania. The country was so completely desolated that he began, by his own confession, to look round him with blank despair, unable to imagine where recruits, horses, or provisions were to be found. Just at this time two great events brought on a complete change in the relations of almost all the powers of Europe. One of those events was the retirement of Mr. Pitt from office ; the other was the death of the Empress Elizabeth of Russia. The retirement of Pitt seemed to be an omen of utter ruin to the House of Brandenburg. His proud and vehement nature was incapable of anything Lhat looked like either fear or treachery. He had often declared that while he was in power, England should never make a peace of Utrecht should never, for any selfish object, abandon an ally even in the last extremity of distress. The continental war was liis own war. He had been bold enough he who in former times had attacked, with irresistible powers of oratory, the Hanoverian policy of Carteret, and the German subsidies of Newcastle to de- clare that Hanover ought to be as dear to us as Hampshire, and that he would conquer America in Germany, He had fa.len ; and the power which he had exercised, not always with discretion, but always with vigor and genius, had devolved on a favorite who was the rep- ative of the Tory party of the party which had thwarted Wil- liam, which had persecuted Maryborough, and which had given up the ( 'atalans to the vengeance of Philip of Anjou. To make peace with France to shake off with all, or more than all, the speed com- patible with decency, every Continental connection, these were among the chief objects of the new minister. The policy then followed in- spired Frederick with an unjust, but deep and bitter aversion to the English name ; and produced effects which are still felt throughout the civilized world. To that policy it was owing that, some years Kngland could not find on the whole Continent a single ally to stand by her in her extreme need against the House of Bourbon. To that policy it was owing that Frederick, alienated from England, was compelled to connect himself closely during his later years with Russia ; and was induced reluctantly to assist in that great crime, the fruitful parent of other great crimes the first partition of Poland. Scarcely had the retreat of Mr. Pitt deprived Prussia of her only friend, wlwn the death of Elizabeth produced an entire revolution in' lite politics of the North. The Grand Duke Peter, her nephew, who now ascended the Russian throne, was not merely free from the prejudi- ces which his aunt had entertained against Frederick, but was a wor- shipper, a servile imitator, a Boswell, of th great king. The days of the new czar's government were few and evil, but sufficient to produce a change in the whole state of Christendom, lie set the FREDERICK, THE Prussian prisoners at liberty, fitted them out decently, and sent theia back to their mastoi , he withdrew his troops from the provinces which Elizabeth had decided on incorporating with her dominions, and absolved all those Prussian subjects, who had been compelled to swear fealty to Russia, from their engagements. Not content with concluding peace on terms favorable to Prussia, he solicited rank in the Prussian service, dressed himself in a Prus- feian uniform, wore the Black Eagle of Prussia on his breast, made ([preparations for visiting Prussia, in order to have an interview with 'the object of his idolatry, and actually sent fifteen thousand excel- lent troops to reinforce the shattered army of Frederidck. Thus strengthened, the king speedly repaired the losses of the preceding year, reconquered Silesia, defeated Daun at Buckersdorf, invested and retook Schweidnitz, and, at the close of the year, presented to the forces of Maria Theresa a front as formidable as before the great reverses of 1759. Before the end of the campaign, his friend the Emperor Peter having, by a series of absurd insults to the in- stitutions, manners, and feelings of his people, united them in hostility to his person and government, was deposed and murdered. The empress, who under the title of Catherine the Second, now as- sumed the supreme power, was at the commencemen^of her admin- istration, by no means partial to Frederick, and refused to permit her troops to remain under his command. But she observed the peace made by her husband ; and Prussia was no longer threatened by danger from the East. England and France at the same time paired off together. They concluded a treaty by which they bound themselves to observe neu- irality with respect to the German war. Thus the coalitions on both "rides were dissolved ; and the original enemies, Austria and Prussia, remained alone confronting each other. Austria had undoubtedly by far greater means than Prussia, and was less exhausted by hostilities ; yet it seemed hardly possible that Austria could effect alone what she had in vain attempted to effect when supported by France on the one side, and by Russia on the other. Danger also began to menace the imperial house from another quarter. The Ottoman Porte held threatening language, and a hundred thou sand Turks were mustered on the frontiers of Hungary. The proud and revengeful spirit of the Empress-Queen at length gave way ; and, in February, 1763, the peace of Hubertsburg put an end to the conflict which had, during seven years, devastated Germany. The king ceded nothing. The whole Continent in arms had proved una- ble to tear Silesia from that iron grasp. The war was over. Frederick was safe. His glory was beyond the reach of envy. If he had not made conquests as vast as those of Al- exander, of Caesar, of Napoleon if he had not, on field of battle, en. joyed the constant success of Marlborough and Wellington he had yet given an example unrivalled in history of what capacity ad res 58 FREDERICK THE OTIEAT. olution can effect against the greatest superiority of power and the utmost spite of fortune. He entered Berlin in triumph, after an ab- seoce of more than six years. The streets were brilliantly lighted up, and as he passed along in an open carriage, with Ferdinand of Brunswick at his side, the multitude saluted him with loud praises and blessing-. He was moved by those marks of attachment, and re- peatedly exclaimed, " Long live my dear people ! Long live my chil- dren ! " Yet, even in the midst of that gay spectacle, he could not but perceive everywhere the traces of destruction and decay. T ho city had been more than once plundered. The population had con siderably diminished. Berlin, however, had suffered little when com- pared with most part-; of the kingdom. The ruin of private fortunes, (he distress of all ranks, was such as might appal the firmest mind. Almost every province had been the seat of war, and of war conducted with merciless ferocity. Clouds of Croatians had descended on Si- lesia. Tens of thousands of Cossacks had been let loose on Pome- ran ia and Brandenburg. The mere contributions levied by the inva- ders amounted, it was said, to more than a hundred millions of dol- lars ; and the value of what they extorted was probably much less than the value of what they destroyed. The fields lay uncultivated. The very see^corn had been devoured in the madness of hunger. Famine and contagious maladies, the effect of famine, had swept away the herds and nocks ; and there was a reason to fear that a great pestilence among the human race was likely to follow in the train of that tremendous war. Near fifteen thousand houses had been burned to the ground. The population of the kingdom had in seven years decreased to the frightful extent o^ten per cent. A sixth of the males capable of bearing arms had actually perished on the field of battle. In some districts no laborers except women were seen in the fields at harvest; time. In others, the traveller passed shuddering through a succession of silent villages, in which not a single inhabitant remained. The currency had been debased ; the authority of laws and magistrates had been suspended; the whole social system was deranged. For, during that convulsive struggle, everything that was not military vio- lence \vas anarchy. Even the army was disorganized. Some great generals and a crowd of excellent officers had fallen, and it had been impossible to supply their places. The difficulty of finding recruits had. towards the close of the war, been so great, that selection and rejection were impossible. Whole battalions were composed of'de- serters or of prisoners. It was hardly to be hoped that thirty years of repose and industry would repair the ruin produced by seven years of havoc. One consolatory circumstance, indeed, there was. No debt had been incurred. The burdens of the war had been terrible, almost insupportable ; but no arrear was left to embarrass the finances in the time of peace.* * The reader will not need to be reminded that the narrative of Macaulay end* FREDERICK THE GREAT. 59 It remains for us, in order to become thoroughly acquainted with the man, to contemplate Frederick's character in peace. The first and most immediate object of Frederick's attention and anxiety was the re-establishment of his army, in order that no enemy might hope to reap advantage from a sudden renewal of hostilities. In order to bring the recently levied troops upon a par with his vet- eran, well-trained warriors of whom, however, but a very small number still remained military exercise and drilling were enforced with the most rigorous exactness. But the illustrious monarch him- self, when he beheld the whole of Europe adopt his military tactics, was deceived in the over-estimation of their value. The system of maintaining standing armies was carried to the highest point, and be- came the principal object in the administration of every State ; grave utility degenerated into mere display, until a grand convulsion of the world made its vanity and puerility but too apparent. The care taken by Frederick to effect the restoration of his over whelmed country was a much more beneficent employment of his energies, and was productive of incalculable good. It formed the most imperishable leaf in his wreath of glory. The corn which was already bought up for the next campaign he bestowed upon the most destitute of his people, as seed for sowing, together with all his su- perfluous horses. The taxes were remitted for six months in Silesia, and for two years in Pomerania and Neumark, which were completely devastated. Nay, the king, in order to encourage agriculture and in- dustry, appropriated large sums of money for that purpose in pro- portion to the greatness of the exigency, and these various sums amounted altogether during the four-and- twenty years of his reign, after the peace of Hubertsburg, to no less than twenty-four millions of dollars. Such noble generosity redounds still more to the glory of Frederick, inasmuch as it was only practicable through the exercise of great economy, and to promote which he subjected himself to every personal sacrifice. His maxim was that his treasure belonged not to himself, but to the people who supplied it ; and while many other princes not. hearing in mind the heavy drops of sweat which ad- hered to each of the numerous gold pieces wrung from their subjects only thought of dissipating the entire mass in the most unlicensed prodigality and waste, he lived in a style so simple and frugal, that out of the sum appropriated to the maintenance of his court he saved annually nearly a million of dollars. lie explained on one occasion to M. de Launay, the assessor of in- direct taxes, the principles by which ho was actuated in this respect, in clear and distinct terms : "Louis XV. and I," he sai4,"are born here. Tile descent from th^ sunny uplands of his style is sudden and painful, but there is no lu-lp for it. Ilerr Kohlrauf-ch goes on honestly enou> h, and we must let him finish the story or po without it altogether. Patience ; it will soon be over, and as n sugarplum "or 'rood children, we promise younear the close a gorgeous picture of the great king in liis old aye, by Carlyle. FREDERICK THE GREAT. more needy than the poorest of our subjects ; for there are bnt few among them who do not possess a small inheritance, or who cannot at least earn it by their labor and industry ; while he and I possess noth- ing, neither can we earn anything but what must belong to the State. We are merely the stewards appointed for the administration of the general fund ; and if, as such, we were to apply to our own personal expenditure more than is reasonably necessary, we should, by such proceeding, not only bring down upon ourselves severe condemnation in the first place for extravagance, but likewise for having fraudu- lently taken possession of that which was confided to our charge for the public weal." The particular care and interest shown by the king in the cultiva- tion of the soil, produced its speedy improvement. Large tracts of 'land were rendered arable, fresh supplies of laborers were procured from other countries, and where formerly marsh and moor were gen- erally prevalent, fertile, flourishing cornfields were substituted instead. These happy results, which greeted the eye of Frederick whenever he took his regularly- appointed journeys throughout his dominions, were highly grateful to his feelings ; while during these tours of survey nothing escaped his acutely observing mind ; so much so, that few sovereigns could boast of such a thorough knowledge of their domains ->-even to the most trifling details as the King of Prussia acquired of his own estates through continual and indefatigable application to this one object. Silesia, which had suffered so much, was especially dear to his feelings, and to that territory he devoted particular attention ; when, therefore, upon a general census in the year 1777, he found it contained 180,000 more inhabitants than in the year 1756, when the war commenced ; and when he perceived the losses sustained during that war thus amply repaired, and the glorious results produced by agricultural labor and commercial enterprise, he, in the gladness at his heart, expressed, in a letter to his friend Jordan, the sensations he felt at beholding the flourishing state of a province, the condi- tion of which was but a short time before so sadly depressed and miserable. Industry is indispensable in a people who depend on their energy and activity for their rank among nations ; but this rank is not the only attendant advantage : a benefit far greater is the fresh, healthy vigor it imparts to the people. And in this respect Frederick the Great was a striking example, truly worthy of imitation by all his subjects ; for even during the early period of his life he already wrote to his friend Jordan thus : " You are quite right in believing that I work hard ; I do so to enable me to live, for nothing so nearly ap- proaches the likeness of death as the half -slumbering, listless state of idleness." And, subsequently, when he had become old and feeble, this feeling still retained its power, and operated with all its original influence upon his mind, for in another letter to the same friend he wys . " I still feel as formerly the same anxiety for action ; as then.. FREDERICK THE GREAT. til I no? still long to work and be busy, and my mind and body are iu continual ontention. It is no longer requisite that I should live, un- less I can live and work." And truly, in making a profitable use of his time, King Frederick displayed a perseverance which left him without a rival ; and even in his old age he never swerved from the original plan he had laid down and followed from his earliest manhood, for even on the very day before his death he was to be seen occupied with the business of his government. Each hour had its occupation, and the one grand prin- ciple which is the soul of all industry viz., to leave over from to-duy nothing for the morrow passed with Frederick as the inviolable law of his whole life. The entire day commencing at the hour of four in the morning and continuing until midnight, accordingly five- sixths of the day was devoted to some occupation of the mind or heart, for in order that even the hour of repast might not be wholly monopolized by the mere gratification of the stomach, Frederick assembled around him at midday and in the evening a circle of intel- lectual men, and these conversaziones in which the king himself took an important share were of such an animated and enlivening nature that they were not inaptly compared to the entertainments of Socrates himself. Unfortunately, however, according to the taste of that age, nothing but witticisms and humorous sallies were made the subject of due appreciation and applause. Vivacity of idea promptly expressed and strikingly ttpr^pttn allusions wore the order of the day, while profundity of thought and subjects of more grave and serious discus- siim were banished as ill-timed and uncalled for a necessary conse- quence arising from the exclusive adoption of the French language, which formed the medium of communication at these reunions of Frederick the (ireat. The rest of the day was passed in the perusal of official dispatches, private correspondence, and ministerial docu- ments, to each of which he added his replies and observations in the margin. After having gone through this all-important business routine of the day, he directed his attention to the more recreative occupations of his pleasure-grounds and literary compositions, of which latter Frederick has left behind him a rich collection; and finally, as a last resource of amusement, he occasionally devoted a few stolen moments to his flute, upon which he was an accomplished performer. This, his favorite instrument, indeed, like an intimate and faithful friend, served often to allay the violent excitements of his spirit ; and while he strolled with it through his suite of rooms, often for hours together, his thoughts, as he h^nself relates, became more and more collected, and his mind better prepared for calm and serious meditation. Nevertheless, he never permitted affairs of state to be neglected for the sake of the enjoyments he sought both in music and in poetry ; and in this point of view Frederick's character must ever command respect and admiration. The government of Frederick was despotic in the strictest sense of g FREDERICK THE GREAT. the word ; everything emanated from the king, and everything r verted to him again. He never accorded any share in the administra- tion to an assembly of States, nor even to the State Council, which, composed of the most enlightened men, would have been able to have presented to their sovereign, in a clear and comprehensive light, the bearings of the intricate questions connected with government. He felt in himself the power to govern alone, seconded by the strongest desire of making his people happy and great. Thence it appeared to his mind that the predominant strength of a State was based upon the means which are the readiest and the most efficacious in the hands of one person, viz., in his army and in the treasury. His chief aim, therefore, was to manage that these two powerful implements of government should be placed in the most favorable condition possible ; and thus we find that Frederick often sought the means to obtain this, his grand ob- ject, without sufficiently taking into consideration the effect they might, subsequently produce upon the disposition and morality of the nation. In accordance with this principle, he, in the year 1764, invited a dis- tinguished fermier-general of France, Helvetius, to Berlin, in order to consult him upon the means of augmenting the revenues of the State ; lind in consequence of his suggestions, measures were adopted which were extremely obnoxious to the public, and caused many to defraud, instead of co-operating with, the government. At the same time, however, by these and other means resorted to by the king, the reve nues of the kingdom were increased considerably. It must, however, be advanced in Frederick's vindication, firstly, that he adopted these measures, not for his own individual advantage, but for the benefit of all ; and necondly we must again repeat it that the great errors of the age completely obscured his own view. With what eagerness would not his clear mind have caught at the enlightenment produced by reform, had he but lived in a time when freedom of thought was more appreciated for to him this freedom of thought was so dear that he never attacked the public expression of opinion. His subjects enjoyed under his reign, among other privileges, that of the liberty of the press ; and he himself gave free scope to the shafts of censure and ridicule aimed against his public and private character, for the consciousness of his own persevering endeavors in the service of his country, and of his sincere devotion to his duties, elevated him beyond ell petty susceptibility. The chief object of the king's care was a warch into truth and enlightenment, as it was then understood. But this enlightenment consisted in a desire to understand everything ; to iimly/e, dissect, and demolish. Whatever appeared inexplicable u:is nt once rejected ; faith, love, hope, and filial respect all those feelings which have their seat in the inmost recesses of the soul wera destroyed in their germination. But this annihilating agency was not confined to the State ; it ma&. ifested itself also in science, in art, and even in religion. The Frencb were the promoters of this phenomenon, and in this they wer eveu* FREDERICK THE GREAT. 68 Kftlly imitated throughout the world, but more especially in Ger- many. Superficial ornament passed for profound wisdom, and witty, sarcastic phraseology assumed the place of soundness and sincerity of expression. Nevertheless, even at this time there were a few chosen men who were able to recognize that which was true and just, and raised their voices accordingly ; and, in the world of intellect, the names of Lessing, Klopstock, Goethe, etc , need alone be mentioned, being, as they were, the founders of a more sterling age. They wero joined by many others, and, thus united, they constituted an intellec- tual phalanx in opposition to the progress made by the sensual French school. These intellectual reformers were soon strengthened by such auxiliaries as Kant, Ficht j , Jacobi, etc., who advanced firmly under the banner of science ; and from such beginnings grew, by degrees, that powerful mental reaction which has already achieved such mighty things, and led the way to greater results still. This awakening of the Geraian mind was unnoticed by King Fred- erick ; he lived in the world of French refinement, separate and soli- tary, as on an island. The waves of the new, rushing stream of lif passed without approaching him, and struck against the barriers by which he was enclosed. His over-appreciation and patronage of for- eigners, however, impelled the higher classes of society to share in his sentiments, equally as much as his system of administration had served as a model for other rulers to imitate. Several among his contemporaries resolved, like him, to reign independently, but with- out possessing the same commanding genius, whence, however well- intentioned, they were wrecked in their career among whom may bm more especially included Peter III. of Russia, Gustavus III. of Swe- den, and Joseph II. of Germany. In the year 1765 Joseph II. was acknowledged as successor to his father, Francis I., who died in the same year, but whose acts as em- peror present little or nothing worthy of record. His son, however, was on this very account the more anxious to effect great changes to transform ancient into modern institutions, and to devote the great and predominating power with which he was endowed towards re- modelling the entire condition of his States. All his projects, how- ever, were held in abeyance until the death of his mother, Maria Theresa, in 1780, who, ever wise and active, had, even to the last moments of her existence, exercised all her power and influence in the administration of affairs ; and accordingly her maternal authority operated effectually upon his feelings as a son, and served for a time to suspend the accomplishment of his desires. Meantime, in the in- terval between the years 1765 and 1780, various events took place which exercised an important influence upon the last ten years of his mgn. Among the rost may be more especially mentioned the dis- memberment of Poland in 1773, and the war of the Bavarian tuccas- *on in 1778. Augustus III , King of Poland, died in the year 1765, leaving be- A.B. 8 54 FREDERICK TEH GREAT. hind him a grandson, only as yet a minor ; consequently tlie house of Saxony, which had held possession of the throne of Poland during a spnceof sixty-six years, now lost it. Both Russia and Prussia stepped forward forthwith, and took upon themselves the arrangement of the affairs of Poland : an interference which that nation was now unable to resist, for, strong and redoubtable as it had been formerly, dissen- sion hud so much reduced its resources that it was at this moment wholly incapable of maintaining or even acting for itself. .Both powers required that Poland should choose for her sovereign a native- born prince, and an army of ten thousand Russians which suddenly advanced upon Warsaw, and an equal number of Prussian troops as- sembled upon the frontiers, produced the election of Stanislaus Ponia- towski to the throne. Henceforth there was no longer an imperial diet held at which foreigners did not endeavor to bring into effect all their influence. Shortly after this event, a war took place between Russia and Tur- key, in which the former took possession of Moldavia and Walla- chia, which that power was extremely desirous of retaining. This, however, Austria opposed most strenuously, lest Russia should be- come too powerful, and Frederick the Great found himself in a dilemma how to maintain the balance between the two parties. The most expedient means of adjustment appeared in the end to be the spoliation of a country which was the least able to oppose it ; viz., Poland; and, accordingly, a portion of its territory was seized and shared between the three powers Russia, Prussia, and Austria. With whom this idea first originated has not been clearly ascertained, but it is easy to_see that it was quite in accordance with the character of the times. For as the wisdom of that age only based its calcula- tions upon the standard of the senses, and estimated the power of States merely by their square miles, amount of population, soldiers, and revenue, the grand aim of the then State policy was to devote Tory effort towards aggrandizement; nothing was held more desir- able than some fresh conquest, which might advantageously round off a kingdom, while all consideration of equity and justice was forced to yield before this imperious principle. When one of the larger States affected such an acquisition, the others, alarmed, considered the balance of Europe compromised and endangered. In this case, however, the three kingdoms bordering upon Poland,- having shared between them the spoil, were each augmented in pro- portion, whence all fear of danger was removed. This system had Lecome so superficial, so miserable and absurd, that they lost sight (altogether of the principle that a just equilibrium and th permanent afety of all can only be secured by the inviolable preservation of the ights of nations. The partition of Poland was the formal remmcia- If of that system of equipoise, and served as the precursor of ill those great revolutions, dismemberments, and transformations to- gether with all those ambitious attempts at universal monarchy, FREDERICK THE GREAT. 65 Curing a space of fivo-and-twenty years, were tlie means of iOg Europe to her very foundations. The ]wopk of Poland, menaced as they were in tkree quarters, were forced iu the Autumn of 1778 to submit to the dismemberment of their country, of which, accordingly, three thousand square miles were forthwith divided between Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Maximilian Joseph, elector of Bavaria, having died in 1777 without issue, the inheritance of his estates and electoral dignity came into the hands oi' the elector palatine. The emperor. Joseph, however, with his usual rashness, resolved to avail himself of this inheritance in favor of Austria : he accordingly raked up old claims and marched suddenly with his army into Bavaria, of which he took immediate possession. 1\e pacific palatine, Charles Theodore, thus surprised and overawed, signed a treaty by which he ceded two-thirds of Bava- ria to the housj- of Austria in order to secure to himself possession of at least the oll.^r third. The conduct of Austria on this occasion, to- gether with thtt, part she had previously taken in the dismemberment of ill-fated Poland, was the more unexpected inasmuch as she was the only one of all the superior States which had hitherto abstained from similar acts of aggression. But the mutability of the age had now destroyed likewise in Austria the uniform pacific bearing for which, she had so long been distinguished. These proceedings gave rise to serious commotions in various parts of the empire, and Frederick the Great more especially felt he could not and ought not to remain an inactive observer of what was pass- ing. Accordingly he entered the lists against Austria at once, and commenced oper&uons as protector of the heir of Charles Theodore, the Duke of Deux Pouts, who- protested against the compact signed by the former witl* Austria, and claimed the assistance of the King of Prussia. The j oung and hot-headed emperor Joseph accepted the Challenge forthwith, and taking up a position in Bohemia, he there awaited the king ; the latter, who had already crossed th mountains, finding him, however, so strongly intrenched, was reluctant to hazard an attack under *uch difficult circumstances, and withdrew from Bohemia. After a few unimportant skirmishes between the light troops of both sidr!S, peace was signed by the mediation of France and Russia, at Tesche;i, on the loth of May, 1779, even before the end of the first year of the war. The. empress Maria Theresa, now advanced in vcars, by no nwans shared in her son's taste for war, but, on the) contrary, earnestly desired p.iace ; while Frederick himself, who had nothing to gain {vrsonally by this campaign, was equally anxious for a reconciliation. Moreover, 1 he was likewise far advanced in years, and possessed an eye sufficiently penetrating to perceive that the former original spirit and energy of the army, which had performed such prodigies of valor in the war of Seven Years, had now almost disappeared, although the discipline under which it was still placed was equally severe and tyrannical as in former times. Under these (6 FREDERICK THE GREAT. nd other circumstances, therefore, peace was preferable to war. By Ihe treaty now concluded, Austria restored to the palatine house all the ^states of Bavaria, except the circle of Burgau, and the succes- eion was secured to the Duke of Deux- Fonts. After the death of Maria Theresa, in 1780, Joseph II. strove with nil the impetuosity of his fiery and enterprisng nature, to bring into immediate execution the great and ambitious plans he had formed, ami to give to the various nations spread over the boundless surface vf his vast possessions, one unique and equal form of government, after a model such as he had himself formed within his own mind. Joseph adopted as his model the absolute principles of Frederick in his system of government ; but Frederick occupied himself more with external arrangements, with the administration of the State, the pro- motion of industry, and the increase of the revenue, interfering very little with the progress of intellectual culture, which followed its par- ticular course, often altogether without his knowledge; while in this respect Joseph, by his new measures, often encroached upon the dearest privileges of liis subjects. He insisted certainly upon liberty of conscience and freedom of thought ; but he did not bear in mind, at the same time, that the acknowledgment of this principle depended upon that close conviction which cannot be forced, and can only exist in reality when the light of truth has gradually penetrated to the depth of the heart. . The greatest obstacles, however, thrown in the way of Joseph's in- irovations proceeded from the church ; for his grand object was to confiscate numerous monasteries and spiritual institutions, and to change at once the whole ecclesiastical constitution ; that is, he con- templated obtaining during the first year of his reign, what would of itself have occurred in the space of half a century. By this confiscation of ecclesiastical possessions more than one ( Ighboring prince of the empire, such as the bishop of Passau and the archbishop of Salzburg, found themselves attacked in their rights, and did not hesitate to complain loudly ; and in the same way in other matters, various other princes found too much reason to condemn the ttaperor for treating with contempt the constitution of the empire. Their apprehensions were more especially increased when the em- peror, in the year 1785, negotiated a treaty of exchange of territory with the electoral prince-palatine of Bavaria, according to which the latter was to resign his country to Austria, for which he was to re- ceive in return the Austrian Netherlands under the title of anew kingdom of Burgundy : an arrangement by which the entire south of Germany would have come into the exclusive possession of Austria. The prince-palatine was not at all indisposed to make the exchange, nd France as well as Russia at first favored it in its principle ; but Frederick II. once more stepped forward and disconcerted their plans, In which he succeeded likewise in bringing Russia to co-operate with Xim. FREDERICK THE GREAT. 67 The commotions, however, produced by these efforts made by Joseph to bring his rash projects into immediate operation, caused the old King of Prussia to form the idea of establishing an alliance of the German princes for the preservation of the imperial constitution, similar in character to the unions formed in previous times for mutual defence. Such at least was to be the unique object of this alliance according to the king's own words ; and this league was accordingly effected in the year 1785, between Prussia, Saxony, Hanover, the Dukes of Saxony, Brunswick, Mecklenburg, and Deux-Ponts, the Landgrave of Hesse, and several other princes, who were soon joined by the Elector of Mentz. This alliance was based upon principles in their nature less inimical than strictly surveillant ; nevertheless, it effected the object contemplated by acting as a check .upon the house of Austria in the various innovations threatened by the emperor, while it operated as a lesson indicating to that house that its real dis tinction among the other nations of Europe was to preserve the pre- sent order of things, to protect all rights and privileges, to oppose the spirit of conquest, and thus to constitute itself the bulwark of uni- versal liberty ; but failing in all this, it must iaevitably lose at once all public confidence. This alliance of princes, however, produced little or no important results for th advantage of Germany, owing partly to the death of Frederick II., which took place in the following year, and partly to the circumstances of the successors of Joseph 11. happily returning to the ancient hereditary principles of the house, both in its moderation and circumspection ; and finally, owing to the unheard of events which transpired in Europe during the last ten years of this century, and which soon produced too mucfi. cause for forget ting sill previous minor grievances. This alliance of the princes of the empire was the last public act of the great Frederick of any consequence ; and he died in the following year. He continued active and full of enterprise to the last, in spite of his advanced age, but his condition becam/ gradually more isolated, inasmuch as all the companions of his former days had in turns dis- appeared and sunk into their last resting-place before himself, the last among them being the brave old warrior, Ziethen, who died in the January previous to the same year as his royal master, at the age of eighty-seven ; and, on the other hand, heaven had not blessed him with :ny family, and thus he was debarred from the endearing enjoy- ment experienced by a father, when he sees himself growing young again, and revivified in his posterity. At the same time, he was wanting in all those feelings conducive to this state of life a state against which his whole nature recoiled.* * " About fourscore years ago, there used to be seen ^atintering on the terraces of 8an$Souci, for a short time in the afternoon, or you mijjht have met him elsewhere at an earlier hour, riding or driving in ST;ipid, business manner on the open roads or Uirouirli t.hej3crag<*y woods and ayemies of that, intricate, amphibious Potsdam region, a highly interesting, lean, little old mail, of alert though slightly stooping 8 FREDERICK TME GREAT. His mind, with scarcely any interruption, retained all its power during the long spare of seventy-four years, although his body had latterly become much, reduced and enfeebled. Through the extrava- gant use he had always made of strong spices and French dishes, he dried up the springs of life, and after suffering severely from dropsy, he departed this lii'e on the 17th of August, 1786, and was buried in Potsdam, under the pulpit of the church belonging to the garrison. In his last illness Frederick displayed great mildness and patience, and acknowledged with gratitude the trouble and pain he caused! those around him. During one of his sleepless nights he called to the page who kept watch in the room, and asked him what o'clock it was. The man replied it had just struck two. "Ah, then it is still too soon !" exclaimed the king, "but I cannot sleep. See whether figure ; whose name among strangers was King Friedrich the Second, or Frederick the Great of Prussia, and at home amongthe common people, who much loved ami esteemed him, was Voter Fritz Father Fred a name of familiarity which had not bred contempt in that instance. He is a king every inch of him, though without the trappings of a king. Presents himself in a Spartan simplicity of vesture ; no crown but an old military cocked-hat generally old, or trampled and kneaded into absolute soft ness it new no sceptre but one like Agamemnon'", a walking-stick cut. from the woods, which serves also as a riding-stick (with which he hits the horse between the ears, 1 say authors); and for royal robes, a mere soldier's blue coat with red facings, coat likely to be old, and sure to have a good deal of Spanish snuff on the breast of it ; rest of the apparel dim, unobtrusive in color or cut. end- ing in high, over-knee, military boots, which may be brnshe 1 (and, I hope, kept soft with an underhand suspicion of oil), bnt are not permitted to be blackened or varnished ; Day and Martin with their soot-pots forbidden to approach. " The mail is not of godlike physiognomy, any more than of imposing stature or costume : close-shut mouth with thin lips, prominent jaws and noso, receding brow, by no means of Olympian height ; head, however, is of long form, and has superlative gray eyes in it. Not what is called a beautiful man ; nor yet, by all ap- pearance, what is called a happy. On the contrary, the face bears evidence of many sorrows, as they are termed, of much hard labor done in this world ; and seems to anticipate nothing but more still coming. Quiet stoicism, capable enough of what joy there were, but not expecting any worth mention ; great unconscious and some conscious pride, well tempered with a cheery mockery of humor are written on that old face ; which carries its chin well forward, in spite of the .slight stoop about the neck ; snuffy nose rather flung into the air. under its old cocked-hat like an old snuffy lion on the watch ; and such a pair of eyes as no man or lion or lynx of that century bore elsewhere, according to all the testimony we have. ' Those eyes, saysMirabeau 'which, at the bidding of his great soul, fascinated yon with se- duction or with terror (portaienf, ait gredason ame heroique, la seduction o>i la ter- reur). Most excellent, potent, brilliant eyes, swift-darting as the stars, steadfast aa the sun : gray, we said, of the azure-gray color; large enough, not of glaring size, the habitual expression of them vigilance and penetrating sense, rapidity resting on depth. Which is an excellent combination ; i ml gives us the notion o'f a lambent outer radiance springing from some great inner scaof light and fire in the man. The voice, if bespeak to you, is of similar physiognomy: clear, melodious, and sonorous; ; all tones are in it, f om that of the ingenuous inquiry, graceful sociality, light-flow- ing banter (rather prickly for most part), up to definite word of command, np to desolating word of rebuke and reprobation ; a voice ' the clearest and most agree- able in conversation I ever heard, says witty Dr. Moore. ' He speaks a great deal,' continues the doctor, ' yet those who hear him regret that he does not speak a groat deal more. His observations are always lively, very often just ; and few men the fa)fpt of repartee iu greater perfection' " FREDERICK THE GREAT. 60 fcny of the other attendants arn awake, but do not disturb them if they are s'.ill sleeping, for, poor fellows, they are tired enough. But if you find Neuman (his favorite yager) Stirring, say to him you be- lieve the king wishes soon to rise. But mind, do not awaken any one ! " Although the news of Frederick's death at such an advanced age ( excited no very great astonishment, it nevertheless produced aronsid- lerable sensation throughout the whole of Europe. He left to his suc- (cessor a well-regulated State, containing a population of six millions of inhabitants ; a powerful, strictly organized army, and a treasury well provided ; the greatest treasure, however, he left, was the recol- lection of his heroic and glorious acts, which iv- subsequent times has continued to operate upon his nation with all its awakening power and heart- stirring influence. crro. LIFE OF BURNS. PART FIRST. ROBERT BURNS, the national bard of Scotland, was born on the 25th at' January, 1759, in a clay-built cottage about two miles south of the town of Ayr. He was the eldest son of Willipin Burnes, or Harness, who, at the period of Robert's birth, was gardener and overseer to a gentleman of small estate ; but resided on a few acres of land which he had on lease from another person. The father was a man of strict religious principles, and also distinguished for that penetration and knowledge of mankind which was afterwards so conspicuous in his sou. The mother of the poet was likewise a very sagacious woman, and possessed an inexhaustible store of ballads and legendary talcs, with which she nourished the infant imagination of him whose own. productions were destined to excel them all. These worthy individuals labored diligently for the support of an increasing family , nor in the midst of harassing struggles did they neglect the mental improvement of their offspring a characteristic of Scottish parents, even under the most depressing circumstances. In his sixth year, Robert was put under the tuition of one Campbell, and subsequently under Mr John Murdoch, a very faithful and pains-taking teacher. With this individual he remained for a few years, and was accurately instructed in the first principles of com- position. The poet and his brother Gilbert were the aptest pupils in the school, and were generally at the head of the class. Mr. Mur doch, in afterwards recording the impressions which the two brothers made on him, says : ' Gilbert always appeared to me to possess a more lively imagination, and to be more of the wit, than Robert. I attempted to teach them a little church music. Here they were left far bt-liind by all the rest of the school. Robert's ear, in particular, was remarkably dull, and his voice untunable It was long before I could get them to distinguish one tune from another. Robert's coun- tenance was generally grave, and expressive of a serious, contemplu live, and thoughtful mind. Gilbert's face said, Mirth, with thee 1 mean to lice ; and certainly, if any person who knew the two boya had been asked which of them was the most likely to court the muses, would never- aavc ai eased that Robert had a propensity of that -,*,*. (1) I LIFE OF BURNS. Besides the tuition of Mr. Murdoch, Burns received instructions from liis father in writing und arithmetic. Under their joint care, lie made rapid progress, and was remarkable for the ease with which he committed devotional poetry to memory. The following extract from his letter to Dr. Moore, in 1787, is interesting, from the light which it throws upon his progress as a scholar, and on the formation of his character as a poet : " At those years," says he, "I was by no means a favorite with anybody. I was a good deal noted for a reten live memory, a stubborn, sturdy something in my disposition, and :ri enthusiastic idiot piety. I say idiot piety, because I was then but a child. Though it cost the schoolmaster some thrashings, I made an excellent scholar ; and by the time I was ten or eleven years of age, 1 was a critic in substantives, verbs, and particles. In my infant and boyish days, too, I owed much to an old woman who resided in the family, remarkable for her ignorance, credulity, and superstition, hhe had, I suppose, the largest collection in the country of tales and Mougs, concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, gpunkies, kelpies, elf candles, deadlights, wraiths, apparitions, can- trips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds of poetry but had so strong an effect upon my imagination, that to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I some limes keep a sharp look-out in suspicious places ; and though nobody can bo more skeptical than I am in such matters, yet it often takes an rffort of philosophy to shake off these idle terrors. The earliest coin- position that I recollect taking pleasure in, was, The Vision of Mir:.!*., and a hymn of Addison's, beginning, ' How are thy xe remits blent, Lord!" I particularly remember one half stanza, which was music to my boyish ear ; For though on dreadful whirls we hung High on the broken wave.' 1 met with these pieces in Mason's English Collection, one of my school books. The first two books I ever read in private, and which gave me more pleasure than any two books I ever read since, were, The Life of Hannibal andTY/e History of Sir William Wallace. Han nibal gave my young ideas such a turn, that I used to strut in rap tu res up and down after the recruiting drum and bagpipe, and wish myself tall enough to be a soldier ; while the story of Wallace poured a tide of Scottish prejudice into my veins, which will boil along there till the flood gates of life shut in eternal rest." Mr. Murdoch's removal from Mount Oliphant deprived Burns of his instructions ; but they were still continued by the father of the bard. About the age of fourteen, he was sent to school every alternate week for the improvement of his writing. In the mean while, he was busily employed upon the operations of the farm . and, at the age of fifteen, was considered as the principal laborer upon it. About a year sLlFE OF BURN& * tfter this lie gained three weeks of respite, which he spent with hia eld tutor, Murdoch, at Ayr, in revising the English grammar, and in studying the French lang'uage, in which he made uncommon progress. Ere his sixteenth year elapsed, he had considerably extended his reading. The vicinity of Mount Oliphant to Ayr afforded him facil- ities for gratifying what had now become a passion. Among the books which he had perused were some plays of Shakspeare, Pope the works of Allan Ramsay, and a collection of songs, which consti tuted his V(ule mccum. "I pored over them," says he, "driving nif cart or walking to labor, song by song, verse by verse, careful U noticing the true, tender, or sublime, from affectation and fustian." So early did he evince his attachment to the lyric muse, in which he was destined to surpass all who have gone before or succeeded him. At this period the family removed to Lochlea, in the parish of Tar- bolton. Some time before, however, he had made his first attempt in poetry. It was a song addressed to a rural beauty, about his own age, and, though possessing no great merit as a whole, it contains some lines and ideas which would have done honor to him at any age. After the removal to Lochlea, his literary zeal slackened, for he was thus cut off from those acquaintances whose conversation stimulated his powers, and whose kindness supplied him with books. For about three years after this period he was busily employed upon the farm, but at intervals he paid his addresses to the poetic muse, and with no common success. The summer of his nineteenth year was spent in the study of mensuration, surveying, etc., at a small sea-port town, a good distance, from home. He returned to his father's considerably improved. "My reading," says he, "was enlarged with the very im- portant addition of Thomson's and Shenstone's works. I had seen human nature in a new phasis ; and 1 engaged several of my school fellows to keep up a literary correspondence with me. This improved me in composition. I had met with a collection of letters by the wits of Queen Anne's reign, and I pored over them most devoutly ; I kept copies of any of my own letters that pleased me, and a comparison between them and the composition of most of my correspondents Battered my vanity. I carried this whim so far, that, though 1 had ot three farthings' worth of business in the world, yet almost every post brought me as many letters as if I had been a broad, plodding son of day-book and ledger." His mind, peculiarly susceptible of tender impressions, was contin- ually the slave of some rustic charmer. In the " heat and whirlwind of his love," he generally found relief in poetry, by which, as by a safety-valve, his turbulent passions were allowed to have vent. He formed the resolution of entering the matrimonial state ; but his cir- cumscribed means of subsistence as a farmer preventing his taking that step, he resolved on becoming a flax-dresser, for which purpose he re- moved tothe town of Irvine, in 1781. The speculation turned out un- 3uccessful ; for the sliop, catching li re, was burnt, and tke poet returned 4 LIFE OF BURNS. to his father without a sixpence. During his stay at Irvine he had mei with Ferguson's poems. This circumstance was of some importance to Burns, for it roused his poetic powers from the torpor into which they had fallen, and in agreat measure finally determined the Scottish character of his poetry. He here also contracted some friendships, which he himself says* did him mischief ; and, by his brother Gilbert's account, from this date there was a serious change in his conduct. The venerable and excellent parent of the poet died soon after his son's return. The support of the family now devolving upon Burns, in conjunction with his brother he took a sub lease of the farm of Mossgiel, in the parish of Mauchline. The four years which he re- sided upon this farm were the most important of his life. It was here he felt that nature had designed him for a poet; and here, accordingly, his genius began to develop its energies in those strains which will make his name familiar to all future times, the admiration of every civilized country, and the glory and boast of his own. The vigor of Burns's understanding, and the keenness of his wit, as displayed more particularly at masonic meetings and debating Hubs, of which he formed one at Mauchline, began to spread his fame as a man of uncommon endowments. He now could number as his acquaintance several clergymen, and also some gentlemen of sub- stance ; amongst whom was Mr. Gavin Hamilton, writer in Mauch- line, one of his earliest patrons. One circumstance more than any other contributed to increase his notoriety. "Polemical divinity," says he to Dr. Moore in 1787, " about this time was putting the coun- try lialf mad ; and I, ambitious of shining in conversation-parties on Sundays, at funerals, etc., used to puzzle Calvinism with so much heat and indiscretion, that I raised a hue-and cry of heresy against me, which lias not ceased to this hour." The farm which he |><>s Bessed belonged to the Earl of London, but the brothers held it in sub-lease from Mr. Hamilton. This gentleman was at open lend Vith one of the ministers at Mauchline, who was a rigid Calvinist, rtlr. Hamilton maintained opposite tenets; and it is not matter of surprise that the young farmer should have espoused his cause, and brought all the resources of his genius to bear upon it. The result was The Holy Fair, The Ordination, Holy Witt-it's />/, and other satires, as much distinguished for their coarse severity and bitterness as for their genius. The applause which greeted these pieces emboldened the poet, and encouraged him to proceed. In his life, by his brother Gilbert, a very interesting account is given of the occasions which gave rise to the poems, and the chronological order in which they were produced. The ex<|uisite pathos and humor, the strong manly sense, the mas- terly command of felicitous language, the graphic power of delineat- ing scenery, manners, and incidents, which appear so conspicuously in his various poem*, could not fail to call forth the admiration of ihotw who were favored with a perusal of tkem. But the clouds f LIFE OF BURNS. i misfortune were gatJiering darkly above the head of him wh was thus giving delight to a large and widening circle of friends. The farm of Mossgiel proved a losing concern ; and an amour with Miss Jane Armour, afterwards Mrs. Burns, had assumed so serious a$ aspect, that lie at first resolved to fly from the scene of his disgrace and misery. One trait of his character, however, must be men. tioned. Before taking any steps for his departure, he met Miss Ar. mour by appointment, and gave into her hands a written acknowledg- ment of marriage, which, when produced by a person in her situation, is, according to the Scots' law, to be accepted as legal evidence of an irregular marriage having really taken place. This the lady burned, at the persuasion or her father, who was adverse to a marriage ; and Burns, thus wounded in the two most powerful feelings of his mind, his love and pride, was driven almost to insanity. Jamaica was his destination ; but, as he did not possess the money necessary to defray the expense of his passage out, he resolved to publish some of his best poems, in order to raise the requisite sum. These views were warmly promoted by some of his more opulent friends ; and suffi- ciency of subscribers having been procured, one of the finest volumes of poems that ever appeared in the world issued from the provincial press of Kilmarnock. It is hardly possible to imagine with what eager admiration and delight they were everywhere received. They possessed in an emi- nent degree all those qualities which invariably contribute to render any literary work quickly and permanently popular. They were written in a phraseology of which all the powers were universally felt, and which, being at once antique, familiar, and now rarely writ- ten, was therefore ^fitted to serve all the dignified and pictureSqu* uses of poetry, without making it unintelligible. The imagery and the sentiments were at once natural, impressive, and interesting. Those topics of satire and scandal in which the rustic delights ; that humorous imitation of character, and that witty association of ideas, familiar and striking, yet not naturally allied to one another, which has force to shake his sides with laughter ; those fancies of supersti- tion at which one still wonders and trembles; those affecting senti- ments and images of true religion which are at once dear and awful to the heart, were all represented by Burns with the magical power of true poetry. Old and young, high and low, grave and gay, learned and ignorant, all were alike surprised and transported. In the mean time a few copies of these fascinating poems found their way to Edinburgh, and having been read to Dr. Blacklock, ob- tained his warmest approbation ; and he advised the author to repair to Edinburgh. Burns lost no time in complying with this request ; and accordingly, towards the end of the year 178(5, he set out for the capital, where he was received by Dr. Blacklock with the most flat- tering kindness, and introduced to every person of taute among that exceLLent man's friends. Multitudes now vied with wush other ia t> LIFE OP BURKS. patronizing the rustic poet. Those who possessed at once true tast and ardent philanthropy were soon united in his praise ; those v.-ho were disposed to favor any good thing belonging to Scotland, purely because it was Scottish, gladly joined the cry ; while those who had hearts and understandings to be charmed without knowing why, when they saw their native customs, manners, and language made the subjects and the materials of poesy, could not suppress that iin pulse of feeling which struggled to declare itself in favor of Burns. Thus did Burns, ere he had been many weeks in Edinburgh, find himself the object of universal curiosity, favor, admiration, and foncl- ness. He was sought after, courted with attentions the most respect- ful and assiduous, feasted, nattered, caressed, and treated by all rank'* as the great boast of his country, whom it was scarcely possible to honor and reward in a degree equal to his merits. A new edition of his poems was called for, and the public mind was directed to the subject by Henry Mackenzie, who dedicated A paper in the Lvunger to a commendatory notice of the poet. This circumstance will ever be remembered to the honor of that polished writer, not only for the warmth of the eulogy he bestowed, but be- cause it was the first printed acknowledgment which had been made to the genius of Burns. The copyright was sold to Creech for 100 ; but the friends of the poet advised him to forward a subscription. The patronage of the Caledonian Hunt, a very influential body, was obtained. The list of subscribers rapidly rose to 1,500, many gentle- men paying a great deal more than the price of the volume ; and it was supposed that the poet derived from the subscription and the sale of his copyright a clear profit of .at least 700. The conversation of Burns, according to the testimony of all the eminent men who heard him, was even more wonderful than his poetry. He affected no soft air nor graceful motions of politeness, which might have ill accorded with the rustic plainness of his native manners. Conscious superiority of mind taught him to associate with the great, the learned, and the gay, without being overawed into any such bashfulness as might have rendered him confused in thought or hesitating in elocution. He possessed withal an extraor- dinary share of plain common sense, or mother- wit, which prevented him from obtruding upon persons, of whatever rank, with whom he was admitted to converse, any of those effusions of vanity, envy, or Belf-conceit in which authors who have lived remote from the general practice of life, and whose minds have been almost exclusively con fined to contemplate their own studies and their own works, are hut too prone to indulge. In conversation he displayed a -sort, of intuitive quickness and rectitude of judgment, upon every subject that arose. The sensibility of his heart and the vivacity of his fancy gave a rich coloring to whatever opinions he was disposed to advance , and his language was thus not less happy in conversation than in his writings. Hence those who had met and conversed with him ones were pleased to meet and to converse with him again and again. LIFE OF BURNS. 1 For some time he associated only with the virtuous, the learned, and the wise, and the purity of his morals remained uncontaminated. But unfortunately he fell, as others have fallen in similar circum- stances, lie .suffered himself to be surrounded by persons who were proud to tell that they had been in company with Burns, and had seen Burns as loose and as foolish as themselves. He now also began to contract something of arrogance in conversation. Accustomed to be among his associates what is vulgarly but expressively called "tho cock of the company," he could scarcely refrain from indulging in a similar freedom and dictatorial decision of talk, even in the presence of persons who could less patiently endure presumption. After remaining some months in the Scottish metropolis, basking in the noontide sun of a popularity which, as Dugald Stewart well remarks, would have turned any head but his own, he formed a reso lution of returning to the shades whence he had emerged, but not before he had perambulated the southern border. On the 6th of May, 17^7, he set out on his journey, and, visiting all that appeared inter esting on the north of the Tweed, proceeded to Newcastle and othei places on the English side. lie returned in about two months to his family at Mauchline , but in a short period he again set out on an ex cursion to the north, where he was most flatteringly received by all the great families. On his return to Mossgiel he completed his mar riage with Miss Armour. He then concluded a bargain with Mr. Miller of Dalswintou for a lease of the farm of Elliesland, on adra,i tageous terms. Burns entered on possession of this farm at Whitsunday, 1788. lie had formerly applied with success for an excise commission, and during six weeks of this year he had to attend to the business of that profession at Ayr. His 'life for some time was thus wandering and unsettled ; and Dr. t'urrie mentions this as one of his chief mis for tunes. Mrs. Burns came home to him towards the end of the year, and the poet was accustomed to say that the happiest period of his life was the first winter spent in Elliesland. The neighboring farm ers and gentlemen, pleased to obtain fora neighbor the poet by whose- works they had been delighted, kindly sought his company, and in- vited him to their houses. Burns, however, found an inexpressible charm in sitting down beside his wife, a* his own fireside ; in wan dering over his own grounds ; in once more putting his hand to the spade and the plough ; in farming his enclosures and managing his cattle. For some months he felt almost all that felicity which fancy had taught him to expect in his new situation. He had been for a time idle, but his muscles were not yet unbraced for rural toil. He now seemed to find a joy in being the husband of the mistress of hia affections, and in seeing himself the father of children such as prom ised to attach him forever to that modest, humble, and domestic life n which alone he could hope to be permanently happy. Even his "ragements in the service of excise did not, at first, threaten eiths* w oontAininate the poet or to ruin the farmer. b LIFE OF BURNS. From various causes, the farming speculation did not succeed. Indeed, from the time he obtained a situation under government, ho gradually began to sink the fanner in the excisem in Occasionally In' .'insisted iii the rustic occupations of Elliesland, but for the niot>1 part In: was engaged in very different pursuits In his professional perambula ions over the moors of Dumfriesshire he h..d to encounter temptations which a mind and temperament like his found it difficult to resist. His immortal works had made him universally known and enthusiastically admired ; and accordingly he was a welcome guest at every house, from the most princely mansion to the lowest country inn. In the latter he was too frequently to be found as the presiding genius and master of the orgies. However, he still continued at in- tervals to cultivate the muse ; and, besides a variety of other pieces, he produced at this period the inimitable poem of Tarn O'Shanter. Johnson's Miscellany was also indebted to him for the finest of its lyrics. One pleasing trait of his character must not be overlooked ile superintended the formation of a subscription library in the par isli, and took the whole management of it upon himself. These institutions, though common now, were not so at the period of which we write ; and it should never be forgotten that Burns was amongst the first, if not the very first, of their founders in the rural districts of southern Scotland. Towards the close of 1791 he finally abandoned his farm ; and, ob- taining an appointment to the Dumfries division of excise, he re- paired to that town on a salary of 70 per annum. All his principal biographers concur in stating that after settling in Dumfries his moral career was downwards. Heron, who had some acquaintance with the mutter, says: "His dissipation became still more deeply habitual ; he was here more exposed than in the country to be soli- cited to share the revels of the dissolute and the idle ; foolish young men flocked eagerly about him, and from time to time pressed him to drink with them, that they might enjoy his wit. The Caledonia Club, too, and the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Hunt, had occasional meetings in Dumfries after Burns went to reside there ; and the poet was of course invited to share their conviviality, and hesitated not to accept the invitation. In the intervals between his different fits of intemperance, he suffered the keenest anguish of remorse and horri My afflictive foresight. His Jane behaved with a degree of conjugal and maternal tenderness and prudence which made him feel 'more bitterly the evil of his misconduct, although they could not reclaim him." This is a dark picture perhaps too dark. The Rev. Mr. Gray, who as the teacher o; his son, was intimately acquainted with Burns, had Frequent opportunities of judging of his general character and deportment, gives a more amiable portrait of the bard Being rye witness, the testimony of this gentleman must be allowed to o Rome weight. ''The truth is," says he. "Burns was seldom LIFE OF BURNS. 8 intoxicated. The drunkard soon becomes besotted, and is shunned even by the convivial. Had he been so, he could not have long con- tinned the idol of every party." This is strong reasoning; and ho goes on to mention other circumstances which seem to confirm thu truth of liis position. In balancing these two statements, a juslcr estimate of the moral deportment of Burns ma/ be formed. In the year 1792 party politics ran to a great height in Scotland, and the liberal and independent spirit of Burns did certainly betray him into some indiscretions. A general opinion prevails, that he so far lost the good graces of his superiors by his conduct as to consider all prospects of future promotion as hopeless. But this appears not to have been the case ; and the face that he acted as supervisor before his death is a strong proof to the contrary. Of his political verses, few have as yet been published. But in these he warmly espoused the cause of the Whigs, which kept up the spleen of the other party, already sufficiently provoked ; and this may in some measure account for the bitterness with which his own character was attacked. Whatever opinion may be formed of the extent of his dissipation in Dumfries, one fact is unquestionable, that his powers remained unim- puiyed to the last ; it was there he produced his finest lyrics, and they are the finest, as well as the purest, that ever delighted maul; i nil. Besides Johnson's Museum, in which he took an interest to the lust, and to which he contributed most extensively, he formed a connection with Mr. George Thomson, of Edinburgh. This gentleman had conceived the laudable design of collecting the national melodies of Scotland, with accompaniments by the most eminent composers, and poetry by the best writers, in addition to those words which were originally attached to them. From the multitude of songs which Burns wrote, from the year 1792 till the commencement of his illness, it is evident that few days could have passed without his producing some stanzas for the work. The following passage from his cor- respondence, Avhich was also most extensive, proves that his songs were not hurriedly got up, but composed with the utmost care and attention. " Until I am complete master of a tune in my own singing, such as it is," says he, " I can never compose for it. My way is this : I consider the poetic sentiment correspondent to my idea of the musical expression then choose my theme compose one stanza. When that is composed, which is gene'rally the most difficult part of the business, I walk out sit down now and then look out for objects in nature round me that are in unison or harmony with the cogitations of ins- fancy and workings of my bosom humming every now and then the air, with the verses I have framed. When I feel niy muse beginning to jade, I retire to the solitary fireside of my study, and there commit my effusions to paper ; swinging at intervals on the hind legs of my elbow-chair, by way of calling forth my own critical strictures, as my pen goes. Seriously, this, at home, is almost invariably my way." This is not only interesting for th light which it throws upon his 10 LIFE OF BURNS. method of composition, but it proves that conviviality had not as yet greater charms for him than the muse. From his youth Burns had exhibited ominous symptoms of a radical disorder in his constitution. A palpitation of the heart and a derange mcnt of the digestive organs were conspicuous. These were, doubt- less, increased by his indulgences, which became more frequent as ho div\v towards the close of his career. In the autumn of 170.3 he lost an only daughter, which was a severe blow to him. Soon afterwards he was seized with a rheumatic fever; and "long the die spun doubtful," says he, in a letter to his faithful friend Mrs. Dun lap, " until, after many weeks of a sick bed, it seems to have turned up life, and I am beginning to crawl across my room." The cloud behind which his sun was destined to be eclipsed at noon had begun to darken above him. Before he had completely recovered, he had the im- prudence to join 'a festive circle ; and, on his return from it, he caught a cold, which brought back his trouble upon him with redoubled si 'verity. Sea-bathing was had recourse to, but with no ultimate success. He lingered until the 21st of July, 1796, when he expired. The interest which the death of Burns excited was intense. All differences were forgotten , his genius only was thought of. On tlr; 2(ith of the same month he was conveyed to the grave, followed by about ten thousand individuals of all ranks, many of whom had come from distant parts of the country to witness the solemnity. He was interred with military honors by the Dumfries volunteers, to which body he had belonged. , Thus, at the age of thirty-seven, an age when the mental powers of man have scarcely reached their climax, died Robert Burns, one of the greatest poets whom his country has produced. It is unnecessary to enter into any lengthened analysis of his poetry or character. His works are universally known and admired, and criticism has b:-cu drawn to the dregs upon the subject ; and that, too by the greatest masters who have appeared since his death no mean test of the great, merits of his writings. He excels equally in touching the heart by the exquisiteness of his pathos, and exciting the risible faculties by the breadth of his humor. His lyre had many strings, and he had equal command over them all, striking each, and frequently in chords, with the skill an^l power of a master. That his satire some- times degenerates into coarse invective cannot be denied ; but where personality is not permilted to interfere, his poems of this description may take their place beside anything of the kind which has ever been produced, without being disgraced by the comparison. It is unnecessary to re echo the praises of his best pieces, as there is no ppitliet of admiration which lias not been bestowed upon them. Those who had best opportunities of judging are of opinion that his works, stamped as they are with the impress of sovereign genius, fall short of the powers he possessed It is therefore to be lamented that he undertook no great work of fictioa or invention Had circum- LIFE OF BUIl^S. ll stances permitted, lie would prob^jly have done so ; but his excise duties, and without doubt his own follies, prevented him His passions were strong, and his capacity of enjoyment corresponded with them. These continually precipitated him into the variety of pleasure, where alone they could be gratified ; and the reaction consequent upon such indulgences (for lie possessed the nnest dis- crimination between right and wrong) threw him into }ow spirits, to which also he was constitutionally liable His mind, being thus never for any length of time in an equable tone, could scarcely pursue with steady regularity a work of any length His Aioral aberrations, as detailed by some of his biographers, have 1-ieen exaggerated, as already noticed. This has been proved by the testimony of many witnesses from whose authority there can bo Tio appeal ; for they had the best opportunities of judging. In fine It may be doubted whether ho has not, by his writings, exercised a greater power over the minds of men and the general system of Iif3 than has been exercised by any other modern poet. A complete edition of his works, in four volumes, 8vo., with a life, was puMished by Dr. Currie, of Liverpool, for the benefit of his family, to whom it realized a handsome sum. Editions have been sirx;e multiplied beyond number ; and several excellent bi^gmpHiei* of eke poet have been published, particular 1 ^ that by Ivl t. Lockuart. LIFE OF BURNS.* PART SECOND. Tx the modern arrangements of society, it is no uncommon thinj; that a man of genius must, like Butler, " ask for bread and receive H ST., ne ; " for, in spite of our grand maxim of supply and demand, it is by no means the highest excellence that men are most forward to recognize The inventor of a spinning-jenny is pretty sure of his reward in his own day ; but the writer of a true poem, like the apostle of a true religion, is nearly as sure of the contrary. We do not know whether it is not an aggravation of the injustice, that then- is generally a posthumous retribution. Robert Burns, in the course of nature, might yet have been living ; but his short life was spent jn toil and penury ; and he died, in the prime of his manhood, mis- erable and neglected ; and yet already a brave mausoleum shines over his dust, and more than one splendid monument has been reared in other places to his fame : the street where he languished in poverty Is called by his name ; the highest personages in our literature have been proud to appear as his commentators and admirers, and here is the sixth narrative of his Life that has been given to the world ! Mr. Lockhart thinks it necessary to apologize for this new attempt o (such a subject ; but his readers, we believe, will readily acquit him or, at worst, will censure only the performance of his task, notthechoiok of it. The character of Burns, indeed, is a theme that cannot easily become either trite or exhausted, and will probably gain rather than iose in its dimensions by the distance to which it is removed by Time. No man, it has been said, is a hero to his valet : and this is probably true ; but the fruit is at least as likely to be the valet's as the hero's ; for it is certain that to the vulgar eye few things are wonderful that an- not distant. It is difficult for men to believe that the man, the mere man whom they see, nay, perhaps, painfully feel, toiling at tliejr side through the poor jostlings of existence, can be made of finer clay than themselves. Suppose that some dining acquaintance of Sir Thomas Lucy's, and neighbor of John a Combe's, had snatched an hour or two from the preservation of his game, and written us a Life of Shakesp are! What dissertation should we not have had * Cwlyk's review of " Leckhart's Life of Robert Bums." OP Btf&tfS. IS i-not on Hamlet and JVi- serves of the society in the backwoods of America, " the courtesies of polite life are never lost sight of for a moment." But there are bet- ter things than these in the volume ; and we can safely testily, not only that it is easily and pleasantly read a first time, but may even be without difficulty read again. Nevertheless, we are far from thinking that the problem of Burns'? Biography has yet been adequately solved We do not allude so much to deficiency of facts or documents though of these we are Ktill every day receiving some fresh accession as to the limited and imperfect application of them to the great end of Biography Our notions upon this subject may perhaps appear extravagant ; but if an individual is really of consequence enough to have his life and character recorded for public remembrance, wo have always been of opinion that the public ought to be made acquainted with all the inward springs and relations of his character. How did the world and man's life, from his particular position, represent themselves to his mind? How did coexisting circumstances modify him from without? how did he modify these from within ? With what endeavors and what elliracy rule over them? with what resistance and what suffering Kink under them? In one word, what and how produced was the effect of society on him ; what and how produced was his effect on society? He who should answer these questions, in regard to any individual, would, as we believe, furnish a model of perfection iii biography. Few individuals, indeed, can deserve such a study ; and many /ir> will be written, and for the gratification of innocent curi- osity ought to be written, and read, and forgotten, which are not in Ihis sense biographies. But Burns, if we mistake not, is one of thesn few individuals ; and such a study, at least with such a result, he has not yet obtained. Our own contributions to it, we are aware, can be but scanty and feeble; but we offer them with goodwill, and trust that they may meet with acceptance from those for whom thev aro intended. Burns first came upon the world as a prodigy ; and was, in that character, entertained by it in the usual fashion, with loud, vague, tu mull nous wonder, speedily subsiding into censure and neglect ; till 'nis early and most mournful death again awakened an enthusiasm i'or him, which, especially as there was now nothing to be done, and much to bo spoken, has prolonged itself even to our own time. It is true, the "nine days" have long since elapsed ; and the very con- LIFE OF BUKNS. 1ft tinuance of this clamor proves that Burns was no vulgar wondor. Accordingly, even in sober judgments, where, us years passed by, ho has come to rest more and more exclusively on his own intrinsic merits, and may now be well nigh shorn of that casual radiance, ho appears not only as a true British poet, but as one of the most considerable British msn of the eighteenth century. Let it not be objected that he did little , he did much, if we consider where and how. If the work performed was small, we must remember that he had his very materials to discover ; for the metal he worked in lay hid under the desert, where no eye but his had guessed its existence ; and we may almost say, that with his own hand he had to construct the tools for fashioning it. For he found himself in deepest obscu rity, without help, without instruction, without model, or with models only of the meanest sort. An educated man stands, as, it were, in the midst of a boundless arsenal and magazine, filled with all the weapons and engines which man's skill has been able to de vise from the earliest time ; and he works, accordingly, with a strength borrowed from all past ages. How different is hits state who stands on the outside of that storehouse, and feels that its gates must be stormed, or remain forever shut against him ? His means are the commonest and rudest ; the mere work done is no measure of his strength. A dwarf behind his steam engine may remove mountains ; but no dwarf will hew them down with the pick-axe ; and he must be a Titan that hurls them abroad with his arms. . It is in this last shape that Burns presents himself. Born in an age the most prosaic Britain had yet seen, and in a condition tho most advantageous, where his mind, if it accomplished aught, must accomplish it under the pressure of continual bodily toil, nay, of pen- ury and desponding apprehension of the Avorst evils, and Avith no furtheranse but such knowledge as dwells in a poor man's hut, and the rhymes of a Ferguson or liamsay for his standard of beauty, ho sinks not under all these impediments. Through the fogs and dark- ness of that obscure region, his eagle eye discerns the true relations of the .world and human life; he grows into intellectual strength, and trains himself into intellectual expertness. Impelled by tho irrepressible movement of his inward spirit, ho struggles forward into the general view, and with haughty modesty lays' down before us, as the fruit of his labor, a gift, which Time has now pronounced im- perishable. Add to all this, that his darksome, drudging childhood and youth was by far the kindliest era of his Avhole life, and that he died in his thirty-seventh year ; and then ask if it be strange that his poems are imperfect, and of small extent, or that his genius at- tained no mastery in its art? Alas, his sun shone as through a tropi- cal tornado ; and the pale shadow of death eclipsed it at noon ! Shrouded in such baleful vapors, the genius of Burns was neA'er Been jn clear azure splendor, enlightening the world But some bourn from it did, by fits, pierce through ; and it tinted those clouds Avith 19 LIFE OP BURNS. rainbow and orient colors into a glory and stern grandeur, which men silently gazed on with wonder and tears. \\ V are anxious not to exaggerate ; for it is exposition rather than admiration that our readers require of us here ; and yet to avoid somt tendency to that side is no easy matter. We love Burns, and we pity him; and love and pity are prone to magnify. Criticism, it is sometimes thought, should be a cold business ; we are not so sure ol. this ; but, at all events, our concern with Burns is not exclusively that of critics. True and genial as his poetry must appear, it is not chit-fly as a poet, but as a man, that he interests and affects us. He was often advised to write a tragedy : time and means were not lent him for this ; but through life he enacted a tragedy, and one of the deepest. We question whether the world has since witnessed so u; teily sad a scene; whether Napoleon himself, left to brawl with Sir Hudson Lowe, ant perish on his rock, " amid the melancholy main," presented to the reflecting mind such a " spectacle of pity and fear" as di I this intrinsically nobler, gentler, and perhaps greater soul, wasting itself away in a hopeless struggle with base entangle- ments, which coiled closer and closer round him, till only death opened him an outlet. Conquerors are a race with whom the world could well dispense ; nor can the hard intellect, the uusympathizing loftiness, and high but selfish enthusiasm of such persons inspire us in general with any affection ; at best it may excite amazement ; and their fall, like that of a pyramid, will be beheld with a certain sad- ness and awe. But a true Poet, a man in whose heart resides some cilluence of \Visdom, some tone of the " Eternal Melodies," is the most precious gift that can be bestowed on a generation : we see in him a freer, purer development of whatever is noblest in ourse.ves; his life is a rich lesson to us, and we mourn his death, as that of a benefactor who loved and taught us. Such a gift had Nature in her bounty bestowed on us in Robert Burns ; but with queen-like indifference she cast it from her hand, like a thing of no moment, and it was defaced and torn asunder, as an idle bauble, before we recognized it. To the ill-starred Burns was given the power of making man's life more venerable, but that of wisely guiding his own was not given. Destiny for so in our ignorance we must speak his faults, the faults of others, proved too hard for llini : :|II<1 ''"it spirit, which might have soared could it but have walked, soon sank to the dust, its glorious facult.es trodden under foot in the blossom, and died, we may almost say, without ever hav- ing lived. And so kind and warm a soul ! so full of inborn riches, of love to all living and lifeless things ! How his heart flows out in sympathy over universal Nature, and in her bleakest provinces dis- cerns a beauty and a meaning! The "Daisy "falls not unheeded Under hi* ploughshare ; nor the ruined nest of that " wee, cowering, timonm.s beastie," cast forth, after all its provident pains, to "thole Uto sleet? dribble and cranreuch cauld." The "hoar visage" of LIFE OF BURNS. *? Winter delights him : he dwells with a sad and oft-returning fond- ness in these scenes of solemn desolation ; but tlu? voice of the tem- pest becomes an anthem to his ears ; he loves to walk in the sounding woods, for "it raises his thoughts to Him that walketh on t/ic triiif/s ef the wind." A true Poet-soul, for it needs but to be struck, and the sound it yields will be music ! But observe him chiefly as he min- gles with his brother men. What warm, all-comprehending fellow. feeling, what trustful, boundless love, what generous exaggeration of the object loved ! His rustic friend, his nut-brown maiden, are no longer mean and homely, but a hero and a queen, whom he pri/.es as the paragons of Earth. The rough scenes of Scottish life, not seen by him in any Arcadian illusion, but in the rude contradiction, in the smoke and soil of a too harsh reality, are still lovely to him ; Poverty is indeed his companion, but Love also, and Courage ; the simple feelings, the worth, the nobleness, that dwell under the straw ro< >t are dear and venerable to his heart ; and thus over the lowest provinces of man's existence he pours the glory of his own soul ; and they rise, in shadow and sunshine, softened and brightened into a beauty which other eyes discern not in the highest. He has a just self-consciousness, which too often degenerates into pride ; yet it is a noble pride, for defence, not for offence no cold, suspicious feeling, but a frank and social one. The peasant Poet bears himself, we might say, like a King in exile ; he is cast among the low, and feels himself e<|ual to the highest ; yet he claims no rank, that none may be dis- puted to him. The forward he can repel, the supercilious he can subdue , pretensions of wealth or ancestry are of no avail with him ; there is a fire in that dark eye under which the " insolence of conde- scension" cannot thrive. In his abasement, in his extreme need, he forgets not for a moment the majesty of Poetry and Manhood. A nd yet, far as he feels himself above common men, he wanders not apart from them, but mixes warmly in their interests ; nay, throws himself into their arms, and, as it were, entreats them to love him. It is moving to see how, in his darkest despondency, this proud being still seeks relief from friendship ; unbosoms himself, often to the unwor- thy ; and, amid tears, strains to his glowing heart a heart that knosvs only the name of friendship. And yet he was " quick to learn ; " a man of keen vision, before whom common disguises afforded no con- cealment. His understanding saw through the hollowness even of accomplished deceivers ; but there was a generous credulity in his Heart. And so did our Peasant show himself among us; "a soul like an ./u<-* that hinders, but the dim eye,. A Scottish peasant's life was the meanest and rudest of all lives till Burns became a poet in it, and a poet of it found it a man' ft life, and therefore siirnificant to men. A thousand battle-fields remain unsung, but the Wir<'Ci> had passed and repassed, in rude awe and laughter, since the era of the Druids ; but no Theocritus, till Burns, discerned in it the mate- rials* of a Scottish idyl : neither was the Holy Fair any Council of Ti-mit or lioman Jubilee ; but, nevertheless, Superstition and Hypoo- riy and Fun having been propitious to him, in this man's hand it LIFE OF BURNS. 2g became a poem, instinct with satire and genuine comic life. Let bnt the true poet be given us, we repeat it, place him where and how you will, and true poetry will not be wanting. Independently of the essential gift of poetic feeling, as we have now attempted to describe it, a certain rugged sterling worth per- vades whatever Burns has written a virtue, as of green fields and mountain breezes, dwells in his poetry ; it is redelent of natural life and hardy, natural men. There is a decisive strength in him, and yet a sweet native gracef ulness ; he is tender, and he is vehement, yet without constraint or too visible effort ; he melts the heart, or in- flames it, with a power which seems habitual and familiar to him. We see in him the gentleness, the trembling pity of a woman, with 11 ic deep earnestness, the force and passionate ardor of a hero. Tears lie in him, and consuming fire, as lightning lurks in the drops of the summer cloud. He has a resonance in his bosom for every note of human feeling : the high and the low, the sad, the ludicrous, the joyful, are welcome in their turns to his "lightly moved and all-con- ceiving spirit." And observe with what a prompt and eager force he grasps his subject, be it what it may ! How he fixes, as it were, the full image of the matter in his eye full and clear in every lineament and catches the real type and essence of it, amid a thousand acci- dents and superficial circumstances, no one of which misleads him ! Is it of reason some truth to be discovered ? No sophistry, no vain surface-logic detains him ; quick, resolute, unerring, he pierces through into the marrow of the question, and speaks his verdict with an emphasis that cannot be forgotten. Is it of description some visual object to be represented ? No poet of any age or nation is more graphic than Burns : the characteristic features disclose themselves to him at a glance; three linos from his hand, and we have alike- ness. And, in that rough dialect, in that rude, often awkward, me- tre, so clear and definite a likeness ! It seems a draughtsman working with a burnt stick ; and yet the burin of a Retzsch is not more ex- pressive or exact. This clearness of sight we may call the foundation of all talent ; for in fact, unless we see, our object, how shall we know how to place or prize it, in our understanding, our imagination, our affections? Yet it is not in itself, perhaps, a very high excellence, but capable of being united indifferently with the strongest or with ordinary powers. Homer surpasses all men in this quality ; but, strangely enough, at no great distance below him are Richardson and Defoe. It belongs, in truth, to what is called a lively mind, and gives no sure indication of the higher endowments that may exist along with it. In all the three cases we have mentioned, it is combined with great garrulity ; their descriptions are detailed, ample, and lovingly exact ; Homer's fire bursts through, from time to time, as if by accident ; bat Defo and Richardson have no fire. Burns, again, is not more distinguished by the clearness than by the impetuous force of his conceptions. Of *t LIFE OP BURNS. the strength, the piercing emphasis with which he thought, his em- phasis of expression may give an humble but the readiest proof. Who ever uttered sharper sayings than his words more memorable, now by their burning vehemence, now by their cool vigor and laconic, pith? A single phrase depicts a whole subject, a whole scene. Our Scottish forefathers in the battle-reH struggled forward, he says, " n (t->cat shod;" giving, in this one v, itx<\ or the /'"'///'!, or in his Wiy// on Pnnr MniU.c, which last may be reckoned his li-ipp est effort of this kind. In these pieces there are traits of a Humor as fine as that of Sterne ; yet altogether different, original, peculiar the Humor of Burns. Of the tenderness, the playful pathos, and many other kindred Sualities of Burns' s poetry, much more might be said ; but now, with lese poor outlines of a sketch, we must prepare to quit this part of our subject. To speak of his individual writings adequately and with any detail, would lead us far beyond our limits. As already hinted, we can look on but few nf these pieces as, in strict critical language, deserving the name of foerns ; they are rhymed eloquence, rhymed pathos, rhymed sense ; yet seldom essentially melodious, aerial, poetical. Tarn O'SIianter itself, which enjoys so high a favor, does not appear to us, at all decisively, to come under this last cate- gory. It is not so much a, poem as a piece of sparkling rhetoric ; tk 98 LIFE OF BURNS. heart and body of the story still lies hard and dead. He has noi gone back, much less carried us back, into that dark, earnest, wondering age, when the tradition was believed, and when it took its rise ; he does not attempt, by any new modelling of his su- pernatural ware, to strike anew that deep mysterious chord of human nature, which once responded to such things ; and which. lives in us too, and will forever live, though silent, or vibrat- ing with far other notes, and to far different issues. Our Ger- man readers will understand us when we say that he is not the Tieck but the Musaus af this tale. Externally it is all green and living ; yet look closer, it is no firm growth, but only ivy on a rock. The piece does not probably cohere ; the strange chasm which yawns in our incredulous imaginations between the Ayr public-house and the gate of Tophet, is nowhere bridged over, nay, the idea of such a bridge is laughed at ; and thus the Tragedy of the adventure becomes a mere drunken phantasmagoria, painted on ale- vapors, and the farce alone has any reality. We do not say that Burns should have made much more of this tradition ; we rather think that, for strictly poeti- cal purposes, not much was to be made of it. Neither are we blind to the deep, varied, genial power displayed in what he has actually accomplished : but we find far more " Shakspearian " qualities, as these of Tom O'Shanter have been fondly named, in many of his other pieces ; nay, we incline to believe that this latter might have been written,, all but quite as well, by a man who, in place of genius, had only possessed talent. Perhaps we may venture to say, that the most strictly poetical of all his " poems" is one, which does not appear in Currie's Edition, but has been often printed before and since, under the humble title of The Jolly Beggars. The subject truly is among the lowest in na- ture ; but it only the more shows our poet's gift in raising it into the domain of Art. To our minds, this piece seems thoroughly com- pacted, melted together, refined, and poured forth in one flood ot true liquid harmony. It is light, airy, and soft of movement ; yet sharp and precise in its details ; every fac is a portrait : that ranch carlin, that wee Apotto, that Son of Mars, are Scottish, yet ideal ; the scenp is at once a dream, and the very Rag-castle of " Poosie-Nan- Farther, it seems in a considerable degree complete, a real self- supporting Whole, which is the highest merit in a poem. The blanket of the night is drawn asunder for a moment ; in fall, ruddy, and flaming light, these rough tatterdemalions are seen in their boist- erous revel ; for the strong pulse of Life vindicates its right to glad- ness even here ; and when the curtain closes, we prolong the action without effort ; the next day, as the last, our Caird and our BnU,i,l- moiiycr are singing and soldiering ; their "brats and callets " ara hawking, begging, cheating ; and some other night, in new combina- tions, they will ring from Fate another hour of wassail and good Cheer. It would be strange, doubtless, to call this the best of Bunis'9 LIFE OF iJURNS. 2$ writings ; we mean to say only, that it seems to us the most perfect of its kind, as a piece of poetical composition, strictly so-called. In the Beggar's Opera, in -the Beggar's Bush, as other critics have al- ready remarked, there is nothing which, in real poetic vigor, equals this Cantata ; nothing, as we think, which comes within many de- grees of it. But by far the most finished, complete, and truly inspired pieces of Burns are, without dispute, to be found among his Songs. It is hero that, although through a small aperture, his light shines with the least obstruction, in its highest beauty, and pure sunny clearness. The reason may be, that Song is a briei' and simple species of com- position : and requires nothing so much for its perfection as genuine poetic feeling, genuine music of heart. The Song has its rules equally with the Tragedy ; rules which in mo 4 cases are poorly ful- filled, in many cases are not so much as felt. We might write a long essay on the Songs of Burns ; which we reckon by far the best that Britain has yet produced ; for, indeed, since the era of Queen Eliza- beth, we know not that, by any other hand, aught truly worth atten- tion has been accomplished in this department. True, we have songs enough " by persons of quality ;" we have tawdry, hollow, wine-bred, madrigals ; many a rhymed " speech " in the flowing and watery vein of Ossorius the Portugal Bishop, rich in sonorous words, and, for moral, dashed perhaps with some tint of a sentimental sensuality ; all which many persons cease not from endeavoring to sing : though for most part, we fear, the music is but from the throat outward, or at best from some region far enough short of the Soul ; not in which, but in a certain inane Limbo of the Fancy, or even in some vaporous debatable land on the outside of the Nervous System, most of such madrigals and rhymed speeches seem to have originated. With tha Songs of Burns we must not name these things. Independently of the clear, manly, heartfelt sentiment that ever pervades his poetry, his songs are honest in another point of view : in form as well as in spirit. They do not affect to be set to music ; but they actually and in themselves are music ; they have received their life, and fashioned themselves together, in the medium of Harmony, as Venus rose from the bosom of the sea. The story, the feeling, is not detailed, but suggested ; not said, or spouted, in rhetorical completeness and co- herence ; but suny, in fitful gushes, in glowing hints, in fantastic breaks, in vxt/rbUngs not of the voice only, but of the whole mind. We consider this to be the essence of a song : and that no songs since the little careless catches, and, as it were, drops of song, which Shakspeare has here and there sprinkled over his plays, fulfil this condition in nearly the same degree as most of Burns' s do. Such grace and truth of external movement, too, presupposes in general a corresponding force of truth and sentiment, and inward meaning. The Songs of Burns are not more perfect in the former quality thaa VI the latter. With what tenderness he singa, yet with what vehe- 30 LIFE OF BURNS. mence and entireness ! There is a piercing wail in his sorrow, the purest rapture in his joy : he burns with the sternest ire, or laughJ with the loudest or slyest mirth ; and yet he is sweet and soft, "sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet, and soft as their parting tear !" If we farther take into account the immense variety of his subjects ; how, from the loud flowing revel in Willie brew'd a peck o' Maut, to the still, rapt enthusiasm of sadness for Mary in Heaven; from th glad kind greeting of Auld Lanysyne, or the comic archness of Dun- can Gray, to the fire-eyed fury of Scots, wJia lute icf Wallace bled, he has found atone and words for every mood of man's heart it will seem a small praise if we rank him as the first of all our song- writers ; for we know not where to find one worthy of being second to him. It is on his Songs, as we believe, that Burns's chief influence as an author will ultimately be found to depend : nor, if our Fletcher' t) aphorism is true, shall we account this a small influence. " Let mo make the songs of a people," said he, " and you shall make its laws." Surely, if ever any Poet might have equalled himself 'with Legisla- tors, on this ground, it was Burns. His songs are already part of tho mother tongue, not of Scotland only, but of Britain, and of the mil- lions that in all the ends of the earth speak a British language. In hut and hall, as the heart unfolds itself in the joy and woe -of exist- ence, the name, the voice of that joy and that woe, is the name and voice which Burns has given them. Strictly speaking, perhaps, no British man has so deeply affected the thoughts and feelings of so many men as this solitary and altogether private individual, with means apparently the humblest. In another point of view, moreover, we incline to think that Burns's influence may have been considerable : we mean, as exerted specially on the Literature of his country, at least on the Literature of Scot- land. Among the great changes which British, particularly Scottish literature, has undergone since that period, one of the greatest will be found to consist in its remarkable increase of. nationality. Even the English writers, most popular in Burns's time, were little distin- guished for their 1'terary patriotism, in this its best sense. A certain attenuated cosmopolitanism had, in good measure, taken place of th old insular home-feeling ; literature was, as it were, without any local environment was not nourished by the affections which spring from a native soil. Our Grays and Glovers seemed to write almost as if in vacua; the thing written bears no mark of place ; it is not written so much for Englishmen as for men ; or rather, which is the inevitable result of this, for certain Generalizations which philosophy termed men. Goldsmith is an exception ; not so Johnson ; the scene of his Rambler is little more English than that of his Rassdas. But if such was, in some degree, the case with England, it was, in the highest degree, the case with Scotland. In fact, our Scottish literature had, at that period, a very singular aspect ; unexampled, so far as we Ju*ow, except perhaps at Geneva, where the same state of inatt p- LIFE OP BURNS. & pears still to continue. For a long period after Scotland became British, we had no literature ; at the date when Addison and Steel* were writing their Spectators, our good Thomas Boston was writing^ with the noblest intent, but alike in defiance of grammar and phil- osophy, his Fourfold /State of Man. Then came the schisms in our National Church, and the fiercer schisms in our Body Politic : Theo- logic ink and Jacobite blood, with gall enough in both cases, seemed to have blotted out the intellect of the country ; however, it was only obscured, not obliterated. Lord Kauies made nearly the first attempt, and a tolerably clumsy one, at writing English ; and, ere long, Hume, Robe/tson, Smith, and whole host of followers, attracted hither the eyes of all Europe. And yet in this brilliant resuscitation of our '' fervid genius," there was nothing truly Scottish, nothing indige- nous ; except, perhaps, the natural impetuosity of intellect, which we sometimes claim, and are sometimes upbraided with, as a character- istic of our nation. It is curious to remark that Scotland, so full of writers, had no Scottish culture, nor indeed any English ; our culture was almost exclusively French. It was by studying Racine and VoL aire, Batteux and Boileau, that Kames had trained himself to be a critic and philosopher : it was the light of Montesquieu and Mably that guided Robertson in his political speculations ; Quesnay's" lamp that kindled the lamp of Adam Smith. Hume was too rich a man to borrow ; and perhaps he reacted on the French more than he was acted on by them : but neither had he aught to do with Scotland ; Edinburgh, equally with La Fleche, was but the lodging and labora- tory, in which he not so much morally lived, as metaphysically in- vestigated. Never, perhaps, was there a class of writers, so clear and well-ordered, yet so totally destitute, to all appearance, of any patri otic affection nay, of any human affection whatever. The French wits of the period were as unpatriotic ; but their general deficiency in moral principle,, not to say their avowed sensuality and unbelief in all virtue, strictly so called, render this accountable enough. We hope there is a patriotism founded on something better than prejudice ; that our country may bo dear to us, without injury to our philosophy ; that iii loving and justly prizing all other lands, we may prize jtfstly, and yet love before all others, our own stern Motherland, and the venerable structure of social and moral Life, which Mind has through long ages been building up for us there Surely there is nourish ment for the better part of man's heart in all this : surely the roots, that have fixed themselves in the very core of man's being, may be so cultivated as to grow up not into briers, but into roses, in the field of his life ! Our Scottish sages have no such propensities : the field of their life shows neither briers nor roses ; but only a flat, continuous thrashing-floor for Logic, whereon all questions, from the " Doctrine of Rent " to the " Natural History of Religion," are thrashed and sifted with the same mechanj al impartiality ! With Sir Walter Scott at the head of ou* literature, it cannot b 83 LIFE OF BURSS. denied that mucli of tliis evil is past, or rapidly passing away : o* chief literary men, whatever other fivults they may have, no longer Jive among us like a French Colony, or some knot of Propaganda Mis- tHoaaries ; but like natural-born subjects of the soil, partaking ant ;,r:npathiziiig in all our attachments, humors, and habits. Our liter- ature no longer grows in water, but in mould, and with the true racy virtues of the soil and climate. How much of this change may be due to Burns, or to any other individual, it might be difficult to esti- mate. Direct literary imitation of Burns was not to be looked for. But his example, in the fearless adoption of domestic subjects, could not but operate from afar ; and certainly in no heart did the loye of country ever burn with a warmer glow than in that of Burns : "a tide of Scottish prejudice," as he modestly calls this deep and gener- ous feeling, "had been poured 'along his veins; and he felt that it would boil there till the flood-gates shut in eternal rest." It seemed to him as if he could do so little for his country, and yet would so gladly have done all. One small province stood open for him ; that of Scottish song, and how eagerly he entered on it ; how devotedly he labored there ! In his most toilsome journeyings, this object never quits him ; it is the little happy- valley of his careworn heart. In the gloom of his own affliction, he eagerly searches after some lonely brother of the muse, aud rejoices to snatch on other name from the oblivion that was covering it ! These were early feelings, and they abode with him to the end. a wish, (I mind its power), A wish, that to my latest hour Will strongly heave my breast ; That I, for poor auld Scotland's sake, Some useful plan or book could make, Or sing a sang at least. The rough bur Thistle spreading wide Amang the bearded bear, I turn'd my weeding-clips aside, And spared the symbol dear. But to leave the mere literary character of Burns, which has al- ready* detained us too long, we cannot but think that the Life he willed, and was fated to lead among his fellow-men, is both more in- teresting and instructive than any of his written works. Thea Poonis are but like little rhymed fragments scattered here and there in the grand unrhymed Romance of his earthly existence ; and it is only when intercalated in this at their proper places, that they attain their full measure of significance. And this too, alas, was but a fragment I The plan of a mighty edifice had been sketched ; some columns, norticoes, firm masses of building, stand completed ; the rest more or less clearly indicated ; with many a far-stretching tendency, which only studious and friendly eyes can now trace towards the purposed termination. For the work is broken off in the middle, almost in the beginning : and rises among us, beautiful and sad, at once unfinished LIFE OF BURNS. & and a ruin ! If charitable judgment was necessary in estimating hi* poems, and justice required that the aim and the manifest power to fulfil it must often be accepted for the fulfilment ; much more is this the case in regard to his life, the sum and result of all his endeavors, where his difficulties came upon him not hi detail only, but in mass ; and so much has been left una<- xxnplished, nay, was mistaken, and altogether marred. Properly speaking, there is but one era in the life of Burns, and that the earliest. We have not youth and manhood ; but only youth : for, to the end, we discern no decisive change in the complexion of hLs character ; in his thirty-seventh year, he is still, as it were, in youth. With all that resoluteness of judgment, that penetrating in- sight, and singular maturity of intellectual power, exhibited in his writings, he never attains to any clearness regarding himself ; to the 'ast he never ascertains his peculiar aim, even with such distinctness as is common among ordinary men ; and therefore never can pursue it with that singleness of will, which insures success ond some con- tentment to such men. To the last, he wavers between two pur- poses : glorying in his talent, like a true poet, he yet cannot consent to make this his chief and sole glory, and to follow it as the one thing needful, through poverty or riches, through good or evil report. Another far meaner ambition still cleaves to him ; he must dream and struggle about a certain " Rock of Independence ; " which, natural and even admirable as it might be, was still but a warring with the world, on the comparatively insignificant ground of his being more or less completely supplied with money than others ; of his standing at a higher or at a lower altitude in general estimation, than other. . For the world still appears to him, as to the young, in borrowed col- ors ; he expects from it what it cannot give to any man ; seeks for contentment, not within himself, in action and wise effort, but from without, in the kindness of circumstances, in love, friendship, honor, pecuniary ease. He would be happy, not actively and in himself, but passively, and from some ideal cornucopia of Enjoyments, not earned by his own labor, but showered on him by the beneficence of Destiny. Thus, like a young man, he cannot steady himself for any fixed or systematic pursuit, but swerves to and f o, between passionate hope and remorseful disappointment : rushing onwards with a deep, tempestuous force, he surmounts or breaks asunder many a barrier ; travels, nay, advances far, but advancing only under uncertain guidance, is ever and anon turned from his path : and to the last, cannot reach the only true happiness of a man, that of clear, decided Activity in the sphere for which by nature and circumstances he has been fitted and appointed. We do not say these things in dispraise of Burns : nay, perhaps, they but interest us the more in his favor. This blessing is not given soonest to the best ; but rather, it is often the greatest minds that are latest in obtaining it ; for where moat is te be developed, most tira* 34 LIFE OF BURNS. rnny Le required to develop it. A complex condition had been as. signed him from without, as complex a condition from within : n " pre-established harmony " existed between the clay soil of Mossgiel and the empyrean soul of Robert Burns ; it was not wonderful, there-i fore, that the adjustment between them should have been long post- poned, and his arm long cumbered, and his sight confused, in so vast niul discordant an economy as he had been appointed steward over. Byron was, at his death, but a year younger than Burns ; and throiigh life, as it might have appeared, far more simply situated ; yet in him, too, we can trace no such adjustment, no such moral manhood ; but at best, and only a little before his end, the beginning of what seemed such. By much the most striking incident in Burns's Life is his journey to Edinburgh ; but perhaps a still more important one is his residence at Irvine, so early as in his twenty -third year. Hitherto his life had been poor and toilworn ; but otherwise not ungenial, and, with all its distresses, by no means unhappy. In his parentage, deducting out- ward circumstances, he had every reason to reckon himself fortunate : his father was a man of thoughtful, intense, earnest character, as the best of our peasants are ; valuing knowledge, possessing some, and, what is far better and rarer, open-minded for more ; a man with a keen insight and devout heart.; reverent towards God, friendly there- fore at once, and fearless towards all that God has made ; in one word, though but a hard-handed peasant, a complete and fully un- folded Man. Such a father is seldom found in any rank hi society ; and was worth descending far in society to seek. Unfortunately, he was very poor ; had he been even a little richer, almost ever so little, the whole might have issued far otherwise. Mighty events turn on a straw ; the crossing of a brook decides the conquest of the world. Had this William Burns's small seven acres of nursery ground any- wise prospered, the boy Robert had been sent to school ; hud strug- gled forward, as so many weaker men do, to some university ; come forth not as a rustic wonder, bu!/ as a regular well-trained intellectual workman, and changed the whole course of British Literature for it lay in him to have done this ! But the nursery did not prosper ; pov- erty sank h : s whole family below the help of even our cheap school- system : Burns remained a hard-worked ploughboy, and British liter- ature took its own course. Nevertheless, even in this rugged scene, there is much to nourish him. If he drudges, it is with his brother, and for his father and mother, whom he loves, and would fain shield from want. Wisdom is not banished from their poor hearth, nor the balm of natural feeling : the solemn words, Let us worship God, are heard there from a "priest-like father;" if threatenings of unjust men throw mother and children into tears, these are tears not of grief only, but of holiest affection ; every heart in that humble group feels itself the closer knit to every other; in their hard warfare they are there together, "a little band of brethren," Neither ar such tears, and LIFE OF BURNS. 38 the deep beauty that dwells in them, their OR/y portion. Light yisits the hearts as it does the eyes of all living ; there is a force, too, in this youth that enables him to trample on misfortune ; nay, to bind it under his feet to make him sport. For a bold, warm, buoyant humor of character has been given him ; and so the thick-coming shapes of evil are welcomed with a gay, friendly irony, and in their closest pressure he bates no jot of heart or hope. Vague yearnings of ambi- tion fail not, as he grows up ; dreamy fancies hang like cloud-cities around him ; the curtain of Existence is slowly rising, in many col- ored splendor and gloom ; and the aurora light of first love is gilding his horizon, and the music of song is on his path ; and so he walks in glory and in joy, Behind his plough, upon the mountain side 1 " We know, from the best evidence, that up to this date Burns was happy ; nay, that he was the gayest, brightest, most fantastic, fasci- nating being to be found in the world; more so even than he ever afterwards appeared. But now at this early age he quits the pater- nal roof, goes forth into looser, louder, more exciting society, and be- comes initiated in those dissipations, those vices, which a certain class of philosophers have asserted to be a natural preparative for entering on active life ; a kind of mud-bath, in which the youth is, as it were, necessitated to steep, and, we suppose, cleanse himself, before the real toga of Manhood can be laid on him. We shall not dispute much with this class of philosophers; we hope they are mistaken; for Sin and Remorse so easily beset us at all stages of life, and are always such indifferent company, that it seems luird we should, at any stage, be forced and fated not only to meet, but to yield to them; and even serve for a term in their leprous armada. We hope it is not so. Clear we are, at all events, it cannot be the training one receives in this service, but only our determining to desert from it, that fits for true manly Action. We become men, not after we have been dis- sipated and disappointed in the chase of false pleasure, but after we have ascertained, in any way, what impassable barriers hem us in through this life; how mad it is to hope for contentment to our infi- nite soul from the gifts of this extremely finite world! that a man must be* sufficient for himself; and that "'for suffering and enduring there is no remedy but striving and doing." Manhood begins when we have in any way made truce with Necessity begins, at all events, when we have surrendered to Necessity, as the most part only do; but begins joyfully and hopefully only when we have reconciled our- selves to Necessity, and thus, in reality, triumphed over it, and felt that in Necessity we are free. Surely such lessons as this last, which, in one shape or other, is the grand lesson for every mortal man, are better learned from the lips of a devout mother, in the looks and actions of a devout father, while the heart is yet soft and pliant, 36 LIFE OF BURNS. than in collision with the sharp adamant of Fate, attracting us i shipwreck us, when the heart is grown hard, and may be broken be- fore it will become contrite ! Had Burns continued to learn this, as he was already learning it, in his father's cottage, he would have learned it fully, which he never did, and been saved many a lasting aberration, many a bitter hour and year of remorseful sorrow. It seems to us another circumstance of fatal import in Burns's his tory, that at this time too he became involved in the religious quar rels of his district ; that he was enlisted and feasted, as the fighting man of the New Light Priesthood, in their highly unprofitable war- fare. At the tables of these free-minded clergy, he learned much more than was needful for him. Such liberal ridicule of fanaticism awakened in his mind scruples about Religion itself ; and a whole world of Doubts, which it required quite another set of conjurors than those men to exorcise. We do not say that such an intellect as his could have escaped similar doubts, at some period of his history ; or even that he could, at a later period, have come through them al- together victorious and unharmed : but it seems peculiarly unfortu- nate that this time, above all others, should have been fixed for the encounter. For now, with principles assailed by evil example from without, by "passions raging like demons" from within, he had little need of skeptical misgivings to whisper treason in the heat of the battle, or to cut off his retreat if he were already defeated. He loses his feeling of innocence ; his mind is at variance with itself ; the old divinity no longer presides there ; but wild Desires and wild Re pentance alternately oppress him. Erelong, too, he has committed himself before the world ; his character for sobriety, dear to a Scot- tish peasant, as few corrupted worldlings can even conceive, is de- stroyed in the eyes of men ; and his only refuge consists in trying to disbelieve his guiltiness, and is but a refuge of lies. The blackest desperation now gathers over him, broken only by the red lightnings of remorse. The whole fabric of his life is blasted asunder? for now not only his character, but his personal liberty is to be lost ; men and Fortune are leagued for his hurt; " hungry Ruin has him in the wind." He sees no escape but the saddest of all : exile from his loved country, to a country in every sense inhospitable and abhorrent to him. While the "gloomy night is gathering fast, in mental storm and solitude, as well as in physical, he sings Ms wild fafewell to Scotland : " Farewell, my friends, farewell, my foes ! My peace with these, my love with those : The bursting tears my heart declare ; Adieu, my native banks of Ayr 1 " Light breaks suddenly in on him in floods ; Tut still a false transi tory light, and no real sunshine. He is invited to Edinburgh ; has- tens thither with anticipating heart : is welcomed as in triumph, and LIFE OF BUKNS. 8? with universal blandishment and acclamation ; whatever is wisest, whatever is greatest or loveliest there, gathers round him, to gaze on his face, to show him honor, sympathy, affection. Burns's appearance among the sages and nobles of Edinburgh must be regarded as one of the most singular phenomena in modern Literature ; almost like the appearance of some Napoleon among the crowned sovereigns of modern Politics. For it is nowise as a " mockery king," set there by favor, transiently, and for a purpose, that he will let himself be treated ; still less is he a mad Rienzi, whose sudden elevation tarns his too weak head ; but he stands t .ere on liis own basis ; cool, un- astonished, holding his equal rank from Nature herself ; putting forth no claim which there is not strength in him, as well as about him, to vindicate. Mr. Lockhart has some forcible observations on tliis point : " It needs no effort of imagination," says he, " to conceive what the sensations of an isolated set of scholars (almost all either clergymen or professors) must have been, in the presence of this big- boned, black-browed, brawny stranger, with his great flashing eyes, who, having forced his way among them from the plough-tail, at a single stride, manifested in the whole strain of his bearing and con versa tion, a most thorough conviction that in the society of the most em- inent men of his nation, he was exactly where he was entitled to be ; hardly deigned to flatter them by exhibiting even an occasional sympton of being flattered by their notice ; by turns calmly meas- ured himself against the most cultivated understandings of his time in discussion ; overpowered the bon mots of the most celebrated con- vivialists by broad floods of merriment, impregnated with all the burning life of genius ; astounded bosoms habitually enveloped in the thrice piled folds of social reserve, by compelling them to trem- ble nay, to tremble visibly beneath the fearless touch of natural pathos ; and all this without indicating the smallest willingness to be ranked among those professional ministers of excitement who ara content to be paid in money and smiles for doing what the spectators and auditors would be ashamed of doing in their own persons, even if they had the power of doing it ; and last, and probably worst of all, who was known to be in the habit of enlivening societies whicV they would have scorned to approach, still more frequently than their own, with eloquence no less magnificent ; with wit in all like- lihood still more daring ; often enough as the superiors whom ht fronted without alarm might have guessed from the beginning, and had ere long, no occasion to guess, with wit, pointed at themselves." The farther we remove from this scene, the more singular will it Mem to us ; details of the exterior aspect of it are already full of in. terest. Most readers recollect Mr. Walker's personal interviews with Burns as among the best passages of his Narrative ; a tim,; will coma when this reminiscence of Sir Walter Scoto's, slight though & it, will tvlso be precious. 18 LIFE OF BURNS. " As for Burns," writes Sir Walter,. '* I may truly say VirgiliurA v'nli tun-turn. I was a lad of fifteen in 1786-'7, when he first came to Edinburgh, but had sense and feeling enough to be much interested in his poetry, and would have give the world to know him : but 1 had very little acquaintance with any literary people, and still less with the gentry of the west conntry, .the two sets that he most fre- quented. Mr. Thomas Griersori was at that time a clerk of my father's. lie knew Burns, and promised to ask him to his lodgings to dinner, but had no opportunity to keep his word ; otherwise I might have seen more of this distinguished man. As it was, I saw him one day at the late venerable Professor Ferguson's, where there were several gentlemen of literary reputation, among whom 1 remem- ber the celebrated Mr. Dugald Stewart. Of course, we youngsters sat silent, looked and listened. The only thing I remember which was remarkable in Burns's manner, was the effect produced upon him by a print of Bunbury's representing a soldier lying dead on the snow, his dog sitting in misery on one side on the other, his widow, with a child in her arms. These lines were written beneath : ' Cold on Canadian hills, or Mtnden's plain, Perhaps that mother wept her soldier slain: Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew, The big drops mingling with the milk he drew Gave the sad presage of his future years, The child of misery baptized in tears.' " Burns seemed much affected by the print, or rather by the ideas which it suggested to his mind. He actually shed team. He asked whose the lines were, and it chanced that nobody but myself remem- bered that they occur in a half-forgotten poem of Langhorne's called by the upromising title of " The Justice of Peace." I whispered my information to a friend present, he mentioned it to Burns, who re warded me with a look and a word, which, though of mere civility, I then received and still recollect with very great pleasure. " His person was strong' and robust ; his manners rustic, not clown- ish ; a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity, whi ch received part of its effect perhaps from one's knowledge of his extraordinary tal- ents. His features are represented in Mr. Nasmyth's picture ; but to me it conveys the idea that they are diminished, as if seen in per. spective. I think his countenance was more massive than it looks in any of the portraits. I should have take the poet, had I not known what he was, for a very sagacious country farmer of the old Scotch Bchpol, i. e.. none of your modern agriculturists who keep laborers for thir drudgery, but the douce gudeman who held his own plough* Tbere was a strong expression of sense and shrewdness in all his lin* amenta ; the eye alone, I think, indicated the poetical character aof trinpejament. It was large, and of a dark cast, which glowed (1 say literally glowect) when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never aW LIFE OF BUKXS. 39 Buch another eye in a human head, though I have seen the most dis- tinguished men of rny time. Ills conversation expressed perfect self- confidence, without the slightest presumption. Among the men who were the most learned of their time and country, he expressed him- self with perfect firmness, but without the least intrusive forward- ness ; and when he differed in opinion, he did not hesitate to express it firmly, yet at the same time with modesty. I do not remember any part of his conversation distinctly enough to be quoted ; nor did I ever see him again, except in the street, where he did not recognize me, as I could not expect he should. ' He was much caressed in Edin- burgh ; but (considering what literary emoluments have been sinco his day) the efforts made for his relief were extremely trifling. " I remember, on this occasion I mention, I thought Burns's ac- quaintance with English poetry was rather limited ; and also, that having twenty times the abilities of Allan Ramsay and of Ferguson, he tallced of them with too much humility as his models ; there was doubtless national predilection in his estimate. " This is all I can tell you about Burns. I have only to add, that his dress corresponded with his manner. He was like a farmer dressed in his best to dine with the laird. I do not speak in malam partem; when I say I never saw a man in company with his superi- ors in station or information more perfectly free from either the re- ality or the affectation of embarrassment. I was told, but did not observe it, that his address to females was extremely deferential, and always with a turn either to the pathetic or humorous, which en- gaged their attention particularly. I have heard the late Duchess of Gordon remark this. I do not know anything I can add to these re- collections of forty years since." The conduct of Burns under this dazzling blaze of favor ; the calm, unaffected, manly manner, in which he not only bore it but estimated its value, has justly been regarded as the best proof that could be given of his real vigor and integrity of mind. A little natural vanity, some touches of hypocritical modesty, some glimmer- ings of affectation, at least some fear of being thought affected, we eould have pardoned in almost any man ; but no such indication is to be traced here. In his unexampled situation the young peasant is not a moment perplexed ; so many strange lights do not confuse him, do not lead him astray. Nevertheless, we cannot but perceive that this winter did him great and lasting injury. A somewhat clearer knowledge of men's affairs, scarcely of their characters, it did afford him ; but a sharper feeling of Fortune's unequal arrangements in their social destiny it also left with him. He had seen the gay and gorgeous arena, in which the powerful are born to play their parts ; nay, had himself stood in the midst of it ; and he felt more bitterly than ever, that here he was but a looker-on, and had no part or lot in that splendid game. From this time a jealotis indignant fear of social degradation takes possession el him ; and perverts, so far as aught 4ft LIFE OF BURNS. could pervert, his private contentment, and his feelings towards his richer fellows. It was clear enough to Burns that he had talent enough to make a fortune, or a hundred fortunes, could he bnt have rightly willed this , it was clear also that he willed something fur different, and therefore could not make one. Unhappy it was that he had not the power to choose the one and reject the other , but must halt forever between two opinions, two objects ; making hampered advancement towards either. But so is it with many men ; we " long for the merchandise, yet would fain keep the price ; " and so stand chaffering with Fate in vexatious altercation, till the Night come, and our fair is over 1 The Edinburgh learned of that period were in general more noted for clearness of head than for warmth of heart ; with the exception of the good old Blacklock, whose help was too ineffectual, scarcely one among them seems to have looked at Burns with any true sym- pathy, or indeed much otherwise than as at a highly curious tinny. By the great also he is treated in the customary fashion ; entertained at their tables, and dismissed certain modica of pudding and praise are, from time to time, gladly exchanged for the fascination of his presence ; which exchange once effected, the bargain is finished, and each party goes his several way. At the end of this strange- season, Burns gloomily sums up his gains and losses, and meditates on the chaotic future. In money he is somewhat richer ; in fame and the show of happiness, infinitely richer ; but in the substance of it, as poor as ever. Nay, poorer, for his heart is now maddened still more with the fever of mere worldly Ambition ; and through long years the disease will rack him with unprofitable sufferings, and weaken his strength for all true and nobler aims. What Burns was next to do or avoid, how a man so circumstanced was now to guide himself towards his true advantage, might at this point of time have been a question for the wisest ; and it was a ques tion which he was left altogether to answer for himself , of his learned or rich patrons it had not struck any individual to turn a thought on this so trivial m tter. Without claiming for Burns tha praise of perfect sagacity, we must say that his Excise and Farm scheme does not seem to us a very unreasonable one ; and that we should be at a loss, even now, to suggest one decidedly better. Some of his admirers, indeed, are scandalized at his ever resolving to ,/" >//' ; and would have had him apparently lie still at the poo 1 , till the spirit of Patronage should stir the waters, and then heal with one plunge all his worldly sorrows ! We fear such counsel lore. knew but little of Burns; and did not .consider that happiness mifcht in all cases be cheaply had by waiting for the fulfilment of golden dreams, were : v not that in the interim the dreamer must die of hunger. It reflects credit on the manliness and sound sensa of Kurns, that he felt so early on what ground he was standing, and preferred self-help on the humblest scale to dependence and iu LIFE OF BURNS. 41 action, though with hope of far more splendid possibilities. But even these possibilities were not rejected in his scheme ; he might export, if it chanced that he had any friend, to rise in no long period, into something even like opulence and leisure ; while again, if it chanced that he had no friend, he could still live in security ; and for the rest, he " did not intend to borrow honor from any profession." We think, then, that his plan was honest and well ^calculated ; all turned on the execution of it. Doubtless it failed; yet not, we be- lieve, from any vice inherent in itself. Nay, after all, it was no failure of external means, but of internal, that overtook Burns. His was no bankruptcy of the purse, but of the soul ; to his last day he owed no man anything. Meanwhile he begins well, with two good and wise actions. His donation to his mother, munificent from a man whose income had lately been seven pounds a year, was worthy of him, and n t more than worthy. Generous also," and worthy of him, was his treatment of the woman whose life's welfare now depended on his pleasure. A friendly observer might hjwe hoped serene days for him : his mind is on the true road to peace with itself : what clearness ho still wants will be given as he proceeds ; for the best teacher of duties, that still lie dim to us, is the Practice of those we see and have at hand. Had the " patrons of genius," who could give him nothing, but taken nothing from him, at least nothing more ! the wounds of his heart would have healed, vulgar ambition would have died away. Toil and Frugality would have been x welcome, since Virtue dwelt with them, and poetry would have shown through them as of eld ; and in her clear ethereal light, which was his own by birth-right, "lie might have looked down on his earthly destiny, and all its obstruc tions, not with patience only, but with love. But the patrons of genius would not have it so. Picturesque tourists,* all manner of fashionable danglers after literature, and, far worse, all manner of corrVival Maecenases, hoveryd round him in his retreat ; and his good as well as his weak qualities secured them in- fluence over him. He was flattered by t.ieir notice ; and his warm social nature made it impossible for him to shake them off, and hold * There is one little sketch by certain "-English gentlemnn" of this class, which, though adopted in Ourrie's Narrative, and since t 'en repeated in most others, we. have all along felt an invincible disposition to regard as imaginary : " On a rock that projected into the stream they saw a man employed in angling, of a singnlar appearance. He had a cap made of fox-skin on his head, a loose great-coat fixed round him by a belt, from which depended an enormous Highland broadsword. It was Bnrns^" Now, we rather think, it was not Burns. For, to say nothing of the fox-skin cap, loose and quite Hibernian watch-coat with the belt, wha' are we to make of this ' ; enormous Highland l/roadsword " depending from him ? More es- pecially, as there is no word of parish constables on the outlook to see whether, as Dennis phrases it, he had an eye to his own midriff, or that of the public ! Burns, of all men, had the least tendency to seek for distinction, cither ic nis own eyoa ot tttoje of others, by such poor mummeries. 43 LIFE OF BURNS. on his way apart from them. These men, as we believe, were proximately 'the means of his ruin. Not that they meant him any ill they only meant themselves a little good ; if he suffered harm, let him look to it ! But they wasted his precious time and his precious talent; they disturbed his composure, broke down his returning habits of temperance and assiduous contented exertion. Their pam- pering was baneful to him ; their cruelty, which soon followed, was equally baneful. The old grudge against Fortune's inequality awoke with new bitterness in their neighborhood, and Burns had no retreat but to the " Rock of Independence," which is but an air-castle, after all, that looks well at a distance, but will screen no one from real \\iinl and wet. Flushed with irregular excitement, exasperated alternately by contempt of others and 1 contempt of himself, Burns was no longer regaining his peace of mind, but fast losing it forever. There was a hollowness at the heart of his life, for his conscience did not now approve what he was doing. Amid the vapors of unwise enjoyment, of bootless remorse, and angry discontent with Fate, his true loadstar, a life of Poetry, with Poverty, nay, with Famine if it must be so, was too often altogether hidden from his eyes. And yet he sailed a sea, where, without some such guide, there was no right steering. Meteors of French Politics rise before him, but these were not Ms stars. An accident this, which hastened, but did not originate, his worst distresses. In the mad contentions of that time, he qomes in collision with certain ollicial Superiors ; is wounded by them ; cruelly lacerated, we should say, could a dead mechanical implement, in any case, be called cruel : and shrinks, in indignant pain, into deeper self-seclusion, into gloomier mqoiliness than ever. His life has now lost its unity : it is a life of fragments ; led with little aim, beyond the melancholy one of secur- ing its own continuance in fits of wild false joy, when such offered, and of black despondency when they passed away. His character before the world begins to suffer : calumny is busy with him ; for a miserable man makes more enemies than friends. Some faults he has fallen into, and a thousand misfortunes ; but deep criminality is what he stands accused of, and they that are not without sin cast tho first stone at him ! For is he not a well-wisher of the French Kevo lution, a Jacobin, and therefore in that one act guilty of all? These accusations, political and moral, it has since appeared, were false enough ; but the world hesitated little to credit them. Nay, his con- vivial Ma'cenases themselves were not the last to do it. There is rea- son to believe that, in his later years, the Dumfries Aristocracy hud partly withdrawn themselves from Burns, as from a tainted person; n longer worthy of their acquaintance. That painful class, sta- tioned, in all provincial cities, behind the outmost breastwork of Gentility, there to stand siege and do battle against the intrusion of Grocerdom and Grazierdom, had actually aeen dishonor in the society ef Burns, and branded Itim with their veto , had, ae we vulgarly say. LIFE OF BHRXS. 4 tut him ! We find one passage in this work of Mr. Lockhart's, which will not out of our thoughts : " A gentleman of that country, whose name I have already more than once had occasion to refer to, has often told me that he was sel- dom more grieved than when, riding into Dumfries one fine summer evening about this time to attend a country ball, he saw Burns walk ing alone, on the shady side of the principal street of the town, wlula the opposite side was gay with successive groups of gentlemen and ladies, all drawn together for the festivities of the night, not one of whom appeared willing to recognize him. The horseman dismounted, and joined Burns, who, on his proposing to cross the street, said ' Nay, nay, my young friend, that's all over now ;' and quoted, after a pause, some verses of Lady Grizzel Baillie's pathetic ballad : His bonnet stood ance fu' fair on his brow, His auld ane looked better than monv ane's new ; But now he lets'! wear ony way it will hinjr. And casts himsel' dowie upon the cori>bing. 4 O were we young, as we ance hae been, We sud hae been galloping down on yon green, And linking it ower the lily-white lea ! And werena my heart light I wad die. 1 It was little in Burns's character to let his feelings on certain subjects escape in this fashion. He, immediately after reciting these verses, assumed the sprightliness of his most pleasing manner ; and, taking his young friend home with him, entertained him very agreeably till the hour of the ball arrived." Alas ! when we think that Burns now sleeps " where bitter indig- nation can no longer lacerate his heart,"* and that most of these fair dames and frizzled gentlemen already lie at his side, where the breast- work of gentility is quite thrown down who would not sigh over the thin delusions and foolish toys that divide heart from heart, and make man unmerciful to his brother? It was riot now to be hoped that the genius of Burns would ever reach maturity, nor accomplish aught worthy of its If. His spirit was jarred in its melody ; not the soft breath of natural feeling, but the rude hand of Fate, was now sweeping over the strings. And yet what harmony was in him, what music even in his discords ! How the wild tones had a charm for the simplest and the wisest ; and all nifn felt and km w that here also was one of the Gifted ! " If hr- en tered an inn at midnight, after all the inmates were in bed, the news of his arrival circulated from the cellar to the garret ; and ere ten minutes had elapsed, the landlord and all his guests were assem- bled ! " Some brief, pure moments of poetic life were yet appointed him, in the composition of his Songs. We can understand how lie grasped at this employment, and how, too, lie spurned at all othe* * Ubi gce-ca indiffnalio ecr ulteriuflacerarenegiiit. SWIFT'S Epitaph. 44 LIFE OF BURNS. reward for it but what the labor itself brought him. For the soul of Barns, though scathed and marred, was yet living in its full moral strength, though sharply conscious of its errors and abasement ; and here, in his destitution and degradation, was one act of seeming nobleness and self devotedness left even for him to perform. He felt, too, that with all the " thoughless follies " that had " laid him low," the world was unjust and cruel to him ; and he silently appealed to another and calmer time. Not as a hired soldier, but as a patriot, would he strive for the glory of his country ; so he cast from him the poor sixpence a-day, and served zealously as a volunteer. Let us not grudge him this last luxury of his existence ; let him not have ap- liralrd to us in vain ! The money was not necessary to him ; he struggled through without it ; long since, these guineas would have been gone, and now the high-mindedness of refusing them will plead for him in all hearts for ever. We are here arrived at the crisis of Burns's life ; for matters had now taken such a shape with him as could not long continue. If im- provement was not to be looked for, Nature could only for a limited time maintain this dark and maddening warfare against the world and itself. We are not medically informed whether any continuance of years was, at this period, probable for Burns ; whether his death is to be looked on as in some sense an accidental event, or only as the natural consequence of the long series of events that had preceded. The latter seems to be the likelier opinion, and yet it is by no means a certain one. At all events, as we have said", some change could not 'be very distant. Three gates of deliverance, it seems to us, were open for Burns : clear poetical activity, madness, or death. The first, with longer life, was still possible, though not probable ; for physical causes were beginning to be concerned in it : and yet Burns had an iron resolution : could he but have seen and felt that not only his highest glory, but his first duty, and the true medicine for all his woes, lay here. The second was still less probable ; for his mind was ever among the clearest and firmest. So the milder third gate was opened for him : and he passed, not softly, yet speedily, into that still country where the hail-storms and fire-showers do not reach, and the heaviest-laden wayfarer at length lays down his load ! Contemplating this sad end of Burns, and how he sank unaided by any real help, uncheered by any wise sympathy, generous minds hava sometimes figured to themselves, with a reproachful sorrow, that much might have mwm done for him ; that by counsel, true affection, and friendly miaJ>''ft.nn, he might have been saved to himself and the world. We iag. only for moments. He has no Religion ; in the shallow age, where his days were cast, Religion was not discriminated from the New and Old Light forms of Religion ; and 'Vas, with these, becom- ing obsolete in the minds of men. His he<\rt, indeed, is alive witli a trembling adoration, but there is no temple in his understanding. He lives in darkness and in the shadow of doubt. His religion, at best, is an anxious wish ; like that of Rabelais; "a great Perhaps." He loved Poetry warmly, and in nis heart ; could he but have loved it purely, and with his whole undivided heart, it had been well. For Poetry, as Burns could have followed it, is but another form of Wis- dom, of Religion ; is itself Wisdom and Religion. But this also was denied him. His poetry *s a stray, vagrant gleam, which will not be extinguished within hira, yet rises not to be the true light of his path, but is often a wildfire "Uiat misleads him. It was not necessary for Burns to be rich, to be or to seem " independent ; " but it was neces- sary for him to be at one with his own heart ; to place what was highest in his nature, highest also in his life ; "to seek within him- self for that consistency and sequence which external events would for ever refuse him." He was born a poet ; poetry was the celestial element of his being, and should have been the soul of his whole en- deavors. Lifted into that serene ether, whither he had wings given him to mount, he would have needed no other elevation : Poverty, neglect, and all evil, save the desecration of himself and his Art, were a small matter to him : th<; pride and the passions of the world lay far beneath his feet ; and he looked down alike on noble and slave, n prince and beggar, and all that wore the stamp of man, with clear recognition, with brotherly affection, with sympathy, with pity. Nay, we question whether for his culture as a Poet, poverty, and much suf- fering for a season, were not absolutely advantageous. Great men, in looking back over their lives, have testified to that effect. " I would not for much." says Jean Paul, " that I had been born richer." And yet Paul's birth was poor enough; for 'in another place he adds: " The prisoner's allowance is bread and water ; and I had often only the latter." But the gold that is refined in the hottest furnace conies out the purest ; or, as he has himself expressed it, "the canary bird sings sweeter the longer it has been trained in a darkened cage." A man like Burns might have divided his hours between poetry and virtuous industry ; industry which all true feeling sanctions, nay, prescribes, and which has a beauty, for that cause, beyond the pomp of thrones ; but to divide his hours between poetry and rich men's banquets, was an ill-starred and inauspicious attempt. How could he be at ease at such banquets '? What had he to do there, mingling his music with the coarse roar of altogether earthly voices, and brighten- ing the thick smoke of intoxication with fire lent him from heaven ? Was it his aim to enjoy life? To-morrow he must go drudge as an Exciseman ! We wonder not that Burns became moody, indignant, Hid at times an offender against certain rules of society ; but ratkar 50 LIFE OF BURNS. that he did not grow utterly frantic, and run a-muck against them all. How could a man, so falsely placed, by his own or others' fault, ever know contentment or peaceable diligence for an hour? What he did, under such perverse guidance, and what he forbore to do, alike fill us with astonishment at the natural strength and worth of his character. Doubtless there was a remedy for this perverseness : but not in thers, only in himself ; least of all in simple increase of wealth and worldly "respectability." We hope we have now heard enough about the efficacy of wealth for poetry, and to make poets happy. Nay, have we not seen another instance of it in these very days ? Byron, a man of endowment, considerably less ethereal than that of Burns, is born in the rank not of a Scottish ploughman, but of an English peer : the highest worldly honors, the fairest worldly career, are his by inheritance : the richest harvest of fame he soon reaps, in another province, by Ms own hand. And what does all this avail him ? Is he happy, is he good, is he true ? Alas, he has a poet's soul, and strives towards the Infinite and the Eternal ; and soon feels that all this is but mounting to the house-top to reach the stars ! Like Burns, he is only a proud man ; might like him have " purchased a pocket-copy of Milton to study the character of Satan ; " for Satan also is Byron's grand exemplar, the hero of his poetry and the model apparently of his conduct. As in Burns's case, too, the celestial ele- ment will not mingle with the clay of earth ; both poet and man of the world he must not be ; vulgar Ambition will not live kindly with poetic Adoration ; he cannot serve God and Mammon. Byron, like Burns, is not happy ; nay, he is the most wretched of all men. His life is falsely arranged : the fire that is in him is not a strong, still, central fire, warming into beauty the products of a world ; but it is the mad fire of a volcano ; and now we look sadly into the ashes of a crater, which ere long will fill itself with snow ! Byron and Burns were sent forth as missionaries to their genera- tion, to teach it a -higher doctrine, a purer truth : they had a message to deliver, which left them no rest till it was accomplished ; in dim throes of pain, this divine behest lay smouldering within them ; for they knew not what it meant, and felt it only in mysterious anticipa- tion, and they had to die without articulately uttering it. " They are in the camp of the Unconverted. Yet not as high messengers of rigor- us though benignant truth, but as soft flattering singers, and in pleasant fellowship, will they live there ; they are first adulated, then persecuted ; they accomplish little for others ; they find no peace for themselves, but only death and the peace of the grave. We confess, it is not without a certain mournful awe that we view the fate of these noble souls, so richly gifted, yet ruined to so little purpose with all their gifts. It seems to us there is a stern moral taught in this piece of history ttrire told us in our own time ! Surely to men of like p 'iiins, if there be any such, it carries with it a lesson of deep impres- sive significance. Surely it would become such a man, furnished for LIFE OF BURNS. 51 the highest of all enterprises, that of being the Poet of his Age, to consider well what it is that he attempts, and in what spirit he at- tempts it. For the words of Milton are true in all times, and were never trurer than in this : " He who would write heroic poems must make his whole life a heroic poem." If he cannot first so make his life, then let him hasten from this arena ; for neither its lofty glories nor its fearful perils are for him. L#t him dwindle into a modish balladmonger ; let him worship and be-sing the idols of the time, and the time will not fail to reward him if, indeed, he can endure to live in that capacity ' Byron and Burns could not live as idol-priests, but the fire of their own hearts consumed them ; and better it was for them that they could not. For it is not in the favor of the great or of the small, but in a life of truth, and in the inexpugnable citadel of his own soul, that a Byron's or a Burns's strength must lie. Let the great stand aloof from him, or know how to reverence him. Beautiful is the union of wealth with favor and furtherance for literature, like the costliest flower- jar enclosing the lovliest amaranth. Yet let not th relation be mis- taken. A true poet is not one whom they can hire by money or flat- tery to be a minister of their pleasures, their writer of occasional ver- ses, their purveyor of table- wit ; he cannot be their menial, he cannot even be their partisan. At the peril of both parties, let no such union be attempted ! Will a Courser of the Sun work softly in the harness of a Dray-horse ? His hoofs are of fire, and his path is through the heavens, bringing light to all lands ; will he lumber on mud highways, dragging ale for earthly appetites, from door to door ? But we must stop short in these considerations, which would lead as to boundless lengths. We had something to say on the public moral character of Burns ; but this also we must forbear. We are far from regarding him as guilty before the world, as guiltier than the average ; nay, from doubting that he is less guilty than one of ten thousand. Tried at a tribunal far more rigid than that where ihePleb- iscita of common civic reputations are pronounced, he has seemed to us even there less worthy of blame than of pity and wonder. But the world is habitually unjust in its judgments of such men ; unjust on many grounds, of which this one may be stated as the substance : it decides, like a court of law, by dead statutes ; and not positively but negatively ; less on what is done right than on what is or is not done wrong. N> t the few inches of reflection from the mathematical ( rbit, which are so easily measured, but the ratio of these to the whole diameter, constitutes the real aberration. This orbit may be a planet's, its diameter the breadth of the solar system ; or it may be a city hippodrome ; nay, the circle of the ginhorse, its diameter a score of feet or paces. But the inches of deflection only are measured ; and it is assumed that the diameter of the ginhorse and that of the planet will yield the same ratio when compared with them. Here lies the root of many a blind, cruel condemnation of Burnses, Swifts, Rons- 52 LIFE OF BURNS. seaus, which one never listens to with approval. Granted, the ship comes into harbor with shrouds and tackle damaged ; and the pilot is therefore blameworthy ; for he has not been all-wise and all-power- ful ; but to know how blameworthy, tell us first whether his voyage has been round the Globe, or only to Ramsgate and the Isle of Dogs. With our readers in general, with men of right feeling anywhere, we are not required to plead for Burns. In pitying admiration, he lies enshrined in all our hearts, in a far nobler mausoleum than that one of marble ; neither will his Works, even as they are, pass away from the memory of man. While the Shakspeares and Miltons roll on like mighiy rivers through the country of Thought, bearing fleets of traffickers and assiduous pearl-fishers on their waves, this little Valclusa Fountain will also arrest our eye : for this also is of Nature's own and most cunning workmanship, bursts from the depths of the earth, with a full gushing current, into the light of day ; and often will the traveller turn aside to drink of its lear waters, and ruua among its rocks and pines ! THE KX9. LIFE OF MAHOHET. THE genius of the Arabian prophet, the manners of his nation, and the spirit of his religion, involve the causes of the decline and fall of the Eastern empire ; and our eyes are curiously intent on* one of the most memorable revolutions, which have impressed a new and lasting character on the nations of the globe.* In the vacant space between Persia, Syria, Egypt, and ./Ethiopia, the Arabian peninsula may be conceived as a triangle of spacious but irregular dimensions. From the northern point of Beles(a) on the Euphrates, a line of fifteen hundred miles is terminated by the straits of Babelmandel and the land of frankincense. About half this length may be allowed for the middle breadth, from east to west, from Bas- sora to Suez, from the Persian gulf to the Red Sea. The sides of the triangle are gradually enlarged, and the southern basis presents a front of a thousand miles to the Indian ocean. The entire surface of the peninsula exceeds in a fourfold proportion that of Germany or France ; but the far greater part has been justly stigmatized with the epithets of the stony and the sandy. Even the wilds of Tartary are decked, by the hand of nature, with lofty trees and luxuriant herbage ; and the lonesome traveller derives a sort of comfort and society from the presence of vegetable life. But in the dreary waste of Arabia, a boundless level of sand is intersected by sharp and naked mountains ; and the face of the desert, without shade or shelter, is scorched by the direct and intense rays of the tropical sun. Instead of refreshing breezes, the winds, particularly from the southwest, diffuse a noxious and even deadly vapor ; the hillocks of sand which they alternately raise and scatter are compared to the billows of the ocean, and whole caravans, whole armies have been lost and buried in the whirlwind. * The best works on the ancient geography and ante-Mahometan history of Arabia are " The Historical Geography of Arabia, "by the Rev. Char'es Forster, 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1844, and ''Essai sur 1'Histoire desArabes avant rislamisme, pendant 1'epopue de Mahomet, et jusqu'a la reduction de toutes les tnbus sous la loi Musul- mane," by A. P. Caussin de Perceval, Professeur d'Arabe an College Koyal de France, 3 vols. 8vo, Paris. 1847-1848. Of the latter work there is an able account in the Calcutta Review, No. xli. S. Of modern travellers ma - be mentioned the ad- trenturer who called himself Ali Bey ; but, above all, the intelligent, the enterpris- ing, the accurate Burckhardt. M. (a) It was in this place, the paradise or garden of a satrap, that Xenophon and th Greeks first passed the Euphrates, (1) 2 LIFE OF MAHOMET. The common benefits of water are an object of desire and contest ; and such u the scarcity of wood that some art is requisite to preserve and propagate the element of fire. Arabia is destitute of navigable rivers, which fertilize the soil, and convey its produce to the adjacent regions ; the torrents that fall from the hills are imbibed by the thirsty earth : the rare and hardy plants, the tamarind or the acacia, that Htrike their roots into the clefts of the rocks, are nourishi'd by the dews of night ; a scanty supply of rain is collected in cisterns and aqueducts ; the wells and springs are the secret treasure of the desert ; and the pilgrim of Mecca(a) after many a dry and sultry march, is disgusted by the taste of the waters, which have rolled over a bed of sulphur o%salt. Such is the general and genuine picture of the cli- mate of Arabia. The experience of evil enhances the value of any local or partial enjoyments. A shady grove, a green pasture, a stream of fresh water, are sufficient to attract a colony of sedentary Arabs to the fortunate spots which can afford food and refreshment to them- selves and their cattle, and which encourage their industry in the cul- tivation of the palm-tree and the vine. The high lands that border on the Indian ocean are distinguished by their superior plenty of wood and water ; the air is more temperate, the fruits are more deli- cious, the animals and the human race more numerous ; the fertility of the soil invites and rewards the toil of the husbandman ; and the peculiar gifts of frankincense(6) and coffee have attracted iu different ages the merchants of the world. If it be compared with the rest of the peninsula, this sequestered region may truly deserve the appella- tion of the happy ; and the splendid coloring of fancy and fiction has been suggested by contrast and countenanced by distance. It was for this earthly paradise that nature had reserved her choicest favors and her most curious workmanship : the incompatible blessings of luxury and innocence were ascribed to the natives : the soil was impregnated with gold(c) and gems, and both the land and sea were taught to ex- fa) In the thirty days, or stations, between Cairo and Mecca, there are fifteen desti tute of good water. See the route of the Hadjees in Shaw's Travels, p. 477. (ft) The aromatics, especially the thus or frankincense of Arabia, occupy th twelfth book of Pliny. OUT great poet (Paradise Lost, 1 iv ) introduces, in a simile, the spicy odors that are blown by the northeast wind from the 'Saboean coast : Many a league, Pleased with the grateful ecent, old Ocean smiles. (c) Agatharcides affirms that lumps of pure gold were found from the size of an olive to that of a nut ; that iron was twice, and silver ten times, the value of gold, (de Mari Rubro, p. 00.) These real or Imaginary treasures : re vanished, and no gold mines are at present known in Arabia. (Niebuhr, Description, p. 124.)* * A brilliant passage in the geographical poem of Dionysius Periesretes embodies the notions of the ancients on the wealth and fertility of Yemen. Greek mytholo- gy, and the traditions of the "gorgeous east," of India as well ns Arabia, are mingled together in indiscriminate splendor. Compare on the southern coast of Arabia the recent travels of Lieut, WelUted. M. LIFE OF MAHOMET. 3 hale the odors of aromatic sweets. This division of the tandy, the stony, and the happy, so familiar to the Greeks and Latins, is un- known to the Arabians themselves : and it is singular enough that a country, whose language and inhabitants have ever been the same, should scarcely retain .a vestige of its ancient geography. The mari- time districts of Bahrein and Oman are opposite to the realm of Per- sia. The kingdom of Yemen displays the limits, or at least the situation, of Arabia Faelix : the name of Neged is extended over the inland space : and the birth of Mahomet has illustrated the province of Hejaz* along the coast of the Red sea. The measure of the population is regulated by the means of sub- sistence ; and the inhabitants of this vast peninsula might be out- numbered by the subjects of a fertile and industrious province. Along the shores of the Persian gulf, of the ocean, and even of the Red Sea, the Icthyophagi, or fish-enters, continued to wander in quest of their precarious food. In this primitive and abject state, which ill deserves the name of society, the human brute, without arts or laws, almost without sense or language, is poorly distinguished from the rest of the animal creation. Generations and ages might roll away in silent oblivion, and the helpless savage was restrained from multiply- ing his race, by the wants and pursuits which confined his existence to the narrow margin of the sea-coast. But in an early period cf an- tiquity the great body of the Arabs had emerged from this scene of misery ; and as the naked wilderness could not maintain a people of h 11 nters, they rose at once to the more secure and plentiful condition of the pastoral life. The same life is uniformly pursued by the rov- ing tribes of the desert ; and in the portrait of the modern Bedoiceens, we may trace the features of .their ancestors, who, in the age of Moses 01 Mahomet, dwelt under similar tents, and conducted their horses, and camels, and sheep to the same springs and the same pastures. Our toil is lessened, and our wealth is increased, by our dominion over the useful animals ; and the Arabian shepherd had acquired the absolute possession of a faithful friend and laborious ' slave, (a) Arabia, in the opinion of the naturalist, is the genuine and original country of the lir*c ; the climate most propitious, not indeed to the size, but to the spirit and swiftness of that generous animal. The merit of the Barb, the Spanish, and the English breed, is derived from a mixture of Arabian blood : the Bedoweens preserve, with superstitious care, the honors and the memory of the purest race : the males are so.d at a high price, but the females are seldom alienated ; and the birth of a * JTejnz means the "barrier" or "frontier," as lying between the southern and northern merchants, or, in other words, between Arabia Faalix and Arabia Petrsea. It is a mountainous (.istrict, and includes Medina as well as Mecca. It occupies the space between Nefjed (Najd) and the Red Sea. Sprenger, Life of Mohammed, p. 14; C. de Perceval, Es'sai, &c., vol. 1, p. 3. 8. (a) Read (it is no unpleasant task) the incomparable articles of the Hont and the Camel, in the Natural History of M. de Buffon. 4 LIFE OF MAHOMET. noble foal was esteemed among the tribes as a subject of joy and mutual congratulation. These horses are educated in the tents, among the children of the Arabs, with a tender familiarity, which trains them in the habits of gentleness and attachment. They are accus- tomed only to walk and to gallop : their sensations are not blunted by the incessant abuse of the spur and the whip ; their powers are re- served for the moments of flight and pursuit : but no sooner do they feel the touch of the hand or the stirrup, than they dart away with the swiftness of the wind ; and if their friend be dismounted in the rapid career, they instantly stop till he has recovered his seat. In the sands of Africa and Arabia, the camel is a sacred and precious gift. That strong and patient beast of burthen can perform, without eating or drinking, a journey of several days ; and a reservoir of fresh water is preserved in a large bag, a fifth stomach of the animal, whose body is imprinted with the marks of servitude : the larger breed is capable of transporting a weight of a thousand pounds ; and the dromedary, of a lighter and more active frame, outstrips the fleetest courser in the race. Alive or dead, almost every part of the camel is serviceable to man : her milk is plentiful and nutritious : the young and tender flesh has the taste of veal : a valuable salt is extracted from the urine : the dung supplies the deficiency of fuel ; and the long hair, which falls each year and is renewed, is coarsely manufactured into the gar- ments, the furniture, and the tents of the Bedoweens. In the rainy seasons they consume the rare and insufficient herbage of the desert ; during the heats of summer and the scarcity of winter, they remove their encampments to the sea-coast, the hills of Yemen, or the neigh- borhood of the Euphrates, and have often extorted the dangerous license of visiting the banks of the Nile and the villages of Syria and Palestine. The life of a wandering Arab is a life of danger and dis- tress ; and though sometimes, by rapine or exchange, he may appro- priate the fruits of industry, a private citizen of Europe is in posses- sion of more solid and pleasing luxury than the proudest emir, who marches in the field at the head of ten thousand horse. Yet an essential difference may be found between the hordes of Scythia and the Arabian tribes, since many of the latter were col- lected into towns and employed in the labors of trade and agriculture. A part of their time and industry was still devoted to the management of their cattle ; they mingled, in peace and war, with their brethren of the desert ; and the Bedoweens derived from their useful inter- course some supply of their wants, and some rudiments of art and knowledge. Among the forty-two cities of Arabia, enumerated by Abulfeda, the most ancient and populous were situate in the happy \ emeu : the towers of Saana and the marvellous reservoir of Merab* * The town never recovered the inundation which took place from the bursting of a large reservoir of water an event of great importance in the Arabian annals, and discussed at considerable length by modem orientalists M LIFE OF MAHOMET. * were constructed by the kings of the Homerites but their profane lustre was eclipsed by the prophetic glories of MEDINA and MECCA,* near the Red sea, and at the distance from each other of tovo hundred and seventy miles. The last of these holy places was known to the Greeks under the name of Macoraba ; and the termination of the word is expressive of its greatness, which has not indeed, in the most flourishing period, exceeded the size and populousness of Marseilles, f Some latent motive, perhaps of superstition, must have impelled the founders in the choice of a most unpromising situation. They erected their habitations of mud or stone in a plain about two miles long and one mile broad, at the foot of three barren mountains : the soil is a rock ; the water even of the holy well of Zemzem is bitter or brack- ish ;J the pastures are remote from the city ; and grapes are trans- ported above seventy miles from the gardens of Tayef. The fame and spirit of the Koreishites, who reigned in Mecca, were con- spicuous among the Arabian tribes ; but their ungrateful soil refus?d the labors otf agriculture, and their position was favorable to the en- terprises of trade. By the sea-port of Gedda, at the distance only of forty miles, they maintained an easy correspondence with Abyssinia ; and that Christian kingdom afforded the first refuge to the disciples of Mahomet. The treasures of Africa were conveyed over the peninsula of Gerrha or Katif, in the province of Bahrein, a city built, as it is said, of rock-salt, by the Chaldean exiles ; and from thence, with the native pearls of the Persian gulf, they were floated on rafts to the mouth of the Euphrates. Mecca is placed almost at an equal distance, a month's journey, between Yemen on the right, and Syria on the left hand. The former was the winter, the latter the summer station of her caravans : aud their seasonable arrival relieved the ships of India from the tedious and troublesome navigation of the Red Sea. In the markets of Saana and Merab, in the harbors of Omen and Aden, the camels of the Koreishites were laden with a precious cargo of aromatics ; a supply of corn and manufactures was purchased in the fairs of Bostra and Damascus ; the lucrative exchange diffused * Even in the time of Gibbon, Mecca had hot been BO inaccessible to Europeans. It had been visited by Ludovico Barthema, and by one Joseph Pitts, of Exeter, who wa8 taken prisoner by the Moors, and forcibly converted to Mahometanism. His volume is a curious though plain account of his sufferings and travels. Since that time Mecca has been entered, and the ceremonies witnessed, by Dr. Seetzen, whose papers were unfortunately lost ; by the Spaniard who called himself Ali Bey; and , lastly by Burckhardi., whose description leaves nothing wanting to satisfy the curi- osity. M. t Mr. Forster identifies the Greek name with the Arabic Mecharab, " the warlike city," or" the city of the Harb." Ceogr. of Arabia, vol. i., p. 2t>5. S. i Burckhardt, however, observes : '-The water is heivymits taste, and some- times in its color resembles milk, but it is perfectly sweet, and differs very much from that of the brackish wells dispersed over the town." (Travels in Arabia, p. 144.) Elsewhere he says : "It seenn probable that the town of Mecca owed it* srigin to this well ; for many miles round no sweet water is found, nor i* there it ny part of thecouutry so copious a supply." (Ibid, p. 145.) S. A.B. 6 ft LIFE OF MAHOMET. plenty and riches in the streets of Mecca ; and the noblest of her sons united the love of arms with the profession of merchandise. The perpetual independence of the Arabs has been the theme of praise among strangers and natives ; and the arts of controversy transform this singular event into a prophecy and a miracle, in favoi of the posterity of Ismael. Some exceptions, that can neither be dis sembled nor eluded, render this mode of reasoning as indiscreet as it is superfluous ; the kingdom of Yemen has been successively sub- dued by the Abyssinians, the Persians, the sultans of Egypt, and th( Turks ; the holy cities of Mecca and Medina have repeatedly bowed under a Scythian tyrant : and the Roman province of Arabia em-, braced the peculiar wilderness in which Ismael and his sons mus* have pitched their tents in the face of their brethren. Yet these ex- ceptions are temporary or local ; the body of the nation has escape^ the yoke of the most powerful monarchies ; the arms of Sesostrif and Cyrus, of Pompey and Trajan, could never achieve the conquest of Arabia ; the present sovereign of the Turks (a) may exercise a shadow of jurisdiction, but his pride is reduced to solicit the friend- ship of a people, whom it is dangerous to provoke and fruitless U attack. The obvious causes of their freedom are inscribed on the character and country of the Arabs. Many ages before Mahomet, their intrepid valor had been severely felt by their neighbors in offen Bive and defensive war. The patient and active virtues of a soldiei are insensibly nursed in the habits and 'discipline of a pastoral life. The care of the sheep and camels is abandoned to the women of the tribe ; but the martial youth under the banner of the emir, is ever on horseback, and in the field, to practice the eiercise of the bow, tht> javelin, and the scymitar. The long memory of their independence is the firmest pledge of its perpetuity, and succeeding generations are animated to prove their descent and to maintain their inheritance. Their domestic feuds are suspended on the approach of a comnioi? enemy ; and in their last hostilities against the Turks, the caravan oC Mecca was attacked and pillaged by fourscore thousand of the con- federates. When they advance to battle, the hope of victory is in the front ; in the rear the assurance of a retreat. Their horses and camels, who in eight or ten days can perform a march of four or five hundred miles, disappear before the conqueror ; the secret waters o' the desert elude his search, and his victorious troops are consumed with thirst, hunger, and fatigue, in the pursuit of an invisible foe, who scorns his efforts and safely reposes in the heart of the burning solitude. The arms and deserts of the Bedoweens are not only tlrj safeguards of their own freedom, but the barriers also of the Happy (a) Niebuhr (Description de 1' Arabic, pp. 302, 803, 829-331) affords the most recent and authentic intelligence of the Turkish empire in Arabia.* Mabnhr's, notwithstanding the multitude of later traTellers, maintains 1U pwind M th clawical work on Arabia. M. LIFE OF MAHOMET. ? Arabia, whose inhabitants, remote from war, are enervated by the luxury of the soil and climate. The legions of Augustus melted away in disease and lassitude ; and it is only by a naval power that the reduction of Yemen has been successfully attempted. When Mahomet erected his holy standard, that kingdom was a province of the Persian empire ; yet seven princes of the Homerites still reigned in the mountains ; and the vicegerent of Chosroes was tempted to' forget his distant country and his unfortunate master. The histori- ans of the age of Justinian represent the state of the independent Arabs, who were divided by interest or affection in the long quarrel of the east ; the tribe of Gassan was allowed to encamp on the Syrian territory ; the princes of Ilira were permitted to form a city about forty miles to the southward of the ruins of Babylon. Their service in the field was speedy and vigorous ; but their friendship was venal, their faith inconstant, their enmity capricious ; it was an easier task to ex- cite than to disarm these roving barbarians ; and in the familiar in- tercourse of war they learned to see and to despise the splendid weak- ness both of Rome and of Persia. From Mecca to the Euphrates, the Arabian tribes were confounded by the Greeks and Latins, under the general appellation of SARACENS, a name which every Christian mouth has been taught to pronounce with terror and abhorrence. The slaves of domestic tyranny may vainly exult in their national independence ; but the Arab is personally free ; and he enjoys, in some degree, the .benefits of society without forfeiting the preroga- tives of nature. In every tribe, superstition, or gratitude, or fortune, has exalted a particular family above the heads of their equals. The dignities of sheick and emir invariably descend in this chosen race ; but the order of succession is loose and precarious, and the most worthy or aged of the noble kinsmen are preferred to the simple, though important office of composing disputes by their advice, and guiding valor by their example. Even a female of sense and spirit has been permitted to command the countrymen of Zenobia. The momentary junction of several tribes produces an army ; their more lasting union constitutes a nation ; and the supreme chief, the emir of emirs, whose banner is displayed at their head, may deserve, in the eyes of strangers, the honors of th.e kingly name. If the Arabian princes abuse their power they are quickly punished by the desertion of their subjects, who had been accustomed to a mild and parental jurisdiction. Their spirit is free, their steps are unconfined, the desert is open, and the tribes and families are held together by a mu- tual and voluntary compact. The softer natives of Yeman supported the pomp and majesty of a monarch ; but if he could not leave his palace without endangering his life, the active powers of govern- ment must have been devolved on his nobles and magistrates. The cities of Mecca and Medina present in the heart of Asia the form or rather the substance of a commonwealth. The grandfather of Ma- homet, and his lineal ancestors, appear in foreign and domestic traiv 8 LIFE OF MAHOMET. nactions a* the princes of their country ; but they reigned like Pericles at Athens or the Medici at Florence, by the opinion of their wisdom and integrity ; their influence was divided with their patri- mony ; and the sceptre was transferred from the uncles of the pro- phet to a younger branch of the tribe of Koreish. On solemn occa- sions they convened the assembly of the people ; and since mankind must be either compelled or persuaded to obey, the use and reputation of oratory among the ancient Arabs is the clearest evidence of pub- lic freedom. But their simple freedom was of a very different cast from the nice and artificial machinery of the Greek and Roman re- publics, in which each member possessed an undivided share of the civil and political rights of the community. In the more simple state of the Arabs, the nation is free, because each of her sons dis- dains a base submission to the will of a master. His breast is forti- fied with the austere virtues of courage, patience, and sobriety ; the love of independence prompts him to exercise the habits of self-com- mand ; and the fear of dishonor guards him from the meaner appre- hension of pain, of danger, and of death. The gravity and firmnesa of the mind is conspicuous in his outward demeanor ; his speech is slow, weighty, and concise ; he is seldom provoked to laughter ; his only gesture is that of stroking his beard, the venerable symbol of manhood ; and the sense of his own importance teaches him to accost his equals without levity, and his superiors without awe. * The lib- erty of the Saracens survived their conquests ; the first caliphs in- dulged the bold and familiar language of their subjects ; they ascend- ed the pulpit to persuade and edify the congregation ; nor was it be- fore the seat of empire was removed to the Tigris, that the Abbass- ides adopted the proud and pompous ceremonial of the Persian and Byzantine courts. In the study of nations and men, we may observe the causes that render them hostile or friendly to each other, that tend to narrow or enlarge, to modify or exasperate the social character. The separation of the Arabs from the rest of mankind has accustomed them to con- found the ideas of stranger and enemy ; and the poverty of the land has introduced a maxim of jurisprudence which they believe and practice to the present hour. They pretend that in the division of the earth, the rich and fertile climates were assigned to the other branches of the human family ; and that the posterity of the outlaw Ismael might recover, by fraud or force, the portion of the inheritance of which he had been unjustly deprived. According to the remark of Pliny, the Arabian tribes are equally addicted to theft and merchan- dise; ; the caravans that traverse the desert are ransomed or pillaged ; and their neighbors, since the remote times of Job and Sesostris, have been the victims of their rapacious spirit. If a Bedoween dis- * See the curious romance of Antar, tho most vivid and authentic picture of Ar* Mmi manners. Jl. LIFE OF MAHOMET. 9 eovers from afar a solitary traveller, lie rides furiously against him, crying with a loud voice, " Undress thyself, thy aunt (my wife) is without a garment. " A ready submission entitles him to mercy ; re- sistance will provoke the aggressor, and his owm blood must expiate the blood which he presumes to shed in legitimate defence. A single robber, or a few associates, are branded with their genuine name ; but the exploits of a numerous band assume the character of lawful and honorable war. The temper of a people thus armed against mankind, was doubly inflamed by the domestic license of rapine, murder, and revenge. In the constitution of Europe, the right of peace and war is now confined to a small, and the actual exercise to a much smaller list of respectable potentates ; but each Arab, with hnpunity and re- nown, might point his javelin against the life of his countryman. The union of the nation consisted only in a vague resemblance of lan- guage and manners ; and in each community the jurisdiction of the magistrate was mute and impotent. Of the time of ignorance which preceded Mahomet, seventeen hundred battles are recorded by tradi- tion ; hostility was embittered with the rancor of civil faction ; and the recital in prose or verse, of an obsolete feud, was sufficient to re- kindle the same passions among the descendants of the hostile tribes. In private life, every man, at least every family, was the judge and avenger of its own cause. The nice sensibility of honor which weighs the insult rather than the injury, sheds its deadly venom on the quarrels of the Arabs ; the honor of their women and of their beards is most easily wounded ; an indecent action, a contemptuous word, can be expiated only by the blood of the offender ; and snch is their patient inveteracy, that they expect whole months and years the opportunity of revenge. A fine or compensation for murder is famil- iar to the barbarians of every age ; but in Arabia the kinsmen of the dead are at liberty to accept the atonement, or to exercise with their own hands the law of retaliation. The refined malice of the Arabs refuses even the head of the murderer, substitutes an innocent to the guilty person, and transfers the penalty to the best and most consid- erable of the race by whom they have been injured. If he falls by their hands, they are exposed in their turn to the danger of reprisals ; the interest and prineipal of the bloody debt are accumulated ; the individuals of either family lead a life of malice and suspicion, and fifty years may sometimes elapse before the account of vengeance be finally settled. This sanguinary spirit, ignorant of pity or forgiveness, has been moderated, however, by the maxims of honor, which re- quire in every private encounter some decent equality of age and strength of numbers and weapons. An annual festival of two, perhaps of four months, was observed by the Arabs, before the time of Mahom- et, during which their swords were religiously sheathed both in foreign and domestic hostility ; and this partial truce is more strongly expressive of the habits of anarchy and warfare. But the spirft of rapine and revenge was attempered by the milder 10 LIFE OF MAIIOMET. influence of trade and literature. The solitary peninsula is encom- passed by the most civilized nations of the ancient world ; the mer- chant is the friend of mankind ; and the annual caravans imported the first seeds of knowledge and polteness into the cities, and even the camps, of the detfbrt. Whatever may be the pedigree of the Arabs, their language is derived from the same original stock with the Hebrew, the Syriac, and the Chaldean tongues ; the independence of the tribes was marked by their peculiar dialects ; but each, after their own, allowed a just preference to the pure and perspicuous idiom of Mecca. In Arabia, as well as in Greece, the perfection of language outstripped the refinement of manners ; and her speech could diversify the fourscore names of honey, the two hundred of a ser- pent, the five hundred of a lion, the thousand of a sword, at a time when this copious dictionary was intrusted to the memory of an illiterate people. The monuments of tbe Homerites were inscribed with an obsolete and mysterious character : but the Cufic letters, the groundwork of the present alphabet, were invented on the banks of the Euphrates ; and the recent invention was taught at Mecca by a stranger who settled in that city after the birth of Mahomet. The arts of grammar, of metre, and of rhetoric, were unknown to the free- born eloquence of the Arabians ; but their penetration was sharp, their fancy luxuriant, their wit strong and sententious, (a) and their more elaborate compositions were addressed with energy and effect to the minds of their hearers. The genius and merit of a rising poet was celebrated by the applause of his own and the kindred tribes. A solemn banquet was prepared, and a chorus of women, striking their tymbals, arid displaying the pomp of their nuptials, sung in the pres- ence of their sons and husbands the felicity of their native tribe that a champion had now appeared to vindicate their rights that a herald had raised his voice to immortalize their renown. The distant or hostile tribes resorted to an annual fair, which was abolished by the fanaticism of the first Moslems a national assembly that must have contributed to refine and harmonize the barbarians. Thirty days were employed in the exchange, not only of corn and wine, but of eloquence and poetry. The prize was disputed by the generous emulation of the bards ; the victorious performance was deposited in the archives of princes and emirs; and we may read in our own language the seven orig n il poems which were inscribed in letters of gold and suspended in the temple of Mecca. The Arabian poets were the his- torians and moralists of the age ; and if they sympathized with the prejudices, they inspired and crowned the virtues of their country- men. The indissoluble union of generosity and valor was the dar- ling theme of their song ; and when they pointed their keenest satire (a) Stated from the one hundred and sixty-nine sentences of Ali (translated by Ockley, London, 1718) which afford a just and favorable specimen of Arabian wit.* * Compw* the Arabic proverbs translated by Burckhardt, London, 1830. M, LIFE OF MAHOMET. ll against a despicable race, they affirmed, in the bitterness of reproach, that the men knew not how to give, nor the women to deny. Tlio same hospitality which was practised by Abraham and celebrated by Homer, is still renewed in the camps of the Arabs. The ferocious Bedoweens, the terror of the desert, embrace, without inquiry or hesitation, the stranger who dares to confide in their honor and to enter their tent. His treatment is kind and respectful; he shares the wealth or the poverty of his host : and, after a needful repose, he is dismissed on his way, with thanks, with blessings, and perhaps with gifts. The heart and hand are more largely expanded by the wants, of a brother or a friend ; but the heroic acts that could deserve the public applause must have surpassed the narrow measure of discre- tion and experience. A dispute had arisen, who, among the citizens of Mecca, was entitled to the prize of generosity ; and a successive application was made to the three who were deemed most worthy of the trial. Abdullah, the son of Abdas, had undertaken a distant journey, and his foot was in the stirrup when he heard the voice of a suppliant, " son of the uncle of the apostle of God, I am a traveller and in distress ! " He instantly dismounted to present the pilgrim with his camel, her rich caparison, and a purse of four thousand pieces of gold, excepting only the sword, either for its intrinsic value, or as the gift of an honored kinsman. The servant of Kais informed the second suppliant that his master was asleep ; but he immediately added, " Here is a purse of seven thousand pieces of gold, (it is all we have in the house), and here is an order that will entitle you to a camel and a slave ; " the master, as soon as he awoke, praised and en- franchised his faithful steward with a gentle reproof, that by inspect- ing his slumbers he had stinted his bounty. The third of these heroes, the blind Arabah, at the hour of prayer, was supporting his steps on the shoulders of two slaves. " Alas ! " he replied, " my cof- fers are empty ! but these you may sell ; i f you refuse, I renounce them." At these words, pushing away the youths, he groped along the wall with his staff. The character of Hatem is the perfect nioddle of Arabian virtue ; * he was brave and liberal, an eloquent poet, and a successful robber ; forty camels were roasted at his hospitable feasts ; and at the prayer of a suppliant enemy^ he restored both the captives and the spoil. The freedom of his countrymen disdained the laws of justice ; they proudly indulged the spontaneous impulse of pity and benevolence. The religion of the Arabs, as well as of the Indians, consisted in the worship of the sun, the moon, and the fixed stars ; a primitive and specious mode of superstition. The bright luminaries of the sky dis- play the visible image of the Deity : their number and distance con- vey to a philosophic, or even a vulgar, eye, the idea of bound- * See the translation of the amusing Persian romance of Ilatim Tai, by Duneaa Forbes, Esq., among the works published by the Oriental Translation Fund. M. 13 LIFE OP MAHOMET. less space : the character of eternity is marked on these solid globes, that seem incapable of corruption or decay : the regularity of their motions may be ascribed to a principle of reason or instinct ; and their real or imaginary influence encourages the vain belief that the earth and its inhabitants are the object of their peculiar care. The science of astronomy was cultivated at Babylon ; but the school of the Arabs was a clear armament and a naked plain. In their nocturnal marches they steered by the guidance of the stars ; their names, and order, and daily station, were familiar to the curiosity and devotion of the J5cdoween ; and he was taught by experience to divide in twenty- eight parts the zodiac of the moon, and to bless the constellations who refreshed, with salutary rains, the thirst of the desert. The reign of the heavenly orbs could not be extended beyond the visible sphere ; and some metaphysical powers were necessary to sustain the transmi- gration of souls and the resurrection of bodies : a camel was left to perish on the grave, that he might serve his master in another life ; and the invocation of departed spirits implies that they were still en- dowed with consciousness and power. I am ignorant and I am care- less of the blind mythology of the barbarians , of the local deities, of thu stars, the air and the earth, of their sex or titles, their attributes, or subordination. Each tribe, each family, each independent warrior, created and changed the rites and the object of his fantastic worship, but the nation, in every age, has bowed to the religion, as well as to the language, of Mecca. The genuine antiquity of the CAABA as- cends beyond the Christian era. in describing the coast of the lied Sea, the Greek historian Diodorus has remarked, betweea the Thanui- dites and the Sabiatis, a famous temple,* whose superior sanctity \vas revered by all the Arabians ; the linen or silken veil, which is an- nually renewed by the Turkish emperor, was first offered by a pious king of th<- llomerites, who reigned seven hundred years before the time of Mahomet. A tent or a cavern might suffice for the worship of the savages, but an edifice of stone and clay has been erected in its place ; and the art and power of the monarchs of the east have been confined to the simplicity of the original model. A spacious portico includes the quadrangle of the Caaba a square chapel, twenty-four cubits long, twenty-three broad, and twenty-seven high : a door and a window admit the light ; the double roof is supported by three pil- lars iif wood ; a spout (now of gold) discharges the rain-water, and the wi -1 1 Xem/em is protected by a dome from accidental pollution. The tribe of Koreish, by fraud or force, had acquired the custody of Caaba : the sacerdotal office devolved through four lineal descendants to the * Mr. Forster (Geography of Arabia, vol. ii., p. 118, et eeq.l has raised an objec- tion, as I think, f.tal tot i* hypothesis of Gibbon. The temple, situated in the jntry of the Ranlzomeneis, w.m not between the Thamudites and the Sabians, but up than die coast inhabited by the former. Mr. Forster would place it as faf l;li I MI, i not quite satisfied that this will agree with the whole d- CTUM.IOII of JJiodorus . M. llc. LIFE OP MAHOMET. 13 grandfather of Mahomet ; and the family of the Hashemites, from whence he sprung, was the most respectable and sacred in the eyes of their country. The precincts of Mecca enjoyed the rights of sanctuary ; and, in the last month of each year, the city and temple were crowded with a long train of pilgrims, who presented their/ vows and offerings in the house of God. The same rites which are! now accomplished hy the faithful mussulman, were invented and practised by the superstition of the idolaters. At an awful distance they cast away their garments ; seven times, with hasty steps, they encircled the Caaba, and kissed the black stone : seven times they visited and adored the adjacent mountains : seven times they threw stones into the valley of Mina : and the pilgrimage was achieved, as at the present hour, by a sacrifice of sheep and camels, and the burial of their hair and nails in the consecrated ground. Each tribe either found or introduced in the Caaba their domestic worship : the temple was adorned or defiled with three hundred and sixty idols of men, eagles, lions, and antelopes ; and most conspicuous was the statue of Hebal, of red agate, holding in his hand seven arrows, without heads or feathers, the instruments and symbols of profane divination. But this statue was a monument of Syrian arts : the devotion of the ruder ages was content with a pillar or a tablet : and the rocks of the desert were hewn into gods or altars, in imitation of the black stone of Mecca, which is deeply tainted with the reproach of an idolatrous origin. From Japan to Peru, the use of sacrifice has universally pre- vailed ; and the votary has expressed his gratitude or fear by de- stroying or consuming, in honor of the gods, the dearest and most precious of their gifts. The life of a man is the most precious obla- tion to deprecate a public calamity : the altars of Phoenicia and Egypt, of Rome and Carthage, have been polluted with human gore ; the cruel practice was long preserved among the Arabs : in the third century a boy was annually sacrificed by the tribe of Dumatians ; and a royal captive was piously slaughtered by the prince of the Saracens, the ally and soldier of the emperor Justinian.* A parent who drags his son to the altar exhibits the most painful and sublime effort of fanaticism : the deed or the intention was sanctified by the example of saints and heroes , and the father of Mahomet himself was devoted by a rash vow, and hardly ransomed for the equivalent of a hun- dred camels. In the time of ignorance, the Arabs, like the Jews and Egyptians, abstained from the taste of swine's flesh ; they circum- cised their children at the age of puberty : the same customs, with- out the censure or the precept of the Koran, have been silently trans- mitted to their posterity and proselytes. It has been sagaciously conjectured that the artful legislator indulged the stubborn prejudi- * A writer in the " Calcutta Review " (No. xliii., p. 15) maintains that the sacrifice of human beings in Arabia was only incidental, and in the case of violent and cruel tyrants ; where it is alleged to have been done uniformly and on priucipU, tta an- tkority seems doubtful. S. 14 LIFE OF MAHOMET. ees of Ilia countrymen. It is more simple to believe that he adhered to the habits and opinions of his youth, without foreseeing that a practice congenial to the climate of Mecca might become useless or inconvenient on the banks of the Danube or the Volga. Arabia was free : the adjacent kingdoms were shaken by the storms of conquest and tyranny, and the persecuted sects fled to the happy /and where they might profess what they thought, and practise what they professed. The religions of the Sabians and Magians, of the Jews and Christians, were disseminated from the Persian gulf to the Red Sea. In a remote period of antiquity, Sabianism was diffused over Asia by the science of the Chaldeans and the arms of the Assyr- ians. From the observations of two thousand years, the priests anJ astronomers of Babylon deduced the eternal laws of nature aud prov- idence. They adored the seven gods, or angels, who directed the course of the seven planets, and shed their irresistible influence on the earth. The attributes of the seven planets, with the twelve signs of the zodiac, and the twenty-four constellations of the northern and southern hemisphere, were represented by images and talismans ; the seven days of the week were dedicated to their respective deities : the Sabians prayed thrice each day ; and the temple of the moon at Haran was the term of their pilgrimage. But the flexible genius of their faith was always ready either to teach or to learn : in the tradition of the creation, the deluge, and the patriarchs, they held a singular agree- ment with their Jewish captives ; they appealed to the secret books of Adam, Seth, and Enoch ; and a slight infusion of the gospel has transformed the last remnant of the polytheists into the Christians of St. John, in the territory of Bassora.* The altars of Babylon were overturned by the Magians ; but the injuries of the Sabians were re- venged by the sword of Alexander ; Persia groaned above five hun- dred years under a foreign yoke ; and the purest disciples of Zoroaster escaped from the contagion of idolatry, and breathed with their ad- versaries the freedom of the desert. Seven hundred years before tha death of Mahomet, the Jews were settled in Arabia ; and a far greater multitude was expelled from the holy land in the wars of Titus and Hadrian. The industrious exiles aspired to liberty and power : they erected synagogues in the cities, and castles in the wilderness ; and their Gentile converts were confounded with the children of Israel, whom they resembled in the outward mark of circumcision. The Christian missionaries were still more active and successful : the Catholics asserted their universal reign ; the sects whom they'op- prcssed successively retired beyond the limits of the lloman empire ; the Marcionites and the Manichseans dispersed their pJiantastic opin- ions and apocryphal gospels ; the churches of Yemen, and the princes * The Codex Nasineus, their sacred book, has been published by Norberg, whose researches contain almost all that is known of this singular people. Bnt their origin 9 almoit aa obscure aa erer : if ancient, their creed has ben so corrupted with my* Uaain and MabonaeUmam, that ita native lineament* are very indistinct. --M, LIFE OF MAHOMET. 15 of Hira and Gassan, were instructed in a purer creed by the Jacobite and Nestorian bishops. The liberty of choice was presented to the tribes ; each Arab was free to elect or to compose his private religion ; and the rude superstition of his house was mingled with the sublime theology of saints and philosophers. A fundamental article of faith was inculcated by the consent of the learned strangers ; the existence 'of one supreme God, who is exalted above the powers of heaven and earth, but who has often revealed himself to mankind by the ministry of his angels and prophets, and whose grace or justice has interrupted, by seasonable miracles, the order of nature. The most rational of the Arabs acknowledged his power, though they neglected his worship ; and it was habit rather than conviction that still attached them to the relics of idolatry. The Jews and Christians were the people of the book; the Bible was already translated into the Arabic language, and the volume of the Old Testament was accepted by the concord of these implacable enemies. In the story of the Hebrew patriarchs, the Arabs were pleased to discover the fathers of their nation. They applauded the birth and promises of Ismael ; revered the faith and virtue of Abraham ; traced his pedigree and their own to the creation of the first man, and imbibed with equal credulity the prodigies of the holy text and the dreams and traditions of the Jewish rabbis. The base and plebeian origin of Mahomet is an unskilful calumny of the Christians,* who exalted instead of degrading the merit of Their adversary. His descent from Ismael was a national privilege or fable ; but if the first steps of the pedigree are dark and doubtful, he could produce many generations of pure and genuine nobility : he sprung from the tribe of Koreish f and the family of Hashem, the most illus- trious of the Arabs, the princes of Mecca, and the hereditary guardians of the Caaba4 The grandfather of Mahomet was Abdol Motalleb, the son of Hashem, a wealthy and generous citizen, who relieved the distress of famine with the supplies of commerce. Mecca, which had * The most orthodox Mahometans only reckon back the ancestry of the prophet, for twenty generations, to Adnan. (Weil, Mohammed der Prophet, p 1 ). M. I ' 45. t According to the usually received tradition, Koreish was originally an epithet conferred upon Fihr (born about A. D. 200), who was the ancestor, at the distance of eight generations, of the famous Kussai mentioned in the next note. Sprenger, however, maintains that the tribe of Koreish was first formed by Kussai, and that the members of the new tribe called themselves the children of Fihr as a symbol of unity. He regards Fihr as a mythical personage. (See Caussin de Perceval, vol. i., p. 42; Calcutta Keview, No. xh., p. 4J; Sprenger, Life of Mohammed, p. 42). 8 J Kussai (born about A. D. 4!>0), great-grandfather of Abdol Motalleb, and eon?e quently fifth in the ascending iine from Mahomet, obtained supreme power at Mi r- ca. His office and privileges were to supply the numerous pilgrims with food and fresh water, the latter a rare article at Mecca ; to conduct the business of the tem- ple ; and to preside in the senate or council. His revenues were a tenth of all merchandise brought to Mecca. After the death of Kussai these offices became di- vided among his descendants ; and, though the branch from which Mahomet sprang belonged to the reigning line, yet his family, especially after the death of his grand- father, had but little to do with the awtual government of Mecca. (Weil, Moham med, pp. 4 and 12). S. 16 LIFE OF MAHOMET. been fed' by the liberality of the father, was saved by the courage of the son. The kingdom of Yemen was subject to the Christian princes of Abyssinia ; their vassal Abrahah was provoked by an insult to avenge the honor of the cross ; and the holy city was invested by a train of elephants and an army of Africans. A treaty was proposed ; and, in the first audience, the grandfather of Mahomet demanded the restitution of his cattle. " And why," said Abrahah, "do you not rather implore my clemency in favor of your temple, which I have threatened to destroy ? " "Because," replied the intrepid chief, " the cattle are my own ; the Caaba belongs to the gods, and they will de- fend their house from injury and sacrilege." The want of provisions, or the valor of the Koreish, compelled the Abyssinians to a disgraceful retreat ; their discomfiture has been adorned with a miraculous ilia-lit of birds, who showered down stones on the heads of the infidels ; and the deliverence was long commemorated by the era of the elephant.* The glory of Abdol Motalleb was crowned with domestic happiness ; his life was prolonged to the age of one hundred and ten years, f and he became the father of six daughters and thirteen sons. His best beloved Abdallah was the most beautiful and modest of the Arabian youth ; and in the first night, when he consummated his marringe with Amina,J of the noble race of the Zahrites, two hundred virgins are said to have expired of jealousy and despair. Mahomet, or more properly Mohammed, the only son of Abdallah and Amina,was born* * The apparent miracle was nothing else but the small pox, which broke out in the army of Abrahah. (Sprenger, Life of Mohammed, p. 35, who quotes Wakidi ; Weil, Mohammed, p. 10.) Thi8 seems to have been the first appearance of the small-pox in Arabia. (Reiske, Opuscula Medica ex monumentis Arabuin, Halae, 1770, p. 8). S. t Weil sets him down at about eighty-two at his death. (Mohammed, p. 28). S. $ Amina was of Jewish birth. (Von Hammer, Geschichte der Assass, p. 10). M. Von Hammer gives no authority for this important fact, which seems hardly to agree with Sprenger's account that she was a Koreishite, and the daughter of Wahb, an elder of the Zohrah family. S. Mohammed means " praised," the name given to him by his grandfather on ac- count of the favorable omen attending his birth. When Amina had given oirth to the prophet, she sent for his grandfather, and related to him that she had Been in a dream a light proceeding from her body, which illuminated the palaces of Bostra. (Sprenger, p. 76.) We learn from Burckhardt that among the Arabs a name is gi von to the infant immediately on its birth. The namj is derived from some trifling ac- cident, or from some object which had struck the fancy of the mother or any of the women present at the child's birth. (Notes on the Bedouins, vol. i., p. 97). S. II All authorities agree that Mohammed was born on a Monday, in the first half of Raby 1 1. but they differ on the year and on the date of the month. Most traditions say that ho died at an age of sixty-three years. If this is correct, he was born in fi71.* There a' e, however, go6d traditions in Bokhari, Moslim, and Tirmid/y. ac- cording to which he attained an age of sixty-five years, which would place his birth in 569. With reference to the date, his birthday is celebrated on the 12th of Raby' I. by the Musalmans, and for this day are almost all traditions. This was a Thurs- day in 571, and a Tuesday in 5(i9 ; and, supposing the hew moon of Raby' I. was seen one day sooner than expected, it was a Monday in 569. A tradition of Abu Ma'riwr in far the 2dof Raby' I., which was a Monday in 571 ; but Abu Ma'ahar * This is the year which Weil decides upon. LIFE OF MAHOMET. 17 at Mecca, four years after the death of Justinian, and two months after the defeat of the Abyssinians, whose victory would have intro- duced into the Caaba the religion of the Christians. In his early in- fancy,* he was deprived of his father, his mother, and his grandfather , his uncles were strong and numerous ; and in the division of the in- heritance, the orphan's share was reduced to five camels and an Ethi- opian maid-servant.* At home and abroad, in peace and war, Abu Taleb, the most respectable of his uncles, was the guide and guardian of his youth ; in his twenty- fifth year, he entered into the service of Cadijah, a rich and noble widow of Mecca, who soon rewarded his fidelity with the gift of her hand and fortune. The marriage con- tract, in the simple style of antiquity, recites the mutual love of Ma- homet and Cadijah ; describes him as the most accomplished of the tribe of Koreish ; and stipulates a dowry of twelve ounces of gold and twenty camels, which was supplied by the liberality of his uncle. By this alliance, the son of Abdallah was restored to the station of his ancestors ; and the judicious matron was content with his domestic virtues, till, in the fortieth year of his age, he assumed the title of a prophet, and proclaimed the religion of the Koran . According to the tradition of his companions, Mahomet was dis- tinguished by the beauty of his person, an outward gift which is sel- dom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused. Before ife spoke, the orator engaged on his side the affections of a public or private audience. They applauded his commanding presence, his was a mathematician, and his account may possibly be a calculation, and not a tradi- tion. There are also traditions for the first Monday, and for the 10th day of the month. (Sprenger, p. 75.) In reference, however, to this subject, it is important to observe that Caussin de Perceval has brought forward reasons for believing that the Meccan year was origi- nally a lunar one, and continued so till the beginning of the fifth century, when, in imitation of the Jews, it was turned by the intercalation of a month at the close of every third year, into a luni-solar period. (O. de Perceval, Essai, &c., vol. L, p. 49; Journal Asiatique, April, 1843, p. 342.) Hence it follows that all calculations up to the end of Mahomet's life must be made in luni-solar years, and not in lunar years, involving a yearly difference of ten days. Hence also we can explain certain dis- crepancies in Mahomet's life, some historians calculating by the luni-solar year in force in the period under narration, others adjusting such periods by the application of the lunar year subsequently adopted Thus some make their prophet to have lived sixty-three or sixty-three and a half years, others sixty-live the one possibly being luni-solar, the other lunar years. (See Calcutta Keview, No. xli., p. 49.) S. * The father of Mahpmet died two months before his birth ; and to the ill state of health which the shock of this premature bereavement entailed on his widow, Sprenger attributes the sickly and nervous temperament of Mahomet. His mother died in his seventh year (p. 79) ; his grandfather two years later. S. t Sprenger, however (p. 81), ascribes his poverty not to the injustice of his uncles, who, on the contrary, were anxious to bring him forwards, but to his own inactivity and unfitness for the ordinary duties of life. He had the same patrimony with which his father began life, viz., a house, five camels, a flock of sheep, and a female slave ; yet he was reduced to the necessity of pasturing sheep, an occupation considered by the Arabs as peculiarly humiliating. (Compare Weil, p. 33.) The latter author adds that Mahpmet afterwards entered into the linen trade, in partnership with a iiiau named Saib. S. 18 LIFE OF MAHOMET*. majestic aspect, his piercing eye, his gracious smile, his flowing beard, his countenance that painted every sensation of the soul, and his gestures that enforced each expression of the tongue.* lu the familiar offices of life he scrupulously adhered to the grave and cere- monious politeness of his country ; his respectful attention to the rich and powerful was dignified by his condescension and affability to the poorest citizens of Mecca ; the frankness of his manner concealed the artifice of his views ; and the habits of courtesy were imputed to personal friendship, or universal benevolence. His memory was ca- pacious and retentive, his wit easy and social, his imagination sub- lime, his judgment clear, rapid, and decisive. He possessed The cour- age both of thought and action ; and, although his designs might gradually expand with his success, the first idea which he entertained of his divine mission bears the stamp of an original and superior genius. The son of Abdallah was educated in the bosom of the noblest race, hi the use of the purest dialect of Arabia ; * and the fluency of his speech was corrected and enhanced by the practice of discreet and seasonable silence. With these powers of eloquence, Mahomet was an illiterate barbarian ; his youth had never been in, structed in the arts of reading and writing ; f the common ignorance * To the general characteristics of Mahomet's person here recorded by Gibbon, it may not oe uninteresting to add the more particular traits derived from the r* searches of modern orientalists. " Mohammed," says Dr. Sprenger, "was of mid- dling size, had broad shoulders, a wide chest, and large bones, and he was fleshy but not stout. The immoderate size of his head was partly disguised by the long locks of hair, which in slight curls came nearly down to the lobes of his ears. His oval face, though tawny, was rather fair for an Arab, but neither pale nor high col- ored. The forehead was broad, and his fine and long, but narrow, eyebrows were separated by a vein, which you could see throbbing if be was angry. Under long eyelashes sparkled bloodshot black eyes through wide-slit eyelids. JHis nose was large, prominent, and slightly hooked, and the tip of it seemed to be turned up, but was not so in reality. The month was wide, and he had a good set of teeth, and the fore-teeth were asunder. His beard rose from the cheek-bones, and came down to the collar-bone ; he clipped his mustachios, but did not shave them He ntooped, and was slightly humpbacked. His gait was careless, and he walked fast but heavi- ly, as if he were ascending a hill ; * and if he looked back, he turned his whole body. The mildness of his countenance gained him the confidence of every one ; but h could not look straight into a man's face ; he turned kis eyes usually out wards. On his back he had a round, fleshy tumor of the size of a pigeon's e; him as a being of the most concrete kind. Ob., p. 90.) With regard, again, to the originality of Mahomet's doctrines, there is reason to think that it was not so complete as Gibbon would lead us to believe by character- ising the Koran as the work " of a single artist," and by representing Mahomet as 22 LIFE OF MAHOMET. The God of nature lias written his existence on all his works, and his law in the heart of man. To restore the knowledge of the one, tud the practice of the other, lias been the real or pretended aim of the prophets of every age : the liberality of Mahomet allowed to his predecessors the same credit which he claimed for himself ; and the chain of inspiration was prolonged from the fall of Adam to the pro- . mulgation of the Koran. During that period, some rays of prophetic light had been imparted to one hundred and twenty-four thousand of the elect, discriminated by their respective measure of virtue and grace ; three hundred and thirteen apostles were sent with a special commission to recall their country from idolatry and vice ; one hun- dred and four volumes have been dictated by the Holy Spirit ; and six legislators of transcendent brightness have announced to mankind the six successive revelations. of various rites, but of one immutable re- ligion. The authority and station of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Christ, and Mahomet, rise in just gradation above each other ; but whosoever hates or rejects any one of the prophets is numbered with the infidels. The writings of the patriarchs were extant only in the apocryphal copies of the Greeks and Syrians . the conduct of Adam cut off from all subsidiary sources in consequence of his inability to read. Th latter point has been already examined ; and it now remains to show that Mahomet was not without predecessors, who had not only held the eame tenets, but even openly preached them. Gibbon admits, indeed, that before Mahomet's time " the most rational of the Arabs acknowledged God's power, though they neglected his worship ; " and that it was habit rather than conviction that still attached them to the relics of idolatry (svpra, p. 57). But the new creed had made still more active advances. The Koreishites charged Mahomet with taking his whole doctrine from a book called the"Asatyrof the Ancients," which is several times quoted in the Koran, and appears to have contained the doctrine of the resurrection. (Sprenger. p. 100.) At the fair of Okatz, Qoss had preached the unity of God before Mahomet assumed the prophetic office ; and contemporary with him was Omayah of Tayef, to whose teachings Mahomet allowed that his own bore a great similarity. (Ib., pp. 5, 38. 39.) Zayd the sceptic was another forerunner of Mahomet, and his fol- lowers were among the prophet's first converts (p. 167). Sprenger concludes hia account of the Prae-Mahoinetans or Reformers before the Reformation as follows: ' From the preceding account of early converts, and it embraces nearly all thosa who joined Mohammed during the first six years, it appears that the leading men among them held the tenets which form the basis of the religion of the Arabic prophet long before he preached them. They were not his tools, but his constitu- He clothed the sentimerfts which he had in common with them in poetical language ; and his malady >jave divine sanction to his oracles. Even when he was acknowledged as the messeng. r of God, Omar had as much or more influence on the embodies the faith and sentiments of men who for their talents and virtues must be onsidered as the most distinguished of their nation, and who acted under all cir- istances so faithful to the spirit of the Arabs, that they must be regarded as their repres ntatives. The Islam is, therefore, the offspring of the spirit of the time, and the voice of the Arabic nation. And it is this which made it victorious, particu- larly among nations whose habits resemble those of the Arabs, like the Berbers and Tatars. There is, however, no doubt that the impostor has denied it by his im- morauty and perrerwwoM of mind, and that most of th objectionable doctrines wv LIFE OF MAHOMET. 23 had not entitled him to the gratitude or respect of his children ; the seven precepts of Noah were observed .by an inferior and imperfect class of the proselytes of the synagogue ; and the memory of Abraham was obscurely revered by the Sabians in his native land of Chaldaea : of the myriads of prophets, Moses and Christ alone lived and reigned ; and the remnant of the inspired writings was comprised in the books of the Old and New Testament. The miraculous story of Moses is consecrated and embellished in the Koran ; and the captive Jews enjoy the secret revenge of imposing their own belief on the nations whose recent creeds they deride. For the author of Christianity, th.^ Ma- hometans are taught by the prophet to entertain a high and mysterious reverence. "Verily, Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, is the apostle of God, and his word, which he conveyed unto Mary, and a Spirit pro- ceeding from him: honorable in this world, and in the world to come; and one of those who approach near to the presence of God." The wonders of the genuine and apocryphal gospels are profusely heaped on his head ; and the Latin Church has not disdained to borrow from the Koran the immaculate conception of his virgin mother. Yet Jesus was a mere mortal ; and, at the day of judgment, his tistiinony will serve to condemn both the Jews, who reject him as a prophet, and the Christians, who adore him as the Son of God. The malice of his eiif j - mies aspersed his reputation, and conspired against his life ; but their intention only was guilty; a phantom or a criminal was substituted on the cross, and the innocent saint was translated to the seventh heaven. During six hundred years the gospel was the way of truth and salva- tion ; but the Christians insensibly forgot both the laws and the ex- ample of their founder ; and Mahomet was instructed by the Gnostics to accuse the church, as well as the synagogue, of corrupting the in- tegrity of the sacred text. The piety of Moses and of Christ rejoiced in the assurance of a future prophet, more illustrious than themselves: the evangelic promise of the Paraclete, or Holy Ghost, was prefigured in the name, and accomplished in the person, of Mahomet, the great- est and last of the apostles of God. The communication of ideas requires a similitude of thought and language : the discourse of a philosopher would vibrate without effect on the ear of a peasant ; yet how minute is the distance of their under- standing, if it be compared with the contact of an infinite and finite mind, with the word of God expressed by the tongue or the pen of a mortal ! The inspiration of the Hebrew prophets, of the apostles and evangelists of Christ, might not be incompatible with the exercise of their reason and memory ; and the diversity of their genius is strongly marked in the style and composition of the books of the Old and New Testament. But Mahomet was content with a character more humble, yet more sublime, of a simple editor : the substance of "the Koran," according to himself or his disciples, is uncreated and eternal ; sub- sisting in the essence of the Deity, and inscribed with a pen of light i>n the table of his everlasting decrees. A paper copy, in a volume of M LIFE OF MAHOMET. silk and gems, was brought down to the lowest heaven by the angel Qabriel,wno,under the Jewish economy, had indeed been dispatched on tin- most important errands; and this trusty messenger successively revealed the chapters and verses to the Arabian prophet. Instead of n jii-rpetual and perfect measure of the divine will, the fragments of the Koran were produced at the discretion of Mahomet , each revela- tion is suited to the emergencies of his policy or passion ; and all con- tradiction is removed by the saving maxim, that any text of scripture is abrogated or modified by any subsequent passage. The word of ( n id. and of the apostle, was diligently recorded by his disciples on palm-leaves and the shoulder-bones of mutton ; and the pages, with- out order and connection, were cast into a domestic chest in the cus- tody of one of his wives. Two years after the death of Mahomet, the sacred volume was collected and published by his friend and successor Abubeker r* the work was revised by the caliph Othman, in the thir" tieth year of the Hegira ; f and the various editions of the Koran assert the same miraculous privilege of a uniform and incorruptible text. In the spirit of enthusiasm or vanity, the prophet rests the truth of his mission on the merit of his book, audaciously challenges both men and angels to imitate the beauties of a single page, and presumes to assert that (Jod alone could dictate this incomparable performance. This argument is most powerfully addressed to a devout Arabian, whose mind is attuned to faith and rapture, whose ear is delighted by the music of sounds, and whose ignorance is incapable of compar- ing the productions of human genius. The harmony and copiousness of style will not reach, in a version, the European infidel . he will peruse with impatience the endless incoherent rhapsody of fable, and precept, and declamation, which seldom excites a sentiment or an idea, which sometimes crawls in the dust, and is sometimes lost in the clouds. The divine attributes exalt the fancy of the Arabian mission - * Abnbekcr, at the suggestion of Omar, gave orders for its collection and publi- cation ; but the editorial labor was actually performed by Zeid Ibn Thabit, who had been one of Mahomet's secretaries. He is related to have gathered the text " from date-leaves, and tablets of white stone, and from the breasts of men." (Weil, p. 348 : Calcutta Review, No. xxxvii., p. 9.) 8. t The recension of Othman has been handed dcwn to us unaltered . So carefully, indeed, has it been preserved, that there are no variations of importance we might almost say no variations at all amongst the innumerable copies of the Koran scat- tered throughout the vast bounds of the empire of Islam. Contending and embit- tered factions, originating in the murder of Othman himself, within a quarter of a century from the death of Mahomet, have ever since rent the Mahometan world. Yet but one Koran has always been current amongst them ; and the consentaneous use- of it by all. up to the present day, is an irrefragable proof that we have now be- fniv ii.-j the s.) IV. It seems that regular biographies of Mahomet began to be composed towards the end of the first or early in the second century of the Hegim ; but the earliest biographical writers, whose works are extant more or less in their original state, are 1. Ibn Ishac ; 2. IbnIIisham ; 3. Wackidi and his secretary ; 4. Tabari 1. Ibn lahac, a Tabiy, died A. H. ]51 (A. D. 7(i8). His work, which was composed for the caliph Al Mansur, enjoys a high reputation among the Moslems ; and its statements have been incorporated into most of the subsequent biographies of the prophet. Dr. (Sprenger, however, (p. 69), though hardly, perhaps, on sufficient grounds, re- gards him as little trustworthy and doubts whether his book has come down to us in its original form. 2. Ibn Ishac was succeeded by Ibn Hisham (died A. II. 213. A. 1), 838), whose work, still extant, is founded on that of his predecessor, but bears the reputation of being still less trustworthy 3. Wackidi, born at Medina about A. H. 129, compiled several books relating to Mahomet, but no work of hi* has come down to us in its original form . The fruits of his researches were, how- - npar ._..,__ f __ . . . the best sources of information respecting the prophet. This valuable work was discovered by Dr. Sprenger at Cawnpore. Dr. Sprenger observes that "this is by far the best biography of the Arabic prophet, but, being rare, it has never been need by a European scholar. The veracity and knowledge of the author have never 33 LIFE OF MAHOMET. his wife, his servant, his pupil, and his friend ; since he presented himself as a prophet to those who were most conversant with his in- firmities as a man. Yet Cadijah believed the words, and cherished the glory of her husband ; the obsequious and affectionate Zeid was tempted by the prospect of freedom ; the illustrious Ali, the son of Abu Taleb, embraced the sentiments of his cousin with the spirit of a youthful hero ; and the weaith, the moderation, the veracity of Abubeker, * confirmed the religion of the prophet whom he was des- tined to succeed. By his persuasion, ten of the most respectable citi- zens of Mecca were introduced to the private lessons of Islam ; they yielded to the voice of reason and enthusiasm ; they repeated the fundamental creed, " there is but one God, and Mahomet is the apos- tle of God ; " and their faith, even in this life, was rewarded with riches and honors, with the command of armies and the government been impugned by his contemporaries, nor by good early writers." It is generally quoted under the name of " Wackidi," probably for the sake of brevity. The carefully collected traditions of Wackidi must not be confounded with the roman- ces of the eighth century which bear the same name and which form the basis of Ockley'swork. 4. Tabari, the most celebrated of all the Arabic historians, died A. H. 310 (A. D. 929). A short account of this writer is given by Gibbon himself (ch. li., note 11). Tabari wrote an account both of Mahomet's lire and of the progress of Islam. The latter has long been known : and a portion of it, in the original Arabic, was published, with, a Latin translation, by Kosegarten in 1S31. But the earlier part, relating to Mahomet, could be read only in an untrustworthy Persian translation even so late as 1831, when Dr. Sprenger published his Life of Mahomet. It has, however, been subsequently discovered in the original language by that gen- tleman, during his mission by the Indian Government to search the native libraries of Lucknow. To Dr. Sprenger, therefore, beiongs the honor of having discovered two of the most valuable works respecting the history of Mahomet. But even the most authentic traditions respecting Mahomet have been corrupted by superstition, faction, and other causes ; and it is hardly necessary to say that a European writer must exercise the most careful and discriminating criticism in tho use of them. Inattention to this point is the defect of Gagnier's otherwise excellent work. The later Arabic biographers of Mahomet are entitled to no credit as independent authorities. They could add no true information, but they often add many t-puriou traditions and fabricated stories of later days. Hence such a writer as Abulfeda, whom Gibbon frequently quotes, is of no value as an authority. The best recent biographies of Mahomet by Europeans are Dr. Sprenger's Life of Mohammed from original sources, Allahabad, 1851, and Dr. Weil's Mohammed der Prophet, Stuttgart, 1843. Dr. Sprenger's Life (part i.) only goes down to the flight from Mecca, but it is a very valuable contribution to Oriental literature, and has been of great service to the editor of this work. S. * Abubeker, or, more properly, Abu Bakr, literally, "the father of the virgin" so called because his daughter Ayesha was the only maiden whom Mahomet mar- riedwas a wealthy merchant of the Taym family, much respected for his benevo- lence and straightforward dealing. He was one of the first to accept the mission of the prophet, and is said to have believed in the unity of God before that event. The faith of Abu Bakr." says Dr. Sprenger, "is in my opinion the greatest guar- antee of the sincerity of Mohammed at the beginning of his career ; and he did more for the success of Islam than the prophet himself His baring joined Mohammed lent respectability to his cause ; he spent seven-eighths of nis property, whku amounted to 40,0<)0 dirhams, or a thousand pounds, when he embraced th new faith, towards its promotion at Mecca, and h continued the sama course of alitj at Medina " (p. 171). S, LIFE OF MAHOMET. 33 f kingdoms. Three years were silently employed in the conversion of fourteen proselytes, the first fruits of his mission; but in the fourth year he assumed the prophetic office, and resolving to impart to his family the light of divine truth, he prepared a banquet, a lamb, as it is said, and a bowl of milk, for the entertainment of forty guests of the race of Hashem. " Friends and kinsmen," said Mahomet to the assembly, " I offer you, and I alone can offer, the most precious of gifts, 'the treasures of this world and of the world to come. God has commanded me to call you to his service. Who among you will support my burthen ? Who among you will be my companion and my vizir ? " No answer was returned, till the silence of astonish- ment and doubt, and contempt, was at length broken by the impa- tient courage of Ali, a youth in the fourteenth year of his age. " O prophet, I am the man ; whosoever rises against thee I will dash out his teeth, tear out his eyes, break his legs, rip up his belly. O proph- 1 et, I will be thy vizir over them." Mahomet accepted his offer wit !i transport, and Abu Taleb was ironically exhorted to respect the su- perior dignity of his son. In a more serious tone, the father of Ali advised his nephew to relinquish his impracticable design. " Spare your remonstrances," replied the in-trepid fanatic to his uncle and benefactor; "if they should place the sun on my right hand, and the moon on my left, they should not divert me from my course." He persevered ten years in the exercise of his mission ; and the reli- gion which has overspread the East and West, advanced with a slow and painful progress within the walls of Mecca. Yet Mahomet en- joyed the satisfaction of beholding the increase of his infant congre- gation of .Unitarians, who revered him as a prophet, and to whom ho seasonably dispensed the special nourishment 'of the Koran. The number of proselytes may be estimated by the absence of eighty- three men and eighteen women, who retired to ^Ethopia in the seventh year of his mission, * and his party was fortified by the timely con- version of his uncle Harnza, and of the fierce and inflexible Omar, who signalized in the cause of Islam the same zeal which he had ex- erted for its destruction. Nor was the charity of Mahomet confined to the tribe of Koreish, or the precincts of Mecca ; on solemn festi- vals, in the days of pilgrimage, he frequented the Caaba, accosted the strangers of every tribe, and urged, both in private converse and public discourse, the belief and worship of a sole Deity. Conscious of his reason and of his weakness, he asserted the liberty of con- science, and disclaimed the use of religious violence ; but he called * There were two emi<*rations to Abyssinia. The first was in the fifth year of the prophet's mission, when twelve men and fonr women emigrated. They returned to Mecca in the course of the same year, upon hearing that a reconciliation had taken place between the prophet and his enemies. The second emigration was in the seventh year of the mission, and is the one mentioned in the text. Omar had been converted in the preceding year, the sixth of the Mission ; and after his con- version the number of the faithful was almost immediately doubled. (Sprenger, p. 1SMHU-S. -r J4 LIFE OF MAHOMET. the Arabs to repentance, and conjured them to remember the ancient idolaters of Ad and Thamud, whom the divine justice had swept away from the face of the earth. The people of Mecca were hardened in their unbelief by super- stition and envy. The elders of the city, the uncles of the prophet, affected to despise the presumption of an orphan, the reformer of his country ; the pious orations of Mahomet in the Caaba were answered by the clamors of Abu Taleb. "Citizens and pilgrims, listen not to the tempter, hearken not to his impious novelties. Stand fast in the worship of Al Lata and Al Uzzah." Yet the son of Abdallah wae ever dear to the aged chief : and he protected the fame and person of hia nephew against the assaults of the Koreishites, who had long been jealous of the pre-eminence of the family of Hashem. * Their mal- aee was colored with the pretence of religion ; in the age of Job, the crime of impiety was punished by the Arabian magistrate ; and Ma- homet was guilty of deserting and denying the national deities. But so loose was the policy of Mecca, that the leaders of the Koreish, in- stead of accusing a criminal, were compelled to employ the measures of persuasion or violence. They repeatedly addressed Abu Taleb in the style of reproach and menace. "Thy nephew reviles onr re- ligion ; he accuses our wise forefathers of ignorance and folly ; silence him quickly, lest he kindle tumult and discord in the city. If he persevere, we shall draw our swords against him and his adherents, and thou wilt be responsible for the blood of thy fellow-citizens." The weight and moderation of Abu Taleb eluded the violence of re- ligious faction ; the most helpless or timid of the disciples retired to Ethiopia, and the prophet withdrew himself to various places of strength in town and country, f As he was still supported by his family, the rest of the tribe of Koreish engaged themselves to re- nounce all intercourse with the children of Hashem, neither to buy nor sell, neither to marry nor give in marriage, but to pursue them with implacable enmity, till they should deliver the person of Ma- homet to the justice of the gods. The decree was suspended in the Caaba before the eyes of the nation ; the messengers of the Koreish pursued the Musulman exiles in the heart of Africa ; they besieged the prophet and his most faithful followers, intercepted their water, and inflamed their mutual animosity by the retaliation of injuries and insults. A doubtful truce restored the appearances of concord, till the death of Abu Taleb abandoned Mahomet to the power of his enemies, at the moment when he was deprived of his domestic com- , * On one occasion Mahomet narrowly escaped being strangled in the Caaba ; and Abu Bekr. who camo to his aid, was beaten with sandals till nis nose was flattened. (Weil, p. 56.} S. t Especially to a fortress or castle in a defile near Mecca, in which be seems to have spent nearly three years, often in want of the necessaries of life, and obliged to chane his bed every night for fear of being surprised by assassins. (Weil. p. 6&.) *- 8. LIFE OP MAHOMET, 35 forts by the loss of his faithful and generous Cadijah. Abu Sophian, the chief of the branch of Ommiyah, succeeded to the principality of the republic of Mecca. A zealous votary of the idols, a mortal foe f the line of Hashem, he convened an assembly of the-Koreishites and their allies, to decide the fate of the apostle. His imprisonment might provoke the despair of his enthusiasm ; and the exile of an elo- quent and popular fanatic would diffuse the mischief through the provinces of Arabia. His death was resolved ; and they agreed that" a sword from each tribe should be buried in his heart, to divide the guilt of his blood, and baffle the vengeance of the Hashemites. An angel or a spy revealed their conspiracy, and flight was the only re- source of Mahomet. At the dead of night, accompanied by his friend Abubeker, he silently escaped from his house ; the assassins watched at the door ; but they were deceived by the figure of All, who re- posed on the bed, and was covered with the green vestment of the apostle. The Koreish respected the piety of the heroic youth ; but some verses of All, which are still extant, exhibit an interesting pic- ture of his anxiety, his tenderness, and his religious confidence. Three days Mahomet and his companions were concealed in the cave f Thor, at the distance of a league from Mecca ; and in the close of each evening, they received from the son and daughter of Abubeker a secret supply of intelligence and food. The diligence of the Ko- reish explored every haunt in the neighborhood of the city ; they ar- rived at the entrance of the cavern, but the providential deceit of a spider's web and a pigeon's nest, is supposed to convince them that the place was solitary and inviolate. * " We are only two," said the trembling Abukeker. " There is a third," replied the prophet ; "it is God himself." No sooner was the pursuit abated, than the two fugitives issued from the rock and mounted their camels ; on the road to Medina, they were overtaken by the emissaries of the Koreish ; they redeemed themselves with prayers and promises from their hands. In this eventful moment, the lance of an Arab might have changed the history of the world. The flight of the prophet from Mecca to Medina has fixed the memofable era of the Heyira(a) which, at the end of twelve centuries, still discriminates the lunar years or the Mahometan nations. The religion of the Koran might have perished in its cradle, had not Medina embraced with faith and reverence the holy outcasts of * According to another legend, which is less known, a tree grew up before the Qtraace of the cayern, at the command of the prophet. (Weil, p. 79, note 96.) S. (a} The Hegira was instituted by Omar, the second caliph, in imitation of the era of the martyrs of the Christiana (D'Herbelot, p. 444); and properly commenced sixty-eight days before the flight of Mahomet, with the first of Mohan-en, or first day of that Arabian year, which coincides with Friday. July 16th. A. D. 622. (Abul- *eda, Vit. Moham , c. 32, 23, j>. 45-50 ; and Greaves'* edition of Ullug Beg's Epoch* Arabum, &c,, c. 1, p. 8, 10, &c.) 86 LIFE OP MAHOMET. Mecca. Medina, or the city* known under the name of Tethreb bd- fore it was sanctified by the throne of the prophet, was divided be- tween the tribes of the Charegitesf and the Awsites, whose heredi- tary feud was rekindled by the slightest provocation : two colonies of Jews, who boasted a sacerdotal race, were their humble allies, and without converting the Arabs, they introduced the taste of science and religion, which distinguished Medina as the city of the Book. Some of her noblest citizens, in a pilgrimage to the Caaba, were con- verted by the preaching of Mahomet ; on their return they diffused the belief of God and his prophet, and the new alliance was ratified by their deputies in two secret and nocturnal interviews on a hill in the suburbs of Mecca. In the first, ten Charegites and two Awsites, united in faith and love, protested in the name of their wives, their children, and their absent brethren, that they would forever profess the creed and observe the precepts of the Koran.:}: The second was a political association, the first vital spark of the empire of the Sara- cens. Seventy-three men and two women of Medina held a solemn conference with Mahomet, his kinsmen, and his disciples ; and pledged themselves to each other by a mutual oath of fidelity. They prom- ised in the name of the city that if he should be banished they would receive him as a confederate, obey him as a leader, and defend him to the last extremity, like their wives and children. " But if you are recalled by your country," they asked with a flattering anxiety, " will you not abandon your new allies?" "All things," replied Mahomet with a smile, "are now common between us ; your blood is as my blood, your ruin as my ruin. We are bound to each other by the ties of honor and interest. I am your friend, and the enemy of your foes." " But if we are killed in your service, what." exclaimed the deputies of Medina, " will be our reward ?" " PARADISE," replied the proph- et. " Stretch forth thy hand." He stretcht'd it forth, and they reit- erated the oath of allegiance and fidelity. Their, treaty was rat i lied by the people, who unanimously embraced the profession of Jshmi : they rejoiced hi the exile of the apostle, but they trembled for his winy, and impatiently expected, his arrival. After a perilous mid rapid journey along the sea-coast he halted at Koba, two miles from the city, and made his public entry into Medina, sixteen days after his flight from Mecca. Five hundred of the citizens advanced to meet him ; he was hailed with acclamations of loyalty and devotion ; Mahomet was mounted on a she-camel, an umbrella shaded his head, and a turban was unfurled before him to supply the deficiency of a standard. His bravest disciples, who had been scattered by the storm, * It was at first called ifedtoatalnabi, " the city of the prophet : " and afterwards eimply " the city." (Conde, Hist, de la Domination des Arabea, 1. 44, note ) S. t More properly Ctiazrajites, of the tribe Chazra}. (Sprenger, p 203, Weil, p. 71.) j This first alliance was called "the agreement of women," because it did not ot*Um th duty of fighting for the Iglam. (gprengsr, p. 30B.) 8. LIFE OF MAHOMET. S7 assembled round las person ; and the equal though various merit of the Moslems was distinguished by the names of Mohageridns and Ansars, the fugitives of Mecca, and the auxiliaries of Medina. To eradicate the seeds of jealousy, Mahomet judiciously coupled his principal followers with the rights and obligations of brethren, and when AH found himself without a peer the prophet tenderly declared that he would be the companion and brother of the noble youth. The expedient was crowned with success ; the holy fraternity was respect- ed in peace and war, and the two parties vied with each other in a generous emulation of courage and fidelity. Once only the concord was slightly ruffled by an accidental quarrel ; a patriot of Medina arraigned the insolence of the strangers, but the hint of their expul- sion was heard with abhorrence, and his own son most eagerly offered to lay at the apostle's feet the head of his father. From his establishment at Medina, Mahomet assumed the exercise of the regal and sacerdotal office ; and it was impious to appeal from a judge whose decrees were inspired by the divine wisdom. A small po tion of ground, the patrimony of two orphans, was acquired by gift or purchase ; on that chosen spot he built a house and a mosch, more venerable in their rude simplicity than the palaces and temples of the Assyrian caliphs. His seal of gold, or silver, was inscribed with the apostolic title ; when he prayed and preached in the weekly assembly, he leaned against the trunk of a palm-tree ; and it was long before he indulged himself in the use of a chair or pulpit of rough timber. After a reign of six years, fifteen hundred Moslems, in arms and in the field, renewed their oath of allegiance ; and their chief repeated the assurance of protection till the death of the hist member, or the final dissolution of the party. It was in the same camp that the deputy of Mecca was astonished by the attention of the faithful to the words and looks of the prophet, by the eagerness with which they collected his spittle, a hair that dropt on the ground, the refuse water of his lustrations, as if they participated in some degree of the prophetic virtue. "I have seen," said he, "the Chosroes of Persia and the Caasar of Rome, but never did I behold a king among his subjects like Mahomet among his companions." The devout fervor of enthusiasm acts with more energy and truth than the cold and formal servility of courts. In the state of nature every man has a right to defend, by force of arms, his person and his possessions ; to repel, or even to prevent, the violence of his enemies, and to extend his hostilities to a reasona- ble measure of satisfaction and retaliation. In the free society of the Arabs, the duties of subject and citizen imposed a feeble restraint; and Mahomet, in the exercise of a peaceful and benevolent mission, had been despoiled and banished by the injustice of his countrymen. The choice of an independent people had exalted the fugitive of Mecca to the rank of a sovereign, and he was invested with the just prerogative of forming alliances, and of waging offensive and defon- A.B. 6 38 LIFE OF MAHOMET. sive war. The imperfection of human rights was supplied and armeti by the plenitude of divine power : the prophet of Medina assumed, in his new revelations, a fiercer and more sanguinary tone, which proves that his former moderation was the effect of weakness : the means of persuasion had been tried, the season of forbearance waa elapsed, and he was now commanded to propagate his religion by the sword, to destroy the monuments of idolatry, and, without regarding tho sanctity of days or months, to pursue the unbelieving nations of the earth. The same bloody preceptSj so repeatedly inculcated in the Koran, are ascribed by the author to the Pentateuch and the Gospel. But the mild tenor of the evangelic style may explain an ambiguous text, that Jesus did not bring peace on the earth, but a sword : his patient and humble virtues should not be confounded with the intol- erant zeal of princes and bishops, who have disgraced the name of his disciples. In the prosecution of religious war Mahomet might appeal with more propriety to the example of Moses, of the judges and the kings of Israel. The military laws of the Hebrews are still more rigid than those of the Arabian legislator. The Lord of hosts marched in person before the Jews : if a city resisted their summons, the males, without distinction, were put to the sword : the seven nations of Canaan were devoted to destruction; and neither repent- ance nor conversion could shield them from the inevitable doom, that no creature within their precincts should be left alive. The fair option of friendship, or submission, or battle, was proposed to the enemies of Mahomet. If they professed the creed of Islam, they were admitted to all the temporal and spiritual benefits of his primitive disciples, and marched under the same banner to extend the religion which they had embraced. The clemency of the prophet was decided by his interest, yet he seldom trampled on a prostrate enemy ; and he seems to promise that, on the payment of a tribute, the least guilty of his unbelieving subjects might be indulged in their worship, or al least in their imperfect faith. In the first months of his reign, lie practised the lessons of holy warfare, and displayed his white banner before the gates of Medina : the martial apostle fought in person at nine battles or sieges ; and fifty enterprises of war were achieved in ten years by himself or his lieutenants. The Arab continued to unite the professions of a merchant and a robber ; and his petty excursion? for the defence or the attack of a caravan insensibly prepared his troops for the conquest of Arabia. The distribution of the spoil waa regulated by a divine law ; the whole was faithfully collected in one common mass ; a fifth of the gold and silver, the prisoners and cattle, the movables and immovables, was reserved by the prophet for pious and charitable uses;* the remainder was shared in adequate por- * Before the time of Mnhomrt it was customary for the head of the tribe, or gen eral, to retain one-fourth of t! e booty ; *o that tliis new regulation must have bee regarded with favur by the army. (Weil, p. 111.) 8. LIFE OF MAHOMET. s tions by the soldiers who had obtained the victory or guarded the camp ; the rewards of the slain devolved to their widows and orphans ; and the increase of cavalry was encouraged by the allotment of a double share to the horse and to the man. From all sides the roving Arabs were allured to the standard of religion and plunder ; tike apos- tle sanctified the license of embracing the female captives as their wives r concubines ; and the enjoyment of wealth and beauty was a feeble type of the joys of paradise prepared for the valiant martyrs of the faith. " The sword," says Mahomet, "is the key of heaven and of hell ; a drop of blood shed in the cause of God, a night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of fasting and prayer ; whosoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven ; at the day of judgment his wounds shall be resplendent as vermilion, and odoriferous as musk ; and the loss of his limbs shall be supplied by the wings of angels and cherubim." The intrepid souls of the Arabs were fired with enthusi- asm . the picture of the invisible world was strongly painted on their imagination ; and the death which they had always despised became an object of hope and desire. The Koran inculcates, in the most absolute sense, the tenets of fate ad predestination, which would extinguish both industry and virtue, if the actions of man were gov- erned by his speculative belief. Yet their influence in every age has exalted the courage of the Saracens and Turks. The first companions of Mahomet advanced to battle with a fearles* confidence : there is no danger where there is no chance : they were ordained to perish in their beds ; or they were safe and invulnerable amidst the darts of the enemy. Perhaps the Koreish would have been content with the flight of Mahomet, had they not been provoked and alarmed by the vengeance of an enemy, \\ ho could intercept their Syrian trade as it passed and repassed through the territory of Medina. Abu Sophian himself, with only thirty or forty followers, conducted a wealthy caravan of a thousand camels ; the fortune or dexterity of his march escaped the vigilance of Mahomet ; but the chief of the Koreish was informed that, the holy robbers were placed in ambush to await his return. He dispatched a messenger to his brethren of Mecca, and they were roused, by the fear of losing their merchandise and their provisions, unless they hastened to his relief with the military force of the city. The sacred band of Mahomet was formed of three hundred and thirteen Moslems, of whom seventy-seven were fugitives, and the rest auxili- aries : they mounted by turns a train of seventy camels (the camels of Yathreb were formidable in war) ; but such was the poverty of his first disciples that only two could appear on horseback in the field. In the fertile and famous vale of Beder, three stations from Medina, he was informed by his scouts of the caravan that approached on one side ; of the Koreish, one hundred horse, eight hundred and fifty foot,* who advanced on the other. After a short debate, he sacrificed * Of these, however, 300 of the tribe of Zohra returned to Mecca before the en- 40 LIFE OF MAHOMET, the prospect of wealth to the pursuit of glory and revenge ; and elight intrenchment was formed, to covr his troops, and a stream of fresh water that glided through the valley. " O God," he exclaimed, as the numbers of the Koreish descended from the hills, " O God, if these are destroyed, by whom wilt thou be worshipped on the earth ? Courage, my children, close your ranks ; discharge your arrows, and the day is your own." At these words he placed himself, with Abu- beker, on a throne or pulpit,* and instantly demanded the succor of Gabriel and three thousand angels. His eyes were fixed on the field of battle : the Musulmans fainted and were pressed : in that decisive moment the prophet started from his throne, mounted his horse, and cast a handful of sand into the air ; "let their faces be covered with confusion." Both armies heard the thunder of his voice : their fancy beheld the angelic warriors : the Koreish trembled and fled : seventy of the bravest were slain ; and seventy captives adorned the first vic- tory of the faithful.f The dead bodies of the Koreish were despoiled and insulted : two of the most obnoxious prisoners were punished with death ; and the ransom of the others, four thousand drachms of silver, compensated in some degree the escape of the caravan. But it was in vain that the camels of Abu Sophian explored a new road through the desert and along the road through the Euphrates : they were overtaken by the diligence of the Musulmans ; and wealthy must have been the prize, if twenty thousand drachms could be set apart for the fifth of the apostle. The resentment of the public and private loss stimulated Abu Sophian to collect a body of three thou- sand men, seven hundred of whom were armed with cuirasses, and two hundred were mounted on horseback ; three thousand camels at- tended on his march ; and his wife Henda, with fifteen matrons of Mecca, incessantly sounded their timbrels to animate the troops, and to magnify the greatness of Hobal, the most popular deity of the gagement, and were joined by many others . The battle began with a fight, like that of the Horatii and Curiatii, of three on ejch side. (Weil, p. 105-111 (8. * Weil (p. 103) calls it a hut (Hiitte), which his followers had erected for him on a gentle eminence near the field of battle. Gibbon is solicitous for the reputation of Mahomet, whom he has before characterized (supra, p. 67) as possessing "the cour- age both of thought and action." Weil, however, draws a very differ, nt portrait of him (p. 844). "According to his Mnsulinan biographers, whom Europeans have followed without further inquiry, his physical strength was accompanied with the greatest valor; yet not only is this assertion destitute of all proof, but his behavior in his different campaigns, as well as in the first years of his appearance as a prophet and also_ towards the close of his life, when he was become very powerful, compel us, despite his endurance and perseverance, to characterize him as very timorous. It was not till after the conversion of Omar and Hamza that he ventured openly to appear in the mosque along with the professors of his faith, as a Moslem. He not only took no part in the fight in the battle of Bedr. but kept at some distance from the field, and had some dromedaries ready before his tent, in order to fly in case of a reverse." S. t According to others, 44. (Weil, p. 109.) Among the captives was Abbas, the rich uncle of Mahomet, who was obliged to pay ransom, although he alleged that iniranlly he was a believer, and had been forced to take part in the expedition. He returnee to Mecca, where, it is said, he served Mahomet as a spy. (Ib., p. 109-114.) 8. LIFE OF MAHOMET. 41 Caaba. The standard of God and Mahomet was upheld by nine hun- dred and fifty believers ; the disproportion of numbers was not more alarming than in the field of Beder ; and their presumption of vic- tory prevailed against the divine and human sense of the apostle * The second battle was fought on Mount Ohud, six miles to the north of Medina ; the Koreish advanced in the form of a crescent ; and the right wing of cavalry was led by Caled, the fiercest and most success- ful of the Arabian warriors. The troops of Mahomet were skilfully posted on the declivity of a hill, and their rear was guarded by a de- tachment of fifty archers. The weight of their charge impelled and broke the centre of their idolaters ; but in the pursuit they lost the advantage of their ground : the archers deserted their station ; the Musulmans were tempted by the spoil, disobeyed their general, and disordered their ranks. The intrepid Caled, wheeling his cavalry on their flank and rear, exclaimed with a loud voice, that Mahomet was slain. He was indeed wounded in the face with a javelin ; two of his teeth were shattered with a stone ; f yet in the midst of tumult and dismay, he reproached the infidels with the murder of a prophet, and blessed the friendly hand that staunched his blood, and conveyed him to a place of safety. \ Seventy martyrs died for the sins of the peo- ple ; they fell, said the apostle, in pairs, each brother embracing his lifeless companion ; their .bodies were mangled by the inhuman fe- males of Mecca ; and the wife of Abu Sophian tasted the entrails of Ham/a, the uncle of Mahomet. They might applaud their supersti- tion, and satiate their fury ; but the Musulmans soon rallied in the field, and the Koreish wanted strength or courage to undertake the siege of Medina. It was attacked the ensuing year by an army of ten thousand enemies ; and this third expedition is variously named from the it i 'i Ho aft, which marched under the banner of Abu Sophian, from the ditch which was drawn before the city, and a camp of three thou- sand Musulmans. The prudence of Mahomet declined a general en- gagement ; the valor of Ali was signalized in single combat j_ and the war was protracted twenty days, till the final separation of the con- federates. A tempest of wind, rain, and hail, overturned their tents ; * But on this occasion Abd Allah, with 203 men, abandoned Mahomet, so that the disproportion of forces was vastly greater than at Bcdr. See note * supra, page 139. (Weil, p. 124.) S. t Two of Mahomet's teeth are (or were) preserved at Constantinople ; but as, ac- cording to the best authorities, he only lost one on this occasion, one-half at least of these relics must be regarded with the same suspicion that attaches to most other articles of the same description. (See Weil, p. 127.) S. t The person of the prophet was protected by a helmet and double coat of mail. Pie was recognized among the wounded by Caab, the son of Malek ; by whom, Abu Bekr, Omar, and ten or twelve others, he was carried to a cave upon an eminence. Here he was pursued by Ubejj Ibn Challaf. who had long been keeping a horse in extraordinary condition for the purpose of surprising and killing Mahomet ; but the latter dealt him a blow of which he died. This was the only time that Mahomet took any personal share in an action. (Weil, p. 128.) S. 42 LIFE OF MAHOMET. their private quarrels were fomented by an insidious adversary ; and the Koreish, deserted by ther allies, no longer hoped to subvert the throne, or to check the conquests of their invincible exile. The choice of Jerusalem for the first kebla of prayer discovers the early propensity of Mahomet in favor of the Jews ; and happy would it have been for their temporal interest, had they recogni/ed, in the Arabian prophet, the hope of Israel and the promised Messiah. Their obstinacy converted his friendship into implacable hatred, with which he pursued that unfortunate people to the last moment of his life ; and in the double character of an apostle and a conqueror, his perse- cution was extended to both worlds. The Kainoka dwelt at Medina under the protection of the city ; he seized the occasion of an acci- dental tumult, and summoned them to embrace his religion or con- tend with him in battle. " Alas !" replied the trembling Jews, " we are ignorant of the use of arms, but we persevere in the faith and worship of our fathers ; why wilt thou reduce us to the necessity of a just defence?" The unequal conflict was terminated in fifteen days ; and it was with extreme reluctance that Mahomet yielded to the im- portunity of his allies, and consented to spare the lives of his captives. But their riches were confiscated, their arms became more effectual in the hands of the Musulmans ; and a wretched colony of seven hundred exiles were driven with their wives aud children to implore a refuge on the confines of Syria. The Nadhirites were more guilty, since they conspired in a friendly interview to assassinate the prophet. He besieged their castle, three miles from Medina, but their resolute defence obtained an honorable capitulation ; and the garrison, sound- ing their trumpets and beating their drums, was permitted to depart with the honors of war. The Jews had excited and joined the war of the Koreish ; no sooner had the nations retired from the ilitrli , than Mahomet, without laying aside his armor, marched on the same day to extirpate the hostile race of the children of Koraidha. After a resistance of twenty-five days they surrendered at discretion. They trusted to the intercession of their old allies of Medina : they could not be ignorant that fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity. A venerable elder, to whose judgment they appealed, pronounced the sentence of their death : seven hundred Jews were dragged in chains to the market place of the city ; they descended alive into the grave prepared for their execution and burial ; and the apostle beheld with an inflexible eye th slaughter of his helpless enemies. Their sheep and camels were inherited by the Musulmans ; three hundred cuirasses, five hundred pikes, a thousand lances, composed the most useful por- tion of the spoil. Six days' journey to the northeast of Medina, the ancient aud wealthy town of Chaibar, was the seat of the Jewish power in Arabia : the territory, a fertile spot m the desert, was cov- ered with plantations and cattle, and protected by eight castles, some of which were esteemed of impregnable strength. The forces of Mahoinet consisted of two hundred horse and fourteen hundred foot ; LIFE OP MAHOMET, 43 in the succession of eight regular and painful sieges they were ex- posed to danger, and fatigue, and hunger ; and the most undaunted chiefs despaired of the event. The apostle revived their faith and courage by the example of All, on whom he bestowed the surname of the Lion of God ; perhaps we may believe that a Hebrew cham- pion of gigantic stature was cloven to the chest by his irresistible scym- itar ; but we cannot praise the modesty of romance, which represents him as tearing from its hinges the gates of a fortress, and wielding the ponderous buckler in his left hand. After the reduction of the castles, the town of Chaibar submitted to the yoke. The chief of the tribe was tortured in the presence of Mahomet, to force a confession of his hidden treasure : the industry of the shepherds and husband- men was rewarded with a precarious toleration they were permitted, so long as it should please the conqueror, to improve their patrimony in equal shares, for his emolument and their own. Under the reign of Omar, the Jews of Chaibar were transplanted to Syria ; and the caliph alleged the injunction of his dying master, that one and the true religion should be professed in his native land of Arabia. Five times each day the eyes of* Mahomet were turned towards Mecca, and he was urged by the most sacred and powerful motives to revisit, as a conqueror, the city and temple from whence he had been driven as an exile. Tlie Caaba was present to his waking and sleep- ing fancy ; an idle dream was translated into vision and prophecy ; he unfurled the holy banner ; and a rash promise of success too hastily dropped from the lips of the apostle. His march from Medina to Mecca displayed the peaceful and solemn pomp of a pilgrimage : seventy camels chosen and bedecked for sacrifice preceded the van ; the sacred territory was respected ; and the captives were dismissed without ransom to proclaim his clemency and devotion. But no sooner did Mahomet descend into the plain, within a day's journey of the city, than he exclaimed, " They have clothed themselves with the skins of tigers : " the numbers and resolution of the Koreish opposed his progress ; and the roving Arabs of the desert might desert, or lie- tray a leader whom they had followed for the hopes of spoil. The intrepid fanatic sunk into a cool and cautious politician : he waved in the treaty his title of apostle of God, * concluded with the Koreish and their allies a truce of ten years, engaged to restore the fugitives of Mecca who should embrace his religion, and stipulated only, for the ensuing year, the humble privilege of entering the city as a friend,! and of remaining three days to accomplish the rites of the pilgrim age. A cloud of shame and sorrow hung oh the retreat of the Mus- ulinans, and their disappointment might justly accuse the failure of a prophet who had so often appealed to the evidence of success. The faith and hope of the pilgrims wero rekindled by the prospect of * He struck out the title with hia owm hand, as All had refused to do it. (Weil, p. 178.) S. 44 LIFE OF MAHOMET. Mecca , their swords were sheathed : seven times in the footsteps of the apostle they encompassed the Caaba : the Koreish had retired to the hills, and Mahomet, after the customary sacrifice, evacuated the city on the fourth day. The people were edified by his devotion ; the hostile chiefs were awed, or divided, or seduced ; and both (.'aled and Amrou, the future conquerors of Syria^ and Egypt, most season- ably deserted the sinking cause of idolatry. The power of Mahomet was increased by the submission of the Arabian tribes ; ten thousand soldiers were assembled for the conquest of Mecca ; * and the idola- ters, the weaker party, were easily convicted of violating the truce. Enthusiasm and discipline impelled the march and preserved the se- cret, till the blaze of ten thousand fires proclaimed to the astonished Koreish the design, the approach, and the irresistible force of the enemy. The haughty Abu Sophian presented the, keys of ihe city; admired the variety of arms and ensigns that passed before him in re- view ; observed that the son of Abdallah had acquired a mighty kingdom ; and confessed under the scymitar of Omar, that he was the apostle of 'the true God. The return of Marius and Sylla was stained with the blood of the Romans : the revenge of Mahomet was stimulated by religious zeal, and his injured followers were eager to execute or to prevent the order of a massacre. Instead of indulging their passions and his own, the victorious exile forgave the guilt, and united the factions of Mecca. His troops, in three divisions, marched into the city : eight and t\venly of the inhabitants were slain by the sword of Caled ; ( eleven men and six women were proscribed by the sentence of Mahomet ; \ but he blamed the cruelty of his lieuten mt ; and sev- eral of the most obnoxious victims were indebted for their lives to his cl mency or contempt. The chiefs of the Koreish were prostrate at his i'eet. " What mercy can you expect from the man whom you have wronged?" "We confide in the generosity of our kinsman." * The expedition of Mahomet against Mecca took place in the 10th Kamadhan of the 8th Hegira (1 Jan. fi30). (Weil, p. 212.) S. t These men their numbers are variously given at less and more- -were slain on the hill called Chandama before the entrance or Chaled into the city, which they had opposed. It was on a different occasion that Chaled incurred the censure of Ma- homet. The prophet had sent him on an expedition to the province of Tdiania, and, on passing through the territory of the Beni Djasima, Chaled caused a consid- erable number of them to be put to death, although they were already Musulmang. Unfortunately, when required to confess their faith, they had, from ancient custom, used the word Saba 1 na (converts or renegades), instead of the usual Moslem expres- sion, Aaiamna. On hearing of the act, Mahomet raised his hands to heaven, and exclaimed, 'O God, I am pure before thee, and have taken no part in Chaled's deed." Mchomet compensated the Beni Djasima for the slaughter of their kins- men ; but the services of Chaled obliged him to overlook his offence. (Weil, p. 230.) S. Klevcn men and four women ; but the sentence was executed on'y on three of the former and one of the latter. (Weil, p. 2^0. ) Mahomet remained two or three weeks in Mscca, during which he sent his captains to destroy the idols in the sur- rounding' / >untry, and to summon the Arabians to submission and belief. (Weil, p. 228.) P LIFE OP MAHOMET. 45 " And you shall not confide in vain ; begone ! you are safe, you are free." The people of Mecca deserved their pardon by the profession of Islam ; and after an exile of s^-ven years, the fugitive missionary was enthroned as the prince and prophet of his native country. But the three hundred and sixty idols of the Caaba were ignomini- (Hisly broken : the house of God was purified and adorned : as an ex- mple to future times, the apostle again fulfilled the duties of a pil- grim ; and a perpetual law was enacted that no unbeliever should dare to set his foot on the territory of the holy city. The conquest of Mecca determined the faith and obedience of the Arabian tribes ; who, according to the vicissitudes of fortune, had obeyed or disregarded the eloquence or the arms of the prophet. In- difference for rites and opinions still marks the character of the Be- do weens, and they might accept, as loosely as they hold, the doctrine of the Koran. Yet an obstinate remnant still adhered to the religion and liberty of their ancestors, and the war of Ilonain derived a proper appellation from the idols whom Mahomet had vowed to de- stroy and whom the confederates of Tayef had sworn to defend. Four thousand pagans advanced with secrecy and speed to surprise the conqueror : they pitied and despised the supine negligence of the Koreish, but they depended on the wishes and perhaps the aid of a people who had so lately renounced their gods and bowed beneath the yoke of their enemy. The banners of Medina and Mecca wen- displayed by the prophet ; a crowd of Bedoweens increased the strength or numbers of the army, and twelve thousand Musulmans entertained a rash and sinful presumption of their invincible strength. They descended without precaution into the valley of Ilonain : tho heights had been occupied by the archers and slingers of the con federates; their numbers were oppressed, their discipline was con- founded, their courage was appalled, and the Koreish smiled at the;; 1 impending destruction. The prophet on his white mule was encom- passed by the enemies : he attempted to rush against their spears in search of a glorious death ; ten of his faithful companions interposed their weapons and their breasts ; three of these fell dead at his feet ; " my brethren," he repeatedly cried with sorrow and indignation, " I am the son of Abdallah, I am the apostle of truth ! O man, stand fast in the faith ! O God, send down thy succor ! " His uncle Abbas, who, like the heroes of Homer, excelled in the loudness of his voice, made the valley resound with the recital of the gifts and promises of God ; the flying Moslems returned from all sides to the holy standard ; and Mahomet observed with pleasure that the furnace was again re- kindled : his conduct and example restored the battle, and he ani- mated his victorious troops to inflict a merciless revenge on the au- thors of their shame. From the field of Ilonain he marched without delay to the siege of Tayef, sixty miles to the southeast of Mecca, a fortress of strength whose fertile lands produce the fruits of Syria in tho midst of the Arabian desert. A friendly tribe instructed (I 46 LIFE OF MAHOMET. knu\v not how) in the art of sieges, supplied him with a train of bat tering rains and military engines, w.ith a body of five hundred artifi- cers. But it was in vain that he offered freedom to the slaves of Tayef ; that he violated his own laws by the extirpation of the fruit- trees ; that the ground was opened by the miners ; that the breach was assaulted by the troops. After a siege of twenty days the a .prophet sounded a retreat, but he retreated with a song of devout tri- 'umph, and affected to pray for the repentance and safety of the un- believing city. The spoil of this fortunate expedition amounted to six thousand captives, twenty-four thousand camels, forty thousand sheep, and four thousand ounces of silver : a tribe who had fought at Honain redeemed their prisoners by the sacrifice of their idols ; but Mahomet compensated the loss by resigning to the soldiers his fifth of the plunder, and wished, for their sake, that he possessed as many head of cattle as there were trees in the province of Tehama. Instead of chastising the disaffection of the Koreish he endeavored to cut out their tongues (his own expression) and to secure their attachment by a superior measure of liberality , Abu Sophian alone was presented with three hundred camels and twenty ourices of silver ; and Mecca was sincerely converted to the profitable religion of the Koran. The fugitives and auxiliaries complained that they who had borne the burthen were neglected in the season of victory. " Ala?," re- plied the artful leader, " suffer me to conciliate these recent enemies, these doubtful proselytes, by the gift of some perishable goods. To your guard I intrust my life and fortunes. You are the companions of my exile, of my kingdom, of my paradise." * He was followed by the deputies of Tayef, who dreaded the repetition of a siege, f " Grant us, O apostle of God ! a truce of three years, with the tolera- tion of our ancient worship." " Not a month, not an hour." " Ex- * Weil gives this address of Mahomet's differently (from the Insan Al Ujun, and Sirat Arrasul), observing that it has not before been presented to the European reader. His version is as follows : "Were ye not wandering in the paths of error when I caine unto yon, and was it not through me that you obtained the guidance of God ? Were ye not poor, and are ye not now rich f Were ye not at variance, and are ye not now united f" They answered, "Surely, O Prophet of God, thou hast overloaded us with be.ieflts." Mahomet proceeded : "Lo ! ye auxiliaries, if ye would, ye might with all truth object to me. Thou earnest to us branded for a liar, yet we believed in thce ; as a persecutor, and we protected thee ; as a fugitive, and we harbored thee ; as one in need of assistance, and we supported thee. Vet Mich are not your thoughts ; how, then, can ye find fault with me because 1 have given a few worldly toys to some persons in order to win tneir hearts ? Are ye not content, ye auxiliaries, if these people return home with sheep and camels, whilst ye return with ilie prophet of God in the midst of you ? By him in w'mxe hand is Mohammed's soul, were it not t.he reward of the fugitives, I should wish to belong to yon ; and, when all the world went one way and you another, I would choose yours. God be merciful unto you, and to yonr children, and your children's children ! " At these words the auxiliaries sobbed aloud, and exclaimed, " We are content with our lot." (Weil. p. 241.) S. f The deputation from Ta'if, as well as from innumerable other tribes, for th most part to tender their submission, took place in the following; year, which, on this account, has been called " the year of deputation*." (See Weil, p. 248> sqq.) S. LIFE OP MAHOMED. 4? euse us at least from the obligation of prayer." " Without prayer religion is of no avail." They submitted in silence : their temples were demolished, and the same sentence of destruction was executed on all the idols of Arabia. His lieutenants on the shores of the Red Sea, the ocean, and the gulf of Persia, were saluted by the acclama- tions of a faithful people ; and the ambassadors who knelt before the throne of Medina were as numerous (says the Arabian proverb) as the dates that fall from the maturity of a palm-tree. The nation sub- mitted to the God and the sceptre of Mahomet : the opprobrious name of tribute was abolished : the spontaneous or reluctant obla- tions of alms and tithes were applied to the service of religion ; and one hundred and fourteen thousand Moslems accompanied the last pilgrimage of the apostle.* When Heraclius returned in triumph from the Persian war, he en- tertained at Emesa, one of the ambassadors of Mahoment, who in- vited the princes and nations of the earth to the profession of Islam. On this foundation the zeal of the Arabians has supposed the secret conversion of the Christian emperor ; the vanity of the Greeks has feigned a personal visit to the prince of Medina, who accepted from the royal bounty a rich domain, and a secure retreat in the province of Syria. But the friendship of Heraclius and Mahomet was of short continuance : the new religion had inflamed rather than assuaged the rapacious spirit of the Saracens ; and the murder of an envoy afford - ed a decent pretence for invading with three thousand soldiers the territory of Palestine, that extends to the eastward of the Jordan. The holy banner was intrusted to Zeid ; and such was the discipline or enthusiasm of the rising sect, that the noblest chiefs served with- out reluctance under the slave of the prophet. On the event of his decease, Jaafar and Abdallah were successively substituted to the command ; and if the three should perish in the war, the troops were authorized to elect their general. The three leaders were slain in the battle of Muta, the first military action which tried the valor of the Moslems against a foreign enemy. Zeid fell, like a soldier, in the foremost ranks ; the death of Jaafar was heroic and memorable : he lost his right hand ; he shifted the standard to his left : the left was severed from his body : he embraced the standard with his bleeding stumps, till he was transfixed to the ground with fifty honorable wounds. " Advance," cried Abdallah, who stepped into the vacant place, "advance with confidence: either victory or paradise is oun own." The lance of a Roman decided the alternative ; bat the falling standard was rescued by Caled, the proselyte of Mecca ; nine swords were broken in his hand ; and his valor withstood and repulsed the superior numbers of the Christians. In the nocturnal council of the camp he was chosen to command ; his skilful evolutions of the en- * The more probable traditions mention 4^.000. This, the last pilgrimage of Ma hornet, took place in the tenth year of the Hegira. (Weil, ch. 8.) 8. 48 LIFE OP MAHOMET. suing day secured either the victory or the retreat of the Scaracens j ami Caled is renowned among his brethren and his enemies by the glorious appellation of the titoord of God. In the pulpit, Mahomet described with prophetic rapture the crowns of the blessed martyrs ; but in private he betrayed the feelings of human nature : he was sur prised as he wept over the daughter of Zeid : " What do I see?" said the astonished votary. "You see," replied the apostle, "a friend who is deploring the loss of his most faithful friend." After the conquest of Mecca, * the sovereign of Arabia affected to prevent the hostile preparations of Heraclius ; and solemnly proclaimed war against the Romans, without attempting to disguise the hardships and dangers of the enterprise: The Moslems were discouraged ; they alleged the want of money, or horses; or provisions ; the season of harvest, and the intolerable heat of the summer : " Hell is much hot- ter," said the indignant prophet; He disdained to compel their ser vice ; but on his return he admonished the most guilty, by an excommunication of fifty days. Their desertion enhanced the merit of Abubeker, Othman, and the faithful companions who devoted their lives and fortunes ; and Mahomet displayed his banner at the head of ten thousand horse and twenty thousand foot. Painful indeed was the distress of the march ; lassitude and thirst were aggravated by the scorching and pestilential winds of the desert : ten men rode by turns on the same camel ; and they were reduced to the shameful ne- rcssity of drinking the water from the belly of that useful animal. In the mid-way, ten days' journey from Medina and Damascus, they reposed near the grove and fountain of Tabuc. Beyond that place Mahomet declined the prosecution of the war ; he declared himself satisfied with the peaceful intentions ; he was more probably daunted by the martial array of the emperor of the East, f But the *ctive oind intrepid Caled spread around the terror of his name ; and * The battle of Mnta took place before the conquest of Mecca, as Gibbon here rightly assumes, though Von Hammer places it offer that event. (Weil, p. 206, note 313.) Weil supposes that tho defeat of the Mnsulmans on that occasion encouraged ; o Mnccans to violate the truce. (Tb., p. 207 ) S. t The expedition of Tabuc was undertaken in the month of Radjab, of the ninth /ear of the Hegira (A. D. 631^. Mahomet's more devoted friends gave a great part of I lii'ir substance towards defraying its expenses. Abu Bekr gave the whole of his property, consisting of 4,000 drachms ; and when Mahomet inquired, "What then fiiisi, thoii left for thy family ?" he answered, " God and his prophet." The tradi- tions vary exceedingly respecting the number of the army assembled on this occa- sion. Thirty thousand is the lowest number assigned ; but even this is probably exaggerated, and a large part deserted at the commencement of the march. iWril, Miiham., p 260) When Mahomet, at Tabuc, consulted his companions as to the furthiT prosecution of the enterprise, Omar said, "If you are commanded by God to go farther, do it." Mohamet answered, " If I had the command of God, I should not ii.-k your advice." Omar replied, " O prophet of God ! the Greeks are a numer- ous people, and there is not a single Musulman among them. Moreover we have already nearly approached them, and your neigh borhooa has struck them with terror. This year, therefore, let us return, till you find it convenient to undertake anothei campaign against them, or till GoJ offers some opportunity." (Weil, note 405.}--*. LIFE OF MAHOMET. 4d the prophet received the submission of the tribes and cities, f rorn the Euphrates to Ailah, at the head of the Red Sea. To his Christian subjects, Mahomet readily granted the security of their persons, the freedom of their trade, the property of their goods, and the toleration of their worship, The weakness of their Arabian brethren had restrained them from opposing his ambition ; the dis- ciples of Jesus were endeared to the enemy of the Jews ; and it was the interest of a conqueror to propose a fair capitulation to the most powerful religion of the earth. Till the age of sixty- three years, the strength of Mahomet was equal to the temporal and spiritual fatigues of his mission. His epi- leptic fits, and absurd calumny of the Greeks, would be an object of pity rather than abhorrence ; * but he seriously believed that he was poisoned at Chaibar by the revenge of a Jewish female. During four years, the health of the prophet declined ; his infirmities increased ; but his mortal disease was a fever of fourteen days, which deprived him by intervals of the use of reason. As soon as he was conscious of his danger, he edified his brethren by the humility of his virtue or penitence. " If there be any man," said the apostle from the pulpit, " whom I have unjustly scourged, I submit my own back to the lash of retaliation. Have I aspersed the reputation of a Musulman ? let him proclaim my faults in the face of the congregation. Has any one been despoiled of his goods ? the little that I possess shall compensate the principle arid the interest of the debt." " Yes," replied a voice from the crowd, "lam entitled to three drachms of silver." Ma- homet heard the complaint, satisfied the demand, and thanked his creditor for accusing him in this world rather than at the day of judgment. He beheld with temperate firmness the approach of death ; enfranchised his slaves (seventeen men, as they are named, and eleven women) ; minutely directed the order of his funeral, and moderated the lamentations of his weeping friends, on whom he be- stowed the benediction of peace. Till the third day before his death, he regularly performed the functions of public prayer : the choice of Abubeker to supply his place appeared to mark that ancient and faithful friend as his successor in the sacerdotal and regal office.; but he prudently declined the risk and envy of a more explicit nom ination. At a moment when his faculties were visibly unpaired, he called for a pen and ink to write, f or more properly to dictate a di- * The opinion, however, of modern Oriental scholars tends the other way. Dr. Sprenger (p. 77) shows, on the authority of Ibn Ishac, that Mahomet, whilst still an infant under the care of his foster mother, had an attack which at all events very much resembled epilepsy. Three other fits are recorded (Ib.. p. 78, note 4). Dr. Weil (Mohammed, p 26, note 1 1 ) remarks that the word Vzsiba, which Abulfeda ases with regard to Mahomet, is particularly used of epileptic attacks The same author has collected several instances of these fits (Ib., p. 42, note 48, and in tha Journal Asiatique, Juillet, 1842), and is of opinion that nis visions were, for the mostpart, connected with them S. * The tradition seems to be doubtful ; but, if true, it proves, as Dr. Weil remarks, 50 LIFE OP MAHOMET. vinfe book, the sum and accomplishment of all his revelations ; a dis pute Arose in the chamber, whether he should be allowed to super- sede the authority of the Koran ; and the prophet was forced to re- prove the indecent vehemence of hia disciples. If the slightest credit may be afforded to the traditions of his wives and companions, he maintained in the bosom of his family and to the last moments of his life the dignity of an apostle and the faith of an enthusiast ; described the visits of Gabriel, who bade an everlasting farewell to the earth, and expressed his lively confidence, not only of the mercy, but of the favor of the Supreme Being. In a familiar discourse he had mentioned his spe- cial prerogative, that the angel of death' was not allowed to take his soul till he had respectfully asked the permission of the prophet. The request was granted ; and Mahomet immediately fell into the agony of his dissolution ; his head was reclined on the lap of Ayesha, the best beloved of all his wives ; he fainted with the violence of pain ; recovering his spirits, he raised his eyes towards the roof of the house, and, with a steady look, though a faltering voice, uttered the last broken, though articulate words: "O God! . . pardon my sins . . Yes, . . I come, . . . among my fellow-citizens on high ; " and thus peaceably expired on a carpet spread upon the floor. An expe- dition for the conquest of Syria was stopped by this mournful event : the army halted at the gates of Medina ; the chiefs were assembled around their dying master. The city, more especially the house of the prophet, was a scene of clamorous sorrow or silent despair : fanat- icism alone could suggest a ray of hope and consolation. " How can he be dead, our witness, our intercessor, our mediator with God ? By God he is not dead : like Moses and Jesus, he is wrapt in a holy trance, and speedily will he return to his faithful people." The evidence of sense was disregarded ; and Omar, unsheathing his scymitar, threat- ened to strike off the heads of the infidels who should dare to affirm that the prophet was no more. The tumult was appeased by the weight and moderation of Abubeker. " Is it Mahomet," said he to Omar and the multitude, "or the God of Mahomet, whom you wor- ship? The God of Mahomet liveth forever: but the apostle was a mortal like ourselves, and according to his own prediction, he has ex- perienced the common fate of mortality." * He was piously interred Mahomet's ability to write. There is no authority for Gibbon's addition, " or, more properly, to dictate," which seems to be a salvo for his own theory. Aceord- u 0n y ers . ion he Baid > " Bring me parchment, or a table, I will write something lor Abu I5ekr, in order that nobody may oppose him." (Weil, p. 330 and note 526.) agmer, whom Gibbon follows, has erroneously translated "book." It was only * i ro-! )ape , r ' Mahomet wished to write, probably to name his successor. (Ib., * After this address, Abu Bekr read the following verse from the Koran : " Mo- is only a prophet ; many prophets have departed before him ; will ye then, n he has been slam, or died an-iturnl death, turn upon your heels (i. e., forsake Si" c Jf? \? J c wl .'- < ? does thiH can ""t harm God, but God rewards those who are Sura in v. 144.) The people seemed never to have heard of this verse, yet they accepted it from Abu Bekr, and it ran from mouth to mouth. Omar him- LIFE OF MAHOMET. 51 by the hands of his nearest kinsman, on the same spot on which he expired. * (a) Medina has* been sanctified by the death and burial of Mahomet ; and the innumerable pilgrims of Mecca often turn aside from the way to bow in voluntary devotion, before the simple tomb of the prophet. At the conclusion of the life of Mahomet, it may perhaps be ex- pected that I should balance his faults and virtues, that I should de- cide whether the title of enthusiast or impostor more properly belongs to that extraordinary man. Had I been intimately conversant with the son of Abdallah, the task would still be difficult, and the success uncertain : at the distance of twelve centuries, I darkly contemplate his shade through a cloud of religious incense ; and could I truly de- lineate the portrait of an hour, the fleeting resemblance would not equally apply to the solitary of Mount Hera, to the preacher of Mecca, and to the conqueror of Arabia. The author of a mighty revolution appears to have been endowed with a pious and contemplative dispo- sition : so soon as marriage had raised him above the pressure of want, he avoided the paths of ambition and avarice ; and till the age of forty, he lived with innocence and would have died without a name. The unity of God is an idea most congenial to nature and reason ; and a slight conversation with the Jews and Christians would teach him to despise and detest the idolatry of Mecca. It was the duty of a man and a citizen to impart the doctrine of salvation, to rescue his country from the dominion of sin and error. The energy of a mind incessantly bent on the same object, would convert a gen- eral obligation into a particular call ; the warm suggestions of the un- derstanding or the fancy would be felt as the inspirations of heaven ; the labor of thought would expire in rapture and vision ; and the in- self was so struck when he heard it that he fell to the ground, and perceived that Mahomet was dead. Weil (p. 333) observes that this anecdote, which is important to a critical view of the Koran, is entirely new to Europeans. S. * That, is, in the house of his wife Ayesha ; but after the enlargement of the mosque by the chalif Walid, his grave was comprehended within its walls. (Weil, p. 339.) S. (a) The Greeks and Latins have invented and propagated the vulgar and ridiculous etory that Mahomet's iron tomb is suspended in the air at Mecca (o-rj/ia ^exempt 6/oicroi'. Laonicus Chalcocondyles de Rebus Turcicis, 1. iii. p. 66) by the action of equal and potent loadstones. (Dictionnaire de Bayle, MAHOMET, Rem. EE. FF.) Without any philosophical inquiries, it may suffice that, 1. The prophet was not buried at Mecca ; and, 2. That ais tomb at Medina, which has been visited by mil- lions, is placed on the ground (Reland. de Relig. Moham. 1. ii., c. 19, p. 20&-211.) Gagnier. (Vie de Mahomet, torn, iii., p. 263-268.) * * Most of the biographers of Mahomet state that he died on Monday the I2th Rabia-1-Awwl, in the year 11 of the Hegira, which answers to 7th of June, A. D. 632. This, however, fell on a Sunday, but, as a contemporary poem mentions Monday as the day of his death, it is probable that a mistake has been made in the day of the month, and tliat he died on the 8th of June. (Weil, p. 331.) S. 52 LIFE OF MAHOMET. ward sensation, the invisible monitor, would be described with the form and attributes of an angel of God. From enthusiasm to Imposture the step is perilous and slippery; the daemon of Socrates affords a memorable instance how a wise man may deceive himse.lt, how a good man may deceive others, how the conscience may slumber in a mixed and middle state between self-illusion and voluntary fraud. Charity may believe that the original motives of Mahomet were those of pure and genuine benevolence ; but a human miss on- ary is incapable of cherishing the obstinate unbelievers who reject his ' claims, despise his arguments, and persecute his life ; he might for- give his personal adversaries, he might lawfully hate the enemies of God ; the stern passions of pride and revenge were kindled in the bosom of Mahomet, and he sighed, like the prophet of Nineveh, for the destruction of the rebels whom he had condemned. The injustice of Mecca and the choice of Medina transformed the citizen into a prince, the humble preacher into the leader of armies ; but his sword was consecrated by the example of the saints ; and the same God who afflicts a sinful world with pestilence and earthquakes, might inspire for their conversion or chastisement the valor of his servants. In the exercise of political government, he was compelled to abate the stern rigor of fanaticism, to comply in some measure with the pre- judices and passions of his followers, and to employ even the vices of mankind as the instruments of their salvation. The use of fraud and perfidy, of cruelty and injustice, were often subservient to the prop- agation of the faith : an I Mahomet commanded or approved the as- sassination of the Jews and idolaters who ha 1 escaped from the field of battle. By the repetition of such acts, the character of Mahomet must have been gradually stained : and the influence of such perni- cious habits would be poorly compensated by the practice of the per- sonal and social virtues which are necessary to maintain the reputation of a prophet among his sectaries and friends. Of his last years, am- bition was the ruling passion ; and a politician will suspect that he secretly smiled (the victorious impostor !) at the enthusiasm of his youth and the credulity of his proselytes. A philosopher will ob- serve, that their credulity and his success would tend more strongly to fortify the assurance of his divine mission, that his interest and re- ligion were inseparably connected, and that his conscience would be soothed by the persuasion, that he alone was absolved by the Deity from the obligation of positive and moral laws. If he retained any vestige of his native innocence, the sins of Mahomet may be allowed as an evidence of his sincerity. In the support of truth, the arts of fraud and fiction may be deemed less criminal ; and he would have started at the foulness of the means, had he not been satisfied of the importance and justice of the end. Even in a conqueror or a priest, I can surprise a word or action of unaffected humanity ; and the decree of Mahomet, that in the aale of captives the mothers should uevet LIFE OP MAHOMET. 53 be separated from their children, may suspend or moderate the cen- sure of the historian. * * It may be remarked that, in estimating Mahomet's character, Gibbon entirely leaves out of sight his physical temperament. Thus he indignantly rejects the ac- counts of his epileptic seizures, and everywhere directs his attention to the moral qualities of the prophet, either as a philosophical and contemplative enthusiast, or, as he seems to consider him in the latter part of his career, as a political impostor, "i'et the physical constitution of Mahomet was of BO peculiar a kind, that it can hardly be passed over in a complete and accurate sketch of his character, upon which it must have undoubtedly exercised a wonderful influence ; and we have, therefore, inserted the following interesting details from the pages of Dr. Sprenger : " The temperament of Mohammed was melancholic and in the highest degree nervous. He was generally low-spirited, thinking and restless ; and he spoke little, and never without necessity. His eyes were mostly cast on the ground, and he seldom raised them towards heaven. The excitement under which he composed the more poetical Suras of the Koran was so great, that he said that they had caused him grey hair ; his lips were quivering and his hands shaking whilst he received the inspirations. An offensive smell made him so uncomfortable, that he forbade per- sons who had eaten garlic or onions to come into his place of worship. In a man of semi-barbarous habits this is remarkable. He had a woollen garment, and was obliged to throw it away when it began to smell of perspiration, on account of his delicate constitution. When he was taken ill, he sobbed like a woman in hysterics or, as Ayesha says, he roared like a camel ; and his friends reproached him for his unmanly bearing. During the battle of Bedr, his nervous excitement seem* to have bordered on frenzy. The faculties of his mind were very unequally developed; he was unfit for the common duties of life, and, even after his mission, he was led in all practical questions by his friends. But he had a vivid imagination, the great- est elevation of mind, refined sentiments, and a taste for the sublime. Much as he disliked the name, he was a poet ; and a harmonious language and sublime lyric constitute the principal merits of the Koran. His mind dwelt constantly on the contemplation of God ; he saw his finger in the rising sun, in the falling rain, in the growing crop ; he heard his voice in the thunder, in the murmuring of the waters, and in the hymns which the birds sing to his praise ; and in the lonely deserts and ruins of ancient cities he saw the traces of his anger." (Life of Mo- hammed, p. 89.) "The mental excitement of the prophet was much increased dur- ing the fatrah (intermission of revelations) ; and, like the ardent scholar in one of Schiller's poems, who dared to lift the veil of truth, he was nearly annihilated by the light which broke in upon him. He usually wandered about in the hills near Mecca, and was so absent, that on one occasion his wife, being afraid that he was lost, sent men in search of him. He suffered from hallucinations of his senses]; and, to finish his sufferings, he several times contemplated suicide, by throwing himself down from a precipice. His friends were alarmed at his state of mind. Some considered it as the eccentricities of a poetical genius ; others thought that he was a ka/iin, or soothsayer ; but the majority took a less charitable view, and declared that he was insane ; and as madness and melancholy are ascribed to super- natur 1 influence in the East, they said that he was in the power of Satan and his agents, the jinn." (Ib., p. 105.) "One day, whilst he was wandering about in the hills near Mecca, with the intention of destroying himself, he heard a voice, and on raising his head he beheld Gabriel between heaven and earth ; and the angel assured him that he was the prophet of God. Frightened by this apparition, he returned home, and, feeling unwell, he called for covering. He had a fit, and they poured cold water upon him, and when he was recovering from it he received the revelation : '.O thou covered, arise and preach, and magnify thy Lord, and cleanse thy garment, and fly every abomination ; ' and henceforth, we are told, he received revelations without intermission, that is to say, the fatrah was at an end, and he assumed his office." (P. 109.) " Some authors consider the fits of the prophet as the principal evidence of his mission, and it is, therefore, necessary to say a few words on them. They were preceded by great depression of spirits, and his face was clouded ; and they were ushered in by coldness of the extremities and ehivering. He shook as if 54 LIFE OF MAHOMET. The good sense of Mahomet despised the pomp of royalty ; the apostle of God submitted to the menial offices of the family ; he kin- dled the fire, swept the floor, milked the ewes, and mended with his own hands his shoes and his woollen garments. Disdaining the pen- ance and merit of a hermit, he observed, without effort or vanity, the abstemious diet of an Arab and a soldier. On solemn occasions he feasted his companions with rustic and hospitable plenty ; but in his domestic life, many weeks would elapse without a fire being kindled on the hearth of the prophet. The interdiction of wine was con- firmed by his example ; his hunger was appeased with a sparing allowance of barley-bread : he delighted in the taste of milk and honey ; but his ordinary food consisted of dates and water. Per- fumes and women were the two sensual enjoyments which his nature required, and his religion did not forbid ; and Mahomet affirmed that the fervor of his devotion was increased by these innocent pleasures. The heat of the climate inflames the blood of the Arabs, and their libidinous complexion has been noticed by the writers of antiquity. Their incontinence was regulated by the civil and religious laws of the Koran ; their incestuous alliances were blamed ; the boundless license of polygamy was reduced to four legitimate wives or concu- bines ; their rights both of bed and dowry were equitably deter- mined ; the freedom of divorce was discouraged ; adultery was con- demned as a capital offence ; and fornication, in either sex, was punished with a hundred stripes. Such were the calm and rational precepts of the legislator ; but in his private conduct Mahomet in- dulged the appetites of a man, and abused the claims of a prophet. A special revelation dispensed him from the laws which he had im- posed on his nation ; the female sex, without reserve, was abandoned to his desires ; and this singular prerogative excited the envy rather than the scandal, the veneration rather than the envy, of the devout Musulmans. If we remember the seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines of the wise Solomon, we shall applaud the mod- esty of the Arabian, who espoused no more than seventeen or fifteen wives ; eleven are enumerated who occupied at Medina their separate apartments round the house of the apostle, and enjoyed in their turns the favor of his conjugal society. What is singular enough, they were all widows, excepting only Ayesha, the daughter of Abubeker. he were suffering from ague, and called out for covering. His mind was in a most painfully excited state, lie heard a tinkling in his ears as if bells were ringing, or a bumming as if bees were swarming round nis head, and his lips quivered, but this [motion was under the control of volition. If the attack proceeded beyond this stage, his eyes became fixed and staring, and the motions of his head convulsive and automatic. At length perspiration broke out, which covered his face in large drops ; and with this ended the attack. Sometimes, however, if he had a violent fit, he fell comatose to the ground, like a person who is intoxicated ; and (at least at a later period of his life) his face was flushed, and his respiration stertorous, and ic remained in that state for some time. The bystanders spri: kled water in hia face : but he himself fancied that he would derive a great benefit from being cupped on the head. " (H>., p. Ill .) s . LIFE OF MAHOMET. 55 She was doubtless a virgin, since Mahomet consummated his nuptials (such is the premature ripeness of the climate) when'she was only nine years of age. The youth, the beauty, the spirit of Ayesha gave her a superior ascendant ; she was beloved and trusted by the pro- phet ; and, after his death, the daughter of Abubeker was long re- vered as the mother of the faithful. Her behavior had been ambigu- ous and indiscreet : in a nocturnal march she was accidentally left behind, and in the morning Ayesha returned to the camp with a man. The temper of Mahomet was inclined to jealousy ; but a divine reve- lation assured him of her innocence : he chastised her accusers, and published a law of domestic peace, that no woman should be con- demned unless four male witnesses had seen her in the act of adul- tery.* In his adventures with Zeineb, the wife of Zeid, and with Mary, an Egyptian captive, the amorous prophet forgot the interest of his reputation. At the house of Zeid, his freedman and adopted son, he beheld, in a loose undress, the beauty of Zeinib, and burst forth into an ejaculation of devotion and desire. The servile, or grateful, freedman understood the hint, and yielded without hesita- tion to the love of his benefactor. But as the filial relation had excited some doubt and scandal, the angel Gabriel descended from heaven to ratify the deed, to annul the adoption, and gently to re- prove the prophet for distrusting the indulgence of his God. One of his wives, Hafna, the daughter of Omar, surprised him on her own bed, in the embraces of his Egyptian captive : she promised secrecy and forgiveness : he swore that he would renounce the possession of Mary. Both parties forgot their engagements ; and Gabriel again descended with a chapter of the Koran, to absolve him from his oath, and to exhort him freely to enjoy his captives and concubines, with- out listening to the clamors of his wives. In a solitary retreat of thirty days, he labored, alone with Mary, to fulfil the commands of the angel. When his love and revenge were satiated, he summoned to his presence his eleven wives, reproached their disobedience and i I'tion, and threatened them with a sentence of divorce, both in this world and in the next a dreadful sentence, since those who had ascended the bed of the prophet were forever excluded from the hope of a second marriage. Perhaps the incontinence of Mahomet may be palliated by the tradition of his natural or preternatural gift ; he united the manly virtue of thirty of the children of Adam ; and the apostle might rival the thirteenth labor of the Grecian Hercules. A more serious and decent excuse may be drawn from his fidelity to Cadijah. During the twenty-four years of their marriage, her youth- ful husband abstained from the right of polygamy, and the pride or * This law, however, related only to accusations by strangers. By a subsequent law (Sura 24, v. 6-1 .) a hu band who suspected his wife might procure a divorce by taking four oaths to the truth of hi-> charge, and a fifth invoking God's curse upon him if he had sworn falsely. TIiu woman escaped punishment if she took an oath of the same description (\Vcil, p. 273.; S. 56 LIFE OP MAHOMET. tenderness of the venerable matron was never insulted by the society of ii rival. Xfter her death he placed her in the rank of the four perfect women, with the sister of Moses, the mother of Jesus, and Fitinia, the best beloved of his daughters. "Was she not old?" said Ayesha, with the insolence of a blooming beauty ; " has not God given you a better in her place?" "No, by God," said Mahomet, vithan effusion of honest gratitude, "there never can be a better ! 'She believed in me when men despised me ; she relieved my wants when I was poor and persecuted by the world." In the largest indulgence of polygamy, the founder of a religion and empire might aspire to multiply the chances of a numerous pos- terity and a lineal succession. The hopes of Mahomet were fatally disappointed. The virgin Ayesha, and his ten widows of mature age and approved fertility, were barren in his potent embraces. The four sons of Cadi j ah died in their infancy. Mary, his Egyptian con- cubine, was endeared to him by the birth of Ibrahim. At the end of fifteen months the prophet wept over his grave ; but he sustained with firmness the raillery of his enemies, and checked the adulation or credulity of the Moslems, by the assurance that an eclipse of the sun was not occasioned by the death of the infant. Cadijah had likewise given him four daughters, who were married to the most faithful of his disciples : the three eldest died before their father ; but Fatima, who possessed his confidence and love, became the wife of her cousin Ali, and the mother of an illustrious progeny. The merit and misfortunes of Ali and his descendants will lead me to an- ticipate, in this place, the series of the Saracen caliphs, a title which describes the commanders of the faithful as the vicars and successors of the apostles of God.* The birth, the alliance, the character of Ali, which exalted him above the rest of his countrymen, might justify his claim to the va- cant throne of Arabia. The son of Abu Taleb was, in his own right, the chief of the family of Hashem, and the hereditary prince or guardian of the city and temple of Mecca. The light of propheev was extinct ; but the husband of Fatima might expect the inheritance and blessing of her father : the Arabs had sometimes been patient of a female reign ; and the two grandsons of the prophet had often been fondled in his lap, and shown in his pulpit, as the hope of his age and the chief of the youth of paradise. The first of the true believ- ers might aspire to march before them in this world and in the next ; Mini if some were of a graver and more rigid cast, the zeal and virtue of Ali were never outstripped by any recent proselyte. He united the qualifications of a poet, a soldier, and a saint ; 1m wisdom still breathes in a collection of moral and religious sayings; and every * The moet valuable work Bince Gibbon's time upon the history of the Caliphs is Weirs ' ( Jeschichte der Chalifen " (Mannheim, 3 vols. 8vo, 1*48, seq.). founded upon orkMnal sources. This work is referred to in sebsequent notes under the name of Weil. S. LIFE OF MAHOMET. 67 antagonist, in the combats of the tongue or of the sword, was eub- dued by his eloquence and valor. From the first, hour of his mission to the last rites of his funeral, the apostle was never forsaken by a generous friend, whom he delighted to name his brother, his vicege- rent, and the faithful Aaron of a second Moses. The son of Abu Taleb was afterwards reproached for neglecting to secure his interest by a solemn declaration of his right, which would have silenced all competition and sealed his succession by the decrees of Heaven But the unsuspecting hero confided in himself : the jealousy of em- pire, and perhaps the fear of opposition, might suspend the resolu- tions of Mahomet ; and th j bed of sickness was besieged by the art- ful Ayesha, the daughter of Abubeker, and the enemy of Ali.*. The silence and death of the prophet restored the liberty of the people : and his companions convened an assembly to deliberate on the choice of his successor. The hereditary claim and lofty spirit of Ali were offensive to an aristocracy of elders, desirous of bestowing and resuming the sceptre by a free and frequent election : the Koreish could never be reconciled to the proud pre-eminence of the line of Hashem : the ancient discord of the tribes was rekindled : the fugi- tives of Mecca and the auxiliaries of Medina asserted their respective merits ; and the rash proposal of choosing two independent caliphs, would have crushed in their infancy the religion and empire of the Saracens. The tumult was appeased by the disinterested resolution of Omar, who, suddenly renouncing his own pretensions, stretched forth his hand and declared himself the first subject of the mild and venerable Abubeker. The urgency of the moment and the acquies- cence of the people might excuse this illegal and precipitate measure ; but Omar himself confessed from the pulpit, that if any Musulman should hereafter presume to anticipate the suffrage of his brethren, both the elector and the elected would be worthy of death, (a) After * Gibbon wrote chiefly from the Arabic or Sunnite account of these transactions, the only sources accessible at the time when he composed his history. Major Price, writing from Persi in authorities, affords us the advantage of comparing throughout what may be fairly considered the Shiite version. The glory of Ali is the constant burden of their strain. He was destined, and, according to dome ac- counts, designated, for the caliphate by the prophet ; but while the others were fiercely pushing their own interests, Ali was watching the remains of Mahomet with pious fidelity. His disinterested magnanimity, on each separate occasion, declined the sceptre, and gave the noble example of obedience to the appointed caliph. He ia described in retirement, on the throne, and in the field of battle, as transcendently pious, magnanimous, valiant, and humane. He lost his empire through his excess of virtue and love for the fuithful ; his life through his confidence in God, and sub- mission to the decrees of fate. Compare the curious account of this apathy in Price, chap. 3. It is to be regret' ted, I must add, that Major Price has contente 1 himself with quoting the names of the Persian works which he follows, without any account of their character, age, and authority. M. (a) Ockley (Hist, of the Saracens, vol. i., p. 5, 6) from an Arabian MS. represents Ayesha as adverse t > the substitution of her father in the place of the apostle.* * The anecdote here mentioned seems to be an allusion to the following scene, 68 LIFE OF MAHOMET. the simple inauguration of Abubeker, he was obeyed in Medina, Mec- ca, and the provinces of Arabia : the Ilashernites alone declined the oath of fidelity ; and their chief in his own house maintained above six months a sullen and independent reserve, without listening to the threats of Omar, who attempted to consume with fire the habitation of the daughter of the apostle. The death of Fatima and the decline of his party subdued the indignant spirit of All : he condescended to salute the commander of the faithful, accepted his excuse of the necessity of subjugating their common enemies, and wisely rejected his courteous offer of abdicating the government of the Arabians. After a reign of two years the aged caliph * was summoned by the angel of death. In his testament, with the tacit approbation of his compan- ions, he bequeathed the sceptre to the firm and intrepid virtue of Omar. "I have no occasion," said the modest candidate, "for the place." ""But the place has occasion for you," replied Abubeker ; f who expired with a fervent prayer that the God of Mahomet would ratify his choice, and direct the Musulmans in the way of concord and obedience. The prayer was not ineffectual, since All himself, in a life of privacy and prayer, professed to revere the superior worth and dignity of his rival ; who comforted him for the loss of empire by the most nattering marks of confidence and esteem. In the twelfth {year of his reign, Omar received a mortal wound from the hand of an as- sassin ; he rejected with equal impartiality the names of his son and of All, refused to load his conscience with the sins of his successor, and devolved on six of the most respectable companions the arduous task of electing a commander of the faithful. On this occasion Ali was again blamed by his friends for submitting his right to the judg- ment of men, for recognizing their jurisdiction by accepting a place among the six electors. He might have obtained their suffrage had he deigned to promise a strict and servile conformity, not only to the Koran and tradition, but likewise to the determinations of two senior8. With these limitations, Othman, the secretary of Mahomet, which took place before the death of Mahomet : Finding fhat h"? had not stnMigth to offer up the evening prayer, the prophet ordered that Abu Bckr should pray in his place. Ayesha, however, several times requested that Omar should perform the service, since her father was so touched that he could not pray aloud. But Mahomet answered, "Thou art a second Potiphar's wife " that is, as great a hypocrite as she ; since he well knew that she must wish her father, and nobody else, by offer- ing up the priycrs. to appear in a certain degree as his representative. (Weil, Mo- hammed, p. 887.) 8. * Caliph in Arabic means "successor." S. t Abu Be kr died on the 22d August, 634, after a reign of two years, three months, and a few days . (Weil, vol. i., p. 40 and 53.) S. % Eleventh.. Gibbon's computation is wrong on his own showing. Omar's reign lasted ten lunar years, six months, and four days. He died on the 3d November, W4. (Weil, vol. i , p. 130, seq.) S. This conjecture of Gibbon's is confirmed by Dr. Weil's narrative of the election faap Arabian authorities (vol. i., p. 153). The nomination was finally intrusted to Alxl Krrahnum, who had been appointed one of the six electors, but who declined for binuelf all pretensions to the caliphate. He did not, however, discharge his office without first consulting the people. (Ib., p. 130, 131, and 150-155.) S. LIFE OF MAHOMET. 68 accepted tlie government ; nor was it till after the third caliph, twenty- four years after the death of the prophet, that Ali was invest- ed by the popular choice with the regal and sacerdotal office. The manners of the Arabians retained their primitive simplicity, and the son of Abu Taleb despised the pomp and vanity of this world. At the hour of prayer he repaired to the mosch of Medina, clothed in a thin cotton gown, a coarse turban on his head, his slippers in one hand, and his bow in the other instead of a walking-staff. The com- panions of the prophet and the chiefs of the tribes saluted their new sovereign, and gave him their right hands as a sign of fealty and al- legiance. The mischiefs that flow from the contests of ambition are usually confined to the times and countries in which they have been agitated. But the religious discord of the friends and enemies of Ali has been renewed in every age of the Hegira, and is still maintained in the im- mortal hatred of the Persians and Turks. The former, who are branded with the appellation of Shiites or sectaries, have enriched the Mahometan creed with a new article of faith ; and if Mahomet be the apostle, his companion Ali is the vicar of (rod. In their private con- Verse, in their public worship, they bitterly execrate the three usurp- ers who intercepted his indefeasible right to the dignity of Imam and Caliph ; and the name of Omar expresses in their tongue the perfect accomplishment of wickedness and impiety.* The Sonnites, who are .supported by the general consent and orthodox traditions of the Musulmans, entertain a more impartial, or at least a more decent, opinion. They respect the memory of Abubeker, Omar, Othman, and Ali, the holy and legitimate successors of the prophet. But they assign the last and most humble place to the husband of Fatima, in the persuasion that the order of succession was determined by the degrees of sanctity. An historian who balances the four caliphs with a hand unshaken by superstition will calmly pronounce that their manners were alike pure and exemplary ; that their zeal was fervent and probably sincere ; and that, in the midst of riches and power, their lives were devoted to the practice of moral and religious duties. But the public virtues of Abubeker and Omar, the prudence of the first, the severity of the second, maintained the peace and prosperity of their reigns. The feeble temper and declining age of Othman were incapable of sustaining the weight of conquest and empire. He chose, and he was deceived ; he trusted, and he was betrayed : the most de- serving of the faithful became useless or hostile to his government, * The first sect that arose among the Moslems was a political one, and had for its object the dethronement of Othman. It was founded in Egypt by Abdallah Ibn Saba, a native of Yemen, and of Jewish descent, whom Othman had banished from Medina for finding fault with his government. Abdallah maintained that Ali had been Mahomet's assistant, or vizier, and as such was entitled to the caliphate, out of which he had been cheated by Abd Errahman. The chief article of his specula- tive belief was that Mahomet would return to life, whence his sect wae named that of "the return." (Weil, vol. i., p. 173, eeq.) S. 80 LIFE OF MAHOMET. and his lavish bounty was productive only of ingratitud > and discon tent. The spirit of discord went forth in the provinces ; their depu- ties assembled at Medina ; and the Charegites, the desperate fanatics who disclaimed the yoke of subordination and reason, were confound- ed among the free-born Arabs, who demanded the redress of their wrongs and the punishment of their oppressors. From Cufa, from Bassm-a, from Egypt, from the tribes of the desert, they rose in anus, encamped about a league, from Medina, and dispatched a haughty mandate to their sovereign requiring him to execute justice or to de- scend from the throne.* His repentance began to disarm and disperse the insurgents ; but their fury was rekindled by the arts of his ene- mies , and the forgery of a perfidious secretary was contrived to blast his reputation and precipitate his fall. The caliph had lost the only guard of his predecessors, the esteem and confidence of the Mos- lems ; during a siege of six weeks his water and provisions were inter- cepted, and the feeble gates of the palace were protected only by the scruples of the more timorous rebels. Forsaken by those who had abused his simplicity, the helpless and venerable caliph expected the approacli of death : the brother of Ayesha marched at the head of the assassins ; and Othman, f with the Koran in his lap, was pierced with a multitude of wounds. A tumultuous anarchy of five days was ap- peased by the inauguration of Ali : his refusal would have provoked a general massacre. In this painful situation he supported the be- coming pride of the chief of the Hashemites ; declared that he had rather serve than reign ; rebuked the presumption of the strangers, and required the formal if not the voluntary assent of the chiefs of the nation. lie has never been accused of prompting the assassin of Omar, though Persia indiscreetly celebrates the festival of that holy martyr. The quarrel between Othman and his subjects was assuaged by the early mediation of^Ali ; and Hassan, the eldest of his sons, was insulted and wounded in the defence of the caliph. Yet it is doubtful whether the father of Hassan was strenuous and sincere in his opposition to the rebels; and it is certain that he enjoyed the, lienetit of their crime. The temptation was indeed of such magnitude as might stagger and corrupt the most obdurate virtue. The ambi- tious candidate no longer aspired to the barren sceptre of Arabia : the Saracens had been victorious in the East and Wegt ; and the wealthy * The principal complaints of the rebels were that Othman, on the occasion of his new edition of the Koran which probably contained some alterations had caused all the previous copies to be burned ; that he had enclosed and appropriated tra Ix'.-t pasturages ; that ho had recalled Ilakam, who had been banished by Mahomet-,' that he had ill-treated some of the companions of the prophet ; and that he had named several young persons as governors merely because they were his relations, lie ti likewise accused of neglecting to trend in the footsteps of his predecessors, as lie bad promised to do at his election ; and on this point Abd Errahman himself, who had nominated him, was his accuser. (Weil, vol. i., p. 178.) 8. t Died June 17, 656. Othman was uowards of eighty years of age at the time ol his death. (WU, rol. i.. p. 185.J-S. LIFE OF MAHOMET. 01 kingdoms of Persia, Syria, and Egypt Were the patrimony of the com- mander of the fa'thful. A life of prayer and contemplation had not chilled the martial ac- tivity of Ali ; but in a mature age, after a long experience of mankind, he still betrayed in his conduct the rashness and indiscretion of youth. In the first days of his reign he neglected to secure, either by gifts or fetters, the doubtful allegiance of Telha and Zobeir, two of "the most [powerful of the Arabian chiefs. They escaped from Medina to Mecca, and from thence to Bassora ; erected the standard of revolt ; and usurped the government of Irak, or Assyria, which they had vainly so- licited as the reward of their services. The mask of patriotism id al- lowed to cover the most glaring inconsistencies ; and the enemies, perhaps the assassins, of Othman now demanded vengeance for his blood. They were accompanied in their flight by Ayesha, the widow of the prophet, who cherished to the last hour of her life an implaca- ble hatred against the husband and the posterity of Fatima.* The most reasonable Moslems were scandalized, that the mother of the faithful should expose in a camp her person and character ; but the superstitious crowd was confident that her presence would sanctify the justice and assure the success of their cause. At the head of twenty thousand of his loyal Arabs, and nine thousand valiant auxili- aries of Cufa, the caliph encountered and defeated the superior num- bers of the rebels under the walls of Bassora. f Their leaders, Telha and Zobeir,:]: were slain in the first battle that stained with civil blood the arms of the Moslems. After passing through the ranks to ani- mate the troops, Ayesha had chosen her post amidst the dangers of the field. In the heat of the action seventy men who held the bridle of her camel were successively killed or wounded ; and the cage, or litter, in which she sat was struck with javelins and darts like the quills of a porcupine. The venerable captive sustained with firmness the reproaches of the conqueror, and was speedily dismissed to her proper station, at the tomb of Mahomet, with the respect and tender- ness that was still due to the widow of the apostle. || After this vic- tory, which Avas styled the Day of the Camel, ^[ Ali marched against a * Ali is said to have incurred her hatred by remarking to Mahomet, at the time when he was dejected by his suspicions of her unfaithfulness" Why do yon take it so much to heart j There are plenty more women in the world." (Weil, vol. i,, p. r.:i>.) S. t The reluctance of Ali to shed the blood of true believers is st.ikingly described by Maj r Price's Persian historians. (Price, p. 222.) M. $ See (in Price) the .singular adventures of Zobeir. He was murdered after haviflg abandoned the army of the insurgents. Telha was about to do the s.-irne, when lii< 1 'g was pierced with an arrow by one of hia own party. The wound was mortal. ( 'rice, p. 2)).) M . According to Price, two hundred and eighty of the Benni Beianziat alone lost a r! ,ht hand in tin's service (p. 225). M. She was escorted by a guard of females disguised as soldiers. When she dis- covered this, AS c ha vas as much gratified by the delicacr of the arrangement as she had been oflx ixled l\y the familiar approach of .so many men. (Price, p. 22>.) M. ^ From the cunicl which Ayesha rode. (Weil, vol. i., p. 210.) S. 62 LIFE OF MAHOMET. more formidable adversary ; against Moawiyah, the son of Abu Sophian, who had assumed the title of caliph, and whose claim was supported by the forces of Syria and the interest of the house of Ommiyah. From the passage of Thapsacus the plain of Siffin ex- tends along the western bank of the Euphrates. On this spacious and level theatre the two competitors waged a desultory war of one hun- dred and ten days. In the course of ninety actions or skirmishes, the loss of Ali was estimated at twenty-five, that of Moawiyah at forty-five, thousand soldiers ; and the list of the slain was dignified with the names of five- and-t wen ty veterans who had fought at Beder under the standard of Mahomet. In this sanguinary contest the lawful * caliph displayed a superior character of valor and humanity. His troops were strictly enjoined to await the first onset of the enemy, to spare their flying brethren, and to respect the bodies of the dead and the chastity of the female captives. He generously proposed to save the blood of the Moslems by a single combat ; but his trembling rival de- clined the challenge as a sentence of inevitable death. The ranks of the Syrians were broken by the charge of a hero who was mounted on a piebald horse, and wielded with irresistible force his ponderous and two-edged sword. As often as he smote a rebel he shouted the Allah Acbar, ' ' God is victorious ! " and in the tumult of a nocturnal battle, he was heard to repeat four hundred times that tremendous exclama- tion. The prince of Damascus already meditated his flight ; but the certain victory was snatched from the grasp of Ali by the disobedience and enthusiasm of his troops. Their conscience was awed by the solemn appeal to the books of the Koran which Moawiyah exposed on the foremost lances ; and A 1 ! was compelled to yield to a disgrace- ful truce and an insidious compromise. He retreated with sorrow and indignation to Cufa ; his party was discouraged ; the distant provinces of Persia, f of Yemen, and of Egypt were subdued or se- duced by his crafty rival ; and the stroke of fanaticism, which was aimed against the three chiefs of the nation, was fatal only to the cousin of Mahomet. In the temple of Mecca three Charegites,! or enthusiasts, discoursed of the disorders of the church and state : they * Weil remarks that it must not be forgotten that the history of the first caliphs was collected or forged under the reign of tue Abassides. with whom it was a life and death point to depress Moawiyah and the Ommijahds. and to elevate Ali. If all is true that Is related in All's praise, it is incomprehensible how he should have been set aside by Abu Bekr, Omar, and Othman, and should not even have been affle to maintain his ground when named caliph. (Vol. i., p. 254, seq.) 8. t According to Weil, Ali retained Persia. (Vol. i.. p. 847.) 8. J Chawarij, or Charijites (deserters, rebels), was the name given to all those who revolted from the lawful Imam. Gibbon seems here to confound them with the CTiazrajitea, one of the two tribes of Medina. (See above, p. 36.) They were divided into six principal sects ; but they all agreed in rejecting the authority both of Othman and Ali, and the damnation of those caliphs formed their chief t net. (Well, vol. i., p. .) They were very numerous, and had risen in open rebellion against Ali, who was obliged to resort to force to reduce them to obedience. (Tb., p. i-;r. i s. LIFE OF MAHOMET. 68 soon agreed that the deaths of All, of Moawiyah, and of his friend Amrou, the viceroy of Egypt, would restore the peace and unity of r?ligion. Each of the assassins chose his victim, poisoned his dag- ger, devoted his life, and secretly repaired to the scene of action. Their resolution was equally desperate : but the first mistook the per. son of Amrou, and stabbed the deputy who occupied his sc;it ; tin* prince of Damascus was dangerously hurt by the second ; the lawful caliph, in the mosch of Cufa, received a mortal wound from the hand of the third. He expired in the sixty-third year of his age,* and mercifully recommended to his children that they would dispatch the murderer by a single stroke. The sepulchre of AH was concealed from the tyrants of the house of Ommiyah ; but in the fourth age of the Hegira, a tomb, a temple, a city, arose near the ruins of Cufa. Many thousands of the Shiites repose in holy ground at the foot of the vicar of God ; and the desert is vivified by the numerous and annual visits of the Persians, who esteem their devotion not less meritorious than the pilgrimage of Mecca. The persecutors of Mahomet usurped the inheritance of his chil- dren ; and the champions of idolatry became the supreme heads of his religion and empire. The opposition of Abu Sophian had been fierce and obstinate ; his conversion was tardy and reluctant ; his new faith was fortified by necessity and interest ; he served, he fought, perhaps he believed ; and the sins of the time of ignorance were expiated by the recent merits of the family of Ommiyah. Moawiyah, the son of Abu Sophian and of the cruel Henda, was dignified in his early youth with the office or title of secretary of the prophet : the judgment of Omar intrusted him with the government of Syria ; and he administered that important province above forty years, either in a subordinate or supreme rank. Without renouncing the fame of valor and liberality, he affected the reputation of hu- manity and moderation : a grateful people were attached to their benefactor ; and the victorious Moslems were enriched with the spoils of Cyprus and Rhodes. The sacred duty of pursuing the assassins of Othman was the engine and pretence of his ambition. The bloody shirt of the martyr was exposed in the mosch of IJarnascus : the emir deplored the fate of his injured kinsman ; and sixty thousand Syrians were engaged in his service by an oath of fidelity and revenge. Am- rou, the conqueror of Egypt, himself an army, was the first whc saluted the new monarch, and divulged the dangerous secret that the Arabian caliphs might be created elsewhere than in the city of the prophet. The policy of Moawiyah eluded the valor of his rival ; and, after the death of AM, he negotiated the abdication of his son Hassan, whose mind was either above or below the government of the world, and who retired without a sigh from the palace of "Cufa to an humble * On the 21st of January. 661, two days after the mortal blow. (Weil, vol. i., p. 250.) S, 64 LIFE OF MAHOMET. cell near the tomb of his grandfather. The aspiring wishes of tha caliph were finally crowned by the important change of an elective to an hereditary kingdom. Some murmurs of freedom or fanaticism at- tested the reluctance of the Arabs, and four citizens of Medina re- fused the oath of fidelity ; * but the designs of Moawiyah were con- ducted with vigor and address ; and his son Yezid, a feeble and dis- solute youth, was proclaimed as the commander of the faithful and the successor of the apostle of God. A familiar story is related of the benevolence of one of the sons of All. In serving at table, a slave had inadvertently dropped a dish of scalding broth on his master : the heedless wretch fell prostrate to deprecate his punishment, and repeated a verse of the Koran : " Para- dise is for those who command their anger : " " I am not angry : "- "and for those who pardon offences:" "I pardon your offence:" "and for those who return good for evil :" "I give you your liberty and four hundred pieces of silver." With an equal measure of piety, Hosein, the younger brother of Hassan, inherited a remnant of his father's spirit, and served with honor against the Christians in I lie siege of Constantinople. The primogeniture of the line of Hash- em, and the holy character of grandson of the apostle, had centred in his person, and he was at liberty to prosecute his claim against Yezid, the tyrant of Damascus, whose vices he despised, and whose title he had never deigned to acknowledge. A list was secretly transmit- ted from Cufa to Medina of one hundred and forty thousand Moslems who professed their attachment to his cause, and who were eager to draw their swords so soon as he should appear on the banks of the Euphrates. Against the advice of his wisest friends, he resolved to trust his person and family in the hands of a perfidious people. lie traversed the desert of Arabia with a timorous retinue of women and children ; but as he approached the confines of Irak, he was alarmed by the solitary or hostile face of the country, and suspected either the defection or ruin of his party. His fears were just : Obeidollah, the governor of Cufa, had extinguished the first sparks of an insurrection ; and Ilnse'm, in the plain of Kerbela, was encompassed by a body of five thousand horsemen, who intercepted his communication with the i i y and the river. He might still have escaped to a fortress in the d.-sert i hat had defied the power of Caesar and Chosroes, and confided * These were, Hosein, Ali's son ; Abd Allah, the son of Zubeir ; Abd Errahman, son of Abu liekr ; and Abd Allah, son of Omar. Moawiyah, having failed in his attempts to gain them over, caused them to be seized and led into the mosch. each accompanied by two soldiers with drawn swords, who were ordered to stab them if they attempted to speak. Moawiyah then mounted the pulpit, and, addressing the assembly, said that he had seen the necessity of having his son's title recognized before his death, but that he had not taken this step without consulting Uie four principal men in Mecca, who were then present, and who had entirely a'greed with Ul news. He then called upon the assembly to do homage to his son : and as the four prisoners did not venture to contradict his assertion, Yezid was acknowledged by those present as Moavnyah's successor. (Weil, vol, i., p. 380.) S. LIFE OP MAHOMET. 65 fn the fidelity of the tribe of Tai, which would have armed ten ttou- and warriors in his defence. In a conference with the chief of the enemy, he proposed the option of three honorable conditions : that lie should be allowed to return to Medina, or bo stationed in a fron- tier garrison against the Turks, or safely conducted to the.presence of Yezid. But the commands of the caliph, or his lieutenant, were stern and absolute ; and Hosein was informed that he must either submit as a captive and a criminal to the commander of the faithful, or expect the consequences of his rebellion. " Do you think," replied he, " to terrify me with death V" And during the short respite of a night, he prepared with calm and solemn resignation to encounter his fate. He checked- the lamentations of his sister Fatima, who de- plored the impending ruin of his house. " Our trust," said Hosein, " is in (Jod alone. All things, both in heaven and earth, must perish and return to their Creator. My brother, my father, my mother, were better than me, and every Musulman has an example in the prophet." He pressed his friends to consult their safety by a timely flight : they unanimously refused to desert or survive their beloved master ; and their courage was fortified by a fervent prayer and the assurance of paradise. On the morning of the fatal day he mounted on horseback, with his sword in one hand and the Koran in the other : his generous band of martyrs consisted only of thirty-two horse and forty foot ; but their flanks and rear were secured by the tent ropes, and by a deep trench which they had filled with lighted faggots, according to the practice of the Arabs. The enemy advanced with reluctance, and one of their chiefs deserted with thirty followers, to claim the part- nership of inevitable death. In every close onset or single combat, the despair of the Fatimites was invincible; but the surrounding multitudes galled them from a distance wit.i a cloud of arrows, and Iho horses and men were successively slain : a truce was allowed on both sides for the hour of prayer ; and the battle at length expired by the death of the last of the champions of llosein. Alone, weary and wounded, he seated himself at the door of his tent. As he tasted a drop of water, he was pierced in the mouth with a dart ; and his son and nephew, two beautiful youths, were killed in his arms. He lifted his hands to heaven they were full of blood and he uttered a fune- ral prayer for the living and the dead. In a transport of despair his sister issued from the tent, and adjured the general of the Cufians that he would not suffer Hosein to be murdered before his eyes : a tear trickled down his venerable beard ; and the boldest of his sol- diers fell back on every side as the dying hero threw himself among them. The remorseless Shamer, a name detested by the faithful, re- proached their cowardice ; and the grandson of Mahomet was slain with three and thirty strokes of lances and swords. After they had trampled on his body, they carried his head to the castle of Cufa, and the inhuman Obeidollah struck him on the mouth with a cans. \!:is|" exclaimed an aged Musulman, "on these lip.s have T seen QF> LIFE OF MAHOMET. the lips of the apostle of God ! " In a distant age and climate the tragic scene of the death of Hosein will awaken the sympathy of the mlilrst. reader. On the annual festival of his martyrdom, in the de- vout pilgrimage to his sepulchre, his Persian votaries abandon their souls to the religious frenzy of sorrow and indignation. When the sisters and children of All were brought in chains to the throne of Damascus, the caliph was advised to extirpate the enmity of a popular and hostile race, whom he had injured beyond the hope of reconciliation. But Yezid preferred the counsels of mercy ; and the mourning family was honorably dismissed to mingle their tears with their kindred at Medina. The glory of martyrdom superseded the right of primogeniture ; and the twelve IMAMS or pontiffs of the Persian creed are All, Hassan, Hosein, and the lineal descendants of Hosein to the ninth generation. Without arms or treasures, or sub- jects, they successively enjoyed the veneration of the people and pro- voked the jealousy of the reigning caliphs ; their tombs at Mecca or, Medina, on the banks of the Euphrates, or in the prorince of Chora- san, are still visited by the devotion of their sect. Their names were often the pretence of sedition and civil war ; but these royal saints despised the pomp of the world, submitted to the will of God and the injustice of man, and devoted their innocent lives to the study and practice of religion. The twelfth and last of the Imams, conspicuous by the title of Mahadi, or 'the Guide, surpassed the solitude and sanctity of his predecessors. He concealed himself in a cavern near Bagdad : the time and place of his death are unknown ; and his vo- taries pretend that he still lives, and will appear before the day of judgment to overthrow the tyranny of Dejal, or the Antichrist. In the lapse of two or three centuries the posterity of Abbas, the uncle of Mahomet, had multiplied to the number of thirty-three thousand ; the race of Ali might be equally prolific ; the meanest individual was above the first and greatest of princes ; and the most eminent were supposed to excel the perfection of angels. But their adverse fortune and the wide extent of the Musulman empire, allowed an ample scope for every bold and artful impostor who claimed affinity with the holy seed ; the sceptre of the Almohades in Spain and Africa, of the Fatimites in Egypt and Syria, of the sultans of Yemen, and of the sophis of Persia, has been consecrated by this vague and ambiguous title. Under their reigns it might be dangerous to dispute the legiti- macy of their birth ; and one of the Fatimite caliphs silenced an in- discreet question by drawing his scymitar : "This," said Moez, "is my pedigree; and these," casting a handful of gold to his soldiers, "and these are my kindred and my children." In the various con- ditions of princes, or doctors, or nobles, or merchants, or beggars, a swarm of the genuine or fictitious descendants of Mahomet and Ali is honored with the appellation of sheiks, or sherifs, or emirs. In the Ottoman empire they are distinguished by a green turban, receive a Stipend from the treasury, are judged only by their chief, and, how- LIFE OP MAHOMET. 67 ever debased by fortune or character, still assert the proud pre- eminence of their birth. A family of three hundred persons, th# pure and orthodox branch of the caliph Hassan, is preserved without taint or suspicion in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and still re- tains after the revolutions of twelve centuries the custody of the tern pie and the sovereignty of their native land. The fame and merit of Mahomet would ennoble the plebeian race, and the ancient blood ol the Koreish transcends the recent majesty of the kings of the earth.' The talents of Mahomet entitle him to our applause, but his success has perhaps too strongly attracted our admiration. Are we surprised that a multitude of proselytes should embrace the doctrine and the passions of an eloquent fanatic ? In the heresies of the church the same seduction has been tried and repeated from the time of the apostles to that of the reformers. Does it seem incredible that a pri- vate citizen should grasp the sword and the sceptre, subdue his na- tive country, and erect a monarchy by his victorious arms ? In the moving picture of the dynasties of the East, a hundred fortunate usurpers have arisen from a baser origin, surmounted more formida- ble obstacles, and filled a larger scope of empire and conquest. Ma- homet was alike instructed to preach and to fight, and the union of these opposite qualities, while it enhanced his merit, contributed to his success : the operation of force and persuasion, of enthusiasm and fear, continually acted on each other till every barrier yielded to their irresistible power. His voice invited the Arabs to freedom and vic- tory, to arms and rapine, to the indulgence of their darling passions in this world and the other ; the restraints which he imposed were requisite to establish the credit of the prophet and to exercise the obedience of the people ; and the only objection to his success was his rational creed of the unity and perfections of God. It is not the propagation, but the permanency of his religion that deserves our wonder : the same pure and perfect impression which he engraved at Mecca and Medina is preserved after the revolutions of twelve cen turies by the Indian, the African, and the Turkish proselytes of the Koran. If the Christian apostles, St. Peter or St. Paul, could return to the Vatican, they might possibly inquire the name of the Deity who is worshipped with such mysterious rites in that magnificent temple : at Oxford or Geneva they would experience less surprise ; but it might still be incumbent on them to peruse the catechism of the church, and to study the orthodox commentators on their own writings and the words of their Master. But the Turkish dome of St. Sophia, with an increase of splendor and size, represents the hum- ble taberfiacle erected at Medina by the hands of Mahomet. The Mahometans have uniformly withstood the temptation of reducing the objects of their faith and devotion to a level with the sens and imagination of man. "I believe in one God, and Mahomet the apostle of God," is the simple and invariable profession of Islam. The intellectual image of the Deity has never been degraded by any CS LIFE OF MAHOMET. visible idol ; the honors of the prophet have never transgressed the measure of human virtue; and his living precepts have restrained the gratitude of his disciples within the bounds of reason and religion. Tin- votaries of All have indeed consecrated the memory of their hero, his wife, and his children ; and some of the Persian doctors pretend tliat the divine essence was incarnate in the person of the Imams ; but their superstition is universally condemned by the Son- nites ; and their impiety has afforded a seasonable warning againstj the worship of saints and martyrs. The metaphysical questions on the attributes of God and the liberty of man have been agitated in the schools of the Mahometans as well as ia those of the Christians ; but among the former they have never enraged the passions of the people or disturbed the tranquillity of ths state. The cause of this important difference may be found in the separation or union of the rega I and sacerdotal characters. It was the interest of the caliphs, the successors of the prophet and commanders of the faithful, to re- press and discourage all religious innovations : the order, the disci- pline, the temporal and spiritual ambition of the clergy, are unknown to the Moslems ; and the sages of the law are the guides of their con- science and the oracles of their faith. From the Atlantic to the Gan- ges the Koran is acknowledged as the fundamental code, not only of theology but of civil and criminal jurisprudence ; and the laws which regulate the actions and the property of mankind, are guarded by the in fallible and immutable sanction of the will of God. This religious servitude is attended with some practical disadvantage ; the illiterate legislator had been often misled by his own prejudices and those of liis country ; and the institutions of the Arabian desert may be ill adapted to the wealth and numbers of Ispahan and Constantinople. On these occasions the Cadhi respectfully places on his head the holy volume, and substitutes a dexterous interpretation more apposite to the principles of equity, and the manners and policy of the times. His beneficial or pernicious influence of the public happiness is the last consideration in the character of Mahomet. The most bitter or most, bigoted of his Christian or Jewish foes, will surely allow that he assumed a false commission to inculcate a salujary doctrine less perfect only than their own. He piously supposed, as the basis of his religion, the truth and sanctity of their prior revelations, the virtues and miracles of their founders. The idols of Arabia were broken be- fore the throne of God-; the blood of human victims was expiated by prayer, and fasting, and alms, the laudable or innocent arts of devo- tion : and his rewards and punishments of a future life were painted by the images most congenial to an ignorant and carnal generation. Mahomet was perhaps incapable of dictating a moral and political system for the use of his countrymen : but he breathed among the faithful a spirit, of charity and friendship, recommended the practice of the social virtues, and checked, by his laws]and precepts, the thirst for revenge and the oppression of widows and orphans. The hostile LIFE OF MAHOMET go tribes were united in faith and obedience, and the valor which had been idly spent in domestic quarrels was vigorously directed against a, foreign enemy. Had the impulse been less powerful, Arabia, free at home and formidable abroad, might have flourished under a suc- cession of her native monarchs. Her sovereignty was lost by the ex- tent and rapidity of conquest. The colonies of the nation were scat- tered over the East and West, and their blood was mingled with the ^lood of their converts and captives. After the reign of three caliphs the throne was transported from Medina to the valley of Damascus and the banks of the Tigris ; the holy cities were violated by impious war ; Arabia was ruled by the rod of a subject, perhaps a stranger ; and the Bedoweens of the desert, awakening from their dream of dominion, resumed their old and solitary independence AB.-T JOAN OF ARC. THE originality of the Pucelle, the secret of her success, was not kcr courage or her visions, but her good sense. Amidst all her enthu- siasm the girl of the people clearly saw the question, and knew how to resolve it. The knot which politician and doubter could not un- loose she cut. She pronounced, in God's name, Charles VII. to be the heir ; she reassured him as to his legitimacy, of which he had doubts himself, and she sanctified this legitimacy by taking him straight to Reims, and by her quickness gaining over the English the decisive advantage of the coronation. It was by no means rare to see women take up arms. They often fought in sieges : witness the eighty women wounded at Amiens : witness Jeanne Hachette. In the Pucelle's day, and in the self -same years as she, the Bohemian women fought like men in the wars of the Hussites. No more, I repeat, did the originality of the Pucelle consist in her visions. Who but had visions in the middle age ? Even in this pr. >- saic fifteenth century excess of suffering had singularly exalted men's imaginations. We find at Paris one brother Richard so excit- ing the populace by his sermons that at last the English banished him the city. Assemblies of from fifteen to twenty thousand souls were collected by the preaching of the Breton Carmelite friar, Co- necta, at Courtrai and at Arras. In the space of a few years, before and after the Pucelle, every province had its saint either a Pierrette, a Breton peasant girl who holds converse with Jesus Christ ; or a Marie of Avignon, a Catherine of Rochelle ; or a poor shepherd, such as Saintrailles brings up from his own country, who has the stigmata on his feet and hands and who sweats blood on holy days like the present holy woman of the Tyrol. Lorraine, apparently, was one of the last provinces to expect such a phenomenon from. The Lorrainers are brave and apt to blows, but most delight in stratagem and craft. If the great Guise saved France before disturbing her, it was not by visions. Two Lorrainers make themselves conspicuous at the siege of Orleans, and both display the natural humor of their witty countryman, Callot ; one of these is the cannonier, master Jean, who used to counterfeit death so well ; the other is a knight who, being taken by the English and loaded with 2 JOAN OF ARC chains, when they withdrew, returned riding on the back of an Eng lish monk. The character of the Lorraine of the Vosges, it is true, is of graver kind. This lofty district, from whose mountain sides rivers run sea. ward through France in every direction, was covered with forests of such vast size as to be esteemed by the Carlovingians the most worthy of their imperial hunting parties. In glades of these forests rose the venerable abbeys of Luxeuil and Remiremont ; the latter, as is well known, under the rule of an abbess who was ever a princess of the Holy Empire, who had her great officers, in fine, a whole feudal court, and used to be preceded by her seneschal, bearing the naked sword. The dukes of Lorraine had been vassals, and for a long period, of this female sovereignty. It was precisely between the Lorraine of the Vosges and that of the plains, between Lorraine and Champagne, at Dom-Remy, that the brave and beautiful girl destined to bear so well the sword of France first saw the light. Along the Meuse, and within a circuit of ten leagues, there are four Dom-Remys ; three in the diocese of Toul, one in that of Lang- res. It is probable that these four villages were in ancient times de- pendencies of the abbey of Saint- Remy at Reims. In the Carlovin- gian period, our great abbeys are known to have held much more dis- tant possessions ; as far, indeed, as in Provence, in Germany, and even in England. This line of the Meuse is the march of Lorraine and of Champagne, so long an object of contention betwixt monarch and duke. Jeanne's father, Jacques Dare, was a worthy Champenois. Jeanne, no doubt, inherited her disposition from this parent ; she had none of the Lor- raine ruggedness, but much rather the Champenois mildness ; that simplicity, blended with sense and shrewdness, which is observable hi Joinville. A few centuries earlier Jeanne would have been born the serf of the abbey of Saint- Remy ; a century earlier, the serf of the sire de Joinville, who was lord of Vaucouleurs, on which city the village of Dom-Remy depended. But in 1335 the king obliged the Joinvilles to cede Vaucouleurs to him. It formed at that time the grand chan- nel of communication between Champagne and Lorraine, and was the high road to Germany, as well as that of the bank of the Meuse the cross or intersecting point of the two routes. It was, too, we may say , the frontier between the two great parties ; near Dom-Remy was one of the last villages that held to the Burgundians ; all the rest was for Charles VII. In all ages this march of Lorraine and of Champagne had suffered cruelly from war ; first, a long war between the east and the west, between the king and the duke, for the possession of Neufchateau and the adjoining places ; then war between the north and south, be- tween the Burgundians and the Armagnaca. The remembrance of THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 3 these pitiless wars has never been effaced. Not long since was seen near Neufchateau an antique tree with sinister name, whose branches had no doubt often borne human fruit Ghene des Partisans (the Partisans' Oak). The poor people of the march had the honor of being directly sub- ject to the king ; that is, in reality, they belonged to no one, were neither supported nor managed by any one, and had no lord or pro- tector but God. People so situated are of a serious cast. They know that they can count upon nothing ; neither on their goods nor on their lives. They sow, the soldier reaps. Nowhere does the husbandman feel greater anxiety about the affairs of his country, none have a di- rector interest in them ; the least reverse shakes him so roughly ! He inquires, he strives to know and to foresee ; above all, he is re- signed : whatever happens, he is prepared for it ; he is patient and brave. Women even become so ; they must become so among all these soldiers, if not for the sake of life, for that of honor, like Goethe's beautiful and hardy Dorothea. Jeanne was the third daughter of a laborer,* Jacques Dare, and of Isabella Romee.\ Her two godmothers were called, the one, Jeanne, the other, Sibylle. Their eldest son had been named Jacques, and another, Pierre. The pious parents gave one of their daughters the loftier name Saint- Jean. While the other children were taken by their father to 'work in the fields or set to watch cattle, the mother kept Jeanne at home sewing or spinning. She was taught neither reading nor writing ; but she learned all her mother knew of sacred things. She imbibed her re- ligion, not as a lesson or a ceremony, but in the popular and simple form of an evening fireside story, as a truth of a mother's telling . . . What we imbibe thus with our blood and milk is a living thing, is life itself. . . . As regards Jeanne's piety, we have the affecting testimony of the friend of her infancy, of her bosom friend, Ilatnnette, who was younger than she by three or four years. " Over and over again," she said, " I have been at her father's and have slept with her, in all love (de bonne amitie). . . . She was a very good girl, simple and gentle. She was fond of going to church and to holy places. She spun and attended to the house like other girls. . . . She con- fessed frequently. She blushed when told that she was too devout, and went too often to church." A laborer, also summoned to give * There may be seen at this day, above the door of the hut where Jeanne Dare lived, three scutcheons carved on stone that of Louis XI., who beautified the hut ; that which was undoubtedly given to one of her brothers, along with the surname of Du Lis ; and a third, charged with a star and three ploughshares, to imagine the mission of the Pucelle and the humble condition of her parents. Vallet, Memoire adresse a 1'Institut Historique, sur le nom dc famille de la Pucelle. t The name of Romee was often assumed in the middle age by those who had mads toe pilgrimage to Home, 4 JOAN OF ARC. eridence, adds, that she nursed the sick and was charitable to the poor. " I know it well," were his words ; " I was then a child, and it was she who nursed me." Her charity, her piety, were known to all. All saw that she was the best girl in the village. What they did not see and know was, that in her celestial ever absorbed worldly feelings, and suppressed their development. She bad the divine gift to remain, soul and body, a child. She grew up strong and beautiful : but never knew the physical sufferings entailed on woman. They were spared her, that she might be the more devoted to religious thought and inspiration. Born under the very walls of the church, lulled in her cradle by the chimes of the bells, and nourished by legends, she was herself a le- gend, a quickly passing and pure legend, from birth to death. She was a living legend, . . . but her vital spirits, exalted and concentrated, did not become the less creative. The young girl creat- ed, so to speak, unconsciously, and realized her own ideas, endowing them with being and imparting to them out of the strength of her original vitality such splendid and all-powerful existence, that they threw into the shade the wretched realities of this world. If poetry mean creation, this undoubtedly is the highest poetry. Let us trace the steps by which she soared thus high from so lowly a starting-point. Lowly in truth, but already poetic. Her village was close to the vast forests of the Vosges. . From the door of her father's house she could see the old oak wood, the wood haunted by fairies ; whose fa- vorite spot was a fountain near a large beech, called the fairies' or the ladies' tree. On this the children used to hang garlands, and would sing around it. These antique ladies and mistresses of the woods were, it was said, no longer permitted to assemble round the fountain, barred by their sins. However, the Church was always mistrustful of the old local divinities ; and to ensure their complete expulsion the cure annually said a mass at the fountain. Amidst these legends and popular dreams, Jeanne was born. But, along with these, the land presented a poetry of a far different char- acter, savage, fierce, and, alas ! but too real the poetry of war. War I all passions and emotions are included in this single word. It is not that every day brings with it assault and plunder, but it brings fln< fear of them the tocsin, the awaking with a start, and, in the distant horizon, the lurid light of conflagration, ... a fearful but ]>oetic state of things. The most prosaic of men, the lowland Scots, amidst the hazards of the border, have become poets in this sinister desert, which even yet looks as if it were a region accursed, ballada, wild but long-lived flowers, have germed anii nourished. Jeanne had her share in these romantic adventures. She would see poor fugitives seek refuge in her village, would assist in sheltering them, give them up her bed, and sleep herself in the loft. Once, too, her parents had been obliged to turn fugitives ; and then when tke THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 5 ffood of brigands had swept by, the family returned and foujxd the Tillage sacked, the house devastated, the church burnt. Thus she knew what war was. Thoroughly did she understand this anti-Christian state, and unfeigned was her horror of this reign of the devil, in which every man died in mortal sin. She asked her- self whether God would always allow this, whether he would not prescribe a term to such miseries, whether he would not send a liber- ator as he had so often done for Israel a Gideon, a Judith ? . . . She knew that woman had more than once saved God's own people, and that from the beginning it had been foretold that woman should bruise the serpent. No doubt she had seen over the portal of the churches St. Margaret, together with St. Michael, trampling under foot the dragon. ... If, as all the world said, the ruin of the king- dom was a woman's work, an unnatural mother's, its redemption might well be a virgin's : and this, moreover, had been foretold in a prophecy of Merlin's ; a prophecy which, embellished and modified by the habits of each province, had become altogether Lorraine in Jeanne Dare's country. According to the prophecy current here, it was a Pucelle of the marches of Lorraine who was to save the realm ; and the prophecy had probably assumed this form through the recent marriage of Rene of Anjou with the heiress of the duchy of Lor- raine, a marriage which, in truth, turned out very happily for the kingdom of France. One summer's day, a fast-day, Jeanne being at noontide in her father's garden, close to the church, saw a dazzling light on that side, and heard a voice say, "Jeanne, be a good and obedient child, go often to church." The poor girl was exceedingly alarmed. Another time she again heard the voice and saw the radiance ; and, in the midst of the effulgence, noble figures, one of which had wings, and seemed a wise prud'homme. "Jeanne," said this figure to her, " go to the succor of the King of France, and thou shalt restore his kingdom to him." She replied, all trembling, " Messire, I am only a poor girl ; I know not how to ride or lead men-at-arms." The voice replied, "Go to M. de Baudri court, captain of Vaucouleurs, and he will conduct thee to the king. St. Catherine and St. Marguerite will be thy aids." She remained stupified and in tears, as if her whol destiny had been revealed to her. The prud'homme was no less than St. Micliael, the severe archangel of judgments and of battles. He reappeared to her, inspired ner with courage, and told her "the pity for the kingdom of France." Then appeared sainted women, all in white, with countless lights around, rich crowns on their heads, and their voices soft and moving unto tears : but Jeanne shed them much more copiously when saints and angels left her. "I longed," she said, " for the angela to take me away too." If in the midst of happiness like this she wept, her tears were not causeless. Bright and glorious as these visions were, a change tad 8 JOAN OF ARC. from that moment come over her life. She who had hitherto heard but one voice, that of her mother, of which her own was the echo, now heard the powerful voice of angels and what sought the heaven- ly voice V That she should quit that mother, quit her dear home. She, whom but a word put out of countenance, was required to mix with men, to address soldiers. She was obliged to quit for the world and for war her little garden under the shadow of the church, where ,shi.- heard no ruder sounds than those of its bells, and where the birds ate out of her hand : for such was the attractive sweetness of the young saint, that animals and the fowls of the air came to her, as formerly to the fathers of the desert, in all the trust of God's peace. .leanne has told us nothing of this first struggle that she had to un- dergo : but it is clear that it did take place, and that it was of long duration, since five years elapsed between her first vision and her final abandonment of her home. The two authorities, the paternal and the celestial, enjoined her two opposite commands. The one ordered her to remain obscure, modest, and laboring ; the other to set out and save the kingdom. The angel bade her arm herself. Her father, rough and honest peasant as he was> swore that, rather than his daughter should go away with men- at-arms, he would drown her with his own hands. One or other, dis- obey she must. Beyond a doubt this was the greatest battle she wns called upon to fight; those against the English were play in comparison. In her family, she encountered not only resistance but temptation ; for they attempted to marry her, in the hope of winning her back to more rational notions, as they considered. A young villager pretend- ed that in her childhood she had promised to marry him ; and on her denying this, he cited her before the ecclesiastical Judge of Toul. It was imagined that, rather than undertake the effort of speaking in her own defence, she would submit to marriage. To the great aston- ishment of all who knew her, she went to Toul, appeared in court, and spoke she who had been noted for her modest silence. In order to escape from the authority of her family, it behooved her to find in the bosom of that family some one who would believe in her : this was the most difficult part of all. In default of her father, she made her uncle a tonvertite to the truth of her mission. He took her home with him, as if to attend her aunt, who was lying- in. She persuaded him to appeal on her behalf to the sire de Baud- ricourt, captain of Vaucouleurs. The soldier gave a cool reception to tint peasant, and told him that the best thing to be done was " to give her a good whipping," and take her back to her father. She was not discouraged ; she would go to him, and forced her uncle to accompany her. This was the decisive moment ; she quitted forever her villaga and family, and embraced her friends, above all, her good little friend, Mengette, whom she recommended to God's keeping; as to her eider friend and companion, Haumette, her whom she loved most of all, he preferred quitting without leave-taking. THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 7 At length stt -eached tins city of Vaucouleurs, attired in her coarse red peasant's dJ as, and took up her lodging with her uncle at the tiouse of a whe- Iwright, whose wife conceived a friendship for her. Hhe, got herseli taken to Baudricourt, and said to him in a firm tone, " That she can^ to him from her Lord, to the end that he might, send the dauphin word to keep firm and to fix no day of battle with the enemy, for .his Lord would send him succor in Mid- Lent. . . . The realm was not the dauphin's, but her Lord's ; nevertheless her Lord willed the dauphin to be king, and to hold the realm in trust." She added, that despite the dauphin's enemies, he would be king, and that she would take him to be Crowned. The captain was much astonished ; he suspected that the devil must have a hand in the matter. Thereupon, he consulted the cw$ t who apparently partook his doubts. She had not spoken of her vi- sions to any priest or churchman. So the cure accompanied the cap- tain to the wheelwright's house, showed his stole, and adjured Jeanne to depart if sent by the evil spirit. But the people had no doubts ; they were struck with admiration. From all sides crowds flocked to see her. A gentleman, to try her, said to her, " Well, sweetheart ; after all, the king will be driven out of the kingdom and we must turn English." She complained to him of Baudricourt's refusal to take her to the dauphin ; " And yet," she said, " before Mid-Lent, I must be with the king, even were I to wear out my legs to the knees; for no one in the world, nor kings, nor dukes, nor daughter of the King of Scotland, can recover the kingdom of France, and ho has no other who can succor him s;tv<- myself," al- beit I would prefer staying and spinning with my poor mother, but this is no work of my own ; I must go and do it, for it is my Lord's will." " And who is your Lord?" "God!" . . . The gentle- man was touched. He pledged her "his faith, his hand placed in hers, that with God's guiding he would conduct her to the king." A young man of gentle birth felt himself touched likewise ; and de- clared that he would follow this holy maid. It appears that Baudricourt sent to ask the king's pleasure ; and that in the interim he took Jeanne to se3 the duke of Lorraine, who was ill, and desired to consult her. All that the duke got from her was advice to appease God by reconciling himself with his wife. Nevertheless, he gave her encouragement. On returning to Vaucouleurs she found ttiere a messenger from the king, who authorized her to repair to court. The reverse of the battls of herrings had determined his counsellors to try any and every means. Jeanne had proclaimed the battle and its result on the very day it was fought ; and the people of Vaucouleurs, no longer doubting her mission, subscribed to equip her and buy her a horse. Baudri- court only gave her a sword. At this" moment an obstacle arose. Her parents, informed of her approaching departure, nearly lost their senses, and made tko strong I JOAN OF ARC. eet efforts to retain her, commanding, threatening. She withstood this last trial ; and got a letter written to them, beseeching them to forgive her. The journey she was about to undertake was a rough and a most dangerous one. The whole country was overrun by the men-at-arms of both parties. There was neither road nor bridge, and the rivers were swollen ; it was the month of February, 1429. f ' To travel at such a time with five or six men-at-arms was enough to alarm a young girl. An English woman or a German would never have risked such a step ; the indelicacy of the proceeding would have horrified her. Jeanne was nothing moved by it ; she was too pure to entertain any fears of the kind. She wore a man's dress, a dress she wore to the last ; this close and closely fastened dress was her best safeguard. Yet was she young and beautiful. But there was around her, even to those who were most with her, a barrier raised by reli- gion and fear. The youngest of the gentlemen who formed her es- cort deposes that though sleeping near her, the shadow of an impure thought never crossed his mind. She traversed v with heroic serenity these districts, either desert or infested with soldiers. Her companions regretted having set out with her, some of them thinking that she might be perhaps a witch ; and they felt a strong desire to abandon her. For herself, she was so tranquil that she would stop at every town to hear mass. ' ' Fear nothing," she said. " God guides me my way ; 'tis for this I was b.prn." And again, "My brothers in paradise tell me what I am to do." Charles VII. *s court was far from being unanimous in favor of the Puerile. This inspired maid, coining from Lorraine, and encoum^cd by the duke of Lorraine, could not fail to strengthen the queen's and her mother's party, the party of Lorraine and of Anjou, with the king. An ambuseade was laid for the Pucelle some distance from Chinon, and it was a miracle she escaped. So strong was the opposition to her, that when she arrived, the question of her being admitted to the king's presence was debated for two days in the council. Her enemies hoped to adjourn the matter Indefinitely, by proposing that an inquiry should be instituted con- cerning her in her native place. Fortunately, she had friends as well ; the two queens, we may be assured, and, especially, the duke of Alc.iiron, who, having recently left English keeping, was impatient to carry the war into the north in order to recover his duchy. The men of Orleans, to whom Dunois had been promising this heavenly aid ever since the 12th of February, sent to the king and claimed the Pucelle. At last the king received her, and surrounded by all the splendor of his court, in the hope, apparently, of disconcerting her. It was evening ; the light of fifty torches illumed the hall, and a brilliant array of nobles and above three hundred knights were assembled THE MAID OP ORLEANS. round the monarch. Every one was curious to see the sorceress, or, as it might be, the inspired maid. The sorceress was eighteen years of age ; she was a beautiful and most desirable girl, of good height, and with a sweet and heart-touch- ing voice. She entered the splendid circle with all humility," like a poor little shepherdess," distinguished at the first glance the king, who had purposely kept himself amidst the crowd of courtiers, and, although at first he maintained that he was not the king, she fell down and embraced his knees. But as he had not been crowned, she only styled him dauphin: "Gentle dauphin," she addressed him, "my name is Jehanne la Pucelle. The King of Heaven sends you word by me that you shall be consecrated and crowned in the city of Rheims, and shall be lieutenant of the King of Heaven, who is King of France." The king then took her aside, and, after a moment's consideration, both changed countenance. She told him, as she subsequently ac- knowledged to her confessors : "I am commissioned by my Lord to tell you that you are the true heir to the French throne, and the king's son." * A circumstance which awoke still greater astonishment and a sort of fear is, that the first prediction which fell from her lips was ac- complished the instant it was made. A soldier who was\struck by her beauty, and who expressed his desires aloud with the/ coarseness of the camp, and swearing by his God: "Alas!" she exclaimed, "thou deniest him, and art so near thy death !" A moment after, he fell into the river and was drowned. Her enemies started the objection, that if she knew the future it must be through the devil. Four or five bishops were got together to examine her ; but through fear, no doubt, of compromising them- selves with either of the parties which divided the couf t, they referred the examination to the University of Poitiers, in which great city was both university, parliament, and a number of able men. The Archbishop of Rheims, Chancellor of France, President of the Royal Council, issued his mandate to the doctors and to the professors of theology the one priests, the others monks and charged them to examine the Pucelle. The doctors introduced and placed in a hall, the young maid seated herself at the end of the bench, and replied to their questionings. She related with a simplicity that rose to grandeur the apparitions of angels with wjiich she had been visited, and their words. A single objection was raised by a Dominican, but it was a seriolis one * According to a somewhat later, but still very probable account, she reminded him of a circumstance known to himself alone ; namely, that one morning in his oratory he had prayed to God to restore his kingdom to him tf he were the lawful heir, but that if he were not, that He would grant him the mercy not to be killea or thrown into prison, but to be able to take refuge in Spain or in Scotland. SWA, aOf emples de Hardiesse, MS. Francais, de la Bibl. Koyaie, No, 180. 10 JOAN OF ARC. "Jehanne, thou sayest that God wishes to deliver the people of France ; if such be his will, he has no need of men-at-arms." She was not disconcerted : " Ah ! my God," was her reply, "the men-at- arms will fight, and God will give the victory." Another was more difficult to be satisfied a Limousin, brother Scirnin, professor of theology at the University of Poitiers, a "very sour man," says the chronicle. He asked her, in his Limousin French, what tongue that pretended celestial voice spoke V Jehanne answered, a little too hastily, " A better than yours." "Dost thou believe in GodY" said the doctor, in a rage : " Now, God wills us not to have faith in thy words, except thou showest a sign." She replied, "I have not come to Poitiers to show signs or work miracles ; my sign will be the raising of the siege of Orleans. Give me men-at-arms. few or many, and I will go. " Meanwhile, it happened at Poitiers as at Vaucouleurs, her sanctity seized the hearts of the people. In a moment all were for her. Women, ladies, citizens' wives, all flocked to see her at the house where she was staying, with the wife of an advocate to the parlia- ment, and all returned full of emotion. Men went there too ; and counsellors, advocates, old hardened judges, who had suffered them- selves to be taken thither incredulously, when they had heard her, wept even as the women did, and said, " The maid is of God." The examiners themselves went to see her, with the king's equerry ; and on their recommencing their never-ending examination, quoting learnedly to her, aud proving to her from the writings of all the doc- tors that she ought not to be believed, " Hearken," she said to them, " there is more in God's book than in yours. ... I know neither A nor B ; but I come commissioned by God to raise the siege of Or- leans, and to have the dauphin crowned at Rheims. . . . First, however, I must write to the English, and summon them to depart ; God will have it so. Have you paper and ink ? Write as I dictate. . . . To you I Suffort, Classidas, and La Poule, I summon you, on the part of the King of Heaven, to depart to England." . . . They wrote as she dictated ; she had won over her very judges. They pronounced as their opinion, that it was lawful to have re- course to the young maiden. The Archbishop of Embrun, who had been consulted, pronounced similarly ; supporting his opinion by Showing liou- God had frequently revealed to virgins, for instance, to the sibyls, what he concealed from men ; how the demon could not make a covenant with a virgin ; and recommending it to be ascertain- ed whether- Jehanne were a virgin. Thus, being pushed to extremity, and cither not being able or being unwilling to explain the delicate distinction betwixt good and evil revelations, knowledge humbly re- ferred a ghostly matter to a corporeal test, and made this grave ques tion of the spirit depend on woman's mystery. As the doctors could not decide, the "ladies di^ ; and the honor of th* Pucelle was vindicated by a jury, with the good Queen of Sicilj, THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 11 the king's mother-in-law, at their head. This farce over, and som Franciscans who had been deputed to inquire into Jehanne's character in her own country bringing the most favorable report, there was ne time to lose. Orleans was crying out for succor, and Dunois seat en- treaty upon entreaty. The Pucelle was equipped and a kind of es- tablishment arranged for her. For squire she had a brave knight, of mature years, Jean Daulon, one of Dunois's household, and one of its best conducted and most discreet members. She had also a noble page, two heralds-at-arms, a maitre d'hotel, and two valets ; her brother, Pierre Dare, too, was one of her attendants. Jean Pasquerel, a brother eremite of the order of St. Augustin, was given her for con- fessor. Generally speaking, the monks, particularly the mendicants, were staunch supporters of this marvel of inspiration. And it was in truth, for those who beheld the sight, a marvel to see for the first time Jehanne Dare in her white armor and on her beauti- ful black horse, at her side a small axe, and the sword of St. Cather- ine, which sword had been discovered on her intimation behind the altar of St. Catherine-de-Fierbois. In her hand she bore a white standard embroidered with fleur-de-lis, and on which God was represented with the world in his hands, having on his right and left two angels, each holding a fleur-de-lis. " I will not," she said, " use my sword to slay any one ; " and she added, that although she loved her sword, she loved "forty times more" her standard. Let us contrast the two parties at the moment of her departure for Orleans. The English had been much reduced by their long winter sieg. After Salisbury's death, many men-at-arms whom he had engaged thought themselves relieved from their engagements and departed. The Burgundians, too, had been recalled by their duke. When the most important of the English bastilles was forced, into which the defenders of some other bastilles had thrown themselves, only five hundred men were found in it. In all, the English force may have amounted to two or three thousand men ; and of this small number part were French, and no doubt not to be much depended upon by the English. , Collected together, they would have constituted a respectable force ; but they were distributed among: a dozen bastilles or boulevards, be- tween which there was, for the most part, no communication ; u dis- position of their forces, which proves that Talbot and the other Eng lieh leaders had hitherto been rather brave and lucky than intelligent and skilful. It was evident that each of these small isolated forts would be weak against the large city which they pretended to hold in check ; that its numerous population, rendered warlike by a sii-gf, would at last besiege the besiegers. On reading the formidable list of the captains who threw them- selves into Orleans, La Hire, Saintrailles, Gaucourt, Culan, Coaraze, Armagnac ; and remembering that independently of the Bretons un- der MarsluJ de Retz, and the Gascons under Marshal dc St. 155 JOAN OF ARC. the captain of Chateaudun, Florent'd'Illiers, had brought all the no- bility of the neighborhood with him to this short expedition, the deliverance of Orleans seems less miraculous. It must, however, be acknowledged that for this great force to act with efficiency, the one essential and indispensable requisite, unity of action, was wanting. Had skill and intelligence sufficed to impart it, the want would have been supplied by Dunois ; but there was some* thing more required authority, and more than royal authority too, for the king's captains were little in the habit of obeying the king ; to subject these savage, untamable spirits, God's authority was called for. Now the God of this age was the Virgin much more than Christ ; and it behooved that the Virgin should descend upon earth, be a popular Virgin, young, beauteous, gentle, bold. War had changed men into wild beasts ; these beasts had to be re- stored to human shape, and be converted into docile Christian men a great and a hard change. Some of these Armagnac captains were, perhaps, the most ferocious mortals that ever existed ; as may be in- ferred from the name of but one of them, a name that strikes terror, Gilles de Retz, the original of Blue Beard. One hold, however, was left upon their souls ; they had cast off hu- manity and nature, without having been able wholly to disengage themselves from religion. These brigands, it is true, hit upon strange means of reconciling religion and robbery. One of them, the Gascon La Hire, gave vent to the original remark, " Were God to turn man- at-arms, he would be a plunderer ; " and when he went on a foray he offered up his little Gascon prayer without entering too minutely into his wants, conceiving that God would take a hint " Sire God, I pra, thee to do for La Hire what La Hire would do for thee, wert thou a captain and wert La Hire God." * It was at once a risible and a touching sight to see the sudden conver- sion of the old Armagnac brigands. They did not reform by halves. La Hire durst no longer swear ; and the Pucelle took compassion on Mic violence he did himself, and allowed him t<5 swear "by his baton." The devils found themselves all of a sudden turned into little saints. The Pucelle had begun by requiring them to give up their mis- tresses, and attend to confession. Next, on their march along the Loire, she had an altar raised in the open air, at which she partook of the communion, and they as well. The beauty of the season, the eharm of a spring in Touraine must have added singularly to the re- ligious supremacy of the young maid. They themselves had grown young again, had utterly forgotten what they were and felt, as in the spring-time of life, full of good- will and of hope, all young like her, all children. . . . With her they commenced, and unreservedly, p ' siro Dien, je te prie de faire pour La Hire ce que La Hire ferait pour toi, si tu gafecapUaine et si La Hire etait Dieu." Memoires concernant la Pucelle, Collection Pctitot, viii. 187. THE MAID OP ORLEANS. U a new life. Where was she leading them ? Little did it matter to them. They would have followed her not to Orleans only, but just as readily to Jerusalem. And the English were welcome to go thither too : in a letter she addressed to them she graciously proposed that they all, French and English, should unite, and proceed conjointly to deliver the Holy Sepulchre. The first, night of encamping she lay down all armed, having no females with her ; and, not being yet accustomed to the hardships of such a mode of life, felt indisposed the next day. As to danger, she knew not what it meant. She wanted to cross the river and advance on the northern or English side, right among their bastilles, asserting that the enemy would-not budge ; but the captains would not listen to her, and they followed the other bank, crossing two leagues below Orleans. Dunois came to meet her: " I bring you," she said, "the best succor mortal ever received, that of the King of Heaven. It ii no succor of mine, but from God himself, who, at the prayer "of St. Louis and St. Charlemagne, has taken pity on the town of Orleans and will not allow the enemy to have at one and the same time the duke's body and this city." She entered the city_at eight o'clock of the evening of April 29th, and so great and so eager was the crowd, striving to touch her horse at least, that her progress through the streets was exceedingly slow ; they gazed at her " as if they were beholding God." * She rode along, speaking kindly to the people, and, after offering up prayers in the church, repaired to the house of the Duke of Orleans's treasurer ; an honorable man, whose wife and daughter gladly welcomed her ; she slept with Charlotte, one of the daughters. She Lad entered the city with the supplies ; but the main body of the relieving force fell down as far as Blois, where it crossed the river. Nevertheless, she was eager for an immediate attack on the English bastilles, and would summon the northern bastilles to sur- render, a summons which she repeated, and then proceeded to sum- mon the southern bastilles. Here Glasdale overwhelmed her with abuse, calling her cowherd and prostitute (vaeliere et ribaude). In reality they believed her to be a sorceress, and felt great terror of her. They detained her herald-at-arms and were minded to burn him, in the hope that it would break the charm ; but first they considered it advisable to consult the doctors of the University of Paris. Besides, Dunois threatened to retaliate on their herald, whom he had in his power. As to the Pucelle, she had no fears for her herald, but sent another, saying, "Go, tell Talbot if he will appear in arms, so will I. ... If he can take me, let him burn me. " * She seemed, at the least, an angel, a creature above all physical wants. At time* she would continue a whole day on horseback without alighting, eating, or drinking, and would only take in the evening some sippets of bread in wine and water. -,he evidence of the various witnesses, and the Chronique do la Pucelle. 6d. Bncnon /1827), p. 309. 14 JOAN OF ARC. The army delaying, Dunois ventured to sally forth in search of it -, and the Pucelle, left behind, found hferself absolute mistress of the city, where all authority but hers seemed to be at an end. She cara- colled round the walls, and the people followed her fearlessly. The next day she rode out to reconnoitre the English bastilles, and young women and children went too, to look at these famous bastilles, where all remained still and betrayed no sign of movement. She led back the crowd with her to attend vespers at the church of Saint-Croix ; and as she wept at prayers', they all wept likewise. The citizens were beside themselves ; they were raised above all fears, were drunk with religion and with war seized by one of those formidable ac- cesses of fanaticism in which men can do alt and believe all, and in which they are scarcely less terrible to friends than to enemies. Charles VII. 's chancellor, the Archbishop of Rheims, had detained the small army at Blois. The old politician was far from imagining such resistless enthusiasm, or, perhaps, he dreaded it. So he re- paired to Orleans with great unwillingness. The Pucelle, followed by the citizens and priests singing hymns, went to meet him, and the whole procession passed and repassed the English bastilles. The army entered protected by priests and a girl. This girl, who, with all her enthusiasm and inspiration, had great penetration, was quickly aware of the cold malevolence of the new- comers and perceived that they wanted to do without her at the risk of ruining all. Dunois having owned to her that he feared the ene- my's being reinforced by the arrival of fresh troops under Sir John Falstoff, " Bastard, bastard," she said to him, " in God's name I com- mand thee as soon as you know of his coming to apprize me of it, for if he passes without my knowledge, I promise you that I will take off your head." She was right in supposing that they wished to do without her. Aa she was snatching a moment's rest with her young bedfellow, Char- lotte, she suddenly starts up and exclaims, " Great God, the blood of our countrymen is running on the ground. . . . 'Tis ill done ! Why did they not awake me ? Quick, my arms, my horse ! " She was armed in a moment, and finding her young page playing below, "Cruel boy," she said to him, "not to tell me that the blood of France was spilling." She set off at a gallop, and coming upon the wounded who were being brought in, " Never," she exclaimed, " have I seen a Frenchman's blood without my hair rising up !" On her arrival the flying rallied. Dunois, who had not been ap- prized any more than she, came up at the same time. The bastille (one of the northern bastilles) was once more attacked. Talbot en- deavored to cover it, but fresh troops sallying out of Orleans, the Pu- celle put herself at their head, Talbot drew off his men, and the fort was carried. Many of the English who had put on the priestly habit by way of protection were brought in by the Pucelle, and placed in her OWA THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 15 house to ensure their safety ; she knew the ferocity of her followers It was her first victory, the first time she had ever seen a field of car- nage. She wept on seeing so many human beings who had perished unconfessed. She desired the benefit of confession for herself and re- tainers, and as the next day was Ascension Day, declared her inten- tion of communicating and of passing the day in prayer. They took advantage of tliis to hold a council without her, at which It was determined to cross the Loire and attack St. Jean- le- Blanc, the bastille which most .obstructed the introduction of supplies, making at the same time a false attack on the side of La Beauce. The Pu- celle's enviers told her of the false attack only ; but Dunois apprized her of the truth. The English then did what they ought to have done before ; they concentrated their strength. Burning down the bastille, which was the object of the intended attack, they fell back on the two other bas- tilles on the south the Augustins' and the Tournelles : but the Au- gustins' was at once attacked and carried. This success again was partly due to the Pucelle ; for the French being seized with a "panic terror, and retreating precipitately towards the floating bridge which had been thrown over the river, the Pucelle and La Hire disengaged themselves from the crowd,- and, crossing in boats, took the English in flank. There remained the Tournelles, before which bastille the conquer- ers passed the night ; but they constrained the Pucelle, who had not broken her fast the whole day (it was Friday), to recross the Loire. Meanwhile the council assembled : and in the evening it was an- nounced to the Pucelle that they had unanimously determined, as the city .was now well victualled, to wait for reinforcements before attack- ing the Tournelles. It is difficult to suppose such to have been the serious intention of the chiefs ; the English momentarily expecting the arrival of Sir John Falstoff with fresh troops, all delay was dan- gerous. Probably the object was to deceive tfce Pucelle, and to de- prive her of the honor of the success to which she had' largely pre- pared the way. But she was not to be caught in the snare. " You have been at your council," she said, " I have been at mine ;" then, turning to her chaplain, " Come to-morrow at break of day and quit me not ; I shall have much to do blood will go out of my body : I shall be wounded below my bosom." In the morning her host endeavored to detain her. " Stay, Jeanne," he said, "let us partake together of this fish which is just fresh caught." " Keep it," she answered gaily, " keep it till night, when I shall come back over the kridge, after having taken the Tournelles, and I will bring you a godden to eat of it with us." * * "The witness Colette deposed that Godon [Godden ?] was a nickname for th English, taken from their common exclamation of ' God damn it,' so that this vnl- farity was a national characteristic in the reign of Henry VI." Note, p. 78, vol. iiL, 'orner'i Hist, of England. 18 JOAN OF ARC. Then she hurried forward with a number of men-at-arms and of citizens to the porte de Bourgoy ne ; which she found kept closed by the sire de Gaucourt, grand master of the king's household. " You are a wicked man," said Jeanne to him ; " but whether you will or not, the men-at-arms shall pass." Gaucourt felt that with this ex- cited multitude his life hung by a thread. ; and besides his own fol- lowers would not obey him. The crowd opened a gate and forced another which was close to it. The sun was rising upon the Loire at the very moment this multi- tude were throwing themselves into boats. However, when they reached the Tournelles, they found their want of artillery, and sent for it into the town. At last they attacked the redoubt which covered the bastille. The English made a brave defence. Perceiving that the assailants began to slacken in their efforts, the Pucelle threw her- self into the fosse, seized a ladder, and was rearing it against the wall when she was struck by an arrow betwixt her neck and shoulder. The English rushed out to make her prisoner, but she was borne off. Removed from the scene of conflict, laid on the grass and disarmed, when she saw how deep the wound was the arrow's point came out behind she was terrified and burst into, tears. Suddenly she rises ; her holy ones had appeared to her ; she repels the men-at-arms who were for charming the wound by words, protesting that she would not be cured contrary to the Divine will. She only allowed a dress- ing of oil to be applied to the wound, and then confessed herself. Menwhile no progress was made and it was near nightfall. Dunois himself ordered the retreat to be sounded. " Rest awhile," she said, " eat and drink ;" and she betook herself to prayers in a vineyard. A Basque soldier had taken from the hands of the Pucelle's squire- her banner, that banner so dreaded by the enemy . " As soon as the stan- dard shall touch the wall," she exclaimed, "you can enter." "It touches it." " Then enter, all is yours." And in fact the assail- ants, transported beydhd themselves, mounted " as if at a bound." The English were at this moment attacked on both sides at once. For the citizens of Orleans, who had eagerly watched the struggle from the other side of the Loire, could no longer contain themselves, hit dpciicd their gates and rushed upon the bridge. One of the arches being broken, they threw over it a sorry plank ; and a knight of St. .lolui, completely armed, was the first to venture across. At last ihe bridge was repaired after a fashion, and the crowd flowed over. The English, seeing this sea of people rushing on, thought that the whole world was got together. Their imaginations grew excited; some saw St. Aignan, the patron of the city ; others the Archangel Michael, fighting on the French side. As Glasdale was about to re- treat from the redoubt into the bastille, across a small bridge which connected the two, the bridge was shivered by a cannon-ball, and lr.i was precipitated into the water below and drowned before the eyes of the Pucelle, whom he had so coarsely abused. "Ah ! " she exclaimed, 17 " how I pity thy soul." There were five hundred men in the bastille . they were all put to the sword. Not an Englishman remained to the south of the Loire. On the next day, Sunday, those who were on the north side abandoned their bastilles, their artillery, their prisoners, their sick. Talbot and Suffolk directed the retreat, which was made in good order and with a bold front. The Pucelle forbade pursuit, as they retired of their own accord. But before they had lost sight of the city, she ordered an altar to be raised on the plain, had mass sung, and the Orleanois returned thanks to God in the presence of the enemy (Sunday, May 8). The effect produced by the deliverance of Orleans was beyond cal- culation. All recognized it to be the work of a supernatural power ; which, though some ascribed to the devil's agency, most referred to God, and it began to be the general impression that Charles VII. had right on his side. Six days after the raising of the siege, Gerson published a discourse to prove that this marvellous event might be reasonably considered God's own doing. The good Christine de Pisan also wrote to congratu- late her sex ; and many treatises were published, more favorable than hostile to the Pucelle, and even by subjects of the Duke of Burgundy, the ally of the English. CORONATION OP CHARLES VII. Charles VII. 's policy was to seize the opportunity, march boldly from Orleans to Rheims, and lay hand on the crown seemingly a rash but in reality a safe step before the English had recovered from their panic. Since they had committed the capital blunder of not having yet crowned their young Henry VI. , it behooved to be be- forehand with them. He who was first anointed king would remain king. It would also be a great thing for Charles VII. to make his royal progress through English France, to take possession, to show that in every part of France the king was at home. Such was the counsel of the Pucelle alone, and this heroic folly was consummate wisdom. The politic and shrewd among the royal coun- sellors, those whose judgment was held in most esteem, smiled at the idea, and recommended proceeding slowly and surely : in other words, giving the English time to recover their spirits. They all, too, had an interest of their own in the advice they gave. The Duke of Alen- 9on recommended marching into Normandy with a view to the re- covery of Alencon. Others, and they were listened to, counselled staying upon the Loire and reducing the smaller towns. This \vns the most timid counsel of all ; but it was to the interest of the houses of Orleans and of Anjou, and of the Poitevin, La Tremouille, Charles VII. 's favorite. Suffolk had thrown himself into Jargeau : it was attacked, and car- 18 JOAN OF ARC. ried by assault. Beaugency was next taken, before Talbot could re- ceive the reinforcements sent him by the regent, under the command of Sir John Falstoff. The constable, Richemont, who had long re- mained secluded in his own domains, came with his Bretons, contrary to the wishes of either the king or the Pucelle, to the aid of the vic- torious army. A battle was imminent and Richemont was come to carry off its honors. Talbot and Falstoff had effected a junction ; but, strange to tell, though the circumstance paints to the life the state of the coun- try and the fortuitous nature of the war, no one knew where to find the English army lost in the desert of La Beauce, the which district was then overrun with thickets and brambles. A stag led to the dis- covery : chased by the French vanguard, the scared animal rushed into the English ranks. The English happened to be on their march, and had not as usual entrenched themselves behind their stakes. Talbot alone wished to give battle, maddened as he was at having shown his back to the French at Orleans. Sir John Falstoff, on the contrary, who had gained the battle of herrings, did not require to fight to recover his reputation, but with much prudence advised, as the troops were dis- couraged, remaining on the defensive. The French men-at-arms did not wait for the English leaders to make up their minds, but, coming up at a gallop, encountered but slight resistance. Talbot would fight, seeking, perhaps, to fall ; but he only succeeded in getting made prisoner. The pursuit was murderous ; and the bodies of two thou sand of the English strewed the plain. At the sight of such numbers of dead La Pucelle shed tears ; but she wept much more bitterly when she saw the, brutality of the soldiery, and how they treated prison- ers who had no ransom to give Perceiv ng one of them felled dying to the ground, she was no longer mistress of herself, but threw herself from her horse, raised the poor man's head, sent for a priest, comforted him, and smoothed his way to death. After this battle of Patay (June 28 or 29), the hour was come, or never, to hazard the expedition to Rheims. The politic still advised remaining on the Loire ; and the securing possession of Cosne and La Charite. This time they spoke in vain ; timid voices could no longer gain a hearing. Every day there flocked to the camp men from all the provinces, attracted by the reports of the Pucelle's miracles, be- lieving in her only, and, like her, longing to lead the king to Rheims. There was an irresistible impulse abroad to push forward and drive out the English the spirit both of pilgrimage and of crusade. The indolent young monarch himself was at last hurried away by this popular tide, which swelled and rolled in northwards. King, cour- tiers, politicians, enthusiasts, fools, and wise were off together, either voluntarily or compulsorily. At starting they were twelve thousand ; but the mass gathered bulk as it rolled along, fresh comers following fresh comers. They who had no armor joined the holy expedition THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 19 with no other defence than a leathern jack, as archers or as cautilum (dagsmen), although, may be, of gentle blood. The army marched' from Gien on the 28th of June, and passed be- fore Auxerre without attempting to enter ; this city being in the hands of the Duke of Burgundy, whom it was advisable to observe terms with. Troyes was garrisoned partly by Burgundians, partly by English ; and they ventured on a sally at the first approach of the royal army. There seemed little hope of forcing so large and well garrisoned a city, and especially without artillery. And how delay, in order to invest it regularly ? On the other hand, how advance and leave so strong a place in their rear ? Already, too, the army was suffering from want of provisions. Would it not be better to return ? The politic were full of triumph at the verification of their forebod- ings. There was but one old Armagnac counsellor, the president Macon, who held the contrary opinion, and who understood that in an enter- prise of the kind the wise part was the enthusiastic one, that in a popular crusade reasoning was beside the mark. " When the king undertook this expedition," he argued, " it was not because he had an overwhelming force, or because he had full coffers, or because it was his opinion that the attempt was practicable, but because Jeanne told him to march forward and be crowned at Rheims, and that he would encounter but little opposition, such being God's good pleasure. Here the Pucelle, coming and knocking at the door of the room in which the council was held, assured them that they should enter Troyes in three days. "We would willingly wait six," said the chancellor, "were we certain that you spoke sooth." "Six! you shall enter to-morrow." She snatches up her standard ; all the troops follow her to the fosse, and they throw into it fagots, doors, tables, rafters, whatever they can lay their hands upon. So quickly was the whole done, that the citizens thought there would soon be no fosses. The English began to lose their head as at Orleans, and fancied they saw a cloud of white butterflies hovering around the magic standard. The citizens for their part were filled with alarm, remembering that it was in their city the treaty had been concluded which disinherited Charles VII. They feared being made an example of, took refuge in the two churches, and cried out to surrender. The garrison asked no bett.i-r, opened a conference, and capitulated on condition of being allowed to inarch out with what they had. What they had was principally prisoners, Frenchmen. No stipu 1 .tbn on behalf of these unhappy men had been made by Charles's CT=n.;?llors, who had drawn up the terms of surrender. The Pucelle !! ) '.3 fiought of them; and when the English were about to march f >-t i with their manacled prisoners, she stationed herself at the gates, c -"himing, " O my God ! they shall not bear them away ! " She de- t_;u.ol tliem and the king paid their ransom. 20 JOAN OF ARC. Master of Troyes on the 9th of July, on the 15th he made his entry Into liheims ; and on the 17th (Sunday) he was crowned. That very morning the Pucelle, fulfilling the gospel command to seek reconcili- ation before offering sacrifice, dictated a beautiful letter to the Duke of Burgundy ; without recalling anything painful, without irritating, without humiliating any one, she said to him with infinite tact and nobleness " Forgive one another heartily, as good Christians ought to do." Charles VII. was anointed by the archbishop with oil out of the holy ampulla, brought from Saint-Remy's. Conformably with the antique ritual, he was installed on his throne by the spiritual peers, and .served by lay peers both during the ceremony of the coronation and the banquet which followed. Then he went to St. Marculph's to touch for the king's evil. All ceremonies thus duly observed, without the omission of a single particular, Charles was at length, ac- cord ing to the belief of the time, the true and the only king. The English might now crown Henry ; but in the estimation of the people this now coronation would only be a parody of the other. At the moment the crown was placed on Charles's head, the Pucelle threw herself on her knees and. embraced his legs with a flood of tears. All present melted into tears as well. She is reported to have addressed him as follows : " gentle king, now is fulfilled the will of God, who was pleased that I should raise the .siege of Orleans, and should bring you to your city of Rheims to lie crowned and anointed, showing you to be true king and rightful ]K)ssessor of the realm of France." The Pucelle was in the right : she had done and finished what she hud to do . and so amidst the joy of this triumphant solemnity, she entertained the idea, the presentiment, perhaps, of her approaching end. When on entering Rheims with the king the citizens came out to meet them singing hymns, " Oh, the worthy, devout people ! " she exclaimed . . . " If I must jlie, happy should I feel to be buried here." " Jehanne," said the archbishop to her, "where then do you think you will die?"" I have no idea ; where it shall please God. . . I wish it would please Him that I should go and tend sheep with my sister and my brothers. . . . They would be so happy to see me ! . . . At least I have done what our Lord commanded me to do." And raising her eyes to heaven, she returned thanks. All who saw her at that moment, says the old chronicle, "believed more firmly than ever that she was sent of God." CARDINAL WINCHESTER. Such was the virtue of the coronation, and its all-powerful effect in northern France, that from this moment the expedition seemed but to be a peaceable taking of possession, a triumph, a following up of the Rheims festivities. The roads became smooth before the king ; THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 21 the cities opened their gates and lowered their drawbridges. The march was as of a royal pilgrimage from the Qathedral of Rheims to St. Medard's, Soissons, and Notre- Dame, Laon. Stopping for a few days in each city, and then riding on at his pleasure, he made his entry into Chateau -Thiem, Provins, whence, rested and refreshed, he re- sumed his triumphal progress towards Picardy. \Yore there any English left in France ? It might be doubted. Since the battle of Patay, not a word had been heard about Bedford ; not that he lacked activity or courage, but that he had exhausted his last resources. One fact alone will serve to show the extent of his distress he could no longer pay his parliament : the courts were therefore closed, and even the entry of the young King Henry could not be circumstantially recorded, according to custom, in the registers, "for want of parchment." So situated, Bedford could not choose his means ; and he was obliged to have recourse to the man whom of all the world he least loved, his uncle, the rich and all- powerful Cardinal Winchester, who, not less avaricious than ambitious, began haggling about terms, and spec- ulated upon delay. The agreement with him was not concluded un- til the 1st of July, two days after the defeat of Patay. Charles VII. then entered Troyes, Rheims Paris was in alarm,' and Winchester was still in England. To make Paris safe, Bedford summoned the Duke of Burgundy, who came indeed, but almost alone ; and the only advantage which the regent derived from his presence was getting him to figure in an assembly of notables, to speak therein, and again to recapitulate the lamentable story of his father's death. This done, lie took his departure : leaving with Bedford, as all the aid he could spare, some Picard men-at-arms, and even exacting in return posses- sion of the city of Meaux. There was no hope but in Winchester. This priest reigned in Eng- land." His nephew, the Protector, Gloucester, the leader of tho pirty of the nobles, had ruined himself by his imprudence and fol- lies. From year to year his influence at the council table had dimin- ished, and Winchester's had increased. He reduced the protector to a cipher, and even managed yearly to pare down the income assigned to the protectorate ; this, in a land where each man is strictly valued according to his rental, was murdering him. Winchester, on the contrary, was the wealthiest of the English princes, and one of the great pluralists of the world. Power follows as wealth grows. The cardinal and the rich bishops of Canterbury, of York, of London, of Ely, and Bath, constituted the council, and if they allowed laymen to sit there, it was only on condition that they should not open their lips ; to important sittings, they were not even summoned. The English government, as might have teen foreseen from the moment the house of Lancaster ascended the throne, had become entirely episcopal : a fact evident on the face of the acts passed at this period. In 1 I'-".) the chancellor opens the parliament with a tremendous denunciation 83 JOAN OP ARC. of heresy ; and the council prepares articles against the nobles, whom he accuses of brigandage, and of surrounding themselves with armies of retainers, &c. In order to raise the cardinal's power to the highest pitch, it requir- ed Bedford to be sunk as low in France as Gloucester was in England, that lie should be reduced to summon Winchester to his aid, and that the latter, at the head of an army, should come over and crown the young Henry VI. Winchester had the army ready. Having been charged by the pope with a crusade against the Hussites of Bohemia, he had raised, under this pretext, several thousand men. The pope had assigned him for this object the money arising from the sale of indulgences ; the council of England gave him more money still to de- tain his levies in France. To the great astonishment of the crusaders they found themselves sold by the cardinal, who was paid twice over for them, paid for an army which served him to make himself king. With this army Winchester was to make sure of Paris, and to bring and crown young Henry there. But this coronation could only secure the cardinal's power in proportion as he should succeed in decrying that of Charles VII., in dishonoring his victories and ruining him in the minds of the people. Now he had recourse, as we shall sec, in one and the same means (a very efficacious means in that day) against Charles VII. in France, and against Gloucester in England a charge of sorcery. It was not till the 25th of July, nine days after Charles VII. had been well and duly crowned, that the cardinal entered with his army into Paris. Bedford lost not a moment, but put himself in motion with these troops to watch Charles VII. Twice they were in presence, and some skirmishing occurred. Bedford feared for Normandy and covered it ; meanwhile the king marched upon Paris (August). This was contrary to the advice of the Pucelle ; her voices warned her to go no further than St. Denys. The city of royal burials", like the city of coronations, was a holy city ; beyond, she had a presenti- ment, lay something over which she would have no power. Charles VII. must have thought so likewise. Was there not danger in bring- ing this inspiration of warlike sanctity, this poesy of crusade which had so deeply moved the rural districts, face to face with this reasoning^ prosaic city, with its sarcastic population, with pedants and Cabo- chiens ? It was an imprudent step. A city of the kind is not to be carried by a coup de main ; it is only to be carried by starving it out. But this was out of the question, for the English held the Seine both above and below. They were in force, and were besides supported by a considerable number of citizens who had compromised them^l selves for them. A report, too, was spread that the Armagnacs were coming to destroy the city and raze it to the ground. Nevertheless, the French carried one of the outposts. The Pucellp crowed the first fosse, and even cleared the mound which separated i THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 2S from the second. Arrived at the brink of the latter she found it full of water ; when, regardless of a shower of arrows poured upon her from the city walls, she called for fascines, and began sounding the depth of the water with her lance. Here she stood, almost alone, a mark to all ; and at last an arrow pierced her thigh. Still she strove to overcome the pain, and to remain to cheer on the troops to the as- Fiult. But loss of blood compelled her to seek the shelter of the first f-jsso ; and it was ten or eleven o'clock at night before she could be porsaaded to withdraw to the camp. She seemed to be conscious that l li:.j stern check before the walls of Paris must ruin her beyond all Fifteen hundred men were wounded in this attack, which she was vrougf ally accused of having advised. She withdrew, cursed by her o*,v:i side, by the French, as well as by the English. She had not i d to give the assault on the anniversary of the Nativity of Our Lar',7 (September 8th), and the pious city of Paris was exceedingly inlized thereat. Still more scandalized was the court of Charles VII. Libertines, the politic, the blind devotees of the letter sworn enemies of the spirit all declared stoutly against the spirit the instant it seemed to fail. The Archbishop of Rheinis, Chancellor of France, who had ever looked but coldly on the Pucelle, insisted, in opposition to her ad- vice, on commencing a negotiation. He himself came to Saint- Denys to propose terms of truce, with perhaps a secret hope of gaming over the Duke of Burgundy, at the time at Paris. Evil regarded and badly supported, the Pucelle laid siege during the winter to Saint-Pierre-le-Moustiers and La Charite. At the siege of the first, though almost deserted by her men, she persevered in de- livering the assault, and carried the town. The siege of the second dragged on, languished, and a panic terror dispersed the besiegers. CAPTUKE OF THE PUCELLE. Meanwhile the English had persuaded the Duke of Burgundy to aid them in good earnest. The weaker he saw them to be the stronger v as his hope of retaining the places which he might take in Pirardy. The English, who hud just lost 'Louviers, placed themselves at his dis- posal ; and the duke, the richest prince in Christendom, no longer hesitated to embark men and money in a war of which he hoped to reap all the profit. He bribed the Governor of Soissons to surrender that city ; and then laid siege to Compiegne, the governor of which was likewise obnoxious to suspicion. The citizens, however, had compromised themselves too much in the cause of Charles VII. to al- low of their town's being betrayed. The Pucelle threw herself into it. On the very same day she headed a sortie, and had nearly sur- prised the besiegers ; but they quickly recovered, and vigorously drove back their assailants as far as the city bridge. The Pucelie, 24 JOAN OP ARC. who had remained in the rear to cover the retreat, was too late to en- ter the gates, either hindered by the crowd that thronged the bridge or by the sudden shutting of the barriers. She was conspicuous by her dress, and was soon surrounded, seized, and dragged from her horse. Her captor, a Picard archer according to others, the bastard of Vendome sold her to John of Luxembourg. All English and Burgundians saw with astonishment that this object of terror, this monster, this devil, was after all only a girl of eighteen. i That it would end so, she knew beforehand ; her cruel fate was in-J evitable, and we must say the word necessary. It was necessary that she should suffer. If she had not gone through her last trial and purification, doubtful shadows would have interposed amidst the rays of glory which rest on that holy figure : she would not have lived in men's minds the MAID OP ORLEANS. When speaking of raising the siege of Orleans, and of the corona- tion at Rheims, she had said, " 'Tis for this that I was born." These two things accomplished, her sanctity was in peril. War, sanctity two contradictory words I Seemingly, sanctity is the direct opposite of war : it is rather love and peace. What young, courageous heart can mingle in battle withont participating in the san- guinary intoxication of the struggle and of the victory? . . . On setting out, she had said that she would not use her sword to kill any one. At a later moment she expiates with pleasure on the sword which she wore at Compiegne, " excellent," as she said, " either for thrusting or cutting." Is not this proof of a change? The saint has become a captain. The Duke of Alencon deposed that she displayed a singular aptitude for the modern arm, the murderous arm artillery. The leader of indisciplinable soldiers, and incessantly hurt and ag- grieved by their disorders, she became rude and choleric, at least when bent on restraining their excesses. In particular she was relentless towards the dissolute women who accompanied the camp. One day she struck one of these wretched beings with St. Catherine's sword, with the flat of the sword only ; but the virginal weapon, unable to endure the contact, broke, and it could never be reunited. A short time before her capture she had herself made prisoner a Burgundian partisan, Franquet d' Arras, a brigand held in execration throughout the whole north of France. The king's bailli claimed him iu order to hang him. At first she refused, thinking to exchange him ; but at last consented to give him up to justice. He had deserv- ed hanging a hundred times over. Nevertheless, the having given up a prisoner, the having consented to the death of a human being, must have lowered, even in the eyes of her own party, her character for sanctity. Unhappy condition of such a soul, fallen upon the realities of this world ! Each day she must have lost something of herself. One does not suddenly become rich, noble, honored, the equal of lords and princes, with impunity. Rich dress, letters of nobility, royal favor THB MAID OF ORLEANS. 35 all this could not fall at tne last to have altered her neroic simpli- city. She had obtained for her native village exemption from taxes, and the king had bestowed on one of her brothers the provostship of Vaucouleurs. But the greatest peril for the saint was from her own sanctity from the respect and adoration of the people. At Lagny, she was be- sought to restore a child to life. The count d'Armagnac wrote, beg- ging her to decide which of the two popes was to be followed. Ac- cording to the reply she is said to have given (falsified perhaps), she promised to deliver her decision at the close of the war, confiding in her internal voices to enable her to pass judgment on the very head of authority. And yet there was no pride in her. She never gave herself out for a saint : often she confessed that she knew not the future. The eve- ning before a battle she was asked whether the king would conquer, and replied that she knew not. At Bourges, when the women pni yrd her to touch crosses and chaplets, she began laughing, and said to dame Marguerite, at whose house she was staying, " Touch fliem yourself, they will be just as good." The singular originality of this girl was, as we have said, good sense in the midst of exaltation ; and this, as we shall see, was what rendered her judges implacable. The pedants, the reasoners who hated her as an inspired being, were so much the more cruel to her from the impossibility of despising her as a mad woman, and from the frequency with which her loftier reason silenced their arguments. It was not difficult to foresee her fate. She mistrusted it herself. From the outset she had said " Employ me, I shall last but the year or little longer." Often addressing her chaplain, brother Pasquerel, she repeated, " If I must die soon, tell the king our lord, from me, to found chapels for the offering up of prayers for the salvation of such as have died in defence of the kingdom. " Her parents asking her when they saw her again at Rheims, wheth- er she had no fear of anything, her answer was, "Nothing, except treason. " Often on the approach of evening, if there happened to be any church near the place where the army encamped, and particularly if it belonged to the Mendicant orders, she gladly repaired to it, and would join the children who were being prepared to receive the sac- rament. According to an ancient chronicle, the very day on which she was fated to be made prisoner, she communicated in the church of St. Jacques, Compiegne, where, leaning sadly against a pillar, she said to the good people and children who crowded the church : ' ' My good friends and my dear children, I tell you of a surety there is a man who has sold me ; I am betrayed, and shall soon be given up to death. Pray to God for me, I beseech you ; for I shall no longer be able to serve my king or the noble realm of France." The probability is that the Pucelle was bargained for and bought, 26 JOAN OF ARC. even as Soissons had just been bought. At so critical a moment, and when their young king was landing on French ground, the English would be ready to give any sum for her. But the Burgundians longed to have her in their grasp, and they succeeded ; it was to the interest not of the duke only and of the Burgundian party in general, but it was besides the direct interest of John of Ligny, who eagerly bought the prisoner. For the Purcelle to fall into the hands of a noble lord of the house of Luxembourg, of a vassal of the chivalrous Duke of Burgundy, of the good duke, as he was called, was a hard trial for the chivalry of the day. A prisoner of war, a girl, so young a girl, and above all a maid, what had she to fear amidst loyal knights? Chivalry was in every one's mouth as the protection of afflicted dames and da? : Marshal Boucicaut had just founded an order which had no othei- o )- ject. Besides the worship of the Virgin, constantly extending i \ Ti3 middle age, having become the dominant religion, it seemed as u vir- ginity must be an inviolable safeguard. To explain what is to follow, we must point out the singular vrir.t of harmony which then existed between ideas and morals, an. I, h >.\- ever shocking the contrast, bring face to face with the too su -liiiu ideal, with the Imitation, with the Pucelle, the low realities or .lu time ; we taust (beseeching pardon of the chaste girl who form ; tui subject of this narrative) fathom the depths of this world of covotoa ;- ness and of concupiscence. Without seeing it as it existed, it would be impossible to understand how knights could give up her who seem- ed the living embodiment of chivalry, how while the Virgin reigned the Virgin should show herself, and be so cruelly mistaken. -The religion of this epoch was less the adoration of the Virgin than of woman ; its chivalry was that portrayed in the Petit Jehan da Saintre but with the advantage of chastity, in favor of the romance over the truth. Princes set the example. Charles VII. received Agnes Sorel as a present from his wife's mother, the old Queen of Sicily ; and mother, wife, and mistress, he takes them all with him as he marches along the Loire, the happiest understanding subsisting between the three. The English, more serious, seek love in marriage only. Gloucester marries Jacqueline ; among Jacqueline's ladies his regards fall on one equally lovely and witty, and he marries her too. But in this respect, as in all others, France and England are far out^ stripped by Flanders, by the Count of Flanders, by the great Duke of Burgundy. The legend expressive of the Low Countries is that of the famous countess who brought into the world three hundred and sixty-five children. The princes of the land, without going quite so far, seem at the least to endeavor to approach her. A count of Cleves has sixty-three bastards. John of Burgundy, Bishop of Cam- brai, officiates pontifically with his thirty-six bastards and ions of bastards ministering with him at the altar. THE MAID OF ORLEANS. E7 Philippe-le-Bon had only sixteen bastards, but he had no fewer than twenty-seven wives, three lawful ones and twenty-four mistresses. In these sad years of 1429 and 1430, and during the enactment of this tragedy of the Pucelle's, he was wholly absorbed in the joy- ous affair of his third marriage. This time his wife was an Infanta of Portugal, English by her mother's side, her mother having been Philippa of Lancaster ; so that the English missed their point in giv- ing him the command of Paris, as detain him they could not ; he was in a hurry to quit this land of famine and to return to Flanders to wel- come his young bride. Ordinances, ceremonies, festivals, concluded, or interrupted and resumed, consumed whole months. At Bruges in particular, unheard-of galas took place, rejoicings fabulous to tell of, insensate prodigalities which ruined the nobility and the burgesses eclipsed them. The seventeen nations which had their v> arehouses at Burges displayed the riches of the universe. The streets were hung with the rich and soft carpets of Flanders. For eight days and eight nights the choicest wines ran in torrents ; a stone lion poured forth Rhenish, a stag Beaune wine ; and at meal-times a unicorn spouted out rose-water and malvoise. But the splendor of the Flemish feast lay in the Flemish women, in the triumphant beauties of Bruges, such as Rubens has painted them in his Magdalen, in his Descent from the Cross. The Portu- guese could not have delighted in seeing her new subjects : already had the Spaniard, Joan of Navarre, been filled with spite at the sight, exclaiming, against her will, " I see only queens here." On his wedding day (January 10th, 1430), Philippe-le-Bon institut- ed the order of the Golden Fleece, "won by Jason," taking for de- vice the conjugal and reassuring words, " Autre n'auray." (No other will I have). Did the young bride believe in this ? It is dubious. This Jason's, or Gideon's fleece (as the Church soon baptized it), was after all the golden fleece, reminding one of the gilded waves, of the streaming yellow tresses which Van Dyck, Philippe-le- Bon's great painter, flings amorously round the shoulders of his saints. All saw in the new or- der the triumph of the fair, young, flourishing beauty of the north over the sombre beauties of the south. It seemed as the Flemish prince, to console the Flemish dames, addressed this device of double meaning, "Autre n'auray," to them. Under these forms of chivalry, awkwardly imitated from ro- mances, the history of Flanders at this period is nevertheless one fiery, joyous, brutal, bacchanalian revel. Under color of tournavs, feats of arms, and feasts of the Round Table, there is one wild whirl of light and common gallantries, low intrigues, and intermi- nable junketings. The true device of the epoch is that -presumptu- ously taken by the sire de Ternant at the lists of Arras : " Que j'ai de mes desirs assouvissance, et jamais d'autre bien." (Let my desires be satisfied, I wish no other good.) 28 JOAN OF ARC. The surprising part of all this is that, amidst these mad festivals and this ruinous magnificence, the affairs of the Count of Flanders seemed to go on all the better. The more he gave, lost, and squan- dered, the more flowed in to him. He fattened and was enriched by the general ruin. In Holland alone he met with any obstacle ; but without much trouble he acquired the positions commanding the Somme and the Meuse Namur and Peronne. Besides the latter town the English placed in his hands Bar-sur-Seine, Auxerre, Meaux, the approaches to Paris, and lastly. Paris itself. Advantage after advantage, Fortune piled her favors upon him without leaving him time to draw breath between her gifts. She threw into the power of one of his vassals the Pucelle, that precious gage for which the English would have given any sum. And at this very moment his situation became complicated by another of For- tune's favors, for the duchy of Brabant devolved to him ; but he could not take possession of it without securing the friendship of the English. The death of the Duke of Brabant, who had talked of marrymg again and of raising up heirs to himself, happened just in the nick of time for the Duke of Burgundy. He had acquired almost all the provinces which bound Brabant Flanders, Haiuault, Holland, Na- mur, and Luxemburg and only lacked the central province, that is, rich Louvain, with the key to the whole, Brussels. Here was a strong temptation ; so passing over the rights of his aunt, from whom, however, he derived his own, he also sacrificed the rights of his wards and his honor and probity as a guardian, and seized Bra bant. Therefore, to finish matters with Holland and Luxemburg, and to repulse the Liegeois, who had just laid siege to Niimur. he was necessitated to remain on good terms with the English : in other words, to deliver up the Pucelle. Philippe-le-JS0/i (good) was a good man, according to the vulgar idea of goodness, tender of heart, especially to women, a good son, a good father, and with tears at will. He wept over the slain at Azin- court ; but his league with the English cost more lives than Azincourt. He shed torrents of tears at his father's death; and then, to avenge him, torrents of blood. Sensibility and sensuality often go together ; but sensuality and concupiscence are not the less cruel when aroused. Let the desired object draw back, let concupiscence see her fly and conceal herself from its pursuit, then it turns to blind rage. . . . Woe to whatever opposes it ! ... The school of Rubens, in its pagan bacchanalia, rejoices in bringing together tigers and satyrs, " lust hard by hate." He who held the Pucelle in his hands, John of Ligny, the Duke of Burgundy's vassal, found himself precisely in the same situation as his suzerain ; like him, it was his hour of cupidity, of extreme temp- tation. He belonged to the glorious house of Luxemburg, and to be of kin to the Emperor Henry VII., and to King John of Bohemia, was THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 20 fin honor well worth preserving unsullied ; but John of Ligny was poor, the youngest son of a youngest son. He had contrived to get his aunt, the rich Countess of Ligny and of Saint-Pol, to name him her sole heir, and this legacy, whicu lay exceedingly open to question, was about to be disputed by his eldest brother. In dread of this, John became the docile and trembling servant of the Duke of Bur- gundy, of the English, and of every one. The English pressed him to deliver up his prisoner to them ; and indeed they could easily have "seized her in the tower of Beaulieu, in Picardy, where he had placed her. But if he gave her up to them, he would ruin himself with the Duke of Burgundy, his suzerain, and the judge in the question of his inheritance, who, consequently, could ruin him by a single word. So he sent her, provisorily, to his castle of Beaurevoir, which lay within the territory of the empire. The English, wild with hate and humiliation, urged and threatened. So great was their rage against the Pucelle that they burned a woman alive for speaking well of her. If the Pucelle herself were not tried, condemned, and burned as a sorceress if her victories were not set down as due to the devil, they would remain in the eyes of the people miracles, God's own works. The inference would be that God was against the English, that they had been rightfully and loyally de- feated, and that their cause was the devil's. According to the no- tions of the time, there was no medium. A conclusion like this, in- tolerable to English pride, was infinitely more so to a government of bishops like that of England, and to the cardinal, its head. Matters were in a desperate state when Winchester took them in hand. Gloucester being reduced to a cipher in England, and Bed- ford in France, he found himself uncontrolled. He had fancied that on bringing the young king to Calais (April 23), all would flock to him : not an Englishman budged. He tried to pique their honor by fulminating an ordinance "against those who fear the enchantments of the Pucelle :" it had not the slightest effect. The king remained at Calais, like a stranded vessel. Winchester became eminently ridiculous. After the crusade for the recovery of the Holy Land had dwindled down in his hands to a. crusade against Bohemia, he had cut down the latter to a crusade against Paris. This bellicose prelate, who had flattered himself that he should officiate as a conqueror in Xotre-Dame, and crown his charge there, found all the roads blocked up. Holding Compiegne, the enemy barred the route through Pi- cardy, and holding Louviers, that through Normandy. Meanwhile the war dragged slowly on, his money wasted away, and the crusade dissolved in smoke. Apparently the Devil had to do with the mat- ter ; for the cardinal could only get out of the scrape by bringing the deceiver to his trial by burning him in the person of the Pucelle. He felt that he must have her, must force her out of the hands of the Burgundiaus. She had been made prisoner May 23d ; by the 36th a message is despatched from Rouen, in the name of the vicar of ,KJ JOAN OP ABC. the Inquisition, summoning the Duke of Burgundy and John of Lignj to deliver up this woman suspected of sorcery. The Inquisition had not much power in France ; its vicar was a poor and very timorous monk, a Dominican, and, undoubtedly, like all the other Mendicants, favorable to the Pucelle. But he was here, at Rouen, overawed by the all-powerful cardinal, who held the sword to his breast, and who had just appointed captain of Kouen a man of action, and a man de- voted to himself, the Earl of Warwick, Henry's tutor. Warwick held two posts, assuredly widely different from one another, but both of great trust : the tutelage of the king, and the care of the king's enemy ; the education of the one, the superintendence of the trial of the other. The monk's letter was a document of little weight, and the Univer- sity was made to write at the same time. It was hardly possible that the heads of the University should lend any hearty aid to expeditiag a process instituted by the Papal Inquisition, at the very moment they were going to declare war on the people at Bale on behalf of the episcopacy. Winchester himself, at the head of the English episcopacy, must have preferred a trial by bishops, or, if he could, to bring bishops and inquisitors to act in concert together. Now he had in his train and among his adherents a bishop just fitted for the busi- ness, a beggared bishop, who lived at his table, and who assuredly would sentence or would swear just as was wanted. Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, was not a man without merit. Born at Rheims, near Gerson's place of birth, he was a very influen- tial doctor of the University, and a friend of Clemengis, who asserts that he was both " good and beneficent." This goodness did not hinder him from being one of the most violent of the violent Cabo- chien party ; and as such he was driven from Paris in 1413. He re- entered the capital with the Duke of Burgundy, became Bishop of Beauvais, and, under the English rule, was elected by the University conservator of its privileges. But the invasion of northern France by Charles VII., in 1429, was fatal to Cauchon, who sought to keep Beauvais in the English interests, and was thrust out by the citizens. He did not enjoy himself at Paris with the dull Bedford, who had no means of rewarding zeal ; and repaired to the fount of wealth and power in England, to Cardinal Winchester. He became English, he spoke English. Winchester perceived the use to which such a man might be put, and attached him to himself by doing for him even more than he could have hoped for. The Archbishop of Rouen hav- ing been translated elsewhere, he recommended him to the Pope to fill that great see. But neither the Pope nor the chapter would have anything to do with Cauchon ; and Rouen, at war at the time with the University of Paris, could not well receive as its archbishop a member of that University. Here was a complete stop ; and Cau- chon stood with gaping mouth in sight of the magnificent prey, ever in hopes that all obstacles would disappear before the invincible car- dinal, full of devotion to him, and having no other God. THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 31 It was exceedingly opportune that the Pucello should hare been taken close to the limits of Cauchon's diocese ; not, it is true, within the diocese itself ; but there was a hope of making it believed to be so. So Cauchon wrote, as judge ordinary, to the King of England, to claim the right of trying her ; and, on the 12th of June, the Uni- versity received the king's letters to the effect that the bishop and the inquisitor were to proceed to try her with concurrent powers. Though the proceedings of the Inquisition were not the same as those of the ordinary tribunals of the Church, no objection was raised. The two jurisdictions choosing thus to connive at each other, one difficulty alone remained ; the accused was still in the hands of the Burgun- dians. The University put herself forward, and wrote anew to the Duke of Burgundy and John of Ligny. Cauchon, in his zeal, undertook to be the agent of the English, their courier, to carry the letter himself, and deliver it to the two dukes ; at the same time, as bishop, he hand- ed them a summons, calling upon them to deliver up to him a pris- oner over whom he claimed jurisdiction. In the course of this strange document of his, he quits the character of judge for that of negotiator, and makes offers of money, stating that although this woman cannot be considered a prisoner of war, the King of England is ready to settle a pension of two or three hundred livres on the bastard of Vendome, and to give the sum of six thousand livres to those who have her in their keeping : then, towards the close of this missive of his, he raises his offer to ten thousand, but pointing out emphatically the magnitude of the offer "as much," he says, "as the French are accustomed to give for a king or a prince." The English did not rely so implicitly on the steps taken by the University, and on Cauchon's negotiations, as to neglect the more en- ergetic means. On the same day that the latter presented his sum- mons, or the day after, the council in England placed an embargo on all traffic with the markets of the Low Countries, and, above all, with Antwerp (July 19), prohibiting the English merchants from purchas- ing linens there, and the other goods for which they were in the habit of exchanging their wool. This was inflicting on the Duke of Burgundy, Count of Flanders, a blow in the most sensible part, through the medium of the great Flemish manufactures, linens and cloth : the English discontinued purchasing the one, and supplying the material for the other. While the English were thus strenuously urging on the destruction out, for of a truth I am sent of God, and you are puttiisg yourself in great danger." There can be no doubt such language irritated the judges, and they put to her an insidious and base question, a question which it is a crime to put to any man alive : " Jehanne, do you believe yourself to be in a state of grace ? " They thought they had bound her with an indissoluble knot. To say no was to confess herself unworthy of having been God's chosen instrument ; but, on the other hand, how say yes ? Which of us, frail beings as we are, is sure here below of being truly in God's grace ? Not one, except the proud, presumptuous man, who of all is precisely the furthest from it. She cut "the knot with heroic and Christian simplicity : "If I am not, may God be pleased to receive me into it : if I am, may God be pleased to keep me in it. " The Pharisees were struck speechless. But with all her heroism, she was nevertheless a woman. . . . After giving utterance to this sublime sentiment, she sank from the high- wrought mood, and relapsed into the softness of her sex, doubt- ing of her state, as is natural to a Christian soul, interrogating her- self and trying to gain confidence : ' ' Ah ! if I knew that I were not in God's grace, I should be the most wretched being in the world. . . . But if I were in a state of sin, no doubt the voice would not come. . . . Would that every one could hear it like my- self." These words gave a hold to her judges. After a long pause they returned to the charge with redoubled hate, and pressed upon her question after question designed to ruin her. "Had not the voices told her to hate the Burgundians ? " . . . " Did she not go when a child to the Fairies' tree ? " etc. . . . They now longed to burn her as a witch. At the fifth sitting she was attacked on delicate and dangerous ground, namely, with regard to the appearances she had seen. The bishop became all of a sudden compassionate and honied, addressed THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 37 her with: " Jelianne, how have you been since Saturday ?" " You see," said the poor prisoner, loaded with chains, "as well as I might " " Jehanne, do you fast every day this Lent '?" " Is the questiou'a necessary one'?" "Yes, truly." " Well then, yes, I have always fasted." She was then pressed on the subject of her visions, and with re- gard to a sign shown the dauphin, and concerning St. Catherine and St. Michael. Among other insidious and indelicate questions she< was asked whether, when St. Michael appeared to her, lie was naked' . . . To this shameful question she replied, without under- standing its drift, and with heavenly purity, " Do you think then that our Lord has not wherewith to clothe him ? " On March 3, other out-of-the-way questions were put to her in order to entrap her into confessing some diabolical agency, some evil correspondence with the devil. "Has this Saint Michael of yours, have these holy women, a body and limbs 1 Are you sure the figures you see are those of angels?"" Yes, I believe so, as firmly as I be- lieve in God." This answer was carefully noted down. They then turn to the subject of her wearing male attire and of her standard. ' Did not the soldiery make standards in imitation of yours? Did they not replace them with others?" "Yes, when ihe lance (staff) happened to break." " Did you not say that those stainl- ards would bring them luck ? " " No ; I only said, ' Fall boldly upon the English,' and I fell upon them myself." "But why was this standard borne at the coronation, in the church of Rheiins, rather than those of the other captains? . . ." "It had seen all the danger, and it was only fair that it should share the honor." "What was the impression of the people who kissed your feet, hands, and garments ?" "The poor came to me of their own free- will, because I never did them any harm, and assisted and protected them as far as was in my power." It was impossible for heart of man not to be touched with such an- swers. Cauchon thought it prudent to proceed henceforward with only a few assessors on whom he could rely, and quite quietly. \\ < find the number of assessors varying at each sitting from the very beginning of the trial : some leave and their places are taken by others. The place of trial is similarly changed. The accused, who at first is interrogated in the hall of the castle of Rouen, is now ques. tioned in prison. " In order not to fatigue the rest," Cnuclion took there only two assessors and two witnesses (from the 10th to the 1 Tlh of March). He was, perhaps, emboldened thus to proceed with shut In these fresh examinations, she is pressed only on a few points indicated beforehand by Cauchon. 38 JOAN OF ARC. " Did the voices command her to make that sally out of Compiegn in which she was taken ? " To this she does not give a direct reply : " The saints had told me that I should be taken before midsummer ; that it behooved so to be, that I must not be astonished, but suffer all cheerfully, and God would aid me. . . . Since it has so pleased God, it is for the best that I should have been taken." "Do you think you did well in setting out without the leave of your father and mother ? Ought we not to honor our parents 't " " They have forgiven me." " And did you think you were not sin- ning in doing so 't " ' ' It was by God's command ; and if I had had a hundred fathers and mothers, I should have set out. " "Did not the voices call you daughter of God, daughter of the Church, the maid of the great heart ?" ' ' Before the siege of Orleans was raised, and since then, the voices have called me, and they call me every day, ' Jehanne the Pucelle, daughter of God.' " " Was it right to attack Paris the day of the Nativity of Our Lady?" "It is fitting to keep the festivals of Our Lady; aad it would be so, I truly think, to keep them every day." " Why did you leap from the tower of Beaurevoir?" (The drift of this question was to induce her to say that she had wished to kill herself.) " I heard that the poor people of Compiegne would all be slain, down to children seven years of age, and I knew, too, that I was sold to the English ; I would rather have died than fall into the hands of the English." "Do St. Catherine and St. Margaret hate the English?" "They love what our Lord loves, and hate what he hates." "Does God hate the English ? " " Of the love or hate God may bear the English, and what he does with their souls, I know nothing ; but I know that they will be put forth out of France, with the exception of such as .shall perish in it." " Is it not a mortal sin to hold a man to ransom, and then put him to death ?"- -" I have not done that." "Was not Franquet d'Arras jiu! to death ? " " I consented to it, having been unable to exchange him for one of my men; he owned to being a brigand and a traitor. His trial lasted a fortnight, before the bailli of Senlis." " Did you not give money to the man who took him ? " ' ' I am not treasurer of France, to give money." " !><> you think that your king did well in killing, or causing to be killed, my lord of Burgundy ?"" It was a great pity for the realm of France ; but whatever might have been between them, God sent me to the aid of the King of France." "Jehanne, has it been revealed to you whether you will escape?" " That does not hear upon your trial. Do you want me to depone nrainst myself ?"- -" Have the voices said nothing to you about it? " "That does not concern your trial; I put myself in our Lord's hands, \vlio will do as it pleaseth him." . . . And, after a pause, " By iny troth, I know neither the hour nor the day. God's will b THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 8J, done." " Have not your voices told you anything about the result, generally?"- "Well, then, yes ; they have told me that I shall be delivered, and have bade me be of good cheer and courage. ..." Another day she added : " The saints tell me that I shall be victo- riously deliverer!, and they say to me besides, ' Take all in good part ;, they have told me as firmly as if I were already saved." "This assurance is avery weighty one." " Yes, it isagreat treasure to me.") -"And so you believe you can no longer commit a mortal sin ? " " I know nothing of that ; I rely altogether on our Lord." At last the judges had made out the true ground on which to bring the accusation ; at last they had found a spot on which to lay stronghold. There was not a chance of getting this chaste and holy girl to be taken for a witch, for a familiar of the devil's ; but in her very sanctity, as is invariably the case with all mystics, there was a side left open to attack ; the secret voice considered equal, or pre- ferred to, the instruction of the Church, the prescriptions of authority inspiration, but free and independent inspiration revelation, but a personal revelation submission to God; what <3od? the God within. These preliminary examinations were concluded by a formal de- mand, whether she would submit her actions and opinions to the judgment of the Church ; to which she replied, " I love the Church, and would support it to the best of my power. As to the good works which I have wrought, I must refer them to the King of Heaven, who sent me." The question being repeated, she gave no other answer, but added, " Our Lord and the Church, it is all one." She was then told that there was a distinction ; that there was the Church triumphant, God, the saints, and those who had been admitted to salvation ; and the Church militant, or, in other words, the Pope, the cardinals, the clergy, and all good Christians the which Church, " properly assembled," cannot err, and is guided by the Holy Ghost. " Will you not then submit yourself to the Church militant? "- -"I am come to the King of France from God, from the Virgin Mary, the saints, and the Churcli victorious there above ; to that Church I sub mit myself, my works, all that I have done or have to do." "And to the Church militant f " " I will give no other answer." According to one of the assessors she said that, on certain points, she trusted to neither bishop, pope, nor any one ; but held her belief of God alone. The question on which the trial was to turn was thus laid down in all its simplicity and grandeur, and the true debate commenced ; on the one hand, the visible Church and authority, on the other, inspi- ration attesting the invisible Church ; . . . invisible to vulgar eyes, 40 JOAN OF ARC. but clearly seen by the pious girl, who was forever contemplating it, forever hearing it within herself, forever carrying in her heart these saints and angels. . . . There was her Church, there God shone in His hrightness ; everywhere else, how shadowy He was ! . . . Such being the case at issue, the accused was doomed to irremedia- ble destruction. She could not give way ; she could not, save falsely, disavow, deny what she saw and heard so distinctly. On the other hand, could authority remain authority if it abdicated its jurisdiction ; if it did not punish? The Church militant is an armed Church, armed with a two-edged sword ; against whom ? Apparently, against the refractory. Terrible was this Church in the person of the reasoners, the scholas- tics, the enemies of inspiration ; terrible and implacable, if repre- sented by the Bishop of Beauvais. But were there, then, no j udges superior to this bishop ? How could the episcopal party, the party of the University, fail, in this peculiar case, to recognize as supreme judge its Council of Bale, which was on the eve of being opened? On the other hand, the papal Inquisition, and the Dominican who was its vicar, would undoubtedly be far from disputing the superiority of the Pope's jurisdiction to its own, which emanated from it. A legist of Rouen, that very Jean de la Fontaine who was Cauchon's friend and the enemy of the Pucelle, could not feel his conscience at ease in leaving an accused girl without counsel, ignorant that there were judges of appeal, on whom she could call without any sacrifice of the ground on which she took up her defence. Two monks like- wise thought that a reservation should be made in favor of the su- preme right of the Pope. However irregular it might be for assessors to visit and counsel the accused, apart from their coadjutors, these three worthy men, who saw Cauchon violate every legal form for the triumph of iniquity, did not hesitate to violate all forms themselves for justice's sake, intrepidly repaired to the prison, forced their way in, and advised her to appeal. The next day she appealed to the Pope and to the council. Cauchon, in his rage, sent for the guards :ind inquired who had visited the Pucelle. The legist and the two monks were in great danger of death. From that day they disap- pear from among the assessors, and with them the last semblance of justice disappears from the trial. <'auchon, at first, had hoped to have on his side the authority of ili.' lawyers, which carried great weight at Rouen. But he had soon found out that he must do without them. When he showed the minutes of the opening proceedings of the trial to one of these grave legists, master Johan Lohier, the latter plainly told him that the trial amounted to nothing ; that it was all informal ; that the assess- ors were not free to judge ; that the proceedings were carried on with closeil doors; that the accused, a simple country girl, was not capa- ble of answering on such grave subjects and to learned doctors ; and, finally, the lawyer had the boldness to say to the churchman : " The THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 41 proceedings are, in point of fact, instituted to impugn the honor of the prince, whoso side this girl espouses ; you shall cite him to ap- pear as well, and assign him an advocate." This intrepid gravity, which recalls Papinian's bearing towards Caracalla, would have cost Lohier dear ; but the Norman Papinian did not, like the other, calmly wait the death stroke on his curule chair ; he set off at once for Rome, where the Pope eagerly attached such a man to himself, and appointed him one of the judges of the Holy See ; he died dean of the Rota. Apparently, Cauchon ought to have been better supported by tho theologians. After the first examinations, armed with the answers which she had given against herself, he shut himself up with his in- timates, and availing himself, especially, of the pen of an able mem- ber of the University of Paris, he drew from these answers a few counts, on which the opinion of the leading doctors and of the eccle- siastical bodies was to be taken. This was the detestable custom, but in reality (whatever has been said to the contrary) the common and regular way of proceeding in inquisitorial trials. These propositions, extracted from the answers given by the Pucelle, and drawn up in general terms, bore a false show of impartiality ; although in point of fact they were a caricature of those answers, and the doctors con- sulted could not fail to pass an opinion upon them, in accordance with the hostile intention of their iniquitous framers. But however the counts might be framed, however great the ter- ror which hung over the doctors consulted, they were far from being unanimous in their judgments. Among these doctors, the true theo- logians, the sincere believers, those who had preserved the firm faith of the middle age, could not easily reject this tale of celestial appear- ances, of visions ; for then they might have doubted all the marvels of the lives of the saints, and discussed all their legends. The vener- able Bishop of Avranches replied, on being consulted, that, according to the teaching of St. Thomas, there was nothing impossible in what this girl affirmed, nothing to be lightly rejected. The Bishop of Lisieux, while acknowledging that Jeanne's revela tions might be the work of the devil, humanely added that they might also be simple lies, and that if she did not submit herself to the Church, she must be adjudged schismatic, and be vehemently sus- pected in regard to faith. Many legists answered like true Normans, by finding her guilty and most guilty, except she acted by God's command. One bachelor at law went further than this ; while condemning her, he demanded, in consideration of the weakness of her sex, that the twelve propoxi tions slpuld be read over to her (he suspected, and with reason, that they had not been communicated to her), and that they should then be laid before the Pope this would have been adjourning the matter indefinitely. The assessors, assembled in the chapel of the archbishopric, had 42 JOAN OP ARC. decided against her on the showing of these propositions. The chap- ter of Rouen, likewise consulted, was in ao haste to come to a de- cision and to give the victory to the man it detested and trembled at having for its archbishop, but chose to wait for the reply from the University of Paris, which had been applied to on the subject. There could be no doubt what this reply would be ; the Gallican party, that is, the University and scholastic party, could not be favorable to the Pucelle * an individual of this party, the Bishop of Coutances, went beyond all others in the harshness and singularity of his answer. He wrote to the Bishop of Beauvais that he considered the accused to be wholly the devil's, ' ' because she was without two qualities re- quired by St. Gregory virtue and humanity," and that her assertions were so heretical, that though she should revoke them, she must nevertheless be held in strict keeping. It was a strange spectacle to see these theologians, these doctors, laboring with all their might to ruin the very faith which was the foundation of their doctrine, and which constituted the religious prin- ciples of the middle age in general belief in revelations ; in the in- tervention of supernatural beings. ... They might have their doubts as to the intervention of angels ; but their belief in the devil's agencies was implicit. And was not the important question whether internal revelations ought to be hushed, and to disavow themselves to the Church's bid- ding, was not this question, so loudly debated in the outer world, silently discussed in the inner world, in the soul of her who affirmed and who believed in their existence the most firmly of all ? Was not this battle of faith fought in the very sanctuary of faith fought in this loyal and simple heart ? . . . I have reason to believe so. At one time she expressed her readiness to submit herself to the Pope, and asked to be sent to him. At another she drew a distinction, maintaining that as regarded faith she acknowledged the authority of the Pope, the bishops, and the Church, but as regarded what she had done, she could own no other judge than God. Sometimes, making no distinction, and offering no explanation, she appealed "to her Kin^, to the judge of heaven and of earth." Whatever care has been taken to throw these things into the shade, and to conceal this, the human side, in a being who has been fondly painted as all divine, her fluctuations are visible, and it is wrong to charge her judges with having misled her so as to make her prevari- cate on those questions. " She was very subtle," says one of th witnesses, and truly; " of a woman's subtlety." I incline to at- tribute to these internal struggles the sickness which attacked her, and which brought her to the point of death ; nor did she recover, as she herself informs us, until the period that the angel Micnael, the angel of battles, ceased to support her, and gave place to Gabriel, the angel of grace and of divine love She fell sick in Passion week. Her temptation began, no doubt, THE MAID OP ORLEANS. 43 on Palm Sunday.* A country girl, born on the skirts of a forest, and having ever lived in the open air of heaven, she was compelled to pass this fine Palm Sunday in the depths of a dungeon. The grand succor which the Church invokes f caine not for her ; the doors did not They were opened on the Tuesday ; but it was to lead the accused to the great hall of the castle before her judges. They read to her the articles which had been founded on her answers, and the bishop previously represented to her " that these doctors were all churchmen, clerks, and well read in law, divine and human that they were all tender and pitiful, and desired to proceed mildly, seeking neither ven- geance nor corporeal punishment, but solely wishing to enlighten her, and to put her in the way of truth and of salvation ; and that, as she was not sufficiently informed on such high matters, the bishop and the inquisitor offered her the choice of one or more of the assessors to act as her counsel." The accused, in presence of this assembly, in which she did not descry a ungle friendly face, mildly answered, " For what you admonish me as io my good, and concerning our faith, I thank you ; as to the counsel you offer me, I have no inten- tion to forsake the counsel of our Lord." The first article touched the capital point, submission. She replied as before : ' ' Well do I believe that our Holy Father, the bishops, and others of the Church are to guard the Christian faith, and punish those who are found wanting. As to my deeds (faits), I submit my self only to the Church in heaven, to God and the Virgin, to the sainted men and women in Paradise. I have not been wanting in regard to the Christian faith, and trust I neve, shall be." And, shortly afterwards . "T would rather die than recall what I have done by our Lord's command." What illustrates the time, the uninformed mind of these doctors, and their blind attachment to the letter without regard to the spirit, is, that no point seemed graver to them than the sin of having as- sumed male attire. They represented to her that according to the canons, those who thus change the habit of their sex are abominable in the sight of God. At first she would not give a direct answer, and begged for a respite till the next day ; but her judges insisting on her discarding the dress, she replied, " that she was not empowered to say when she could quit it." " But if you should be deprived of the * "1 know not why,'' says a great spiritual teacher, "God chooses the most solemn lestivals to try and to purify his elect. ... It is above only, in the festival of hnaven, that we shall be delivered from all our troubles." Saint-Cynm. in the Me- moires de Lancelot, i. 6. t The office for prune, on this day, runs : " Deus, in adjutorium meum intende. ..." (Come, O God, to my aid.) ; Every one knows that the service for this festival is one of those in whick the beautiful dramatic forms of the middle age have been preserved. The proowsiou finds the door of the church shut, the minister knocks : "Attollite portaa. . . . Aud the door is opened to the Lord. 44 JOAN OF ARC. privilege of hearing mass ? " " Well, our Lord can grant me to hear it without you." " Will you put on a woman's dress in order to re- ceive your Saviour at Easter ?"" No ; I cannot quit this dress ; it matters not to me in what dress I receive my Saviour." After this she seems shaken, asks to be at least allowed to hear mass, adding, " I won't say but if you were to give me a gown such as the daugh- ters of the burghers wear, a very long gown. . . ." It is clear she shrank, through modesty, from explaining herself. The poor girl durst not explain her position in prison, or the constant danger she was in. The truth is, that three soldiers slept in her room,* three of the brigand ruffians called houspilleurs ; that she was chained to a beam by a large iron chain, f almost wholly at their mercy ; the man's dress they wished to compel her to discontinue was all her safeguard. . . . What are we to think of the imbe- cility of the judge, or of his horrible connivance? Besides being kept under, the eyes of these wretches, and exposed to their insults and mockery, \ she was subjected to espial from with- ,ut. Winchester, the inquisitor, and Cauchon had each a key to the tower, and watched her hourly through a hole in the wall. Each stone ot this infernal dungeon had eyes. Her only consolation was that she was at first allowed interviews with a priest, who told her that he was a prisoner, and attached to Charles VII. 's cause. Loyseleur, so he was named, was a tool of the English. He had won Jeanne's confidence, who used to confess herself to him ; and at such times her confessions were taken down by notaries concealed on purpose to overhear her. . . . It is said that Loyseleur encouraged her to hold out, in order to insure her de- struction. On the question of her being put to the torture being dis- cussed (a very useless proceeding, since she neither denied nor con- cealed anything), there were only two or three of her judges who counselled the atrocious deed, and the confessor was one of these. The deplorable state of the prisoner's health was aggravated by her * Five Englishmen ; three of whom B'ayed at night in her room. (Howirittar is to worry like a doe hence the name Howpilleur.) Notices des MSS., lii. 5()6. t " She slept with double chains round her limbs, and closely fastened to a chain traversing the foot of her bed, attached to a large piece of wood five or six feet long, and padlocked, so that she could not stir from the place." Ibidem. Another wit- ness states: "There was an iron beam, to keep her straight (erectam).' 1 ' Procks J/S.-Evidence of Pierre Cusquel. J The Count de Ligny went to see her with an English lord, and said to her, "Jeanne, I come to hold you to ransom, provided you promise never again to bear arms against us." She replied : " Ah ! my God, you are laughing at me ; I know yon have neither the will nor the power." And when he repeated the words, she added, " I am convinced the^e English will put me to death, in the hope of winning the kingdom of France. But though the Godons (Goddens) should be a hundred thousand more than they are to-day, they would not win the kingdom." The Eng- lish lord was so enraged that he drew his dagger to plunge it into her, but was hin- dered by the Karl of Warwick. Notices des MSS., iii. 371. S Not precisely Cauchon, but his man, Estivet. promoter of the prosecution. Ibid., iii. 413. THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 45 being deprived of the consolations of religion during Passion Week. On the Thursday the sacrament was withheld from her : on that self- same day on which Christ is universal host, on which He invites the poor and all those who suffer, she seemed to be forgotten.* On Good Friday, that day of deep silence, on which we all hear no other sound than the beating of one's own heart, it seems as if the hearts of the judges smote them, and that some feeling of humanity and of religion had been awakened in their aged scholastic souls : at least it is certain, that whereas thirty- five of them took their seats on the Wednesday, no more than nine were present at the examination on Saturday : the rest, no doubt, alleged the devotions of the day as their excuse. On the contrary, her courage had revived. Likening her own suf- ferings to those of Christ, the thought had roused her from her de- spondency. She answered, when the question was again put to her, " that she would defer to the Church militant, provided it commanded nothing impossible." " Do you think, then, that you are not subject to the Church which is upon earth, to our holy father the Pope, to the cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and prelates?" "Yes, certainly, our Lord served." " Do your voices forbid your submitting to the Church militant?" " They do not forbid it, our Lard being served first." This firmness did not desert her once on the Saturday : but on the next day, the Sunday (Easter Sunday !) what must her feelings have been ? What must have passed in that poor heart, when, the sounds of the universal holiday enlivening the city, Rouen's five hundred Ix-lls ringing out with their joyous peals on the air.f and the whole Chris- tian world coming to life with the Saviour, she remained with death ! _ Summon up our pride as much as we may, philosophers and rea- soners as we boast ourselves to be in this present age, but which of us amidst the agitations of modern bustle and excitement, or in the voluntary captivity of study, plunged in its toilsome and solitary re- searches which of us hears without emotion the sounds of these beautiful Christian festivals, the touching voice of the bells, and, as it were, their mild maternal reproach ? . . . Who can see, with- out envying them, those crowds of believers issuing from the Church, made young again and revived by the divine table ? . . The mind remains firm, but the soul is sad and heavy. ... He who believes in the future, and whose heart is not the less linked to the past, at such moments lays down the pen, closes the book, and cannot refrain from exclaiming " Ah ! why am I not with them, one of them, and the simplest, the least of these little children ? " What must have been one's feelings at that time, when the Clnis- * " Usque quo oblimsceres me in flnem ? " (How long wilt thou forget me f) Ser- vice for Holy Thursday, Lands . t Compare the statement, given above, as to the deep impression made on her by the sound of bells. 4d JOA:N OP ARC. tian world was still one, still undivided ? What must have been the throes of that young soul which had lived but on faith ? . . . Could she who, with all her inner life of visions and revelations, had not the less docilely obeyed the commands of the Church ; could she who till now had believed herself in her simplicity " a good girl," as she said, a girl altogether submissive to the Church could she with- out terror see the Church against her? Alone, when all are united with God alone excepted from the world's gladness and universal communion, on the day on which the gates of heaven are opened t mankind alone to be excluded ! . . . I And was this exclusion unjust? . . . The Christian's soul is too humble ever to pretend that it has a right to receive its God. . . After all, what, who was she, to undertake to gainsay these prelates, these doctors? How dared she speak before so many able men men who had studied ? Was there not presumption and damnable pride in an ignorant girl's opposing herself to the learned a poor simple girl to men in authority? . . . Undoubtedly fears of the kind agitated her mind. On the other hand, this opposition is not Jeanne's, but that of the saints and angels who had dictated her answers to her, and, up to this time, sustained her. . . . Wherefore, alas ! do they come no more in this pressing need of hers ? Wherefore do those consoling countenances of the saints appear no more, except in a doubtful light, and growing paler daily ? . . . Wherefore is the so long-prom- ised deliverance delayed? . . . Doubtless the prisoner has put these questions to herself over and over again ; doubtless, silently, gently, she has over and over again quarrelled with her saints and angels. But angels who do not keep their word, can they be angels of liht ? . . . Let us hope that this horrible thought did not oc- cur to her mind. There was one means of escaping : this was. without expressly dis- avowing, to forbear affirming, and to say, "It seems to me." The lawyers thought it easy for her to pronounce these few simple words ; but in her mind to use so doubtful an expression was in reality equiv- alent to a denial : it was abjuring her beautiful dream of heavenly friendships, betraying her sweet sisters on high. . . . Better to die- And, indeed, the unfortunate, rejected by the visible, abandoned by the invisible Church, by the world, and by her own heart, was sinking. . . . And the body was following the sink ing soul. . . . It so happened that on that very day she had eaten part of a fish which the charitable Bishop of Beauvais had sent her, and might, luivo imagined herself poisoned. The bishop had an interest in her death ; it would have put an end to this embarrassing trial, would have got the judge out of the scrape ; but this was not what the English reck- oned upon. The Earl of Warwick in his alarm said, " The king would not have her by any means die a natural death. The/bVi^ has bought THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 47 her dear, . . . She must die by justice and be burnt . . , See and cure her." All attention, indeed, was paid her ; she was visited and bled, but was none the better for it, remaining weak and nearly dying. Whether through fear that she should escape thus and die without retracting, or that her bodily weakness inspired hopes that her mind would be more easily dealt with, the judges made an attempt while she was lying in this state (April 18). They visited her in her cham- ber, and represented to her that she would be in great danger if sh did not reconsider and follow the advice of the Church. " It seems to me, indeed," she said, "seeing my sickness, that I am in great danger of death. If so, God's will be done ; I should like to confess, receive nay Saviour, and be laid in holy ground." " If you desire the sacraments of the Church, you must do as good Catholics do, and sub- mit yourself to it." She made no reply. But on the judge's repeat- ing his words, she said : " If the body die in prison, I hope that you will lay it in holy ground ; if you do not, I appeal to our Lord." Already in ihe course of these examinations she had expressed one of her last wishes. Question. " You say that you wear a man".-; dress by God's command, and yet, in case you die, you want a woman's shift?" Answer. "All I want is to have a long one." This touching answer was ample proof that, in this extremity, sh was much less occupied with care about life than with the fears of modesty. The doctors preached to their patient for a long time ; and he who had taken on himself the especial care of exhorting her, Master Nicolas Midy, a scholastic of Paris, closed the scene by saying bitter- ly to her : "If you don't obey the Church, you will be abandoned for a Saracen." "lam a good Christian," she replied meekly, "I was properly baptized, and will die like a good Christian." The slowness of these proceedings drove the English wild with im- patience. Winchester had hoped to have been able to bring the trial to an end before the campaign ; to have forced a confession from the prisoner, and have dishonored King Charles. This blow struck, he would recover Louviers, secure Normandy and the Seine, and then repair to Bslle to begin another war a theological war to sit there as arbiter of Christendom, and make and unmake popes. At the very moment he had these high designs in view, he was compelled to cool his heels, waiting upon what it might please this girl to say. The unlucky Cauchon happened at this precise juncture to have offended the Chapter of Rouen, from which he was soliciting a de- cision against the Pucelle : he had allowed himself to be addressed beforehand as " My lord, the archbishop." Winchester determined to disregard the delays of these Normans, and to refer at once to tho great theological tribunal, the University of Paris. While waiting for the answer, new attempts were made to over- come the resistance of the accused ; and both stratagem and terror 48 JOAN OF ARC. were brought into play. In the course of a second admonition (May 2), the preacher, Master Chatillon, proposed to her to submit the question of the truth of her visions to persons of her own party. She did not give in to the snare. " As to this," she said, " I depend on my Judge, the King of heaven and earth." She did not say this time, asbefore, " On God and the Pope." " Well, the Church will give you up, and you will be in danger of fire, both soul and body. You -will not do what we tell you until you suffer body and soul." They did not stop at vague threats. On the third admonition, which took place in her chamber (May 11), the executioner was sent for and she was told that the torture was ready. . . . But the manoeuvre failed. On the contrary, it was found that she had resumed all, and more than all her courage. Raised up after temptation, she seemed to have mounted a step nearer the source of grace. " The angel Gabriel," she said, " has appeared to strengthen me ; it was he, my saints have assured me so. . . . God has been ever my master in what I have done ; the devil has never had power over me. . . . Though you should tear off my limbs and pluck my soul from my body, I would say nothing else." The spirit was so visibly manifested in her that her last adversary, the preacher Chatillon, was touched and became her defender, declaring that a trial so conducted seemed to him null. Cauchon, beside himself with rage, compelled him to silence The reply of the University arrived at last. The decision to which it came on the twelve articles was, that this girl was wholly the dev- il's ; was impious in regard to her parents ; thirsted for Christian blood, &c. This was the opinion given by the faculty of theology. That of law was more moderate, declaring her to be deserving of punishment, but with two reservations 1st, in case she persisted in her non-submission ; 3d, if she were in her right senses. At the same time, the University wrote to the Pope, to the cardi- nals, and to the King of England, lauding the Bishop of Beauvais, and setting forth, " that there seemed to it to have been great gravity observed, and a holy and just way of proceeding, which ought to be most satisfactory to all. " Armed with this response, some of the assessors were for burning her without further delay ; which would have been sufficient satisfac- tion for* the doctors, whose authority she rejected, but not for the English, who required a retraction that should defame (infamdt) King Charles. They had recourse to a new admonition and a new preacher, Muster Pierre Morice, which was attended by no better result. It was in vain that he dwelt upon the authority of the University of Paris, " which is the light of all science." " Though I should see the exe- cutioner and the fire there," she exclaimed, "though I were in the fire, I could only say what I have said." It was by this time the 23d of May, the day after Pentecost ; Win Chester could remain no longer at Rouen, and it behooved to make an THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 49 end of the business. Therefore, it was resolved to get up a great and terrible public scene, which should either terrify the recusant into submission, or, at the least, blind the people. Loyseleur, Chatillon, and Morice, were sent to visit her the evening before, to promise her that if she would submit and quit her man's dress, she should be delivered out of the hands of the English, and placed in those of the Church. This fearful farce was enacted in the cemetery of Saint-Ouen, be- hind the beautifully severe monastic church so called ; and which had by that day assumed its present appearance. On a scaffolding raised for the purpose sat Cardinal Winchester, the two judges, and thirty- three assessors, of whom many had their scribes seated at their feet. On another scaffold, in the midst of huissiers and tortures, was Jeanne, in male attire, and also notaries to take down her confessions, and a preacher to admonish her ; and, at its foot, among the crowd, was re- marked a strange auditor, the executioner upon his cart, ready to bear her off as soon as she should be adjudged his. The preacher on this day, a famous doctor, Guillaume Erard, con- ceived himself bound, on so fine an opportunity, to give the reins to his eloquence; and by his zeal he spoiled all. "O, noble house of Prance," he exclaimed, " which wast ever wont to be protectress of the faith, how hast thou been abused to ally thyself with a heretic and schismatic. . . ." So far the accused had listened patiently, but when the preacher, turning towards her, said to her, raising his finger, " It is to thee, Jehanne, that I address myself, and I tell thee that thy king is a heretic and schismatic," the admirable girl, forget- ting all her danger, burst forth with, " On my faith, sir, with all due respect, I undertake to tell you, and to swear, on pain of my life, that he is the noblest Christian of all Christians, the sincerest lover of the faith and of the Church, and not what you call him." " Silence her," called out Cauchon. Thus all these efforts, pains, and expense, had been thrown away. The accused adhered to what she had said. All they could obtain from her was her consent to submit herself to the Pope. Cauchon re- plied, "The Pope is too far off." He then began to read the sentence of condemnation, which had been drawn up beforehand , and in which, among other things, it was specified : " And furthermore, you have obstinately persisted in refusing to submit yourself to the ///// Father and to" the Council," &c. Meanwhile Loyseleur and Erard conjured her to have pity on herself ; on which the bishop, catching at a shadow of hope, discontinued his reading. This drove the Kng- lishmad; and one of Winchester's secretaries told Caucheon it was clear that he favored the girl a charge repeated by the cardinal's chaplain. " Thou art a liar," exclaimed the bishop. "And thou," was the retort, "art a traitor to the king." These grave personages seemed to be on the point of going to cuffs on the judgment-seat. Erard, not discouraged, threatened, prayed. One while he said, SO JOAN OF AKC. "Jehanne, we pity you so! ... " and another, "Abjure or be burnt ! " All present evinced an interest in the matter, down even to a worthy catchpole (huissier), who, touched with compassion, be- sought her to give way, assuring her that she should be taken out of the hands of the English and placed in those of the Church. " Well, then," she said, " I will sign." On this, Cauclion, turning to the car- dinal, respectfully inquired what was to be done next. "Admit her to do penance," replied the ecclesiastical prince. Winchester's secretary drew out of his sleeve a brief revocation, only six lines long (that which was given to the world took up six pages), and put a pen in her hand, but she could not sign. She smiled and drew a circle : the secretary took her hand, and guided it to make a cross. The sentence of grace was a most severe one : ' ' Jehanne, we con- demn you, out of our grace and moderation, to pass the rest of your days in prison, on the bread of grief and water of anguish, and so to mourn your sins." She was admitted by the ecclesiastical judge to do penance no doubt, nowhere save in the prisons of the Church. The ecclesiastic in pace, however severe it might be, would at the least withdraw her from the hands of the English, place her under shelter from their in- sults, save her honor. Judge of her surprise and despair when the bishop coldly said : " Take her back whence you brought her." Nothing was done ; deceived on this wise, she could not fail to re- tract her retraction. Yet, though she had abided by it, the English, in their fury, would not have allowed her so to escape. They had come to Saint Ouen in the hope of at last burning the sorceress, had waited panting and breathless to this end ; and now they were to be dismissed on this fashion, paid with a slip of parchment, a signature, a grimace. ... At the very moment the bishop discontinued reading the sentence of condemnation, stones flew upon the scaffold- ing without any respect for the cardinal. . . . The doctors wen in peril of their lives as they came down from their seats into tho public place ; swords were in all directions pointed at their throats. The more moderate among the English confined themselves to insult- ing language : " Priests, you are not earning the king's money.'" The doctors, making off in all haste, said tremblingly : "Do not be uneasy, we shall soon have her again." And it was not the soldiery alone, not the English mob, always so ferocious, which displayed this thirst for blood. The better born, the great, the lords, were no less sanguinary. The king's man, his tutor, the Earl of Warwick, said like the soldiers : " The king's business goes on badly : the girl will not be burnt." According to English notions, Warwick was the mirror of worthi- ness, the accomplished Englishman, the perfect gentleman. Brave and devout, like his master, Henry V. , and the zealous champion of the established Church, he had performed the pilgrimage to the Holy THE MAID OF ORLEANS 61 Land, as well as many other chivalrous expeditions, not failing to give tournays on his route : one of the most brilliant and celebrated of which took place at the gates of Calais, where he defied the whole chivalry of France. This tournay was long remembered ; and the bravery and magnificence of this Warwick served not a little to pre- pare the way for the famous Warwick, the king-maker. With all his chivalry, Warwick was not the less savagely eager for the death of a woman, and one who was, too, a prisoner of war. The best, and the most looked-up-to of the English, was as little deteired by honorable scruples as the rest of his countrymen from putting to death on the award of priests, and by fire, her who had humbled them by the sword. This great English people, with so many good and solid qualities, is infected by one vice, which corrupts these very qualities them- selves. This rooted, all-poisoning vice is pride : a cruel disease, but which is nevertheless the principle of English life, the explanation of its contradictions, the secret of its acts. With them, virtue or crime is almost ever the result of pride ; even their follies have no other source. This pride is sensitive, and easily pained in the extreme ; they are great sufferers from it, and again make it a point of pride to conceal these sufferings. Nevertheless, they will have vent. The two expressive words, disappointment and mortification, are peculiar to the English language This self-adoration, this internal worship of the creature for its own sake, is the sin by which Satan fell ; the height of impiety. This is the reason that with so many of the virtues of humanity, with their seriousness and sobriety of demeanor, and with their Biblical turn of mind, no nation is further off from grace. They are the only people who have been unable to claim the authorship of the Imitation of Jesus : a Frenchman might write it, a German, an Italian, never an Englishman. From Shakepeare to Milton, from Milton to Byron, their beautiful and sombre literature is skeptical, Judaical, satanic, in a word, antichristian. "As regards law," as a legist well says, " the English are Jews, the French Christians." A theologian might express himself in the same manner as regards faith. The American In- dians, with that penetration and originality they so often exhibit, ex- pressed this distinction in their fashion. " Christ," said one of them, " was a Frenchman whom the English crucified in London ; Pontius Pilate was an officer in the service of Great Britain." The Jews never exhibited the rage against Jesus which the English did against Pucelle. It must be owned that she had wounded them cruelly in the most sensible part in the simple but deep esteem they have for themselves. At Orleans, the invincible men-at-arms, the famous archers, Talbot at their head, had shown their backs ; at ,Inr geau, sheltered by the good walls of a fortified town, they had suf- fered themselves to be taken ; at Patay, they had fled as fast as their legs would carry them, fled before a girl. . . . This was hard t & JOAN OF ARC. be borne, aod these taciturn English were forever pondering over thd disgrace. . . . They had been afraid of a girl, and it was not very certain but that, chained as she was, they felt fear of her still, . . . though, seemingly, not of her, but of the Devil, whoso agent she was. At least, they* endeavored both to believe and to have it believed so. But there was an obstacle in the way of this, for she was said to be' a virgin ; and it was a notorious and well-ascertained fact, that the Devil could not make a compact with a virgin. The coolest head among the English, Bedford, the regent, resolved to have the point cleared up ; and his wife, the duchess, intrusted the matter to some matrons, Avho declared Jehanne t be a maid :* a favorable declaration which turned against her, by giving rise to another superstitious no- tion ; to wit, that her virginity constituted her strength, her power, and that to deprive her of it was to disarm her, was to break the charm, and lower her to the level of other women. The poor girl's only defence against such a danger had been wear- ing male attire ; though, strange to say, no one had ever seemed able to understand her motive for wearing it. All, both friends and ene- mies, were scandalized by it. At the outset, she had been obliged to explain he-r reasons to the women of Poitiers ; and when made pris- oner, and under the care of the ladies of Luxemburg, those excellent persons prayed her to clothe herself as honest girls were wont to do. Above all, the English ladies, who have always made a parade of chastity and modesty, must have considered her so disguising herself monstrous, and insufferably indecent. The Duchess of Bedford sent her female attire; but by whom? by a man, a tailor. The fellow, with impudent familiarity, was about to pass it over her head, and, when she pushed him away, laid his unmannerly hand upon her ; his tailor's hand on that hand which had borne the flag of France she boxed his ear. If women could not understand this feminine question, how much less could priests ! . . . They quoted the text of a council held in the fourth century, which anathematized such changes of dress ; not seeing that the prohibition specially applied to a period when man- ners had been barely retrieved from pagan impurities. The doctors belonging to the party of Charles VIII., the apologist-; of the Puerile, find exceeding difficulty in justifying her on this head. One of them (thought to be G*-VSOD) makes the gratuitous supposition that the mo- ment she dismounted from her horse, she was in the habit of resum- ing woman's apparel; confessing that Esther and Judith had had ivr,, HIM' to more natural and feminine means for their triumphs over the enemies of God's people. Entirely preoccupied with the soul, these theologians seem to have held the body cheap ; provided the * Must it be said that the Duke of Bedford, BO generally esteemed as an honorable and well-retrulated man, "saw what took place on this occasion, concealed " (crat in quodam loco secreto ubi videbat Joannam vlsitari). Notices des ALSrf., iii. 37i. THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 53 written law be followed, the soul will be saved ; the flesh may take its chance. ... A poor and simple girl may be pardoned her ina- bility to distinguish so clearly. It is our hard condition here below, that soul and body are so closely bound one with the other, that the soul takes the flesh along with it, undergoes the same hazards, and is answerable for it. ... This has ever been a heavy fatality ; but how much more so does it become under a religious law, which ordains the endurance of insult, and which does not allow imperilled honor to escape by flinging away the body and taking refuge in the world of spirits ! On the Friday and the Saturday, the unfortunate prisoner, despoiled of her man's dress, had much to fear. Brutality, furious hatred, ven- geance, might severally incite the cowards to degrade her before she perished, to sully what they were about to burn. . . . Besides, they might be tempted to varnish their infamy by a reason of state, according to the notions of the day by depriving her of her virgin- ity, they would undoubtedly destroy that secret power of which the English entertained such great dread, who, perhaps, might recover their courage when they knew that, after all, she was but a woman. According to her confessor, to whom she divulged the fact, an Eng- lishman, not a common soldier, but a gentleman, a lord, patriotically devoted himself to this execution, bravely undertook to violate a girl laden with fetters, and, being unable to effect his wishes, rained blows upon her. "On the Sunday morning, Trinity Sunday, when it was time for her to rise (as she told him who speaks), she said to her English guards, ' Leave me, that I may get up.' One of them took off her woman's dress, emptied the bag in which was the man's apparel, and said to her, ' Get up.' 'Gentlemen,' she said, ' you know that dress is forbidden me ; excuse me, I will not put it on.' The point was contested till noon ; when, being compelled to go out for some bodily want, she put it on. When she came back, they would give her no other despite her entreaties."* In reality, it was not to the interest of the English that she should resume her man's dress, and so make null and void a retraction ob- tained with such difficulty. But at this moment, their rage no longer knew any bounds. Saintrailles had just made a bold attempt upon Rouen. It would have been a lucky hit to have swept off the ju/fct// and deliverance? . . . What then must her thoughts have been when she saw that she must die ; when, carried in a cart, she passed through a trembling crowd, under the guard of eight hundred Englishmen armed with sword and lance ? She wept and bemoaned herself, yet reproached neither her king nor her saints. . . . She was only heard to utter, " O Rouen, Rouen ! must I then die here ?" The term of her sad journey was the old mar'ivt-plaee, the fish- market. Three scaffolds had been raised : on one v as the Episcopal and royal chair, the throne of the Cardinal of England, surrounded by the "stalls of his prelates ; on another were to figure the principal personages of the mournful drama, the preacher, the j udges, and the bailli, and lastly, the condemned one ; apart was a large scaffolding of plaster, groaning under a weight of wood nothing had been grudged the stake, which struck terror by its height alone. This was not only to add to the solemnity of the execution, but was done with the intent that from the height to which it was reared, the ex- ecutioner might not get at it save at the base, and that to light it only, so that he would be unable to cut short the torments and relieve the sufferer as he did with others, sparing them the flames. On this oc- casion, the important point was that justice should not be defrauded of her due, or a. dead body be committed to the flames ; they desired that she should be really burnt alive, and that, placed on the summit of this mountain of wood, and commanding the circle of lances and of swords, she might be seen from every part of the market-place. There was reason to suppose that being slowly, tediously burnt be- fore the eyes of a curious crowd, she might at last be surprised into some weakness, that something might escape her which could be set down as a disavowal, at the least some confused words which might be interpreted at pleasure, perhaps, low prayers, humiliating cries for mercy, such as proceed from a woman in despair. . . . A chronicler, friendly to the English, brings a heavy charge against them at this moment. According to him, they wanted her gown to b3 burnt first so that she might remain naked, " in order to re- move all the doubts of the people ;" that the fagots should then b'j removed so that all might draw nigh to see her, " and all the secrets which can or should be in a woman : " and that after this immodest, ferocious exhibition, " the executioners should replace the great fire on her poor carrion. . . ." The frightful ceremony began with a sermon. Master Nicolas Midy, one of the lights of the University of Paris, preached upon the edifying text: "When one limb of the Church is sick, the whole Church is sick." This poor Church could only be cured by cutting off a limb. He wound up with the formula : " Jeanne, go in peace, the Church can no longer defend thee." The ecclesiastical judge, the Bishop of Beauvais, then benignly ex- THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 57 horted her to take care of her soul and to recall all her misdeeds, in order that she might awaken to true repentance. The assessors had ruled that it AVRS the law to read over her abjuration to her; \]\>-. bishop did nothing of the sort. He feared her denials, her disclaim- ers. But the poor girl had no thought of so chicaning away life : her mind was fixed on far other subjects. Even before she was exhorted to repentance, she had knelt down and invoked God, the Virgin, St. Michael, and St. Catherine, pardoning all and asking pardon, saving to the bystanders, "Pray for me!" ... In particular, she" be- sought the priests to say each a mass for her soul. . . . And all this so devoutly, humbly, and touchingly, that sympathy becoming con tagious, no one could any longer contain himself ; the Bishop of Beau vais melted into tears, the Bishop of Boulogne sobbed, and the very English cried and wept as well, Winchester with the rest. Might it be in this moment of universal tenderness, of tears, of contagious weakness, that the unhappy girl softened, and relapsing into the mere woman, confessed that she saw clearly she had erred, and that apparently she had been deceived when promised deliver- ance. This is a point on which we cannot implicitly rely on the in- terested testimony of the English. Nevertheless, it would betray scant knowledge of human nature to doubt, with her hopes so frus- trated, her having wavered in her faith. . . . Whether she con fessed to this effect in words is uncertain ; but I will confidently affirm that she owned it in thought. Meanwhile the judges, for a moment put out of countenance, had recovered their usual bearing, and the Bishop of Beativais, drying his eyes, began to read the act of condemnation. He reminded the guilty one of all her crimes, of her schism, idolatry, invocation of demons, how she had been admitted to repentance, and how, "se- duced by the prince of lies, she had fallen, O grief ! like the dog which returns to his vomit. . . . Therefore, we pronounce you to be a rotten limb, and as such to be lopped off from the Church. We de- liver you over to the secular power, praying it at the same time to re- lax its sentence, and to spare you death and the mutilation of your members." Deserted thus by the Church, she put her whole trust in God. She asked for the cross. An Englishman handed her a cross which he made out of a stick ; she took it, rudely fashioned as it was, with not less devotion, kissed it, and placed it under her garments next to her skin. . . . But what she desired was the crucifix belonging to the Church, to have it before her eyes till she brfeathed her last. The good hussier Massieu and brother Isambart, interfered with such effect that it was brought her from St. Sauveur's. While she was embracing this crucifix, and brother Isambart was encouraging her, the English began to think all this exceedingly tedious ; it was now noon at least ; the soldiers grumbled and the captains called out, " 'What's this, priest ; do you mean us to dine here?" . . . Then, 58 JOAN OF ARC. losing patience, and without waiting for the order from the bailli, who alone had authority to dismiss her to death, they sent two consta- bles to take her out of the hands of the priests. She was seized at the foot of the tribunal by the men-at-arms, who dragged her to the executioner with the words, " Do thy office. . . ." The fury of the soldiery filled all present with horror ; and many there, even of the judges, fled the spot that they might see no more. When she found herself brought down to the market place, sur- rounded by English, laying rude hands on her, nature asserted her rights, and the flesh was troubled. Again she cried out, " O Rouen, thou art then to be my last abode ? . . ." She said no more, and, in this hour of fear and trouble, did not si/i with her lips. . . She accused neither her king nor her holy ones. But when she set foot on the top of the pile, on viewing this great city, this motionless and silent crowd, she could not refrain from exclaiming, " Ah ! Rouen, Rouen, much do I fear you will suffer from my death ! " She who had saved the people, and whom that people deserted, gave voice to no other sentiment when dying (admirable sweetness of soul !) than that of compassion for it. She was made fast under the infamous placard, mitred with a mitre on which was read " Heretic, relapser, apostate, idolater. . . ." And then the executioner set fire to the pile. ... . She saw this from above and uttered a cry. . . . Then as the brother who was exhorting her paid no attention to the fire, forgetting herself in her fear for him, she insisted on his descending. The proof that up to this period she had made no express recanta- tion is, that the unhappy Cauchon was obliged (no doubt by the high satanic will which presided over the whole) to proceed to the foot of the pile, obliged to face his victim, to endeavor to extract some ad- mission from her. All that he obtained was a few words, enough to rack his soul. She said to him mildly what she had already said : " Bishop, I die through you. ... If you had put me into the church prisons this would not have happened." No doubt hopes had been entertained that on finding herself abandoned by her king, she would at last accuse and defame him. To the last she defended him : " Whether I have done well or ill, my king is faultless ; it was not lie who counselled me. Meanwhile the flames rose. . . . When they first seized her, the unhappy girl shrieked for holy water this must have been the cry of fear. . . . But soon recovering, she called only on God, ou her angels and her s"aints. She bore witness to them : " Yes, my voices were from God, my voices have not deceived me." The fact that all her doubts vanished at this trying moment must be taken as a proof that she accepted death as the promised deliverance ; that she no longer understood her salvation in the Judaic and material sense, ns until now she had done, that at length she saw clearly ; and that rising above all shadows, her gifts of illumination and of sanctity were at the final hour made perfect unto her. 1 THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 59 The great testimony she thus bore is attested by the sworn and com- pelled witness of her death, by the Dominican who mounted the pile with her, whom she forced to descend, but who spoke to her from its foot, listened to her, and held out to her the crucifix. There is yet another witness of this sainted death, a most grave witness, who must himself have been a saint. This witness, whose name history ought to preserve, was the Augustine monk already mentioned, brother Isambart de la Pierre. During the trial, he had hazarded his life by counselling the Pucelle, and yet, though so clearly pointed out to the hate of the English, he persisted in accompanying her in the cart, procured the parish crucifix for her, and comforted her in the midst of the raging multitude, both on the scaffold where she was interrogated and at the stake. Twenty years afterwards, the two venerable friars, simple monks, vowed to poverty, and having nothing to hope or fear in this world, ; bear witness to the scene we have just described : " We heard her," they say, "in the midst of the flames invoke her saints, her arch- angel ; several times she called on her Saviour ... At the last, as her head sunk on her bosom, she shrieked, ' Jesus ! ' " ' ' Ten thousand men wept. . . . " A few of the English alone laughed, or endeavored to laugh. One of the most furious among them had sworn that he would throw a fagot on the pile. Just as he brought it, she breathed her last. He was taken ill. His comrades 1 led him to a tavern to recruit his spirits by drink, but he was beyond < recovery. " I saw," he exclaimed, in his frantic despair, "I saw a j dove fly out of her mouth with her last sigh." Others had read in / the flames the word " Jesus," which she so often repeated. The ex-i ecutioner repaired in the evening to brother Isambart, full of conster- 1 nation, and confessed himself; but felt persuaded that God would 1 never pardon him. . . . One of the English King's secretaries \ said aloud, on returning from the dismal scene, "We are lost ; we \ have burnt a saint." Though these words fell from an enemy's mouth, they are not the ; less important and will live, uncontradicted by the future. Yes, j whether considered religiously or patriotically, Jeanne Dare was a saint. Where find a finer legend than this true history? Still, let us be- ware of converting it into a legend ; let us piously preserve its every trait, even such as are most akin to human nature, and respect its terrible and touching reality. . . . Let the spirit of romance profane it by its touch, if it dare ; poetry will ever abstain. For what could it add ? . . . The idea which, throughout the middle age, it had pursued from legend to legend, was found at the last to be a living being the dream was a reality. The Virgin, succorer in battle, invoked by knights, and looked for from above, was here below. . . . and in whom? Here is the marvel, In what was despised, ir> what was lowliest of all* in a child. 60 JOAN OF ARC. in a simple country girl, one of the poor, of the people of Franc*. . . . For there was a people, there was a France. This last im- personation of the past was also the first of the period that was com- mencing. In her there at once appeared the Virgin. . . . and, already, country. Such is the poetry of this grand fact, such its philosophy, its lofty truth. But the historic reality is not the less certain ; it was but too positive, and too cruelly verified. . . . This living enigma, this mysterious creature, whom all concluded to be supernatural, this angel or demon, who, according to some, was to fly away some morn- ing, was found to be a woman, a young girl ; was found to be without wings, and, linked as we ourselves to a mortal body, was to suffer, to die and how frightful a death ! But it is precisely in this apparently degrading reality, in this sad trial of nature, that the ideal is discoverable, and shines brightly. Her contemporaries recognized in the scene Christ among the Phari- sees. . . . Still we must see in it something else the Passion of the Virgin, the martyrdom of purity. There have been many martyrs : history shows us numberless ones, more or less pure, more or less glorious. Pride has had its martyrs ; so have hate and the spirit of controversy. No age has been without martyrs militant, who no doubt died with a good grace when they could no longer kill. . . . Such fanatics are irrelevant to our sub- ject. The sainted girl is not of them ; she had a sign of her own goodness, charity, sweetness of soul. She had the sweetness of the ancient martyrs, but with a differ- ence. The first Christians remained gentle and pure only by shun- ning action, by sparing themselves the struggles and the trials of the world. Jehanne was gentle in the roughest struggle, good amongst the bad, pacific in war itself ; she bore into war (that triumph of the devil's) the spirit of God. . She took up arms, when she knew " the pity for the kingdom of France." She could not bear to see " French blood flow." This ten- derness of heart she showed towards all men. After a victory sh would weep, and would attend to the wounded English. Purity, sweetness, heroic goodness that this supreme beauty of the soul should have centred in a daughter of France may surprise foreigners who choose to judge of our nation by the levity of its man- ners alone. We may tell them (and without partiality, as we speak of circumstances so long since past) that under this levity, and in the midst of its follies and its very vices, old France was not styled with out reason the most Christian people. They were certainly the peo- ple of love and of grace ; and whether we understand this humanly or Christianly, in either sense it will ever hold good. The deliverer of France could be no other than a woman. Franca herself was woman ; having her nobility, but her amiable sweetness likewise, her prompt and charming pity ; at the least, possessing th THE MAID OF ORLEANS. Cl virtue of quickly-excited sympathies. And though she might take pleasure in vain elegances and external refinements, she remained at bottom closer to nature. The Frenchman, even when vicious, pre- served, beyond the man of every other nation, good sense and good- ness of heart. . . . May new France never forget the saying of old France ' ' Great hearts alone understand how much glory there is in being good! " To be and to keep so, amidst the injuries of man and the severity of Providence, is not the gift of a happy nature alone, but it is strength and heroism. . . To preserve sweetness and benevolence in the midst of so many bitter disputes, to pass through a life's experiences without suffering them to touch this internal treasure is divine. They who persevere, and so go on to the end, are the true elect. And though they may even at times have stumbled in the difficult path of the world, amidst their falls, their weaknesses and their infancies, they will not the less remain children of God ! LIFE OF HANNIBAL. TWICE in history has there been, witnessed the struggle of the high- est individual genius against the resources and institutions of a great nation ; and in both cases the nation has been victorious. For sev- enteen years Hannibal strove against Rome ; for sixteen years Na- poleon Buonaparte strove against England : the efforts of the first ended in Zama, those of the second in Waterloo. True it is, as Polybius has said, that Hannibal was supported by the zealous exertions of Carthage ; and the strength of the opposi- tion to his policy has been very possibly exaggerated by the Roman writers. Bict the zeal of his country in the contest, as Polybius him- self remarks in another place, was itself the work of his family. Never did great men more show themselves the living spirit of a na- tion than Hamilcar, and Hasdrubal, and Hannibal, during a period of nearly fifty years, approved themselves to be to Carthage. It is not then merely through our ignorance of the internal state of Carthage, that Hannibal stands so prominent in all our conceptions of the sec- ond Punic war : he was really its moving and directing power ; and the energy of his country was but a light reflected from his own. History therefore gathers itself into his single person : in that vast tempest, which, from north and south, from the west and the east, broke upon Italy, we see nothing but Hannibal. But if Hannibal's genius may be likened to the Homeric god, who in his hatred of the Trojans rises from the deep to rally the fainting Greeks, and to lead them against the enemy ; so the calm courage with which Hector met his more than human adversary in his coun- try's cause, is no unworthy image of the unyielding magnanimity displayed by the aristocracy of Rome. As Hannibal utterly eclipses Carthage, so, on the contrary, Fabius, Marcellus, Claudius Nero, even Scipio himself, are as nothing when compared to the spirit, and wis- dom, and power of Rome. The senate which voted its thanks to its political enemy Varro, after his disastrous defeat, " because he had not despaired of the Commonwealth," and which disdained either to solicit, or to reprove, or to threaten, or in any way to notice the twelve colonies which had refused their accustomed supplies of men A.B.-9 4 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. for the army, is far more to be honored than the conqueror of Zama, This we should the more carefully bear in mind, because our ten- dency is to admire individual greatness far more than national ; and as no single Roman will bear comparison with Hannibal, we are apt to murmur at the event of the contest, and to think that the victory was awarded to.the least worthy of the combatants. On the con- trary, never was the wisdom of God's providence more mai .lost than in the issue of the struggle between Rome and G'arihiigi . It was clearly for the good of mankind that Hannibal should be ci dquered : his triumph would have stopped the progress of the world. For great men can only act permanently by forming great nations , and no one man, even though it were Hannibal himself, can in one gen- eration effect such a work. But where the nation has been merelj* enkindled for a while by a great man's spirit, the light passes away with him who communicated it ; and the nation, when he is gone, is. like a dead body, to which magic power had for a moment given an unnatural life : when the charm has ceased, the body is cold and stiff as before. He who grieves over the battle of Zama, should carry on his thoughts to a period thirty years later, when Hannibal must, in the course of nature, have been dead, and consider how the isolated Phoenician city of Carthage was fitted to receive and to con- solidate the civilization of Greece, or by its laws and institutions to bind together barbatians of every race and language into an organized empirerand prepare them for becoming, when that empire was dis- solved, the free members of the commonwealth of Christian Europe. The year of Hannibal's birth is not mentioned by any ancient writer, but from the statements concerning his age at l'e battle of Zama, it appears that he must have been born in the very year in which his father, Hamilcar, was first appointed to the command in Sicily. He was only nine years of age when his father took him with him into Spain ; and it was on this occasion that Hamilcar made him swear upon the altar eternal hostility to Rome. The story was told by Hannibal himself, many years afterwards, to Autiochus, and is one of the best attested in ancient history.* Child as he then was, Hannibal never forgot his vow, and his whole life was one con- tinued strugs^le against the power and domination of Rome. He was early trained in arms under the eye of his father, and probably accompanied him on most of his campaigns in Spain. We find him present with him in the battle in which Hamilcar perished ; and though only eighteen years old at this time, he had already displayed so much courage and capacity for war, that he was intrusted by Hasdrubal (the son-in-law and successor of Hamilcar) with the chief command of most of the military enterprises planned by that general. Of the details of these campaigns we know nothing ; but it is clear * Polyb. iii. 11 ; Liv. xxi. 1 ; xxxv. 19 ; Com. Nep. Hann. ; Appiau. Ilisp. 9: Val. Max. ix. 3, ext. 3. LIFE OF HANNIBAL. 5 that Hannibal thus early gave proof of that remarkable power over the minds of men, which be afterwards displayed in so eminent a degree, and secured to himself the devoted attachment of the army under his command. The consequence was, that on the assassina- tion of Hasdrubal, the soldiers unanimously proclaimed their youth- ful leader Commander-in-chief, and the government of Caithage has- tened to ratify an appointment which they had not, in fact, th power to prevent. Hannibal was at this time in the twenty-sixth year of his age. There can be no doubt that he already looked forward to the inva- sion and conquest of Italy as the goal of his ambition ; but it was necessary for him, first, to complete the work which had been so ably begun by his tsvo predecessors, and to establish the Carthaginian power as firmly as possible in Spain, before he made that country the base of his subsequent operations. This was the work of two campaigns. Immediately after he had received the command, he turned his arms against the Olcad.es, a nation of the interior, who were speedily compelled to submit by the fall of their capital city, Althaea. Hannibal levied large sums of money from them and the neighboring tribes, after which he returned into winter quarters at New Carthage. The next year he penetrated farther into the coun- try, in order to assail the powerful tribe of the Vaccaeans, and reduced their two strong and populous cities of Ilelmautiea and Arbocala. On his return from this expedition, he was involved in great danger by a sudden attack from the Carpetanians, together with the remain- ing forces of the Olcades and Vaccaeans, but by a dexterous ma- noeuvre he placed the river Tagus between himself arid the enemy, and the barbarian army was cut to pieces in the attempt to force their passage. After these successes he again returned to spend the win- ter at New Carthage.* Two years, we have seen, had been employed in expeditions against the native Spaniards ; the third year was devoted to the siege of Sagtmlum. Hannibal's pretext for attacking it was, that tha Saguntines had oppressed one of the Spanish tribes in alliance with Carthage ; but no caution in the Saguntine government could have avoided a quarrel, which their enemy was determined to provoke. Saguntum, although not a city of native Spaniards, resisted as ob- stinately as if the very air of Spain had breathed into foreign seltlen on its soil the spirit so often, in giany different ages, displayed by the Spanish people. Saguntum was defended like Numantia and Gerona : the siege lasted eight months ; and when all hope was gone, several of the chiefs kindled a tire in the market-place, and after hav- ing thrown in their most precious effects, leaped into it themaelves, and perished. Still the spoil fouml in the place was very considera- ble ; there was a large treasure of money, which Hannibal kept for * Polyb. iii. 13-15 ; Liv, xxi, 5. 6 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. his war expenses ; there were numerous captives, whom he distributed amongst his soldiers as their share of the plunder ; and there was much costly furniture from the public and private buildings, which he sent home to decorate the temples and palaces of Carthage. It must have been towards the close of the year, but apparently be- fore the consuls were returned from lllyria, that the news of the fall f Saguntum reached Rome. Immediately ambassadors were sent to Carthage ; M. Fabius Buteo, who had been consul seven-and-twenty years before, C. Licinius Varus and Q. Bsebius Tamphilus. Their orders were simply to demand that Hannibal and his principal offi- cers should be given up for their attack upon the allies of Rome, in breach of the treaty, and, if this were refused, to declare war. The Carthaginians tried to discuss the previous question, whether the at- tack on Saguntum was a breach of the treaty ; but to this the Ro- mans would not listen. At length. M. Fabius gathered up his toga, as if he were wrapping up something in it, and holding it out thus together, he said, " Behold, here are peace and war ; take which you choose !" The Carthaginian suffete or judge answered, "Give whichever thou wilt." Hereupon Fabius shook out the folds of his toga, saying, " Then here we give you war ;" to which several members of the council shouted in answer, " With all our hearts we welcome it." Thus the Roman ambassador left Carthage, and re- turned straight to Rome. But before the result of the embassy could be known in Spain, Hannibal had been making preparations for his intended expedition, in a manner which showed, not only that he was sure of the support of his government, but that he was able to dispose at his pleasure of all the military resources of Carthage. At his suggestion fresh troops from Africa were sent over to Spain to secure it during his absence, and to be commanded by his own brother, Hasdrubal ; apd their place was to be supplied by other troops raised in Spain, so that Africa was to be defended by Spaniards, and Spain by Africans, the soldiers of each nation, when quartered amongst foreigners, be- ing cut off from all temptation or opportunity to revolt. So com- pletely was he allowed to direct every military measure, that he is said to have sent Spanish and Numidian troops to garrison Carthage itself ; in other words, this was a part of his general plan, and \va.s adopted accordingly by the government. Meanwhile, he had sent ambassadors into Gaul, and cven*acrosa the Alps, to the Gauls who had so lately been at war with the Romans, both to obtain informa- tion as to the country through which his march lay, and to secure the assistance and guidance of the Gauls in his passage of the Alps, and their co-operation in arms when he should arrive in Italy. His Span- ish troops he had dismissed to their several homes, at the end of the last campaign, that they might carry their spoils with them, and tell of their exploits to their countrymen, and enjoy, during the winter, that almost listless ease which is the barbarian's relief from war and LIFE OF HANNIBAL. 7 plunder. At length he received the news of the Roman embassy to Carthage, and the actual declaration of war ; his officers also had re- turned from Cisalpine Gaul. " The natural difficulties of the passage of the Alps were great," they said, " but by no means insuperable ; while the disposition of the Gauls was most" friendly, and they were eagerly expecting his arrival." Then Hannibal called his soldiers together, and told them openly that he was going to lead them into Italy. "The Romans," he said, " have demanded that I and my principal officers should be delivered up to them as malefactors. Sol- diers, will you suffer such an indignity ? The Gar.ls are holding out their arms to us, inviting us io come to them, and to assist them in revenging their manifold injuries. And the country which we shall invade, so ricL in corn and wine and oil, so full of flocks and herds, so covered with flourishing cities, will be the richest prize that could be offered by the gods to reward your valor." One common shout from the soldier s assured him of their readiness to follow him. He thanked them, fixed the day on which they were to be ready to march, and then dismissed them. In this interval, and now on the very eve of commencing his ap- pointed work, to which for eighteen yearslie had been solemnly de- voted, and to which he had so long been looking forward with al- most sickening hope, he left the headquarters of his army to visit Gades, and there, in the temple of the supreme god of Tyre, and all the colonies of Tyre, to offer his prayers and vows for the success of his enterprise. Ho was attended only by those immediately attached to his person ; and amongst these was a Sicilian Greek, Silenus, who followed him throughout his Italian expedition, and lived at his table. When the sacrifice was over, Hannibal returned to his army ;:t, New Carthage ; and everything being ready, and the season suffi- ciently advanced, for it was now late in May, he set out on his march for the Iberus. And here the fulness of his mind, and his strong sense of being the devoted instrument of his countrj-'s gods to destroy their enemies, haunted him by night as they possessed him by day. In his sleep, so he told Silenus, he fancied that the supreme god of his fat hers had called him into the presence of all the gods of Carthage, who were sitting on their thrones in council. There he received a solemn charge to invade Italy ; and one of the heavenly council went with him and with his army, to guide him on his AVUV. He went on, and his divine guide commanded him, " See that thou look not behind thee." But after a while, impatient of the restraint, he turned to look back ; and there he beheld a huge and monstrous form, thick set all over with serpents ; wherever it moved orchards and woods and houses fell crashing before it. He asked his guide in wonder, what that monster form was t The god answered, " Thou srcst the desolation of Italy ; go on thy way, straight forward, and cast no look behind." Thus,' with no divided heart, and with an entire res. & LIFE OF HANNIBAL. ignation of all personal and domestic enjoyments forever. Hannibal went forth at the age of twenty -seven, to do the work of his coun- try's gods, and to redeem his early vow. The consuls at Rome came into office at this period on the loth of March ; it was possible therefore for a consular army to arrive en the scene of action in time to dispute with Hannibal not only the passage of the Rhone, but that of the Pyrenees. But the Romans exagger- ated the difficulties of his march, and seem to have expected that the resistance of the Spanish tribes between the Iberus and the Pyr- enees, and of the Gauls between the Pyrenees and the Rhone, would so delay him that he would not reach the Rhone till the end of the season. They therefore made their preparations leisurely. Of the consuls for this year, the year of Rome 586, and 218 before the Christian era, one was P. Cornelius Scipio, the sou of L. Scipio, who had been consul in the sixth year of the first Punic war, and the grandson of L. Scipio Barbatus, whose services in the third Sam- nite war are recorded in his famous epitaph. The other was Ti. Sempronius Longus, probably, but not certainly, the son of that C. Sempronius Blresus who had been consul in the year 501. The consuls' provinces were to be Spain and Sicily ; Scipio, with two Roman legions, and 15,600 of the Italian allies, and with a fleet of sixty quinqueremes, was to command in Spain ; Sempronius, willi a somewhat larger army, and a lleet of 160 quinqueremes, was to cross over to Lilybaeum, and from thence, if circumstances favored, to make a descent on Africa. A third army, consisting also of two Ro- man legions, and 11,000 of the allies, was stationed in Cisalpine Gaul, under the praetor L. Manlius Vulso. The Romans suspectecj that the Gauls would rise in arms ere long ; and they hastened to send out the colonists of two colonies, which had been resolved on before, but not actually founded, to occupy the important stations of Pla- ceutia and Cremona on the opposite banks of the Po. The colonists sent to each of these places were no fewer than six thousand ; and they received notice to be at their colonies in thirty days. Three commissioners, one of them, C. Lutatius Catulus, being of consular rank, were sent out, as usual, to superintend the allotment of lands to the settlers ; and these 12,000 men, together with the praetor's army, were supposed to be capable of keeping the Gauls quiet. ^ It is a curious fact, that the danger on the side of Spain was con- sidered to be so much the least urgent, that Scipio 's army was raised the last, after those of his colleague and of the praetor L. Manlius. Indeed Scipio was still at Rome/when tidings came that the Boiaus and Insubrians had revolted, had dispersed the new settlers at Pla- centia and Cremona, and driven them to take refuge at Mutina. had treacherously seized the three commissioners at a conference, and had defeated the praetor L. Manlius, and obliged him also to take shelter in one of the towns of Cisalpine Gaul, where they were blockading him. One of Scipio's legions, with five thousand of tag LIFE OF HANNIBAL. 9 allies, was immediately sent off into Gaul under another praetor, C. Autilius Serraims ; and Scipio waited till his own army should again be completed by new levies. Thus he cannot have left Rome till' late in the summer ; and when he arrived with his fleet and army at the mouth of the eastern branch of the Rhone, he found that Hannibal had crossed the Pyrenees ; but he still hoped to impede his passage of the river. Hannibal meanwhile, having set out from New Carthage with an army of 90,000 foot and 12,000 horse, crossed the Iberus^ and from thenceforward the hostile operations of his march began. He might probably have marched through the country between the Iberus and the Pyrenees, had that been his sole object, as easily as he made his way from the Pyrenees to the Rhone ; a few presents and civilities would easily have induced the Spanish chiefs to allow him a free passage. But some of the tribes northward of the Iberus were friendly to Rome : on the coast were the Greek cities of Rhoda and Emporise, Massaliot colonies, and thus attached to the Romans as the old allies of their mother city : if this part of Spain were left un- conquered, the Romans would immediately make use of it as the base of their operations, and proceed fiom thence to attack the whole Carthaginian dominion. Accordingly, Hannibal employed his army in subduing the whole country, which he effected with no great loss of time, but at a heavy expense of men, as he was obliged to carry the enemy's strongholds by assault, rather than incur the delay of besieging them. He left Hunno with eleven thousand men to retain possession ofr the newly-conquered country ; and he further dimin- ished his army by sending home as many more of his Spanish sol- diers, probably those who had most distinguished themselves, as an earnest to the rest, that they too, if they did their duty well, might expect a similar release, and might look forward to return ere loin; to their homes, full of spoil and glory. These detachments, together with the heavy loss sustained in the field, reduced the force with which Hannibal entered Gaul to no more than 50,000 foot and 9000 horse. From the Pyrenees to the Rhone his progress was easy. Here he had no wish to make regular conquests ; and presents to the chiefs mostly succeeded in conciliating their friendship, so that he was allowed to pass freely. But on the left bank of the 1 flume, the in- fluence of the Massaliots with the Gaulish tribes had disposed them to resist the invader ; and the passage of the Rhone was not to be effected without a contest. Scipio by this time had landed his army near the eastern mouth of the Rhone ; and his information of Hannibal's movements was vtiguo and imperfect. His men had suffered from sea-sickness on their voyage from Pisa to the Rhone ; and lie wished to give them a short time to recover their strength and spirits, before he led them against the enemy. He still felt confident that Hannibal's advance from the 10 LIFE OJ? HAiTKlBAt. Pyrenees must be slow, supposing that he would be obliged to tight his way ; so that he never doubted that he should have ample time to oppose" his passage of the Rhone. Meanwhile he sent out 300 horse, with some Gauls who were iu the service of the Massaliots, ordering them to ascend the left bank of the Rhone, and discover, if possible, the situation of the enemy. He seems to have been unwilling to place the river on his rear, and therefore never to have thought of conducting his operations on the right bank, or even of sending out reconnoitring parties in this direction. The resolution which Scipio formed a few days afterwards, of sending his army to Spain, when he himself returned to Italy, was deserving of such high praise, that we must hesitate to accuse him of over-caution or needless delay at this critical moment. Yet he was sitting idle at the mouth of the Rhone, while the Gauls were vainly endeavoring to oppose Hannibal's passage of the river. We must understand that Hannibal kept his army as far away from the sea as possible in order to conceal his movements from the Romans ; there- fore he came upon the Rhone, not on the line of the later Roman load from Spain loll::/, which crossed the river at Tarasco, between Avignon and Aries, but at a point much higher up, above its conflu- ence with the Durance, and nearly half way, if we can trust Poly- bius's reckoning, from the sea to its confluence with the Isere. Here he obtained from the natives on the right bank, by paying a fixed price, all their boats and vessels of every description with which they were accustomed to traffic down the river : they allowed him also to cut timber for the construction of others ; and thus intwo days he was provided with the means of transporting his army. But rinding that the Gauls were assembled on the eastern bank to oppose his pas- s-t^c, he sent off a detachment of his army by night with native guides, to ascend the right bank, for about two-and-twenty miles, and there to cross as they could, where there Avas no enemy to stop them. The woods, which then lined the river, supplied this detachment with the means of constructing barks and rafts enough for the passage ; they look advantage of one of the many islands in this part of the Rhone, to cross where the stream was divided ; and thus they all readied the left bunk in safety. There they took up a strong posi- tion, probably one of those strange masses of rock which rise here and tlu re with steep cliffy sides like islands out of (he vast plain, and rested for four-anti-twenty hours after their exertions in the march and the passage of the river. Hannibal allowed eiglit-and-forty hours to pass from the time when the detachment left his camp ; and then, on the morning of the fifth lay aft'T his ai rival on the Rhone, he made his preparations for the < of lii.s main num. The mighty stream of the river, fed by the snows ot the hi-h Alps, is swelled rather than diminished by the 'immer; so that, although the reason was that when the southern rivers are generally at their lowest, it was rolling the vast LIFE OF HANiflBAL. 11 mass of its waters along with a startling fulness and rapidity. The heaviest vessels were therefore placed on the left, highest up the stream, to form something of a break water for the smaller craft cross- ing below ; the small boats held the flower of the liifht-armed foot, while the cavalry were in the larger vessels ; most of the horses being towed aslern swimming, and a single soldier holding three or four together by their bridles. Everything was ready, and the Gauls on the opposite side had poured out of their camp, and lined the bunk in scattered groups at the most accessible points, thinking that their task of stopping the enemy's landing would be easily accomplished. At length Hannibal's eye observed a column of smoke rising on the far- tlier shore, above or on the right of the barbarians. This was the concerted signal which assured him of the arrival of his detachment ; and he instantly ordered his men to embark, and to push across with all possible speed. They pulled vigorously against the rapid stream, cheering each other to the work ; while behind them were their friends, cheering them also from the bank ; and before them were the Gauls, singing their war-songs, and calling them to come on with tones and gestures of defiance. But on a sudden a mass of lire was seen on the rear of the barbarians ; the Gauls on the bank looked be- hind, and began to turn away from the river ; and presently the bright arms and white linen coats of the African and Spanish soldiers appeared above the bank, breaking in upon the disorderly line of the Ganls. Hannibal himself , who was with the party crossing the river, leaped on shore amongst the first, and, forming his men as last :l s they landed, led them instantly to the charge. But the Gauls, con fused and bewildered, made little resistance ; they lied in utter rout ; whilst Hannibal, not losing a moment, sent back his vessels and boats for a fresh detachment of his army ; and before night liis whole force, with the exception of his elephants, was safely established on the eastern side of the Rhone. As the river was no longer between him and the enemy, Hannibal early ou the next morning sent out a party of Numidian cavalry to discover the position and number of Scipio's forces, and then called his army together, to see and hear the communications of some chiefs of the Cisalpine Gauls, who were just arrived from the other side of the Alps. Their words were explained to the Africans and Spaniards in the army by interpreters ; but the very sight of the chiefs was it- aeli' an encouragement ; for it told the soldiers that the communica- tion with Cisalpine Gaul was not impracticable, and that the Gauls had undertaken so long a journey for the purpose of obtaining the aid of the Carthaginian army against their old enemies, the Romans. Besides, the interpreters explained to the soldiers that the chiefs un- dertook to guide them into Italy by a short and safe route, on which .they would be able to find provisions : and spoke strongly of the great extent and richness of Italy, when they did arrive there, and how zealously the Gauls would aid them. Hannibal then came for- 12 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. w:xid himself and addressed his army : their work, he said, was more than accomplished by the passage of the Rhone ; their own eyes and ears had witnessed the zeal of their Gaulish a'lies in their cause ; for the rest, their business was to do their duty, and obey his orders im- plicitly, leaving everything else to him. The cheers and shouts of the soldiers again satisfied him how fully he might depend upo'n them ; and he then addressed his prayers and vows to the gods of Car- tluure, imploring them to watch over the army, and to prosper its Work to the end, as they had prospered its beginning. The soldiers were now dismissed, with orders to prepare for their march on the morrow. Scarcely was the assembly broken up, when some of the Numidiaiis who had been sent out in the morning were seen riding fur their lives to the camp, manifestly in flight from a victorious enemy. Not half of the original party returned ; for they had fallen in with Scipio's detachment of Roman and Gaulish horse, and after an obstinate con- flict had been completely beaten. Presently after, the Roman horse- men appeared in pursuit ; hut when they observed the Carthaginian camp, they wheeled and rode off, to carry back word to their gen- eral. Then at last Scipio put his army in motion, and ascended the left bank of the river to find and engage the enemy. But when he arrived at the spot where his cavalry had seen the Carthaginian camp, he found it deserted, and was told that Hannibal had been gone three days, having marched northwards, ascending the left bank of the river. To follow him seemed desperate : it was plunging into a country wholly unknown to the Romans, where they had neither allies nor guides, nor resources of any kind ; and where the natives, over and above the common jealousy felt by all barbarians towards a foreign enemy, were likely, as Gauls, to regard the Romans with peculiar hostility. But if Hannibal could not be followed now, he might easily be met on his first arrival in Italy ; from the mouth of the Rhone to Pisa was the chord of a circle, while Hannibal was going to make a long circuit ; and the Romans had an army already in Cisalpine Gaul ; while the enemy would reach the scene of action exhausted with the fatigues and privations of his march across (lie Alps. Accordingly Scipio descended the Rhone again, embarked his army, and sent it on to Spain under the command of his brother Cna-us Scipio, as his lieutenant; while he himself in his own ship sailed for Pisa, and immediately crossed the Apennines to take the command of the forces of the two praetors, Maiilius and Atilius, who, as we have seen, had an army of about 25,000 men, over and above the colonists of Placentia and Cremona, still disposable in Cisalpine Gaul. This resolution of Scipio to send his own army on to Spain, and to meet Hannibal with the army of the two praetors, appears to show that he possessed the highest qualities of a general, which involve the wisdom of a statesman no less than of a soldier. As a mere military LIFE OF HANNIBAL 13 Question, his calculation, though baffled by the event, was sound but if we view it in a higher light, the importance to the Romans o! retaining their hold on Spain would have justified a far greatei hazard ; for if the Carthaginians were suffered to consolidate theii dominion in Spain, and to avail themselves of its immense resources, not in money only, but in men, the hardiest and steadiest of bar- barians, and, under the training of such generals as Hannibal and his brother, equal to the best soldiers in the world, the Romans would hardly have been able to maintain the contest. Had not P. Scipio then dispatched his army to Spain at this critical moment, instead of carrying it home to Italy, his son in all probability would never have won the battle of Zama. Meanwhile Hannibal, on the day after the skirmish with Scipio's horse, had sent forward his infantry, keeping the cavalry to cover his operations, as he still expected the Romans to pursue him ; whilst he himself waited to superintend the passage of the elephants. These were thirty-seven in number ; and their dread of the water made their transport a very difficult operation. It was effected by fasten- ing to the bank large rafts of 200 feet in length, covered carefully with earth : to the end of these, smaller rafts were attached, covered with earth in the same manner, and with towing lines extended to a number of the largest barks, which were to tow them over the stream. The elephants, two females leading the way, were brought upon the rafts by their drivers without difficulty ; and as soon as they came upon the smaller rafts, these were cut loose at once from the larger, and towed out into the middle of the river. Some of the ele- phants in their terror leaped overboard, and drowned their drivers ; but they themselves, it is said, held their huge trunks above water, and struggled to the shore ; so that the whole thirty-seven were landed in safety. Then Hannibal called in his cavalry, and covering his march with them and with the elephants, set forward up the left bank of the Rhone to overtake the infantry. In four days they reached the spot where the Isere, coming down from the main Alps, brings to the Rkone a stream hardly less full or mighty than his own. In the plains above the confluence two Gaul- ish brothers were contending which should be chief of their tribe ; and the elder called in the stranger general to support his cause. Hannibal readily complied, established him firmly on the throne, and received important aid from him in return. He supplied the Cartha ginian army plentifully with provisions, furnished them with new arms, gave them new clothing, especially shoes, which were found very useful in the subsequent march, and accompanied them to the first entrance on the mountain country, to secure them from attacks on the part of his countrymen. The attentive reader, who is acquainted with the geography of the Alps and their neighborhood, will perceive that this account of Han- nibal's march is va^ue. It does noi appear whether the Cartha 14 LIFE OF HAKKIBAL, giuians ascended the left bank of the Isere or the right bank , or whether they continued to ascend the Rhone for a time, and leaving it only so far as to avoid the great angle which it makes at Lyons, re- joined it again just before they entered the mountain country, a little to the left of the present road from Lyons to Chamberri. But these uncertainties cannot now be removed, because Polybius neither pos- sessed a sufficient knowledge of the bearings of tbe country, nor sufficient liveliness as a painter, to describe the line of the march so as to be clearly recognized. I believe, however, that Hannibal crossed the Isere, and continued to ascend the Rhone : and that after- wards, striking off to the right across' the plains of Dauphine, he reached what Polybius calls the first ascent of the Alps, at the north- ern extremity of that ridge of limestone mountains, which, rising ab- ruptly from the plain to the height of 4000 or 5000 feet, and filling up the whole space between the Rhone at Belley and the Isere below Grenoble, first introduces the traveller coming from Lyons to the remarkable features of Alpine scenery. At the end of the lowland country, the Gaulish chief, who had ac- companied Hannibal thus far, took leave of him : his influence prob- ably did not extend to the Alpine valleys ; and the mountaineers, far from respecting his safe conduct, might be in the habit of making plundering inroads on his own territory. Here, then, Hannibal was left to himself ; and he found that the natives were prepared to beset his passage. They occupied all such points as commanded the road ; which, as usual, was a sort of terrace cut in the mountain-side, over- hanging the valley whereby it penetrated to the central ridge. But as the mountain line is of no great breadth here, the natives guarded the defile only by day, and withdrew when night came on to their own homes, in a town or village among the mountains, and lying in the valley behind them. Hannibal, having learned this from some of his Gaulish guides whom he sent among them, encamped in their sight just below the entrance of the defile ; ,and as soon as it was dusk, he set out with a detachment of light troops, made his way through the pass, and occupied the positions which the barbarians, after their usual practice, had abandoned at the approach of night. Day dawned ; the main army broke up from its camp, and began to enter the defile ; while the natives, finding their positions occu- pied by the enemy, at first looked on quietly, and ollered no disturb- ance to the march. But when they saw the long narrow line of the Carthaginian army winding along the steep mountain-side, and the cavalry and baggage cattle struggling at every step with the difficul- ties of the road, the temptation to plunder was too strong to be re- sisted ; and from many points of the mountain, above the road, they rushed down upon the Carthaginians. The confusion was terrible ; for the road or track was so narrow, that the least crowd or disorder pushed the heavily loaded baggage cattle down the steep below ; and the horses, wounded by the barbarians' missiles, and plunging about LIFE OF HAKNIBAL. 15 wildly in their pain and terror, increased the mischief. At last Han- nibal was obliged to charge down from his position, which com- manded the whole scene of confusion, aud to drive the barbarians off. This he eifected : yet the conflict of so, many men on the narrow road made the disorder worse for a time ; aud he unavoidably occa- sioned the destruction of mauy of his own men. At last, the bar- barians being quite beaten off, the army wound its way out of the defile in safety, and rested in the wide and rich valley wliich ex- tends from the Lake of Bourget, with scarcely a perceptible change of level, to the Isere at Montmeillan. Hannibal meanwhile attacked and stormed the town, which was the barbarians' principal strong- hold ; and here he recovered not only a great many of his own men, horses aud baggage cattle, but also found a large supply of corn aud cattle belonging to the barbarians, which he immediately made use of for the consumption of his soldiers. In the plain which he had now reached, he halted for a whole day, and then resuming his march, proceeded for three days up the valley of the Isere on the right bank, without encountering auy difficulty. Then the natives mat him with branches of trees in their hands, and wreaths on their heads, in token of peace : they spoke fairly, offered hostages, and wished, they said, neither to do the Carthaginians auy injury, nor to receive any from them. Hannibal mistrusted them, yet did not wish to offend them ; he accepted their terms, received their hostages, and obtained large supplies of cattle ; aud their whole behavior seemed so trustworthy, that at last he accepted their guid- ance, it is said, through a difficult part of the country, which he was now approaching. For all the Alpine valleys become narrower as they draw near to the central chain ; and the mountains often come so close to the stream, that the roads in old times were often obliged to leave the valley aud ascend the hills by any accessible point, to descend again when the gorge became wider, and follow the stream as before. If this is not done, and the track is carried nearer the river, it passes often through defiles of the most formidable character, being no more than a narrow ledge above a furious torrent, with cliffs rising above it absolutely precipitous, and coming down on the other side of the torrent abruptly to the water, leaving no passage by which man, or even goat, could make his way. It appears that the barbarians persuaded Hannibal to pass through one of these defiles, instead of going round it ; and while his army was involved in it, they suddenly, and without provocation, as we are told, attacked him. Making their way along the mountain -sides, above the defile, they rolled down masses of rock on the Cartha- ginians below, or even threw stones upon them from their hands, stones and rocks being equally fatal against an enemy so entangled. It was well for Hannibal, that, still doubting the barbarians' faith, he had sent forward his cavalry and baggage, and covered the march with his infantry, who thus had to sustain the brunt of the attack. 16 llFE OF HANNIBAL. Foot-soldiers on such ground were able to move where horses would be quite helpless ; and thus, at last, Hannibal, with his infantry, forced his way to the summit of one of the bare cliffs overhanging the defile, and remained there during the night, whilst the cavalry and baggage slowly struggled out of the defile. Thus, again baffled, the barbarians made no more general attacks on the army ; some par- tial annoyance was occasioned at intervals ; and some baggage was carried off ; but it was observed, that wherever the elephants were, the line of march was secure ; for the barbarians beheld those huge creatures with terror, having never had the slightest knowledge of them, and not daring to approach when they saw them. Without any further recorded difficulty, the army, on the ninth day after they had left the plains of Dauphine, arrived at the summit of the central ridge of the Alps. Here there is always a plain of some extent, immediately overhung by the snowy summits of the high mountains, but itself in summer presenting, in many parts, a carpet of the freshest grass, with the chalets of the shepherds scat- tered over it, and gay with a thousand flowers. But far different is its aspect through the greatest part of the year : then it is one un- varied waste of snow ; and the little lakes, which, on many of the passes, enliven the summer landscape, are now frozen over and cov- ered with snow, so as to be no longer distinguishable. Hannibal was on the summit of the Alps about the end of October ; the first winter snows had already fallen ; but two hundred years before the Chris- tian era, when all Germany was one vast forest, the climate of the Alps was far colder than at present, and the snow lay on the passes all through the year. Thus the soldiers were in dreary quarters ; they remained two days on the summit, resting from their fatigues, and giving opportunity to many of the stragglers, and of the horses and cattle, to rejoin them by following their track ; but they were cold, and worn, and disheartened ; and mountains still rose before them, through which, as they knew too well, even their descent might be perilous and painful. But their great general, who felt that he now stood victorious on the ramparts of Italy, and that the torrent which rolled before him was carrying its waters to the rich plains of Cisalpine Gaul, endeav- ored to kindle his soldiers with his own spirit of hope. He called them together ; he pointed out the valley beneath, to which the de- scent seemed the work of a moment : " That valley," he said, " is Italy ; it leads us to the country of our friends the Gauls ; and yon- der is our way to Rome." His eyes were eagerly fixed on that point of the horizon ; and as he gazed, the distance between seemed to van- ish, till he could almost fancy that he was crossing the Tiber, and as. sailing the capital. After the two days' rest the descent began. Hannibal experienced no more open hostility from the barbarians, only some petty attempts here and there to plunder ; a fact strange in itself, but doubly so LIFE OF HANNIBAL. 17 if he ware really descending the valley of the Doria Baltea, through the country of the Salassians, the most untamable robbers of all the Alpine barbarians. It is possible that the influence of the Insuhrians may partly have restrained the mountaineers ; and partly also they may have been deterred by the ill success of former attacks, and may by this time have regarded the strange army and its monstrous beasts with something of superstitious terror. But the natural diffi- culties of the ground on the descent were greater than ever. The snow covered the track so that the men often lost it, and fell down the steep below : at last they came to a place where an avalanche had carried it away altogether for about three hundred yards, leaving the mountain-side a mere wreck of scattered rocks and snow. To go round was impossible ; for the depth of the snow on the heights above rendered it hopeless to scale them ; nothing therefore was left but to repair the road. A summit \>f some extent was found, aud cleared of the snow ; and here the army were obliged to encamp whilst the work went on. There was no want of hands ; and every man was laboring for his life : the road, therefore, was restored, and supported with solid substructions below ; and in a single day it was made practicable for the cavalry and baggage cattle, which were im- mediately sent forward, and reached the lower valley in safety, where they were turned out to pasture. A harder labor was required to make a passage for the elephants : the way for them must be wide and solid ; and The work could not be accomplished in less than three days. The poor animals suffere ! severely in the .interval from hun- ger ; for no forage was to be found in that wilderness of snow, nor any trees whose leaves might supply the place of other herbage. At last, they too were able to proceed with safety : Hannibal overtook his cavalry and baggage ; and in three days more the whole army had got clear of the Alpine valleys, and entered the country of their friends, the Insubrians, on the wide plain of northern Italy. Hannibal was arrived in Italy, but with a force so weakened by its losses in men aud horses, aud by the exhausted state of the surviv- ors, that he might seem to have accomplished his great inarch iii vain. According to his own statement, which there is no reason to doubt, he brought out of the Alpine valleys no more than 12,01)0 African and 8000 Spanish infantry, with 0000 cavalry ; so that his march from the Pyrenees to the plains of northern Italy must have cost him 33,000 men ; an enormous loss, which proves how severely the army must have suffered from the privations of the march and the severity of the Alpine climate ; for not half of these oli.OOO men can have fallen in battle. With his army in this condition, some period of repose was absolutely necessary: accordingly, Hannibal remained in the country of the Insubrians, till rest, and a more tem- perate climate, and wholesome food, with which the Gauls plentifully supplied him, restored the bodies and spirits of his soldiers, and made them again ready for action. His first movement was against tho 18 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. Taurinians, a Ligurian people, who were constant enemies of the In subrians, and therefore would not listen to Hannibal when he in- vited them to join his cause. He therefore attacked and stormed their principal town, put the garrison to the sword, and struck such terror into the neighboring tribes, that they submitted immediately, and became his allies. This was his first accession of strength in Italy, the first fruits, as he hoped, of a long succession of defections among the allies of Rome, so that the swords of the Italians might effect for him the conquest of Italy. Meanwhile Scipio had landed at Pisa, had crossed the Apennines, and taken the command of the praetors' army, sending the praetors themselves back to Rome, had crossed the Po at Placentia, and was ascending its left bank, being anxious to advance with all possible haste, in order to hinder a general rising of the Gauls by his pres- ence. Hannibal, for the opposite reason, was equally anxious to meet him, being well aware that the Gauls were only restrained from revolting, to the Carthaginians, by fear, and that on his first success in the field they would join him. He therefore descended the left bank of the Po, keeping the river on his right ; and Scipio having thrown a bridge over the Ticinus, had entered what are now the Sar- dinian dominions, and was still advancing westward, with the Po on his left, although, as the river here makes a bend to the southward, he was no longer in its immediate neighborhood. Each general was aware that his enemy was at hand, and both pushed forward with their cavalry and light troops in advance of their main armies, to reconnoitre each other's position and numbers. Thus was brought on accidentally the first action between Hannibal and the Romans in Italy, which, with some exaggeration, has been called the battle of the Ticinus. The Numidians in Hannibal's army, being now properly supported by heavy cavalry, were able to follow their own manner of fighting, and falling on the flanks and rear of the Romans, who were already engaged in front with Hannibal's heavy horsemen, took ample vengeance for their defeat on the Rhone. The Romans were routed ; and the consul himself was severely wounded, and owed his life, it is said, to the courage ;aul fidelity of a Ligurian slave. With their cavalry thus crippled, it was impossible to act in such an open country ; the Romans therefore hastily retreated, recrossed the Ticinus, and broke down the bridge, yet with so much hurry and confusion, that 600 men were left on the right bank, and fell into the enemy's hands ; and then crossing the Po also, established themselves under the walls of their colony Placeutia. Hannibal, finding the bridge over the Ticinus destroyed, reascended the left bank of the Po till he found a convenient point to cross, and then, having constructed a bridge with the river boats, carried over his army in safety. Immediately, as he had expected, the Gauls on the right bank received him with open arms ; and again descending the river, he arrived on. the second day after his passage in sight of tlFE OF HANNIBAL. 19 the Roman army, and on the following day offered them battle. But as the Romans did not move, he chose out u sp.it' for his camp, and posted his army rive or six miles from the enemy, and apparently ou the east of Placeutia, tutting off their direet communication with Ai'iminum and Rome, Ou the first news of Hannibal's arrival in Italy, the senate sent orders to the other consul, Ti. Sempronius, to return immediately to reinforce his colleague. No event of importance had marked the first summer of the war in Sicily. Hannibal's spirit so animated the Carthaginian government that they were everywhere preparing to act en the offensive ; and before the arrival of Sempronius, JEmiiius, the praetor, had already had to fight a naval action with the enemy, in order to defend Lilybseum. He had defeated them, and prevented their landing, but the Carthaginian fleets still kept the sea ; and whilst Sempronius was employing his whole force in the conquest of the Island of Melila, the enemy were cruising on the northern side of Sicily, and making descents on the coast of Italy. On his return to Lilylneiun lie was going in pursuit of them, when he received orders to return home and join his colleague. He accordingly left part of his fleet with the praetor in Sicily, and part he committed to Sex. Pom- ponius, his lieutenant, for the protection of the coasts of Lucania and Campania ; whilst, from a dread of the dangers and delays of the winter navigation of the Adriatic, his army was to march from Lilybseum to Messana, and after crossing the strait to go by land through the whole length of Italy, the soldiers being bound by <;;ilh to appear on a certain day at Ariminum. They completed their long inarch, it is said, in forty days ; and from Ariminum they lis- tened to the scene of action, and effected their junction with the army of Scipio. Sempronius found his colleague no longer in his original position, close by Placentia and the Po, but withdrawn to the first hylls which bound the great plain on the south, and leave an interval here of about six miles between themselves and the river. But Hannibal's army, lying, as it seems, to the eastward, the Roman consul retreated westward, and leaving Placentia to its own resources, crossed to the left bank of the Trebia, and there lay encamped, just where Hie stream issues from the last hills of the Apennines. It appears that the Romans had several magazines on the right bank of the Po above Placentia, on which the consul probably depended foi his subsistence ; and these posts, together with the presence of his army, kept tho Gauls on the immediate bank of the river quiet, so that they gave Hannibal no assistance. When the Romans fell back behind thq Trebia, Hannibal followed them, and encamped about live miles off from them, directly between them and Plaeeutia. But his powerful cavalry kept his communications open in every direction; and the Gauls who lived out of the immediate control of the Roman army aud garrisons, supplied him with provisions abundantly. 20 LIFE OF HAHNIBAL. It is not explained by any existing writer how Seinpronius wa able to effect his junction with his colleague without any opposition from Hannibal. The regular road from Ariminum to Placentia passes through a country unvaried by a singlj hill ; and the approach of a large army should have been announced to Hannibal by his Numidian cavalry, soon enough to allow him to interrupt it. But so much in war depends upon trifling accidents, that it is in vain to guess where we are without information. We only know that the two consular armies were united in Scipio's position on the left bank of the Trebia ; -that their united forces amounted to 40,000 men ; ai:c that Hannibal, with an army so reinforced by the Gauls since his arrival in Italy, that it was little inferior to his enemy's, was so far from fearing to engage either consul singly, that he Avished for noth- ing so much as to bring on a decisive battle with the combined armies of both. Depending on the support of the Gauls for his subsistence, he must not be too long a burden to them : they had hoped to be led to live on the plunder of the enemy's country, not to maintain him at the expense of their own. In order to force the Humans to a battle, he began to attack their magazines. Clastidium, now Castiggio, a small town on the right bank of the Po, nearly opposite to the mouth of the Ticinus, was betrayed into his hands by the governor ; and he here found large supplies of corn. On the other hand, Semprorrius, having no fears for the event of a battle, was longing for the glory of a triumph over such an enemy as Hannibal ; and as Scipio was still disabled by his wound, lie had the command of the whole Roman army. Besides, the Gauls who lived in the plain between the Trebia and Placentia, not knowing which side to espouse, had been plundered by Hannibal's cavalry, and be- sought the consuls to protect them. This was no time, Sempronius thought, to neglect any ally who still remained faithful to Rome : he sent out his cavalry and light troops over the Trebia to drive off the plundered ; and in such skirmishes he obtained some partial success, which made him the more disposed to risk a general battle. For this, as a Roman officer, and before Hannibal's military talents were fully known, he ought not to be harshly judged ; but his manner of engaging was rash, and unworthy of an able general. He allowed the attacks of Hannibal's light cavalry to tempt him to follow them to their own field of battle. Early in the morning the Nnmidians, crossed the river, and skirmished close up to the Roman camp : the consul first sent out his cavalry, and then his light infantry, to repel them ; and when they gave way and recrossed the river, he led hia regular infantry out of his camp, and gave orders for the whole army to advance over the Trebia and attack the enemy. It was midwinter, and the wide pebbly bed of the Trebia, which the summer traveller may almost pass dry-shod, was now filled with a rapid stream running breast-high. In the night it had rained or snowed heavily ; and the morning was raw and chilly, threatening LIFE OF HANNIBAL. 2l sleet or snow. Yet Sempronius led his soldiers through the river, before they had eaten anything ; and wet, cold, and hungry as they were, he formed them in order of battle on the plain. Meanwhile Hannibal's men had eaten their breakfast in Iheir tents, and had oiled their bodies, and put on their armor around their fires. Then, when the enemy had crossed the Trebia, and were advancing in the open plain, the Carthaginians marched out to meet them ; and about a mile in front of their camp, they formed in order of battle. Their disposition was simple : the heavy infantry, Gauls, Spaniards, and Africans, to the number of 20,000, were drawn up in a single line : the cavalry, 10,000 strong, was, with the elephants, on the two wings ; the light infantry and Balerian slingers were in the front of the whole army. This was all Hannibal's visible force. But near the Trebia, and now left in their rear by the advancing Roman legions, were lying close hid in the deep and overgrown bed of a small watercourse, two thousand picked soldiers, horse and foot, com- manded by Hannibal's younger brother Mago, whom he had posted there during the night, and whose ambush the Romans passed with no suspicion. Arrived on the field of battle, the legions were formed in their usual order, with the allied infantry on the wings ; and their weak cavalry of 4000 men, ill able to contend with the numerous horsemen of Hannibal, were on the flanks of the whole line. The Roman velites, or light infantry, who had been in action since daybreak, and had already shot away half their darts and arrows, were soon driven back upon the liastati and principes, and passed through the intervals of the maniples to the rear. With no less cast; were the cavalry beaten on both wings, by Hannibal's horse and ele- phants. But when the heavy infantry, superior in number and bet- ter armed both for offence and defence, closed with the enemy, the confidence of Sempronius seemed to be justified ; and the Romans, numbed and exhausted as they were, yet, by their excellence in all soldierly qualities, maintained the fight with equal advantage. On a sudden a loud alarm was heard ; and Mago, with his chosen band, broke out from his ambush, and assaulted them furiously in the rear. Meantime both wings of the Roman infantry were broken down by the elephants, and overwhelmed by the missiles of the light infantry, till they were utterly routed, and fled towards the Trebia. The legions in the centre, finding themselves assailed on tin rear, pushed desperately forwards, forced their way through the en- emy's line and marched off the field straight to Placentia. Many of the routed cavalry made off in the same direction, and so escaped. But those who tied towards the river were slaughtered unceasingly by the conquerors till they reached it ; and the loss here was enor- mous. The Carthaginians, however, stopped their pursuit on the back of the Trebia : the cold was piercing, and to the elephants so intoler- able that they almost all perished ; even of the men and horse* in; ny were lost, so that the wreck of the Roman army reached their camp J& LIFE OF HA XLMHAL. in safety ; and when night came on, Scipio again led them across the river, and, passing unnoticed by the camp of the enemy, took refuge with his colleague within the walls of Plaeentia. So ended Hannibal's first campaign in Italy. The Romans, after their defeat, despaired of maintaining their ground on the Po ; and the two consular armies retreated in opposite directions, Scipio's upon Arimiuum, and that of Bempronius across the Apennines into Etruria. Hannibal remained master of Cisalpine Gaul ; but the season did not allow him to besiege Placentia and Cremona ; and the temper of the Gauls rendered it evident that he must not make their country the seat of war in another campaign. Already they bore the burden of supporting his army so impatiently, that he made an at- tempt, in the dead of the winter, to cross the Apennines into Etruria, and was only driven back by the extreme severity of the weather, the wind sweeping with such fury over the ridges, and through the passes of the mountains, that neither man nor beast could stand against it. He was forced, therefore, to winter in Gaul ; but the innate fickleness and treachery of the people led him to suspect that attempts would be made against his life, and that a Gaulish assassin might hope to purchase forgiveness from the Romans for his coun- try's revolt, by destroying the general who had seduced them, lie therefore put on a variety of disguises to battle such designs ; he wore false hair, appearing sometimes as a man of mature years, and sometimes with the gray hairs of old age ; and if he had that taste for humor which great men are seldom without, and which some anecdotes of him imply, he must have been often amused by the mis- takes thus occasioned, and have derived entertainment from that which policy or necessity had dictated. We should be glad to catch a distinct view of the state of Rome, when the news first arrived of the battle of the Trebia. Since the disaster of Caudium, more than a hundred years before, there had been known no defeat of two consular armies united ; and the sur- prise and vexation must have been great. Sempronius, it is said, returned to Rome to hold the comitia ; and the people resolved to elect as consul a man who, however unwelcome to the aristocracy, had already distinguished himself by brilliant victories, in the very country which was now the seat of war. They accordingly chose C. Flaminius for the second time consul ; and with him was elected Cn. Servilius Gcminus, a man of an old patrician family, and personally attached to the aristocralical party, but unknown to us before his present consulship. Flamiuius' election was most unpalatable to the aristocracy ; and, as numerous prodigies were reported, and the Sibyl- line books consulted, and it was certain that various rites would be or- dered to propitiate the favor of the gods, he had some reason to suspect that his election would again be declared null and void, and he him- self thus deprived of his command ; he was anxious therefore to leave Rome as soon as possible ; as his colleague was detained by the re LIFE OP HAIOTIBAL. X'J ligious ceremonies, and by the care of superintending the new levies, Plaminius, it is said, left the city before the 15th of March, when his consulship was to begin, and actually entered upon his office at Ari- minum, whither he had gone to superintend the formation of maga- zines, and to examine the state of the army. But the aristocracy thought it was no time to press party animosities ; they made no at- tempt to disturb Flamiuius' election ; and he appears to have had his province assigned him without opposition, and to have been ap- pointed to command Sempronius' army in Etruria, while Servilius succeeded Scipio at Ariminum. The levies of soldiers went on vig- orously ; two legions were employed in Spain ; one was sent to Sicily, another to Sardinia, and another to Tarentnm ; and four legions, more or less thinned by the defeat at the Trebia, still formed the nucleus of two armies in Ariminum and in Etruria. It appeals that four new legions were levied, with an unusually large propor- tion of soldiers from the Italian allies and the Latin name ; and these being divided between the two consuls, the armies opposed to Han- nibal on either line, by which he might advance, must have been in point of numbers exceedingly formidable. Servilius, as we have seen, had his headquarters at Ariminura ; and Scipio, whom he superseded, sailed as proconsul into Spain, to take command of his original army there. Flamiuius succeeded to Sempronius in Etruria, and lay encamped, it is said, in the neighborhood of Arretium. Thus the main Roman armies lay nearly in the same positions which they had held eight years before, to oppose the expected in- vasion of the Gauls. But as the Gauls then broke into Etruria un- perceived, by either Roman army, so the Romans were again sur- prised by Hannibal on a line where they had not expected him. He crossed the Apennines, not by the ordinary road to Lucca, descend- ing the valley of the Macra, but, as it appears, by a straighter line down the valley of the Anser or Serchio ; and leaving Lucca on his right, he proceeded to struggle through the low and flooded country which lay between the right bank of the Arno and the Apennines below Florence, and of which the marsh or lake of Fucecchio still remains a specimen. Here, again, the sufferings of the army were ex- treme ; but they were rewarded when they reached the firm ground below Faesute, and were let loose upon the plunder of the rich valley of the upper Aruo. Flaminius lay quietly at Arretium, and did not attempt to give battle, but sent messengers to his colleague, to inform him of the enemy's appearance in Etruria. Hannibal was now on the south of the Apennines, and in the heart of Italy ; but the experience of the Samnites and of Pyrrhus had shown that the Etruscans were scarcely more to be relied on than the Gauls ; and it was in the south, in Samnium and Lucania and Apulia, that the only materials existed for organizing a new Italian war against Rome. Accordingly Hannibal advanced rapidly into Etruria, and finding that Flamiaiue still did ^4 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. not move, passed by Arretium, leaving the Roman army in his rer.r. and marching, as it seemed, to gain the great plain of central Italy which reaches from Perusia to Spoletum, and was traversed by the great road from Ariminum to Rome. The consul Flaminius now at last broke up from his position, and. followed the enemy. Hannibal laid waste the country on every side with fire and sword, to provoke the Romans to a hasty battle ; and leaving Cortona on his left untouched on its mountain seat, he ap- proached the Lake of Thrasymenus, and followed the road along its north-eastern shore, till it ascended the hills which divide tke lake from the basin of the Tiber. Flamiuius was fully convinced that Hannibal's object was not to fight a battle, but to lay waste the rich- est part of Italy : had he wished to engage, why had he not attacked him when he lay at Arretium, and while his colleague was far away fit Ariminum ? With this impression he pressed on his rear closely, never dreaming that the lion would turn from the pursuit of his de- fenceless prey, to spring on the shepherds who were dogging his steps behind. The modern road along the lake, after passing the village of Passig- nano, runs for some way, close to the water's edge on the right, hemmed in on the left by a line of cliffs, which make it an absolute defile. Then it turns from the lake and ascends the hills ; yet, although they form something of a curve, there is nothing to deserve the name of valley ; and the road, after leaving the lake, begins to ascend almost immediately, so that there is a very short distance during which the hills on the right and left command it. The ground, therefore, does not well correspond with the description of Polybius, who states that the valley in which the Romans were caught was not the narrow interval between the hills and the lake, but a valley beyond this defile, and running down to the lake, so that the Romans, when engaged in it, had the water not on their right flank, but on their rear. Livy's account is different, and represents the Romans as caught in the defile beyond Passignano, between the cliff and the lake. It is possible that, if the exact line of the ancient road could be discovered, it might assist in solving the difficulty . in the mean time the battle of Thrasymenus must be one of the many events in ancient military history, where the accounts of historians, differing either with each other or with the actual appearances of the ground, are to us inexplicable. The consul had encamped in the evening on the side of the lake, just within the present Roman frontier, and on the Tuscan side of Passiguano : he had made a forced march, and had arrived at his position so late that he could not examine the ground before him. Early the next morning he set forward again ; the morning mist hung thickly over the lake and the low grounds, leaving the heights, us is of ten the case, quite clear. Flaminius, anxious to overtake his enemy, rejoiced in the friendly veil which thus concealed his ad- LIFP; OF HANNIBAL. 2 vaace, and hoped to fall upon Hannibal's army while it was still in marching order, and its columns encumbered with the plunder of the valley of the Arno. He passed through the defile of Passignano, and found no enemy ; this confirmed him in his belief that Hannibal did not mean to fight. Already the Nuruidian cavalry were on the edge of the basin of the Tiber : unless he could overtake them speedily, they would have reached the plain ; and Africans, Spaniards, and Gauls, would be rioting in the devastation of the garden of Italy, So the consul rejoiced as the heads of his columns emerged from the defile, and, turning to the left, began to ascend the hills, where he hoped at least to find the rear-guard of the enemy. At this moment, the stillness of the mist was broken by barbarian war-cries on every side ; and both flanks of the Roman column were assailed at puce. Their right was overwhelmed l>y a storm of jave- lins and arrows, shot as if from the midst of darkness, and striking into the soldier's unguarded side, where he had no shield to cover him ; while ponderous stones, against which no shield or helmet could avail," came crashing down upon their heads. On the left were heard the trampling of horse, and the well-known war-cries of the Gauls ; and presently Hannibal's dreaded cavalry emerged from the mist, and were in an instant in the midst of their ranks ; and the huge forms of the Gauls, and their vast broadswords, broke in upon them at the same moment. The head of the Roman column which was already ascending to the higher ground found its advance also barred ; for here was the enemy whom they had so longed to over- take : here were some of the Spanish and African foot of Hannibal's army drawn up to wait their assault. The Romans instantly attacked these troops, and cut their way through ; these must be the covering parties, they thought, of Hannibal's main battle ; and, eager to bring the contest to a decisive issue, they pushed forward up the heights, not doubting that on the summit they should find the whole force of the enemy. And now they were on the top of the ridge, and to their astonishment no enemy was there ; but the mist drew up, and, as they looked behind, they saw too plainly where Hannibal was ; the whole valley was one scene of carnage, whilst on the sides of the hills above were the masses of the Spanish and African foot witnessing the destruction of the Roman army, which had scarcely cost them a single stroke. The advanced troops of the Roman column had thus escaped the slaughter ; but, being too few to retrieve the day, they continued their advance, which was now become a flight, and took .refuge in one of the neighboring villages. Meantime, while the centre of the army was cut to pieces in the valley, the rear was still winding through the defile beyond, between the cliffs and the lake. But they, top, were attacked. from the heights above by the Gauls, and forced in con- fusion into the water. Some of the soldiers, in desperation, struck out into the deep water, swimming ; and, weighed down by their 26 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. armor, presently sank : others ran in as far as was within their depth, and there stood helplessly, till the enemy's cavalry dushed in after them. Then they lifted up their hands, and cried for quarter ; but, on this day of sacrifice, the gods of Carthage were not to be de- frauded of a single victim ; and the horsemen pitilessly fulfilled Hannibal's vow. Thus, with the exception of the advanced troops of the Roman col- umn, who were about 6000 men, the rest of the army were utterly destroyed. The consul himself had not seen the wreck consum- mated. On finding himself surrounded, he had vainly endeavored to form his men amidst the confusion, and to offer some regular resist- ance ; when this was hopeless, he continued to do his duly as a brave soldier, till one of the Gaulish horsemen, who is said to have known him by sight from his former consulship, rode up and ran ly'm through the body with his lance, crying out, " So perish the man who slaugh- tered our brethren, and robbed us of the lands of our fathers." In these last words, we probably rather read the unquenchable hatred of the Roman aristocracy to the author of an agrarian law. than the genuine language of the Gaul. Flaminius died bravely, sword in hand, having committed no graver military error than many an impetuous soldier, whose death in his country's cause lias been felt to throw a veil over his rashness, and whose memory is pitied and honored. The party feelings which have so colored the language of the ancient writers respecting him, need not be shared by a modern historian ; Flaminius was indeed an unequal antagonist to Hannibal ; but in his previous life, as consul and as censor, he had served his country well ; and if the defile of Thrasy- menus witnessed his rashness, it also contains his honorable grave. The battle must have been ended before noon ; and Hannibal's in- defatigable cavalry, after having destroyed the centre and mir of the Roman army, hastened to pursue the troops Avho had broken off from the front, and had for the present escaped the geneial over- throw. They were supported by the light-armed foot and the Span- iards, and finding the Romans in the village to which they had re- i rented, proceeded to invest it on every side. The Romans, cutoff from all relief, and with no provisions, surrendered to Malmrlml, who commanded the party sent against them. They were brought to Hannibal ; with the other prisoners taken in the battle, the whole number amounted to 15, 000. The general addressed them by an in- terpreter ; he told the soldiers who had surrendered to Ma'harbal, that their lives, if he pleased, were still foifeited, for Maharbal had no authority to grant terms without his consent ; then he proceeded, with the vehemence often displayed by Napoleon in similar circum- stances, to inveigh against the Roman government and people, and concluded by giving all his Roman prisoners to the custody of the several divisions of his army. Then he turned to the Italian allies ; they were not his enemies, he said ; on the contrary, he had invaded LIFE OF HANNIBAL. 2? Italy to aid them in casting off the yoke of Rome ; he should still deal with them as he had treated his Italian prisoners taken at the Trebia ; they were free from that moment, and without ransom. This being done, he halted for a short time to rest his army, and buried with great solemnity thirty of the most distinguished of those who had fallen on his own side in the battle. His whole loss had amounted only to 1500 men, of whom the greater part were Gauls. It is said also that he caused careful search, but in vain, to be made for the body of the consul, Flaminius, being anxious to give him honor- able burial. So he acted afterwards to L. ^Emilius and to Marcellus ; and these humanities are worthy of notice, as if he had wished to show that, though his vow bound him to unrelenting enmity towards the Romans while living, it was a pleasure to him to feel that he might honor them when dead. The army of Hannibal now broke up from the scene of its victory, and, leaving Pcrusia unassailed, crossed the infant stream of the Ti- ber and entered upon the plains of Umbria. Here Maharbal, with the cavalry and light troops, obtained another victory over a party of some thousand men, commanded by C. Ceutenius, and killed, took prisoners, or dispersed the whole body. Then that rich plain, extending from the Tiber, under Perusia, to Spoletum, at the foot of the Monte Sonima, was laid waste by the Carthaginians without mercy. The while oxen of the Clitumnus, so often offered in sacri- fice to the gods of Rome by her triumphant generals, were now the spoil of the enemy, and were slaughtered on the altars of the gods of Carthage, amidst prayers for the destruction of Rome. The loft. bank of the Tiber again heard the G rilish war-cry : and the terri- fied inhabitants fled to the mountains or into the fortified cities, from lliis unwonted storm of barbarian invasion. The figures and arms of the Gauls, however formidable, might be familiar to many of Hi:' Umbrians ; but they gazed in wonder on the slingers from the B.i learian islands, on the hardy Spanish foot, conspicuous by their whit-; linen coats bordered with scarlet; on the regular African infantry, who had not yet exchanged their long lances and small shields ! V M- the long shield and stabbing sword of the Roman soldier; on tin- heavy cavalry, so numerous, and mounted on horses so superior to those of Italy ; above all, on the bands of wild Numidiaus, who rode without saddle or bridle, as if the rider and his horse were one crea- ture, and who scoured over the country with a speed and impetuosity defying escape or resistance. Amidst such a scene, the colonists of Spoletum deserved well of their country, for shutting their gates: boldly, and not yielding to the general panic ; and when the Numi- dian horsemen reined up their horses, and turned away from its well-manned walls, the colonists, with an excusable boasting, might claim the glory of having repulsed Hannibal. But Hannibal's way lay not over the Monte Somma, although its steep pass, rising immediately behind Spoletum, was the last natural 28 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. obstacle between him and Rome. Beyond that pass the country was full, not of Roman colonies merely, but of Roman citizens : he would soon have entered on the territory of the thirty-five Roman tribes, where every man whom he would have met was his enemy. His eyes were fixed elsewhere : the south was entirely open to him ; the way to Apulia and Samnium was cleared of every impediment. He crossed the Apennines in the direction of Ancona, and invaded Picenum ; he then followed the coast of the Adriatic, through the country of the Marrucinians and Frentanians, till he arrived in the northern part of Apulia, in the country called by the Greeks Daunia. He advanced slowly and leisurely, encamping after short marches, and spreading devastation far and wide : the plunder of slaves, cat- tle, corn, wine, oil, and valuable property of every description, was almost more than the army could carry or drive along. The sol- diers, who, after their exhausting march from Spain over the Alps, had ever since been in active service, or in wretched quarters, and who, from cold and the want of oil for anointing the skin, had suffered severely from scorbutic disorders; were now revelling in plenty in a land of corn and olives and vines, where all good things were in such abundance that the very horses of the army, so said re- port, were bathed in old wines to improve their condition. Mean- while, wherever the army passed, all Romans, or Latins, of an age to bear arms, were, by Hannibal's express orders, put to the sword. Many an occupier of domain land, many a farmer of the taxes, or of those multiplied branches of revenue which the Roman government possessed all over Italy, collectors of customs and port duties, sur- veyors and farmers of the forests, farmers of the mountain pastures, fanners of the salt on the sea- coast, and of the mines in the moun tains, were cut off by the vengeance of the Carthaginians ; and Rome, having lost thousands of her poorer citizens in battle, and uow losing hundreds of the richer classes in this exterminating march, lay bleed- ing at every pore. But her spirit was invincible. "When the tidings of the disaster of Thrasy menus reached the city, the people crowded to the Forum, and called upon the magistrates to tell them the whole truth. The praetor peregrinus, M. Pomponius Matho, ascended the rostra and said to the assembled multitude, " We have been beaten in a great battle ; our army is destroyed ; and C. Flaminius, the consul, is killed." Our colder temperaments scarcely enable us to conceive the effect of such tidings on the lively feelings of the people of the south, or to image to ourselves the cries, the tears, the hands uplifted in prayer or clenched in rage, the confused sounds of ten thousand voices, giv- ing utterance with breathless rapidity to their feelings of eager in- terest, of terror, of grief, or of fury. All the northern gates of the city were beset with crowds of wives and mothers, imploring every fresh fugitive from the fatal field for some tidings of those most dear to them. The praetors, M. ^Emilius and M. Pomponius, kept the sen- LIFE OF HANNIBAL. 29 ate sitting for several days, from sunrise to sunset, without adjourn- ment, in earnest consultation on the alarming state of their country. Peace was not thought of for a moment ; nor was it proposed to withdraw a single soldier from Spain, or Sicily, or Sardinia ; but it was resolved that a dictator ought to be appointed, to secure unity of command. There had been no dictatorship for actual service since that of A. Atilius Calatinus, two-and-thirty years before, in the dis- astrous consulship of P. Claudius Pulcher and L. JuuiusPullus. But it is probable that some jealousy was entertained of the senate's choice, if, in the absence of the consul Cn. Servilius, the appoint- ment, according to ancient usage, had rested with them ; nor was it thought safe to leave the dictator to nominate his master of the horse. Hence, an unusual course was adopted ; the centuries in their comi- tia elected both the one and the other, choosing one from each of the two parties in the state ; the dictator, Q. Fabius Maximus, from one of the noblest, but at the same time the most moderate families of the aristocracy, and himself a man of a nature no less gentle than wise ; the master of the horse, M. Minucius Rufus, as representing the pop- ular party. Religion in the mind of Q. Fabius was not a mere instrument for party purposes ; although he may have had little belief in its truth, he was convinced of its excellence, and that a reverence for the gods was an essential element in the character of a nation, without which it must assuredly degenerate. Therefore, on the very day that he en- tered on his office, he summoned the senate, and, dwelling on the importance of propitiating the gods, moved that the sibylline books should forthwith be consulted. They directed, among other things, that the Roman people should vow to the gods what was called " a holy spring" that is to say, that every animal fit for sacrifice born in the spring of that year, between the first day of March and the thirtieth of April, and reared on any mountain, or plain, or river-bank, or upland pasture throughout Italy, should be offered to Jupiter. Extraordinary games were also vowed to be celebrated in the Circus Maximus ; prayers were put up at all the temples ; new temples wcro vowed to be built, ; and for three days those solemn sacrifices were performed, in which the images of the gods were taken down from their temples, and laid on couches richly covered, with tables full of meat and wine set before them, in the sight of all the people, as if the gods could not but bless the city where they had deigned to re- ceive hospitality. Then the dictator turned his attention to the state of the war. A long campaign was in prospect ; for it was still so early in the sea- son, that the prators had not yet gone out of their provinces ; and Hannibal was already in the heart of Italy. All measures were taken for the defence of the country ; even the walls and towers of Rome were ordered to be made good against an attack. Bridges were to be broken down ; the inhabitants of open towns were to withdraw 30 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. into places of security ; and, in the expected line of Hannibal's march, the country was to be laid waste before him, the corn de- stroyed, and the houses burnt. This would probably be done effec- tually in the Roman territory ; but the allies were not likely to make such extreme sacrifices : and this, of itself, was a reason why Han- nibal did not advance directly upon Rome. Afore than thirty thousand men, in killed and prisoners, had been lost to trie Romans in the late battle. The consul, Cn. Servilius, com- manded above thirty thousand in Cisalpine Gaul ; and he was now retreating in all haite, after having heard of the total defeat of his colleague. Two new legions were raised, besides a large force out of the city tribes, which was employed partly for the defence of Rome itself, and partly, as it consisted largely of the poorer citizens, for the service of the fleet. This last indeed was become a matter of urgent necessity ; for the Carthaginian fleet was already on the Italian coast, and had taken a whole convoy of corn-ships, off Cosa, in Etruria, carrying supplies to the army in Spain ; whilst the Roman ships, both in Sicily and at Ostia, had not yet been launched after the winter. Now all the ships at Ostia and in the Tiber were sent to sea in haste, and the consul, Cn. Servilius, commanded them ; whilst the dictator and master of the horse, having added the two newly -raised legions to the consul's army, proceeded through Campania and Samnium into Apulia, and, with an army greatly superior in numbers, encamped at the distance of about five or six miles from Hannibal. Besides the advantage of numbers, the Romans had that of being regularly and abundantly supplied with provisions. They had no occasion to scatter their forces in order to obtain subsistence ; but, keeping their army together, and exposing no weak point lo fortune, they followed Hannibal at a certain distance, watched their oppor- tunity to cut off his detached parties, and above all, by remaining in the field with so imposing an army, overawed the allies, and checked their disposition to revolt. Thus Hannibal, finding that the Apulians did not join him, recrossed the Apennines, and moved through the country of the Hirpinians, into thai, of the Caudinian Samnites. But Beneventum, once a great Samnite city, was now a Latin colony ; and its gates were close shut against the invader. Hannibal laid waste its territory with fire and sword, then moved downwards under the south side of the Matese, and took possession of Telesia, the na- tive city of C. Pontius, but now a decayed and defenceless town : thence descending the Calor to its junction with the Vulturnus, and ascending the Vulturnus till he found it easily fordable, he finally crossed it near Allifoe, and passing over the hills behind Calatia, de- scended by Cales into the midst of the Falernian plain, the glory of Campania. Fabius steadily followed him, not descending into the plain, but keeping his army on the hills above it, and watching all his move- ments, Again the NuraidJan cavalry were seen scouring the country LIFE OF HAKNIBAL. 31 on every side ; and the smoke of burning houses marked their track. The soldiers in the Roman army beheld the sight with the greatest impatience : they were burning for battle, and the master of the horse himself shared and encouraged the general feeling. But Fa- bius was firm in his resolution ; he sent parties to secure even the pass of Tarracina, lest Hannibal should attempt to advance by the Appian road upon Rome ; he garrisoned Casilinum, on the enemy's rear ; the Vulturnus, from Casilinum to the sea, barred all retreat southwards ; the colony of Cales stopped the outlet from the plain by the Latin road ; while from Cales to Casilinum the hills formed an unbroken barrier, steep and wooded, the few paths over Avhich were already secured by Roman soldiers. Thus Fabius thought that Han- nibal was caught as in a pitfall ; that his escape was cut off, whilst his army, having soon wasted its plunder, could not possibly winter where it was, without magazines, and without a single town in its pos- session. For himself, he had all the resources of Campania and Sam- niutn on his rear ; whilst on his right, the Latin road, secured by the colonies of Gales, Casinum, and Fregelke, kept his communications with Rome open. Hannibal, on his part, had no thought of wintering where he was ; but he had carefully husbanded his plunder, that it might supply his winter consumption, so that it was important to him to carry it off in safety. He had taken many thousand cattle ; and his army besides was encumbered with its numerous prisoners, over and above the corn, wine, oil, and other articles, which had been furnished by the ravage of one of the richest districts in Italy. Finding that the passes in the hills between Cales and the Vulturnus were occupied by the enemy, he began to consider how he could surprise or force his passage without abandoning any of his plunder. He first thought of his numerous prisoners ; and dreading lest in a night march they should either escape or overpower their guards and join their coun- trymen in attacking him, he commanded them all, to the number, it is said, of 5000 men, to be p\it to the sword. Then he ordered 2000 of the stoutest oxen to be selected from the plundered cattle, and pieces of split pine wood, or dry vine wood, to be fastened to their horns. About two hours before midnight the drovers began to drive them straight to the hills, having first set on fire the bundles of wood about their heads ; whilst the light infantry following them till they began to run wild, then made their own way to the hills, scouring the points just above the pass occupied by the enemy. Hannibal then commenced his march ; his African infantry led the way, fol- lowed by the cavalry ; then came all the baggage ; and the rear was covered by the Spaniards and Gauls. In this order lie followed the road in the defile, by which he was to get out into the upper valley of the Vulturuus, above Casilinum and the enemy's army. He found the way quite clear ; for the Romans who had guarded jt, seeing the hills above them illuminated on a sudden with a nmlti- 32 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. tude of moving lights, and nothing doubting that Hannibal's army was attempting to break out over the hills in despair of forcing the road, quitted their position in haste, and ran towards the heights to interrupt or embarrass his retreat. Meanwhile Fabius, with his main army, confounded at the strangeness of the sight, and dreading lest Hannibal was tempting him to his ruin as he had tempted Flaminius, kept close within his camp until the morning. Day dawned only to show him his own troops, who had been set to occupy the defile, en- gaged on the hills above with Hannibal's light infantry. But pres- ently the Spanish foot were seen scaling the heights to reinforce the enemy ; and the Romans were driven down to the plain with great loss and confusion ; while the Spaniards and the light troops, having thoroughly done their work, disappeared behind the hills, and fol- lowed their main army. Thus completely successful, and leaving his shamed and baffled enemy behind him, Hannibal no longer thought of returning to Apulia by the most direct road, but resolved to extend his devastations still farther before the season ended. He mounted the valley of the Vulturnus towards Venafrum, marched from thence into Samnium, crossed the Apennines, and descended into the rich Pelignian plain by Sulmo, -which yielded him an ample harvest of plunder ; and thence retracing his steps into Samnium, he finally returned to the neighborhood of his old quarters in Apulia. The summer was far advanced ; Hannibal had overrun the greater part of Italy : the meadows of the Clitumnus and the Vulturnus, and the forest glades of the high Apennines, had alike seen their cattle driven away by the invading army ; the Falernian plain and the plain of Sulmo had alike yielded their tribute of wine and oil ; but not a single city had as yet opened its gates to the conqueror, not a single state of Samnium had welcomed him as its champion, under whom it might revenge its old wrongs against Rome. Everywhere the aristocrati- cal party had maintained its ascendency, and had repressed all men- tion of revolt from Rome. Hannibal's great experiment therefore had hitherto failed. He knew that his single army could not con- quer Italy ; as easily might King William's Dutch guards have con- quered England : and six months had brought Hannibal no fairer prospect of aid within the country itself than the first week after his landing in Torbay brought to King William. But among Hannibal's greatest qualities was tlie patience with which he knew how to abide his time ; if one campaign had failed of its main object, another must be tried ; if the fidelity of the Roman allies had been unshaken by the disaster of Thrasymenus, it must be tried by a defeat yet more fatal. Meantime he would take undisputed possession of the best winter quarters in Italy ; his men would be plentifully fed ; his in- valuable cavalry would have forage in abundance ; and this at no cost to Carthage, but wholly at the expense of the enemy. The point which he fixed upon to winter at was the very edge of the Apulian plain, where it joins the mountains : on one side was a boundli LIFE OF HASTNIBAL. 35 panse of corn, intermixed with open grass land, burnt up in summer, but in winter fresh and green ; whilst on the other side were the wide pastures of the mountain forests, where his numerous cattle might be turned out till the first snows of autumn fell. These were as yet far distant ; for the corn in the plain, although ripe, was still etanding ; and the rich harvests of Apulia were to be gathered this year by unwonted reapers. Descending from Samnium, Hannibal accordingly appeared before the little town of Geronium, which was situated somewhat more than twenty miles northwest of the Latin colony of Luceria.in the imme- diate neighborhood of Larinum. The town, refusing to surrender, was i.- ken, and the inhabitants put to the sword ; but the houses and walls were left standing, to serve as a great magazine for the army ; and (lie soldiers were quartered in a regularly fortified camp without the town. Here Hannibal posted himself ; and keeping a third part of his men under arms to guard the camp and to cover his foragers, he sent oat the other two thirds to gather in all the corn of the surrounding country, or to pasture his cattle on the adjoining mountains. In this manner the store-houses of Geronium were in a short time filled with corn. Meanwhile the public mind at Rome was strongly excited against the dictator. He seemed like a man who, having played a cautious game, at last makes a false move, and is beaten ; his slow, defensive system, unwelcome in itself, seemed rendered contemptible by Han- nibal's triumphant escape from the Faleruian plain. But here, too, Fabius showed a patience worthy of all honor. Vexed as he must have been at his failure in Campania, he still felt sure that his sys- tem was wise ; and again he followed Hannibal into Apulia, and en- camped as before in thy high grounds in his neighborhood. Certain religious offices called him at this time to Rome ; but he charged Miuucius to observe his system strictly, and on no account to risk a battle. The master of the horse conducted his operations wisely : he ad- vanced his camp to a projecting ridge of hills, immediately above the plain, and, sending out his cavalry and light troops to cut off Hanni- bal's foragers, obliged the enemy to increase his covering force, and to restrict the range of his harvesting. On one occasion he cut off a great number of the foragers, and even advanced to attack Hannibal's camp, which, owing to the necessity of detaching so many men al over the country, was left with a very inferior force to defend it. The return of some of the foraging parties obliged the Romans to re- treat ; but Minucius was greatly elated, and sent home very encour- aging reports of his success. The feeling against Fabius could no longer be restrained. Minu- cius had known how to manage his system more ably than he had done himself ; such merit at such a crisis deserved to be rewarded , aor was it fit that the popular party should continue to be deprired 34 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. of its share in the conduct of the war. Even among liis OWP party Fabius was not universally popular : he had magnified himself and his system somewhat offensively, and had spoken too harshly of 'the blunders of former generals. Thus it does not appear that the aris- tocracy offered any strong resistance to a bill brought forward by the tribune M. Metilius, for giving the master of the horse power equal to the dictator's. The bill was strongly supported by C. Terentius Varro, who had been praetor in the preceding year, and was easily carried. The dictator and master of the horse now divided the army be- tween them, and encamped apart, at more than a mile's distance from each other. Their want of co-operation was thus notorious ; and Hannibal was not slow to profit by it. He succeeded in tempt- ing Minucius to an engagement on his own ground ; aud having concealed about 5000 men in some ravines and hollows close by, he called them forth in the midst of the action to fall on the enemy's rear. The rout of the Trebia was well-nigh repeated ; but Fabius was near enough to come up in time to the rescue ; and his fresh legions checked the pursuit of the conquerors and enabled the bro- kerf Romans to rally. Still the loss already sustained was severe ; and it was manifest that Fabius had saved his colleague from total destruction. Minucius acknowledged this generously : he instantly gave up his equal and separate command, and placed himself aud his army under the dictator's orders. The rest of the season passed quietly ; and the dictator and master of the horse resign- ing their offices as usual at the end of six months, the army during the winter was put under the command of the consuls ; Cn. Servilius having brought home and laid up the fleet, which he had commanded during the summer, and M. Atilius Regulus having been elected to fill the place of Flaminius. Meanwhile the elections for the following year were approaching ; and it was evident that they would be maiked by severe party siiug- gles. The mass of the Roman people wen- impatient of the continu- ance of the war in Italy ; not only the poorer citizens, whom it obliged to constant military service through the winter, and with no prospect of plunder, but still more perhaps the moneyed classes, whose occupation as farmers of the revenue was so great!}' curtailed by Hannibal's army. Again, the occupiers of domain lands in re- mote parts of Italy could get no returns from their property ; the wealthy graziers, who fed their cattle on the domain pastures, saw their stock carried off to furnish winter provisions for the enemy. Besides, if Hannibal were allowed to be unassailable in the field, the allies, sooner or later, must be expected to join him ; they would not sacrifice everything for Rome, if Rome could neither protect them nor herself. The excellence of the Roman infantry was undisputed : If with equal numbers they could not conquer Hannibal's veterans, lot their numbers be increased, and they must overwhelm him. Lll'i; ()!' HAXNIBAL. 34 These were no doubt the feelings of many of the nobility themselves, as well as of the majority of the people ; but they were embittered by party animosity : the aristocracy, it was said, seemed bent on throwing reproach on all generals of the popular party, as if none but themselves were fit to conduct the war ; Miuncins himself had yielded to this spirit by submitting to be commanded by Fabius, when the law had made him his equal : one consul at least must be chosen, who would act firmly for himself and for the people ; and such a man, to whose merits the bitter hatred of the aristocratical party bore the best testimony, was to be found in C. Terentiua Varro. Vurro, his enemies said, was a butcher's son ; nay, it was addc-,1 .that he had himself been a butcher's boy, and had only been enabled by the fortune which his father had left him to throw aside his ignoble calling, and to aspire to public offices. So Crom- well was called a brewer : but Varro had been successively elected quaestor, plebeian, and curule; aedile, and praetor, whilst we are not told that he was ever tribune ; and it is without example in Roman history, that a mere demagogue, of no family, with no other merits, civil or military, should be raised to such nobility. Varro was eloquent, it is true ; but eloquence alone would scarcely have so recommended him ; and if in his pryetorship, as is probable, he had been one of the two home praetors, he must have possessed a compe- tent knowledge of law. Besides, even after his defeat at Cannae, he was employed for several years in various important offices, civil and military ; which would never have been the case had he been the mere factious braggart that historians have painted him. The aris- tocracy tried in vain to prevent his election : he was not only re- turned consul, but he was returned alone, no other candidate obtain- ing a sufficient number of votes to entitle him to the suffrage of a tribe. Thus he held the comitia for the election of his colleague ; and considering the great influence exercised by the magistrate so presiding, it is creditable to him, and to the temper of the people gen- erally, that the other consul chosen was L. ^Emilius Paullus, who \vaa not only a known partisan of the aristocracy, but having been consul three years before, had been brought to trial for an alleged misap- propriation of the plunder taken in the Illyrian war, and, although acquitted, was one of the most unpopular men in Rome. Yet he was known to be a good soldier ; and the people, having obtained the election of Varro, did not object to gratify the aristocracy by accept, ing the candidate of their choice. No less moderate and impartial was the temper shown in the elec- tions of praetors. Two of the four were decidedly of the aristocrati- cal party, M. Marcellus and L. Postumius Albinus ; the other two were also men of consular rank, and no way known as opponents of the nobility, P. Furius Philus and M. Ppmponius Matho. The two latter were to have the home praetorships ; Marcellus was to com. A.B. 10 36 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. mand the fleet, and take charge of the southern coast of Italy ; L. Postumius was to \vatch the frontier of Cisalpine Gaul. The winter and spring passed without any military events of im- portance. Servilius and Regulus retained their command as procon- suls for some time after their successors had come into office ; but nothing beyond occasional skirmishes took place between them and the enemy. Hannibal was atGerouium, maintaining his army on the supplies which he had so carefully collected in the preceding cam- paign : the consuls apparently were posted a little to the southward, receiving their supplies from the country about Canusium, and im- mediately from a large magazine which they had established at the email town of Cannse, near the Aufidus. Never was Hannibal's genius more displayed than during this long period of inactivity. More than half of his army consisted of Gauls, of all barbarians the most impatient and uncertain in their hu- mor, whose fidelity, it is said, could only be secured by an ever-open hand ; no man was their friend an}' longer than he could gorge them With pay or plunder. Those of his soldiers who were not Gauls were either Spaniards or Africans ; the Spaniards were the newly-con- quered subjects of Carthage, strangers to her race and language, and accustomed to divide their lives between actual battle and the most listless bodily indolence ; so that, when one of their tribes fret saw the habits of a Roman camp, and observed the cen- turions walking up and down before the praetorium for exercise, the Spaniards thought them mad, and ran up to guide them to their tents, thinking that he who was not fighting could do noth- ing but lie at his ease and enjoy himself. Even the Africans were foreigners to Carthage : they were subjects harshly governed, and had been engaged within the last twenty years in a war of extermination with "their masters. Yet the long inactivity of win- ter quarters, trying to the discipline of the best national armies, was borne patiently by Hannibal's soldiers : there was neither deser- tion nor mutiny amongst them ; even the fickleness of the Gauls seemed spellbound ; they remained steadily in their camp in Apulia, neither going home to their own country, nor over to the enemy. On the contrary, it seems that fresh bands of Gauls must have joined the Carthaginian army after Ihe battle of Thrasymenus, and the re- ireat of the Roman army from Ariminum. For the Gauls and the Spaniards and the Africans were overpowered by the ascendency of Hannibal's character : under his guidance they felt themselves in- vincible : with such a general the yoke of Carthage might seem to . the Africans and Spaniards the natural dominion of superior beings ; in such a champion the Gauls beheld the appointed instrument of their country's gods to lead them once more to assault the capital. Silanus, the Greek historian, was living with Hannibal daily ; and though not intrusted vvit.li his military and political secrets, he must l*ave - seen and known lum as a man ; he must have been familiar witk LIFE OF HANNIBAL. 3' his habits of life, and must have heard his conversation in those un- restrained moments when the lightest words of great men display the character of their minds so strikingly. His work is lost to us ; but had it been worthy of his opportunities, anecdotes from it must have been quoted by other writers, and we should know what Hannibal was. Then, too, the generals who were his daily companions would be something more to us than names : we should know Alaharbal, the best caVulry officer of the finest cavalry service in the world ; and Hasdrubal, who managed the commissariat of the army for so many years in an enemy's country ; and Hannibal's young brother, Mago, so full of youthful spirit and enterprise, who commanded the ambush at the battle of the Trebia. We might learn something too of that Hannibal, surnamed the Fighter, who v*is the general's coun- sellor, ever prompting him, it was said, to deeds of savage cruelty, but whose counsels Hannibal would not have listened to, had they been merely cruel, had they not breathed a spirit of deep devotion, to the- cause of Carthage, and of deadly hatred to Rome, such as pos- sessed the heart of Hannibal himself. But Silanus saw and heard without heeding or recording ; and on the tent and camp of Hanni- bal there hangs a veil, which the fancy of the poet may penetrate ; butthe historian turns away in deep disappointment ; for to him it yields neither sight nor sound. Spring was come, and well-nigh departing ; and hi the warm plains of Apulia the earn was ripening fast, while Hannibal's winter supplies were now nearly exhausted. He broke up from his camp before Geroniurn, descended into the Apulian plains, and whilst the Roman army was still in its winter position, he threw himself on its rear, and surprised its great magazine at Cannas. The citadel of Caniue was a fortress of some strength ; this accordingly he occu- pied, and placed himself, on the very eve of harvest, between the Roman army and its expected resources, whilst he secured to himself all the corn of southern Apulia. It was only in such low and warm situations that the corn was nearly ready , the higher country, in tho immediate neighborhood of Apulia, is cold and backward ; and the Romans were under the necessity of receiving their supplies from a great distance, or else of retreating, or of offering battle. Under these circumstances the proconsuls sent to Rome, to ask what they were to do. The turning-point of this question lay in the disposition of th allies. We cannot doubt that Hannibal had been busy during the winter in sounding their feelings ; and now it appeared that, if Italy was to be ravaged by the enemy for a second summer, without resistance, their patience would endure no longer. The Roman government, there- fore, resolved to risk a battle ; but they sent orders to the proconsuls to wait till the consuls should join them with their newly-raised army ; for a battle buing resolved upon, the senate hoped to secure success by an. overwhelming superiority of numbers. We do not 38 LIFE OF HAKNIBAL. exactly know the proportion of the new levies to the old soldiers -, but when the two consuls arrived on the scene of action, and took the supreme commaud of the whole army, there were no fewer than eight Roman legions under their orders, with an equal force of allies ; so that the army opposed to Hannibal must have amounted to 90,000 men. It was evident that so great a multitude could not long be fed at a distance from its resources ; and thus a speedy engagement was ' inevitable. But the details of the movements, by which the two armies were brought in presence of each other, on the banks of the Aufidus, are not easy to discover. It appears that the Romans, till the arrival of the new consuls, had not ventured to follow Hannibal closely ; for, when they did follow%im, it took them two days' march to arrive in his neighborhood, where they encamped at about six miles' distance from him. They found him on the left bank of the Aufidus, about eight or nine miles from the sea, and busied, probably, in collecting the corn from the early district on the coast, the season being about the middle of June. The country here was so level and open, that the consul, L. ^Emilius, was unwilling to approach the enemy moise closely, but wished to take a position on the hilly ground farther from the sea, and to bring on the action there. But Varro, impatymt for battle, and having the supieme command of the whole army, alternately with ^Emilius every other day, decided the question irrevocably on the very next day, by interposing himself between the enemy and the sea, with his left resting on the Aufidxis, and his right communicating with the town of Salapia. From this position ^Emilius, when he again took the commaud in chief, found it impossible to withdraw. But availing himself of his great superiority in numbers, he threw a part of his army across the river, and posted them in a separate camp on the right bank, to have the supplies of the country, south of the Aufidus, at command, and to restrain the enemy's parties who might attempt to forage in that di- rection. When Hannibal saw Ihe Romans in this situation, he also advanced nearer to them, descending the left bank of the Aufidus, and encamped over against the main army of the enemy, with his right resting on the river. The next day, which, according to the Roman calendar, was the last of the month Quinctilis, or July, the Roman reckoning being six or seven weeks in advance of the true season, Hannibal was making his preparations for battle, and did not stir from his camp ; so that Varro, whose command it was, could not bring on an action. But on the 1st of Sextilis, or August, Hannibal, being now quite ready, drew out his army in front of his camp, and offered battle. ^Emilius, however, remained quiet, resolved not to right on such ground, and hoping that Hannibal would soon be obliged to fall back nearer the hills, when he found that he could no longer forage freely in the country near the nea. Hannibal, seeing that the enemy did'not move, marched back LIFE OF HAXXIBAL. 39 his infantry into his camp, but sent his Numidian cavalry across the river to attack the Romans on that side, as they were coming down in straggling parties to the bank to get water. For the Aufidus, though its bed is deep and wide to hold its winter floods, is a shallow or a narrow stream in summer, with many points easily fordable, not by horse only, but by infantry. Tii3 watering parties were driven iu with some loss, and t!ie Numidiaus followed them to the very gates of the camp, aad obliged the Romans, on the right bank, to pass the summer night in the burning Apulian plain without water. At daybreak on the next miming, the red ensign, which was the well-known signal for battle, was seen flying over Varro's head- quarters ; and he issued orders, it being his day of command, for the main army to cross the river, and form in order of battle on the right bank. Whether he had any further object in crossing to the right bank, than to enable the soldiers on that side to get water in security, we do not know ; but Hannibal, it seems, thought that the ground on either bank suited him equally ; and he, too, forded the stream at two separate points, and drew out his army opposite to the enemy. The strong town of Canusium was scarcely three miles olf in his rear ; he had left his camp on the other side of the river ; if he were defeated, escape seemed hopeless. But when he saw thy wide open plain around him, and looked at his numerous and irresistible cavalry, and knew that his infantry, however inferior iu numbers, were far better and older soldiers than the great mass of their oppo- nents, he felt that defeat was impossible. In this confidence his spirits were not cheerful merely, but even mirthful ; he rallied one of his officers jestingly, who noticed the overwhelming numbers of the Romans ; those near him laughed ; and as any feeling at such a mo- ment is contagious, the li'igh was echoed by others ; and the sol- diers, seeing their great general in such a mood, were satisfied that lie was sure of victory. The Carthaginian army faced the north, so that the early sun shone on their right flank, while the wind, which blew strong from the south, but without a drop of rain, swept its clouds of dust over their backs, and carried them full into the faces of the enemy. On their left, resting on the river, were the Spanish and Gaulish horse ; next in the line, but thrown back a little, were half of the African infantry armed like the Unmans ; on their right, somewhat in advance, were the Gauls and Spaniards, with their companies intermixed ; then caine the rest of the African foot, again thrown Iwck like their com- rades ; and on the right of the whole line were the Xumidian light horsemen. The right of the army rested, so far as appears, on noth- ing ; the ground was open and level ; but at some distance were hiUs overgrown -with copsewood, and furrowed with deep ravines, in which, according to one account of the battle, a body of horsemen and of light infantry lay in ambush. The rest of the light troops, and the Balearian slingers, skirmished as usual in front of the whole line 40 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. Meanwhile the masses of the Roman infantry were forming their line opposite. The sun on their left flashed obliquely en their brazen helmets, now uncovered for battle, and lit up the waving forest of their red and black plumes, which rose upright from their helmets a foot and a half high. They stood brandishing their formidable pila, covered with their long shields, and bearing on their right thigh their peculiar and fatal weapon, the heavy sword, fitted alike to cut and to stab. On the right of the line were the Roman legions ; on the left the infantry of the allies ; whilst between the Roman right and the river were the Roman horsemen, all of them of wealthy or noble families ; and on the left, opposed to the Numidians, were the horsemen of the Ital- ians and of the Latin name. The velites or light infantry covered the front, and were ready to skirmish with the light troops andsling- ers of the enemy. For some reason or other, which is not explained in any account of the battle, the Roman infantry were formed in columns rather than in line, the files of the maniples containing many more than thc'ir ranks. This seems an extraordinary tactic to be adopted in a plain by an army inferior in cavalry, but very superior in infantry. Whether the Romans relied on the river as a protection to their right flank, and their left was covered in some manner which is not men- tioned one account would lead us to suppose that it reached nearly to the sea or whether the great proportion of new levies obliged the Romans to adopt the system of the phalanx, and to place their raw soldiers in the rear, as incapable of fighting in the front ranks with Hannibal's veterans it appears at any rate that the Roman infantry, though nearly double the number of the enemy, yet formed a line of anly equal length with Hannibal's. The skirmishing of the light-armed troops preluded as usual to the battle ; the Balearian slingers slung their stones like hail into the ranks of the Roman line, and severely wounded the consul ^Emilius himself. Then the Spanish and Gaulish horse charged the Romans front to front, and maintained a standing fight with tlu-m, many leap- ing off their horses and fighting on foot, till the Romans, outnum- bered and badly armed, without cuirasses, with light and brittle spears, and with shields made only of ox-hide, weie totally routed, and driven off the field. Hasdrubal, who commanded the Gauls and Spaniards, followed up his work effectually ; he chased the Ro- mans along the river till he had almost destroyed them ; and then, riding off to the right, he came up to aid the Numidians, who, after their manner, had been skirmishing indecisively with the cavalry of the Italian allies. These, on seeing the Gauls and Spaniards advanc- ing, broke away and fled ; the Numidians, most effective in pursuing a flying enemy, chased them with unweariablc speed, and slaughtered them unsparingly ; while Hasdrubal, to complete his signal services on this day, charged fiercely upon the rear of the Roman infantry, LIFE OF HANNIBAL. 41 He found its huge masses already weltering in helpless confusion, crowded upon one another, totally disorganized, and fighting each man as he best could, but struggling on against all hope by mere in- d^omitable courage. For the Roman columns on the riglft and left, finding the Gaulish and Spanish foot advancing in a convex line or wedge, pressed forward to assail what seemed the flanks of the ene- my's column ; so that, being already drawn up with too narrow a front by their original formation, they now became compressed still more by their own movements, the right and left converging towards the centre, till the whole army became one dense column, which forced its way onward by the weight of its charge, and drove back the Gauls and Spaniards into the rear of their own line. Meanwhile its victorious advance had carried it, like the English column at Fontenoy, into the midst of Hannibal's army ; it had passed between the African infantry on its right and left ; and now, whilst its head was struggling against the Gauls and Spaniards, its long flanks were fiercely assailed by the Africans, who, facing about to the right and left, charged it home, and threw it into utter disorder. In this state, when they were forced together into one unwieldy crowd, and already falling by thousands, whilst the Gauls and Spaniards, now advancing in their turn, were barring further progress in front, and whilst the Africans were tearing their mass to pieces oil both flanks, Hasdrubal with his victorious Gaulish and Spanish horsemen broke with thundering fury upon their rear. Then followed a butchery such as has no recorded equal, except the slaughter of the Persians in their camp, when the Greeks forced it, after the battle of Plat sea. Unable to fight or fly, with no quarter asked or given, the Romans and Italians fell before the swords of their enemies, till, when the sun set upon the field, there were left out of that vast multitude no more than three thousand men alive and un wounded ; and these tied in straggling parties, under cover of the darkness, and found a refuge in the neighboring towns. The consul, ^Eniilius, the proconsul, Cn. Serviliuj, the late master of the -horse, M. Minucius, two quu-stors, twenty-one military tribunes, and eighty senators, lay dead amidst the carnage : Varro with seventy horsemen had escaped from the rout of the allied cavalry on the right of the army, and made his way safely to Venusia. But the Roman loss was not yet completed. A large force had been left in the camp on the left bank of the Aufidus, to attack Han- nibal's camp during the action, which it was supposed that, with his inferior numbers, he could not leave adequately guarded. But it was defended so obstinately, that the Romans were still besieging it in vain, when Hannibal, now completely victorious in the battle, crossed the river to its relief. Then the besiegers fled in their turn to their own camp, and there, cut off from all succor, they presently surren- dered. A few resolute men had forced their way out of the smaller camp on the right bank, and had escaped to Camisium : the rest whe 42 LIFE OF were in it followed the example of their comrade* on the left bank, and surrendered to the conqueror. Less than six thousand men of Hannibal's army had fallen : no greater price had he paid for the total destruction of more than eighty tnousund of the enemy, for the capture of their two camps, for the utter annihilation, as it seemed, of all their means for offensive war- fare. It is no wonder that the spirits of the Carthaginian officers were elated by this unequalled victory. Maharbal, seeing what his cavalry had done, said to Hannibal, " Let me advance instantly with the horse, and do thou follow to support me ; in four days from this time thou shalt sup in the capitol." There are moments when rash- ness is wisdom ; and it may be that this was one of them. The statue of the goddess Victory in the capitol may well have trembled in every limb on that day, and have drooped her wings, as if for- ever ; but Hannibal came not ; and if panic had for one moment un- nerved the iron courage of the Roman aristocracy, on the next their inborn spirit revived ; and their resolute will, striving beyond its pres- ent power, created, as is the law of our nature, the power which it required. The Romans, knowing that their army was in presence of the enemy, and that the consuls had been ordered no longer to decline a battle, were for some days iu the most intense anxiety. Every tongue was repeating some line of old prophecy, or relating some new wonder or portent ; every temple was crowded with supplicants ; and in- cense and sacrifices were offered on every altar. At last the tidings arrived of the utter destruction df both the consular armies, and of a slaughter such as Rome had never before known. Even Livy felt himself unable adequately to paint the grief and consternation of that day ; and the experience of the bloodiest and most embittered war- fare of modern times would not help us to conceive it worthily. But one simple fact speaks eloquently ; the whole number of Roman citi- zens able to bear arms had amounted at the last census to 270,000 ; and supposing, as we fairly may, that the loss of the Romaift in the late battle had been equal to that of their allies, there must have been killed or taken, within the last eighteen months, no fewer than (50,000, or more than a fifth part of the whole population of citizens above seventeen years of age. It must have been true, without exag- geration, that every house in Rome .was in mourning. The two home prffitors summoned the senate to consult for the de- fence of the city. Fabius was no longer dictator ; yet the supreme government at this moment was effectually in his hands ; for the res- olutions which he moved were instantly and unanimously adopted. Light horsemen were to be sent out to gather tidings of the enemy's movements ; the members of the senate, acting as magistrates, were to keep order in the city, to stop all loud or public lamentations, and to take care that all intelligence was conveyed in the first instance to the pra'tors : above all, the city gates were to be strictly guarded LIFE OF HANNIBAL. 43 that 110 one might attempt to fly from Rome, but all abide the com- mon danger together. Then the forum was cleared, and the assem- blies of the people suspended ; for at such a moment, had any one tribune uttered the word "peace," the tribes would have caught it up with eagerness, and obliged the senate to negotiate. Thus the first moments of panic passed ; and Varro's dispatches arrived, informing the senate that he had rallied the wrecks of the army at Canusium, and that Hannibal was not advancing upon Home. Hope then began to revive ; the meetings of the senate were resumed, and measures taken for maintaining the war. M. Marcellus, one of the praetors for the year, was at this moment at Ostia, preparing to sail to Sicily. It was resolved to transfer him at once to the great scene of action in Apulia ; and he was ordered to give up the fleet to his colleague, P. Furius Philu, and to march with the single legion, which he had under his command, into Apu- lia, there to collect the remains of Varro's army, and to fall back, as he best could, into Campania, whilst the consul returned immediately to Rome. In the mean time, the scene at Canusium was like the disorder of a ship going to pieces, when fear makes men desperate, and the in- stinct of self -preservation swallows up every other feeling. Some young men of the noblest families, a Metullus being at the head of them, looking upon Rome as lost, were planning to escape from the ruin, and to fly be3 r ond sea, in the hope of entering into somo foreign service, riuch an example, at such a moment, would have led the way to a general panic : if the noblest citizens of Rome de- spaired of their country, what allied state, or what colony, could l>f expected to sacrifice themselves in defence of a hopeless cause ? The consul exerted himself to the utmost to check this spirit, and, aided by some firmer spirits amongst,.the officers themselves, he succeeded in repressing it. He kept his men together, gave them over to the praetor, Marcellus, on his arrival at Canusium, and prepared instantly to obey the orders of the senate, by returning to Rome. The fate of P. Claudius and L. Junius, in the last war, might have warned him of the dangers which threatened a defeated general ; he himself was personally hateful to the prevailing party at Rome ; and if the mem- ory of Flaminius was persecuted, notwithstanding his glorious death, what could he look for, a fugitive general from that field, where his colleague and all his soldiers had perished ? Demosthenes dared not trust himself to the Athenian people after his defeat in ^Etolia ; but Varro, with a manlier spirit, returned to bear the obloquy and the punishment which the popular feeling, excited by party animosity, was so likely to heap on him. lie stopped, as usual, without tho city walls, and summoned the senate to meet him in the Campui Martins. The senate felt his confidence in them, and answered it nobly. ATI party feeling wove suspended ; all popular irritation was subdued ; i4 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. the butcher's son, the turbxilent demagogue, the defeated general, were all forgotten ; only Varro's latest conduct was remembered, that he had resisted the panic of his officers, and, instead of seeking shelter at the court of a foreign king, had submitted himself to the judgment of his countrymen. The senate voted him their thanks, " because he had not despaired of the commonwealth." It was resolved to name a dictator ; and some writers related that ]he general voice of the senate and people offered the dictatorship to Varro himself, but that he positively refused to accept it. This story is extremely doubtful ; but the dictator actually named was 31. Junius Pisa, a member of a popular family, and who had himself been consul and censor. His master of the horse was T. Sempro- nius Gracchus, the first of that noble, but ill fated, name who ap- pears in the Roman annals. Already, before the appointment of the dictator, the Roman gov- ernment had shown that its resolution was fixed to carry on the war to the death. Hannibal had allowed his Roman prisoners to send ten of their number to Rome, to petition that the senate would permit the whole body to be ransomed by their friends at the sum of thrc-fc minae, or 8000 ases, for each prisoner. But the senate absolutely for bade the money -to be paid, neither choosing to furnish Hannibal with so large a sum, nor to show any compassion to men who had allowed themselves to fall alive into the enemy's hands. The prison- ers, therefore, were left in hopeless captivity ; and the armies, which the state required, were to be formed out of other materials. The expedients adopted showed the urgency of the clanger. When the consuls took the field at the beginning of the campaign, two legions had been left, as usual, to cover the capital. These were now to be employed in active service, and with them was a small de- tachment of troops which had beendrawn from Picenum and the neighborhood of Ariminum, where their services were become of less importance. The contingents from the allies were not ready, and there was no time to wait for them. In order, therefore, to en- able the dictator to take the field immediately, eight thousand slaws were enlisted, having expressed their willingness to serve, and arms were provided, by- taking down from the temple the spoils won in former wars. The dictator went still further : he offered pardon to criminals, and release to debtors, if they were willing to take up arms ; and amongst the former class were some bands of robbers, who then, as in later times, infested the mountains, and who con- sented to serve the state, on receiving an indemnity for their past offences. With this strange force, amounting, it is said, to about 25,000 men, M. Junius. marched into Campania, whilst a new levy of the oldest and youngest citizens supplied two new legions for the de- fence of the capital, in the place of those which followed the dictator into the field. M. Junius fixed his headquarters at Teanum, on hjgh ground, upon the edge of the Falernian plain, with the Latin tIFE OF HANNIBAL. 45 colony of Cales in his front, and communicating by the Latin road with Rome. The dictator was at Teanum, and M. Marcellus, with the army of Cannae, whom we left in Apulia, is described as now lying encamped above Suessula that is, on the right bank of the Vulturnus, on the hills which bound the Campanian plain, ten or twelve miles to the east of Capua, on the right of the Appian road as it ascends the pass of Caudium towards Beneventum. Thus we find the seat of war re- moved from Apulia to Campania ; but the detail of the intermediate movements is lost ; and we must restore the broken story as well as we can, by tracing Hannibal's operations after the battle of Cannae, which are undoubtedly the key to those of his enemies. The fidelity of the allies of Rome, which had not been shaken by the defeat of Thrasymenus, could not resist the fiery trial of Canme. The Apulians joined the conqueror immediately, and Arpi and Sala- pia opened their gates to him. Brultium. Lucania and Samnium were ready to follow the example, and Hannibal was obliged to divide his army, and send officers into different parts of the country, to receive and protect those who wished to join him, and to orgaai/.e their forces for effective co-operation in the field. Mean while he himself remained in Apulia, not, perhaps, without hope that this last blow had broken the spirit as well as the power of the enemy, and that they would listen readily to proposals of peace. With this view, he sent a Carthaginian officer to accompany the deputation of the Roman prisoners to Rome, and ordered him to encourage any dispo- sition on the part of the Romans to open a negotiation. When he found, therefore, on the return of the deputies, that his officers had not been allowed to enter the city, and that the Romans had refused to ransom their prisoners, his disappointment betrayed him into acts of the most inhuman cruelty. The mass of the prisoners left in his hands, he sold for slaves ; and, so far, he did not overstep the recog- nized laws of warfare ; but many of the more distinguished among them he put to death ; aiivl those who were senators, he obliged to fight as gladiators with each other, in the presence of his whole army. It is added that brothers were in some instances brought out to fight with their brothers, and sons with their fathers ; but that the prisoners refused so to sin against nature, and chose rather to suffer the worst torments than to draw their swords in such horrible corn- oats.* Hannibal's vow may have justified all these cruelties in his * Diodorus, XXVI. Exc. de Virtut. et Vitiis. Appian, VII. 28. Zonara*, IX. 2. Valerius Maxiiuus, IX. 2, Ext. 2. But as even Livy doc* not mention these stories, though they would have afforded such a topic for his rhetoric nor does Polyblus, either in IX. 24, when speaking of Hannibal's alleged cruelty, or iu VI. 58, where he gives the account of the mission of the captives, there must, doubtless, be a great deal of exaggeration in them, even if they had any foundation at all. The story in Pliny, Vill. 7, that the last survivor of these gjadiatorial combats had to light against an elephant, and killed him, and was then treacherously waylaid and murdered by Hannibal's orders, was prebubly invented with reference to this very 46 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. eyes ; but his passions deceived him, and he was prcvoKed to fury by the resolute spirit which ought to have excited his admiration. T& admire the virtue which thwarts our dearest purposes, however natu, rsil it may seem to indifferent spectators, is one of the hardest trials of humanity. Finding the Romans immovable, Hannibal broke up from his posi- tion in Apulia, and moved into Samnium. The populai party in Compsa opened their gates to him, and he made the place serve as a depot for his plunder, and for the heavy baggage of his army. His brother Mago was then ordered to march into Bruttium with a divi- sion of the army, and after having received the submission of the Hirpinians on his way to embark at One of the Eruttian porta and carry the tidings of his success to Carthage. Hanno, with another division, was sent into Lucania to protect the revolt of the Luca- nians, whilst Hannibal himself, in pursuit of a still greater prize, de- scended once more into the plains of Campania. The Pentrian Sam- nites, partly restrained by the Latin colony of (Esernia, and partly by the influence of their own countryman, Num. Decimius, of Boviauum, a zealous supporter of the Roman alliance, remained firm in their adherence to Rome ; but the Hirpinians and the Caudiniuii Hanmites all joined the Carthaginians, and their soldiers, no doubt, formed part of the army with which Hannibal invaded Campania. There, all was ready for his reception. The popular party in Capua were headed by Pacuvius Calavius, a man of the highest nobility, and married to a daughter of Appius Claudius, but whose ambition led him to aspire to the sovereignty, not of his own country only, but, through Hannibal's aid, 'of the whole of Italy, Capua succeed- ing, as he hoped, to the supremacy now enjoyed by Rome. The aristocratical party were weak and^unpopular, and could otter no op- position to him, whilst the people, wholly subject to his influence, concluded a treaty with Hannibal, and admitted the Carthaginian general and his army into the city. Thus the second city in Italy, capable, it is said, of raising an army of 30,000 foot and 4000 horse, connected with Rome by the closest ties, and which for nearly a cen- tury had remained true to its alliance under all dangers, threw itself into the arms of. Hannibal, and took its place at the head of the new coalition of southern Italy, to try the old quarrel of the Samnite wars once again. Tliis revolt of Capua, the greatest result, short of the submission of Rome itself, which could have followed from the battle of Cannae, drew the Roman armies towards Campania. Marcellus had probably fallen back from Cauusium by the Appian road through Beneven- tum, moving by an interior and shorter line ; whilst Hannibal ad- oc( union. Tin- remark* of Polybius should make ns slow to believe the stories of HannlhaTe cruelties, which HO soon became a theme for the invention of poets and rhetoricians. LIFE OF HANNIBAL. 4? vanced by Compsa upon Abellinum, descending into the plain of Campania by what is now the pass of Monteforte. Hannibal's cav- alry gave him the whole command of the country ; and Marcellus could do no more than watch his movements from his camp above Suessula, and wait for some opportunity of impeding his operations in detail. At this point in the story of the war, the question arises, how was it possible for Rome to escape destruction? Nor is this question merely prompted by the thought of Hannibal's great victories in the field, and the enormous slaughter of Roman citizens at Thrasymenua and Cannae ; it appears even more perplexing to those who have at- tentively studied the preceding history of Rome. A single battle, evenly contested and hardly won, had enabled Pyrrhus to advance into the heart of Latium ; the Hernican cities and the impregnable Prseneste had opened their gates to him ; yet Capua was then faithful to Rome ; and Samuium and Lucania, exhausted by long years of unsuccessful warfare, could have yielded him no such succor as now, after fifty years of peace, they were able to afford to Hannibal. But now, when Hannibal was received into Capua, the state of Italy seemed to have gone backward a hun- dred years, and to have returned to what it had been after the battle of Lautuloe, in the second Samnite war, with the immense ad- dition of the genius of Hannibal and the power of Carthage thrown into the scale of the enemies of Rome. Then, as now, Capua had revolted, and Campania, Samnium and Lucania, were banded to- gether against Rome ; but this same confederacy was now supported by all the resources of Carthage : and at its head in the field of bat- tle was an army of thirty thousand veterans and victorious soldiers, led by one cf the grestest generals whom tire world has ever seen. How could it happen that a confederacy so formidable was only formed to be defeated V that the revolt of Capua was the term of Hannibal's progress '? that from this day forward his great powers were shown rather in repelling defeat than in commanding victory ? that, instead of besieging Rome, he was soon employed in protect- ing and relieving Capua '! and that his protection and succors were alike unavailing '! No single cause will explain a result so extraordinary. Rome owed her deliverance principally to the strength of the aristocratical interest throughout Italy to her numerous colonies of the Latin name to the scanty numbers of Hannibal's Africas and Spaniards, and to his want of an efficient artillery. The material of a good artil- lery must surely have existed in Capua ; but there seem to have been no officers capable of directing it ; and no great general's operations exhibits so striking a contrast of strength and weakness as may l>e seen in Hannibal's battles and sieges. And when Cannre had taught the Romans to avoid pitched battles in the open field, the war became necessarily a series of sieges, where Hannibal's strongest arm, his tf HFE OF HAKKIBAt. cavalry, could render little service, while his infantry was in quality not more than equal to the enemy, and his artillery was decidedly inferior. With two divisions of his army absent in Lucania and Brut- tiuin, and whilst anxiously waiting for the reinforcements which Mago was to procure from Carthage, Hannibal could not undertake any great offensive operation after his arrival in Campania. He at- tempted only to reduce the remaining cities of the Campanian plain and sea-coast, and especially to dislodge tho Romans from Casilinum, fcrhich, lying within three miles of Capua, and commanding the pas- sage of the Vulturnus, not onlji restrained all his movements, but was a serious annoyance to Capua, and threatened its territory with con- tinual incursions. Atilla and Calatia had revolted to him already with Capua ; and he took Nuceria, Alfaterna, and Acerrae. The Greek cities on the coast, Neopolis and Cumse, were firmly attached to Rome, and were too strong to be besieged with success ; but Nola lay in the midst of the plain nearly midway between Capiiu and Nuceria ; and the popular party there, as elsewhere, were ready to open their gates to Hannibal. He was preparing to appear before the town ; but the aristocracy had time to apprise the Romans of their danger ; and Marcellus, who was then at Casilinum, marched round behind the mountains to escape the enemy's notice, and de- scended suddenly upon Nola from the hills which rise directly above it. He secured the place, repressed the popular party by some bloody executions, and when Hannibal advanced to the walls, made a sudden sally, and repulsed him with some loss. Having done this service, and left the aristocratical party in absolute possession of the government, he returned again to the hills, and lay encamped on the edge of the mountain boundary of the Campanian plain, just above the entrance of the famous pass of Caudium. His place at Casili- num was to be supplied by the dictator's army from Tearmm ; but Hannibal watched his opportunity, and anticipating his enemies this time, laid regular siege to Casilinum, which was defended by a gar- rison of about 1000 men. This garrison had acted the very same part towards the citizens of Casilinum which the Campanians had acted at Rhegium in the war with Pyrrhus. About 500 Latins of Prameste, and 450 Etruscans of Perusia, having been levied too late to join the consular armies when they took the field, were marching after them into Apulia, by the Appian road, when they heard tidings of the defeat of Cannae. They immediately turned about, and fell back upon Casilinum, where they established themselves, and for their better security massacred the Campanian inhabitants, and, abandoning the quarter of the town which was on the left bank of the Vulturnus, occupied the quarter. on the right bank. Marcellus, when he retreated from Apulia with the wreck of V arm's army, had fixed his headquarters for a time at Caailiuuin , the position being one of great importance, and there being LIFE OF HANNIBAL. 49 some danger lest the garrison, whilst they kept off Hannibal, should resolve to hold the town for themselves 'rat her than for the Romans. They were now left to themselves ; and dreading Hannibal's ven- geance for the massacre of the old inhabitants, they resisted his assault* desperately, and obliged him to turn the siege into a blockade. This was the last active operation of the campaign : all the armies now went into winter quarters. The dictator remained at Teanum ; Mar- cellus lay in his mountain camp above Nola ; and Hannibal's army was at Capua. Being quartered in the houses of the city, instead of being encamped by themselves, their discipline, it is likely, was somewhat impaired by the various temptations thrown in their way : and as the wealth and enjoyments of Capua at that time were noto- rious, the writers who adopted the vulgar declamations against lux- ury pretended that Hannibal's army was ruined by the indulgences of this winter, and that Capua was the Cannae of Carthage. Meantime the news of the battle of Cannae had been carried to Carthage, as we have seen, by Hannibal's brother Mago, accompa- nied with a request for reinforcements. Nearly two years before, when he first descended from the Alps into Cisalpine Gaid, his Afri- cans and Spaniards were reduced to no more than 20,000 foot and GOOD horse. The Gauls, who had joined him since, had indeed more than doubled this number at first ; but three great battles, and many partial actions, besides the unavoidable losses from sickness during two years of active service, must have again greatly diminished it ; and this force was now to be divided* a part of it was employed in Bruttium, a part in Lucania, leaving an inconsiderable body under Hannibal's own command. Oa the other hand, the accession of the Campanians, Samnites, Lucanians, and Bruttians supplied him with auxiliary troops in abundance, and of excellent quality ; so that largo reinforcements from home were not required, but only enough for the Africans to form a substantial part of every army employed in the field, and, above all, to maintain his superiority in cavalry. It is said that some of the reinforcements which were voted on .Mago's de- mand were afterwards diverted to other services ; and we do ir>t know what was the amount of force actually sent over to Italy, nor when it arrived.* It consisted chiefly, if not entirely, of cavalry and eleplumts ; for all the elephants which Hannibal had brought with him into Italy had long siuce perished; and his anxiety to obtain others, troublesome and hazardous as it must have been to transport, them from Africa by sea, speaks strongly in favor of their use in war, which modern writers are perhaps too much inclined to depre- ciate. We have no information as to the feelings entertained by I Cannibal and the Campanians towards each other, whilst the Carthaginians * He is represented as having elephants at the siege of Casijinum. Livy, XXIIL 18. If this be correct, the reinforcements must already have joined hint 50 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. were wintering in Capua. The treaty of alliance had provided care- fully for the independence of the Campanians, that they might not be treated as Pyrrhus had treated the Tarentines. Capua was to have its own laws and magistrates ; no Campauian was to be com- pelled to any duty, civil or military, nor to be in any way subject to the authority of the Carthaginian officers. There must have been something of a Roman party opposed to the alliance with Carthage altogether ; though the Roman writers mention one man ouly, Pecius jMagius, who was said to have resisted Hannibal to his face with such vehemence that Hannibal sent him prisoner to Carthage. But three hundred Campanian horsemen of the richer classes, who were serv- ing in the Roman army in Sicily when Capua revolted, wont to Rome as soon as their service was over, and were there received as Roman citizens ; and others, though unable to resist the general voice of their countrymen, must have longed in their hearts to return to the Roman alliance. Of the leaders of the Campanian people, we know little : Pacuvius Calavius, the principal author of the revolt, is never mentioned afterwards ; nor do we know the fate of his son Pcrolla, who, in his zeal for Rome, wished to assassinate Hannibal at his own father's table, when he made his public entrance into Capua. Yibius Virrius is also named as a leading partisan of the Carthaginians ; and amidst the pictures of the luxury and feebleness of the Campanians, their cavalry, which was formed entirely out of the wealthiest classes, is allowed to have been excellent ; and one brave and piac- tised soldier, Jubellius Taurea, had acquired a high reputation amongst the Romans when he served with them, and had attracted the notice and respect of Hannibal. During tUo interval from active warfare afforded by the winter, the Romans took measures for filling up the numerous vacancies which the lapse of five years, and so many disastrous battles, had made in the numbers of the senate. The natural course would have been to elect censors, to whom the duty of making out the roll of the senate properly belonged ; but the vacancies were so many, find the censor's power in admitting new citizens, and degrading old ones, Avas so enormous, that the senate feared, it seems, to trust to the re- sult of an ordinary election ; and resolved that the censor's business should be performed by the oldest man in point of standing, of all those who had already been ccnsois, and that he should be appointed dictator for this especial duly, although there was one dictator already for the conduct of the war. The person thus selected was M. Fabius Buteo, who had been censor six-and-twenty years before. at the end of the first Punic war, and who had more recently been Ute chief of the embassy sent to declare war on Carthage after the destruction of Saguntum. That his appointment might want no legal formality, C. Varro, the only surviving consul, was sent for home from Apulia 'to nominate him, the senate intending to detain Varro in Rome till he should have presided at the comitia for the LIFE OF H.VNNIBAL. 51 election of the next year's magistrates. The nomination as usual t'iok place at midnight ; and on the following morning M. Fabius appeared in tin; forum with his four-and-tweuty lie-tors, and ascended the rostra to address tlie people. Invested with absolute power for six months, and especially charged with no les* a task than the for- mation, at his discretion, of that great council which possessed the supreme government of the commonwealth, the noble old man neither shrunk weakly from so heavy a burden, nor ambitiously abused so vast an authority. He told the people that he would n i strike off the name of a single senator from the list of the senate, and that, in filling up the vacancies, he would proceed by a de-lined rule ; tliat he would first a Id all those who had held curule offices within the last five years, without having been admitted as yet into the sen- ate ; that, in the second place, he would take all who within the sunn: period had been tribunes, aedilcs, or quaestors ; and, thirdly, all those who could show in their houses spoils won in battle from an enemy, or who had received the wreath of oak for saving the life of a dti/.eu in battle. In this manner 177 new senators were placed on the roll ; the new members thus forming a large majority of the whole number of the senate, which amounted to only three hundred. This being done forthwith, the dictator, as he stood in the rostra, resigned bis office, dismissed his lictors, anel went down into the forum a private man. There he purposely lingered amidst the crowd, lest the people should leave their business to follow him home ; but their admiration was not cooled by this delay ; and when he withdrew at, the usual hour, the whole people attended him to his house. Such was Fabius Jiuteo's dictatorship, so w r isely fulfilled, so simply and nobly re- signed, that the dictatorship of Fabius Maximus himself has earned no purer glory. Varro, it is said, not wishing to be detained in Rome, returned t > his army the next night, without giving the senate notice of his de- parture. The dictator, M. Junjus. was therefore requested to repair to Rome to hold the comitia ; and Ti. Gracchus and M. Marcellus were to come with him to report on the state of their several armies, and concert measures for the ensuing campaign. There is no doubt that the senate determined on the persons to be proposed at the ensu- ing elections, and that, if any one else had come forward as a candi- date, the dictator who presided would have refused to receive votes for him. Accordingly the consuls and praetors chosen were all men of the highest reputation for ability and experience : the consuls werw L. Postumius, whose defeat and death in Cisalpine Gau! were not yet known in Rome, and Ti. Gracchus, now master of the horse. The praetors were M. Valerius La-viuus, Ap. Claudius Pulcher, a grand- son of the famous censor, Appius the blind, Q. Fulvius Flaccus, old in years, but vigorous in mrnd and body, who had already been cen- sor, and twice consul, and Q. Mucius iSaevola. When the death of L. Postumius was known, his place was finally filled by no less iv 62 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. person than Q. Fabius Maximus : whilst Marcellus was still to retain his command with proconsular power, as his activity and energy could ill be spared at a time so critical. The officers for the year being thus appointed, it remained to de- termine their several provinces, and to provide them with sufficient forces. Fabius was to succeed to the army of the dictator, M. Juni- us ; and his headquarters were advanced from Teanum to Cales, at the northern extremity of the Falernian plain, about seven English miles from Casilinum and the Vultiirnus, and less than ten from Capua. The other consul, Ti Sempronius, was to have no other Roman army than two legions of volunteer slaves, who were to be raised for the occasion ; but both he and his colleague had the usual contingent of L\tin and Italian allies. Gracchus named Sinuessa on the Appian road, at the point where the Massic hills run out with a bold headland into the sea, as the place of meeting for his soldiers ; and his business was to protect the towns on the coast, which were still faithful to Rome, such as Cuma and Neapolis. Marcellus was to command two new Roman legions, and to lie as before in his camp above Nola ; whilst his old army was sent into Sicily to relieve the legions there, and enable them to return to Italy, where they fonncd a fourth army under the command of M. Valerius Laevinus, the pne- tor peregrinus, in Apulia. The small force which Vano had com- manded in Apulia was ordered to Tareutum, to add to the strength of that important place ; whilst ^arro himself was sefit with procon- sular power into Picenum, to raise soldiers, and to watch the road along the Adriatic by which the Gauls might have sent reinforce- ments to Hannibal. Q. Fulvius Flaccus, the praetor urhanus, re- mained at Rome to conduct the government, and had no other mili- tary command than that of a small fleet for the defence of the coast on both sides of the Tiber. Of the other two praetors, Ap. Claudius was to command in Sicily, and Q. Mucius in Sardinia ; and P. Scipio as proconsul still commanded his old army of two legions in Spain. On the whole, including the volunteer slaves, there appeared to have been fourteen Roman legions in active service at the beginning of the year 589, without reckoning the soldiers who served in the fleets ; and of these fourteen legions, nine were employed in Italy. If we suppose that the Latin and Italian allies bore their usual proportion to the number of Roman soldiers in each army, we shall have a total of 140,000 men, thus divided : 20,000 in Spain, and the same number in Sicily ; 10,000 in Sardinia ; 20,000 under each of the consuls ; 20,000 with Marcellus ; 20,000 under Laevinus in Apulia ; and 10,000 in Tarentum. Seventy thousand men were thus in arms, besides the seamen, out of a population of citizens which at the last census before the war had amounted only to 270,213, and which had since been thinned by so many disastrous battles. Nor was the drain on the finances of Borne less extraordinary. The legions in the provinces had indeed LIFE OF HAK-JTIBAL. 5g been left to their own resources as to money ; but the nine legions serving in Italy must have been paid regularly ; for war could not there be made to support war ; and if the Romans had been left to live at free quarters upon their Italian allies, they would have driven them to join Hannibal in mere self-defence. Yet the legions in Italy cost the government in pay, food, and clothing, at the rate of 541,800 denarii a month ; and as they were kept on service throughout the year, the annual expense was 6,501,600 denarii, or in Greek money, reckoning the denarius as equal to the drachma, 1083 Euboic talents. To meet these enormous demands on the treasury, the government resorted to the simple expedient of doubling the year's taxes, and calling at once for the payment of one half of this amount, leaving the other to be paid at the end of the year. It was a struggle for life and death ; and the people were in a mood to refuse no sacrifices, however costly : but the war must have cut off so many sources of wealth, and agriculture itself must have so suffered from the calling away of so many hands from the cultivation of the land, that we wonder how the money could be found, and how many of the poorer citizens' families could be provided with daily bread. In addition to the five regular armies which the Romans brought into the field in Italy, an irregular warfare was also going on, we know not to what extent ; and bands of peasants and slaves were armed in many parts of the country to act against the revolted Ital- ians, and to ravage their territory. For instance, a great tract of for- est in Bruttium, as we have seen, was the domain of the Roman peo- ple ; this would be farmed like all the other revenues ; and the pub- licani who farmed it, or the wealthy citizens who turned out cattle to pasture in it, would have large bodies of slaves employed as shep- herds, herdsmen, and woodsmen, who, when the Bruttian towns on the coast revolted, would at once foim a guerilla force capable of do- ing them great mischief. And lastly, besides all these forces, regular and irregular, the Romans still held most of the principal towns m the south of Italy ; because they had long since converted them into Latin colonies. Brundisium on the Ionian sea, Faestum on the eoa-t of Lucuuia, Luceria, Venusia, and Veneventum in the interior, \\eie all so many strong fortresses, garrisoned by soldiers of the Latin name, in the very heart of the revolted districts; whilst the Greek cities of Cumfc and Neapolis in Campania, and Rhegium on Hie Straits of Messina, were held for Rome by their own citi/ens with a devotion no way inferior to that of the Latin colonies themselves. Against this mass of enemies, the moment that they had learned to use their strength, Hannibal, even within six months after the bat- tle of Cannae, was already contending at a disadvantage. We havu seen that he detached two officers with two divisions of his army, one into Lucania, the other into Bruttium, to encourage the revolt of those countries, and then to orgaui/o their resources in men and money for the advancement of the common cause. Most of the 4 LIFE 01' ifANNili.vL Bruttiaus took up arms immediately as Hannibal's allies, aud put themselves under the command of his officer, Himilcon ; but Petelia, one of their cities, was for some reason or other inflexible in its de- votion to Rome, and endured a siege of eleven months, suffering all extremities of famine before it surrendered. Thus Himilc-on must have been still engaged in besieging it long after the campaign was opened in the neighborhood of Capua. The Sarnuites also had taken up arms, and apparently were attached to Hannibal's own army : the return of their whole population of the military age, made ten years before during the Gaulish invasion, had stated it at 70,000 foot, and 7000 horse ; but the Pentrians, the most powerful tribe of their nation, were still faithful to Rome ; and the Samnites, like the Romans themselves, had been thinned by the slaughter of Thrasy- menus and Cannae, which they had ehared^as their allies. It is vexa- tious that we have no statement of the'amount of Hannibal's old army, any more than of the allies who joined him, at any period of the war later than the battle of Cannse'. His reinforcements from home, as we have seen, were very trifling ; while his two divisions in Lueania and Bruttium, and the garrisons which he had been obliged to leave in some of the revolted towns, as, for example, at Arpi in Apulia, must have considerably lessened the force under his own personal command. Yet, with the accession of the Samnites and Campanians, it was probably much stronger than any one of the Roman armies opposed to him ; quite as strong indeed, in all likeli- hood, as was consistent with the possibility of feeding it. Before the winter was over, Casilinum fell. The garrison had made a valiant defence, and yielded at last to famine : they were al- lowed to ransom themselves by paying each man seven ounces of gold for his life and liberty. The plunder which they had won from the old inhabitants enabled them to discharge this large; sum ; and they were then allowed to march out unhurt, and retire to Cuma 1 . Casilinum again became a Campanian town ; but its important posi- tion, at once covering Capua, and securing a passage over the Vul- turous, induced Hannibal to garrison it with seven hundred soldiers of his own army. The season for active operations was now arrived. The three Roman armies of Fabius, Gracchus, and Marcellus, had taken up their positions round Campania ; and Hannibal marched out of Capua, and encamped his army on the mountain above it, on that same Tifata where the Samnites had so often taken post in old times when they were preparing to invade the Campanian plain. Tifata did not then exhibit that bare and parched appearance which it lias now ; the soil, which has accumulated in the plain below, so as to have risen several feet above its ancient level, has been washed down in the course of centuries, and after the destruction of its protecting woods, from the neighboring mountains ; and Tifata in Hannibal's time furnished grass in abundance for his cattle in its numerous lil?E OF HAXXIBAL. 55 glades, and offered cool and healthy summer quarters for his men. There he lay waiting- for some opportunity of striking a blow against his enemies around him, and eagerly watching the'progress of his intrigues -with the Tarentines, and his negotiations with the king of Mactidon. A party at Tarentum began to open a correspondence with him immediately after the battle of Cauna' ; and since lie had been in Campaniajie had received an embassy from Philip, king of Macedon, and had concluded an alliance, offensive and defensive, with the ambassadors, who acted witli full powers in their master's name. Such were his prospects on one side, whilst, if he looked west- ward and southwest, he saw Sardinia in open revolt against Rome ; and in Sicily the death of Hiero at the age of ninety,^and the succcs -ion of his grandson llieronymus, an ambitious and inexperienced youth, were detaching Syracuse also from the Roman alliance. Hannibal had already received an embassy from Hieronymus, to which he h;id replied by sending a Carthaginian officer of his own name to Sicily, and two Syracuwin brothers, Hippocrates and Epicydes, who had long served with him in Italy and in Spain, being in fact Cartha- ginians by their toother's side, and having become iiatnrali/ed at Carthage, since Agathocles had banished their grandfather, and their father had married and settled in his place of exile. Thus the cllcct of the battle of Cannae seemed to be shaking the whole fabric of the Roman dominion ; their provinces were revolting ; their firmest allies were deserting them ; whilst the king of Macedon himself, the suc- cessor of Alexander, was throwing the weight of his power, and of all his acquired and inherited glory, into the scale of their enemies. Seeing the fruit of his work thus fast ripening, Hannibal sat quietly on the summit of Tifata, to break forth like the lightning flash when the storm should be fully gathered. Thus the summer of 539 was like a breathing-time, in which both parties were looking at each other, and considering each other's re- sources, whilst they were recovering strength after their past efforts, and preparing for a renewal of the struggle. Fahius, with the authority of the senate, issued an order, calling on the inhabitants of all the country which either actually was, or was likely to become, the seat of war, to clear their corn off the ground, and carry it into the fortified cities, before the first of June, threatening to lay waste the land, to sell the slaves, and burn the farm buildings, of any one who should disobey the order. In the utter confusion of the Roman calendar at this period, it is difficult to know whether in any given year it was in advance of the true time or behind it ; so that \ve can scarcely tell whether the corn was only to begot in when ri|u- without needless delay, or whether it was to be cut when green, lest Hannibal should use it as forage for his cavalry. But at any rate Fabius was now repeating the system which he bad laid down in his dictatorship, and hoped by wasting the country to oblige Hannibal to retreat ; for his means of transport were not sufficient for him to feed 5ft LIFE OF HAKNIBAL. his army from a distance : lience, when the resources ia his imme- diate neighborhood were exhausted, he was obliged 1o move else- where. Meanwhile Gracchus had crossed the Vulturnus near its mouth, and was now at Liternum, busily employed in exercising and train- ing his heterogeneous army. The several Campanian cities were ac- customed to hold a joint festival every year at a place called Hamae, only three miles from Cumae. These festivals were seasons of gen- eral truce, so that the citizens even of hostile nations met at them safely : the government of Capua announced to the Cumaeans, that their chief magistrate and all their senators would appear at Hameu as usual on the day of the solemnity ; and they invited the senate of Cumae to meet them. At the same time they said that an armed force would be present to repel any interruption from the Romans. The Cumaeans informed Gracchus of this ; and he attacked the Capuaus in the night, when they were in such perfect security that they had not even fortified a camp, but were sleeping in the open country, and massacred about 2000 of them, among whom was Marius Alfius, the supreme magistrate of Capua. The Romans charge the Capuans with having meditated treachery against the Cumaeans, and say that they were caught in their own snare ; but this could only be a sus- picion, whilst the o^ert acts of violence were their own. Hannibal no sooner heard of this disaster, then he descended from Tifata, and hastened to Hamae, in the hope of provoking the enemy to battle in the confidence of their late success. But Gracchus was too wary to be so tempted, and had retreated in good time to Cumae, where he lay safe within the walls of the town. It is said that Hannibal, having supplied himself with all things necessary for a siege, attacked the place iu form, and was repulsed with loss, so that he returned de- feated to his camp at Tifata. A consular army defending the walls of a fortified town was not indeed likely to be beaten in an assault ; and neither could a maritime town, with the sea open, be easily starved ; nor could Hannibal linger before it safely, as Fabius, with a second consular army, was preparing to cross the Vulturnus. Casilinum being held by the enemy, Fabius was obliged to cross at a higher point behind the mountains, nearly opposite to Ailifae ; and he then descended the left bank to the confluence of the Calor with the Vulturnus, crossed the Calor, and passing between Taburnus and the mountains above Caserta and Maddaloni, stormed the town of Suti- cula, and joined Marcellus in his camp above Suessula. He was again anxious for Kola, where the popular party were said to be still plotting the surrender of the lown to Hannibal : to stop this mischief , he sent Marcellus with his whole army to garrison Nola, whilst he himself took his place in the camp above Suessula. Gracchus on his side advanced from Cumae towards Capua; so that three Roman armies, amounting in all to about sixty thousand men, were on the left bank of the Vulturnus together ;"and all, so far as appears, in LIFE OF HANNIBAL. 57 free communication with each other. They availed themselves of their numbers and of their position, to send plundering parties out on their rear to overrun the lands of the revolted Samnites and Hirpi- nians ; and as the best troops of both these nations were with Hanni- bal on Tifata, no force was left at home sufficient to check the en- emy's incursions. Accordingly the complaints of the sufferers were loud, and a deputation was sent to Hannibal imploring him to protect his allies. Already Hannibal felt that the Roman generals understood their business, and had learned to use their numbers wisely. On ground where his cavalry could act, he would not have feared to engage their three armies together ; but when they were amongst mountains, or behind walls, his cavalry were useless, and he could not venture to attack them ; besides, he did not wish to expose the territory of Capua to their ravages ; and, therefore, he did not choose lightly to move from Tifata. But the prayers of the Samnites were urgent : his partisans in ISTola might require his aid, or might be able to admit him into the town ; and his expected reinforcement of cavalry and elephants from Carthage had landed safely in Bruttium, and was on its way to join him, which the position of Fabius and Marcellus might render difficult, if he made no movement to favor it. He therefore left Tifata, advanced upon Nola, and timed his operation so well that his reinforcements arrived at the moment when he was before Nola ; and neither Fabius nor Marcellus attempted to prevent their junction. Thus encouraged, and perhaps not aware of the strength of the garrison, Hannibal not only overran the territory of Nola, but sur- rounded the town with his soldiers, in the hope of taking it by escalade. Marcellus was alike watchful and bold ; he threw open the gates and made a sudden sally, by which he drove back the en- emy within their camp ; and this success, together with his frank and popular bearing, won him, it is said, the affections of all parties at Nola, and put a stop to all intrigues within the walls. A more im- portant consequence of this action was the desertion of above twelve hundred men Spanish foot and Numidiau horse from Hannibal's army to the Romans ; as we do not find that their example was fol- loved by others, it is probable that they were not Hannibal's old sol- diers, but some of the troops which had just joined him, and which could not as yet have felt the spell of his personal ascendency. Still their treason naturally made him uneasy, and would for the moment xcite a general suspicion in the army ; the summer too was drawing to a close ; and wishing to relieve Capua from the burden of feeding his troops, he marched away into Apulia, and fixed his quarters for the winter near Arpi. Gracchus, with one consular army, followed him ; whilst Fabius, after having ravaged the country round Capua, and carried off the green corn, as soon as it was high enough out of the ground, to his camp above Suessula, to furnish winter food for 58 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. his cavalry, quartered his own army there for the winter, and ordered Marcellus to retain a sufficient force to secure Nola, and to send the rest of his men home to be disbanded. Thus the campaign was ended, and Hannibal had not marked it with a victory. The Romans had employed their forces so wisely, that they had forced him to remain mostly on the defensive ; and his two offensive operations against Cumaj and agamst Nola had both been baffled. In Sardinia, their success had been brilliant and de- cisive. Fortune in another quarter served the Romans no less effectu- tlly. The Macedonian ambassadors, after having concluded their treaty with Hannibal at Tifata, made their way back into Bruttium in safety, and embarked to return to Greece. But their ship was taken off the Calabrian coast by the Roman squadron on that station ; and the ambassadors, with all their papers, were sent prisoners to Rome. A vessel which had been of their company escaped the Romans, and informed the king what had happened. He was obliged, therefore, to send a second embassy to Hannibal, as the former treaty had never reached him ; and, although this second mis- sion went and returned safely, yet the loss of time was irreparable, and nothing could be done till another year. Meanwhile the Romans, thus timely made aware of the king's intentions, resolved to find such employment for him at home as should prevent his in- vading Italy. M. Valerius Laevinus was to take the command of the fleet at Tarentum and Brundisium, and to cross the Ionian Gulf in order to rouse the ./Etolians and the barbarian chiefs whose tribes bordered on Philip's western frontier, and, with such other allies as could be engaged in the cause, to form a Greek coalition against Macedon. These events, and the continued successes of the ir army in Spain, revived the spirits of the Romans, and encouraged them to make still greater sacrifices, in the hope that they would not be made in vain. Whilst the commonwealth was making extraordinaiy efforts, it was of (he last importance that they should not be wasted by incompetent leaders, either at home or abroad. Gracchus was watching Hannibal in Apulia, so that Fabius went to Rome to hold the comitia. It was not by accident, doubtless, that he had previously sent home to fix the day of the meeting, or that his own arrival was so nicely timed, that he reached Rome when the tribes were actually met in the Cam- pus Martins ; thus, without entering the city, he passed along under the walls, and took his place as presiding magistrate, at the comitia, while his lictors still bore the naked axe in the midst of their faces, the well-known sign of that absolute power which the consul enjoyed everywhere out of Rome. Fabius, in concert no doubt with Q. Ful- vius and T. Manlius, and other leading senators, had already deter- mined who were to be consuls : when the first century, in the free exercise of its choice, gave its vote in favor of T. Otacilius and M. ^Emilius Regillus, he at once stopped the election, and told the LIFE OF IIAXNIBAL. 59 people that this was no time to choose ordinary consuls ; that they were electing generals to oppose Hannibal, and should fix upon tlios^ men under whom they would most gladly risk their sons' lives and their own, if they stood at that moment on the eve of battle. " Where- fore, crier," he concluded, " call back the century to give its voles over again." Otacilius, who was present, although he had married Fabius' niece, protested loudly against this interference with the votes of the people, and charged Fabius with,, trying to procure his own re- election. The old man had always been so famous for the gentleness of his nature, that he was commonly known by the name of " the Lamb ;" but now he acted with the decision of Q. Fulvius or T. Manilas ; he peremptorily ordered Otacilius to be silent, and badu him remember that his lictors carried the naked axo : the cent my was called back, and noiv gave its voice for Q. Fabius and M. Mar- cellus. All the centuries of all the tribes unanimously confirmed this choice. Q. Fulvius was also re-elected pnetor ; and the senate by a special vote continued him in the praetorship of the city, an office which put him at the head of the home government. The election of the other three pnvtors, it seems, was left free ; no the people, as they could not have Otacilius for their consul, gave him one of the remaining praetorships, and bestowed the other two on Q. Fabius, the consul's sou, who was then curule aidile, and on P. Cornelius Leutulus. Great as the exertions of the commonwealth had been in the pre- ceding year, they were still greater this year. Ten legions were to be employed in different parts of Italy, disposed as follows : ('ales, and the camp above Suessula and Nola, were again to be the head quarters of the two consuls, each of whom was to command a regular consular army of two legions. Gracchus, with proconsular power, was to keep his own two legions, and was at present wintering near Hannibal in the north of Apulia. Q. Fabius, one of the new pnetors. was to be ready to enter Apulia with an army of equal strength, so soon as Gracchus should be called into Lucania and Samnium, to take part in yie active operations of the campaign. C. Varro, with his single legion, was still to hold Picenum ; and M. Lrevinus, also with proconsular power, was to remain at Brundisium with another single legion. The two city legions served as a sort of depot, to re- cruit the armies in the field in case of need ; and there was a large armed population, serving as garrisons in the Latin colonies, and it: other important posts in various parts of the country, the amount o' which it is not possible to estimate. Nor can we calculate the num- bers of the guerilla bands, which were on foot in Lucania, Bruttium, and possibly in Samnium, and which hindered Hannibal from having the whole resources of those countries at his disposal. The Roman party was nowhere probably altogether extinct. Wealthy Lucanians, who we're attached to Rome, would muster their slaves and peas- 60 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. antry, and either by themselves, or getting some Roman officer to Lead them, would ravage the lands of the Carthaginian party, and carry on a continued harassing warfare against the towns or districts which had joined Hannibal. Thus the whole south of Italy was one wide flood of war, the waters were everywhere dashing and eddying, and running *in cross currents innumerable ; whilst the regular armies, like the channels of the rivers, held on their way, distinguish- able amidst the chaos by their greater rapidity and power. Hannibal watched this mass of^war with the closest attention. To make head against it directly being impossible, his business was to mark his opportunities, to strike whei ever there was an opening ; and being sure that the enemy would not dare to attack him on his own ground, he might maintain his army in Italy for an indefinite time, whilst Carthage, availing herself of the distraction of her enemy's power, renewed her efforts to conquer Spain, and recover Sicily. lie hoped ere long to win Tarentum ; and, if left to his own choice, he would probably have moved thither at once, when he broke up from his winter quarters ; but the weakness or fears of the Campa- nians hung with encumbering weight upon him ; and an earnest request was sent to him from C'apua, calling on him to hasten to its defence, lest the two consular armies should besiege it. Accordingly lie broke up from his winter quarters at Arpi, and marched once more into Campania, where he established his army as before on the sum- mit of Tifata. The perpetual carelessness and omissions in Livy's narrative, drawn as it is from various sources, with no pains to make one part corre- spond with another, render it a work of extreme difficulty to present an account of these operations, which shall be at once minute and intelligible. We also miss that notice of chronological details which is essential to the history of a complicated campaign. Even the year in which important events happened is sometimes doubtful ; yet we want not to fix the year only, but the month, that we may arrange each action in its proper order. When Hannibal set out on his march into Campania, Fabius was still at Rome ; but the two new legions which were to form his army were already assembled at Calcs ; and Fabius, on hearing of Hannibal's approach, set out instantly to take the command. His old army, which had wintered in the camp above Suessula, had apparently been transferred to his colleague, Marcel- lus ; and a considerable force had been left at the close of the last campaign to garrison Nola. Fabius, however, wished to have three Roman armies co-operating with each other, as had been the case the year before ; and he sent orders to Gracchus to move forward from Apulia, and to occupy Beneventum ; whilst his son, Q. Fabius, the prater, with a fourth army, was to supply the place of Gracchus, at Luceria. It seemed as if Hannibal, having once entered Campania, w a.s to be hemmed in on every side, and not permitted to escape ; movements of the Roman armies induced him to call Hanno LIFE OF HANNIBAL. 61 io his aid, the officer who commanded inLucania and Bruttium, and who, with a small force of JS umidian cavalry, had an auxiliary army under his orders, consisting chiefly of Italian allies, llanno advanced accordingly in the direction of Beneventurn, to watch the army of Gracchus, and, if an opportunity offered, to bring it to action. Meanwhile, Hannibal, having left some of his best troops to main- tain his camp at Tifata, and probably tQ protect the immediate neigh- borhood of Capua, descended into the plain towards the coast, partly in the hope of surprising a fortified post which the Romans had lately established at Puteoli, and partly to ravage the territory of Cum; and Neapolis. But the avowed object of his expedition was to offer sac- rifice to the powers of the unseen world, on the banks of the dreaded lake of Avernus. That crater of an old volcano, where the very soil still seemed to breathe out fire, while the unbroken rim of its basin was covered with the uncleared masses of the native woods, was tke subject of a thousand mysterious stories, and was regarded as one of those spots where the lower world approached most nearly to the light of day, and where offerings, paid to the gods of the dead, were most surely acceptable. Such worship was a main part of the na- tional religion of the Carthaginians ; and Hannibal, whose latest act before he set out on his great expedition, had been a journey to Gades, to sacrifice to the god of his fathers, the Hercules of Tyre, visited the lake of Avernus, it is probable, quite as much in sincere devotion as in order to mask his design of attacking Puteoli. Whilst he was engaged in his sacrifice, five noble citizens of Tarentum came to him, entreating him to lead his army into their country, and engaging that the city should be surrendered as soon as his standard should be visible from the walls. He listened to their invitation gladly ; they offered him one of the richest cities in Italy, with an excellent harbor, equally convenient for his own communication with Carthage, and for the reception of the fleet of his Macedonian allies, whom he was constantly expecting to welcome in Italy. He promised that he would soon be at Tarentum; and the Tarentines returned home t< prepare their plans against his arrival. With this prospect before him, it is not likely that he would en in any serious enterprise in Campania. Finding that he could not surprise Puteoli, he ravaged the lands of the Cuma'uns and Neapoli- tans. According to the ever-suspicious stories of the exploits of Marcellus, he made a third attempt upon Nola, and was a third time repulsed, Marcellus having called down the army from the camp above Suessula to assist him in defending the town. Then, says (lie writer whom Livy copied, despairing of taking a place which he had so often attacked in vain, he marched off at once towards Tarentum. The truth probably is, that, finding a complete consular army in Kola, and having left his light cavalry and some of the flower of his infantry in the camp on Tifata, he had no thought of attacking i!if town, but returned to Tifata to take the troops from thence; an ) 62 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. having done this, and stayed long enougli in Campania for the N gained no new victory ; Tarentum had been saved from his hands ; and Casilinum had been wrested from him. The forces to be employed in Italy in the approaching campaign were to consist of nine legions, three fewer than in the year before. The consuls were each to have their two legions, Gracchus So Lucania, and Fabius in Apulia. M. ^Emilius was to command two legions also in Apulia, having his headquarters at Luceria ; Cu. Fulvius with two more was to occupy the camp above Suessula ; and Varro was to remain with his one legion in Picenum. Two consular armies of two legions each were required in Sicily ; one commanded by Marcellus as proconsul, the other by P. Lentulus as propraetor : two legions were employed in Cisalpine Gaul under P. Semprouius, ami two in Sardinia under their old commander, Q. Mucius. M. Valerius Lajvinus retained his single legion and his fleet, to act against Philip on the eastern side of the Ionian sea ; and P. Scipio and his brother were still continued in their command in Spain. Hannibal passed the winter at Salapia, where, the Romans said, was a lady whom he loved, and who became famous from her influ- ence over him. Whether his passion for her made him careless of everything else, or whether he was really taken by surprise, we know not ; but the neighboring town of Arpi was attacked by the consul Fabius, and given up to him by the inhabitants ; and some Spaniards, who formed part of the garrison, entered into the Roman service. Gracchus obtained some slight successes in Lucania ; and some of the Bruttian towns returned to their old alliance with Rome ; but a Roman contractor, T. Pbinponius Veientauus, who had been empowered by the government to raise soldiers in Bruttium, and to employ them in plundering the enemies' lands, was rash enough to venture a regular action with Hanno, in which he was defeated and made prisoner. This disaster checked the reaction in Bruttium for the present. Meanwhile Hannibal's eyes were still fixed upon Tarentum ; and thither he marched again as soon as he took the field, leaving Fabius behind him in Apulia. He passed the whole summer in the neigh- borhood of Tarentum, and reduced several small towns in the sur- rounding country : but his friends in Tarentum made no movement ; for they dared not compromise the safety of their countrymen and relations, who had been carried off as hostages to Rome. Accord- ingly the season wore away unmarked by any memorable action. Hannibal still lingered in the country of the Sallentines, unwilling to give up all hope of winning the prize he had so long sought ; and to lull the suspicions of the Romans, he gave out that he was confined to his camp by illness, and that this had prevented his army from re- turning to its usual winter quarters in Apulia. Matters were in this state when letters arrived at Tarentum that the hostages, for whose safety their friends ha:l been so anxious, had been all cruelly put to death at Rome for having attempted to escapa HO LIFE OF HAXXIBAL. from their captivity. Released in so shocking a manner from their former hesitation, and burning to revenge the blood of their friends, Hannibal's partisans no longer delayed. They communicated secretly with him, arranged the details of their attempt, and signed a treaty of alliance, by which he bound himself to respect the indepen- dence and liberty of the Tarentines, and only stipulated for the plun- der of such houses as were occupied by Roman citizens. Two young men, Philemenus and Nicon, were the leaders of the enterprise. Philemenus, under the pretence of hunting, had persuaded the officer at one of the gates to allow him to pass in and out of the town by night without interruption. He was known to be devoted to his sport ; he scarcely ever returned without having caught or killed some game or other ; and by liberally giving away what he had caught, he won the favor and confidence, not only of the officer of the gate, but also of the Roman governor himself, M. Livius Maca- tus, a relation of M. Livius Salinator, who, afterwards defeated Has- drubal, but a man too indolent and fond of good cheer to be the gov- ernor of a town threatened by Hannibal. So little did Livius suspect any danger, that on the very day which the conspirators had fixed for their attempt, and when Hannibal with ten thousand men was advancing upon the town, he had invited a large party to meet him at the Temple of the Muses near the market-place, ami was engaged from an early hour in festivity. The city of Tarentum formed a triangle, two sides of which were washed by the water; the outer, or ^western side, by the Mediter- ranean ; the inner, or northeastern side, by that remarkable land- locked basin, now called the Little Sea, which has a mouth narrower than the entrance into the Norwegian Fiords, but runs deep into the land, and spreads out into a wide surface of the calmest water, scarcely ruffled by the hardest gales. Exactly at the mouth of this basin was a little rocky knoll, forming Hie apex of the triangle of tlie city, and occupied by the citadel : the, city itself stood on low and mostly level ground ; and its south-eastern wall, the base of the tri- angle, stretched across from the Little Sea to the Mediterranean. Thus the citadel commanded the entrance into the basin, which was the port of the Tarentines ; and it was garrisoned by the Romans, although many of the officers and soldiers were allowed to lodge in the city. All attempts upon the town by land must be made then against the south-eastern side, which was separated from the citadel by the whole length of the city : and there was another circumstance which was likely to favor a surprise ; for the Tarentines, following the direction of an oracle, as they said, buried their dead within the city walls ; and the street of the tombs was interposed between the gates and the inhabited parts of the town. This the conspirators turned to their own purposes: in this lonely quaiter two^of their number, Nicon and Tragiscus, were waiting for Hannibal's anival without the gates. As soon as they perceived the signal w4iic.li \s :is LIFE OF HANNIBAL. 67 to announce hig presence, they, wuh a party of their friends, were to surprise the gates from within, and put the guards to the sword ; while others had been left in the city to keep watch near the museum, and prevent auy communication from being made to the Roman governor. The evening wore away ; the governor's party broke up ; and his friends attended him to his house. On their way home they met tome of , the conspirators, who, to lull all suspicion, began to jest with them, as though themselves going home from a revel, and joining the party amidst riotous shouts and loud laughter, accompanied the governor to his own door. He went to rest in joyous and careless- mood ; his friends were all gone to their quarters ; the noise f rev- ellers returning from their festivities died away through the city ;. and when midnight was come, the conspirators alone were abroad. They now divided into three parties : one was posted near the gov- ernor's house, a second secured the approaches to the market-place, and the third hastened to the quarter of the tombs, to watcli for Hannibal's signal. They did not watch long in vain ; a fire in a particular spot with- out the walls assured them that Hannibal was at hand. They lit a fire in answer ; and presently, as had been agreed upon, the rire with- out the walls disappeared. Then the conspirators rushed to the gate of the city, surprised it with ease, put the guards to the sword, and began to hew asunder the bar by which the gates were fastened. No sooner was it forced, and the gates opened, than Hannibal's soldiers were seen ready to enter ; so exactly had the time of the operations been calculated. The cavalry were left without the walls as a re- serve ; but the infantry, marching in regular column, advanced through the quarter of the tombs to the inhabited part of the city. Meantime Phiiemenus with a thousand Africans had been sent to secure another gate by stratagem. The guards were accustomed to let him in at all hours, Avhenever he returned from his hunting ex- peditions ; and now, when they heard his usual whistle, one of them went to the gate to admit him. Philemenus called to the guard from without to open the wicket quickly ; for that he and his friends had killed a huge wild boar, and could scarcely bear the weight any longer. The guard, accustomed to have a share in the spoil, opened the wicket ; and Philemenus, and three other conspirators, disguised as countrymen, stepped in, carrying the boar between them. They instantly killed the poor guard, as he was admiring and feeling their prize ; and then let in about thirty Africans, who were following close behind With this force they mastered the gate-house and towers, killed all the guards, and hewed asunder the bars of the main gates to admit the whole column of Africans, who marched in on this side also in regular order, and advanced towards the market-place. No sooner had both Hannibal's columns reached their destination, and as it seems without exciting any genenil alarm, than he detached A.B -11 68 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. three bodies of Gaulish soldiers to occupy the principal streets which led to the market-place. The officers in command of these troopa had orders to kill every Roman who fell in their waj- ; hut some Tarentine conspirators were sent with each party to warn their coun- trymen to go home and remain quiet, assuring them th:it no mischief was intended to them. The toils being thus spread, the prey was now to be enticed into them. Philemenus and his friends had pro- vided some Roman trumpets ; and these were loudly blo\vn, sound- 'ing the well-known call to arms to the Roman soldier. Roused at this summons, the Romans quartered about the town armed themselves in haste, and poured into the streets to make their way to the citadel. Butthey fell in scattered parties into the midst of Hannibal's Gauls, and were cut down one after another. The governor alone had been more fortunate : the alarm had reached him in time ; and being in no condition to offer any resistance for he felt, says Polybius, that the fumes of wine were still overpowering him he hastened to the harbor, and .getting on board a boat, was carried safe to the citadel. Day at last dawned, but did not quite clear up the mystery of the night's alarm to the mass of the inhabitants of Tarentum. They were safe in their houses, unmassacred, unplundered ; the only blast of war had been blown by a Roman trumpet ; yet Roman soldiers were lying dead in the streets, and Gauls were spoiling their bodies. Suspense at length was ended by the voice of the public crier .sum- moning the citizens of Tarenturn, in Hannibal's naine, to appear without their arms in the market-place ; and by repeated shouts of " Liberty ! Liberty !'' uttered by some of their own countrymen, who ran round the town calling the Carthaginians their deliverers. The firm partisans of Rome made haste to escape into the citadel, while the multitude crowded to the market-place. They found it regularly occupied by Carthaginian troops ; and the great general, of whom they had heard so much, was preparing to address them. He spoke to them, in Greek apparently, declaring as usual that he had come to free the inhabitants of Italy from the dominion of Rome. "' The Tarentines therefore had nothing to fear ; they should go home and write each over his door, a Tarentine's 7iouse ; these words would be a sufficient security ; no door so marked should be violated. But the mark must not be set falsely upon any Roman's quarters ; a Taren- tine guilty of such treason would be put to death as an enemy ; for all Roman property was the lawful prize of the soldiers. " Accord- ingly, all houses where Romans had been quartered were given up to be plundered ; and the Carthaginian soldiers gained a harvest, says Polybius, which fully answered "their hopes. This can only be ex- plained by supposing that the Romans were quartered generally in the houses of the wealthier Tarentines, who were attached to' the Roman alliance ; and that I he plunder was not the scanty baggage of the legionary soldiers, but the costly furniture of the richest citizens in the greatest city of southern Italy. LIFE OF HANNIBAL. 69 Thus Tan-mum was won ; but the citadel oil its rocky knoll wa* still held by the Romans ; and its position at once threatened the town, and shut up the Tarentine fleet useless in the harbor. Hanni- bal proceeded to sink a ditch, and throw up a wall along the side of the town towards the citadel, in order to repress the sallies of the gar- rison. While engaged in these works he purposely tempted the Ro- mans to a sally, and having lured them on to some distance from their cover, turned fiercely upon them, and drove them back witlj such slaughter that their effective strength was greatly reduced. He then hoped to take the citadel ; but the garrison was reinforced by sea from Metapontum, the, Romans withdrawing their troops from thence for this more important service ; and a successful night sally destroyed the besiegers' works, and obliged them to trust to a block- ade. But as this was hopeless, whilst the Romans were masters of the sea, Hannibal instructed the Tarentiu.es to drag their ships over- land, through the streets of the city, from the harbor to the outer sea ; and this being effected without difficulty, as the ground was quite level, the Tarentine fleet became at once effective, and the sea com- munications of the enemy were cut off. Having thus, as he hoped, enabled the Tarentines to deal by themselves with the Roman garri- son, he left a small force in the town, and returned with the mass of his troops to his winter quarters in the country of the Sallentines, or on the edge of Apulia. Hannibal was far away in the farthest corner of Italy ; and as long as the citadel of Tarentum held out, he would be unwilling to move towards Campania. Even if he should move, four armies were ready to oppose him ; those of the two consuls, of the consul's brother, Cn. Fulvius, who was praetor in Apulia, aud of another praetor, C. Clau- dius Nero, who commanded two legions in the camp above Suessula. Besides this mass of forces, Ti. Gracchus, the consul of the preceding year, still retained his army as proconsul in Lucania, ami might be supposed capable of keeping Hanuo and the army of Bruttium in check. It was late in the spring before the consuls took the field. One of them succeeded to the army of the late consul, Fabius ; the other took the two legions with which Cn. Fulvius Ceutumulas ha i held th* camp above Suessula. These armies marching, the one from Apulia, the other from Campania, met at Bovianum : there, at the back of the Matese, in the country of the Pentrian Samnites, the faithful allies of Rome, the consuls were making preparations for the siege of Ca pua, and perhaps were at the same time watching the state of affairs ,in the south, and the movements of Hannibal. The Campanians sus- pected that mischief was coming upon them, and sent a deputation to Hannibal praying him to aid them. If they were to stand a siege, it was important that the city should be well supplied with provi- sions ; and their own harvest had been so insufficient, owing to thf devastation caused by the war, that they had scarcely enough fo) 70 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. their present consumption. Hannibal would therefore be pleased to order that supplies should be sent to them from the country of his Samnite and Lucanian allies, before their communications were cut off by the presence of the Roman armies. Hannibal was still near Tarentum, whether hoping to win the town or the citadel, the doubtful chronology of this period will not allow Us to decide. He ordered Hanno, w'ith the army of Brutiium, to move forward into Samnium ; a most delicate operation, if the two consuls were with their armies at Bovianum, and Gracchus in Luca- nia itself, in the very line of Hanno's march, and if C. Nero with two legions more was lying in the camp above Suessula. But the army from Suessula had been given to one of the consuls : and the legions which were to take its place were to be marched from the coast of Picenum, and perhaps had hardly reached their destination. The Lucanians themselves seem to have found sufficient employment for Gracchus ; and Hanno moved with a mpidity which friends and enemies were alike unprepared for. He arrived safely in the neigh- borhood of Beneventum, encamped his army in a strong position about three miles from the town, and dispatched word to the Capu- ans that they should instantly send off every carriage and beast of burden in their city, to carry home the corn which he was going to provide for them. The towns of the Claudine Samnitcs emptied their magazines for the purpose, and forwarded all their corn to Hanno's camp. Thus far all prospered ; but the negligence of the Capuans ruined everything ; they had not carriages enough ready ; and Hanno was obliged to wait in his perilous situation, where every hour's delay was exposing him to destruction. Beneveutum was a Latin colony in other words, a strong Roman garrison, watching all his proceedings : from thence information was sent to the consuls at Bovianum : and Fulvius with his army instantly set out, and entered Beneventum by night. There he found that the Capuans, with their means of transport, were at length arrived ; and all disposable hands had been pressed into the service ; that Hanno's camp was crowded with cattle and carriages, and a mixed multitude of unarmed men, and even of women and children ; and that a vigorous blow might win it with all its spoil : the indefatigable general was absent, scour- ing the country for additional supplies of corn. Fulvius sallied from Beneventum a little before daybreak, and led his soldiers to assault Hanno's position. Under all disadvantages of surprise and disorder, the Carthaginians resisted so vigorously that Fulvius was on the point of calling off his men, when a brave Pelignian officer threw the standard of his cohort over the enemy's wall, and desperately climbed the rampart and scaled the wall to recover it. His cohort rushed after him : and a Roman centurion then set the same example, which was followed with ecj'jal alacrity. Then the Romans broke into the camp on every side, even the wounded men strup-giin^ on with the mass, that they might die within the enemy's ramparts. The slaughter LIFE OF HANNIBAL. 7. was great, and the prisoners many ; but, above all, the whole of tin- corn which Hanno had collected for the relief of Capua was bst, and the object of his expedition totally frustrated. He himself, hearing of the wreck of his army, retreated with speed into Bruttium. Again the Capuans sent to Hannibal requesting him to aid them ere it was too late. Their negligence had just cost him an army, and had frustrated all his plans for their relief : but with unmoved tem- per he assured them that he would not forget them, and sent back 2000 of his invincible cavalry with the deputation, to protect their lands from the enemy's ravages. It was important to him not to leave the south of Italy till the very last moment ; for since he had taken Tarentum, the neighboring Greek cities of Metapontum, Her- aclea, and Thurii, had joined him ; and as he had before won Croton and Locri, he was now master of the whole coast from the Straits of Messana to the mouth of the Adriatic, with the exception of Rhe- gium and the citadel of Tarentum. Into the latter the Romans had lately thrown supplies of provisions ; and the gairison was so strong that Hannibal was unwilling to march into Campania whilst such a powerful force of the enemy was left behind in so favorable a position. The consuls, meanwhile, not content with their own two armies, and with the two legions expected, if not yet arrived, in the camp above Sucssula, sent to Gracchus in Lucania, desiring him to bring up his cavalry and light troops to Beneventum, to strengthen them in that kind of force in which they fully felt their inferiority. But be- fore he could leave his own province, he was drawn into an ambus- cade by the treachery of a Lucanian in the Roman interest, and per- ished. His quaestor, Cn. Cornelius, marched with his cavalry towards Beneventum, according to tho consuls' orders ; but the infantry .con- sisting of the slaves whom he had enfranchised, thought lhat their ser- vices were ended by the death of their deliverer, and immediately dis- persed to their homes. Thus Lucania was left without cither a Ro- man army or general ; but M. Centenius, an old centurion, distin- guished for his strength and courage, undertook the command there, if the senate would intrust him with a force equal to a single legion. Perhaps, likeT. Pomponius Veieutanus, he was connected with some of the contractors and moneyed men, and owed his appointment as much to their interest as to his own reputation. But lie was a brave and popular soldier ; and so many volunteers joined him on his march, hoping to be enriched by the plunder of Lucania, that he ar- rived there with a force, it is said, amounting to near sixteen thousand men. His confidence and that of his followers was doomed to bo wofully disappointed. The consuls knew that Hannibal was far away ; and they did not know that any of his cavalry were in Capua. They issued boldly therefore from the Caudine Forks on the great Campa"i;ui plain, and Scattered their forces far and wide to destroy the st'll green corn. 72 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. To their astonishment the gates of Capua were thrown open ; and with the Campanian infantry they recognized the dreaded cavalry of Hannibal. In a moment their foragers were driven in ; and as they hastily formed their legions in order of battle to cover them, the horsemen broke upon them like a whirlwind, and drove them with great loss and confusion to their camp. This sharp lesson taught them caution ; but their numbers were overwhelming ; and their two armies, encamped before Capua, cut off the communications of the city, and had the harvest of the whole country in their power. But ere many days had elapsed, an unwelcome sight was seen on the summit of Tifata ; Hannibal was there once more with his army. He descended into Capua ; two days afterwards he marched out to battle ; again his invincible Numidians struck terror into the Roman line, when the sudden arrival of Cn. Cornelius with the cavalry of Gracchus' army broke off tlte action ; and neither side, it is said, knowing what this new force might be, both as if by common con- sent retreated. How Hannibal so outstripped Cornelius as to arrive from Tarentum on the scene of action two or three days before him, who was coming from Lucania, we are not told, and can only con- jecture. But the arrival of this reinforcement, though it had saved the consuls from defeat, did not embolden them to hold their ground : they left their camps as soon as night came on ; Fulvius fell down upon the coast, near Cuma? ; Appius Claudius retreated in the di- rection of Lucania. Pew passages in history can offer a parallel to Hannibal's cam- paigns ; but this confident gathering of the enemies' overflowing numbers round the city of his nearest allies, his sudden march, the unlooked-for appearance of his dreaded veterans, and the instant scat- tering of the besieging armies before him, remind us of the deliver- ance of Dresden in 1813, when Napoleon broke in upon the allies' confident expectations of victory, and drove them away in signal de- feat. And, like the allies in that great campaign, the Roman gen- erals knew their own strength ; and though yielding to the shock of their adversary's surpassing energy and genius, they did not allow themselves to be scared from their purpose, but began again steadily to draw the toils which he had once broke through. Great was the joy in Capua, when the people rose in the morning and saw the Ro- man camps abandoned : there needs no witness to tell us with what sincere and deep admiration they followed and gazed on their de. liverer ; how confident they felt that, with him for a shield, no harm could roach them. But almost within sight and hearing of their joy, the stern old Fulvius was crouching as it were in his thicket, watch- ing the moment for a second spring upon his prey ; and when Han- nibal left that rejoicing and admiring multitude to follow the traces of Appius, he passed through the gates of Capua, to enter them again no more. Appius retreated in the direction of Lucama : this is all that is re- LIFE OP 3AKKIBAL. tJ ported of his march ; and then, after a while, having led his enemy in the direction which suited his purposes, he turned off by another road, and made his way back to Campania. With such a total ab- sence of details, it is impossible to fix the Hue of his march exactly. It was easy for Appius to take the round of the Matese ; retiring first by the great road to Beneventum, then turning to his left and retraining his old quarters at Bovianum, from whence, the instant that Hannibal ceased to follow him, he would move along under the north side of the Matese to ^Esernia, and descend again upon Campania by the valley of the Vulturous. Hannibal's pursuit was necessarily stopped as soon as Appius moved northward from Beneventum : he could not support his army in the country of the Pentaian Samnites, where everything was hostile to him ; nor did he like to abandon his line of direct communi- cation with southern Italy. He had gained a respite for Capua, and had left an auxiliary force to aid in its defence ; meanwhile other objects must not be neglected ; and the fall of the citadel of Tarentiim might, of itself, prevent or raise the siege'of Capua. So he turned off 1'roin following Appius, and was marching back to the south, when he was told thatf a Roman army was attempting to bar his passage in Lu- cania. This was the motley multitude commanded by Centenius, which had succeeded, as we have seen, to the army of (Jrarchus. With what mad hope, or under what false impression, Centenius could have been tempted to rush upon certain destruction, we know not ; but, in the number, no less than in the quality of his troops, he must have been far inferior to his adversary. His men fought bravely ; and he did a centurion's duty well, however ho may have failed as a general : but he was killed, and nearly lifteen thousand men are said to have perished with him. Thus Lucauia was cleared of the Romans ; and as the firmest par- tisan of the Roman interest among the Lucanians had been the very man who had betrayed Gracchus to his fate, it is likely that the Car- thaginian party was triumphant through the whole country. Only one Roman army was left in the south of Italy, the two legions com- manded by Cn. Fulvius Flaccus, the consul's brother, in Apulia. But Cn. Fulvius had nothing of his brother's ability ; he was a man grown old in profligacy ; and the discipline of his army was said to be in the worst condition. Hannibal, hoping to complete; his work, moved at once inlo Apulia, and found Fulvius in the neighborhood of Herdouea. The Roman general met him in the open field, with- out hesitation, and was presently defeated : he himself escaped from the action, but Hannibal had occupied the principal roads in the rear of the enemy with his cavalry ; and the greatest part of the Roman army was cut to pieces. We naturally ask, What result followed from these two great vic- tories? ami to this question we find no recorded answer. Hannibal, we are told, returned to Tarentum ; but finding that the citadel still held out, and could neither be forced nor surprised, anil that provi- 74 LIFE OF IIAXXIBAL. sions were still introduced by sea, a naval blockade, in r.ncient war fare, being always inefficient, he marched off towards Brundisimn, on some prospect that the town would be betrayed into his hands. This hope also failed him ; and he remained inactive in Apulia, or in Ihe country of the Sallentines, during the rest of the year. Mean- time, the 'consuls received orders from the senate to collect the wrecks of the two beaten armies, and to search for the soldiers of Gracchus' army, who had dispersed, as we have seen, after his death. The city praetor, P. Cornelius, Carried on the same search nearer Rome ; and these duties, says Livy,were all performed most carefully and vigorously. This is all the information which exists for us in the remains of the ancient writers ; but, assuredly, this is no military history of a campaign. It is always to be understood that Hannibal cculd, not remain long in an enemy's country, firm the difficulty of feeding his men, especially his cavalry. But the country round Capua was not all hostile ; Atella and Calatia, in the plain of Campania it- self, were still his allies : so were many of the Caudine Sam- uites, from whose cities Hanno had collected the corn early in this year foi the relief of Capua. Again, we can conceive how the num- ber of the Roman armies sometimes oppressed him: how he darc'l not stay long ki one quarter, lest a greater evil should befall him in another. But at this moment, three great disasters, the dispersion 01 the army of Gracchus, and the destruction of those of Centenius and Fulvius, had cleared the south of Italy of the Romans; and liis friends in Apulia, in Lucania, at Tarentum, and in Bruttium, could have nothing to fear, had he left them, for the time, to their own re- sources. Why, after defeating Fulvius, did he not retrace his steps towards Campania, hold the field, with the aid of his Campanian and Samnite allies, till the end of the military season, and then winter, close at hand, on the shores of the Gulf of Salerno, in the country of his allies, so ns to make it impossible for the Romans either to under- take or to maintain the siege of Capua ? That his not doing this was not his own fault, his extraordinary ability and energy may sufficiently assure us ; but, where the hin- drance was, we cannot, for certain, discover : his army must have been worn by its long and rapid march to and from Campania, and by two battles fought with so t'hort an interval : his wounded must have been numerous ; nor can we tell how such hard service, in the heat of summer, may have tried the health of his soldiers : his horses, too, must have needed rest ; and to overstrain the main arm of his strength would have been fatal : perhaps, too, great as was Hanni- bal's ascendency over his army, there was a point beyond which it could not be tried with safety : long marches and hard-fought battles gave the soldier, especially The Gaul and the Spaniard, what, in his eyes, was a, rightful claim to a season of rest and enjoyment: the men might have murmured had they not been permitted to taste LIFE OF HANKIBAL. 75 some reward of their victories : besides all these reasons, the necessity of a second march into Campania may not have seemed urgent : the extent of Capua was great ; if the lioman consuls did encamp before it, still the city was in no immediate danger ; after the winter, an- other advance would again enable him to throw supplies into the town, and to drive off the Roman armies ; so Capua was left, for the present, to its own resources, and Hannibal passed the autumn and winter in Apulia. Immediately the liornan armies closed again upon their prey. Three grand magu/.ines of corn were established, to feed the besieg- ing army during the winter, one at Casilinum, within three miles of Capua ; another at a fort built for the purpose at the mouth of the Vulturous ; and a third at Puteolii Into these two last magazines tho corn was conveyed by sea from Ostia, whither it had already lint collected from Sardinia and Etruria. Then the consuls summoned C. Nero from his camp above Suessula ; and the three armies begun the great work of surrounding Capua with double continuous lines. strong enough to repel the besieged on one side, and Hannibal on the other, when he should again appear in Campania. The inner line was carried round the city, at a distance of about a quarter of a mile from the walls ; the outer line was concentric with it ; and the spaco between the two served for the cantonments and magaxines of the besiegers. The lines, says Appiari, lonked like a great city, inclosing a smaller city in the middle ; like the famous lines of the Peloponne- sians before Platsea. What time was employed in completing them, we know not : they were interrupted by continual sallies of the be- sieged ; and Jubellius Taurea and the Capuau cavalry were gener- ally too strong for the Roman horsemen. But their infantry could do nothing against the legions ; the besieging army must have amounted nearly to sixty thousand men ; and slowly but surely the imprisoning walls were raised and their circle completed, shutting out the last gleams of light from the eyes of the devoted city. Before the works were closed all round, the consuls, according to the senate's directions signified to them by the city praetor, an- nounced to the Capuans, that whoever chose to come out of the city with his family and property before the ides of March, might do so with safety, and should be untouched in body or goods. It would seem, then, that the works were not completed till late in the winter ; for we cannot suppose that the term of grace would have been pro- longed to a remote day, especially as the ides of March were the be- ginning of the new consular year ; and it could not be known long beforehand whether the present consuls would be continued in their command or no. The offer was received by the besieged, it is said, with open scorn ; their provisions were as yet abundant, their cav- alry excellent ; their hope of aid from Hannibal, as soon as the cam- paign should open, was confident. But Fulvms waited his time ; nor was his thirst for Capuan blood to be disappointed by his remo- 76 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. Tul from the siege at the end of the year : it would seem as if the new consuls were men of no great consideration, appointed probably for that very reason, that their claims might not interfere with those of their predecessors. One of them, P. Sulpicius Galba, had fllled no curule office previously ; the other, On. Fulvius Centumalus, had been praetor two years before, but was not distinguished by any re- markable action. The siege of Capua was still to be conducted by Appius Claudius and Fulvius ; and they were ordered not to retire from their positions till they should have taken the city. What was the state of affairs in Capua meantime, we know not. The Roman stories are little to be credited, which represent all the richer and nobler citizens as abandoning the government, and leaving the office of chief magistrate, Meddix Tuticus, to be filled by one Sep- pius Lesius, a man of obscure condition, who offered himself as a candidate. Neither Vibius Virrius nor Jubellius Taurea wanted res- olution to abide by their country to the last ; and it is expressly said that, down to the latest period of the siege, there was no Roman party in Capua ; no voice was heard to speak of peace or surrender ; no citizen had embraced the consul's offers of mercy. Even when they had failed to prevent the completion of the Roman lines, they con- tinued to make frequent sallies ; and the proconsuls could only with- stand their cavalry by mixing light-armed foot soldiers amongst the Roman horsemen, and thus strengthening that weakest arm in the Roman service. Still, as the blockade was not fully established, fam- ine must be felt sooner or later ; accordingly aNumidianwas sent to implore Hannibal's aid, and succeeded in getting through the Ro- man lines, and carrying his message safely to Bruttium. Hannibal listened to the prayer, and leaving his heavy baggage and the mass of his army behind, set out with his cavalry and light infantry, and with thirty-three elephants. Whether his Samnite and Lucauian allies joined him on the march is not stated ; if they did not, and if secrecy and expedition were deemed of more importance than an addition of force, the troops which he led with him must have been more like a single corps than a complete army. Avoiding Beueveutum, he descended the valley of the Calor towards the Vul- turnus, stormed a Roman post, which had been built apparently to cut off the communications of the besieged with the upper valley of the Vulturnus, and encamped immediately behind the ridge of Tifata. From thence he descended once more into the plain of Capua, displayed his cavalry before the Roman lines in the hope of tempting them out to battle, and finding that this did not succeed, commenced a general assault upon their works. Unprovided with any artillery, his best hope was that the Romans might, be allured to make some rash sally : his cavalry advanced by squadrons up to the edge of the trench, and discharged showers of missiles into the lines ; whilst his infantry assailed the rampart, and tried to force their way through the palisade which surmounted it LIFE OF HANNIBAL. 7? From within the lines were attacked by the Campanians and Hanni- bal's auxiliary garrison ; but the Romans were numerous enough to defend both fronts of their works ; they held their ground steadily, neither yielding nor rashly pursuing ; and Hannibal, rinding his utmost efforts vain, drew off his army. Some resolution must be taken promptly ; his cavalry could not be fed where he was, for the Romans had previously destroyed or carried away everything that might serve for forage ; nor could he venture to wait till the new consuls should have raised their legions, and be ready to march from Rome and threaten his rear. One only hope remained ; one attempt might yet be made, which should either raise the siege of Capua or accomplish a still greater object : Hannibal resolved to march upon Rome. A Numidian was again found, who undertook to pass over to the Roman lines as a deserter, and from thence to make his escape into Capua, bearing a letter from Hannibal, which explained his purpose and conjured the Capuans patiently to abide the issue of his attempt for a little while. When this letter reached Capua, Hannibal was already gone ; his camp-fires had been seen burning as usual all night in his accustomed position on Tifata ; but he had begun his march the preceding evening, immediately after dark, while the Romans still thought that his army was hanging over their heads, and were looking for a second assault. His army disappeared from the eyes of the Romans behind Tifata ; and they knew not whither he was gone. Even so it is with us at this day ; we lose him from Tifata ; we find him before Rome ; but we know nothing of his course between. Conflicting and contradic- tory accounts have made the truth undiscoverable : what regions of ^Italy looked with fear or hope on the march of the great general and *his famous soldiers, it is impossible from our existing records to de- termine. All accounts say that, descending nearly by the old route of the Gauls, he kept the Tiber on his right and the Anio on his left ; and that, finally, he crossed the Anio, and encamped at a dis- tance of less than four miles from the walls of Rome. Before the sweeping pursuit of his Numidians, crowds of fugitives were seen flying towards the city, whilst the saioke of burning houses arose far and wide into the sky. Within the walls the confusion and terror were at their height ; he was come at last, this Hannibal. whom they had so long dreaded ; he had at length dared what even the slaughter of Cannae had not emboldened him to venture ; some victory greater even than Cannae must have given him this confi- dence ; the three armies before Capua must be utterly destroyed ; last year he had destroyed or dispersed three other armies, and had gained possession of the entire south of Italy ; and now he had stormed the lines before Capua, had cut to pieces the whole remain- ing force of the Roman people, and was come to Rome to finish hin work. So ths wives and mothers of Rome lamented, as they hur- ?8 . LIFE OF HANNIBAL. ried to the temples ; and there, prostrate before the gods, and sweep ing the sacred pavement with their unbound hair in the agony of their fear, Miey remained pouring forth their prayers for deliverance. Their sons and husbands hastened to man the walls and the citadel, and to secure the most important points without the city ; whilst the senate, as calm as their fathers of old, whom the Gauls massacred when sitting at their own doors, but with the energy of manly resolu- tion, rather than the resignation of despair, met in the forum, and there remained assembled, to direct every magistrate on the instant how he might best fulfil his duty. But God's care watched over the safety of a people whom he had chosen to work out the purposes of his providence : Rome was not to perish. Two city legions were to be raised, as usual, at the be- ginning of the year ; and it so happened that the citizens from the country tribes were to meet at Rome on this very day for the enlist- ment for one of these legions ; whilst the soldiers of the other, which had been enrolled a short time before, were to appear at Rome on this same day in arms, having been allowed, as the custom was, to return home for a few days after their enlistment, to prepare for active service. Thus it happened that ten thousand men were brought together at the very moment when they were most needed, and were ready to repel any assault upon the walls. The allies, it seems, were not ordinarily called out to serve with the two city legions ; but on this occasion it is mentioned that the Latin colony of Alba, having seen Hannibal pass by their walls, and guessing the ob- ject of his march, sent its whole force to assist in the defence of Rome ; a zeal which the Greek writers compared to that of Plata3a, whose citizens fought alone by the side of the Athenians on the day of Marathon. To assault the walls of Rome was now hopeless ; but the opftn country was at Hannibal's mercy, a country which had seen no ene- my for near a hundred and fifty years, cultivated and inhabited in the full security of peace. Far and wide it was overrun by Hanni- bal's soldiers ; and the army appears to have moved about, encamp- ing in one place after another, and sweeping cattle and prisoners and plunder of every sort, beyond numbering, within the enclosure of its camp. It was probably in the course of these excursions, that Hannibal, at the head of a large body of cavalry, came close up to the Colline gate, rode along leisurely under the walls to see all he could of the city, and is said to have cast his javelin into it as in defiance. From farthest Spain he had come into Italy ; he had wasted the whole country of the Romans and their allies with fire and sword for more than six years, had slain more of their citizens than were now alive to bear arms against him ; and at last he was shutting them up with- in their city, and riding freely under their walls, while none dared meet him in the field. If anything of disappointment depressed hi* LIFE OF HANNIBAL. 79 mind at that instant ; if he felt that Rome's strength was not broken, nor the spirit of her people quelled, that his own fortune was waver- ing, and that his last effort had been made, and made in vain ; yet thinking- where he was, and of the shame and loss which his presence was causing to his enemies, he must have wished that his father could have lived to see that day, and must have thanked the gods of his country that they had enabled him so fully to perform his vow. For some time, we know not how long, this devastation of the Ro- man territory lasted without opposition. Meanwhile the siege of Capua was not raised ; and Fabius, in earnestly dissuading such a confession of fear, showed that he could be firm no less Than cau- tious, when boldness was the highest prudence. But Fulvius, with a small portion of the besieging army, was recalled to Rome : Fabius had ever acted with him, and was glad to have the aid of his courage and ability ; and when he arrived, and by a vote of the senate was united with the consuls in the command, the Roman forces were led put of the city, and encamped, according to Fabius' old policy, witn- in ten stadia of the enemy, to check his free license of plunder. At the same time, parties acting on the rear of Hannibal's army had broken down the bridges over the Anio, his lino of retreat, like his advance, being on the right bank of that river, and not by the Latin road. Hannibal had purposely waited to allow time for his movement to produce jts intended effect in the raising of the siege of Capua. That time, according to his calculations, was now come : the news of his arrival before Rome must have reached the Roman lines before Capua ; and the armies from that quarter, hastening by the Latin road to the defence of their city, must have left the communication with Capua free. The presence of Fulvius with his army in Latium, which Hannibal would instantly discover, by the thrice-repeated sounding of the watch, as Hasdrubal found out Nero's arrival in the camp of Livius near Sena, would confirm him in his expectation that the other proconsul was on his march with the mass of the army ; and he accordingly commenced his retreat by the Tiburtiue road, that he might not encounter Appius in front, while the consuls and Fabius were pressing on his rear. Accordingly, as the bridges were destroyed, he proceeded to effect his passage through the river, and carried over his army under the protection of his cavalry, although the Romans attacked him during the passage, and cut off a large part of the plunder which he hud col- lected from the neighborhood of Rome. He then continued his retreat ; and the Romans followed him, but at a careful distance, and keeping steadily on the higher grounds, to be safe from the assaults of his dreaded cavalry. In this manner Hannibal inarched with the greatest rapidity for five days, which, if he was moving by the Valerian road, must have brought him at least as far as the country of the Marsians, and the 80 LIFE OF HANNIBAL. Hhores of the lake Fuciuus. From thence, he would again have cfossed by the Forca Carrosa to the plain of the Pelignians, and so retraced his steps through Samnium, towards Capua. But at this point, he received intelligence that the Roman armies were still in their lines ; that his march upon Rome had, therefore, failed ; anfl that his communications with Capua were as hopeless as ever. In- stantly, he changed all his plans ; and, feeling obliged to abandon Capua, the importance of his operations in the south rose upon him in proportion. Hitherto, he had not thought tit to delay his march for the sake of attacking the army which was pursuing him ; but now he fesolved to rid himself of this enemy ; so he turned fiercely upon them, and assaulted their camp in the night. The Romans, surprised and confounded, were driven from it, with considerable loss, and took refuge in a strong position in the mountains. Hanni- bal then resumed his march ; but, instead of turning short to his right, towards Campania, descended towards the Adriatic and the plains of Apulia, and from thence returned to what was now the stronghold of his power in Italy, the country of the Bruttians. The citadel of Tarentum still held out against him : but Rhegium, confident in its remoteness, had never yet seen his cavalry in its terri- tory, and was now luss likely than ever to dread his presence, as he had so lately been heard of in the heart of Italy, and under the walls of Rome. With a rapid march, therefore, he hastened to surprise Rhegium. Tidings of his coming reached the city just-in time for the Rhegians to shut their gates against him ; but half their people were in the country, in the full security of peace ; and these all fell into his power. We know not whether he treated them kindly, as hoping through their means to win Rhegium, as he had won Taren- tum, or whether disappointment was now stronger than hope ; and despairing of drawing the allies of Rome to his side, he was now as inveterate against them as against the Romans. He retired from his fruitless attempt to win Rhegium only to receive the tidings of the loss of Capua. The Romans had patiently waited their time, and were now to reap their reward. The consuls were both to command in Apulia with two consular armies ; one of them therefore must have returned to Rome, to raise the two additional legions which were required. Fulvius hastened back to the lines before Capua. His prey was now in his power ; the straitness of the blockade could no longer be en- dured, and aid from Hannibal was not to be hoped. It is said that mercy was still promised to any Capuan who should come over to the Romans before a certain day, but that none availed themselves of the offer, feeling, says Livy, that their offence was beyond forgiveness. This can only mean that they believed the Romans 1o be as faithless as they were cruel, and felt sure that every promise of mercy would be evaded or openly broken. One last attempt was made to summon Hannibal again to their aid ; but the Nurnidians employed on the LIFE OF HAXXIBAL. 81 service were detected this time in the Roman lines, and were sent back torn with stripes, and with their hands cut off, into the city. No Capuan writer has survived to record the last struggle of his country ; and never were any people less to be believed than the Ro- mans, when speaking of their enemies. Yet the greatest man could not have supported the expiring weakness of an unheroic people ; and we hear of no great man in Capua. Some of the principal men in the senate met, it is said, at the house of one of their number, Vibius Virrius, where a magnificent banquet had been prepared foi them ; they ate and drank, and when the feast was over, they al! swallowed poison. Then, having done with pleasure and with life, they took a last leave of each other ; they embraced each other, lamenting witli many tears their own and their country's calamity ; and some remained to be burned together on the same funeral pile, whilst others went away to die at their own homes. All were dead before the Romans entered the city. In the mean while the Capuau government, unable to restrain their starving people, had been obliged to surrender to the enemy. In modern warfare the surrender of a besieged town involves no ex- treme suffering ; even in civil wars, justice or vengeance only de- mands a certain number of victims, and the mass of the population scarcely feels its condition affected. But surrender, deditio, accord- ing to the Roman laws of war, placed the property, liberties, and lives of the whole surrendered people at the absolute disposal of the conquerors ; and that not formally, as a right, the enforcement of which were monstrous, but as one to abate which in any instance was an act of free mercy. The conquest of Capua was one of the most important serviced ever rendered by a Roman general to his country. It did not merely deprive Hannibal of the greatest fruit of his greatest victory, and thus seem to undo the work of Cannoe ; but its effect was felt far and wide, encouraging the allies of Rome, and striking terror into her enemies ; tempting the cities which had revolted to return with- out delay to their allegiance, and filling Hannibal with suspicion-* <.f those who were still true to him, as if they only waited to purchase their pardon by some act of treachery towards his garrisons. By the recovery of Capua his great experiment seemed decided against him. It appeared impossible, under any circumstances, to rally such a coalition of the Italian states against the Roman power in Italy, as might be able to overthrow it. We almost ask, With what reason- able hopes could Hannibal from this time forward continue the war* or, Why did he not change the seat of it from Southern Italy tc Etruria and Cisalpine Gaul ? But with whatever feelings of disappointment and grief he may have heard of the fall of Capua, of the ruin of his allies, the bloody death of so many of the Capuan senators, and of the hrave .lubcllius Taurea, whom he had personally known and honored, yet the lust 82 LIFE OF HAKNIBAL. campaign was not without many solid grounds of encouragement. Never had the invincible force of his army been more fully proved. He had overrun half Italy, had crossed and recrossed the passes of the Apennines, had plunged into the midst of the Roman allies, and had laid waste the territory of Rome with fire and sword. Yet no superiority of numbers, no advantage of ground, no knowledge of the country, had ever emboldened the Romans to meet him in the field, or even to beset his road, or to obstruct and harass his march. Once only, when he was thought to be retreating, had they ventured to follow him at a cautious distance ; but he had turned upon them in his strength ; and the two consuls, and Q. Fulvius with them, were driven before him as fugitives to the mountains, their camp stormed, and their legions scattered. It was plain, then, that he might hold his ground in Italy as long as he pleased, supporting his aim}' at its cost, and draining the resources of Rome and her allies year after year, till, in mere exhaustion, the Roman commons would" probably join the Latin colonies and the allies, in forcing the senate to make peace. At this very moment Etruria was restless, and required an army of two legions to keep it quiet : the Roman commons, in addition to their heavy taxation and military service, had seen their lands laid waste, and yet were called upon to bear fresh burdens : and there was a spirit of discontent working in the Latin colonies, which a lit- tle more provocation might excite to open revolt. Spain, besides, seemed at last to be freed from the enemy ; and the recent defeats and deaths of the two Scipios there held out the hope to Hannibal that now at length his brother Hasdrubal, having nothing to detain him in Spain, might lead a second Carthaginian army into Italy, and ^establish himself in Etruria, depriving Rome of the resources of the Etruscan and Umbrian states, as she had already lost those of half Samnium, of Lucania, Brutt ium, and Apulia. Then, assailed, at once by two sons of Hamilcar, on the north and the south, the Roman pow- er, which one of them, singly, had so staggered, must, by the joint efforts of both, be beaten to the ground and destroyed. With such hopes, and with no unreasonable confidence, Hannibal consoled himself for the loss of Capua, and allowed his army, after its severe marching, to rest for the remainder of the year in Apulia. ^ The commencement of the next season was marked by the fall of Salapia, which was betrayed by the inhabitants to Marcellus ; but this loss was soon avenged by the total defeat and destruction of the army of the proconsul Cn. Fulvius, at Herdonea. Marcellus, on his part, carefully avoided an action for the rest of the campaign ; whilst he harassed his opponent by every possible means. Thus the rest o! that summer, too, wore away without any important results. But this state of comparative inactivity was necessarily injurious to the cause of Hannibal : the nations of Italy that had espoused that cause, when triumphant, now began to waver in their attachment ; and, in LIFE OF HAXXIBAL. 83 the course of the following summer, the Samnitcs arid Lucanians submitted to Rome, and were admitted to favorable terms. A siii! more disastrous blow to the Carthaginian cause was the !:- Tarentum, which was betrayed into the hands of Fabius, as it had been into those of Hannibal. In vain did the latter seek to draw the Roman General into a snare ; th - wary Fabius eluded his toils. But Marcellus, after a pretended victory over Hannibal, during the earlier part of the campaign, had shut himself up within the walls of Venusia, and remained there in utter inactivity. Hannibal, mean- while, still traversed the open country unopposed, and laid waste the territories of his enemies. Yet we cannot suppose that he any longer looked f<>r ultimate success from any efforts of his own : his object was, doubtless, now only to maintain Ids ground in the south, until his brother Ilasdrubal should appear in the north of Italy, an event to which he had long looked forwatd with anxious expectation. Yet the following summer was not unmarked by some brilliant, achievements. The Romans having formed the siege of I/>cri, a legion, which was dispatched to their support from Tareutum, was intercepted in its march, and utterly destroyed ; and not long after- wards, the two consuls, Crispinus and Marcellus, who, with their united armies, were opposed to Hannibal in Lucauia, allowed them- selves to be led into an ambush, in which Marcellus was killed and Crispinus was mortally wounded. After this, the Roman armies withdrew, while Hannibal hastened to Locri, and not only raised the siege, but utterly destroyed, the besieging army. Thin lie ag'iin found himself undisputed master of the south of Italy during the re- mainder of this campaign. Of the two consuls of the ensuing year, C. Nero was opposed to Hannibal, while M. Livius was appointed to take the field against Ilasdrubal, who ha 1 at length crossed the Alps, and descended into Cisalpine Gaul. According to Livy, Hannibal was apprised of his brother's arrival at E'laccntia before he had himself moved from his winter quarters ; but it is difficult to believe that, if this had been the case, he would not have made more energetic efforts to join him. If we can trust the narrative transmitted to us, which is certainly in many respects unsatisfactory, Hannibal spent, much time in vari- ous unimportant movements, before he advanced northward into Apulia, where lie was met by the Roman consul, and not only held in check, but so effectually deceived that he knew nothing of Nero's march to support his colleague until after his return ; and the lir< tidings of the battle of Metaurus were conveyed to him by the sigh", of the head of Hasdrubal. But, whatever exaggeration we may justly suspect in this relation, it is not the less certain that the defeat and death of Hasdrubal was decisive of the fate of the war in Italy ; and the conduct of Hannibal shows that he felt it to be such. From this time he abandons all thoughts of offensive operations, and. withdrawing his garrisons from 84 LIFE OF HAXXIBAL. Mctapontum and other towns that he still held in Lucania, collected together his forces within the peninsula of Bruttium. In the fast- nesses of that wild and mountainous region, he maintained his ground for nearly four years ; whilst, the towns that he still possessed on the coast gave him the command of the sea. Of the events of these four years, we know but little. It appears that the Romans at lirst con- tented themselves with shutting him up within the peninsula, hut gradually began to encroach upon these bounds ; and though -the statements of their repeated victories are gross exaggerations, if not altogether unfounded, yet the successive loss of Locri, Conseutia, ar.d Pandosia, besides smaller towns, must have hemmed him- in within limits continually narrowing. Crotoua seems to have been his chid' stronghold and centre of operations ; and it was during this period that he erected, in the temple of the Lacinian Juno, near that city, a column bearing an inscription which recorded the leading events of his memorable expedition. To this important monument, which was seen and consulted by Polybius, we are indebted for many of the statements of that author. It is difficult to judge, whether it was the expectation of effective assistance from Carthage, or the hopes of a fresh diversion beiii'i 1 operated by Mago in the North, that induced Hannibal to clii!.u; so pertinaciously to the corner of Italy that he still held. It is < that he was, at any time, free to -quit it ; and when, at length, he was induced to comply with the urgent request of the Carthaginian government that he should return to Africa, to make head against Scipio, he was able to embark his troops without an attempt at oppo- sition. His departure from Italy seems, indeed, to have been the great object of desire with the Romans. For more than fifteen years had he carried on the war in that country, laying it waste from one extremity to the other, and during all this period his superiority in the field had been uncontested. The Romans calculated that in these fifteen years their losses in the field alone amounted to not less Hum 300,000 men ; a statement which will hardly appear exaggerated, when we consider the continual combats in which they were engaged by their ever-watchful foe. Hannibal landed, with the small but veteran army which he was able to bring with him from Italy, at Leptis, in Africa, apparently before the close of the year 203. From thence he proceeded to the strong city of Hadrumetum. The circumstances of the campaign which followed are very differently related ; nor will our space allow us to enter into any discussion of the details. Some of these, es- pecially the well-known account of the interview between Scipio and Hannibal, savor strongly of romance, notwithstanding the high authority of Polybius. The decisive action was fought at a place called Naragara, not far from the city of Zartia ; and Hannibal, ac- cording to the express testimony of h'is antagonist, displayed, on this occasion, all the qualities of a consummate general. But he was LIFE OF HANNIBAL. 80 now particularly deficient in that formidable cavalry which had so often decided the victory in his favor : his elephants, of which he had a great number, were rendered unavailing by the skilful man- agement of Scipio ; and the battle ended in his complete defeat, not- withstanding the heroic exertions of his veteran infantry. Twenty thousand of his men fell on the field of battle ; as many more were made prisoners, and Hannibal himself with difficulty escaped the pur- suit of Masinissa, and he fled with a few horsemen to Hadrumetum. Here he succeeded in collecting about 6000 men, the remnant of his scattered army, with whom he repaired to Carthage. But all hopes of resistance were now at an end, and he was one of the first to urge the necessity of an immediate peace. Much time, however, appears to have been occupied in the negotiations for this purpose ; and the treaty was not finally concluded until after the battle of Zama. By this treaty, Hannibal saw the object of his whole life frustrated, and Carthage was effectually humbled before her imperious rival. But his enmity to Rome was unabated ; and though now more than 45 years old, he set himself to work, like his father Hamilcar after the end of the first Punic war, to prepare the means of renewing the contest at a distant period. His first measures related to the internal affairs of Carthage, and were directed to the reform of abuses in the administration, and in the introduction of certain constitutional changes, which our imperfect knowledge of the government of Car- thage wholly disqualifies us clearly to understand. We are told that after the termination of the war with Rome, Hannibal was assailed by the opposite faction with charges of remissness, and even treachery, in his command ; accusations so obviously false, that they appear to have recoiled on the heads of his accusers ; and he was not only acquitted, but shortly afterwards was raised to the chief mag- istracy of the republic, the office styled by Livy prcetor : by which it is probable that he means one of the suffetes. But the virtual con- trol of the whole government had at this time been assumed by the assembly of judges, apparently the same: as the council of one hun- dred, evidently a high and aristocratic body ; and it was only by the overthrow of this power that Hannibal was enabled to introduce order into the finances of the state, and thus prepare the way for the gradual restoration of the republic. But though he succeeded in ac- complishing this object, and in introducing the most beneficial re- forms^ such a resolution could not but irritate the adverse faction, and they soon found an opportunity of revenging themselves, by de- nouncing 1 him to the Romans, as bein; engaged in negotiations with Antiochus III., King of Syria, to induce him to take up arms against Rom. There can be little doubt that the charge was well founded, and Hannibal saw that his enemies were too strong for him. No sooner, therefore, did thy K >iu m envoys appear at Carthage, thiui he secretly took to flight, an I escaped by sea to the island of Cercina, from whence he retire.1 to Tyre, and thence again, after u 8fi LIFE OF HAXXIBAL. short interval, to the court of Antiochus at Ephesus. Tho Syrian monarch was at tliis time on the eve of war wilh Rome, though hos- tilities find not yet commenced. Hence Hannibal was welcomed with the utmost honors. But Antioclnis, partly perhaps from incapacity, partly, also, from personal jealousy, encouraged by the intrigues of his courtieie, could nor be induced to listen to his judicious counsels, the wisdom :>f which he was compelled to acknowledge when too late. Hannibal in vain urged the necessity oi carrying ihc war at once into Italy, instead of awaiting the Romans in (i recce. The king could not be persuaded to place a force at his disposal for this purpose, and sent him instead to assemble a fleet for him from the cities of Phoenicia. This Hannibal effected, and took the command of it in person ; but his previous habits could have little qualified him for this service, and he was defeated by the Rhodian fleet, in an action near. Side. But uvuiportaut as his services in this war appear to have been, he was still Kgarded by the Romans with such appre- hension, that his surrender was one of the conditions of the peace granted to Antipchus after hL defeat at Magnesia. Hannibal, how- ever, foresaw his danger, and nadc his esc ape to Crete, from whence he afterwards repaired to the court of Prusias, King of Bithynia. Another account represents hisii as repairing from the court of Anti- ochus to Armenia, where it is said he found u-f'uge for a time with Artaxias, one of the generals of Auticchus, who had revolted from his master, and that he superintended the foundation of Artaxata, the new capital of the Armenian kingdom. In any case, it was iu the kingdom of Prusias that he took up his abode. That numarcl; was in a state of hostility with Eumenes, the faithful ally of Rome, and on that account unfriendly, at least, to the Romans. Here, therefore, he found, for some years, a secure asylum, during which time we are told that he commanded the fleet of Piusias in a naval action against Eumenes, and gained a victory over that monarch, absurdly attributed, by Cornelius Nepos and Justin, to (lie stratagem of throwing vessels filled with serpents into the enemy's ships ! I Jut the Romans could not be at ease so long a? Hannibal lived ; and T. Quintals Flamininus was at length dispatched to the court of Prusias to demand the surrender of the fugitive. The Bitbynum king was unable to resist, and he sent troops tx> arrest his illustrious guest ; but Hannibal, who had long been in expectation of such an event, as, soon as he found that atl approaches were beset, and that flight was impossible, took poison, to avoid falling into the hands of his ene- ma s. The year of his death is uncertain, having been a subject of much dispute among the Roman chronologers. The testimony ot Polybiua on the point, which would have appeared conclusive, is doubtful. From the expressions of Livy, we should certainly have inferred that he placed the death of Hannibal, together with those of Scipio and Philopoemen, in the consulship of M. Claudius Marcelluk and Q. Fabius Labes ; and this, which was the date adopted by LIFE OF HAKNIBAL. 87 Atticus, appears on the whole the most probable : but Cornelius Nepos expressly says that Poly bins assigned it to the following year, and Sulpicius to the year after that. The scene of his death and burial was a village named Libyssa. on the coast of Bithynia. Hannibal's character has been very variously estimated by different writers. A man who had rendered himself formidable to the Roman power, and had wrought them such extensive mischief, could hardly fail to be the object of the falsest calumnies and misrepresentations during his life ; and there can be no doubt that many such were recorded in the pages of the historian Fabius, and have been transmitted to us by Appian and Zouares. He was judged with less passion, and, on the whole, with great impartiality, by Polybius. An able review of his character will be found also in Dion Cassius. But that writer tells us that he was accused of avarice by the Carthaginians, and of cruelty by the Romans. Many instances of the latter are certainly recorded by the Roman historians ; but even if we were to admii. them all as true (and many of them are demoustrably false), the\ do not exceed, or even equal, wha* the sarm; writers have related of their own generals : and severity, often degenerating into cruelty, seems to have been so characteristic of the Carthaginians in general, that Hannibal's conduct in this respect, as compared with that of his countrymen, deserves to be regarded as a favorable exception. We find him readily entering into an agreement with Fabius for an ex- change of prisoners ; and it was only the sternness of the Roman* themselves that prevented tha same humane arrangements from be- ing carried throughout the war. On many occasions, too, his gen- erous sympathy for his fallen foes bears witness of a noble spirit, and his treatment of the dead bodies of Flaminius, of Gracchus, and of Marcellus, contrasts most favorably with the barbarity of Claudius Nero to that of Hasdrubal. The charge of avarice appears to have been as little founded : of such a vice, in its lowest acceptation, he was certainly incapable ; though it is not unlikely that he was greedy of money for the prosecution of his great schemes; and, perhaps, unscrupulous in his modes of acquiring it. Among other virtues lie is extolled for his temperance and continence, and for the fortitude with which he endured every species of toil and hardship. Of his abil- ities as a general it is unnecessary to speak : all the great masters uf the art of war, from Scipio to Napoleon, have concurred in their homage to his genius. But in comparing Hannibal with any other of the great leaders of antiquity, we must ever bear in mind the pecu- liar circumstances in which he was placed. He was not in Hie position either of a powerful monarch, disposing at his pleasure of the whole resources of the state, nor yet in that of a republican leader supported by the patriotism and national spirit of the people that fol- lowed him to battle. Feebly and grudgingly supported by the gov- ernment at home, he stood alone at the head of an army composed of 88 LIFE OF HANNIBAL mercenaries of many nations, of men fickle and treacherous to all others but himself, men who had no other bond of union than their common confidence in their leader. Yet not only did he retain the attachment of these men, unshaken by any change of fortune, for a period of more than fifteen years, but he trained up army after army ; and, long after the veterans that followed him over the Alps had dwindled to an inconsiderable remnant, his new levies were still as invincible as their predecessors. Of the private character of Hannibal, we know very little : no man ever played so conspicuous a part in history of whom so few personal anecdotes have been recorded. Yet this can hardly have been for want of the opportunity of preserving them ; for we are told that he was accompanied throughout his campaigns by two Greek writers, Silenus and Sosilus ; and we know that the works of both these authors were extant in later times ; but they seem to have been un- worthy of their subject. Sosilus is censured by Polybius for the fables and absurdities with which he had overlaid his history ; and Silenus is cited only as an authority for dreams and prodigies. The former is said also to have acted as Hannibal's instructor in Greek, a language which, at least in the latter years of his life, he spoke with fluency ; and in which he even composed, diiringhis residence at the court of Prusias, a history of the expedition of Cn. Manlius Vulso against the Galatians. If we may believe Zonares, he was, at an early age, master of several other languages also, Latin among the rest ; but this seems at least very doubtful. Dion Cassius, however, also bears testimony to his having received an excellent education, not only in Punic, but in Greek learning and literature. During his res- idence in Spain, Hannibal had married the daughter of a Spanisi but we do not learn that he left any children. THE BJTD. LIFE OF JULIUS CAESAR. CHAPTER I. *TIOM THE CONSULSHIP OF POMPEY AND CRA88US TO THE RETURN OP POMPEY FROM THE EAST CAESAR CICEROCATILINE. (69-61 B.C.) C. JULIUS CAESAR was born of an old patrician family in the year 100 B.C. He was therefore six years younger than Pompey and Cicero. His father, C. Caesar, did not live to reach the consulship. His uncle Sextus held that high dignity in 91 B.C., just before the outbreak of the Social War. That L. Caesar who held command in the first year of that war (90 B.C.), and was author of the famous Julian law for enfranchising the Allies, was a more distant kinsman, who adhered to the aristocratical party and fell a victim in the Marian massacre. But the connection on which the young patrician most prided himself was the marriage of his aunt Julia with the famous C. Marius ; and at the early age of seventeen he declared his adhe- sion to the popular party by espousing Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, who was at that time absolute master of Rome.* On the re- turn of Sylla, he boldly refused to repudiate this wife, and only saved 4iis life by skulking in the Apennines. But at length his aristocratic friends induced the dictator to pardon him. Sylla gave way against his own judgment, and told the nobles to whom he bequeathed authority to "beware of that dissolute boy. "f His first military service was performed under the praetor L. Minucius Thermus, who was left by Sylla to take Mitylene ; and in the siege of that place he won a civic crown for saving the life of a Roman citizen. On the death of Sylla he returned to Rome, and, after the custom of am- bitious young Romans, though he was but in his twenty-third year, he indicted Cn. Dolabella, a partisan of Sylla, for extortion in his province of Macedonia. The senatorial jury acquitted Dolabella as * Yet he bad already bean married before to Cogsutia, a rich hoirws. H* di- vorced her to marry Cornelia, t Dio C. xliii. 48, etc. 4 LIFE OF JULIUS C.ESAR. a matter of course ; but the credit gained by the young orator was great ; and he went to Rhodes to study rhetoric under Molo, in whose school Cicero had lately been taking lessons. It was on his way to Rhodes that he fell into the hands of Cilician pirates. Redeemed by a heavy ransom, he collected some ships at Miletus, attacked his cap- tors, took the greater part of them prisoners, and crucified them at Pergamus, according to a threat which he had often made while he had been their prisoner. About the year 74 B.C. he heard that he had been chosen as one of the pontifices, to succeed his uncle C. Aurelius Cotta, and he instantly returned to Rome, where he remained for some years, leading apparently a life of pleasure, taking little out- ward part in politics, but yet, by his winning manners and open- handed generosity, laying in a large store of popularity. Many wri- ters attribute to him a secret agency in most of the events of the time. The early attachment which he showed to the Marian party, and his bold defiance of Sylla's orders, prove that he was quite willing . i md able to act against the senatorial oligarchy whenever opportunity might offer. But we have no positive evidence on the matter, fur- ther than that it was his uncle C. Cotta who in 75 B.C. proposed to restore to the tribunes some portion of the dignity they had lost by the Syllan legislation, and that it was another uncle, L. Cotta, who was author of the celebrated law (70 B.C.) for reorganizing the juries. After his consulship, as we have seen, Pompey had remained for two years in dignified ease at Rome, envied by Crassus, and reposing on the popularity he had won. In 67 B.C. he left the city to take the command against the pirates. In that year Ca-sar, being now in his thirty-third year, was elected quaestor, and signalized his year of office by an elaborate panegyric over the body of his aunt Julia, the widow of Marius. His wife Cornelia died in the same year, and gave occasion to another funeral harangue. In both of these speeches the political allusions were evident ; and he ventured to have the 1)11*4 of Marius carried in procession among his family images for the first time since the terrible dictatorship of Sylla. In 65 B.C. he was circled curule gedile, and increased his popularity by exhibiting three hundred and twenty pairs of gladiators, and conducting all the games on a scale of unusual magnificence. The expense of these exhibitions was in great measure borne "by his colleague M. Bibulus, who naively complained that Caesar had all the credit of the shows " just as the temple of the Dioscuri, though belonging both to Castof ;nid Pollux, bore the name of Castor only." But he did not confine himself to winning applause by theatrical spectacles. As curator of the Appian Way he expended a large sum from his own resources. The Cimbrian trophies of Marius had been thrown down by Sylla, and no public remembrance existed of the services rendered to Rome by her greatest soldier. The popular a?dile ordered the images and trophies, with suitable inscriptions, to be secretly restored ; and in one night he contrived to have them set up upon the Capitol, so that LIFE OF JULIUS CJESAR. 5 at daybreak men were astonished by the unaccustomed sight. Old soldiers who had served with Marius shed tears. All the party op- posed to Sylla and the senate took heart at this boldness, and recog- nized their chief. So important was the matter deemed, that it was brought before the senate, and Catulus accused Caesar of openly as- saulting the constitution. But nothing was done or could be done to check his movements. In all things he kept cautiously within the law. The year of his aedilcship was marked by the appearance of a man destined to an infamous notoriety L. Sergius Catilina, familiar to all under the name of Catiline. For some time after the death of Sylla, the weariness and desire of repose which always follows violent revolutionary movements had disposed all ranks of society to acquiesce in the senatorial rule estab- lished by the dictator. But more than one class of men soon found themselves ill at ease, and the elements of trouble again began to move freely. All the families proscribed by Sylla, remembering their sometime wealth and consequence, cherished the thoughts thai by a new revolution they might recover what they had lost ; and tin; enthusiasm displayed when by the happy temerity of Caesar the trophies of Marius were restored, revealed to the senate both the num- ber and the increasing boldness of their political enemies. But be- sides these avowed enemies there was a vast number of persons, formerly attached to Sylla, who shared the discontent of the Marian party. The dictator paid the services of his instruments, but he left all real power in the hands of a few great families. His own creatures were allowed to amass money, but remained without polit- ical power. Pompey and Crassus, who rose independently of him. and almost in despite of his will, belonged to families so distinguished that in any state of things they might have reached the consulate. But the upstarts who enjoyed a transient greatness while Sylla \va . dictator found themselves rapidly reduced to obscurity. With tli" recklessness of men who had become suddenly rich, they had for tin- most part squandered their fortunes. Neither money nor power was theirs. These men were for the most part soldiers, and ready for any violence which might restore their wealth and their importance. They only wanted chiefs. These chiefs they found among the spend- thrift and profligate members of noble families, who like themselves had enjoyed the license of the revolutionary times now gone by, an 1 like themselves were excluded from the councils of the respectable though narrow-minded men who composed the senate and adminis- tered the government. These were the young nobles, effeminate and debauched, reckless of blood, of whom Oicero often speaks with horror. Of these adventurers Catiline was by far the most remarkable, lie belonged to an old patrician gens, and had distinguished himself both by valor and cruelty in the late civil war. He is said to have 6 LIFE OF JULIUS CJESAR. murdered bis own brother, and to bave secure J impunity by getting the name of his victim placed on the proscribed lists. A beautiful and profligate lady, by name Aurelia Orestilla, refused his proffered hand because he had a grown-up son by a former marriage ; and this son speedily ceased to live. Notwithstanding these and other crimes, real or imputed, the personal qualities of Catiline gave him great ascendency over the people at large, and especially over the young nobles, who lacked money, and who were jealous of the few great families that now, as before the times of the Gracchi, had ab- sorbed all political power. His strength and activity were such, that, notwithstanding his debaucheries, he was superior to the soldiers at their own exercises, and could encounter skilled gladi- ators with their own weapons. His manners were open and genial, and he was never known to desert friends. By qualities so nearly resembling virtues, it is not strange that he deceived many, and ob- tained mastery over more. In 68 B.C. he was elected praetor, and in the following year became governor of the province of Africa. Here he spent two years in the practice of ev r ery crime that is imputed to Roman provincial rulers. During the year of Caesar's aedileship, Catiline was accused by no less a person tnan the profligate P. Clodi- us Pulcher, who cared not how or at whose expense he gained dis- tinction. Catiline had intended in that year to offer himself candi- date for the consulship. But while this accusation was pending, the law forbade him to come forward ; and this obstacle so irritated him that he took advantage of a critical juncture of circumstances to plan a new revolution. The senatorial chiefs, in their wish to restore at least an outward show of decency, had countenanced the introduction of a very severe law to prevent bribery by L. Calpurnius Piso, consul for the year 67 B.C. Under this law P. Cornelius Sulla and P. Autronius PaHus, consuls-elect for 65 B.C., were indicted and found guilty. Their election was declared void. L. Aurelius Cotta and L. Manlius Tor- quatus, their accusers, were nominated by the senate consuls in their stead, without the formality of a new election. Catiline found Autronius ready for any violence ; and these two entered into a con- spiracy with another profligate young ncbleman, byname Cn. I'iso, to murder the new consuls on the calends of January the day on which they entered upon office and to seize the supreme authority for themselves. The scheme is said to have failed only because Cat- iline gave the signal of attack before the armed assassins had as- sembled in sufficient numbers to begin their work. That this attempt was either not generally known or not generally believed is indicated by the fact that Cn. Piso was intrusted by the senate with the government of Spain. Hardly had he arrived when he was murdered by the Spanish horsemen in attendance upon his per- son, men who had formerly served under Pompey in the Sertorian war. But who were the instigators and what the causes of this dark deed were things never known. Catiline was acquitted on his trial, no doubt by the intentional mis- conduct of the case by Clodius. We are astonished to find the con- sul Torquatus appear as his advocate, and to read a private letter of Cicero, in which the orator expressed his willingness to undertake the same disreputable office. The reason which he gives himself for this assent is that in the next year he was to be candidate- for the consulship : if Catiline were acquitted, he also would be a com- petitor ; and it would be better to have him as a friend than as an enemy. This alone speaks loudly for the influence of Catiline ; for at the same time Cicero privately asserts his conviction that his guilt was clear as noonday. In the next year (64 B.C.) Cassar made another movement in ad- vance against the Syllan party, by bringing to trial two obscure men who had slain persons under the authority of Sylla's law of proscrip- tion. They were found guilty and condemned. One of them, L. Bellienus, was an uncle of Catiline. On this hint, L. Lucceius brought Catiline himself to trial for the same offence. He was ac- quitted, probably by the exercise of influence which the obscure per- sons assailed by Caesar were unable to procure. But the condemna- tion of any person for obeying the ordinances of Sylla was a notable encroachment on the authority of his constitutional regulations ; and the success which attended this step showed the discretion and judg- ment of Caesar in the conduct of political warfare. Catiline was now free to offer himself for the consulship. There was every reason to fear his success. Five of the six candidates who opposed him were men of little note, and many of them men of in- different character. The sixth was Cicero, whose obscure birth was a strong objection against him in the eyes of the senatorial nobility. But they had no choice. C. Autonius, brother of M. Antonius Cre- ticus, and younger son of the great orator, was considered sure of his election ; and he was inclined to form a coalition with Catiline. Ci- cero was supported by the Equites, by the friends of Pompey whom he had so well served by his speech for the Manilian law, and by a number of persons whom he had obliged by his services as advocate. What part he had hitherto taken in politics had been decidedly in opposition to the senate. In early youth he had distinguished him- self by a daring attack upon Sylla's proscriptions. As aedile-elect he had strengthened the hands of Pompey in his assault on the sen- atorial courts by his bold and uncompromising accusation of Verres. Lastly, he had given offence to Catulus and the leaders of the senate by his eloquent support of the Manilian law. But necessity knows no rule ; and to keep out Catiline, whom they feared and hated, the senatorial chiefs resolved to support Cicero, whom they disliked and despised. The orator himself showed his usual activity. Publicly he inveighed against the coalition of Antonius and Catiline ; private- ly he made advances to Antonius. His personal popularity and tha support of the aristocracy placed him at the bead of tUe poll. An- 8 LIFE OF JULIUS C^ESAE. tonius was returned as his colleague, though he headed Catiline by the votes of very few centuries. We now come to the memorable year of Cicero's consulship, 63 B.C. It was generally believed that Catiline's second disappoint- ment in suing for the chief object of a Roman's ambition would drive him to a second conspiracy. Immediately after his election, Cicero at once attached himself to the senate and justified their choice. To detach Antonius from connection with Catiline, he vol- untarily ceded to him the lucrative province of Macedonia, which he had obtained by lot. But Catiline's measures were conducted with so much secrecy that for several months no clue was obtained to his designs. .Meantime Cicero had other difficulties to meet. Among the trib- unes of the year were two persons attached to Caesar's party, Q. SLT- vilius Rullus and T. Atius Labienus. The tribunes entered upon their office nearly a month before the consuls ; and in these few days Rullus had come forward with an agrarian law, by which it was proposed to revive the measure of Cinna, and divide the rich public lands of Campania among the poor citizens of the tribes. Cicero's devotion to his new political friends was shown by the ready alacrity with which he opposed this popular measure. On the calends of January, the very day upon which he entered office, he delivered a vehement harangue in the senate against the measure, which he fol- lowed up by elaborate speeches in the forum. He pleased himself by thinking that it was in consequence of these efforts that Rullus Avitlulrew his bill. But it is probable that Caesar, the real author of the law, cared little for its present success. In bringing it forward he secured favor for himself. In forcing Cicero to take part against it, he deprived the eloquent orator of a large portion of his hard-won popularity. Soon after this Caesar employed the services of T. Labienus to follow up the blow which in 'the preceding year he had struck against the proscription of Sylla by an assault upon the arbitrary power assumed by the senate in dangerous emergencies. It will be remembered that in the sixth consulship of Marius the revolutionary enterprise of the tribune Saturninus had been put down by resort- ing to the arbitrary power just noticed. Labienus, whose uncle had perished by the side of Saturniuus, now indicted C. Rabirius, an aged senator, for having slain the tribune. It was well known that the actual perpetrator of the deed was a slave named Scaeva, who had been publicly rewarded for his services. But Rabirius had cer- tainly been in the midst of the assailants, and it was easy to accuse him of complicity. The actual charge brought against him was that he was guilty of high treason (perdudlio) ; and if he were found guilty, it would follow that all persons who hereafter obeyed the senate in taking up arms against seditious persons would be liable to A similar charge. The cause was tried before the duumviri, one of LIFE OF JULIUS C^ESAE. 9 whom was L. Caesar, consul of the preceding year ; the other was C. Caesar himself. Hortensius and Cicero defended the old senator. It would seem almost impossible for Caesar to condemn an act which was justified by Marius himself, who had been obliged to lead the assault. upon the tribune's party. But Caesar's object was wholly political, and he was not troubled by scruples. The duumviri found Rabirius guilty. From this judgment the old senator appealed to the popular assembly. Cicero again came forward, in his consular robes, to defend him. He was only allowed half aii hour for his speech ; but the defence which he condensed into that narrow space was unanswerable, and must have obtained a verdict for his client, if it had been addressed to a calm audience. The people, however, were eager to humiliate the senatorial government, and were ready to vote, not according to the justice of the case, but according to their present political passion. In vain the senators descended into the assembly and implored for a vote of acquittal. Kabirius would certainly have been condemned had not Q. Metellus Celer, praetor of the city, taken down the standard which from ancient times floated from the Janiculum during the sit- ting of the comitia. * But Caasar's purpose was effectually answered. The governing body had been humbled, and their right to place seditious persons under a sentence of outlawry had been called in question. We may almost suppose that Caesar himself suggested to Metellus the mode of stopping the trial ; for he was never inclined to shed blood and oppress the innocent, unless when he deemed it necessary for his political ends. About the same time Caesar promoted an accusation against C. Calpurnius Piso for malversation in his government of Gallia Nar- boneusis. Piso, when consul, had led the opposition to the Gabinian law. He was acquitted on the present charge, and became one of Ca'sar's most determined enemies.! Cicero lost still more favor by the successful opposition which he offered to an attempt to restore to their political rights the sons of those who had bi;en on the proscribed lists of Sylla. In this he well served the purpose of the senate by excluding from the comitia their mortal enemies ; but he incurred many personal enmities, and he ad- vocated a sentence which was manifestly unjust and could be just tied only by necessity. In return for these services ho induced his new friends to second him in some measures of practical reform. He procured a law against bribery still more stringent than the Cal- * A cnptom probably derived from the times when the Etruscans were fo8 of Rome. The removal of the standard was, In those times, a signal of tin- enemy's approach, and on this signal the Comitia Centunata became an army ready tor bat- tle. The form remained, though the reason had long passed away. t This C. Piso, the aristocrat, must be carefully distinguished from Cn. Piso the dissolute associate of Catiline, and from L. Piso, the enemy of Cicero and father-in- law of Ca-sar. Several other Pisos occur iu this period, and thuir identity of aam . leads to souiu confusion. 10 LIFE OF JULIUS CAESAR. purnian law of 67 B.C. At his instance the senate gave up the priv- ilege by which every senator was entitled to free quarters in any city of the empire, on pretence that they were engaged in the service of the state. About this time the age and infirmities of Metellus Pius made probable a vacancy in the high office of pontifex maximus ; and Labienus introduced a law by which the right of election to this office was restored to the tribes, according to the rule observed before Sylla's revolution. Very soon after, Metellus died, and Caesar offered himself as a candidate for this high office. Catulus, chief of the sen- ate and the respectable leader of the governing party, also came for- ward, as well as P. Servilius Isauricus. Caesar had been one of the pontiffs from early youth ; but he was known to be unscrupulous in his pleasures as in his politics, overwhelmed with debt, careless of religion. His election, however, was a trial of political strength merely. It was considered so certain, that Catulus attempted to take advantage of the heavy debts which embarrassed him by offering him a large sum if he would retire from the contest. Caesar peremp"- torily refused, saying that if more money were necessary for his pur- poses he would borrow more. He probably anticipated that the sen- ate would use force to oppose him ; for on the morning of the elec- tion he parted from his mother Aurelia with th<3 words, " I shall re- turn as pontifex maximus, or you will see me no more." His suc- cess was triumphant. Even in the tribes to which his opponents be- longed he obtained more votes than they counted altogether. No fact can more strongly prove the strength which the popular party had regained under his adroit but unseen management. It is worth noting that in this year, when he first appeared as master of the forum, was born his sister's son, M. Octavius, who reaped the fruit of all his ambitious endeavors. The year was now fast waning, and nothing was known to the public of any attempts on the part of Catiline. That dark and enter- prising person had offered himself again as candidate for the consul- ship, and he was anxious to keep all quiet till the result was known. But Cicero had become acquainted with a woman named Fulvia- mistress to Curius, one of Catiline's confidential friends, and by her means he obtained immediate knowledge of all the designs of the conspirators. At length he considered t hern so far advanced, that on the 21st of October he convened the senate and laid all his informa- tion before them. So convinced were they of the danger, that on the next day a decree was framed to invest the consuls with dictatorial power, to be used at their discretion. At present, however, this de- cree was kept secret. Soon after, the consular comitia were held, and the election of the centuries fell on D. Junius Silamis and L. Licinius Murena, both of them adherents of the senatorial party. Catiline, disappointed of his last hopes of election, convened his friends at the house of M. Por- LIFE OF JULIUS C^SAK. 11 cius Lseca, on the nights of the 6th and 7th of November ; * and at this meeting it was determined to proceed to action. 0. Mallius, an old centurion, who had been employed in levying troops secretly in Etruria, was sent to Fsesulas as headquarters, and ordered to prepare for war ; Catiline and the rest of his associates were to organize rev- olutionary movements within the city. Cicero was immediately informed of these resolutions through Fulvia, and resolved to dally no longer with the peril. He summoned the senate to meet on the 8th of November in the Temple of Jupiter Stator. Catiline, himself a senator, with marvellous effrontery, ap- peared in his place ; but every senator quitted the bench on which he took his seat and left him alone. Cicero now rose and delivered that famous speech which is entitled his First Oration against Catiline. The conspirator attempted to reply ; but a general shout of execra- tion drowned his voice. Unable to obtain a hearing, lie left the senate-house ; and, perceiving that his life was in danger if he re- mained at Rome, he summoned his associates together, and handed over the execution of his designs at home to M. Leutulus Sura, praetor of the city, and C. Cethegus, while on that same night he himself left Rome to join Mallius at Fajsulae. On the following morning Cicero assembled the people in the forum, and there in his second speech he told them of the flight of Catiline and explained its cause. The senate now made a second decree, in which Catiline and Mal- lius were proclaimed public enemies ; and the consul Antonius was directed to take the command of an army destined to act against him, while to Cicero was committed the care of the city. Cicero was at a loss how to act ; for he was not able to bring forward Ful- via as a witness, and alter the late proceedings against Rabirius he was obliged to be very cautious in resorting to the use of dictatorial power. But at this moment he obtained full and direct proof of the intentions of the conspirators. There were then present at Rome ambassadors from the Allobroges, whose business it was to solicit relief from the oppression of their governors and from the debts which they had incurred to the Roman treasury. The senate heard them coldly, and Lentulus took advantage of their discontent to make overtures to them in hope of obtaining military aid from their countrymen against the senatorial leaders. At first they lent a ready ear to his offers, but thought it prudent to disclose these offers to Q. Fabius Sanga, whose family had long been engaged to protect their interests at Rome.f Fabius at once communicated with Cicero. By the consul's directions, the Allobrogian envoys continued their in- * Our Jan llth, 62 B.C. In this and all following dates correction must be made to obtain the real time. The Roman 1st of January of this year would be by our reckoning the 14th of March. It must be observed also that the Romans i reckoned the night us belonging to the following day. What we call the night of the bth of November would be with them the night of the 7th. . t They had been conquered by Q. Fabius Maximus, nephew of Scipio ^Emillflnuii. l;i LIFB OF JULIUS CJESAK. trigue with Lentulus, and demanded written orders, signed by him- self, Cethegus, and others of the chief conspirators, to serve us cre- dentials to their nation. Bearing these fatal documents, they set out from Rome on the evening of the 3d of December (5th of February, B.C.), accompanied by one T. Vulturcius, who carried letters from Lentulus to Catiline himself. Cicero, kept in full information of every fact, ordered the pra3tors L. Flaccus and C. Pomptinus to take post with a sufficient force upon the MUlvian Bridge. Here the envoys were quietly arrested, together with Vulturcius, and all their papers were seized. Early next morning, Cicero sent for Lentulus, Cethegus, and the others who had signed the Allobrogian credentials, to his house. Utterly ignorant of what had passed, they came; and the consul, holding the praetor Lentulus by the hand, and followed by the rest, went straight to the Temple of Concord, where he had summoned the senate to meet. Vulturcius and the Allobrogian envoys were now brought in, and the praetor Flaccus produced the papers which lie had seized. The evidence was so clearly bi ought to a point that the conspirators at once confessed their handwriting ; and the senate decreed "that Lentulus should be deprived of his praetorship, and that he with his accomplices should be put into the hands of eminent senators, who were to be answerable for their persons. Lentulus fell to the charge of P. Lentulus Spinther, who was then sedile, Cethegus to that of Q. Cornificius, Statilius to Caesar, Gabinius to Crassns, Caeparius to Cn. Terentius. Immediately after the execution of this decree, Cicero went forth into the forum, and in his third speech de- tailed to the assembled people all the circumstances which had been discovered. Not only had two knights been commissioned by Cethegus to kill Cicero in his chamber, a fate which the consul eluded by refusing them admission, but it had been resolved to set the city on fire in twelve places at once, as soon as it was known that Catiline and Mallius were ready to advance at the head of an armed force. Lentulus, who belonged to the great Cornelian gens, had been buoyed up by a Sibylline prophecy, which promised the domin- ion over Rome to " three C's :" he was to be the third Cornelius after Cornelius Cinna and Cornelius Sylla. But it was to his slug- gish remissness that the fiery Cethegus attributed their ignominious failure ; and it is probable that if the chief .conduct of the business had been left to this desperate man, some attempt at a rising would have been made. The certainty of danger and the feeling of escape filled all hearts with indignation against the Catilinarian gang ; and for a moment Cicero and the senate rose to the height of popularity. Two days after (December 5 = February 7, 62 "B.C.), the senate was once more summoned to decide the fate of the captive conspira- tors. Silanus, as consul-elect, was first asked his opinion, and he gave it in favor of death. Ti. Nero moved that the question should OF JULIL f S (LESAR. 13 be adjourned till the contest with Catiline in the field was brought to an end. Csesar, who was then praetor-elect, spoke against capital punishment altogether, and proposed that the prisoners should be condemned to perpetual chains in various cities of Italy taking care incidentally to moot the question lately raised in the case of Rabirius as to the power of the senate to inflict the penalty of death. His speech produced such an effect that even Silanus declared his inten- tion to accede to Nero's motion. But Cicero himself and Cato de- livered vehement arguments in favor of extreme punishment, and the majority voted with them. Immediately after the vote, the consul, with a strong guard, conveyed the prisoners to the loathsome dungeon called the Tullianum, and here they were strangled by the public ex- ecutioners. It is difficult to see how the state could have been imperilled by suffering the culprits to live at least till they had been allowed the chances of a regular trial. If Rabirius was held guilty for taking part in putting Saturninus to death a man who was actually in arms against the government what, had Cicero to expect from those who were ready to deliver this verdict ? It was not long before he had cause to rue his over-zealous haste. But, at present, a panic fear pervaded all classes. No one knew what danger threatened and who might be the sufferers. At the moment, the popular voice ratified the judgment of Cato, when he proclaimed Cicero to have justly de- served the title of " Father of his Country." Before the clos of the consular year, the consul-elect Murena was indicted by C. Sulpicius, one of his competitors, for bribery. The accusation was supported by Cato. Hortensius and Cicero undertook the defence. Cicero's speech is extant ; and the buoyant spirits with which he assails first the legal pedantry of Sulpicius and then the im- practicable stoicism of Cato show how highly he was elated by his late successful management in crushing the conspiracy at home. There can be no doubt that Murena was guilty. The only argument of any force used in his defence by Cicero was his statement of the danger of leaving the state with but one consul when Catiline was at the head of an army in the field. And this argument probably it was that procured the acquittal of the consul-elect. The sequel may be briefly related. Before the execution of his ac- complices, Catiline was at the head of two complete legions, consist- ing chiefly of Sylla's veterans. But servile insurrections in Apulia and other places, on which Catiline counted, were promptly re- pressed : his own small army was very imperfectly armed ; and their leader avoided a conflict with Antonius, who was continued in com- mand as pro-consul. When the failure of the plot at home reached the insurgents, many deserted ; and Catiline endeavored to make good his retreat by Pistoja into Cisalpine Gaul. But the passes were already beset by the pro'-pnetorMetellus Celer ; the consul Antonius was close behind ; and it became necessary either to fight or surren- A.B. 12 14 LIFE OF JULIUS CJESAE. der. Catiline and his desperadoes chose the braver course. His small army was drawn up with skill. Antonius, mindful of former intimacy with Catiline, alleged illness as a plea for giving up the command of his troops to M. Petreius, a skilful soldier. A short but desperate conflict followed. Mallius and his best officers fell fight- ing bravely. Catiline, after doing the duties of a good general and a brave soldier, saw that the day was lost, and rushing into the thick of battle fell with many wounds. He was taken up, still breathing, with a menacing frown stamped upon his brow. None were taken prisoners ; all who died had their wounds in front. It is impossible to part from this strange history without adding a word with respect to the part taken by Cassar and Crassus. Both these eminent persons were supposed to have been more or less privy to Catiline's designs. If 'the first conspiracy attributed to Catiline had succeeded, we are told that the assassins of the consuls had in- tended to declare Crassus dictator, and that Caesar was to be master of the horse. Suetonius, in his love for improbable gossip, goes so far as to make Caasar a principal actor in that first conspiracy ; and many senators believed, or determined to believe, that he at least, if not Crassus, was guilty. Nothing seems more improbable than that Crassus should have countenanced a plan which involved the destruction of the city, and which must have been followed by the ruin of credit. He had con- stantly employed the large fortune which he had amassed in the Syl- lan proscription for the purposes of speculation and jobbing. One profitable branch of the latter business was to buy up promising youths, give them a first-rate education in music or any art to which they showed an aptitude, and then sell them at enormous price's. Spec- ulations of this sort could only succeed in a state of political security. To a money-lender, speculator, and jobber, a violent revolution, at- tended by destruction of property and promising abolition of debts, would be of all things the least desirable. Crassus was not without ambition, but he never gratified the lust of power at the expense of his purse. The case against Caesar bears at first sight more likelihood. Sal- lust represents Cato as hinting that Caesar's wish to spare the con- spirators arose from his complicity with them. As that unflinching politician was speaking in the debate on the punishment of the con- spirators, a note was privately put into Caesar's hand. Cato stopped and demanded that the note should be read aloud. Caesar handed it to his accuser ; it was a billet-doux from Servilia, the sister of Cato himself and wife of Silanus. " Take it, drunkard," retorted the disap- pointed speaker. This first attack, then, had signally failed. But in the next year (02 H.C.), after Caesar had entered upon his pnaetorship, accusations were brought against several persons who were doubtless guilty. Among them Autronius, the accomplice of Catiline in his first conspiracy, earnestly implored Cicero to be his advocate. The LIFE OF JULIUS (LESAR. 15 orator refused, and Autronius was condemned. But, immediately after this, the world was scandalized to see the orator undertake the defence of P. Sylla, who had been the colleague of Autronius, when both were ejected from the consulship more especially when it was whispered that he had received a large sum for his services. The speech remains, and a comparison of this pleading with his Catilina- rian speeches shows that the latitude which Cicero allowed himself as an advocate was little compatible with his new character of a po- litical leader. Notwithstanding the failure of the indictment against P. Sylla, the success which had lately attended their political efforts encouraged some of the senatorial chiefs to raise a formal accusation against Caesar. A person called Veltius, already employed by Cicero as a spy, had made a gainful trade of his informations, and he offered to produce a letter from Caesar to Catiline which would prove his guilt. Curius also came forward with similar assertions. Cicero and the more prudent of the senators wished at once to quash these tales. But Caesar would not be content, with this, and in full senate he called on the ex-consul to state what he knew of the matter. Cicero rose, and in the most explicit manner declared that so far from Caesar being implicated in the plot, he had done all that could be expected from a good citizen to assist in crushing it. The people, having learned what was the question before the senate, crowded to the doors of the house and demanded Caesar's safety. His appear- ance assured them, and he was welcomed with loud applause. It was only by his interference that Vettius was saved from being torn in pieces. Curius was punished by the loss of the reward which had been promised for his information. In truth, of evidence to prove Caesar's complicity with Catiline, there was really none ; and the further the case is examined the less appears to be the probability of such complicity. The course he had pursued for the purpose of undermining the power of the senatorial aristocracy was perfectly consistent, and had been so successful hitherto that he was little likely to abandon it at this precise moment for a scheme of reckless ruin and violence from which others would reap the chief advantage. Even if Catiline had succeeded, he must have been crushed almost immediately by Pompey, who was prepar- ing to return to Italy at the head of his victorious legions. The de- sire of Caesar to save the lives of Lentulus, Cethegus, and the rest, is at once explained, when we remember that he had just before pro- moted the prosecution of Rabirius for obeying an order of the very kind against which he now argued. As the leader of the party of the Gracchi, of Saturninus, and of Marius, it was his cue always and everywhere to protest against the absolute power assumed by the enate in such emergencies as unconstitutional and illegal. It is possible that he may have suspected the designs of Catiline ; and at an earlier period he may have been sounded by that reckless person, as a well-known opponent of the senate. But without claiming for 16 LIFE OF JULIUS CAESAR. Caesar any credit for principle or scrupulosity, we may safely con- clude that it was utterly inexpedient for him to have any dealings with Catiline ; and we may be sure that he was the last man to be aisled into a rash enterprise which was not expedient for himself. CHAPTER II. f POJCPET'S RETURN FIRST TRIUMVIRATE C^SAK's CONSULSHIP CLODIU8. (62-58 B.C.) IN the first heat of his triumph, Cicero disclosed the weakness of his character. He was, to speak plainly, full of inordinate vanity, a quality which above all others deprives a man of the social and polit- ical influence which may otherwise be due to his integrity, industry, and ability. The more violent among the senators who had taken him for their leader in the Catilinarian troubles were offended by his refusal to assail Caesar ; all the order was disgusted by the constant iteration of his merits. An oligarchy will readily accept the services of men of the people ; but they never cordially unite with them, and never forgive a marked assumption of personal superiority. But it was not only the senate at home that was irritated by hearing Cicero repeat, " I am the savior of Rome ; I am the father of my coun- try." Pompey was now in Greece, on the eve of returning to Italy, and he had been watching Cicero's rise to political eminence not without jealousy. Metellus Nepos,* his legate, had already re- turned to Rome with instructions from his chief, and had been elected Tribune for the next year. Cicero, in the fulness of his heart, wrote Pompey a long account of his consulate, in which lie had the ill address to compare his own triumph over Catiline with Pompey 's eastern conquests. The general in his reply took no no- tice of Cicero's actions ; and the orator wrote him a submissive let- ter, in which he professes his hope of playing Laelius to his great correspondent's Africanus. Meanwhile Metellus Nepos had entered upon hia tribuniciau office, and made no secret of his disapproval of Cicero's conduct in putting citizens to death without trial. On the calends of January, when the ex-consul intended to have delivered an elaborate panegyric on himself and the senate for their conduct in the late events, the tribune interdicted him from speaking at ail. He could do nothing more than step forward and swear aloud that " he alone had preserved the republic. " The people, not yet recov- * Several Metelli are mixed up with the history of this period. Mctcllus Nepofi was the younger brother of Metellus Celer, who as pnetor was in ,-inns against Catiline in Cisalpine Gaul. They were groat-graudsons of Metcllus Balearicus, and therefore distant cousins of Metellus Pius. LIFE OF JULIUS C^SAB. 17 ered from the fear of Catiline and his crew, shouted in answer that he had sworn the truth. Metellus Nepos followed up this assault by two bills one empow- ering Pompey to be elected consul for the second time in his absence ; the other investing him with the command in Italy for the purpose of quelling the insurrection of Catiline. Caesar supported both these motions ; but when Nepos began to read them to the people previ- ous to submitting them to the votes of the assembly, Cato, who was also one of the tribunes for the year, snatched the paper from the hand of his colleague and tore it in pieces. Nepos then began to re- cite his laws from memory ; but another tribune who was in the in- terest of the senate placed his hand over his mouth. A tumult fol- lowed. But popular feeling was at present with those who had so resolutely opposed Catiline. Nepos was obliged to forego his bills, and for the time the senate triumphed over the agent of Pompey. On laying down his praetorship at the close of the year, Caesar ob- tained Spain for his province. His debtors, fearing that he might elude them altogether, threatened to detain him ; ami in this emer- gency he applied to Crassus, with whom he had for some time culti- vated friendly relations. Crassus, believing in the fortune of Copsar, advanced the required sums, and the pro-praetor set out for Spain at the very beginning of the year 61 B.C. Pompey, after his progress through Greece, had arrived in Italy, but not at Rome. Great apprehensions were felt there ; for he was at the head of an army devoted to his person, and therefore his power was not to be doubted ; he was as silent on political matters as Monk on the eve of the Restoration, and therefore his intentions were suspected. But all fears and jealousies were dissipated for the moment, when he addressed his soldiers at Brundusium, thanked them for their faithful services, and dismissed them to their respec- tive homes till it was time for them to attend his triumph. He then set out for Rome, accompanied only by a few friends. Outside the walls he halted, and asked permission from the senate to enter the city without forfeiting his claim to a triumph. But what had been excused in Sylla after the act was not to be allowed by anticipation to Pompey. Cato strenuously opposed the application, and it was refused. This triumph, the third which he had enjoyed, did not take place till the end of September. It lasted t\vo days, and the sum of money paid into the treasury exceeded all former experience. After the triumph he addressed set speeches both to the senate and to the people, but with so much coldness and caution that no one could form any conclusion with respect to his present sentiments or inten- tions ; in particular he studiously avoided expressing any clear opinion with respect to the late troubles, and the active part taken by Cicero and the senate against the Catilinarian conspirators. Crassus, always jealous of Pompey, took advantage of his rival's cautious reserve to rise in the senate, and pronounce a panegyric upon Cicero ; and this 18 LIFE OF JULIUS CAESAR. gave the orator an opportunity of delivering the elaborate speech which he had prepared for the calends of January. Cicero sat down amid cheers from all sides of the house. It was probably the hap- piest moment of his life.* The consuls-elect were L. Afranius, an old and attached officer of Pompey, and Q. Metellus Celer, elder brother of Nepos.f The chief officers of state, therefore, seemed likely to be at the beck of the great general. But Afranius proved to be a cipher on the political stage, and Metellus Celer, exasperated because Pompey bad just di- vorced his sister, sided warmly with the senate. Caesar was in Far- ther Spain ; Crassus, stimulated (as we have said) by ancient jeal- ousy, had shown a disposition to oppose Pompey ; and the game, if prudently played, might have been won by the senatorial leaders. But about this time they lost Catulus, their most respected and most prudent chief ; and the blind obstinacy of Metellus Celer, Cato, and others, converted Pompey from his cold neutrality into a warm an- tagonist. During his stay in the East after the death of Mithridates, he had formed provinces and re-distributed kingdoms by his own judgment, unassisted by the senatorial commission, which usually advised a proconsul in such matters. lie now applied to have the arnm.irr- ments which he had made confirmed by authority of the senate. But Lucullus and Metellus Creticus, though they had been allowed the honors of a triumph, were not unjustly irritated at seeing that in the blaze of his triumphant success their own unquestionable merits had been utterly over-past and forgotten. They spoke warmly in the senate of the unfair appropriation of their labors by Pompey, and persuaded the jealous majority to withhold the desired confir- mation. At the same time a tribune named L. Flavius proposed an agrarian law by which it was proposed to assign certain lands in guerdon to Pompey's veteran soldiers. It seems that by the original terms of this bill certain of Sylla's assignments were cancelled, and thus arose a general sense of insecurity in such property, till Cicero came for- ward and proposed the removal of all these objectionable clause's. But even in this amended form the law, like all agrarian laws, was hateful to the senate. The consul Metellus Celer opposed it with rancorous determination ; and Pompey, who disliked popular tu- mults, suffered the measure to be withdrawn, and brooded over the in- sult in haughty silence. Cicero made advances to the great man, and received scraps of praise and flattery, which pleased him and de- cived him, while it increased the coldness which had already sprung * For alirely description of the whole scene, see Cicero's letter to Attisius, 1. 14. t It was from this year that Pollio began his hitTory ol this civil war : "t/lotnmex ifetello Conaule civicum, Belliquecausas," etc. Horat. OU. ii. I. LIFE OP JUHUS C.*:SAK. 19 up between him .and the senatorial chiefs. But Pompe-y well knew the political impotence of the great orator, and it was to a very different quarter that he cast his eyes to gain support against the senate. Caesar (as we have said) had taken his departure for Spain before Pompey's return. In that province he had availed himself of some disturbances on the Lusitanian border to declare war against that gallant people. He overran their country with constant success, and then turned his arms against the Gallaecians, who seem to have bi-cn unmolested since the days of Dec. Brutus. In two campaigns he became master of spoils sufficient not only to pay off a great portion of his debts, but also to enrich his soldiery. There can be no doubt that he must have acted with great severity to wring these large sums from the native Spaniards. He never, indeed, took aiiy thought for the sufferings of the people not subject to Roman rule. But he was careful not to be guilty of oppression toward the provin- cials : his rule in the Spanish provinces was long remarked for its equitable adjustment of debts and taxes due to the Roman publicaui and money-lenders. He left Spain in time to reach Rome before the consular elec- tions of the year 60 B.C. ; for he intended to present himself as a candidate. But he also claimed a triumph, and till this was over he could not begin his canvass. He therefore applied to the senate for leave to sue for the consulship without presenting himself personally in the city. The senate probably repented of their stiffness in re- fusing Pompey's demand a year before, and were disposed to make a merit of granting Caesar's request. But Cato, who never would give way to a plea of expediency except in favor of his own party, adjourned the decision of the question by speaking against time ; and Caesar, who scorned the appearance in comparison with the re- ality of power, relinquished his triumph and entered the city. lie found Pompey, as he expected to find him, in high dudgeon with the senate ; for secret negotiations had already been opened between them. To strengthen their hands still further, C;esar proposed to in- clude Crassus in their treaty. This rich and unpopular nobleman had, as we have seen, made advances to Cicero and to the senate ; but these advances had been ill received, and he lent a ready ear to the overtures of the dexterous negotiator who now addressed him. Pompey also, at the instance of Caesar, relinquished the old enmity which he bore to Crassus ; and thus was formed that famous cabal which is commonly, though improperly, called the First Triumvi- rate.* It was at present kept studiously secret, and Cicero for some time after counted upon Pompey for neutralizing the ambitious de- signs of Caesar, whose expected return filled him with apprehension. * Improperly, because it was a secret combination, and not an open assumption of political power, such as to Roman ears was implied in the word triumvirate. W LIFE OF JULIUS c.i:sAii. Thus supported secretly by the influence of Pompey, by the wealth of Crassus, and by his own popularity, Caesar was elected to the con- sulship by acclamation. He had formed a coalition with L. Lucceius, a man of letters, who had taken an active part against Catiline, and who was expected to write a memoir of Cicero's consulship. But the senatorial chiefs exhausted every art of intrigue and bribery to secure the return of M. Calpurnius Bibulus, who had been the col- league of Caesar in his previous offices, and was known to be a man of unflinching resolution. He was son-in-law to Cato, who to obtain a political advantage did not hesitate to sanction tie bribery and cor- rupt practices which on other occasions he loudly denounced. Bibulus was elected ; and from the resolute antagonism of the two consuls, the approaching year seemed big with danger. Caesar began the acts of his consulship by a measure so adroitly drawn up as to gratify at once his own adherents and Pompey and Cicero. It was an agrarian law, framed very carefully on the model of that which had been proposed last year by Pompey 's agents and amended by the orator. Before bringing it forward in (he pop- ular assembly, he read it over clause by clause in the senate, and not even Cato was able to find fault. But Bibulus declared that the. measure, however cautiously framed, was revolutionary, and should not pass while he was consul. He therefore refused to sanction any further meetings of the senate. Caesar, unable to convene the groat council without the consent of his colleague, now threw himself upon the people, and enlarged his agrarian~bill to the dimension of the laws formerly proposed by Cinua and by Rullus. Cicero now took alarm, and the senatorial order united in opposition to any dis- tribution of their favorite Campanian lands. On the day appointed for taking the votes of the people, the most violent of the oligarchy met at the house of Bibulus. Hence they sallied out into the forum and attempted to dissolve the assembly by force. But Caosar ordered his lictors to arrest Cato ; Lucullus was only saved from violence by the consul himself, and the other leaders were obliged to seek safety in flight. After this vain effort, in which the senators set an (3xample of violence, Bibulus attempted to stop proceedings by send- ing word that he was engaged in consulting the heavens to deter- mine whether the assembly could be legally held ; and that, till his divinations were concluded, no business was to be done. But C:rsar set his message at naught, and proceeded as if all formalities had been regularly observed. Finding that arms and auguries were equally powerless, Bibulus shut himself up in his house for the re- mainder of his term of office, and contented himself with protesting from time to time against the acts of his colleague. After this vic- tory, C:i'sar called upon Pompey and Crassus before the whole assem- bly to express their opinions with respect to the bill. Pompey warmly approved it, and declared that if others drew swords to op- pose it he would cover it with his shield. Crassus spoke in a similar LIFE OF JULIUS CAESAR. 21 strain. After this public manifestation of the union of the triumvirs all opposition ceased. The bill became law, and Caesar forced every senator to swear obedience to its provisions. Cato and some others made a struggle, but finally complied. Cicero looked on in blank perplexity. Caesar immediately followed up this successful movement by pro- curing from the people a full acknowledgment of Pompey's arts in the East. Here again the senate saw what they had captiously re- fused employed as a means for cementing the union of the triumvirs against them. It was also a great annoyance that the department of foreign affairs, which they regarded as absolutely their own, should thus unceremoniously be invaded by the assembly of the people. The next step taken by the dexterous consul was to establish his credit with another class in the community, the Equites, who also (it may be observed) were especially favored both by Poinpey and Cicero. The orator, during hjs consulship, had prided himself on effecting a union between the senatorial and equestrian orders. The tax-collectors (it seems) had made a high offer for the taxes of A sin at the last auction, and they prayed to be let off their contract. Cicero undertook their cause, and at the time when he relinquished office had good hopes of success. But Cato, always jealous of indul- gent measures, opposed it with his utmost force, and the Equites were held strictly to their bargain. At Caesar's suggestion, a law was passed remitting a third part of what they had agreed to give. The refusal of the senate appears to have been somewhat harsh ; and the favor which they might have achieved with little loss was trans- ferred to their most dangerous enemy. Other popular laws, mostly beneficial in their tendency, were passed at the instance of Caesar, among which may be noted one which at an earlier stage might have done much toward establishing the authority of the senate, by forcing it into harmony with public opinion. By the law in question it was provided that the acts and proceedings of the senate should be regularly published. Before he quitted office, Cajsar determined to provide for his future power. The senate had assigned him the insignificant province of managing the forests and public pastures of Italy. But the tribune Vatinius, his creature, proposed a law by which the selection of con- sular provinces by the senate was suspended, and a special provi- sion made for Caesar. By this law he was invested, as proconsul, with the government of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum, and the com- mand of two legions ; and this government was conferred upon him for the extraordinary term of five years. No doubt his purpose in obtaining this province was to remain as near Rome as possible, and by means of the troops necessarily under his command to assume a commanding position with regard to Roman politics. Circumstances unexpectedly enlarged his sphere of action, and enabled him to add to his political successes that which his brief career in Spain hardly 22 LIFE OF JULIUS C^SAE. justified the character of a skilful and triumphant general. Foi- some time past there had been threatening movements in Transalpine Gaul. The Allobrogians, who had been treated with little consider- ation after the services rendered by their envoys in the Catilinarian conspiracy, had endeavored to redress their grievances by arms, and had been subdued by Poutinus, one of the praetors employed by Cicero in the arrest at the Mulvian Bridge. The ^Sduans (who in- habited modern Burgundy), though in alliance with Rome, were sus- pected of having favored this revolt. Pn the banks of the Rhine the Suevi, a powerful German tribe, were threatening inroads which re- vived the memory of the Cimbrtc and Teutonic times ; and the Hel- vetian mountaineers were moving uneasily within their narrow bor- ders. An able and active commander was required to meet these various dangers ; and the senate perhaps thought that by removing Caesar to a distant, perilous, and uncertain war, they might expose him to the risk of failure, or at least that absence might diminish the prestige of his name. At any rate, it was the senate which added the province of Transalpine Gaul, with an additional legion, to the provinces already conferred upon him by popular vote. Pompey and Crassus warmly supported the decree a fact which might have caused the senate to repent of their liberality. Pompey, we have said, had divorced his wife Cecilia on his return from Asia ; and Caesar took advantage of this circumstance to cement his political union with Pompey by offering to him the hand of Julia, his young and beautiful daughter. Pompey accepted the offer, and had no reason to repent it as a husband, whatever may be thought of its effect on his public career. The letters of Cicero to Atticus, written during this period, reveal in a very lively manner the perplexity of the orator. He still hoped against hope in Pompey, but in private he does not dissemble his misgivings. At length affairs took place which effectually opened his eyes. Early in the day he tries to put a good face upon the matter : he represents his union with Pompey as being so close that the young men nicknamed the great general C/ueus Cicero ; he professes his unshaken confidence in his illustrious friend ; he even hopes that they may be able to reform ( 'jcsar. His confidence is much shaken by Pompey 's approbation of ( a-sar's agrarian law ; and he begins to fear that the great Eastern conqueror Sampsiceranus, Alabarches, the Jerusalemite (such arc the names which he uses to indicate the haughty reserve of Pom- pey) is aiming at a tyranny ; then again he relents, affects to believe; that young Curio, an ardent supporter of the senate, is more popular than Caesar, and regrets Pornpey's isolation. Still he believes in his unaltered attachment, and continues to hope that he will ultimately declare himself for the senate, till at length he is roused from his waking dream by the marriage of the great man with Julia, and by the approach of personal danger to himself. Puring Csesar's praetorship, he had lent the house which belonged LIFE OF JULIUS CAESAR. 23 to him as chief pontiff for the celebration of the mysteries, of theBona Dea rites at which it was not lawful for any but women to be pres- ent. Young App. Clodius either had or aspired to have an intrigue with Pompeia, Caesar's third wife, and contrived to enter the forbid- den precincts disguised as a singing girl. He was discovered by hig voice ; and the matter was considered important enough to be inves- tigated by the senate. But nothing was done till the next year, when Clodius was quaestor. He was then brought to trial, and pleaded an alibi. Caesar and Cicero were summoned as witnesses against him. Caesar had divorced his wife in consequence of the affair, but pro- fessed ignorance of all that had passed. " Why, then," it was asked, " have you put away your wife?" a question to which he gave the famous reply, " Caesar's wife must be above suspicion." Cicero, on the other hand, who justly detested the profligate charac- ter of Claims, declared that he had seen and spoken with Clodius on that very day at Rome. He thus overthrew his plea of an alibi, and followed up his evidence by several pointed speeches in the senate. There was no doubt of the guilt of Clodius. But the matter was treated as a trial of political strength ; by corruption and other arts, he was acquitted ; and, before Caesar's consulship, he had conceived the desire of satisfying his vengeance upon Cicero and the senate by becoming tribune of the plebs. But his patrician pedigree the sole relic of the old distinction between the orders forbade his election to this office. Caesar, in the first instance, attempted to gain the sup- port of Cicero, as he had gained the support of Pompey, by promises. But though the orator received these advances with some pleasure, it was more in the hope of converting the popular statesman to his own opinion than with any thought of being converted. But Ca-sar was not the man to be led by Cicero. He soon saw that he should not prevail by fair means, and therefore endeavored to alarm the orator by threatening to introduce a law for making Clodius a plebeian. But Cicero relied on Pompey, and felt no alarm for himself. After the marriage of Pompey with Julia, he still stood aloof, and present- ly provoked Caesar to fulfil his threats. C. Antonius, Cicero's col- league in the consulship, had lately returned from his Macedonian government. He had been guilty of more than the usual measure of extortion and oppression, and Clodius sought popularity by impeach ing him. Cicero appeared as his advocate, and took occasion to con- trast his own forgotten services in the Ctvtilinarian conspiracy with the present condition of public affairs. An immediate report of this speech was conveyed to Caesar. It was delivered at noon, and the same afternoon Caesar gave his consent to the proposed law for iv- moviug Clodius from his patrician rank. Presently after, the reek- less young noble was elected tribune for the ensuing year that is, for 68 B.C. Cicero was justly thrown into consternation. The consular elections were equally disheartening. Caesar had just espoused Calpuiuia, the daughter of L. Piso, who also had been lately 24 LIFE OP JULIUS CyESAU. accused by the busy Clodius. This Piso was now chosen consul, at ' Caesar's recommendation, together with Au. Gabiuius, who, as tri- bune, had moved the law for conferring the extraordinary command of the Mediterranean upon Pompey. It was evident that these con- suls, one the father-in-law of Caesar, the otlier a mere creature of Pompey, would serve as the tools of the triumviral cabal. In December Clodius entered upon office as tribune. Caesar did not set out for his province before the end of March in the next year (58 B.C.) "During these three months, he was actively employed in removing from Rome the persons most likely to thwart his policy. Close to the gates lay the legions which he had levied for service in Gaul ; so that, if need were, military force was at hand to support Clodius in the forum. Immediately after entering upon office, the tribune began his as- saults upon the senate, and Cicero was one of the first objects of his attack. Caesar was determined at all risks to remove the orator from Rome ; but he was willing to have spared him the rude treatment which he was certain to experience from Clodius. He had therefore offered him first one of the commissionerships for executing the agrarian law, and then a lieutenancy under himself in Gaul. But Cicero declined both offers, and Caesar left him to the mercies of the vindictive tribune. Clodius at once gave notice of a bill enacting that any magistrate who had put Roman citizens to death without a regula/trial should be banished from the soil of Italy, thus embody- ing in a direct law the principle which Caesar had sought to estab- lish by the indictment of Rabirius. At first Cicero trusted to Pom- pey and his own imaginary popularity. But the haste with which Cicero had acted was condemned by Metellus Nepos, the agent ot Pompey, even before the league with Caesar ; and many Who had ap- plauded Cicero at the time now took part with Clodius. Finding also that the reckless tribune was supported by Caesar and his legions in the background, the frightened orator put on* mourning, and can- vassed for acquittal. The greater part of the senators and knights, if we may believe Cicero, followed his example, but Clodius per severed, and the consuls ordered the mourners to resume their usual apparel. Notwithstanding this significant hint, he applied to these very magistrates for protection. Gabinius, the friend of Pompey, rudely repulsed his advances ; Piso; the father-in law of Caesar, gave him fair words, but no real hope. As a last chance, he appealed to Pompey himself, who maintained the cold reserve which he had affected ever since his return, and told him, with what in truth was bitter mockery, to seek assistance from the consuls. In this des- perate case he held counsel with his friends. The senators felt that Cicero's cause had become their own, and repented of the coldness which they had shown to their most distinguished partisan, since the time that he had served them well in the matter of Catiline's plot. Lucullus shook off his luxurious indolence for a moment, and ad- LIFE OF JULIUS C^SAR. 25 vised an appeal to arms. But, after full deliberation, even Cato recommended the orator to leave Italy before the law passed, and wait for better times. He complied with a heavy heart for Koine, the forum, and the senate-house, were all the world to him and left the capital before Caesar's departure for his province. No sooner was his back turned, than Sex. Clodius, a client of the audacious tri- bune, brought in a second bill, by which Cicero was expressly at- tacked by name. He was forbidden to approach within four hundred miles of Rome ; all who harbored him within those limits were sub- jected to heavy penalties ; all his property was confiscated. His favorite house on the Palatine, with his villas at Tusculum and- at Formue, were to be destroyed. The great orator lingered on the southern shores of his beloved Italy, at Vibo, at Thurii, at Taren- tum, at Brundusium, m hopes that his friends might even yet baffle the designs of Clodius. But his hopes faded and vanished. In his letters he pours forth unmanly lamentations ; accuses all Cato, Hortensius, even his friend Atticus ; refuses to see his brother Quiu- tus ; and seriously debates the question of suicide. Atticus began to be alarmed for his friend's sanity. At length he crossed the sea, and sought refuge at Thessalonica, in Macedonia ; for the province of Greece, in which he would fain have fixed his place of exile, was ruled by a magistrate of the adverse party. The next person to be disposed of was Cato. This remarkable man has already come before us on one or two occasions which serve to indicate his character. He was great-grandson of the old censor, and resembled him in many points, though he wanted much of the politic shrewdness of his ancestor. He was five years younger than Caesar, and at present therefore not more than thirty-seven years of age. In 60 B.C. he had served as quaestor, and had then entered the senate. He was tribune three years later in company with Clodius. From the time when his speech determined the fate of Catiline, his unflinching and resolute character had made him, notwithstanding his youth, one of the leaders of the senatorial oligarchy ; and after the death of Catulus he took far the most determined part in oppos- ing the popular party. But the Stoic philosophy which he professed almost unfitted him for the political life of that dissolute and un- scrupulous age. He applied the rules of Zeno's inflexible logic with the same unflinching rigor to politics as to mathematics, without re- gard to times or persons or places, and treated questions of mere ex- pedience as if they were matters of moral right and wrong. Cicero often complains of his impracticable and pedantic stiffness, and rep- resents him as applying the principles of an Utopian philosophy to a state in the last condition of corruption. At times, however, party spirit overcame even Cato's scruples, and to gain a victory he forgot his philosophy. But 110 definite accusation could be brought against him as against Cicero ; and therefore, to remove him from Rome, he was charged with a business of apparent honor. Ptolemy, brother 26 LIFE OF JULIUS CAESAR. of the King of Egypt, was Prince of Cyprus ; and when Clodius was in the hands of the pirates this prince contributed the paltry sum of two talents toward his ransom. The tribune, who never forgot or forgave, brought in a law by which Cyprus was annexed to the Roman Empire ; and Cato, though he held no curule office, was in- vested with praetorian rank for the execution of this iniquitous busi- ness. Cato pretended not that he was ignorant of the real purpose of this mission. But he declared himself ready to obey the law, left Rome soon after Cicero's departure, and remained absent for about two years. When, therefore, Caesar left Rome in the spring of the year 58 B.C. to assume the government of Gaul, the senate was left in a state of paralysis from the want of able and resolute leaders. After Caesar's departure, Clodius pursued his democratic measures without let or hindrance. He abolished the law of the comitial aus- pices by which Bibulus had attempted to thwart Caesar in the former year. He distributed the freedmen and city rabble throughout all the tribes. He restored the trade-unions and companies, which had been abolished by the senate nine years before. He deprived the censors of the power of removing senators or degrading citizens, un- less each person so dishonored had previously been found guilty by a verdict of the law courts, and unless both censors concurred in every sentence. He gave such an extension to the unwise corn laws of C. Gracchus and Saturninus, that grain, instead of being sold at a low rate, was distributed without price to all citizens of Rome. Some of these laws were probably based upon suggestions of Caesar's. But even those of which he may have approved generally were passed in a form and in a manner of which he could not approve ; and of some he is known utterly to have disapproved. But for the time Clodius and his gang were masters of Rome. Caesar was in Gaul. Neither Pompey nor Crassus stirred hand nor foot to interfere. CHAPTER III. CAESAR IN GAUL BREACH BETWEEN POMPEY AND CAESAR. (58-50 B.C.) IT was but a few days after Cicero had left Rome that Caesar re- ceived news from Gaul which compelled his precipitate departure. The Helvetians in great numbers were advancing upon Geneva, with the purpose of crossing the Rhone near that town, the extreme out- post of the province of Transalpine Gaul, and forcing their way through that province to seek new settlements in the West. In eight days, the active proconsul travelled from the gates of Rome to Geneva. Arrived there, he lined the river with fortifications such as compelled the Helvetians to pass into Gaul by a longer and more diffi- LIFE OF JULIUS CAESAR. 27 cult route over the Jura ; he then followed them across the Arar (Saone), ami after a murderous battle near Bibracte (Autun in Bur- gundy), compelled the remnant to return to their own country. Immediately after clearing the frontiers of the province of these in- vaders, he accepted the invitation of the ^Eduans and other Gauls dwelling westward of the Saoue to expel from their borders a foiai id- able German tribe, which had passed the Rhine and were threatening to overrun all Northern Gaul. These Suevi, who have left their name and a remnant of their race in modern Suabia, were led by a great chief named Ariovistus. Ariovistus at first proposed to divide Gaul with the Romans ; but Caesar promptly rejected all such over- tures, and war followed. So alarmed were the Roman legionaries at the prospect of a contest with the Germans, huge in frame and mul- titudinous in number, that it required all Caesar's adroitness to restore their confidence. " If," he said, " all deserted him, he would him- self brave every hazard, and face the foe with the tenth legion alone. " This had the desired effect. A desperate battle was fought about five miles from the Rhine, somewhere north of Bale, in which the Germans were utterly defeated ; and Ariovistus himself only escaped in a boat across the great river which was long destined to remain as the boundary between the Celtic and Teutonic races. Thus in one campaign, not only the Roman province, but all Gaul, was delivered from the presence of those German invaders whose congeners in the time of Marius had overrun the whole country, and whose descendants at a later period gave to the conquered land its new name of France. Cesar's troops wintered in the heart of the country which he had just set free from the Sueviau invaders. This position at once roused the jealousy of the Belgic tribes to the north of the Seine, and a pow- erful confederacy was formed to bar any designs which might be en- tertained by Ctesar for extending the dominion of Rome beyond its present limits. Caesar, informed of their proceedings, did not wait to be attacked. lie raised two new legions without expecting the authority of the senate, and early in the next year (57 B.C.) entered the Belgic ter- ritory, which was then bounded southward by the Seine and Marne, Here he occupied a strong position on the Aisne, and baffled all the efforts of the confederates to dislodge him or draw him out to battle. Wearied out, they dispersed, each to their own homes ; and Caesar advanced rapidly into the country of the Nervians, the most formid- able people of the Belgic League, who then occupied the district be- tween the Sambre and the Scheld. As he was forming his camp upon the right bank of the first-named river, he was surprised by the watchful enemy, and his whole army was nearly cut off. He re- trieved the disaster only at the most imminent peril to himself, and had to do the duty both of a common soldier and a general. But when the first confusion was over, the Roman discipline prevailed ; and the brave barbarians were repulsed with prodigious slaughter, 28 LIFE OF JULIUS C^SAR. After this desperate battle, he received the submission of the whole country south of the Lower Rhine. In the following year (56 B.C.), he built a fl^et, and quickly reduced the amphibious people of Bretagne, who had defied his power and insulted his officers. He then attempted, but without success., to occupy a post at or near Martigny, in the Valais, for the purpose of commanding the Pass of the Pennine Alp (Great St. Bernard), re- ceived the submission of the Aquitanians in the extreme south through his young lieutenant P. Crassus, son of the triumvir, and himself chastised the wild tribes who occupied the coast-lands which now form Picardy, Artois, and French Flanders the Menapii and the Morini, " remotest of mankind." Thus in three marvellous cam- paigns, he seemed to have conquered the whole of Gaul, from the Rhine and Mount Jura to the Western Ocean. The brilliancy and rapidity of his successes silenced all questionings at Rome. No at- tempt was made to call him to account for levying armies beyond what had been allotted to him by law. Thanksgivings of fifteen days an unprecedented length of time were decreed by the senate. The winter months of each year were passed by the proconsul on the Italian side of the Alps. After travelling through his Cisalpine province to hold assizes, inspect public works, raise money for his wars, and recruit his troops, he fixed his headquarters at Luca (Lucca) a town on the very frontier of Roman Italy, within two hundred miles of Rome itself. Here he could hold easy communica- tion with his partisans at home. Luca during his residence was more like a regal court than the quarters of a Roman proconsul. At one time two hundred senators were counted among his visitors ; one hundred and twenty lictors indicated the presence of the numerous magistrates who attended his levees. This was in the spring of 56 B.C., when both Pompey and Crassus came to hold conference with him. To explain the object of this visit, we must know what hud been passing at Rome since his departure two years before. It has been mentioned that Clodius, supported by the consuls Piso and Gabinius, remained absolute at Rome during the year 58 B.C. But the insolence and audacity of the patrician tribune after the de- parture of Caesar at length gave offence to Pompey. Clodius had ob- tained possession of the person of a son of Tigranes, whom the great conqueror had brought with him from the East ; and in order to raise money for some of his political projects, the tribune accepted a large ransom for the young prince. The praetor L. Flavius, a creature of Pompey's, endeavored to arrest the liberated prisoner ; but Clodius in- terfered at the head of an armed force, and in the struggle which ensued several of Pompey's adherents were slain. The great man was irrev- ocably offended, and determined to punish the tribune by promoting the recall of Cicero, his chief enemy. Ever since the departure of the orator, his friends had been using all exertions to compass this end. His brother Quintus, who had lately returned from a three years' LIFE OF JULIUS CAESAR. 29 government in Asia, and was about to join Caesar as one of his legates, Eis friend Atticus, who on this occasion ' forsook his usual epicurean ease, his old but generous rival Hortensius all joined with his wife Terentia, a woman of masculine spirit, to watch every opportunity for promoting his interests. The province of Macedonia had been assigned by a law of Clodius to Fiso ; and Cicero, parti}' through IVar of the new proconsul, partly through desire of approaching Italy, ventured before the end of the year to Dyrrhachium, though it was within the prescribed four hundred miles. But Pompey's quarrel with Clodius had already been announced by the election to the con- sulate of P. Lentulus Spinther, a known friend of Cicero, and ^. Metellus Nepos, a creature of Pompey. An attempt had been already made in the senate to cancel the law by which Cicero had been banished, on the ground of its having been carried without regard to constitutional forms. But this attempt was stopped at once by tribunician veto, and the impatient orator was obliged to wait for the new year. The new consuls, on entering ollice (58 B.C.), immediately moved for the orator's recall ; and it was proposed by L. Cotta that the law by which he was banished, being informal, should be set aside by the authority of the senate. But Pompey, both for the sake of peace, and also that Cicero might be restored with all honor and publicity, urged that a law should be brought in for the purpose. It was not, however, easy to carry such a law. Clodius, though no longer tribune, had adherents in the new college, who resolutely interposed their veto. The motion was dropped for the moment, but was presently renewed ; and Clodius entered the forum at the head of a large retinue fully armed and prepared for any violence. A regular battle followed, which left Clodius master of the field. For some days Rome was at his mercy. With his own hand he fired the Temple of the Nymphs and destnn . <1 the censorial registers. He attacked his enemies' houses, and many persons were slain in these riotous assaults. No public attempt was made to stop him. The consuls were powerless. Of Pompey and Crassus we hear not. But a young nobleman, named T. Annius Milo, bold and reckless as Clodius himself, raised a body of gladi- ators at his own charge, and succeeded in checking the lawless vio- lence of the tribune by the use of violence no less lawless. The bill for Cicero's recall was now for the third time brought forward ; and after long delays, caused by fresh interference of the Clodiau tri- bunes, it was passed in the month of August. Meantime the impatient orator had been writing letters from Thus- salonica and Dyrrhachium, in which he continued to accuse hi* friends of coldness and insincerity. But when the law wa-s passed, all the clouds vanished. Early in September, about a year and four months after his departure, he approached the city, and crowds at- tended him along the whole length of the Appiau Way. From the Porta Capena to the Capitol, all the steps of the temples aud every 30 LIFE OF JULIUS C.ESAR. place of vantage were thronged by multitudes, who testified their satisfaction by loud applause. For the moment, the popularity which hud followed his consulship returned, and in honest pride ho ascended to the Capitoline Temple to return thanks to tiie gods for turning the hearts of the people. At this time there was a great scarcity of corn at Rome. This might in part be occasioned by the disturbed state of Egypt, one of the chief granaries of Italy. The king, Ptolemy Auletes, had lately been expelled by his subjects, and was now at Rome seeking aid from the senate to procure restoration to his throne, \7hatever was the cause, the people, accustomed to be fed by the state, murmured loudly. Prices had fallen after the return of Cicero, and his friends attributed this cheapness to the orator's recall. But before his re- turn to Rome, they had again risen ; and Clodius hastened to attribute this untoward change to the same cause. On the day after his tri- umphant entry, therefore, the orator appeared in the senate, and after returning thanks for his recall, he moved that an extraordinary commission should be issued to Pompey, by which he was to be in- trusted with a complete control over the corn-market of the empire. The consuls eagerly closed with the proposal, and added that Hie commission should run for five years, with the command of money, troops, fleets, and all things necessary for absolute authority. The senate dared not oppose the hungry mob ; and the bill passed, though Pompey was obliged to relinquish the clauses which in- vested him with military power.. He proved unable to influence prices, or, in other words, to force nature, and the coveted appoint- ment resulted in unpopularity. At the same time, handsome sums were voted to Cicero to enable him to rebuild his ruined houses, and to compensate him for the de- struction of his property. Encouraged both by the favor of the senate and by his present popularity in the forum, he proceeded to institute a prosecution against Clodius for assuming the tribunate illegally, and for seditious conduct during his office. The reckless demagogue prepared to resist by means of his armed mob. But he received support from an unexpected quarter. Cato had returned from executing the hateful commission given him by Clodius. The helpless Prince of Cyprus, despairing of resistance, though Cato was unattended by an armed force, put an end to his own life ; and the Roman, with rigorous punctuality, proceeded to sell all the royal property and reduce the island to the condition of a Roman province. On his return, he paid large sums into the treasury, insisted on his ^accounts being examined with minute scrutiny, and took pride in having executed his commission, without regard either to the justice of its origin, or to mercy in its execution. But this commission would become illegal were the tribunate of Clodius declared illegal. Cato, therefore, with the usual perversity of his logic, came forward as a warm defender of Clodius and the acts of his tribunate. LIFE OF JULIUS C^SAR. 31 While the question was pending, fresh passions were excited by ihe application of Ptolemy Auletes. The king had consulted Gate during his sojourn in the East, though the Roman was at that time engaged in ruining the king's brother ; and Cato had vainly advised him to procure restoration by any means rather than by application to Rome, whose assistance was only to be bought by ruin. But Ptolemy neglected the well-meant advice ; and when he appeared at Rome to demand succor, every senator of influence claimed the lucrative task of giving back her king to Egypt. Pompey sought it ; Crassus sought it ; and the latter person now appears for the first time as the mover of a popular force, independent of his brother tri- umvirs. But the senate was too jealous of the triumvirs to increase their power and all the great expectants of the Egyptian commis- sion were disappointed. It was conferred, as if in the regular course of things, upon the late consul Lentulus Spinther, who had obtained the province of Cilicia ; but the tribune G. Cato produced an oracle from the Sibylline Books which forbade the use of an army. Len- tulus, therefore, obtained a commission without the power of execut- ing it, and the Question in reality was left open for future aspirants. In the heat of this contest, Clodius had -been elected a'dile, and thus for the nonce escaped the impeachment which was menacing. The armed conflicts between him and Milo continued ; and the con- sular election for the year 55 B.C. threatened to become the oppor- tunity of serious bloodshed. The consuls of the current year (57 B.C.), Cn. Lentulus Marcellinus and L. Philippus, were decidedly in the interest of the senate ; and they supported with their whole in- fluence L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, brother-in-law of Cato and a de- termined antagonist of the triumviral cabal. This man threatened that his first act should be to recall Caesar from his province. Pompcy al.so and Crassus met with little favor from him. And thus common danger again united the three men who had lately been diverging. It was to concert measures for thwarting the reviving energy of ihe senate, that the ominous meeting at Luca was proposed and took effect. What passed between the three is only known from the n-MilN. Pompey and Crassus returned to Rome from their interview at Luca fully pledged (as is evident from what followed) to pre\em the election of Domitius and the recall of Caesar. To fulfil both these conditions, they came forward themselves as joint candidates for a second consulship. The senate, however, had gathered courage of late. Milo held Clodius in check, and the consuls hindered tin- election of the powerful confederates by refusing to hold the comitia. The powers of government were in ahvynnce. The calends of January came, and there were no magistrates to assume the government. The young Crassus had just arrived in the neigh- borhood of Rome with a strong body of the Gallic veterans from C;esar's army. Under the fear of violence, the senatorial chiefs drew back, and allowed Pompey and Crassus to assume the consul- 32 L!FE OF JULIUS < .i.su;. ship, as Marius and Cinna had assumed it, without any regular form of election. They immediately held comitia for the election of the other curule magistracies. Cato offered himself for the pra-tor- ship, but was defeated by Vatinius, a person chiefly known as a mer- cenary instrument of Caesar's policy. Soon after, further fruits of the conference of Luoa appeared. The tribune, C. Treboniiis, moved in the Assembly of Tribes that the consuls should receive special provinces for the space of five years Syria being allotted to Crassus, Spain to Pompey. Whethei he consuls intended to bring forward a supplementary law to extend Caesar's command, or whether they purposed to l>r< a k faith with their absent confederate, cannot be known. But the Civsariari party at Rome exclaimed so loudly against the omission of their leader's name, that Pompey himself added a clause to the Trebonian law, by which Caesar's government of the Gauls and Illyria was extended for an ad- ditional five years, to date from the expiration of the first term.* During the first day Cato obstructed the law by his old device of speaking against time. But when a second day seemed likely to be wasted in- like manner, Trebonius committed him t<3 prison. Two tribunes who threatened to interpose their veto were prevented from attending the assembly by the use of positive force. Pompey endeavored to outdo even Caesar in bidding for the favor of the people by magnificent spectacles. In his name, his freedman Demetrius erected the first theatre of stone which Rome had yet seen, and exhibited combats of wild beasts on a scale never before witnessed. Then for the first time a combat between elephants was witnessed in the arena. Cicero after his return from exile had for a time eagerly engaged in professional pursuits. To pass over the speeches which he.deliv- ered with respect to himself and the restoration of his property in the year 57 B.C., we rind him defending, among others, P. Sestius, M. Caelius, and L. Balbus, and the speeches he delivered as their ad- vocate are full of interesting allusions to the state of political affairs. In the senate also he had taken an active part in the debates. Before the conference of Luca the triumviral cabal seemed shaken, and Pompey seemed to be roused from his apathy by the insolence of Clodius. At that juncture the orator ventured to move in the senate the repeal of Caesar's law for dividing the Campanian lands, and his motion was warmly received by the leading senators. But after the conference a message was conveyed to him through Crassus which convinced him at once of the renewed union of the triumvirs, and of the danger which might again overtake him. He was, moreover, be- coming disgusted with the senatorial chiefs. Lucullus, after spend- * Veil. Pat. ii. 46. By the Vatinian law, Caesar's command extended from the beginning of 58 to the cud of 54 B.C.; by the Trebonian, from the beginning of 53 to th end of 49. LlFF, OF JULIUS C^SAE. 33 ing his latter days in profuse and ostentatious luxury, was sinking into a state of senile apathy. Hortensius, always more of an advo- cate than a statesman, was devoted to his fish-ponds and his planta- tions. With Cato the gentler nature of Cicero never acted harmoni- ously. The persons who were now rising to be chiefs of the senate, such as Domitius Ahenobarbus, Milo, and others, were as little loath to use lawless force as Clodius. It had been best for Cicero if he had taken the advice of his friend Atticus and retired altogether from public life, at a time when there seemed no place left for him on the field of politics. But he could not bring himself to give up those ac- tive and stirring pursuits which he had followed from youth up- ward. He could not bear to abandon the senate-house and forum ; he would not join the violent members of the senatorial party ; he dared not oppose the triumvirs. It was impossible to satisfy these conflicting fears and wishes without quitting the ranks of the sena- torial oligarchy and joining the supporters of the trium viral cabal. The first step Cicero took with little regret ; the second no doubt gave him much pain. Nevertheless he took it. Soon after the con- ference of Luca a change appeared in his politics. He spoke in favor of the prolongation of Caesar's command, aiid pronounced a labored panegyric on Crassus, whom' he had always disliked. To Caesar he had been reconciled by his brother Quintus, who was a warm admirer of the great proconsul. The gallant son of Crassus. who had returned flushed with triumph from the Gallic wars was a devoted follower of Cicero ; and perhaps personal feeling for the son supplied feelings and words which the father could not have claimed. It may well be supposed that Cicero was disgusted with the ferocity of Milo and the new senatorial chiefs. It is even possi- ble that he really believed the best hope of moderate and regular gov- ernment was from the triumvirs. At all events his letters written at this time show that he labored to convince his friends and perhaps himself that such was his belief. In some points, however, it cannot be denied that Cicero carried his compliance beyond the limits even of political morality. Since the first extraordinary appointment of Pompey to command in t lie Mediterranean, it had become common to confer provinces and com- mands, not according to the provisions of the Sempronian law, but by special votes of the people. In this way the profligate Piso, Cae- sar's father-in-law, had received the government of Macedonia, and Gabinius, Pompey's creature, that of Syria. These men had used their power in a manner now too common ; Cicero had inveigh.-.l against them in his most vehement manner soon after his return, and the effect of his speech was such that Piso was recalled. Gabinitis, meantime, had taken a daring step. Lentulus Spinther, proconsul of Cilicia, was (as has been said) unable to execute his commission of restoring Ptolemy Auletes. The king, therefore, applied to Gubi- nius, and by offer of enormous sums prevailed upon him to march to 34 UFE OP JULIUS C^SAB. Alexandria without waiting for a commission. Gabinius, by the aid of an armed force, had no difficulty in reinstating Ptolemy. This was during the consulship of Pompey and Crassus. Being super- seded by Crassus in his Syrian government, Gabiuius returned to Rome. He found the people infuriated against him for daring to lead an army into Egypt in despite of the Sibylline oracles, and he was impeached. By the influence of Pompey, doubtless, he was ac- quitted. But he was again indicted for extortion in his province, and Cicero, at the solicitation of Pompey, came forward to defend him. But this time he was condemned, no doubt most justly, and sought safety in exile. The triumviral cabal now hastened to dissolution. In the year 54 B.C., Julia, the daughter of Caesar and wife of Pompey, died in childbed. Though Pompey was old enough to be her father, she had been to him a loving and faithful wife. He on his part was so devoted to his young and beautiful consort, that ancient authors at- tribute much of his'apathy in public matters to the happiness which he found in domestic life. This faithful attachment to Julia is Ihc most amiable point in a character otherwise cold and unattractive. So much was Julia beloved by all, that the people voted her the ex- traordinary honor of a public funeral in tiie Campus Martius. Her death set Pompey free at once from ties which might long have bound him to Caesar, and almost impelled him to drown the son.se of his loss in the busy whirl of public life. Meanwhile Crassus had left Rome for the East, and thus destroyed another link in the chain that had hitherto maintained political union among the triumvirs. Early in the year after his consulship (54 B.C.) he succeeded Gabiuius in the government of Syria. His chief object in seeking this province was to carry the Roman arms beyond the Euphrates, and by the conquest of the Parthians to win fresh ad- ditions to his enormous fortune, while a great military triumph might serve to balance the conquests of Pompey in the same regions, and of Caesar in Gaul. Toward the close of the year 53 B.C.,' about twelve mouths after the death of Julia, Rome was horror-struck by hearing that the wealthy proconsul and his gallant sou had been cut off by the enemy, and that the greater part of his army had been de- stroyed. The Parthians, a people originally found in the mountainous dis- trict to the south-west of the Caspian Sea, had, on the death of Alex- ander, fallen under the nominal sway of Seleucus and his successor* on the (iiM-co-Syrian throne. As that dynasty fell into decay, the I'arthians continually waxed bolder; till at the time of the great Milhridatic war we find their king Pharnaces claiming to be called king of kings, and exercising despotic power over the whole of Per- svinml the adjacent countries to the Euphrates westward. Their ' was fixed at the Greek city'of Seleuceia on the Tigris ; and here tho king maintained a court in which the barbaric splendor of LIFE OF JULIUS CAESAR. 35 the East was strangely mingled with the frugal refinements intro- duced by the Greek settlers and adventurers, who abounded in all quarters. They possessed a numerous cavalry, clad in light armor,- used to scour the broad plains of the countries they overran, trained to disperse like a cloud before regular troops, but to fire on the ad- vancing enemy as they fled. Orodes, their present king, already threatened with an attack by Gabinius, was not unprepared for tho war which Crassus lost no time in beginning. In the first year of his proconsulship, Crassus was too late for serious attack ; but early in the next spring (53 B.C.) he ad- vanced in strength from the Euphrates, at the head of a well- appointed army. Artabazus, the present king of Armenia, who, through fear of the Parthian monarch, was sincerely attached to Rome, wished the proconsul to take Armenia as a basis of operations, and to descend the valley of the Tigris, so as to avoid the open plains, where the Parthian horsemen, seconded by the heat of summer, would act against him at terrible advantage. C. Cassias Longinus, the most experienced officer of the proconsul a man who afterward became famous as the chief author of Caesar's death took the same view. But Crassus was impatient, and, neglecting all ad- vice, marched straight across the plains. What was foretold hap- pened. The Parthians, avoiding a general battle, drew on the Ro- mans into the heart of Mesopotamia, till the legionaries, faint with heat and hunger, could advance no farther. As they began to re- treat, they were enveloped by a crowd of horsemen, and pursued by a great army commanded by Surenas, a principal officer of Orodes. At Charraj, the Haran where Abraham once dwelt, he halted and offered battle. It was accepted, and the proconsul was defeated. Still he contrived to make good his retreat, and was within reach of the mountains that skirt the western side of the great plain of Meso- potamia when he was induced to accept a conference offered l>y the treacherous Surenas. At this conference he was seized and slain, as the chiefs of the ten thousand had been dealt with three centuries before. His head was sent to Orodes, who ordered molten gold to be poured into the mouth. Young Publius, the friend of Caesar and Cicero, fell in the struggle, fighting valiantly for his father. Cas- sius alone of the chief officers did the duty of a general, and suc- ceeded in drawing off his division of the army in safety to the Ro- man frontiers. For two years he continued to defend the province against the Parthian assaults, till in 51 B.C. a decisive victory on the confines of Cilicia and Syria checked their advances, and enabled Cassius to hand over the latter province in a peaceful condition to Bibulus. Meanwhile Caesar in Gaul was also involved in unexpected difficul- ties. In his three first campaigns (58-56 B.C.) as has been said, he seemed to have reduced all Gaul to silent submission. In the two next years he was engaged in expeditions calculated rather to aston- 36 LIFE OF JULIUS CLESAR. ish and dazzle men's minds at Rome than necessary to secure his conquests. Fresh swarms of Germans had begun to cross the Rhine near Coblenz.* He defeated them near that place with slaughter so terrible that upward of 150,000 men are said to have been slain by the sword or to have perished in the Rhine. To terrify them still further, he threw a bridge over the broad river at a spot probably be- tween Coblenz and Andernach, which was completed in ten days a miracle of engineering art. He then advanced into Germany, burn- ing and destroying, and broke up his bridge as he retired. Caesar's account of the victory of Coblenz was not received with the same ap- plause in the senate as had welcomed the triumphs of previous years. It appeared that the German chiefd had come into the Roman camp, that Caesar detained them on tlie ground that they hod broken an armistice, and while they were captives had attacked their army. The facts as narrated by himself bear an appearance of ill faith. Cato rose in the senate, and proposed that Caesar should be delivered up to the Germans, as an offering in expiation of treachery: But such a proposition came with aa ill grace even from Cato's mouth. Few Romans acknowledged th,e duty of keeping faith with barba- rians ; and if Caesar had not been the enemy oTf the senatorial party, probably nothing would have been said of his treachery. But how- ever this might be, it is clear that the decree would have been an empty threat. Who could have been found to " bell the cat" ? Who would or could have arrested Ca3sar at the head of his legions ? It was in the autumn of the same year (55 B.C.) that he passed over into our own island, taking ship probably at Witsand near Calais, and landing on the open beach near Deal. In the next year he re- peated the invasion of Britain with a much larger force, marched up the Stour, took Canterbury, crossed the Thames above London, prob- ably near Walton, defeated Cassivelaunus, the gallant chief of the Trinobantes, and took their town, which stood probably on the site of the modern St. Albans. Little result followed from these ex- peditions except to spread the terror of the Roman name, and to afford matter of wonderment at Rome. Cicero's curiosity about these unknown lands was satisfied by letters from his brother Quin- tus, and from C. Trebatius Testa, a learned lawyer, who attended Cae- sar in a civil capacity at the recommendation of Cicero himself, f But it was soon discovered how hollow was the pacification of Gaul. During the winter of 54-58 B.C.. Caasar had spread his troops in winter-quarters over a wide area. Ambiorix, a crafty and able chief of the Eburones, a half-German tribe on either side of the Meuse, as- saulted the camp of Cotta and Sabinus, and by adroit cunning con- trived to cut off two legions. He then attacked Q. Cicero. But this offi- * It seems certain that this is what Caesar means by " ad confluentem Mosa, et Kheni. Bell. Gall. iv. 15. The Mosa here must be the Moselle, not the Meuse or else Mo/tula* must be restored t Epiet. ad Att. iv. 16, 13 ; 17, 3 ; ad Quintum Fratrem, ii. 16, 4, LIFE OF JULIUS CJESA li. 37 Cer, though stationed in the hostile country of the Nervii with one legion only, gallantly defended his camp till he was relieved by Cae- sar himself, who had not yet, according to his custom, left Transal- pine Gaul. Alarmed by the general insurrection which was threat- ened by these bold movements of Ambiorix, Caesar asked Pompey to lend him a legion from his Spanish army ; and his request was granted at once. The next year's campaign quelled the attempt of Ambiorix, and CaBsar returned to Italy during the winter of 53-52 B.C. , where his presence was needed, as we shall presently hear. But in the years 53 and 51 B.C. all central Gaul rose against the Romans, under the able conduct of Vercingetorix, chief of the Arvernians. The combined Gauls for the most part declined open conflicts, and threw themselves into towns fortified with great skill and defended with great obstinacy. But, notwithstanding some reverses, the rapid movements and steady resolution of Caisar and his officers triumphed. The last hope of the Gauls lay in the strong fortress of Avaricum (Bourges) ; and when this at last yielded, all actual resistance was at an end. But for the two next winters he was again obliged to winter beyond the Alps ; and by the beginning of the year 50 B.C., the ninth of his command, he had conquered the whole country, and reduced every murmur to silence. This conquest was achieved at a fearful loss of life. Nearly a million of Gauls and Germans are computed to have been sacrificed in those eight years of war. Caesar was humane in the treatment of his fellow-citizens ; but, like a true Roman, he counted the lives of barbarians as naught. While therefore Crassus was engaged, never to return, in the East, and Caesar was occupied with serious dangers in Gaul, Pompey, no longer bound by marriage ties, was complete master of Rome. Con- trary to all precedent, he sent lieutenants to govern Spain in his stead, pleading his employment as curator of the corn-market as a reason for his remaining at home. As a matter of form, he lived outside the city at. his Alban villa, and never appeared publicly at least within the walls of Rome. But he did not the less keep a watchful eye on political events. At present, in- deed, he interfered little. He seems to have expected that the condition of things would at length become so desperate, and all government so impossible, that all orders would unite in pro- claiming him dictator. In 54 B.C. consuls were elected who were more in the interest of the senate than of the popular party, probably by a free use of money. When the elections for 53 B.C. approached," several tribunes of the popular party bound themselves together, and by their veto prevented all elections whatsoever ; and for eight months the city was left in a state of anarchy, without any responsible gov- ernment. At length two consuls were chosen ; but when they pro- posed to hold the comitia for the elections of 52 B.C., the same scenes were renewed. The tribunes obstinately refused to permit any elec- tions ; and when the calends of January came round, there were uo 38 LIFE OF JULIUS CAESAR. magistrates to assume the government. But in a few days an event happened which completely altered all political relations. We may attribute all the late movements of the tribunes to the in- spiration of Clodius. In Caesar's absence he had become the leader of the popular party. During the present interregnum, he came for- ward as candidate for the praetorship, while his enemy Milo sought to be consul. On the 18th of January, 52 B.C., Milo was travelling with his wife and family, attended (as usual) by a strong armed retinue, along the Appian Road to Lanuvium, where he held a municipal office. Near Bovillae he met Clodius riding with a small number of attendants also armed. A quarrel arose among the servants ; Clo- dius mingled in the fray, and, being wounded, took refuge in a tav- ern. Milo, determined not to suffer for an imperfect act of violence, surrounded the house, drew forth his wounded enemy, and left him dead upon the road. The body was picked up by a friend soon after, and carried to Rome. Here it was exposed in the forum, and a dreadful riot arose. The houses of Milo and other senatorial chiefs were assaulted, but they were strongly built and prepared for de- fence, and the populace was beaten off. But the furniture of the curia, the ancient meeting-place of the senate, was seized to make a funeral- pile to the deceased demagogue ; the curia itself and other buildings were involved in flames. Every day witnessed a fresh riot, till the senate named Pompey as head of a commission to restore order. This was done ; and it was supposed that he would have been ap- pointed dictator at once, had not Caesar been at Luca during this winter, watching for a false move of the party opposed to him. To avoid a direct collision, Cato and Bibulus recommended that Pompey should be named as sole consul. Milo was soon after brought to trial for the death of Clodius. . Cicero was his advocate, and had exerted himself to the utmost to prepare a speech in justification of the Euanghter of Clodius. The jury were willing to have acquitted Milo. But Pompey was anxious to get rid of a citizen as troublesome on the one side as Clodius had been on the other : and he placed soldiers at every avenue of the court for the purpose, as he said, of preserving or- der. This- unwonted sight, and the fear of popular violence, robbed Cicero of his eloquence and the judges of their courage. Milo was t jndemned, and fled to Marseilles. Cicero sent him there a written speech, such (he said) as he intended to have spoken. Milo, who knew no fear, sarcastically replied, that "he was glad that it had hot been delivered ; else he should not then have been eating the fine mullets of Marseilles. " Pompey had now reached the height of his ambition. He was vir- tually raised to the position of dictator, without being bound to any party popular or senatorial. But from this time he seems to have made up his mind to break with Caesar, and to put himself at the head of the senatorial nobility without binding himself to its traditional policy. He married Cornelia, the daughter of Metellus Scipio, a lead- LIFE OF JULIUS C^SAE. 39 ing member of the aristocracy, and on the 1st of August associated his new father-in-law in the consulship with himself. He repealed some of the democratic measures of Clodius, and made rules for the better conduct of elections, and the assignment of provinces. He struck indirectly at Caesar by several new enactments. He procured a decree of the senate by which his government of Spain was pro- longed for five years longer, whereas Caesar's command in Gaul would terminate in little more than two years. By this law Pompey calcu- lated that he would be able to keep his own army on foot after the Gallic conqueror had disbanded his. In anticipation of Caesar's seek- ing to obtain a second consulship, it was further provided that no one should hold a province till five years had elapsed from the end of his tenure of office. By this law Pompey calculated that his rival would be left for this period without any military force. It is strange that Pompey, with the intimate knowledge that he ought to have gained of Caesar's character during his long political connection with him, should not have foreseen that a man so resolute and so ambitious would break through the cobwebs of law by the strong hand. Pompey was disappointed in his hope of remaining as supreme arbiter of the fate of Rome, without joining heart and hand with the senatorial nobility. The men who were now coming forward as leaders of that party were men of action. Lucullus was dead. Hor- tensius also was dead to public life. Cicero left Rome at this moment to assume the government of Cilicia in virtue of the law just passed by Pompey, by which magistrates lately in office were excluded from government ; for it was added, that the present need should be sup- plied by those consulars or praetorians who had not yet held govern- ments. The orator was absent from the beginning of 51 to the end of 50 B.C., and during this time the chief authority in the senate be- longed to the brothers M. Marcellus and 0. Marcellus, who held the consulship successively in the above-named years, together with Domitius Ahenobarbus and others, who hated Pompey almost as much as Caesar. The people of Rome and Italy looked on with little interest. They had no sympathy either with Pompey or the senate, and Caesar's long absence had weakened his influence in the forum. It was simply a dispute for power, between the senatorial nobility on the one hand and two military chiefs on the other. These chiefs at first united against the senate, and then parted so irreconcilably that one of them was thrown into a forced alliance with that hody. Pompey and the senatorial leaders agreed only in one point tk necessity of stripping Caesar of power. 40 LIFE OF JULIUS CJiSAK. CHAPTER IV. SECOND CIVIL WAR DEATH OP POMPEY. (50-48 B.C.) THE senatorial chiefs had resolved to break with Caesar. The at- tack was commenced by the consul M. Marcellus, in September, 51 B.C. The proconsul had at that time just succeeded in putting down the formidable insurrection organized by Vercingetorix, and the fact of his complete success could not yet be known at Rome. It was the eighth year of his command, and therefore little more than two years were yet to run before he became a private citizen, lie had, however, already intimated his intention of offering himself for the consulship, either in the next year or the j^ear after that, in order that he might, by continued tenure of office, be safe from the prose- cution with which he was threatened on laying down his proconsular command ; and it was intended to ask permission of the senate that he might become a candidate without returning to Rome. For, if he continued to be proconsul, he could not legally enter the gates ; and if he ceased to be proconsul, he would be exposed to personal danger from the enmity of the senatorial chiefs. But M. Marcellus was not content to wait to try the matter on this issue. ' On his mo- tion a decree was passed, by which the consuls of the next year were ordered at once to bring before the senate the question of redistribut- ing the provincial governments ; and clauses were added providing, first, that no tribune should be allowed to interpose his veto ; sec- ondly, that the senate would take upon themselves the tusk of pro- viding for Caesar's veterans. The purpose of this decree was mani- fest. It was intended at the beginning of the next year to supersede Caesar, though the law gave him two years more of command in Gaul ; it was intended to stop the mouth of any tribune in Caesar's interest ; it was intended to sap the fidelity of his soldiers, by tempt- ing them with hopes of obtaining lands in Italy. But the movement was too open and unadvised. Ser. Sulpicius, the other consul, though a member of the senatorial party, opposed it, and it was allowed to full to the ground. Still a move had been made, and men's minds were familiarized with the notion of strip- ping Caesar of his command. Caesar felt that the crisis was at hand. The next year of his Gallic government be spent in organizing Gaul. All symptoms of insurrec- tion in that country were at an end. The military population had suffered too terribly to be able to resume arms. The mild and equit- able arrangements of Caesar gave general satisfaction. The Gallic chiefs and cities begun to prefer the arts of Roman civilization to then- own rude state. There can be little doubt that if Caesar had been reduce4 LIFE OF JULIUS (LESAB. 41 to play the part of Sertorius in Gaul, he would have been able to do so with eminent success. He did not, however, neglect precautions at home. Of the new consuls (for the year 50 B.C.), C. Marcellus, brother of Marcus, the late consul, was his known and declared enemy ; but L. ^milius Paullus had been secretly won by a share of the gold which the con- queror had collected during his long command. Among the tribunes of the year was a young man named M. Scribonius Curio, son of one of Sylla's most determined partisans. His talents were ready, his eloquence great, his audacity incomparable. He had entered upon political life at an extremely early age, and was a leader among those young nobles who had hoped to profit by Catiline's audacity, and whom Cicero ten years before designated as " the bloodthirsty youth." Since that time he had attached himself to Cicero ; and the credulous orator was pleased to think that he had reclaimed this im- petuous and profligate young man. But Cicero was not the only per- son who had attempted to sway the pliant will of Curio. Caesar also, or his Gallic gold, had made a convert of him. The nobles, ignorant of this secret, promoted his election to the tribunate, and thus un- warily committed power to a bold and uncompromising foe. M. Coelius Rufus, another profligate youth of great ability, whom Cicero flattered himself he had won over to what he deemed the side of honor and virtue, was also secretly on Caesar's side. During the whole of the orator's absence in Cilicia. this unprincipled young man kept up a brisk correspondence with him, as if he was a firm adher- ent of the senatorial party. But on the first outbreak of the quarrel he joined the enemy. A third person, hereafter destined to play a conspicuous part in civil broils, now appeared at Rome as the avowed friend and partisan of Caesar. This was young M. Autoiiius, better known as Mark An- tony, sou of M. Antouius Creticus, and therefore grandson of the great orator. His uncle, C. Antonius, had been consul with Cicero, and had left a dubious reputation. His mother was Julia, daughter of L. Caesar, consul in the year before Cicero held the office, a dis- tant relation of the great Caesar. Antony had served under Gabinius in the East, and for the last two years had been one of Caesar's officers in Gaul. He now Came to Rome to sue for the augurate, vacant by the death of the orator Hortensius ; and, assisted by Caesar's influence and his own great connections, he was elected. He was thirty-three years of age, as ready of tongue, as bold and un- scrupulous in action as Curio, and appropriately offered himself to be elected as successor to that young adventurer in the College of Tribunes. Thus, for the year 50 B.C. Caesar's interests were watched by Curio, and in the year 49 B.C. Antony succeeded to the task. C. Marcellus did not venture to revive, in 50 B.C., the bold attack which had been made by M. Marcellus in the preceding year. But at Pompey's suggestion, it was represented that a Parthian war was 42 LIFE OF JULIUS CJESAR. imminent, and both the rivals were desired to furnish one legion for service in the East. Caesar at once complied. Pompey evaded the demand by asking Caesar to return the legion which had been lent by himself after the destruction of the two legions by Ambiorix. This request also Caesar obeyed, so that in fact both legions were with- drawn from his army. Their employment in the East proved to be a mere pretext. They were both stationed at Capua, no doubt to overawe the Campanian district, which, since the agrarian law of Caesar's consulship, had been completely in his interest. Any farther assault was anticipated by a proposal made by Curk). It was that both Pompey and Caesar should resign their commands and disband their armies ; " this was but fair," he said, " for both ; nor could the will of the senate and people of Rome be considered free while Pompey was at hand with a military force to control their deliberations and their votes. ' ' But the senate turned a deaf ear to this dexterous proposal, and the year closed as it began, without any approach to a peaceful settlement. Curio now threw off all disguise, and openly avowed himself the agent of Caesar in the senate. The consuls for the ensuing year (49 B.C.) were L. Lentulus Crus, and another C. Marcellus, cousin-gerinan of the two brothers who had preceded him. Both were in the interest of Pompey. Scarcely had they entered upon office, when the crisis which had been so long suspended arrived. On the calends of January,* letters from Caesar were laid before the senate by Curio, in which the proconsul expressed his readiness " to accept the late tribune's proposal that Pompey and himself should both resign their military power ; as soon as he was assured that all soldiers were removed from the neighborhood of Rome, he would enter the gates as a private person, and offer himself candi-> date for the consulship." Warm debates followed, in which Metel- lus Scipio,f Pompey's father-in-law, and Cato urged that Crcsar sh6uld be declared a public enemy, unless he laid down his command by a certain day. But even this did not satisfy the majority. Not only was Caesar outlawed, but on the 6th of January a decree was framed investing the consuls with dictatorial power, in the same form that had been used against C. Gracchus, against Saturninus, against Catiline. On the following night, Mark Antony, who had vainly essayed to stem the tide, fled from the city, together with his brother tribune, Q. Cassius Longinus, brother of the more famous C. Cassius. The die was now cast. Caesar had no longer any choice. He must either offer an armed resistance or save himself by flight. * Strictly speaking, the year 49 B.C. had not yet begun ; for the Koman calendar was now nearly two months in advance of the real time: Jau. 1st, 705 A.u.c.=Nov. 13th, 50B.C. See Fischer' B Romische Zeittafeln, p. 221. t He was a Sctpio by birth, being great-grandson of Scipio Nasica (nicknamed Srapio), the ilayer of Ti. Gracchus, aud, was adopted by Metellus Pius, LIFE OF JULIUS C^SAE. 43 There can be no doubt that both parties were unprepared for imme- diate war. Caesar had but one legion in Cisalpine Gaul ; for the long hesitation of his enemies made him doubt whether they would ever defy him to mortal conflict. Pompey knew the weakness of his rival's forces. He also knew that Labienus, the most distinguished of Caesar's officers, was ready to desert his leader, and he believed that such an example would be followed by many. He calculated that Caesar would not dare to move forward, or that if he did he would fall a victim to his own adventurous rashness. For himself he had one legion close to Rome, Caesar's two legions at Capua ; and Sylla's veterans were, it was supposed, ready to take arms for the senate at a moment's notice. " I have but to stamp my foot," said the great commander, " and armed men will start from the soil of Italy." But Caesar's prompt audacity at once remedied his own want of preparation, and disconcerted all the calculations of his opponents. At the close of the preceding year, after a triumphant reception in the cities of Cisalpine Gaul, he had stationed himself with the single legion, of which we spoke just now, at Ravenna. Here lie was sur- prised by letters announcing the decree of the Gth of January. His resolution was at once taken. He reviewed his legion, addressed them, aud without betraying what had happened, ascertained their readiness to follow whithersoever he led. At nightfall he left Ra- venna secretly, crossed the Rubicon, which divided his provinces from Italy, and at daybreak entered Arimiuum.* Here he met the tribunes Antony and Q. Cassius, on their way from Rome. His legion arrived soon after, and orders were sent off to the nearest troops in Transalpine Gaul to follow his steps with all speed. But he waited not for them. With his single legion, he appeared before Picenum, Fanum, Ancona, Iguvium, Auximum, and Asculum. All these towns surrendered without a blow, and thus by the beginning of February Ca3sar was master of all Umbria and Picenum. By the middle of that montli he had been reinforced by two additional legions from Gaul, and was strong enough to invest the fortress of Corfinium, in the Peligaian Apennines. But this place was vigor- ously defended by the energetic Domitius Ahenobarbus, accompanied by a number of senators. At the close of a week, however, news came that Pompey and the consuls had marched southward from Capua ; and Domitius, finding himself utterly unsupported, surren- dered at discretion. Caesar allowed him and all his senatorial friends to go their way, aud to take with them a large sum of public money, even without exacting a promise that they would take no further part in the war. On entering the town he strictly ordered that his * This in Caesar's simple narrative. The dramatic scene, in which he is repre- sented as pausing on the banks of the Rubicon, and anxiously weighing the proba- ble consequences of one irremediable step, is due to rhetorical writers of later tini*. 44 LIFE OF JULIUS C.ESAK. men should abstain, not only from personal violence, but even from petty pillage. Reports had been industriously spread that the pro- consul's troops were not Romans but Gauls, ferocious barbarians, whose hands would be against every Italian as their natural enemy. The politic humanity which he now showed produced the more sur- prise, and had a great effect in reconciling to his cause many who had hitherto stood aloof. Almost all the soldiers of Domilius took service under the lenient conqueror. After the fall of Corflnium, Caesar hastened onward through Apulia in pursuit of Pompey. By successive reinforcements, his legions had now been swelled to the number of six. But when he arrived at Brundusium, on the 9th of March,* he found that the ccusuls had sailed for Dyrrhachium, though Pompey was still in the Italian port. The town was too strong to be taken by assault ; and nine days after Caesar appeared before its walls, Pompey embarked at leisure and carried his last soldier out of Italy. Disappointed of his prey, Caesar returned upon his steps, and reached Rome upon the 1st of April, f where M. Antony, after receiving the submission of Etruria, had prepared the way for his reception. The people, on the motion of the same tribune, gave Caesar full power to take what money he desired from the treasury, without sparing even the sacred hoard which had been set apart after the invasion of the Gauls, and had never since been touched except in the necessities of the Hannibalic war. There was no longer any need of a reserve fund against the Gauls, it was argued, now that the Gauls had become peaceful sub- jects of the republic. Notwithstanding this vote, the senatorial tri- bune, L. Metellus, a son of Metellus Creticus, refused to produce the keys of the treasury, and, when Caesar ordered the doors to be broken open, endeavored to bar his passage into the sacred chamber. " Stand aside, young man," said Caesar, " it is easier forme to do than to say." J He was now master of Italy, as well as Gaul. To pursue Pompey to Epirus was impossible, because the senatorial officers swept the sea with a large and well-appointed fleet, and Caesar had very few ships at his disposal. Moreover, in Spain, which had been subject to Pompey's rule for the last five years, there was a veteran army, ready to enter Italy as soon as he left it. The remainder of the season, there- fore, he resolved to occupy in the reduction of that army. On his way to Spain, he found that Marseilles, the chosen retreat of Milo, being by its aristocratical form of government attached to the senatorial party, had declared for Pompey. Leaving Dec. Brutus * I.e., the 9th of March of the current Roman year = Jan. 17th. 49 B.C., of our time. t Feb. 9th, of our time. j Plut. VU. Cast. c. 86, Cicero ad Alt. x. 4, and other authors. Cnesar himself tells us that Lentulus the consul left, the treasury open (PM. Civ. i. 13). Metellus, then, must have locked it after the flight of Pompey. LIFE OF JULIUS CJESAB. 45 with twelve ships, and C. Trebonius with a body of troops, to block- ade the town both by sea and land, he continued his march, and crossed the Pyrenees early in the summer. Hither Spain was h< Id by L. Afranius, an old officer of Pompey, whom he had raised to the consulship in 60 B.C., and M. Petreius, the experienced soldier who had destroyed the army of Catiline. Farther Spain was intrusted to the care of the accomplished M. Terentius Varro. Near Ilerda (Lerida), on the river Sicoris, an affluent of the Ebro, Caesar was encountered by the Pompeiau leaders. He gives us a very full account of the movements which followed, from which it ie pretty clear that so far as military science went, Caesar was outsell eralled by Petreius. At one time he was in the greatest peril from a sudden rising in the river, which cut him off from all his supplies. He released himself by that fertility of resource which distinguished him. He had seen in Britain boats of wicker, covered with hide, such as are still used on the Severn under the name of coracles ; a number of them were secretly constructed, and by their help he re- established his communications. But whatever might be his military inferiority, yet over the weak Afranius and the rude Petreius his dex- terity in swaying the wills of men gave him an unquestioned superi- ority. Avoiding a battle always, he encouraged communications be- tween his own men and the soldiers of the enemy ; at length the Pompeian leaders, finding themselves unable to control their own troops, were obliged to surrender their command. Two thirds of their force took service with the politic conqueror. Varro, in Farther Spain, by dexterous intrigue, contrived to evade immediate submission. But after a vain attempt to collect a force, he surrendered to the conqueror at Corduba (Cordova), and %yas al- lowed to go where he pleased. Before autumn closed, all Spain was at the feet of Caesar, and was committed to the government of Q. . Cassius, the tribune who had supported his cause at Rome. Being thus secured from danger in the West, he hastened to return into Italy. As he passed through Southern Gaul he found that Marseilles .still held out against Dec. JBrutUS and Trebonius. The defence had been most gallant. The blockade by sea had been interrupted by a de- tachment from Pompey's fleet ; and the great works raised by the besiegers on laud had been met by counter-works of equal magnitude on the part of the besieged. But Trebonius had perseveringly re- paired all losses ; and on tlxe arrival of Caesar, the Massilians surren- dered themselves with a good grace. As in all other cases, he treated them with the utmost clemency. On reaching Italy, he was obliged to turn aside to Placentia for the purpose of quelling a mutiny that had arisen in a legion which had been left there, and which complained that promises of discharge and reward made to them had not been kept. His presence at once sup, pressed the mutiny. But he selected twelve of the ringleaders for capital punishment. Among these twelve was one who proved that A.B. 13 46 LIFE OP JULIUS (LESAR. he had been absent when the mutiny broke out. In his place the centurion who accused him was executed. During his absence in Spain, M. JEmilius Lopidus, whom he had left as prefect of the city to govern Italy, had named him dictator. From Flaceutia lie hastened to Rome and assumed the great dignity thus conferred upon him. But he held it only eleven days. In that period he presided at the comitia, and was there elected consul, to- gether with P. Servilius Isauricus, one of his old competitors for the chief pontificate. He also passed several laws. One of these restored all exiles to the city, except Milo, thus undoing one of the last rem- nants of Sylla's dictatorship. A second provided for the payment of debts, so as to lighten the burdens of the debtors without satisfy- ing the democratic cry for a complete abolition of all contracts. A third conferred the franchise on the citizens of Transpadane Gaul, who had since the Social war enjoyed the Latin right only. Of the doings of his lieutenants in other quarters during this memorable year, Ca3sar did not receive accounts at all commensurate with his own marvellous success. In Illyria, P. Cornelius Dolabella, son-in-law of Cicero, who had joined the conqueror, had been dis- gracefully beaten, and Cains, brother of Mark Antony, taken pris- oner, so that all the eastern coast of the Adriatic was now in the hands of the Pompeians. Curio had been sent to orcupy Sicily, where Cato commanded in the name of the senate. The philosopher, having no force adequate to resist, retired from the unequal contest, and joined Pompey in Epirus. Curio then passed over to Africa, where the Pompeian gen- eral Varus held command. He took the field, and was at first de- feated by Curio. But presrntly Juba, King of Mauritania, appeared in the field as an ally of the senatorial party ; and Curio was obliged in his turn to retreat before the combined forces of the eneni)', till he took refuge in the famous *;amp of Scipio. From this position he was drawn out by a feigned retreat of the African prince ; and being surprised by an overpowering force, he was defeated and slain. Africa, therefore, as well PS all the eastern world, remained in the hands of the Pompeians, tvhile Italy, Gaul, and Spain owned the authority of Caesar. Cicero had returned frc'n his Cilician province to Rome, while the debates were being held which issued in the decree of the 6th of Jan nary. During his two vears' government he had nearly been en- gaged in very serious w? .rfare with the Parthians. But C. Cassius, as we have mentioned, e ive them so severe a blow that Cicero's mil- itary abilities were oulv iested in reducing some of the wild moun- tain tribes who infested the borders of his province. He claimed a triumph for these achievements, and therefore would not enter the walls of the city t.) bf present at the termination of these moment- ous debates. Tho ~>?r/,tion of his triumph" was soon forgotten in the rapid course of ever.V? which followed, and he retired to his Formian LIFE OF JULIUS C.ESAR. 47 villa, still attended by his lictors with their fasces -wreathed in laurel. From this place he went frequently to have interviews with Pom- peian leaders on their retreat through Campania. At the same time many of his personal friends, Curio, Caelius, DolabelJa, Balbus, Tre- batius, and others had joined Caesar, and wrote to him urging him to make common cause with their generous leader. On Ins return from Bnmdusiumlo Rome, Caesar himself visited him. But the orator could not be prevailed upon to forsake the cause of the senate ; and after long hesitation, about the end of May he took ship and joined Pompey in the East. During the whole of the preceding year, Pompey had been actively engaged in levying and disciplining an army for the ensuing cam- paign. He was bitterly censured by many of his party for quitting Italy without a blow. But it may be concluded that when he was surprised by Cassar's rapid advance, the only troops besides those under Domitius at Corfmium were the two legions lately sent from Gaul by Caesar ; and these (it may well be supposed) he dared not trust to do bailie against their old commander. It is probable, therefore, that he was really compelled to quit Italy. But his fleet was now so large that it would have been easy for him to have regained Italian soil. He made no attempt to cross the sea ; and we may therefore assume that he purposely chose Epirus as tho ground for battle. He had all the East behind him, long used to reverence his name, and :.t the head of an army out of Italy he was less likely to be thwarted by Ihe arrogant senatorial chiefs,who hated him while they used him. Such especially was Domitius Ahenobar- bus, who loudly complained that he had been deserted at Corfinium. His headquarters were fixed at Thessalonica, the chief city of the province of Macedonia. Here the senators who had fled from Italy met and formed a senate, while the chief officers assumed titles of authority. Pompey had employed the time well. The provinces and kings of the East filled his military chest with treasure ; he had collected seven Roman legions, with a vast number of irregular auxiliaries from every surrounding monarchy, and a powerful force of well-appointed cavalry ; large magazines of provisions and mili- tary stores were formed ; above all, a fleet, increasing every day in numbers, was supplied by the maritime states of Illyria, Greece, Asia Minor, Phoenicia, and Egypt. Bibulus, the old adversary of Caesar, took the command as admiral-in-chief , supported by able lieutenants. With this naval force actively employed, it was hoped that it would be made impossible for Caesar to land in Epirus. But here again his happy audacity frustrated all regular opposition. Caesar arrived in Brundusium at the end of October, 49 B.C.* * This is the true date, according to our reckoning. By the Roman calendar, it was December. But, 1'or the military operations \vhicfi follow, it is so important to note the true seasons, that \ve shall, 'from this point, give the dates as if tne Roman calendar bad already been corrected. 48 LIFE OF JULIUS C.SSAB. Twelve legions had been assembled there. So much had their num- bers been thinned by war, fatigue, and the autumnal fevers prevalent in Apulia, that each legion averaged less than 3000 men. Ilia trans- ports were so insufficient, that he was not able to ship more than seven of these imperfect legions, with 600 horse, though men and officers were allowed to take no heavy baggage and no servants. All the harbors were occupied by the enemy's ships ; but it was not the practice for the ancients to maintain a blockade by cruising ; and Caesar, having left Brundusium on the nth November, was able to land his first corps on the open coast of Epirus, a little south of the Acroccrauninn headland. He sent his empty ships back directly, and marched northward to Oricum and Apollonia, where he claimed admission in virtue of his consular office. The claim was admitted, and these two important towns fell into his hands. Pompey, who was still at Thessalonica, on the first tidings of his movement had put his army in motion, and succeeded in reaching Dyrrhachium in time to save that important place. He then pushed his lines forward to the mouth of the Apsus, and the two hostile armies lay inactive dur- ing the remainder of the winter with this stream between their camps Caesar occupying the left or southern bank, Pompey the right or northern side. As the winter passed away, Caesar was rendered extremely anxious by the non-appearance of his second corps, which Antony was charged to bring across. News soon reached him that Bibulus, stung to the quick by the successful landing of the first corps, had put to sea from Corcyra with all his fleet, had overtaken and de- stroyed thirty of the returning transports, and had ever since, not- withstanding the winter season, kept so strict a watch on the coast of Italy, that Antony did not dare to leave Brundusium. Intelli . gence also reached him that Caalius, now raised to the rank of prajkir, had proclaimed an abolition of debts at Rome, and had made com- mon cause with the reckless Milo, who had appeared in Italy at the head of a gang of desperate men. This bold enterprise, it is true, had failed, and both the leaders had fallen ; but it quickened Caesar's anxiety to bring matters to issue. Still no troops arrived. So stub- born was the will of Bibulus, that he fell a victim to his own vigilant exertions, and died at sea. But L. Scribonius Libo, who had com- manded a squadron under the deceased admiral, appeared at Brun- dusium, and occupied an island off the harbor, so as to establish a strict blockade. This, however, did not last ; for it was found im- possible to keep the men supplied with fresh water and provisions, and Libo was obliged to resume the tactics of Bibulus. Meantime, Caesar's impatience was rising to the height He had been lying idle for more than two months, and complained that Antony had neglected several opportunities of crossing the Ionian Sea. At length he en- gaged a small boat to take him across to Italy in person. The sea ran high, and the rowers refused to proceed, till the general revealed LIFE OF JULIUS CJ2SAR. 49 himself to them in the famous words : " You carry Caesar and his fortunes." All night they toiled, but when day broke they had made no way, and the general reluctantly consented to put back into the Apsus. But presently after he succeeded in sending over a positive message to Antony to cross over at all risks ; and if Antony dis- obeyed, the messenger carried a commission to his chief officers, by which they were ordered to supersede their commander, and dig. charge the duty which he neglected to perform. Stung by this prac- tical rebuke, Antony shipped his troops, and resolved to attempt the passage at all risks. As he neared the coast of Epirus, the wind shifted to the south-east, and being unable to make the port of Ori- cum, he was obliged to run northward past Pompey's camp, in full view of the enemy. They gave chase ; but he succeeded in lauding all his men, four legions and eight hundred horse, near the headland of Nyrnplueum, m >re than fifty miles north of the Apsus. His position was critical, for Pompey's army lay between him and CaBsar. But Caesar, calculating the point at which the squadron would reach land, had already made a rapid march round Pompey's position, and succeeded in joining Antony before he was attacked. Pompey had also moved northward, but finding himself too late to assail Antony alone, he took a new position some miles to the north of Dyrrhachium, and here formed a strongly intrenched camp resting upon the sea. These intrenchments ran in an irregular half circle of nearly fifteen miles in length, the base of which was the coast-line of Epirus. The camp was well supplied with provisions by sea. The spring of 48 B.C. was now beginning. It was probably in March that Cassar effected his union with Antony. Even after this junction, he was inferior in numbers to Pompey ; and it is not with- out wonder that we read his own account of the audacious attempt with which he began tho campaign. His plan was to draw lines round and outside of Pompey's vast intrenchments, so as to cut him off from Dyrrhachium ami from all the surrounding country. As Pompey's intrehchments formed a curve of nearly fifteen miles, Ca3sar's lines must have measured considerably more. And as his arm}' was inferior in numbers, it might have been expected that Pompey would not submit to be shut in. But the latter general could not interrupt the works without hazarding a general action, and his troops were not (he thought) sufficiently disciplined to encounter Caesar's veterans : the command of the sea also insured him supplies and enabled him to shift his army to another position if necessary. He therefore allowed Ctcsar to carry on his lines with little interrup- tion. During the winter Cajsar's men had suffered terribly for want of grain and vegetable food. But as spring advanced, and the crops began to ripen, brighter days seemed at hand. Pompey 'a men, meanwhile, though supplied from the sea, began to be distressed by want of fresh water, and their animals by want of green fodder 50 LIFE OF JULIUS C.ESAK. He therefore determined to assume the offensive. At each extremity of Caesar's lines, where they abutted upon the sea, a second line of intrenchments had been marked out reaching some way inland, so that at least for some distance from the sea the lines might be pro- tected from an attack in rear from the land. But this pail of the work was as yet unfinished ; and, in particular, no attempt had been made to carry any defence along the coast between the extremities of these two lines of intrenchment, so as to cover them from an as- sault by sea. Pompey was instructed of this defect by some Gallic deserters ; and he succeeded in landing some troops at the southern extremity of the works, so as to make a lodgment between Caesar's front and rearward lines. A series of severe and .well -contested combats followed. But the Pompeians maintained their ground, and Caesar at once perceived that his works were completely turned, and that all his labor was thrown away. Pompey had re-established his land communication with Dyrrhachium, and circumvallation was made impossible. Under these circumstances Caesar determined to shift the scene of action without delay. During the spring he had detache'd Cn. Domitius Calvinus with two legions into Macedonia, where he possessed considerable influ- ence, for the purpose of intercepting the march of Metellus Scipio, who had succeeded Bibulus in the government of Syria, and was ex- pected every day to bring reinforcements to the army of Pompey. Scipio had been delayed by the necessity of securing his province against the Parthians ; and had also spent much time in levying heavy contributions on his line of march. When he arrived in Mace- donia he found his passage westward barred by Calviuus, who oc- cupied a strong camp in the neighborhood of Pella. He, therefore, also intrenched himself, and awaited succors. About the time "of Caesar's defeat at Dyrrhachium, Calvinus had been obliged by want of provisions to fall back toward Epirus, while Caesar himself marched by way of Apollonia up the valley of the Aoiis. Pompey immediately detached a strong force to separate Cal- vinus from his chief. But Calvinus, informed of Caesar's retreat, moved \v ith great rapidity to the southward, and effected a union with his general at ^Egimium, in the north-western corner of Thessaly. The Caesarian army, thus skilfully united, advanced to Gomphi, which was taken and given up to plunder. All other Thessalian cities, except Larissa, which had been occupied by Scipio, opened their gates ; and the harvest being now ripe, the Ccesarian army re- velled in the abundant, supplies of the rich Thessalian plain. Meanwhile Pompey had entered Thessaly from the north and joined Scipio at Larissa. The Pompeian leaders, elated by victory, were quarrelling among themselves for the prize, which they regarded as already won. Lentulus Spinther, Domitius Ahenobarbus, and Metellus Scipio, all claimed Caesar's pontificate. Domitius proposed that all who had remained in Italy or had not taken an active part LIFE OF JULIUS C^ESAK. 51 in the contest should be brought to trial as traitors to the cause- Cicero, who was at Dyrrhachium with Cato, being the person hers chiefly aimed at. Pompey himself was not spared. Dornitius, angry at not having been supported at Cornnium, nicknamed him Agamemnon King of Men, and openly rejected his authority. The advice of the great general to avoid a decisive battle was contemptu- ously set at naught by all but Cato, who from first to last advocated any measure which gave a hope of avoiding bloodshed. Even Fa- vonius, a blunt and simplo-minded man, who usually echoed Cato's sentiments, loudly complained that Pompey's reluctance to fight would prevent his friends from eating their figs that summer at Tus- culum. From Larissa Pompey had moved southward, and occupied a strong position on an eminence near the city of Pharsalus, overlook, ing the plain which skirts the left bank of the river Enipeus. Cnesat followed and encamped upon the plain, within four miles of the en- emy's position. Here the hostile armies lay watching each other for some time, till Caesar made a movement which threatened to inter- cept Pompe3''s communications with Larissa. The latter now at length yielded to the angry impatience of the senatorial chiefs. He resolved to descend from his strong position and give battle upon the plain of Pharsalus or Pharsalia. The morning of the 6th of June* saw both armies drawn out in order of battle. The forces of Pompey consisted of about 44,000 men, and were (if Coasar's account is accurate) twice as numerous as the army opposed to them. But Caesar's were all veteran troops ; the greater part of Pompey's were foreign levies recently collected in Macedonia and Asia, far inferior to the soldiers of Gaul and Italy. Pompey's army faced the north. His right wing, resting on the river, was commanded by Scipio, the centre by Lentulus bpinther, the left by Domitius. His cavalry, which was far superior to Cesar's, covered the left flank. Cresar drew up his forces in three lines, of which the rearmost was to act in reserve. His left was upon the river ; and his small force of cavalry was placed upon his right, opposite to Pompey's left wing. To compensate for his infe- riority in this arm, he picked out six veteran cohorts, who were to charge through the files of the horse if the latter were obliged to re- tire. Domitius Calvinus commanded in the centre, Antony on tho left, Caesar himself upon the right, where he kept the tenth legion in rear to act in reserve. The attack began along Caesar's whole line, which advanced run. ning. Pompey ordered his men to wait the charge 'without moving in hopes that the enemy would lose breath before they came to clos quarters. But the experienced veterans, observing that the Pom- peians kept their ground, halted to re-form their line and recover * By the Roman calendar, it wae the 9th of August. 52 LIFE OF JULIUS CJESAfc. breath before they closed with the enemy. A desperate conflict fol- lowed. While the legions were engaged along the whole line, Pompey's cavalry attacked the weak squadrons of Caesar's horse and drove them back. But the veterans who vrere ordered to support them sallied out of the ranks and drove their formidable pila straight at the unarmed faces of the enemy.* After a brave struggle, Pompey's cavalry was completely broken and fled in disorder. Upon this, Caesar brought up his third line, which was in reserve ; and the infantry of Pompey being assailed by these fresh troops in front, and attacked in flank by the cavalry and cohorts which had triumphed over their opponents, gave way everywhere. A general order was now issued by Caesar to spare the Romans among their op- ponents, and to throw all their strength upon the Eastern allies. The Pompeian legionaries, on hearing of this politic clemency, offered no further resistance ; and Pompey himself rode off the field to his tent, leaving orders for the troops to retreat behind their intrench- ments. But this was not permitted. His legionaries, instead of returning to man the ramparts, dispersed in all directions. The Eastern allies, after a terrible slaughter, fled ; and Pompey had only time to mount his horse and gallop off through the decuman or rearward gate of his camp, as the soldiers of Ca3sar forced their way in by the praeto- rian or front gate. The booty taken was immense. The hardy veter- ans of Gaul gazed with surprise on the tent of Lentulus, adorned with festoons of Bacchic ivy, and on the splendid services of plate which were set out everywhere for a banquet to celebrate the ex- pected victory. But before Ca?sar allowed his tired soldiers to enjoy the fruits of the victory of Pharsalia, he required them to complete the conquest. The pursuit was continued during the remainder of the day and on the morrow. But the task was easy. The clemency of the con- queror induced all to submit. When Caesar entered the camp and saw the dead l>odies of many Romans lying about, he exclaimed, " They would have it so : to have laid down our arms would have sealed our doom." Yet most of those who perished w r ere foreigners or freedmen. The only distinguished person who fell was Domitius Ahenobarbus. Among those who came in and submitted volunta- rily was M. Junius 'Brutus, a young man of whom we shall hear more. Pompey fled precipitately to Larissa, and thence through the gorge * The common story, received from Plutarch, is that the order was given because Pompey's cavalry consisted chiefly of young Romans, who were afraid of having their beauty spoilt. Caesar, however, mentions that Pompey's cavalry was excel- lent, iiml does not notice that he pave any order at all about striking at the face. The foot-Bofdiora would naturally strike at the most defenceless part, and the story of the " spoiled beauty " would be readily added by some scornful Osarian. LIFE OP JULIUS CJESAB. 53 of Teinpe to the mouth of the Peneus, where he found a merchant vessel, and embarked in company with Lentulus Spinther, Lentulus Crus, and others. He dismissed all his slaves. Honest Favoniui proved his fidelity to the general by undertaking for him such menial offices as usually were left to slaves. The master of the ship knew the adventurers, and offered to take them whithersoever they would. Pompey first directed his course to Lesbos, where his wife Cornelia and his younger son Sextus had been sent for safety. Hav- ing taken them on board he sailed round to Cilicia, where he col- lected a few ships and a small company of soldiers. With these he crossed over to Cyprus, where he stayed a short time, deliberating on his future course of action. He still had a powerful fleet at sea, under the command of his eldest son Cna3us, assisted by C. Cassius! Africa was still his own, and King Juba anxious to do him service. But after considering and rejecting several plans proposed, he deter- mined to seek an asylum in Egypt. Ptolemy Auletes, who had been restored by Gabinius, Pompey's friend, had died some time before. He had left his kingdom to the divided sway of his son Ptolemy Dionysus and his daughter Cleo- patra, under the guardianship of the senate ; and the senate had dele, gated this trust to Pompey. Hence no doubt his reason for choos- ing Egypt as his place of retreat. But the country was in a very unsettled state. Cleopatra, who was older than her brother, had been driven from Alexandria by the people ; and the government had been seized by three Greek adventurers Potheinus, an eunuch, Theodotus, a rhetorician, and Achillas, an officer of the army. When Pompey appeared off Alexandria with a few ships which had joined him on his route, and a small force of about 2000 men, these minis ters were engaged in repelling Cleopatra, who was endeavoring to return by means of force. A messenger from Pompey, sent to sig- nify his intention of landing, tli re w them into great alarm. In the Egyptian army were a number of officers and soldiers who had for- merly served under Pompey in the East, and had begn left there by Gabinius. It was feared that these men would betray Egypt to their old general ; at least this was the reason afterward given for tho way in which he was treated. All was left to the conduct of Achil- las, a bold man, troubled by no scruples. A small boat was sent to receive the fugitive, really to prevent any attendants from landing with him, but under the false pretence that the water was too shal- low to allow a larger vessel to reach the shore. In the boat were Achillas himself, a Roman olficer named Salvius, and another named Septimius, who had served as a tribune under Pompey in the war against the pirates. The great general recognized and saluted his old officer, and entered the boat alone amid the sad bodings of his wife and friends. They anxiously watched it as it slowly made its way back to shore, and were somewhat comforted by seeing a num- ber of persons collected on the beach as if to receive their friend with 54 LIFE OF JULIUS CAESAR. honor. At length the boat stopped, and Pompey look the hand of the person next him to assist him in rising. At this moment Septi- mius struck him with his sword from behind. He knew his fate, submitted without a struggle, and fell pierced by a mortal thrust. His head was then cut off and taken away, and his body left upon the beach. When the crowd dispersed, a freedman of Pompey's, whose name ought to have been recorded, assisted by an old soldier of the great commander, had the piety to break up a fishing-boat and form a rude funeral-pile. By these humble obsequies alone was the sometime master of the world honored. So died Pompey. He had lived nearly sixty years, and had enjoyed more of the world's honors than almost any Roman before him. lu youth he was cold, calculating, and hard-hearted, covetous of military fame, and not slow to appropriate what belonged to others ; but his affable manners and generosity in giving won him general favor, which was increased by his early successes. His talents for war were really great, greater perhaps than any of Rome's generals except Ma- rius, as was fully proved by his campaigns in the East. In the war with Caesar, it is plain that, so far as military tactics Avent, Pompey was superior to his great rival ; and had he not been hampered by haughty and impatient colleagues, the result might have been differ- ent. In politics he was grasping and selfish, but irresolute and im- provident. He imagined that his military achievements gave him a title to be acknowledged as the virtual sovereign of Rome ; and when neither senate nor people seemed willing to acquiesce in the claim, he formed a coalition with politicians whose principles he dis- liked, and made himself responsible for the acts of such men as Clo- dius. Lastly, when he found that in this coalition he was unable to maintain his superiority over Ca;sar, he joined the oligarchy who hated him, and lost even the glory which as a soldier he had well deserved. In private life he was free from those licentious habits in which most persons of that day indulged without scruple or reproach ; and the affection he bore toward Julia must always be quoted as an amiable -trait in a character that has in it little else of attraction. Hi? tragical death excited a commiseration for him which by his life h< hardly deserved. CHAPTER V. ABSOLUTE RULE OP C^ESAK. (48-44 B.C.) ON the third day after the battle of Pharsalia, Caesar pursued Pompey by forced marches. He arrival at Amphipolis just after the fugitive had touched there. When he reached the Hellespont, he fell in with a squadron of Pompey's fleet under the command of C. Cas- LIFE OF JULIUS C2ESA&. 55 sius. This officer, whose military skill had been proved in the Par- thian campaign, might have intercepted Caesar. But, whatever were his motives, he surrendered his ships to Caesar in token of full and unreserved submission, and was received by the conqueror with the same favor which he had shown to Brutus, and to all who had either fallen into his hands or yielded of free will. Caesar now immediately crossed the Hellespont in boats ; and in Asia Minor, where he was delayed at several places by business, he heard that Pompey had taken ship from Cyprus, and immediately concluded that Egypt must be his destination. Without a moment's hesitation, he sailed from Rhodes for this country, though it was as yet an independent king- dom, though he was unable to carry with him more than 4000 men, and though he incurred imminent risk of being intercepted by the Pompeian fleet. As soon as his arrival off Alexandria was known, Theodotus came off, bearing Pompey 's head and ring. The con- queror accepted the ring, but turned with tears in his eyes from the ghastly spectacle of the head, and ordered it to be burned with due honors. Over the place of the funeral-pyre he raised a shrine to Nemesis, the goddess assigned by the religion of the Greeks to be the punisher of arrogant prosperity. He then landed and entered Alex- andria with his consular emblems displayed, followed by his small army. Immediately after his arrival, Cleopatra secretly resorted to the capital city, and introduced herself in disguise into the palace where Caesar had fixed his residence. The conqueror, from his earliest youth, had been notorious for unrestrained indulgence in sen- sual pleasures, and he yielded readily to the blandishments of the young and fascinating princess. But the ministers of the youthful king, Potheinus and Achillas, had no wish to lose their importance by agreeing to a compromise between their master and his imperious sister. The people of Alexandria were alarmed at Caesar's assump- tion of authority, especially when he demanded payment of a debt which he alleged was due from the late king to Rome. A great crowd, supported by Achillas with his army, assaulted Caesar sud- denly. His few troops were overmatched, and he escaped with diffi- culty to Pharos, the quarter of the city next the sea. In vain he en- deavored to ruin the cause of Achillas by seizing the person of young Ptolemy. Arsinoe", another daughter of the blood-royal, was set up by the army ; and Caesar was completely blockaded in Pharos. An attempt was made to reduce him by turning the sea into the vast tanks constructed to supply that quarter of the city with fresh water. But by sinking pits in the beach, the Romans obtained a supply of water sufficient, though not good. Constant encounters took place by land and water ; and in one of these Caesar was in so much dan- ger, that he was obliged to swim for his life from a sinking ship, holding his coat-of-mail between his teeth, and his note-book above water in his left hand. He was shut up in Pharos about August, and the blockade cou- 50 LIFE OF JULIUS C.&SAR. tiuued till the winter was far spent. But at the beginning of the new year he was relieved by the arrival of considerable forces. Achillas was obliged to raise the siege of Pharos, and a battle in the open field resulted in a signal triumph to Caesar. Vast numbers of the fugi- tives were drowned in attempting to cross the Nile : among them the young king himself. Caesar now formally installed Cleopatra as sov- ereign of Egypt, and reserved Arsinoe" to grace his triumph. During the half year that followed Pharsalia, the Pompeian chiefs Bad in some measure recovered from their first consternation. Cnaeus, Ihe eldest son of the great Pompey, had joined Cato at Corcyra ; and in this place also were assembled Cicero, Labienus, Afranius, and others. The chief command was offered to Cicero, as the oldest consular. But the orator declined a dangerous post, for which he had neither aptitude nor inclination, and was nearly slain upon the spot by the impetuous Cnaeus. Scipio soon after arrived, and to him the command was given. C. Cassius, with the greater portion of the fleet, had surprised and destroyed a number of Caesar's ships in Sicily, and was proceeding to make descents upon the coast of Italy when the news of the great defeat at Pharsalia reached him. He immediately sailed for the East, and fell in with Caesar (as we have narrated) on the Hellespont. His defection was a heavy blow to the hopes of the Pompeian party. Still, notwithstanding Pompey 's disappearance and the defection of Cassius, a considerable fleet was assembled at Corcyra. Scipio and the rest embarked with the troops that they had rallied, and steered for Egypt, in the hope of learning news of their chief. They reached the coast of Africa, and were steering eastward along the coast, when they fell in with Pompey 's ships, in which were Cornelia and young Sextus, with their friends, full of the tragic scene they had just witnessed on the beach of Alexandria. The disheartened leaders returned to Cyrene, which refused to admit any one within its walls except Cato and such men as he would be answerable for. The fleet, therefore, with Scipio, Labienus, and the greater part of the troops, pursued its course across the great gulf of the Syrtes to the province of Africa, where the Pompeian cause was upheld by Varus and his ally Juba. Cato and his followers were left to follow by land. He accomplished an arduous march across the desert in safety, and by the beginning of the next year all the Pompeian lead- ers were assembled in the province of Africa. Dissensions arose be- tween Varus and Scipio for the command ; to compromise the mat- ter it was offered to Cato. The disinterested philosopher declined it, on the plea that he held no official position, and persuaded all the rest to acquiesce in the appointment of Scipio. It was then proposed to destroy the city of Utica, as being favorable to Caesar. But Cato, with rare humanity, offered to assume the government of the town, and be responsible for its fidelity, thus finally separating himself from the active warfare, which from the first he had deprecated and disavowed. LIFE OF JULIUS C^SAR. 5t In other parts of the empire also, affairs were in a disquiet state. Pharnaccs, sou of Mitliridates, was daily gathering strength in Pontus. In Farther Spain, the oppressive rule of Q. Cassius, brother of Cains, had excited a mutiny in the army, and discontent every- where. In Illyricum, Gabinius, who had deserted his patron Pom- pey on occasion of the flight from Italy, had been ignominiously worst- ed by the Pompeian leader, M. Octavius, and had died at Salona. In Italy, P. Cornelius Dolabella, elected tribune, hud renewed the propositions of Caelius and Milo to abolish all debts ; and two legions stationed at Capua, one of which was the favored Tenth, had risen in open mutiny against their officers, declaring that they had been kept under their standards long enough, and demanding their promised reward. We know not when the news of these threatening events reached Caesar's ears at Alexandria. Early in the year 47 B.C. he had been proclaimed dictator for the second time, and had named Mark An- tony master of the horse. This officer was intrusted with the gov- ernment of Italy. But the peninsula seemed to be exposed by mutiny and discontent to a descent of the Pompeians from Africa, and the presence of the dictator himself seemed to be imperiously demanded. Still he lingered in Egypt, detained (as his enemies say) by the blandishments of Cleopatra, or (as his admirers contend) by the necessitj- of confirming Roman influence in that country.- It was not for the space of four months after his victory on the Nile that he left Egypt, having remained there altogether for not less than three quarters of a year. But when once he had shaken off this real or apparent lethargy, all his startling rapidity of action returned. He left Egypt at the end of May (47 B.C.), and marched northward through Syria to crush the rising power of Phtirnaces. On his way he received the hearty congratulations of the Jews, who hated the memory of Pompey ; accepted the excuses of Deiotarus, chief of Galatia, who had .fought against him at Plmrsalia ; and in a few days appeared in Pontus. Pharnaces, proud of a victory over Caesar's lieutenant, ventured to attack Caesar himself near Zela, where his father Mitliridates had once defeated the Romans. The victory gained by the Romans was easy but decisive ; and was announced at Rome m the famous dis- patch, " Veni, vidi, vici. "* The kingdom of Bosphorus was con- ferred on a friendly chief, bearing the name of Mithridates. Caesar now devoted a short time to the task of settling the affairs of Asia. This province had been warmly attached to the senatorial cause by the mild rule of Lucullus and Pompey. Lately, however, the exac- tions of Metellus Scipio, on his march to join Pornpey in Epirus, had * This inscription was certainly placed upon the spoils taken from the Pontia king when carried in triumphal procession ; and Plutarch represents it as forming the dictator's dispatch. 58 LIFE OF JULIUS CAESAR. caused great discontent ; and Caesar found it easy to win popularity by remitting a portion of the moneys due to the imperial treasury. Before this, also, Octavius had been expelled from Illyria. Vati- nius, who was in command at Brundusium, hearing of the defeat and death of Gabinius, immediately crossed the Adriatic, and attacked the fleet of Octavius wilh so much success that the Pompeian leader was glad to make his escape and join his fellows in misfortune in Africa. Two mouths after Caesar left Alexandra, all parts of the East were again restored to tranquil submission ; and early in July Rome was astonished to see the great conqueror enter her gates for the third time since he had crossed the Rubicon. He had been again named dictator, as we have said ; and, on his arrival at Rome, he applied himself with his usual industry and rapidity to settle the most pressing difficulties. The disturbances raised by the profligate promises of Cselius and Dolabella had been quelled by Antony ; and the dictator in some degree gratified those who had clamored for an abolition of debts by paying a year's house- rent for all poor citizens out of the public purse an evil precedent, which in the present emergency he deemed necessary. The mutiny of the soldiers at Capua was more formidable. But Caesar, as was his wont, overcame the danger by facing it boldly. He ordered the two legions to meet him in the Campus Martins un- armed. They had demanded their discharge, thinking that thus they would extort a large donation, for they considered themselves indis- pensable to the dictator. He ascended the tribunal, and they ex- pected a speech. "You demand your discharge," he simply said, "I discharge you." A dead silence followed these unexpected words. Caesar resumed : " The rewards which I have promised you shall have, when I return to celebrate my triumph with my other troops." Shame now filled their hearts, mingled with vexation at the thought that they who had borne all the heat and burden of the day would be excluded from the triumph. They passionately be- sought him to recall his words, but lie answered not. At length, at the earnest entreaty of his friends, he again rose to speak. " Quiri- tes" he began, as if they were no longer soldiers, but merely private citizens. A burst of repentant sorrow broke from the ranks of the veterans ; but Caesar turned away as if he w*re about to leave the tribunal. The cries rose still louder : they besought him to punish them in any way, but not to dismiss them from his service. After long delay, he said that " he would not punish any one for de- manding his due ; but that he could not conceal his vexation that the Tenth Legion could not bide his time. That legion at least he must dismiss." Loud applause followed from the rest; the men of the Tenth hung their heads in (fluime, and begged him to dec- imate them, and restore the survivors to his favor. At length, Caesar, deeming them sufficiently humbled, accepted their repentance. The whole scene is a striking illustiation of the cool and dauntless LIFE OF JULIUS C.ESAB. 53 resolution of the man. We at once say, here was one born for com- mand. Having completed all pressing business in little more than two months, ho again left Rome to take measures for reducing the for- midable force which the Pompeiau leaders had assembled in Africa. At Lilybaeum six legions and 2000 horse had been collected ; and about the middle of October (47 B.C.) he reached Africa. An inde- cisive combat took place soon after he landed, and then he lay en- camped waiting for reinforcements till near the beginning of Decem- ber. When he took the field, a series of manoeuvres followed ; till, on the 4th of February (46 B.C.), he encamped near Thapsus, and two days after fought the battle which decided tlie fate of the campaign. After a long and desperate conflict, which lasted till evening, the senatorial army was forced to give way ; and Cyesar, who always pressed an advantage to the utmost, followed them so closely that they could not defend their camp. The leaders fled in all directions. Varus and Labienus escaped into Spain. Scipio put to sea, but be ing overtaken by the enemy's ships sought death by his own hands. Such also was the fate of Afranius. Juba fled with old Petreius ; and these two rude soldiers, after a last banquet, heated with wine, agreed to end their life by single combat. The Roman veteran was slain by the nimble African prince, and Juba sought death at the hand of a faithful slave. Meanwhile, Cato at Utica had received news of the ruin of his party by the battle of Thapsus. lie calmly resolved on self-slaughter, and discussed the subject both in conversation with his friends and in meditation with himself. After a conversation of this kind he retired to rest, and for a moment forgot his philosophic calm when he saw that his too careful friends had removed his sword. Wrathfully re- proving them, he ordered it to be brought back and hung at his bed's head. There he lay down, and turned over the pages of Plato's Phsedo till he fell asleep. In the night ha awoke, and taking his sword from the sheath he thrust it into his body. His watchful friends heard him utter an in voluntary groan, and, entering the room, found him writhing in acjony. They procured surgical aid, and the wound was carefully dressed, Cato lay down again, apparently insensible ; but, as soon as he was left 'alone, he quietly removed the dressings and tore open the wound, so that his bowels broke out, and after no long time he breathed his last. The Romans, one and all, even Cicero, admired and applauded his conduct. It is true that the Stoics, though on principles different from Christianity, recommended the endurance of all evils as indifferent to a philosopher. But life had become intolerable to one who held the political opinions of Cato ; and while Christian judgment must condemn his impatience, it must be confessed that from his own point of view the act was at least excusable. After this miserable end of the most upright and most eminent 60 LIFE OF JULIUS CJESAR. among the senatorial chiefs, Caesar busied himself in regulating the countries he had conquered. Juba's kingdom of Numidia he formed into a new province, and gave it into the care of the historian Salhist, who with others had been expelled from the senate in the year 50 B.C., professedly because of his profligate manners, but really because of his devoted attachment to Caesar's cause. His subsequent life justified both the real and the alleged cause. He proved an oppressive ruler, and his luxurious habits were conspicuous even in that age. In the terse and epigrammatic sentences of his two im- mortal works were immortalized the merits of Marius and of Caesar, the vices and errors of their senatorial antagonists. After some delay in Sardinia, where his presence also was required, Caesar returned to Rome for the fourth time since the civil war broke out, about the end of May, 46 B.C. At length he had found time to celebrate the triumphs which he had earned since his first consulship, and to devote his attention to those internal reforms, which long years of faction and anarchy had made necessary. His triumphs were four in number, over Gaul, Egypt, Pontus, and Numidia ; for no mention was made of the civil conflicts, which had been most dangerous and most difficult of all. A Roman could not triumph over fellow -citizens ; therefore the victories of llerda and Pharsalia were not celebrated by public honors ; nor would Thapsus have been mentioned had it not been observed that here Juba was among the foes. These triumphs were made more attractive by splendid gladiatorial shows and combats of wild beasts. But what gave much more real splendor was the announcement of a gen- eral amnesty for all political offences committed against the party of the dictator. The memory of the Marian massacres and the Syllan proscriptions were still present to many minds. Domitius Ahenobar- bus and the chief senatorial leaders had denounced all who took part against the senate, or even those who remained neutral, with the severest penalties. Men could not believe that the dictator's clemency was real ; they could not rid themselves of the belief that when all fear of the enemy had ceased he would glut his vengeance by a hecatomb. The certainty that no more blood would flow was so much the more grateful. After the triumphs all his soldiers were gratified by a magnificent donation ; nay, every poor citizen received a present both of grain and money. The veterans now at length received their rewards in lands, which were either public property or were duly purchased with public money. But no Julian military colonies were planted on lauds wrested by force from citizens, to emulate the Cornelian military colonies and main- tain a population of turbulent agitators. Here also the example of Sylla, who confiscated private property to reward his troops, was carefully avoided. After the triumphs every kind of honor was bestowed upon him. LIFE OF JULIUS CAESAR. 61 Above all, he was named dictator for the third time ; but now it was for a space of ten yeans. He was also invested with censorial authority for three years ; and in virtue of Ihese combined offices he was declared absolute master of the lives and fortunes lar year sometimes amounted to several months, and all dates weiu mast uncertain- _ IIFE OF JULIUS C.ESAR. 6& Caesar, himself not unacquainted with astronomy, called in the assistance of the Greek sosigenes to rectify the present error, and prevent error for the future. It was determined to make the 1st of January of the Roman year 709 A.U.C. coincide with the 1st of Jan- uary of the solar year which we call 45 B.C. But it was calculated that this 1st of January of the year 709 A.U.C. would be 07 days in advance of the true time ; or, in other words, would concur not with the 1st of January 45 B.C., but with the 22d of October 4(5 B.C. And therefore two intercalary mouths, making together 67 days, were inserted between the last day of November and the 1st of December of the year 708. An intercalary month of 23 days* had already been added to February of that year, according to the old method. There- fore, on the whole, the Roman year 708 consisted in all of the prodi- gious number of 445 days.f It was scoffingly called in the pasquinades " the year of confusion." More justly should it be called, as Macro- bius observes, " the last year of confusion." Thus the past error was corrected, and the 1st of January 709 A.U.C. became the same with the 1st of January 45 B.C. To prevent future errors, the year was extended from 355 to 365 days, each month being lengthened, except February, according to the rule which we still observe. But as the solar year consists of about 865 i days, it is manifest that it was necessary to add one day in every four years, and this was done at the end of February, as at present in our leap year. Such was the famous Julian Calendar, which, with a slight altera- tion, continues to date every transaction and every letter of the present day 4 The constant occupation required for these and other measures of reform, all executed in the space of nine or ten months, necessarily absorbed the chief part of the dictator's day, and prevented the free access which at Rome was usually accorded to suitors and visitors by the consuls and great men. Caesar himself lamented this. The true reason for his seclusion was not understood, and the fact diminished his popularity. Yet his affability was the same as ever, and a letter of Cicero, in which he describes a visit he received from the great * Called Mercedonius. t I.e., 355 + 23 + 67=445. t The addition of one day in every four years would be correct if the solar year consisted exactly of 365 % days, or 365 days 6 hours. In fact, it consists of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 51 X seconds, so that the Julian year is longer than the erne solar year by about 11 minutes. Cfesar's astronomers knew this error, but leglected it. Accordingly in the year 1582 A.D. the beginning of the Julian year was about 13 days behind the true time. Pope Gregory XIII. shortened that year by 10 days, still leaving the year 3 days behind the true time ; and to prevent error for the future, ordered the aaditioual day of February to be omitted three times in 400 years. Protestant England refused to adopt this reform till the year 1752 A.D., when 11 days were dropped b 'tween the ,2d and 14th of September, which gave rise to the vulgar cry, 1 ' Give us back our 11 days." Russia, through the jealousy of the Greek Church, still keeps the old style, and her reckoning is now 12 days behind that of the rest of Europe. 6C LIFE) OF JULIUS conqueror m his villa at Puteoli, leaves a pleasing impression of both host and guest. Cicero indeed had fully bowed to circumstances. lie spoke in defence of the Pompeian partisans. M. Marcellus and Q. Ligarius, and introduced into his speeches compliments to Caesar too fulsome to be genuine. In his enforced retirement from public life after the battle of Pharsalia, he composed some of those pleasing dialogues which we still read. Both to him aud to every other senatorial chief Caesar not only showed pardon but favor. Yet the remnant of the nobles loved him not. And with the people at large he suffered still more, from a belief that he wished to be made king. On his return from Spain, he had been named dictator and imperator for life. His head had been for some time placed on the money of the republic, a regal honor conceded to none before him. Quintilis, the fifth month of the calendar, received from him the name which it still bears. The senate took an oaUi to guard the safety of his person. He was honored with sacrificial offerings, and other honors, which had hitherto been reserved for the gods. But Caesar was not satisfied. He was often heard to quote the sentiment of Euripides, that " if any violation of law is excusable, it is excus- able for the sake of gaining sovereign power." The craving desire to transmit power to an heir occupied him as it occupied Cromwell and Napoleon ; and no title yet conferred upon him was hereditary. It was no doubt to ascertain the popular sentiments that various prop- ositions were made toward an assumption of the style and title of king. His statues in the forum were found crowned with a diadem ; but two of the tribunes tore it off, and the mob applauded. On the 26th of 'January, at the great Latin festival on the Alban Mount, voices in the crowd saluted him as king : but mutterings of discon- tent reached his ear, and he promptly said; "I am no king, but Caesar." Yet the tribunes who punished those who were detected in raising the cry were deposed by the dictator's will. The final attempt was made at the Lupercalia on the 15th of Febiuary. Antony, in the character of one of the priests of Pan, approached the dictator as he sat presiding in his golden chair, and offered him an embroidered band, such as was worn on the head by oriental sovereigns. The applause which followed was partial, and the dictator put the offered gift aside. Then a burst of genuine cheering gieeted him, which waxed louder still when he rejected it a second time. Old traditional feeling was too strong at Home even for Caesar's daring temper l<; brave it. The people would submit to the despotic rule of a dictator, 'nit would not have a king. Disappointed no doubt he was : and one more attempt was made to i-iveSt himself with hereditary title. A large camp had for some time been formed at Apollonia in Illyricum ; in it was present a young man, who had long been the declared heir of the dictator. This was C. Octavius, son of his niece Atia," and therefore his grand-nephew, He was born, as we have noted, in the memorable year of Catiline's LIFE OF JULIUS CAESAR. 67 conspiracy, and was now in his nineteenth year. From the time that he had assumed the garb of manhood his health had been too delicate for military service. Notwithstanding this, he had ventured to demand a mastership of the horse from his uncle. But he was quietly refused, and sent to take his first lessons in the art of war at Apollonia, where a large and well-equipped army had been assembled. Th destination of this powerful force was not publicly announced. But general belief pointed, no doubt rightly, to Parthia ; for the death of Crassus was unavenged, and the Roman eagles were still retained as trophies by the barbaric conqueror. This belief was confirmed by the fact of a Sibylline oracle being produced about this time, saying, " that none but a king could conquer Parthia." And soon after a decree was moved in the senate, by which Caesar was to be enabled, not at Rome, but in the provinces, to assume the style of king. With- out the well-known emblems and permanent power of royalty, it was argued, a Roman commander could not expect the submissive homage of orientals. But subsequent events prevented this decree from being carried into effect. Meanwhile other causes of discontent had been agitating various classes at Rome. Cleopatra appeared at Rome with a boy whom she named Caesarion and declare 1 to be her son by Caesar. It was her ambition to be acknowledged as his wife, and to obtain the dictator's inheritance for the boy a thing hateful even to the degenerate Romans of that day. Tlien, the more fiery partisans of Cajsar dis- approved of his clemency ; they did not understand his wish no longer to be the unscrupulous leader of a party, but the impartial ruler of the empire. Many of the more prodigal sort were angry at the regulations he made to secure the provincials from extortion and oppression. Antony himself, who, in considerati m of his services, expected the same extravagance of license that had been granted by Sylla to his favorites, was indignant at being obliged to pay its full price for the house of Pompey in the Carinae, of which he had taken possession. The populace of the city complained the genuine Romans at seeing so much favor extended to provincial*;, those of foreign origin because they had been excluded from the corn- bounty. Caesar no doubt was eager to return to his army, and escape from the increasing difficulties which beset his civil government. But it seemed likely that as soon as he joined the army, he would assume monarchical power, in virtue of the late decree ; and this consideration urged on to hasty determination the remains of the old senatorial party, who owed their lives to Caesar's clemency, who had accepted favors from his bounty, and scrupled not to turn his own gifts to his destruction. The great difficulty was to find a leader. C. Cassius was a good soldier, but of temper so fickle and uncertain, that few were willing to confide in him. It was upon M. Junius Brutus that all the dis- contented turned their eyes. This young nephew a man, of Cato, had taken his uncle as an example for his public life. But he wa 68 LIFE OF JULIUS C^SAR. fonder of platonic speculations than of political action. His habits were cold and reserved, rather those of a student than a statesman. He had reluctantly joined the cause of Pompey, for he could ill forget that is was by Pompey that his father had been put to death in cold blood ; but he yielded to the arguments of Calo, and mastered his private feud by what he considered zeal for the public good. After Pharsalia, he was received by Caesar with the utmost kindness, and treated by him almost like a son. He seems to have felt this, and lived quietly without harboring any designs against bis benefactor. In the present year he had been proclaimed praetor of the city, with the promise of the consulship presently after. But the discontented remnants of the old senatorial party assailed him with constant re- proaches. The name of Brutus, dear to all Roman patriots, was made a rebuke to him. " His ancestor expelled the Taiquins ; and could he sit quietly under a new king's rule ?" At the foot of the statue of that famous ancestor, or on his own praetorian tribunal, notes were placed, containing phrases such as these : " Thou art not Brutus : would thou wert." " Brutus, thou sleepest." "Awake, Brutus." Gradually his mind was excited ; and he was brought to Ihink that it was his duty as a patriot to put an end to Caesar's rule even by taking his life. The most notable of those who arrayed themselves under him was Cassius himself. What was this nail's motive is unknown, He had never taken much part in politics ; and the epicurean philosophy which he professed gave him no strong reasons for hating a despotic government. He had of his OWD accord made submission to the conqueror, and had been received with marked favor. Some personal reason probably actuated his unquiet spirit. More than sixty persons were in the secret. All of whom we know anything were, like Cassius, under obligations to the dictator. P. Servilius Casca was by his grace tribune of the pkbs. L. Tillius Cimber was promised the government of Bithynia. Dec. Brutus, one of his old Gallic officers was piaator-elect, and was to bt Ratified with the rich province of Cisalpine Gaul. C. Trebonius, another of his most trusted officers, had received every favor which the dictator could bestow ; he had just laid down the consulship, and was on I lie eve of departure for the coveted government of Asia. Q. Li- garius, who had lately accepted a free pardon from the dictator, rose from a sick-bed to join the conspirators. A meeting of the senate was called for the Ides of March, at whHi Caesar was to be present. This was the day appointed for the murder. The secret had oozed out. Many persons warned Caesar that some danger was impending. A Greek soothsayer told him of the very day. On the morning of the Ides his wife arose so disturbed by dreams, that she persuaded him to relinquish his purpose of presiding in^the senate, and he sent Antony in his stead. This change of purpose was reported in the senate after the house was formed. The conspirators were in despair. Dec. Brutus at once went to Csesar, told him that the fathers were only waiting to confer LIFE OP JULIUS C^SAR. 09 upon him the sovereign power which he desired in the provinces, and begged him not to listen to auguries and dreams. C;esar was persuaded to change his purpose, and was carried forth in bis litter. On his way, a slave who had discovered the conspiracy tried to attract the dictator's notice, but was unable to reach him from the crowd. A Greek philosopher, named Artemidorus, succeeded in putting a roll of paper into his hand, containing full information of the conspiracy ; but Caesar, supposing it to be a petition, laid it in the litter by his side for a more convenient season. Meanwhile the conspirators liad reason to think that their plot had been discovered. A friend came up to Casca and said, " Ah, Casca, Brutus has told me your secret !" The conspirator started back, but was relieved by the next sentence : " Where will you lind money for the expenses of the sedileship ?" More serious alarm was felt when Popillius Laeuas remarked to Brutus and Cassius, " You have my good wishes ; but what you do, do quickly" especially when the same senator stepped up to Caesar on his entering the house, and began whispering in his ear. So terrified was Cassius, that he thought, of stabbing himself instead of Caesar, till Brutus quietly observed that the gestures of Popillius indicated that he was asking a favor, not revealing a fatal secret. Caesar took his seat without further delay. As was agreed, Cimber presented a petition, praying for his brother's recall from banishment ; ami all the conspirators pressed round the dic- tator, urging his favorable answer. Displeased at their thronging round him, Caesar attempted to rise. At that moment, Cimber seized the lappet of his robe and pulled him down ; and immediately Casca struck him from the side, but inflicted only a slight wound. Then all drew their daggers and assailed him. Ceesar for a time defended himself with the gown folded over his left arm, and the sharp-pointed stile which he held in his right hand for writing on the wax of his tablets. But when he saw Brutus among the assassins he exclaimed, " You too, Brutus !" and, covering his face with his gown, offered no further resistance. In their eagerness some blows intended for their victim fell upon themselves. But enough reached Ca'sar to do the bloody work. Pierced by threc-and-twenty wounds, he fell at the base of Pompey's statue, which had been removed after Pharsalia by Antony, but had been restored by the magnanimity of Caesar to be i-he witness of his bloody end. Thus died " the foremost man in all the world," a man who failed in nothing that he attempted. He might, Cicero thought, have been a great orator ; his Commentaries remain to prove that he was a great writer. As a general he had few superiors ; as a statesman and politician no equal. That which stamps him as a man of true greatness, is the entire absence of vanity and self-conceit from his character." If it were not known that C;esar was the narrati r of his wu campaigns, no one could guess that cold and dispassionate narrative to be from his pen. His genial temper and easy, unaffected manners bear testimony to the same point. It is well known indeed 70 LIFE OF JULIUS C.ESAR. that he paid great attention to his personal appearance a foible which he shared in common with many great men equally free from other vanity. -In youth he was strikingly handsome, and was the welcome lover of many dissolute Roman dames. His hard life and unremitting activity had furrowed his face with lines, and left him with that meagre visage which is made familiar to us from his coins. To the same cause is to be attributed his liability, in later life, to fits of an epileptic nature. But even in these days he was sedulous in arranging his robes, and was pleased to have the privilege of wearing a laurel crown to hide the scantiness of his hair. His morality in d )mestic life was not better or worse than commonly prevailed in faose licentious days. He indulged in profligate amours freely and without scruple. But public opinion reproached him not for this. When it was sought to blacken his character, crimes of a deeper dye were imputed to him ; bat they were never proved, and he always indignantly denied them. He seldom, if ever, allowed pleasure to interfere with business, and here his character forms a notable con- trast to that of Sylla. In other respects the men were not unlike. Both were men of real genius, and felt their strength without vanity. But Sylla loved pleasure more than power ; Caesar valued power above all things. As a general, .Caesar was probably no less inferior to Pompey than Sylla to Marius. Yet his successes in war, achieved by a man who, in his forty-ninth year, had hardly seen a camp, add to our conviction of his real genius. Those successes were due not so much to scientific and calculated manoeuvres as to rapid audacity of movement and perfect mastery over the wills of men. That he caused the death or captivity of some million of^Gauls, to provide treasure and form an army for his political purposds, is shocking to us ; but it was not so to Roman moralists. Any Roman commander with like powers, except, perhaps, Cato, would have acted in like manner. But the clemency with which Caesar spared the lives of his opponents in the civil war, and the easy indulgence with which he received them into favor, were peculiarly his own. His political career was troubled by no scruples : to gain his end he was utterly careless of the means. But before we judge him severely, we must remember the manner in which the Marian party had been trampled under foot by Sylla and the senate. If, however, the mode in which he rose to power was questionable, the mode in which he exercised it was admirable. By the action of constant civil broils the consti- tutional system of Rome had given way to anarchy, and there seemed no escape except by submission to the strong domination of one capable man. The only effect of Caesar's fall was to cause a renewal of bloodshed for another half generation ; and then his Work was finished by a far less noble and generous ruler. Those who slew Cffisar were guilty of a great crime, and a still greater blunder. THE KND. LIFE OF CROMWELL. (A.D. 1599-1658.) THE name of Cromwell up to the present period has been identified with ambition, craftiness, usurpation, ferocity, and tyranny ; we think that his true character is that of a fanatic. History is like the sibyl, and only reveals her secrets to time, leaf by leaf. Hitherto she has not exhibited the real nature and composition of this human enigma. He has been thought a profound politician ; he was only an eminent sectarian. Far-sighted historians of deep research, such as Hume, Lingard, Bossuet, and Voltaire, have all jbeen mistaken in Cromwell. The fault was not theirs, but belonged to the epoch in which they wrote. Authentic documents had not then seen the light, and the portrait of Cromwell had only been painted by his enemies. His memory and his body have been treated with similar infamy ; by the restoration of Charles the Second, by the royalists of both branches, by Catholics and Protestants, by Whigs and Tories, equally interest- ed in degrading the image of the republican Protector. But error lasts only for a time, while truth endures for ages. Its turn was coming, hastened by an accident. One of those men of research, who are to history what excavators are to' monuments, Thomas Carlyle, a Scotch writer, endowed with the combined qualities of exalted enthusiasm and enduring patience, dissatisfied also with the conventional and superficial portrait hither- to depicted of Cromwell, resolved to search out and restore his true lineaments. The evident contradictions of the historians of his own and other countries who had invariably exhibited him as a fantastic tyrant and a melodramatic hypocrite, induced Mr. Carlyle to think, with justice, that beneath these discordant components there might be found another Cromwell, a being of nature, not of the imagina- tion. Guided by that instinct of truth and logic in which is com- prised the genius of erudite discovery, Mr. Carlyle, himself possess- ing the spirit of a sectary, and delighting in an independent course, undertook to search out and examine all the correspondence buried in the depths of public or private archives, and in which, at the different dates of his domestic, military, and political life, Cromwell, 4 OLIVER CROMWELL. without thinking that he should thus paint himself, has in fact done so for the study of posterity. Supplied with these treasures of truth and revelation, Mr. Oarlyle shut himself up for some years in the solitude of the country, that nothing might distract his thoughts from his work. Then having collected, classed, studied, commented on, and rearranged these voluminous letters of his hero, and having re- suscitated, as if from tliQ tomb, the spirit of the man and the age, he committed to Europe this hitherto unpublished correspondence, say- ing, with more reason than Jean Jacques Rousseau, " Receive, and read ; behold the true Cromwell !" It is from these new and incon- testable documents that we now propose to wiite the life of this dic- tator. Cromwell, whom the greater number of historians (echoes of the pamphleteers of his day) state to have been the son of a brewer, or butcher, was in reality born of an ancient family descended from some of the first English nobility. His great-uncle, Thomas Crom- well, created Earl of Essex by Henry the Eighth, and afterward beheaded in one of those ferocious revulsions of character in which that monarch frequently indulged, was one of the most zealous de- spoilers of Romish churches and monasteries, after Protestantism had been established by his master. The great English dramatist, Shakespeare, has introduced Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, in one of his tragedies. It is to him that Cardinal Wolsey says, when sent to prison and death by the fickle Henry, " Cromwell, I charge thoe, fling away ambition ! Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, he wonld not in mine age IJavc left me naked to mine enemies." This Cromwell, Earl of Essex, was for a brief space Henry the Eighth's minister ; he employed one of his nephews, Richard Crom- well, in the persecution of the Catholics, enriching him with the spoils of churches and convents. Richard was the great-grandfatker of Oliver the Protector. His grandfather, known in the country by the name of the "Golden Knight," in allusion to the great riches which were be- stowed on his family at the spoliation of the monasteries, Avas called Henry Cromwell. He lived in Lincolnshire, on the domain of Hin- chinbrock, formerly an old convent from which the nuns had been expelled, and which was afterward changed by the Cromwells into a M'ignoi-ial manor-house. His eldest son, Richard, married a daughter of one of the branches of the house of Stuart, who resided in the same county. This Elizabeth Stuart was the aunt of Oliver Cromwell, who afterward immolated Charles the First. It appears as if destiny delighted thus to mingle in the same veins the blood of the victim and his executioner. King James the First, when passing through Lincolnshire, OB his \vuy to take possession of the English crown, honored the dwelling OLIVER CKOMWELL. 5 of the Cromwells by his presence, on account of his relationship to Elizabeth Stuart, aunt of the future Protector. The child, born in 1599, was then four years old, and in after years, when he himself reigned in the palace of the Stuarts, he might easily remember hav- ing seen under his own roof and at the table of his family this king, father of the monarch he had dethroned and beheaded ! It was not long before the family lost its wealth. The eldest of the sons sold for a trifling sum the manor of Hinchinbrook, and re- tired to a small estate that he possessed in the marshes t>f Hunting- donshire. His youngest brother, Robert Cromwell, father of the future sovereign of England, brought up his family in poverty on a small adjoining estate upon the banks of the river Ouse, called Ely. The poor, rough, and unyielding nature of this moist country, the unbroken horizon, the muddy river, cloudy sky, miserable trees, scattered cottages, and rude manners of the inhabitants, were well calculated to contract and sadden the disposition of a child. The character of the scenes in which we are brought up impresses itself upon our souls. Great fanatics generally proceed from sad and Sterile countries. Mahomet sprang from the scorching valleys of A-rabia ; Luther from the frozen mountains of Lower Germany ; Calvin from the inanimate plains of Picardy ; Cromwell from the {stagnant marshes of the Ouse. As is the place, so is the man. The miii! I is a mirror before it becomes a home. Oliver Cromwell, whose history we are writing, was the fifth child .if his father, who died before he attained maturity. Sent to the University of Cambridge, a town adjoining his paternal residence, he lliere received a liberal education, and returned at the age of eigh- teen, after the death of his father, to be the support of his mother and a second parent to his sisters He conducted, with sagacity beyond his years, the family estate and establishment, under his mother's eye. At twenty-one he married Elizabeth Bourchier, a young and beautiful heiress of the county, whose portraits show, under the chaste and calm figure of the North, an enthusiastic, religious, and contemplative soul. She was the first and only love of her husband. Cromwell took up his abode with his wife in the house of his mother and sisters at Huntingdon, and lived there ten years in do- mestic felicity, occupied with the cores of a confined income, the rural employments of a gentleman farmer who cultivates his own estate, and those religious contemplations of reform which at that period agitated almost to insanity Scotland, England, and Europe. His family, friends, and neighbors were devotedly attached to the new cause of puritanic Protestantism ; a cause which had always been opposed in England by the remnant of the old conquered church, ever ready to revive. -The celebrated patriot Hampden, who iras destined to give the signal for a revolution on the throne, by re- fusing to pay the impost of twenty shillings to the crown, was the young Cromwell's cousin, and a puritan like himself. The family, 6 OLIVER CROMWELL. revolutionists in religion and politics, mutually encouraged each other in their solitude, by the prevailing passion of the times then concentrated in a small body of faithful adherents. This passion, in the ardent and gloomy disposition of Cromwell, almost produced > disease of the imagination. He trembled for his eternal salvation, and dreaded lest he should not sacrifice enough for his faith. He reproached himself for an act 'of cowardly toleration in permitting Catholic symbols, such as the cross on the summit, and other relig- ious ornaments, left by recent Protestantism, to remain upon the church at Huntingdon. He was impressed with the idea of an early death, and lived under the terror of eternal punishment. Warwick, one of his contemporaries, relates that Cromwell, seized on a particu- lar occasion with a fit of religious melancholy, sent frequently dur- ing the night for the physician of the neighboring village, that he might talk to him of bis doubts and terrors. He assisted assiduously at the preachings of those itinerant puritan ministers who came to stir up polemical ardor and antipathies. He sought solitude, and meditated upon the sacred texts by the banks of the river which traversed his fields. The disease of the times, the interpretation of the Bible, which had then taken possession of every mind, gave a melancholy turn to his reflections. He felt within himself an internal inspiration of the religious and political meaning of these holy words. He acknowledged, in com- mon with his puritanic brethren, the individual and enduring reve- lation shown in the pages and verses of a divine and infallible book, but which, without the Spirit of God, no prompting or explanation can enable us to understand. The puritanism of Cromwell consisted in absolute obedience to the commands of Sacred Writ, and the right of interpreting the Scriptures according to his own conviction a contradictory but seductive dogma of his sect, which commands on the one hand implicit belief in the divinity of a book, and on the other permits free license to the imagination, to bestow its own meaning on the inspired leaves. From this belief of the faithful in true and permanent inspiration, there was but one step to the hallucination of prophetic gifts. The devout puritans, and even Cromwell himself, fell naturally into this extreme. Each became at the same time the inspirer and the in- spired, the devotee and the prophet. This religion, ever audibly speaking in the soul of the believer, was in fact the religion of diseased imaginations, whose piety increased with their fanati- cism. Cromwell, in his retreat, was led away by these miasmas of the day, which became the more powerfully incorporated with his nature from youth, natural energy, and isolation of mind. He had no diversion for his thoughts in this solitude, beyond the increase of his family, the cultivation of his fields, the multiplying and disposing of his flocks. Like an economical farmer, lie fre- quented fairs that he might there purchase young cattle, which h$ OLIVER CROMWELL. fattened and sold at a moderate profit. He disposed of a. portion ot his paternal estate for 2000 guineas, to enable him to buy one neare/ the river, and with more pasture land, close to the little town of St Ives, a few miles from Huntingdon. He settled there with his al ready numerous family, consisting of two sons and four daughters, in a small manor-house, buried under the weeping-willows which bordered the meadows, and called " Sleep Hall." He was tbeo thirty-six years old. His correspondence at that time was filled with affection for his family, praises of his wife, satisfaction in his chil dren, domestic details, and the solicitude of his soul for those mis- sionary puritans whose preaching he encouraged, and whose zeal he promoted by voluntary contributions. His exemplary life, careful management of his household, his assiduous and intelligent attention to all the local interests of the county, gained for him that rural popularity which points out an unobtrusive man as worthy of the esteem and confidence of the people, and their proper representative in the legislative councils of the country. Cromwell, who felt that he possessed no natural eloquence, and whose ambition at that time went no further than his own domestic felicity, moderate fortune, and limited estate, solicited not the suffrages of the electors of Hunt- ingdon and St. Ives ; but in the cause of religion, which was all- powerful with him, he thought himself bound in conscience to accept them. He was elected, on the 17th of March, 1627, a member of parliament for his county. His public career commenced witt those political storms which consigned a king to the scaffold and raised a country gentleman to the throne. To understand well the conduct of Cromwell in that position if which, without his own connivance, destiny had placed him, let UF examine the state of England at the period when he entered, un- known and silently, upon the scene. Henry the Eighth, the Caligula of Britain, in a fit of anger againsS the Church of Rome, changed the religion of his kingdom. This was the greatest act of absolute authority ever exercised by one man ovei an entire nation. The caprice of a king became the conscience of the people, and temporal authority subjugated their souls. The old Catholicism, repudiated by the sovereign, was abandoned to indis- criminate pillage and derision, with its dogmas, hierarchy, clergy, monks, monasteries, ecclesiastical possessions, territorial fiefs, hoarded riches, and temples of worship. The Roman Catholic faith became a crime in the kingdom, and its name a scandal and reproach to its followers. JSTational apostasy was as sudden and overwhelming as a clap of thunder : the Catholic nation had disappeared beneath the English nation. Henry the Eighth and his councillors, nevertheless, wished to preserve the ancient religion of the state, so far as it was favorable to the interests of the king, useful to the clergy, and delu- sive for the people. In other words, the king was to possess supreme authority as head of tk Skurch, over the souls of his subjects ; eccie- 8 OLIVER CROMWELL. slastical dignities, honors, and riches were to be secured to the bish'ops ; the liturgy and ceremonial pomp to the people. Selecting a politic medium between the Church of Rome and the church of Luther, England constituted her own. This church, rebellious against Rome, whom she imitated while opposing her, submitted to Luther, whom she restrained while she encouraged his tenets. It was a civil rather than a religious arrangement, which cared for the bodies before the souls of the community, and gave an appearance more of show than reality to the formal piety of the nation. The people, proud of having thrown off the Romish yoke, and dis- liking the ancient supremacy which had so long bent and governed the island ; recoiling in horror from the name of the Papacy, a word in which was summed up all that was superstitious and all that re- lated to foreign domination, readily attached themselves to the new church. They beheld in her the emblem of their independence, a palladium against Rome, and the pledge ot' their nationality. Every king since Henry the Eighth, whatever may have been his personal creed, has been obliged to protect and defend the worship of the Church of England. An avowal of the Roman Catholic faith would be his signal of abdication. The people would not trust their civil liberties to the care of a prince who professed spiritual dependence on the Church of Rome. The right of liberty of conscience had naturally followed this change in the minds of Englishmen. Having revolted, at the com- mand of their sovereign, against the ancient and sacred authority of the Romish Church, it was absurd to think that the conscience of the nation would submit without a murmur to the unity of the new in- stitution, the foundations of which had been planted before their eyes in debauchery and blood, by the English tyrant, too recently for them to believe in its divine origin. Every conscience wished to profit by its liberty, and different sects sprang up from this religious anarchy ; they were as innumerable as the ideas of man delivered up to his own fancies, and fervent in proportion to their novelty. To describe them would exceed our limits. The most w r idely -extended were the puritans, who may be called the Jansenists of the Reforma- tion ; an extreme sect of Protestants, logical, practical, and republi- can. Once entered into the region of liberal and individual creeds, they saw no reason why they should temporize with what they culled the superstitious idolatries, abominations, symbols, ceremonies, and infatuations of the Romish Church. They admitted only the author- ity of the Bible and the supremacy of Sacred Writ, of which they would receive no explanation or application but that which was com- municated to them from the Spirit ; in other words, from the arbi- trary inspiration of their own thoughts. They carried their oracle within their own bosoms, and perpetually consulted it. In order to invest it with more power, they held religious meetings and estab- lished conventicles and churches, where each, as the Spirit OLIVER CROMWELL. 9 him, spoke ; and the incoherent ravings of the faithful passed as the word of God. Such was the sect which, from the time of Henry the Eighth, struggled at the same time against the power of the Anglican Church and the remains of the proscribed Romanism. Three reigns had been, disturbed by religious dissensions that of Mary, the Catholic daughter of Henry the Eighth, who had fa- vored the return of her subjects to their original faith, and whose memory the puritans abhorred as that of a papistical Jezebel ; that of Elizabeth, the Protestant daughter of the same king by another wife, who persecuted the Catholics, sacrificed Mary Stuart, and or- dained recantation, imprisonment, and even death to those who re- fused to sign at least once in six months their profession of the re- formed creed ; and, finally, that of James the First, son of Mary Stuart, who had been educated in the Protestant faith by the Scotch puritans. This prince succeeded to the English throne, by right of inheritance from the house of Tudor, upon the death of Elizabeth ; a mild, philosophical, and indulgent monarch, who wished to tolerate both faiths and make the rival sects live peaceably together, although they trembled with ill-suppressed animosity at this imposed truce. Charles the First, his son, succeeded to the throne in his twenty- sixth year. He was endowed by nature, character, and education with all the qualities necessary for the government of a powerful and enlightened nation in ordinary times. He was handsome, brave, faithful, eloquent, honest and true to the dictates of his conscience ; ambitious of the love of his people, solicitous for the welfare of his country, incapable of violating the laws or liberty of his subjects, and only desirous of preserving to his successors that unlimited and ill-defined exercise of the royal prerogative which the constitution, in practice rather than in true essence, affected to bestow upon its kings. Upon ascending the throne, Charles found and retained in the ofnce of prime minister, out of respect to the memory of his father, his former favorite, the Duke of Buckingham, a man of no merit, whose personal beauty, graceful manners, and overbearing pride were his sole recommendations ; and who furnishes a remarkable in- stance of the caprice of fortune and the foolish partiality of a weak king, which could transform him into a powerful noble, while it failed to render him an able statesman. He was more qualified to fill the place of favorite than minister. Buckingham, having repaid with ingratitude the kindness of- the father, against whom he secretly ex- cited a parliamentary cabal, endeavored to continue his habitual sway under the new reign of the son. The diffidence of Charles allowed Buckingham for several years to agitate England and eoi- broil the state. By turns', according to the dictates of his own inter- ests, he caused his new master to increase or lessen that relationship between the crown and parliament, be}'ond or below the limits which A.B.14 10 OLIVER CROMWELL. right or tradition attributed to these two powers. He created thus a spirit of resistance and encroachment on the pa-t of the parliament, in opposition to the spirit of enterprise and preponderance, on that of the royal authority. Buckingham affected the absolute power of Cardinal Richelieu, without possessing either his character or genius. The poniard of a fanatic who slabbed him at Portsmouth, in revenge for an act of private injustice which had deprived him of his rank in the army, at length delivered Charles from this presumptuous fa- vorite. From this time the King of England, like Louis the Fourteenth of France, resolved to govern without a prime minister. But the unfortunate Charles had neither a Richelieu to put down opposition by force nor a Mazarin to silence it by bribery. Besides, at the moment when Louis the Fourteenth ascended the throne, the civil wars which had so long agitated France were just concluded, and those of England were about to commence. We cannot, therefore, reasonably attribute to the personal insufficiency of Charles those misfortunes which emanated from the times rather than from his own character. In a few years the struggles between the young king and his par- liament, struggles augmented by religious more than political fac- tions, threw England, Scotland, and Ireland into a general ferment, which formed a prelude to the long civil wars and calamities of the state. The parliament, frequently dissolved from impatience at these revolts, and always reassembled from the necessity cf further grants, became the heart and active popular centre of the different parties opposed to the king. All England ranged herself behind her orators. The king was looked upon as the common enemy of every religious sect, of public liberty, and the foe of each ambitious mal- content who expected to appropriate a fragment of the crown by the total subversion of the royal authority. Charles the First energeti- cally struggled for some time, first with one ministry then with an- other. The spirit of opposition was so universal that all who ven- tured into the royal council became instantly objects of suspicion, incompetence, and discredit, in the estimation of the public. A bolder and mor able minister than any of his predecessors,Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Straff ord, a man who had acquired a high reputa- tion with the opposition party by his eloquence, and whose 1 fame had pointed him out to the notice of the king, devoted his popularity and talents to the service of his sovereign. Straff ord appeared for a time, by the force of persuasion, wisdom, and intrepid firmness, to support the tottering throne, but the parlia- ment denounced, and the king, who loved was unable to defend him. Straff ord, threatened with capital punishment, more for actual services than for imaginary crimes, was summoned by the parlia- ment, after a long captivity, to appear before a commission of judges omposed of his enemies. The king could only obtain the favor of OLIVER CROMWELL. 11 being present in a grated gallery, at the trial of his minister. He was struck to the heart by the blows levelled through the hatred of the parliament against his friend. Never did an arraigned prisoner reply with greater majesty of innocence than did Straft'ord in his last de- fence before his accusers and his king. Neither Athens nor Rome record any incident of more tragic sublimity in their united annals. " Unable to find in my conduct," said Strafford to his judges, " anything to which might be applied the name or -punishment of treason, my enemies have invented, in defiance of all law, a chain of constructive and accumulative evidence, by which my actions, although innocent and laudable when taken separately, viewed in thii collected light, become treasonable. It is hard to be questioned on a law which cannot be shown. Where hath this fire lain hid so many hundreds of years, without smoke to discover it till it thus bursts forth to consume me and my children ? It is better to be without laws altogether than to persuade ourselves that we have laws by which to regulate our conduct, and to find that they consist only in the enmity and arbitrary will of our accusers. If a man sails upon the Thames in a boat, and splits himself upon an anchor, and no buoy be floating to discover it, he who owneth the anchor shall make satisfaction ; but if a buoy be set there, every one passeth it at his own peril. Now where is the mark, where the tokens upon this crime, to declare it to be high treason ? It has remained hidden under the water ; no human prudence or innocence could preserve me from the ruin with which it menaces me. " For two hundred and forty years, every species of treason has been defined, and during that long space of time I am the first, I am the only exception for whom the definition has been enlarged, that I may be enveloped in its meshes. My Lords, we have lived happily within the limits of our own land ; we have lived gloriously beyond them, in the eyes of the whole world. Let us be satisfied with what our fathers have left us ; let not ambition tempt us to desire that we may become more acquainted than they were with these destructive and perfidious arts of incriminating innocence. In this manner, my Lords, you will act wisely, you will provide for your own safety anJ the safety of your descendants, while you secure that of the whole kingdom. If you throw into the fire these sanguinary and mysteri. ous selections of constructive treason, as the first Christians consumed their books of dangerous art, and confine yourselves to the simple meaning of the statute in its vigor, who shall say that you have done wrong ? Where will be your crime, and how, in abstaining from error, can you incur punishment. Beware of awakening these sleep- ing lions for your own destruction. Add not to m}' other afflictions that which I shall esteem the heaviest of all that, for my sins as a man, and not for my offences as a minister. I should be the unfortu- nate means of introducing such a precedent, such an example of a proceeding so-opposed to the laws and liberties of my country. 12 OLIVER CKOMWELL. " My Lords, I have troubled you longer than I should have done were if not for the interest of these dear pledges a saint in heaven hath left me." [Here he stopped, letting fall some tears, and then resumed :] " What I forfeit myself is nothing, but that my indiscre- tion should extend to my posterity, woundeth me to the very soul. You will pardon my infirmity, something I should have added, but am not able, therefore let it pass. And now, my Lords, for myself, 1 have been, by the blessing of Almighty God, taught that the aulic- tions of this present life are not to be compared to the eternal weight of glory which shall be revealed hereafter. And so, my Lords, even so, with all tranquillity of mind, 1 freely submit myself to your judg- ment ; and whether that judgment be for life or death ' Te Deum Laudamus ! ' " Sentence of death was the reply to this eloquence and virtue. The warrant was illegal without the signature of the king ; to sign it was to be false .to conviction, gratitude, friendship, and dig- nity ; to refuse to do so would be to defy the parliament and people, and draw down upon the throne itself the thunderbolt of popular indignation, which the death of the minister would tor a time divert. Charles tried by every means of delay to avoid the shame or danger ; he appeared more as a suppliant than as a king before the parliament, and besought them to spare him this pun shment. Urged by the queen, who disliked Strafford, and whose heart could not hesitate for an instant between the death of Charles or his minister, the king acknowledged that he did not think Strafford quite innocent of some irregularities and misuse of the public money, and added, that if the parliament would confine the sentence to the crime of embezzlement, he would give his sanction conscientiously to the punishment ; but for high treason, his own internal conviction and honor forbade his confirming calumny and iniquity by signing the death-warrant of Strafford. The parliament was inflexible ; the queen wept ; England was in a ferment. Charles, although ready to yield, still hesitated. The Queen Henrietta, of France, daughter of Henry the Fourth, a beauti- ful and accomplished princess, for whom until his death the king pre- served the fidelity of a husband and the passion of a lover, presented herself before him in mourning, accompanied by her little children. She besought him on her knees to yield to the vengeance of the IR-V- ple, which he could not resist without turning upon the innocent pledges of their love, that death which he was endeavoring vainly to avert from a condemned head. " Choose," said she, " between your own life, mine, thesg dear children's, and the life of this minister so hateful to the nation." Charles, struck with horror at the idea of sacrificing his beloved wife and infant children, the hopes of the monarchy, replied that he cared not for his own life, for he would willingly give it to save his minister ; but to endanger Henrietta and her children was beyond OLIVER CROMWELL. 13 his strength and desire. He, however, still delayed to sign the war rant. Strafford, yielding probably to the secret solicitations of the queen, wrote a letter himself to his unhappy master, to ease the con- science and affection of the king as being the cause of his death. " Sire," said he in this letter a sublime effort of that virtue which triumphed over the natural love of life that he might lessen the re- morseful feelings of his numterers " Sire, hesitate not to sacrifice me to the malignity of the times, and to public vengeance which thirsts for my life. My voluntary consent to the signature of my own death warrant which they require of you will acquit you before God more than the opinion of the whole world. There is no injustice in consenting to that which the condemned desires and himself de- mands. . " Since Heaven has granted me sufficient grace to enable me to for- give my enemies with a tranquillity and resignation which impart an indescribable contentment to my soul, now about to change its dwell- ing-place, I can, Sire, willingly and joyfully resign this earthly life, filled with a just sense of gratitude for all those favors with which your Majesty has blessed me." This letter overcame the last scruples of the king ; he thought that the consent of the victim legalized his murder, and that God would pardon him as the condemned had done. He accepted the sacrifice of the life offered him in exchange for the lives of his wife and chil- dren, perhaps for his own, and the safety of the monarchy. Love for his family, the hope of averting civil .war, and of bringing back the parliament to a sense of reason and justice from gratitude for this sacrifice, completely blinded his eyes. He thought to lessen the horror and ingratitude of the act by appointing a commission of three members of his council, and delegating to them the power of signing the parliamentary death-warrant against Strafford. The commission- ers ratified the sentence, and the king shut himself up to weep, and avoid the light of that morning which was to witness the fall of his faithful and innocent servant. He thought that by obliterating this day from his life he would also expunge it from the memory of heav- en and man. He passed the whole time in darkness, in prayers for the dying and in tears ; but the sun rose to commemorate the injus- tice of the monarch, the treachery of the friend, and the greatness of soul of the victim. "I have sinned against my conscience, " wrote the king several years after to the queen, when reproaching himself for that signature drawn from him by the love he bore his wife and children. " It warned me at the time ; 1 was seized with remorse at the instant when I signed this base and criminal concession." "God grant," cried the; archbishop, his ecclesiastical adviser, on seeing him throw down his pen after signing the nomination of the commissioners ; " God grant that your Majesty's conscience may not reproach you for this act " * 14 OLIVER CKOMWELL. "'Ah ! Strafford is happier than I am," replied the prince, conceal- ing his eyes with his hands. " Tell him that, did it not concern the safety of the kingdom, I would willingly give my life for his !" The king still flattered himself that the House of Commons, satis- fied with his humiliation and deference to their will, would spare the life of his friend and grant a commutation of the punishment. He did not know these men, who were more implacable than tyrants for factions are governed by the mind, not the heart, and are inaccessible to emotions of sympathy. Men vote unanimously with their party, from fear of each other, for measures which, when taken singly, they would abhor to think of. Man in a mass is no longer man he becomes an element. To move this deaf and cruel element of the House of Commons, Charles used every effort to flatter the pride and touch the feeling of these tribunes of the people. He wrote a most pathetic letter, bedewed with his tears, and sent it to the parliament, to render it more irresistible, by the hand of a child, his son, the Prince of "Wales, whose beauty, tender age, and innocence ought to have made refusal impossible from subjects petitioned by such a sup- pliant. The king in this letter laid bare his whole heart before the Com- mons, displayed his wounded feelings, described the agony he felt in sacrificing his kingly honor and his personal regard for the wishes of his subjects. He enlarged upon the great satisfaction he had at length given to the Commons, and only demanded in return for such submission the perpetual imprisonment, instead of the death, of his former minister. But at the end, as if he himself doubted the success of his petition, he conjured them in a postscript at least to defer until the Saturday following the execution of the condemned, that he might have time to prepare for death. All remained deaf to the voice of tile father and the intercession of the child. The parliament accorded neither a commutation of the punishment nor an additional hour of life to the sentenced criminal. Their popularity forced them to act before the people with the same inexorable promptness that they exacted from the king. The beautiful Countess of Carlisle, a kind of English Cleopatra, of whom Strafford in the season of his greatness had been the favored lover, used every effort with the parliament to obtain the life of the man whose love had been her pride. The fascinating countess failed to soften their hearts. As if it were the fate of Strafford to suffer at the same time the loss of both love and friendship, this versatile beauty, more attached to the power than to the persons of her admirers, transferred her affections quickly from Strafford to Pym, and became the mistress of the murderer, who succeeded to the victim. "Pym," says the English history so closely examined by M. Ohasles, " was an ambitious man who acted fanaticism without con- Fiction. Homo ezluto et argilla Epicurea faclus," according to the OLIVER CROMWELL. 15 energetic phrase of Racket, "A man moulded from the mud and clay of sensuality." Such men are often seen in popular or in mon- archical factions ; servants and flatterers of their sect, who in their turn satisfy their followers by relieving the satiety of voluptuousness with the taste of blood. Strafford was prepared for every extremity after being abandoned by the two beings he had most loved and served on earth. Neverthe- less, when it was announced to him that the king had signed the death-warrant, nature triumphed over resignation, and a reproach escaped him in his grief. " Nolitefldere principibus etJUiis lunninum," cried he, raising his hands in astonishment toward the vaulted ceil- ing of his prison, " quid non est salus in illis." " Put not your trust in princes, nor in any child of man,' for In them is no salvation." He requested to be allowed a short interview with the Archbishop of London, Laud, imprisoned in the Tower on a similar charge with himself. Laud was a truly pious prelate, with a mind superior to the age in which he lived. This interview, in which the two royal- ists hoped to fortify each other for life or death, was refused. " Well," said Straff ord to the governor of the Tower, " at least tell the archbishop to place himself to-morrow at his window at the hour when 1 pass to the scaffold, that I may bid him a last farewell." The next day it was pressed upon Straff ord to ask for a carriage to convey him to the place of execution, fearing that the fury of the people would anticipate the executioner and tear from his hands the victim, denounced by Pym and the orators of the House of Commons as the public enemy. "No," replied Strafford, "I know how to look death and the people in the face ; whether I die by the hand of the executioner or by the fury of the populace, if it should so please them, matters little to me." In passing under the archbishop's window in the prison-yard, Strafford recollected his request of the previous night, and raised his eyes toward the iron bars, which prevented him from seeing Laud distinctly. He could only perceive the thin and trembling hands of the old man stretched out between the bars, trying to bless him as he passed on to death. Strafford knelt in the dust, and bent his head. " My lord," said he to the archbishop, " let me have your prayers and benediction." The heart of the old man sank at the sound of his voice and em( tion, and he fainted in the arms of his jailers while uttering a parting prayer. " Farewell, my lord," cried Strafford, " may God protect your in- nocence." He then walked forward with a firm step, although suffering from the effects of illness and debility, at the >,_iad of the soldiers who appeared to follow rather than to escort hv,. According to the humane custom of England and Rome, which permits the condemned, whoever he may be, to go to Lie scaffold sur 10 OLIVER CROMWELL. rounded by his relations and friends, Strafford's brother accompa- nied him, weeping. " Brother," said he, " why do you grieve thus ; do you see anything in my life or death which can cause you to feel any shame? Do I tremble like a criminal, or boast like an atheist? Come, be firm, and think only that this is my third marriage, and that you are my bridesman. This block," pointing to that upon which he was about to lay his head, " will be my pillow, and I shall repose there well, without pain, grief, or fear." Having ascended the scaffold with his brother and friends, he knelt for a moment as if to salute the place of sacrifice ; he soon arose, and looking around upon the innumerable and silent multitude, which covered the hill and Tower of London, the place of execu- tion, he-raised his voice in the same audible and firm tone which he was accustomed to use in the House of Commons, that theatre of his majestic eloquence. " People," said he, " who are assembled here to see me die, bear Witness that I desire for this kingdom all the prosperity that God can bestow. Living, I have done my utmost to secure the happiness of England ; dying, it is still my most ardent wish ; but I beseech each one of those who now hear me to lay his hand upon his heart and examine seriously if the commencement of a salutary reform ought to be written in characters of blood. Ponder this well upon your re- turn home. God grant that not a drop of mine may be required at your hands. I fear, however, that you cannot advance by such a fatal path." After Strafford had spoken these words of anxious warning to his country, he again knelt and prayed, with all the signs of humble and devout fervor, for upward of a quarter of an hour. The revolution- ary fanaticism of the English, at least, did not interrupt the last mo- meats of the dying man ; but Strafford, hearing a dull murmur either of pity or impatience in the crowd, rose, and addressing those who immediately surrounded him, said, " All will soon be over. One blow will render my wife a widow, my dear children orphans, and deprive my servants of their master. God be with them and you ! " Thanks to the internal strength that God has given me," added he, while removing his upper garment and tucking up his hair that nothing might interfere with the stroke of the axe upon his neck, " I take this off with as tranquil a spirit as I have ever felt when taking it off at night upon retiring to rest." He then made a sign to the executioner to approach, pardoned him for the blood he was about to shed, and laid his head upon the block, looking up and praying to heaven. His head rolled at the feet of his friends. " God save the king !" cried the executioner, holding it up to exhibit it to the people. The populace, silent and orderly until this instant, uttered a cry of joy, vengeance, and congratulation, which demonstrated the frenzy of the times. They rejoiced like madmen at the fall of their OLIVER CROMWELL. 17 greatest citizen, and rushed through the streets of London to order public illuminations. The king, during this, shut himself xip in his palace, praying to God to forgive him his consent to a murder forced from his weak- ness. The ecclesiastic who had accompanied Strafford to the scaf- fold was the only person admitted into Charles's apartment, that he might give an account of the last moments of his minister. " Noth- ing could exceed," said the clergjman to the king, " the calmness and majesty of his end. I have witnessed many deaths, but never have I beheld a purer or more resigned soul return to Him who gave it." At these wards the king turned away his head and wept. Repentance for his yielding, and a presentiment of the inutility of this concessian to purchase the welfare and peace of the kingdom, were mingled with agonizing grief in his soul. He saw clearly that the same blow which he hud permitted to fall upon his friend and servant would sooner or later recoil upon himself, and that the ex- ecution of Strafford was only a rehearsal of his own. With subdued spirit, but awakened conscience, Charles no longer defended himself with sophistry from the feelings of remorse. He ceased to excuse himself inwardly, politically, or before G-od ; but blamed himself with the same severity that subsequent historians have bestowed on this act of weakness. He deeply lamented his fault, and vowed that it should be the first and last deed by which he would sanction the iniquity of his enemies ; and he derived from the bitterness of his re- gret, strength to live, to fight, and die, for his own rights, for the rights of the crown, and for the rights of his last adherents. The parliament saw only in the death of Strafford a victory over the royal power and the heart of the king. The conflicts between the crown and the House of Commons recommenced instantly, upon other pretences and demands. The king in vain selected his minis- ters from the bosom of the parliament ; he was unable to discover another Strafford nature had not made a duplicate. Charles could only choose between faithful mediocrity or implacable enmity ; and again his enemies, summoned by the king to his council that ho might place the government in their hands, refused to attend. The spirit of faction was so irresistible and irreconcilable against the crown that the popular members of parliament felt themselves more powerful as the heads of their parties in the House of Commons . than they could become as ministers of a suspected and condemned sovereign. The puritan party in the Commons held Charles the First of England as isolated as the Gironclins afterward held Louis the Sixteenth of France, in 1791 ; eager tor government, yet refus- ing to be ministers, that they might have the right of attacking tho royal power, offered to them in vain, or only consenting to accept that they might betray it ; from adulation giving it into the hands of the people, or from complicity surrendering it into those of the re- publican*. 18 OLIVER CROMWELL. Such was the relative positions of the king and the parliament during the first years when Cromwell sat as a member of the House of Commons. Parliamentary disputes had no interest for Cromwell, and purely political agitations affected him but little. He was not naturally fac- tious, but had become a sectarian. Religious motives induced him to aid the triumph of the puritan party ; not a desire to triumph over the crown itsell, but over the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches which the crown was suspected of favoring. All other motives were strangers to his austere nature. His feelings, cold in all that related not to religion, his just but .ill-understood mind, his abrupt elocution, without imagery or clearness, hisambition bounded by the success of his co-religionists, and actuated by no prospect of personal advantage beyond the salvation of his soul, and the service of his cause, made him abstain from taking a part in anj 7 of the debates. A silent member for many sessions, he was only remark- able in the House of Commons for his abnegation of all personal im- portance, for his disdain of popular applause, and the fervor of his zeal to preserve liberty of conscience to his brethren in the faith. There was certainly -nothing either in Cromwell's personal appear- ance or genius to excite the attention of an assembly occupied by the eloquence of Strafford and Pym. His face was ordinary, combining the features of a peasant, a soldier, and a priest. There might be seen the vulgarity of the rustic, the resolution of the warrior, and the fervor of the man of prayer ; but not one of these characteristics pre- dominated sufficiently to announce a brilliant orator or to convey the presage of a future ruler. He was of middle height, square-chested, stout-limbed, with a heavy and unequal gait, .a broad, prominent forehead, blue eyes, a large nose, dividing his face unequally, somewhat inclining to the left, and red at the tip, like the noses attributed to those addicted to drink ; but which in Cromwell indicated only the asperity of his blood heated by fanaticism. His lips were wide, thick, and clum- sily formed, indicating neither quick intelligence, delicacy of senti- ment, nor the fluency of speech indispensable to persuasive elo- quence. His face was more round than oval, his chin was solid and prominent, a good foundation for the rest of his features. His like- nesses, as executed either in painting or sculpture, by the most re- nowned Italian artists, at the order of their courts, represent only a vulgar, commonplace individual, if they were not ennobled by the name of Cromwell. In studying them attentively, it becomes im- possible for the most decided partiality to discover either the traces or organs of genius. We acknowledge there a man elevated by the choice of his party and the combination of circumstances rather than one great by nature. We might even conclude from the close in- spection of tliis countenance that a loftier and more developed intel- lect would have interfered with his exalted destiny ; for if Cromwell OLIVER CKOMWELL. 19 bad been endowed with higher qualities of mind he would have been less of a sectarian, and had he been so, his party would not have been exactly personified in a chief who participated in all its passions and credulities. The greatness of a popular character is k-ss according to the ratio of his genius than the sympathy he shows with the prejudices and even the absurdities of his times. Fanatics do not select the cleverest, but the most fanatical leaders ; as was evi* denced in the choice of Robespierre by the French Jacobins, and in that of Cromwell by the English Puritans. The only traces of the presence of Cromwell in the House of Com- mons for ten years, which the parliamentary annals retain, are a few Wx>rds spoken by him, at long intervals, in defence of his brethren, the puritanic missionaries, and in attack of the dominant Anglican church and the Roman Catholics, who were again struggling for su- premacy. It might be seen, from the attention paid by his colleague. 6 to the sentences uttered with such religious fervor by the repre- sentative of Huntingdon, that this gentleman farmer, as restrained in speech as in his desire of popularity, was treated in the House with that consideration which is always shown in deliberative assemblies to those men who are modest, sensible, silent, and careless of appro- bation, but faithful to their cause. A justice of the peace for his county, Cromwell returned after each session or dissolution of parliament to fortify himself in the re- ligious opinions of his puritan neighbors, by interviews with the mis- sionaries of his faith, by sermons, meditations, and prayers, the sole variations from his agricultural pursuits. The gentleness, piety, and fervor of his wife, devoted like himself to domestic cares, country pursuits, the education of her sons, and affection for her daughters, banished from his soul every other am- bition than that of spiritual progress in virtue and the advancement of his faith in the consciences of men. In the whole of his confidential correspondence during these long years of domestic seclusion there is not one word which shows that he entertained any other passion than that of his creed, or any am- bition distinct from heavenly aspirations. What advantage could it have been to this man thus to conceal that hypocrisy which histori- ans have described as the foundation and master spring of his char- acter? "When the face is unknown to all, of what use is the mask? No ! Cromwell could not dissemble so long to his wife, his sister, his daughters, and his God. History has only presented him in disguise, because his life and actions were distinctly revealed. Let us give a few extracts from the familiar letters which throw some light upon this obscure period of his life : " My very dear good friend," wrote he from St. Ires, Jan. llth, 1635, to one of his confidants in pious labors ; " to build material Umples and hospitals for the bodily comfort, and assembling 20 OLIVER CROMWELL gether of the faithful, is doubtless a goo;! work ; but those who build up spiritual temples, and afford nourishment to the souls of their brethren, my friend, are the truly pious men. Such a work have you performed in establishing a pulpit, and appointing Doctor Wells to fill it ; an able and religious man, whose superior I have never een. I am convinced that since his arrival here, the Lord has done much among us. I trust that He who has inspired you to lay this foundation will also inspire you to uphold and finish it. " Raise your hearts to Him. You who live in London, a city cel- ebrated for its great luminaries of the Gospel, know that to stop the salary of the preacher is to cause the pulpit to fall. For who will go to war at his own expense ? I beseech you then, by the bowels of Jesus Christ, put this affair into a gpod train ; pay this worthy min- ister, and the souls of God's children will bless you, as I shall bless you myself. " I remain, ever your affectionate " Friend in the Lord, " OLIVER CROMWELL. " It was not alone by words, but by contributions from his small for- tune, the produce of hard and ungrateful agricultural labor, that Cromwell sustained the cause of his faith. We read, three years after the date of the above lines, in a confidential letter written to Mr. Hand, one of his own sect : " I wish you to remit forty shillings" (then a considerable sum) " to a poor farmer who is struggling to bring up an increasing fam- ily, to remunerate the doctor for his cure of this man Benson. If our friends, when we come to settle accounts, do not agree to this disposal of the money, keep this note, and I will repay you out of my private purse. " Your friend, " OLIVER CROMWELL." " I live, " wrote he, severa. years after, but always in the same spirit of compunction, to his cousin, the wife of the Attorney-Gen- eral St. John ; " I live in Kcdar, a name which signifies shudmc and d Charles, in this infantine heroism, recognized a voice from heaven, which assured him that his posterity would be true to themselves in seeking to restore the throne after his decease. He shed tears of joy as he surrendered back the Duke of Gloucester to the arms of the jailers. From his chamber in the palace of "Whitehall he could distinctly hear the noise of the workmen, who were hastily employed night and day in erecting the timber work of the scaffold on which he Jwas to suffer. These preparations, which multiplied while they antici pated the keen sensations of his approaching death, neither disturbed his sleep nor interrupted his conversations.* On the morning of his execution he rose before the dawn. He called Herbert, the only at- tendant allowed to wait upon him, and instructed him to bestow more than ordinary care on his apparel, befitting such a great and happy solemnity, as he designated it the close of his earthly trouble* and the commencement of his eternal happiness. He passed some time in pri- vate prayer with the Bishop of London, the venerable and eloquent Juxon, a man worthy by his virtue to comprehend, console, and env * M. deLamartine appears to have followed Hume in this account ; but it is cer. tain that King Charles hlept at St. James' Palace on the night that preceded hU execution, and walked through the Park, attended by the guards, to the Banquet- mg House at Whitehall, where the scaffold was erected. OLIVEK CKOMWELI* t"( ulate his death. Already they communicated with heaven. The officers of Cromwell interrupted them to announce that the hour of execution had struck, and that the scaffold waited for the victim. It was fixed against the palace, facing the great square of Whitehall, and was reached by passing through a gallery on the same floor. Charles walked with a slow and steady step, which sought not to hasten the last moment, as if, by an involuntary emotion of human weakness, the victim desired to anticipate the hour appointed by hea- ven. A dense mass of Cromwell's troops surrounded the place of execution. The inhabitants of London, and strangers from the- neighboring districts, crowded the open space in front, the roofs of the houses, the trees, and the balconies on every side, from which it was possible to obtain a glimpse of the proceedings. Some came to see, others to rejoice, but by far the greater portion to shudder and weep. Cromwell, knowing well the general impression of horror which the death of the king would convey to the minds of the peo- ple, and which they looked upon as a species of deicide, was deter- mined to prevent the favorable effect his last words might produce, and removed the crowd of citizens beyond the reach of a liuman voice. Colonel Tomlinson, selected especially to guard the prisoner and conduct him to the block, was overcome by the consistent spec- tacle of intrepidity, resignation, and majesty which the royal victim exhibited. The jailer had been converted into the friend and con- soler of his captive. The other officers had also experienced the softening of hatred and involuntary respect for innocence which Providence often reserves for the condemned as the last adieu of earth, and a tardy acknowledgment of human justice. Surrounded by this cortege of relenting enemies or weeping friends, Charles, standing erect, and more a king than ever, on the steps of his eternal throne, assumed the privilege awarded in England to every sentenced criminal, of speaking the last words in his own cause. After having clearly demonstrated that he only performed his duty in appealing to arms when the parliament had first resorted to that alternative, and that he was called upon to defend .in the royal prerog- ative a fundamental principle of the constitution, for which he was responsible to his successors, to his people, and to God himself, he acknowledged, with true Christian humility, that although innocent before the law of the crimes for which he was about to suffer, his conscience told him that he had been guilty of many faults and weaknesses, for which he accepted without a murmur his present death as a meet and salutary expiation. "I basely ratified," said he, in allusion to the fate of StraiTord, " an unjust sentence, and the similar injustice I am now to undergo is a seasonable retribution for the punishment I iutlictcd on an innocent man. I hold none among you responsible for the death to which I am condemned by divine decree, and which works its ends by human instruments. I lay not my blood on you or on my people, and demand no other 48 OLIVER CROMWELL. compensation for my punishment than the return of peace, and a r& rival of the fidelity -which the kingdom owes to my children." At these words every eye was suffused with tears. He concluded by bidding adieu to those who had been his subjects, and by a last solemn invocation to the only Judge to whom he was now respon- sible. Sighs alone were heard during the intervals which marked tliusc last outpourings of his heart. He spoke, and was silent. Bishop Juxon, who attended him to Ihe last moment, as he ap- proached the block, said to him, " Sire, there is but one step more, a sharp and short one ! Remember that in another second you Will ascend from earth to heaven, and that there you will find in an infi- nite and inexhaustible joy the reward of your sacrifice, and a crown that shall never pass away." " My friend," replied Charles, interrupting him with perfect com- posure, " I go from a corruptible crown to an incorruptible one, and which, as you say, I feel convinced I shall possess forever without trouble or anxiety." , He was proceeding to speak further, when, perceiving one of the assistants stumble against the weapon of the executioner, which iay by the side of the block, and who by blunting the edge might in- crease the sensation of the blow, " Touch not the axe !" he exclaimed in a loud voice, and with an expression of anger. He then prajed again for a few moments, in a low tone, and approaching Bishop Juxon to embrace him for the last time, while pressing his hand with fervor, uttered in a solemn tone the single word. " Remember /" This enigmatical expression, which afterward received many mysterious and forced interpretations, was simply a repetition of what he had already instructed Juxon to convey to his children when they grew up, and became kings to forgive their enemies. Juxon bowed without speaking, which indicated implicit obedience to his royal master's wishes. The king knelt down, and calmly inclined his head upon the block. Two men in masks laid hold of Charles respect- fully, and arranged him in a suitable position. One of them then raised the axe, and severed his head at a single blow. The other lifted it up, still streaming with blood, and exhibiting it to the people, cried out, " Behold the head of a traitor !" A general murmur of disapprobation arose simultaneously from that vast crowd when they heard those words, which seemed to sur- pass the outrage of the execution itself. The tears of the nation protested against the ferocious butchery of the army. England felt as if she had laid upon herself the crime and future punishment of parricide. Cromwell was all-powerful, but detested, in him, the munleier was thenceforward associated with the politician and the hcn>. Liberty could no longer voluntarily bend under the iron rule of a man who had thus abused his authority and reputation. He eea-vd to govern except by the influence of the army, whose com plirity hi: had purchased, who obeyed without reasoning, and who OLIVER CROMWELL. 49 had no conscience beyond Iheir pay. He reached the dictatorship through the avenues of crime. The parliament had already become too subservient to the army, and too much estranged from the popular feeling of England, to offer any opposition to the views of Cromwell. To obtain a protector they were forced to accept a master ; they had voted for the suppression of the monarchy, but not for the es- tablishment of slavery. The royal children embarrassed them. It was debated whether or not the Princess Elizabeth should be appren- ticed to a buttonmaker in the city, but this, the beloved daughter of her father, more susceptible of grief than her young Li other, died of the shock occasioned by the king's execution. The Duke of Glou- cester was permitted to join his mother in France. A terrible book, the posthumous work and justification of Charles the First, entitled Elkon B:<: insolence than strength, and more passion than patriotism, when im- passion is exhausted within them factious resemble balloons, whi-.-h appear to occupy a large space in the heavens, and are confounded, with the stars when they ascend in their inflation , but when the gH evaporates they fall collapsed to the ground, and a child may ID! i them in ita hand. True patriotism and the real spirit of liberty wore OLIVER CROMWELL. (15 hot annihilated even by the ter years' eclipse of parliamentary fac- tions. The English nation, proud of having so long banished kings with- out being lowered in the eyes of Europe, and without internal divisions, only recalled their monarchs upon the understanding that those prerogatives and dignities of the people were secured which made England a true representative republic, with a royal and hered- itary protector, the crowning glory of this free government. The idea was borrowed from Cromwell himself, as we have seen in his conference with his friends. He ruled as a patriot, who only thought of the greatness and power of his country, and not as a king, who would liave been reduced to temporize with different parties or courts for the interests of his kingdom. He had, moreover, through the supreme power of the republic, the strength to accomplish that which was beyond the power of kings. Republics bring an increase of vigor to the nation. This increase multiplies the energy of the gov- ernment by the collected energy of the people. They do not even find that impossible which has palsied the resolution of twenty mon- archies. Anonymous and irresponsible, they accomplish by the hands of all, revolutions, changes, and enterprises, such as no single royalty could ever venture to dream of. It was thus that Cromwell had conquered a king, subjugated an aristocracy, put an end to religious war, crushed the Levellers, re- pressed the parliament, established liberty of conscience, disciplined the army, formed the navy, triumphed by sea over Holland, Soam, and the Genoese, conquered Jamaica and those colonies since become empires in the New World; obtained possession of Dunkirk, coun- terbalanced the power of France, and obliged the ministers of the youthful Louis the Fourteenth to make concessions and alliances with him ; and finally, by his lieutenants or in person, annexed lie- land and Scotland to England so irrevocably that he accomplished the union of the British empire by this federation of three discordant, kingdoms, whose struggles, alliances, skirmishes, and quarrels con- tained the germ of eternal weakness, and threatened destruction to the whole fabric. The revolution lent him its aid to put down des- potism on the one hand and factious on the other, and to accomplish a complete nationality. All this was accomplished in ten years, under the name of a dicta- tor ; but in reality by the power of the republic, which, to effect these great works, had become concentrated, incarnated, and disci- plined in his single person. This might have occurred in France in 1790, if the French Revolution had selected a dictator for life from one of the great revolutionists animated by fanaticism, such as Mira- beau, Lafayette, or Danton, instead of confiding to a soldier the task of forming a new empire upon the old foundations. A domestic misfortune struck Cromwell to the heart at this exalted epoch of his life ; and we are astonished to behold the man moved to 66 OLIVER CBOMWiLL. tears who had witnessed with dry eyes the unfortunate Charles the First torn from his children's arms to perish on the scaffold. He lost his mother at the advanced age of ninety-four. This was the Elizabeth Stuart, a descendant of that race of kings which her sou had dethroned. She was sincerely religious, mother of a numerous family, the source of their piety and the nurse of their virtues ; she inspired them with a lively passion for the liberty of conscience, which their sect upheld, and enjoyed, in the full possession of her faculties, the mortal fame, but above all the heavenly glory, of the greatest of her sons, the Maccabasus of her faith. Cromwell, iu all his greatness, respected and regarded his mother as the root of his heart, his belief, and his destiny. " The Lord Protector's mother" (wrote at this date, 1654, the pri- vate secretary of Cromwell, Thurloe), " died last night, nearly a cen- tury old. At the moment when she was about to expire she sum- moned her son to her bedside, and extending her hands to bless him, said, ' May the splendor of the Lord's countenance continually shine upon you, my son. May he sustain you in adversity, and render your strength equal to the great things which the Most Mighty has charged you to accomplish, to the glory of his holy name and the welfare of his people. My dear son,' added she, dwelling on that name in which she gloried even in her dying moments ; ' my dear son, I leave my spirit and my heart with you ; farewell ! farewell i ' and she fell back," continued Thurloe, "uttering her lust sigh." Cromwell burst into tears, like a man w y ho had lost a portion of the light which illuminated his darkness. His mother, who loved him as a son, and respected him as the chosen instrument of God, lived with him at the palace of Whitehall, but in a retired and unadorned apartment, "not wishing," as she said, "to appropriate to herself and her other children that splendor which the Lord had conferred upon him alone ;" but which resembled only the furniture of an hotel, to which she did not .desire to attach her heart or to rely upon it for the future subsistence of her family. Anxious cares dis- turbed her days and nights in this regal palace, and she regretted her simple country farm in the principality of Wales. The hatred of the royalists, the jealousy of the republicans, the anger of the Levellers, the sombre fanaticism of the Presbyterians, the vengeance of the Irish and Scotch, the plots of the parliament, always present to her mind, showed her the poniard or the pistol of the assassin aimed incessantly at the heart of her son. Although she had formerly been courageous, she could not latterly hear the report of firearms in the court without shuddering and running to Cromwell's apartments, to assure herself of his safety. Cromwell caused his mother to be buried with the funeral obsequies of a queen, more as a proof of his filial piety than of his ostentation. She was interred in the midst of royal and illustrious dust, under the porch of Westminster Abbey, the St. Denis of British dynasties and departed heroism. OLIVER CROMWELL. 67 Cromwell had himself thought for some years that he should per- ish by assassination. He wore a cuirass under his clothes, and car- ried defensive arms within reach of his hand. He never slept long in the same room in the palace, continually changing his bed-cham- ber to mislead domestic treason and military plots. A despot, he suffered the punishment of tyranny. The unseen weight of the hatred which he had accumulated weighed upon his imagination and disturbed his sleep. The least murmuring in the army appeared to him like the presage of a rebellion against his power. Sometimes he punished, sometimes he caressed those of his lieutenants whom he suspected would revolt. He encouraged "Warwick, flattered Fair fax, subdued Ireton. with much difficulty reconciled the republican Fleetwood, who had married one of his daughters, also a republican and as strongly opposed to the dictator as her husband ; he banished Monk ; he trembled before the intriguing spirit and popularity of Lambert, a general who one moment sought to join the royalists, the next the republicans, and, finally, the malcontents of the army. He feared to wound or alienate the military section by dealing harshly with this ambitious soldier. He compensated for the command he took from him by a pocketful of money, which secured his obedi- ence through the powerful bonds of corruption. But parties were too much divided in England to combine in a mortal conspiracy against the dictator, as in the case of the Roman senate against Caesar. The one was a check and spy upon the other. Cromwell was permitted to live because none felt certain that they should profit by his death. Nevertheless he was conscious of his unpopu- larity ; his modest ambition and his ten speeches to the different par- liaments during the interregnum attest the efforts, sometimes humil- iating, to which he descended to obtain pardon for having seized the supreme power. We should be incapable of understanding the man if we were not acquainted with his style. The soul speaks in the tongue. We comprehend a few sentences iu this deluge of phrase- ology. The meaning seems confounded in a mass of verbiage, alter- nately cringing and imperious. We see throughout, the fanner promoted to the throne and the sectarian converting the tribune into a pulpit to preach to his congregations after he has subdued them. " What had become," said he, in his first speech to the united representatives of the three kingdoms alter the dissolution of the long parliament ; " what had become, before your time, of those, fundamental privileges of England, liberty of conscience and liberty of citizenship ? Two possessions, for which it is as honorable and just to coatend as for any of the benefits which God has vouchsafed to us on earth. Formerly the Bible c'mld not be printed without the permission of a magistrate ! Was not that placing the free faith of the people at the mercy of the legislative authority? Was it not denying civil and religious liberty to this nation, who have received tfcose unalienable rights with theii 1 blood ? Who now shall dare to 68 OLIVER CROMWELL. impose such restrictions on the public conscience ?" He fulminated, more in the tone of a prophet than a statesman, against the " fifth monarchy men," a religious and political sect who announced the im- mediate reign of Christ upon earth, returning in person to govern hia chosen people. It was even asserted that he had already appeared in the flesh, in the person of a young adventurer, who had caused him- self to be worshipped under the sacred name of Jesus. Then sud- denly he passed without preparation to his joy at seeing before him a parliament freely elected. " Yes," declared he, with warm satis- faction, " I see before me a free parliament ! Let us now discuss a little the state of public affairs." He then proceeded to detail the progress and success of his operations in Holland, France, Spain, and Portugal Finally, he dismissed them with a paternal air, declaring that he should pray for them, and enjoining every man to return quickly to iiis own abode, and reflect on the excellent manage, ment of public affairs, which he was going to submit tor their con- sideration. In the following speech he dwells bitterly on the heavy yoke which the public safety imposes on him, so contrary to his own de- sire. " I declare to you,' he said, " in the candor of my soul, that I love not the post in which I am placed. I have said this already in my previous interviews with you. Yes, I have said to you I have but one desire, namely, to enjoy the same liberty with others, to re- tire into private life, to be relieved from my charge. I have de- manded this again and again ! And let God judge between me and my fellow-men if I have uttered falsehood in saying so ! Many here can attest that I lie not ! But if I spiak falsely in telling you whai you are slow to believe, if I utter a lie or act the hypocrite, may heavenly wrath condemn me ! Let men without charity, who judg- 1 of others by themselves, say and think what they please, 1 repeat to you that 1 utter the truth. But alas ! I cannot obtain what I .-o ardently desire, what my soul yearns to accomplish ! Others have decided that I could not abandon my post without a crime I am, however, unworthy of this power which you force me to retain in my hands ; I am a miserable sinner !" He then rambled into an in- coherent digression on the state of affairs. " At last," he concluded, " we have been raised up for the welfare of this nation ! We enjoy peace at home and peace abroad !" His fourth speech comprises a vehement reproach against this same parliament, wnich he said had suffered itself to become cor- rupted by the old factions, and which he suddenly dissolved, after having balanced for two hours between caresses and maledictions, according to the suggestions of the spirit which soothed and the words which crushed. The fifth, delivered before the new parliament, is a rambling jum- ble of incoherency, which lasted for four hours ; at this distance of time it is totally incomprehensible, and finishes by the recitation of OLIVER CROMWELL. 69 a psalm. " I confess," says Cromwell, " that I have been diffuse ; I know that I have tired you ; but one word more : Yesterday I read a psalm, which it will not be out of place to introduce. It is the sixty-sixth, and truly a most instructive and applicable one in our particular circumstances. I call upon you to peruse it at leisure it commences thus : ' Lord, thou wert merciful to man ; thou ha.st redeemed us from the captivity of Jacob ; thou hast remitted all our sins. ' ' lie then recite;! the entire psalm to his auditory, and closing h'is Bible, added, " Verily, I desire that this psalm may be engnivcfi on our hearts more legibly than it is printed in this book, and that we may all cry with David, ' It is thou, Lord, alone, who hast done this ! ' Let us to the work, my friends, with courage !" continued he, addressing the whole house, " and if we do so we shall joyfully sing this additional psalm : ' In the name of the Lord, our enemies shall be confounded. ' No ! we shall fear neither the pope nor the Spaniards, nor the devil himself ! No ! we shall not tremble, even though the plains should be lifted above the mountains, and the mountains should be precipitated into the ocean ! God is with us ! I have finished ! I have iinished !" he exclaimed at last ; " I have said all that I had to say to you. Get you gone together, and in peace to your own dwellings !" These speeches, of which we have given only a few textual lines, lasted for hours ; it is very difficult to follow their meaning. In the same voice we recognize Tiberius, Mahomet, a soldier, a tyrant, a patriot, a priest, and a madman. We perceive the laborious inspira- tion of a triple soul, which seeks its own idea in the dark, finds it, loses it, finds it again, and keeps its auditors floating to satiety, be- tween terror, weariness, and compassion. When the language of tyranny is no longer brief, like the stroke of its will, it becomes ridic- ulous. It resembles the letters from Capreae to the Roman senate, or the appeals of Bonaparta vanquished to the French legislative body in 1813. The absolutism which seeks to make itself under- stood, or to enter into explanations with venal senates or enslaved citizens, becomes embarrassed in its own sophisms, mounts into the clouds or creeps into nothingness. Silence is the sole eloquence of tyranny, because it admits of no reply. Never did these peculiar characteristics of Cromwell's oratory dis- play themselves more than in his answers to the parliament, which thrice offered him the crown in 1658. The first time it was merely a deputation, who came to apprise him, in his own private apartment, of the intended proposal. The answer and the interview are equally familiar tons. He desires not the title of king, because his politi- cal inspiration told him that instead of increasing his actual strength it would tend to destroy it. On the other hand, he dared not reject the offer with too peremptory a refusal, because his generals, more ambitious than himself, would insist on his acceptance of the throne, to compromise beyond recall his greatness and that of his family, 70 OLIVEE CROMWELL. with their own fortunes. He dreaded lest in discontent for his de- nial, they might offer the sovereignty to some other leader in the army, more daring and less scrupulous than himself. His embar- rassment may be construed in his words. It took him eight days and a thousand circumlocutions before he could explain himself. " Gentlemen," replied he, on the first day, to the confidential dep- utation of the parliament, " I have passed the greater part of my life in fire (if I may so speak), and surrounded by commotions ; but all that has happened to me since I have meddled with public affairs for the general good, if it could be gathered into a single heap and placed before me in one view, would fail to strike me with the terror and respect for God's will which I undergo at the thought of this thing you now mention, and this title you offer me ! But I have drawn confidence and tranquillity in every crisis of my past life, from the conviction that the heaviest burdens I have borne have been im- posed upon me by His hand without my own participation. Often have I felt that I should have given way under these weighty loads if it had not entered into the views, the plans, and the great bounty of the Lord to assist me in sustaining them. If then I should suffer myself to deliver you an answer on this matter, so suddenly and unex- pectedly brought under my consideration, without feeling that this answer is suggested to my heart and lips by Him who has ever been my oracle and guide, I should therein exhibit to you a slender evi- dence of my wisdom. To accept or refuse your offer in one word, from desires or feelings of personal interest, would savor too much of the flesh and of human appetite. To elevate myself to this height by motives of ambition or vainglory would be to bring down a curse upon myself, upon my family, and upon the whole empire. Better would it'be that I had never been born. Leave me then to seek counsel at my leisure, of God and my own conscience ; and I hope neither the declamations of a light and thoughtless people, nor the selfish wishes of those who expect to become great in my great- ness, may influence my decision, of which I shall communicate to you the result with as little delay as possible." Three hours afterward, the parliamentary committee returned to press for his answer. It was in many respects confused and unin- telligible. We can fancy that we behold the embarrassed motion of Caesar when he pushed aside the crown offered to him by Antony and the soldiers, in the circus. There was, as yet, no decision. After four days of urgent and repeated entreaty on the part of the parliament, of polite but significant delays on that of the protector, Cromwell finally explained himself in a deluge of words : " Royalty," said he, " is composed of two matters, the title of king and the functions of monarchy. These functions are so united by the very roots to an old form of legislation that all our laws would fall to nothing did we not retain in their appliance a portion sf the kingly power, But as to the title of king, this distinctioa inv OLIVER CROMWELL. 71 plies not only a supreme authority, but, I may venture to say, an au- thority partaking of the divine ! I have assumed the place I now occupy )o drive away the dangers which threatened my country, and to prevent their recurrence. I shall not quibble between the titles of king or protector, for I am prepared to continue in your service, as either of these, or even as a simple constable, if you so will it, the lowest officer in the land. For, in truth, I have often said to myself that 1 am, in fact, nothing more than a constable, maintaining the order and peace of the parish ! I am therefore of opinion that it is unnecessary for you to offer or for me to accept the title of king, seeing that any other will equally answer the purpose !" Then, with a frank confession, too humble not to be sincere, " Al- low me," he added, " to lay open my heart here, aloud, and in your presence. At the moment when I was called to this great work, and preferred by God to so many others more worthy than myself, what was I ? Nothing more than a simple captain of dragoons in a regiment of militia. My commanding officer was a dear friend who possessed a noble nature, and whose memory I know you cherish as warmly as I do myself. This was Mr. Hampden. The first time I found myself under fire with him I saw that our troops, newly levied, without discipline, and composed of men who loved not God, were beaten in every encounter. With the permission of Mr. Hamp- den I introduced among them a new spirit, a spirit of zeal and piety ; I taught them to fear God. From that day forward they were invariably victorious. To him be all the glory ! " It has ever been thus, it will ever continue to be thus, gentle- men, with the government. Zeal and pietj' will preserve us without a king ! Understand me well ; I would willingly consent to become a victim for the salvation of all ; but I do not think no, truly, I do not believe that it is necessary this victim should bear the title of a king !" Alas ! he had unfortunately thought otherwise in the case of Charles the First. The blood of that monarch rose up too late and protested against his words. He had in him chosen an innocent vic- tim, not for the people, but for the army ! Remorse began to weigh upon him. It has been said that to ap- pease or encourage these sensations, while the debates in parliament held the crown, as it were, suspended over his head, he descended into the vaults of Whitehall, where the body of the decapitated Charles the First had been temporarily placed. Did he go to seek in this spectacle an oracle to solve his doubts, or a lesson to regulate his ambition V Did he go to implore from the dead a pardon for the murder he had permitted, or forgiveness for the throne and life of which he had deprived him ? We cannot say ; all that is certain is that he raised the lid of the coffin which inclosed the embalmed body and head of the executed monarch ; that he caused all wit- nesses to absent themselves, and that he remained for a long time 72 OLIVER CROMWELL. alone, silently looking on the deceased an interview of stoical firm- ness if not of repentance ; a solemn hour of reflection, from which he must have returned hardened or shaken. His attendants ob- served an unwonted paleness on his features and a melancholy com- Eression of his lips. Painting has often revived this strange scene, ome have recognized in it the triumph of ambition over its victim ; we should prefer to recognize the agony of the remorseful mur- derer. His private correspondence at this time expresses the weariness of aspirations which have sounded the depths of human grandeur, and which see nothing but emptiness in a destiny so apparently full. They breathe also a softening of the heart, which slackens the sever- ity of government. " Truly," says he, in a letter to Fleet wood, his son-in-law, and deputy in Scotland, " truly, my dear Charles, I have more than ever need of the help and prayers of my Christian friends. Each party wishes me to adopt their own views. The spirit oi' gen- tleness which I feel within me at present pleases none of them. I may say with sincerity, my life has been a voluntary sacrifice for the ben- efit of all. Persuade our friends who are with you to become very moderate. If the Lord's day approaches, as many maintain, our moderation ought so much the more to manifest itself. In my heav- iness, I am ready to exclaim, ' Why have I not the wings of a dove, that I might flee away ? ' But I fear me, this is a most culpa- ble impatience. I bless the Lord that I possess in my wife and chil- dren ties which attach me to life ! Pardon me, if 1 have discovered to you my inmost thoughts. Give my love to your dear wife, and my blessing, if it is worth anything, to your infant child." In the midst of these heavenly aspirations, he was anxious to leave independent fortunes to his sons and daughters/ The large income allotted by parliament to maintain the splendor of his rank, his hrml- itary estate, and the austere economy of his habits, had enabled him to acquire some private property. The list of his possessions is con- tained in his letters to his son Richard. They comprise twelve domains, producing an annual rent of about 300Z. " Of what conse- quence is this," he said sometimes ; " I leave to my family the favor of God, who has elevated me from nothing to the height on which I am placed." It would seem as if lie anticipated his approaching end. Those who came in contact with him were sensible of it them- selves. The Quaker Fox, one of the founders of that pious and phil- osophic sect, who comprise all theology in charity, was in the habit of familiar intercourse with Cromwell. About this time he wrote to one of his friends as follows : " Yesterday I met Cromwell in the park of Hampton Court; he was on horseback, attended by his guards. Before I approached him I perceived that there came from him an odor of death. When we drew near to each other, I noticed the paleness of the grave upon his face. He stopped, and I spoKe to OLIVER CROMWELL. 73 him of the persecutions of the Friends (Quakers), using the words which the Lord suggested to my lips. He replied, ' Come and see me to-morrow.' On the following day I went to Hampton Court, and was informed that he was ill. From that day 1 never saw him more." Hampton Court, the magnificent feudal residence of Henry the Eighth, was an abode which by its melancholy and monastic gran- deur was well suited to the temperament of Cromwell. The cha- teau, flanked by large towers resembling the bastions of a fortress, was crowned with battlements, blackened incessantly by broods of rooks. It stood on the border of vast forests, luxurious produce of the soil, so dear to the Saxon race. The aged oaks of the extensive park appeared to assume the majesty of a royal vegetation, to accord with the Gothic architecture of the castle. Cong avenues, veiled in. shadow and mist, terminated in a perspective of green meadow, silently traversed by herds of tame deer. Narrow, low portals with pointed arches, resembling the apertures of a cavern in the solid rQck, gave admission to subterraneous apartments, guard-rooms and vaulted fencing-schools, decorated with devices of ancient armor, escutcheons, and knightly banners. Everything breathed that mis- trustful superiority which creates a void round monarchs, either through respect or terror. Hampton Court was the favorite resi- dence of Cromwell, but at the period of which we are writing he way detained there as much by pain as relaxation. Providence, as often happens to exalted individuals, had deter- mined to intlict the expiation of his prosperous fortunes, through the medium of his own family. Several daughters had embellished his domestic hearth. The eldest was married to Lord Falcoubridge, the second to Fleetwood, the third to Claypole, while the fourth and youngest was already, at seventeen, the widow of Lord Rich, grand- son of the Earl of Warwick, an old companion-in-arms of the protec- tor. The grief of this young woman, the favorite of her mother, saddened the internal happiness of the circle at Hampton Court. Fleetwood, a moody republican, ever divided between the ascen- dency of Cromwell, to which he submitted with a pang of conscience, and the pure democratical opinions which saw individual tyranny id the protectorate, continually reproached his father-in-law with hav- ing absorbed the republic which he appeared to save. Between fanat. icism and affection he had drawn over his young wife to join in his discontented murmurs. Lady Fleetwood, like the second Brutus, ex- perienced at the same time an invincible attachment and repugnance to her father, who had become the tyrant of his country. The ties of blood and the spirit of sectarianism divided her heart. She embit- tered the life of the protector by incessant reproaches. Cromwell, surrounded by the cares of government, was at the same time beset by the invectives of his republican daughter against his absolute measures, and trembled to discover the hand of Fleetwood and liii A.B.-16 74 OLIVEK CROMWELL. wife in some hostile machinations. The deprecatory tone of his let- ters to Lady Fleetwood describes the anguish endured by this father, compelled to justify his actions to his own family, when England and all Europe trembled at his nod. But this child of Cromwell, per petually agitated by remorse for ruined liberty, never remained long silent under his urgent remonstrances. It was necessary to convince her, for fear of being compelled to punish. She wa, in truth, the Nemesis of her father. His daughter Elizabeth, Lady Claypole, became his consoling spirit. This young and amiable female, in grace, in mind, in senti- ment, was endowed with every quality which justifies the prefer- ence, or, we should rather say, the admiration by which Cromwell distinguished her. The/ royalist historian, Hume, who can scarcely be suspected of flattery, or even of justice, when speaking of the *family of the murderer of his king, acknowledges that Lady Claypole possessed charms and virtue sufficient to excuse the admiration of the whole world. One of those cruel fatalities which resemble chance, but are in fact ordained chastisements of tyranny, had re- cently pierced the heart of this accomplished woman almost to death, and excited between her and her father a tragical family dissension, in which nature, torn by two conflicting feelings (like Camille,* divided between her country and her lover), is unable to renounce one without betraying the other. Death is the only issue of such an awful predicament. In one of the recent royalist conspiracies against the authority of the protector, a young Cavalier (the name commonly applied to the partisans of Charles the Second) had been condemned to death. Cromwell had the power of mercy, which he would have exercised if the guilty prisoner, for whom he was aware his daughter felt the warmest interest, would have afforded him the least pretext for clemency, by even a qualified submission. But the intrepid Hewett (such was the name of the criminal) had defied the protector on his trial, as he had braved the danger in the conspiracy. Cromwell, deaf for the first time to the supplications, the sobs, and despair of his daughter pros- trated at his feet, imploring the lite of a man who was dear to her, ordered the execution to proceed. Lady Clnypole felt herself stricken mortally by the same blow. Cromwell had slain his daughter through the heart of one of his enemies. Elizabeth, sinking under a deadly weakness, returned to Hampton Court to receive the tender cares ot her mother and sisters, and only roused herself from her stupor to re- proach her father with the blood of his victim. Her lamentable im- precations, interrupted by the remorse and returning tenderness of her father, filled the palace with trouble, mystery, and consternation. The life of Lady Claypole rapidly consumed itself in these sad alter- nations of tears and maledictions. Cromwell was consumed by an- * In the " Horace" ot Corneille. TB. OLIVER CROMWELL. 75 guish, fruitless supplication, and unavailing repentance. He felt that his cruelty had made him hated by the being whom he loved most on earth ; and, to complete his agony, lie himself had launched the bolt against his child. Thus the republic that he had de- ceived on the one hand and the royalty he had martyred on the other seized on the fanaticism and feelings of his two daughters, to revenge on his own heart and under his domestic roof the ambition and inhumanity with which he had trampled on both. He presented a modern Atrides, apparently at the summit of prosperity, but in fact an object of compassion to his most implacable enemies. Lady Clay- pole died in his arms at Hampton Court, toward the end of 1658. With her last words she forgave her father, but nature refused to ratify the pardon. From the day when he buried his beloved daugh- ter he languished toward his end, and his own hours were num- bered. Although he was robust in appearance, and his green maturity of fifty-nine, maintained by warlike exercises, sobriety, and chastity, had enabled him to preserve the activity and vigor of his youth, disgust of life, that paralysis of the soul, inclosed a decayed heart in a healthy body. He seemed no longer to take any interest in the affairs of government or in the divisions of his own family. His confidential friends endeavored to direct his thoughts from the grave of his daughter, by inducing him to change the scene and vary his occupalions so as to dissipate the depressing moral atmosphere which surrounded him. His secretary, Thurloe, knd others of his most trusted adherents, in concert with his wife, contrived, without his knowledge, reviews, hunting-parties, races, and avocations of duty or amusement to distract or occupy his attention. They took him back to London, but he found the city even more distasteful than the country. They thought to reanimate his languor by repasts in the open air, brought by his servants from the house, and prepared on the grass under the shadow of the finest trees, and in his favorite spots. His earliest taste, the love of rural nature and of the animals of the field, was the last that remained in his closing hours. The gentleman farmer and trainer of cattle again broke forth under the master of an empire. The Bible and the patriarchal life, to which he constantly alluded, associated themselves in his mind with the re- membrances of rural occupations, which he regretted even in the splendors of a palace : he often exclaimed, as Danton did long after- ward, " Happy is he who lives under a thatched roof and cultivates his own field !" One morning, when Thurloe and the attendants of Cromwell had spread his meal on the ground, under the shadow of a cluinp of mag. nificent oaks, more distant from the neighboring city and thicker than at present, he felt his spirits lighter and more serene than usual, and expressed a wish to pass the remainder of the day in-that delight- ful solitude, He ordered his grooms to bring out six fine bay horse*. 7<5 OLIVER CROMWELL. which the States of Holland had lately sent him as a present, to try them in harness in one of the avenues of the park. Two postilions mounted the leaders. Cromwell desired Thurloe to seat himself in the carriage, while he ascended the box and took the reins in hi own hands. The fiery and unbroken animals began to rear, threw their riders, and ran away with the light vehicle, which they dashed ngainst a tree, and Cromwell was violently precipitated to the ground. In lug fall a loaded pistol went off, which he always carried concealed under his clothes. For a moment he was dragged along on the gravel, entangled with the broken carriage. Although he escaped without a wound, his fall, the explosion of the pistol, revealing to those about him his precautionary terrors, the sarcastic remarks to which this mishap gave rise, all appeared to him ominous of evil, and caused a sudden shock which he concealed with difficulty. He affected, notwithstanding, to laugh at the accident, and said to Thur- loe, " It is easier to conduct a government than to drive a team of horses !" He returned to Hampton Court, and the constant image of his cherished daughter appeared to people those halls, which her presence no longer animated, with remembrances less painful than oblivion. He was prayed for throughout the three kingdoms : by the puritans, for their prophet ; by the republicans, for their champion ; by the patriots, for the bulwark of their country. The antechambers resounded with the murmured applications of preachers, chaplains, fanatics, personal friends, and members of his own family all be- seeching God to spare the life of their saint. Whitehall resembled more a sanctuary than a palace. The same spirit of mystical inspira- tion which had conducted him there governed him in the last moments of his residence. He discoursed only of religion, and never alluded to politics, so much more was he occupied by the thoughts of eternal salvation than of prolonging his earthly power. He had designated his son Richard as his successor (in a sealed paper which had smce gone astray), on the same day when he had been named protector. Those who now surrounded him wished him to renew this act, but he appeared either indifferent- or unwilling to do so. At last, when he was asked, in the presence of witnesses, if it was not his will that his sou Richard should succeed him, " Yes," he muttered, with a single affirmative motion of his head, and imme- diately changed the subject of conversation. It was evident that this man, impressed with the vicissitudes of government and the fickleness of the people, attached but little importance to the will of a dictator, and left in the hands of Providence the fate of his author- ity after his death. " God will govern by the instrument that he may please to select," said he ; " it is he alone who has given me power over his people. " He believed that he bad left this document at Hampton Court, where messengers were dispatched to seek it bui without success, and the topic was never again adverted to. OLIVER CROMWELL. 77 Richard, who resided usually in the country, in the paternal man- sion of his wife, hastened to London, with his sisters and brothers-in- law, to attend the death-bed of the chief of the family. He seemed as indifferent as his father as to the hereditary succession of his office, for which he had neither the desire nor the ambition. The whole generation, left by the protector in the mediocrity of private life, appeared ready to return to it, as actors quit the stage when the drama is over. They had neither acquired hatred nor envy by inso- lence or pride. Like the children of Sylla, who mixed unnoticed with the crowd, the tender affection of his united family and their unfeigned tears constituted the only funeral pomp which waited round the couch of the protector. A slow intermittent fever seized him. He struggled with the first attack so successfully that no one about him suspected he was seri- ously ill. The fever became tertian and more acute ; his strength was rapidly giving way. The physicians summoned from London attributed the disease to the bad air engendered by the marshy and ill-drained banks of the Thames, which joined the gardens of Hamp- ton Court. He was brought back to Whitehall, as if Providence had decreed that he should die before the same window of the same palace, in front of which he had ordered to be constructed, ten years before, the scaffold of his royal victim. Cromwell never rose again from the bed on which he was placed when he returned to London. His acts and words, during his long agony, have been wildly misrepresented, according to the feelings of the different parties who sought revenge for his life or who gloried in his death A new document, equally authentic and invaluable, notes taken without his knowledge, calculating every hour and every sigh, and preserved by the comptroller of his household, who watched him day and night, have verified beyond dispute his thoughts and expressions. The sentiments expressed in these last moments speak the true secrets of the soul. Death unmasks every face, and hypocrisy disappears before the raised finger of God. During the periods between the paroxysms of the fever, he occu- pied the time witli listening to passages from the sacred volume, or by a resigned or despairing reference to the death of his daughter. " Read to me," he said to his wife in one of those intervals, " the Epistle of St. Paul to the Philippians. " She read these words : " 1 know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound : every- where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me." The reader paused " That verse," said Cromwell, " once saved my life when the death broke off, but after a short silence, resuming a tone of confidence, 78 OLIVER CROMWELL. continued, "but he who was the Saviour of Paul, is he not also mine?" " Do not weep thus," said he to his wife and children, who were sobbing loudly in the chamber ; " love not this vain world ; I tell you from the brink of the grave, love not the things of earth !" There was a moment of weakness when he seemed anxious for life. " Is there no one here," he demanded, " who can deliver me from this danger?" All hesitated to answer. " Man is helpless," he con- tinued, " God can do whatever he pleases. Are there none, then, who will pray with me ?" The silent motion of his lips was interrupted from time to time by indistinct and mystical murmurings which indicated inward suppli- cation. " Lord, thou art my witness, that if I still desire to live it is to glorify thy name and to complete thy work !" " It is terrible, yea, it is very terrible," he muttered three times in succession, " to fall into the hands of the living God !" " Do you think," said he to his chaplain, " that a man who has once been in a state of grace can ever perish eternally?" "No," replied the chaplain, " there is no possibility of such a relapse." "Then I am safe," replied Crom- well ; " for at one time I am confident that I was chosen." All his inquiries tended toward futurity, none bore reference to the present life. " I am the most insignificant of mortals," continued he after a momentary pause ; " but I have loved God, praised be his name, or rather I am beloved by him !" There was a moment when the dangerous symptoms of his malady were supposed to have subsided ; he even adopted this notion him- self. Whitehall and the churches resounded with thanksgivings. The respite was short, for the fever speedily redoubled. Several days and nights were passed in calm exhaustion or incoherent de- lirium. On the morning of the 30th of August, one of his officers, looking from the window, recognized the republican Ludlow, ban- ished from London, who happened to be crossing the square. Crom- well, informed of his presence, became anxious to know what motive could have induced Ludlow to have the audacity to show himself in the capital, and to pass under the very windows of his palace. He sent his son Richard to him, to endeavor if possible to fathom the secret views of his party. Ludlow assured Richard Cromwell that he came exclusively on private affairs, and was ignorant when he arrived of the illness of the protector. He promised to depart from the capital on that same day. This is the Ludlow who, being pro- scribed among the regicides after the death of Cromwell, retired to grow old and die impenitently at Vevay, on the borders of Lake Leman, where his tomb is still exhibited. Cromwell, satisfied as to the intentions of the republicans, thought no longer but of making a religious end. The inUndunt of his chamber, who watched by him, heard him offer up his last prayers in detached sentences, and in an audible tone. For his own satisfaction OLIVER CROMWELL. 79 ne noted down the words as they escaped from the lips of the dying potentate, and long afterward transmitted them to history. " Lord, I am a miserable creature ! But by thy grace I am in the truth, and I hope to appear before thee in behalf of this people. Thou hast selected me, although unworthy, to be the instrument of good here below, and to have rendered service to my brethren. Many of them have thought too favorably of my strength, while many others will rejoice that I am cut off. Continue, O Lord, to give thy help to all ; endow them with constancy and a right understanding ; render through them the name of our Saviour Jesus Christ more and more honored upon earth ; teach them who trust too much to thy instrument to rely on thee alone. Pardon those who are impatient to trample under their feet this worm of earth, and grant me a night of peace, if it be thy good pleasure." On the following day, the anniversary of the battles of Dunbar and Worcester, his two greatest victories, the souud of the military music by which they were celebrated penetrated to his dying chambers "I could wish," he exclaimed, "to recall my life, to repeat onde more those services for the nation ; but my day is over. May G6d continue ever present with his children." After a last restless night, he was asked If he wished to drink or sleep. " Neither," he replied, " but to pass quickly to my Father." By sunrise his voice failed, but he was still observed to pray in an inarticulate tone. The equinoctial gale, which had commenced on the preceding day, now swelled into a storm which swept over England with the effect of an earthquake. The carriages which conveyed to London the friends of the protector, apprised of his extreme danger, were unable to stem the violence of the wind and took refuge in the inns on the road. The lofty houses of London undulated like vessels tossed upon the ocean. Roofs were carried off, trees that had stood for centuries in Hyde Park were torn up by the roots and prostrated on the ground like bundles of straw. Cromwell expired at two o'clock in the afternoon, in the midst of this convulsion of nature. He de- parted as he was born, in a tempest. Popular superstition recog- nized a miracle in this coincidence, which seemed like the expiring efforts of the elements to tear from life and empire the single man who was capable of enduring the might of England's destiny, and whose decease created a void which none but himself could fill. Obedience bad become so habitual and fear so universally survived his power that no opposing faction dared to raise its head in presence of his remains ; his enemies, like those of Caesar, were compelled to simulate mourning at his funeral. Several months elapsed before England felt thoroughly convinced that her master no longer existed, and ventured to exhibit a few faint throbs of liberty after such a memorable servitude. Tf at that time there had been found au Antony to place himself at the head of the army in London, and if * 80 OLIVER CROMWELL. new Octavius had appeared in Richard Cromwell, the Lower Empire might have commenced in the British Islands. But Richard abdi- cated after a very short exercise of power, lie had formerly, with tears, embraced his father's knees, imploring him to spare the head of Charles the First. His resignation cost him nothing, for he had examined too closely the price of supreme power. He became once more a simple and unostentatious citizen, enjoying, in the tranquillity of a country life, his obscurity and his innocence. We have sought to describe the true character of Crnmwell, rescued from romance and restored to history. This supposed actor of sixty becomes a veritable man. Formerly he was misapprehended, now he is correctly understood. A great man is ever the personification of the spirit which breathes from time to time upon his age and country. The inspiration of Scripture predominated, in 1600, over the three kingdoms. Crom- well, more imbued than any other with this sentiment, was neither a politician nor an ambitious conqueror, nor an Octavius, nor a (\Tsar. He was a JUDGE of the Old Testament ; a sectarian of the greater power in proportion as he was more superstitious, more strict and narrow in his doctrines, and more fanatical. If his genius had surpassed his epoch he would have exercised less influence over the existing generation. His nature was less elevated than the part assigned to him ; his religious bias constituted the half of his fortune. A true military Calvin, holding the Bible in one hand and the sword in the other, he aimed rather at salvation than temporal em- pire. Historians, hitherto ill-informed, have mistaken the principle of his ambition. It was the feature of the times. All the factions of that age were religious, as all those of the present day are political. In Switzerland, in Germany, in the Nortb, in France, in Scotland, in Ireland, in England, all parties borrowed their convictions, their divided opinions, their opposing fierceness from the Bible, which had In-come the universal oracle. Interpreted differently by the different Mr's, this oracle imparted to each exposition the bitterness of a svhi.sm, to each destiny the holiness of a revelation, to each leader the authority of a prophet, to each victim the heroism of a martyr, and t ) each conqueror the ferocity of an executioner offering up a sacri- fice to the Deity. A paroxysm of mystical frenzy had seized upon the whole Christian world, and the most impassioned trampled upon (he rest. Danton has said that in a revolution the greatest scoundrel must gain the victory. With equal justice it may be observed that in religious wars the most superstitious leader will win the day. When that leader is at the same time a soldier, and inspires his followers with his own enthusiasm, there is no longer a limit to his career of fortune. He subjects the people by the army, and the army by the superstitions of the people. If endowed with genius, he be- comes a Mahomet ; a Cromwell, if gifted only with policy and fanaticism. OLIVER CROMWELL. 81 It becomes, therefore, impossible to deny that Cromwell was sin- cere. Sincerity was the inciting motive of his elevation, and, without excusing, completely explains his crimes. This quality, which con- stituted liis virtue, impressed on his actions, faith, devotedness, en- thusiasm, consistency, patriotism, toleration, austerity of manners, application to war and business, coolness, modesty, piety, denial of personal ambition for his family, and all those patriarchal and romantic features of the first republic which characterized his life and the period of his reign. It also imparted to his nature the im- placability of a religionist who believed that in striking his own ene- mies he was smiting the enemies of God. The massacres of the van- quished rebels in Ireland and the cold-blooded murder of Charles the First exhibit the contrasted extravagance of this false conscience. In Cromwell it was untempered by the natural clemency which palliates in the first Caesar the barbarities of ambition. We recognize the VCB metis of the sectarian, the demagogue, and the soldier united in the same individual. Thus, as it always happens, these two leading crimes, perpetuated without pity, rebounded back upon his cause and his memory. What did Cromwell desire ? Assuredly not the throne, for we have seen that it was frequently within his grasp, and he rejected it that Provi- dence alone might reign. He wished to secure for his own party, the Independents, full religious liberty in matters of faith, guaranteed by a powerful representation of the people and the parliament, and pre- sided over by a monarchical form of government at the head of this republic of saints. This is the direct conclusion to be drawn from his entire life, his actions, and his words. Now, in sparing the life of the vanquished sovereign, and in con- . eluding, either with him or his sons, a national compact, a new Magna Charta, establishing religious and representative freedom throughout England, Cromwell would have left a head to the repub- lic, a king to the royalists, an all-powerful parliament to the people, and a victorious independence to the conscience of the nation. By I putting Charles to death and Ireland to the sword he furnished a never-dying grievance to the supporters of the throne, martyrs to the persecuted faiths, with a long and certain reaction to absolute power, the established Protestantism of the State, and the followers of the Ilomau Catholic Church. He prepared the insvitable return of the last Stuarts, for dynasties are never extinguished in blood ; they expire rather by absence. His severity, sooner or later, recoiled upon his cause and tarnished his memory. This biblical Marina can never be absolved from his proscriptions. After much slaughter, that he governed well and wisely cannot be disputed. He laid tho foundations of the great power of England, both by land and sea. But nations, who are often ungrateful for the virtue sacrificed in their cause, are doubly so for the crimes committed to promote their grandeur. Whatever the disciples of Machiavelli, and the con- 82 OLIVER CROMWELL. ventiou may say to the contrary, there are such things as national rc- peiitaiice and remorse, which perpetuate themselves with national history. Cromwell deeply wounded the conscience and humanity of England by his systematic cruelties. The stains of the royal ami plebeian blood, which he shed without compunction, have indelibly imprinted themselves on his name. He has left a lofty but an un- popular memory. His glory belongs to England, but England in- clines to suppress it. Her historians, her orators, her patriots sel- dom refer to his name, and evince no desire to have it paraded before them. They blush to be so deeply indebted to such a man. British patriotism, which cannot historically ignore the reality of his services, profits by the basis of national power which Cromwell has estab- lished in Europe, but at the same time denies his personal claims ; it acknowledges the work but repudiates the workman. The name of Cromwell, in the acceptation of the English people, resembles one of those massive druidical altars upon which their barbarous ances- tors offered up sacrifices to their gods ; and which, while they have been thrown in to assist in the foundations of later edifices, can never be disinterred or restored to light without disclosing the traces of the blood so profusely scattered by savage superstition. TUB PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. WILLIAM PITT, first Earl of Chatham, a celebrated British states man and orator, was born on the 15th of November, 1708. He was the youngest son of Mr. Robert Pitt, of Boconnock, in Cornwall, the grandson of Mr. Thomas Pitt, governor of Fort St. George, in the East Indies, in the reign of Queen Anne, who sold an extraordinary diamond to the King of France for 1:35,000, and thus obtained the name of Diamond Pitt. The subject of this notice was educated at Eton, whence, in January, 1726, he was removed to Trinity College, Oxford, which he entered as a gentleman commoner. Here the superiority of his mind soon attracted notice, and he was also re- marked for his powers of elocution ; but at the age of sixteen he ex- perienced the first attacks of an hereditary and incurable gout, which continued at intervals to torment him during the remainder of his life. He quitted the university without taking a degree, and visited France ami Italy, whence he returned without having received much benefit from his excursion. His father was now dead, and as he had left very little to the younger children, it became necessary that Wil- liam should choose a profession. He decided for the army, and a cornet's commission was purchased for him in the Blues. But, small as his fortune was, his family had the power and the inclination to serve him. At the general election of 1734, his elder brother Thom- as was chosen both for Old Sarum and for Oakhampton. When Parliament met in 1735, Thomas made his election for Oakhampton, and William was returned for Old Sarum. At the time when he ob- tained a seat in Parliament he was not quite twenty-one years of age. The intention of bringing him thus early into Parliament was to op- pose Sir Robert Walpole, who had now been fourteen years at the head of affairs. In fact, his abilities soon attracted notice, and he spoke with great vehemence against the Spanish Convention in 1738. It was on the occasion of the bill for registering seamen, in 1740, which he opposed as arbitrary and unjustifiable, that he is said to have made his celebrated reply to Walpole, who had taunted him on ac- count of his youth ; but the language of that reply, as it now stands, is not the diction of Pitt, who may have said something like what is ascribed to him, but of Dr. Johnson, who then reported, or rather 4 PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. wrote, the debates for the Oentleman's Magazine. In 1746 Pitt was appointed joint vice-treasurer of Ireland ; and in the same year treas- urer and paymaster-general of the army, and a privy councillor. The office of paymaster he discharged with such inflexible integrity, even refusing many of the ordinary perquisites of office, that his bit- terest enemies could lay nothing to his charge, and he soon became the darling of the people. The old Duchess of Marlborough, wlio carried to the grave the reputation of being decidedly the best hater of her time, and who most cordially detested Walpole and his associ- ates, left Pitt a legacy of 10,000, in consideration of " the noble de- fence he had made for the support of the laws of England, and to prevent the ruin of his country." In the year 1755, Pitt, deeming it necessary to offer a strong opposition to the continental connections then formed by the ministry, resigned his places, and remained some time out of office. But his resignation having alarmed the people, he was, in December, 1756, called to fill a higher office, and ap- pointed secretary of state. In this situation, however, he was more successful in obtaining the confidence of the public than in conciliat- ing the favor of the king, some of whose predilections he had con- ceived himself bound to oppose. The consequence was, that soon afterward Pitt was removed from office, while Legge, with some others of his friends, were at the same time dismissed. But the nation had a mind not to be deprived of his services. The most ex- alted notion had been formed of him throughout the country ; his patriotism was believed to be as pure and disinterested as his abilities and eloquence were confessedly transcendent ; and his colleagues shared in the same general favor. In a word, the opinion of the country was so strongly expressed, both directly and indirectly, that the king thought it prudent to yield ; and on the 25th of June, 175.7, Pitt was again appointed secretary of state, Legge became chancellor of the exchequer, and the other arrangements were made conforma- bly to his wishes. Pitt was now in effect prime minister ; and the change which soon took place in the aspect of public affairs evinced the ability of his measures and the vigor of his administration. His spirit animated the whole nation, and his activity pervaded every de- partment of the public service. His plans were ably conceived and promptly executed ; and the depression which had been occasioned by want of energy in the cabinet and ill success in the field was fol- lowed by exertion, confidence, and triumph. The whole fortune of the war was changed. In every quarter of the globe success at- tended our arms. The boldest attempts were made both by land and by sea, and almost every attempt proved fortunate. In America the French lost Quebec ; in Africa they were deprived of their principal settlements ; their power was abridged in the East Indies ; in Europe their armies were defeated ; and, to render their humiliation more complete, their navy, their commerce, and their finances were almost ruined. Amid this full tide of success George II. died, on the 25tk PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. 5 of October, 1760, and was succeeded by George III., who ascended the throne at a time when the French court had just succeeded in ob- taining the co-operation of Spain. The treaty commonly called " family compact" had been secretly concluded ; but the English minister, correctly informed of the hos- tile intentions of Spain, determined to anticipate that power, and strike a blow before this new enemy should be fully prepared for ac- tion. He therefore proposed in the council an immediate declaration of war against Spain, urging forcibly that the present was the favor - able moment for humbling the whole House of Bourbon. But when he stated this opinion in the privy council, the other ministers,- averse to so bold a measure, opposed the proposition of the premier, alleg- ing the necessity of mature deliberation before declaring war against so powerful a state. Irritated by the unexpected opposition of his colleagues, Pitt replied, " I will not give them leave to think ; this is the tijne ; let us crush the whole fiouse of Bourbon. But if the members of this board are of a different opinion, this is the last time I shall ever mix iu its councils. I was called into the ministry by the voice of the people, and to them I hold myself answerable for my conduct. I am to thank the ministers of the late king for their sup- port ; I have served my country with success ; but I will not be re- sponsible for the conduct of tiie war any longer than while I have the direction of it." To this declaration the president of the council answered, " I find the gentleman is determined to leave us ; nor can I say that I am sorry for it, since he would otherwise have certainly compelled us to leave him. But if he is resolved to assume the right of advising- his Majesty, and directing the operations of the war, to what purpose are we called to this council? When he talks of being responsible to the people, he talks the language of the House of Com- mons, and forgets that at this board he is responsible only to the king. However, though he may possibly have convinced himself of his infallibility, still it remains that we should be equally convinced before we can resign our understandings to his direction, or join with him in the measure he proposes." The opposition he thus encoun- tered the nation attributed to the growing influence of Lord Bute. But however this may have been, Pitt was a man of too high, not to say imperious a temper, to remain as the nominal head of a cabinet which he was no longer able to direct. Accordingly, on the 5th of October, 1761, he resigned all his appointments ; and, as some reward for his services, his wife was created Baroness Chatham in her own right, while a pension of 3000 a year was settled on the lires of himself, his lady, and his eldest son. No fallen minister, if fallen he could be called, ever carried with him more completely the confidence and regret of the nation, whose affairs he had so successfully administered. But at this time the king was also popular ; and the war being continued by his new min- isters with vi^or and success, no discontent appeared until after the 6 PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. conclusion of the peace. The impulse given by Pitt had carried them forward in the same direction which he had pursued ; but they were equally incapable of profiting by the advantages which had been al- ready gained, or of prosecuting the war until the objects for which it was originally undertaken should be accomplished. The victories gained over France and Spain having greatly elated the nation, the feeling which almost universally prevailed among the people was, that we should either dictate peace as conquerors, or continue the war until our adversaries were more effectually humbled. This was likewise Pitt's opinion. Accordingly, when the preliminaries of peace came to be discussed in Parliament, he went down to the House of Commons, though suffering severely from an attack of gout, and spoke for nearly three hours in the debate, giving his opinion on each article of the treaty in succession, and, upon the whole, maintaining that it was inadequate to the conquests of our arms, and the just ex- pectations of the country. Peace was, however, concluded on the 10th of February, 1763, and Pitt continued unemployed. After his resignation in 1761, Pitt conducted himself in a manner worthy of his high character. So far from giving a vexatious and undisc-riminating opposition to the ministry which had succeeded his own, he maintained his popularity in dignified retirement, and came forward only when questions of great importance were to be dis- cussed. One of these occurred in 1764, on the subject of general warrants, the illegality of which he denounced with all the energy and vigor of his eloquence. Another occasion, when he came for- ward in all his strength, was the consideration of the discontents which had arisen on account of the Stamp Act. In March, 1766, the repeal of that act having been proposed by the Rockingham minis- try, Pitt, though not connected with them, ably supported the meas- ure, which was carried, but whether prudently or the contrary is still a matter of dispute. About this time Pitt had devised to him by will a considerable estate in Somersetshire, the property of Sir William I'yn-ent of Burton-Pynsent in that county, who, from admiration of his public character, disinherited his own relations, in order to be. queath to him the bulk of his fortune. After the dissolution of the Rockingham ministry, a new administration was formed, and in 1766 1'iit was appointed lord privy seal. At the same time he was created a peer by the titles of Viscount Pitt of Burton Pynsent, In the county of Somerset, and Earl of Chatham, in the county of Kent. Whatever might be his motives in accepting a peerage, it is certain that it proved very prejudicial to his character, and that in conse- quence he sank as much in popularity as he rose in nominal dignity. The " great commoner," as he was sometimes called, had formed a rank for himself, on the basis of his talents and exertions, which titular honors might obscure, but could not illustrate ; and, with the example of Pulteney before him, he should have been careful to pre- terv it untarnished hjr empty distinctions, shared by the mean and PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. 7 the worthless as well as by the great, the gifted, and the good. Lord Chatham, however, did not long continue in office after being elevated to the peerage. On the 2d of November, 1768, he resigned the place of lord privy seal, and never afterward held any public employment ; nor does he appear to have been at all desirous of returning to office. He was now sixty, and the gout, by which he had so long been afflicted, disabled him, by its frequent and violent attacks, for close and regular application to business. In the intervals of his disorder, however, he failed not to exert himself upon questions of great mag- nitude ; and in 1775, 1776, and 1777, he most strenuously opposed the measures pursued by the ministers in the contest with America. His last appearance in the House of Lords was on the 3d of April, 1778. He was then very ill, and much debilitated ; but the question, was important, being a motion of the Duke of Richmond to address his Majesty to remove the ministers, and to make peace with Amer- ica on any terms. His lordship made a long speech, in which he summoned up all his remaining strength to pour out his disapprobation of a measure so inglorious. But the effort overcame him, for in at- tempting to rise a second time, he fell down in a convulsive fit ; and though he recovered for the time, his disorder continued to increase until the llth of May, when he expired at his seat at Hayes. His death was lamented as a national loss. As soon as the news reached the House of Commons, which was then sitting, Colonel Barre made a motion that an address should be presented to his Majesty, re- questing that the Earl of Chatham should be buried at the public ex- pense. But Mr. Rigby having proposed the erection of a statue to his memory, as more likely to perpetuate the sense of his great merits entertained by the public, this was unanimously agreed to. A bill was soon afterward passed, by which 4000 a year was settled upon John, now Earl of Chatham, and the heirs of the late earl to whom that title might descend. His lordship was married in 1754 to Lady Hester, sister of Earl Temple, by whom he had three sons and two daughters. The principal outlines of Pitt's character have been variously sketched, sometimes with and sometimes without any depth of shadow. The truth is, that there scarcely ever lived a person who had less claim to be painted altogether en beau, or who so little mer- ited unsparing censure. Lord Macaulay says, ' ' That he was a great man, cannot for a moment be doubted ; but his was not a complete and well-proportioned greatness. The public life of Hampden or of Somers resembles a regular drama, which can be criticised as a whole, and every scene of which is to be viewed in connection with the main action. The public life of Pitt, on the other hand, is a rude though striking piece, abounding in incongruities, and without any unity of plan, but redeemed by some noble passages, the effect of which is increased by the tameness or extravagance of what precedes and of what follows. His opinions were unfixed ; and his conduct, 8 FITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. at some of the most important conjunctures of his life, was evidently determined by pride and resentment. He had one fault, which of all human faults is most rarely found in company with true greatness. He was extremely affected. He was an almost solitary instance of a man of real genius, and of a brave, lofty, and commanding spirit, without simplicity of character. lie was an actor in the closet, an actor in the council, and an actor in Parliament ; and even in private society he could not lay aside his theatrical tones and attitudes. AVo know that one of the most distinguished of his partisans often com- plained that he could never obtain admittance to Lord Chatham's room till everything was ready for the representation ; till the light was thrown with Rembrandt-like effect on the head of the illustrious performer ; till the flannels had been arranged with the air of Grecian drujM'ry, and the crutch placed as gracefully as that of Belisarius or Lear." Yet, with all his faults and affectations, he possessed, in a very extraordinary degree, many of the elements of true greatness. lie had splendid talents, strong passions, quick sensibility, and vehement enthusiasm for the grand and the beautiful. There was something about him which ennobled even tergiversation itself. He often went wrong, very far wrong ; but, amid the abasement of error, he still retained what he had received from nature, " an in- tense and glowing mind." In an age of low and despicable prostitu- tion, the age of Dodiugton and Sandys, it was something to have a man who might perhaps, under some strong excitement, have been tempted to ruin his country, but who never would have stooptd to pilfer from her ; a man whose errors arose, not from a sordid desire of gain, but from a fierce thirst for power, glory, and vengeance. " History owes him this attestation, that, at a time when anything short of direct embezzlement of the public money was considered ;is quite fair in public men, he showed the most scrupulous disinterested- ness ; that, at a time when it seemed to be generally taken for granted that government could be upheld only by the basest and most immor- al arts, he appealed to the better and nobler parts of human nature ; that he made a brave and splendid attempt to do, by means of public opinion, what no other statesman of his day thought it possible to except by means of corruption ; that he looked for support, not, Uke the 1 elhams, to a strong aristocratical connection, not, like Bute, to the personal favor of the sovereign, but to the middle class of tohmen ; that he inspired that class with a firm confidence in hia gnty and ability ; that, backed by them, he forced an unwilling t and mi unwilling oligarchy to admit him to an ample share of that he used his power in such a manner as dearly mod ti m t he had sought it, not for the sake of profit or patronage, from a w,sh to establish for himself a great and durable reputa means of eminent services rendered to the state " T Un r Caa \ ng P i irase3 have been employed, and much orical exaggeration has been expended, in attempts to charac- PITT, EABL OF CHATHAM. 9 terize Lord Chatham's style of eloquence. The following estimate by Lord Macaulay, from whom we have borrowed some of the fore- going observations, is at once deep, discriminating, and brilliant : " In our time the audience of a member of Parliament is the nation. The three or four hundred persons who may be present when a speech is delivered may be pleased or disgusted by the voice and action of the orator ; but in the reports which are read the next day by hundreds of thousands, the difference between the noblest and the meanest fig- ure, between the richest and the shrillest tones, between the most graceful and the most uncouth gesture, altogether vanishes. A hun- dred years ago, scarcely any report of what passed within the walls of the House of Commons was suffered to get abroad. In those times, therefore, the impression which a speaker might make on the persons who actually heard him was everything. The impression out of doors was hardly worth a thought. In the parliaments of that time, therefore, as in the ancient commonwealths, those qualifications which enhance the immediate efforts of a speech were far more im- portant ingredients in the composition of an orator than they would appear to be in our time. All those qualifications Pitt possessed in the highest degree. On the stage, he would have been the finest Brutus or Coriolanus ever seen. Those who saw him in his decay, when his health was broken, when his mind was jangled, when he had been removed from that stormy assembly of which he thoroughly knew the temper, and over which he possessed unbounded influence, to a small, a torpid, and an unfriendly audience, say that his speak- ing was then for the most part a low monotonous muttering, audible only to those who sat close to him ; that, when violently excited, he sometimes raised his voice for a few minutes, but that it soon sank again into an unintelligible murmur. Such was the Earl of Chat- ham ; but such was not William Pitt. His figure, when he first ap- peared in Parliament, was strikingly graceful and commanding, his features high and noble, his eye full of fire. His voice, even when it sank to a whisper, was heard to the remotest benches ; when he strained it to its full extent, the sound rose like the swell of the organ of a great cathedral, shook the house with its peal, and was heard through lobbies and down staircases, to the Court of Requests and the precincts of Westminster Hall. He cultivated all these em- inent advantages with the most assiduous care. His action is de- scribed, by a very malignant observer, as equal to that of Garrick. His play of countenance was wonderful ; he frequently disconcerted a hostile orator by a single glance of indignation or scorn. Every tone, from the impassioned cry to the thrilling aside, was perfectly at his command. It is by no means improbable that the pains which he took to improve his great personal advantages had in some re- spects a prejudicial operation, and tended to nourish in him that pas- sion for theatrical effect which was one of the most conspicuous blemishes in his character. 10 PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. "But it was not solely or principally to outward accomplishments that Pitt owed the vast influence which, during nearly thirty years, he exercised over the House of Commons, lit- \v;i* undoubtedly a great orator ; and from the descriptions of his contemporaries, and the fragments of his speeches which still remain, it is not difficult to discover the nature and extent of his oratorical powers. " He was no speaker of set speeches. His few prepared dis- courses were complete failures. The elaborate panegyric which ho pronounced on General Wolfe was considered as the very worst of all his performances. ' No man, ' says a critic who had often heard him, ' ever knew so little what he was going to say. ' Indeed, his facility amounted to a vice ; he was not the master, but the slave of his own speech. So little self-command had he when once he felt the impulse, that he did not like to take part in a debate when his mind was full of an important secret of state. ' I must sit still,' he once said to Lord Shelburne on such an occasion, ' lor when once I am up, everything that is in my mind comes out.' " 'iet he was not a great debater. That he should not have been so when he first entered the House of Commons is not strange ; scarcely any person has ever become so without long practice and ninny failures. It was by slow degrees, as Burke said, that Mr. Fox becam^ the most brilliant and powerful debater that Parliament ever saw. Mr. Fox himself attributed his own success to the resolution which he formed, when very young, of speaking, well or ill, at least once every night. ' During five whole sessions, ' he used to say, ' I spoke every night but one ; and I regret ouly that I did not speak that night too.' Indeed, it would be difficult to name any great debater who has not made himself a master of his art at the expense of his audience. " But as this art is one which even the ablest men have seldom ac- quired without long practice, so it is one which men of respectable abilities, with assiduous and intrepid practice, seldom fail to acquire. It is singular that, in such an art, Pitt, a man of splendid talents, great fluency, and dauntless boldness, whose whole life was passed in parliamentary conflicts, and who during several years was the lead- ing minister of the crown in the House of Commons, should never have attained to high excellence. He spoke without premeditation ; but his speech followed the course of his own thoughts, and not that of the previous discussion. He could, indeed, treasure up in his memory some detached expression of a hostile orator, and make it the text for sparkling ridicule or burning invective. Some of the most celebrated bursts of his eloquence were called forth by an un- guarded word, a laugh, or a cheer. But this was the only sort of reply in which he appears to have excelled. He was perhaps the only great English orator who did not think it an advantage to havo the hist word, and who generally spoke by choice before his most formidable opponents. His merit was almost entirely rhetorical. lie did not succeed either in exposition or refutation ; but his PITT, EAEL CHATHAM. 11 speeches abounded with lively illustrations, striking apothegms, well- toid anecdotes, happy allusions, passionate appeals. His invective and sarcasm were tremendous. Perhaps no English orator was ever so much feared. " But that which gave most effect to his declamation was the air of sincerity, of vehement feeling, or moral elevation, which belonged to all that he said. His style was not always in the purest taste. Several contemporary judges pronounced it too florid. Walpole, in the midst of the rapturous eulogy which he pronounces on one of Pitt's greatest orations, owns that some of the metaphors were too forced. The quotations and classical stories of the orator are some- times too trite for a clever schoolboy. But these were niceties for which the audience cared little. The enthusiasm of the orator in- fected all who were near him ; his ardor and his noble bearing put fire into the most frigid conceit, and gave dignity to the most puerile allusion." Such is the character of this great statesman and orator, as drawn by one masterly hand. It may perhaps both instruct and interest our readers if we present another, delineated by an artist equally dis- tinguished for the vigor, judgment, and fidelity with which he paints such grand pieces for the gallery of history. The preceding, as we have already said, is from the pen of Lord Macaulay ; the following is understood to be from that of Lord Brougham : " The first place among the great qualities which distinguished Lord Chatham is unquestionably due to firmness of purpose, resolute determination in the pursuit of his objects. This was the character- istic of the younger Brutus, as he said, who hud spared his life to fall by his hand Quicquid vult, id vnlde vult ; and although extremely apt to be shown in excess, it must be admitted to be the foundation of all true greatness of character. Everything, however, depends upon the endowments in whose company it is found ; and in Lord Chatham these were of a very high order. The quickness with which he could ascertain his object, and discover his road to it, was fully commensurate with his perseverance and his boldness in pursuing it ; the firmness of grasp with which he held his advantage was fully equalled by the rapidity of the glance with which he discovered it. Add to this r, mind eminently fertile in resources, a courage which nothing could daunt in the choice of his means, a resolution equally indomitable in their application, a genius, in short, original and daring, which bounded over the petty obstacles raised by ordinary men their squeamishness. and their precedents, and their forms, and their regularities and forced away its path through the en- tanglements of this base undergrowth to the worthy object ever in his view, the prosperity and the renown of his country. Far superior to the paltry objects of a grovelling ambition, and regardless alike of party and of personal considerations, lie constantly set before his wyes the highest duty of a public- jnan, to further the interests of his ig 1>ITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. species In pursuing his course toward that goal, he disregarded alike the frowns of power and the gales of popular applause ; exposed himself undaunted to the vengeance of the court, while he battled against its corruptions, and confronted, unabashed, the rudest shocks of public indignation, while he resisted the dictates of pernicious agitators ; and could conscientiously exclaim, with an illustrious statesman of antiquity, ' Ego hoc animo semper fui ut invidiam vir- tute partain, gloriam non iuvidium putarem.' " Nothing could be more entangled than tl:e foreign policy of this country at the time when he took the supreme direction of her affairs ; nothing could be more disastrous than the aspect of her for- tunes in every quarter of the globe. With a single ally in Europe, the King of Prussia, and him beset by a combination of all the con- tinental powers in unnatural union to effect his destruction ; with an army of insignificant amount, and commanded by men only desirous of grasping at the emoluments, without doing the duties or incurring the risks of their profession ; with a navy that could hardly keep the sea, and whose chiefs vied with their comrades on shore in earning the character given them by the new minister, of being utterly unfit to be trusted in any enterprise accompanied with ' the least appear ance of danger ; ' with a generally prevailing dislike of both services, which at once repressed all desire of joining either, and damped all public spirit in the country, by extinguishing all hope of success, and even all love of glory : it was hardly possible for a nation to be placed in circumstances more inauspicious to military exertions ; and yet war raged in every quarter of the world where our dominion ex- tended, while the territories of our only ally, as well as those of our own sovereign in Germany, were invaded by France, and her forces by sea and land menaced our shores. In the distant possessions of the crown the same want of enterprise and of spirit prevailed. Armies in the West were paralyzed by the inaction of a captain who would hardly take the pains to write a dispatch recording the non- entity of his operations ; and in the East, while frightful disasters were brought upon our settlements by barbarian powers, the only military capacity that appeared in their defence was the accidental display of genius and valor by a merchant's clerk, who thus raised himself to celebrity (Mr., afterward Lord, Clive). In this forlorn state of affairs, rendering it as impossible to think of peace as it seemed hopeless to continue the yet inevitable war, the base and sordid views of politicians kept pace with the mean spirit of the mil- itary caste ; and parties were split or united not upon any difference or agreement of public principle, but upon mere questions of patron- age and share in the public spoil, while all seemed alike actuated by one only passion, the thirst alternately of power and of gain. " As soon as Mr. Pitt took the helm, the steadiness of the hand that held it came to be felt in every motion of the vessel. There was no more of wavering councils, of torpid inaction, of listless expectancy, HTT,, EARL OF CHATHAM. 13 of abtect despondency. His firmness gave confidence, his spirit roused courage, his vigilance secured exertion, in every department under his sway. Each man, from the First Lord of the Admiralty down to the most humble clerk in the victualling office each soldier, from the commander-in-chief to the most obscure contractor or com- missarynow felt assured that he was acting or indolent under the eye of one who knew his duties and his means as well as his own, and who would very certainly make all defaulters, whether through misfeasance or through nonfeasance, accountable for whatever detri- ment the commonwealth might sustain at their hands. Over his immediate coadjutors his influence swiftly obtained an ascendent which it ever after retained uninterrupted. Upon his first proposition for changing the conduct of the war he stood single among his col- leagues, and tendered his resignation should they persist in their dis- gent ; they at once succumbed, and from that hour ceased to have an opinion of their own upon any branch of the public affairs. Nay, &o absolutely was he determined to have the control of those measures of which he knew the responsibility rested upon him alone, that be insisted upon the First Lord of the Admiralty not having the corre- spondence of his own department ; and no less eminent a naval char- acter than Lord Anson, with his junior lords, were obliged to sign the orders issued by Mr. Pitt while the writing was covered over from their eyes,. " The effects of this change in the whole management of the pub- lic business, and in all the plans of the government, as well as in their execution, were speedily made manifest to all the world. The German troops were sent home, and a well-regulated militia being established to defend the country, a large disposable force was dis- tributed over the various points whence the enemy might be an- noyed. France, attacked on some points and menaced on others, was compelled to retire from Germany, soon afterward suffered the most disastrous defeats, and, instead of threatening England and her allies with invasion, had to defend herself against attack, suffering severely in several of her most important naval stations. No less than sixteen islands, and settlements, and fortresses of importance, were taken from her in America, and Asia, and Africa, including all her West Indian colonies except St. Domingo, and all her settlements in the East. The whole important province of Canada was likewise conquered, and the Havana was taken from Spain. Besides this, the seas were swept clear of the fleets that had so lately been insulting all our colonies, and even all our coasts. Many general actions were fought and gained ; one among them the most^ decisive that had ever been fought by our navy. Thirty-six sail of the line were taken or destroyed, fifty frigates, forty-five sloops of war. So brilliant a course of uninterrupted success had never in modern times attended the arms of any nation carrying on war with other states equal to it in civilization, and nearly a match in power. But it is a more glori- 14 PITT, EABL OF CHATfiAM. ous feature in the unexampled administration which history has to record, when it adds that all public distress had disappeared ; all discontent in any quarter, both of the colonies and parent state, had ceased ; that no oppression was anywhere practised, no abuse suffered to prevail ; that no encroachments were made upon the rights of the subject, no malversations tolerated in the possessors of power ; and that England, for the first time and for the last time, presented the astonishing picture of a nation supporting without mur- mur a widely extended and costly war, and a people hitherto torn with conflicting parties so united in the service of the common- wealth, that the voice of faction had ceased in the land, and any dis- cordant whisper was heard no more. ' These, ' said the son of his first and most formidable adversary, Walpole, when informing his correspondent abroad that the session, as usual, had ended without any kind of opposition, or even of debate ' these are the doings of Mr. Pitt, and they are wondrous in our eyes. ' " To genius irregularity is incident, and the greatest genius is often marked by eccentricity, as if it disdained to move in the vulgar orbit. Hence he who is fitted by his nature, and trained by his habits, to be an accomplished 'pilot in extremity,' and whose inclinations carry him forth to seek the deep when the waves run high, may be found, if not ' to steer too near the shore,' yet to despise the sunken rocks which they that can only be trusted in calm weather would have more surely avoided. To this rule it cannot be said that Lord Chat- ham afforded any exception ; and, although a plot had certainly been formed to eject him from the ministry, leaving the chief control of affairs in the feeble hands of Lord Bute, whose only support was court favor, and whose only talent lay in an expertness at intrigue, yet there can be little doubt that Ihis scheme was only rendered prac- ticable by the hostility which the great minister's unbending habits, his contempt of ordinary men, and his neglect of every-day matters, had raised against him among all the creatures both of Downing Street and St. James's. In fact, his colleagues, who necessarily felt tumbled by his superiority, were needlessly mortified by the con- stant display of it ; and it would have betokened a still higher reach of understanding, as well as a purer fabric of patriotism, if he whose it capacity threw those subordinates into the shade, and before wlinM- vi-or in action they were sufficiently willing to yield, had (1 !i little suavity in his demeanor with his extraordinary powers, it always necessary for (hem to acknowledge as well as to Ineir inferiority. It is certain that the insulting arrangement of Admiralty to which reference has been already made, while it department in the public opinion, rendered all connect- h him his personal enemies ; and, indeed, though there have days been prime ministers whom he would never have suf- erad to sit even as puny lords at his boards, yet were one like him- to govern the country, the Admiralty chief, who might be PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. 15 far inferior to Lord Anson, would never submit to the humiliation inflicted upon that gallant and skilful captain. Mr. Pitt's policy seemed formed upon the assumption that either each public function- ary was equal to himself in boldness, activity, and resource, or that he was to preside over and animate each department in person ; and his confidence was such in his own powers that he reversed the max- im of governing, never to force your way where you can win it, and always disdained to insinuate where he could dash in, or to persuade where he could command. It thus happened that his colleagues were but nominally coadjutors, and though they durst not thwart him, yet rendered no heart-service to aid his^chemes. Indeed, it has clearly appeared since his time that they were chiefly induced to yield him implicit obedience, and leave the undivided direction of all operations in his hands, by the expectation that the failure of what they were wont to sneer at as ' Mr. Pitt's visions,' would turn the tide of public opinion against him, and prepare his downfall from a height of which they felt that there was no one but himself able to dispossess him." The same powerful writer, having thus sketched the character of the statesman, proceeds next to delineate that of the orator, as far as this can now be done from the extremely scanty and imperfect mate- rials which have been preserved. The fame of Lord Chatham's elo- quence is, in truth, almost wholly traditional. " There is, indeed, hardly any eloquence, of ancient or of modern times, of which so little that can be relied on as authentic has been preserved ; unless perhaps that of Pericles, Julius Caesar, and Lord Bolingbroke. Of the actions of the two first we have sufficient records, as we have of Lord Chatham's ; of their speeches we have little that can be regarded as genuine ; although, by unquestionable tradition, we know that each of them was second only to the great- est orator of their respective countries ; while of Bolingbroke we only know, from Dean Swift, that he was the most accomplished sneaker of his time ; and it is related of Mr. Pitt (the younger), that when the conversation rolled upon lost works, and some said they should prefer restoring the books of Livy, some of Tacitus, and some a Latin trag- edy, he at once decided for a speech of Bolingbroke. What we know of his own father's oratory is much more to be gleaned from contemporary panegyrics, and accounts of its effects, than from the scanty, and for the most part doubtful, remains which have reached us. "All accounts, however, concur in representing those effects to have been prodigious. The spirit and vehemence which animated its greater passages, their perfect application to the subject-matter of debate, the appositeness of his invective to the individual assailed, the boldness of the feats which he ventured upon, the grandeur of the ideas which he unfolded, the heart-stirring nature of his appeals, are all confessed by the united testimony of all his contemporaries ; and the fragments which remain bear out to a considerable extent 16 PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. such representations ; nor are we likely to be misled by those frag- ments, for the more striking portions were certainly the ones least likely to be either forgotten or fabricated. To these mighty attrac- tions was added the imposing, the animating, the commanding power of a countenance singularly expressive ; an eye so piercing that hardly any one could stand its glare ; and a manner altogether singularly striking, original, and characteristic, notwithstanding a peculiarly defective and even awkward action. Latterly, indeed, his infirmities precluded all action ; and he is described as standing in the House of Lords, leaning upon his crutch, and speaking for ten minutes together in an undertone of voice scarcely audible, but raising his notes to their full pitch when he broke out into one of his grand bursts of in- vective or exclamation. But in his earlier time, his whole manner is represented as having been beyond conception animated and impos- ing. Indeed, the things which he effected by it principally, or at least which nothing but a most striking and commanding tone could have made it possible to attempt, almost exceed belief. Some of these sallies are indeed examples of that approach made to the ludicrous by the sublime, which has been charged upon him as a prevailing fault, and represented under the name of charlatanei-ie a favorite phrase with his adversaries, as it in later times has been with the ignorant undervalues of Lord Erskine. It is related that once in the House of Commons he began a speech with the words, ' Sugar, Mr. Speaker ' and then, observing a smile to prevail in the audience, he paused, looking fiercely around, and with a loud voice, rising in its notes, and swelling into vehement anger, he is said to have pro- nounced again the word ' Sugar ! ' three times ; and having thus quelled the house, and extinguished every appearance of levity or laughter, turned round, and disdainfully asked, ' Who will laugh at sugar now ? ' We have this anecdote on good traditional authority ; .that it was believed by those who had the best means of knowing Lonk-('!i:tth!im is certain ; and this of itself shows their sense of the extraordinary powers of his manner, and the reach of his audacity in trusting to those powers. " There can be no doubt that of reasoning of sustained and close argument his speeches had but little. His statements were desul- tory though striking, perhaps not very distinct, certainly not all de- tailed, and as certainly every way inferior to those of his celebrated If he did not reason cogently, he assuredly did not compress his matter vigorously. He was anything rather than a concise or a short speaker ; not that his great passages were at all diffuse, or in leant degree loaded with superfluous words ; but he was prolix in e whole texture of his discourse, and he was certainly the first who ntroduml into our senate the practice, adopted in the American war i>v .Mr. Burke, and continued by others, of long speeches speeches t two and three hours, by which oratory has gained little and busi- mss less. Ilia discourse was, however, fully informed with matter PITT, EAEL OF CHATHAM. 17 his allusions to analogous subjects, and his reference to the history of past events, were frequent bis expression of his own opinions was copious and free, and stood very generally in the place of any elabo- rate reasoning in their support. A noble statement of enlarged views, a generous avowal of dignified sentiments, a manly and somewhat severe contempt for all petty or mean views, whether their baseness proceeded from narrow understanding or from corrupt bias, always pervaded his whole discourse ; and, more than any other orator since Demosthenes, he was distinguished by the nobleness of feeling witli which he regarded, and the amplitude of survey which he cast upon, the subject-matters of debate. His invective was unsparing and hard to be endured, although he was a less eminent master of sarcasm than his son, and rather overwhelmed his antagonist with the burst of words and vehement indignation, than wounded him by the edge of ridicule, or tortured him with the gall of bitter scorn, or fixed his arrow in the wound by the barb of epigram. These things seemed us it were to betoken too much labor an(f too much art ; more labor than was consistent with absolute scorn, more art than could stand with heartfelt rage, or entire contempt inspired by the occasion, at the moment and on the spot. But his great passages those by which he has come down to us, those which gave his eloquence its peculiar character, and to which its dazzling success was owing were as sudden and unexpected as they were natural. Every one was taken by surprise when they rolled forth ; every one felt them to be so natural that he could hardly understand why he had not thought of them himself, although into no one's imagination had they ever entered. If the quality of being natural without being ob- vious is a pretty correct description of felicitous expression, of what is called fine writing, it is a yet more accurate representation of fine. passages or felicitous hits in speaking. In these all popular assem- blies take boundless delight ; by these, above all others, are the mjnds of an audience at pleasure moved or controlled. They form the grand charm of Lord Chatham's oratory ; they were the dis- tinguishing excellence of his great predecessor, and gave him at will to wield the fierce democracy of Athens, and to fulmine over Greece. " Many years ago, a small volume was published by Lord Qrenville, containing letters written by the Earl of Chatham to his nephew Thomas Pitt, Lord Camelford. They are replete with excellent ad- vice, conveyed in an easy, affectionate, and not inelegant style, hav- ing all of them been penned evidently without effort, under the sim- ple impulse of the kindly feelings and anxious interest which they manifest throughout. At the same time, they might have been writ- ten by a person vastly inferior to Lord Chatham ; and indeed one can scarcely avoid surprise at the absence of every trace of that genius, power, and originality for which the writer was so greatly dis- tinguished. Alniou, the bookseller, has wiitten " Anecdotes of the Life of th 18 PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. Earl of Chatham," 3 vols. 8vo ; the Rev. Mr. Thackeray has illus- trated the subject more accurately, as well us fully, in his " History of the Earl of Chatham," 2 vols. 4to. None of his own writings have hern given to the world, except a small volume of letters to the Bon of his elder brother, afterward Lord Camelford, published some years ago by Lord Grenville ; and his " Correspondence," in 4 vols. 8vo, 1838-40. The "Correspondence" illustrates very fully his life and character, and furnishes valuable materials for the political his- tory of his time. His wife, who died in 1803, bore him three sons and two daughters. The second son, the subject of the next article, gained a political fame capable of rivalling that of his illustrious fatter. WILLIAM PITT. WILLIAM PITT, the second son of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, and of Lady Hester Grenville, daughter of Hester, Countess Temple, was born on the 28th of May, 1759. The child inherited a name which, at the time of his birth, was the most illustrious in the civil ized world, and was pronounced by every Englishman with pride, and by every enemy of England with mingled admiration and terror. During the first year of his life, every month had its illuminations and bonfires, and every wind brought some messenger charged with joyful tidings and hostile standards. In Westphalia the English in- fantry won a great battle which arrested the armies of Louis the Fif- teenth in the midst of a career of conquest : Boscawen defeated one French fleet on the coast of Portugal ; Hawke put to flight another in the Bay of Biscay ; Johnson took Niagara ; Amhcrst took Ticon- deroga ; Wolfe died by the most enviable of deaths under the walls of Quebec ; Clive destroyed a Dutch armament in the Hoogley, and established the English supremacy in Bengal ; Coote routed Lally at Wandewash, and established the English supremacy in the Carnatic. The nation, while loudly applauding the successful warriors, con- sidered them all on sea and on land, in Europe, in America, and in Asia, merely as instruments which received their direction from one superior mind. It was the great William Pitt, the great commoner, who had vanquished French marshals in Germany, and French ad- mirals on the Atlantic ; who had conquered for his country one great empire on the frozen shores of Ontario, and another under the tropi- cal sun near the mouths of the Ganges. It was not in the nature of things that popularity such as he at this time enjoyed should be per- manent. That popularity had lost its gloss before his children were old enough to understand that their father was a great man. He was at length placed in situations in which neither his talents for admin- istration nor his talents for debate appeared to the best advantage. The energy and decision which had eminently fitted him for the di- rection of war were not needed in time of peace. The lofty and spirit-stirring eloquence, which had made him supreme in the House of Commons, often fell dead on the House of Lords. A cruel malady racked his joints, and left his joints only to fall on his nerves and OA 20 WILLIAM PITT. his brain. During the closing years of his life, he .was odious to the court, and yet was not on cordial terms with the great body of the opposition. Chatham was only the ruin of Pitt, but au awful and majestic ruin, not to be contemplated by any man of sense and feel- ing without emotions resembling those which are excited by the re- mains of the Parthenon and of the Coliseum. In one respect the old statesman was eminently happy. Whatever might be the vicissitudes of his public life, he never failed to find peace and love by his own hearth, lie loved all his children, and was loved by them ; and, of all his children, the one of whom he was fondest and proudest was his second son. The child's genius and ambition displayed themselves with a rare and almost unnatural precocity. At seven, the interest which he took in grave subjects, the ardor with which he pursued his studies, and the sense and vivacity of his remarks on books and on events, amazed his parents and instructors. One of his sayings of this date was reported to his mother by his tutor. In August, 1776, when the world was agitated by the news that Mr. Pitt had become Earl of Chatham, little William exclaimed, " 1 am glad that I am not the eldest son. I want to speak in the House of Commons like papa." A letter is extant in which Lady Chatham, a woman of considerable abilities, remarked to her lord that their younger son at twelve had left far behind him his elder brother, who was fifteen. " The fine- ness,'' she wrote, " of William's mind makes him enjoy with the greatest pleasure what would be above the reach of any other creat- ure of his small age." At fourteen the lad was in intellect a man. Hayley, who met him at Lyme in the summer of 1773, was aston- ished, delighted, and somewhat overawed, by hearing wit and wis- dom from so young a mouth. The poet, indeed, was afterward :>orrv that his shyness had prevented him from submitting the plan of an extensive literary work, which he was then meditating, to the Judgment of this extraordinary boy. The boy, indeed, had already written a tragedy, bad of course, but not worse than the tragedies of his friend. This piece is still preserved at Chevening, and is in some respects highly curious. There is no love. The whole plot is political ; and it is remarkable that the interest, such as it is, turna on a contest about a regency. On one side is a faithful servant of the rrmvn, on the other an ambitious and unprincipled conspirator. At length the king, who had been missing, reappears, resumes his power, and rewards the faithful defender of his rights. A reader who should judge only by internal evidence would have no Iresitation in pronouncing that the play was written by some Pittite poetaster at the time of the rejoicings for the recovery of George the Third in The pleasure with which William's parents observed the rapid de- velopment of his intellectual powers was alloyed by apprehensions about his health. He shot up alarmingly fast ; he was often ill, and WILLIAM PITT. 21 always weak ; and it was feared that it would be in possible to rear a stripling so tall, so slender, and so feeble. Port-wine was pre- scribed by his medical advisers ; and it is said that he was, at four, teen, accustomed to take this agreeable physic in quantities which would, in our abstemious age, be thought much more than sufficient for any full-grown man. This regimen, though it would probably have killed ninety-nine boys out of a hundred, seems to have been well suited to the peculiarities of William's constitution ; for at fif. teen he ceased to be molested by disease, and, though never a strong man, continued, during many years of labor and anxiety, of nights passed in debate, and of summers passed in Lon- don, to be a tolerably healthy one. It was probably on account of the delicacy of his frame that he was not educated like other boys of the same rank. Almost all the eminent English states- men and orators to whom he was afterward opposed or allied, North, Fox, Shelburne, Wiudham, Grey, Wellesley, Grenville, Sher- idan, Canning, went through the training of great public schools. Lord Chatham had himself been a distinguished Etonian ; and it is seldom that a distinguished Etonian forgets his obligations to Eton. But William's infirmities required a vigilance and tenderness such as could be found only at home. He was therefore bred under the pa- ternal roof. His studies were superintended by a clergyman named Wilson ; and those studies, though often interrupted by illness, were prosecuted with extraordinary success. Before the lad had completed his fifteenth year, his knowledge both of the ancient languages and of mathematics was such as very few men of eighteen then carried up to college. He was therefore sent, toward the close of the year 1773, to Pembroke Hall, in the University of Cambridge. So young a student required much more than the ordinary care which a college tutor bestows on undergraduates. The governor, to whom the direction of William's academical life was confided, was a bachelor of arts named Pretyman, who had been senior wrangler in the preceding year, and who, though not a mm of prepossessing appearance or brilliant parts, was eminently acute and laborious, a sound scholar, and an excellent geometrician. At Cambridge, Pretyman was, dur- ing more than two years, the inseparable companion, and indeed almost the only companion, of his pupil. A close and lasting friend- ship sprtuig up between the pair. The disciple was able, before he completed his twenty-eighth year, to make his preceptor Bishop of Lincoln and Dean of St. Paul's ; and the preceptor showed his grat- itude by writing a Life of the disciple, which enjoys the distinction of being the worst biographical work of its size in the world. Pitt, till he graduated, had scarcely one acquaintance, attended chapel regularly morning and evening, dined every day in hall, and never went to a single evening party. At seventeen, he was admit- ted, after the bad fashion of those times, by right of birth, without any examination, to the degree of Master of Arts. But he continued 22 WILLIAM PITT. during some years to reside at college, and to apply himself vigor, ously, under Pretyman's direction, to the studies of the place, while mixing freely in the best academic society. The stock of learning which Pitt laid in during this part of his life was certainly very extraordinary. In fact, it was all that he ever possessed ; for he very early became too busy to have any spare time for books. The work in which he took the greatest delight was Newton's Principia. His liking for mathematics, indeed, amounted to a passion, which, in the opinion of his instructors, themselves dis- tinguished mathematicians, required to be checked rather than en- couraged. Tho acuteness and readiness with which he solved prob- lems was pronounced by one of the ablest of the moderators, who in those days presided over the disputations in the schools and con- ducted the examinations of the Senate House, to be unrivalled in the university. Nor was the youth's proficiency in classical learning less remarkable. In one respect, indeed, he appeared to disadvantage when compared with even second-rate and third-rate men from pub- lic schools. He had never, while under Wilson's care, been iu the habit of composing in the ancient languages ; and he therefore never acquired that knack of versification which is sometimes possessed by clever boys whose knowledge of the language and literature of Greece and Rome is very superficial. It would have been utterly out of hia power to produce such charming elegiac lines as those in which Wellesley bade farewell to Eton, or such Virgilian hexameters as those in which Canning described the pilgrimage to Mecca. But it may be doubted whether any scholar has ever, at twenty, had a more solid and profound knowledge of the two great tongues of the old civilized world. The facility with which he penetrated the meaning of the most intricate sentences in the Attic writers astonished veteran cjitics. lie hud set his heart on being intimately acquainted with all the ex- tant poetry of Greece, and was not satisfied till he had mastered Lycophron's Cassandra, the most obscure work in the whole range of ancient literature. This strange rhapsody, the difficulties of which have perplexed and repelled many excellent scholars, "he read," says his preceptor, " with an ease at first which, if I had not wit- nessed it, I should have thought beyond the compass of human intel- lect." To modern literature Pitt paid comparatively little attention. He knew no living language except French ; and French he knew very imperfectly. With a few of the best English writers he was inti- mate, particularly with Shakespeare and Milton. The debate in Pandemonium was, as it well deserved to be, one of his favorite pas- sages ; and his early friends used to talk, long after his death, of the rust emphasis and the melodious cadence with which they had heard him recite the incomparable speech of Belial. He had indeed been carefully trained from infancy in the art of managing his voice, a voice naturally clear and deep-toned. Hi? father, wjjose oratory owed WILLIAM PITT. 23 no small part of its effect to that art, had been a most skilful and judicious instructor. At a later period, the wits of Brookes's, irri- tated by observing, night after night, how powerfully Pitt's sonorous elocution fascinated the rows of country gentlemen, reproached him with having been " taught by his dad on a stool." His education, indeed, was well adapted to form a great parliament, ary speaker. One argument often urged against those classical studies which occupy so large a part of the early life of every gentle- man bred in the south of our island is, that they prevent him from acquiring a command of his mother tongue, and that it is not unusual to meet with a youth of excellent parts, who writes Ciceronian Latin prose and Horatian Latin Alcaics, but who would find it impossible to express his thoughts in pure, perspicuous, and forcible English. There may perhaps be some truth in this observation. But the classi- cal studies ot' Pitt were carried on in a peculiar manner, and had the effect of enriching his English vocabulary, and of making him won- derfully expert in the art of constructing correct English sentences. His practice was to look over a page or two of a Greek or Latin author, to make himself master of the meaning, and then to read the passage straight forward into his own language. This practice, be- gun under his first teacher Wilson, was continued under Pretyman. It is not strange that a young man of great abilities, who had been exercised daily in this way during ten years, should have acquired an almost unrivalled power of putting his thoughts, without premedita- tion, into words well selected and well arranged. Of all the remains of antiquity, the orations were those on which he bestowed the most minute examination. His favorite employ- ment was to compare harangues on opposite sides of the same ques- tion, to analyze them, and to observe which of the arguments of the first speaker were refuted by the second, which were evaded, and which were left untouched. Nor was it only in books that he at this time studied the act of parliamentary fencing. When he was at home, he had frequent opportunities of hearing important debates at Westminster ; and he heard them, not only with interest and enjoy- ment, but with a close scientific attention, resembling that with which a diligent pupil at Guy's Hospital wajches every turn of the hand of a great surgeon through a difficult operation. On one of these occasions, Pitt, a youth whose abilities were as yet known only to his own family and to a small knot of college friends, was intro- duced on the steps of the throne in the House of Lords to Fox, who was his senior by eleven years, and who was already the greatest de- bater and one of the greatest orators that had appeared in England. Fox used afterward to relate that, as the discussion proceeded, Pitt repeatedly turned to him, and said, " But surely, Mr. Fox, that might be met thus ;" or, " Yes ; but he lays himself open to this re- tort." What the particular criticisms WCFC, Fox had forgotten ; but he said that he was much struck at the time by the precocity of n i;4 WILLIAM PITT. lad who, through the whole sitting, seemed to be thinking only Low all the speeches on both sides could be answered. One of the young man's visits to the House of Lords WPS a Mid and memorable era in his life. He had not quite completed his nine- teenth year, when, on the 7Ui of April, 1778, he attended his father to Westminster. A great debate was expected. It was known that France had recognized the independence of the United States. The Duke of Richmond was about to declare his opinion that all thought of subjugating those states ought to be relinquished. Chatham had always maintained that the resistance of the colonies to the mother country was justifiable. But he conceived, very erroneously, that on the day on which their independence should be acknowledged the greatness of England would be at an end. Though sinking under the weight of years and infirmities, he determined, in spite of the entreaties of his" family, to he in his place. His son supported him to a seat. The excitement and exertion were too much for the old man. In the very act of addressing the peers, he fell back in convul- sions. A few weeks later his corpse was borne, with gloomy pomp, from the Painted Chamber to the Abbey. The favorite child and namesake of the deceased statesman followed the coffin as chief mourner, and saw it deposited in the transept where his own was des- tined to lie. His elder brother, now Earl of Chatham, had means sufficient, and oarely sufficient, to support the dignity of the peerage. The other members of the family were poorly provided for. William had little more than three hundred a year. It was necessary for him to fol- low a profession. He had already begun to eat his terms. In the spring of 1780 he came of age. He then quitted Cambridge, was called to the bar, took chambers in Lincoln's Inn, and joined the western circuit. In the autumn of that year a general election took place ; and he offered himself as a candidate for the university ; but he was at the bottom of the poll. It is said that the grave doctors who then sat, robed in scarlet, on the benches of Golgotha, thought it great presumption in so young a man to solicit so high a distinction. He was, however, at the request of a hereditary friend, the Duke of Rutland, brought into Parliament by Sir James Lowther for the borough of Appleby. The dangers of the country wer at that time such as might well have disturbed even a constant mind. Army after army had been sent in vain against the rebellious colonists of North America. On pitched fields of battle the advantage had been with the disciplined troops of the mother country. But it was not on pitched fields of battle that the event of such a contest could be decided. An armed nation, with hunger and the Atlantic for auxiliaries, was not to be subjugated. Meanwhile, the House of Bourbon, humbled to the dust a few years before by the genius and vigor of Chatham, had seized the opportunity of revenge. France and Spain were united WILLIAM PITT. 25 against us, and had recently been joined by Ilollaad. The command of the Mediterranean had been for a time lost. The British flag had been scarcely able to maintain itself in the British Channel. The northern powers professed neutrality ; but their neutrality had a menacing aspect. In the East, Hyder had descended on the Carnatic, had destroyed the little army of Baillie, and had spread terror even to the ramparts of Fort St. George. The discontents of Ireland threatened nothing less than civil war. In England the authority o the government had sunk to the lowest point. The king and th House of Commons were alike unpopular. The cry for parliamentary reform was scarcely less loud and vehement than in the autumn of 1830. Formidable associations, headed, not by ordinary demagogues, but by men of high rank, stainless character, and distinguished ability, demanded a revision of the representative system. The pop- ulace, emboldened by the impotence and irresolution of the govern- ment, had recently broken loose from all restraint, besieged the chambers of the legislature, hustled peers, hunted bishops, attacked the residences of ambassadors, opened prisons, burned and pulled down houses. London had presented during some days the aspect of a city taken by storm ; and it 'had been necessary to form a camp among the trees of St. James's Park. In spite of dangers 'and difficulties, abroad and at home, George the Third, with a firmness which had little affinity with virtue or with wisdom, persisted in his determination to put down the Ameri- can rebels by force of arms ; and his ministers submitted their judg- ment to his. Some of them were probably actuated merely by selfish cupidity, but their chief, Lord North, a man of high honor, amiable temper, winning manners, lively wit, and excellent talents both for business and for debate, must be acquitted of all sordid motives. He remained at a post from which he had long wished and had repeatedly tried to escape, only because he had not sufficient fortitude to resist the entreaties and reproaches of the king, who silenced all arguments by passionately asking whether any gentleman, any man of spirit, could have the heart to desert a kind master in the hour of ex- tremity. The opposition consisted of two parties which had once been hostile to each other, and which had been very slowly, and, as it soon ap- peared, very imperfectly reconciled, but which at this conjuncture seemed to act together with cordiality. The larger of these parties consisted of the great body of the Whig aristocracy. Its head war Charles, Marquis of Rockingham, a man of sense and virtue, and in wealth and parliamentary interest equalled by very few of the Eng ]ish nobles, but afflicted with a nervous timidity which prevented him from taking a prominent part in debate. In the House of Com- mons the adherents of Rockingham were led by Fox, whose dissi- pated habits and ruined fortunes were the talk of the whole town, kut whose commanding genius, and whose sweet, generous, an recall them. They, however, did him no harm with the public. The second William Pitt, it was said, had shown thfto he had inherited the spirit as well as the genius of the first. In the sou, as in the father, there might perhaps he too much pride ; but there was nothing low or sordid. It might be called ar rogance in a young barrister, living in chambers on three hundred a year, to refuse a salary of five thousand a year, merely because he {lid not choose to bind himself to speak or vote for plans which h 28 WILLIAM PITT. had no share in framing ; but surely such arrogance was not very far removed from virtue. Pitt gave a general support to the administration of Rockingham, but omitted, in the mean time, no opportunity of courting that ultra- whig party which the persecution of Wilkes and the Middlesex elec- tion had called into existence, and which the disastrous events of war, and the triumph of republican principles in America, had made formidable both in numbers and in temper. He supported a motion for shortening the duration of parliaments. He made a motion for a committee to examine into the state of the representation, and, in the speech by which that motion was introduced, avowed himself the enemy of the close boroughs, the strongholds of that corruption to which he attributed all the calamities of the nation, and which, as he phrased it in one of those exact and sonorous sentences of which he had a boundless command, had grown with the growth of England and strengthened witli her strength, but had not diminished with her diminution, or decayed with her decay. On this occasion he was supported by Fox. The motion was lost by only twenty votes in a house of more than three hundred members. The reformers never again had so good a division till the year 1881. The new administration was strong in abilities, and was more pop- ular than any administration which had held office since the first year of George the Third, but was hated by the king, hesitatingly .sup- ported by the Parliament, and torn by internal dissensions. The chancellor was disliked and distrusted by almost all his colleagues. The two secretaries of state regarded each other with no friendly feel- ing. The line between their departments had not been traced with precision ; and there were consequently jealousies, encroachments, and complaints. It was all that Rockingham could do to keep the peace in his cabinet ; and before the cabinet had existed three months, Rockingham died. In an instant all was confusion. The adherents of the deceased statesman looked on the Duke of Portland as their chief. Tin: king placed Shelburne at the head of the treasury. Fox, Lord John Cav- endish, and Burke, immediately resigned their offices ; and the new prime minister was left to constitute a government out of very de- fective materials. His own parliamentary talents were great ; but he could not be in the place where parliamentary talents were most needed. It was necessary to rind some member of the House of Com- mons who could confront the great orators of the opposition ; and Pitt aVone had the eloquence and the courage which were required. Hi' was offered the great place of chancellor of the exchequer, and he accepted it. He had scarcely completed his twenty-third year. The Parliament was speedily prorogued. During the recess, a ne- gotiation for peace which had been commenced under Rockingham was brought to a successful termination. England acknowledged the independence of her revolted colonies ; and she ceded to her WILLIAM PITT. 29 European enemies some places in the Mediterranean and in the Gulf of Mexico. But the terms which she obtained were quite as advan- tageous and honorable as the events of the war entitled her to expect, or as she was likely to obtain by persevering in a contest against im- mense odds. All her vital parts, all the real sources of her power re- mained uninjured. She preserved even her dignity ; for she ceded to the House of Bourbon only part of what she had won from that house in previous wars. She retained her Indian empire undimiuish- ed ; and, in spite of the mightiest efforts of two great monarchies, her flag still waved on the rock of Gibraltar. There is not the slight- est reason to believe that Fox, if he had remained in office, would have hesitated one moment about concluding a treaty on such con- ditions. Unhappily that great and most amiable man was, at this crisis, hurried by his passions into an error which made his genius and his virtues, during a long course of years, almost useless to his country. He saw that the great body of the House of Commons was divided into three parties, his own, that of North, and that of Shelburne ; that none of those three parties was large enough to stand alone ; that, therefore, unless two of them united, there must be a miserabby feeble administration, or, more probably, a rapid succession of miserably feeble administrations, and this at a time when a strong government was essential to the prosperity and respectability of the nation. It was then necessary and right that there should be a coa- lition. To every possible coalition there were objections. But, of all possible coalitions, that to which there were the fewest objections was undoubtedly a coalition between Shelburue and Fox. It would have been generally applauded by the followers of both. It might have been made without any sacrifice of public principle on the part of either. Unhappily, recent bickerings had left in the mind of Fox a profound dislike and distrust of bhelburne. Pitt attempted to mediate, and was authorized to invite Fox to return to the service of the crown. " Is Lord Shelburue," said Fox, " to remain prime min- ister?" Pitt answered in the aflirmative. " It is impossible that I can act under him, " said Fox. "Then negotiation is at an end," said Pitt; "for I cannot betray him." Thus the two statesmen parted. They were never again in a private room together. As Fox and his friends would not treat with Shelburne, nothing remained to them but to treat with North. That fatal coalition, which is emphatically called " The Coalition," was formed. Not three quarter* of a year had elapsed since Fox and Burke had threat- ened North with impeachment, and had described him, night aftei; sight, as the mos-t arbitrary, the most corrupt, the most incapable of ministers. They now allied themselves with him for the purpose of driving from office a statesman with whom they cannot be said to have differed as to any important question. Nor had they even the prudence and the patience to wait for some occasion on which they 30 WILLIAM PITT. might, without inconsistency, have combined with their old enemies in opposition to the government. That nothing might be wanting to the scandal, the great orators who had, during seven years, thundered against the war, determined to join with the authors of that war in passing a vote of censure on the peace. The Parliament met before Christmas, 1782. But it was not till January, 1783, that the preliminary treaties were signed. On the 17th of February they were taken into consideration by the House of Commons. There had been, during some days, floating rumors that Fox and North had coalesced ; and the debate indicated but too clearly that those rumors were not unfounded. Pitt was suffering from indisposition : he did not rise till his own strength and that of his hearers were exhausted ; and he was consequently less successful than on any former occasion. His admirers owned that his speech was feeble and petulant. He so far forgot himself as to advise Sher- idan to confine himself to amusing theatrical audiences. This igno- ble sarcasm gave Sheridan an opportunity of retorting with great felicity. " After what 1 have seen and heard to-night," he said, " I really feel strongly tempted to venture on a competition with so great an artist as Ben Jonson, and to bring on the stage a second Angry Boy." On a division, the address prdposed by the supporters of the government was rejected by a majority of sixteen. But Pitt was not a man to be disheartened by a single failure, or to be put down by the most lively repartee. When, a few days later, the opposition proposed a resolution directly censuring the treaties, he spoke with an eloquence, energy, and dignity, which raised his fame and popularity higher than ever. To the coalition of Fox and North he alluded in language which drew forth tumultuous ap- plause from his followers. " If," he said, " this ill omened and un- natural marriage be not yet consummated, I know of a just and law- ful impedient ; and, in the name of the public weal, I forbid the banns." The ministers were again left in a minority, and Shelburne con- sequently tendered his resignation. It was accepted ; but the king struggled long and hard before he submitted to the terms dictated by Fox, whose faults he detested, and whose high spirit and power- ful intellect he detested still more. The first place at the board of treasury was repeatedly offered to Pitt ; but the offer, though tempt- ing, was steadfastly declined. The young man, whose judgment was as precocious as his eloquence, saw that his time was coming, but was not come, and was deaf to royal importunities and re- preaches. His Majesty, bitterly complaining of Pitt's faint-hearted- ness, tried^ to break the coalition. Every art of seduction was prac- tised on North, but in vain. During several weeks the country re- mained without a government. It was not till all devices had failed, the aspect of the House of Commons became threatening, that the king gave way. The Duke of Portland was declared first WILLIAM PITT. 31 lord of the treasury. Tlmrlow was dismissed. Fox and North be- came secretaries of state, with power ostensibly equal. But Fox was the real prime minister. The year was far advanced before the new arrangements were completed ; and nothing very important was done during the remain- der of the session. Pitt, now seated on the opposition bench, brought the question of parliamentary reform a second time under the consideration of the Commons. He proposed to add to the house at once a hundred county members and several members for metro- politan districts, and to enact that every borough of which an election, committee should report that the majority of voters appeared to be corrupt, should lose the franchise. The motion was rejected by 293 votes to 149. After the prorogation, Pitt visited the continent for the first and last time. His travelling companion was one of his most intimate friends, a young man of hi^own age, who had already distinguished himself in Parliament by an engaging natural eloquence, set off by the sweetest and most exquisitely modulated of human voices, and whose affectionate heart, caressing manners, and brilliant wit, made him the most delightful of companions, William Wilberforce. That was the time of Anglomania in France ; and at Paris the son of the great Chatham was absolutely hunted by men of letters and women of fashion, and forced, much against his will, into political disputa- tion. One remarkable saying which dropped from him during this tour has been preserved. A French gentleman expressed some sur- prise at the immense influence which Fox, a man of pleasure, ruined by the dice-box and the turf, exercised over the English nation. "You have not," said Pitt, "been under the wand of the magi cian." In November, 1783, the Parliament met again. The government had irresistible strength in the House of Commons, and seemed to be scarcely less strong iu the House of Lords, but was, in truth, sur- rounded on every side by dangers. The king was impatiently wait- ing for the moment at which he could emancipate himself from t yoke which galled him so severely that he liad^mose than oncff seriously thought of retiring to Hanover ; and the king was scarcely more eager for a change than the nation. Fox and North had com- mitted a fatal error. They ought to have known that coalitions be- tween parties which have long been hostile, can succeed only when the wish for coalition pervades the lower ranks of both. If the lead- ers unite before there is any disposition to union among the fol- lowers, the probability is that there will be a mutiny in both camps, and that the two revolted armies will make a truce with each other, in order to be revenged on those by whom they think that they have been betrayed. Thus it was in 178.3. At the beginning of that eventful year, North had been the recognized head of the old Tory party, which, though for a moment prostrated by the disastrous issue 32 WILLIAM PITT. of the American war, was still a great power in the state. To him the clergy, the universities, and that large body of country gentlemen whose rallying cry was " Church and king, had long looked up with respect and confidence. Fox had, on the other hand, been the idol of the Whigs, and of the whole body of Protestant dissenters. The coalition at once alienated the most zealous Tories from North, and the most zealous Whigs from Fox. The University of Oxford, which had marked its approbation of North's orthodoxy by electing him chancellor, the city of London, which had been, during two- and-twenty years, at war witli the court, were equally disgusted. Squires and rectors, who had inherited the principles of the cavaliers of the preceding century, could not forgive their old leader for com- bining with disloyal subjects in order to put a force on the sovereign. The members of the Bill of Itights Society and of the Reform Asso- ciations were enraged by learning that their favorite orator now called the great champion of tyranny and corruption his noble friend. Two great multitudes were at once left without any head, and both at once turned their eyes on Pitt. One party saw in him the only man who could rescue the king ; the other saw in him the only man who could purify the Parliament. He was supported on one side by Archbishop Markham, the preacher of divine right, and by Jenkin- son, the captain of the praetorian band of the king's friends ; on the other side by Jebb and Priestley, Sawbridge and Cartwright, Jack Wilkcs and Home Tooke. On the benches of the House of Com- mons, however, the ranks of the ministerial majority were unbroken ; and that any statesman would venture to brave such a majority was thought impossible. No prince of the Hanoverian line had ever, under any provocation, ventured to appeal from the representative body to the constituent bod}'. The ministers, therefore, notwith- standing the sullen looks and muttered words of displeasure with which their suggestions were received in the closet, notwithstanding the roar of obloquy which was rising louder and louder every day from every corner of the island, thought themselves secure. Such was their confidence in their strength that, as soon as the Parliament had met, they brought forward a singularly bold and original plan for the government of the British territories in India. What was proposed was that the whole authority, which till that time had been exercised over those territories by the East India Com- pany, should be transferred to seven commissioners, who were to be named by Parliament, and were not to be removable at the pleasure of the crown. Earl Fitzwilliam, the most intimate personal friend of b ox, was to be chairman of this board, and the eldest son of North was to be one of the members. As soon as the outlines of the scheme were known, all the hatred which the coalition had excited burst forth with an astounding ex- The question which ought undoubtedly to have been con- sidered as paramount to every other was, whether the proposed WILLIAM PITT. 33 change was likely to be beneficial or injurious to the thirty millions of people who were subject to the company. But that question can- not be said to have been even seriously discussed. Burke, who, whether right or wrong in the conclusions to which he came, had at least the merit of looking at the subject in the right point of view, vainly reminded his hearers of that mighty population whose daily rice might depend on a vote of the British Parliament. He spoke, with even more than his wonted power of thought and language, about the desolation of Rohilcund, about the spoliation of Benares, about the evil policy which had suffered the tanks of the Carnatic to go to ruin ; but he could scarcely obtain a hearing. The contending parties, to their shame it must be said, would listen to none but Eng- lish topics. Out of doors the cry against the ministry was almost universal. Town and country were united. Corporations exclaimed against the violation of the charter of the greatest corporation in the. realm. Tories and democrats joined in pronouncing the proposed board an unconstitutional btody. It was to consist of Fox'e nomi- nees. The effect of his bill ftas to give, not to the crown, but to him personally, whether in office or in opposition, an enormous power, a patronage sufficient to counterbalance the patronage of the Treasury and of the Admiralty, and to decide the elections for fifty boroughs. He knew, it was said, that he was hateful alike to king and people ; and he had devised a plan which would make him independent of both. Some nicknamed him Cromwell, and some Carlo Khan. Wilber force with his usual felicity of expression, and with very un- usual bitterness of feeling, described the scheme as the genuine off- spring of the coalition, as marked with the features of both its par- ents, the corruption of one and the violence of the other. In spite of all opposition, however, the bill was supported in every stage by great majorities, was rapidly passed, and was sent up to the Lords. To the general astonishment, when the second reading was moved in the upper house, the opposition proposed an adjournment, and car- ried it by eighty-seven votes to seventy-nine. The cause of this strange turn of fortune was soon known. Pitt's cousin, Earl Tem- ple, had been in the royal closet, and had there been authori/cd to let it be known that his Majesty would consider all who voted for the bill as his enemies. The ignominious commission was performed, and instantly a troop of lords of the bedchamber, of bishops who wished to be translated, and of Scotch peers who wished to be re- elected, made haste to change sides. On a later day, the Lords re- jected the bill. Fox and North were immediately directed to send their seals to tl\e palace by their uuder-secretaries ; and Pitt was ap- pointed first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer. The general opinion was, that there would be an immediate disso- lution. But Pitt wisely determined to give the public feeling tims to gather strength. On this point he differed from his kinsman Tem- ple. The consequence was, that Temple, who had been appointed 34 WILLIAM PITT. one of the secretaries of state, resigned his office forty-eight hours after he had accepted it, ami thus relieved the new government from a great load of unpopularity ; for all men of sense and honor, how- ever strong might be their dislike of the India bill, disapproved of the manner in which that bill had been thrown out. Temple carried away with him the scandal which the best friends of the new govern- ment could not but lament. The fame of the young prime minister preserved its whiteness. He could declare with perfect truth, that if unconstitutional machinations had been' employed, he had been no party to them. He was, however, surrounded by difficulties and dangers. In the House of Lords, indeed, he had a majority ; nor could any orator of the opposition in that assembly be considered as a match for Thur- low, who was now again chancellor, or for Camden, who cordially supported the son of his old friend Chatham. But in the other house there was not a single eminent speaker among the official men who sat round Pitt. His most useful assistant was Dundas, who, though he had not eloquence, had sense, knowledge, readiness, and boldness. On the opposite benches was a powerful majority, led by Fox, who was supported by Burke, North, and Sheridan. The heart of the young minister, stout as it was, almost died within him. He could not once close his eyes on the night which followed Temple's resignation. But, whatever his internal emotions might be, his lan- guage and deportment indicated nothing but unconquerable firmness and haughty confidence in his own powers. His contest against the House of Commons lasted from the 17th of December, 1783, to the 8th of March, 1784. In sixteen divisions the opposition triumphed. Again and again the king was requested to dismiss his ministers. But he was determined to go to Germany rather than yield. Pitt's re-solution never wavered. The cry of the nation in his favor became vehement and almost furious. Addresses assuring him of public support came up daily from every part of the kingdom. The free- dom of the city of London was presented to him in a gold box. lie went in state to receive this mark of distinction. He was sumptu- ously feasted in Grocers' Hall ; and the shopkeepers of the Strand and Fleet Street illuminated their houses in his honor. These things could not but produce an effect within the walls of Parliament. The ranks of the majority began to waver ; a few passed over to the en- emy ; some skulked away ; many were for capitulating while it waa Ktill possible to capitulate with the honors of war. Negotiations were opened with the view of forming an administration on a wide la-is, but they had scarcely been opened when they were closed. The opposition demanded, as a preliminary article of the treaty, that Pitt should resign the treasury ; and with this demand Pitt stead- fastly refused to comply. While the contest was raging, the clerk- ship of the Pells, a sinecure plac for life, worth three thousand a year, and tenable with a seat in the House of Commons, became WILLIAM PITT. 35 Tacant. The appointment was with the chancellor of the exche- quer ; nobody doubted that he would appoint himself ; and nobody could have blamed him if he had done so ; for such sinecure offices had always been defended on the ground that they enabled a few men of eminent abilities and small incomes to live without any pro- fession, and to devote themselves to the service of the state. Pitt, in spite of the remonstrances of his friends, gave the Pells to his father's old adherent, Colonel Barre, a man distinguished by talent and elo- quence, but poor and afflicted with blindness. By this arrangement a pension which the Rockingham administration had granted to Barre was saved to the public^ Never was there a happier stroke of policy. About treaties, wars, expeditions, tariffs, budgets, there will always be room for dispute. The policy which is applauded by half the nation may be condemned by the other half. But pecuniary dis- interestedness everybody comprehends. It is a great thing for a man who has only three hundred* a year to be able to show that he con- siders three thousand a yeaH\as mere dirt beneath his feet, when com- pared with the public interest and the public esteem. Pitt had his reward. No minister was ever more rancorously libelled ; but even when he was known to be overwhelmed with debt, when millions were passing through his hands, when the wealthiest magnates of the realm were soliciting him for marquisates and garters, his bitterest enemies did not dare to accuse him of touching unlawful gain. At length the hard-fought fight ended. A final remonstrance, drawn up by Burke with admirable skill, was carried on the 8th of March by a single vote in a full house. Had the experiment been re- peated, the supporters of the coalition would probably have been in a minority. But the supplies had been voted ; the mutiny bill had been passed ; and the Parliament was dissolved. The popular constituent bodies all over the country were in gen- eral enthusiastic on the side of the new government. A hundred and sixty of the supporters of the coalition lost their seats. The first lord of the treasury himself came in at the head of the poll for the University of Cambridge. His young friend, Wilberforce, was elected knight of the great shire of York, in opposition to the whole influence of the Fitzwilliams, Cavendishes, Dundases, and Saviles. In the midst of such triumphs Pitt completed his twenty-fifth year. He was now the greatest subject that England had seen during many generations. He domineered absolutely over the cabinet, and was the favorite at once of the sovereign, of the Parliament, and of the nation. His father had never been so powerful, nor Walpole, nor Marl borough. This narrative has now reached a point beyond which a full his- tory of the life of Pitt would be a history of England, or rather of the whole civilized world ; and for such a history this is not the proper place. Here a very slight sketch must suffice ; and in that sketch prominence will be given to such points as may enable a reader who 36 WILLIAM PlTf. is already acquainted with the general course of events to form ti just notion of the character of the man on whom so much depended. If we wish to arrive at a correct judgment of Pitt's merits and de- fects, we must never forget that he belonged to a peculiar class of stuu-smen, and that he must be tried by a peculiar standard. It is not easy to compare him fairly witli such men as Ximenes and Sully, Kichelieu and Oxenstiern, John Do Wilt and Warren Hastings. The means by which those politicians governed great communities were of quite a different kind from those which Pitt was under the necessity of employing. Some talents, which they never had any op- portunity of showing that they possessed, were developed in him to an extraordinary degree. In some qualities, on the other hand, to which they owe a large part of their fame, he was decidedly their inferior. They transacted business in their closets, or at boards where a few confidential councillors sat. It was his lot to be born in an age and in a country in which parliamentary government was completely established ; his whole training from infancy was such as fitted him to bear a part in parliamentary government ; and from the prime of his manhood to his death, all the powers of his vigorous mind were almost constantly exerted in the work of parliamentary government. He accordingly became the greatest master of the whole art of parliamentary government that has ever existed, a greater than Montague or Walpole, a greater than his father Chatham or his rival Fox, a greater than either of his illustrious successors Canning and Peel. Parliamentary government, like every other contrivance of man, has its advantages and its disadvantages. On the advantages there is no need to dilate. The history of England during the 'hundred and seventy years which have elapsed since the House of Commons licrume the most powerful body in the state, her immense and still growing prosperity, her freedom, her tranquillity, her greatness in arts, in sciences, and in arms, her maritime ascendency, the marvels of her public credit, her American, her African, her Australian, her Asiatic empires, sufficiently prove the excellence of her institutions. But those institutions, though excellent, are assuredly not perfect. Parliamentary government is government by speaking. In such a government, the power of speaking is the most highly prized of all the qualities which a politician can possess ; and that power may exist, in the highest degree, without judgment, without fortitude, without skill in reading the characters of men or the signs of the times, without any knowledge of the principles of legislation or of political economy, and without any skill in diplomacy or in the ad- ministration of war. Nay, it may well happen that those very intel- lectual qualities which give a peculiar charm to the speeches of a ic man, may be incompatible with the qualities which would fit him to meet a pressing emergency with promptitude and firmness. It was thus with Charles Townahend. It was thus with Windham, WILLIAM PITT. 37 It was a privilege to listen to those accomplished and ingenious ora- tors. But in a perilous crisis they would have been found far infe- rior in all the qualities of rulers to such a man as Oliver Cromwell, who talked nonsense, or as William the Silent, who did not talk at all. When parliamentary government is established, a Charles Towushend or a Windham will almost always exercise much greater influence than such men as the great Protector of England, or as the founder of the Batavian commonwealth. In such a government, par- liamentary talent, though quite distinct from the talents of a good executive or judicial officer, will be a chief qualification for execu- tive and judicial office. From the Book of Dignities a curious list might be 'made out of chancellors ignorant of the principles of equity, and first lords of the admiralty ignorant of the principles of naviga- tion, of colonial ministers who could not repeat the names of the col- onies, of lords of the treasury who did not know the difference be- tween funded and unfunded debt, and of secretaries of the India board who did not know whether the Mahrattas were Mahometans or Hindoos. On these grouads, some persons, incapable of seeing more than one side of a question, have pronounced parliamentary government a positive evil, and have maintained that the administra- tion would be greatly improved if the power, now exercised by a large assembly, were transferred to a single person. Men of sense will probably think the remedy very much worse than the disease, and will be of opinion that there would be small gain in exchanging Charles Townsheud and Windham for the prince of the peace, or the poor slave and dog Steenie. Pitt was emphatically the man of parliamentary government, the type of his class, the minion, the child, the spoiled child, of the House of Commons. For the House of Commons he had a heredi- tary, an infantine love. Through his whole boyhood, the House of Commons was never out of his thoughts, or out of the thoughts of his instructors. Reciting at his father's knee, reading Thucydidcs and Cicero into English, analyzing the great Attic speeches on UK; embassy and on the crown, he was constantly in training for the conflicts of the House of Commons. He was a distinguished mem- ber of the House of Commons at twenty-one. The ability which he hail displayed in the House of Commons made him the most power- ful subject in Europe Before he was twenty-five. It would have been happy for himself and for his country if his elevation had been, deferred. Eight or ten years, during which he would have had lei- sure and opportunity for reading and reflection, for foreign travel, for social intercourse and free exchange of thought on equal terms with a great variety of companions, would have supplied what, without any fault on his part, was wanting to his powerful intellect. He had all the knowledge that he could be expected to have ; that is to say, all the knowledge that a man can acquire while he is a student at Cambridge, and all the knowledge that a man can acquire when 86 WILLIAM PITT. be is first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer. Hat Ihe stock of general information which he brought from college, ex- traordinary for a boy, was far inferior to what Fox possessed, and beggarly when compared with the massy, the splendid, the various Ireasures laid up in the large mind of Burke. After Pitt became minister, he had no leisure to learn more than was necessary for the purposes of the day which was passing over him. "\Vhnt was neces- sary for those purposes such a man could learn with little difficulty. He was surrounded by experienced and able public servants. He could at any moment command their best assistance. From the stores which they produce 1 1 his vigorous mind rapidly collected the materials for a good parliamentary case ; and that was enough. Legislation and administration were with him secondary matters. To the work of framing statutes, of negotiating treaties, of orgaui/.iug fleets and armies, of sending forth expeditions, he gave only the leav- ings of liis time and the dregs of his fine intellect. The strength and sap of his mind were all drawn in a different direction. It was when the House of Commons was to be convinced and persuaded that he put forth all his powers. Of those powers we must form our estimate chiefly from tradition ; for of all the eminent speakers of Ihe last age, Pitt has suffered most from the reporters. Even while he was still living, critics remarked that his eloquence could not be preserved, that he must be heard to be appreciated. They more than once applied to him the sentence in which Tacitus describes the fate of a senator whose rhetoric was admired in the Augustan age : " Haterii canorum illud et profluens cum ipso simul exstinctum est." There is, however, abundant evi- dence that nature had bestowed on Pitt the talents of a great orator ; and those talents had been developed in a very peculiar manner ; first by his education, and secondly by the high official position to which he rose early, and in which he passed the greater part of his public life. At his first appearance in Parliament he showed himself superior to ail his contemporaries in command of language. He could pour forth a long succession of round and stately periods, without pre- meditation, without ever pausing for a word, without ever repeating a word, in a voice of siher clearness, and with a pronunciation so lectical fence, and less of that highest sort of eloquence which con- sists of reason and passion fused together, than Fox. Yet the almost unanimous judgment of those who were in the habit of listening to that remarkable race of men placed Pitt, as a speaker, above Burke, above Windhum, above Slu.Vulan, and not below Fox. His declama- tion waa copious, polished, und splendid. In power of sarcasm he wm probably not surpassed by au> speaker, ancient or modern ; acd WILLIAM PITT. 39 of this formidable weapon he made merciless use. In two parts of the oratorical art which are of the highest value to a minister of state he was singularly expert. No man knew better how to be luminous or how to be obscure. When he wished to be understood he nevet failed to make himself understood. He could with ease present to his audience, not perhaps an exact or profound, but a clear, popular, and plausible view of the most extensive and complicated subject. Nothing was out of place ; nothing was forgotten ; minute details, dates, sums of money, were all faithfully preserved in his memory. Even intricate questions of finance, when explained by him, seemed clear to the plainest man among his hearers. On the other hand, when he did not wish to be explicit and no man who is at the head of affairs always wishes to be explicit he had a marvellous power of saying nothing in language which left on his audience the impression that he had said a great deal. He was at once the only man who could open a budget without notes, and the only man who, as Wind- ham said, could speak that most elaborately evasive and unmeaning of human compositions, a king's speech, without premeditation. The effect of oratory will always, to a great extent, depend on the character of the orator. There perhaps never were two speakers whose eloquence had more of what may be called the race, more of the flavor imparted by moral qualities, than Fox and Pitt, The speeches of Fox owe a great part of their charm to that, warmth and softness of heart, that sympathy with human suffering, 'that admira- tion for everything great and beautiful, and that hatred of cruelty and injustice, which interest and delight us even in the most defec- tive reports. No person, on the other hand, could hear Pitt without perceiving him to be a man of high, intrepid, and commanding spirit, proudly conscious of his own rectitude and of his own intel- lectual superiority, incapable of the low vices of fear and envy, but too prone to feel and to show disdain. Pride, indeed, pervaded the whole man, was written in the harsh, rigid lines of his face, was marked by the way in which he walked, in which he sat, in which he stood, and, above all, in which he bowed. Such pride, of course, inflicted many wounds. It may confidently be affirmed that there cannot be found, in all the ten thousand invectives written against Fox, a word indicating that his demeanor had ever made a single personal enemy. On the other hand, several men of note who had been partial to Pitt, and who to the last continued to approve his public conduct and to support his administration, Cum- berland, for example, Boswell, and Matthias, were so much irritated by the contempt with which he treated them, that they complained in print of their wrongs. But his pride, though it made him bitterly disliked by individuals, inspired the great body of his followers in Parliament and throughout the country with respect and confidence. They took him at his own valuation. They saw that his self-esteem wae not that ol an upstart, who was drunk with good-luck and witk 40 WILLIAM PITT. applause, and who, if fortune turned, would sink from arrogance into abject humility. It was that of the magnanimous man so finely described by Aristotle in the Ethics, of the man who thinks himself worthy of great things, being in truth worthy. It sprung from a consciousness of great powers and great virtues, and was never so conspicuously displayed as in the midst of difficulties and dangers which would have unnerved and bowed down any ordinary mind. It was closely connected too with an ambition which had no mix- ture of low cupidity. There was something noble in the cynical disdain with which the mighty minister scattered riches and titles to right and left among those who valued them, while he spurned them out of his own waj r . Poor himself, he was surrounded by friends on whom he had bestowed three thousand, six thousand, ten thousand a year. Plain Mister himself, he had made more lords than any three ministers that had preceded him. The garter, for which the first dukes in the kingdom were contending, was repeatedly offered to him, and offered in vain. The correctness of his private life added much to the dignity of his ptiblic character. In the relations of son, brother, uncle, master, friend, his conduct was exemplary. In the small circle of his inti- mate associations, he was amiable, affectionate, even playful. They loved him sincerely ; they regretted him long ; and they would hardly admit t that he who was so kind and gentle with them could be stern and 'haughty with others. He indulged, indeed, somewhat too freely in wine, which he had early been directed to take as a medi- cine, and which use had made a necessary of life to him. But it was very seldom that any indication of undue excess could be detected in his tones or gestures ; and, in truth, two bottles of port were little more to him than two dishes of tea. He had, when he was first in- troduced into the clubs of St. James's Street, shown a strong taste for play ; but he had the prudence and the resolution to stop before this taste had acquired the strength of habit. From the passion which generally exercises the most tyrannical dominion over the young he possessed an immunity, which is probably to be ascribed partly to his temperament, and partly to his situation. His constitution was feeble : lie was very shy ; and he was very busy. The strictness of his morals furnished such buffoons as Peter Pindar and Captain Morris with an inexhaustible theme for merriment of no very delicate kind. But the great body of the middle class of Englishmen could not see the joke. They warmly praised the young statesman for commanding his passions, and for covering his frailties, if he had frailties, with decorous obscurity, and would have been very far in- leed from thinking better of him if he had vindicated himself from tin' taunts of his enemies by taking under his protection a Nancy Par- sons or a Marianne Clark. No part of the immense popularity which Pitt long enjoyed is to ie attributed to the eulogies of wits and poets. It might have been WILLIAM PITT. 41 naturally expected that a man of genius, of learning, of taste, an ora- tor whose diction was often compared to Unit of Tully, the represent- ative, too, of a great university, would have taken a peculiar pleas- ure in befriending eminent writers, to whatever political party they might have belonged. The love of literature had induced Augustus to heap beuelits on Pompeiaus, Sorners to be the protector of non- jurors, Hurley to make the fortunes of Whigs. But it could not move Pitt to show any favor cveu to Pittites. He was doubtless right in thinking that, in general, poetry, history, and philosophy ought to be suffered, like calico and cutlery, to tiiid their proper price in the market, and that to teach men of letters to look habitually to the stale for their recompense, is bad for the state and bad for letters. Assuredly nothing can be more absurd or mischievous than to waste the public money in bounties, for the purpose of inducing people who ought to be weighing out grocery or measuring out drapery to write bad or middling books. But, though the sound rule is that authors should be left to be remunerated by their readers, there will, in every generation, be a few exceptions to this rule. To distinguish these special cases from the masses, is au employment well worthy of the faculties of a great and accomplished ruler ; and Pitt would assuredly have had little difficulty in rinding such cases. While he was in power, the greatest philologist of the age, his own contem- porary at Cambridge, was reduced to earn a livelihood by the lowest literary drudgery, aud to spend in writing squibs for the M<>rnunj Chronicle years to which we might have owed an all but perfect text of the whole tragic aud comic drama of Athens. The greatest histo- rian of the age, forced by poverty to leave his country, completed his immortal work on the shores of Lake Leman. The political het.ro- doxy of Porson and the religious heterodoxy of Gibbon may per- haps be pleaded in defence of the minister by whom those eminent men were neglected. But there were other cases in which no such excuse could be set up. Scarcely had Pitt obtained possession of un- bounded power, when an aged writer of the highest eminence, who had made very little by his writings, and who was sinking into thu grave under a load of infirmities aud sorrows, wanted live or six hun- dred pounds to enable him, during the winter or two which might still remain to him, to draw his breath more easily iu the soft climate of Italy. Not a farthing was to be obtained ; and before Christmas the author of the English Dictionary and of the Lives of the Poets had gasped his last in the river fog and coal smoke of Fleet Street. A few mouths after the death of Johnson appeared the Task, incomparably the best poem that any Englishman iheu living had produced a poem, too, which could hardly fail to excite in a well-constituted mind a feeling of esteem and compassion for the poet, a man of genius aud virtue, whose means were scanty, and whom the most cruel of all the calamities incident to humanity had made incapable of supporting himself by vigorous and sustained exertion. Nowhere 42 WILLIAM PITT. had Chatham been praised with more enthusiasm, or in verse more worthy of the subject, than in the Task. The son of Chatham, however, contented himself with reading and admiring the book, and left the author to starve. The pension which, long after, enabled poor Cowper to close his melancholy life, unmolested by duns and bailiffs, was obtained for him by the strenuous kindness of Lord Spencer. What a contrast between, the way in which Pitt acted tow- ard Johnson, and the way in which Lord Grey acted toward his political enemy Scott, when Scott, worn out by misfortune and dis- ease, was advised to try the effect of the Italian air ! What a con- trast between the way in which Pitt acted toward Cowper, and the way in which Burke, a poor man and out of place, acted toward Crabbe ! Even Dundas, who made no pretensions to literary taste, and was content to be considered as a hard-headed and somewhat coarse man of business, was, when compared with his eloquent and classically educated friend, a Maecenas or a Leo. Dundas made Burns an exciseman, with seventy pounds a year ; and this was more than Pitt, during his long tenure of power, did for the encour- agement of letters. Even those who may think that it is, in general, no part of the duty of a government to reward literary merit, will hardly deny that a government, which has much lucrative church preferment in its gift, is bound, in distributing that preferment, not to overlook divines whose writings have rendered great service to the cause of religion. But it seems never to have occurred to Pitt that he lay under any such obligation. All the theological works of the numerous bishops whom he made and translated are not, when put together, worth fifty pages of the Horae Paulina?, of the Natural Theology, or of the Views of the Evidences of Christianity. But on Paley the all-powerful minister never bestowed the smallest benefice. \rtists Pitt treated as contemptuously as writers. For painting he did simply nothing. Sculptors, who had been selected to execute monuments voted by Parliament had to haunt the antechambers of the treasury during many years before they could obtain a farthing from him. One of them, after vainly soliciting the minister for pay- ment during fourteen years, had the courage to present a memorial to the king, and thus obtained tardy and ungracious justice. Archi- tects it was absolutely necessary to employ ; and the worst that could be found seemed to have been employed. Not a single fine public building of any kind or in any style was erected during his long ad- ministration. It may be confidently affirmed that no ruler whose abilities and attainments would bear any comparison with his has ever shown such cold disdain fpr what is excellent in arts and letters. His first administration lasted seventeen years. That long period is divided by a strongly marked line into two almost exactly equal parts. The first part ended and the second began in the autumn of 1792. Throughout both parts Pitt displayed in the highest degree the talents of a parliamentary leader. During the first part he was a for- WILLIAM PITT. 43 tunate, and, in many respects, a skilful administrator. With th difficulties which he had to encounter during the second part he was altogether incapable of contending 1 ; but his eloquence and his per- fect mastery of the tactics of the House of Commons concealed his incapacity from the multitude. The eight years which followed the general election of 1784 were as tranquil and prosperous as any eight years in the whole history of Eng- land. Neighboring nations which had lately been in arms against her, and which had flattered themselves that, in losing her American colonies, she had lost a chief source of her wealth and of her power, saw, with wonder and vexation, that she was more wealthy and more powerful than ever. Her trade increased. Her manufactures flour- ished. Her exchequer was full to overflowing. Very idle apprehensions were generally entertained that the public debt, though much less than a third of the debt which we now bear with ease, would be found too heavy for the strength of the nation. Those apprehensions might not, perhaps, have been easily quieted by reason. But Pitt quieted them by a juggle. He succeeded in persuading first himself, arid then the whole nation, his opponents included, that a new sink- ing fund, which, so far as it differed from former sinking funds, differed for the worst, would, by virtue of some mysterious power of propagation belonging to money, put into the pocket of the public creditor great sums not taken out of the pocket of the taxpayer. The country, terrified by a danger which was no danger, hailed with delight and boundless confidence a remedy which was no remedy. The minister was almost universally extolled as the greatest of finan- ciers. Meanwhile both the branches of the House of Bourbon found that England was as formidable an antagonist as she had ever been. France had formed a plan for reducing Holland to vassalage. But England interposed, and France receded. Spain interrupted by vio- lence the trade of our merchants with the regions near the Oregon . But England armed, and Spain receded. Within the island there was profound tranquillity. The king was, for the first time, popular. During the twenty-three years which had followed his accession he had not been loved by his subjects. His domestic virtues were ac- knowledged. But it was generally thought that the good qualities by which he was distinguished in private life were wanting to his political character. As a sovereign, he was resentful, unforgiving, stubborn, cunning. Under his rule the country had sustained cruel disgraces and disasters ; and every one of those disgraces and disasters was imputed to his strong antipathies, and to his perverse obstinacy in the wrong. One statesman after another complained that he had been induced by royal caresses, entreaties, and promises, to undertake the direction of affairs at a difficult conjuncture, and that, as soon as he had, not without sullying his fame and alienating his best friends, served the turn for which he was wanted, his ungrateful master be- gan to intrigue against him, and j.o canvass against him. Grenville, 14 WILLIAM PITT. Rockingham, Chatham, men of widely different characters, but all three upright and high -spirited, agreed in thinking that the prince under whom they had successively held the highest place in the gov- ernment was one of the most insincere of mankind. His confidence was reposed, they said, not in those known and responsible counsel- lors to whom he had delivered the seals of office, but in secret advisers who stole up the back stairs into his closet. In Parliament, his min- isters, while defending themselves against the attacks of the oppo- sition in front, were perpetually, aOris instigation, assailed on the Hank or in the rear by a vile baud of mercenaries who called them- selves his friends. These men constantly, while in possession of lucrative places in his service, spoke and voted against bills which he had authorized the first lord of the treasury or the secretary of state to bring in. But from the day in which Pitt was placed at the head of affairs there was an end of secret influence. His haughty and aspiring spirit was not to be satisfied with the mere show of power. Any attempt to undermine him at court, any mutinous movement among his followers in the House of Commons, was certain to be at once put down. He had only to tender his resignation ; and he could dictate his own terms. For he, and he alone, stood between the king and the coalition. He was therefore little less than mayor of the palace. The nation loudly applauded the king for having the wisdom to repose entire confidence in so excellent a minister. His Majesty's private virtues now began to produce their full effect. He was generally regarded as the model of a respectable country gentle- man, honest, good-natured, sober, religious. He rose early ; he dined temperately ; he was strictly faithful to his wife ; he never missed church ; mid at church he never missed a response. His people heartily prayed that he might long reign over them ; and they prayed the more heartily because his virtues were set off to the best advan- tage by the vices and follies of the Prince of Wales, who lived in close intimacy with the chiefs of the opposition. How strong this feeling was in the public mind appeared signally on one great occasion. In the autumn of 1788 the king became in- sane. The opposition, eager for office, committed the great indiscre- tion of asserting that the heir-apparent had, by the fundamental laws of England, a right to be regent with the full powers of royalty, itt, on the other hand, maintained it to be the constitutional doc- trine that, when a sovereign is, by reason of infancy, disease, or ab- sence, incapable of exercising the regal functions, it belongs to the estates of the realm to determine who shall be the vicegerent, and i what portion of the executive authority such vicegerent shall be intrusted. A long and violent contest followed, in which tt was supported by the great body of the people with as much en- thusiasm as during the first months of his administration. Tories with one voice applauded him for defending the sick-bed of a virtu, ous and unhappy overeign against a disloyal faction and an undutifu] WILLIAM PITT. 45 son. Not a few "Whigs applauded him for asserting the authority of parliaments and the principles of the revolution, in opposition to a doc- trine which seemed to have too much affinity with the servile theory of indefeasible hereditary right. The middle class, always zealous on the side of decency and the domestic virtues, looked forward with dismay to a reign resembling that of Charles II. The palace, Which had now been, during thirty years, the pattern of an English home, would be a public nuisance, a school af profligacy. To the good king's repast of mutton and .lemonade, dispatched at three o'clock, would succeed midnight banquets, from which the guests would be carried home speechless. To the backgammon-board at which the good king played for a little silver with his equerries, would succeed faro-tables, from which young patricians who had sat down rich would rise up beggars. The drawing-room, from which the frown of the queen had repelled a whole generation of frail beau- ties, would now be again what it had been in the days of Barbara Palmer and Louisa de Querouaile. Nay, severely as the public rep- robated the prince's many illicit attachments, his one virtuous at- tachment was reprobated more severely still. Even in grave and pious circles his Protestant mistresses gave less scandal than his Popish wife. That he must be regent nobody ventured to deny. But he and his friends were so unpopular that Pitt could, with gen- eral approbation, propose to limit the powers of the regent by re- strictions to which it would have been impossible to subject a prince beloved and trusted by the country. Some interested men, fully ex- pecting a change of administration, went over to the opposition. But the majority, purified by these desertions, closed its ranks, and pre- sented a more firm array than ever to the enemy. In every division Pitt was victorious. When at length, after a stormy interregnum of three months, it was announced, on the very eve of the inauguration of the regent, that the king was himself again, the nation was wild with delight. On the evening of the day on which his Majesty re- sumed his functions, a spontaneous illumination, the most general that had ever been seen in England, brightened the whole vast space from Highgate to Tooting, and from Hammersmith to Greenwich. On the day on which he returned thanks in the cathedral of his cap. ital, all the horses and carriages within a hundred miles of London were too few for the multitudes which nocked to see him pass through the streets. A second illumination followed, which was even superior to the first in magnificence. Pitt with difficulty es- caped from the tumultuous kindness of an innumerable multitude, which insisted on drawing his coach from St. Paul's churchyard to Downing Street. This was the moment at which his fame and for- tune may be said to have reached the zenith. His influence in the closet was as great as that of Carr or Villiers had been. His dominion over the Parliament was more absolute than that of Walpole or Pelham had been. He was at the same time as high in the favor of the populace 46 WILLIAM PITT. as ever Wilkes or Sacheverell had been. Nothing did more to raise his character than his noble poverty. It was well known that, if he had been dismissed from office after more than rive years of bound- less power, he would hardly have carried out with him a sum suiBcient to furnish the set of chambers in which, he cheerfully de- clared, he naeaiit to resume the practice of the law. His admirers, however, were by no means disposed to suffer him to depend on daily toil for his daily bread. The voluntary contributions which were awaiting bis acceptance in the city of London alone would have sufficed to make him a rich man. But it may be doubted whether his haughty spirit would have stooped to accept a provision so hon- orably earned and so honorably bestowed. To such a height of power and glory had this extraordinary man risen at twenty-nine years of_ age. And now the tide was on the turn. Only ten days after the triumphant procession to St. Paul's, the States- General of France, after an interval of a hundred and seventy-four years, met at Versailles. The nature of the great Revolution which followed was long very imperfectly understood in this country. Burke saw much farther than any of his contemporaries ; but whatever his sagacity descried was refracted and discolored by his passions and his imagination. More than three years .elapsed before the principles of the English administration underwent any material change. Nothing could as yet be milder or more strictly constitutional than the minister's domestic policy. Not a single act indicating an arbitrary temper or a jealousy of the people could be imputed to him. He had never applied tr Parliament for any extraordinary powers. He had never used with harshness the ordinary powers intrusted by the constitution to the ex- ecutive government. Not a single state prosecution which would even now be called oppressive had been instituted by him. Indeed, the only oppressive state prosecution instituted during the first eight years of his administration was that of Stockdale, which is to be attributed not to the government, but to the chiefs of the opposition. In office, Pitt had redeemed the pledges which he had, at his entrance into public life, given to the supporters of parliamentary reform. He had, in 1785, brought forward a judicious plan for the improve- ment of the representative system, and had prevailed on the king, not only to refrain from talking against that plan, but to recommend it to the houses in a speech from the throne.* This attempt failed ; but there can be little doubt that, if the French Revolution hud not produced a violent reaction of public feeling, Pitt would have per- formed, with little difficulty and no danger, that great work which, at a later period, Lord Grey could accomplish only by means which * The speech with which the king opened the session of 1785 concluded with an urannce that his Majesty would heartily concur in every measure winch conld tend to secure the true principles of the constitution. These words were at the time understood to refer to Pitt's Reform Bill WILLIAM PITT. 47 for a time loosened the very foundations of the commonwealth. When the atrocities of the slave trade were first brought under the consideration of Parliament, no abolitionist was more zealous than Pitt. When sickness prevented Wilberforce from appearing in pub- lic, his place was most efficiently supplied by his friend the minister. A humane bill, which mitigated the horrors of the middle passage, was, in 1788, carried by the eloquence and determined spirit of Pitt, in spite of the opposition of some of his own colleagues ; and it ought always to be remembered to his honor that, in order to carry that bill, he kept the houses sitting, in spite of many murmurs, long after the business of the government had been done, and the appropriation act passed. In 1791 he cordially concurred with Fox in maintaining the sound constitutional doctrine that au impeachment is not ter- minated by a dissolution. In the course of the same year the two great rivals contended side by side in a far more important cause. They are fairly entitled to divide the high honor of having added to our statute-book the inestimable law which places the liberty of the press under the protection of juries. On one occasion, and one alone, Pitt, during the first half of his long administration, acted in a man- ner unworthy of an enlightened Whig. In the debate on the test act, he stooped to gratify the master whom he served, the university which he represented, and the great body of clergymen arid country gentle- men on whose support he rested, by talking, with little heartiness, indeed, and with no asperity, the language of a Tory. With this single exception, his conduct from the end of 1783 to the middle of 1792 was that of an honest friend of civil and religious liberty. Nor did anything, during that period, indicate that he loved war, or harbored any malevolent feeling against any neighboring nation. Those French writers who have represented him as a Hannibal sworn in childhood by his father to bear eternal hatred to France, as having, by mysterious intrigues and lavish bribes, instigated the leading Jacobins to commit those excesses which dishonored the Revolution, as having been the real author of the first coalition, know nothing of his character or of his history. So far was he from being a deadly enemy to France, that his laudable attempts to bring about a closer connection with that country by means of a wise and liberal treaty of commerce, brought on him the severe censure of the opposition. * He was told in the House of Commons that he was a degenerate son, and that his partiality for the hereditary foes of our island was enough to make his great father's bones stir under the pavement of the Abbey. And this man, whose name, if he had been so fortunate as to die in 1792, would now have been associated with peace, with freedom, with philanthropy, with temperate reform, with mild and constitu- tional administration, lived to associate his name with arbitrary gov- ernment, with harsh laws harshly executed, with alien bills, with gagging bills, with suspensions of the Habeas Corpus Act, with cruel punishments inflicted on some political agitators, with unjustifiable 48 WILLIAM PITT. prosecutions instituted against others, and with the most costly and most sanguinary wara of modern times. He lived to be held up to obloquy as the stern oppressor of England, and the indefatigable dis- turber of Europe. Poets, contrasting his curlier with his later years, likened him sometimes to the apostle who kissed in order to betray, and sometimes to the evil angels who kept not their first estate. A satirist of great genius introduced the fiends of Famine, Slaughter, and Fire, proclaiming that they had received their commission from one whose name was formed of four letters, and promising to give their employer ample proofs of gratitude. Famine would gnaw Hie, multitude till they should rise up against him in madness. The demon of Slaughter would impel them to tear him from limb to limb. But Fire boasted that she aione could reward him as he deserved, and that she would cling round him to all eternity. By the French press and the French tribune every crime that disgraced and every calamity that afflicted France was ascribed to the monster Pitt and his guineas. While the Jacobins were dominant, it was he who had corrupted the Gironde, who had raised Lyons and Bordeaux against the conven- tion, who had suborned Paris to assassinate Lepelletier, and Cecilia Kegnault to assassinate Robespierre. When the Thermidorian reac- tion came, all the atrocities of the Reign of Terror were imputed to him. Collot D'Herbois and Fouquier Thinville had been his pen- sioners. It was he who had hired the murderers of September, who had dictated the pamphlets of Marat and the Carmagnoles of Barrere, who had paid Lebon to deluge Arras with bloqd, and Carrier to choke the Loire with corpses. The truth is, that he liked neither war nor arbitrary government, lie was a lover of peace and freedom, driven, by a stress against which it was hardly possible for any will or any intellect to struggle, out of the course to which his inclinations pointed, and for which his ;iliilitics ;md acquirements fitted him, and forced into a policy repug- nant to his feelings and unsuited to his talents. The charge of apostasy is grossly unjust. A man ought no more to be culled an apostate because his opinions alter with the opinions of the great body of his contemporaries, than he ought to be called an oriental traveller because he is always going round from west to east % wilh the globe and everything that is upon it. Between the spring of 17H!) and the close of 1792, the public mind of England un- derwent a great change. If the change of Pitt's sentiments attracted peculiar notice, it was not because he changed more than his neigh- bors ; for in fact he changed less than most of them ; but because his position was far more conspicuous than theirs, because he was, till Honaparte appeared, the individual who filled the greatest space in the eyes of the inhabitants of the civilized world. During a short time the nation, and' Pitt, as one of the nation, looked with interest and approbation on the French Revolution. But soon vast confisca- tions, the violent sweeping away of ancient institutions, the domina- WILLIAM PITT. 49 tion of clubs, the barbarities of mobs maddened by famine and hatred, produced a reaction here. The court, the nobility, the gentry, the clergy, the manufacturers, the merchants in short, nineteen twentieths of those who had good roofs over their heads and good coats on their backs, became eager and intolerant Antijacobins. This feeling was at least as strong among the minister's adversaries as among his supporters. Fox in vain attempted to restrain his fol- lowers. All his genius, all his vast personal influence, could not pre- vent them from rising up against him in general mutiny. Burke set the example of revolt ; and Burke was in no long time joined by Portland, Spencer, Fitzwilliam, Loughborough, Carlisle, Malmesbury, Windham, Elliot. In the House of Commons, the followers of the great Whig statesman and orator diminished from about a hundred and sixty to fifty In the House of Lords he had but ten or twelve adherents left. There can be no doubt that there would have been a similar mutiny on the ministerial benches if Pitt had obstinately resisted the general wish. Pressed at once by his master and by his colleagues, by old friends, and by old opponents, he abandoned, slowly and reluctantly, the policy which was dear to his heart. He, labored hard to avert the European war. AVhen the European war broke out, he still flattered himself that it would not be necessary for this country to take either side. In the spring of 1792, he congrat- ulated Parliament on the prospect of long and profound peace, and proved his sincerity by proposing large remissions of taxation. Down to the end of that year he continued to cherish the hope that England might be able to preserve neutrality. But the passions which raged on both sides of the Channel were not to be restrained. The republicans who ruled France were inflamed by a fanaticism resembling that of the Mussulmans, who, with the Koran in one hand and the sword in the other, went forth, conquering and convert- ing, eastward to the Bay of Bengal, and westward to the Pillars of Hercules. The higher and middle classes of England were animate. 1 by a zeal not less fiery than that of the Crusaders who raised tin- cry of Deus vult at Clermont. The impulse which drove the two nations to a collision was not to be arrested by the abilities or by the authority of any single man. As Pitt was in front of his fellows, and towered high above them, he sueined to lead them. But in fact he was violently pushed on by them, and, had he held back but a little more than he did, would have been thrust out of their way or trampled under their feet. He yielded to the current ; and from that day his misfortunes be- gan. The truth is, that there were only two consistent courses before him. Since he did not choose to oppose himself, side by side with Fox, to the public feeling, he should have taken the advice of Burke, and should have availed himself of that feeling to the full ex- tent. If it was impossible to preserve peace, he should have adopted the only policy which could lead to victory. Ha should have pro- 50 WILLIAM PlW. claimed a holy war for religion, morality, property, order, public law, and should have thus opposed to the Jacobins an energy equal to their own. Unhappily he tried to find a middle path ; and he found one which united all that was worst in both extremes. He went to war : but he would not understand the peculiar character of that war. He was obstinately blind to the plain fact that he was contending against a state which was also a sect ; and that the new quarrel between England and France was of quite a different kind from the old quarrels about colonies in America and fortresses in the Netherlands. He had to combat frantic enthusiasm, boundless am- bition, restless activity, the wildest and most audacious spirit of in- novation ; and he acted as if he had to deal with the harlots and fops of the old court at Versailles, with Madame de Pompadour and the Abbe de Bernis. It was pitiable to hear him, year alter year, prov- ing to an admiring audience that the wicked republic was exhausted, that she could not hold out, that her credit was gone, that her assig- nats were not worth more than the paper of which they were made ; as if credit was necessary to a government of which the principle was rapine, as if Alboin could not turn Italy into a desert till he had negotiated a loan at five per cent, as if the exchequer bills of Attila had been at par. It was impossible that a man who so completely mistook the nature of a contest could carry on that contest success- fully. Great as Pitt's abilities were, his military administration was that of a driveller. He was at the head of a nation engaged in a struggle for life and death, of a nation eminently distinguished by all the physical and all the moral qualities Tvhich make excellent soldiers. The resources at his command were unlimited. The Parliament was even more ready to grant him men and money than he was to usk for thc'in. In such an emergency, and with such means, such a statesman as Richelieu, as Louvois, as Chatham, as Welleslcy, would have created in a few months one of tbe finest armies in the world, and would soon have discovered and brought forward generals worthy to command such an army. Get many might have been saved by another Blenheim ; Flanders recovered by another Kami- lies ; another Poitiers might have delivered the Royalist and Catholic provinces of France from a yoke which they abhorred, and might have spread terror even to the barriers of Paris. But the fact is, that, after eight years of war, after a vast destruction of life, after an ex- penditure of wealth far exceeding the expenditure of the American war, of the Seven Years' War, of the war of the Austrian Succes- sion, and of the war of the Spanish Succession united, the English army, under Pitt, was the laughing-stock of all Europe. It could not boast of one single brilliant exploit. It had never showed itself on the continent but to be beaten, chased, forced to re-embark, or forced to capitulate. To take some sugar island in the West Indies, to scatter some m>>b of half-naked Irish peasants, such were the most splendid victories won by the Biiiibh troops under Pitt's auspices. WILLIAM PITT. 51 The English navy no mismanagement could ruin. But during a long period whatever mismanagement could do was done. The Earl of Chatham, without a single qualification for high public trust, was made, by fraternal partiality, first lord of the admiralty, and was kept in that great post during two years of a war in which the very existence of the state depended on the efficiency of the fleet. lie continued to doze away and trifle away the time which ought to have been devoted to the public service, till the whole mercantile body, though generally disposed to support the government, complained bitterly that our flag gave no protection to our trade. Fortunately he was succeeded by George Earl Spencer, one of those chiefs of the Whig party who, in the great schism caused by the French Re volu- tion, had followed Burke. Lord Spencer, though inferior to many of his colleagues as an orator, was decidedly the best administrator among them. To him it was owing that a long and gloomy succes- sion of days of fasting, and, most emphatically, of humiliation, was interrupted, twice in the short space of eleven months, by days of thanksgiving for great victories. It may seem paradoxical to say that the incapacity which Pitt showed in all that related to the conduct of the war is, in some sense, the most decisive proof that he was a man of very extraordinary abil- ities. Yet this is the simple truth. For assuredly one tenth part of his errors and disasters would have been fatal to the power and influ- ence of any minister who had not possessed, in the highest degree, the talents of a parliamentary leader. While his schemes were con- founded, while his predictions were falsified, while the coalitions which he had labored to form were falling to pieces, while the expe- ditions which he had sent forth at enormous cost were ending in rout and disgrace, while the enemy against whom he was feebly contend- ing was subjugating Flanders and Brabant, the electorate of Mentz and the electorate of Treves, Holland, Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy, his authority over the House of Commons was constantly becoming more and more absolute. There was his empire. There were his victories, his Lodi and his Arcola, his Rivoli and his Marengo. If some great misfortune, a pitched battle lost by the allies, the annexa- tion of a new department to the French republic, a sanguinary in- surrection in Ireland, a mutiny in the fleet, a panic in the city, a run on the bank, had spread dismay through the ranks of his majority, that dismay lasted only till he rose from the treasury bench, drew upT his haughty head, stretched his arm with commanding gesture, and poured forth, in deep and sonorous tones, the lofty language of in- extinguishable hope and inflexible resolution. Thus, through a long and calamitous period, every disaster that happened without the walls of Parliament was regularly followed by a triumph within them. At length he had no longer an opposition to encounter. Of the great party which had contended against him during the first eight years Of hiu administration, more lhau one half now marched under h_ia 52 WILLIAM PITT. standard, with his old competitor the Duke of Portland at their head , ami the rest had, after many vain struggles, quitted the field in de- spair. Fox had retired to the shades of St. Anne's Hill, and hud there found, in the society of friends whom no vicissitude could estrange from him, of a woman whom he tenderly loved, and of the illustrious dead of Athens, of Rome, and of Florence, ample com- pensation for all the misfortunes of his public life. Session followed session with scarcely a single division. In the eventful year 1799, the largest minority that could be mustered against the government was twenty-five. ' * : In Pitt's domestic policy there was at this time assuredly no want of vigor. While he offered to French Jacobinism a resistance so fee- ble that it only encouraged the evil which he wished to suppress, he put down English Jacobinism with a strong hand. The Habeas Cor- pus Act was repeatedly suspended. Public meetings were placed un- der severe restraints. The government obtained from Parliament power to send out of the country aliens who were suspected of evil designs ; and that power was not suffered to be idle. Writers who propounded doctrines adverse to monarchy and aristocracy were proscribed and punished without mercy. It was hardly safe for a republican to avow his political creed over his beefsteak and his bot- tle of port at a chop-house. The old laws of Scotland against sedi- tion, laws which were considered by Englishmen as barbarous, and which a succession of governments had suffered to rust, were now furbished up and sharpened anew. Men of cultivated minds and polished manners were, for offences which at Westminster would have been treated as mere misdemeanors, sent to herd with felons ;it Botany Bay. Some reformers, whose opinions were extravagant, and whose language was intemperate, but who had never dreamt d of subverting the government by physical force, were indicted for high treason, and were saved from the gallows only by the righteous verdicts of juries. This severity was at the time loudly applauded by alarmists whom fear had made cruel, but will be seen in a very different light by posterity. The truth is, that the Englishmen who wished for a revolution were, even in number, not formidable, and, in everything but number, a faction utterly contemptible, without arms, or funds, or plans, or organization, or leafier. There can be no doubt that Pitt, strong as he was in the support of the great body of the nation, might easily have repressed the turbulence of the dis- contented minority by firmly yet temperately enforcing the ordinary law. Whatever vigor he showed during this unfortunate part ot his life was vigor out of place and season. He was all feebleness and languor in his conflict with the foreign enemy who was really to be dreaded, and reserved all his energy and resolution for the domes- tic enemy who might safely have been despised. One part only of Pitt's conduct during the last eight years of the eighteenth century deserves high praise. He was the first English. WILLIAM PITT. 53 minister who formed great designs for the benefit of Ireland. The manner in which the Roman Catholic population of that unfortunate country had been kept down during many generations seemed to him unjust and cruel ; and it was scarcely possible for a man of his abili- ties not to perceive that, in ? contest against the Jacobins, the Roman Catholics were his natural allies. Had he been able to do all that he wished, it is probable that a wise and liberal policy would have averted the rebellion of 1798. But the difficulties which he encoun- tered were great, perhaps insurmountable ; and the Roman Catholics were, rather by his misfortune than by his fault, thrown into the hands of the Jacobins. There was a third great rising of the Irishry against the Englishry, a rising not less formidable than the risings of 1641 and 1089. The Englishry remained victorious ; and it was nec- essary for Pitt, as it had been necessary for Oliver Cromwell and William of Orange before him, to consider how the victory should be used. It is only just to his memory to say that he formed a scheme of policy so grand and so simple, so righteous a-nd so humane, that it would alone entitle him to a high place among statesmen. He de- termined to make Ireland one kingdom with England, and, at the same time, to relieve the Roman Catholic laity from civil disabilities, and to grant a public maintenance to the Roman Catholic clergy. Had he been able to carry these noble designs into effect, the Union would have been a Union indeed. It would have been inseparably associated in the minds of the great majority of Irishmen with civil and religious freedom ; and the old parliament in College Green would have been regretted only by a small knot of discarded jobbers and oppressors, and would have been remembered by the body of the nation with the loathing and contempt due to the most tyrannical and the most corrupt assembly that had ever sat in Europe. But Pitt could execute only one half of what he had projected. He suc- ceeded in obtaining the consent of the parliaments of both kingdoms to the Union ; but that reconciliation of races and sects, without which the Union could exist only in name, was not accomplished. He was well aware that he was likely to find difficulties in the closet. But he flattered himself that, by cautious and dexterous manage- ment, those difficulties might be overcome. Unhappily, there were traitors and sycophants in high place, who did not suffer him to take his own time and his own way, but prematurely disclosed his scheme to the king, and disclosed it in the manner most likely to irritate and alarm a weak and diseased mind. His Majesty absurdly imagined that his coronation oath bound him to refuse his assent to any bill for relieving Roman Catholics from civil disabilities. To argue with him was impossible. Dundas tried to explain the matter, but was told to keep his Scotch metaphysics to himself. Pitt, and Pitt's ablest colleagues, resigned their offices. It was necessary that the king should make a new arrangement. But by this time his auger and distress had brought back the malady which had, many j r ears be- 54 WILLIAM PITT. fore, incapacitated him for the discharge of his functions. He actu- ally assembled his family, read the coronation oath to them, and told them that, if he broke it, the crown would immediately pass to the House of Savoy. It was not until after an interregnum of several weeks that he regained the full use of his small faculties, and that a ministry after his own heart was at length formed. The materials out of which he had to construct a government were neither solid nor splendid. To that party, weak in numbers, but strong in every kind of talent, which was hostile to the domestic and foreign policy of his late advisers, he could not have recourse. For that party, while it differed from his late advisers on every point on which they had been honored with his approbation, cordially agreed with them as to the single matter which had brought on them his dis- pleasure. All that was left to him was to call up the rear rank of the old ministry to form the front rank of a new ministry. In an age pre-emiiiently fruitful of parliamentary talents, a cabinet was formed containing hardly a- single man who, in parliamentary talents, could be considered as even of the second rate. The most important offices in the state were bestowed on decorous and laborious medioc- rity. Henry Addington was at the head of the treasury. He had been an early, indeed a hereditary friend of Pitt, and had by Pitt's influence been placed, while still a young man, in the chair of the House of Commons. He was universally admitted to have been the best speaker that had sat in that chair since the retirement of Ons- low. But nature had not bestowed on him very vigorous faculties ; and the highly respectable situation which he had long occupied with honor had rather unfitted than fitted him for the discharge of his new duties. His business had been to bear himself evenly between contending factions. He had taken no part in the war of words ; and he had always been addressed with marked deference by the great orators who thundered against each other from his right and from his left. It was not strange that when, for the first time, he h;id to encounter keen and vigorous antagonists, who dealt hard blows without the smallest ceremony, he should have been awkward and uuready, or that the air of dignity and authority which he had acquired in his former post, and of which he had not divested himself, should have made his helplessness laughable and pitiable. Neverthe- less, during many months, his power seemed to stand firm. He was a favorite with the king, whom he resembled in narrowness of mind, and to whom he was more obsequious than Pitt had ever been. The nation was put into high good-humor by a peace with France. The enthusiasm with which the upper and middle classes had rushed into the war had spent itself. Jacobinism was no longer formidable. Everywhere there was a strong reaction against what was called the atheistical and anarchical philosophy of the eighteenth century. Jonaparte, now First Consul, was busy in constructing out of the rums of old institutions a new ecclesiastical establishment and a new. WlLLUM PITT. 55 erder of knighthood. That nothing less than the dominion of the whole civilized world would satisfy his selfish ambition was not yet suspected ; nor did even wise men see any reason to doubt that he might be as safe a neighbor as any prince of the House of Bourbon had been. The treaty of Amiens was therefore hailed by the great body of the English people with extravagant joy. The popularity of the minister was for the moment immense. His want of parliament- ary ability was, as yet, of little consequence ; for he had scarcely any adversary to encounter. The old opposition, delighted by the peace, regarded him with favor. A new opposition had indeed been formed by some of the late ministers, and was led by Grenville in the House of Lords, and by Windham in the House of Commons. But the new opposition could scarcely muster ten votes, and was re- garded with no favor by the country. On Pitt the ministers relied as on their firmest support. He had not, like some of his colleagues, retired in anger. He had expressed the greatest respect for the con^ scientious scruple which had taken possession of the royal mind ; and he had promised his successors all the help in his power. In private his advice was at their service. In Parliament he took his seat on the bench behind them ; and, in more than one debate, de- fended them with powers far superior to their own. The king per- fectly understood the value of such assistance. On one occasion, at the palace, he took the old minister and the new minister aside. " If we three," he said, " keep together, all will go well." But it was hardly possible, human nature being what it is, and, more especially, Pitt and Addington being what they were, that this union should be durable. Pitt, conscious of superior powers, imagined that the place which he had quitted was now occupied by a mere puppet which he had set up, which he was to govern while he suffered it to remain, and which he was to fling aside as soon as he wished to resume his old position. Nor was it long before he began to pine for the power which he had relinquished. He had been so early raised to supreme authority in the state, and had enjoyed that authority so long, that it had become necessary to him. In retire- ment his days passed heavily. He could not, like Fox, forget the pleasures and cares of ambition in the company of Euripides or Herodotus. Pride restrained him from intimating, even to his dear- est friends, that he wished to be again minister. But he thought it strange, almost ungrateful, that his wish had not been divined, that it had not been anticipated, by one whom he regarded as his deputy. Addington, on the other hand, was by no means inclined to de- scend from his high position. He was, indeed, under a delusion much resembling that of Abou Hassan in the Arabian tale. His brain was turned by his short and unreal caliphate. He took hit elevation quite seriously, attributed it to his own merit, and consid- ered himself as one of the great triumvirate of English statesmen, as worthy to make a third with Pitt and Fox. 5(5 WILLIAM PITT. Such being the feelings of the late minister and of the pres- ent minister, a rupture was inevitable ; and there was no want of persons bent on making that rupture speedy and violent. Some of these persons wounded Addington's pride by representing him as a lackey, sent to keep a place on the treasury bench till his master should find it convenient to come. Others took every opportunity of praising him at Pitt's expense. Pitt had waged a long, a bloody, a costly, an unsuccessful war. Adding- ton had made peace. Pitt had suspended the constitutional liberties of Englishmen. Under Addington those liberties were again enjoyed. Pitt had wasted the public resources. Addiugton was carefully nursing them. It was sometimes but too evident that these compliments were not unpleasing to Addington. Pitt became cold and reserved. During many months he remained at a distance from London. Meanwhile his most intimate friends, in spite of his decla- rations that he made no complaint, and that he had no wish for office, exerted themselves to effect a change of ministry. His favor- ite disciple, George Canning, young, ardent, ambitious, with great powers and great virtues, but with a temper too restless and a wit too satirical for his own happiness, was indefatigable. He spoke ; he wrote ; he intrigued ; he tried to induce a large number of the sup- porters of the government to sign a round robin desiring a change ; he made game of Addington and of Addington's relations in a suc- cession of lively pasquinades. The minister's partisans retorted with equal acrimony, if net with equal vivacity. Pitt could keep out of the affray only by keeping out of politics altogether ; and this it soon became impossible for him to do. Had Napoleon, content with the first place among the sovereigns of the continent, and with a mil- itary reputation surpassing that of Marlborough or of Turenne, de- voted himself to the noble task of making France happy by mild ad- ministration and wise legislation, our country might have long con- tinued to tolerate a government of fair intentions and feeble abilities. Unhappily, the treaty of Amiens had scarcely been signed, when the restless ambition and the insupportable insolence of the First Consul convinced the great body of the English people that the peace, so eagerly welcomed, was only a precarious armistice. As it became clearer and clearer that a war for the dignity, the independence, the very existence of the nation was at hand, men looked with increasing uneasiness on the weak and languid cabinet, which would have to contend against an enemy who united more than the power of Lewis the Ureat to more than the genius of Frederick the Great. It is true that Addington might easily have been a better war minister than Pitt, and could not possibly have been a worse. But Pitt had cast a spell on the public mind. The eloquence, the judgment, the calm and disdainful firmness which he had, during many years, displayed i Parliament, deluded the world into the belief thai lie must be emi- nently qualified to superintend every department of politics ; and WILLIAM PITT. 67 t'aey imagined, even after the miserable failures of Dunkirk, of Qui- beron, and of the Holder, that he was the only statesman who could eope with Bonaparte. This feeling was nowhere stronger than among Addington's own colleagues. The pressure put on him was so strong, that he could not Ikelp yielding lo it ; yet, even in yielding. he showed how far he was from knowing his own place. His first proposition was, that some insignificant nobleman should lie first ford of the treasury and nominal head of the administration, and that the rcaC power should be divided between Pitt and himself, who were to be secretaries of state. Pitt, as might have been expected, refused even to discuss such a scheme, and talked of it with bitter mirth. " Which secretaryship wsw offered to you ?" his friend WU- berforcc asked. " Really," said Pitt, " I had not the curiosity to in quire." Addington was frightened into bidding higher. He offered to resign the treasury to Pitt, on condition that there should be no extensive change in the government. But Pitt would listen to no such terms. Then came a dispute such as often arises after ncgotia tion.s orally conducted, even when the negotiators are men of strict honor. Pitt gave one account of what had passed ; Addington gava another ; and though the discrepancies were not such as necessarily implied any intentional violation of truth on either side, both were greatly exasperated. .Meanwhile the quarrel with the First Consul had come to a crisis. On the 10th of May, 1803, the king sent a message calling on th House of Commons to support him in withstanding the ambitions and encroaching policy of France ; and on the 22d the House took the message into consideration. Pitt hail uow been living many months in retirement. There ha(' been a general election since he had spoken in Parliament, and there were two hundred members who had never heard him. It was known that on this occasion he would be in his place, and curiosity was wound up to the highest point. Unfortunately, the short-band writers were, in consequence of some mistake, shut out on that day from the gallery, so that the newspapers contained only a very mea- gre report of the proceedings. But several accounts of what passed arc extant ; and of those accounts, the most interesting is contained in an unpublished letter written by a very young member, John William Ward, afterward Earl of Dudley. When Pitt rose, lie waf received with loud cheering. At every pause in his .speech there was a burst of applause. The peroration is said to have been one of the most animated and magnificent ever heard in Parliament. " Pitt's speech," Fox wrote a few days later, "was admired very much, and very justly. I think it was' the best he ever made in that style." The debate was adjourned; and on the second night Fox replied in an oration which, as the most zealous Pittites were forced to acknowledge, left the palm of eloquence doubtful. Addingtom made a pitiable appearance between the two great rivals ; and it was A.B. 18 58 WILLIAM PITT. observed that Pitt, while exhorting the Commons to stand resolutely by the executive government against France, said not a word indicat- ing esteem or friendship for the prime minister. War was speedily declared. The First Consul threatened to in- Tde England at the head of the conquerors of Belgium and Italy, and formed a great camp near the Straits of Dover. On the other side of those straits the whole population of our island was ready to rise up as one man in defence of the soil. At this conjuncture, as at some other great conjunctures in our history, the conjuncture of 1660, for example, and the conjuncture of 1688, there was a general disposition among honest and patriotic men to forget old quarrels, and to regard as a friend every person who was ready, in the exist- ing emergency, to do his part toward the saving of the state. A coalition of all the first men in the country would, at that moment, have been as popular as the coalition of 1783 had been unpopular. Alone in the kingdom, the king looked with perfect complacency on a cabinet in which no man superior to himself in genius was to be found, and was so far from being willing to admit all his ablest sub- jects to office, that lie was bent on excluding them all. A few months passed before the different parties which agreed in regarding the government with dislike and contempt came to an understanding with each other. But in the spring of 1804, it became evident that the weakest of ministries would have to defend itself against the strongest of oppositions ; an opposition made up of three oppositions, each of which would, separately, have been for- midable from ability, and which, when united, were also formidable from number. The party which had opposed the peace, headed by (Jrenville and Wiudham, and the party which had opposed the renewal of the war, headed by Fox, concurred in thinking that tin; men now in power were incapable of either making a good peace or waging a vigorous war. Pitt had, in 1802, spoken for peace against the party of Grenville, and had, in 1803, spoken for war against the party of Fox. But of the capacity of the cabinet, and especially of its chief, for the conduct of great affairs, he thought 'as meanly as either Fox or Grenville. Questions were easily found on which all the enemies of the government could act cordially together. The unfortunate first lord of the treasury, who had, during the earlier months of his administration, been supported by Pitt on one side and by Fox on the other, now had to answer Pitt, and to be an Bwered by Fox. Two sharp debates, followed by close divisions, made him weary of his post. It was known, too, that the upper house was even more hostile to him than the lower, that the Scotch representative peers wavered, that there were signs of mutiny among the bishops. In the cabinet itself there was discord, and, worse than discord, treachery. It was necessary to give way : the minis- try was dissolved ; and the task of forming a government was in- trusted to Pitt. WILLIAM PITT. 59 Pitt was of opinion that there was now an opportunity, such as had never before offered itself, and such as might never offer itself again, of uniting in the publie service, on honorable terms, all the eminent talents of the kingdom. The passions to which the FrencU Revolution had given birth were extinct. The madness of the inno- vator and the madness of the alarmist had alike had their day. Jacobinism and Anti-jacobinism had gone out of fashion together. The most liberal statesman did not think that season propitious for schemes.of parliamentary reform ; and the most conservative states- man could not pretend that there was any occasion for gagging bills and suspensions of the Habeas Corpus Act. The great struggle for in- dependence and national honor occupied all minds ; and those who were agreed as to the duty of maintaining that struggle with vigor might well postpone to a more convenient time all disputes about matters comparatively unimportant. Strongly impressed by these considerations, Pitt wished to form a ministry including all the first men in the country. The treasury he reserved for himself ; and to Fox he proposed to assign a share of power little inferior to his own. The plan was excellent ; but the king would not hear of it. Dull, obstinate, unforgiving, and, at that time, half mad, he positively re- fused to admit Fox into his service. Anybody else, even men who had gone as far as Fox, or farther than Fox, in what his Majesty considered as Jacobinism, Sheridan, Grey, Erskiue, should be gra- ciously received ; but Fox never. During several hours Pitt labored in vain to reason down this senseless antipathy. That he was per- fectly sincere there can be no doubt ; but it was not enough to be sin- cere ; he should have been resolute. Had he declared himself de- termined not to take office without Fox, the royal obstinacy would- have given way, as it gave way, a few months later, when opposed to the immutable resolution of Lord Grenville. In an evil hour Pitt yielded. He flattered himself with the hope that, though he con- sented to forego the aid of his illustrious rival, there would still re- main ample materials for the formation of an efficient ministry. That hope was cruelly disappointed. Fox entreated his friends to leave personal considerations out of the question, and declared that he would support, with the utmost cordiality, an efficient and patri- otic ministry from which he should be himself excluded. Not only hi-s friends, however, but Grenville, and Grenville's adherents, an- swered with one voice, that the question was not personal ; that a great constitutional principle was at stake, and that they would not take office while a man eminently qualified to render service to the commonwealth was placed under a ban merely because he was dis- liked at court. All that was left to Pitt was to construct a govern- ment out of the wreck of Addingtou's feeble administration. The small circle of his personal retainers furnished him with a very few useful assistants, particularly Dundas, who had been created Vls- Melville, Lord llarrowby, and Canning. 60 WILLIAM PITT. Such was the inauspicious manner in which Pitt entered on his second administration. The whole history of that administration was of a piece with the commencement. Almost every month lirought some new disaster or disgrace. To the war with France was soon added a war with Spain. The opponents of the minister were numerous, able, and active. His most useful coadjutors he juon lost. Sickness deprived him of the help of Lord Harrow by. ]t was discovered that Lord Melville had been guilty of highly cul- pable laxity in transactions relating to public money. He was cen- sured by the House of Commons, driven from office, ejected from the privy council, and impeached of high crimes and misdemeanors. The blow fell heavy on Pitt. It gave him, he said in Parliament, a deep pang ; and, as he uttered the word pang, his lip quivered ; his voice shook ; he paused ; and his hearers thought that he was about to burst into tears. Such tears shed by Eldou would have moved nothing but laughter. Shed by the warm-hearted and open-hearted Fox, they would have moved sympathy, but would have caused no surprise, But a tear from Pitt would have been something porten- tous. lie suppressed his emotion, however, and proceeded with his usual majestic self-possession. His difficulties compelled him to resort to various expedients. At one time Addington was persuaded to accept office with a peerage ; but lie brought no additional strength to the government. Though he went through the form of reconciliation, it was impossible for liiin lo forget the past. While he remained in place he was jealous and punctilious ; and he soon retired again. At another time Pitt renewed his efforts to overcome his master's aversion to Fox ; and it was rumored that the king's obstinacy was gradually giving way. But, meanwhile, it was impossible for the minister to conceal from the public eye the decay of his health and the constant anxiety wliieh gnawed at his heart. His sleep was broken. His food ceased to nourish him. All who passed him in the park, all who had inter- views with him in Downing Street, saw misery written in bis luce. The peculiar look which he wore during the last months of his life was often pathetically described by Wilberforce, who used to call it the Austerlit/, look. Still the vigor of Pitt's intellectual faculties, and the intrepid haughtiness of his spirit, remained unaltered. He had staked every thing on a great venture. He had succeeded in forming another mighty coalition against the Freucli ascendency. The united forces of Austria, Russia, and England might, he hoped, oppose an insur- mountable barrier to the ambition of the common enemy. But the genius and energy of Napoleon prevailed. While the English troops were preparing to embark for Germany, while the Russian troops were slowly coming up from Poland, he, with rapidity unprece- dented in modern war, moved a hundred thousand men from the shore* of the ocean to the Black Forest, and compelled a great Aus- WILLIAM PITT. 61 tnan army to surrender at Ulm. To the first faint rumors of this calamity Pitt would give uo credit. He was irritated by the alarms of those around him. " Do not believe a word of it," he said ; " it is all a fiction." The next day he received a Dutch newspaper con- taining the capitulation. He knew no Dutch. It was Sunday ; and the public offices were shut. He carried the paper to Lord Malmes- bury, who had beeu minister in Holland ; and Lord Malmesbury translated it. Pitt tried to bear up, but the shock was too great ; and he went away with death in his face. The news of the battle of Trafalgar arrived four days later, and seemed for a moment to revive him. Forty-eight hours after that most glorious and most mournful of victories had been announced to the country came the Lord Mayor's day ; and Pitt dined at Guild- hall. His popularity had declined. But on this occasion the multi- tude, greatly excited by the recent tidings, welcomed him enthusias- tically, took off his horses in Cheapside, and drew his carriage up King Street. When his health was drunk, he returned thanks iu two or three of those stately sentences of which he hud a boundless com- mand. Several of those who heard him laid up his words in their hearts ; for they were the last words that he ever uttered in public : " Let us hope that England, having saved herself by her energy, may save Europe by her example." This was but a momentary rally. Austerlitz soon completed what Ulm had begun. Early in December Pitt had retired to Bath, in the hope that he might there gather strength for the approaching session. While he was languishing (here on his sofa arrived the news that a decisive battle had beeu fought and lost iu Moravia, that the coali- tion was dissolved, that the continent was at the feet of France, lie sank down under the blow. Teu days later, he was so emaciated that his most intimate friends hardly knew him. He came up from Bath by slow journeys, and, on the llth of January, 180(5, reached his villa at Putney. Parliament was to meet on the 21st. On the 20th was to be the parliamentary dinner, at the house of the first lord of the treasury, in Downing Street ; and the cards were already issued. But the days of the great minister were num- bered. The only chance for his life, and that a very slight chance, was, that he should resign his office, and pass some months in profound repose. His colleagues paid him very short visits, and carefully avoided political conversation. But his spirit, long accustomed to dominion, could not, even in that extremity, re- linquish hopes which everybody but himself perceived to be vain. On the day on which he was carried into his bedroom at Putney, the Marquess Wellesley, whom he had long loved, whom he had sent to govern India, and whose administration had been eminently able, en- ergetic, and successful, arrived in London after an absence of eight years. The friends saw each other once more. There was an affec- tionate meeting, and a last parting. That it was a last parting, Pitt 62 WILLIAM PITT. . did not seem to be aware. He fancied himself to 'be recovering, talked on various subjects cheerfully, and with an unclouded mind, and pronounced a warm and discerning eulogium on the Marquess's brother Arthur. " 1 never," he said, " met with any military man with whom it was so satisfactory to converse. " The excitement and exertion of this interview were too much for the sick man. He fainted away ; and Lord Wellesley left the house, convinced that the close was fast approaching. And now members of Parliament were fast coming up to London. The chiefs of the opposition met for the purpose of considering the course to be taken on the first day of the session. It was easy to guess what would be the language of the king's speech, and of the address which would be moved in answer to that speech. An amendment condemning the policy of the government had been pre- pared, and was to have been proposed in the House of Commons by Lord Henry Petty, a young nobleman who had already won for him- self that place in the esteem of his country which, after the lapse of more than half a century, he still retains. He was unwilling, how- ever, to come forward as the accuser of one who was incapable of defending himself. Lord Grenville, who had been informed of Pitt's state by Lord Wellesley, and had been deeply affected by it, earnestly recommended forbearance ; and Fox, with characteristic generosity and good nature, gave his voice against attacking his now helpless rival. " Sunt lacrymae rerum," he said, " et mentem mortalia lan- gunt." On the first day, therefore, there was no debate. It was rumored that evening that Pitt was better. But on the following morning his physicians pronounced that there were no hopes. The commanding faculties of which he had been too proud were begin- ning to fail. His old tutor and friend, the Bishop of Lincoln, in- formed him of his danger, and gave such religious advice and conso- laliou as a confused and obscured mind could receive. Stories were told of devout sentiments fervently uttered by the dying man. But these stories found no credit with anybodj' who knew him. Wil- berforce pronounced it impossible that they could be true ; " Pitt," he added, " was a man who said less than he thought on such topics. " It was asserted in many after-dinner speeches, Grub Street elegies, and academic prize poems and prize declamations, that the great minister died exclaiming, " Oh, my country !" This is a fable ; but it is true that the last words which he utleied, while he knew what he said, were broken exclamations about the alarming state of public affairs. He ceased to breathe on the morning of the 23d of January, ISDI;, the twenty-fifty anniversary of the day in which he fiist took his seat in Parliament. He was in his forty-seventh year, and had been, during near nineteen years, first lord of the treasury, and undis- puted chief of the administration Since parliamentary government was established in England, no English statesman has held supreme power so long. "Walpole, it is true, was first lord of the treasury WILLIAM PITT. 63 during more than twenty years, but it was not till Walpolc had been some time first lord of the treasury that he could be properly called prime minister. It was moved in the House of Commons that Pitt should be hon- ored with a public funeral, and a monument. The motion was op- posed by Fox in a speech which deserves to be studied as a model of good taste and good feeling. The task was the most invidious that ever an orator undertook ; but it was performed with a humanity and delicacy which were warmly acknowledged by the mourning friends of him who was gone. The motion was carried by 288 votes to 89. The 22d of February was fixed for the funeral. The corpse hav- ing lain in state during two days in the Painted Chamber, was borne with great pomp to the northern transept of the Abbey. A splendid train of princes, nobles, bishops, and privy -councillors followed. The grave of Pitt had been made near to the spot where his great father lay, near also to the spot where his great rival was soon to lie. The sadness of the assistants was beyond that of ordinary mourners. For he whom they were committing to the dust had died of sorrows and anxieties of which none of the survivors could be altogether without a share. Wilberforce, who carried the banner before the hearse 1 ,, de-- scribed the awful ceremony with deep feeling. As the coffin de- scended into the earth, he said, the eagle face of Chatham from above seemed to look down with consternation into the dark house which was receiving all that remained of so much power and glory All parties in the House of Commons readily concurred in voting forty thousand pounds to satisfy the demands of Pitt's creditors. Some of his admirers seemed to consider the magnitude of his em- barrassments as a circumstance highly honorable to him ; but men of sense will probably be of a different opinion. It is far better, no doubt, that a great minister should carry his contempt of money to excess than that he should contaminate his hands with unlawful gain. But it is neither right nor becoming in a man to whom the public has given an income more than sufficient for his comfort and dignity, to bequeath to that public a great debt, the effect of mere negligence and profusion. As first lord of the treasury and chancel- lor of the exchequer, Pitt never had less than six thousand a year, be- sides an excellent house. In 1792 he was forced by his royal mas- ter's friendly importunity to accept for life the ottice of warden of the Cinque Ports, with near four thousand a year more. He had neither wife nor child ; he had no needy relations ; he had no ex- pensive tastes ; he had no long election bills. Had he given but a quarter of an hour a week to the regulation of his household, he would have kept his expenditure within bounds. Or, if he couW not spare even a quarter of an hour a week for that purpose, he had numerous friends, excellent men of business, who would have been proud to act as his stewards. One of those friends, the chief of a (J4 WILLIAM PITT. greut commercial house in the city, made an attempt to put the? establishment in Downing Street to rights ; but in vain. lie found that the waste of the servants'-hall was almost fabulous. The quan- tity of hul cher's meat charged in the bills was nine hundred weight a week. The consumption of poultry, of fish, of tea, was in pro- portion. The character of Pitt Avould have stood higher if, wtith the disinterestedness of Policies and of DC Witt, he had united their dig- nified frugality. The memory of Pitt has been assailed, times innumerable, often justly, often unjuslly ; but it has suffered much less from his assail ants than from his eulogists. For, during many years, his name w-is the rallying cry of a class of men with whom, at one of those terrible; conjum.-lures which confound all ordinary distinctions, he was accidentally and temporarily connected, but to whom, on almost all great (|ucstions of principle, he was diametrically opposed. The haters of parliamentary reform called themselves Pittites, not choosing to remember that Pitt made three motions for parlia- mentary icform, and that, though he thought that such a re- form could not safely be made while the passions excited by the I'Yench Revolution were raging, he never uttered a word indicat- ing that lie should not be prepared at a moie convenient season to bring Hie question forward a fourth time. The toast of Protestant ascendency Avas drunk on Pitt's buthday by a set of Pittites, who could not but be aware that Pitt had resigned his office because he could not. carry Catholic emancipation. The defenders of the Test Act, called thcmschrs Pittites, though they could not be ignorant that Pitt had laid before George the Third unanswerable reasons for abolishing the TeM, Act. The enemies of free trade called them- selves Pittites, though Pitt was far more deeply imbued with the doctrines of Adam Smith than cither Fex or (ircy. The very negro-drivers invoked the name of Pitt, whose eloquence was never more conspicuously displayed than -when he spoke of the wrongs of the negro. This mythical Pitt, who resembles the genuine Pitt as lit Me as the Charlemagne of Ariosto resembles the Charlemagne of Eginhard, has had his day. History will vindicate the; ical man from calumny disguised under the semblance of adulation, and will exhibit him as what he was, a minister of great talents, honest intentions, and liberal opinions, pre-eminently qualified, intellectually and mor- ally, for the part of a parliamentary leader, and capable of adminis- tering with prudence and moderation the government of a prosperous BC tranquil ceumtry ; hut unequal lo surprising and terrible emer- gencies, and liable, in such emergencies, to err grievously, both on the siele of weakness and on the side of violence. THE EKD. MARTIN LUTHER. LUTHER'S life is both the epos and the tragedy of his age. Iv Is au epos because its first part presents a hero and a prophet who con- quers apparently insuperable difficulties and opens a new world to the human mind without any power but that of divine truth and dr.*jp conviction, or any authority but that inherent in sincerity and Un- daunted, unselfish courage. But Luther's life is also a tragedy ; it is the tragedy of Germany as well as of the hero, her son, who in vain tried to rescue his country from unholy oppression and to regenerate her from within as a nation by means of the Gospel ; and who died in unshaken faith in Christ and in his kingdom, although he lived to see his beloved fatherland going to destruction, not through but in spite of the Reformation. Both parts of Luther's life are of the highest interest. In the epic part of it we see the most arduous work of the time the work for two hundred years tried in vain by councils, and by prophets and martyrs, with and without emperors, kings, and princes -undertaken by a poor monk alone, who carried it out under the ban both of the pope and the empire. In the second, we see him surrounded by friends and disciples, always the spiritual head of his nation, and the revered adviser of princes and preacher of the people ; living in the same poverty as before, and leaving his descendants as unprovided for as Aristides left his daughter. So lived and died the greatest hero of Christendom since the apostles ; the restorer of that form of Christianity which now sustains Europe,. and (with all its defects) regenerating and purifying the whole human race ; the founder of (lie modern German language and literature ; the first speaker and debater of his country ; and, at the same time, the first writer in prose and verse of his age. And in what state had he found his native country ? The once free and powerful aggregate of nations, which had overthrown the Western Empire, conquered Gaul, and transfused healthier blood into the Romanized Celtic population of Britain, had gradually been broken up into nearly four hundred (with the barons of the empire twelve hundred) sovereignties, under a powerless imperial government rep- resented by emperors l>eut upon the destruction of nationality, and 4 MARTIN LUTHER. by an oligarchic diet with seven electoral princes at its head, throe of whom, as ecclesiastics, were creatures of the pope, while the re- maining four, imitating the emperor, were occupied rather with the selfish interests of their princely houses than with those of their country. When, in 1486, Maximilian was to be elected king of the Romans, and when he became emperor (in 1493), Archbishop Ber thold, elector of Mayence, a great and patriotic man, had prepared, with some other German princes, a plan for a sort of national execu- tive, the members of which were not to be installed, as heretofore, by the emperor alone, but appointed by the Diet and the electors, in order to form a federal senate to co-operate with the emperor. But the Austrian prince, son-in-law of Charles of Burgundy, and heir to his kingly estates, was liberal in promises unfulfilled, having lived not only to maintain but to strengthen the imperial autocracy. His great comfort on his death-bed was the reflection that his whole life had been devoted to the aggrandizement of his own House of Austria. The smaller German lords and knights of the empire made a last at- tempt to maintain their independence, and to restore the ancient lib- erties of the German nation ; but acting in a lawless manner and without any political wisdom, they were crushed by the united power of the emperor and the electors. The more eminent and powerful portion of the mass of the nation was represented by the wealthy towns, which had purchased from the emperors the privileges of free imperial cities ; and which, with the ITanseatic towns, would have formed, united with the estate of the knights, the most complete constituent parts of a House of Commons, by the side of the princes, dukes, and (omits of the empire as House of Peers. The formation of such an ef- lVrtiv(! federal empire must have been in the mind of those enlightened men who at the election of Maximilian perceived that a constitution was necessary to prevent Germany from becoming a mere domain of the emjwrors. A truly representative government, federal and unitary, monarchical and aristocratical, and popular, would have followed as a matter of course from such a beginning as that proposed. But since the failure of that plan nothing effectual had been accom- plished ; isolation and separation became more complete ; the pence of the land was enforced at last, although imperfectly ; and the im- perial tribunal established by Maximilian acted with insufficient authority, and, as was believed, not with equal justice. The greatest iniquity was the condition of the peasantry. The freeholders had in many parts of Germany j )ccn> jf not absorbed, at least considerably diminished by the feudal system ; but the great grievances were the illegal abuses which had grown out of that system and the always increasing exactions of the lords of the manor, who, particularly in Southern Germany, had reduced the peasants to real serfs men who had to render unlimited services and scarcely could support life. There had l>een insurrections of peasants, particularly along tlift Upper Hhiuc, in 1401, and again in 1503 ; but being without leaders, MARTIN LUTHER. 5 they were each time crushed after a bloody struggle, and the ultimate result was a still greater amount of hardship. " The chains of the sufferers were riveted. In short, Germany was suffering from all the same evils as France and England, without having gained that unity and strength of government which in those countries had resulted from similar struggles. On the other hand, however, the age was one of general progress. The invention of printing had given wings to the human mind ; philology had opened the sources of historical knowledge as well as of philosophy and poetry ; astrology began to five way to astronomy, and the idea of the universe emerged out of cwish and other fables. As to Germany in particular, the cradle of the art of printing, Augsburg and other great cities were, with the Ilanseatic towns, centres of European commerce, and partook of the resources opened by the discovery of America. The religious mind, too, had been awakened since the days of Wycliffe and of Huss. Be- lieving Christendom, and, above all, believing Germany, had hoped for a real reform of the Church, the abuses of which were doubly felt in consequence of the shameful immorality of the popes and the ever-increasing exactions of the court of Rome. The issue of im- mense efforts on the part of emperors, princes, and people, was, that the Council of Constance delivered ITuss to the flames, and both the Councils of Constance and Basle ended in a more decided suprem- acy of the Roman pontiffs. Certainly the religious mind of Ger- many was not a little damped by these disappointments ; but the thirst after a reform was not quenched by the evident unwillingness of Rome to reform itself. The wise and good men of the time, how- ever, could not discover any means to achieve what was generally desired and demanded. The faith in human, and gradually also in divine justice upon earth had long disappeared in unfortunate Italy, as the writings of the age prove ; but now it threatened to vanish even in the minds of the Germans, in whom that faith may be called eminently their innate individual and national religion. The Bible had been repeatedly printed in the vernacular tongue, but it was, and continued to be, a book closed with seven seals. There was a general feeling that the gospel ought to be made the foundation of purified religion and doctrine ; but where was the man to resuscitate its letter and spirit, and to find the way from Christ, to the soul through the darkness and the fictions, the usages and the abuses, of the intervening centuries ? The voice of the Friends of God with Tauler at their head had been choked in blood, like that of the Waidenses ; and then, supposing such an evangelical basis to havo been found, was the existing state of injustice and wrong to con- tinue ? Were the emperors to continue to sacrifice the empire to their dynastic interests the princes and the nobles to their covetous- ness and licentiousness ? Yes ; would not the overthrow of the ec- clesiastical power lead to universal conflagration and rebellion and destruction, and thus Christendom be thrown bunk into a worse bar- 6 MARTIN LUTHER. liarism than that out of which they were anxious to emerge ? In short, the work (so it seemed) could not be undertaken but in despair or in enthusiastic faith. In the former case it must succumb neces- sarily ; but even if begun with the faith of Wycliffe and of IIuss, would not the attempt in any case lead to a long-continued struggle, the end of which none of those who began it could live to witness ? Who should enter on so tremendous a course ? Such was the work to be done, and such were the general and pe- culiar difficulties and the state of things in Germany when Luther undertook it. Luther devoted a life of almost supernatural energy and suffering to secure its basis ; and although at his death he left it surrounded by the greatest dangers, and one hundred years of bloody struggle were succeeded by another hundred years of agony and of exhaustion, still the Reformation survived and proved essentially the renovating element of mankind instead of being (as its enemies proph- esied) the promoter of revolution. It subsists to this hour as the only durable preserver of all liberties, religious or political ; and the nations and states which have embraced the Reformation are those only which have escaped the revolutions which for seventy years have agitated those of the lloman faith. The life of him who was the beginner of this great and holy work, and who broke down the double tyranny of pope and emperor arrayed against him, must therefore be considered from a higher point of view than that of individual biography or sectarian panegyric, or national vanity and prejudices. The article upon Luther will have to be treated from the central point of the universal history of mankind. This must, be also the rule for fixing the epochs of Luther's life. One of the reasons why this life is not yet fully appreciated is Iliat it is not sufficiently understood ; and this again arises in great measure from the want of due observation of the critical points in the develop- ment of the Reformation and of the history of Europe, and of Ger- many in particular. \Ve shall divide llic following condensed but complete survey into tliree periods. The first will be the period of preparation, extending t<> Luther's first publication of theses against the indulgences. :'.lst, October, 1517 ; the second will comprise the next eight years of preaching the gospel and gospel-doctrine in its three fundamental parts ; the third is that of political and theological struggles, from 1525 to his death in 1546 preparation, progressive action^ and then Struggle within and without. Luther's grand character and true p'n;ty sliine in both periods of his public career ; but the culminating point of his active and creative agency is in the first, It is, accord- ing to our view, the year 1533 which forms the critical epoch. Iti 1624 the foundation of the practical realization of the principles of the Reformation was laid with triumphant success. The year 15i>5 "-an hopefully , but ended with the preparation for a struggle, of wlneli Luther felt at once that he never should see the end. Before MARTIN LUTHER. 7 the close of 1525, he gave up the cause of Germany, not in conse. quence of any fault committed by himself, but because he saw that his party was not prepared for the struggle with the empire, and was still less resigned to leave the matter to "God, who, as Luther firmly believed to his death, would never allow his work to perish till the end of the world. But was not the end of the world coming now ? FIRST PEKTOD. 7%ersed, or were silenced in public debate. On the 21st September, 1522, the translation of the New Testament Appeared in two volumes folio, which sold at about a ducat and a half. The translation of the Old Testament was commenced in the same year. Thousands of copies were read with indescribable delight by the people, who had now access to the words of Him whom Luther had preached to them as the author of our salvation in their inotln r MA11TIK LUTHEE. 23 tongue, in a purity and clearness unknown before, and never Bur- passed since. By choosing the Franconian dialect, in use in the im- perial chancery, Luther made himself intelligible both to thoae whose vernacular dialect was High German or Low German. Luther trans- lated faithfully but vernacularly, with a native grace which up to this day makes his Bible the standard of the German language. It is Luther's genius applied to the Bible which has preserved the only unity, which is, in our clays, remaining to the German nation that of language, literature, and thought. There is no similar instance in the known history of the world of a single man achieving such a work. His prophetic mind foresaw that the Scripture would per- vade the living languages and tongues all over the earth a process going on still with more activity than ever. Meanwhile the vanity and presumption of Henry VIII. induced him to publish a book against Luther, in which he heaped upon Luther every opprobrious epithet ; even called in question his honesty and sincerity, and declared him worthy to be burned. His Defence of the Seven /Sticramctits merely recapitulates the old scholastic tradition without the slightest understanding of the Bible or of the evangelical doctrine. Henry's ambassador declared to the pope, in presenting the book, that the king was now ready to use the sword against Luther's adherents, after having refuted the errors of Luther himself. Luther, after having read the book, declared, contrary to the desire of the elector and of his other friends, that he must answer it. " Look," he writes, " what weapons are used against me : lire and the fury of those stupid Thomists. Let them burn me : alive I shall be the enemy of popery ; burned I shall be its ruin. Everywhere they will liud me in their way, like a bear or a lion. " In the answer itself n< i pay 8 th king in his own coin. After having taken the crown from his head and beaten him like any other controversial writer, he exclaims, " I cry Gospel ! Gospel ! Christ ! Christ ! and they cease not to answer, Usages, usages ! ordinances, ordinances ! fathers, fathers ! The apostle St. Paul annihilates with a thunder-storm from heaven all these fooleries of Henry." The king wrote to the elector and the dukes of Saxony, exhorting them to extirpate this heresy, as being the revival of that of Wycliite. Their answer referred Henry to the future council. The cause of the Reformation suffered nothing from Henry's attacks and the invectives of his courtiers. The move- ment against the sacerdotal and monkish vows extended through the whole of Germany, affecting equally priests and laymen. Zealous preachers of the gospel rose from all ranks. Noble and pious women came forward to declare their faith. Luther's activity was unparal- leled. In 1522 he published one hundred and thirty treatises, and eighty-three in the following year. The whole national literature of Germany became Protestant ; and it is certainly a remarkable fact that, in spite of the Reformation having since lost almost one half of Germany, its literature, as well 24 MAKTlH LUTHER. as its historical learning and philology, still remains Protestant. All tin; free cities, which were the cradle of the flue arts as well as of the wealth of the country, declared in favor of the Reformation. In Saxony there was, as Luther had proposed and demanded, perfect liberty of conscience ; the Romish bishops had their preachers a well as the Reformers. Luther's heart expanded in the consciousness of the Reformers success such as he had never hoped to see. But he shrunk from tin idea that this work should be regarded as his, and that he should have the honor of it. " My true disciples," he said, " do not believe in Luther, but in Jesus Christ ; I myself care nothing about Luther. What is it to me whether he be a saint or a miscreant ? It is not him I preach, but Christ. If the devil can, let him huve Christ ; but if Christ remains ours, we also shall subsist." When Leo X. died, in this year (1522), Adrian, the Flemish tutor of Charles V., his successor, a single-minded professor, could not (as Jarus tells us) at first conceive how people could find a difficulty in the matter of indulgences, which he had explained so well in his lec- tures, till a cardinal remarked to him that the unbelieving people had no faith in indulgences whatsoever, and that some of those who believed in Christ thought that exactly for that reason they did not want them. "The Church must reform," said he, "but step by step. " " Yes, " said Luther, " putting some centuries between every step." Nobody wanted his reforms less than the Romans ; and Adrian exclaimed at last, " How unfortunate is the position of the popes, who arc not even free to do good !" In November, 1522, the diet assembled at Nuremberg on account of an impending war with the Turks. While the nuncio and the bishops demanded Luther's death, the churches of the imperial free city re- sounded with the doctrine of the gospel ; monks being among fche most zealous preachers. What a change from the state of things at Worms in April, 1521 ! The municipal council of the free city de- clared that if those preachers were to be seized by force, they would instantly set them free by force. The legate was obliged to abandon his plan of arresting them in the pope's name, as the diet declared it- self incompetent to do so. Adrian's sincere avowal of the horrible abuses of Rome confirmed the people in the belief that Luther and the gospel were right, and made his threatening brief, addressed to the elector, whom he declared worthy of death and eternal damna- tion, appear as ridiculous as it was arrogant. Luther and all his friends, whose advice the elector asked at this critical moment, de- clared that he ought not to fight for the gospel, seeing that the people, without whose consent he could not declare war, would not in the spirit of faith declare for such a measure. But other princes were frightened, because they had no faith whatever, except in superior strength and power of pope and emperor. "Let them take care," KUK! Luther, " if they persecute the gospel, th there will be a rebellion MARTIN" LUTHER. 25 and civil war, and the princes will be in danger of losing their do- minions. They wish to destroy me, but I wish to save them. Christ lives and reigns ; and I shall live and reign with him." Indeed, a bloody persecution began in many parts of Germany and in the Netherlands. Four Augustinian monks of Antwerp were the first martyrs ; they were burned on the 1st July, 1523. Their blood called forth a rich harvest of new witnesses in Brussels and elsewhere. When the successor 'of Adrian VI., Clement VII. (Julius de Me- dici), sent in 1524 the celebrated legate Campeggi to Nuremberg, he intended, according to usage, on passing through Augsburg, to give the people the papal benediction ; but finding that the ceremony called forth public derision, the legate entered Nuremberg as much incognito as Luther had entered Worms two years before. The Ger- man princes asked what had become of the one hundred and one grievances of the German nation, to which Rome never had deigned to return an answer. Campeggi declared the document to have been considered at Rome merely as a private pamphlet ; on which the diet, in great indignation, insisted upon the necessity of a universal council, and proceeded to annul the edict of Worms ; declaring, how- ever, in their communication to the pope, that " it should be con- formed to an much as possible ;" which, with respect to many princes and cities, meant not at all. Finally it was resolved that a diet, to he held at Spires in November, was to decide on religious differences. Many states which had hitherto kept aloof the landgrave of Bran- denburg (not the elector, a strong papist) at the head declared im- mediately for the reform, and against the seven sacraments, the abuses of the mass, the worship of saints, and supremacy of the pope. " That is a good move, ' ' said Luther. ' ' Frederic must lose his electoral hat, " cried the Roman agent, " and France and England must interfere." A Catholic league was formed, by Bavarian and other bishops, at Ratisbon, under Campeggi 's direction and presidency. But the princes were still afraid of the universally spreading national move- ment. Charles threw his power into the balance and declared that not the German nation but the emperor alone had a right to de- mand a council, and the pope alone had the right to grant it. Hi* designated successor, his brother Ferdinand, began the bloody work of persecution in the hereditary states of Austria immediately after the congress of the league at Ratisbon. At Passau in Bavaria, and at Bucla in Hungary, the fagots were lighted. The dukes of Bavaria followed the same impulse. Meanwhile began at Wittemberg the unhappy dispute about the mode in which the consecration affected the elements in the celebra- tion of the communion enjoined by Christ. Luther as yet had not taken up that doctrinal scholastic opinion which afterward pro- duced the fatal schism. In opposing Carlstadt's view, he combated not so much the later Swiss exposition as Carlstadt's false interpreta- tion of the words, " This is my body," which was, that Christ, iu $6 MARTIN LUTHEtt. pronouncing them, had pointed to his own body, which soon would die. lie admitted soon afterward, in reference to that exppsitio n in 1520, that lie was very near thinking the Swiss interpretation the reasonable view of the case, but that he had rejected the notion as a " temptation," the words of the text seeming to him not to allow of that interpretation. Hut in the same manner as this dispute was a prelude to the fatal sacramental disputes with Zwingle and Calvin, Luther's defeat in die attempt to detach the congregation of a small town (Orlamunde, near Jena) from Carlstadt, who introduced iconoclastic and violent pro ccedings, proved an index of the critical state of public feeling. Lather felt the urgent necessity of applying the principles of the gospel to Christian worship and to the constitutions of the Church. But on the first point he wished changes to be introduced gradually, and rather as a purification of the existing forms than by an abroga- tion. While as to the second, he felt that it was not his immediate vocation, and lie thought he must leave the work to the princes, and content himself with preaching to them the leading evangelical prin- ciples. This, of course, was not the view of the real friends of the Reformation, nor was it consistent with Luther's usual profound sagacity, but must be regarded as a remnant of the effect produced by his monkish scholastic education brought into accordance with Christianity. His more practical and perhaps impatient friends wanted to see the pagan condition of the world, with its social rela- tions, changed into a Christian state of things, as an earnest and pledge of the reality of the gospel preaching. Still, for some time longer Luther and the popular feeling marched peaceably together, and he remained the national as well as the theological leader. It was at this time that he directed a powerful address to the immcipal councils of the German towns, in order to exhort them to establish everywhere Christian schools, as well elementary as learned. "Oh, my dear Germans," he exclaims, " the Divine Word is now in abun- dance offered to you. God knocks at your door ; open it to him ! Forget not the poor youth. Look how the ancient Jewish, (-creek, and I toman world lost the Word of God, and perished. The strength of a town does not consist in its towers and buildings, but in count- ing a great number of learned, serious, honest, well-educated citizens. Di> not fancy Hebrew and Greek to be unnecessary. These lan- guages are the sheath which covers the sword of the Spirit. The igno- ranee of the original Scriptures was an impediment to the progress of the \VaMeii.ses, whose doctrine is perfectly pure. How could I have combated and overthrown pope and sophists, even having the true fnith, if I had not possessed the languages? You must found libra- ries for learned books not only the fathers, but also the pagan writers, the fine arts, law, history, medicine, must be represented in fluch collections. " These expressions prove that from the very be- ginning and in the very person of Luther, the Reformation was coa- MAKTIN LUTHER. it nected with scholarship with philology in its most extended sense, and equally with the highest aspirations of the fine arts. Here we must conclude this first glorious period of Luther 'g life, which, taken altogether, has no parallel since the days of the apostle Paul. But the problem to be solved was not to be solved by Luther and by Germany ; the progressive, vital element of reformation pu-^ci I from Germany to Switzerland, and through Switzerland to France, Holland, England and Scotland. Before he descended into the grave and Germany into thraldom, Luther saved (as much as was in him) hi* country and the world, by maintaining the fundamental principles of the Reformation against Melanchthon's pusillanimity ; but tkree Prot estant princes and the free cities were the leaders ; the confession vvus the work of Melanchthon, but the deed of the laity of the nation. The German Reformation was made by a scholastically trained monk, seconded by professors ; the Swiss Reformation was the work of a free citizen, an honest Christian, trained by the classics of antiquity and nursed in true hard-won civil liberty. That was the providen- tial saving of the world. Luther's work was continued, preserved, advanced by the work of the Swiss and French Reformers. The monk and the Semitic element began ; the citizens and the Japhetic*, element finished. If the one destroyed Judaism, the other converted paganism, then most powerful, both as idolatry and as irreligious learning. But as long as Luther lived he did not lose his supremacy, and he deserved to keep it. *His mind was universal, and therefore catholic in the proper sense of the word. THIRD PERIOD. Lutlier's Life from 1525 to 1546 ; or, the Period of Stagnation. The first year after Luther's return to Wittemberg was a glorious period : the true halcyon days of the Reform and ftf Luther's per- sonal history. In the second period of his life the epic was changed into tragedy ; for the Anabaptist tumult arose, and the war of the peasants broke out in the Black Forest, in July, 1524. The Anabaptist movement of Thomas Munzcr was the movement of Carlstadt mixed up with wild enthusiasm, ignorance, rebellion, and im- posture. Lutlier's doctrinal opposition to it was constant and con- sistent ; but it would have been more effectual if Luther had not involved himself as a schoolman in an indissoluble difficulty. He- was safe in defending p;edo-baptism ; but that could be done with out ascribing to it the power of individual regeneration ; an opinion from which the greatest part of Christendom has most decisively declared its dissent all over the globe. He was equally justified in maintaining the word of the gospel : " Whoever believes and is bap- tized shall be saved ;" but he ought not to have forgotten that this is a juxtaposition of two things of which the one can only be of value as a consequence of the first. This brings the question back to a 4- A.B-JO 28 HARTIK LUTHER. eran profession and vow before the Christian congregation of h..rr who having been instructed in Christ's saving faith finds himself ready and compelled to make that solemn promise, which St. Peter calls (1 Peter 3: 21) "the promise (or vow) of a good con- science." Munzer and all the other so-called apostles of the Spirit :i Marked Luther as a mere worldly man who had sold himself to the princes. They abolished chanting and all ceremonies, and com- mit led acts of violence against churches and convents. Luther said to Munzer, " The spirit who moves thee must be an evil one, for it brings forth nothing but pillage of convents and churches ; the greatest robbers on the earth could do no more." While combating them by preaching and writing, he advised, however, the elector to let them preach freely. " The Word of God itself must come for- ward and contend with them. If their spirit is the true one, Mun/.cr will fear our constraint ; if ours is the true one, he will not fear their violence. Let the spirits meet with all might, and fight each other. Perhaps some will be seduced ; well, there is no battle without wounds; but he that fights faithfully will be crowned. But if they have recourse to the sword, then defend your own subjects, and or- der the Anabaptists to leave the country. ' ' It was indeed a wonderful faith that produced such toleration in these times, and it had a wonderful result the elector's stales re- mained undisturbed. Munzer fled into Switzerland. It was otherwise with the war of the .peasants. We have already observed that the Reformation did not originate the rebellion of the peasants, but found it prepared.' The first coalitions of the peasants against the intolerable rapacity and cruelty of the feudal aristocracy had l>egun before the close of the fifteenth century ; then they broke out along the upper Rhine, in Alsace, and the palatinate, in lOo:., consequently eighteen years before the beginning of Luther's Refor- mation. No doubt Luther's preaching, in the spirit of the gospel, against all the revolting injustice and oppression of the conscience it Christian men had kept back that movement for a time ; but Murr/.cr carried the spirit of rebellion and fanaticism among the peas- ants and part of the citizens of the countries of the Upper Rhine. The fact was, that all the oppressed inclined toward Luther, and the oppressors, most of whom were the sovereigns, bishops, and abbots, toward the pope. The struggle which now began was therefore between the reforming and the papist party, and it was easily to be foreseen that Luther would soon be dragged into it. Indeed, the revolutionary movement was already, in Januuy, 1525, extending from the Black Forest to Thuringia and Saxony, the very heart of Luther's sphere of action. The peasants had proclaimed twelve arti- cles, of half biblical half political character. In the introduction to these articles they protest against the imputation of wanting any- thing but the gospel applied to the social body. They declare their desire to uphold its injunctions peace, patience, and union. There MARTIN LUTHER. 29 is nu doubt that many of them were sincere in their professions. At all events, neither the gospel nor its true preachers and followers were the revolutionists, but the wild, selfish, passionate enthusiasts among them and their leaders. Like the Puritans in the following century, the peasants say they raise their voice to God who saved the people of Israel ; and they believe that God can save them as well from their powerful oppressors as he did the Israelites from the hand of Pharaoh. As to what they demanded in their twelve articles, all impartial historians declare that, on the whole, their demands were just ; and all of them are now the law of Germany. As to the influence of the Ref- ormation, the very words of Scripture, brought forward this time by the peasants, prove dourly that Luther's preaching of the gospel and of truth had nut acted upon the movement as an incentive but as a corrective. It was Luther himself who now, in the critical moment, brought the Word of God to speak out against the insurrection, as being in itself an act of unchristian self-defence, although he ac- knowledged their case to be very hard, and their cause, on the whole, a just one. Luther's position was grand ; he spoke as the arbiter be- tween lord and peasant ; in the name of Christ exhorting both parties to peace, and as a good citizen and patriot giving them advice equal- ly practical and Christian, lie first speaks thus in substance to the lords : "I might now make common cause with the peasants against you, who impute this insurrection to the gospel and to my teaching ; whereas I have never ceased to enjoin obedience to au- thority, even to one so tyrannical and intolerable as yours. But I will not envenom the wound ; therefore, my lords, whether friendly or hostile to me, do not despise either the advice of a poor man, or (his sedition ; not that 3^011 ought to fear the insurgents, but fear God the Lord, who is incensed against you. He may punish you and turn every stone into a peasant, and then neither your cuirasses nor your strength would save you. Put then bounds to your exactions pause in your hard tyranny, consider them as intoxicated, and treat them with kindness, that God may not kindle a fire throughout tier-- many which none will be able to extinguish. What you may per- haps lose will be made good to you a hundredfold by peace. Somo of the twelve articles of the peasants are so equitable that they dis- honor you before God and the world ; they cover the princes with shame, as the lODth Psalm says. I should have yet graver things to tell you respecting the government of Germany, and 1 have ad- dressed you in this cause in my book to the German nobility. But you have considered my words as wind, and therefore all these de- mands come now upon you. You must not- refuse their demand as to choosing paste. 's who preach to- them the gospel ; the government has only to see tha v insurrection and rebellion be not preached ; but there must be perfec*. liberty to preach the true gospel as well as tlio false. The remaining articles, which regard the social state of th 30 MARTIN LUTIIER. peasant, are equally just. Government is not established for its ow interest, nor to make the people subservient to caprice and evil pas- sions, but for the interest of the people. Your exactions air intoler- able ; you lake away from the peasant the fruit of hie labor, in order ID spend his money upon your finery and luxury. So much for you. " Now, as regards you, my dear friends, the peasants. You want the free preaching of the gospel to be secured to you. God will as- sist your just cause if yon follow up your work with conscience and justice. In that case you are sure to triumph in the end. Those of you who may fall in the struggle will be saved. But if you act otherwise you are lost, soul and body, even if you have success, and defeat the princes and lords. Do not believe the false prophets who IIHVC come among you, even if they invoke the holy name of the gos- pel. They will call me a hypocrite, but I do not mind that. 1 wish 1o suve the pious and honest men among you. I fear God and none else. Do you fear him also, and use not his name in vain, that he may not punish you. Does not the Word of God siiy, ' lie who takes up the sword shall perish by the sword ; ' and ' Let every soul be subject to the higher powers ' ? . You must not take justice into your own hands ; that is also the prescription of the natural law. Do you not see that you put yourself in the wrong by rebellion ? The government takes away part of what is yours, but you take away all in destroying principle. Fix your eye on Christ at Gethsemane re- buking St. Peter for using the sword, although in defence of his Mas- ter, and on Christ on the cross praying for his persecutors. And h:u not his kingdom triumphed ? Why have pope and emperor not been able to put me down ? Why has the gospel spread the more the greater the effort they made to hinder and destroy it ? Because I have never had recourse to force, but preached obedience ev\m tow- ard those who persecuted me, depending exclusively on God. But whatever you do, do not try to cover your enterprise by the cloak of the gospel and the name of Christ. If war there must be, it will be a war of pagans, for Christians use other weapons ; their general raftered the cross, and their triumph is humility : that is their chiv- alry. Pray, my dear friends, stop and consider before you proceed farther. Your quotations from the Bible do not prove your case." After having thus spoken out boldly and fearlessly to each party, Lu- 1 her concludes with a touching expostulation to both. The substance of liis address is in these words : " You see you are both in the wrong, and are drawing the divine punishments upon you and upon your common country, Germany. My advice would be that arbitrators should be chosen, some from the nobility and some from the towns. You both have to give xip something ; let the matter be settled equi- tably by human law." This certainly was the voice of the true prophet of the age, if ever there was any. It was not heard. The lords showed little dispo- MARTIN LUTI1EE. 51 sition toward concessions, and what they did offer came too late, when the bloody struggle had already begun. The peasants, excited by Muii/er, exceeded, on their side, all bounds, and Luther felt him- self obliged, when the stream of rebellion and destruction rolled oil to Tluiriugia and Saxony, to speak out most strongly against them. The princes leagued together (for the empire, of course, did nothing, Charles having full employment in Spain), and the peasants were routed everywhere. Fifty thousand of their party were slain or butchered by wholesale executions. Among this number there were many of the quietest and most moderate people made victims in the general slaughter, because they were known or suspected to be friends of the Reformation and of Luther, which indeed all the citizens and peasants of Germany were at that time. None felt more deeply this misery and what it involved in its effects on the cause of the gospel in Germany ; and he never recov- ered the shock. He thus unburdens his soul at the close of this fatal year, which crushed for centuries the rights and hopes of the peas- ants and laborers, and weakened the towns and cities, the seats of all that was best in the national life : " The spirit of these tyrants is pow- erless, cowardly, estranged from every honest thought. They de- serve to be the slaves of the people. But by the grace of Christ 1 am sufficiently revenged by the contempt I have for them, and for Satan their god." And in the next year he said, " I fear Germany is lost ; it cannot be otherwise, for they will employ nothing but the sword." In all this Luther stands higher than ever, but as a sufferer. He .sees the work in Germany is lost for this time. He submits, and is supported by his faith. So he is consoled when he sees how Ferdi- nand of Austria and the Duke of Bavaria imprison and slaughter Christians on account of the gospel, and Unit not only the pope and the emperor are leagued together against tlie Reformation, but also the king of France, besides the king of England. All the powers of the world are against him ; Germany is doomed to perish, but the word and the work of God cannot perish. Even the sad results of a general visitation of the churches which he undertook throughout the states of the elector did not shake his faith. He sees how igno- rant and savage all these wars and revolts have rendered even the Protestant congregations ; but he says the Spirit of God will not forsake them. The elector Frederic, Luther's timid but honest sup- porter, had descended into the lomb on the 5th May, 152.1, confess- ing on his death-bed his firm belief in Christ as his only Saviour. His successor, John, known by the well-deserved name, John the Constant,, followed in his footsteps, and was a firm friend to Luther. But the Romish league also gained friends in the north of Ger- many. Duke George of Saxony had, in July of this year, concluded at Dessau an alliance against the Reformation with Albert of Bran- denburg, Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, and with the dukes 82 MARTIN LUTHER. of Brunswick, and proved himself in earnest by causing two citizens of Leipzig to be beheaded for having the writings of Luther in their houses. At the same time Charles declared from Spain his inten- tion to hold a diet at Augsburg, evidently in order to crush the Ref- ormation by means of the Catholic league acting in the name of the empire. His victory at Pavia made him more than ever the master of Germany. Finally, the remains of the party of Munzcr declared they would take the life of Luther as a traitor. It was under such auspices that Luther decided at last to take a wife, as he had long advised his friends among the priests and monks to do. They had often reminded him of his profession, and of (he duty of himself setting an example to prove his sincerity. His father himself urged him continually to marry. All around him was now in a stationary if not a retrograde state. The University of Wittemberg had suffered much during the late troubles, and it was generally believed that the new elector did not mean to support it. Luther's warm and loving heart opened the more readily to the con- templation of matrimonial union with Catheriua von Bora, a lady twenty-four years of age, of a noble Saxon family, in 1523, who had left her convent, together with eight other sisters, in order to worship Christ without the oppression of endless ceremonies, which gave neither light to the mind nor peace to the soul. Since that time they had lived together in utter retirement, forming a free Christian com- munity. Pious citizens at Torgau were their protectors, and by them they were presented to Luther in the convent of the Augustinians. Soon followed, as we have seen, the.great regenerative movement of the Christian worship ; and Luther appeared, on the 9th October, 1524, before the congregation in the simple habit of a secular priest. Luther soon remained alone in the convent ; all the monks had left it. At the end of the year he sent the key to the elector, who, how- ever, desired him to continue to inhabit it. In the mean time, Luther had observed and witnessed the Christian faith and life of Catheriua von Bora, and on the llth June he married her, in the presence of Lucas Cranaeh, the celebrated painter, and of another friend, as wit- ni'SM;s. Catherina von Bora had no dowry, and Luther lived on his appointment as professor ; he would never take money for any of his books, but only some copies for presents. His marriage was a happy one, and was blessed with six children. Luther was a tender hus- band and the most loving of fathers. The princes who were friendly to the Reformation gradually gained more courage ; the elector John of Saxony established a prin- ciple in his states that all rites should be abrogated whick were con- trary to the Scriptures, and that the masses for the dead be abolished at once. The young landgrave, Philippe of Hesse, gained over the son of the furious Duke George to the cause of the Reformation. Albert, Duke of Prussia, had established it at Konigsberg, as hered lUry 4uke, abolishing the vows of the Order, whose master he had MARTIN LUTHER. 33 been, saying, " There is only one Order, and that is Christendom." At the request of the pope, Charles placed Albert under interdict as an apostate monk. The evangelical princes found in all these cir- cumstances a still stronger motive to act at Augsburg as allies in the cause of the evangelical party ; and when the diet opened in Decem- ber, 1525, they spoke out boldly : " It is violence which brought on the war of thf peasants. If you will by violence tear the truth of God out of the hearts of those who believe, you will draw greater dangers and evils upon you." The Romanist party was startled. "The cause of the holy faith" was adjourned to the next diet at Spires. The landgrave and the elector made a formal alliance in February, 1526, at Torgau. Luther, being consulted as to his opinion, felt helpless. " You have no faith ; you put not your trust in God ; leave all to him." The landgrave, the real head of the evangelical alliance, perceived that Luther's advice was not practical that Luther forsook the duty of self-defence and the obligation to do one's duty according to the dic- tates of reason, in religious matters as well as in other political ques- tions. But the alliance found no new friends. Germany showed all her misery by the meanness of her princes and the absence of any great national body to oppose the league formed by the pope, the cm- peror, and the Romanists, throughout Europe. The Archbishop of Treves preferred a pension from Charles to the defence of the national cause. The evangelically-disposed palatine desired to avoid getting into trouble on that account. The imperial city of Frank' fort, thus surrounded by open enemies and timid friends," dec-lined tn accede to the alliance. There was more national feeling and couratru in the Anglo-Saxon north of Germany. The princes of Brunswick, Luxemburg, Mecklenburg, Anhalt, and Mansfeld, assembled af Magdeburg, and made a solemn and heroic declaration of their reso, lution to pledge their " estates, lives, states and subjects, for the maintenance of the Holy Word of God, relying on Almighty God, aa whose instrument they would act." The town of Magdeburg (which then had about three times as many inhabitants as now) and Duke Albert of Prussia adhered to the alliance. The league doubled ita efforts. Charles, strong and rendered safe by 1 he peace of Madrid con- cluded with Francis, sent word from Seville, in March, 152(i, through the Romish Duke Henry of Brunswick, that he would soon come himself to crush the heresy. Luther saw th9 dangers crowding around him ; his advice was, " We are threatened with war ; let us force our enemies to keep the peace, conquered by the Spirit of God, before whose throne we must now combat with the arms of prayer ; that is the first work to be done." Toward the end of 1525 Luther had resolved to answer a book which had been written against him in the previous autumn by Erasmus, under the catching title, On Fire \\'ill. Erasmus waa ;u his heart rather a skeptic : he would in his earlier days have pro. 34 MARTIN LUTHER. fessed openly the cause of the gospel, and defended it with his supe- rior erudition and knowledge, had he believed in its success ; but neither the Swiss nor the German Reformation gave him that cer t.iiniv, and thus, at last, he gave way to King Henry and others, who urged him to attack Luther. No controversy has been less generally understood than this ; but it may also be sai&hat it might have been carried on not only with less malice by Erasmus, but also with more speculative skill by Luther. The antagonism is essen- tially the same as that of Augustine and Pelagius, or that between the lansenists and Jesuits ; a better speculative method and a deeper philosophy of the mind have since shown how the scholastic method never could solve that most important as well as most difficult prob- lem. We have no hesitation in saying that the result of dialectic metaphysics is no other than that Luther was perfectly right and Erasmus totally wrong in this dispute ; but it was hopeless from the beginning. Erasmus defined free-will as the faculty of man to de- cide for himself, be it for good or evil. Consequently to deny his thesis in this sense would have been to deny the moral responsibility of man. -But Luther's ideas respecting moral free-will were as dis- sonant from this terminology as St. Paul's reasoning on faith from the use of that word in the sense in which St. James employs or rather attacks it. In regard to Luther's terms and fundamental ideas, we have touched upon them in speaking of the influence of Tauler and of the Tlu-vluyid Gcnnanica upon his mind, when he was disturbed by what appeared to him the dreadful consequences of the doctrine of grace and eh cliuii. The theology of the German school of the fourteenth century rested upon a simpler because a deeper basis than that of Augustine, and, moie lately, of Calvin and Pascal. There is in man, as a creature, the power of self-will ;' this is not only evil as such, but the root of all evil, and sin. The power of deciding whether or not to commit an action is therefore nothing but the power of measuring and contrasting selfish principles, neither of which being good can produce good actions. There is no power against tins sellishiu-ss of the creature but the divine principle. This, the old German school maintained, is equally an inherent element in man not as a creature, but as God's image and the instrument of the. infinite, divine Spirit, which is essentially goodness and love of what is good and trflc as such, apart from any reference to ourselves. To follow up this view successfully it is evidently necessary not to establish an absolute separation between the divine principle in itself (in God, the infinite) and in man ; and this was not clearly understood by A.UtfUhlme (whose influence upon Luther was paramount, in conse- quence of his earliest impressions) and still less skilfully used by Lather. The. absuidith s lo which, as each of the combatants proved of his opponent, the consistent following up of an antagonistic prin- ciple conducts, are shown by Kant to be the necessary organic conse- quence of our. reasoning with finite notions upon the infinite ; his MARTIN LUTHER. 85 antinomies of free-will and necessity are those of Erasmus and Luther, divested of theological and dogmatic terms. But the same philoso- phy (and Kant himself in his Moral Philosophy and his Philosophy of lldiyioii) shows that Christianity and the analysis of conscience and moral consciousness of ourselves teach equally what Luther main- tained against Erasmus. The i ationalism of Erasmus and the Jesuits is condemned by this philosophy ; and whatever may be thought of the philosophical demonstration (which we think c pable of great sim- plification), St. John and St. Paul are certainly irreconcilable with it. "Erasmus ignores God," said Luther, "and that word is more powerful than any scholastic argument." Erasmus felt himself crushed by Luther's strong hits, against which his eloquence availed him nothing. "The victory must remain," Luther said, "with stammering truth, not with lying eloquence ;" and he concluded thus : " Who ever possessed so much science and eloquence, and such art in speaking and in writing ? I have nothing of all this ; but I glory in one thing I am a Christian. May God raise you in the knowledge of the gospel infinitely above me, so that you may surpass me as much in this respect as you do already in all others." Erasmus henceforth lost all measure and philosophical equanimity, never having sought truth for its own sake. The diet of Spires, which was to put an end to Luther's Reforma- tion, opened on June 25th, 152G. Ferdinand indeed republished, on the 3d August, the decree of Seville, enjoining strict execution of the edict of Worms; but in the mean time Clement VII. having quarreled witli Charles, and Ferdinand being called to Hungary in order to maintain against Soliman and other competitors the crowns of Hungary and Bohemia, left to him by King Louis after the battle of Mohacz, Charles commissioned the famous Captain Frundsberg (the same who had good-naturedly accosted Luther at Worms, and who was devoted to the evangelical cause) to enlist an army in Ger many against the pope, and thousands hastened to join his ranks iu consequence. And thus the Reformation was saved this time, and a proposition presented by the cities was accepted, " that until a coun- cil met, every governor should, within his own states, act according to his conscience." .Within a year, if not a universal, at least a national council was to meet. In consequence, the Reformation had Mine to consolidate itself from 1526 to 1529. The man of Germany rtt that time among the princes was the landgrave, Philip of Hesse, and he was enlightened by a citizen. James Sturm, the deputy of Strasburg at the diet of Spires, had convinced him that the basis of the true evangelical church was the acknowledgment of the self- government of the church by synods c&mposed of representatives of the whole Christian people. Thus the first Protestant constitution that agreed upon in Hesse was essentially that which has proved since to be the most universal and the most powerful. For that con- stitution is neither Lutheran nor Anglican, but synodal Christianity, 36 MARTIK LUTHER. which lias converted ami is now converting and conquering the world. The constitution acknowledged the episcopal element, but not episcopal rule sovereignty being invested in the people of (Jod. "We admit (say the articles) no word but that of our sovereign pastor. Bishops and deacons are to be elected by the Christian people ; bishops are to be consecrated by the imposition of hands of three bishops ; and deacons may be instituted by imposition of the hands of the elders. The general synod is to be held annually, consisting of the pastor of each parish and of pious men elected from the midst, of each church, or rather congregation, or from single churches. Three men are to be elected yearly to exercise the right of visitation. This was soon found to be an inconvenient form ; six superintend- ents (episcopi) for life wene substituted. This board of superintend- ents became afterward an oligarchy, and at last a mere instrument of the state the consequence of the disruption of Germany and the paralysis of till national institutions. Luther had professed already, in 1523 and in 1524, principles entirely identical with those estab- lished in 1526 in Hesse. But there his action ceased ; he left to the princes what they had no mind to carry out ; and what could a pro- pie do cut up into four hundred sovereignties? Never, however, did Luther acknowledge Cesaropapism or Erastianism as a principle and as a right. He considered the rights of the Christian people; as a sacred trust, provisionally deposited in the hands of their represent- atives. " Where (he asked) are the people to form the synods '! 1 cannot find them." This was a political calamity or mistake, but it was not a treason to the lights of the Christian people. Still more did Luther abhor the rapacity of the nobility and of the courtiers to possess themselves of the spoils of the Church. It was Melanchthon's influence which facilitated the despotic system and hampered th thorough reform of the forms of worship. Luther withdrew from a sphere which was not his. He composed, in 1529, the small and great Catechisms, of which the former has maintained its place as a guide of popular doctrine up to this day ; but when measures of per- secution were proposed, he raised his voice against them, lie wrote, in 1528, Falxe Teacherx are not to be put to Death ; it suffice* 1" Ifcinovc tJiem. While Luther preached this doctrine, the most bloody perse- cution went on in the estates of the elector of Brandenburg (where t lie eleetress professed courageously the principles of the gospel), in Bavaria.^aud, above all, in the hereditary states of Austria. In Feb- ruary, 1528, the impetuous landgrave was on the point of commit- ting a rash act, in consequence of a forged document which had been shown to him, purporting to4)e a secret convention to assassinate Luther and Melanehthon and crush the evangelical princes. Philip infected the elector with his apprehensions, and violent measures of jK-rsecution were to be resorted to, when Luther and Melanehthon both gave, as their solemn advice, this verdict: "The attack must not come from our side, and the guilt of blood-shedding must not MAETIN LUTHER. 3 1 ? come upoti Us. Let the emperor know of this odious conspiracy." The elector, however, assembled his troops ; but the forgery was soon discovered when the document was communicated to the Romanist princes. The attitude taken by the Protestant prince* had, however, the effect of making the Archbishop of Mainz re- nounce, in 1528, the spiritual jurisdiction lie had hitherto exercised over Saxony and Hesse. But among the public at large all believed in the existence of a secret plot against the evangelical party. Under these auspices was opened the celebrated diet of Spires in 1529. The emperor, who in the mean time had taken Rome and annihilated the ambitious plans of Clement VII., now took again to his natural part. German credulity and good-nature had served his turn. Now that he felt himself master of the field, he spoke as a Spanish despot ; the elector and landgrave were forbidden to cele- brate divine worship in their hotels, as they had done in 1527, after the use of a church had been denied them. The imperial commis- sioners desired to return to the edict of Worms of 1521. The solemn act of toleration voted by the diet of 1527 was abrogated by an arbi- trary act of the emperor alone, contrary to the constitution of the empire. Luther, the proscribed, was not present ; but Melauchtlion, who had accompanied the princes, reported to him what passed. The majority of the diet passed at last, on 7th April, a resolution, that where the edict of Worms could not be executed without fear of revolution, no further reform would be allowed. This evidently was nothing but the intended forerunner of the restoration of Popery. It was against this iniquitous decree that the elector, the laud- grave, the Margrave of Brandenburg, the Prince of Anhalt, and tli Chancellor of Luneburg, together with the dignitaries of the (owns, laid down that solemn protestation from which originates the name of " Protestants. " " The diet has overstepped its aulhontj'," they said ; " our acquired right is, that the decree of 152(, unanimously adopted, do remain in force until a council can be convened. Up lo this time the decree has maintained the peace since, and \VL' protest against abrogation." Of thirty-five free cities, fourteen siood out firmly, when Ferdinand threatened them with the loss of their priv- ileges. Strasburg, which was at the head of the protesting cities, wax placed* by this most arbitrary act under the interdict. To the princes Ferdinand declared there remained nothing for them but to submit ; and he closed the diet without awaiting the resolutions of the evan- gelical princes, who had passed, as was the constitutional custom, into an adjoining apartment in order to deliberate. The prince* then drew up their declaration, and caused it to be read to the diet, which had remained sitting when Ferdinand rose with the imperial commissioners. The celebrated Protest of the 15th April, 1529, is one of the finest and noblest documents of Christian history, displaying an apostolic faitb. iu Clirist and Scripture, and a dignified adherence to uati;>n;iJ 88 ilARTlN LUTHER. law as far as constitutional liberties are concerned. The protesting princes and cities claim as their right, as Germans, what they con- sider a sacred duty as Christians freely to preach the word of God and the message of salvation, that all who will hear it may join the rommunity of the believers. This great act was, besides, an earnest of true evangelical union ; for it was well known that most of the r-itics inclined more toward Zwingle's than toward Luther's view of Hie sacrament. And this union was not a negative but a positive one ; it was founded on the faith, energetically and sincerely professed by (Ecolampadius, as the organ of the Swiss Reformed churches, that, " with the visible symbols invisible grace is given and re- ceived." If one considers this great act impartially, it is impossible not to see that neither Luther nor Melanchthon were the real leaders of the time. Already, in 1526, Luther had so little real comprehension of what ought to be done, or was now doing in Germany, to preserve tlie gospel from destruction, that he wrote to a friend on the very same day that the decree of that first diet at Spires was published : " The diet is going on in the German way they drink and they gamble ; for the rest, nothing is done ihere." He shows no sympa- thy for the first attempt made in Hesse at self-government of the Church ; still less did he see the importance of the great act now achieved at Spires by the combined courage and Christian common- sensc of some few princes, and all cities which could act freely. It was evident that Charles was now, after the peace of Cambray, per- fect master of Germany ; so far, at least, as to make it impossible that Germany should become a Protestant nation, and that the pro- testing princes and cities had seen the necessity of strengthening that alliance of which they had just laid the foundation. Luther dissuad- ed Hie elector from sending deputies to the meeting agreed upon to be held at Schmalkaldcn. " In silence and rest will be your strength," was his vote. The elector sent deputies in order to hinder thai, anything should, be decided. Lnther was proud of this success. " Christ the Lord will deliver us without the landgrave, and even against the landgrave," was his saying. This apparent blindness and perversion of mind in Luther at this time admits of twofold ex- planation. The first is Luther's loyal and sound policy. lie ab- horred rebellion, and shuddered from' a civil war, even if it should be unavoidable as self-defence. He besides saw clearly that the princes, divided among themselves as they were, could do nothing against the emperor without the best part of the nation, represented by the cities ; and that here, too, there was want of mutual trust and good- u ill, and above all of unity. But this key opens only the outer door to Luther's mind. To understand him, when he seems proof against reason, and reasoning even his own, it is necessary to consider his unshaken faith, nud that he partook of the quietism of his German master, Tuuler, and the Thedogin Germanica. "Suffer God to de MARTIN LUTHER. 39 his work in you and about you," was the motto of that school. But the scholastic training also had its influence as to his view of the Zwinglian Reformation, and it centred in Luther's sacramentalism. This point requires a more ample consideration. It must be confessed that there was a theological scruple at the bot- tom of Luther's opposition to a vigorous Protestant alliance and national attitude, which was sure not to bring on war, but to prevent it by making the execution of the aggressive plans of the pope and emperors impossible. This betrays itself, first, in an uneasiness about Zwingle's rising influence in Germany ; and, second, as a doctrinal idiosyncrasy respecting the sacrament of the communion. Philip of Hesse instantly saw through this, and said, "I see they are against the alliance on account of the Zwinglians ; well, let us see whether we cannot make these theological differences disappear." It is \vell known that all the efforts made to effect a union between the Z\vin- glian and Lutheran parties, from the conference at Marburg in 1-Vj.li to the end of Luther's life, were fruitless ; and it is impossible, not to admit that the fault was Luther's, and that he became aware of that only on his death bed. As we are thus arrived at the deepest tragnly of Luther's life and of the history of Protestantism, and as \ve must, endeavor, within the narrow limits of an article, to establish historical truth on these important points, as far as it is indispensable for a true and philosophical vhSw of Luther's life, we think it unnecessary to prove that there were no mean passions at work in Luther's mind ; but we will say shortly that it was the great tragedy of the Christian mind during more than one thousand years to which Luther paid now his tribute. When Luther was raised above himself by the great problem before him, in that glorious period of action, from 1518 to 1524, he consid-. ered the sacraments altogether as a part of the services of the Church, and a secondary point, in comparison with the right view of faith, or the inward Christianity which implies necessarily an unselfish, be- lieving, and thankful mind. Having come to the conviction that there was no inherent virtue in the elements abstractedly from the communion, it was indifferent to him how the spirituality of the action and the real presence, even the transubstantiation, might be reconciled with that faith. But when he felt himself called upon at a later period to form a theory respecting the doctrine of the sacra- ment, he could never get free from the action of those two theological schools, the mystical German and the Latin scholastic, in the point where they combined. Thus to his end Luther firmly believed that the act of the priest pronouncing the words, " This is my body," pro- duced a change in the elements, making them the body and blood of Christ, which he interpreted, however.as meaning the whole creature of Christ. Now nothing was ever more historically erroneous. It has been shown elsewhere by the' writer of this article, through an uninterrupted chain of documentary evidence of the very liturgies, frcmi the BecotuJ 40 MARTIN LUTHER. to the sixth century, that the recital of the words of the institution was nothing but the historical introduction to a prayer of blessing for the communicants. This prayer invoked the Spirit, of God to descend upon the assembled worshipping congregation. The first step which unconsciously led to misunderstandings was that the blessing of God was also called down upon the elements in order to make the food prepared for the faithful the body and blood of Christ. The conse- cration, in other words, was not the recital of the words of institu- tion, but a prayer, down to the time of Basilius, extemporized, or at least freely spoken, and always ending with the Lord's Prayer. It is a tragical complication that the question as to what the elements became a question unknown and even unintelligible during tlie first five centuries should have entangled the mighty evangelical mind of tbe Reformer, whose appointed work was the destruction of the Romish system of delusion, founded upon a total perversion of the fundamental Cliristian notions respecting sacrifice, priest, and atone- ment. It was this fatal ignorance of the oblation of the sound and organic as well as the morbid Cliristian worship development which blinded Luther to such a degree as not only to put a simply absurd interpretation upon the words of the institution, but to base the question of Christian communion between evangelical Christians upon the same, instead of allowing it to be freely discussed as a scho- lastic question. When staking all upon what he called a literal in- terpretation of the words, " This is my body," he ought to have ac- knowledged at least that others might as well take objection, if not to the absurdity of such a meaning, at least to the liberty which Luther claimed for himself at the same time, of making the body stand for the whole life contained in it, not to speak of the objection founded upon the words of institution as we find them in Luke and St. Paul. After these general observations, our historical relation of what remains to be told of Luther's life may be very short. The first event was the conference of Marburg. The undaunted spirit of the landgrave, and the heroic, self-devoted spirit of Zwmgle, who accepted the invitation at the evident risk of his life, brought about that celebrated meeting on the first five days of October, 1-V27. The frank and liberal declarations and concessions of the Swiss Re- formers soon cleared away all shadows of difference and dissent, ex- cept that about the- sacrament. In the half-public disputation of the 2d October, Zwingle embarrassed Luther by observing that if the body of Christ was in the bread and wine, in any other than a spiritual sense, he must be present in a given 'place, by the very nature of matter, and not above matter, in heaven. Luther parried that stroke by saying, " I do not mind its contradicting nature, provided it do not contradict the faith." Still less could he disen- tangle himself from the words of Christ in the sixth chapter of St. John, which Zwingle declared he could not discard, as it, was a text. and a clear pe. Not more satisfactory was Luther's appeal to the MARTIN LI'THEK. 41 fathcis. The discussions of the four following days, however, re- sulted in recognizing the point of difference, but reducing its ex- pression to the mildest form, and placing it in the background, UH compared with the full statement of the points on which both parties were united. Tears of joy filled all eyes ; and Zwingle, with (Eco- Jampadius and Bucer, returned satisfied, although the promised alli- ance between Germany and Switzerland was not concluded, owing to Luther's reluctance. Zwingle had triumphed ; his views became naturalized in Germany, where hitherto they were little known, and the dreadful words of Luther, " Submit yourselves ; believe as we do, or you cannot be acknowledged as Christians," were forgotten. rut no sooner had Luther returned to Wittemberg than he modified the articles in an exclusive sense, which necessarily shocked and alienated the Reformed party. The issue of the conference at Marburg was a sad prelude to the great and decisive diet to be held at Augsburg in 1530 the diet im- mortalized by the first confession of evangelical Christendom. All the appearances were changed ; the elector, who as well as the land- grave went there in great pomp, was received by the emperor in the most flattering manner. All was to be peace and concord in Ger- many. Behind the scenes we see the emperor quieting his brother Ferdinand, the head of the Romish and fanatical party, who pro- tested against such encouragement to heresy. He writes to him : " I shall go on negotiating without concluding anything ; fear nothing if I even should conclude ; there will never be pretexts want- ing to you to chastise the rebels, and you will find people enough too happy l.o offer you their power as a means of vengeance." Charles was an Austrian tyrant and a Spanish bigot, and a great politician of the Italian school, which has procured him, even from historians of our time, the name of a great man. The only reason why he did not now follow the advice of the cardinal-legate and the Spaniards, and of his own brother Ferdinand, was simply that he thought the good Germans would do the work of destruction them- selves, and that in the mean time he would have in them a check upon the pope. But in his own mind he was ready to sacrifice to the big- oted party all the constitutional rights of the diet, as lie had sacrificed (hat wonderful republic of Florence to the Medici family at the request of the holy father, who (said Charles) could not demand any- thing wrong ; of course, least of all in a case which regarded his own house ! The diet of Augsburg is the bright point in the life of the elector John the Constant, as the conference of Marburg is in that of the landgrave. When the emperor's ministers, who preceded him at Augsburg, announced to the elector the emperor's intentions, in order to intimidate him, he said, " If the emperor intends to stop the preaching of the gospel, I shall immediately betake myself to my home." Luther had been left at Coburg, the nearest safe place 42 MAKTIN LUTHER. for the proscribed, and was consulted daily. He told the elector he hud no right to say so ; " the emperor was his master, and Augsburg \\ is an imperial town." Grand and heroic, although erroneous, ad- vice of the man whose life must have been the first sacrifice of a policy which the elector meant to resist ! The lawyers, however, were here also in fault ; their Byzantine notions of imperial rights made them timid in the application of the principles of the Gorman constitution. The Protestant princes had a clear constitutional right to resist the emperor, standing upon the resolutions and the edict of Worms and the solemn declaration of Spires. Melanchthon himself thought they might maintain the right of preaching the gospel, only abstaining from any controversial point. But undoubtedly those were right who advised the elector to remain. As to the chief prac- tical point, Chancellor Bruck confirmed the elector in his resolution not to allow the preaching of the gospel to be interdicted to him and his friends. As to alliances and leagues the elector said, " I have formed no secret alliances ; but I will show those I have entered into if the others w ill show theirs." In the moan time Melanchthon had by the middle of April prepared the articles of the confession with t lieu- defence, the so-called apology. Luther sat all the time in his solitary castle. " It is my Sinai," he said, " where I lift up my hands to pray as Moses did during the battle." He worked at the psalms and the prophets (he translated here Jeremiah and Ezekiel) and dedicated his hours of recreation to a popular edition of what was called ^Esop's Fables, as Socrates did in his prison. " I am making a Ziou out of this Sinai, and build there three tents, viz., one for the psalms, one for the prophets, one for JSsop ;" a truly German saying, which the his- torian of the Reformation ought not to have censured. How could Luther endure his solitude in that tremendous crisis which, as far as the affairs of Germany were concerned, he saw in darker colors than anybody, unless he had some lecreation of this kind? But besides his object was to place his ^Esbp (which contains many compositions of his own) in the hands of the people instead of a common popular book of the time of the same title, of the lowest and most immoral de- scription. It was also in this solitude that he wrote that admirable letter to his son Hans, with the description of the garden of wonders. While here he received the news of his father's death, which affected iiin deeply, so that his health began to give way, and his hallucina- tions or waking dreams recommenced. The news of the league be- i\v(;cn Charles V., Francis I., the Pope, and Venice roused at times the political spirit which was in him. " I do not believe a word," he said, " as to the reality of such a league. Monsieur par ma foi! (Francis) cannot forget the battle of Pavia ; Monsieur innmnim domini (Clem- ent V III.) is, first, a Welsh (Italian), which is bad enough ; secondly, a loreutine, which is worse ; thirdly, a bastard, a child of the devil ; and, fourthly, he will never forget the indignity of the plundering of Home. The Venetians, finally, are Venetians, and they have reasons MARTIN LUTHER. 43 enough to hate the posterity of Maximilian. Poor Charles, he is like a sheep among wolves ; God will save him!" There is the sound politician and the loyal German, hoping against hope, and trusting his prince's promises as long as he breathes ! He wrote letters full of comfort to the elector, and at the same time addressed one of his most powerful writings to the clergy assembled in the diet at Augsburg, in which he sLows them the absurdity of their system and the unchristian spirit of their claims. The address concludes with the prophetic verse : " Pestis eram vivus ; moriens ero mors tua Papa 1" [" O Pope, tliy pla^uu I was in life ; in duutli I shall be thy destruction !"] On the 4th June Gattinara, the chancellor of Charles, died an Italian, who most earnestly wished a real reform of the Church ; and the advocates of persecution got the upper hand. On the side of the Protestants, the Swiss party began to suspect Melanchthon, and com- plained of the use of Latin chants and surplices in Saxony ; while, on las side, Melanchthon detested what he called the seditious principles and worldly reasoning of the Swiss. Soon afterward we see him ready to give up some of the essential points to the emperor, who, on his approach to Augsburg, said, "What do the electors want? I shall do what I like." Well had he learned in Spain the lessons of tyranny which Cardinal Ximencs knew so well to apply under Philip II. But he prayed four hours every day, so that the people said (as lie scarcely ever spoke), " He talks more with God than with men." When in the conference with the Protestant princes lie demandi-l of them to cease from (heir present mode of worship, they declared that their conscience did not allow them to do so, and the Margrave of Brandenburg, bowing down toward Charles, and putting his hands upon his neck, cried out, " Kather than allow myself to be deprived of the word of the Lord, and rather than deny my God, I will have my head cut off at your Majesty's feet. " This startled the Spaniard. " Dear prince," he exclaimed, " not the head, not the head !" Im- prisonment will do, he thought all the while, and those incautious words betray that thought. This was all his Sacred Caesarean .Majesty deigned to utter during the diet. Great was his wrath when the princes declared indignantly that they would not consent to follow the procession of the host at the festivals of Corpus Domini. Why not worship a wafer which the priest has made God ? And why not show this respect to the emperor and cardinal ? asked Ferdinand. " We can and we will worship none but God," they unanimously declared. Their worship went on, and the vast church of the Franciscans was always crowded ; an eloquent Zwinglian preached powerful sermons from the book of Joshua about the people of Israel in the face of Canaan. Charles was furious, an insidious compromise was proposed ; the emperor would name preachers who should simply read tho epistles and gospel of the day and the ordinary prayer of confessiou 44 MARTIN LUTHER. before the mass. The pusillanimity of Melanchthou, and the legal opinions of some of the lawyers of the Protestant princes as to the emperor's power in an imperial town, overcame the repugnance of the elector. All the Protestant preachers left the place in di.smay. Tlie whole town was in consternation. " Our Lord God," exclaimed the elector, " has received order to hold his tongue at the diet !" Luther all the while had been quiet, waiting in patience. But thii. was too much for him. "This is the first step," said he, "to the demand that we give up our faith. We have to fight against the gates of hell." " Keep up your courage," he wrote to Melanchthou, " for you are the ambassador of a great King. '* The elector and his theologians thought it justifiable that, in virtue of his oflice as grand marshal of the empire, he should bear before the emperor the sword of state, when the latter attended the mass of the Holy Ghost at the opening of the diet, on which occasion an Italian archbishop preached a mot- 1 fanatical and insulting sermon against the Germans, as being worse enemies of God than the Turks. In the imperial opening sprrrh Charles spoke of the lamentable dissensions which encroached upon the imperial majesty and must produce sedition and murder. The Protestants were required to present their confession. The elector signed it first ; four other princes and two cities after him, without any observation ; the Landgrave of Hesse, however, did not sign it without saying he did not agree as to the doctrine of the communion. The article says, " That the body and blood of Christ are v< rily present, and are administered in the Lord's Supper to those \\lio partake of it [and we disapprove those who teach otherwise.]" The words in brackets were left out in later editions made during Luther's lifetime. On this occasion the princes took really the lead, and the whole was done as a great national, not as a sacerdotal work, in spile of poor Melauchthon's scruples. This good man was indeed entirely out of his sphere, and lost his time and committed the cause of Protes- tantism by trying to bring about a compromise where there was no possibility of an honest understanding. In the mean time Luther was left in complete and cruel ignorance of all that was going on ; and when at last the letters of Melanchthou arrived they were full of fears and sad misgivings. During all this anxious time Luther sought and found his comfort in constant prayer and occupation with the Word of God. " Where is Christ's Church, if it is not with us? Faith, alone is required. I v/ill rather fall with Christ than stand with. <';i-ar." Luther reprimanded Melauchthoii sharply for his pusillan- imity, and some of his letters to him are addressed, " To Master Philip Klcinmuth" (pusillanimous). After many tergiversations the Protestants obtained their just de- mand ; the confession, drawn up by Melanchthon and approved by Luther, was read in public sitting on the 25th June, 1530. A great day, worthy of the most glorious days of the apostolic times. Luther was not present. He was dead as a public man. But he lived in God, MARTIN- LUTHER. 4 and for his faith and country. Nothing could damp his spirits. "I also have my diet," he said; "and what lively discussions!" referring playfully to the rooks which swarmed round his tower. The emperor ordered the confession to be read in Latin. " No," said Hie elector ; " we are Germans, and on German ground. I hope, therefore, your Majesty will allow us to speak German." The em- peror gave' way, recollecting for the nonce he was in Germany, and that the Germans had a language of their own and the strange' fancy of using it even in theological affairs. When the chancellor of the elector had read the first part of that grand confession, which ex- pounds the principles of the Reformation, and in particular the doctrine of justification by faith " that faith which is not the meve knowledge of a historical fact, but that which believes not only tho history, but also the effect of that history upon the mind " there w;is an indescribable effect visibly produced upon the assembly. The opponents felt that there was a reality before them which they had never imagined ; and others said such a profession of faith by such princes was a more effectual preaching than that which had been stopped. " Christ," exclaimed Jonas (Melanchthon's companion), " is in the diet, and he does not keep silence ; the word of God is in- deed not to be bound." And forth these words have gone through a world wider than that to which the apostles preached. After a pause, the second part, the articles about the abuses of the Church of Rome, was read and heard with profound silence by the mitred prelates of that church who were there assembled. As to the emperor, he slept during the whole of the reading, or seemed to sleep, like a I iger ready to espy the most convenient moment for leaping upon ils prey. In the mean time he calculated, undoubtedly, what political capital lie could make of the Protestants against the pope. Luther addressed a letter to tho cardinal elector of Mainz, demand- ing nothing but one article, but insisting upon that unconditionally the liberty of preaching the gospel." " Neither emperor," he says, " nor pope has the right of forcing any one to believe." Wilh Me lanchtlion and the other friends he insisted upon their leaving Augs- burg immediately. " Home home home !" he exclaimed. " Might it please God that I should be immolated at this council, as John I hiss was at Constance !" All the sayings of Luther during this crisis are sublime and of a truly prophetic character. He foresaw that now every effort would be made at Augsburg to destroy the principles of the Reformation by a treacherous compromise and a false peace. " The diet," he said, " is a regular dramatic piece : first there is the prologue, then the exposition, then the action now comes the catastrophe; but I think it will not be a tragic but a comic, end." A.nd, indeed, so it turned out to be, tragical' as it was. The first, triumphant effect of the confession soon passed away ; the new con- Tents, particularly among the prelates, withdrew ; the fanatical party doubled its efforts, and Charles gave way to it, and aided ils ends by if; MARTIN LtTTHElt. t nil diplomatic artifices. Melanchthon was caught. He entered into conferences in the vain hope they would lead to concord ; he de- l-lured himself ready to maintain and obey the supreme authority of the pope, if he would, by an act of clemency, connive at if not ap- prove some points which they could not change. During the treach- erous conferences which now began, the emperor tried to intimidate the elector by threatening not to 'grant him the investiture, which the elector claimed, however, as his hereditary right as brother of his predecessor, and to frighten all the Protestant princes and the Prot- estant imperial city of Augsburg with measures of violence, by call ing in the imperial troops and keeping the gates closed. The land grave escaped. This act caused dismay among the ranks of the Catholics, for a war could not be risked at this moment. The Roman- ists changed their tactics ; they conceded, or rather feigned to con- cede ; for meanwhile the pope had declared solemnly that he would not give up those very points. The Protestants acknowledged the jurisdiction of the bishops and the supremacy of the pope. A cry of indignation rose among the princes, and, among all, among the brave citizens of Augsburg. "Rather die with Jesus Christ," they declared, " than conquer without him the favor of the whole world/' At this critical moment Luther's indignation rose to a holy wrath, like that of the prophets of old. " I understand," said he to Melanch- thon, "that you have begun a marvellous work, namely, to make Luther and the pope agree together ; but the pope will say that he will not, and Luther begs to be excused. Should you, however, after all, succeed in your affair, I will follow your example and make an agreement between Christ and Belial. Take care that you give not up the justification by faith; that is the heel of the seed of the woman to crush the serpent's head... Take care not to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the bishops ; they will soon take all. In short, ail your negotiations have no chance of success unless the pope will re- nounce papacy. Now, mind, if you mean to shut up that glorious eagle, the gospel, in a sack, as sure as Christ lives Luther will come to deliver that eagle with might." But Melanchthon was changed ; Luther's voice had lost its power over him. The extreme Protestant views maintained in a declaration which Zwingle had delivered to the emperor disposed him to cling still more to Rome. All seemed for the moment lost ; but Luther's fui Hi had discerned the way in which God meant to save the Prot- estant cause, and had said, " Christ lives ; he who has vanquished the violence of our enemies can also give us the power of breaking through their artifices." The Romanists fortunately insisted upon four points celibacy, confession, the denial of the cup to the laity, and the retaining of private masses. This was too much ; the con- ference separated. The Romanists now conceded the cup and the marriage of the priests ; but they would not give up the private masses nor the obligation of confession and penance for the remission of sin, MARTIN LUTHER. 4? and required an acknowledgment of the meritorious character of good works. Melanchtbon stood firm, on which the emperor and Clement played out their last card ; an ecumenical council should be convened ; but in the mean time the Protestants should conform to the doctrine and rites of the Catholic Church. Charles accompanied this communication with the most insulting threats against the Prot- estant princes, who declined to negotiate, and declared their resolu- tion to abide by the status quo of Worms until the council should assemble. The emperor indeed went so far as to forbid the princes to quit Augsburg, but the elector was firm as a rock ; his son left the town on the 12th September. Melanchthon had regained his courage and sagacity. When Luther heard what was taking place he raised his voice from Coburg : " Depart ! depart ! even if it must be with the curse of pope and emperor upon you. You have confessed Jesus Christ, you have offered peace, you have obeyed the emperor, you have supported insults of every kind, you have withstood blas- phemies ; now I will encourage you, as one of the faithful members of Jesus Christ. He is making ready our enemies as victims for the sacrifice ; he will presently consume their pride and deliver his people. Yes, he will bring us safely out of Babylon and her burning walls." When the emperor saw that the electorwas resolved on departing, he communicated to the five princes and the six towns (four more having joined since Nuremberg and Reutlingen) a proposal for a recess, or definitive decree of the diet that six months should elapse to give time for an arrangement ; and meantime Protestants and Catholics should unite in a common attack upon the Anabaptists and those who denied the holy sacrament, the Zwinglians ; but the Protestants alike withstood threats and flatteries ; and the elector took his leave, as he had announced, on the 23d September. The author of this article cannot agree with the saying of the elo- quent historian of the Reformation, that if the glorification of man was the purpose and end of God's ways, and not God's glory alone, one must wish Luther had died at the Wartburg. We have seen that it was he who, in 1524, pacified Wittemberg and Saxony by his reappearance, and achieved wonders as a practical Reformer ; and in 1525 attempted, as pacificator of Germany, what nobody but himself <:ould and would have done. But whose was the never-shaken mind ? Win) among the German theologians and Reformers was the organ .if God and of the German nation during the greater part of the mo mentous diet of Augsburg? Who else but the man in the solitary tower at Coburg ? Prom this time forth, however, he had nothing left, to do but to look the tragedy in the face, as a believer in God and his kingdom on earth, praying and preaching, and finally to die the deaf li of a faithful and hopeful Christian saint. All the rest is patient, suffering martyrdom. Some of the most powerful Romanist princes, the Archbishop of Mayence at their head, assured the elector on his departure that tltry 48 MARTIN LUTHER, would never join the emperor in adopting any violent measures against him, although the brother of the archbishop Joachim, elector of Bran- denburg, had presumed to promise in their name that they would. Even Ferdinand said some civil words. But why ? Simply because (as ('harles could not refrain from saying in his wrath) the emperor was more than ever resolved to resort to arms. " Nothing but arma- ments will have any effect," he said. Indeed, he announced this as his resolution immediately to the pope, and "requested him to summon all Christian princes to assist him. The Catholic league was signed on the 13th October. The anti-reformatory movement was begun in the town of Augsburg itself. The answer to this was the declara- tion of sixteen imperial towns, instead of six, that they would not grant any subsidies against the Turks so long as the affairs of Ger- many remained unsettled. The Zwinglian and Lutheran towns shook hands ; and this was the expression of the real feeling of the whole German nation, only priests, pastors, and theologians excepted. Tha Protestant dignitaries declared that they rejected the imperial closing declaration, as the emperor had no right to command in matters of faith. Luther was the organ of the universal feeling of the German people, when he exclaimed, " Our enemies do not rill me with fear. I, on the contrary, shall put them down in the strength of the Lord. My life shall be their executioner ; my death their hell." Indeed, his work was accomplished for all countries and for all ages. The rest, of his life was one long pang, although he did not live to see the most dreadful calamity the breaking out of the civil war of religion which began immediately after his death. He wrote an address to the Ger- man nation, warning them not to yield to Rome, and not to trust any negotiations; "for," said he, "they know no argument but force. Be not deceived by their words about obedience to the Church. The Church is a poor erring sinner without Christ ; not the Church but Christ is the faith." The cause of the Reformation made prog- ress ; the Protestant alliance, begun by the convention of Schmal kalden, gained new members ; Denmark acceded, and Joachim II. became as stanch a defender of the faith of his mother as Joachim i. had been its violent enemy. As Luther had prophesied, the nego- tiations with the popish party in 1541, renewed at Ratisbon, led l<> no result. The emperor, at the Diet of Spires, in 1544, dared no longer refuse to the Protestants the equal right which they claimed. The Romish council opened at Trent in 1544, and its first proceeding was to read the pope's anathema against, the Protestants. It was in this latter period (from 1589 to 1543) that a secret letter of advice, drawn up by Melanchthon, was given by Luther and his friends to the landgrave Philip in answer to his pressing request (sanctioned by the landgravine, who suffered from an incurable in- ward disorder) to deliver him from the sin of fornication, by allowing him to marry a lady of the landgravine's court. After the master! v of this subject by Archdeacon Hare, in bie Vindication oj MARTIN LUTHER. 49 Lullwr, republished (1855) from the notes to his Mission of the Com- forter, it is not necessary, least of all to English readers, to enter into details in order to prove the report of Bossuet to he a tissue of false- hoods and malignity. We limit, therefore, ourselves to stating the decisive facts. First. The error committed in this secret advice hy the Reformers was a perfectly sincere one ; it arose from an indis- tinct view of the applicability of the patriarchal ordinances and of the Mosaic law, which admits a second wife legally, as indeed Moses himself seems to have had two wives at the same time. Now, as the Reformers could not show an express abrogation of those ordinances and Of this law, they were led into this sad mistake. Secondly. There was in their advice no worldly regard whatever as to any benefits and advantages which might accrue to themselves or to the cause of the Reformation. They knew that the landgrave had his whole heart in the cause of the Reformation, and had often risked his life and states for it. Thirdly. When in 1540 Philip divulged the secret, contrary to his promise, they spoke out and confessed their mistake, and Melanchthon was brought by his grief to the verge of the grave. Fourthly. When, in the course of the controversy, Bucer published, in 1541, his pamphlet in defence of polygamy (under the name of Hulderic Neobulus), Luther pronounced his judgment upon the book and on the subject in the following solemn words : " He who desires my judgment upon this book, let him hear. Thus says Dr. Martin Luther on the book of Neobulus : He who follows this rogue and book, and thereupon takes more than one wife, and means that this should be a matter of right, may the devil bless his bath in the bottom of hell. This, God be praised, I well know how to maintain. . . . Much less shall they establish the law that a man may sepa- rate himself from his wife rightfully, when she has not already sepa- ' rated herself by open adultery, which this rogue would also like to teach." We possess also the sketch of his intended full reply to Bucer's book ; and there we find the following sentence : " We have already shown in a number of books that the law of Moses does not concern us, and that we are not to look to the examples in the history of the saints, much less of the kings, to their faith, and to God's commandments. " The dark side of this latter portion of Luther's life is his contro- versy with the Reformed. He seemed now and then inclined to yield to their entreaties for a union, as is shown by his letter of 1531 to Bucer of Strasburg ; and he declared his sincere wish for a union to the landgrave in 1534. He does not think the work ought to be pre- cipitated, but he prays to live, to see it take place. The concord of Wittemberg, begun by Bucer in 1530, which left it just possible to the Reformed not to see their view of the sacrament excluded, has his cordial sympathy. Finally, on the 17th February, 1537, he wrih-n to the Burgomaster of Basel, James Meyer, in terms which excited among the Swiss the hope that he would give up his exclusive views. 60 MARTIN LUTHER. But when (Eeolampadius published the writings of Zwingle, after this great and lioly man had died a patriot's death in the battle of Cappel, Luther became so incensed that he wrote, in 1544, two years before his death, the most violent of all his sacramentary treatises, 1 Short Confession respecting llic Lord's Supper. However, his last word on his death-bed was one of peace. He is credibly reported to have said to Melanchthon in the course of a dying conversation, " Dear Philip, I confess to have gone too far in the affair of the sacrament." The year 1546 began with unmistakable indications that Charles was now ready to strike a decisive blow. Luther had been suffering much during the last few years, and IK; felt his end to be near at hand. In the month of January, 1546, he undertook a journey to Eisleben in very inclement weather, in order to restore peace in the family of the counts of Mausfeld ; he caught a violent cold ; preached four times ; and took all the time an active part in the work of conciliation. On the 17th February he fc'lt that his release was at hand ; and at Eisleben, where he was born, he died, in faith and prayer, on the following day. Nothing can be more edifying than the scene presented by the last days of Luther, of which we have the most authentic and detailed accounts. When dying he collected his last strength and offered up the following prayer : " Heavenly Father, eternal, merciful God, thou hast re- vealed to me thy dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ ; Him I have taught, Him I have confessed, Him I love as my Saviour and Re- deemer, whom the wicked persecute, dishonor, and reprove. Take my poor soul up to thee !" Then two of his friends put to him the solemn question, " Reverend Father, do you die in Christ and in the doctrine you have constantly preached?" He answered by an audi- ble and joyful " Yes ;" and repeating the verse, " Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit," he expired peaceably, without a struggle, on the 18th February, 1546, at four o'clock iu tho after- uoou. SPIRITUAL PORTRAIT OF LUTHER. BY THOMAS CARLYLE. LUTHER'S birthplace was Eisleben in Saxony ; he came into the world there ou the 10th of November, 1483. It was an accident that gave this honor to Eisleben. His parents, poor mine-laborers in a village of that region, named Mohra, had gone to the Eisleben Winter-Fair : in the tumult of this scene the Frau Luther was taken with travail, found refuge; in some poor house there, and the boy she bore was named MAKTIN LUTHER. Strange enough to reflect upon it. This poor Frau Luther, she had gone with her husband to make her small merchandisings ; perhaps to sell the lock of yarn she had been spinning, to buy the small winter-necessaries for her narrow hut or household ; in the whole world, that day, there was not a more entirely unimportant-looking pair of people than this miner and his wife. And yet what were; ;tll emperors, popes, and potentates, in comparison? There was born here, once more, a mighty man; whose light was to tfamc as the beacon over long centuries ami epochs of the world; the whole, world and its history was waiting for this man. It is strange, it i*great. It leads us back to another birth-hour, in a still meaner environment, eighteen hundred years ago -of which it is fit that we say nothing, that we think only in silence : for what words are there ! The age of miracles past ? The age of miracles is forever here ! I find it altogether suitable to Luther's function in this earth, and doubtless wisely ordered to that end by the Providence presiding over him and us and all things, that he was born poor, and brought. up poor, one of the poorest of men. lie had to beg, as UK; school- children in those times did ; singing for alms and bread, from door to door. Hardship, rigorous necessity was the poor boy's com- panion ; no man nor no thing would put on a false face to Hatter Martin Luther. Among things, not among the shows of things, had lie to grow. A boy of rude figure, yet with weak health, with his large greedy soul, full of all faculty and sensibility, he suffered greatly. Hut it was his task to get acquainted with realities, and keep acquainted with them, at whatever cost ; his task was to bring 52 SPIRITUAL PORTRAIT OF LUTHER, the whole world back to reality, for it had dwelt too long with sem- blance ! A youth nursed-up in wintry whirlwinds, in desolate dark- ness and difficulty, that he may step forth at last from his stormy Hcandinavia, strong as a true man, as a god: a Christian Odin a right Thor once more, with his thunder-hammer, to smile asunder ugly enough Jutuns and giant-monsters ! Perhaps the turning incident of his life, we may fancy, was that death of his friend Alexis, by lightning, at the gate of Erfurt. Luther had struggled up through boyhood, better and worse ; displaying, in spite of all hindrances, the largest intellect, eager to learn : his father, judging doubtless that he might promote himself in the world, set him upon the study of law. This was the path to rise ; Luther, with little will in it either way, had consented ; he was now nineteen years of age. Alexis and he had been to see the old Luther people at Mansfeld ; were got back again near Erfurt, when a thunderstorm came on ; the bolt struck Alexis, he fell dead at Luther's feet. What is this life of ours ? gone in a moment, burnt up like a scroll, into the blank eternity ! What are all earthly preferments, chancellor- ships, kingships ? They lie shrunk together there ! The earth has opened on them ; in a moment they are not, and eternity is. Luther, struck to the heart, determined to devote himself to (rod, and God's service alone. In spite of all dissuasions from his father and others, he became a monk in the Augustine convent at Erfurt. This was probably the first light-point in the history of Luther, his purer 'Will now first decisively uttering itself ; but, for the pres- ent, it, was still as one light-point in an element all of darkness, lie says lie was a pious monk, ichbtn cinfrommer MoncJi gewesen ; faith- fully, painfully struggling to work out the truth of this high act of iiis ; but. it. was to little purpose. His misery had not lessened ; had rallnT, as it were, increased into infinitude. The drudgeries he had to do, as novice in his convent, all ^irts of slave-work, were not his grievance : the deep earnest soul of the man had fallen into all man- ner of black scruples, dubitations ; he believed himself likely to die soon, and far worse than die. One hears with a new interest for poor Luther that, at this time, he lived in terror of the unspeakable misery ; fancied that he was doomed to eternal reprobation. Was it not the humble sincere nature of the man? What was he, that he should be raised to heaven ! He that had known only misery, and mean slavery : the news was too blessed to be credible. It could not 1 < i -oinc clear to him how, by fasts, vigils, formalities and mass-work, a man's soul could be saved. He fell into the blackest wretchedness ; had to wander staggering as on the verge of bottomless despair. It must have been a most blessed discovery, that of an old Latin I We Which lie found in the Erfurt Library about this time. He had never seen the book before. It taught him another lesson than that of fasts and vigils. A brother monk too, of pious experience, was helpful. Luther learned now that a man was saved not by BY THOMAS CARLYLE. 53 singing masses, but by the infinite grace of God : a more credible hypothesis. He gradually got himself founded, as on the rock. No Wonder he should venerate the Bible, which had brought this blessed help to him. lie prized it as the Word of the Highest must be Srized by such a man. He determined to hold by that ; as through fe and to death he firmly did. This then is his deliverance from darkness, his final triumph over darkness, what we call his conversion ; for himself the most impor- tant of all epochs. That he should now grow daily in peace and tlearness ; that, .unfolding now the great talents and virtues im- planted in him, he should rise to importance in his convent, iu hid country, and be found more and more useful in all honest business of life, is a natural result. He was sent on missions by his Augus- tine Order, as a man of talent and fidelity fit to do their business well : the Elector of Saxony, Friedrich, named the Wise, a truly wise and just prince, had cast his eye on him as a valuable person ; made him professor in his new University of Wittenberg, a preacher too at Wittenberg ; in both which capacities, as in ail duties.he did, this Luther, in the peaceable sphere of common life, was gaining more and more esteem with all good men. It was in his twenty-seventh year that he first saw Rome ; being sent thither, as I said, on mission from his convent. Pope Julius the Second, and what was going on at Rome, must have filled the mind of Luther with amazement. He had come as to the Sanvd City, throne of God's high-priest on earth ; and he found it what we know ! Many thoughts it must have given the man ; many which we have no record of, which perhaps he did not himself know how to utter. This Rome, this scene of false priests, clothed not in the beauty of holiness, but in far other vesture, is false : but what is it to Luther ? A nu;an man he, how shall he reform a world V That was far from his thoughts. An humble, solitary man, why should he at all muddle with the world? It was the task of quite higher men than hu. His business was to guide his own footsteps wisely through the world. Lot him do his own obscure duty in it well ; the rest, horrible and dismal as it looks, is in God's hand, not in his. It is curious to reflect what might have been the issue, had Roman popery happened to pass this Luther by ; to go on in its great wasteful orbit, and not come athwart his little path, and force him to assault it ! Conceivable enough that, in this case, he might have; held his peace about the abuses of Rome ; left Providence, and God on high, to deal with them ! A modest, quiet man ; not prompt ha to attack irreverently persons in authority. His clear task, as I say, was to do his own duty ; to walk wisely in this world of confused wickedness, and save his own soul alive. But the Roman high- priesthood did come athwart him : afar off at Wittenberg he, Luther, could not get lived iu. honesty for it ; he remonstrated, resisted, cuun* 54 SPIRITUAL PORTRAIT OF LUTHER, to extremity ; was struck at, struck again, and so it came to wagei of battle between them ! This is worth attending to in Luther's his- tory. Perhaps no man of so humble, peaceable a disposition ever tilled the world with contention. We cannot but see that he would have loved privacy, quiet diligence in the shade ; that it was against bis will he ever became a notoriety. Notoriety : what would that do for him ? The goal of his inarch through this world was the infinite heaven ; an indubitable goal for him : in a few years he should cither have attained that, or lost it forever ! We Will say nothing at all, I think, of that sorrowftillest of theories, of its being some mean shopkeeper grudge, of the Augustine monk against the Dominican, that first kindled the wrath of Luther, and produced the Protestant Reformation. We will say to the people who maintain it, if indeed any such exist now : Get first into the sphere of thought by which it is so much as possible to judge of Luther, or of any man like Lu- ther, otherwise than distractedly ; we may then begin arguing with you. The monk Totzel, sent out carelessly in the way of trade, by Leo Tenth who merely wanted to raise a little money, and for the rest seems to have been a Pagan rather than a Christian, so far as he was anything arrived at Wittenberg, and drove his scandalous trade there. Luther's flock bought indulgences ; in the confessional of his Church, people pleaded to him that they had already got their sins pardoned. Luther, if he would not be found wanting at his own post, a false sluggard and coward at the very centre of the little space; of ground that was his own and no other man's, had to step forth against indulgences, and declare aloud that they were a futility and sorrowful mockery, that no man's sins could be pardoned by Hunt. It was the beginning of the whole Reformation. We know how it went ; forward from this first public challenge of Tetzel, on the last day of October, 1517, through remonstrance and argument ; spread- ing ever wider, rising ever higher ; till it became unquenchable, and enveloped all the world. Luther's heart's desire was to have this grief and other griefs amended ; his thought was still far other than that of introducing separation in the Church, or revolting against the pope, father of Christendom. The elegant pagan pope cared little about this monk and his doctrines ; wished however to have done with the noise of him : in a space of some three years, having tried various softer methods, he thought good to end it by fire. He dooms the monk's writings to be burnt by the hangman, and his body to be sent bound to Rome probably for a similar purpose. It was the way they had ended with Huss, with Jerome, the century before. A short argument, fire. Poor Huss : he came to that Constance Coun- cil with all imaginable promises and safe-conducts ; an earnest, not 'eon true Thai was not well done I BY THOMA.S CABLYLB. 55 I, for one, pardon Luther for now altogether revolting against the pope. The elegant pagan, by this fire-decree of his, had kindled into uot>le just wrath the bravest heart then living in this world. The bravest, if also one of the humblest, peaceablest ; it was now kindled. These words of mine, words of truth and soberness, aim- ing faithfully, as human inability would allow, to promote God's truth on earth, and save men's souls, you, God's vicegerent on earth, answer them by the hangman and fire? You will burn mo and them, for answer to the God's message they strove to bring you? You are not God's vicegerent ; you are another's than his, I think ! I take your bull, as an emparchmented lie, and burn it. You will do what you see good next : this is what I do. It was on the 10th of December, 1520, three years after the beginning of the business, that Luther " with a great concourse of people," took this indignant step of burning the pope's tire-decree " at the EIster-Gate of Wittcju berg." Wittenberg looked on " with shoutings ;" the whole world was looking on. The pope should not have provoked that " shout !" It was the shout of the awakening of nations. The quiet German heart, modest, patient of much, had at length got mow than it could bear. Formulism, pagan popism, and other falsehood and corrupt semblance had ruled" long enough: and here once more was a man found who durst tell all men that God's world stood not on semblances but on realities ; that life was a truth, and not a lie ! At bottom, as was said above, we are to consider Luther as a proph- et idol-breaker ; a bringer-back of men to reality. It is the func- tion of great men and teachers. Mahomet said, These idols of yours are wood ; you put wax and oil on them, the Hies stick on them, they are not God, I tell you, they are black wood ! Luther said to the pope, This thing of yours that you call a pardon of sins, it is a bit of rag-paper with ink. It is nothing else ; it, and so much like it, is nothing else. God alone can pardon sins. Popcship, spirit- ual fatherhood of God's Church, is that a vain semblance, of cloth and parchment ? It is an awful fact. God's Church is not a semblance, heaven and hell are not semblances. I stand on this, since you drive me to it. Standing on this, I, a poor German monk am stronger than you all. I stand solitary, friendless, but on God's truth ; you with your tiaras, triple-hats, with your treasuries and armories, thunders spiritual and temporal, stand on the devil's lie, and are not so strong ! The Diet of Worms, Luther's appearance there on the 17th of April, 1521, may be considered as the greatest scene in modern Eu- ropean history ; the point, indeed, from which the whole subsequent history of civilization takes its rise. After multiplied negotiations, disputations, it had come to this. The young Emperor Charles Fifth, with all the princes of Germany, papal nuncios, dignitaries spiritual and temporal, are assembled there : Luther is to appeal- and answer for himself, whether he will recant or not. The world's 56 SPIRITUAL PORTRAIT OF LUTHER, pomp and power sits there on this hand : on that, stands up for God's truth, one man, the poor miner Hans Luther's sou. Friends had reminded him of Huss, advised him not to go ; he would not be advised. A large company of friends rode out to meet him, witu still more earnest warnings ; he answered, " Were there as many devils in Worms as there are roof -tiles, I would on." The people, on the morrow, as he went to the hall of the diet, crowded the wiu- dows and housetops, some of them calling out to him, in solemn words, not to recant : " Whosoever deuieth me before men !" they cried to him as in a kind of solemn petition and adjuration. vVas it not in reality our petition too, the petition of the whole world, lying in dark bondage of soul, paralyxed under a black spectral night- mare and triple-hatted chimera, calling itself father in God, and what not : " Free us ; it rests with thee ; desert us not !" Luther did not desert us. His speech, of two hours, distinguished itself by its re- spectful, wise and honest tone ; submissive to whatsoever could law- fully claim submission, not submissive to any more than that. His writings^ he said, were partly his own, partly derived from the Word of God. As to what was his own, human infirmity entered into it ; unguarded anger ,.blinduess, many things doubtless which it were a blessing for him could he abolish altogether. But as to what stood on sound truth and the Word of God, he could not recant it. How could he ? " Confute me," he concluded, " by proofs of Scrip- ture, or else by plain just arguments : I cannot recant otherwise. For it is neither safe nor prudent to do aught against conscience. Here stand I ; I can do no other : God assist me !" It is, as we say, the greatest moment in the modern history of men. English Puri- tanism, England and its Parliaments, Americas, and vast work these two centuries ; French devolution, Europe and its work everywhere at present : the germ of it all lay there : had Luther in that moment done other, it had all been otherwise ! The European world was asking him : Am I to sink ever lower into falsehood, stagnant putres- cence, loathsome accursed death ; or, with whatever paroxysm, to cast the falsehoods out of rne, and be cured and live ? Great wars, contentions and disunion followed out of this Refor- mation ; which last down to our day, and are yet far from ended. Great talk and crimination has been made about these. They are lamentable, undeniable ; but after all, what has Luther or his cause to dp with them ? It seems strange reasoning to charge the Refor- mat ion with all this. When Hercules turned the purifying river into King Augeas's stables, I have no doubt the confusion that resulted \\.i- considerable all around; but I think it was not llercules's blame ; it was some other's blame ! The Reformation might bring what results it liked when it came, but the Reformation simply could not help coming. To all popes and popes' advocates, expostulat- ing, lamenting and accusing, the answer of the world is ; Once for BY THOMAS CARLTLB. 57 all, your popehood has become untrue. No matter how good it was, how good you say it is, we cannot believe it ; the light of our whole mind, given us to walk by from heaven above, finds it henceforth a thing unbelievable. We will not believe it, we will not try to be- lieve it we dare not ! The thing is untrue ; we were traitors against the Giver of all truth, if we durst pretend to think it true. Away with it ; let whatsoever likes come in the place of it ; with it we can have no farther trade ! Luther and his Protestantism is not re- sponsible for wars ; the false simulacra that forced him to protest, they arc responsible. Luther did what every man that God has made has not only the right, but lies under the sacred duty to do : answered a falsehood when it questioned him, Dost thou believe me ? No ! At what cost soever, without counting of costs, this thing behoved to be done. Union, organization spiritual and mate- rial, a far nobler than any popedom or feudalism in their truest days, I never doubt, is coming for the world ; sure to come. But on fact alone, not on semblance and simulacrum, will it be able either to come, or to stand when come. With union grounded on falsehood and ordering us to speak and act lies, we will not have anything to do. Peace V A brutal lethargy is peaceable, the noisome grave ia peaceable. We hope for a living peace, not a dead one ! And yet, in prizing justly the indispensable blessings of the new, Id us not be unjust to the old. The old was true, if it no longer is. In Dante's days it needed no sophistry, self -blinding or other dis- honesty, to get itself reckoned true. It was good then ; nay there is in the soul of it a deathless good. The cry of " No Popery," is fool- ish enough in these days. The speculation that popery is on the in crease, building new chapels, and so forth, may pass for one of the idlest ever started. Very curious : to count up a few popish chapels, listen to a few Protestant logic-choppings to much dull-droning drowsy inanity that still calls itself Protestant, and say : See, Prot- estantism is dead ; Popism is more alive than it, will be alive after it ! Drowsy inanities, not a few, that call themselves Protestant aro dead ; but Protestantism has not died yet, that I hear of ! Protes- tantism, if we will look, has in these days produced its Goethe, its Napoleon ; German Literature, and the French Revolution ; rather considerable signs of life ! Nay, at bottom, what else is alive hut Protestantism ? The life of most else that one meets is a galvanic one merely not a pleasant, not a lasting sort of life ! Popery can build new chapels ; welcome to do so, to all lengths. Popery cannot come back, any more than paganism can wfiieli .also still lingers in some countries. But, indeed, it is with these things, as with the ebbing of the sea : you look at the waves oscillating hither, thither on the beach ; for minutes you cannot tell how it is going ; look in half an hour where it is look in half a century where your popehood is ! Alas, would there were no greater danger to our Europe than the poor old pope's revival ! Thor may as soon try to 58 SPIRITUAL PORTRAIT OP LUTHER, revive. And withal this oscillation has a meaning. The poor old popehood will not die away entirely, as Thor has done, for some time yet ; nor ought it. We may say, the old never dies till this hap- pen, till all the soul of good that was in it have got itself transfused into the practical new. While a good work remains capable of being done by the Romish form ; or, what is inclusive of all, while npim/a life remains capable of being led by it, just so long, if we consider, will this or the other human soul adopt it, go about as a living wit- ness of it. So long it will obtrude itself on the eye of us who reject it, till we in our practice too have appropriated whatsoever of truth was in it. Then, but also not till then, it will have no charm more for any man. It lasts here for a purpose. Let it last as long as it can. Of Luther I will add now, in reference to all these wars and blood- shed, the noticeable fact that none of them began so long as he con- tinued living. The controversy did not get to fighting so long as he was there. To me it is proof of his greatness in all senses, this fact. How seldom do we find a man that has stirred up some vast commo- tion, who does not himself perish, swept away in it ! Such is the usual course of revolutionists. Luther continued, in a good degree, sovereign of this greatest revolution ; all Protestants, of what rank or function soever, looking much to him for guidance : and he held it, peaceable, continued firm at the centre of it. A man to do this must have a kingly faculty : he must have the gift to discern at all (urns where the true heart of the matter lies, and to plant himself cour- ageously on that, as a strong true man, that other true men may rally round him there. He will not continue leader of men otherwise. Luther's clear deep force of judgment, his force of all sorts, of silence, of tolerance and moderation, among others, are very notable in these circumstances. Tolerance, I say ; a very genuine kind of tolerance : he distin- guishes what is essential and what is not ; the unessential may go very much as it will. A complaint comes to him that such and such a Reformed preacher " will not preach without a cassock." Well, answers Luther, what harm will a cassock do the man ? " Let him have a cassock to preach in ; let him have three cassocks if he find benefit in them !" His conduct in the matter of Carlstadt's wild image breaking ; of the Anabaptists ; of the Peasants' War, shows a noble strength, very different from spasmodic violence. With sure prompt insight he discriminates what is what : a strong just man, he speaks forth what is the wise course, and all men follow him in that. Luther's written works give similar testimony of him. The dialect of these speculations is now grown obsolete for us ; but one ill reads them with a singular attraction. And indeed the mere grammatical diction is still legible enough ; Luther's merit in liter- ary history is of the greatest ; his dialect became the language of all BY THOMAS CARLYLE. 59 writing. They are not well written, these four-and-twenty quartos of his ; written hastily, with quite other than literary objects. But in no books have I found a more robust, genuine, I will say noble faculty of a man than in these. A rugged honesty, homeliness, simplicity ; a rugged sterling sense and strength. He flashes out illumination from him ; his smiting idiomatic phrases seem to cleave into the very secret of the matter. Good humor too, nay tender affection, nobleness, and depth ; this man could have been a poet too ! He had to work an epic poem, not write one. I call him a great thinker ; as indeed his greatness of heart already betokens that. Ilichter says of Luther's words, "his words are half battles." They may be called so. The essential quality of him was, that he could fight and conquer ; that he was a right piece of human valor. No more valiant man, no mortal heart to be called braver, that one has record of, ever lived in that Teutonic kindred, whose character is valor. His defiance of the " devils" in Worms was not a mere boast, as the like might be if now spoken. It was a faith of Luther's that there were devils, spiritual denizens of the pit, continually besetting men. Many times, in his writings, this turns up ; and a most small sneer has been grounded on it by some. In the room of the Wart- burg where he sat translating the Bible, they still show you a black spot on the wall ; the strange memorial of one of these conflicts. Luther sat translatingone of the Psalms ; he was worn down with long labor, with sickness, abstinence from food : there rose before him some hideous indefinable image, which he took for the evil one, to forbid his work : Luther started up, with fiend-defiance ; flung his inkstand at the spectre, and it disappeared. The spot still re- mains there ; a curious monument of several things. Any apothe- cary's apprentice can now tell us what we are to think of this appa- rition, in a scientific sense : but the man's heart that dare rise de- fiant, face to face, against hell itself, can give no higher proof of fear- lessness. The thing he will quail before exists not on this earth or under it. Fearless enough! "The devil is aware," writes he on one occasion, " that this does not proceed out of fear in me. I have seen and defied innumerable devils. Duke George," of Leipzig, a great enemy of his, "Duke George is not equal to one devil" far short of a devil ! " If I had business at Leipzig, I would ride into Leipzig, though it rained Duke Georges for nine days running." What a reservoir of dukes to ride into ! At the same time, they err greatly who imagine that this man's courage was ferocity, mere coarse disobedient obstinacy and sav- agery, as many do. " Par from that. There may be an absence of fear which arises from the absence of thought or affection, from the presence of hatred and stupid fury. We do not value the courage of the tiger highly ! With Luther it was far otherwise ; no accusation could be more uujust than this of mere ferocious violence brought A.B.-20 60 against him. A most gentle heart withal, full of pity and love, as indeed the truly valiant heart ever is. The tiger before a xtroxycr foe- -Hies : the tiger is not what we call valiant, only fierce and cruel. I know few things more touching than those soft breathings of affection, soft as a child's or a mother's, in this great wild heart of Luther. So honest, unadulterated with any cant ; homely, rude in their utterance ; pure as water welling from the rock. What, in far!, was all that downpressed mood of despair and reprobation, which *(> saw in his youth, but the outcome of pre-eminent thoughtful gentleness, affections too keen and fine? It is the course such men as the poor poet Cowper fall into. Luther to a slight observer might have seemed a timid, weak man ; modesty, affectionate shrinking tenderness the chief distinction of him. It is a noble valor which is roused in a heart like this, once stirred up into defiance, all kindled into a heavenly bhv:e. In Luther's Tulile-Tnlk, a posthumous book of anecdotes and say- ings collected by his friends, the most interesting now of all the books proceeding from him, we have many beautiful unconscious displays of the man, and what sort of nature he had. His behavior at the death-bed of his little daughter, so still, so great and loving, is among the most affecting things. He is resigned that his little Mag- dalene should (lit;, yet longs inexpressibly that she might live ; fol- lows in awe-struck thought the flight of 'her little soul through those unknown realms. Awe .struck ; most heartfelt, we can see ; and sincere for after all dogmatic creeds and articles, he feels what nothing it is that we know, or can know : his little Magdalene shall be with God, as God wills ; for Luther too that is all : f^u/t is ;.ll. Once he looks out from his solitary Patmos, the Castle of Cohurg, in the middle of the night : the great vault of immensity, long flights of clouds sailing through it dumb, gaunt, huge : who supports ;ill that V " None ever saw the pillars of it ; yet it is supported." God supports il. We must know that God is great, that God is good ; and trust where we cannot see. Returning home from Leipzig once, he is struck by the beauty of the harvest-fields : How it stands, that golden yellow corn, on its fair taper stem, its golden head bent, all rich and waving there the meek earth, at God's kind bidding, baa produced it once again ; the bread of man ! In the garden at Witlen- berg one evening at sunset, a little bird has perched for the night- That little bird, says Luther, above it are the stars and deep heaven of worlds ; yet it has folded its little wings ; gone trustfully to rest there as in its home ; the Maker of it has given it too a home ! Neither are mirthful turns wanting : there is a great free human heart in this man. The common speech jf him has a rugged noble- ness. Idiomatic, expressive, genuine; gleams here and there with beautiful poetic tints. One feels him to be a great brother man. His love of music, indeed, is not this, as it were, the summary of all these olTectiotis in him? Many a wild unutterability he spoke forth from BY THOMAS CARLYLE. 61 him in the tones of his flute. The devils fled from his flute, he says. Death-defiance on the one hand, and such love of music on the other ; I could call these the two opposite poles of a great soul ; be- tween these two all great things had room. Luther's face is to me expressive of him ; in Kranach's best por- traits I find the true Luther. A rude, plebeian face ; with its huge crag-like brows and bones, the emblem of rugged energy ; at first, almost a repulsive face. Yet in the eyes especially there is a wild silent sorrow ; an unnamable melancholy, the element of all gentle and fine affections ; giving to the rest the true stamp of nobleness. Laughter was in this Luther, as we said ; but tears also were there. Tears also were appointed him ; tears and hard toil. The basis of his life was sadness, earnestness. In his latter days, after all triumphs and victories, he expresses himself heartily weary of living ; he con- siders that God alone can and will regulate the course things are taking, and that perhaps the day of judgment is not far. As for him, he longs for one thing ; that God would release him from his labor, and let him depart and be at rest. They understand little of the man who cite this in discredit of him ! I will call this Luther a true great man ; great in intellect, in courage, affection and integrity ; one of our most lovable and precious men. Great, not as a hewn obelisk ; but as an Alpine mountain so simple, honest, spontaneous, not setting up to be great at all ; there for quite another purpose than being great ! Ah yes, unsubduable granite, piercing far and wide into the heavens ;'yet in the clefts of it fountains, green beautiful valleys with flowers ! A right spiritual hero and prophet ; once more, a true son of nature and fact, for whom these centuries, ud many that are to come yet, will be thankful to heaven. THB A. 4>, v MABT STUART, QTJEE1* OF SOOTS i. IP another Homer were to arise, and if the poet were to seek an- other Helen for the subject of a modern epic of war, religion, and love, he would beyond all find her in Mary Stuart, the most beaut* ful, the weakest, the most attractive and most attracted of women, raising around her, by her irresistible fascinations, a whirlwind of love, ambition, and jealousy, in which her lovers became, each in his turn, the motive, the instrument, and the victim of a crime ; leaving, like the Greek Helen, the arms of a murdered husband for those of his murderer ; sowing the seeds of internecine, religious, and foreign war at every step, and closing by a saintly death the life of a Clytein- nestra ; leaving behind her indistinct memories exaggerated equally by Protestant and Catholic parties, the former interested in condemn- ing her for all, the latter in absolving her from all, as if the same factions who had fought for her during her life had resolved to con tinue the combat after her death ! Such was Mary Stuart. That which a new Homer has not yet done in poetry, a sympathetic historian, M. Dargaud, enlightened by the researches of other learned writers, has recently achieved in his history of the Queen of Scots, It is from the extremely interesting documents collected by M. Dar- gaud that we shall now recompose though frequently in a different spirit that fair figure, and give a rapid sketch of a great picture. II. MART STUAKT was the only daughter of James V., King of Scot- land, and of Marie de Lorraine, daughter of the Duke of Guise. Sha was born in Scotland on the 7th December, 1543. Her father was one of those adventurous, romantic, gallant, and poetic characters who leave behind them popular traditions of bravery and of licentiousness in the imagination of their country, like Francis I. and Henry IV. of France. Her mother possessed that genius, at once grave, ambitious, and sectarian, which distinguished the princes of the House of Guise, those true Maccabees of Popery on this side the Alps. James V. died young, prophesying a mournful destiny for hit Daughter, yot in her cradle. This prophecy was suggested by his I MAHY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. misgivings regarding the fate of a child, dttlivered up, during a long sions with the fanaticism of two hostile religions defying each other face to face. The dying king had, after long hesitation, adopted tha Catholic policy and proscribed the Puritans. M. Dargaud sees in this policy of James V. the cause of the ruin of Scotland and of the misfortunes of Mary, and at first sight we were tempted to think as he does. After a closer view, however, and on a consideration of the general political situation of Europe, and more particularly of Scotland, perhaps the Catholic party .adopted by the king might have been safest for that country, if, indeed, Scotland could have been Bved by state measures. It was not the Catholicism of Mary Stuart that proved fatal to Scotland ; it was her youth, her levity, her loves, and her faults. III. WHERE, in fact, lay the true and permanent danger for Scotland ? In the neighborhood, the ambition, and the power of England. Had Scotland at once become Protestant, as England had been since th time of Henry VIII., one of the greatest obstacles to her absorption by England would have disappeared with the difference of religion. Catholicism was therefore esteemed a part of Scottish patriotism, and to destroy it would have been to tear their native country from the hearts of the Catholic portion of the people. Moreover, Scotland, ceaselessly menaced by the domination or in- vasions of England, stood in need of powerful foreign alliances Jn Europe to aid her in preserving her independence and to furnish her with that moral and material support necessary to counterbalance the gold and the arms of the English. What were these continental alliances ? France, Italy, the Pope, Spain. Scotland lived by such imposing protection ; there lay her friendships, her vessels, her gold, her diplomacy, her auxiliary armies. Now all those powers Italy, Spain, France, the House of Austria, the House of Lorraine had adopted the Catholic cause with fanaticism, as opposed to the new religion. The Inquisition reigned at Madrid, the St. Bartholomew already cast its shadow over France, the Guises, uncles of Mary, were the very core of that league which attempted to proscribe Henry IV. on suspicion of heresy. Community of religion, therefore, could alone and at once interest the Pope, Italy, Austria, France, and Lor raine, to maintain with a strong hand the independence of Scotland The day she ceased to become part of the great Catholic system es- tablished on the continent she fell, having no ally left save her mortal and natural enemy England. Looking at the political rather than the religious aspect of affairs under James V., an alliance with FroteUMtiun was an alliance with death, M. Dargaud 's reproach MART STUART, QUEEN OP SCOTS. 5 of the dying king, therefore, may be an error engendered by his un- compromising predilection Cwhich is also ours) for the cause of re- ligious liberty. But religious liberty in Scotland at that time had no existence in either camp ; parties attacked each other with equal ferocity, and Knox, the deadly foe of the Catholics, was not less in- tolerant than Cardinal Bcatoun, who proscribed the Puritans. Kings had only a choice of blood, for the fanatics of each communion equally demanded that it should be shed. For Scotland, then, the question was purely a diplomatic one. In confiding his (laughter to Catholic Europe:, James V. may have acted the part of a far-seeing parent and king. If fortune betrayed his policy and his tenderness, it was the fault of his heir and not of his testament. IV. His widow, Mary of Lorraine, deposed from the regency by the jealousy of the nobles, reconquered it by her ability, and allowed the cardinals the usual supporters of thrones at that period to govern the kingdom under her. Her daughter was sought after by all tho courts of Europe, not only because of her precocious renown for genius and beauty, but also, and principally, for the purpose of ac- quiring, by marriage with her, a right to the Scottish crown an ac- quisition strongly coveted by the wearers of other crowns. After a journey to Lorraine and France to pay a visit to her uncles, the Guises, the queen determined, by their advice, to marry her daughter to the Dauphin, son of Henry II. Diana of Poitiers, the Aspasia of the age, had ruled Henry II. for twenty years, as much by the love she bore him as by the affection with which he regarded her ; we know not, in fact, which of the two, the king or his mistress, may be said to have possessed the other, such a miracle of tenderness was the witchcraft of this passion of a young king and a woman of fifty. The Guises cultivated the friendship of Diana of Poitiers for the purpose of governing tho league. I'he Queen-Regent of Scotland left her child-daughter in the cha- teau of St. Germain, to grow up under their protection in the atmos- phere of that France over which she was destined one day to reign. " Votre fille est crue, et croit tous les jours en bonte, beaute et vertu," writes the Cardinal de Lorraine, her uncle, to the Queen, his sister, after her return to Edinburgh, " le roi passe bien son temps a deviser avec elle. . . . Elle le sait aussi bien entretenir de boiis et sagea propos comme feraitune femme de vingt cinq ans." " Your daugh- ter has grown much, and continues to grow every day in goodness, beauty, and virtue. . . . The king passes much of his time in amusing himself with her. . . . She also knows well how to en- tertain him with wise converse, like that of a woman of five-and- twenty." 6 MARY STUAUt, QUEEK OF SCOTS. The learned and Italian education of the young Scottish woman de- veloped the natural gifts she possessed. French, Italian, Greek, Latin, history, theology, poetry, music, and dancing, were all learned and studied under the wisest masters and greatest artists. In the re- fined and voluptuous court of the Valois, governed by a favorite, she was brought up rather as an accomplished court lady than as a future queen ; and her education rather seemed to fit Her for becoming th mistress than the wife of the Dauphin. The Valois were the Medici/ of France. V. THE poets of the court soon began to celebrate in their verses the marvels of her beauty and the treasures of her mind " En votre esprit, le ciel s'est surmonte, Nature et artont en votre beaut6, Mis tout le beau dont la beaute s'asemble !" " The gods themselves excelled, in framing thy fair mind, Nature and art in thy young form their highest powers combined, All beauty of the beautiful to concentrate in thee." Writes du Bellay, the Petrarch of the time. Ronsard, who was the Virgil of the age, expresses himself, when- ever he speaks of her, in such images and with such delicacy avd polish of accent, as prove that his praise sprang from his love that his heart had subjugated his genius. Mary was evidently the Beatrix of the poet. " Au milieu du prin temps entre les lie naquit Son corps qni de blanclieur les lis memes vainquit, Et lea roses, qui sont du sang d'Adonis teintes Furent par a couleur de leur vermeil depeintes, Amour de ses beaux traits lui cotnposa les yeux, Et les graces qui sont les trois fllles dee cieux De lenrs dons les plus beaux cette princesse ornSrent Et pour mieux la eervir les cieux abandonnerent." "In fulness of the springtide, from among the lilies fair, Sprang foith that form of whiteness, fairer than the lilies there. Though stained with Adonis' blood, the gentle cummer rose Lies vanquished by the ruby tint her cheeks and lips disclose. Young Love himself with arrows keen hath armed her peerless eye, The Graces too, those fairest three, bright daughters of the sky, With all their richest, rarest gifts my prince^shave endowed, And evermore to serve her well have left their high abode. " " Notre petite reinctte Ecossaise," said Catherine de Medici herself who looked upon her with distaste, "our little Scottish qtteenling has only to smile in order to turn all the heads in France I" Neither did the child love the Italian queen, whom, in her girlish corn for the low-born house of Medici, she called " that Florentine market-woman." Her prflflilections were all in favor of Diana oC Poitiers, who seems to have educated in her a daughter, a future eomjwtitor in beauty and empire. Diana cherished besides, in tka MAEY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 7 young Scottish woman, a rival or possible victim of that Queen Eliza- beth of England whom she detested, and whose power Mary had not Vet felt. The proof of this is to be found in a curious letter written by Diana of Poitiers, and communicated in autograph to the historian we are following : " To Madame, my good friend, Madame de Montaigne : " I have just been told about the poor young queen, Jane Grey, beheaded, at the age of seventeen, and cannot help weeping at the sweet language of resignation she spoke at the hour of her death. For never have we seen so gentle and accomplished a princess, and yet she must perish under the blows of the wicked. When are you coming to visit me, my good friend ? I am very desirous of your presence, which would console me in all my sorrows, whaever there may be, that arise and weigh so heavily on me, turning everything into evil. Sometimes these become annoying to such a degree as to make one .believe that an abyss lurks in high places. The courier from England has brought me many fine dresses from that country, which, if you come soon to see me, will have a good share in inducing you to leave the place where you are, and make active preparations for staying some time with me, and orders will be given that you shall be provided with everything. Do not pay me off then with fine words or promises, for I would press you in my arms to assure myself the more of your presence. Upon which I pray God very devoutly that he may keep you in health according to the desire of " Your affectionate, to love and to serve, " DIANA." This letter, this pity, and the fine expression " an abyss in high places," prove that the witchery of Diana lay in her genius and in her heart as much as in her fabulous beauty. The sudden death of Henry II., killed in a tournament by Mont- gomery, sent Diana to the solitary Chateau of Anet, where she had prepared her retreat, and where she grew old in tears. The young Mary of Scotland was crowned with her husband, Francis II., who was even more a child in mind and in weakness than in age. The Guises reaped what they had sown in advising this marriage ; they reigned through their niece over her husband, and through the king over France. They had the boldness to proclaim publicly their pre- tensions to the inheritance of the Scottish crown, by emblazoning the arms of the two nations on the escutcheon of the young queen. They testified their attachment for the cause of the Pope by the murder of the Calvinist Anne du Bourg, a heroic confessor of the Protestant faith. " Six feet of earth for my body, and the infinite heavens for my soul, is what I shall soon have," cried Anne du Bourg at sight of the scaffold, and in presence of her executioners. Mary Stuart, in whose veins flowed the fanatical blood of her mother, took a bitter sectarian delight in the execution of these heretics by her uncles, 8 MART STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. This reign only lasted eleven months ; France lost the phantom of a king rather than a master, and barely granted him royal obsequies. Mary alone sincerely mourned him as the mild and agreeable com- panion of her youth rather than as a husband. The verses which she composed in the first mouths of her widowhood neither exaggerate nor lessen the sentiment of her grief ; they are sweet, sad, but luko- warm as the first melancholy of the soul before the age of pasaionaU despair. " Ce qui m'estait plaisant Ores m'est peme dure ; Le jour le plus luisant M'est unit noire et obscure. " Si en quelque sejour, Soit en bois on en pree. Soil sur 1'aube du jour On soil siir la vespree. Sans cesse mon cceur sent Le regret d'un absent. " Si jc suis en repos, Somineillant sur ma couche, L'oy qui me tient propos, Je le sens qui me louche. En labeur et requoy, Toujours est pres de moi." " All that once in pleasure met Now is pain and sorrow ; The brilliant day hath quickly set In night with dreary morrow. " Where'er I sojourn, sad, forlorn, In forest, mead, or hill; Whether at the dawn of morn, Or vesper hour so still My sorrowing heart shall beat for thee. This absent one I ne'er shall see ! " When slumbering on my couch I lie, And dreams the past reveal, Thy form, beloved, seems ever nigh, Thy fond caress I feel." It was in a convent at Rheims, where she had retired to enjoy the ocicty of the Abbess Renee of Lorraine, that she lamented so sweetly, not the loss of a throne, but the loss of love. Soon after, she heard of the death of her mother, the Queen of Scotland. A new thronu awaited her at Edinburgh, and she prepared for her departure. " Ah !" cries her poet and adorer, the great Ronsard, on learning tkc approaching return of the young queen to Scotland " Comme le ciel s'il perdait ses etoilo La iner se eaux, le navire ses voile*. Et un anneau sa perle precieuse Aiai perdra la France soucieuse i SOB ornament, perdant la roynute tyii f ut sa ikur, sou eclat sa benoU 1" STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 9 " Like to the heaven when starless, dark, Like seas dried up or sailless bark, Like ring its precious pearl gone, Mourns France, without thee sad and lone. Thou wert her gem, her flower, her pride, Her young and beauteous royal bride." " Scotland," continues the poet, " which is about to snatch her from us, becomes so dim in the mist of its seas that her ship will never reach its shores." " Et celle done qui la poursuit envain lietournerait en Prance tout soudain Pour habiter son chateau de Touraine Lorsde chansons j'aurais la bouche pleine Et dans mes ver si fort je la louerais Que comme un Cygne en chantant je mourais 1" * But she I've sought long time in vain May soon to France return again, To dwell in castle of Touraine! Then, full of song, my lips would try To swell her praise, and sing till I, Like fabled awan, might singing die!" The same poet, when contemplating her dressed in mourning in the park of Fontaiuebleau some days before her departure, thus with a loving pen traces her image, blending it forever with the beautiful shades of Diana of Poitiers and of Lavalliere, which people, in im- agination, the waters and woods of that exquisite spot : " Un crespe long, subtil et delie, Pli contre pli rotors et replie, Habit de deuil, yous eertdecouverture Depuis lechef jusques ilia ceinture, Qui s'entle ainsi qu'un voile, quand le vent Souffle la barque et la eingle en avant. De tel habit vous estiez accoustree, Partant, helas ! de la belle contree Dont aviez eu le sceptre dans la main, Lorsque pensive, et baignant votre sein Dubeau crystal de vos larmes rouli'-cs, Tristc nmrchiez par les longues alleea Du grand jardin de ce royal chasteau Qui prend son nom de la beaute d'une eau." " A long and slender veil of sable crape; Its folds unfolding, ever folds anew ; The mourning symbol that enwraps thy shapo From head to girdle falls ; Now swelling to the wind, even as the sail Of bark urged onward by the passing gale ; (Leaving, alas 1 this ever beauteous land, Whose sceptre once was borne by thy fair band :) Thus wert thou clad, when thou didst pensive stray Along the royal garden's paths that day, Bathing thy bosom with the crystal tears." Who does not himself become a lover by reading the verses of such 10 MARY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. a poet? But lore, or even poetry, according to Brantdme, were powerless to depict her at this still progressive period of her life ; to paint that heauty which consisted less in her form than in her fascinating grace ; youth, heart, genius, passion, still shaded by the deep melancholy of a farewell ; the tall and slender shape, the harmonious movement, the round and flexible throat, the oval face, the fire of her look, the grace of her lips, her Saxon fairness, the pale beauty of her hair, the light she shed around her wherever she went ; the night, the void, the desert she left behind when no longer present ; the attraction resembling witch- craft, which unconsciously emanated from her, and which drew toward her, as it were, a current of eyes, of desires, of hearts ; the tone of her voice which, once heard, resounded forever in the ear of the listener, and that natural genius of soft eloquence and of dreamy poesy which distinguished this youthful Cleopatra of Scotland. The numberless portraits which poetry, painting, sculpture, and even stern prose have preserved of her all breathe love as well as art ; we feel that the artist trembles with emotion, like Ronsard, while paint- ing. A contemporary writer gives a finishing stroke to these delinea- tions by a simple expression, conveying the idea of a restoration of the feelings of youth to all who looked upon her : II n'y avail point de vieillard devant elle, " cried he ' ' No man in her presence could feel old ;" she could almost vivify death itself. VI. A CORTEGE of regret, rather than of mere honor, accompanied her to the vessel which was to bear her to Scotland. He who appeared most grieved among the courtiers was the Marechal de Damville, son of the Great Constable de Montmorency ; being unable to follow her to Scotland, on account of his official duties, he resolved to have * constant representative there in the person of a young gentleman of his household, Du Chatelard, by whom he might be daily gratified with a narrative of the slightest events, and, so to speak, of every breath drawn by his idol. Du Chatelard, unhappily for himself, fell madly in love with lier to whom he was the accredited ambassador of another's love. He was a descendant of the Chevalier Bayard, brave and adventurous as his ancestor, a scholar and a poet like Ronsard, with a tender soul ready to be, speedily scorched by such a flame. Everybody knows the touching verses written by Mary, through her tears, on the deck of the vessel, while the coast of France faded i the distance. " Adicn, plaituint pays de France, O ma patrie La plus cherie, Oui a nourri ma jeune enfance I Adieu, France; adieu, mew beaux jours } La nef qui disjoint nos amours, N'a cu de moi que la moitie, MART STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 11 Une part te restc, elle est tienne, Je la fie a ton amitie Pour que de 1'autrc il te sonvienne I" " Farewell, thou ever pleasant soil of Prance, Beloved land of childhood's early day ! Farewell, my France ; farewell, my happy years ! Though from thy shores I now am snatched away, Thou stiU retainest half my loving heart, The rent will ne'er forget thee though we part !" On the 19th of August, 1561 the very day on which she completed her nineteenth year Mary landed on Scottish ground. The lords'who had governed the kingdom in her absence, and the Presbyterian part of the nation, witnessed her arrival with repugnance ; they feared her presumed partiality for the Catholicism in which she had been brought up in the courts of the Guises and of Catherine de Medici. Respect, however, for hereditary legitimacy, and the hope of being able to fashion so young a queen to other ideas, prevailed over these prej- udices. She was escorted like a queen to the palace of Holyrood, the dwelling of the Scottish monarchs at Edinburgh. The citizens of that capital expressed in mute language a symbolic but conditional submission to her rule, presenting to her, by the hands of a child, the keys of the city, placed between a Bible and a Presbyterian psalm- book, on a silver platter. She was saluted Queen of Scotland on the following day, amid a splendid concourse of Scottish lords and of the French seigneurs of her family and suite. Knox, the Calvin of Snot- land, the prophet and agitator of the popular conscience, abstained from appearing at this inauguration ; he seemed desirous of making his submission as a subject depend on the fulfilment of the conditions expressed by the appearance of the Bible and psalm-book on the silver platter. Knox was the Savonarola of Edinburgh ; as over- bearing, popular, and cruel a. he of Florence, he stood alone between the people, the throne, and the parliament, as a fourth power repre- senting sacred sedition, a power which claimed a place side by side with the other powers of the state ; a man the more to be feared by the queen because his virtue was, so to speak, a kind of fanatical conscience. To become a martyr or to make martyrs for what he believed to be the cause of God were to him indifferent. He was ready to give himself up to the death, and why should he hesitate to devote others to the scaffold ? Scarcely had the first Queen Mary been invested with the regency than he had fulminated against her a pamphlet, entitled "Mrst HUuit of the Trumpet against tJie monstrous Regimen of Women. ' ' "There was in the Lothians one of the Scottish provinces a solitary spot where Knox passed several hours every day. Under the shade of the nut-trees, leaning against a rock, or stretched upon the sward near a small loch, he read his Bible, translated into the vulgar tongue ; there lie concocted his schemes, watching with anxiety for the propitious moment wheu they should explode into action. When 12 MART STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. tired of reflection and reading, lie would approach nearer to the pool, jeat himself on its banks, and crumble some bread to feed the moor- fowl and wild ducks he had succeeded in taming." Striking image this of his mission among men, which called him to distribute to them the Word that Bread of Life ! Knox loved that desert solitude on the banks of the little lake. " It is sweet, " said lie, " to rest there, but we must try to please Christ." To please Christ was, in the eyes of Knox, as in those o Philip II. of Spain, or Catherine of Medici, to condemn his enemies. VII. THE young queen, feeling the necessity of securing the good-will of such a man, succeeded in attracting him to the palace. lie appeared in his Calvinistic dress, a short cloak thrown over his shoulder, the Bible under his arm. " Satan," said he, " cannot prevail against a man whose left hand bears a light to illumine his right, when he searches the Holy Scriptures in the hours of night." "I would," said the queen, "my words might have the same effect upon you as yours have upon Scotland ; we should then un- derstand each other, become friends, and our good intelligence would do much for the peace and happiness of the kingdom !" " Madam," replied the stern apostle, " words are more barren than the rock when they are only worldly ; but when inspired by God, thence proceed the flower, the grain, and all virtues ! I have travelled over Ger- many ; I know the Saxon law, which is just, for it reserves the sceptre for man alone, and only gives to woman a place at the hearth and ia distaff !' ' thus plainly declaring that he saw in her only a usurper, and that he was himself a republican of the theocratic order. The queen, alarmed at the impotence of her charms, her words, and her rank on the mailed heart of fanaticism, wept like a child before the sectary ; her tears moved but did not discourage him ; he continued to preach with wild freedom against the government of women and the pomps of the palace. The populace, already in a state of irritation, became still more excited by his words. The pupil of the Guises," he said to them, " parodies France ; her farces, prodigalities, banquets, sonnets, masquerades. . . . 1 he paganism of the south invades us. To provide for these abomi- n.itions the burgrsses arc taxed, the city treasuries pillaged ; Roman idolatry and French vices will speedily reduce Scotland to beggary. Do not the foreigners brought over by this woman infest the streets of Edinburgh by night in drunkenness and debauchery ?" Then- is nothing to be hoped for from this Moabite," he added. Scotland might as well build upon clouds, upon an abyss, over a volcano. The spirit of caprice and of pride, the spirit of popery, the pint of her accursed uncles, the Guises, is within her." Repelled as *hu was from the heart of the people, she threw herself MAKY STUAKT, QUEE2ST OF SCOTS. 13 ;n(,o the arms of the nobles. She confided the direction of the gov- ernment to a natural son of her father James V. who bore the name of the " Lord James," whom she treated as a brother, and elevated to the rank of Earl of Murray. Murray was, by character and spirit, worthy of the confidence of his sister ; young, handsome, eloquent like her, he was better acquainted with the country than she was ; he had the friendship of the nobles, wisely managed the Presbyterians, had acquired the esteem of the people, and possessed that loyal ability, that skilful uprightness, which is the gift of great statesmen. Such a brother was a favorite given by nature to the young queen, and HO long as he remained the only favorite he made his sister popular by his government as by his arms. He led her into the midst of the camps, and she fascinated all -by her charms and her courage ; her address in horsemanship astonished her subjects ; she was present at the battle of Corrichie, in which Murray vanquished the rebels and killed the Earl of Huntly, their leader. Once more mistress of pacified Scotland, Mary returned in triumph to Edinburgh. The moderate but pious Protestantism of Murray ontributed to this pacification, by furnishing in his own persona pledge of toleration and even of favor for the new religion. Every- thing promised Mary Stuart a happy reign for herself and her king- dom, had her heart been devoted to nothing but state policy ; but hers was the heart not merely of a queeii but of a woman accustom- ed to the court of France, and to the idolatry of her beauty professed by an entire kingdom. The Scottish nobles were not less enthusiastic than were those of France in this chivalric worship ; yet to declare herself sensible to the homage of any one of her subjects would only have been to alienate all the rest by exciting their jealousy ; but the politic watchfulness over herself with relation to the Scottish lords, which had been recommended by Murray, her brother and minister, was precisely that which ruined her. Unconsciously to herself, an obscure favorite insinuated himself into her heart ; this favorite, so celebrated afterward for his sudden elevation and tragical death, wa named David Rizzio. i VIII. llr/.zio was an Italian of low birth and menial station. Gifted witi a touching voice, a pliant spirit, which enabled him to bow bei'oro the great ; possessing a talent for playing on the lute, and for com- posing and for singing that languishing music which is one of tho effeminacies of Italy, Ilizzio had been attached at Turin to the house- hold of the French ambassador at the court of Piedmont in the ca- pacity of musical attendant. On his return to France, the ambassadoi had brought Kizzio with him to the court of Francis II., and he en- tered the suite of one of the French nobles who had escorted Mary to Scotland. The young queen had begged him of Ulis nobloniHu, U MART STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. tliiit she might retain in the country where she was less a queen tha an exile one who would be to her as a living memory of the arts, leisure, and delights of France aud fealy, those lands of her soul. A musician hcrsdi', as she was also a poet charming frequently her .-adness by composing words and airs in which, she exhaled her sigh? the society of the Piedmontese musician became habitual and dear to her. The study of his art and even the inferiority of Rizzio's con- dition concealed for some time the assiduity and familiarity of this intimacy from the observation of the court of Holyrood. Love for the art had unfortunately led to an undue preference for the artist. There is in music an attractive language without words which unconsciously creates sympathy, and which gives the rnusu -iai, a powerful influence over the imagination of women of cultivated minds. The delicious, impassioned, or heroic notes of the voice or of the instrument seem to breathe a soul in unison with those sublime or touching chords. The music and the musician become, as it were, one. Rizzio, after having merely furnished her with amusement in times of sadness, ended by becoming her confidant, and her favor speedily became manifest to all. The musician, rapidly elevated by her from his servile position to the summit of credit and honors, became, under the name of secretary, the reigning favorite and the minister of her policy. IX. RUMORS in the palace regarding this preference of the queen for the Italian were not slow to lind an echo in the city, and from thence they spread all over Scotland. Kuox made the pulpit resound with allusions and declamations on the corruption of the " woman of Baby- lon." Murray was grieved and the nobles offended; the clergy thundered ; the people were incensed against the queen. The court, meanwhile, was devoted to tourneys, hunting-feasts, banquets, shows, and music, concealing or betraying ignoble love adventures. x The queen alienated from herself all hearts for the sake of a mere histrio, of a player on the lute, an Italian, a reprobate Papist, who passed for a secret agent of the Holy See, charged with the task of seducing the queen and fettering the conscience of the kingdom. X. EVERYTHING: indicates that Mary and Rizzio haci resolved to give a tragic diversion to this public scandal, by sacrificing to the Presbyte- rian rage of the people another favorite than the true one, and thus to satisly the Protestant clergy by shedding the blood of a foolish en- thusiast, the page of the Marechal de Damville, the young Du Chate- lanl, who had remained, as we have Been, at Holyrood. for the pur- pose of entertaining his master with letters about all that related to th quiicu, his idol. Du Uhatelard, treated as a child by the playful MARY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 15 indulgence of the queen, had conceived for his mistress a passion bordering on madness. The queen had encouraged him too much to retain the right of punishing him. Du Chatelard, constantly admit- ted to the most intimate familiarity with his mistress, ended by mis- taking sport for earnest, persuading himself that she only desired a pretext for yielding to his audacity. The ladies of the palace dis- covered him one night hidden under the queen's bed ; he was ex- pelled with indignation, but his boldness was placed to the account of the thoughtlessness of his age and character. Raillery was hi* only punishment. He continued to profess at court an adoring wor- ship for Mary, filling the palace with his amorous verses, and reciting to the courtiers those lines which Konsard, possessed with the same image, had addressed to her in Paris. " Quand cct y voire blauc qui enflc yotrc sein Quand votri; longue, gresle ct delicate main Quand votre belle hiille et votre beau corsage Qui ressemblo ;ui portrait d'un celeste image ; Quand vos sages propos, quand vostre douce voix Qui pourroit emouyoir les rochers et les bois, Las ! ne sout plus icy ; quand tant de beautaz rare* Dont les graces des cieux ne voiis furent avares, Abandonnant la France out d'un autre coste L'agreable sujet de uos vers emporte. Comment pourroit chanter les benches des poetes, Quand par vostre depart les muses tont lunettes? Tout ce qui est de beau ne se garde longtemps ; Les roses et les lys ne regnent qu'un printeinps. Aiusi votre beautti senlement apparue Quinze ans en nostre France est Boudain disparue C'omme on voit d'un esclair s'evanouir le trait, Et d'elle n'a laisso si non quo le regret, Sinon le deplaisir qui mo remet sans cesse Au coeur le souvenir d'une telle princesse. J'envoyray mes pensers qui volent cominc oiseanx Par eux je revoiray sans danger a toute heure Cette belle princcsse et sa belle demeure ; Et la pour tout janiais je voudray sejourner, Car d'un lieu si plaisant on ne peut retourner. La nature a toujours dedans la mer lointaine Par les bois par les rocs, sous les monceaux d'arei6 ITait naistre li^s Iicautez et n'a j>oint a nos yeux N'y a nous fait present de sea dons precieux: Les perles, les rubis, sont enfants des rivages, Et toujouru les oileurs sont aux terres sauvageg, Ainsi L)ieu qui a soin de vostre royaute A fait (miracle grand) naistre vostre beaute Snr le bord estranger, comme chose laissee Non pour nos yeiix helas 1 mais pour nostre pensoe." * The ivory whiteness of thy bosom fair ; Thy long and slender hand so soft and rare ; Thy all-surpassing look and form of love, Enchanting as a vision from above ; Then thy sweet voice and music of thy speech, That rocks and woods might move, nor art could re Mil, i HART STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. When these are lost, fled to a foreign shore, With loves and graces, France beholds no mor. How shall the poet sing now thou art gone ? For s iknt is the muse since thou hast flown ; All that is beauteous short time doth abide, The rose ami lily only bloom while lasteth the spring-tide. " Thus here, in France, thy beauty only shone, For thrice five years, and suddenly is gone ; Like to the lightning-flash, a moment bright, To leave but darkness and regret like night ; To leave a deathless memory behind, Of that fair princess, in my heart enshrined. My winged thoughts, like birds, now lly to thee, My beautous princess, and her home I see, And there for evermore I lain would stay, Nor from that sweetest dwelling ever stray. " Nature hath ever in her deepest floods, On loftiest hills, in lonely rocks and woods, Her choicest treasures hid from mortal ken, With rich and precious gems unseen of men. The pearl and ruby sleep in secret stores, And softest perfumes spring on wildest shores. Thus God, who over thee his watch doth keep, Hath borne thy beauty safe across the deep On foreign shore, in regal pride to rest, Far from mine eyes, but hidden in my breast." These beautiful verses of Ronsard were doubtless esteemed an ex- cuse for the passion of a poet equally fascinated, but less discreet. Du Chatelard, surprised a second time hidden behind the curtains of the queen's bed, was sent to trial and condemned to death by the judges of Edinburgh for a meditated treason. Wfth a single word Mary might have commuted his punishment or granted him pardon, but she ungenerously abandoned him to the executioner. Ascending the scaffold erected before the windows of Holyrood palace, the theatre of his madness and the dwelling of the queen, he faced death like a hero and a poet. " If," said he, " I die not without n/>rouck, like the Chevalier Bayard, my ancestor, like him I die, at least, wit/i- inil j'i'iir. " For his last prayer he recited Ronsard \s beautiful Ode on Death. Then casting his last looks and thoughts toward the win- lows of the palace, inhabited by the charm of his life and the cause f his death, " Farewell !" he cried, " thou who art so beautiful and to cruel ; who killest me, and whom I cannot cease to love !" Tliis iragedy was only the prelude to others which were soon after to till the palace with consternation and bloodshed, BUT already state politics began to intermingle with love, and to invade the happiness of the young queen. England, by right of kindred, had always exercised, partly by habit, partly by force, a sort of recognized mediation over Scotland. Elizabeth, tke daughter ifAKY STUAItT, QUEEN OF SCOTS. it <>f lieury VIII., less woman than statesman, was not of a character likely to forego this right of mediation. Public and personal policy alike prompted her to retain it, the more so that Mary Stuart possessed eventual rights to the crown of England rights even more legiti- mate than her own. In the case of Elizabeth who gloried in the title of virgin queen dying without issue, Mary might be called to succeed her on the English throne. The marriage of the Queen of Scots was, therefore, a question which essentially interested Eliza- beth, for, according as the Scottish princess should marry a foreign, a Scottish, or an English prince, the fate of England would not fail to be powerfully influenced by the king with whom Mary should divide her two crowns. Elizabeth had begun by supporting the pre- tensions of her own favorite, the handsome Leicester, to the hand of Mary ; then jealousy restrained her, and she transferred her favor to a young Scot of the almost royal house of Lennox, whose father was devoted to her, and lived at court. She indirectly intimated to Mary that such a marriage would cement an eternal friendship between them, and would be agreeable to both nations. The young Darnley, son of the Earl of Lennox, would thus exclude the pretensions of foreign princes, whose domination might menace the independence of Scotland, and later, perhaps, even that of England, and would besides give to Queen Mary a pledge of domestic harmony in a com- mon Catholic faith. It would please the English, because the house of Lennox had immense possessions in England, and the family in- habited London ; it would accommodate the Scotch, for he was a Scot by blood and race, and the Scottish nobles would more readily sub- mit to one of their own countrymen than to an Englishman or a stranger. This judicious reasoning shows in Elizabeth no trace at that time of the perfidy and hatred which historians attribute to her in this negotiation. She certainly gave in this case to her sister Mary of Scotland the wisest counsel likely to assure repose to herself, hap- piness to her people, and friendship between the two crowns. This advice, moreover, could not fail to be well received by a young queen, whose heart should naturally take precedence of her hand, for Darnley, then in the flower of his youth, was one of the handsomest of men, and the most likely to captivate the eyes and the heart of a young queen by the graces of his person. Riz/io might perhaps have made himself the sole obstacle to the marriage of Mary ; but whether it arose from womanly caprice or from the refined policy of llizzio, which prompted him to concede a throne in order to retain his influence, he favored the idea of Eliza- beth by every means, thinking, doubtless, that he might be unable to resist alone, or for a length of time, the enmity of the Scottish nobles leagued against him ; that a king was necessary to reduce them to obedience, and that Darnley, who, though possessing a charming ex- terior, had only an inferior mind, would be ever grateful to him for placing him cm the throne, and would leave him to reign in roalil/, 18 MARY STUART, QUEEtf OF SCOTS. sheltered from public envy under the protection of the king. History on this point is wholly conjectural, but the renewed and continuous preference of Mary for her favorite leads to the presumption that she accepted Darnley for the purpose of retaining Rizzio in power. XII. DARTTLET appeared at Holyrood, and charmed all eyes by his in, comparable beauty, but it was that incomplete kind of beauty want- ing in thejnanliness bestowed by years ; he had youth in his face, and something* of the woman in his shape, which was too slender and un- steady for a king. A change, however, seemed to come over Mary's heart on seeing him, and she bestowed upon him her whole soul with her crown. The recitals of the French ambassador at the Scottish court represent this marriage as the perfect union of two lovers, hav- ing but one heart, and ardently enjoying the prolonged revelries of this first bliss of their lives. The Presbyterians alone, with Knox at their head, formed a discordant element in the general happiness. " We should be satisfied," ironically remarked the Earl of Morton ; " we are going to be governed by a buffoon Rizzio, a silly child Darnley, and a shameless princess Mary Stuart. " " You will hear," writes Paul de Foix, envoy of Catherine de Medici at Holyrood, " of the graceful and pleasant life of the said lady, who employs every morning in hunting, and the evenings in dancing, music, and mas- querades." " She is not a Christian," cried Knox from his pulpit, " neither is she woman ; she is a pagan divinity Diana in tke morn- ing, Venus in the evening !" XIII. MURRAY, the brother of Mary, who had firmly established the kingdom under her rule by his spirited and wise administration, was soon dismissed by the new king, now counselled and governed by Ri/.zio. He retired, carrying with him the esteem of the nobles and univiTsal popularity in the nation ; the levity of the queen thus prompted her to discard the first statesman in Scotland for a musi chm, and leave everything to the government of caprice. Under the influence of Charles IX., who then meditated the coming St. Barthol- omew, of UH> Duke of Alba, Philip the Second's fanatical execu- tioner, and of Catherine of Medici, the fountain-head of the religious persecution in France, Mary joined the League of Bayonne, whose object was to form a plan for the religious unity of all Europe by the extermination of Protestantism. She boasted that she would soon li-ad her Scottish troops and her Catholic continental allies to the con- quest of England, and achieve the triumph of Popery even in London it*df. We can easily conceive what dissension and animosity between the two queens would immediately spring from such words reported to Elizabeth by her envoys at Holyrood . feminine MARY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 1ft rivalries speedily became intermixed with those of a religious and political nature, to envenom still more the bloody leaven of their hypocritical friendship. The inconstancy of Mary soon began to work out the vengeance of Elizabeth. XIV. MART had, after a few days of marriage, abandoned her transient fondness for the youth. she imagined she had loved, conceived a cool- ness for Darnley, and became again prodigal of everything toward Rizzio, on whom she lavished power and honors, violating the almost sacred etiquette of the times by admitting him to her table in her private apartments, and, suppressing the name of the king in public papers, substituted that of Rizzio. Scotland found she had two kings, or, rather, the nominal king disappeared to give place to the favorite. XV. DARNL.EY, a prey at once to shame and to jealousy, bore all this like a child, dreaming of the vengeance which he had not the strength to accomplish. The Scottish nobles, feeling themselves humbled in his person, secretly excited in him this ferment of hatred, and otTered to rid him at once from the worthless parasite she had palmed on the kingdom as its ruler. What may be called a national plot was formed between them and Darnley, whose objects were the death of the favorite, the imprisonment of the queen, and the restoration of the outraged royal power into the hands of the king. The clergy and the people would evidently be favorable to the plot ; there was no need to conceal it from them, so certain were the con- spirators not only of impunity but of public ar'^r.use. The Ear) of Murray, brother of the queen, whom she hud so imprudently driven away to deliver herself up to the ascendency of Rizzio, was consult- ed, and listened with caution to the incomplete revelations of the plotters. Too honest to participate by his consent in an assassination, he gave his approbation, or at least his silence, to the enterprise for the delivery of Scotland. He promised to return to Holyrood at the call of the lords, awl to resume the reins of government in the inter- est of the heir to the throne, whom Mary already carried in her bosom. Riz/io, defeated and captured, might be embarked and thrown upon the coast of France. The queen anddthc favorite, ill-served by a disaffected court, SOB- pected nothing, of the plot, though the conspirators, Hocking from tho most distant castles in Scotland, were already armed anil assembled in her antechamber. On the night of the 9th or 10th of March, 15GG, Darnley, the Earl of Lennox, his father, Lord Ruthven, George Douglas, Lindsay, Andrew Ker, and some other lords of the Protestant party, awaited &) if ART STUART, QUEE3V OF SCOTS. the hour in the king's chamber ; three hundred men-at-arms, furnished by the different counties, glided silently into Edinburgh one by ono under the shade of the walls by the street leading from the city to the palace, ready to succor the conspirators if the queen's guards should attempt to defend her. According to the French ambassador, the murderers had a stifl mort flagrant and justifiable pretext for the assassination of the fa- rorite than historians relate. " The king," we read in the dispatches of .Paul de Foix to Cathe- rine of Medici, "a f.evf days before had gone to the door of the queen's chamber, tehich was immediately above his own, about an hour after midnight. After having knocked frequently and no one replying, he called the queen several times, praying her to open the door, and finally threatening to break it open, upon which she ad- mitted him. The king supposed her to be alone in the chamber, till, after having searched everywhere, he discovered David in the cabi- net, his only garmen f being a furred robe." This was probablj the official version given by the king and his accomplices, but the witnesses, and even the actors in the murder, gave a more truthful one of it afterward. The following is the account given by Lord Ruthven, one of the conspirators, after his flight to England, confirmed by unanimous testimony and by docu- mentary evidence. The queen had unsuspectingly prolonged a nocturnal supper with her favorite, in company with a single female confidante, in a small room of the palace next to her bedchamber. Here-let us quote the French writer, who has studied on the spot the most minute circum- stances of this event, and who engraves them in our memory as he relates them : " The king had supped in his own apartment in company with the Earls of Morton, Ruthven, and Lindsay ; the king's rooms were on the ground door, elevated by a few steps, and were situated under the apartments of the queen in the same tower. During the dc.-x-r he sent to .see who was with the queen. He was told that the queer had finished supper in her little cabinet, with Rizzio and her natural sister, the Duchess of Argyl. Their conversation had been joyous and brilliant. The king went up by a back stair, while Morton, Lindsay, and a troop of their bravest vassals occupied the great staircase, and dispersed in their passage some of the queen's friend and servants. " The king passed from the chamber int^ Mary's cabinet Ri/zio, dressed in a short mantle, a satin vest, and lower clothes ot purple velvet, was seated, with his head covered, lie wore a cap decorated with a feather. The queen said to the king, ' My lord, have you supped ? I thought you were supping now.' The king Ic.-incd on the back of the queen's chair, who turned round toward him ; they embraced, and Durnley took a share in tlie conversation. MARY STUART, QUEBN OF SCOTg. 21 His voice trembled, his face was inflamed, and from time to time he cast anxious glances' toward a little door lie had left ajar. Soon after a man issued from under the fringes of the curtain which covered it Ruthveu, still pale and shaking with fever, who, in spitu of his extreme weakness, had determined to join in the undertaking. He wore a damask doublet lined with fur, a brass helmet, and iron gauntlets ; was armed as if for battle, and accompanied by Douglas, Ker, Ballautyne, and Ormiston. At this moment Morton and Lind- say violently burst into the bedchamber of the queen, and, pushing toward the cabinet, rushed into that small room. " Ruthven threw himself forward with such impetuosity that th floor groaned beneath his weight. Mary and her guests were terri- fied ; his livid, fierce aspect, distorted by illness and wrath, froze them with terror. " ' Why are you here, and who gave you permission to enter?' cried the queen. " ' I have a matter to settle with David,' replied Ruthven in a deep voice. " Another of the conspirators coming forward, Mary said to him, ' If David be guilty, I am ready to deliver him up to justice.' ' This is justice ! ' replied the conspirator, taking a rope from under his mantle. " Haggard with fear, Rizzio retreated to a corner of the chamber, lie was followed, and the poor Italian, approaching the queen, took hold of her dress, crying, ' I am a dead man ! giustizia ! giusti/.ia ! save me, maritime ! save me ! ' Mary threw herself between Rizzio and the assassins. She tried to stay their hands. All were crowded and pressed together in that narrow space in one confused mass. Ruthveii and Lindsay, brandishing their naked dirks, spoke roughly to the queen ; Andrew Ker placed a pistol to her breast and threat- cued to fire, and Mary, throwing open her bosom, cried, " ' Fire, if you do not respect the infant I bear ! ' " The table was overturned during this tumult. The queen still struggling, Darnley threw his arms round her and pressed her into a chair, in which he held her down ; while the others, taking Ki/zio by the neck, dragged him from the cabinet. Douglas sri/ed I)arnley' dirk, struck the favorite with it, and leaving the dagger in his back, cried, ' That is the king's stroke ! ' Rizzio still struggled desperately. He wept, prayed, and supplicated with lamentable groans. Hent first clung to the door of the cabinet, and afterward crept to the fireplace'; then he grasped the bed-posts of the queen's bed ; the conspirators threatened, struck, insulted him, and forced him to let go his hold by pricking his hands with their dirks. Having at, last been dragged from the queen's chamber into the anteroom, Rizzio fell, pierced with fifty-five dagger-wounds. " The queen made almost superhuman efforts to fly to the succor of the unhappy man. The king could scarcely restrain ler. 22 MARY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. ing her in other hands, he hastened to the room where Rizzio lay expiring. He asked if there yet remained anything to do, and plunged his dagger into the poor corpse. After this, Rizzio was tied by the feet with the rope brought by one of the party, and was then dragged down the stairs of the palace. " Lord Ruthven then returned to the queen's cabinet, where the table had been replaced. He then sat down, and asked for a little wine. The queen was enraged at his insolence. He said he \v:us sick, and pouring out some wine with his own hand into an empty cup (Rizzjo's perhaps), he added that ' he could not submit to be gov- erned by a servant. Your husband is here ; he is our chief ! ' "'Is it so?' replied the queen, still doubtful of Rizzio's death. ' For some time,' said Daruley, ' you have been more devoted to him than to me. ' The queen was about to reply, when one of her ollicers entered, of whom she asked whether David had been taken to prison, and where ? ' Madam, ' replied he, ' we must speak no more about Rizzio ; he is dead. ' " The queen uttered a cry, and then turning to the king, ex- claimed, ' Ah, traitor and son of a traitor ! is this the reward you re- served for him who has done so much for your good ami fur your honor? Is this my reward for having by his advice elevated you to so high a dignity ? Ah ! no more tears, but revenge ! No more joy for me till your heart shall be as desolate as mine is this day ! ' Say- ing those words, she fainted away. " All her friends at Holyrood immediately fled in disorder. The Earl of Athol, the Flemings, and Livingstone escaped by a dark passage ; the Earls of Bothwell and Huntly slid down a pillar into the garden. " Meantime a shudder ran through the city. The bells were rung ; the burgesses of Edinburgh, with the Lord Provost at their head, assembled instantly around the palace. They asked for the queen, who had now recovered her senses. While some of the conspirators threatened that if she called out she would be slain and thrown over the walls, others assured the burgesses that all went well ; that they had only poniarded the Piedmontese favorite, who had conspired with the Pope and the King of Spain to destroy the religion of the Holy Gospel. " Darnley himself opened a window of the fatal tower and begged the people to retire, with the assurance that all was done by order of Ihe^ queen, and that instructions would be given next day. " Guarded as a prisoner in her own palace, and even in her bed- chamber, without a single female attendant, Mary remained alone all night, delivered up to the horrors of despair. She had been preg- nant for seven months, and her emotions were so powerful that the infant he afterward bore, and who became James I. of England, could never look upon a naked sword without a shudder of fear." STUART, QUEEtf OF SCOTS. XVL Btrr if Mary's offence was womanly, her vengeance was childish. Rizzio had trusted all to Mary's preference ; the accomplices of the king had confided in his puerile jealousy, a sentiment as inconsistent as love in the heart of a husband ready to pardon the queen's fault if she would forgive his revenge. The queen, burying in her memory, with Italian and feminine dissimulation, both the outrage and her. resentment, in order the better to pave the way for expiation, passed, in some hours, from imprecations and sobs to a feigned resignation. Trembling for her throne, her liberty, her own life, and that of her unborn child, she undertook to fascinate in his turn the offended husband, whose anger seems to have been at once extinguished in the blood of the offender. The imagination cau alone fathom the profound depths of the queen's avenging dissimulation toward him who had given the last stab to the dead body of her favorite. With astonishing promptitude Mary charmed, reconquered, and again drew toward herself more than ever the eyes and the heart of her young husband. " From the 12th of March, while the blood of Rizzio was still reeking on the floor of the chamber and on the kind's hands," writes the French envoy, "the queen resumed all her em- pire over Darnley ; the fascination was so rapid and complete that people believed in the influence of witchcraft on the part of the queen over her husband." The real witchcraft was the beauty of the one, the ardent youth of the other, and the intellectual superiority of a woman who now em- ployed her genius and her charms in apparent submission, as she had formerly employed them in offence. XVII. THIS reconciliation entirely concealed the new conspiracy between the king and queen against Darnley 's own accomplices in the murder of the favorite, but which suddenly became apparent on the loth of March, six days after the assassination, by the nocturnal flight of the king and queen to the castle of Dunbar, a fortress whence the king could brave his accomplices and the queen her enemies. From thence Mary wrote to her sister, Queen Elizabeth of England, re- counting her misfortunes in her own way, and demanding succor against her revolted subjects. She then summoned to Dunbar those nobles who were innocent of the conspiracy against her, and eight thousand faithful Scots obeyed her call. Placing herself with the king at the head of these troops, she marched upon Edinburgh ; astonishment and terror went before her ; the presence of the king disconcerted the insurgent nobles, clergy, and people, and, without striking a blow, she entered Holy rood. A proclamation wae iaaued ^4 MAKY STUAKf, QiTEEN OF SCOTS. forbidding any mention of Darnlcy as a participator in Riiszio's mur der, and all the accomplices in that deed who fell into the queen's hands were beheaded ; Ruthven, Douglas, and Morton fled beyond the frontiers ; she recalled, as chief of her council, tlie able and up- right Murray, who had been sufficiently mixed up with the conspir- acy to insure his popularity, though sufficiently guarded to preserve his honor. Finally, to gratify her affection, after having attained the objects of her ambition, she threw aside the mask, bewailed the fate of Ki/.zio, ordered his body to be exhumed, and buried it with regal obsequies in the sepulchre of the kings in Holyrood chapel. Reconciled with Daruley, whom she more and more despised ; well served by Murray, who brought back to her the affections of the nation, on the 19th of the following June Mary gave birth to a son, destined one day to reign over England. An amnesty, ably coun- selled by Murray, granted a pardon to the conspirators on the occa- sion of the auspicious event, and allowed those who had been pro- scribedto return to their country and homes. The hour of vengeance on her husband had, however, come ; her aversion for him made their lives miserable, and she no longer took any pains to conceal it. Melvil, one of her most intimate confidants, says, in his memoirs of the reign of his mistress, " I constantly found her, from the time of Riz/io's murder, with her heart full of rancor, and the worst way to pay court to her was to speak of her reconciliation with the king." Such testimony reveals to us the hearts of the actors in this great drama, though hidden under the mask of false appearances. XVIII. THE secret cause of this growing aversion was a new love, more resembling a fatality of heart in the career of a modern Phodra than the aberration of a woman and a queen in an age enjoying the light of civilization. The object of this love was as extraordinary as the passion itself was inexplicable, unless, indeed, we attribute it to the effect of magic or of possession, a supernatural explanation of the phenomena of the heart which was common in those superstitious times. But the female heart contains within itself greater mysteries than even magic can explain. The man now beloved by Mary Stuart was I'.othwell. The Earl of Bothwell was a Scottish noble of a powerful and illus- trious house, whose principal stronghold was Hermitage Castle in Roxburghshire. He was born with those perverse and unruly in- Btincts which indifferently drive men from exploit to exploit, or from crime to crime to a throne or to a scaffold. Impetuous in every impulse, in ambition, and in enterprise, Bothwell was one of those adventurers gifted with superhuman daring, who, in their davelop- and as tlieir desires expand, seek to burst the social bowada . MARY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 25 within which they exist, to make room for themselres or perish in the attempt. Some men seem born to madness, and Bothwell was one of those. Byron, whose mother's ancestry was connected with the line of Lady Jean Gordon, Both well's wife, has depicted him in the romantic aud sombre " Corsair ;" but the poem is far behind his- toric truth, for the sovereign poet, Nature, outvies fiction by reality. XIX. WE know not whether precocious crime, parental severity, or vol- untary flight exiled him from the paternal home, but in his early youth he became enrolled among those corsairs of the ocean who stained the coasts, the islands, and the waves of the North Sea with blood. His name, his rank, his courage, had speedily promoted him to the command of one of those squadrons of criminals who had a den wherein to stow their spoils, and an arsenal for their vessels, in a rock-fortress on the coast of Denmark. The crimes of Bothwell, and his exploits among those pirates, lie hidden in the shadow of the past ; but his name inspired terror along the shores of the North Sea. After this stormy youth the death of his father recalled him to his Scottish domains and wild vassals. The troubles of the court of Edinburgh had attracted him to Holyrood, where he discovered a wider field for ambition and crime. He was among those Scottish chiefs who, at the appeal of the king to his subjects while in the castle of Dunbar, hastened thither with their vassals, in the hope of seizing and pillaging Edinburgh. Since the return of the court to Ilolyrood, lie had distinguished himself among the foremost partisans of the queen. Whether inspired by ambition or spurred on by an indefinite hope of subjugating the heart of a woman by striking her imagination, he, at all events, succeeded in his enterprise ; perhaps he knew that the surest way to conquer feminine pride is to appear indifferent to it. XX. BOTHWELL was no longer in the flower of his youth ; but although he had lost an eye by a wound received in one of his sea-fights, he was still handsome. His beauty was not effeminate, like Darnley's, nor melancholy and pensive like Riz/io's, but of that rude and manly order which gives to passion the energy of heroism. The licentious- ness of his manners and the victims of his libertinage had made him well known at the court of Holyrood. He had many attachments among the women of that -court, less for their love than their dis- honor. One of those mistresses, Lady Reves, a dissipated woman, celebrated by Brantome for the notoriety of her adventures, was the confidante of the queen. She had retained for Bothwell an admira- tion which survived their intimacy. The queen, who amused herself by interrogating her confidante retfavdine; the exploits and amours of 26 MAKY STUART, QUEEN SCOTS. ker old favorite, allowed herself to be gradually attracted toward him by a sentiment which^ at first, assumed the appearance of a mere good-natured curiosity. The confidante, divining, or believing she divined, the yet unexpressed desires of the queen, introduced Both- well one evening into the garden, and even to the apartment of her mistress. This secret meeting forever sealed the ascendency of Bothwell over the queen. Her passion, though hidden, was, for that reason, still more commanding, and became for the first time appar- ent to all some weeks after this interview, on the occasion of a wound Bothwell had received in a border feud, on the marches of which he had the command. On hearing of this, Mary mounted on horseback, and rode, without resting by the way, to the Hermitage where he had been carried, assured herself with her own eyes of the danger he had run, and returned the same day to Holyrood. " The Earl of Bothwell," writes at this time the French ambassa- dor to Catherine of Medici, " is out of danger, at which the queen is well pleased. To have lost him would have been no small loss indeed to her." She herself avows her anxiety in verses composed on the occasion : " Pour lui aussi j'ai pleure mainte larme D'abord quand il se fit de ce corps possesseur Duquel alors il n'avait pas le coeur ! Puis me donna une autre durc alarme Et me pensa oter vie et frayeur !" " When first my master he became, For him I shed full many a tear ; But now this new and dire alarm Destroys in me both life and fear 1" After his cure Bothwell became master of the kingdom. Every filing was lavished on him as previously on Rizzio, and he accepted all, not as a subject but as a master. The king, shut out from the councils of the queen, and even from her society as his wife, "walked about alone," says Melvil, "from place to place, and it was evident to all that she regarded it as a crime that any one should keep company with him." " The Queen of Scots and her husband," writes the Duke of Bed- ford, envoy of Elizabeth at the court of Scotland, "live together as before, and even worse ; she rarely sits at table, and never sleeps with him ; she in no wise esteems his society, and loves not those who entertain friendship for him. To such an extent docs she ex- clude him from business that when she leaves the palace to go out he knows nothing. Modesty forbids me to repeat what she has said of him, and which would not be honorable to the queen." The insolence of the new favorite partook of the ferocity of hia former life ; he once drew his dagger in full council before th queen to strike Lethington, another member of the council, for hav. ing objcted to his ftdMoe, MART STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 37 The king, outraged every day by Both well's contempt, and some- times by his insults, retired to Glasgow, where he lived in the house of his father, the Earl of Lennox. The queen and Bothwell became alarmed lest he should make public complaint against the humilia- tion and neglect to which he was condemned, appeal to the discon- tented among the nobility, and in his turn march against Edinburgh. It is to this motive and to Bothwell's fear, rather than to his desira to become the husband of the queen, that we must attribute the odi- ous crime which soon after threw the world into consternation, and of which Mary Stuart was at least the accomplice, if she were not the principal actor. In all the acts of the queen which preceded this tragedy there are not only proofs of complicity in the plan for assassinating her husband, but something even still more atrocious - namely, the hypocritical art of a woman who hides murderous inten- tions under the appearance of love ; who lends herself to the vile office of decoying her victim and drawing him within reach of the sword of the assassin. Without granting to Mary's correspondence with Bothwell, be it real or apocryphal, more historical authority than it deserves, it is evident that a correspondence of that nature did exist between the queen and her seducer, and if she did not write what is contained in those letters (which are not written by her own hand, and the au- thenticity of which is consequently suspected), still she acted in all the preliminaries of the tragedy in such a manner as to leave no doubt of her participation in the snare by which the unfortunate and amorous Darnley was inveigled. The letters written at Glasgow by the queen to Bothwell breathe Insensate love for her favorite and implacable aversion for her hus- band. They inform Bothwell day by day of the state of Darnley's health, of his supplications to be received by the queen as a king and a husband ; of the progress which her blandishments make in the confidence of the young king, whose hopes she now nursed ; of his resolution to return with her and to go with her wherever she might wish, even to death, provided she would restore to him her heart and his connubial rights. Although these letters, we repeat, may possess no material textual authenticity in our eyes, though they even bear the traces of falsehood and impossibility in the very excess of their wickedness and cynicism, it is yet certain that they very nearly ap- proach the truth ; for a grave and confidential witness of the conver- sations between Darnley and the queen at Glasgow gives a uarrativ* in perfect conformity with this correspondence. He even quotes ex- pressions identical with those in the letters, proving that if the word* were not written they were at least spoken between the queen and her husband. "We therefore dismiss as improbable the text of these letters, adopted as authentic by M. Dargaud and by a number of the most accredited historians of England ; but it is impossible for us to avoid 28 MARY STUART, QUJM3N OF SCOTS. acknowledging that the part taken by Mary in the death -snare spread for Darnley was a substantial confirmation of the perfidy inferred from this correspondence. Certain it is that the queen, on hearing of the flight of Darnley to the house of his father, the Earl of Lennox, suddenly left her favor- ite Bothwell, and repairing to one of her pleasure castles called ('raiginillar, near Edinburgh, secretly convoked the confederated lords of her own and Bothwell's party. The French ambassador re- marks on her sadness and anxiety ; her torment between the fears of her husband and the demands of her favorite was such as to make her cry out in presence of the ambassador, " I wish I were dead !" Shu craftily proposed to the assembled lords, who were friendly to 15otli\vell, to give up to Darnley the government of Scotland ; they protested against this, as she doubtless expected, and gave utterance; to threats of deadly import against Darnley ! " We will deliver you from this competitor," they said. " Murray, though present, and protesting as we do, will not join in our measures, but he will leave us free to act, watching us as from between his fingers ! Leave us to act for ourselves, and when things are accomplished the parlia- ment will approve of all." The queen's silence was sufficient to give authority to these sinister resolutions, and her departure for Glas- gow on the following day served them yet more effectually. She leaves the conspirators at Craigmillar ; against all propriety or ex- pectation she proceeds to Glasgow, where she finds Darnley recover- ing from the small-pox, overwhelms him with tenderness, passes days and nights by his pillow, renews the scenes of Holyrood after the murder of lli//.io, and finally consents to the conjugal conditions implored by Darnley. In vain is Darnley warned of the danger he incurs in following the queen to Craigmillar into the midst of his en- emies ; he replies that though it may appear strange, he will follow the queen he adores even to death. The queen leaves Glasgow be- fore him, to await his restoration to health, prolongs with him the tenderest farewells, and places on his finger a ring, as a precious pledge of reconciliation and love. What is there in the disputed letters more perfidious than this? These particulars are at all events authentic ; they are the narrative of Mary's daily life at Glasgow with her husband. XXI. CKKTAIN now that he will fall into the snare, she returned to Holy- rood, where she was received by torchlight in the midst of n festi- val prepared for her. Darnley followed her shortly after. Under pretext of promoting his recovery, apartments were prepared for him in a solitary country-house in the neighborhood, called Kirk o' Field, with no other attendants than five or six servants, underlings sold to Jiothwell, and whom he ironically called bis lambs. Only a favorite MARY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 29 page, named Taylor, slept in Darnley's chamber. The queen came to visit him with the same demonstrations of tenderness as she ex- hibited at Glasgow, bat refused to live with him yet. Darnley, as- tonished at this isolation, fell into deep melancholy, from which he ought relief by praying and weeping with his page. An inward presentiment seemed to warn him of approaching death. XXII. MEANTIME the festivities at Holyrood continued. At the dose of one of these feasts, during which Both well had conversed much and alone with the queen, the favorite (according to the testimony of his valet Dalglish) came home and retired to bed ; soon afterward he calls his valet and dresses ; one of his agents enters and whispers something in his ear ; he takes his riding-cloak and sword, covers his face with a mask, puts on a hat with a broad brim, and proceeds, at one o'clock in the morning, to the king's solitary dwelling. What happened on that mysterious night? We know not; the only thing known is that before the morning twilight a terrible ex- plosion was heard at Holyrood and in Edinburgh. The house of Kirk o' Field was blown to atoms, and its ruins would have buried the victim, but owing to a strange forgetfulness on the part of the as- sassins, the bodies of Darnley and his page had been left lying in an orchard attached to the garden, where they were found next morn- ing, bearing on their bodies, not the marks of gunpowder but thoso of a deadly struggle and of strangulation. It was supposed that the king and his page, hearing the steps of the murderers early in the night, had tried to escape by the orchard, but had been overtaken and strangled by Both well's assassins, and their bodies left on the so'ene of the murder by negligence, or in ignorance of the explosion which was to have destroyed the murderers with their victims. It i* added that Bothwell, believing that the corpses of Darnley and the page were in the house, had needlessly fired the mine, and had re- turned to Holyrood after the explosion, believing that no vestiges of the murder remained, and hoping that Darnley's death would be at- tributed to the accidental explosion of a store of gunpowder tired by his own imprudence. However that might be, Bothwell went home without betraying any agitation ; again went to rest before the end of the night, anil when his attendants awoke him and told him of what had occurred, manifested all the surprise and grief of perfect innocence, and, leap ing from his bed, cried " Treason !" The two bodies were not discovered in the orchard till daylight. XXIII. MORNING spread horror with the rumor of this murder amoug the people of Edinburgh. The emotion was so great that the queen was 30 MARY STUART, QUEES OF SCOTS. forced to leave Holyrood and take refuge in the castle. She was in- sulted by the women as she passed along the streets ; avenging pla- cards covered the walls, invoking peace to the soul of Daruley and the vengeance of heaven on his guilty wife. Bothwell, fnoiuited on horseback, and sword in hand, galloped through the streets, crying, " Heath to the rebels, and to all who speak against the queen !" Knox ascended the pulpit for the last time and fearlessly ex- claimed, " Let those who survive speak and avenge !" Then shak- ing the dust from off his feet, he turned his back upon Edinburgh, and retired to await death or vengeance. Such was the fate of Darnley. Up to this point the queen might be suspected, but had not been convicted of his murder ; but what followed removed all doubt of her participation by espousing the murderer she adopted the crime. Sedition being calmed for a time, she proclaimed her grief at Holy- rood by assuming the garb of a mourning widow, and remained for some days shut up in her apartments, with no other light than the dim glimmering of lamps. Bothwell was accused of regicide before the judges of Edinburgh, at the instance of the Earl of Lennox, the king's father. The favorite, with undaunted audacity, supported by the queen and by the troops, devoted, as usual, to the reigning power, appeared in arms before the judges and insolently exacted from them an acquittal. The same day he rode forth, mounted on one of Darnley's favorite horses, which the people recognized with horror heaving his murderer. The queen saluted him from her bal- cony with a gesture of encouragement and tenderness. The French ambassador saw this, and expressed to his court the indignation it excited in him. , < XXIV. " THE queen seems insane," writes at the same period one of the witnesses of these scandalous outbursts of passion ; " all that is most infamous is uppermost in this court God help us ! The queen will very soon marry Bothwell. She has drunk all shame to the dregs. ' V\ hat matters it, ' she said yesterday, ' if 1 lose for his sake France, Scotland, or England? sooner than leave him I would go with him to the ends of the world in nothing but a petticoat ! ' She will never stop till she lias mined all here ; she has been persuaded to let her- aelf be carried off by Bothwell to accomplish the marriage sooner. This was an understood thing between them before the murder of Uarnley, of which she was the adviser and he the executioner." This was the language of an enemy, but the event very soon justi- fied the wrathful prophecy. Some days after the 24th of April, while returning from Stirling, where she had been visiting her son, Bothwell, with a body of his friends, awaited her at Almond Bridge, six miles from Edinburgh. He dismounted- from his horse, respect- fully took hold of the bridle of the queen's palfrey, feigned a *Jigli| MARY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 3} compulsion, and conducted his voluntary captive to the castle of Dunbar, of which he" was governor, as warden of the borders. There she passed with him eight days, as if suffering violence, and returned on the 8th of May with him to Edinburgh, " resigned," she said, " to marry with her consent him who had disposed of her by force." This comedy deceived no one, but saved Mary from the open accusation of espousing from choice the assassin of her hus- band. Both well, besides the blood which stained his hands, had three other wives living. By gold or threats he rid himself of two, and he divorced the third, Lady Gordon, sister of the Earl of Huntly. In order to secure tlu's divorce, he consented to be found guilty of adultery. The verses written by Mary at this period mid addressed to Both well prove the jealousy with which she regarded this repudi- ated but still loved wife. ^ " Sea paroles fardoes, Se8 pleurs ses plainets rempliu d'affection Et ses hauts ens et lamentation, Ont taut gagne quepar vous sont gardeee A sea cents encor foy vous douncz Ansel I'aymez et croyez plus quemoy. Vous la croyez, las ! trop je I'apperceoy, Et vous doubtez de ma lerme, constant*, A mon seul bien i;s, the august captive was conducted, in spite of her energetic protestations, to Boltou Abbey, in the county of York, which belonged to Lord Scrope, brother-in-law to the Earl of Norfolk. After her arrival there she wrote in a very different style to the Queen of Spain, wife of Philip II. : " If .1 had hope of succor from you or your kindred, I would put religion in Subs [meaning that she would promote the triumph of Catholicism], or would die in the work. All this country where I am is devoted to the Catholic faith, and because of that, and of my right that I have in me to this kingdom, little would serve to touch this Queen of England the consequence of intermeddling and aiding rebel subjects against their princes ! For the rest, you have daugh- ters, madam, and I have a son ; . . . Queen Elizabeth is not, much loved by either of the two religions, and, thank (!od, 1 have a good part in the hearts of the honest people of this country since; my arrival, even to the risk of losing all they have with me and for my cause! . . . Keep well my secret, for it might cost me my life !" It will be seen that, from the first days of her stay in Kngland, while caressing Elizabeth with one hand she wove with the othc r , and with strangers as well as with her own subjects, that net in which she was herself caught at last. Captivity was her excuse, religion her pretext ; oppression gave her a right to conspire ; but if she could urge her misfortunes as a reason for thus plotting, she could not with truth urge her innocence. She unceasingly demanded from Madrid and from Paris armed interventions against Scotland and against /Elizabeth. Her whole life during her captivity was one long cou- 'spiracy ; the inhuman and unprincipled duplicity of Elizabeth's policy justified all she did. XXVI. A CIRCUMSTANTIAL narrative of this captivity, of this conspiracy of nineteen years, however interesting in reality, would be mouotc- 38 MABT STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. nous as history. Nothing dirersifies it save the different localities and prisons, and the plots continually renewed, only to be as often frustrated. At Hampton Court, the palace presented to Henry VIII. by Wol- xey, conferences were opened to settle the differences between Queen Mary and her subjects. Murray and the Scots brought forward, as proofs of the complicity of Mary in the murder of her husband, her Konuets to Bothwell, and the letters of that favorite, found in a silver casket carved with the arms of Francis II., her first husband. Neither accusations nor justifications being satisfactory, Elizabeth broke off the conference without pronouncing judgment, watching the struggle between the different factions which distracted Scotland. It, seems probable that she trusted to these very factions for deliver- ing Ilieir country into her hand^ sooner or later. Meantime she left Scotland to its fate. "Would you like to marry my sister of Scotland?" ironically asked Elizabeth of the Earl of Norfolk, who was believed to be smit- ten by the charms of his prisoner. "Madam," replied the earl, horrified at such an idea, " 1 shall never espouse a wife whose hus- band cannot lay his head with safety on his pillow." XXVII. M rim AY, guardian of the infant king James and dictator of the kingdom, governed the unhappy country with vigor and address. Hut a proscribed gentleman of good family, James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, whose wife Murray had left to die in misery and madness on the threshold of her own dwelling, which had been be- stowed by the regent on Bellenden, one of his partisans, swore to avenge at once his wife and his country. Gathering a handful of the earth which covered the bier of his wife, he wore it within his girdle as an eternal incentive to revenge ; and, repairing in disguise to the small town of Linlithgow, through which Murray had to pass on his return to Edinburgh, he placed himself at a window, fired upon and killed the regent. lie then mounted a horse ready for him behind the house, and by swift flight escaped the regent's guards. " I alone," cried the dying Murray, " could have saved the church, the kingdom, and the king ; anarchy will now devour them sill I" The assassin fled to France, where he. was well received by the (iuiscs. who saw in him an instrument of murder, ready to delivei them from their enemy, the Admiral Coligny. They wrote to theif niece Mary, persuading her to urge Bothwellhaugh to the commissic* of this ('rime. Mary's reply was characterized "by all the shameless- ness of the tunes, when assassination was merely regarded a* a justi- fiable act of haired. " As for that of which you write from my cousin M. de Guise, J MABT BTUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 3S wish that so wicked a creature as the personage in question [tho Admiral] were out of the world, and would be very glad if some on pertaining to me should be the instrument, and yet more, that he should be hanged by the hands of the executioner, as he deserves ; you know how I have that at heart, ... . but to meddle or order anything in this way is not my business. What Bothwellhaugh has done was without my command ; but I am well pleased with him for it better than if I had been of his counsel." Murray was her brother, and had twice been her minister and her preserver from the avengers of Darnlcy's death. Eli/abeth deplored him as the protector of the reformed religion in Scotland. The an- archy he had foretold in his dying words immediately followed. The Earl of Lennox, father of Darnley, father-in-law of Mary, antf grandfather of James, was named regent. The party of James aitf the party of his mother, Mary, vied with each other in crimes. Len nox was killed in battle. The Earl of Morton assumed the regenc* in his place. He ruled like an executioner, sword in hand, over whelmed the party of the queen by the terrors of his govern me in and by a deluge of blood. But scarcely had he placed the sceptre ii\ the hands of his ward than the favorites of the young king had him put to death as an accomplice in the murder of Kizzio. lie did not deny the crime, and died like a man who expected the ingratitude of princes. James VI. had been brought up by him in detestation of the religion of his mother and in contempt for herself. XXVIII. DURING the minority of the Scottish king, Mary conspired with the Earl of Norfolk, whom she had fascinated anew, to get posses- sion of England in the name of Catholicism. A correspondence with Koine, revealed by unfaithful agents, furnished proofs of this plot. Norfolk was consigned to the scaffold, Mary shut up in a still closer captivity, and Elizabeth began to find out the danger of keep- ing in her strongholds an enchantress whose jailers all became her adorers and accomplices. The massacre of St. Bartholomew, those Sicilian Vespers of religion and policy, made Elizabeth tremble. The example of so triumphant a plot, she feared, might tempt flie Catholics of England, who would find in Mary another Catherine of Medici, younger, and hardly less scrupulous than the queen-mother of Charles IX. The advisers of Elizabeth represented to her, for the first time, the necessity of the immediate trial and death of the Queen of Scots, to secure the peace of the kingdom, and perhaps even the safety of her own life. Her most eminent statesmen, Burleigh, Leicester, and WaMngham, were unanimous in recommending this sacrifice. " Alas !" hypocritically replied Elizabeth, " the Queen of Scot- land is my daughter, but siie who knows not how to Ixihaye toward ber mother deserves a step-mother." 40 MAKT STUART, QUETJN OF SCOTS. The feelings and intercourse of the two queens was still further embittered by the feminine malice of Mary's conduct toward Eliza both. History would not credit this, if the proof did not exist among its archives. Knowing the somewhat equivocal predilection of Elizabeth for her handsome favorite Leicester, whom she had herself hoped to fascinate, and with whom she kept up a correspondence, she had the audacity to rally her rival on the inferiority of her charms. Under cover of recrimination against the Countess of Shrewsbury, who had accused Mary of attracting her husband to Sheffield, Mary wrote a letter to Elizabeth, in which she attributes to Lady Shrews- bury remarks so insulting to Elizabeth as a woman and a queen that the wickedness of the expressions forbids us to quote them. She ends the letter thus : " She told me that your speedy death was pre- dicted in an old book ; that the reign succeeding yours would not last for three years ; after that there was another leaf in the book which she would never tell me of." "\V<: may well suppose that this last leaf related to Mary herself, and doubtless predicted her accession to the throne of England, and the restoration of the Church throughout that kingdom ! The termij used in this letter show that it was an indirect method, ingeniously contrived by the hatred of an imprisoned rival, to *hrow at her enemy those insults which were likely to be most keenly felt by the heart of a queen and a woman. One is astonished at so much audacity and outrage on the part of a captive queen, when, by a single word, Elizabeth could have retorted with death ; but. death at this moment was less terrible to Mary than revenge was sweet. What a spectacle history effcrs in these two queens condescending thus to unyielding strife ; the one tempting punishment, the othsr holding the sword of DamoclcS constantly suspended over the heiMl of her rival 1 XXIX. MEAKWIITLE Europe, upon which Mary had relied, forgot her ; but she did not forget Europe. Her de*ntion, attended at first by circumstances befitting her royal rank, became closer and closer as F!IC changed her prisons. She describes in pathetic terms the suffer- ings of her last prison but one, in a ^tter to the envoy of Charles IX. at London : " It is of old carpentry, with openings at every half foot, so that the wind blows into my chamber on all sides ; I know not how it will be possible for me to keep the little health I have recovered. My physician, who has himself suffered much from it, has protested that lie will altogether give up my cure if I be not placed in a better lodg- i!- r , he himself, while watching me during my meals, having expe- rienced the incredible cold caused by the wind in my chamber, not- withstanding the stoves and fires that are always there, and the heat MART STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 41 of the season of the year ; I leave you to judge how it will lie in the middle of winter. This house is situated on a mountain, in the; middle of a plain ten miles in extent, being exposed to all the winds and inclemencies of heaven. ... I pray you to request her in my name, assuring her that there are a hundred peasants in these mean villages better lodged than I am, who have for my sole dwell- ing two small chambers. ... So that I have not even a rooro where I can retire apart, as I have divers occasions for doing, nor for walking about alone ; and, to tell you all, I have never befon been so badly lodged in England." Her Scottish attendants, the companions of her flight and her ca'j! . tivity, sank one by one under this tedious agony of imprisomnc/u. She learned, we know not whether with joy or grief, the death of her husband Bothwell, after a wandering life oil the waves of the North Sea, where, as we have seen, he had resumed the infamous calling of a pirate. Surprised in a descent on the coast of Dena.urk, and chained in the cell of a rock-prison, Bothwell died in a state of insanity ; the extraordinary oscillations of his fortune, his miracu- lous elevation and dizzy fall, had shaken his reason. He /."covered it, however, at the last moment, and whether it arose from the power of truth or of tenderness, he dictated to his jailers a justifica- tion of the queen in the matter of Darnley's death, and took the crime and its expiation wholly upon himself. The <\ueeu was moved by this dying declaration, which, in the eyes of b.v partisans, restored to her that innocence which her enemies stil) deny to her memory. Bothwell was so loaded with crimes that evea his dying words were no pledge of truth, but his declaration was at least a proof that his love had survived twenty years of sepai&Uon and pun- ishment. XXX. THE dangers to which the Protestant succession in England would be exposed if Elizabeth now advanced in age, and who had never shared her throne with a husband should die before Mary, appear to have decided her council to perpetrate the state crime, which the queen till then had refused to authorize. No one entertained doubts of the permanent conspiracy of the Queen of Scots with the Catholic princes of Europe, and with the Catholic party in Scotland and in England. This conspiracy, which was the right of a captive queen, could only appear criminal in the eyes of her jailers and persecutors. No guilt had yet appeared to Elizabeth or to her chk'f counsellors Sufficiently clear to b/ing the Queen of Scots to trial ; it was neees sary to find another crime of a more flagrant and odious nature in order to justify the murder in the eyes of Europe. The unscrupu- lous temerity of Mary and the cunning of her enemieo in council soon furnished one to Elizabeth. Mary was ceaselessly engaged in concocting ihouu inuuiuemble 42 MARY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOT&. plots so identified in her mind with the Catholic cause ; her corre- Kpondence, ardent as her sighs, agitated Scotland, England, and the Continent. Notwithstanding her age, her ineffaceable beauty, her grace, her seductive manners, her rank, her genius, attracted toward her new agents, whose worship for her was intimately allied to love. In the words of Mr. Eraser Tytler, the eminent Scottish historian, " we now enter upon one of the most involved and intricate portions of the history of England and of Scotland the ' Babington plot,' in which Mary was implicated, and for which she afterward suffered." One of the Earl of Derby's gentlemen, named Babington, brought up in the household of the Earl of Shrewsbury, where he had be- come acquainted with the queen while she was a prisoner at Bolton Abbey, had resolved to serve and save her. Babington had gone over to the Continent, and was at Paris the agent of the correspond- ence in which the queen was engaged with France and Spain to bring about her deliverance and restoration. The death of Elizabeth was the preliminary object of this plot. Two Jesuits of Rheims, named Allen and Ballard, did not recoil from this rcgicidal crime. Ballard came to London, sought out Babington, who had returned from France, enlisted him in the cause of Queen Mary's deliverance, and also through him enrolled a handful of Catholic conspirators, ready to dare all for the trumph of religion. Walsingham, the chief counsellor and minister of Elizabeth, who had brought the spy-system to a state of what might be called infamous perfection, and had his tools and agents everywhere, who insinuated themselves into the confidence of the conspirators, urged them on to the execution of their designs, at the same time revealing all to him, and, with a ma- lignant ingenuity, even adding to the reality by inventions of their own, in order, doubtless, to please their employer and lead the more certainly to the accomplishment of his aim. One of these spies, named Gifford, whose earnestness seemed to plart: him above suspicion at the French embassy, in which was the repository of the correspondence, received letters, pretended he had forwarded them to their address, but conveyed them secretly to Wai- ringham. These letters prove some hesitation'at first on the part of tin- conspirators regarding the propriety of the assassination of Eliza- beth, and afterward a more decided resolution in favor of the mur- der, after a consultation with Father Ballard, the Jesuit of Rheims. One of the letters, bearing the signature of Babington, thus addressed Mary : " Very dear Sovereign : I myself, with six gentlemen, and a hundred others of our company and following, will undertake the deliverance of your royal person from the hands of your enemies. As for that which tends to rid us of the usurper, from the subjection of the . . . " At the subsequent trial the copy only f a letter from Mary in reply was produced, containing these words : "These things being pre- pared, and Ui forces, without as well as within tlie kiogdom/beiB*; MARY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 43 fl ready, it is necessary that the six gentlemen should be set to work, and orders given that, their design being effected, I may then , be taken hence, and all the troops be at the same time in the field to receive me while awaiting the succors from abroad, who must also hasten with all diligence " Mary solemnly declared that he never wrote this letter ; and although she insisted on the original being shown, it never appeared, its only substitute being an alleged copy in the handwriting of Phellips, one of Walsingham's creatures, and an expert forger of autographs. No trace of any such original letter has ever been found ; and when we consider Elizabeth's evi- dent anxiety to get rid of her troublesome captive, her subsequent remorse, the unscrupulous efforts of Walsingham to please his mis- tress, by fair means or foul, and the zeal of his spies and tools, wo cannot but arrive at the conclusion that this letter, which was so fatal to Mary, but which no one ever saw, was a forgery executed by Phellips, who, besides, is proved to have added a postscript of his own to another of Mary's letters now extant. These letters were placed by Gifford in the hands of the queen's council, and Ballard and Babington were arrested by Walsingham. The conspirators could not deny the plot, for portraits of all the six were found in a regicide picture, executed by their own order, sur- mounted by this device : " Our common peril is the bond of our friendship." They were tried and executed on the 20th of Septem- ber, together with Ballard and Babington. XXXI. THE punishment of her friends impressed Mary with a presenti- ment of her own fate. Involved in their plots, and more feared than they were, she could not long remain in suspense as to her own des- tiny. She was carried, in fact, some days afterward to Fotheringay Castle, her last prison. This feudal residence was solemn and gloomy, even as the hour of approaching death. Elizabeth, after long and serious deliberation, at last named thirty-six judges to ex- amine Mary and to report to the council. The Queen of Scots protest- ed against the right of trying a queen and of judging her in a foreign country, where she was forcibly detained as a prisoner. "Is it thus, "cried she, when she appeared before the commis- sioners, "that Queen Elizabeth makes kings be tried by their sub- jects ? I only accept this place " (pointing to a seat lower than that of the judges) " because as a Christian I humble myself. My place is thare," she added, raising her hand toward the dais. " I was a queen from the cradle, and the first day that saw me a woman saw me a queen !" Then turning toward Melvil, her esquire, and the chief of her household, on whose arm she leaned, she said, " llere ar many judges, but not one friend !" She denied energetically having consented to the pln for a8as. 44 MA.RY STUART, QUEE^ OF SCOTS. nating Elizabeth ; she insinuated, but without formally asserting, that secretaries might easily have added to the meaning of the letters dic- tated to them, as none were produced in her own handwriting. " When I came to Scotland," she said to Lord Burleigh, the princi- pal minister, who interrogated her, "I offered to your mistress, through Lethington, a ring .shaped like a heart, in token of my friendship ; and when, overcome by rebels, I entered England, I in my turn received from her this pledge of encouragement and protec- tion." Saying these words, she drew from her finger the ring which had been sent her by Elizabeth. " Look at this, my lords, and answer. During the eighteen years that I have passed under your bolts and bars, how often have your queen and the English people despised it in my person !" xxxii. THE commissioners, on their return to London, assembled at West- minster, declared the Queen of Scots guilty of participation in the plot against the life of Elizabeth, and pronounced upon her sentence of death. The two houses of parliament ratified the sentence. Mary asked, as a single favor, not to be executed in secret, but be- fore her servants and the people, so that no one might attribute to her a cowardice unworthy of her rank, and that all might bear testi- mony to her constancy in suffering martyrdom. Thus she already spoke of her punishment, a consolatory idea most natural in a queen who desired that her death should be imputed to her faith rather than to her faults. She wrote letters to all her relatives and friends in France and Scotland. " My good cousin," she wrote to the Duke of Guise, " who art the most dear to me in the world, I bid you farewell, being ready by un- just judgment to be put to death what no one of our race, thanks to God, has ever suffered, much less one of my quality. But, praise God, my good cousin, for I was useless in the world to the cause of God and of his Church, being in the state in which I was ; and I hope that my death will testify my constancy in the faith, and my readi- ss to die for the maintenance and restoration of the Catholic Church this unhappy island ; and though never executioner dipped his hands in our blood, be not ashamed, my friend, for the judgment of leretics and the enemies of the Church, who have no jurisdiction over me, a free queen, is profitable before God to the children of his I had yielded to them I would not have suffered this All of our house have been persecuted by this sect ; witness your good father with whom I hope to be received by the mercy of st Judge. 1 recommend to you my poor servants, the payment >f my debts, and the founding of some annual masses for my soul at your expense, but to make solicitation and ordinance as may be acquired, and as you will learn my intentions from my WYMat*. eye-witnesee. of thw my last tragedy. MAKT STUAUT, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 43 " God prosper you, your wife, children, brothers, and cousins, and above all our chief, my good brother aud cousin, aud all his. May the blessing of God aud that which I would bestow on my children be yours, whom I recommend less to God than my own who is uii fortunate and ill-used. " You will receive tokens from me to remind you to pray for the soul of your poor cousin, deprived of all help aud counsel but that of God, who gives me strength and courage to resist alone so many wolves howling after me ; to him be the glory. " Believe, in particular, what will be told you by a person who will give you a ruby ring from me, for I take it to my conscience that you shall be told the truth in that with which I have charged her, specially as to what regards my poor servants, and the share of each. I recommend to you this person for her simple sincerity and honesty, that she may be settled in some good place. I have chosen her as the least partial, and who will the more plainly report to you my commauds. I pray you that it be not known that she have said any- thing particular to you, for envy might injure her. " I have suffered much for two years and more, and have not made it known to you for an important reason. God be praised for all, and give you the grace to persevere in the service of the Church as long as you Uve ; and never may this honor depart from our race, that, men as well as women, we have been ready to shed our blood to tnaiutaiu the cause of the faith, putting aside all other worldly con- ditions ; as for me, I esteem myself born, on both father's and toother's side, to offer my blood in this matter, aud have no inten- tion of falling back. Jesus crucified for us aud all the holy martyrs, make us, through their intercession, worthy of the voluntary sacri- fice of our bodies for his glory ! " Tliinkiug to humble me, my dais had been thrown down, and, afterward, my guardian offered to write to the queen, as this act. \vas not by her command, but by the advice of some one in the council. I showed them, in place of my arms on the said dais, the cross of my Saviour. You will understand all this discourse ; they were milder afterward." This letter is signed, " Votre affectionee cousinc et parfaitte amye- Marie It. d'Ecosse, D. de France." XXXIII. WHEN she was shown the ratification of her sentence, and the order for her execution signed by Elizabeth, she tranquilly re- marked, "It is well ; this is the generosity of Queen Elizabeth ! Could any one believe she would have dared to go to these extreme- lies with me, who am her sister and her equal, and who could not be her subject ? Nevertheless, God be praised for all, since he does mo this honor of dying for him aad_ for his Church ! Blessed b the 40 MARY STUART, QUEEK OF SCOTS. moment that will end iny sad pilgrimage ; a soul so cowardly as r*A to accept this last combat on earth would be unworthy of heaven ! >J On the last moments of her life we shall follow the learned and pathetic historian who has treasured up, so to speak, her last sighs. The queen, guilty till then, became transformed into a martyr by the approach of death. When the soul is truly great it grows with its destiny ; her destiny was sublime, for it was at once au accepted ex- piatiou and a rehabilitation through blood. XXXIV. IT was night, and she entered her chapel and prayed, with her naked knees on the bare pavement. She then said to her women, " I would eat something, so that my heart may not fail me to- morrow, and that I may do nothing to make my friends ashamed of me." Her last repast was sober, solemn, but not without some sallies of humor. " Wherefore," she asked Bastien, who had been her chief buffoon, "dost thou not seek to amuse me? Thou art a good mimic, but a better servant." Returning soon after to the idea that her death was a martyrdom, and addressing Bourgoin, her physician, who waited ou her, and Melvil, her steward, who were both kept under arrest, as well as 1'reaux, her almoner : " Bourgoin," said she, "did you hear the Earl of Kent V It would have taken another kind of doctor to convict me. lit- lias acknowledged besides that the warrant for my execution is the triumph of heresy in this country. It is true," she rejoined with pious satisfaction, " they put me to death not as an accomplice of conspiracy, but as a queen devoted to the Church. Before their tribunal my faith is my crime, and the same shall be my justification before my Sovereign Judge." Her maidens, her officers, all her attendants were struck with grief, ami looked upon her in silence, being scarcely able to contain them- selves. Toward the end of the repast Mary spoke of her testament, in which none of their names were to be omitted. She asked for the silver and jewels which remained, and distributed them with her hand as \\ ith her heart. She addressed farewells to each, with that delicate tact so natural to her, and with kindly emotion. She asked (heir pardon, and gave her own to everyone present or absent, her secretary Mau cxcepted. They all burst into sobs, and threw them- eclves on their knees around the table. The queen, much moved, drank to their health, inviting them to drink also to her salvation. I hey weepjngly obeyed, and in their turn drank to their mistress, carrying to their lips the cups in which their tears mingled with the wine. The queen, affected at this sad spectacle, wished to be alone. She composed her last will. When -written and finished, Mary, alone in ner chamber with Jane Kennedy and Elizabeth Curie, asks how MARY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 47 much money she has left. She possessed five thousand crowns, which she separates iuto as many lots as she has servants, proportion- jug the sums to their various ranks, functions, ami wants. These portions she placed in au equal number of purses for the following ilay. She then asked for water, and had her feet washed hy her maids of honor. Afterward she wrote to the king of France : " I recommend to you my servants once more. You will ordain, if it please you, for my soul's sake, that 1 be paid the sum that you owe to me, and that for the honor of Jesus Christ, to whom I shall pray for you to-morrow at the hour of my death, there may bo enough to found a mass for the repose of my soul, and for the need- ful alms. This Wednesday, at two of the clock after midnight, "M. R." She now fe}t the necessity of repose, and lay down on her bed. On her women approaching her, she said, " I would have preferred a sword in the French manner, rather than this axe." She then fell asleep for a short time, and even during her slumber her lips moved as if in prayer. Her face, as if lighted up from within with a spiriU ual beatitude, never shone with a beauty so charming and so pure. It was illuminated with so sweet a ravishment, so bathed in tin; grace of God, that she seemed to " smile with the angels," according to the expression of Elizabeth Curie. She slept and prayed, praying more than she slept, by the light of a little silver lamp given IUT by Henry II., and which she had preserved through all her fortunes. Tliis little lamp, Mary's last light in her prison, was as the twilight of 4ier tomb ; humble implement made tragic by the memories it recalls ! Awaking before daylight, the queen rose. Her first thoughts were for eternity. She looked at the clock, and said, " I have only two hours to live here below." It was now six o'clock. She added a postscript to her letter addressed to the King of France, requesting that the interest of her dowry should be paid after her death to her servants ; that their wages and pensions should con- tinue during their lives ; that her physician (Bourgoin) should be re- ceived into the service of the king, and that Didicr, an old officer of her household, -night retain the place she had given him. She add- ed, "Moreover, that my almoner may be restored to his estate, and in my favor provided with some small curacy, where he may pray God for my soul during the rest of his life." The letter was thus subscribed : " Faict le matin de rnamort, ce mercredy huitiesme Fev rier, 1587. Marie, lloyne. Done on this morning of my death, this Wednesday, eighth February, 1587. Mary, Queen," A pale winter daybreak illuminated these last lines. Mary per- ceived it, and, calling to her Elizabeth Curie and Jan Kennedy, made a sign to them to robe her for this last ctremony of royalty. 48 MARY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. While their friendly hands thus apparelled her she remained silent "When fully dressed she placed herself before one of her two large mirrors inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and seemed to consider her face with pity. She then turned round and said to her maidens : " This is the moment to guard against weakness. I remember that, in my youth, my uncle Francis said to me one day in his house at Meudon, ' My niece, there is one mark above all by which I recognize you as of my own blood. You are brave as the bravest of my men-at- arms, and if women still fought as in the old times, I think you would know well how to die. ' It remains for me to show to both friends and enemies from what race I have sprung. ' ' She had asked for her almoner Preaux ; two Protestant ministers were sent to her. "Madam, we come to console you," they said, stepping over the threshold of her chamber.. "Are you Catholic priests?" she cried. "No," replied they. "Then I will have no comforter but Jesus," she added, with a melancholy firmness. She now entered her chapel. She had there prepared with her own hands an altar, before which her^ilmoner sometimes said mass to her secretly. There, kneeling down, she repeated many prayers in a low voice. She was reciting the prayers for the dying when a knock at the door of her chamber suddenly interrupted her. " W'mt do they wish of me?" asked the queen, arising. Bourgoin replied from the chamber where he was placed with the other servants, that the lords awaited her Majesty. " It is not yet time," she replied ; " let them return at the hour fixed." Then, throwing herself anew on her knees between Elizabeth Curie and Jane Kennedy, she melted into tears, and striking her breast gave thanks to God for all, praying to him fervently and with deep sobs that he would support her inkier last trial. Becoming calmer by degrees, in trying to calm her two companions, she remained for some time in silent and supreme con- verse with her God. What was passing at that moment within her conscience ? She then went to the window, looked out upon the calm sky, the river, the meadows, the woods. Returning to the middle of the chamber and casting her eyes toward the time-piece (called la Ileale), she said to Jane, " The hour has struck, they will soon be here." Scarcely had she pronounced these words when Andrew, sheriff of the county of Northampton, knocked a second time at the door, and, her women drawing back, she mildly commanded them to open it. The officer of justice entered, dressed in mourning, a white rod in his right hand, and, bowing before the queen, twice repeated, " I am here." A. alight blush mounted to the queen's cheeks, and, advancing with majesty, she said, " Let us go." ate took with her the ivory crucifix, which had never left her for seventeen years, and wbicb sbe had carried from cell to cell, su*- MARY STUART, QUEEtf OP SCOTS. 49 pending it in the various chapels of her ( captivity. As she suffered much from pains brought on by the dampness of her prisons, she leaned on two of her domestics, who led her to the threshold of the chamber. There they stopped, and Bourgoin explained to the queen the strange scruple of her attendants, who desired to avoid the ap- pearance of conducting her to slaughter. The queen, though she would have preferred their support, made allowance for their weak, ness, and was content to lean on two of Paulet's guards. Then all her attendants accompanied her to the uppermost flight of stairs, where the guards barred their passage in spite of their supplications, despair, and lamentations, with their arms extended toward the dear mistress whose footsteps they were hindered from following. The queen, deeply pained, slightly quickened her steps, with the design of protesting against this violence and of obtaining a more fitting escort. Sir Amyas Paulet and Sir Drew Drury, the governor of Fothcrin- gay, the Earl of Shrewsbury, the Earl of Kent, the other commis- sioners, and many strangers of distinction, among whom wen- Sir Henry Talbot, Edward and William Montague, Sir Richard Knight- ly, Thomas Bruducll Bevil, Robert and John Wingfleld, received her at the bottom of the stair. Perceiving Melvil bent down with grief, " Courage, my faithful friend," she said ; " learn to resign thy self." " Ah, madam," cried Melvil, approaching his mistress and falling at her feet, " I have lived too long, since my eyes now sec you the prey of the execu- tioner, and since my lips must tell of this fearful punishment, in Scot- land." Sobs then burst from his breast instead of words. " No weakness, my dear Melvil !" she added. " Pity those who thirst for my blood, and who shed it unjustly. As for me, I maku no complaint. Life is but a valley of tears, and I leave it without, regret. I die for the Catholic faith, and in the Catholic faith ; I die the friend of Scotland and of France. Bear testimony everywhere to the truth. Once more, cease, Melvil, to afflict thyself ; rather re- joice that the misfortunes of Mary Stuart are at an end. Tell my son to remember his mother." While the queen spoke, Melvil, still on his knees, shed a torrent of tears. Mary, having raised him up, took his hand, and, leaning forward, embraced him. "Farewell," she added, "farewell, my dear Melvil ; never forget me in thy heart or thy prayers !" Addressing the Earls of Shrewsbury and Kent, she then asked that her secretary Curie might be pardoned ; Nau was left out. The earls keeping silence, she again prayed them to allow her women and servants to accompany her, and to be present at her death. Tho Earl of Kent replied that such a course w$mld be unusual, and even dangerous ; that the boldest would desire to dip their handkerchiefs in her blood ; that the most timid, and, above all, the women, would tit Ja8t trouble the course of Elizabeth's justice by their cries. Mary 60 MART STUART, QUEKK OF SCOTS. persisted. "My lords," said she, " if your queen were here, your virgin queen, she would not think it fitting for my rank and my sex to die in the midst of men only, and would grant rue some of my women to be beside my hard and last pillow." Her words were so eloquent and touching that the lords who surrounded her would have yielded to her request but for the obstinacy of the Earl of Kent. The queen perceived this, and, looking upon the puritan carl, she cried in a deep voice, " Shed the blood of Henry VII., but despise it not. Am I Tint Rtill Mary Stuart ? a sister of your mistress and her equal : twice crowned ; twice a queen ; dowager Queen of France ; legitimate Queen of Scotland." The earl was affected, but still unyielding. Mary, with softer look and accent, then said, "My lords, I give you my word that my servants will avoid all you fear. Alas ! the poor souls will do nothing but take farewell of me ; surely you will not refuse this sad satisfaction either to me or to them ? Think, my lords, of your own servants, of those who please you best ; the nurses who have suckled you ; the squires who have Tiorne your arms in war; these servants of your prosperity are less dear to you than lo me are the attendants of my misfortunes. Once more, my lords, do not send away mine in my last moments. They desire nothing but to remain faithful to me, to love me to the end, and to see me die." The peers, after consultation, agreed to Mary's wishes. The Earl of Kent said, however, that he was still doubtful of the effect of their lamentations on the assistants, and on the queen herself. " 1 will answer for them," Mary replied ; " their love for me will give them strength, and my example will lend them courage. To me it wiH be sweet to know they are there, and that I shall have witnessed of my perseverance in the faith." The commissioners did not insist further, and granted to the queen four attendants and two of her maidens. She chose M civil her steward, Bourgoin her physician, Gervais her surgeon, Gosion her druggist, Jane Kennedy and Elizabeth Curie, the two companions who had replaced Elizabeth Pierrepoint in her heart. Melvil, AV!IO was present, was called by the queen herself, and an usher of Lord Paulct was sent for the others, who had remained at tbe upper bal- cony of the stair, and who now hastened down, happy even in their anguish to perform this last duty of devotion and fidelity. Appeased by this complaisance on the part of the earls, the queen beckoned to the sheriff and his followers to advance. She was the first to lead the melancholy procession to the scaffold. She arrived in the hall of death. Pale, but unflinching, she con- templated the dismal preparations. There lay the block and the axe. Tnere stood the executioner and his assistant. All were clothed in mourning. On the floor was scattered the sawdust which was to soak her blood, and in u dark corner lay the bier which was to be ber last prinuu. STUART, QUEIW OF SCOTS. 51 It was nine o'clock when the queen appeared in the funeral hall. Fletcher, Dean of Peterborough, and certain privileged persons to the number of more than two hundred, were assembled. The hall was hung with black cloth ; the scaffold, which was elevated alxmt two feet and a half above the ground, was covered with black frieze of Lancaster ; the armed chair in which Mary was to sit, the foot- stool on which she was to kneel, the block on which her head was to be laid, wejre covered with black velvet. The queen was clothed in mourning like the hall and as the en- signs of punishment. Her black velvet robe, with its high collar and hanging sleeves, was bordered with ermine. Her mantle, lined with marten sable, was of satin, with pearl buttons and a long train. A chain of sweet-smelling beads, to which was attached a scapu- lary, and beneath that a golden cross, fell upon her bosom. Two rosaries were suspended to her girdle, and a long veil of white lace, which, in some measure, softened this costume of a widow and of condemned criminal, was thrown around her. She was preceded by the sheriff, by Drury and Paulet, the carls and nobles of England, and followed by her two maidens and four officers, among whom was remarked Melvil, bearing the train of the royal robe. Mary's walk was firm and majestic. For a single mo- ment sbx) raised her veil, and her face, on which shone a hope no long- er of this world, seemed beautiful as in the days of her youth. The whole assembly were deeply moved. In one hand she held a cruci- fix and in the other one of her chaplets. The Earl of Kent rudely addressed her, ' We should wear Christ in our hearts." " And wherefore," she replied quickly, " should I have Christ in my hand if he were not in my heart?" Paulet assisting her to mount the scaffold, she threw upon him a look full of sweetness. " Sir Amyas," she said, " I thank you for your courtesy ; it is the last trouble I will give you, and the most agreeable service you can render me." Arrived on the scaffold, Mary seated herself in the chair provided for her, with her face toward the spectators. The Dean of Peter- borough, in ecclesiastical costume, sat on the right of the queen, with a black velvet footstool before him. The Earls of Kent anil Shrews- bury were seated like him on the right, but upon larger chairs. On the other side of the queen stood the sheriff Andrews, with wh'te wand. In front of Mary were seen the executioner and his assistant., distinguishable by their vestments of black velvet, with red crape round the left arm. Behind the queen's chair, ranged by the wall, wept her attendants and maidens. In the body of the hall the nobles and citizens from the neighboring counties were guarded by the musketeers of Sir Amyas Paulet and Sir Drew Drury. Beyond th balustrade was the liar of the tribunal. The sentence was read ; the queen protesteC against it in the name of royalty aud iuiu>cenc, Uu accepted death for the sake of tiie faitk. 52 MARY SfUA&T, QUEEN OF SCOTS. She then knelt dovrn before the block, and the executioner pro ceeded to remove 1 er veil. She repelled him by a gesture, and turn- ing toward the earls with a blush on her forehead, " I am not accus tomed," she said, " to be undressed before so numerous a company, and by "the hands of such grooms of the chamber." She then called Jane Kennedy and Elizabeth Curie, who took off her mantle, her veil, her chains, cross, and scapulary. On their touching her robe, the queen told them to unloose the corsage and fold down the ermine collar, so as to leave her neck bear for the axe. Her maidens weepingly yielded her these last services. Melvil and the three other attendants wept and lamented, and Mary placed her finger on her lips to signify that they should be silent. " My friends," she cried, " I have answered for you, do not melt me ; ought you not rather to praise God for having inspired your mistress with courage and resignation?" Yielding, however, in her turn to her own sensibility, she warmly embraced her maidens ; then pressing them to descend from the scaffold, wtiere they both clung to her dress, with hands bathed in their tears, she addressed to them a tender blessing and a last farewell. Melvil and his companions remained, as if choked with grief, at a short distance from, the queen. Overcome by her accents, the executioners themselves besought her on their knees to pardon them. " I pardon you, " she said, " after the example of my Redeemer." She then arranged the handkerchief embroidered with thistles of gold, with which her eyes had been covered by Jane Kennedy. Thrice she kissed the crucifix, each time repeating, " Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit." She knelt anew, and leaned her head on that block which was already scored with deep marks ; and in tliis solemn attitude she again recited some verses from the psalms. The executioner interrupted her at the third verse by a blow of the axe, but its trembling stroke only grazed her neck ; she groaned slightly, and the second blow separated the head from the body. The executioner held it up at the window, within sight of all, pro- claiming aloud, according to usage, " So perish the enemies of our queen !" The queen's maids of honor and attendants enshrouded the body, and claimed it, in order that; it should be sent to France ; but these relics of their tenderness and faith were pitilessly refused. Relics which might rekindle fanaticism were to be feared. But that cruel prudence was deceived by the result. Mary's death resembled a martyrdom ; her memory, which had been execrated alike by the Scottish Presbyterians and the English Protestants, was practically adopted by the Catholics as that of a saint. The passions wen; Mary's judges ; therefore she was not fairly judged, nor will fchc ever be. Kliaalx-th, having thus mercilessly sacrificed the life of hr whom Mt Lad so long aad so unjustly retained in hopeless captivity, now MARY STUART, QUEEN" OF SCOTS. 53 Aided the most flagrant duplicity to her cruelty. Denying, with many oaths, all intention of having her own warrant carried into ix- ecution, she attempted to throw the entire odium on those who in reality had acted as her blind and devoted agents. This policy of the English queen was unsuccessful, however ; posterity has with clear voice proclaimed her guilty of the blood of her royal sister, and the sanguinary stain will ever remain ineffaceable from the character of that otherwise great sovereign. If we regard Mary Stuart in the light of her charms, her Ulents. her magical influence over all men who approached her, she may be called the Sappho of the sixteenth century. All that was iiDt love m her soul was poetry ; her verses, like those of Konsard, her worship per and teacher, possess a Greek softness combined with a quaint simplicity ; they are written with tears, and even after the lapse of so many years retain something of the warmth of her sighs. If we judge her by her life, she is the Scottish Semiramis ; casting herself, before the eyes of all Europe, into the arms of the assassin of her husband, and thus giving to the people she had thrown into civil War a coronation of murder for a lesson of morality. Her direct and personal participation in the death of her young husband has been denied, and nothing in effect, except, those sus- pected letters, proves that she actually and personally accomplished or permitted the crime ; but that she had attracted the victim into the snare ; that she had given Bothwell the right, and the hope of suc- ceeding to the throne after his death ; that she had been the end, the means, and the alleged prize of the crime ; finally, that she al> solved the murderer .by bestowing upon him her hand 110 doubt can be entertained regarding these points. To provoke to murder and then to absolve the perpetrator is not this equivalent to guilt '! In fine, if she be judged by her death comparable, in its majesty, its piety, and its courage, to the most heroic and the holiest sacrifices of the primitive martyrs the horror and aversion with v.-hich sho had been regarded change at last to pity, esteem, and admiration. As long as there was no expiation she remained a criminal ; by ex- piation, she became a victim. In her history blood seems to be washed out by blood ; the guilt of her former years Hows, as it were, from her veins with the crimson stream ; we do not absolve, we sympa- thize ; our pity is not absolution, but rather approaches to love ; we try to find excuses for her conduct in the ferocious and dissolute manners of the age ; in that education, depraved, sanguinary, and fanatical, which .she received at the court of the Valois ; in her youth, her beauty, her love. We are constrained to say with M. Dargaud to whom we feel deeply indebted for the researches which have guided tta " We judge not ; we only relate." THE END. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. (1435-1506.) PROVIDENCE conceals itself in tke detail of human affairs, but be- comes unvcik-d in the generalities of history. No sensible person has ever denied that the great events which mark the history of man are connected and linked together by an invisible chain, sup- ported by the almighty hand of the great Creator of worlds, to give them unity of design and plan. I low can lie be blind who has given sight to the eye ? How can lie who has endowed His work with thought be himself without thought ? The ancients gave to this oc- cult, absolute, and irresistible influence of God over human affair* the name of Destiny, or Fate ; the moderns call it Providence, a more intelligent, more religious, and more affectionate name. In studying the history of humanity, it is impossible not to discern the paramount action of Providence concurrent with and control ling the free action of man. This general and collective movement, is not in any way incompatible with the freedom of will which alone constitutes the morality of individuals and of nations ; it seems 10 lot them move, act, and go astray with complete liberty of inten- tion, and of choice of good and evil, in a certain sphere of action, and with a fixed logical sequence of penalties incurred, or rewards deserved, according to the intention, whether vicious or good ; but it reserves to itself the guidance of the great general results of these acts of individuals or nations. It appears to reserve them, indepen- dently of us, for divine ends with which we arc unacquainted, and of which it allows us only a glimpse when they are almost attained. Good and evil are of us and for us, but Providence uses our vices and our virtues alike, and with the same unfailing wisdom obtains from evil, as from good, the accomplishment of its designs respecting humanity. The hidden but divine instrument of this Providence, when it thinks tit to make use of men to prepare or accomplish :i part of its plans, is inspiration. Inspiration is indeed a human mys tery, for which it is dim* cult to find a cause in man himself. It seems to come from a higher and more distant source. Hence has arisen a name, mysterious also, and not well defined in any language ycniu*. < CHRISTOPHEK COLUMBUS. Providence causes a man of genius to be born ; genius is a gift, it is not acquired by labor, nor is it even obtained by virtue ; it exists, or it exists not, without its possessor being able to explain its nature or Low he came to possess it. To this genius Providence sends an inspiration. Inspiration is to genius what the magnet is to steel ; it attracts it, irrespectively of all knowledge or will, toward something fatal and unknown, as to its pole. Genius follows the inspiration by which it is attracted, and an ideal or an actual world is discovered. So was it with Christopher Columbus and the discovery of America. Columbus aspired in thought to the completion of the globe, which appeared to him to want one of its hemispheres. The idea of the earth's geographical unity incited him. This notion was generally prevalent in his time. There seem to be ideas floating in the air, a species of intellectual miasma, which thousands of men, without con- cert, breathe at once. Whenever Providence is preparing the world, unknown to itself, for a religious, moral, or political change, this phenomenon may generally be observed a tendency or progress, more or less complete, to the unity of the earth by conquest, language, re- ligious proselytism, navigation, geographical discovery, or the multi- plication of the relations of different countries with each other, by the facilitation of intercourse and frequency of contact between those countries, of which easy means of communication, common necessi- ties, and exchanges make but one people. This tendency to the unity of the earth at certain periods, is one of the most remarkable instances of providential interference that occurs in history. Tims, when the great oriental-civilization of India and Egypt seems exhausted from age, and God wishes to call Asia and the West to a younger, more active, and more stirring civilization, Alexander star! s, without well knowing why, from the valleys of Macedon, taking with him the enthusiasm and the soldiers of Greece ; and before the terror and glory of his name the known world becomes one, from the Indus to the extremes of Europe. When He wishes to prepare an immense audience for the trans- forming word of Christianity in the East and in the West, He spreads the language, the dominion, and the arms of Rome and of Ca*sar from the shores of the Persian Gulf to the mountains of Scotland, uniting under one mind and under a common authority Italy, the* two Gauls. Great Britain, Sicily, Greece, Africa, and Asia. When He desires, some centuries afterward, to snatch Arabia, I'ersia, and their dependencies from barbarism, and to make the re- sistless doctrine of the Divine Unity prevail over the jdolatries or Indifference of these remote or corrupt portions of the world. He amis Mahomet with the Koran and the sword: He permits the re- ligion ot Islam in two centuries to conquer all the space comprised between the Oxus and theTagus, Thibet and Lebanon, Atlas and the Taurus. An immense unity of empire is the sure forerunner of unity of thought CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 5 So with Charlemagne in the West, when his universal monarchy, bestriding the Alps, prepares, even in Scythia and Germany, the vast field in which Christian civilization is to receive and baptize the bar- barians. So also with the French Revolution, that reform of the western world by reason, when Napoleon, as enterprising as Alexander, marches his victorious armies over the subjugated continent of Europe, constitutes for a moment the great unity of France, and, hoping to found an empire, only succeeds in sowing the seeds of the language, the ideas, and the institutions of the Revolution. Thus too, in our days no longer in the shape of conquest, but under the form of intellectual, commercial, and peaceful communi- cations among all the continents and all the nations of the earth - science becomes the universal conqueror, to the advantage and honor of all. Providence seems now to have charged the genius of indus- try and of discovery with the task of preparing for Him the most complete unity of the terrestrial globe that has ever condensed time, space, and people into a close, compact, and homogeneous mass. Navigation, printing, the discovery of steam that cheap and irre- sistible power which propels man, with his armies and his merchan- dise, as far and as quick as his thoughts ; the construction of rail- roads, which pass through mountain and over valley, bringing all the earth to one level ; the discovery of the electric telegraph, which gives to communications between the two hemispheres the rapidity of lightning ; the invention of balloons, to which a helm is still want- ing, but which will soon render the air a more simple and more uni- versal element of navigation than the ocean : all these nearly contem- porary revelations of Providence through the inspiration of the spirit of industry, are means of concentration, drawing the earth as it were together, and instruments of union and assimilation for the human race. These means are so active and so evident, that it is impossible not to perceive in them a new plan of Providence, a new tendency in an unknown direction impossible to avoid the conclusion that God meditates for us, or for our descendants, some design still hidden to our narrow sight; a design for which He is taking measures, by- causing the world to advance to the most powerful of unities, the. unity of thought, which announces some great unity of action in the future. In like manner was the spirit of the fifteenth century prepared for some great human or divine manifestation, when the illustrious man whose history we arc about to relate was born. Something was ex- pected ; for the human mind has its forebodings, the vague presages of approaching events. In the spring of the year'WM} at midday, beneath the burning sun that scorched the roads of Andalusia, on a hill about half a league from the little seaport of Pulos, two strangers, travelling on foot, their shoes almost worn out with walking, their dress, which still 6 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. retained the marks of gentility, soiled with dust, and their forcheuovcrty brings the invisible treasures of truth. Religion under- stood genius a species of revelation which, like the other, requires its believers. He felt disposed to be among those trusting few who share in the revelations of genius, not by inventive talent, but by faith. Providence almost always sends to superior men one of these believers, to prevent their being discouraged by the incredulity, the harshness, or the persecutions of the multitude. They exhibit friendship in its noblest from. They are the friends of disowned truth, believers in the impossible future. Juan Perez felt himself predestined by Heaven, from the depth of his solitude, to introduce Columbus to the favor of Isabella, and to preach his great design to the world. What he loved in Columbus was not only the design, but the man himself ; the beauty, energy, courage, modesty, gravity, eloquence, piety, virtue, gentleness, grace, patience, and misfortune nobly borne, revealing in this stranger a disposition marked with innumerable perfections by that divine stamp which prevents our forgetting and compels us to admire a truly great man. After his first conversation, the stranger won over not only the opinion but also the heart of the monk ; and, what was more strange, he never lost it. Columbus had gained a friend. .Juan Pere/ persuaded Columbus to accept, for some days, a refuge, >r at least, a resting-place, for himself and his child, in the poor convent. During this short stay the prior communicated to some of his friends and neighbors of Palos the arrival and the ad- ventures of his guest. He begged them to come to the convent to converse with the stranger upon his conjectures, his intentions, and his plans, in order to see how his theories agreed with the practical views of the seamen of Palos. An eminent man, and friend oi' the; prior, the physician Fernandez, and a skilful pilot, Pedro de Velasco, spent, at his invitation, several evenings in the convent, listened to Columbus, felt their eyes opened by his conversation, entered into Ins plans with all the warmth of earnest minds and simple hearts, and formed that first conclave, in Which every new faith is hatched with the cognizance of a few proselytes, under the shadow of inti- macy, solitude!, and mystery. Every great truth begins as a secret among friends before bursting forth brilliantly to the world. The lir.-4 adherents won over to his belief by Columbus, in the cell of a jOOf monk, were perhaps dearer to him than the applause and en- thusiasm of all Spain, when success had confirmed his predictions. I lie tirst believed on the faith of his word, the others only on seeing his discoveries ascertained. The monk, confirmed in his opinion, and having tested his impres. sious by the science of the physician Fernandez and the experience CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 13 of the pilot Velasco, was move than ever charmed with his guest. He persuaded Columbus to leave the child in his care al. the convent, to go to court to offer the discovery of the New World to Ferdinand and Isabella, and to ask those sovereigns for the assistance necessary to carry out his plans. Chance made the poor monk a powerful pa- tron and intercessor at the Spanish court, lie. had lived there long, had governed the conscience of Isabella, and. when his taste for re- tirement induced him to withdraw from the palace, he had kept up friendly relations with the new cout'essor, whom he had recom- mended to the queen. The confessor, at that time keeper of the sovereign's conscience, was Fernando de Talavera, superior of the monastery of the Prado, a man of merit, reputation, and virtue, to whom all the doors in the palace were open. Juan I 'ere/ gave Columbus a strong letter of recommendation to Fernando de Tala- vera, and furnished him with the equipment necessary to appear de- cently at court a mule, a guide, and a purse of zecchins. Then, embracing him at the gates of the monastery, he recommended him and his designs to the care of the God who inspires, and the diance.s which favor great ideas. Full of gratitude for the first generous friend, whose eyes an I heart never quitted him, and to whom he always ascribed the origin of his good fortune, Columbus set out for Cordova, where the court then resided. He went with that Confidence of success which is the. illusion of genius, but also its fortunate star. It was not long befon; this illusion was to be dispelled, and the star to be overshadowed. The moment seemed badly chosen for the Genoese adventurer to offer a new world to the crown of Spain. Far from dreaming of conquering questionable possessions beyond unknown seas, Ferdi- nand and Isabella were occupied with the recovery of their own kingdom from the Moors in Spain. These .Moslem conquerors of the Peninsula, after a long and prosperous occupation, saw snatched away from them, one by one, the towns and provinces which I hey had made their country. Vanquished everywhere, despite their ex- ploits, all that they now possessed were the mountains and valley surrounding Granada,' the capital and the wonder of their empire. Ferdinand and Isabella employed all their power, all their efforts, and all the resources of their united kingdoms, to wrest from the Moors this citadel of Spain. United by a marriage of policy, by mutual affection, and by a glory shared by both alike, one had brought the kingdom of Arragon and the other' the crown of Casiils to their double throne. But although the king and queen had thus united their separate provinces into one country, each still retained a distinct and independent dominion over their hereditary kingdom. They had each a council and ministers, for thesepar.te interests of their own subjects. These councils were oidy fuaed into one govern- ment on questions of common importance to the two states and the two sovereigns, Nature seems to have endowed them will) beauty, 14 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. qualities, and excellences of mind and body different, but nearly equal ; as if one was intended to supply what was wanting to the other for the conquests, the civilization, and prosperity which were in store for them. Ferdinand, a little older than Isabella, was a skil- ful warrior and a consummate politician. Before the age when sad experience is teaching others to understand men, he could see through them. His only defect was a certain coldness and suspicion, arising from mistrust, and closing the heart to enthusiasm and magnanimity. 'But these two virtues, in which he was to some extent wanting. Were supplied to his councils by the tenderness and genius of the full-hearted Isabella; Young, beautiful, admired by all, adored by him, well educated, pious without superstition, eloquent, full of en- thusiasm for great achievements, of admiration for great men, of faith in great ideas, she stamped on the mind and policy of Ferdi- nand the heroism which springs from the heart, and the love of the marvellous which arises from the imagination. She inspired he ex- ecuted. The one found her reward in the fame of her husband ; the other, is glory in the affection of his wife. This double reign, des- tined to become of almost fabulous import in the annals of Spain, only awaited, in order to immortalize itself among all reigns, the arrival of the destitute foreigner who came to beg admittance within the palace of Cordova, with the letter of a poor friar in his hand. This letter, read with prejudice and unbelief by the queen's con- fessor, opened to Columbus a long vista of delays exclusion, and dis- couragement. It is only in solitude and leisure that men give audi- ence to bold ideas. Amid the tumult of business and of courts, they have neither the kindness nor the time. Columbus was driven off from every door, as the historian Oviedo, his contemporary, re- lates, " because he was a foreigner, because he was poorly clad, and because he brought the courtiers and ministers no other recommen- dation than a letter from a Franciscan monk long since forgotten at the court. ' ' The king and queen did not even hear of him. Isabella's confess- or, either from indifference or contempt, completely belied the ex- pectations Juan Perez had founded upon him. Columbus, with the obstinacy that arises from certainty biding its time, stayed at Cor- dova, to be near enough to watch for a favorable moment. After 'exhausting the scanty purse of his friend, the prior of La Rabida, In- earned a slender livelihood by his trade in globes and maps, thus trilling with the images of the world which he was destined to con- quer. His hard and patient life during many years is but a tale of misery, labor, and blighted hope. Young in heart, however, and affectionate, he loved and was beloved iulhose years of trial ; for a econd son, Fernando, was about this time the offspring of a myste- rious attachment, never sanctified by marriage, and of which lie records the fact and the repentance in'touching language in his will. CHEI8TOPHER COLUMBUS. 15 He brought up this natural son with as much tenderness as his other son, Diego. His external grace and dignity, however, showed themselves, de- spite his humble profession. The distinguished characters with whom his scientific trade occasionally brought him into contact re- ceived of his person and conversation an impression of astonishment and attraction the magnetic influence of a great mind in a lowly condition. His trade and conversation by degrees gained him friends in Cordova, and even at court. Among the friends whose names history has preserved, as associated by gratitude to the New World, are those of Alonzo de Quintanilla, high-treasurer of Isabella ; Ger- aldini, the tutor of the young princes, her children ; Antonio Geral- dini, papal nuncio at Ferdinand's court ; and lastly Mendoza, Cardi- nal Archbishop of Toledo, who enjoyed such royal favor that he was called the third king in Spain. The Archbishop of Toledo at first alarmed at these geographical novelties, which seemed, from a mistaken idea, to clash with the notions of celestial mechanics contained in the Bible was soon quieted by the sincere and exalted piety of Columbus. He ceased to fear blasphemy in ideas which increase the proofs of the wisdom and greatness of G-od. Persuaded by the system and delighted with the man, he obtained from his sovereigns an audience for his prott'gi'i. After two years' expectation, Columbus appeared at this audiencu with the modesty becoming a poor foreigner, but yet with the confi- dence of a tributary who is bringing his masters more than they can give him in return. " Thinking on what I was," he himself after- wards remarks, " I was overwhelmed with humility ; but, thinking of what I brought, I felt myself on an equality with the two crowns ; I perceived that I was no linger my humble self, but the instrument of God, chosen and marked out for the accomplishment of a great design." Ferdinand listened to Columbus with attention, Isabella with en- thusiasm. From his first look and his first tones, she felt for this messenger of God an admiration amounting to fanaticism an attrac- tion which partook of affection. Nature had given to Columbus the personal recommendations which fascinate .the eye, as well as the eloquence which persuades the mind. It might have been supposed that he was destined to have for his first apostle a queen ; and that the truth with which he was to enrich his age was to be first re- ceived and fostered in the heart of a woman. Isabella was that woman. Her constancy in favor of Columbus never wavered" before the indifference of her court, before his enemies, or his reverses. She believed in him from the day she first saw him : she was his pros- elyte on the throne, and his friend even to the grave. Ferdinand, after hearing Columbus, appointed a council of exam- ination at Salamanca, under the presidency of Fernando de Talavcra, prior of the Prado. This council consisted of the men the most 10 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. versed in divine and human knowledge in the two kingdoms. It as- sembled in this the literary capital of Spain, in the Dominica* con- vent in which Columbus was received as a guest. At that time priests and monks managed everything in Spain. Civilization was of the sanctuary. Kings were only concerned with acts : ideas belonged to the priest. The Inquisition a sacerdotal police watched, reached, and struck all that savored of heresy, even at the foot of the throne. To this council the king had added the professors of astronomy, of geography, of mathematics, and of all the sciences taught at Sala- manca. The audience did not alarm Columbus. He expected to be tried by his peers, but he was only tried by his despisers. The first time ho appeared in the great hall of the convent, the monks and so- called wise men, convinced beforehand that all theories surpassing their ignorance or their routine were but the dreams of a diseased or arrogant mind, saw in this obscure foreigner only an adventurer seek- ing his fortune by these chimeras. None deigned to listen to him, save two or three friars of the convent of St. Stephen of Salamanca, obscure monks without any influence, who devoted themselves in their cells to studies despised by the superior clergy. The other ex- aminers of Columbus puzzled him by quotations from the Bible, the prophets, the psalms, the Gospels, and the fathers of the Church ; who demolished by anticipation, and by indisputable texts, the theory of the globe, and the absurd and impious idea of antipodes. Among others, Lactantius had expressed himself deliberately oil this subject in a passage which was cited to Columbus : " Can any- thing be more absurd," Lactantius writes, " than to believe in the existence of antipodes having their feet opposed to ours men who walk with their feet in the air and their heads down, in a part of the world where everything is topsy-turvy the trees growing with their roots in the air and their branches in the earth?" St. Augustine had gone further, branding with impiety the mere belief in antipo- des : " For," he said, " it would involve the supposition of nations not descended from Adam. Now, the Bible says that all men are descended from one and the same father." Other doctors, taking a poetical metaphor for a system of cosmogony, quoted to (he geogra- pher the verse of the psalm in which it is said that God spread the sky above the earth as a tent from which it followed, they said, that the earth was flat. In vain Columbus replied to his examiners with a piety which did not clash with nature ; in vain, following them respectfully into the province of theology, he proved himself more religious and more or- thodox than they, because more intelligent and more reverent of the works of God. His eloquence, enhanced by truth, lost all its power and brilliancy amid the wilful darkness of their obstinate igno- rance. A few monks only appeared either doubtful or convinced that Columbus was right, Diego de Deza, a Dominican friar ft CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 17 man beyond his ago, and who afterward became Archbishop of Toledo ventured boldly to oppose the prejudices of Hie coun- cil, and to give the weight of his word and his influence to Co- lumbus. Even this unexpected assistance could not oven onii! the indifference or obstinacy of the examiners. Tlic confer- ences were many, without coming to a definite conclusion. They still lingered, and avoided truth by delay, the last refuge of error. They were interrupted by a fresh contest of Ferdinand and Isabella with the Moors of Granada. Columbus sorrowful, despised, put off and dismissed, encouraged only by the favor of Isabella and the conversion of Diego de Deza to his views followed in miserable plight the court and the army from camp to camp, and from town to town, waiting in vain for an hour's attention, which the din of war prevented him from receiving. The queen, however, as faithful to him in her secret favor as fortune was cruel, continued to hope well of and to protect this disowned genius. She had a house or a tent reserved for Columbus wherever the court stopped. !!<" treas- urer was instructed to provide for the learned foreigner not as for an undesired guest who demands hospitality, but as a distinguished stranger, who honors the kingdom by his presence, and whom the sovereigns wish to retain in their service. Thus passed several years, in the course of which the kings of Portugal, England, and France, hearing through their ambassadors of this strange man, who promised monarchs a new world, made overtures to Columbus to enter into their service. The deep grati- tude he owed to Isabella, and his love for Donna Beatrice Knriquey, of Cordova, already the mother of his second son, Fernando, made him reject these offers, and remain a follower of the court. lie re- served to the young queen an empire in return for her kindness t:> bun. He was present at the siege and conquest of (}ranada. He saw Boabdil giye up to Ferdinand and Isabella the keys of his capi tal, the palace of the Abeneerragcs, and the domes of the Alhamhra. He took part in the procession which escorted the Spanish sover eigns in their triumphal entry into this last lefugc of Islam. lie was already looking beyond the ramparts and vales of Granada to fresh conquests, and other triumphal entries into vaster territories. Com- pared with the greatness of his ideas, everything seemed small. The peace which followed this conquest, in 1492, caused a second assembly of examiners of his plans at Seville to give their advice tit the crown. This advice, long opposed, as at Salamanca, by Diego de Deza, was to reject tlu! offer of the. Genoese adventurer, if no! as impious, at least as chimerical, and as compromising the dignity of the Spanish Crown, which could not undertake an enterprise on such slender prospects. Ferdinand, however, influenced by Isabella, in communicating this decision of the council, softened its harshness, and gave him to understand that as soon as lie was in quiet posses- sion of Spain by the complete expulsion of the Moors, the court IS CSKISTOPHER COLUMBUS. would assist him with money and ships in this expedition of discov* fry and conquest for which he had pressed for so many years. "While waiting, without too sanguine hopes, the ever-delayed ac- complishment of the king's promises and the sincere wishes of Isa- bella, Columbus tried to persuade two great Spanish nobles, the Dukes of Medina Sidonia and Medina Celi to carry out this enter- pri-eat their own expense. Each possessed ports and ships on the Spanish coast. They first smiled at these prospects of glory and maritime possessions for their own families, and then abandoned them through incredulity or indifference. Envy preyed on Columbus even before he had earned it by success : it persecuted him by antici- pation and by instinct, even through his hopes ; it contested with him even what it termed his follies. He again, with tears, gave up his endeavors. The unwillingness of the ministers to listen to him, the obstinacy of the priests in opposing his ideas as a scientific im- piety, the vain promises and eternal delays of the court, threw him, after six years' trial, into such discouragement that he finally gave up all idea of again soliciting the Government of Spain, and resolved to go and offer his undiscovered empire to the King of France, from whom lie had already received overtures. Ruined in fortune, disappointed in hope, worn out by delay, and heart-broken at the necessity of quitting Donna Beatrice, he again wt out on foot from Cordova, without any views for the future, ex- cept to seek out his faithful friend, the prior Juan Perez, in the con- vent of Ilabida. He intended to fetch his son Diego, whom he had left there, to bring him back to Cordova, and to place him, before leaving for France, under the care of Donna Beatrice, the mother of his natural son Fernando. The brothers, thus brought up together by the care of one woman, would love each other with a fraternal affection, the only inheritance he had to leave them. Tears flowed from the eyes of the prior Juan Perez, at seeing his friend come on foot, more miserably clad than at first, to knock at the gate of the convent, sufficiently attesting, by the shabbiness of his clothes and the sadness of his face, the incredulity of men and the ruin of his hopes. But Providence had again hidden the key of Columbus's fortune in the bosom of friendship. The poor friar's faith in the truth and future discoveries of his prott'ge, instead of discouraging made him bear up against it, with a kindly indigna- tion at. his disappointment. He embraced his guest, condoled and \\ept with him; hut soon, recalling all his energy and resolution, sent toPaloe for the physician Fernandez, his old confidant in the mysterious projects of Columbus, Alonzo Pinzon, a rich seaman of that, port, and Sebastian Rodriguez, a skilful pilot of Lepi. The ideas of Columbus, again unfolded before this little conclave of Irien Is. raised the fanaticism of his audience still higher than before. They begged of him to stay and try his fortune again, and to re- serve for Spain, though unbelieving and ungrateful, the glory of an CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 19 enterprise unrivalled in history. Pinzon promised to assist, with hifl wealth and his vessels, the equipment of this memorable tl;,(i]la, ;is soon as the government should consent to sanction it. Juan Perez wrote, not now to the confessor, but to the queen herself, to interest her conscience as much as her glory in an enterprise which would convert whole nations from idolatry to religion. lie spoke in the name of heaven and of earth : he drew warmth and persuasion from his desire for the greatness of his country and from his personal friend- ship. Columbus, thoroughly discouraged, refusing to take this let- ter to a court of which he had so long experienced the delays and neglect, the pilot Rodriguez undertook to carry it himself to (Jra- nada, where the court then resided. He set out, followed by the vows and prayers of the convent, and of the friends of Columbus at Palos. The fourteenth day after his departure, he came back in triumph to th" monastery. The queen had read the letter of Juan PC re/, and while reading it all her prepossessions in favor of the Genoese mari- ner had returned. She sent for the venerable prior to come instantly to her court, and desired Columbus to await, at the convent of lia Rabida, the return of the monk and the decision of the council. Juan Perez, delighted witli his friend's good fortune, saddled his mule without losing an hour, and set out by night, alone, to cross a country infested with Moors. He felt that in him Heaven protected the great design which he held in trust for his friend. He arrived : the gates of the palace were opened to him ; he saw the queen, and aroused in her, by the strength of his own conviction, the faith and zeal which she herself felt for this great work. The Marchioness of Maya, Isabella's favorite, interested herself, from enthusiasm and pity, in the holy friar's protege. The hearts of two women, involved by the eloquence of a monk in the projects of an adventurer, tri- umphed over the opposition of the court. Isabella sent Columbus a sum of money from her private treasury to purchase a mule and clothes, and directed him to come at once to court. Juan Perex re- mained with her, to support his friend by his exertions and influ- ence, and forwarded the news and the pecuniary succors to Kabida by a messenger, who gave the letter and the money to the physician, Fernandez of Palos, to be handed over to Columbus. Having bought a mule and hired a servant, Columbus went to Granada, and was admitted to discuss his plans and requirement* with the ministers of Ferdinand. "Then was seen," says an eye- witness, " an obscure and unknown follower of the court, classed bjr the ministers of the two crowns among the troublesome apph cants, feeding his imagination in the corners of the antechambers with the magnificent project of discovering a new world ; grave, melancholy, and depressed amid the public rejoicing, he seemed to look with indifference upon the completion of the conquest of Gra- nada, which filled with pride a nation and two courts. This man WM Christopher Columbus !" 20 Tins time, the obstacles were raised by Columbus. Certain of the continent which lie oil'ered Spain, he wished, even out of respect to the greatness of the gift he was about to make to the world and to his sovereigns, to obtain for himself and his descendants conditions worthy, not of his position, but of his work. If he had been want- ing in proper pr'dc, he would have thought himself wanting in faith in God and the worthiness of his mission. Poor, unsupported, and dismissed, he treated of possessions which he as yet only saw in thought, as if he had been a monarch. "A beggar," said Fenian dez de Talavera, president of the council, " stipulates with kings for royal conditions." lie demanded the title and privileges of admiral, the rank and power of viceroy over all the lands, which his discov- eries might annex to Spain, and the perpetuity of the title, for him- self and his descendants, with all the revenues of these possessions. " Singular demands for an adventurer, 1 ' said his enemies in the council : " they secure to him beforehand the command of a fleet, and, if he succeeds, an unlimited viceroyalty, while he undertakes nothing in case of failure, because, in his present poverty, he has nothing to lose." These requirements at first excited astonishment, and at last indig- nation : he was offered conditions less burdensome to the crown. Notwithstanding his indigence and his misery, he refused all. Wearied but not overcome by eighteen years of expectation from the day that he had conceived his idea and offered it in vain to the Christian powers, he would have blushed lo abate one jot of his price for the gift that God had given him. lie respectfully retired from the conference with Ferdinand's commissioners, and mounting his mule, the gift of the queen, alone and unprovided, he took the road to Cor.lova, to proceed from thence to France. Isabella, hearing of her protege's departure, seemed to have a pre- sentiment that these great prospects were deserting her with this man of destiny. She was indignant at the commissioners, who, she said, were haggling with God for the price of an empire, and espe- cially of millions of souls whom their fault would leave to idolatry. The Marchioness of Maya, and Quiutanilla, Isabella's treasurer, shared and encouraged these feelings. The king, cooler and more calculating, hesitated ; the expense of the undertaking and an empty treasury made him hold back. "Well!" said Isabella, in a trans- port of generous enthusiasm, "I will undertake the enterprise alone, for my own crown of Castile. I will pawn my diamonds and jewels to meet the expenses of the expedition." This womanly burst of feeling triumphed over the king's econ- omy, and, by a nobler estimate, acquired incalculable treasures in wealth and territory to the two kingdoms. Disinterestedness, in- spired by enthusiasm, is the true economy of great minds, and the true wisdom of great politician*. The steps of the fugitive were followed. The queen's messenger CtiUlSTOPHER COLtTMBtfS. Jil overtook him a few leagues from Granada on the bridge of Pinos, in the famous defile where the Moors and the Christians had so often mingled their blood in the torrent which separates the two races. Columbus, much moved, returned to the feet of Isabella. Her tears obtained from Ferdinand the ratification of his conditions. While serving the hopeless cause of this great man, she thought she was serv- ing the cause of God himself, unknown to that part of the human race which he was to bring over to the faith. She thought of the kingdom of heaven in the possessions which her favorite was to ac- quire for the empire. Ferdinand only saw the earthly kingdom. The champion of Christendom in Spain, and conqueror of the Moors, as many of the faithful as he brought over to the faith of Rome, so many subjects had the pope added to his rule. The millions of men whom he was to rally round the cross by the discoveries of this stranger, had been by anticipation given over to his exclusive domin- ion by the court of Rome. Every one who was not a Christian was in its eyes a slave as of right. Every portion of the human race not stamped with the seal of Christianity stood without the pale of hu- manity. It gave or exchanged them away in the name of its spirit- ual supremacy on earth and in heaven. Ferdinand was sufficiently credulous, and, at the same time, sufficiently cunning, to accept them. The treaty between Ferdinand and Isabella and this poor Genoese adventurer who had arrived in their capital on foot some years be- fore, and had no other refuge than the hospitality of the convent porch, was signed in the plain of Granada, on the 17th of April, I Jll'l Isabella took upon herself, on behalf of her kingdom of ( 'as- tile, all the expenses of the expedition. It was riglil that she who had first believed in the enterprise should encounter the greatest risk ; and it, was also right that the glory and honor of success should be attached to her name rather than to any other. The little haven of Palos in Andalusia was assigned to Columbus as the place of equipment for his expedition, and the port from which his squadron was to sail. The idea conceived at the convent of La Rabida, near Palos, by Juan Perez and his friends, in their first interview with Columbus, thus returned to the place of its birth. The prior of tho convent was to take charge of the arrangements, and to see from his retreat the first sails of his friend spread for that new world which they had both beheld with the eye of genius and of faith. Numberless unforeseen impediments, to all appearance insur- mountable, now crossed the favors of Isabella, and the fulfilment of Ferdinand'* promises. The royal treasury was short of money. Ves- sels were leaving the Spanish ports on more urgent expeditions. Tho seamen refused to engage for so long aud mysterious a voyage, or de- serted after enlistment.' The towns of tho sea-coast ordered l>y the court to supply the vessels, hesitated to obey, and unrigged their gliips, which were commonly considered as devoted to certain de 22 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. struction. Unbelief, fear, envy, ridicule, avarice, and even mutiny, airain and again rendered useless to Columbus, even in spite of the royal officers, the means of equipment which the favor of Isabella had placed at his disposal. It seemed as though some evil genius, ob- stinately struggling against the genius of the world's unity, tried to keep separate forever these two continents which the mind of one man wished to unite. Columbus superintended everything from the monastery of La Rabida, where he was again the guest of his friend the prior, Juan IVre/. Without the intervention and influence of the poor monk, the expedition would again have failed. The orders of the court were powerless and disobeyed. The monk had recourse to his friends at Palos. They yielded to his conviction, his entreaties, and his ad- vice. Three brothers, wealthy mariners at Palos, the Pinzons, were at last imbued with the faith and spirit which inspired the friend of Columbus. They imagined they heard the voice of God in that old man. They volunteered to join in the undertaking : they found the money, they equipped three vessels of the kind then called caravel- las, hired seamen in the little harbors of Palos and Moguer, and in order to give an impluse and an example of courage to their sailors, two of the three brothers, Martin Alonzo Pinzon and Vincent Yanes Pin/on, resolved to embark and to take command in person of their own vessels. Thanks to this generous assistance from the Piuzons. three ships, or rather boats, the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina, were ready to put to sea on Friday the 3d of August, 1492. At break of day, Columbus, escorted down to the shore by the prior and monks of the convent of La Rabida, who b\essed the sea and his vessels, embraced his son, whom he left under the care of Juan 1'ere/,, and embarked in the largest of his three barks, the Santa Maria, on board of which he hoisted his flag as admiral of an un- known sea, and viceroy of undiscovered lands. The people of the two harbors and of the coast came down to the shore in crowds to be present at their departure on a voyage from which it was commonly supposed that there would be no return. It was a mourning proces- sion rather than an augury of a happy result : there was more sorrow than hope, more tears' than hurrahs. The mothers, wives, and sis- ters of the seamen secretly cursed the fatal stranger, whose en- rhanted words had seduced the mind of the queen, and who risked so many men's lives on the accomplishment of a dream. Columbus, unwillingly followed, like all men who lead a'nation beyond the pale of its prejudices, launched upon the unknown expanse amid male dictions and complaints. Such is the law of human nature. All that surpasses humanity, even to conquer an idea, a truth, or a world, makes it complain. Man is like the ocean, with a restlessness trading to movement, and an inertia inclining to repose. From these two opposite tendencies arises the equilibrium of his nature. >\ ne to him that disturbs it ! CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 23 The appearance of this little flotilla, scarcely equal to a fishing or coasting squadron, offered a strong contrast in the people's eyes to the magnitude of the dangers it was so rashly going to brave. Of the three vessels, only one was decked, that on board of which he himself was ; a crank and narrow trading craft, already very old and weather-beaten. The others were open boats, which u heavy breaker might, have swamped. But the poop and forecastle of these vessels, raised high out of the water like the ancient galleys, had two half- decks, under which the sailors could find shelter in bad weather, and would prevent the caravella from foundering if she shipped a sea. They had two masts, one amidships and the other aft. On the fore- in ist they carried one great square-sail, and on the other a triangular lateen-sail. In calm weather, long sweeps, used but seldom and then with difficulty, fixed in the low gunwale of the caravella 's waist, could, in case of need, give slow motion to the vessels. These three ships of unequal size contained the 130 men of whom the crews were composed. He alone went on board with a calm face, a tirm countenance, and a courageous heart. Ills conjectures had assumed in his mind, after the lapse of eighteen years, the shape of certainty. Although he was even then past the term of middle life, being in his fifty-seventh year, he looked upon the years that had gone by as though they wero nothing. In his idea, all his life was to come. lie felt the youthfulness of hope and his future immortality. As if to take possession of those worlds for which he spread his sails, he wrote and published before embarking a solemn account of all the vicissi- tudes his mind and fortunes had passed through up to that period, in the conception and execution of his design ; he added an enumera- tion of all the titles, honors, and dignities, with which he had been invested by his sovereigns in respect of his future possessions ; and ho invoked Clod and mm to support his faith, and bear witness to his constancy. " And it is for this purpose." lie says, in concluding his proclamation to the Old and New Worlds, "that I have deter- mined never to sleep during this navigation, and until these thin-js shall have been accomplished." A favorable wind from Europe wafted them toward the Canaries, the last resting-place of those who sailed into the Atlantic. Although he gave thanks to God for these auguries which calmed the minds of his crew, he would have preferred that a gale had swept him in full sail out of the beaten track of vessels. lie feared, with reason, that the sight of land so far from Spain might recall the fond idea of home to the minds- and hearts of his sailors who had hesitated to embark. In momentous enterprises, no time must be given to men for reflection, and no opportunity for repentance. Columbus knew this, and he burned to pass the limits of the well known waters, and to lock in his own breast the possibility of returning, and the secret of the track, of his charts and his compass. His impatience to lose sijjbt of the coasts of the old world was but too well founded. One 24 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. of his ships, the Pinta, which had the rudder broken find leaked in the hold, obliged him, much against his inclination, to put into the Canaries to change this vessel for another. He lost three weeks in these ports, without being able to find any craft fit for his long voy- age. All he could do was to repair the Pinta's damage, and procure a new sail for the Nina, his third vessel, a heavy and slow sailer which delayed his voyage. He took in fresh provisions and water, for the small stowage in his open vessels only allowed him to carry victuals for his crews, of 120 men, for a limited number of days. On quitting the Canaries, the appearance of the Peak of Tencriffc, whose eruption illumined the heavens, and was reflected in the sea, cast tenor into the minds of his seamen. They thought they saw in it. (lie limning sword of the angel who expelled the first man from Kden, driving back the children of Adam from the entrance to the forbidden seas and lands. The admiral passed from ship to ship to disperse this general panic, and to explain scientifically to these; sim- ple people the physical laws of the phenomenon. But the disap- pearance of the volcano's peak, as it sank below the horizon, caused them as much sadness as the eruption had caused them fright. It was their last beacon, the farthest sea-mark of the old world. Losing sight of it seemed to be losing the last traces of their road through im- measurable space. They felt as if they were detached from earth, and sailing in the atmosphere of a new planet. They were seized with a general prostration of mind and body, like spectres who have; lost even their tombs. The admiral again called them around him in his own ship, infusing his own energy into their minds ; and giv- ing way, like the prophet of the future, to the inspiring eloqueiu e of his hopes, lie described to them, as if he had already beheld them, the lauds, the islands, the seas, the kingdoms, the riches, the vegeta- tion, the sunshine, the mines of gold, the sands covered with pearls, the mountains shining with precious stones, the plains loaded with spice, that to his mind's eye already loomed in sight, beyond the ex- panse of which each wave carried them nearer to these wonders and enjoyments. These images, tinged with the brilliant colors of their leader's rich imagination, infused hope and spirit into their discour- aged minds ; and the trade-winds, blowing constantly and gently from the east, seemed to second the impatience of the seamen. The distance alone could now terrify them. To deceive them as to the space across which he was hurrying, Columbus used to subtract n certain number of leagues from his reckoning, and made his pilots and seamen think they had only gone half the distance they had ac- tually traversed. Privately, and for himself alone-, he noted the true ekonmg, m order that he alone might know the number of waves 3 had crossed and the track of his path, which he wished to keep unknown to his rivals. And, indeed, the crews, deceived by the liness of the wind, and the long roll of the waves thought they re tlowly crowing the farthest seas of Europe. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 25 He would also have wished to conceal from them a new phenome- non, which began to disconcert his own science, at about two hundred leagues from Teneriffe. It was the variation of the magnetic needle, his last, and, as he thought, his infallible guide, but which now be- gan to vacillate before its approach to an untracked hemisphere. For several days he kept to himself this terrible doubt ; but the pilots, who watched the binnacle as closely as he did liimself, soon discovered this variation. Seized with the same astonishment as their chief, but less firm in their resolution to brave even nature it- self, they imagined that the very elements were troubled, or changed the laws of their existence, on the verge of infinite space. The sup- posed giddiness of nature affected their minds. The evil tidings passed from one pale face to another, and they left their vessels to the direction of the winds and waves, now the only guides that re- mained. The hesitation of the pilots paralyzed all the sailors. Co- lumbus, who endeavored in vain to explain to himself a mystery of which science still seeks the cause, had again recourse to his fertile imagination, the internal guide with which nature had endowed him. lie invented an explanation, false, but specious enough to unedu- cated minds, of the variation of the magnetic needle. He attributed it to new stars revolving round the pole, whose alternating motion in the sky was followed by the compass. This explanation, according with the astrological notions of the day, satisfied the pilots, and their credulity renewed the faith of the sailors. The sight of a heron, and of a tropical bird, which came next day, and flew round the masts of the squadron, acted upon their senses, as the admiral's explanation had swayed their minds. They appeared two witnesses who came to confirm by ocular demonstration the reasoning of Columbus. They sailed with more courage, on the faith of these birds, the mild, equable, and serene climate of this part of the ocean, the clearness of the sky, the transparency of the waves, the dolphins playing across their bows, the warmth of the air, the perfumes which the waves brought from afar, and seemed to exhale from their foam, the great er brilliancy of the stars and constellations by night everything in these latitudes seemed to breathe a feeling of serenity, bringing con viclion to their minds. They felt the presentiment of the still invisi- ble world. They recalled the bright days, the clear stars, and tho shining nights of an Andalusian spring. " It only wanted the night- ingale," says Columbus. The sea also began to bring its warnings. Unknown vegetations were often seen floating on its surface. Some, as the historians of the first voyage across the Atlantic relate, were marine substances, which only grow on the shallows near the coast ; some were rock plants, that had been swept off the cliffs by the waves ; some were fresh-water plants ; and others, recently torn from their rools, were still full of sap ; one of them carried a live crab a little sailor afloat on a tuft of grass. These plants and living creatures could 26 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. not have passed many days in the water without fading and dying. One; of those birds which never settle on the waves, or sleep on the waters, crossed the sky. Whence came he ? Where was he going? And could the place "of his rest be far off? Farther ou, the sea changed its temperature and its color, a proof of an uneven bottom. Elsewhere it resembled immense meadows, and the prow cut its way but slowly among its weed-strewn waves. At 'eve and morning, the distant, waning clouds, like those which gather round the moun- tain-tops, took the form of cliffs and hills skirting the horizon. The cry of land was on the tip of every tongue. Columbus was unwill- ing either to confirm or entirely to extinguish these hopes, which served his purpose by encouraging his companions. But he thought himself still only 300 leagues from Teneriffe, and he calculated that he had 700 or 800 more to go before he should reach the laud he sought for. Nevertheless, he kept his conjectures to himself ; finding among his companions no friend whose heart was firm enough to support his resolution, or sufficiently safe to intrust with his secret fears. During the long passage he conversed only with his own thoughts, with the stars, and with God, whom he felt to be bis protector. Al- most without sleep, as he undertook to be in his farewell proclama- tion to the Old World, he occupied the days in his after-cabin, not- ing down, in characters intelligible to none but himself, the degrees of latitude and the 'space which he thought he had traversed. The nights he passed on deck with his pilots, studying the stars and watching the sea. Alone, like Moses conducting the people of (}od in the desert, his thoughtful gravity impressed upon his companions sometimes respect, and sometimes a mistrust and awe, that kept I hem aloof an insolation or distant bearing generally observable in men superior to their fellows in conception and determination, whether it be that the inspired genius requires more solitude and quiet for reflection, or whether the inferior minds whom they over- awe fear to approach too near them, lest they may invite a compari- son and be made to feel their littleness, as contrasted with the great men of the earth. The land, so often pointed out, was seen to be only a mirage de- ceiving the sailors. Each morning the bows of the vessels plunged through the fantastic horizon, which the evening mist had made them mistake for a shore. They kept rolling on through the boundless and bottomless abyss. The very regularity and steadiness of the east wind which drove them on, without their having had to shift their sails once in so many days, was to them a source of anxiety. They fancied that this wind prevailed eternally in this region of the great ocean which encircled the world, and that after carrying them on so easily to the westward, it would be an insurmountable obstacle to their return. How should they ever get back against this current of contrary wind, but by beating across the immense space ? And if CHRISTOPHBK COLUMBUS.. 27 they had to make endless tacks to reach the shores of the Old World, how would their provisions and water, already half consumed, hold out through the long months of their return- voyage? Who could save them from the horrible prospect, of dying of hunger and thirst in this long contest with the winds which drove them from their ports ? Several already began to count the number of days, and the rations fewer than the days, and they murmured against the fruitless obstinacy of their chief, and blamed themselves secretly for persever- ing in an obedience which sacrificed the lives of 120 men to the mad- ness of one. But each time that the murmurs threatened to break out into mutiny, Providence seemed to send them more convincing and more unexpected signs, which changed their complaints to hope. Thus, on the 20th of September, these favorable breezes, whose steadiness caused such alarm, veered round to the south-west. The saiiors hailed this change, though opposed to their course, as a sign of lift; and motion in tlio elements, which made them feel the wind stirring in their sails. At ereuiug, little birds, of the most delicate species that build their nests in the shrubs of the garden and orchard, hovered warbling about their masts. Their delicate wings and joyous nolos bore no marks of weariness or fright, as of birds swept far away to sea by a storm. Their song, like those which the sailors used to hear amid the groves of myrtles and orange-trees of their Andalusian home, reminded them of their country, and invited them to the now neighboring shore. They recognized sparrows, which always dwell beneath the roof of man. The green weed on the surface of the waves looked like the waving corn before the ear is ripe. The vege- tation beneath the water seemed the forerunner of land, and delighted the eyes of the sailors, tired of the endless expanse of blue. But it soon became so thick that they were afraid of entangling their rud- ders and keels, and of remaining prisoners in the forests of ocean, as the ships of the northern seas are shut in by the ice. Thus each joy soon turned to fear, so terrible to man is the unknown. Columbus, like a guide seeking his way amid the mysteries of the ocean, was obliged to appear to understand what surprised himself, and to in- vent an explanation for every cause that astonished his seamen. The calms of the tropics alarmed them. If all things, including even the wind, perished in these latitudes, whence should spring up the breeze to fill their sails and move their vessels ? The sea suddenly rose without wind : they ascribed it to submarine convulsions at the bottom. An immense whale was seen sleeping on the waters : they fancied there were monsters which would devour their ships. The roll of the waves drove them upon currents which they could not stem for want of wind : they imagined t^hey were approaching the cataracts of the ocean, and that they were being hurried toward the abysses into which the deluge had poured its world of waters. Fierce and angry faces crowded round the mast , the murmurs rose 28 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. Uider and louder ; they talked of compelling the pilots to put about, ;md >f throwing the admiral into the sea, as a madman who left his companions nc choice but between suicide and murder. Columbus, to whom their looks and threats revealed these plans, defied them by his bold bearing, or disconcerted them by his coolness. Nature at length came to his assistance, by giving him fresh luve/es from the east, and a calm sea under his bows. Before the of safety, life, and triumph, fell on their knees on the decks, and struck up the hymn, " Glory be to God in heaven and upon earth." This religious chant, the first hymn that ever rose to the Creator from the bosom of the new ocean, rolled slowly over the waves. When it was over, all climbed as high as they could up the masts, yards, and rigging, to see with their own eyes the shore which Pin- y.on had discovered to the south west. Columbus alone doubted ; but he was too willing to believe, to think of contradicting the fond hopes of his crews. Although he himself only expected to tiud land to the westward, he allowed them to steer south through the night, to please his companions, rather than lose the temporary popularity caused by their illusion. The sunrise destroyed it but too quickly. The imaginary land of Pinzon disappeared with the morning mist, and the admiral resumed his course to the westward. Again the surface of the sea was still, and the unclouded sun was shining on it as brightly as in the blue sky above. The rippling \\ave.s were foaming round the bows. Numberless dolphins were bounding in their wake. The water was full of life ; the flying- fish leaped from their element, and fell on the decks of the ships. Everything in nature seemed to combine with the efforts of Colum- bus in raising the returning hopes of his sailors, who almost forgot how the days passed. On the first of October, they thought they wen; only (500 leagues beyond the usual track of ships ; but the se- cret reckoning of the admiral gave more than 800. The signs of approaching land became more frequent around them, yet none loomed in the horizon. Terror again took possession of the crews. Columbus himself, notwithstanding his apparent calmness, felt some anxiety. He feared lest he might have passed among the isles of an archipelago without seeing them, and have left behind him the extremity of that Asia which he sought, to wander in another ocean. The lightest vessel of his squadron, the Nina, which led the way, at length, on the 7th of October, hoisted the signal of land in sight, and fired a gun to announce it to her companions. On Hearing it, they found that the Nina Jiad been deceived by a cloud. The wind, which dispersed it, scattered their fond hopes, and converted them to UK. Nothing wearies the heart of man so much as these alterna- tions of falso hope and bitter disappointment. They are the sar- CHRISTOPHER COLUAfBUS. 2i.il fcasms of fortune. Reproaches against the admiral were hoard from all quarters. It was now no longer for their fatigues and dilli- culties that they accused him, but for their lives hopelessly sacrificed their bread and water were beginning to fail ! Columbus, disconcerted by the immensity of this space, of which he had hoped already to have reached the boundary, abandoned the ideal route he had traced upon the map, and followed for two days and nights the flight of the birds, heavenly pilots seemingly sent to him by Providence" when human science was beginning to fail. The instinct of these birds, he reasoned, would not direct them all toward one point in the horizon, if they did not see land there. But even the very birds seemed to the sailors to join with the expanse of ocean, and the treacherous stars to sport with their vessels and their lives. At the end of the third day, the pilots going up the shrouds when the setting sun shows the most distant horizon, beheld him sink into the same waves from whence lie had risen in vain for so many mornings. They believed in the infinite expanse of waters. The despair which depressed them changed to fury. What terms had they now to keep with a chief who had deceived the Court of Spain, and whose titles and authority, fraudulently obtained from lii.s sover- eigns, were about to perish with him and his expectations? Would not following him farther make them the accomplices of his guilt V Did the duty of obedience extend beyond tlie limits of the world? Was there any other hope, if even that now remained, but to turn the heads of their ships to Europe, and to beat back against the winds that had favored the admiral, whom they would chain to the mast- of his own vessel as a mark for their dying curses, if they were la die, or give him up to the vengeance of Spain, if they were ever per milted to see again the ports of their country ? These complaints had now become clamorous. The admiral re strained them by the calmness of his countenance, lit* reminded tip! mutineers of the authority, sacred to a subject, with which their sovereigns had invested him. lie called upon Heaven itself to decide between him and them. He flinched not ; he offered his life as tin: pledge; of his promises ; but he asked them with the spirit of a prophet who sees himself what the vulgar only see through him, Jo suspend for three days their unbelief, and their determination to put back, lie swore a rash but necessary oath, that if, in the course of the third day, land was not visible on the horizon, he would yield to their wishes and steer for Europe. The signs of the neighborhood of a continent or islands were so obvious to the admiral, Hint, in beg- ging these three days from his mutinous crew, he felt certain of being able to attain his end. He tempted God by fixing a limit, to his revelation ; but he bad to manage, men. These men reluctantly allowed him the three days, an 1 (}o;I, who inspired him. did not puu- Ish him for having hoped much. At sunrise on the second day, some rutihes recently torn up wro 30 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. seen near the vessels. A plank evidently hewn by an axe, a stick skilfully carved by some cutting instrument, a bough of hawthorn in blossom, and, lastly, a bird's-nest built on a branch which the wind had broken, and full of eggs, on which the parent bird was sitting amid the gently rolling waves, were seen floating past on the waters. The sailors brought on board these living and inanimate witnesses of their approach to land. They were a voice from the shore, continu- ing the assurances of Columbus. Before the land actually appeared Insight, its neighborhood was inferred from these marks of life. The mutineers fell on their knees to the admiral whom they had in- sulted but the day before, craved pardon for their mistrust, and struck up a hyrnn of thanksgiving to God for associating them with his triumph. Night fell on these songs of the Church welcoming a new world. The admiral gave orders that the sails should be close reefed and the lead kept going ; and that they should sail slowly, being afraid of breakers and shoals, and feeling certain that the first gleam of day- break would discover laud under their bows. On that last anxious night none slept. Impatient expectation had removed all heaviness from their eyes ; the pilots and the seamen, clinging about the masts, yards, and shrouds, each tried to keep the best place and the closest, watch to get the earliest sight of the new hemisphere. The admiral had offered a reward to the first who should cry land, provided his announcement was verified by its actual discovery. Providence, however, reserved to Columbus himself this first glimpse, which he had purchased at the expense of twenty years of his life, and of un- tiring perseverance amid such dangers. While walking the quarter- dec k alone at midnight, and sweeping the dark horizon with his keen eye, a gleam of fire passed and disappeared, and again showed itself on the level of the waves. "Fearful of being deceived by the phos- phorescence of the sea, he quietly called a Spanish gentleman of Isa- bella's Court, named Guttiercz, in whom he had more confidence than in the pilots, pointed out the direction in which he had seen the light, and asked him whether he could discern anything there. Guttieie;: replied that he did indeed see a flickering light in that quarter. To make still more sure, Columbus called Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia, another in whom he had confidence. Sanchez 'had no more hesita- tion than Guttierez in pronouncing that there was a light on the hori- zon. But the blaze was hardly seen before it again disappeared in the ocean, to show itself anew the next moment whether it was the light of a fire on a low shore alternately appearing and disappearing beyond the broken horizon, or whether it was the floating beacon of a fisherman's boat now rising on the waves and now sinking in the trough of the sea. Thus both land and safety appeared together in the shape of fire to Columbus and his two friends, on the night be- tween the llth and 12th of October, 145)2. The admiral, enjoining silence to H'Hlrigo and Gutlierez, kept his observation to himself for CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 31 tear of again raisin? false hopes and giving a bitter disappointment to his ship's companies. He lost sight of the light and remained on deck until two in the morning, praying, hoping, and despairing alone, awaiting the triumph or the return on which the morrow was to decide. He was seized with that anguish which precedes the great discov- eries of truth, like the struggle which anticipates the liberation of the soul by death, when a cannon-shot, sounding over the sea a few hun- dred yards in advance of him, burst upon his ear ; the announcement of a new-born world, which made him tremble and fall upon hi* knees. It was the signal of land in sight ! made by firing a shot, as had been arranged with the Pinta, which was sailing in advance of UK; squadron, to guide their course and take soundings. At this sig- nal a general shout of " Land ho !" arose from all the yards and rig- ging of the ships. The sails wert furled and daybreak was anxiously awaited. The mystery of the ocean had breathed its first whisper in the bosom of niglit. Daybreak would clear it up openly to every eye. Delicious and unknown perfumes reached the vessels from the. dim outline of the shore, with the roar of the waves upon the reel's and the soft land breeze. The fire seen by Columbus indicated the presence of man and of the first element of civilization. Never did the night appear so long in clearing away from the horizon ; for this horizon was to Columbus and his companions a second creation of God. The dawn, as it spread over the sky, gradually raised the shores of an island from the waves. Its distant extremities were lost in the morning mist. It ascended gradually, like au amphitheatre, from the low beach to the summit of the hills, whose dark-green covering contrasted strongly with the clear blue of the heavens. Within a few paces of the foam of the waves breaking on the yellow sand, forests of tall and unknown trees stretched away, one above another, over the successive terraces of the island. Green valleys and bright clefts in the hollows afforded a half glimpse into these mysterious wilds. Here and there could be discovered a few scattered huts, which, with their outlines and roofs of dry leaves, looked like beehives, and thin columns of blue smoke rose above the tops of the trees. Half naked groups of men, women, and children, more astonished than fright- ened, appeared among the thickets near the shore, advancing timidly, and then drawing back, exhibiting by their gestures and de- meanor as much fear as curiosity and wonder at the sight of these strange vessels, which the previous night had brought to their shores. Columbus, after gazing in silence on this foremost shore of the land so often determined by his calculations, and so magnificently colored by his imagination, found it to exceed even his own expectations. He burned with impatience to l>e the 'first European to set foot on the sand, and to plant the cross and the flag of Spain the standard of the conquest of God and of his sovereigns, ell'ected by his guiiiua. 8$ CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. But he restrained the eagerness of himself and his crew to land, being desirous of giving to the act of taking possessiou of a new world a solemnity worthy of the greatest deed, perhaps, ever accom- plished by a seaman ; and, in default of men, to call God and his angels, sea, earth, and sky, as witnesses of his conquest of an un- known hemisphere. He put on all the insignia of his dignities as Admiral of the Ocean, an 1 viceroy of these future realms ; he wrapped himself In his purple cloak, and, taking in his hand a flag embroidered with a cross, in which the initials of Ferdinand and Isabella were interlaced like their two kingdoms, and surmounted by a crown, he entered his boat, and pulled toward the shore, followed by the boats of Alonzo and Yones I 'in/on, his two lieutenants. On landing, he fell on his knees, to acknowledge, by this act of humility and worship, the goodness and irrealness of God in this new spherft of his works. He kissed the ground, and, with his face on the earth, he wept tears of a double import and of a double meaning, as they fell on the dust of this hem- Uphere now for the first time visited by Europeans tears of joy for Columbus ; the overflowing of a proud spirit, grateful and pious tears of sadness for this virgin soil, seeming to foreshadow the calam- ities and devastation, with fire and sword, and blood and destruction, which the strangers were to bring with their pride, their knowledge, and their power. It was the man that shed these tears ; but it was I lie earth that was destined to weep. "Almighty and eternal God," said Columbus, as he raised his forehead from the dust, with a Latin prayer which his companions have handed down to us, " who by the energy of thy creative word hast made the firmament, the earth and sea ; blessed and glorified be thy name in all places ! May thy majesty and dominion" be exalted loiwer and ever, as thou hast permitted thy holy name to be made known and spread by the most humble of thy servants in this hitherto unknown portion of thy empire." lie then baptized tin's land in the name of Christ the island of San Salvador. His lieutenants, his pilots, and his seamen, full of gladness, and im- '1 with a superstitious respect for him whose glance had pierced beyond the visible hori/.on, and whom they had offended by their unbelief overcome by the evidence of their eyes, and by that men- tal superiority which overawes the minds of men, fell at the feet of the admiral, kissed his hands and his clothes, and recognized for a moment the p<>\ver and the almost divine, nature of genius ; yesterday the victims of his obstinacy now the companions of his success, and sharers in the glory which they had mocked. Such is humanity, persecuting discoverers, yet reaping the fruits of their inventions. During the ceremony of taking possession, the inhabitants of tho islands, first kept at a distance by fear, afterward attracted by that liutiuotire curuwity which forms the first connection between man CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 33 and man, had drawn near. They were talking with each other about the wonderful events of the night and morning. These vessels, working their sails, yards, and masts, like huge limbs opening and closing at will, seemed to them animated and supernatural beings de- scended during the night from the crystal firmament whirl) sur rounded their horizon, inhabitants of heaven floating on their wings, and settling upon the shores of which they were the tutelar deities. Struck with respect at the sight of the boats landing on their island, and of men in brilliant clothing, and covered with armor gleaming in the sun, they at last came close, as if fascinated by almighty power. They worshipped and adored them with the simplicity of children, unsuspicious of the approach of evil under a pleasing appearance. The Spaniards, on examining them, were in their turn astonished at not finding in these islanders any of the physical characteristics, or even the color, of the African, Asiatic, or European races with which they usually came in contact. Their copper complexion, their lank hair falling loose over their shoulders, their eyes dark as their seu, their delicate and almost feminine features, their open and confiding countenances, and, lastly, their nakedness, and the colored patterns with which they stained their skins, marked them as a race com- pletely distinct from any of the human families spread over the an- cient hemisphere ; a race still preserving the simplicity and the gen- tleness of infancy, lost for centuries in this unknown portion of the world, and retaining, through sheer ignorance of wrong, the mildness, truthfulness, and innocence of the world's youth. Columbus, satisfied that this island was but an outpost of India, toward which he still thought he was sailing, gave them the imagi- nary name of Indians, which they retained until their extermination ; the verbal error having lasted long after the physical mistake was explained. The Indians, soon becoming accustomed to their stranger-guests, showed them their springs, their houses, their villages, and their canoes, and brought the;n as offerings their eatable fruit, their cassava bread, which replenished the provisions of the Spaniards, and somu ornaments of pure gold, which they wore in their ears and nostrils, or as bracelets, necklaces, or anklets among the women. They were ignorant of commerce or of the use of money, that mercenary but indispensable substitute for the virtue of hospitality, and they were delighted to receive the merest trilles from the Europeans in ex- change for their valuables. In their eyes, novelty was value. Ibirc and precious are equivalent words in all countries. The Spaniards, who sought the country of gold and precious stones, asked by signa whence this metal came. The Indians pointed to the south ; the ad- miral and his companions understood them to mean that in that di- rection there was an island or continent of India, corresponding by its riches and its arts with the wonders related by the Venetian Marco Polo. The land which they now thought themselves near was, they 34 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. supposed, the fabulous island of Zipangu, or ,I;ip;in, the sovereign of whieh walked on a pavement of gold. Their impatience to resume their course toward this object of their imagination or of their covetousness, made them return quickly to their ships. They had supplied themselves with water from the springs of the is-land, and their decks were loaded with fruit, cassava-cakes, and roots, which the poor but happy Indians had given them. They took one of the aborigines with them to learn their language, and to act as interpreter. On getting clear of the island of San Salvador, they found them- selves as it were lost in the channels of an archipelago, composed of more than a hundred isles of various sizes, but all with an appear- ance of the most luxurious freshness and fertility of vegetation. They landed on the largest and most populous. They were sur- rounded by canoes, hollowed from the trunk of a single tree ; they traded with the inhabitants, exchanging buttons and trinkets. Their navigation and their stoppages amid this labyrinth of islands were but a repetition of the scene at their landing at San Salvador. They were everywhere received with the same inoffensive curiosity. They were enchanted with the climate, the flowers, the perfumes, the colors, and the plumages of unknown birds, which each of these oases of the ocean offered to their senses ; but their minds, impressed with the sole idea of discovering the land of gold at what they sup- posed to be the extremity of Asia, rendered them less attentive to these natural treasures, and prevented their suspecting the existence of tin 1 new and immense continent of which these isles were the out- posts on the sea. Guided by the signs and looks of the Indians, who pointed out to him a region still more splendid than their own archi- pelago, Columbus steered for the coast of Cuba, where he landed after three days' pleasant sailing, without losing sight of the beauti- ful Hahamas which enamelled his path. Cuba, with its long terraces stretching away into the far distance, and hacked by cloud-piercing mountains, with its havens, estuaries, gulfs, bays, forests, and villages, reminded him, on a more majestic scale, of Sicily. He was uncertain whether it was a continent or an island. He oast anchor in the shady bosom of a mighty river, and, going ashore, strolled about the shores and forests, the grcves of oranges and palm-trees, and the Tillages and dwellings of the inhab- itants. A dumb dog was the only living thing he found in these huts, which had been abandoned at his approach. He re-embarked, and ascended the river, shaded by broad-leaved palms, and gigantic trees bearing both fruit and flowers. Nature seemed to have bestowed, of her own accord, and without labor, the necessities of life and hap- piness without work on these fortunate races. Everything reminded them of the Eden of Holy Writ. Harmless animals, birds with azure and purple plumage, parrots, macaws, and birds of paradise, Bhrieked and sang, or Hew in colored clouds from branch to branch ; luminous insects lighted the air by night ; the sun, softened by tii CHRIS- OPHER COLUMBUS. 35 breeze of the mountain, the shade of the trees, and the coolness of the water, fertilized everything without scorching ; the moon and stars were reflected in the river with a mild light which took away the terror of darkness. A general enthusiasm had seized upon the minds and senses of Columbus and his companions ; they felt that they had reached a new country, more fresh and yet more fruitful than the old land which they had left behind. " It is the most beautiful isle," says Columbus, in his notes, " that ever the eye of man beheld. One would wish to live there' always. It is impossible to think of misery or death in such a place." The scent of the spices which reached his vessels from the interior, and his meeting with pearl oysters on the coast, satisfied him more and more that Cuba was a continuation of Asia. He fancied that beyond the mountains of this continent or island (for he was still uncertain whether Cuba was or was not a portion of the mainland) he should find the empires, the civilization, the gold mines, and tho wonders which enthusiastic travellers had attributed to Cathay and Japan. Being unable to seize any of the natives, who all fled the coast on the approach of the Spaniards, he sent two of his com- panions, one of whom spoke Hebrew and the other Arabic, to look for the fabulous cities in which he supposed the sovereign of Cathay to dwell. Tuese envoys were loaded with presents for the inhab- itants. They had orders to exchange them for nothing but gold, of which they thought there were inexhaustible treasures in the interior. The messengers returned to the ships without having discovered any other capital than huts of savages and an immense wilderness of vegetation, perfumes, fruits, and flowers. They had succeeded, by means of presents, in encouraging some of the natives to come baric witli them to the admiral. Tobacco, a plant of slightly intoxicating quality, which they made into little rolls, lighting them at one end to inhale the smoke at the other ; the potato, a farinaceous root, which heat converted at once into bread ; maize, cotton spun by the women, oranges, lemons, and other nameless fruits, were the only treasures they had found about the houses scattered in the glades of the forest. Disappointed of his golden dreams, the admiral, on some mis- understood directions of the natives, unwillingly quitted this enchant- ing country, to sail on to the east, where he still placed his imaginary Asia. lie took on board some men and women from Cuba, bolder and more confident than the rest, to serve as interpreters for the neighboring countries which he was going to visit, to convert them to the true faith, and to offer to Isabella these souls which his gener- ous enterprise had saved. Convinced that Cuba, of which he had not ascertained the limits, was apart of the mainland of Asia, he s.i ili-d several days at a short distance from the coast of the true' American continent without seeing it. He was not yet to discover the truth so cl< se to his eyes. Yet envy, which was to be the poison 30 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. of his life, had arisen in the minds of his companions on the very day that, his discoveries had crowned the hopes of his whole exist- < -i\i -c. Amerigo Vespucci, an obscure Florentine, embarked in one of his vcssels,"gave his name to this new world, to which Columbus alone had been the guide. Vespucci owed this good fortune entirely to chance, and to his subsequent voyages with Columbus in the same latitudes. A subaltern officer, devoted to the admiral, he had never sought to rob him of his glory. The caprice of fortune gave it to him without his having sought to deceive Europe, and custom has retained it. The chief was deprived of due honor, and the name of the inferior prevailed. Thus is human glory set at naught ; but though ( 'olumbus was the victim, Amerigo was not guilty. Posterity must bear the blame of the injustice and ingratitude, but a wilful fraud cannot be laid lo the charge of the fortunate pilot of Florence. Envy, which arises in the heart of man in the very hour of suc- cess, already began to prey upon the mind of Columbus's lieutenant, Alon/.o Pin/on, lie commanded the Pinta, the second vessel of the squadron, a faster sailer than either of the others. Pin/on pretended to lose them in the night, and got away from his commodore. He had resolved to take advantage of Columbus's discovery, to find out other lands by himself, without genius and without trouble, and after giving them his name, to be foremost to return to Europe, to reap the produce of the glory and to gather the rewards due to his master and guide. Columbus had for some days past noticed the envy and Insubordination of his second in command. But he owed much to Alon/.o Pi 117011 ; for, without his encouragement and assistance at 1'alos, he would never have succeeded in equipping his vessels or in ing seamen. Gratitude had prevented him from punishing the lirst acts of disobedience of a man to whom he was so deeply in- debted. The modest, magnanimous, and forgiving character of < 't'lmnlnis made him avoid all harshness. Full of justice and virtue himself, he expected to find equal justice and virtue in others. This goodness, which Alon/o Pinzon took for weakness, served as an en- 1 eourageincnt to ingratitude. He boldly dashed between Columbus and the new discoveries of which he had resolved to deprive him. The admiral understood and regretted the fault, but pretended to believe that the Pinta's separation was accidental, and steered with Ins two vessels to the south-east, toward a dark shade that he per- ceived over the sea, and made the island of llispaniola, since called -an Domingo. Had it not been for this cloud on the mountains of mi Domingo, which induced him to put about, he would have reached the mainland. The American archipelago, by enticing him .0 wander from isle to isle, seemed to keep him, as if purposely, from goal winch he almost touched without seeing it. This phantasm J Asia, which had led him lo the shores of America, now stood be- tween America and him, to deprive him of the reality by the substi- tution of a chimera. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 37 This vast new country, pleasant and fruitful, surrounded by an atmosphere as clear as crystal, and bathed by a sea with perfume in its waves, appeared to him to be the marvellous island, detached from the continent of India, that he had sought through such voyages and dangers, under the fabulous name of Zipangu. He named it Hispaniola, to mark it as his adopted country. The natives, simple, mild, hospitable, open-hearted and respectful, crowded round them on the shore, as though they were beings of a superior order, whom a celestial miracle had sent from the verge of the horizon or tin- hot torn of the ocean to be worshipped and adored as gods. A numer- ous and happy population then covered the plains and valleys of Hispaniola. The men and women were models of strength and beauty. The perpetual peace which reigned among these nations gave their countenances an expression of gentleness and benevolence. Their laws were only the best instincts of the heart, passed into tra- ditions and customs. They might have been supposed to lie a young race, whose vices had not yet had time to develop themselves, and whom the natural inspirations of innocence sufficed to govern. Of agriculture,gardening, and the other arts of life, they knew enough for their government, their building, and the first necessities of existence. Their fields were admirably cultivated, and their elegant cottages wcro grouped in villages on the edges of forests of fruit-trees, in the neigh borhood of rivers or springs. In a genial climate, without either the severity of winter or the scorching heat of a tropical summer, their clothing consisted only of personal ornaments, or of belts and aprons of cotton-cloth, sufficient to protect their modesty. Their ' form of government was as simple and natural as their ideas. It was but the circle of the family, enlarged in the course of generations, but always grouped round an hereditary chief, called the cacique. TheM; caciques were the heads, not the tyrants, of their tribes. Their cus- toms, laws unwritten, yet inviolable as divine ordinances, governed these petty princes : an authority paternal oh the one side, and filial on the other, rebellion against which seemed out of the question. The Cuban natives, whom Columbus had brought; with him to serve as guides and interpreters on these seas and islands, already be- gun to comprehend Spanish. They partly understood the language of the inhabitants of llispaniola, a detached branch of the same race They thus established an easy and ready means of communication between Columbus and the people whom he had just reached. The supposed Indians fearlessly conducted the Spaniards into theii houses, and presented them with cassava bread, unknown fruits, fish, sweet roots, tame birds with rich plumage and melodious notes, (low- ers, palms, bananas, lemons, all the gifts of their sea, sky, earth, and climate. They treated them as guests, as brothers, almost even as gods. " Nature, " says Columbus, "is there so prolific, that prop- erty has not produced the feeling of avarice or cupidity. These people seem to live in a golden age. happy and quiet amid open and 38 CHRISTOPHER COLUMl'US. endless gardens, neither surrounded by ditches, divided by fences, iior protected by walls. They behave honorably toward one another, without laws, without books, without judges. They consider him wicked who takes delight in harming another. This aversion of the good to the bad seems to be all their legislation." Their religion also was but the sentiment of their own inferiority, and of gratitude and love for the invisible Being who had granted them life and hap- piness. What a contrast between the state of these happy races when the Europeans first discovered them and brought them the spirit of the Old World, and the condition into which these unfortunate Indians fell a few years after this visit from those who assumed to civili/e them ! What a rajstery of Providence was this unexpected arrival of Columbus in a new world, to which he thought he 'vas bringing liberty and life, but in which, without knowing it, he was sowing tyranny and death ! As Columbus was exploring the bays and havens of the island, the pilot ran the vessel aground while the admiral was asVep. The ship, threatened with instant destruction by the heavy breakers, was abandoned by the pilot and part of the crew, who, under pretence of taking an anchor ashore, pulled to the other vessel, thinking Colum- bus doomed to inevitable death. The admiral's energy again saved, not the ship, but the lives of his companions. He faced the breakers as long as a plank held, and having placed his men on a raft, he landed as a shipwrecked mariner on the same shore that he had just visited as a conqueror. He was soon joined by the only vessel he had remaining. His shipwreck and his misfortunes did not cool llc hospitality of the cacique whose guest he had been some days prev - ously. This cacique, named Guacanagari, the first friend and ultiv ward the first victim of these strangers, shed tears of compassion over Columbus's disaster. He offered his house, his provisions, and assistance of every kind to the Spaniards. The riches of the Euro- peans, rescued from the waves and spread out upon the beach, were preserved, as if sacred, from all pillage, and even from troublesome curiosity. These men, who knew no property as between each other, seemed to recognize and respect it in their unfortunate guests. Columbus, in his letters to the king and queen, is loud in his praise of the easy generosity of this race. " There is nowhere in the uni- verse," he exclaims, "a better nation or a better country. They Jove their neighbors as themselves ; their language is always soft and gracious, and the smile of kindness is ever on their lips. They are naked, it is true, but veiled by modesty and frankness." Columbus, having established with the younger cacique relations of the closest and most confiding intimacy, was presented by him with some gold ornaments. At the sight of gold, the countenances of the Europeans suddenly expressed such passionate avidity and fierce desire, that the cacique and his subjects instinctively took alarm, as CHIUSTOPHEB COLUMBUS. 33 if their new friends had, on the instant, changed their nature and disposition toward them. It was but too true. The companions of Columbus were only coveting the fancied riches of the East, while ho himself was seeking the mysterious remnant of the world. The sight of gold had recalled their avarice ; their faces had become stern and savage as their thoughts. The cacique, being informed that this metal was the god of the Europeans, explained to them, by pointing to the mountains beyond the range they saw, the situation of a coun- try from which he received this gold in abundance. Columbus no longer doubted that he had reached the source of Solomon's wealth, and, preparing everything for his speedy return to Europe, in order t;> announce his triumph, he built a fort in the cacique's village, to afford security to a paity whom he left behind. He selected from liis officers and seamen forty men, whom he placed under the com- mand of Pedro de Araua. He instructed them to collect information a I) >ut the gold region, and to keep up the respect and friendship of the Indians for the Spaniards. He then set out on his return to Europe, loaded with the gifts of the cacique, and bringing a\vay all tho ornaments and crowns of pure gold that he had been able to pro- euro during his stay from the natives, either by gift or exchange. While coasting round the island, he met his faithless companion, Alonzo Pinzou. Under pretence of having lost sight of the admiral, Pin/.on had taken a separate course. Concealed in a deep inlet of the island, he had landed, and instead of imitating the mildness and gentle policy of Columbus, had marked his first steps wilh blood. The admiral having found his lieutenant, appeared satisfied with his excuses, and willing to attribute his desertion to the night, lie ordered Pin/on to follow him to Europe with his vessel. They set sail together, impatient to announce to Spain the news of their won- derful navigation. But tho ocean on which the trade-winds had wafted them gently from wave to wave toward the shores of America, secin^l with a iver.se winds and waters to drive them reso- lutely back from the land to which they were so anxious to return. Columbus alone, through his knowledge of navigation and his reck- oning, tlu secret of which he concealed from his pilots, knew the course and the true distances. His companions thought they were still thousands of miles from Europe, while he was already aware of being near the Azores. He soon perceived them. Tremendous squalls of wind cloud heaped on cloud and lightning such as he had never before seen flash across the heavens and disappear in the sea huge and foaming waves driving his vessels helplessly about without aid from helm or sails, seemed alternate!}' to open and clos the gates of death to him and his companions even on the very threshold of their country. The signals which the two vessels made reciprocal! 1 ,' at night disappeared. Each, while driving before the unceasing tempest, between the A/ores and the Spanish coast, be- lieved the other lost. Columbus, who did not doubt that the Pinla 40 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. with Pin/on was buried beneath the waves, and whose own torn sails and damaged rudder would uo longer steer his bark, expected every instant to founder beneath one of these mountain of water that he hborcd up to be swept down again from their foaming crests. He had risked his life freely, but he could not bear to sacrifice his glory. To feel that the discovery, which he was bringing to the Old World, was to be buried for ages with him even when so near his port, seemed such a cruel sport of Providence that he could not make even his piety bend to it. His soul revolted against this slight of fortune. To die when he had but touched with bis foot the soil of Europe, and after having placed his secret and his treasure upon the records' of his couutiy, was a destiny that he could joyfully accept ; but to allow a seconcl world to perish (so to speak) with him, and t-j carry to the grave the solution, at last found, of the earth's problem, which his brother men might perhaps be seeking for us many a they had already been without it, was a thousand deaths in one. In his vows to all tbe shrines of Spain, he only asked of God that he. might carry to the shore, even with his wreck, the proof of his return and of his discovery. Meanwhile storm followed storm ; the vessel became water-logged, and the savage looks, the angry murmurs, or the sullen silence of his companions reproached him for the obsti- nacy which had driven or persuaded them to this fatal cruise. They considered this continued wrath of the elements as the vengeance of ocean, angry that the boldness of man should have penetrated its mystery. They talked of throwing him into the sea, in order, by a grand expiation, to still the waves. Columbus, heedless of their anger, but completely taken up with the fate of his discovery, wrote upon parchment several short ac- counts of his voyage, and closed up some in rolls of wax, and other* in cellar cases, and threw them into the sea, in hopes that perchance after his death they might be carried upon the shore. It has been said that one of these cases, thus thrown to the winds and waves, drifted about for three centuries and a half upon or beneath the sea, and that not very long since a sailor from a European vessel, while getting ballast for a "ship on the African coast, opposite Gibraltar, picked np a petrified cocoanut, and brought it to his captain as a mere natural curiosity. The captain, on opening the nut to sec whether the kernel had resisted the action of time, found that the hollow shell concealed a parchment which contained, in a Gothic, character, deciphered with difficulty by a scholar at Gibraltar, these words : " We cannot survive the storm one day longer. We are between Spain and the newly discovered Eastern Isles. If the cara- vel founders, may some one pick up this testimony ! CHIUSTOFIIEB ('I.I MUCS." Tho ocean kept this message for 358 years, and did not give it to Europe, until America colonized, flourishing, and free already rivalled the old continent, A freak of fortune, to teach men what CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 41 might have remained concealed so long, if Providence had not for- bidden the waves to drown, in Columbus, its great announcer ! The next day, " Land ho !" was cried. It was the Portuguese isle of St. Mary, the last of the Azores. Columbus and his enir.panions were driven from it by the jealous persecution of the Portuguese. Again given up to the sufferings of hunger and tempest for itmny long days, it was not until the 4th of March that they entered the Tagus, where they at length anchored off a European shore, though of a rival kingdom. Columbus, on being presented to the King of Portugal, related his discoveries, without explaining his course, lest, tliis prince might anticipate the fleets of Isabella. The nobles of the Court of John the Second of Portugal advised this prince to have the great navigator assassinated, in order to bury with him his secret, as well as the rights of the Spanish Crown over these new lauds. .John was indignant at this cowardly advice. Columbus was treated with honor, and permitted to send a courier to his sovereigns, to announce his success, and his approaching return by sea to Palos. He landed then: on the IHth of March, 14i)l>, at sunrise, in the midst of a crowd frantic with joy and pride, which even rushed into the water to cany him triumphantly ashore. lie threw liim.self into tlie amis of his friend and protector, the poor prior of the convent of La Rahida, Juan Perez, who alone had believed in him, and whom a new hemi- sphere rewarded for his faith. Columbus walked barefoot at the head of a procession, to the church of the monastery, to return thanks for his safety, for his glory, and for the acquisition to Spain. The whole population followed him with blessings to tlie door of this humble convent, at which he had some years l)efore, alone with his Child, and on foot, craved hospitality as a beggar. Never lias any among men brought to his country or posterity such a conquest, since the creation of the globe, except those who have given to earth the revelation of a new idea ; and this conquest of Columbus had until then cost humanity neither a crime, a single life, a drop of blood, nor a tear. Tlie most delightful days of liis existence were those which he passed while resting from his hopes and his glory in tlie monastery of La llabida, in the arms of liis children, and in the company of his friend and host, the prior f the convent. And as if Heaven had thought fit to crown his happiness and to avenge him on the envy which was pursuing him, Alonzo Pin/on, the commander of his second vessel, brought the Pinta next day into the harbor of Palos, where he hoped to arrive before his commander, and to rob him of the first-fruits of his triumph. But foiled in his evil design, and fearing lest the admiral might report and punish his de- sertion, Pinzon died of vexation and disppointment on seeing th vessel of Columbus at anchor in the port. Columbus was too gener- ous to rejoice, muck more to have punished him ; and tlie malico tliat pursues tlie steps of the great seemed to expire at his feet. Ferdinand and Isabella, having been, informed of the return and 44 CHKISTOPHER COLUMBUS. ho carried his hardihood to the verge of madness. One day, when Isabella had ascended the lofty tower called the Giralda of Seville, to enjoy its wonderful height, and look down from its summit on the streets and houses of the town, appearing like an open ant-heap at her feet, he sprung on to a narrow beam which projected over the cornice, and balancing himself on one foot at the end of it, executed the most extraordinary feats of boldness and activity to amuse his sovereign, without being in the least alarmed or dizzy at the fear of imminent death. On the 25th of September, 1493, the fleet left the Bay of Cadiz. Shouts of joy from the shore accompanied this second departure, which seemed destined to a continued triumph. The two sons of Columbus accompanied their father on board his flag-ship. 1 k> gave them his blessing and left them in Spain, that at least the better half of his existence might remain sheltered from the perils he was going to encounter. His squadron consisted of three large ships, and four- teen caravellas. The fleet discovered on the 2d of November the island of Guadaloupe, and cruised among the Caribbee islands, to which he gave names derived from his pious recollections ; and soon afterward making the point of Hispauiola, now called Hayti, Columbus set sail for the gulf where he had built the fort in which lie had left his forty companions. Night concealed the shore from his view, when, full both of hope and of anxiety, he cast anchor iu the roadstead. He did not wait for dawn to announce his arrival to the colony. A salute from his guns boomed over the waves to ac- quaint the Spaniards jvith his return ; but the cannon of the fort re- mained silent, and this salute to the New World was only answered by the echo from the lonely cliffs. Next morning, with daybreak, he discovered the beach deserted, the fort destroyed, the guns half buried under its ruins, the bones of the Spaniards bleaching on the shore, and the village of the caciques abandoned "by its inhabitants. The few natives who appeared in the distance, at the edge of the forest, seemed afraid to come near, as if they were withheld 'by a feel- ing of remorse, or by the dread of revenge. The cacique, more con- fident in his innocence and in the justice of Columbus, whom he had learned to esteem, at length advanced, and related the crimes of the Spaniards who had abused the hospitality of his subjects by oppress- ing the natives, carrying off their wives and dauahtcrs, reducing their hosts to slavery, and, at length, rousing the hatred of the tribe. After having slaughtered a great number of Indians and burned their huts, they had themselves been killed. The ruined fort covering their bones was the first monument of the contact of these two* human races, one of which was bringing slavery and destruction on the other. Columbus wept over the crimes of his companions and the misfortunes of the cacique. He resolved to seek another place to disembark and colonize the island. The most beautiful among the young Indian girls captured from CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 45 the neighboring isles, and kept prisoners in the ships, named Catalina, had attracted the attention of a cacique, who visited Columbus ou board his ship. A plan of escape was arranged between the cacique and the object of his love, by signs which the Europeans did not understand. The night that Columbus set sail, Catalina and her com- panions, foiling the watchfulness of their guards, sprang iuto the water. They swam, pursued in vain by the boats of the Europeans, toward the shore, where the young cacique had lighted a fire to guide them. The lovers, united by this feat of skill and strength, took shelter in the forests, and concealed themselves from the ven- geance of the Europeans. Columbus landed again on virgin soil, at some distance farther on, and founded the town of Isabella. He established friendly relations with the natives, built, cultivated, and governed the first European colony, the nucleus of so many others, and sent around detachments to scour the plains and mountains of Hispaniola. lie first enticed, then attracted, and finally subjected, by mild and equitable laws, the various tribes of this vast island. He built forts, and marked out roads toward the different parts of the empire. He searched for gold, which he discovered to be less abundant than he expected in these regions, which he still took for India ; but he only found the inexhaustible fertility of a rich land, and a people as easy to govern as to subdue. He scut back the greater part of his vessels to Spain, to ask his sovereign for fresh supplies of men, animals, tools, plants, and seeds, required by the immensity of the countries which he was going to win over to the customs, religion, and arts of Europe, But the disaffected, the jealous, and the envious were the first to rush on board his fleet, to raise murmurs, accusations, and calumnies against him. lie himself remained behind, afflicted with the gout, suffering excruciating pain; condemned to inactivity of body anil unceasing mental anxiety, and harassed, in his rising colony, by the rivalries, the seditions, the plots, the disgraceful insubordination, and the famine of his companions. Always indulgent and noble-minded, Columbus triumphed, turough sheer force of character, over the turbulence of his countrymen and the disobedience of his lieutenants, and was satisfied with confining the mutineers on board the vessels. On recovering from his long ill- ness, he traversed the island with a picked body of men, seeking in vain for the gold mines of Solomon, but studying the natural history and peculiarities of the soil, and spreading, throughout his journey, respect and affection for his name. Ho found on his return to the colony, the same disorder, mutiny, and vice. The Spaniards made a bad use of the superstition and fear with which they and their horses inspired the natives. The Indians took them for monstrous beings horse and rider forming but ona creature striking down, (-rushing, and blasting with fire the ene- mies of the, Europeans. By the "illucnce of this dread, they mil). 44 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. he carried his hardihood to the verge of madness. One day, when Isabella had ascended the lofty tower called the Giralda of Seville, to enjoy its wonderful height, and look down from its summit on the streets and houses of the town, appearing like an open ant-heap at her feet, he sprung on to a narrow beam which projected over the cornice, and balancing himself on one foot at the end of it, executed the most extraordinary feats of boldness and activity to amuse his sovereign, without being in the least alarmed or dizzy at the fear of imminent death. On the 25th of September, 1493, the fleet left the Bay of Cadiz. Shouts of joy from the shore accompanied this second departure, which seemed destined to a continued triumph. The two sons of Columbus accompanied their father on board his flag-ship, lie gave them his blessing and left them in Spain, that at least the better half of his existence might remain sheltered from the perils he was going to encounter. His squadron consisted of three large ships, and four- teen caravellas. The fleet discovered on the 2d of November the island of Guadaloupe, and cruised among the Caribbee islands, to which he gave names derived from his pious recollections ; and soon afterward making the point of Hispauiola, now called llayti, Columbus set sail for the gulf where he had built the fort in which lie had left his forty companions. Night concealed the shore from his view, when, full both of hope and of anxiety, he cast anchor in the roadstead. He did not wait for dawn to announce his arrival to the colony. A salute from his guns boomed over the waves to ac- quaint the Spaniards jvith his return ; but the cannon of the fort re- mained silent, and this salute to the New World was only answered by the echo from the lonely cliffs. Next morning, with daybreak, lie discovered the beach deserted, the fort destroyed, the guns half buried under its ruins, the bones of the Spaniards bleaching on the shore, and the village of the caciques abandonea~by its inhabitants. The few natives who appeared in the distance, at the edge of the forest, seemed afraid to come near, as if they were withheld by a feel- ing of remorse, or by the dread of revenge. The cacique, more con- fident in his innocence and in the justice of Columbus, whom he had learned to esteem, at length advanced, and related the crimes of the Spaniards who had abused the hospitality of his subjects by oppress- ing the natives, carrying off their wives and daughters, reducing their hosts to slavery, and, at length, rousing the hatred of the tribe. After having slaughtered a great number of Indians and burned their huts, they had themselves been killed. The ruined fort covering their bones was the first monument of the contact of these two' human races, one of which was bringing slavery and destruction on the other. Columbus wept over the crimes of his companions and the misfortunes of the canique. He resolved to seek another place to disembark and colonize the island. The most beautiful among the young Indian girls captured from CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 45 the neighboring isles, and kept prisoners in the ships, named Catalina, had attracted the attention of a cacique, who visited Columbus oa board his ship. A plan of escape was arranged between the cacique and the object of his love, by signs which the Europeans did not understand. The night that Columbus set sail, Catalina and her com- panions, foiling the watchfulness of their guards, sprang iuto ilie water. They swam, pursued in vain by the boats of the Europeans, toward the shore, where the young cacique had lighted a tire to guide them. The lovers, united by this feat of skill and strength, took shelter in the forests, and concealed themselves from the ven- geance of the Europeans. Columbus lauded again on virgin soil, at some distance farther on, and founded the town of Isabella. He established friendly relations with the natives, built, cultivated, and governed the first European colony, the nucleus of so many others, and sent around detachments to scour the plains and mountains of Hispaniola. He first enticed, then attracted, and finally subjected, by mild and equitable laws, the. various tribes of this vast island. He built forts, and marked out roads toward the different parts of the empire. He searched for gold, which he discovered to be less abundant than he expected in these regions, which he still took for India ; but he only found Hie inexhaustible fertility of a rich laud, and a people as easy to govern as to subdue. He sent back the greater part of his vessels to Spain, to ask his sovereign for fresh supplies of men, animals, tools, plants, and seeds, required by the immensity of the countries which he was going to win over to the customs, religion, and arts of Europe. But the disaffected, the jealous, and the envious were the first to rush on board his fleet, to raise murmurs, accusations, and calumnies against him. He himself remained behind, afflicted with the gout, suffering excruciating pain; condemned to inactivity of body and unceasing mental anxiety, and harassed, in his rising colony, by the rivalries, the seditions, the plots, the disgraceful insubordination, and the famine of his companions. Always indulgent and noble-minded, Columbus triumphed, tnrough sheer force of character, over the turbulence of his countrymen and the disobedience of his lieutenants, and was satisfied with confining the mutineers on board the vessels. On recovering from his long ill- ness, he traversed the island with a picked body of men, seeking in vain for the gold mines of Solomon, but studying the natural history and peculiarities of the soil, and spreading, throughout his journey, respect and affection for his name. He found on his return to the colony, the same disorder, mutiny, and vice. The Spaniards made a bad use of the superstition and fear with which they and their horses inspired the natives. The Indians took them for monstrous beings horse and rider forming but on creature striking down, crushing, and blasting with fire the ene- mies of the Europeans. By the influence of this dread, they 46 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. dued, enslaved, violated, abused, and tortured this gentle and obedi- ent race. Columbus again interfered to punish the tyranny of his companions. He desired to bring the Indian tribes the religion and arts of Europe, not its yoke, its vices, and its sins. After re-establish- ing some sort of order, he embarked to visit the scarcely discovered island of Cuba. He reached it, and sailed for a long time past its shores, without discovering the extremity of the land, which he took for a continent. He sailed from thence toward Jamaica, another island of immense extent, whose mountain peaks he saw among the clouds. Then, crossing an archipelago, which he called the Garden of the Queen, from the richness and sweet perfume of the vegetation on its isles, he returned to Cuba, and succeeded in establishing rela- tions with the natives. The Indians looked on with respect at the ceremonies of Christian worship which the Spaniards celebrated in a recess among palm-trees by the shore. One of their old men came up to Columbus, after the ceremony, and said, in a solemn tone, " What thou hast done is well, for it appears to be thy Avorship of the universal God. They say that thou comest to these lands with great might and power beyond all resistance. If that be so, hear from me what our ancestors have told our fathers, who have repeated it to ourselves. "When the souls of men are separated by the divine will from their bodies, they go, some to a country without sun and without trees, others to a region of beauty and delight, according as they have acted ill or Avell here below, by doing evil or good to their fellows. If, therefore, thou art to die like us, have a care to do no wrong to those who have never injured thee. " This discourse of the old Indian, related by Las Casas, sliOAvcd that they had a religion rivalling Christianity in the simplicity of its pre- cepts and purity of its morality either a mysterious emanation of primitive nature untarnished by depravity and vice, or the tradition of an ancient civilization long since worn out and exhausted. After a long and fatiguing voyage of discovery, Columbus re- turned in a dying state to Ilispaniola. His fatigue and anxiety, added to suffering and to the approach of age, unfelt by his mind, but weigh- ing upon his body, for a time triumphed over his genius. His sailors brought him back to Isabella insensible and exhausted. But Provi- dence, which had never abandoned him, watched over him during the abeyance of his faculties. On recovering from his long uncon- teciousness, be found his beloved brother, Bartholomew Columbus, sitting by his bedside. He had come from Europe to Ilispaniola, aa though he had felt a presentiment of his brother's danger and need. Bartholomew was endowed with the strength of the family, as Diego had the gentleness, and. Christopher the genius. The vigor of hia body equalled the energy of his mind. Of athletic frame and iron nerve, with robust health, a commanding aspect, and a powerful voice, that could be heard above wind and AVUVCS ; a sailor from his youth, a soldier and an adventurer all his life ; gifted by nature and CHRISTOPHEK COLUMBUS. 47 by habit with the boldness that secures obedience, and the integrity which insures submission ; as fit for command as for contest ; ho was the very man whom Columbus most wanted in the dangerous extremity to which anarchy had reduced his kingdom ; and more than all this, he was a brother imbued with as much respect as at- tachment for the head and honor of his house. His near relationship made Columbus certain of the fidelity of his lieutenant. The attach- ment of the brothers to each other was the pledge of confidence on one side and submission on the other. Columbus, during the long months throughout which exhausted nature compelled himself to in- action and rest, gave up the government and authority to him, under the title of Adelantado, or superintendent and vice-governor of the lands under his rule. Bartholomew, a severer administrator than Christopher, commanded more respect, but raised more opposition than his brother. The*rashness and treachery of the young Spanish warrior, Ojeda, raised a war of despair between the Indians and the colony. That intrepid adventurer, having advanced with some horsemen into the most distant and independent portions of the island, persuaded one of the caciques to return with him to Isabella, with a great number of Indians, to sec the grandeur and wealth of the Europeans. The cacique was induced to follow him. After some days' march, when they halted on the bank of a river, Ojeda, practising on the simplicity of the Indian chief, showed him a pair of handcuffs of polished steel, whose brilliancy dazzled him. Ojeda told him that these irons were bracelets, which the kings of Europe wore on grand days when they met their subjects. His host was induced to wear them, and to ride on horseback like a Spaniard, that his subjects might see him in this pretended dress of the sovereigns of the Old World. The cacique had scarcely put on the handcuffs, and mounted behind the cunning Ojeda, when the Spanish horsemen galloped off with their prisoner, crossed the island, and brought him in chains to the colony, where they kept him in the irons which his childish vanity had induced him to put on. A vast insurrection roused the Indians against this perfidy of strangers, whom they had at first considered as guests, friends, bene- factors, and gods. This insurrection brought down upon them the vengeance of the Spaniards. They reduced the Indians to a state of slavery, and sent four vessels to Spain, loaded with these victims of their avarice, to make an infamous traffic in human cattle ; thus, making up, by the price of slaves, for the gold which they expected to pick up like dust, in countries where they found nothing but blood, the war degenerated into a man-hunt. Dogs brought from Europe, and trained to this chase in the forests, tracking down, throttling, and worrying the natives, assisted the Spaniards in thin- inhuman devastation of the country. Columbus, at length recovered from his long illness, on re-assuming 48 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. the reins of government, -was himself drawn into the wars which had broken out during his illness. He became a warrior and then a peacemaker, after his sailor's life. He gained some decisive battles over the Indians, obliged them to submit to the yoke which gentle- ness and policy made easy, and merely subjected them to a small tribute of gold and the fruits of their country, rather as a token of alliance than of slavery. The island again flourished under his moderation ; but the unhappy and confiding cacique, Guacanagari, who had been the first to receive the strangers, ashamed and vexed even to despair at having been the involuntary accomplice of his country's ruin, fled into the innaccessible mountains of the interior, anddied there a freeman, rather than live a slave under the laws of those who had taken a shameful advantage of his kindness. During the sickness of Columbus and the troubles in the island, his enemies at court had injured him in the favor of Ferdinand. Isabella, more firm in her admiration of this great man, tried in vain to interpose her protection. The court sent to Hispaniola a magis- trate invested with secret powers, authorizing him to take informa- tions concerning alleged crimes of the viceroy, and to dispossess him of his authority and send him back to Europe, if the accusations were confirmed. This partial judge, named Aguado, arrived at His- paniola, while the viceroy was at the head of the troops in the in- terior of the island, employed in pacifying and managing the coun- try. Forgetting the gratitude which he owed Columbus, as the first cause of his wealth, Aguado, even before collecting information, declared Columbus guilty, and provisionally deprived him of his sovereign authority. Surrounded and applauded on landing by the malcontents of the colony, he ordered Columbus to come to Isabella, the Spanish capital, and to acknowledge his authority. Columbus, surrounded by his friends and his devoted soldiery, might easily have refused obedience to the insolent commands of a subordinate. He, however, bowed before the mere name of his sovereign, went unarmed to Aguado, and giving up all his authority, allowed him to carry on the infamous trial to which his calumniators had subjected him. But at the very moment when his fortune was thus waning before persecution, it bestowed on him the favor of all others the most sure to reconcile him with the court. One of his young officers, named Miguel Dias, having killed one of his companions in a duel, fled away, for fear of chastisement, into one of the back parts of the island. The tribe that inhabited that district was governed by the wid- ow of a cacique, a young Indian of great beauty." She became deeply enamoured of the Spanish fugitive, and married him. But Dias, though loved and presented with a crown by the object of his affec- tion, could not forget his country, or conceal the sadness which his exile threw over him. His wife, questioning him as to the cause of his melancholy, was informed that gold was the passion of tho hixuuards, and that they would come and live with him in that coun- CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 40 try if they could hope to find the precious metal. The young Indian, overjoyed at having the means of retaining the man she loved, ac- quainted him with the existence of inexhaustible mines hidden among the mountains. Having learned this secret) and being certain that it would procure his pardon, Dias hastened to inform Columbus of the discovery of this treasure. The brother of the viceroy, I'.ai tholomew, went off with Dias and an armed escort to verify flic dis- covery. In a few days they reached a valley in which "a si ream rolled down gold-dust among its sand, and where the rocks in the bed of the river were covered with shining particles of the metal. Columbus established a fort in the neighborhood, worked and en- larged mines opened long before, and collected immense wealth for his sovereigns, becoming more and more convinced that lie had dis- covered the fabulous land of Ophir. Dias, grateful and true to the young Indian to whom he owed his pardon, his fortune, and his hap- piness, had his marriage with her blessed by the priests of his own faith, and governed her tribe in peace. After this discovery Columbus yielded without hesitation to the orders of Aguado, and embarked with his judge for Spain. He, arrived, after a voyage of eight mouths, more like a criminal led to execution than a conqueror returning with trophies. Calumny, incredulity, and reproach met him at Cadi/. Spain, which expected wonders, saw nothing come back from the laud of its dreams imt broken adventurers, accusers, and naked slaves. The unfortunate cacique, still confined in the fetters of Ojeda, and taken over as a living trophy for Ferdinand and Isabella, died at sea, cursing his confidence in the Europeans and their treachery. Columbus, adapting his dress to the sadness and misery of his situ- ation, went to Burgos, where the court then was, in a Franciscan's dress, with nothing over it but a cord for a girdle ; his head bowed down with years, care, and affliction ; white-haired and barefooted. lie represented Genius kneeling to Glory for pardon. Isabella alon .1 received him with kind compassion, and persisted in giving credit to his virtue and his services. This constant though secret favor of tin; queen sustained the admiral against the detractions and calumnies of the court. He proposed new voyages and vaster discoveries. They consented to trust him with more vessels, but they made him waste, by systematic delays, the few years for which his advanced age left him strength. The pious Isabella, while granting Columbus fresh titles and powers, stipulated, on behalf of the Indians, for con ditious of liberty and humanity far in advance of the ideas of her time. The instinct of a woman's heart condemned that slavery which religion and philosophy could not abolish until four hundred years later. At length Columbus was acquitted, and again allowed to embark and set sail for his new country ; but hatred and envy fol- lowed him even on board the vessel on which he hoisted his Hag as Admiral of the Ocean. Breviesca, the treasurer of the patriarch of ;,(( CHRlSTOPllKU COLUAIiJl'b. the Indies, and Fonseca, tlie enemy of Columbus, outrageously aimscd the admiral just as lie was hesving anchor. Columbus, who until then had been restrained by his own strength of character, his patience, and his feeling of the greatness of his mission, now, for the first time, gave vent to his wrath. At this last insult of his ene- mies he at length gave way to human passion, and striking with all the vigor of his spirit and all the strength of his arm, redoubled by anger, at his vile persecutor, he felled him to the deck, and trampled him under foot in his scorn. Such was the farewell to the jealousy of Europe of him who seemed too great or too fortunate for a mor- tal. This sudden vengeance of the admiral raised a new cause of hatred in the heart of Fonseca, and gave his enemies a new point of attack. The wind which sprung up carried him out of the reach of the insults, and out of sight of the shore, of his country. In this voyairc he changed his course, and reached the island of Trinidad, which he named. He rounded this island, and coasted the true shore of the American continent, near the mouth of the Orinoco. The freshness of the sea- water which he tasted in this neighborhood ought, to have convinced him that a river which poured a sufficient flood upon the ocean to freshen its waves could only come from the bosom of a continent. He landed, however, on this coast without sus- pecting that it was the shore of the unknown world. He found it deserted and silent as a laud waiting for inhabitants. A distant column of smoke rising over its vast forests, an abandoned hut, and some traces of bare feet on the sand, were all that he beheld of America. He did but plant his footstep there, and pass a single night under the sail which served him for a tent ; but even this short land- ing ought to have been sufficient to bequeath his name to the new hemisphere. He quitted the Gulf of Paria, and after a laborious survey of these seas, revisited the coasts of Hispaniola. His afflictions of mind and body, his long delay in Spain, the ingratitude of his fellow-country* men, the coldness of Ferdinand, the hatred of his ministers, his want uf sleep during his voyages, and the infirmities of age, hail affected him more than fatigue. His eyes were inflamed from want of rest and from ga/ing upon maps and stars ; his limbs, stiffened and achintr with the gout, could scarcely support him. His mind alone was vigorous ; and his genius, piercing into the future, carried him in thought beyond his sufferings and beyond his time. Bartholomew Columbus, his brother, who had continued to govern the colony dur- ing his absence, was again his consolation and succor. He came to meet the admiral as soon as his scouts signalled a sail in sight. Harlholomcw related to his brother the vicissitudes of the colony dur- ing his absence. lie had scarcely finished the exploration and subjuga- tion of the country, when the disorders of the Spaniards and the conspiracies of his own lieutenants undid the effects of his wisdom and energy. A superintendent of the colony, named Roldan, popu- CHKISTOPIIER COLUMBUS. 51 lar and cunning, got together a party among; the sa.lors and adven- turers, the refuse of Spain, thrown off by the mother country upon flu; colony. He established himself with them on the opposite shore of San Domingo, and leagued against Bartholomew, with the caciques of the neighboring tribes. He built or captured forts, in which he defied the authority of his legitimate chief. The Indians, seeing these divisions among their tyrants, took advantage of them to rise in insurrection, and to refuse the tribute. The new settlement was in complete anarchy. The heroism of Bartholomew alone retained some fragments of power in his hands. Ojrda freighted vessels on his own account for Spain ; he cruised an 1 made a descent on the southern shore of the island, and leagued himself with Roldan. Then Roldan betrayed Ojeda, and ranged himself again under the authority of the governor. During these disturbances of the colony, a young Spaniard, of remarkable beauty, Don Fernando de Guerara, won the love of the daughter of Anacoana, the widow of the cacique whom Ojeda had sent to Spain, but who died on the voyage. Anacoana herself was still young, and celebrated among the tribes of tho island for her incomparable beauty, her natural genius, and her poet- ical talent, which made her the adored Sibyl of her countrymen. Notwithstanding the misfortunes of her husband, she entertained a great admiration and an unconquerable predilection for tin* Spaniards. The numerous tribes which she and her brother erned afforded a safe asylum to these strangers. She extended {8 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. of " Castile ! Castile !" and abused and insulted the admiral. Co- lumbus, whose illness made him helpless, and who could scarcely raise his hands to heaven to pray, in vain begged of them to return to their duty. They despised alike his entreaties and his orders. They reproached him with his age, his white hairs, his personal sufferings, and even raised their weapons against him. Bartholo- mew Columbus seized his lance and rushed between the mutineers and the admiral, who was supported in the arms of his servants. Assisted by a part of the crew, he succeeded in saving the life and maintaining the authority of his brother on board the vessels. The two Porras and fifty of their accomplices quitted the ships, ravaged the country, raised the enmity of the natives by their excesses, and tried unsuccessfully to build vessels to enable them to reach Hispa- niola an attempt in which part of them perished. They then came back and attacked Columbus and their fellow-countrymen on board the ships, but were repulsed by the stalwait arm of Bartholomew, who killed their chief, Francesco Porras ; and the remainder at length submitted to their duty, begging Columbus to forgive their ingratitude and their rebellion. Meanwhile the messenger of Columbus in his frail bark, guided by Providence across the waste of waters, had at length been thrown, a remnant of a distant wreck, upon the rocks of Ilispaniola. Guided across the island by the natives, he had succeeded, after endless fatigue and dangers, in reaching the governor Ovando. He gave him the admiral's message, and added to the interest of his mission by the pity which his account of the desperate situation of Columbus and his companions ought to have inspired in his countrymen. But, whether from incredulity, or indolence, or a secret hope of effecting the ruin of a rival too great for his presence not to be embarrassing, the Spanish authorities of Ilispaniola allowed, -under various preten- ces, days, and even months, to pass. Then they sent, as it were un- willingly, a small vessel, commanded by Escobar, merely to recon- noitre the position of the shipwrecked vessels without landing on the coast or speaking witli the crews. This vessel had appeared at a distance one night to Columbus and his sailors, and again disap- peared from their eyes so mysteriously, that their superstition had made them take it for a phantom-ship, which came to mock their hopes or to announce their death. Ovando at length made up hia mind to send ships to the admiral, to rescue him from sedition, famine, and death. After a sixteen months' shipwreck, the admiral, overcome with age and infirmities, incn used by his misfortunes, revisited, for a short season, the island which he had made an empire, and from which jealousy and ingrati- tude had driven him. He remained for some months in the house of the governor, well received in appearance, but deprived of all influ- ence in the government, seeing his enemies in favor, and his friends banished or persecuted for their fidelity to him grieving over tho CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 59 ruin anil slavery of the land which he had found a garden, and now left a grave to his beloved Indians. His own property confiscated, his revenues plundered, his estates depopulated or wasted, exposed him in his old age to poverty, want, and sickness. lie, and his son and brother, with a few servants, were at length put on board a ves- sel bound for Europe, and a continued tempest swept him on through storm after storm to San Lucar,' where he disembarked on the 7th of November, lie; was thence removed to Seville, where he arrived broken down in health, in a dying state, but unsubdued in spirit, unconquerable in will, and still full of hope for the future. The possessor of so many islands and continents had not where to lay his head. " If I want to cat or I o sleep," he writes to his son, " I must knock at the door of an inn, and oftentimes I have not the money to pay for a meal or a bed." His misfortunes and his poverty were less burdensome to him than the misery of his companions and ser- vants, whom his expectations had induced to follow his fortunes, and who reproached him v/ith their want. He wrote to the king and queen on their behalf. But, the ungrateful Forms, a defeated rebel, who owed his life to the magnanimity of Columbus, had pre- ceded him at court, and prejudiced Ferdinand against his benefac- tor. "I have served your Majesty," Columbus wrote to the king and queen, "with as much /eal and constancy as 1 would have worked for the liDpe of heaven, and if 1 have failed in anything, it is because my skill or power could not reach it." He relied with reason on the justice and favftr of his protectress Isabella, but this support of his cause was also about to fail him. Domestic misfortune had reached her also ; she was languishing, in- consolable for her favorite daughter's death. AVhile dying, she wrote in her will this evidence of her humility in her exalted station, and of constant love for the husband to whom she wished to remain united even in death : " I desire that my body be buried in the Al- hambra of Granada, in a grave level with the ground and trodden down, and that my name be engraved on a Hat tombstone. Hut if my lord the king chooses a burial-place in some other temple, or in some other part of our dominions, then I desire that my body be ex, humed, and removed, and buried by the side of his, in order that the union of our bodies in the grave may signify and attest the union of our hearts during our lives, and I hope, by the mercy of God, tho union of our souls in heaven." On hearing of the death of his benefactress, Columbus wrote to Diego in these words : " O my son, let this serve to teach you whal is now your duty. The first thing is to recommend the soul of out sovereign lady piously and affectionately to God. She was so good and so holy, that we may feel sure of her eternal glory, and of her being now sheltered in the bosom of God from the cares and tribula- tions of this world. The second thing that I have to desire is, that you will watch and labor with all your might for the king's service. 60 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. he is the chief of Christendom. Remember, with regard to him,, that when the head suffers, all the limbs feel it. All the world ought to pray for the peace and preservation of his life, but especially we who are his servants." Such were Columbus's feelings of gratitude and fidelity, even at the height of his disappointments. But the death of Isabella affected not only his fortunes, but his life. Obliged to stop at Seville, for want of means and by increasing infirmities, his only comforters wera his brother Bartholomew and his second son Fernando. This son, now sixteen years of age, exhibited all the serious qualities of middle life, with all the graces of youth. "Love him as a brother," Co- lumbus writes to his eldest son Diego, then at court ; " you have no other. Ten brothers would not be too many for you. I never had better friends than my brothers." He desired Bartholomew to take the youth to court, and commend him to the care of his legitimate son, Diego. Bartholomew started with Fernando for Segovia, where the court then resided. He in vain solicited attention and justice for Columbus. When the approach of spring made the air more genial, Columbus, accompanied by his brother and his sons, set out himself for Segovia. His presence was troublesome to the king, and his poverty was felt as a reproach. The judgment on his conduct, and the question of restoring his property, were referred to courts of con- science, which, without venturing to deny his rights, wore out his patience by delay. They were at the same time wearing put his life. His mental anxiety, *md his sense of the poverty in which he was likely to leave his brothers and sons, added to his bodily sufferings. From his sick-bed he wrote to the !;ing : "Your Majesty does not think fit to keep the promises which I have received from you, and from the queen, who is now in glory. To struggle with your will would be wrestling with the wind. I have .done my duty. "May Cod, who has always been good to me, accomplish what remains, ac- cording to his divine justice !" He felt that life, and not his firmness, was about to fail him. His brother Bartholomew and his son Diego had gone by his order to petition the Queen Juana, Isabella's daughter, who was returning from Flanders to Castile. Physical sufferings and mental anguish ; the feeling that his days, of which too few remained to leave him a hope of seeing justice done, were drawing to a close ; the triumpl^ of his enemies at court, the contempt of the courtiers, the coldness of the prince, the approach of death, the loneliness in which he was left in a forgetful or ungrateful town by the absence of his brother and sons ; the remembrance of a life of which one half was spent in waiting for the advent of a great destiny, and the other half in brood- ing over the uselessness of genius ; doubtless, also, pity for the inno- cent and happy race of Indians, whom he had found free and infan- tile in their garden of dcliirht, and whom he left slaves, despoiled and outraged, in the hands of their oppressors; his brothers without sup- CHRISTOPHER COLtJMBtS. 61 port, and his sons without inheritance ; doubts as to the judgment of posterity on his fame ; the agony of genius misunderstood all these afflictions of his limbs, body, soul, and mind of the past, the present, and the future united in weighing upon the spirit of the old man in his lone chamber in Segovia, during the absence of his brothers and his sons. He asked one of his servants the old and last remaining companion of his voyages, his glory, and his misfor- tunes to bring to his bedside a little breviary, a gift made him by Pope Alexander the Sixth, at the time when sovereigns treated him as a sovereign. He wrote his will, with a weak hand, on a page of this book, to which he attributed the virtue of divine consecration. Strange sight for his poor servant ! An old man abandoned by tho world, and dying on a pauper's bed in a hired chamber at Segovia, distributing, in his will, seas, hemispheres, islands, continents, na- tions, and empires ! He appointed, as his principal heir, his legiti mat is son Diego ; in case of his dying without issue, his rights were to pass to his natural brother, the young Fernando ; and lastly, if Fernando also died without leaving children, the inheritance passed to his uncle, Don Bartholomew, and his descendants. " I pray niy sovereigns and their successors," lie continued, " to maintain forever my wishes in the distribution of my rights, my goods, and my charges for I, a native of Genoa, came to Castile to serve them, and have discovered in the far West the continent and the isles of In- dia ! . . . My son is to inherit my oltice of admiral of the seas to the westward of a line drawn from one pole to the other ! . . ." Passing from this to the distribution of the revenue guaranteed to him by his treaty with Isabella and Ferdinand, the old man divided, with liberality and wisdom, the millions which were to accrue to his family, between his sons and his brother Bartholomew. He assigned one fourth to this brother, and two millions a year to Fernando, his second son. He remembered the mother of this child, Donna Bea- trice Enriquez, whom he had never married, and with whose aban- donment during his long wanderings on the ocean his conscience re- proached him. lie charged his heir to make a liberal pension to her who had been the companion of his days of obscurity, when lie was struggling at Toledo, against the hardships of his former lot. lie even seemed to accuse himself of some ingratitude or neglect toward this his second love, for he appends to the legacy on her behalf these words, which must have hung heavy on his dying hand " and let. this be done for the relief of my conscience, for her name and recol- lection are a heavy load upon my soul." Then, reverting to that first country which the adoption of another can never efface from remembrance, he called to mind the city of Cenoa, in which time had swept away all his father's house, but where he still had SOUK; distant relatives, like the roots which re- main in the ground when the trunk is hewn down. " 1 command Diego, my son," he writes, " always to maintain in the city of GUOH 62 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. a member of our family, who may reside there with his wife, and to s-erure him an honorable sustenance, such as befits a relative of ours. I desire that this relative may retain his domicile, and the cit- i/.rnship of that city ; for there was 1 born, and thence did I come." "Let my son," he adds, with that chivalrous sentiment of his own vassalage and allegiance to the sovereign, which at that time constituted almost a second religion " let my son serve, in remem- bianre of me, the king and queen and their successors, even to the i;>ss of the goods of this life, since, after God, it was they who fur- iiNhcd me with the means of making my discoveries." " It is very true," he goes on to say, with an involuntary bitter- ness of expression, like an ill repressed feeling of injury, "that I came from afar to make the offer, and that much time elapsed before any one would believe in the gift I brought their Majesties ; but this was natural ; for it was for all the world a mystery which could not fail to excite unbelief ! Wherefore I must share the glory with these sovereigns who were the first to put faith in me." Columbus's thoughts next reverted to God, whom he had always looked upon as his only true suzerain, as if he had been the immedi- ate vassal of that Providence, whose instrument and minister above all others he felt himself to be. Resignation and enthusiasm, the two mainsprings of his life, did not fail him in the hour of death. lie humbled himself beneath the hand of nature, and was exalted by the hand of God, whom he had always held in sight through all his triumphs and reverses, and of whom he had a nearer view at the moment of his departure from earth. He was full of repentance for his faults, and of hope in his double immortality. A poet in his heart, as may be seen in his discourses and writings, he took from the sacred poetry of the psalms the last yearnings of his soul, and the last utterance of his lips. He pronounced in Latin his last farewell to this world, and yielded up aloud his soul to the Creator. A ser- vant satisfied with his work, and dismissed from the visible world, which his labors had extended, he departed for the invisible world, to take possession of the immeasurable expanse of the infinite uni- verse. The envy and ingratitude of his age and of his king vanished with the last breath of the great man whom they had made their victim. His contemporaries seemed anxious to make amends to the dead for the persecutions they had infiicted on the living. They gave Colum- bus a royal funeral. His body, and afterward that of his son, after having successively occupied several monuments in various Spanish cathedrals, were removed and buried, according to their wishes, in Hiapaniola, as conquerors in the laud they had won. They now rest in Cuba. But, by a singular decision of Providence or an ungrateful Caprice of man, of all the lands of America which disputed the honor of retaining his ashes, not one retained his name. All the characteristics of the truly great man are united in Colum- CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. !;.} bus. Genius, labor, patience, obscurity of origin, overcome by en- ergy of will ; mild but persisting firmness, resignation toward Hea- ven, struggle against the world ; long conception of the idea in soli- tude, heroic execution of it in action ; intrepidity and coolness in storms, fearlessness of death in civil strife ; confidence in the des- tiny not of an individual, but of the human race a life risked with- out hesitation or retrospect in venturing into the unknown and phan- tom-peopled ocean, 1500 leagues across, and on which the first step no more allowed of second thoughts than Caesar's passage of the Rubicon ! untiring study, knowledge as extensive as the science of his day, skilful but honorable management of courts to persuade them to truth ; propriety of demeanor, nobleness and dignity in out- ward bearing, which affords proof of greatness of mind, and attracts eyes- and hearts ; language adapted to the grandeur of his thoughts ; eloquence which could convince kings, and quell the mutiny of his crews ; a natural poetry of style, which placed his narrative on a par with the wonders of his discoveries and the marvels of nature ; an immense, ardent, and enduring love for the human race, piercing even into that distant future in which humanity forgets those that do it service ; legislative wisdom and philosophic mildness in the government of his colonies ; paternal compassion for those Indians, infants of humanity, whom he wished to give over to the guardian- ship not to the tyranny and oppression of the Old World ; forget- fulness of injury, and magnanimous forgiveness of his enemies ; and, lastly, piety, that virtue which includes and exalts all other vir- tues, when it exists as it did in the mind of Columbus the constant presence of God in the soul, of justice in the conscience, of mercy in the heart, of gratitude in success, of resignation in reverses, of worship always and everywhere. Such was the man. We know of none more perfect. He con- tained several impersonations within himself. He was worthy to rep resent the ancient world before that unknown continent on whick he was the first to set foot, and to carry to these men of a new nice all the virtues, without any of the vices, of the elder hemisphere. His influence on civilization was immeasurable. He completed the world ; he realized the physical unity of the globe. He advanced, far beyond all that had been done before his time, the work of (Jod the SPIRITUAL UNITY OP THE HUMAN RACE. This work, in which Columbus had so largely assisted, was indeed too great to be wor- thily rewarded even "by affixing his name to the fourth continent. America bears not that name ; but the human race, drawn together and cemented by him, will spread his renown over the face of tlir> whole earth. THE END. VITTORIA COLONNA. (1490-1547.) CHAPTER I. Changes in the Condition of Italy. Dark Days. Circumstances which led to the Invasion of the French. State of things in Naples. Fall of the Arragoneso Dynasty. Birth of Vittoria. The Colonna. Marino. Vittoria's Betrothal. The Duchess di Francavilla. Literary Culture at Naples. Education of Vittoria in Ischia. THE signs of change, "which were perplexing monarchs at the period of Vittoria Colonna's entry on the scene, belonged simply to the material order of things ; and such broad outline of them as is nec- essary to give some idea of the general position of Italy at that day may be drawn in few words. Certain more important symptoms of changes in the world of thought and speculation did not rise to the surface of society till a few years later, and these will have to be spoken of in a subsequent page. When Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, was murdered in 1476, his son, Gian Galeazzo, a minor, succeeded to the dukedom. But liis uncle Ludovico, known in history as " Ludovico il Moro," under pretence of protecting his nephew, usurped the whole power and property of the crown, which he continued wrongfully to keep in his own hands, even after the majority of his nephew. The latter, however, having married a grand-daughter of Ferdinand of Arragon, King of Naples, her father, Alphonso, heir apparent of that crown, became exceedingly discontented at the state of tutelage in which his son-in-law was thus held. And his remonstrance's and threats lie-i came so urgent that " Black Ludovick" perceived that he should he. unable to retain his usurped position unless he could find means of disabling Ferdinand and his son Alphonso from exerting their strength against him. With this view he persuaded Charles VlII. of France to undertake with his aid the conquest of the kingdom of Naples, to which the French monarch asserted a claim, derived from the house of Anjou, which had reigned in Naples till they were ousted by the house of Arragon. This invitation, which the Italian historians consider the first fountain-head of all their calamities, was 4 VITTORIA COLONNA. given in 1492. On the 23d of August, 1494, Charles left France on bis march to Italy, and arrived in Koine on the 31st of December of that year. On the previous 25th of January, Ferdinand, the old King of Na- ples, died, and his son Alphonso succeeded him. But the new monarch, who during the latter years of his father's life had wielded the whole power of the kingdom, was so much hated by his subjects that, on the news of the French king's approach, they rose iii rebel- lion and declared in favor of the invader. Alphonso made no at- tempt to face the storm, but forthwith abdicated in favor of his sou Ferdinanfl, fled to Sicily, and " set about serving God," as the chroni- clers phrase it, in a monastery, where he died a few months later, on the 19th of November, 1495. Ferdinand II., his son, was not disliked by the nation ; and Guic- ciardini gives it as his opinion that if the abdication of his father in his favor had been executed earlier it might have had the effect of saving the kingdom from falling into the hands of the French mon- arch. But it was now too late. A large portion of it had already declared itself in favor of the invaders. Ferdinand found the contest hopeless, and early in 1495 retired to Ischia. Charles entered Naples the 21st of February, 1495, and the whole kingdom hastened to ac- cept him as its sovereign. Meantime, however, Ludovico, Duke of Milan, whose oppressed nephew had died on the 22d of October, 1494, began to be alarmed at the too complete success of his own policy, and entered into a league with the Venetians, the King of the Romans, and Ferdinand of Castile, against diaries, who seems to have immediately become as much panic-stricken at the news of it as Alphonso had been at his approach. The French, moreover, both the monarch and his fol- lowers, had lost no time in making themselves so odious to the Nca- po'ilans that the nation had already repented of having abandoned Ferdinand so readily, and were anxious to get rid of the French and receive him back again. Towards the end of May, 149."), Charles hastily left Naples on his return to France, leaving Gilbert dc Mont- peiiMer as Viceroy ; and on the 7th of July Ferdinand returned to .Naples, and was gladly welcomed by the people. And now, having thus the good-will of his subjects, already dis- gusted with their French rulers, Ferdinand might m all probability have succeeded without any foreign assistance in ridding his country of the remaining French troops left behind him by Charles, and in re-establishing the dynasty of Arragon on the throne of Naples, had he not, at the time when things looked worst with him, on the first coming of Charles, committed the fatal error of asking assistance from Ferdinand the Catholic, of Castile. Ferdinand the Catholic and the crafty, did not wait to be asked a econd time ; but instantly dispatched to his aid Con:-alvo Kniandc/, d'Aguilar, known thereafter iu Neapolitan history as " 11 gran VICTORIA COLOKNA. 5 Capitano," both on account of his rank as Generalissimo of the Span- ish forces, and of his high military merit and success. Ferdinand of ^rragon, with the help of Consalvo and the troops he brought with bim, soon succeeded in driving the French out of his kingdom ; and appeared to be on the eve of a more prosperous period, when a sud- den illness put an end to his life, in October, 1496. He died without offspring, and was succeeded by his uncle Frederick. Thus, as the Neapolitan historians remark, Naples had passed un- der the sway of no less than five monarchs in the space of three years, to wit: Ferdinand of Arragon, the first, who died the 25th of January, 1494. Alphouso, his son, who abdicated on the 3d of February, 1495. Charles of France, crowned at Naples on the 20th of May, 1493, and driven out of the kingdom immediately afterwards. Ferdinand of Arragon, II., son of Alphonso, who entered Naples in triumph on the 7t ,l\ of July, 1-105, and died in October, 1496. Frederick of Arragon, his uncle, who succeeded him. But these so rapid changes had not exhausted the slides of For- tune's magic lantern. She had other harlequinade transformations in hand, sufficient to make even Naples tirccl of change and desirous of repose. Frederick, the last, and perhaps the best, and best-loved of the Neapolitan sovereigns of the dynasty of Arragon, resigned but to witness the linal discomfiture and downfall of his house. Charles VIII. died in April, 1438; but his successor, Louis XII.. was equally anxious to possess himself of the crown of Naples, ;m;l more able to carry his views into effect. The principal obstacle t> his doing so was the power of Ferdinand of Spain, and the presence of the Spanish troops under Consalvo of Naples. Ferdinand the Catholic could by no means permit the .spoliation of bis kinsman an 1 ally, Frederick, who loyally relied on his protection fur the profit of the King of Fiance. Louis knew that it was impossible he should d > BO. But the Most Christian King thought that the Most Catholic King might very probably find it consistent with kingly honor !> take a different view of the case, if it were proposed to him to u> shares in the plunder. And the Most Christian King's estimate of royal nature was so just that the Most Catholic King acceded in the frankest manner to his royal brother's proposal. Louis accordingly sent an army to invade Naples in the year 1500. The unfortunate Frederick was beguiled the while into thinking that his full trust might be placed on the assistance of Spain. I'.ut when, on the 25th of June, 1501, the Borgia Pope, Alexander VII., pub- lished a bull graciously dividing his dominions between the two eld- est sons of the church, he perceived at once that his position \\.is hopeless. Resolving, however, not to abandon his kingdom without making an attempt to preserve it, ho determined to defend himself in Capua, That city was, however, taken by the French on the 24th of 6 VITTOKIA July, 1501, and Frederick fled to Ischia ; whence he subsequently re- tired to France, and died at Tours on the 9th of November, 1504. Meanwhile the royal accomplices, having duly shared their booty, instantly begun to quarrel, as thieves are wont to do, over thedivis- ion of it. Each in fact had from the first determined eventually to 18 himself of the whole ; proving, that if indeed there be honor among thieves, the proverb must not be understood to apply to such us are " Most Christian" and " Most Catholic." Naples thus became the battle-field, us well as thepri/e, of the con- tending parties ; and was torn to pieces in the struggle while waiting to see which invader was to be her master. At length the Spaniard proved the stronger, as he was also the more iniquitous of the two - T nnd on the 1st of January, 1504, the French finally quitted the king- dom of "Naples, leaving it in the entire and peaceful possession of Ferdinand of Spain. Under him, and his successors on the Spanish throne, the unhappy province was governed by a series of viceroys, of whom, says Colletta,* " one here and there was good, many bad enough, and several execrable," for a period of 230yeais, with results still visible. Such was the scene on which our heroine had to enter in the year l-t'.K). She was the daughter of Fabrizio, brother of that protonotary Colonna whose miserable death at the hands of the hereditary ene- mies of his family, the Orsini, allied with the liiarii, then in power for the nonce during the popedom of Sixtus IV., has been related in the life of Caterina Sforza. Her mother was Agnes of Montefeltre ; find all the biographers and historians tell us that she was the young- est of six children born to her parents. The statement is a curious insiaiicc of the extreme and very easily detected inaccuracy which may often be found handed on unchallenged from one generation to another of Italian writers of biography and history. The Cavalierc Pietro Visconti, the latest Italian, and by far the most complete of Vittoria's biographers, who edited a handsome edition of her works not published, but printed in 1840 at the expense .if the prince-banker, Torlonia, on the occasion of his marriage with the Princess Donna Teresa Colonna, writes thus at page 55 of the lifo prefixed to this votive volume : " The child (Vittoria) increased and Completed the number of children whom Agues of MontefeHre, daughter of Frederick, Duke of Urbino, had presented to her hus- band." He adds in anote, " this princess had already had five sons, Frederick, Ascanio, Fcrdinando, Camillo, Sciarra." < 'oppj, In his " Memorie Colonnesi," makes no mention f of the last three giving as the offspring of Fabrizio and Agnes, only Freder- ick, Ascanio, and Vittoria. Led by this discrepancy to examine far- * Storia di N:ij.., lib. i. cap. 1. t H speaks, indeed (p. 380), of Sciarra as a brother of Acanio ; adding that h wo* illegitimate. VICTORIA GOLOHNA. 7 thcr the accuracy of Viscouti's statement, I found that Agnes di Montefeltre was born in 1472 ; and was, consequently, eighteen years old at the time of Vittoria's birth. It became clear, therefore, that it was exceedingly improbable, not to say impossible, that he should have had five children previously. But I found farther, that Freder- ick, the eldest son, and always hitherto said to have been the elt, child of Agnes, died, according to the testimony of his tombstone,* still existing in the Church of Santa Maria di Pallazzola, in the year 1516, being then in his nineteenth year. He was, therefore, born in 1497 or 1498, and must have been seven or eight years younger than Vittoria ; who must, it should seem, have been the eldest, and not the youngest, of her parents' children. It can scarcely be necessary to tell even the most exclusively Eng- lish reader how ancient, how noble, how magnificent, was the princely house of Colonna. They were so noble that their lawless violence, freebooting habits, private wars, and clan enmities, rendered them a scourge to their country ; and for several centuries contrib- uted largely to the mass of anarchy and barbarism, that rendered Rome one of the most insecure places of abode in Europe, and still taints the instincts of its populace with characteristics which make it one of the least civilizable races of Italy. The Orsini being equally noble, and equally poweiful and lawless, the high-bied mastiffs of either princely house for more than two hundred years, with short respites of ill-kept truce, never lost an opportunity of flying at each other's throats, to the infinite annoyance and injury of their less no- ble and more peaceably -disposed fellow -citizens. Though the possessions of the Colonna clan had before been wide- spread and extensive, they received considerable additions during tho Papacy of the Colouna pope, Martin V., great uncle of Fabrizio, Vittoria's father, who occupied the Papal chair from 1417 to l-l:;l. At the period of our heroine's birth the family property was im- mense. Very many were the fiefs held by the Colonna in the immediate neighborhood of the city, and especially among the hills to the east and south-east of the Campagna. There several of the strongest positions, and most delightfully situated towns and castles, be- longed to them. Among the more important of these was Marino, admirably placed among the hills that surround the lovely lake of Albano. Few excursionists among the storied sites in the environs of Rome make Marino the object of a pilgrimage. The town haa a bad name in these days. The Colonna vassals who inhabit it, and still pay to the feudal lord a tribute, recently ruled by the Roman tribunals to be due (a suit having been instituted by the inhabitant* wilh a view of shaking off this old mark of vassalage), are said to be eminent Coppi, Mem. Col., p. 2G9, 8 VITTOltIA COLONtfA. among the inhabitants of the Campagna for violence, lawlessness, and dishonesty. The bitterest hatred, the legacy of old wrong and oppression, is felt by them against their feudal lords ; and this senti- ment, which, inherited, as it seems to be, from generation to genera- tion, speaks but little in favor of the old feudal rule, does not tend to make the men of Marino good or safe subjects. Many a stranger has, however, probably looked down from the beautifully wooded heights of Castle Gandolfo on the picturesquely gloomy little walled town creeping up the steep side of its hill, and crowned by the ancient seignorial residence it so much detests. And any one of these would be able to assure a recent intensely French biographer of Vittoria that he is in error in supposing that the town and castle of Marino have so entirely perished and been forgotten that the site of them even is now unknown ! * On the contrary, the old castle has recently been repaired and mod ernized into a very handsome nineteenth-century residence, to the no small injury of its outward appearance in a picturesque and his- toric-al point of view. The interior still contains unchanged several of the nobly proportioned old halls, which were planned at a time when mighty revels in the rare times of peace, and defence in the more normal condition of clan warfare, were the object held in view by the builder. Many memorials of interest, moreover, pictures, and other records of the old times, were brought to Marino from Pa- liano, when the Colouna family were, in the time of the last pope, most unjustly compelled to sell the latter possession to the Roman government. Paliauo, which from its mountain position is extremely strong and easily defended, seemed to the government of the Holy Father to be admirably adapted to that prime want of a papal des- potism, a prison for political offenders. The Colonnas, therefore, were invited to sell it to the state ; and on their declining to do so, received an intimation that the paternal government having deter, mined on possessing it, and having also fixed the price they in- tended to give for it, no option in the matter could be permitted them. So Marino was enriched by all that was transferable of the ancient memorials that had gathered around the stronger mountain fortress in the course of centuries. It was at Marino that Vittoria was born, in a rare period of most unusually prolonged peace. Her parents had selected, we are told, from among their numerous castles, that beautiful spot, for the en- joyment of the short interval of tranquillity which smiled on their first years f of marriage. A very successful raid, in which Fabrizio and his cousin Prospero Colonna had harried the fiefs of the Orsini, * Which is the truly wonderful assertion of M. le Fevre Deumier, in his little Yolunic entitled " Vittoria Colonna." Paris, 1856, p. 7. t As it would appear, they must have been, from the datea given above, to show that Yittoria must have been tUeir first child. VITTOKIA COLONNA. 9 and driven off a great quantity of cattle,* had been followed by a peace made under the auspices of Innocent VIII. on the llth of Au- gust, 1486, which seems absolutely to have lasted till 1494, when we find the two cousins at open war with the new Pope Alexander VI. Far more important contests, however, were at hand, the progress of which led to the youthful daughter of the house being treated, while yet in her fifth year, as part of the family capital, to be madu use of for the advancement of the family interests, and thus lixed the destiny of her life. When Charles VIII. passed through Rome on his march against Naples, at the end of 141)4, the Colonna cousins sided with him ; placed themselves under his banners, and contributed materially to aid his successful invasion. But on his flight from Naples, in 14!);">, they suddenly changed sides, and took service under Ferdinand II. The fact of this change of party, which to our ideas seems to require so much explanation, probably appeared to their contemporaries a perfectly simple mutter ; for it is mentioned as such without any word of the motives or causes of it. Perhaps they merely sought to sever themselves from a losing game. Possibly, as we find them re- warded for their adherence to the King of Naples by the grant of a great number of net's previously possessed by the Orsiui, who were on the other side, they were induced to change their allegiance by the hope of obtaining those possessions, and by the Colonna instinct of enmity to the Orsini race. Ferdinand, however, was naturally anxious to have some better hold over his new friends than that furnished by their own oaths of fealty ; and with this view caused the infant Vittoria to be betrothed to his subject, Ferdinand d'Avalos, son of Alphonso, Marquis of Pescara, a child of about the same age as the little bride. Little, as it must appear to our modern notions, as f^ child's future happiness could have been cared for in the stipulMou of a contract entered into from such motives, it so turned out Urn noth- ing could have more effectually secured it. To Vittoria's parents, if any doubts on such a point had presented themselves to their minds, it would doubtless have appeared abundantly sufficient to know that the rank and position of the affianced bridegroom were such as to secure their daughter one of the highest places among the nobility of the court of Naples, and the enjoyment of vast and wide- spread possessions. But to Vittoria herself all this would not have been enough. And the earliest and most important advantage arising to her from her betrothal was the bringing her under the influence of that training, which made her such a woman as could not find her happiness in such matters. We are told that henceforth that is, after the betrothal she was educated, together with her future husband, in the island of Ischia, * Coppi. Mem. Col., p. 238, 10 VITTOKIA COLONNA. under the care of the widowed Duchessa di Francavilla, the young Pescara's elder sister. Costanza d'Avalos, Duchessa di Francavilla, appears to have been one of the most remarkable women of her time. When her father Alphonso, Marchessa di Pescara, lost his life by the treason of a black slave, on the 7th of September, 1495, leaving Ferdinand his son the heir to his titles and estates, an infant five years old, then quite recently betrothed to Vittoria, the Duchessa di Francavilla assumed the entire direction and governance of the family. So high was her reputation for prudence, energy, and trustworthiness in every way, that on the death of her husband, King Ferdinand made her governor and " chatelaine" of Ischia, one of the most important keys of the kingdom. Nor were her gifts ;md qualities only such as were calculated to fit her for holding such a post. Her contemporary, Caterina Sforza, would have made a " chatelaine" as vigilant, as prudent, as brave, and energetic as Cos- tanza. But the Neapolitan lady was something more than this. Intellectual culture had been held in honor at Naples during the entire period of the Arragonese dynasty. All the princes of that house, with the exception, perhaps, of Alphonso, the father of Fer- dinand II., had been lovers of literature and patrons of learning. Of this Ferdinand II., under whose auspices the young Pescara was betrothed to Vittoria, and who chose the Duchessa di Francavilla as his governor in Ischia, it is recorded that when returning hi tri- umph to his kingdom after the retreat of the French he rode into Naples with the Marchese de Pescara on his right hand, and the poet Cariteo on his left. Poets and their art especially were wel- comed in that literary court ; and the tastes and habits of the Nea- politan nobles were at that period probably more tempered by those studies, which humanize the mind and manners, than the chivalry of any other part of Italy. Among this cultured society Costanza d'Avalos was eminent for culture,, and admirably qualified in every respect to make an invalua- ble protectress and friend to her youthful sister-in-law. The trans- plantation, indeed, of the infant Colonna from her native feudal cas- tle to the Duchessa di Francavilla's home in Ischia was a change so complete and so favorable that it may be fairly supposed that with- out it the young Koman girl would not have grown into the woman she did. For in truth, Marino, little calculated, as it will be supposed such a stronghold of the ever turbulent Colonna was at any time fo afford the means and opportunity for intellectual culture, became, shortly after the period of Vittoria's betrothal to the heir of the D'Avalos, wholly unfit to offer her even a safe home. Whether it continued to be the residence of Agnes, while her husband Fabrizio was fighting in Naples, and her daughter was under the care of the Duchessa (fi Francavilla in Ischia, has not been recorded. But we find that when Fabrizio had deserted the French king, aud. ranged himself on the VITTORIA COLONNA. 11 side of Ferdinand of "Naples, he was fully aware of the danger to which his castles would be exposed at the hands of the French troops as they passed through Rome on their way to or from Naples. To provide against this, he had essayed to place them in safety by con- signing them as a deposit in trust to the Sacred College.* But Pope Borgia, deeming, probably, that he might find the means of possess- ing himself of some of the estates in question, refused to permit this, ordering that they should, instead, be delivered into his keeping. On this being refused, he ordered Marino to be levelled to UK- ground. And Guicciardiui Avrites,f that the Colonna, having placed garri- sons in Amelici and Rocca di Papa, two other of the family strong- holds, abandoned all the rest of the possessions in the Roman States. It seems probable, therefore, that Agnes accompanied her husband and daughter to Naples. Subsequently the same historian relates,! that Marino was burned by order of Clement VII. in 1520. So that it must be supposed that the order of Alexander for its utter de- struction in 1501 was not wholly carried into execution. The kingdom and city of Naples was during this time by no means without a large share of the turmoil and warfare that was vexing every part of Italy. Yet whosoever had his lot cast during those years elsewhere than in Rome was in some degree fortunate. And considering the general state of the peninsula, and her own so- cial position and connections, Vittoria may be deemed very particu- larly so, to have found a safe retreat and an admirably governed home on the rock of Ischia. In after-life we find her clinging to it with tenacious affection, and dedicating more than one sonnet to the remembrances which made it sacred to her. And though in her widowhood her memory naturally most frequently recurs to the happy years of her married life there, the remote little island had at least a strong claim upon her allections as the home of her childhood. For to the years there passed under the care of her noble sister-in- law, Costanza d'Avulos, she owed the possibility that the daughter of a Roman chieftain who passed his life in harrying others and being harried himself, and in acquiring as a " condottiere" captain the rep- utation of one of the first soldiers of his day, could become eitner morally or intellectually the woman Vittoria Colonna became. * Coppi. Mem. Col., p. 243. t Book v. chap. ii. $ Book ivii. chips, iii. and IT. 12 VITTOKIA COLON1U. CHAPTER II. Vittoria's Personal Appearance. First Love. A Noble Soldier of Fortune. Italian Wars of the fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. The Colonna Fortunes. IK-uUt of Ferdinand II. The Neapolitans carry Coals to Newcastle. Events in Ischia. Ferdinand of Spain in Naples. Life in Naples in the Sixteenth Century. Mar- riage of Pescara with Vittoria. Marriage Presents. FROM the time of her betrothal in 1495 to that of her marriage in 1509, history altogether loses sight of Vittoria. We must suppose her to be quietly and happily growing from infancy to adolescence under the roof of Costanza d'Avalos, the chatelaine of Ischia, sharing the studies of her future husband and present playmate, and increas- ing, as in stature, so in every grace both of mind and body. The young Pescara seems also to have profited by the golden opportuni- ties offered him of becoming something better than a mere prcux chevalier. A taste for literature, and especially for poesy, was then a ruling fashion among the nobles of the court of Naples. And the young Ferdinand, of whose personal beauty and knightly accom- plishments we hear much, manifested also excellent qualities of dis- position and intelligence. His biographer Giovio* tells us that his beard was auburn, his nose aquiline, his eyes large and fiery when excited, but mild and gentle at other times. He was, however, con- sidered proud, adds Bishop Giovio, on account of his haughty car- riage, the little familiarity of his manners, and his grave and brief fashion of speech. To his playmate Vittoria, the companion of his studies and hours of recreation, this sterner mood was doubtless modified ; and with all the good gifts attributed to him, it was natural enough that be- fore the time had come for consummating the infant betrothal, the union planned for political purposes had changed itself into a verila- ble love-match. The affection seems to have been equal on either side ; and Vittoria, if we are to believe the concurrent testimony of nearly all the poets and literateurs of her day, must have been beau- tiful and fascinating in no ordinary degree. The most authentic. portrait t of her is one preserved in the Colonna gallery at Koine, supposed to be a copy by Girolamo Muziano, from an original pic- ture by some artist of higher note. It is a beautiful face of the true Roman type, perfectly regular, of exceeding purity of outline, and perhaps a little heavy about the lower part of the face. But the calm, large, thoughtful eye, and the superbly developed forehead, secure it from any approach towards an expression of sensualism. The fulness of the lip is only sufficient to indicate that sensitiveness to and appreciation of beauty, whick constitutes an essential ele- * Olovio, Vita del Mar. di Pescara, Venice, 1557, p. 14. t Viiconti, Himi di Vit. Col., p. 39. VITTORIA COLutfNA. 13 ment In the poetical temperament. The hair is of that bright golden tint that Titian loved so well to paint ; and its beauty has been" espe- cially recorded by more than one of her contemporaries. The poet Galeazzo da Tarsia, who professed himself, after the fashion of the time, her most fervent admirer and devoted slave, recurs in many passages of his poems to those fascinating " chiome d'oro ;" as here he sings, with more enthusiasm than taste, of the "Trecce tl'or, che in gli alti giri, Kon e che' unqua pareggi o sole o Stella ;" or again where he tells us that the sun and his lady-love appeared " Ambi con chiome d'or lucide e terse." * But the testimony of graver writers, lay and clerical, is not want- ing to induce us to believe that Vittoria, in her prime, really misrht be considered " the most beautiful woman of her day," with more truth than that hackneyed phrase often conveys. So when at length the Colonna seniors, and the Uuchessa di Francavilla thought that the fitting moment had arrived for carrying into effect the long- standing engagement which was not till 1509, when the promessi sposi were both in their nineteenth year the young couple were thoroughly in love with each other, and went to the altar with every prospect of wedded happiness. But during these quiet years of study and development in little rock-bound Ischia, the world without was anything but quiet, as the outline of Neapolitan history in the last chapter sufficiently indi- cates ; and Fabrizio Colonna was ever in the thick of the confusion. As long as the Aragouese monarchs kept up the struggle, he fought for them upon the losing side ; but when, after the retreat of Fred- erick, the last ef them, the contest was between the French and the Spaniards, he chose the latter, which proved to be the winning side. Frederick, on abandoning Naples, threw himself on the hospitality of the King of France, an enemy much less hated by him than was Ferdinand of Spain, who had so shamefully deceived and betrayed him. But his high constable, Fabrizio Colonna, not sharing, as it should seem, his sovereign's feelings on the subject, transferred bis allegiance to the King of Spain. And again, this change of fealty and service seems to have been considered so much in the usual course of things that it elicits no remark from the contemporary writers. In fact, the noble Fabrizio, the bearer of a grand old Italian name, the lord of many a powerful barony and owner of many a mile of fair domain, a Roman patrician of pure Italian race, to whom, if to any, the honor, the independence, the interests, and the name of Ita'ly should have been dear, was a mere captain of free lan< Soldier of fortune, ready to sell his blood and great military talents in the best market. The best of his fellow nobles in all parts of A.B. 4 14 VITTORIA COLONKA. Italy were the same. Their profession was fighting. And mere fighting, in whatever cause, so it were bravely and knightly done, was the most honored and noblest profession of that day. So much of real greatness as could be imparted to the profession of war, by devotion to a iwson, might occasionally though not very frequently in Italy have been met with among the soldiers of that period. But all those elements of genuine heroism, which are generated by devotion to a cause, and all those ideas of patriotism, of resistance to wrong, and assertion of human rights, which compel the philosoplirr and philanthropist to admit that war may sometimes be rightcoun, noble, elevating, to those engaged in it, and" prolific of high thoughts and great deeds, were wholly unknown to the chivalry of Italy at the time in question. * And. indeed, as far as the feeling of nationality is concerned, the institution of knighthood itself, as it then existed, was calculated to prevent the growth of patriotic sentiment. For the commonwealth of chivalry was of European extent. The knights of England, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, were brothers in arms, linked together by a community of thought and sentiment infinitely strong- er than any which bound them to the other classes of their own countrymen. The aggregation of caste wholly overbore that of na- tionality. And the nature of the former, though not wholly evil iu its influences, any more than that of the latter is wholly good, is yet infinitely narrower, less humanizing, and less ennobling in its action on human motives and conduct. And war, the leading aggregative occupation of those days, was proportionally narrowed in its scope, deteriorated in its influences, and rendered incapable of supplying that stimulus to healthy human development which it has in its more noble forms indisputably sometimes furnished to mankind. And it is important to the great history of modern civilization that these truths should be recognized and clearly understood. For this same period, which is here in question, was, as all know, one of great intellectual activity, of rapid development, and fruitful pro- gress. And historical speculators on these facts, finding this un- usual movement of mind contemporaneous with a time of almost universal and unceasing warfare, have thought that some of the producing causes of the former fact were to be found in the exist- ence of the latter ; and have argued that the general ferment and stirring up produced by these chivalrous but truly ignoble wars as- sisted mainly in generating that exceptionally fervid condition of tlu- human mind. But, admitting that a time of national struggle for some worthy object may probably be found to exercise such an in- fluence as that attributed to the Italian wars of the fifteenth and six- teenth centuries, it is certain that, these latter were of no Buch enno bling nature. And the causes of the great intellectual movement of those centuries must therefore be sought elsewhere. From the time when " il gran Capitano" Coiisalvo, on behalf of VITTOEIA COLONtfA. 15 )us master, Ferdinand of Spain, having previously assisted the French in driving out the unfortunate Frederick, the last of the Aragonese kings of Naples, had afterwards finally succeeded in ex- pelling the French from their share of the stolen kingdom, the affairs of the Colonna cousins, Fabrizio and Prospero, began to brighten. The last French troops quitted Naples on January 1st, 1504. By a diploma, bearing date November 15th, 1504,* and still pre- served among the Colonna archives, eighteen baronies were con- ferred on Prospero Colonna by Ferdinand. On the 28th of the same month, all the fiefs which Fabrizio had formerly possessed in the Abnizzi were restored to him ; and by another deed, dated the same day, thirty-three others, in the Abruzzi and the Terra di Lavoro, were bestowed on him. In the mean time earth had been relieved from the presence of the Borgia Vicegerent of heaven, and Julius II. reigned in his stead. By him the Colonna were relieved from their excommunication and restored to all their Roman possessions. So that the news of the family fortunes, which from time to time reached the daughter of the house in her happy retirement in rocky Ischia, from the pe- riod at which she began to be of an age to appreciate the importance of such matters, were altogether favorable. But the tranquil life there during these years was not unbroken by sympathy with the. vicissitudes which were variously affecting the excitable city, over which the little recluse court looked from their island home. The untimely death of Ferdinand II., on Friday, Octo*- ber 7th, 1496, threw the first deep shade over the household of the Duchessa di Francavilla, which had crossed it since Vittoria had be- come its inmate. Never, according to the contemporary journalist Giuliano Passeri,f was prince more truly lamented by his people of every class. Almost immediately after his marriage, the young king and his wife both fell ill at Somma, near Naples. The diarist de- scribes the melancholy spectacle of the two biers, supporting the sick king and queen, entering their capital side by side. Every thing that the science of the time could suggest, even to the carrying in procession of the head as well as the blood of St. Januarius, was tried in vain. The young king, of whom so much was hoped, died ; and there arose throughout the city, writes Passeri, " a cry of weep- ing so great that it seemed as if the whole world were falling in ruin, all, both great and small, male and female, crying aloud to heaven for pity. So that I truly think that, since God made the world, a greater weeping than this was never known." Then came the great jubilee year, 1500 ; on which occasion a cir cumstance occurred that set all Naples talking. It was discussed, we may shrewdly conjecture, in a somewhat different spirit in that Ischia household, which most interests us, from the tone in which * Coppi. Mem. Col., p. 349. t Note 1. 16 VITTORIA COLONtfA. the excitable city chattered of it. At the beginning of April,* the Neapolitans, in honor of the great jubilee, sent a deputation, carry- ing with them the celebrated virgin, della Bruua dello Carmine, who justified her reputation, and did credit to her country, by working innumerable miracles all the way as she went. But what was the mortification of her bearers, when, arrived at Rome, the result of the fame arising from their triumphant progress was, that Pope Borgia, jealous of a foreign virgin, which might divert the alms of the faith- ful from the Roman begging-boxes, showed himself so thorough a protectionist of the home manufacture that he ordered the Neapoli- tan virgin to be carried back again immediately. This had to be done ; but Madonna della Bruna, nothing daunted, worked miracles faster than ever as she was being carried off, and continued to do so all the way home. In July, 1501, there came a guest to the dwelling of Costanza d'Avalos, whose coming and going must have made a durable im- pression on the opening mind of Vittoria, then just eleven years old. This was Frederick, the last of the Aragonese kings. When all had gone against him, and the French had taken, and most cruelly siu-ked, Capua, and were advancing on Naples, f lie sought refuge with his wife and children on the island of Ischia, and remained there till he left it, on the Gth of September, to throw himself on the generosity of the French king. Fabrizio Colonna was, it is re- Corded, with him on the island, where the fallen king left for a while his wife and children ; and had then an opportunity of seeing as far as the brave condottiere chieftain had eyes to see such matters the progress his daughter had made in all graces and good gifts dur- ing six years of the superintendence of Costanza d'Avalos. Then there came occasionally events, which doubtless called the Duchessa di Francavilla from her retirement to the neighboring but strongly contrasted scene of Naples ; and in all probability furnished opportunities of showing her young pupil something of the great and gay world of the brilliant and always noisy capital. Such, for in- stance, was the entry of Ferdinand of Spain into Naples, on Novem- ber 1st, 1506. The same people, who so recently were making Iliu greatest lamentation ever heard in the world over the death of Ferdi- nand of Aragon, were now equally loud and vehement:): in their welcome to his false usurping kinsman, Ferdinand of Castile. A pier was run out an hundred paces into the sea for him and his queen to land at, and a tabernacle, " all of fine wrought gold," says Pas- seri, erected on it for him to rest in. The city wall was thrown down to make a new passage for his entrance into the city ; all Naples was gay witli triumphal arches and hangings. The mole, writes the same gossiping authority, was so crowded that a grain of millet thrown among them would not have reached the ground. Nothing was to * Passeri, p. 183. t Passeri, p. 126- t Paswri, p. 146, VITTORIA COLONHA. 17 be heard in all Naples but the thunder of cannon, and nothing to be seen but velvet, silk, and brocade, and gold on all sides. The Streets were lined with richly tapestried seats, filled with all the noble dames of Naples, who, as the royal cortege passed, rose, and advancing, kissed the hands of the king, " et lo signore Re di questo si pigliava gran piacere. " It is a characteristic incident of the times that, as quick as the cortege passed, all the rich and costly preparations for its passage were as Passeri tells us, scrambled for and made booty of by the populace. The Duchessa di Francavilla, at least, who had witnessed the mel- ancholy departure of Frederick from her own roof, when he went forth a wanderer from his lost kingdom, must have felt the hol- lowness and little worth of all this noisy demonstration, if none other among the assembled crowd felt it. And it may easily be imagined how she moralized the scene to the lovely blonde girl at her side, now at sixteen, in the first bloom of her beauty, as they returned, tired with the unwonted fatigue of their gala doings, to their quiet home in Ischia. Here is a specimen from the pages of the gossiping weaver,* of the sort of subjects which were the talk of the day in Naples in those times. In December, 1507, a certain Spaniard, Pietro de Pace by name, a hunchback, and much deformed, but who " was of high courage, and in terrestrial matters had no fear of spirits or of venomous ani- mals," determined to explore the caverns of Pozzuoli ; and discov- ered in them several bronze statues and medals and antique lamps. He found also some remains of leaden pipes, on one of which the words " Imperator Caesar" were legible. Moreover, he saw "cer- tain lizards as large as vipers." But for all this, Pietro considered his adventure an unsuccessful one ; for he had hoped to find hidden treasure in the caverns. Then there was barely time for this nine days' wonder to run out its natural span before a very much more serious matter was occu- pying every mind and making every tongue wag in Naples. On the night preceding Christmas day, in the year 1507, the Convent of St. Clare was discovered to be on fire. The building was destroyed, and the nuns, belonging mostly to noble Neapolitan families, were burnt out of their holy home distressing enough on many ac- counts. But still it was not altogether the misfortune of these holy ladies that spread consternation throughout the city. It was the practice, it seems, for a great number of the possessors of valuables of all sorts, " Baruni od altri," as Passeri says,f in his homely' Nea- politan dialect, to provide against the continual dangers to which movable property was exposed, by consigning their goods to^ the keeping of some religious community. And the nuns of St. Clare * Passeri, p. 151. t Passed, p. ir.2. IS VITT01UA COLONNA. especially were very largely employed in this way. The conse quence was that the almost incredibly large amount of three hundred thousand ducats' worth of valuable articles of all sorts was destroyed in this disastrous fire. Taking into consideration the difference in the value of money, this sum must be calculated to represent at least a million and a half sterling of our money. And it is necessary to bear in mind how large a proportion of a rich man's wealth in those days consisted in chattels to render the estimate of the loss at all credible. The prices, however, at which certain of the products of artistic industry were then estimated, were such as to render such an accu- mulation of property possible enough. For instance, among the valuables recorded by Passeri as belonging to Ferdinand of Aragon I. were three pieces of tapestry which were called " La Pastorella," and were considered to be worth 130,000 ducats. And thus the years rolled on ; Naples gradually settling down into tranquillity under the Spanish rule, administered by the first of the long list of viceroys, the " Gran Capitano," Don Consalvo de Cor- duba, and the star of the Colonna shining more steadily than ever in the ascendant, till, in the year 1509, the nineteenth of Vittoria's and of the bridegroom's age, it was determined to celebrate the long ar- ranged marriage. It took place on the 27th of December in that year ; and Passeri mentions* thatVittoria came to Ischia from Marino on the occasion, escorted by a large company of Roman nobles. It appears, there- fore, that she must have quitted Ischia previously. But it is proba- ble that she did so only for a short visit to her native home, before finally settling in her husband's country. The marriage festival was held in Ischia, with all the pomp then usual on such occasions ; and that, as will be seen in a subsequent page, from the account preserved by Passeri of another wedding, at which Vittoria was present, was a serious matter. The only particu- lars recorded for us of her own marriage ceremony consist of two lists of the presents reciprocally made by the bride and bridegroom. These have been printed from the original documents in the Colonna archives, by Signer Visconti, and. are curious illustrations of the habits and manners of that day. The Marquis acknowledges to have received, says the document, from the Lord Fabrizio Colonna and the Lady Vittoria : 1. A bed of French fashion, with the curtains and all the hang- ings of crimson satin, lined with blue taffetas with large fringes of gold ; with three mattresses and a counterpane of crimson satin of Bimihir workmanship ; and four pillows of crimson satin garnished with fringes and tassels of gold. 2. A cloak of crimson raised brocade. * Passed, p. 168. VITTORIA COLONNA. i '.) 3. A cloak of black raised brocade, and white silk. 4. A cloak of purple velvet and purple brocade. 5. Across of diamonds and a housing for a mule, of Wrought gold. The other document sets forth the presents offered by Pesearn to ]HH bride : 1. A cross of diamonds with a chain of gold, of the value of 1000 ducats. 2. A ruby, a diamond, and an emerald set in gold, of the value of 400 ducats. 3. A " desciorgh" of gold (whatever that may be), of the value of one hundred iucats. 4. Twelve bracelets of gold, of the value of forty ducats. Then follow fifteen articles of female dress, gowns, petticoats, mantles, skirts, and various other finery with strange names, only to be explained by the ghost of some sixteenth-century milliner, and al- together ignored by Ducange and all other lexicographers. But they are described as composed of satin, velvet, brocade ; besides crimson velvet trimmed with gold fringe and lined with ermine, and llcsh- colored silk petticoats trimmed with black velvet. The favorite color appears to be decidedly crimson. It is noticeable that while all the more valuable presents of IVs- cara to Vittoria are priced, nothing is said of the value of her gifts to the bridegroom. Are we to sec in this an indication of a greater deli- cacy of feeling on the part of the lady ? So the priests did their office a part of the celebration, which, cu- riously enough, we learn from Passeri, was often, in those days, at Naples, deferred, sometimes for years, till after the consummation of the marriage the Pantagruelian feastings were got through, the guests departed, boat -load after boat-load, from the rocky shore of Ischia ; and the little island, restored after the unusual hubbub to ifs wonted quiet, was left to be the scene of as happy a honeymoon as the most romantic of novel readers could wish for her favorite hero- CHAPTER III. Vittoria's Married Life. Pcscara goes where Glory awaits Jlim. The Rout of Ravenna. Pescara in Prison turns Penman. His "JMalogo di Amore." Vit- toria's Poetical Epistle to her Husband. Vittoria and the Marches del Vasto. Three Cart-Loads of Ladies, and three Mule-Loads of Sweetmeats. Character of Pescara. His Cruelty. Anecdote in Proof of it. THE two years which followed, Vittoria always looked back on as the only truly happy portion of her life, and many are the passages of her poems which recall their tranquil and unbroken felicity, a sweet dream, from which she was too soon to be awakened to the or- dinary vicissitudes of sixteenth-century life. The happiest years of 20 VITTORIA COLONHA.. individuals, as of nations, afford least materials for history, and of Yittnria's two years of honeymoon in Tschia, the whole record is that she was happy ; and she wrote no poetry. Karly in 1512 oame the waking from this pleasant dream. Pcscara was of course to be a soldier. In his position, not to have begun to light, as soon as his beard was fairly grown would have been little short of infamy. So he set forth to join the army in Lombard y, in company with his father in-law, Fabrizio. Of course there was an army in Lombardy, where towns were being besieged, fields laid waste, and glory to be "had for the winning. There always was, in those good old times, of course. French, Swiss, Spanish, German, Venetian, Papal, and Milanese troops were fighting each other, with changes of alliances and sides almost as frequent and as confusing as the changing of partners in a cotillion. It is troublesome, and not of much consequence, to understand who were just then friends and who foes, and what were the exact objects all the different parties had in flitting each other's throats. And it will be quite sufficient to say that the Duchy of Milan was at that moment the chief bone of con- tention that the principal pretenders to the glory of " annexing" it were the king of France and the king of Spain, who was now also king of Naples that the Pope was just then allied with Spain, and the Venetians with France, and that Italy generally was preparing for the destiny she has worked out for herself, by the constant en- deavor to avail herself of the destroying presence of these foreign troops, and their rivalries, for the prosecution of her internal quar- rels, and the attainment of equally low and yet more unjustifiable, because fratricidal, aims. Pcscara, as a Neapolitan subject of the king of Spain, joined the army opposed to the French, under the walls of Ravenna. Vittoria, though her subsequent writings prove how much the parting cost her, showed how thoroughly she was a soldier's daughter and a sol- dier's wife. There had been some suggestion, it seems, that the marquis, as the sole surviving scion of an ancient and noble name, might fairly consider it his duty not to subject it to the risk of ex- tinction by exposing his life in the field. The young soldier, how- ever, wholly refused to listen to such counsels ; and his wife strongly supported his view of the course honor counselled him to follow, by advice, which a young and beautiful wife, who was 1o re main surrounded by a brilliant circle of wits and poets, would scarcely have ventured on offering, had she not felt a perfect secur- ity from all danger of being misinterpreted, equally creditable to wife and husband. _ So the young soldier took for a motto on his shield the well-known With this, or on this ;" and, having expended, we are told, much. care and cash on a mnu'iiiliccnt equipment, was at. once appointed to l lie command of the light cavalry. The knowledge and experience iry for such a position comes by nature, it must be supposed. VITTOKIA COLONN'A. 21 to the descendant of a long line of noble knights, as surely as point- ing does to the scion of a race of pointers. But the young warrior's episcopal * biographer cursorily mentions that certain old and trusty veterans, who bad obtained their military science by experience, and not by right of birth, were attached to his person. The general of light cavalry arrived at the camp at an unfortunate! moment. The total defeat of the United Spanish and Papal army by the French before Ravenna, on the 9th of April, 151-3, immediately followed. Fabrizio Colonua and his son-in-law were both made prisoners. The latter had been left for dead on the field, covered with wounds, which subsequently gave occasion to Isabella of Ara gon, Duchess of Milan, to say, " I would fain be a man, Signor Marchese, if it were only to receive such wounds as yours in the face, that I might see if they would become me as they do you." f Pescara, when picked up from the field, was carried a prisoner to Milan, where, by means of the good offices and powerful influence of Trivulzio, who had married Beatrice d'Avalos, Pescara's aunt, and was now a general in the service of France, his detention was ren- dered as little disagreeable as possible, and he was, as soon as his wounds were healed, permitted to ransom himself for six thousand ducats.}: During his short confinement he amused his leisure by composing a " Dialogo d'Amore," which he inscribed and sent to his wife. The bishop of Como, his biographer, testifies that this work was exceed- ingly pleasant reading" summte jucuuditatis" and full of grave and witty conceits and thoughts. The world, however, has seen lit to allow this treasury of wit to perish, notwithstanding the episcopal criticism. And in all probability the world was in the right. If in- deed the literary general of light horse had written his own real ^thoughts and speculations on love, there might have been some inter- "est in seeing a sixteenth century soldier's views on that ever interest- ing subject. But we may be quite certain that the Dialogo, " stuffed full," as Giovio says, "of grave sentiments and exquisite conceits," contained only a reproduction of the classic banalities and ingenious absurdities which were current in the fashionable literature of the day. Yet it must be admitted that the employment of bis leisure in any such manner, and still more, the dedication of his la- bors on such a subject to his wife, are indications of an amount of cultivation and right feeling which would hardly have been found, either one or the other, among many of the preux chevaliers, his brothers-in-arms. Meanwhile, Vittoria, on her part, wrote a poetical epistle to her husband in prison, which is the first production of her pen that has reached us. It is written in Dante's " terza rima, " and consisted of * Giovio, Bp. of Como, Life of Pcscara, book i. t Filocalo, MS. Life of Pcscara, cited by Visconti, p. Ixxxii. $ Giovio, lib. 1, 22 VITTORIA COLONNA. one hundred and twelve lines. Both Italian and French critics have vxpn-.-sed highly favorable judgments of this little poem. And it may be admitted that the lines are elegant, classical, well-turned, and ingenious. But those who seek something more than all this iu poetry who look for passion, high and noble thoughts, happy illus- tration, or deep analysis of human feeling will rind nothing of the sort. That Vittpria did feel acutely her husband's misfortune, and bitterly regret his absence from her, there is every reason to believe. But she is unable to express these sentiments naturally or forcibly. She, in all probability, made no attempt to do so, judging from the models on which she had been taught to form her style, that wheii she sat down to make poetry the aim to be kept in view was a very different one." Hence we have talk of Hector and Achilles, Eolus, Sirens, and marine deities, Pompey, Cornelia, Cato, Martia, and Mithridatcs a parade of all the treasures of the school -room. The pangs of the wife left lonely in her home are in neatly antithetical phrase contrasted with the dangers and toils of the husband iu the field. Then we have a punning allusion in her own name : " Se Vittoria volevi, io t' era appresso ; Ma tu, lasciando me, lasciasti lei." " If victory was thy desire, I was by thy side ; but iu leaving me, thou didst leave also her. ' ' The best, because the simplest and most natural lines, are the fol- lowing : " Seguir pi dcve il eposo e dentro e fora ; E, s' cgli pate affannq, ella patisca ; Se lieto, lieta ; e so vi more, mora. A quel clie arrisca run, 1' aliro s 1 arrisca ; Kgiuli iu vita, eguali siano iu niorte ; E cio che avvienoa lui, a lei sortisca." . " At home or abroad the wife should follow her husband ; and if he suffers distress, she should suffer ; should be joyful if he is joyful, and should die if he dies. The danger confronted by the one should be confronted by the other ; equals iu life, they should be equal in death ; and that which happens to him should be her lot also" a mere farrago of rhetorical prettinesses, as cold as a school-boy's prize verses, and unanimatcd by a spark of genuine feeling ; although the writer was as truly affectionate a wife as ever man had. But although all that Vittoria wrote, and all that the vast number of the poets and poetesses, her contemporaries, wrote, was obnoxious to the same remarks, still it will be seen that in the maturity of her powers she could do better than this. Her religious poetry may be said, generally, to be much superior to her love verses ; either be- < au-e they were composed when her mind had grown to its full stat- ure, or, as seems probable, because, model wife as she was, the sub- ject took a deeper hold of her mind, and stirred the depths of her heart more powerfully. VITTORIA COLOKNA. 23 Very shortly after the dispatch of her poetical epistle, Vittoria was overjoyed by the unexpected return of her husband. And again for a brief interval she considered herself the happiest of women. One circumstance indeed there was to mar the entirety of her con- tentment. She was still childless. And it seems that the science of that day, igaorantly dogmatical, undertook to assert that she would continue to be so. Botli husband and wife seemed to have sub- mitted to the award undoubtingly ; and the dictum, however rashly uttered, was justified by the event. Under these circumstances Vittoria undertook the education of Alphonso d'Avalos, Marchese del Vasto, a young cousin of her hus- band's. The task was a sufficiently arduous one;* for the boy, beautiful, it is recorded, as an angel, and endowed with excellent capabilities of all sorts, was so wholly unbroken, and of so violent and ungovernable a disposition, that he had been the despair and ter- ror of all who had hitherto attempted to* educate him. Vittoria thou ht that she saw in the wild and passionate boy the materials of a worthy man. The event fully justified her judgment, and proved the really superior powers of mind she must have brought to the ac- complishment of it. Alphonso became a soldier of renown, not un- tinctured by those literary tastes which so remarkably distinguished his gentle preceptress. A strong and lasting affection grew between them ; and Vittoria, proud with good reason of her work, was often wont to say that the reproach of being childless ought not to be deemed applicable to her whose moral nature might well be said to have brought forth that of her pupil. Pescara's visit to Naples was a very short one. Early in 1513 we find him again with the armies in Lombardy, taking part in most of the mischief and glory going. Under the date of July the 4th in that year the gossiping Naples weaver, who rarely fails to note the doings of the Neapolitan general of light horse with infinite pride and admiration, lias preserved for us a rather picturesque little bit of Ariosto-flavored camp life. The Spanish army, under Don Raymond di Cardona, who, on Consalvo's death, had succeeded him as Viceroy of Naples, was on its march from Peschiera to Verona, when a messenger from the beautiful young Marchioness of .Mantua came to the gencral-in-chief tjo say that she wished to see those celebrated Spanish troops, who were marching under his banners, and was t lien waiting their passaire in the vine- yards of the Castle of Villafranca. " A certain gentle lady of Man- tua, named the Signora Laura, with whom Don Raymond was in love," writes the weaver, was with the Marchioness ; and much pleased was he at the message. So word was passed to the various captains ; and when the column reached the spot, where t lie Marchion- ess with a great number of ladies and ''avaliers of Mantua were re- * Viscimti, p. 77- 24 VITTORIA COLOKNA. posing in the shade of the vines, " Don Ferrantc d'Alarcone, as chief marshiil, with his baton in his hand, made all the troops halt, and. ? laced themselves in order of battle ; and the Signor Marchese di 'escara marched at the head of the infantry, with a pair of breeches cut after the Swiss fashion, and a plume on his head, and a two- handed sword in his hand, and all the standards were unfurled." And when the Marchioness, from among the vines looking down through the checkered shade on to the road, saw that all was in or- der, she and her ladies got into three carts, so that there came out of the vineyard, says Passeri, three cartsful of ladies surrounded by the cavaliers of Mantua on horseback. There they came very slowly jolt- ing over the cultivated ground, those three heavy bullock carts, with their primitive wheels of one solid circular piece of wood, and their huge cream-colored oxen with enormous horned heads gayly deco- rated, as Leopold Robert shows them to us, and the brilliant tinted dresses of the laughing l*vy drawn by them, glancing gaudily in the sunlight among the soberer coloring of the vineyards in their sum- mer pride of green. Then Don Raymond and Pescara advanced to the carts, and handed from them the Marchioness and Donna Laura, who mounted on handsomely equipped jennets prepared for them. It does not appear that this attention was extended to any of the other ladies, who must therefore be supposed to have remained sitting in the carts, while the Marchioness and the favored Donna Laura rode through the ranks " con multa festa et gloria." And when she had seen all, with much pleasure and admiration, on a given signal three mules loaded with sweetmeats were led forward, with which the gay Marchioness " regaled all the captains." Then all the company with much content excepting, it is to be feared, the soldiers, who had to stand at arms under the July sun, while their officers were eating sugar-plums, and Don Raymond and Donna Laura were saying and swallowing sweet things took leave of each other, the army pursu- ing its march toward Verona, and the Marchioness and her ladies re., turning in their carts to Mantua.* The other scattered notices of Pescara's doings during his cam. paign are of a less festive character. They show him to have been a hard and cruel man, reckless of human suffering, and eminent even among his fellow-captains for the ferocity, and often wantonness, of the ravages and widespread misery he wrought. On more than one occasion Passer! winds up his narrative of some destruction of a town, or desolation of a fertile and cultivated district, by the remark that the cruelty committed was worse than Turks would have been guilty of. Yet this same Passeri, an artisan, belonging to a class which had all to suffer and nothing to gain from such atrocities, writes, when chronicling this same Pescara's f death, thut " on that day died, I would have you know, gentle readers, the most glorious * Passed, p. l'J7. t raaeeri, p. 386. VITTORIA COLON^A. 25 and honored captain that the world has seen for the last hundred years." It is curious to observe how wholly the popular mind was enslaved to the prejudices and conventional absurdities of the ruling classes ; how entirely the feelings of the musses were in unison with those of the caste which oppressed them ; how little reason they con- ceived they had to complain under the most intolerable treatment, and how little hope of progressive amelioration there was from th* action of native-bred public opinion. Bishop Giovio, the biographer and panegyrist of Pescara, admits thai he was a stern and cruelly- severe disciplinarian, and mentions an anecdote in proof of it. A soldier was brought before him for hav- ing entered a house en route for the purpose of plundering. The gen- eral ordered that his ears should be cut off. The culprit remon- strated, and begged, with many entreaties, to be spared so dishonor- ing and ignominious a punishment, saying in his distress that death itself would have been more tolerable. "The grace demanded is granted," rejoined Pescara instantly, with grim pleasantry. " Take this soldier, who is so careful of his honor, and hang him to that tree !" In vain did the wretch beg not to be taken at his word so cruelly ; no entreaties sufficed to change the savage decree. It will be well that we should bear in mind these indications of the essential nature of this great and glorious captain, who had studied those ingenuous arts which soften the character, and do not suffer men to be ferocious, as the poet assures us, and who could write dia- logues on love, when we come to consider the curious phenomenon OT Vittoria's unmeasured love for her husband. CHAPTER IV. Society in Ischia. Bernardo Tasso's Sonnet thereon. How a Wedding waa cele- brated in Naplns in 1517. A Sixteenth Century Trousseau. Sack of Genoa. The Battle of Pavia. Italian Conspiracy against Charles V. Character of Pescara Honor in 1525. Pescara's Treason. Vittoria's Sentiments on the Occasion. Pe- cara's Infamy. Patriotism unknown in Italy in the Sixteenth Century. No suck Sentiment to be found in the Writings of Vittoria. Evil Inlluence of her Hus- band's Character on her Mind. Death of Pescara. MEANWHILE Vittoria continued her peaceful and quiet life in Ischia, lonely indeed, as far as the dearest affections of her heart was concerned, but cheered and improved by the society of that select knot of poets and men of learning whom Costanza di Fruncavilla, not unassisted by the presence of Vittoria, attracted to her little island court. We find Musefilo, Filocalo, Giovio, Miuturno, Cariteo, Rota, Sanazzaro, and Bernardo Tasso, among those who helped to make this remote rock celebrated throughout Europe at that day, su 26 VITTORIA COLOHNA. one of the best-loved haunts of Apollo and the muses, to speak in the phraseology of the time. Many among them have left passages recording the happy days spent on that fortunate island. The social circle was doubtless a charming and brilliant one, and the more so as contrasted with the general tone and habits of the society of the period. But the style of the following sonnet by Bernardo Tasso, selected by Visconti as a specimen of the various effusions by members of the select circle upon the subject, while it accurately illustrates the prevailing modes of thought and diction of that period, will hardly fail to suggest the idea of a comparison mutatis mutandis between this company of sixteenth century choice spirits and that which assembled and pro- voked so severe a lashing in the memorable Hotel de Kambouillet, more than an hundred years afterward. But an Italian Moliere is as wholly impossible in the nature of things as a French Dante. And the sixteenth century swarm of Petrarchists and Classicists have, unlike true prophets, found honor in their own country. Gentle Bernardo celebrates in this wise these famed Ischia meet- ings : " Snperbo scoglio, altero e bel ricetto Di tanti chiari eroi, d'imperadori, Onde raggi di gloria escono fuori, Ch' ogni altro lume fan ecuro e negletto ; Se per yera virtu te al ben perfetto Salir si puote eel agli eterni onori, Queste piu d' altre degne alme e migliorl V andran, che chiudi nel petroso petto. II lume e in tc dell 1 armi ; in te s'asconde Cata belta, valore e cortesia, Quanta mai vide il tempo, o diede il ciel*. Ti sian secondi i fati, e il vento e I 1 onde Rendaiiti onore, e 1' afla tua natia Abbia sempre temprato il caldo e il gelo !" "WLich may be thus " done into English," for the sake of giving those unacquainted with the language of the original some tolerably accurate idea of Messer Bernardo's euphuisms : " Proud rock ! the loved retreat of such a band Of eartb's best, noblest, greatest, that their light Pales other glories to the dazzled sight, And like a beacon shines throughout the land, If truest worth can reach the perfect state, And man may hope to merit heavenly reel, Those whom thou harborest in thy rocky breast, First in the nice will reach the heavenly gate. Glory of martial deeds is thine. In thee. Brightest the world e'er saw, or heaven gave, Dwell chastest beauty, worth, and courtesy! Well be it with theo ! May both wind and sea Respect thee : and thy native air mid wave Be temper'd ever by a genial sky !" Such ia the poetry of one of the brightest stars of the lechian gal- axy ; and the incredulous reader is assured that it would b &Mf to VITTORIA COLONNA. 27 find much worse sounds by the ream among the extant productions of the crowd who were afflicted with the prevalent Petrarch mania of that epoch. The statistical returns of the ravages of this malady, given by the poetical registrar-gsneral Crescimbeni, would astonish even Paternoster Row at the present day. But Vittoria Colonua, though a great number of her sonnets do not rise above the level of Bernardo Tasso in, the foregoing specimen, could occasionally, espe cially in her later years, reach a much higher tone, as will, it is hoped, be shown in a future chapter. It has been suggested that the religious feelings which inspired her later poetry were, though not more genuine, yet more absorbing than the conjugal love, which is almost exclusively the theme of her earlier efforts. And it is at all events certain that the form- r so en- grossed her whole mind as to sever her in a great measure from the world. This the so fervently sung pangs of separation from her husband do not appear to have effected. Besides the constant society of the select few, of whom mention has been made, there were occasionally gayer doings in Ischia ; as when in February, 1517, a brilliant festival was held there on occa- sion of the marriage* of Don Alfonso Piccolomiui with Costauza d'Avalos, the sister of Vittoria's pupil, theMarchese del Vasto, And occasionally the gentle poetess, necessitated probably by the exigen- cies of her social position, would leave her beloved Ischia for brill- iant and noisy Naples. And when these necessities did occur, it is recorded that the magnificence and pomp with which the beautiful young wife made her appearance among her fellow nobles was such as few of them could equal, and none surpass. One of these occasions is worth specially noting, for the sake of the detailed account which has been preserved of it by that humble and observant chronicler, our friend the weaver. For it contains traits and indications curiously and amusingly illustrative of the life and manners of that time in Naples. It was December 6th, 1517, and high festival was to be held for the marriage of the king of Poland with Donna Bona Sforza. The guests comprised the whole nobility of Naples ; and worthy Passcri begins his account with an accurate Moming-Post-lika statement of the costume of each in the order of their arrival at the church. Doubtless the eager weaver, a shrewd judge of such matters, hud pushed hmself into a good place in the front row of the crowd, who lined the roadway of the noble guests, and might have been seen, with tablets in hand, taking notes with busy excitement to be trans- ferred to his journal at night. One after another the high-sounding titles very many of them Spanish, are set forth, as they swept by, brilliant with gold and every brightest tint of cosily fabric, and are swallowed up t;y the dark nave of the huge church. * ; asseri, p, 334, 28 VITT01UA COLONNA. It is not necessary to attempt a translation of all the changes Mas- ter Passed rings on velvet, satin, gold, J>rocade, and costly furs. Merely noting that the bride's dress is estimated to be worth seven thousand ducats, we let them all pass on till " the illustrious lady the Signora Vittoria, Marchioness of Pescara," arrives. She is mounted on a black and white jennet, with housings of crimson vel- vet fringed with gold. She is accompanied by site ladies in waiting, uniformly clad in azure damask, and attended by six grooms on foot with cloaics and jerkins of blue and yellow satin. The lady herself wears a robe of brocaded crimson velvet, with large branches of beaten gold on it. She has a crimson satin cap, with a head-dress of wrought gold above it ; and around her waist is a girdle of beaten gold. Some of the assembled company, one might think, would require their girdles to be of some more yielding material. For, on quitting the church, they sat down to table at six in the evening, " and be- gan to eat," says Passeri, "and left off at five in the morning!" The order and materials of this more than Homeric feast are handed down to posterity with scrupulous accuracy by our chronicler. Hut the stupendous menu, in its entirety, would be almost as intolerable to the reader as having to sit out the eleven hours' orgy in person. A few particulars culled here and there, partly because they are curi- ous, and partly because the meaning of the words is more intelligi- ble than is the case in many instances, even to a Neapolitan of the present day, will amply suffice. There were twenty-seven courses. Then the quantity of sugar used was made, as we have noticed on a former occasion at I^ome, a special subject of glorification. There was " puttagio Ungarese," Hungary soup, stuffed peacocks, quince pies, and thrushes st' vl with bergamottes, which were not pears, as an English reader might perhaps suppose, but small highly-scented citrons of the kind from which the perfume of that name is, or is supposed to be, made. "With the " bianco mangiare," our familiarity with " blanc-mauge' seems at first sight to make us more at home. But we are thrown out by finding that it was eaten in 1517, "con mostaida." The dishes of pastry seem, according to our habits, much out of propor- tion to tin: rest. Sweet preparations also, whether of animal or vege- table composition, seem greatly to preponderate. At the queen's own table a fountain gave forth odoriferous waters. But to all the guc.sts per! unicd water for the hands was served at the removal of the first tables. " And thus having passed this first day with infinite delight," the whole party passed a second, and a Ihird, in the same manner ! That eleven hours should have been spent in eating and drinking is of course simply impossible. Large interludes must be supposed to have been occupied by music, and very likftly by recitations of poetry. On the first day a considerable time must have been taken VITTORIA COLO NX A. 29 up by a part of the ceremonial, wliicli was doubtless far more inter- estiug to the fairer half of the assembly than the endless gormandiK- ing. This was a display, article by article, of the bride's trousseau, which took place while the guests were still sitting at table. Passer; minutely catalogues the whole exhibition. The list begins with twenty pairs of sheets, all embroidered with different colored silks ; ami seven pairs of sheets, " d'olanda," of Dutch linen, fringed with gold. Then come an hundred and live shirts of Dutch linen, all em- broidered with silk of divers colors ; and seventeen shirts of cambric, "cambraia," with a selvage of gold, as a present for the royal bride- groom. There were twelve head-dresses, and six ditto, ornamented with gold anil colored silk, for his majesty ; an hundred and twenty handkerchiefs, embroidered with gold cord ; ninety-six caps, orna- mented with gold and silk, of which thirty-six were for the king. There were eighteen counterpanes of silk, one of which was wrought " alia moresca ;" forty-eight sets of stamped leather hangings, thirty-six others " of the ostrich-egg pattern," sixteen " of the arti- choke pattern," and thirty-six of silk tapestry. Beside all these hundred sets, there were eight large pieces of Flanders arras, " con seta assai." They represented the seven works of mercy, and were valued at a thousand golden ducats. There was a litter, carved and gilt, with its four mattresses of blue embroidered satin. Passing mi to the plate department, we have a silver waiter, two large pitchers wrought in relief, three basins, an ewer, and six large cups, twelve large plates, twelve ditto of second size, and twenty-four soup plates made " alia franxese," a massive salt-cellar, a box of napkins, spoons, and jugs, four large candlesticks, two. Large flasks, a silver pail, and cup of gold worth two hundred ducats for the king's use. Then for the chapel, a furniture for the altar, with the history of the three kings embroidered in gold on black velvet ; a missal on paivhmcnt, with illuminated miniatures, bound in velvet, ornamented with silver clasps and bosses ; and a complete set of requisites for the service in silver. Then, returning to the personal department, came twenty- one gowns, each minutely described, and one of blue satin spangled with bees in solid gold, particularly specified as being worth four thousand ducats. When all this and much more had been duly admired, there were brought forward an empty casket and fifteen trays, in which were an hundred thousand ducats of gold, which were put into the casket " before all the Signori." But our chronicler is compelled by his love of truth to add reluctantly that there were several false ducats among them.* It is evident, from the nature of many of the articles in the above list, that this "trousseau" was not merely a bride's lilting outpur- chased for the occasion, but was a collection of all the Lady Bona's * See Note 2. 30 YlTTOiUA COLONNA. dial Id property, and represented, as was then usually the case with all wealthy persons, a very large, if not the principal part, of the worldly goods. It may well be imagined that Vittoria was not sorry to return to the quiet and intellectual society of Ischia after these tremendous three days at Naples. There she was cheered from time to time by three or four short visits from her husband, and by continual tidings of his increasing reputation and advancement in dignity and wealth a prosperity which she considered dearly purchased by his almost continual absence. The death of her father Fabrizio, in March, 1520, and that of her mother, in 1522, made her feel more poignantly this loneliness of heart. In October of 1522 Pescara made a flying visit to his wife and home. He was with her three days only, and then hastened back to the army. It was the last time she ever saw him. His career with the army mean time was very glorious. In May, 1522, he took and sacked Genoa ; " con la maggior crodelitate de lo mundo," writes admiring Passeri. The plundering lasted a day and a half ; and, " da che lo mundo fo mundo," never was seen a sacking of so great riches, " for there was not a single soldier who did not at the Irast get a thousand ducats." Then, with the year 1525, came, on the 24th of February, the memorable day of Pavia, which was so glori- ous that, as Passeri writes, the desolation inflicted by it on the coun- try around was such that neither house, tree, nor vine was to be seen for miles. All was burned. Few living creatures were to be met with, and those subsisting miserably on roots. The result of that " field of honor" is sufficiently well known. Pescara, who received three wounds, though none of them serious, in the battle, considered that he was ill-used, when the royal captive Francis was taken out of his hands to Spain, and made complaints on the subject to his master Charles V., who had succeeded Ferdinand on the thrones of Spain and Naples in 1516. He was now, however, at the age of thirty-five, general-in-chief for that monarch in Lom- foardy, and enjoyed his perfect confidence, when circumstances arose calculated to try his fidelity severely. Whether that, almost the only virtue recognized, honored, and professed by his own class at that day, remained altogether intact and unblemished is doubtful. But it is certain that, in any view of the case, his conduct was such as would consign him to utter infamy in any somewhat more morally enlight- ened age than his own, and such as any noble-hearted man, however untaught, would have instinctively shrunk from even then. The circumstances briefly were as follows : Clement VII. , who had succeeded to the Popedom in 1523, had, after much trimming and' vacillation between Francis I. and Charles V., become, like the rest of Italy, exceedingly alarmed at the pre- ponderating power of Charles, after the discomfiture of the French at Pavia. Now the discontent of Pescara, mentioned above, being VITTORIA COLONNA. wi notorious, the pope and bis counsellors, especially Giberti, bisbop of Verona, and Alorone, chancellor and prime minister of the Duke of Milan, thought that it might not be impossible to induce him to turn traitor to Charles, and make use of the army under his command to crush once and forever the Spanish power in Italy. The prime mover and agent in this conspiracy was Morone, who had the reputa- tion of being one of the profoundest and most far-sighted statesmen of his day. Guicciardini * has recorded that he (the historian) had often heard Morone declare that there did not exist a worse or more faithless man in all Italy than Pescara. The conspiring chancellor, therefore, being empowered by the pope to promise the malcontent general the throne of Naples as the price of his treason, thought that lie might well venture to make the proposal. Pescara received his overtures favorably, saying that, ifhe could b satisfied that what was proposed to him c-ould be done witlunit injury to his Jwnor, he would willingly undertake it, and accept the rowan! offered to him. f Upon this reply being communicated to the pope, a couple of cardinals forthwith wrote to the Marchese, assuring him that the treason required of him was, " according to the dispositions and ordinances of the laws, civil as well as canon, "| perfectly con- sistent with the nicest honor. Meanwhile, however, it chanced that one Messer Gismondo Santi, who had been sent by the conspirators with letters on the subject into France or Switzerland, was mur- dered for the purpose of robbery by an innkeeper with whom he lodged at Bergamo, and was buried under the staircase, as was dis- covered some years afterward. And as no tidings were heard of this messenger, all engaged in the plot, and Pescara among them, suspected that he had been Avaylaid for the sake of his dispatches, and that thus all was probably made known to Charles. Thereupon Pescara immediately wrote to the emperor, revealing the whole con- spiracy, and declaring that he had given ear lo their proposals only for the purpose of obtaining full information of the conspirators' designs. Such is the version of the story given by Varchi, probably the most trustworthy of all the numerous contemporary historians. lie adds, " It is not unknown to me that many say, and perhaps think. that the Marchese, acting loyally from the beginning, had all along given the emperor true information of every thing ; all which I, for my part, knowing nothing further than what I have said, will not undertake to deny. It would indeed be agreeable to me to believe that it was so, rather than that the character of so great, a soldier should be stained with so foul a blot. Though indeed I know not what sort of loyalty or sincerity that may be, which consists in hav- ing deceived and betrayed by vile trickery and fraud a pope, who, it * 1st. Ital., lib. xvi. cap. 4. t Varchi, 6toria Floreutiiia, vol. i. p. &*, edit. Fireu/o, 1843. J Varclii, p. 89. 32 V1TTOKIA COLOXN'A. nothing else, was at least very friendly to him, a republic such aa that of Venice, and many other personages, for the sake of acquiring favor with his master. This I know well, that the lady Vittoria Colonna, his wife, a woman of the highest character, and abounding in all the virtues which can adorn her sex, had no sooner heard of the intrigue on foot than, wholly untempted by the brilliant hope hung out to her, she with infinite sorrow and anxiety wrote most warmly to her husband, urging him to bethink him of his hitherto unstained character, and to weigh well what he was about, assuring him that, as far as she was concerned, she had no wish to be the wife of a king, but only of a loyal and upright man. " This letter from Vittoria, urging her husband not to be seduced to swerve from the path of honor and duty, is recorded by most of the writers ; and Viscouti asserts that it was the means of inducing lY-scara to abandon the idea of betraying his sovereign. At all events, the existence of such a letter is very strong evidence that Pesrara had not from the first informed Charles of the plot, but Tutd at least hesitated whether he should not join in it, inasmuch as his communications to her upon the subject had given her reason to fear lest he should do so. On the other hand, it is fair to observe that several of those con- cerned in the intrigue saw reason to suspect the possibility of Pescara's having from the first listened to their overtures only to betray them, as is proved by extant letters from one to another of them.* Perhaps this, too, was consistent with the nicest honor, as defined " by the ordinances of canon and civil law." But whether he were a traitor to his king or not, he was determined to shrink from no depth of treachery toward his dupes that could serve to ingratiate him with his master. While still feigning to accede to their proposals, he sent to Morone to come to him at Novara, that all might be arranged between them. Morone, against the advice of many of his friends, and, as Guicciardini thought,! with a degree of imprudence astonish- ing in so practised and experienced a man, went to the meeting. He was received in the most cordial manner by Pescara, who, as soon as they were alone together, led him to speak of all the details of the proposed plan. The trap was complete ; for behind the hangings of the room in which they were sitting he had hidden Antonio da Leyva, one of the generals of the Spanish army, who arrested him as lie was quitting the house, and took him to the prison of Novara, whore Pescara the next day had the brazen audacity to examine as a judge the man whom a few hours previously he had talked with as au accomplice. $ * Lcttere do Prinripi, vol. I. p. 87. See Letters from Giberto to Gismondo Santi and to Domenico Sanli. t ItoruL, lib. xvii. chap. Jy. J Guicciardini, lib. xvii. chap. iv. VITTORIA COLONKA. 3 Surely, whichever version of the story may be believed, as to Peseara's original intentions, there is enough here in evidence to go far toward justifying Chancellor Moroue's opinion that he was one of the worst and most faithless men in Italy. Some modern Italian writers, with little moral, and less historical, knowledge, have rested the gravamen of the charge against him on his want of patriotic Italian feeling on the occasion. In the first place, no such motive, however laudable in itself, could have justified him in being guilty of the treason proposed to him. In the second place, the class of ideas in question can hardly be found to have had any existence at that period, although distinct traces of such may be met with in Italian history 200 years earlier. Certainly the Venetian senate were not actuated by any such ; and still more absurd would it be to attribute them to Pope Clement. It is possible that Morone, and perhaps still more Giberti, may not have been untinctured by them. But Pescara was one of the last men, even had he been as high- minded as we find him to have been the reverse, in whom to look for Italian "fu&ri i barbari " enthusiasm. Of noble Spanish blood, his family had always been the counsellors, friends, and close adherents of a Spanish dynasty at Naples, and the man himself was especially Spanish in all his sympathies and ideas. "lie adopted,"* says Giovio, " in all his costume the Spanish fashion, and always preferred to speak in that language to such a degree that, with Italians, and even with Vittoria his wife, he talked Spanish." And elsewhere he is said to have been in the habit of expressing his regret that he -uas not born a Spaniard. Such habits and sentiments would have been painful enough to a wife, a Roman, and a Colonua, if Vittoria had been sufficiently in advance of her age to have conceived patriotic ideas of Italian nation- ality. But though her pursuits and studies were infinitely more likely to have led her mind to such thoughts than were those of the actors in the political drama of the time to generate any such notions in them, yet no trace of any sentiment of the kind is to be found in her writings. Considering the extent of the field over which her mind had travelled, her acquaintance with classical literature and with the history of her own country, it may seem surprising that a nature certainly capable of high and noble aspirations should have remained untouched by one of the noblest. That it was so is a striking proof of the utter insensibility of the age to any feelings of the sort. It is possible, too, that the tendencies and modes of thought of her hus- band on the subject of Italy may have exercised a repressing inHucnrr in this respect on Vittoria's mind ; for who does not know how powerfully a woman's intelligence and heart may be elevated or degraded by the nature of the object of her affections ; and, doubt- * Yitn. lib. i. 34 VITTORIA COLONNA. less, to Vittoria, as to so many another of every age, do the admirable lines of the poet address themselves : " Thou ehalt lower to his level day by day, What is fine within tliee Crowing coarse to sympathize with clay. As the husband is, the wife is ; thou art mated with a Naples. CHAPTER V. \ i lorm. a Widow, with the Nuns of San Silvestro. Returns to lachia. Her Poetry divisible mil) two Classes. Specimens of her Sonnets. They rapidly attain VIebrity throughout Italy. Vittoria's Sentiments toward her Husband Her molemished Character. Platonic Love. The Love Poetry of the Sixteenth Cen- VriToiuA became thus a widow in the thirty-sixth year of her age. She was still in the full pride of her beauty, as contemporary writers as.M.Tt, and as two cxtam medals, struck at Milan shortly before her i VITTORIA COLONNA. 35 husband's death, attest. One of them presents the bust of PCM ai a on the obverse, and that of Vittoria on the reverse ; the other has the same portrait of her on the obverse, and a military trophy on the reverse. The fce represented is a very beautiful one, and seen thus in profile is perhaps more pleasing than the portrait, which has been spoken of in a previous chapter. She was, moreover, even now probably the most celebrated woman in Italy, although she had done little as yet to achieve that immense reputation which awaited her a few years later. Very few, probably, of her sonnets were written before the death of her husband. But the exalted rank and prominent position of her own family, the high military grade and reputation of her husband, the wide- spread hopes and fears of which he had recently been the centre in the affair of the conspiracy, joined to the fame of her talents, learning, and virtues, which had been made the subject of enthu- siastic praise by nearly all the Ischia knot of poets and wits, ren- dered her a very conspicuous person in the eyes of all Italy. Her husband's premature and unexpected death added a source of in- terest of yet another kind to her person. A young, beautiful, and very wealthy widow gave rise to quite as many hopes, speculations, and designs in me sixteenth century as in any other. But Vittoria's first feeling, on receiving that fatal message at Viterbo, was, that she could never again face that world which was so ready to open its arms to her. Escape from the world, solitude, a cell, whose walls should resemble as nearly as might be those of the grave, since that asylum was denied to her, was her only wish. And she hastened, stunned by her great grief, to Home, with the intention of throwing herself into a cloister. The convent of San Silvestro in Capite so called from the supposed possession by the community of the Baptist's head had always been a special object of veneration to the Colouna family ; and there she sought a retreat. Her many friends, well knowing the desperation of her affliction, feared that, acting under the spur of its first violence, she would take the irrevo- cable step of pronouncing the vows. That a Vittoria Colouna should be so lost to the world was not to be thought of. So Jacopo Sadoleto, bishop of Carpentras, and afterward made a cardinal by Pope Paul III., one of the most learned men of his day, himself a poet, and an in- timate friend of Vittoria, hastened to Pope Clement, whose secretary he was at the time, and obtained from him a brief addressed to the abbess and nuns of San Silvestro, enjoining them to receive into their .house, and console to the best of their ability, the Marchesana di Pescara, "omnibus spiritualibus et temporalibus consolationibus," but forbidding them, under pain of the greater excommunication, to permit her to take the veil, " impetupotius sui doloris, quam mature consilio circa mutationem vestium vidualium ha mouasticas." This brief is dated the 7th December, 1525. She remained with the Bisters of San Silvestro till the autumn of 3C VICTORIA COLONNA. tlic following year ; and would have further deferred returning into a world, which the conditions of the time made less than ever tempt- ing to her, had not her brother Ascanio, now her only remaining natural protector, taken her from the convent to Marino, in conse- quence of the Colonua clan being once again at war with the pope, as partisans of the emperor. On the 20th of September, 1526, this ever-turbulent family raised a tumult in Rome to the cry of " Imperio ! Imperio ! Liberia ! Liberia ! Colouna ! Colonna!" and sacked the Vatican, and every house belonging to the Orsini ;* the old clan hatred showing itself as usual on every pretext and opportunity. The result was a papal decree depriving Cardinal Colonna of his hat, and declaring confiscated all the estates of the family. Deeply grieved by all these excesses, both by the lawless violence of her kins- men and by the punishment incurred by them, she left Marino, and once more returned to the retirement of Ischia, in the beginning of 1527. It was well for her that she had decided on not remaining in or near Home during that fatal year. While the eternal city and its neighborhood were exposed to ttye untold horrors and atrocities com- mitted by the soldiers of the Most Catholic king, Vittoria was safe in her island home, torn indeed to the heart by the tidings which rcai lied her of the ruin and dispersion of many valued friends, but at least tranquil and secure. And now, if not perhaps while she was still with the nuns of San ilvestro, began her life as a poetess. She had hitherto written but lit Hi-, and occasionally only. Henceforward poetical composition seems to have made the great occupation of her life. Viscouti, the latest, and by far the best editor, of her works, has divided them into two portions. With two or three unimportant exceptions, of which the letter to her husband already noticed is the most considerable, they consist entirely of sonnets. The first of Signor Visconti'.s divisions, comprising 134 sonnets, includes those inspired almost eni irel y liy her grief for the loss of her husband. They form a nearly uninterrupted scries " In Memoriam," in which the changes arc rung With infinite ingenuity on a very limited number of ideas, all turning on the glory and high qualities of him whom she had lost, and her own muiiminished and hopeless misery. " I only write to vent that inward pain On which my heart doth feed itself, nor wills Aught other nourishment," lieu-ins the first of these elegiac sonnets ; in which she goes on to dis- claim any Idea of increasing her husband's glory" non per giunger tame al mio bel sole," which is the phrase she uses invariably to Hgnate him. This fancy of alluding to Pescara always by the ame not very happily-chosen metaphor contributes an additional * Contemporary copy of the Act of Accusation, cited by Visconti, p. ci. TITTOItIA COLOXNA. 3? element of monotony to verses still further deprived of variety by the identity of their highly artificial form. This form, it is hardly necessary to remark, more than any other mode of the lyre, needs and exhibits the beauties of accurate finish and neat polish. Shut out, as it is, by its exceeding artificiality and difficult construction from many of the higher beauties of more spontaneous poetical utterance, the sonnet, " totus, teres atque rotundus," is nothing if not elaborated to gem-like perfection. Yet Viltoria writes as follows : " Se in man prender non soglio unqua la lima Del huou giudicio, e ricercando in to run Con occhio disdegnoso, io non adorno Ne tergo la mia rozza incolta rirna, Nas-cc perche non e mia cura prima Procacciar di cio lode, o t'uggir scorno ; Ne clie dopo il mio lietoal ciel ritorno Viva ella al moiido in piu nnorata stima. Ma dal foco divin, chc '1 mio intelletto Sim merce iuliamma, convion clic escan faore Mai mio grado talor qucste faville. E se alcunii di loro 1111 Dentil core Avvien che scaldi, inille volte e millc Ringraziar debbo il mio felice errore." Which may be thus Englished with tolerable accuracy of meaning if not with much poetical elegance : * "If in these rude and artless songs of mine I never take the file in hand, nor try With curious care, and nic.e fastidious eye, To deck and polish each uncultured line, 'Tis that it makes small portion of my aim To merit praise, or 'scape; pconi's blighting breath; Or that my verse, when I have welcomed death, May live rewarded with the meed of fame. But it must he that Heaven's own gracious gift. Which with its breath divine inspires my "soul. Strike I'orth these spurks, unbidden by my will. And should one such but haply serve to lift One gentle heart, I thankful reach my goal, And, faulty tho' tlu strain, my every wish fulfil." Again, in another sonnet, of which the first eight lines are perhaps as favorable a specimen of a really poetical image as can be found throughout her writings, she repeats the same profession of " pouring an unpremeditated lay." "Qual digiuno augellin, che vede ed ode Batter 1' ali alia madre intorno, quando Gii reca il nutrimeiito; oml egliamando II cibo e quella, si rallegra e gode, E dunt.ro al nido suo si struprge c rode I'er desio di segnirla anch' ei volando, E la ringrazia in tal modo cantando, Che par cli' oltro '1 poter la lingua miode ; * See Note 3. COLONNA. Tal' io qualor il raldo raggio e vivo Del divin pole, onde nutrisco il core Piii del usato lucido lampeggia, Muovo la peniin. spinta dall" amore Intenio : e sen/a ch' io atessa m'avvcggia Di quel ch 1 io dico le sue lodi scrivo." Which in English runs pretty exactly as follows : " Like to a hungry nestling bird, that hears And sees the fluttering of his mother's wings Bearing him food, whence, loving what she bring* And her no less, a joyful mien he weans And struggles in the nest, and vainly stirs, Wishful to follow her free wanderings, And thanks her in such fashion, while he sings, That the free voice beyond his strength appears ; So I. whene'er the warm and living glow Of him my PUH divine, that feeds my heart, Shines brighter than its wont, take up the pen, Urged by the force of my deep love ; and so Unconscious of the words unkempt by art I write his praises o'er and o'er again." The reader conversant with Italian poetry will have already seen enough to make him aware that the Colonna's compositions are by no means unkempt, unpolished, or spontaneous. The merit of them consists in the high decree to which they are exactly the reverse of all this. They are ingenious, neat, highly studied, elegant, and elabo- rate. It may be true, indeed, that much thought was not expended on the subject-matter ; but, it was not spared on the diction, versifica- tion, and form. So much so that many of her sonnets were re- touched, altered, improved, and finally left to posterity, in a form very different from that in which they were first handed round the literary world of Italy.* The file, in truth, was constantly in hand, though tlio nice fastidious care bestowed in dressing out with curious conceits a jejune or trite thought, which won the enthusiastic ap- plause of her contemporaries, does not to the modern reader com- pensate for the absence of passion, earnestness, and reality. Then, again, the declaration of the songstress of these would-be "wood-notes wild," that they make no pretension to the meed of praise, nor care to escape contempt, nor are inspired by any hope of a life of fame after the author's death, leads us to contrast with such professions the destiny that really did surely not altogether un- soughtawait these grief-inspired utterances of a breaking heart during the author's lifetime. No sooner was each memory-born pang illustrated by an ingenious metaphor, or pretty simile, packed neatly in its regulation case of fourteen lines, with their complexity of twofold rhymes all right, than it was handed all over Italy. Copies were as eagerly sought for * Sri- advertisement " ai lettori" of Uinaldo's Corso's edition of the Sonnet VITTORIA COLOHNA. 39 88 the novel of the season at a nineteenth-century circulating-library. Cardinals, bishops, poets, wits, diplomatists, -passed them from one to another, made them the subject of their correspondence with each other, and with the fair mourner ; and eagerly looked out for the next poetical bonne-bquclie which her undying grief and constancy to her " bel sole" should send them. The enthusiasm created by these tuneful wailings of a young widow, as lovely as inconsolable, as irreproachable as noble, learned enough to correspond with the most learned men of the day on their own subjects, and with all this a Colonna, was intense. Vittoria became speedily the most famous woman of her day, was termed by universal consent "the divine," and lived to see three editions of the grief- cries, which escaped from her " without her will." Here is a sonnet, which was probably written at the time of her return to Ischia in 1527 ; when the sight of all the well-loved scenery of the home of her happy years must have brought to her mind Dante's " Nessun maggior dolore Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria !" Vittoria looks back on the happy time as follows : "Oh ! che tranquillo mar, oh chochiare onde Solcava gia lamia epalmata barca, Di ricca e nobil merce adorna e carca, Con I' aer puro, e con 1' aure seconde, II ciel, ch'ora i bei vaghi Inini asconde Porgea screna luce e d' ombra scarca ; Ahi ! quanto ha da temer chi licto varca ! Che non sempre al principle) 11 flu rispond& Ecco 1' empia e volubilefortunu Scoperse poi 1' irata iniqna fronte, Dal cui furor si gran procella insorge. Venti, pioggia, saette insieme aduna, E flere intorno a divorarmi pronte ; Ma 1' alina ancor la fitla stella ecorge." In English, thus : " On what smooth seas, on what clear waves did Mil My fresh careened bark ! what costly freight Of noble merchandise adorn'd its state ! How pure the breeze, how favoring the gale ! And Heaven, which now its beauteous rays doth vet, Shone then serene and shadpwless. But fate For the too happy voyager lies In wait. Oft fair beginnings in their endings full. And now doth impious changeful fortune bare Her angry ruthless brow, whose threat'ning power Rouses the tempest, and lets loose its war ! But though ruins, winds, mid lightnings fill the air, And wild beasts seek to rend nie and devour, Still shines o'er my true soul its faithful star." Bearing in mind what we have seen of Pescarn, would scnn evident that some monstrous illusion with respect to iiim must hava 40 VITTOKIA obscured Vittoria's mind and judgment. It might have been expected that, sin- would hare been found attributing to him high and noble qualities, which existed only in her own imagination. But it is remarkable that, though in general terms she speaks of him as all that was noblest and greatest, yet in describing his merits, she confines herself to the few which he really had. This highly-cultured, devout, thoughtful, intellectual woman, seems really to have believed, that a mercenary swordsman's calling was the noblest occupation earth could oiler, and the successful following' of it the best preparation and surest title to immortal happiness hereafter. The following sonnet is one of many expressing the same senti- ments : " Alle Vittorie tue, mio lume eterno, Non diede il tempo o la stagion favore ; La spada, la virtu, T invitto core Fur li ministri tuoi la state e' verno. Col prudente occhio, e col saggio governo , L'altrui forze spezzasti in si brev' ore, Che '1 modo all' alte imprese accrebbe onore Non men che 1' opre al tuo yalore interne. Non trdaro il tuo corso animi altieri, O flami, o monti ; e le maggior cittadi Per cortesia od ardir rimasir vinte. Salisti al mondo i piu pregiati gradi ; Or godi in ciel d'altri trionii e veri, D' altre f rondi le tempie ornate e cinte." Which may be Englished as follows : " To thy great victories, my eternal light, Nor time, nor seasons, lent their favoring aid ; Thy sword, thy might, thy courage undismay'd, Snmmer and winter serv'd thy will aright. By thy wise governance and eagle sight, Thou didst so rout the foe with headlong speed, The manner of the doing crown'd the deed, No less than did the deed display thy might. Mountains and streams, and haughty souls in vain Would check thy course. By Force of courtesy Or valor vanquish'd, cities of name were won. Earth's highest honors did thy worth attain ; Now truer triumphs Heaven reserves for thee, And nobler garlands do thy temples crown." Often Ler wishes for death are checked by the consideration that haply her virtue may not suffice to enable her to rejoin her husband in the mansions of the blessed. Take the following example " Quando del suo tormento il cor fi doole Si ch' io bramo il mio fin, timpr m' assale, E dice ; il morir tosto a che ti vale 81 forge lungi vai dal tuo bel sole ? Da questa fredda tema nascer suole Un caldo ardir, che pon d' intorno 1' ale All alma ; onde diegombra il mio mortale Quanto ella puo, da quel ch' 1 mondo vaole, Coai lo epirto mio a' asconde e copra VITTOillA COLOtfHA. 41 Qui dal placer unian, non gia per fama O van grido, o pregiar troppo se stesso ; Ma sente '1 lumesuo, che ojcnor lo chiama, E vede il yolto, ovunque inira, impresso, Che gli inisura i passi e ecorge 1'opre." Thus done into English :, "When of its pangs my heart doth sore complain. So that I long to die, fear falls on me, And saith, what boots such early death to the*, If far from thy bright sun thou shouldst remain ? Then oft from thin cold fear is born again A fervent boldness, which doth presently Lend my soul wings, so that mortality Strives to put off its worldly wishes vain. For this, my spirit here herself enfolds, And hides from human joys ; and not for fame, Nor empty praise, nor overblown conceit ; But that she hearsJier euu still call her name, And still, where'er she looks, his face doth meet, Who measures all her steps, and all her deeds beholds." A similar cast of thought, both as regards her own disgust of life and the halo of sanctity, which by some mysterious process of mind she was able to throw around her husband's memory, is found again in this, the last of the sonnets selected to illustrate this phase of our poetess's mind and exemplify the first division of her writings : " Cara union, che in si mirabil modo Fosti ordiuata dal signor del cielo, Che lo spirto divino, e 1' uman velo Lego con dolce ed amoroso nodo, lo, beuchi lui disi bell' opralodo, Pur cerco, e ud altri il mio pensier non celo, Sciorre il tno laccio ; ni piu a caldo o gelo Serbarti ; poi che qui di te non godo. Che 1' alma chiusa in questo career rio Come nemico 1' odia ; onde smarrita Ne vive qui, ue vola ove desia. Quando sara con suo gran Bole unita, Felice gioruo ! allor contenta ila ; Che sol nel viver suo conobbe vita." Of which the subjoined rendering, prosaic and crabbed as it i, ifl perhaps hardly more so than the original : " Sweet bond, that wast ordaiu'd so wondrous well By the Almighty ruler of the sky, Who did unite in one sweet loving tie The godlike spirit and its fleshy shell, I, while I praise his loving work, yet try Nor wish my thought from others to withhold- To loose thy knot ; nor more, through heat or cold, Preserve thee, since in thee no joy have I. Therefore my soul, shut in this dungeon stern, Detests it as a foe ; whence, all astray. She lives not here, nor flics where she would go. When to her glorious sun she shall return, Ah ! then content shall come with that blest day, For she, but while he liv'd, a sense of life could know. 42 V1TTOKIA COLON N A. In considering the collection of 117 sonnets from which the above specimens have been selected, and whicli were probably the product of about seven or eight years, from 1526 to 15:58-4 (in one she la- incuts that the seventh year from her husband's death should have brought with it no alleviation of her grief), the most interesting question that suggests itself is, whether we are to suppose the sen- timents expresseoTiu them to be genuine outpourings of the heart, or lather to consider them all as part of the professional equipment of a poet, earnest only in the work of achieving a high and brilliant poet- ical reputation ? The question is a prominent one, as regards the concrete notion to be formed of the sixteenth-century woman, Vit- toria Colonna ; and is not without interest as bearing en the great subject of woman 's nature. Yittoria's moral conduct, both as a wife and as a widow, was wholly irreproachable. A mass of concurrent contemporary testi- mony seems to leave no doubt whatever on this point. More than one of the poets of her day professed themselves her ardent admirers, devoted slaves, and despairing lovers, according to the most ap- proved poetical and Platonic fashion of the time ; and she received their inflated bombast not un pleased with the incense, and answered them with other bombast, all en regie and in character. The " carte de teudre" was then laid down on the Platonic projection ; and the sixteenth-century fashion in this respect was made a convenient screen, for those to whom a screen was needful, quite as frequently as the less classical whimsies of a later period. But Platonic love to Yittoria was merely an occasion for indulging in the spiritualistic pedantries by which the classicists of that day sought to link the infant metaphysical speculations, then beginning to grow out of ques- tions of church doctrine, with the ever-interesting subject of roman- tic love. A recent French writer,* having translated into prose Vittoria's poetical epistle to her husband, adds that she has been " obliged to veil and soften certain passages which might damage the writer's poetical character in the eyes of her fair readers, by exhibiting her as more woman than poet in the ardent and ' positive ' manner in which she speaks of her love." Never was there a more calumnious insinuation. It is true indeed that the French woman omits or slurs over some passages of the original, but as they are wholly void of I lie shadow of offence it can only be supposed that the translator did not understand the meaning of them. There is no word in Vittoria's poetry which can lead to any othei conclusion on this point, than that she was, in her position and social rank, an example, rare at that period, not only of perfect regularity of conduct, but of great purity and considerable elevation of mina. Buch other indications as we have of her moral nature are all favora- * Madame Lamazc, Jstudee sur Trois Femraes Celebres , Paris, 1848, p. 41, VITtOKIA COLOKKA. 43 ble. We find her, uninfluenced by the bitter hereditary hatreds of her family, striving to act as peacemaker between hostile factions, and weeping over the mischiefs occasioned by their struggles We find her the constant correspondent and valued friend of almost every good and great man of her day. And if her scheme < f inoial doctrine, as gatherablc from that portion of her poems which we have not yet examined, be narrow as how should it be otherwise- yet it is expressive of a mind habitually under the influence of vir- tuous aspiration, and is more humanizing in its tendencies than that generally prevalent around her. Such was Vittoria Colonna. It has been seen what her husband Pescara was. And the question arises how far can it be imagined possible that she should not only have lavished on him to the last, while living, all the treasures of an almost idolatrous affection ; not only have looked back on his memory after his death with fondness and charitable, even blindly charitable, indulgence, but should abso- lutely have so canonized him in her imagination as to have doubted of her own fitness to consort hereafter with a soul so holy ! It may be said that Vittoria did not know her husband a$ we know him ; that the few years they had passed together had no doubt shown her only the better phases of his character. But she knew that he had at least doubted whether he should not be false to his sovereign, and had been most infamously so to his accomplices or dupes. She knew at least all that Giovio's narrative could tell her ; for the bishop pre- sented it to her, and received a sonnet in return. But it is one of the most beautiful properties of woman's nature, some men say, that their love has power to blind their judgment. Novelists and poets are fond of representing women whose affections remain unalterably fixed on their object, despite the manifest un- worthincss of it ; and set such examples before us, as something high, noble, admirable, "beautiful," to the considerable demorali- zation of their confiding students of either sex. There is a tendency in woman to refuse at all risks the dethroning of the sovereign she has placed on her heart's throne. The pain of deposing him i.s so great that she is tempted to abase her own soul to escape it ; for it is only at that cost that it can be escaped. And the spectacle of a line nature " dragged down to sympathize with clay, " is not " beautiful," but exceedingly the reverse. Men do not usually set forth MS worthy of admiration though a certain school of writers do even this, in the trash talked of love at first sight that kind of love between the sexes which arises from causes wholly independent of the higher part of our nature. Yet it is that love alone which can survive esteem. And it is highly important to the destinies of woman, that she should understand and be thoroughly persuaded that she cannot love that which does not merit love, without degrading her own nature ; that under whatsoever circumstances love should cease when respect, ap- probation, and esteem have come to an end ; and that those who find 44 V1TTOBIA COLONS A. poetry and beauty in the love which no moral change in its object can kill, are simply teaching her to attribute a fatally debasing su- premacy to those lower instincts of our nature, on whose due subor- dination to the diviner portion of 6ur being all nobleness, all moral purity and spiritual progress depends. Vittoria Colonna was not one whose intellectual and moral self had thus abdicated its sceptre. The texture of her mind and its habits of thought forbid the supposition ; and, bearing this in mind, it becomes wholly impossible to accept the glorification of her " bel sole," which makes the staple of the first half of her poems, as the sincere expres- sion of genuine feeling and opinion. She was probably about as much in earnest as was her great model and master, Petrarch, in his adoration of Laura. The poetical mode of the day was almost exclusively Petrarchist ; and the abounding Castalian fount of that half century in " the land of song," played from its thousand jets little less than Petrarch and water in different degrees of dilution. Vittoria has no claim to be excepted from the " servum pecus," though her imitation has more of self -derived vigor to support .it. And this assumption of a mighty, undying, exulted and hopeless passion, was a necessary part of the poet's pro- fessional appurtenances. Where could a young and beautiful widow of unblemished conduct, who had no intention of changing her con- dition, and no desire to risk misconstruction by the world, find this needful part of her outfit as a poet, so unobjectionably as in the mem- ory of her husband, sanctified and exalted by the imagination to the point proper for the purpose. For want of a deeper spiritual insight, and a larger comprehension of the finer affections of the human heart and the manifestations of Ibem, with the Italian poets of the " renaissance," love-poetry was little else than the expression of passion in the most restricted sense of the term. But they were often desirous of elevating, purifying, ;ind spiritualizing their theme. And how was this to be accom- plished? The gratification of passion, such as they painted, would, they felt, have led them quite in a different direction from that they wen- seeking. A hopeless passion, therefore, one whose wishes the reader was perfectly to understand, were never destined to be grati- fied better still, one by the nature of things impossible to be grati- fiedthis was the contrivance by which love was to be poetized and moralized, The passion-poetry, which addressed itself to the memory of one no more, met the requirements of the case exactly ; and Vittoria's Irn years' despair and lamentations, her apotheosis of the late cavalry raptain, and longing to rejoin him, must be regarded as poetical properties brought out for use, when she sat down to make poetry for the perfectly self-conscious though very laudable purpose of ac- quiring for herself a poet's reputation. But it must not be supposed that any thing in the nature of hypoc VITTORIA COLONXA. 45 risy was involved in the assumption of the poetical role of inconsol- able widow. Everybody understood that the poetess was only mak- ing poetry, and saying the usual and proper things for that purpose. She was no moro attempting to impose on anybody than was a poet when on entering some " acadcmia" lie termed himself Tyrtanis or Lycidas, instead of the name inherited from his father. And from this prevailing absence of all real and genuine feeling arises the utter coldness and shallow insipidity of the poets of that time and school. Literature has probably few more unreadable de- partments than the productions of the Petrarchists of the beginning of the sixteenth century. Vittoria, when she began to write on religious subjects, was more in earnest ; and the result, as we shall see, is accordingly improved. CHAPTER VI. Vtttoria in Rome in 1530. Antiquarian Rambles. Pyramns and Thisba Medal. -> Contemporary Commentary on Vittoria's Poems. Paul the Third. Koine aj,'uin in 1536. Visit to Lucca. To Fcrrara. Protestant Tendencies. Invitation from Qiberto. Return to Rome. THE noble rivalry of Francis I. and Charles V. was again, in 1530. making Naples a field of glory in such sort that outraged nature ap- peared also on the scene with pestilence in her hand. Tin; first in- fliction had driven most of the literary society in Naples to take, refuge in the comparative security of Ischia. The latter calamity had reached even that retreat ; and Vittoria some time in that year again visited Rome. Life was beginning there to return to its usual conditions after the tremendous catastrophe of 1527. Pestilence had then- also, as usual, followed in the train of war and military license. And many in all classes had been its victims. Great numbers fled from the city, and among these were probably most of such as were honort.il by Vit- toria's personal friendship. Now they were venturing back to their old haunts on the Pincian, the Quirinal, or those favorite Colon na gardens still ornamented by the ruins of Aurelian's Temple to the >Sun. The tide of modern Goths, who had threatened to make tho eternal city's name a mockery, had been swept back at the word of that second and " most Catholic" Alaric, .Charles V. Cardinals, poet asters, wit's, Ciceronian bishops, statesmen, ambassadors, and artists. busy in the achievement of immortality, were (race moro forming a society, which gave the Rome of that day a fair title to be consid- ered, in some points of view, the capital of the world. The golden Roman sunlight was still glowing over aqueduct, arch, and temple ; and Rome the Eternal was herself again. By this varied and distinguished society Vittor.'* wtf received with A.B.-25 46 VITTORIA COLOHHA. opon arms. The Colonna family had become reconciled to Pope ( 'loment, ami had had their fiefs restored to them ; so that there was no cloud on the political horizon to prevent the celebrated Marche- sana from receiving the homage of all parties. The Marchese del Vasto, Vitloria's former pupil, for whom she never ceased to feel the warmest affection, was also then at Rome.* In his company, and that of some others of the gifted knot around her, Vittoria visited the ruins and vestiges of ancient Rome, with all the enthusiasm of one deeply versed in classic lore, and thoroughly imbued with the then prevailing admiration for the works "and memorials of Pagan an- tiquity. Vittoria's sister-in-law, Donna Giovanna d'Aragoua, the beautiful and accomplished wife of her brother Ascanio, in whose house she seems to have been living during this visit to Rome, was doubtless one of the party on these occasions. The poet Mol/a has chronicled his presence among them in more than one sonnet. His muse would seem to have *' made increment of any thing." For no less than four sonnets f were the result of the exclamation from Vit- toria, " Ah, happy they" the ancients, " who lived in days so full of beauty !" Of course, various pretty things were obtainable out of this. Among others, we have the gallant Pagans responding to the lady's ejaculation, that on the contrary their time was less fortunate than the present, in that it was not blessed by the sight of her. It would have been preferable to have had preserved for us some further scraps from the lips of Vittoria, while the little party ga/e at sunset over that matchless view of the aqueduct-bestridden Cam- pagna from the terrace at the western front of the Lateran, looked up at the Colosseum, ghostly in the moonlight, from the arch of Titus, or discoursed on the marvellous proportions of the Pantheon. Hut history rarely guesses aright what the after-ages she works for would most thank her for handing down to them. And \\e must he content to construct fcr ourselves, as best we may, from the stray hints we have, the singularly pleasing picture of these sixteenth cen- tury rambles among the ruins of Rome by as remarkable a company of pilgrims as any of the thousands who have since trodden m their steps. Vittoria's visit to Rome upon this occasion was a short one. It was probably early in the following year that she returned to Ischia. Signor Visconti attributes this journey to the restlessness arising from a heart ill at ease, vainly hoping to find relief from its misery by change of place. lie assumes all the expressions of despair to be found in her sonnets of this period, to be so many reliable autobio- graphical documents, and builds his narrative upon them accord- ingly. To tliis period he attributes the sonnet, translated in a previ- ous chapter, in which the poetess declares that she has no wish to conceal from the world the temptation to suicide which assails her. * Li-ttcn- cli I'.rmho, vol. i. p. 115, ed. 1560. + Kilit. fcerasBi, pp. 14, 15, ar, 40. VICTORIA COLONNA. 47 And in commemoration of this mood of mind, he adds, in further proof of the sad truth, a medal was struck upon this occasion, in Rome, of which he gives an engraving. It represents, on one side, the inconsolable lady as a handsome, well-nourished, comfortable- looking widow, in mourning weeds, more aged in appearance, cer- tainly, since the striking of the former medal spoken of, than the lapse of seven years would seem sufficient to account for. And, on the reverse, is a representation of the melancholy story of Pyramus and Thisbe, the former lying dead at the feet of the typical paragon, who is pointing toward her breast a sword, grasped in both hands, half way down the blade, in a manner sure to have cut her fingers. The two sides of the piedal, seen at one glance, as in Signer Visconti's engraving, are, it must be admitted, calculated to give rise to ideas the reverse of pathetic. To this period too belongs the sonnet, also previously alluded to, in which Vittoria speaks of the seventh year of her bereavement having arrived, without bringing with it any mitigation of her woe. Signor Visconti takes this for simple autobiographical material. It is curi- ous, as a specimen of the modes of thought at the time, to sec how the same passage is handled by Vittoria's first editor and commenta- tor, Rinaldo Corsi, who published her works for the second time at Venice in 1558. His commentary begins as follows : " On this son net, it remains for me to speak of the number seven as I have done already of the number four. But since Varro, Macrobius, and Aulus Gellius, together with many others, have treated largely of the subject, I will only add this which, perhaps, ladies, may appear to you. somewhat strange ; that, according to Hippocrates, the number four enters twice into the number seven ; and I find it stated by most credible authors as a certain fact, and proved by the testimony of their own observation, that a male child of seven years old lias been known to cure persons afflicted by the infirmity called scrofula by no other means than by the hidden virtue of that number seven," etc., etc., etc. In this sort, Messer Rinaldo Corso composed, and the literary ladies, to whom throughout, as in the above passage, his labors an; especially dedicated, must be supposed to have read more than live hundred close-printed pages of commentary on the works of the cele- brated poetess, who, in all probability, when she penned the sonnet in question, had no more intention of setting forth the reasons for her return to Ischia than she had of alluding to the occult properties of the mysterious number seven. The natural supposition is, that as she had been driven from her home by the pestilence, she returned to it when that reason for absence was at an end. There she seems to have remained tranquilly employed on her favorite pursuits, increasing her already great reputation, and cor- responding assiduously with all the lu-pt and most distinguished men of Italy, whether laymen or ecclesiastu a, till the year 1536, 48 vnrouiA COLONNA. In that year she again visited Rome, and resided during her stay there with Donna Giovanna d'Aragona, her sister-in-law. Paul III., Farnese, had in 3534 succeeded Clement in the chair of St. Peter ; and though Paul was on many accounts very far from being a good pope or a good priest, yet the Farnese was an improvement on the Medici. As ever, Rome began to show signs of improvement when danger to her system from without began to make itself felt. Paul seems very soon to have become convinced that the general council, which had been so haunting a dread to Clement during the whole of his pontificate, could no longer be avoided. But it was still hoped in the council chambers of the Vatican, that the doctrinal difficulties of the German reformers, which threatened the church with so fatal a schism, might be got over by conciliation and dexterous theological diplomacy. As soon as it became evident that this hope was vain, fear began to influence the papal policy, and at its bidding the ferocious persecuting bigotry of Paul IV. was contrasted with the shameless profligacy of Alexander, the epicurean indifferentism of Leo, and the pettifogging worldliness of Clement. Between these two periods came Paul III., and the illusory hopes that the crisis might be tided over by finding some arrangement of terminology which should satisfy the reformers, while Rome should abandon no particle of doctrine on which any vital portion of her system of temporal power was based. To meet the exigencies of this period, Paul III. signalized his accession by raising to the purple a number of the most earnest, .most learned, and truly devout men in Italy. Contariui, the Venetian ; Caraffa, from Naples ; Sadoleto, Bishop of Carpentras ; Pole, then a fugitive from England ; Giberti, Bishop of Verona ; and Fregoso, Archbishop of Salerno, were men chosen solely on account of their eminent merit. With most, if not all of these, Vittoria was connected by the bonds of intimate friendship. With Contarini, Sadoleto, and Pole, especial- ly, she corresponded ; and the esteem felt for her by such men is the most undeniable testimony to the genuine worth of her charac- ter. It is easy to imagine, therefore, how warm a reception awaited her arrival on this occasion in Rome, and how delightful must have been her stay there. She had now reached the full measure of her reputation. The religious and doctrinal topics which were now oc- cupying, the best minds in Italy, and on which her thoughts were frequently busied in her correspondence with such men as those named above, had recently begun to form the subject-matter of her poems. And their superiority in vigor and earnestness to her earlier works must have been perfectly apparent to her reverend and learned friends. Accordingly, we are told that her stay in Rome on this occasion was a continued ovation ; and Signer Visconti informs us, on the authority of the Neapolitan historian, Gregorio Rosso, that Charles V., being then in Rome, " condescended to visit in their own house V1TTORIA COLONNA. 49 the ladies Giovanna Movanua di'Aragona, wife of Ascauio Colonua, ami Vit- toria Colon na, Marchesu di Pescara. " The following year, 15:]? that is, she went, Visconti snvs, to Luc ca, from which city she passed to Ferrara, arriving there on (lie sil; of April, "in humble guise, with six waiting-women onlv."* Ercole d'Este, the second of the name, was then the rciu-iiiiej; duke, having succeeded to his father Alphouso in I."}:;!. And the court of Ferrara, which had been for several years pre-eminent among the principalities of Italy for its love of literature and its patronn literary men, became yet more notably so in consequence of the mar- riage of Hercules II. with Reuee of France, the (laughter of Louis XII. The Protestant tendencies and sympathies of this princess had rendered Ferrara also the resort, and in some instances the refugr, of many professors and favorers of the new ideas which were begin - ning to stir the mind of Italy. And though Vittoria's orthodox Catholic biographers are above all things anxious to clear her. frond all suspicion of having ever held opinions eventually condemned l>y the church, there is every reason to believe that her journey to Fcr- rani was prompted by the wish to exchange ideas upon these suit Jects with some of those leading minds which were known to h;ive imbibed Protestant tendencies, if not to have acquired fully-formed Protestant convictions. It, is abundantly clear, from the character of her friendships, from her correspondence, and from the tone of her poetry at this period, and during the remainder of her life, that her mind was absorbingly occupied with topics of this miture. And the short examination of the latter division of her works, which it is proposed to attempt in the next chapter, will probably convince such a.s have no partisan Catholic feelings on the subject, that Vil toria's mind had made very considerable progress in the Protestant, direction. No reason is assigned for her stay at Lucca. Visconti, with un- usual brevity and dryness, merely states that she visited that, city.f And it is probable that he has not been able to discover any docu- ments directly accounting for the motives of her visit. But he for- bears to mention that the new opinions had gained so much ground there that that republic was, very near declaring Protestantism the religion of their state. After her totally unaccounted-for visit to :he heresy- stricken city, she proceeds to another almost ecmally tainted with suspicion. It is no doubt perfectly true that Duke Hercules and his court re- ceived her with every possible distinction on the score of her poeti- cal celebrity, and deemed his city honored by her presence, lie in- vited, we are told, the most distinguished poets and men of letters of Venice and Lombardy to meet her at Ferrara. And so much was * Mem. per la St. di Ferrara, di Antouia Frizzi, vol. iv. p. 335, t Vita, p, cxiii. 50 VITTORIA COLONNA. her visit prized that when Cardinal Giberto sent thither his secretary, Francesco della Torre, to persuade her to visit his episcopal city, Ve- rona, that ambassador wrote to his friend Bembo, at Venice, that he " had like to have been banished by the duke and stoned by the people for coming there with the intention of robbing Ferrura of its most precious treasure, for the purpose of enriching Verona." Vit- toria, however, seems to have held out some hope that she might be induced to visit Verona. For the secretary, continuing his letter to the literary Venetian cardinal, says, " "Who knows but what we may succeed in making reprisal on them ? And if that should come to pass, I should hope to see your lordship more frequently in Verona, as I should see Verona the most honored as well as the most envied city in Italy."* It is impossible to have more strfking testimony to the fame our poetess had achieved by her pen ; and it is a feature of the age and clime well worth noting, that a number of small states, divided by hostilities and torn by warfare, should have, nevertheless, possessed among them a republic of letters capable of conferring a celebrity so cordially acknowledged throughout the whole extent of Italy. From a letter f written by Vittoria to Qiaugiorgio Trisino of Vicen- za, the author of an almost forgotten epic, entitled " Italia libcrata da Goti," bearing date the 10th of January (1537), we learn that she found the climate of Ferrara "unfavorable to her indisposition ;" which would seem to imply a continuance of ill-health. Yet it was at this time that she conceived the idea of undertaking a journey to the Holy Land.:): Her old pupil, and nearly lifelong friend, the Mar chese del Vasto, came from Milan to Ferrara to dissuade her from the project. And with this view, as well as to remove her from the air of Ferrara, he induced her to return to Home, where her arrival was again made a matter of almost public rejoicing. The date of this journey was probably about the end of 1537. The society of the Eternal City, especially of that particular section of it which made the world of Vittoria, was in a happy and hopeful mood. The excellent Contarini had not yet departed thence on his mission of conciliation to the conference, which had been arranged with the Protestant leaders at Ratisbon. The brightest and most phcering hopes were based on a total misconception of the nature, or Tatuer on an entire ignorance of the existence of that undercurrent of social change, which, to the north of the Alps, made the reforma- tory movement something infinitely greater, more fruitful of vast re- sults, and more inevitable, than any scholastic dispute on points of theologic doctrine. And at the time of Vittoria's arrival, that little * Letter, dated llth September, 1537, from Bembo's Correspondence, cited by Visconti, p. cxv. t Visconti, p. cxiv. + Visronti, p. cxvi. SHe left Home llth November, 1538. Letter from Contarini to Pole, cited by R&ukt. Ani-tiu'a truui., vol. I. p. 153. VICTORIA. COLONtfA. 5\ band of pure, amiable, and high-minded, but not large-minded men, who fondly hoped that, by the amendment of some practical abuses. and a mutually forbearing give-and-take arrangement of some nice. questions of metaphysical theology, peace on earth and good-will among men might yet be made compatible with the uudiminished pretensions and theory of an universal and infallible church, wen- still lapped in the happiness of their day-dream. Of this knot of excellent men, which comprised all that was best, most amiable, and most learned in Italy, Vittoria was the disciple, the friend, and the inspired Muse. The short examination of her religious poeirv, therefore, which will be the subject of the next chapter, will not only open to us the deepest and most earnest part of her own mind, but will, in a measure, illustrate the extent and nature of the Protestant- izing tendencies then manifesting themselves in Italy. CHAPTER VII. Oratory of Divine Love. Italian Reformers. Their Tenets. Consequence of th Doctrine of Justification by Faith. Fear of Schism in Italy. .Orthodoxy of Vit- toria questioned. Proofs of her Protestantism from her Writings. Calvinism of her Sonnets. Remarkable Passage against Auricular I'onlYssion.-- Controversial and Religions Sonnets. Absence from the Sonnets of Moral Topics. S|>,'< iniru of her Poetical Power. Romanist Ideas. Absence from the Sonnets of all Patri- otic Feeling. THE extreme corruption of the Italian church, and in some degree also the influence of German thought, had even as early as the Pon- tificate of Leo X. led several of the better minds in Italy to desire ardently some means of religious reform. A contemporary writer cited by Ranke,* tells us that in Leo's time some fifty or sixty ear- nest and pious men formed themselves into a society at Rome, which they called the " Oratory of Divine Love," and strove by example and preaching to stem as much as in them lay the tide of profligacy and infidelity. Among these men were Contarini, the learned and saint-like Venetian, Sadolet, Giberto, Caraffa (a man, who, however earnest in his piety, showed himself at a later period, when he be- came pope as Paul IV., to be. animated with a very different spirit from that of most of his fellow-religionists), Gaetano, Thiene, who was afterward canonized, etc. But in almost every part of Italy, not less than in Rome, there were men of the same stamp, who car- ried the new ideas to greater or lesser lengths, were the objects of more or less ecclesiastical censure and persecution ; and who died, some reconciled to and some excommunicated by the church they so vainly strove to amend. * Caracciolo, Vita di Paolo 1, M*. HanUe, Po[>es, vol. i. p. 136, edit. clt. M V1TTOBIA COLOXNA. in Naples, Juaa Valdcz, a Spaniard, secretary to tlie viceroy, warmly embraced the new doctrines ; and being a man much be- loved and of great influence, he drew many converts to the cause. over the whole of Italy, and exercised a very powerful influence. A little later, when the time of inquisitorial persecution came, this book was so vigorously proscribed, sought out and destroyed, that despite the vast number of copies which must have existed in every corner of Italy, it has utterly disappeared, and not one is known to be in ex- istence.* It is impossible to have a more striking proof of the vio- lent and searching nature of the persecution under Paul IV. An- other friend of Valdez, who was also intimate with Yittoria, was Marco Flaminio, who revised the treatise " On the Benefits of Christ's Death." In Modena, the Bishop Moronc, the intimate friend ,of Pole and Contariui, and his chaplain, Don Girolamo de Modena, supported and taught the same opinions. In Venice, Gregorio Cortese, abbot of San Giorgio Maggiore, Luigi Priuli, a patrician, and the Benedictine Marco, of Padua, formed a society mainly occupied in discussing the subtle questions which formed the " symbolum" of the new party. " If we inquire," says Kankc,f " what was the faith which chiefly inspired these men, we shall lind.that the main article of it was that same doctrine of justification, which, as preached by Luther, had given rise to the whole Protestant movement." The reader fortunate enough to be wholly unread in controversial divinity will yet probably not have escaped hearing of the utterly interminable disputes on justification, free-will, election, faith, good works, prevenient giace, original sin, absolute decrees, and predesti- nation, which, with much of evil, and as yet little good consequence, have occupied the most acute intellects and most learning-stored brains of Europe for the last three centuries. Without any accurate^ knowledge; of the manner in which the doctrines represented by these familiar terms are dependent on, and necessitated by, each oilier, and of the precise point on which the opposing ennuis have fought this eternal battle, he will be aware that the system popularly known as Calvinism represents the side of the question taken by tho reformers of Hie sixteenth century, while the opposite theory of justi- fication by good works \\us that held by the orthodox Catholic Church, or unreforming party. And with merely these general ideas to guide him, it will appear strangely unaccountable to find all tho lii-.-t. noblest, and purest minds adopting a system which in its sim- plest logical development inevitably leads to the most debasing * Ranke, ed. cit., vol. i. p. 217. _ t Ed. cit., vol. i. p. 138. VITTORIA COLONNi.. 53 demonolatry, and lays the axe to the root of all morality and noble action ; while the corrupt, the worldly, the ambitions, the unspiritual, the unintellectual natures that formed the dominant party, held the opposite opinion, apparently so favorable to virtue. An explanation of this phenomenon by a partisan of either school would probably be long and somewhat intricate. But the matter becomes intelligible enough, and the true key to the wishes and con- duct of both parties is found, if, without regarding the nmral or theological results of either scheme, or troubling ourselves with the, subtleties by which cither side sought to meet the objections of the other, we consider simply the bearings of the new doctrines on thai, ecclesiastical system, which the orthodox and dominant parly wen: determined at all cost to support. If it were admitted that man is justifiable by faith alone, that his election is a matter to be cerlitied to his own heart by the immediate operation of the Divine Spirit, it would follow that the whole question of his religious condition and future hopes might be, or rather must be, settled between him and his Creator alone. And then what would become of ecclesiastical authority and priestly interference ? If the only knowledge possible to be attained of any individual's standing before (}od were locked in his own breast, what hold can the Church have on him? It is absolutely necessary to any system of spiritual tyranny that no doc trine should be admitted by virtue of which a layman may tell a priest, that despite the opinion he, the priest, may form upon the subject, he, the layman, has the assurance of acceptation befoie (!oii, by means of evidence of a nature inscrutable to the priest. Once admit, this, and the whole foundation of ecclesiastical domination is sapped. Nay, by a very logical and short route, sure to be soon trav- elled by those who have made good this first fundamental pretension, they would arrive at the negation and abolition of all priesthood Preachers and teachers might still have place under such a system, but not priests, or priestly power. To this an externally ascertainable religion is so vitally necessary that the theory of justification by good works was far from sufficient for the purposes of the Catholic priest hood, as long as good works could be understood to mean a general course of not very accurately measurable virtuous living. This was not sufficient, because, though visible, not sufficiently tangible, eounl- nble. and tarifl'able. Hence the good works most urgently pre- scribed became reduced to that mass of formal practices so well known as the material of Romanist piety, among which, the most valuable for the end in view, are of course those which can only be performed by the intervention of a priest. But it must not be supposed that all this was as plainly discerned by the combatants in that confused strife as it may be by lookers back on it from a vantage-ground three centuries high. The innova- tors were hi all probability few, if any of them, conscious of the ex- tent and importance of the principle they were fighting for. And, 54 VITTORIA COLONNA. on the other hand, there is no reason to attribute an evil conscious ness of motives, .such as those nakedly set forth above, to the con- servative party. The fact that a doctrine would tend to abridge church power and endanger church unity would doubtless have ap- peared to many a good and conscientious man a sutlicient proof of its unsoundness and falsity. Indeed, even among the reformers in Italy the fear of schism was so great, and the value attached to church unity so high, that these considerations probably did as much toward checking and finally ex- tinguishing Protestantism in Italy as did the stiong hand of persecu- tion. From the first, many of the most earnest advocates of the new doctrine's were by no means prepared to sever themselves from the Church for the sake of their opinions. Some were ready to face such schism and martyrdom also in the cause ; as, for instance, Bernardino Ochino, the General of the Capuchins, and the most powerful preacher of his day, who lied from Italy and became a professed Protestant, and Carnesecchi, the Florentine, who was put to death for his heresy at Rome. But it had not yet become clear how far the new doctrines might be held compatibly with perfect community with the Church of Home at the time when Vittoria arrived in that city from Ferrara. The conference with the German Protestants, by means of which it was hoped to effect a reconciliation, was then being arranged, and the hopes of Vittoria's friends ran high. When these hopes proved delusive, and when Rome pronounced herself decisively on the dor- trincs held by the Italian reformers, the most conspicuous friends of Vittoria did not quit the church. She herself writes ever as its suit- missive and faithful daughter. But as to her having held opinions which were afterward declared heretical, and for which others suffered, much of her poetry, written probably about this time, ail'ords evidence so clear that it is wonderful Tiraboschi and her biographers can deem it possible to maintain her orthodoxy. Take, for example, the following sonnet : " Quand' io rignardo il nobil raggio ardente Delia gni/.iu divina, e quel valore Cir illuslra '1 intullctto. iiiflamma il core Con virtu' sopr' uinana. alia, < possonte, L' alma le vojtlii- allur lisse ed intente llacco^lie tutlc insieme a fargli onore ; Ma tanto liu di poter, truant' e '1 favore Che dal luine e dal foco intendc e sente. Ond' clla pno hen 1'ar certa efflcace L' alia sua elezion, in a iiifiiio al segno Ch' all autpr d'ogiii ben, sna nierce, piaca. Non sprona il cpr.o nostro induRtria o ingegno; Ouel corre ))in sicnro v piii vivace, C' na dal favor del ciel inaggior Bostugno." Thus rendered into English blank verse, with a greater closeness to the sense of the original than might perhaps have been attained m a iranslation hampered by the necessity of rhyming : TITTORIA COLOWNA. 55 " When I reflect on that bright noble ray Of grace divine, and on that mighty power, Which clears the intellect, inflames the heart With virtue, strong with more than human strength, My soul then gathers up her will, intent To render to that Power the honor due; But only so much can she, as free grace Gives her to feel and know th' inspiring flre. Thus can the soul her high election make Fruitful and sure ; but only to such point As, in his gooduess, wills the Fount of good, Nor art nor industry can speed her course ; He most securely and alertly runs Who most by Heaven's free favor is upheld." The leading points of Calvinistic doctrine could hardly be in the limits of a sonnet more clearly and comprehensively stated. Devo- tional meditation inclines the heart to God ; but the soul is powerless even to worship, except in such measure as she is enabled to do <> by freely-given grace. By this means only can man make sure his election. To strive after virtue is useless to the non-elect, seeing that. man can safely run his course only in proportion as he has received the favor of God. Again, in the following sonnet will be remarked a tone of thought and style of phrase perfectly congenial to modern devotional feeling of what is termed the evangelical school ; while it is assuredly not such as would meet the approval of orthodox members of either the Roman Catholic or Anglo-Catholic churches : " Qnando dal lume, il cui vivo splendore Rende il petto fedel licto e cicuro, Si dissolve per grazia il ghiaccio duro, Che sovt-nte si geTa intorno al core, Sento ai bei lampi del possente ardore Cader delle inie colpe il manto oscuro, E vestinni in quel punto il chiaro e pnro Delia priniii iunocenza e primo amore. E sebben con serrata e fida chiave Serro quel raggio ; egli e scivo e sottile, Si ch' mi basso pengkT lo ecaccia e edegna. Ond' ei ratio sen vola ; io mesta e grave Rimango, e 'Iprego die d' ogni oinbra vile Mi spogli, accid piu presto a me sen vegna." Which may be thus, with tolerable accuracy, rendered into Engliafc , " When by the light, \rhose living ray both peace And joy to faithful bosoms doth impart, The indurated ice, around the heart So often gather'd, is dissolved through grace, Beneath that blessed radiance from above Falls from me the dark mantle of my sin ; Sudden I stand forth pure and radiant in The garb of primal innocence and love. And though I strive with lock and trusty key To keep that rav. so subtle 'tis and coy, By one low thought 'tis wared and put to flight So flies it from me. I in sorrowing plight Remain, and pray, that he from bae alloy May pprge mo, o the light come ioonct back to m. 5f! VITTORIA COLONNA. Here, in addition to the " points of doctrine" laid down in the pre- vious sonnet, we have that of sudden and instantaneous conversion and sanctification ; and that without any aid from sacrament, altar, or priest. Similar thoughts are again expressed in the next sonnet selected, which hi Signor Visconti's edition immediately follows the preced- ing : "jSpiego per voi, mia luce, indarno 1' ale, Pnma che '1 caldo vostro interne yento M' apra 1' acre d' intorno, pra ch' io sento Vincer da nuovp ardir 1' antico male ; Che giunga all' infinite opra mortale Opra rostra e, Signor, che in un momento La pud far uegna ; ch' io da me pavento Di cadcr col pensier quand' ei piu. Bale. Bramo quell' invisibil chiaro lume, Che fuga dcnsa nebbia ; e quell' access Secreta flamina, elf o<:ni gel consuma. Onde poi, sgombra clal terren costume, Tutta al divino amor V anima intesa Si mova al volo altero in ultra piuma." Tliua done into English : " Feeling new force to conquer primal pin. Yet all in vain I spread my wings to thee, My light, until the air around nhall be Made clear for me by thy warm breath within. That mortal works should reach the infinite Is thy work, Lord ! For in a moment thou Canst give them worth. Left to myself I know My thought would fall, when at its utmost height. I long for that clear radiance from above That puts to flight all cloud ; and that bright flame Which secret burning warms the frozen soul ; So. that set free from every mortal aim. And all intent alone on heavenly love, She flies with stronger pinion toward her goal." Tn the following lines, which form the conclusion of a sonnet in which she has been saying that God does not permit that any pure heart should be concealed from His all-seeing eye " by the fraud or force of others, " we have a very remarkable' bit of such heresy on the vital point of the confessional, as has been sufficient to consign more than one victim to the stake : " Sccuri del sup dolce e gitisto impero, Non come il primo padre e la sua donna, Dobbiam del nostro error biasimare altrui ; Ma con la wpemc accesa e dolor vero Aprir dentro, pansando ollra la gonna I falli noKtri a solo a sol con /wi." The underlined words, " passando oltra la gonna," literally, " passing beyond the gown," though the sense appears to be unmis- takable, are yet sufficiently obscure and unobvious, and the phrase RumrJeiitly far-fetched, to lead to the suspicion of a wish on the p;;it TITTORIA COLOKNA. 5? of the writer in some degree to veil her meaning. " That in the cap- tain's but a choleric word, which in the soldier is foul blasphemy." And the high-born Colonna lady, the intimate friend of cardinals and princes, might write much with impunity which would have I icon perilous to less lofty heads. But the sentiment in this very remarka- ble passage implies an attack on one of Rome's teuderest and sorott points. In English the lines run thus : " Confiding in His just and gentle sway We should not dare, like Adam and hi8 wife, On other's backs our proper blame to lay ; But with new-kindled hope and unfeigned grief, Passing by priestly robes, lay bare within To Him alone the secret of our sin." Again, in the conclusion of another sonnet, in which she lias been speaking of the benefits of Christ's death, and of the necessity of a " sopnumatural divina fcde" for the receiving of them, she writes in language very similar to that of many a modern advocate of " free inspiration," and which must have been distasteful to the erudite clergy of the dominant hierarchy, as follows : " Quo 1 ch' avra sol in lui le luci flsse, Non quo' ch' iutese meglio, o che piu lesse Volumi in terra, in cicl wira beato. In carta questa legge non si scrisse ; Ma con la wtampa sua nel cor purgato Col foco dell' amor Gesu 1' irnpresse." In English : " ITc who hath fixed on Christ alone his eyes, Not he who best hath understood, or read Most earthly volumes, shall Heaven's bliss attain. For not on paper did He write His law. But printed it on expurgated hearts Stamped with the fire of Jesus' holy love." In another remarkable sonnet she gives expression to the prevail- ing feeling of the pressing necessity for chiirch reform, joined to a marked declaration of belief in the doctrine of Papal infallibility ; a doctrine which, by its tenacious hold on the Italian mind, contributed mainly to extinguish the sudden straw blaze of reforming tendencies throughout Italy. The lines run as follows : " Veggio d' alga e di fango omai si carca, Pietro, la rete tua, che se qnalche onda Di fuor 1' assale o intorno circonda. Potria spezKaroi, e a rischio andnr la barca ; La qual, non come suol leggicra e scarca, Sovra 'I turbato mar corre a seconda, Ma in poppa e'n prora, all' una e all' altr gponda E' grave si ch' a gran periglio varca. II tuo buon successor, ch" 1 alta cagione Direttamente elesse, e cor e mano Move aovente per condnrla a porto. Ida contra il voler uo ratto s' oppone L' altrni malizia ; onde ciaacum ' d accorto, Ch' egli seuza '1 two aiuto urtopra in yano." ,-,S ViTTORIA COLONNA. Which may be thus read in English blank verse, giving not very poetically, but with tolerable fidelity, the sense of the original : " With mud and weedy {growth so fonl I see Thy net, O Peter, that should any wave Assail it from without or trouble it, It might be rended, and so risk the ship. For now thy bark, no more, as erst, skims light With favoring breezes o'er the troubled sea, But labors bnrthen'd so from stem to stern, That danger menaces the course it steers. Thy good successor, by direct decree Of providence elect, with heart and hand Assiduous strives to bring it to the port. But spite his striving his intent is foiled By others' evil. So that all have seen That without aid from thee, he strives in vain." The lofty pretensions of the Bishop of Rome, which our poetess, with all her reforming aspirations, goes out of her way to declare and maintain in the phrase of the above sonnet marked by italics, were dear to the hearts of Italians. It may be that an antagonistic bias, arising from feelings equally beyond the limits of the religious ques- tion, helped to add acrimony to the attacks of the transalpine re- formers. But there can be no doubt that Italian self-love was active in rendering distasteful to Italians a doctrine, whose effect would be to pull down Rome from her position as capital of the Christian world, and no longer permit an Italian ecclesiastic lo issue his lofty decrees " Urbi et Orbi. " And those best acquainted with the Italian mind of that period, as evidenced by its literature, and illustrated by its still-existing tendencies and prejudices, will most appreciate the extent to which such feelings unquestionably operated in preventing the reformation from taking root, and bearing fruit in Italy. The readers of the foregoing sonnets, even those who are familiar with the language of the original, will probably have wondered at the greatness of the poetical reputation, which was built out of such materials. It is but fair, however, to the poetess to state, that the citations have been selected, rather with the view of decisively prov- ing these Protestant leanings of Vittoria, which have been so eagerly denied, and of illustrating the tone of Italian Protestant feeling at that period, than of presenting the most favorable specimens of her poetry. However fitly devotional feeling may be clothed in poetry of the highest order, controversial divinity is not a happy subject for verse. And Vittoria, on the comparatively rare occasions, when she permits herself to escape from the consideration of disputed dogma, can make a nearer approach to true poetry of thought and expression. In the following sonnet, it is curious to observe how the expression of the grand and simple sentiment of perfect trust in the will and in- tentions of the omnipotent Creator, which, in the first eight lines, rises iuto something like poetry, becomes flattened and debased into VITTORIA COLONNA. 59 Jie iiost prosaic doggerel, as soon as the author, recollecting the con- rovi-rsie? raging round her on the subject, bethinks her of the neces- sity of daly defining the theological virtue of "Faith, "as being of that sort tit for the production of works. " Deh ! mandi oggi, Signor, novello e chiaro Raggio ul inio cor ai quclla ardente fede, Ch opra sol per amor, non per mercede, Omle ngualmente il tuo voler gli e caro ! Dal dolcc fonte tuo pensa die amaro Nasccr non posaa, anzi riceve e crude Per buon quant' ode. e per bel quanto vedft, Per largo il ciel, quand' ei si mostra avaro. So chieder grazia all' umil servo lice, Questu fede vorrei, che illustra, accende, E pasce 1' alma sol di lume vero. Con questa in parte il gran valor 8' intende, Che pianta e fcriua in noi T alta radice, Qual rende i frutti a lui tutti d'amore." Which may be thus rendered : " Grant to my heart a pure fresh ray, O Lord, Of that bright ardent faith which makes thy will Its best-loved law, and seeks it to fulfil For love alone, not looking for reward ; That faith, which deems no ill can come from thce, But humbly trusts, that, rightly understood. All that, meets eye or ear is fair and good. And Heaven's love oft in prayers refused can see. And if thy handmaid might prefer a suit, I would that faith possess that fires the heart. And feeds the soul with the true light alone ; I mean hereby, that mighty power in part, Which plants and strengthens in us the deep root, From which all fruits of love for him are grown." In the following sonnet, which is one of several dictated by the same mood of feeling, the more subjective tone of her thought affords iis an autobiographical glimpse of her state of mind on religious sub- jects. We find that the new tenets which she had imbibed had failed to give her peace of mind. That comfortable security, and un- doubting satisfied tranquillity, procured for the mass of her orthodox contemporaries, by the due performance of their fasts, vigils, peni- tences, etc., was not attained for Vittoria by a creed, which required her, as she here tells us, to stifle the suggestions of her reason. " Se con T armi celesti avess' io vinto Me stessa, i sensi, e la ragione umana, Andrei con altro spirto aita e lontana Dal mondo, e dal suo onor falso dipinto. Suir ali della fede il peusier cinto Di speme, omai non piii caduca e vana, Sarebbe fuor di quest* valle insana Da verace virtute alzato e spinto. Ben ho gia ferino 1' occhio al miglior flu* Dei nostro corso ; ma non volo aurora Per lo destro sentier salda e leggiera. Veggio i segni del BO), scorgo I 1 aurora ; Ma per li sacri girialle divine Stonze non entro in quslla luce Tera," V1TTORIA COLOHNA. as follows : " Hud I with heavenly arms 'gainst self and sense And human reason wagecfsuceepsf ul war, Then with a different spirit soaring far I'd lly the world's vain glory and pretence. Then soaring thought on wings of faitli might rite, Armed by a hope no longer vain or frail, Far from the madness of this earthly vale, Led hy true virtue toward its native skies. That better aim is ever in iny sight, Of man's existence ; Cut not yet 'tis mine To speed sure-footed on the happy way. Signs of the rising sun and coming day I see ; bnt enter not the courts divine Whose holy portals lead to perfect light." A touch of similar feeling may be observed also in the following rionnet, united with more of poetical feeling and expression. Indeed, this sonnet may be offered as a specimen of the author's happiest efforts : " Fra gelo e nebbia corro a Dio soyeritc Per foco e lume, onde i ghiaccj disciolti Sieno, e gli ombrosi veil aperti e tolti Dalla divina luce e fiamina urdente. E se freda ed oscura e ancor la meute, Pur sou tittti i pensieri ul ciel rivolti ; B par cue dentro in gran silenzio ascolti Un suon, ehe sol nell' anima si sente ; E dice ; Non temer, ehe venne al niondo Gesii d' eterno ben largo ainpio mare, Per far leggiero ogni gravoso pomlo. an I' ondi Sempre son 1' onde sue piii dole! e chiare A Dell A chi con umil barca in quel gran tbndo ' alta eua Inn it a si lascia andare." If the reader, who is able to form a judgment of the poetical merit of this sonnet only from the subjoined translation, should fail to find in it anything to justify the opinion that has been expressed of it, he is entreated to believe that the fault is that of the translator, who can promise only that the sense has been faithfully rendered : " Of I times to God through frost and cloud I go For lifjht and warmth to break my icy chain, And pierce and rend my veils of doubt in twain With his divincst love, and radiant glow. And if my soul sit cold and dark below Yet all her longings fixed on heaven remain ; And seems she 'mid deep silence to a strain To listen, which the soul alone can know, Saying, Fear naught ! for Jesus came on earth- Jesus of endless joys the wide deep sea To ease each heavy load of mortal birth. His waters ever clearest, sweetest be To him, who in a lonely bark Orifts forth, Oa his great deeps of goodness trustfully." It will probably he admitted that the foregoing extracts from Vii, toria Colonna's poetry, if they do not suffice to giv the outline of VITTOKIA COLONNA. fi1 the entire fabric of her religious faith, yet ;ilmn nelfa celeste einpirea corte Non fia piu il nervo, die il signor, gradito. I'iunge 1' antica mad re il gusio ardito Oh' a' figlisuoi del ciel chiu*e le porte ; E che due man piagate or nieno hcurte Da ridurne al cammiti per lei sniarrito. Asconde il sol la sua ftilgente chiorna ; Spe/.zansi i cassi vivi ; iiproiisi i inonti ; Trema la lerra e '1 ciel ; turbant#i 1' acque ; Piangou gli gpirti, al nostro mal si pronti, Delle catene lor 1' aggiunta soma. L,' uomo non plunge, u pur piungeudo atqu-e !' Of which the following is an inadequate but tolerably faltkfm translation : " The angels to eternal bliss preferred. Long on this day, a painful death to die, Lest in the heavenly manxiois of the sky The servant be more favored than his Lord. Man's ancient mother weeps the deed, this day That shut the gates of aeaven against her race, Woepa tbo two pierced hands, whose work ofgraco, Kofliidd tbe path, from which stae iuU inau Birujr. VlTTOrtrA COLONtfA. 63 The snn his ever-burning ray doth veil ; Earth and sky tremble ; ocean quakes amain, And mountains gape, and living rocks are torn. The fienda, on watch for human evil, wail The added weight of their restraining chain. Man only weeps not ; yet was weeping horn." As the previous extracts from the works of Vittoria have been, as has been stated, selected principally with a view to prove her Protest - antism, it is fair to observe that there are several sonnets addressed to the Virgin Mary, and some to various saints, from which (though they are wholly free from any allusion to the grosser superstitions that Rome encourages her faithful disciples to connect with these, personages) it is yet clear that the writer believed in the value of saintly intercession at the throne of grace. It is also worth remark- ing, that she nowhere betrays the smallest consciousness that she is differing hi opinion from the recognized tenets of the Church, unless it be found, as was before suggested, in an occasional obscurity of phrase, which seems open to tiie suspicion of having been intentional. The great majority of these poemu, however, were in all probability composed before the Church had entered on her new career of petse- cution. And as regards the ever-recurring leading point of " justili cation by grace," it was impossible to saj r exactly how far it was orthodox to go in the statement of this tenet, until Rome had finally decided her doctrine by the decrees of the Council of Trent. ' One other remark, which will hardly fail to suggest itself to tin- modern reader of Vittoria's poetry, may be added respecting these once celebrated and enthusiastically received works. There is not to be discovered throughout the whole of them one spark of Italian or patriotic feeling. The absence of any such, must, undoubtedly, be regarded only as a confirmation of the fact asserted in a previous chapter, that no sentiment of the kind was then known in Italy. In that earlier portion of her works, which is occupied almost exclu- sively with her husband's praises, it is hardly possible that the e\ pression of such feelings should have found no place, had they ex isted in her mind. But it is a curious instance of the degree to whieh even the better intellects of an age are blinded by and made subser- vient to the tone of feeling and habits of thought prevalent around them, that it never occurs to this pure and lofty-minded Vittoria. in celebrating the prowess of her hero, to give a thought to the cause for which he was drawing the sword. To prevail, to be the stronger " to take great cities," "to rout the foe," appears to be all that her beau ideal of heroism required. Wrong is done, and the strong-handed doer of it admired, the moral sense is blunted by the cowardly worship of success, and might takjs from right the suffrages of the feeble, in the nineteenth as 'in the sixteenth century. But the contemplation of the total absence from such a miuJ .'.; l!::it -f YMl^rin Ol A nna, "f :i!! <}[ VITTOIIIA COLOXNA. nition of a right and a wrong in such matters, furnishes highly in structive evidence of the reality of the moral progress mankind ha* achieved. CHAPTER VIII. Return to Rome. Her Great Reputation. Friendship \rith Michael Angelo. Medal of this Period. Removal to Orvieto. Visit from Luca Contilc. Her De- termination not to quit the Church. Francesco d'Olanda. His Record of Con- versations with Viltoria. Vittoriaat Viterbo. Influence of Cardinal I'olo on her Mind. Last Return to Rome. Her Death. VITTOJUA arrived in Rome from Ferrara in all probability about l IK- end of the year 1537. She was now in the zenith of her reputa- tion. The learned and elegant Bembo* writes of her that he consid- ered her poetical judgment as sound and authoritative as that of the greatest masters of the art of song. Guidiccioni, the poetical Bishop of Fossombronc, and of Paul III. 's ablest diplomatists, declares f that the ancient glory of Tuscany had altogether passed into Latium in her person ; and sends her sonnets of his own, with earnest entreaties that she will point out the faults of them. Veronica Gambara, her self a poetess of merit perhaps not inferior to fliat of Vittoria, pro- fessed herself her most ardent admirer, and engaged Rinaldo Cored to write the commentary on her poems, which he executed as we have seen. Bernardo Tusso made her the subject of several of his poems. Giovio dedicated to her his life of Pcscara, and Cardinal Pompeo Colonna his book on " The Praises of Women ;" and Contarini paid her the far more remarkable compliment of dedicating to her his work, " On Free "Will." Paul III. was, as Muratori says.J by no means well disposed toward the Colonna family. Yet Vittoria must have had influence with the haughty and severe old Farnese. For both Bembo and Frogoso, the Bishop of Naples, have taken occasion to acknowledge; that they owed their promotion to the purple in great measure to her. But the most noteworthy event of this period of Vittoria's life, WAS the commencement of her acquaintance with Michael Angdo Buonarroti. That great man was then in his (>- 168. C6 VITTORIA COLOSTRA. written with the most perfect ease, in a firm, strong hand ; but there is not a syllabic in any of them approaching to tenderness." The period of Vittoria's stay in Rome on this occasion must have been a pleasant one. The acknowledged leader of the best and most intellectual society in that city ; surrounded by a company of gifted and high-minded men, bound to her and to each other by that most intimate and ennobling of all ties, the common profession of a higher, nobler, purer theory of life than that which prevailed around them, and a common membership of what might almost be called a select church within a church, whose principles and teaching its disciples hoped to see rapidly spreading and beneficially triumphant ; dividing her time between her religious duties, her literary occupations, and conversation with well-loved and well-understood friends Vittoria can hardly have been still tormented by temptations to commit sui- cide. Yet in a medal struck in her honor at this period of her life, the last of the series engraved for Visconti's edition of her works, the reverse represents a phoenix on her funeral pile gazing on the sun, while the flames are rising around her. The obverse has a bust of the poetess, showing the features a good deal changed in the course of the six or seven years which had elapsed since the execution of ' hat silly Pyramus and Thisbe medal mentioned in a previous chapter, though still regular and well formed. The tendency to fatness, and to a comfortable-looking double chin, is considerably increased. She wears a singularly unbecoming head-dress of plaited linen, sitting close to and covering the entire head, with long pendants at the sides falling over the shoulders. These pleasant Roman days were, however, destined to be of brief duration. They were cut short, strange as the statement may seem, by the imposition of an increased tax upon salt. For when Paul III. resorted, in 1539, to that always odious and crwl means of pillaging his people, Ascanio Colonna maintained that, by virtue of some an- cient privilege, the new tax could not be levied on his estates. The pontifical tax-gatherers imprisoned certain of his vassals for refusing to pay ; whereupon Ascanio assembled his retainers, made a raid into the Campagna, and drove off a large number of cattle.* The pope lost no time in gathering an army of ten thousand men, and " war was declared" between the sovereign and the Colon na. The varying fortunes of this " war" have been narrated in detail by more than one historian. f Much mischief was done, and a great deal of misery occasioned by both the contending parties. But at length the forces of the sovereign got the better of those of his vassal, and the principal fortresses of the Colonna were taken, and their fortifica- tions ordered to be razed. It was in consequence of these misfortunes, and of that remarka- ble " solidarity" which, as has been before observed, united in those * '-oppi. Mem. Col., p. 306. t Especially Adrian!, Storia di suoi tempi. VITTORIA COLONNA. C7 days the members of a family in their fortunes and reverses, that Vittoria quitted Rome, probably toward the end of* 1540, and retired to Orvieto. But the loss of their brightest ornament was a misfor- tune which the highest circles of Roman society could not submit to patiently. Many of the most influential personages at Paul III 's court visited the celebrated exile at Orvieto, and succeeded ere long in obtaining her return to Rome after a very short absence.* Anil we accordingly find her again in the Eternal City in the August of 1541. There is a letter written by Luca Contilc.t the Sienesc historian, dramatist and poet, in which he speaks of a visit he had paid to Vit- toria in Rome in that month. She asked him, he writes, for news of Fra Bernardino (Ochino), and on his replying that he had left be- hind him at Milan the highest reputation for virtue and holiness, she answered, " God grant that he so persevere !" On this passage of Luca Ccatile's letter, Visconti and others have built a long argument in proof of Vittoria's orthodoxy. It is unite clear, they say, that she already suspected and lamented Ochino's progress toward heresy, and thus indicates her own aversion to aught that might lead to separation from the Church of Rome. It would be difficult, however, to show that the simple phrase in ques- tion had necessarily any such meaning. But any dispute on this point is altogether nugatory ; for it may be at once admitted that Vittosia did not quit, and in all probability would not under any cir- cumstances have (juitted, the communion of the Church. And if this is all that her Romanist biographers wish to maintain, they un- questionably are correct in their statements. She acted in this re- spect in conformity with the conduct of the majority of those eminent men whose disciple and friend she was during so many years. And the final extinction of the reformatory movement in Italy was in- great measure due precisely to the fact, that conformity to Rome was dearer to most Italian minds than the independent assertion of their own opinions. It may be freely granted, that there is every reason to suppose that it would have been so to Vittoria, had she not been so fortunate as to die before her peculiar tenets were so defini- tively condemned as to make it necessary for her to choose between abandoning them or abandoning Rome. But surely all the interest which belongs to the question of her religious opinions consists in the fact that she, like the majority of the best minds of her country and age, assuredly held doctrines which Rome discovered and de- clared to be incompatible with her creed. A more agreeable record of Vittoria's presence in Rome at this tune, and an interesting glimpse of the manner in which many of her hours were passed, is to be found in the papers left by one Fran- cesco d'Olanda,$ a Portuguese painter, who was then in the Eternal * Viiconti, p. cxxvii. t Contile, Lettere, p. 19 ; Venice, 1564. t NoU 5. 68 vrrroitiA COLONKA. City. He find been introduced, he tells us, by the kindness of Messer Lattanzio Tolcmci of Siena to the Marchcsii de Pescara, and also to Miehael Angelo ; and he has recorded at length several conversa- tions between these and two or three other members of their society, jn which he took part. The object of his notes appears to have been chiefly to preserve the opinions expressed by the great Floren- tine on subjects connected with the arts. And it must be admitted, that the conversation of the eminent personages mentioned, as re- corded by the Portuguese painter, appears, if judged by the standard of nineteenth-century notions, to have been wonderfully dull and flat. The record is a very curious one even in this point of view. It Is interesting to measure the distance between what was considered first-rate conversation in 1540, and what would be tolerated among intelligent people in 1850. The good-old-times admirers, who would have us believe that the ponderous erudition of past generations is distasteful to us, only by reason of the touch-and-go butterfly frivo- lousncss of the modern mind, are in error. The long discourses which charmed a sixteenth-century audience are to us intolerably boring, because they are filled with platitudes with facts, inferences, and speculations, that is, which have passed and re] Kissed through the popular mind till they have assumed the appearance of self- evident truths and fundamental axioms, "which it is loss of time to spend words on. And time has so wonderfully risen in value < And though there are more than ever men whose discourse might be in- structive and profitable to their associates, the universality of the habit of reading prevents conversation from being turned into a lec- ture. Those who have matter worth communicating can do so more effectually and to a larger audience by means of the pen ; and those willing to be instructed can make themselves masters of the thoughts of others far more satisfactorily by the medium of a book. But the external circumstances of these conversations, noted down for us by Francesco d'Olanda, give us an amusing peep into the lit- erary life of the Roman world three hundred years ago. It was one Sunday afternoon that the Portuguese artist went to call on Messer Lattauxio Tolemei, nephew of the cardinal of that name. The servants told him that their master was in the church of San Silvestro, at Monte Cavallo, in company with the Mnrchesa di Pescara, for the purpose of hearing a lecture on the Epistles of St. Paul, from a certain Friar Ambrose of Siene. Maestro Francesco lost no time in following his friend thither. And "as soon as the reading and the interpretations of it were over," the Majchesa, turning to the stranger, and inviting him to sit beside her, said, " If 1 am not mistaken, Francesco d'Olanda would better like to hear Michael Angelo preach on painting, than to listen to Friar Ambrose's lecture. " Whereupon the painter, " feeling himself piqued," assures the lady that he can take interest in other matters than painting, and that, VITTORIA COLONKTA. 69 however willingly he would listen to Michael Angelo on art, lie would prefer to hear Friar Ambrose when St. Paul's epistles were in question. "Do not he angry, Messer Francesco," said Signor Lattan/io, thereupon. " The Marchesa is far from doubting that the man ca- pable of painting may be capable of aught else. We, in Italy, have too high an estimate of art for that. But perhaps we should gather from the remark of the Signora Marchesa the intention of adding to the pleasure you have already had, that of hearing Michael Angclo. " " In that case," said I, " her Excellence would do only as is her wont that is, to accord greater favors than one would have dared to ask of her. ' ' So Vittoria calls to a servant, and bids him go to the house of Michael Angelo and tell him " that I and Mcsscr Lattanzio are here in this cool chapel, that the church is shut, and very pleasant, and ask him if he will come and spend a part of the day with us. that wo may put it to profit in his company. But do not tell him that Fran- cesco d'Olanda the Spaniard is here." Then there is some very mild raillery about how Michael Angelo was to be led. to speak of painting it being, it seems, very quest ioii- able whether "he could be induced to do so ; and a little bickering follows between Maestro Francesco and Friar Ambrose, who feels convinced that Michael will not be got to talk before the Portuguese, while the latter boasts of his intimacy with the great man. Presently there is a knock at the church door. It is Michael Augelo, who has been met by the servant as he was going toward the baths, talking with Orbiiio, his color-grinder. " The Marchesa rose to receive him, and remained standing a good while before making him sit down between her and Messer Lattan- zio." Then, "with an art which I can neither describe nor imitate, she began to talk of various matters with infinite wit and grace, without ever touching the subject of painting, the better to make sure of the great painter." " One is sure enough," she says at last, " to be completely beaten, as often as one ventures to attack Michael Angelo on his own ground, which is that of wit and raillery. You will see, Messer Lattanzio, that to put him clown and reduce him to silence we must talk to him of briefs, law processes, or painting." By which subtle and deep laid plot the great man is set off into a long discourse on painters and painting. " His Holiness," said the Marchesa, after a while, " has granted me the favor of authorizing me to build a new convent, near this spot. on the slope of Monte Cavallo, when; there is the ruined portico, from the top of which, it is said, that Nero looked on while Rome was burning ; so that virtuous women may ctl'ace the trace of so wicked a man. I do not know, Michael Angelo, what form or pro- portions to give the building, or on which side to make the entrance ?0 Y1TTOK1A COLONNA. Would it not be possible to join together some parts of the ancient constructions, and make them available toward the new building?" " Yes," said Michael Angelo ; " the ruined portico might serve for a bell-tower." This repartee, says our Portuguese reporter, was uttered with so much seriousness and aplomb that Messer Lattanzio could not for- bear from remarking it. From.which we are led to infer that the great Michael was under- stood to have made a joke. He added, however, more seriously, " I think that your Excellence may build the proposed convent without difficulty ; and when we go out, we can, if your Excellence so please, have a look at the spot, and suggest to you some ideas." Then, after a complimentary speech from Vittoria, in which she declares that the public, who know Michael Angelo's works only without being acquainted with his character, are ignorant of the best part of him, the lecture, to which all this is introductory, begins. And when the company part at its close, an appointment is made to meet again another Sunday in the same church. A painter in search of an unhackneyed subject might easily choose a worse one than that suggested by this notable group, making the cool and quiet church their Sunday afternoon drawing-room. The few remaining years of Vittoria's life were spent between Rome and Viterbo, an episcopal city some thirty miles to the north of it. In this latter her home was in the convent of the nuns of St. Catherine. Her society there consisted chiefly of Cardinal Pole, the governor of Viterbo, her old friend Marco Antonio Flammio, and Archbishop Soranzo. During these years the rapidly increasing consciousness on the part of the Church of the danger of the doctrines held by the reforming party was speedily making it unsafe to profess those opinions. which, as we have seen, gave the color to so large a portion of Vitto- ria's poetry, and which had formed her spiritual character. And these friends, in the closest intimacy with whom she lived at Viterbo, were not the sort of men calculated to support her in any daring re- liance on the dictates of her own soul, when these chanced to be in opposition to the views of the Church. Pole appears to have been at this time the special director of her conscience. And we know but too well, from the lamentable sequel of his own career, the sort of counsel he would be likely to give her under the circumstances. There is an extremely interesting letter extant, written by her from Viterbo to the Cardinal Cervino, who was afterward Pope Marcellus II., which proves clearly enough, to the great delight of her orthodox admirers, that let her opinions have been what they might, she was ready to " submit" them to the censorship of Rome, we have seen how closely her opinions agreed with those which drove Bernardino Oeliino to separate himself from the Church and fly from its ven- geance. Yet under Polc'a tutelage -she writes as follows : V1TTOKIA COLONNA. * 1 "MosT ILLUSTRIOUS AND MOST REVEREND SIR: The more cp portimity I have had of observing the actions of his Eminence the Cardinal of England (Pole), the more clear lias it seemed to me that he is a true and sincere servant of God. Whenever, therefore, he charitably condescends to give me his opinion on any point, I con- ceive myself safe from error in following his advice. And he tf.ld me that, in his opinion, I ought, in case any letter or other mutter should reach me from Fra Bernardino, to send, the same to your most, Reverend Lordship, and return no answer, unless I should be directed to do so. I send you therefore the inclosed, which I have this day received, together with the little book attached. The whole was in a packet which came to the post here by a courier from Bologna, without any other writing inside. And I have thought it best not to make use of any other means of sending it, than by a servant of my own." . . . She adds in a postscript : " It grieves me much that the more he tries to excuse himself the more he accuses himself ; and the more lie thinks to save others from shipwreck, the more he exposes himself to the flood, being himself out of the ark which saves and secures."* Poor Ochino little thought probably that his letter to his former admiring and fervent disciple would be passed on with such a re- mark to the hands of his enemies ! He ought, however, to have been aware that princesses and cardinals, whatever speculations they may have indulged in, do not easily become heretics. She returned once more from Viterbo to Rome toward the end of the year 1.T44, and took up her residence in the convent of Bern-die tines of St. Anne. While there she composed the Latin prayer, printed in the note,f which has been much admired, and which, though not so Ciceronian in its diction as Bembo might have written, will biiar comparison with similar compositions by many more cele- brated persons. Several of the latest of her poems were also written at this time. But her health began to fail so rapidly as to give great uneasiness to her friends. Several letters are extant from Tolomei to her physician, anxiously inquiring after her health, urging him to neglect no resources of his art, and bidding him remember that " the lives of many, who continually receive from her their food some that of the body and others that of the mind are bound up in hcr>. "| The celebrated physician and poet, Fracastoro, was written to in Verona. In his reply, after suggesting medical remedies, he says, " Would that a physician for her mind could be found ! Otherwise the * Visconti, p. c.xxxi. Printed U!M> by Tirabosr.hi. vol. 7. t Note 6. | Letters del Tolomei. Vene/.iu, J57H. Viacontl, p. cxxxiy. 72 VITTOHIA COLONNA. not be of much value. But it is certain that many circumstances combined to render these declining years of Vittoria's life unhappy. The fortunes of her family were under a cloud ; and it is probable that she was as much grieved by her brother's conduct as by the consequences of it. The death also of the Marchese del Vasto, in the flower of his age, about this time, was a severe blow to her. Ever since those happy early days in Ischia, when she had been to him, as she said, morally and intellectually a mother, the closest ties of affection had united them ; and his loss was to Vittoria like that of a son. Then again, though she had perfectly made up her mind as to the line of conduct it l>ehooved her to take in regard to any difficulties of religious opinion, yet it cannot be doubted that the necessity of separating herself from so many whom she had loved and venerated, deserting them, as it were, in their falling fortunes, must have been acutely painful to her. Possibly also conscience was not wholly at rest with her on this matter. It may be that the still voice of inward conviction would sometimes make obstinate murmur against blindfold submission to a priesthood, who ought not, accord- ing to the once expressed opinion of the poetess, to come between the creature and his Creator. As she became gradually worse and weaker, she was removed from the convent of St. Anne to the neighboring house of Giuliauo Cesarini, the husband of Guilia Colonna, the only one of her kindred then left in Rome. And there she breathed her last, toward the end of Feb- ruary, 1547, in the 57th year of her age. In her last hours she was visited by her faithful and devotedly at- tached friend, Michael Angelo, who watched the departure of the spirit from her frame ; and who declared,* years afterward, that he had never ceased to regret that in that solemn moment he had not ventured to press his lips, for the first and last time, to the marble forehead of the dead. She had directed that her funeral should be in all respects like that of one of the sisters of the convent in which she last resided. And so completely were her behests attended to that no memorial of any kind remains to tell the place of her sepulchre. * Coadivi. Vita. NOTES TO TUB LIFE OF VITTOKIA COLONNA. 1. Page 15. Galliano Passeri, the author of the diary quoted in tho text, was an IM>H.^: weaver, living by his art at Naples, in the time of Ferdinand of Spain and rharlf* V. His work appears to have been composed wholly for his own satisfaction and amusement. The entire work is written m the form of a diary. But as the lir.-t entry records the eoming of Alphouso I. to Naples, on "this day, the 2Gth P'ebruary, 1443," and the last describes the funeral of the Marcheae di Pescarn, Vittoria's husband, on the 12th May, 1526. it is difficult to suppose that these could have been the daily jottings of one and the same individual, extending over a period of 83 years, although it impossible that they may have been so. As the work ends quite abruptly, it seems reasonable to suppose that it was carried on till the death of the writer. The probability is, that the memorials of the earlier years arc due to another pen. The work is written in Neapolitan dialoct, and concern* itself very little with aught that passed out of Naples. It has all the mark* of being written by an eye-witness of the circumstances recorded. The account* especially of all public ceremonies, gala-doings, etc.. are given in great detail, and with all the gusto of a regular sight-seer. And the book is interesting as a rare specimen of ttie writing and ideas of an artisan of the sixteenth century. It was printed in a quarto volume at Naples in 1785, and is rather rare. 2. Pago 29. These false ducats gave rise, we are told, to the king's saying, that his wife bad 6*0 ugh t him three gifts : Faciem pictam, Mouetam flctain, to which the ungallant and brutal royal husband added another, the fitatemrni of which ending in "6trictam,"is BO grossly coarse that it cannot bo repeated here, even with the partial veil of its Latin clothing. 3. Page 37. The translations of the sonnets In the text have been given solely with tbo view of enabling thoso who do not read Italian to form some idea of tho snbject-inatter and mode of thought of the author, and not with any hope or protension of prc-rm ing anything that might be accepted as a tolerable English sonnet. Jn many in- stances the required continuation of tho rhyme has not even been attempted. If & be asked, why thou were the translations not given in simple prose, wiilch would 74 VITTORIA COLONNA. hare admitted a yet greater accuracy of literal rendering? it is answered, that * translation so made would be BO intolerably bald, flat, and silly-sounding, that a still more unfavorable conception of the original would remain in the English reader's mind than that which, it is hoped, may be produced by the more or lean poetically-cast translations given. The originals, printed in every instance, will do iutice (if not more) to our poetess in the eyes of those acquainted with her language, for the specimens chosen may be relied on as being not unfavorable specimens. And many readers, probably, who might not take the trouble to understand the original in a language they imperfectly understand, may yet, by the help of tint translation, if they think it worth while, obtain a tolerably accurate notion of Vittona's poetical style. 4. Page 65. When Mr. Harford heard these letters read, the exceedingly valuable and inter- esting museum of papers, pictures, drawings, etc., of Michael Angelo, was the property of his lineal descendant, the late Minister of Public Instruction in Tuscany. When dying, "ho bequeathed this exceedingly important collection to the "Communita," or corporation of Florence. The Tuscan law requires that the notary who draws a will should do BO in the presence of the, testator. Unfortunately, on the sick man complaining of the heat of the room, the notary employed to draw this important instrument, retired, it seems, into the next room, which, as a door was open between the two chambers, he conceived was equivalent to being in pres- ence of the testator, as required by law. It has been decided, however, by the tri- bunals of Florence, that the will was thus vitiated, and that the property must pass to the heirs at law. An appeal still pending (September, 1858) lies to a higher court ; but there is every reason to believe that the original judgment must be con- firmed. In the mean time, the paper*, etc., are under the inviolable seal of the law. 5. Page 67. _The Tta. of Francois de Holland, containing the notices of Vittoria Colonna, given in the text, is to be found translated into French, and printed in a volume entitled, " Les Arts en Portugal, par le Comte A. Eaczynski. Paris, 1846." My attention was directed to tne notices of Vittoria to be found in this volume, by a review of M. Deumier's book on our poetess, by Signer A. Keumont, inserted in the fifth volume of the new series of the " Archivio btorico Italiano, Firenz, 1S5T," p. 138. 6. Page 71. The prayer written by Vittoria Colonna is as follows : "Da, precor, Domine, ut ea animi depressione, quae humilitati meae convcnit, caque mentis elatione, qtiam tua postulat celsitudo, te semper adorem ; ac in timore, quern tua incutit justitia, et in spe, quam tua dementia permittit, vivain continue, meque tibi uti potentissimo subjiciam, tanquam sapieutissimo dispouam, et ad te ut perfcctiBsimum et optimum converter. Obsecro, Pater PientUslme, ut me ignis tuns yivacissimus depnret, lux tua clarissima illustret, et amor tuns illo wnceriiwimus ita proficiat ut ad te iiullo mortalium rerum obice dententa, felix redMun et Bccura.