MATERIALS AND MODELS
FOR
Uttn $rose Composition
BY
J: Y. SARGENT, M.A.
FELLOW AND TUTOR OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD
AND
T. F. DALLIN, M.A.
TUTOR, LATE FELLOW, OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD
SECOND EDITION
Re-arranged with Fresh Pieces and Additional References
RIVINGTONS
HontJon, xfotti, ants
MDCCCLXXV
RIVINGTONS
Waterloo Place.
High Street.
Trinity Street.
[All rights reserved.]
[A-86]
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S37
CONTENTS.
TABLES OF GENERAL REFERENCES.
I. HISTORICAL
II. CHARACTERS .
III. ORATORICAL
IV. PHILOSOPHICAL
V. EPISTOLARY
VI. MISCELLANEOUS
PAGE
. xi
XXXV
. xlv
PASSAGES FOR TRANSLATION INTO LATIN PROSE.
PART I.
HISTORICAL \
PART II.
CHARACTERS . 121
PART III.
ORATORICAL
. 152
PART IV.
PHILOSOPHICAL 230
PART V.
EPISTOLARY . 325
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
S~\ ]N" issuing this Second Edition of " Materials and Models "
V / the authors think it well to explain more fully the mode
of using the book, which should be adopted as well by the
teacher as by the pupil, after first calling attention to the
improvements which have been introduced into the work, and
to some modifications of its original form.
1. It has been determined to publish the book for the future
in two separate volumes, one for Latin and one for Greek Prose
Composition, instead of combining both parts in the same volume.
The Latin portion is now published. The Greek portion will
soon be ready, and the authors intend shortly to issue a series
of selections for Verse Composition on the same plan.
2. The materials for Latin prose are now arranged in five
sections, as follows : Historical, Characters, Oratorical, Philo-
sophical, and Epistolary. The former Miscellaneous section has
been distributed into the others j the Characters have been
placed by themselves ; and many passages have been omitted,
and replaced by others more illustrative of the plan of this book.
Many new passages have been added, and the bulk of the Latin
part has been much increased. This enlargement has enabled the
authors to develop more fully their original scheme, by grouping
together those passages which are similar in subject ; and thus, in
effect, making groups of sub-sections. A formal division into
sub-sections would have been a complicated and unnecessary
vi Preface.
detail ; but the ' careful reader will easily follow the arrangement.
Thus under the Historical (or Narrative) section are grouped
together, 1. Sieges; 2. Battles by Land; 3. Battles by Sea; 4.
Single Combats, &c. ; and a similar arrangement has been carried
out in the other sections. This plan will be found, as the authors
believe, very convenient to the teacher, who will thus be enabled
to turn more readily to the kind of piece which he wishes to set
his pupil.
3. The references throughout have been carefully revised, and
great numbers of additional references have been added. In spite
of the care which has been taken to ensure correctness and uni-
formity in the references, it is possible that some inaccuracies
may remain undetected. Again, many parallelisms and appropriate
citations have doubtless escaped the notice of the authors, who
will be grateful to readers for any corrections or hints which
may increase still further the usefulness of the book.
4. An entirely new feature, and one which the authors ven-
ture to hope will be found very useful, is the Table of General
References, prefixed to the selections. This Table, like the
Materials which follow, is divided into sections. It is designed,
in the first place, to add to the variety of passages which may be
advantageously consulted by those who use this book. But the
authors believe that in this Table of Eeferences they have furnished
the teacher and pupil with an instrument which will be of great
service in translating any well-chosen passage whatever. Thus, if a
battle-piece has been chosen, the student may turn to the General
Table, and he will find there a list of typical passages with which
he may compare the English. He will make his selection from
these according as he wishes to study the manner, e.g., of Livy
or of Tacitus. In fact the addition of these Tables of General
Eeference makes the scheme of the book capable of almost
!fOR^
Preface. vu
indefinite extension ; since by furnishing references to what
classical Latin authors have said on a given subject, they can
be used to equal advantage in the writing of themes and original
composition in Latin prose, a practice, it may be remarked, at
present too much neglected.
Moreover, the subject of every Latin passage cited in the
General Tables has been stated in order to help the student in
his choice of references. With the view of making this part of the
work as complete as possible, great attention has been given to the
detailed arrangement of the Philosophical section. And under the
Oratorical section will be found a short Analysis of most of the
separate speeches in Livy, arranged under heads, according to
subjects, with a statement of their comparative length.
5. In the body of the book reference to subjects has been
further made easy, by the prefix of a heading to every English
passage, describing its topic.
Such are the main alterations and improvements which have
been introduced into this new Edition of " Materials and Models."
The scheme of the work was thus described in the Preface to
the first edition of 1870 :
"The present work differs from preceding collections of the
kind, in two respects. First, the passages are arranged accord-
ing to style and subject-matter, for convenience of reference.
Secondly, to each English piece references are appended to
analogous or similar passages in classical authors of approved
merit, with the object of furnishing a model to the student
in his attempt to render them into Greek or Latin. As
the selections are mainly taken from standard English authors,
and are not translations, the student must not expect to find
the same thoughts occurring in the same sequence, or
similarly expressed, in the passages to which he is referred ;
viii Preface.
but in all cases there will be found some analogy, by com-
parison or contrast in the subject, circumstances, or spirit of
the parallel passages, sufficient to furnish hints for the treat-
ment of the piece to be turned, and to suggest the style to be
adopted in turning it.
" All composition in a dead language must be by imitation of
forms already, as it were, stereotyped ; but that is the best which
insensibly recalls the tone of a classical author, without either
travestying his peculiarities or borrowing his phrases.
" It is thought that the following exercises, on the plan of
analogous passages, will be an aid towards forming a good style in
Greek and Latin prose, both by directing the student to the best
models, and by guarding against the waste of labour experienced in
working indiscriminately on ill-assorted or intractable materials."
In the present edition, as in the former, the kind and degree
of parallelism varies.
Some few passages are paraphrased more or less closely from
Latin originals. These have been sparingly introduced, forming,
as they do, a link between simple re-translation and the imitation
of classic diction. In other pieces there is much resemblance of
detail from the nature of the subject. Thus Hannibal's Crossing
of the Alps, described by Livy, presents some striking similarities to
General Macdonald's March over the Splugen, described by Alison
(p. 31). And the main incident in Eobertson's Account of the
taking of Dumbarton Castle, p. 1, is identical with that in the
Chapter of Sallust, cited on p. 2.
In another class of passages the treatment of the subject is
similar, leading naturally to a certain similarity of style. Thus no
one can doubt that much of Cowley's grand description of the
Funeral of Oliver Cromwell (p. 70) was suggested by the descrip-
tion in Tacitus of the Obsequies of Augustus and of Germanicus,
Preface. ix
while Tacitus himself had Virgil's Funeral of Pallas in his mind
when he wrote the latter scene. In other cases references have
been added, (a) where the spirit and tone of the passages are
similar ; (b) where the style is similar ; (c) where the subject
is similar, but not necessarily the tone or language; (d) where
single thoughts or phrases recur ; (e) where there is a similar
arrangement of topics. Lastly, some passages have been com-
pared together, the language or sentiments of which are in striking
contrast.
The student should in all cases ascertain for himself the nature
and meaning of the references at the foot of each piece, and he
will be further aided by referring to the General Tables.
As a large proportion of the passages admitted are taken from
University and College Examination Papers, the standard of
difficulty is that required for Classical Scholarships, Honours, and
Prizes, at Oxford and Cambridge. There are still included (mostly
at the end of the Epistolary section) a few passages of greater
difficulty, because more unclassical in tone, than the rest. These
pieces are mainly examples of florid English, and a few references
to pieces of florid Latin will be found at the foot of each passage,
or in the General Table. Scholars who are familiar with the Latin
poets can enlarge the list for themselves. Seldom, except in
poetry, does the usage of the Latin language approximate to the
ornate and metaphorical diction, consciously appealing to the senti-
ment of the reader, which is common in the best English prose of
modern days.
It does not fall in with the scheme of this work to add any
hints on composition, notes on idioms, or receipts for the con-
version of the English into the Latin sentence. An acquaintance
with the elementary rules of Latin syntax is taken for granted.
Beyond this, nothing but the careful reading of Latin authors, and
x Preface.
the learning by heart of suitable portions of their text, can aid the
student to master the niceties of a language which now exists only
in written literature. Of course the skilled teacher can guide his
pupil to the knowledge of much which inexperienced observation
would otherwise overlook. But this is the peculiar province of
oral instruction.
Passages may be selected to illustrate various points of syntax
and idiom, and various peculiarities of language and style. But
the discussion and explanation of these difficulties is best under-
stood and remembered when conveyed viva voce, that is, when the
rules are taught with a view to their immediate application, and
when a principle of composition can be enforced by an example on
the spot. Oral rules, and cautions in the use of his tools, are indis-
pensable to the young artist, and the fittest place for such instruc-
tion is the workshop. Collections of empirical formulas, without
oral interpretation, are generally useless, and often misleading.
But the reading of Latin is always useful to the most accomplished
master of composition, no less than to the beginner. He who
wishes to write Latin must, above all things, read Latin. That his
attention should be drawn to the Latin most suitable for his special
purpose is the main object of this book.
TABLE OF GENERAL REFERENCES.
I.
HISTORICAL.
SIEGES, ASSAULTS, ETC., OF TOWNS AND CAMPS.
Siege of Saguntum by Hannibal ....
* Siege of Syracuse by Marcellus and its defence by
Archimedes .
LIVY, xxi. 78, 11-14.
c. .
the
Hannibal takes Tarentum by treachery
The Romans in like manner retake Tarentum
New Carthage assaulted by sea and land .
Siege and desperate defence of Abydus
Obstinate defence of the city of Atrax
[Site and~\ Siege of Leucas ....
*l_Site and] Siege of Ambracia : mines, stinkpot,
Storming of Oringis ......
Storming of Astapa : desperate resolution of
citizens ........
Night attack upon Locri ......
Night attack upon Arpi ......
Siege of Casilinum
Siege of the Capitol by the Gauls . . .
Capture of Veil
Destruction of Alba
Attack of the Gauls on the Roman station of
Aduataca : its brave defence
Attack and defence of Q. Cicero 1 s camp
Ccesar takes Genabnm. ......
* Caesar takes Avaricum ......
*Alesia beleaguered by Ccesar .....
Ccesar takes Uxcllodunum
*Trcbonius besieges Marseilles *
Storming of Camalodunutn by the Britons
Storming and sack of Cremona by Antonius
The Capitol burnt by VitelUanists ....
Siege and blockade of Vctcra by Civilis
* Siege of Amida by the Persians . . . .
Siege of Singara by the Persians .
xxiv. 33, 34.
xxv. 23-31.
xxv. 8-11.
xxvii. 15, 16.
xxvi. 44-46.
xxxi. 18.
xxxii. 17, 18.
xxxiii. 17.
xxxviii. 4-7.
xxviii. 3.
xxviii. 22, 23
xxix. 6.
xxiv. 46, 47,
xxiv. 19.
v. 39, sqq.
v. 7-21.
i. 29.
GESAB, Sell. Gall. vi. 35-41.
v. 42-52.
vii. 11.
vii. 22-25.
vii. 69-73.
viii. 40-43.
Sell. Civil, ii. 8-15.
TACITUS, Annals, xiv. 31,
32; Cp. Agric. 16.
Hist. iii. 30-34.
iii. 71-73.
iv. 21-30.
AMMIANUS MAECELLINUS,
xix. 1-9.
AsmiANus MAECELLINUS,
xx. 6.
* These descriptions contain many details of engineering operations and the ancient
artillery.
C
Xll
Table of General References.
SIEGES, ASSAULTS, ETC., Continued.
* Siege of Aquileia by Jovinus
Siege of Perisabora by Julian
Siege of Maogamalcha by Julian
AMMIANUS MAECELLINUS, xxi. 11, 12.
xxiv. 2.
xxiv. 4.
BATTLES BY LAND.
ia Gauls against Romans
Romans against Samnites ....
Sentinum Romans against Samnites,
Etruscans, $c
Trcbia Hannibal against Romans
Lake Trasimene Hannibal against Romans .
Cannae Hannibal against Romans
Silva Litana Gauls against Romans .
Hibera Scipio against Hasdrubal
Bcneventum Scmpronius against Hanno
Haw to against Romans ....
Antorgis Hasdrubal against Scipios .
Marcellus against Hannibal
Metaurus Romans against Hasdrubal.
Baecula Scipio against Carthaginians.
Zama Scipio against Hannibal .
Cynoscephalce Flam-minus against Philip .
Magnesia Scipio against Antiochus
Pydna Paullus against Perseus .
Romans against Germans ....
Maroboduus against Arminius
Dolabella defeats Tacfarinas
Ostorius defeats Caractacus ....
Suetonius defeats Boadicea ....
Romans against Sarmatce ....
Defeat of Vitellianists near Cremona .
Defeat of Othonianists on the Padus
Defeat of Otho at Jjedriacum
Antonius defeats Vitellianists
Civ ills defeats the Romans ....
Cerialis defeats Civ His .....
Defeat of Germans by Cerialis
Caesar defeats the Helvetii ....
Ccesar defeats the Germans ....
Battle with Nervii
Combats with the Britons ....
Sabinus and Cotta cut off by Ambiorix
Repulse of Sicambri by Romans
Vereingetorix defeated by Ccesar .
Ccesar defeats Afrandus in Spain ,
Curio defeated by Sabura ....
Ccesar defeats Pompey at Pharsalia
Battle of Mutina, Consuls against M. Antony
Battle between Jugurtha and Mctellus .
Defeat and death of Catiline
LIVY, v. 37-39.
ix. 40.
x. 27-29.
xxi. 53-56.
xxii. 4-7.
xxii. 44-52.
xxiii. 24-25.
xxiii. 29.
,, xxiv. 14-16
xxv. 13, 14.
xxv. 33-36.
xxvii. 13-15
,, xxvii. 46, sqq.
xxviii. 13-16.
xxx. 32-35.
xxxiii. 7-11.
xxxvii. 39-44.
xliv. 41, 42.
TACITUS, Annals, ii. 16, sqq.
ii. 44-46.
iv. 24, 25.
xii. 33-36.
xiv. 34-37.
Hist. i. 79.
ii. 23-26.
ii. 34, 35.
ii. 40-43.
iii. 15-18; 22, 23.
iv. 18.
iv. 77-78.
v. 15-18.
, Bell. Gall. i. 24, sqq.
,, i. 50, sqq.
ii. 18-27.
iv. 26, sqq.
,, v. 32, sqq.
vi. 37, sqq.
vii. 80, sqq.
Bell. Civil, i. 77, sqq.
ii. 39, sqq.
iii. 85-97.
CICEEO, Epist. ad lam. x. 30
SALLUST, Jugurtha, c. 49, sqq
Catiline, c. 59, sqq.
Historical.
Xlll
BATTLES BY SEA.
Romans and Carthaginians at Lilybosum
,, near mouth of Ebro
Tarentines and Romans at Tarentum
Rhodians and Romans against Syrians and
Carthaginians off Corycus.
Rhodians and Hannibal at Phaselis
Romans and Rhodians against Syrians at
Myonnesus
Romans against Carthaginians at Cartcia
Veneti against Romans (coast of Brittany} .
Ccesarians against Massilians
Attack by sea upon Syracuse
Battle of Actium
Assault of New Carthage by land and sea .
LIVY, xxi. 49, .50.
xxii. 19, 20.
xx vi. 39.
xxxvi. 43-45.
x-xxvii. 22-24.
xxxvii. 29, -30.
,, xxviii: 30.
CESAR, -5^. Gall. iii. 13-1.5.
Bell. Civil, ii. 4-7.
LIVY, xxiv. 33, 34.
VIRGIL, JEneid, viiL-675, sqq.
FLORUS, iv. 11.
LIVY, xxvi, -44-46.
SINGLE COMBA.TS.
T. Manlius and the Gaul
The Hora,tii and Curiatii
Duels on horseback at the battle of 'Rerjillus
Valerius and a Gaulish chief
Claudius Asellus and Jubellius Tatcrea .
Dares and Entellus ....
Turn us and Pallas ....
JEnea and Turnus
LIVY, vii. 10.
, y i. 25.
ii. 19, 20.
vii. 26.
xxiii. 46, 12, 47.
VIRGIL, ^Eneid, v. 426-484.
x. 445-506.
,* ,1 xii. 710, sqq.; 8S7,
sq,q.
ASSASSINATIONS, MUEDEBS, AND EXECUTIONS.
Sc<evola assassinates Porsenna s secvetary
Murder of Tarquinius Priscus
Hieronymus assassinated
Execution of Brutus' sons .
,, Demetrius
Assassination of Datames .
A murder described ....
,, and its discovery .
Execution of Trebonius by Dolabclla
Murder of Galba. . . .
Vitellius ....
L.Piso ....
P. Clodius, a " chance medley "
Attempt to assassinate Eumcnes .
Massacre at Leontini ....
Henna
i. 40,
xxiv. 7.
ii, 5.
xl. 24.
CORNELIUS NEPOS, Datames, c. x. xi.
PLINY, Epist. iii. 14.
CICERO, pro Cluent. 179-181.
Philipp. xi. 5-10.
TACITUS, Hist. i. 40, 41.
iii. 84, 85.
iv. 49, 50.
CICERO, pro Milone, 27-30.
LIVY, xlii. 15, 16.
,, xxiv. 30.
xxiv. 39.
xiv Table of General References.
SEDITIONS AND MUTINIES.
Secession of Plebs to Mons Sacer . . . LIVY, ii. 32.
The infantry refuse to Jight .... ii. 43.
ii. 58, 59.
iii. 50.
iv. 49, 50.
vii. 38-42.
xxviii. 24, sqq.
1 army mutiny and run away
Deccmviral troops seize the Aventine Hill
Mutiny against Postumius .
Sedition in the First Samnite IVar
Mutiny of Scipio's troops in Spain
Mutiny of the legions in Pannonia and, on the
Rhine ....... TACITUS, Annals,\. 16, sqq.;\. 39, sqq.
Mutiny of Praetorians against Galba . . ,, Hist. i. 36, sqq.
Revolt in Germany : murder of Vocula, . iv. 55, sqq.
SITES.
Syracuse ....... CICEEO, in Vcrrem, Act. ii. lib. iv.
111, sqq.
New Carthage LIVY, xxvi. 42.
Croton, and Temple of Juno Lacinia . . xxiv. 3, cp. xlii. 3.
Myonnesus . ... . . . . ,, xxxvii. 27.
Henna CICERO, in Verrcm, Act ii. lib. iv. 48.
Mount Hcciims: its passage ly Philip . . LIVY, xl. 21, 22.
Capsa SALLUST, Jugurtha, 89.
Greek Cities, Athens, Corinth, etc. . . LIVY, xlv. 27, 28.
Sanctuary of Apollo at Delos xxxv. 51.
Byzantium TACITUS, Annals, xii. 63.
Sirmio ....... CATULLUS, xxxi.
A Formian Villa ..... MARTIAL, x. 30.
The Alp & Sinus ITALICUS, Punic iii. 479, sqq.
TABLE OF GENERAL REFERENCES.
II.
C HAEA C T E R S.
Mucianus
Contradictions in his nature
TACITUS, Hist. i. 10.
Vinius Laco .
Energetic minister .
i. 48.
Galba .
His mediocrity ....
i. 49.
Otho
His death redeemed his life
ii. 47, 50.
Antonius Primus .
A turbulent soldier of fortune .
ii. 86.
Flavius Sabinus
His indecision at the last .
iii. 75.
Vitellim
Indolent and generous
iii. 86.
Helvidlus Priscus .
An upright statesman and
Dornitian
His hypocrisy ....
iv. 86.
Germanicus
A virtuous and lamented prince
ii. 72, 73.
C. Sallustius .
A courtier, hiding vigour un-
der the mask of sloth
,, ,, iii. 30.
Scianus .
Ambitious and unscrupulous
minister. ....
iv. 1, 2.
Tiberius .
Gradual development of his
vices
vi. 51.
Popp&a Sabina,
Accomplished but immoral
xiii. 45.
Burrus .
The good minister of a bad
prince .....
xiv. 51, cp.
xiii. 2.
Seneca .
Ditto
xiv. 52; cp.
xiii. 2 ; xv. 65.
C. Petronius .
" Elegantiarum arbiter." .
xvi. 18, 19.
Hannibal
His military skill in handling
troops : great vices and virtues
LIVY, xxviii. 12; xxi. 4.
Hasdrubal
A cautious and clever governor
of barbarians
xxi. 2.
Sempronius
A rash and impetuous general .
,, xxi. 53.
Flaminius
A politician, becomes an incap-
able general ....
xxi. 63.
Minucius
A rash, insubordinate lieu-
tenant . . . .
xxii. 12, ad fin. 27.
Fabius Maximus
His cautious policy as a gene-
ral
xxii. 25-30.
His great qualities as a general
,, xxiv. 9.
L. Papirius Cursor.
His grim humour
ix. 16.
Tcrentliis Varro
A demagogue ; brave though
bad general ....
xxii. 25, 26, 44.
Pacuvius Calavius .
An artful, successful, political
leader .....
,, xxiii. 2-4.
L. Santius
A dashing dragoon (cp. Murat)
xxxiii. 15.
Hleronymm .
A young tyrant
,, xxiv. 5, 6.
Dasius Altin'ms
Philippus
A cruel king ....
xl. 3, 4.
Antiochus EpiphanesA. magnificent monarch .
xli. 19, 20.
xvi Table of General References.
Cato the Censor . His acts ..... LIVY, xxxix. 40, 41, 44.
Philippns . . His vices ..... xxvii. 31.
Fdbius Maximus . Summary of his exploits . . xxx. 26.
Licinius . . ......,, xxx. 1.
P. Cornelius Scijjio
Africanus . . His personal appearance . . xxviii. 35.
His enthusiasm and greatness . ,, xxvi. 19.
He is praised by Hannibal . ,, xxx. 29.
Reflections on the close of his
career ..... ,, xxxviii. 53.
.Ditto ..... xxxix. 52.
M. Livius Dnisus . An honest statesman, misun-
derstood .by those he sought
to Servo ..... VELLEItrsPATEKCULL T S,ii.l3.
M.Cato,the Younger .His uprightness and energy . ii. 35.
C. Julius Caesar . ...... ,, ii. 41-43.
. ...... CICERO, Philip p. ii. 116.
C. Curio. . . An unprincipled partisan . . VELLEiusPATERCULUS,ii.48.
Svntvs Pompcius ... Rough and crafty ... ii. 73.
Plan (-us . . .A traitor and turncoat . . ii, 83.
Maroboduus . . Accomplished barbarian chief-
tain . . . . ii. 108, 109.
Seianus . . . A singular minister ... ,, ii. 127.
Cn. Pompeius Magnus ...... ,, ii. 40.
Akibiades . . Compound of virtues and vices . CORNELIUS NEPOS, Akib. i.
xi.
Cimon . . . His generosity .... Cimon, ix.
IpJiicrfites . . A disciplinarian ... ,, Iphici. i.
Epaminondas . . His many accomplishments . ,, pam.c.l-3.
PJtocion . . . Good and poor statesman . . Phocioii, i.
Cato, the JElder . Author and censor ... ,, Cato,c. ii.iii.
et passim.
xiii-xviii.
C. Marias . . ....... SALLUST, Jugtirtha, c. 59.
L. Sullc, . . . Ambitious, learned, liberal,
affable ..... Juffurtha,c.9Q,91.
Cicero . . . Remarks on his death and
glory ..... VELLEIUS PATERCULUS, ii.
66.
Q. Falius Haximns ...... CICEBO, De Senect. 4.
Luculhfs . . Splendid, versatile Academ. Prior, ii.
. 1, 2.
Sulpicius . . Eulogy of departed worth . ,, Philipp. ix.
M. Antonius . . His life reviewed and vilified . ii. 44, sqq.
Hortensius . . Eulogy, with lament for death
of famous orator and friend,
although rival . . . de Oratoribifs, 1, 2.
Dionysius of Syra-
cuse . . .A jealous and unhappy tyrant . Tusc. Disp. v. 20.
ftassia . . .A murderess and unnatural
mother ..... pro Clmnt.\ 188-194.
Sempronia . . ...... SALLUST, Catiline, c. 25.
Q. ('m-inx . . ...... c. 23.
L. Crfiatms . . Reflections on death of a great
orator, patriot, and states-
man ..... CICEEO, de Orator, iii. 1-12.
TABLE OF GENERAL REFERENCES.
III.
ORATORICAL.
SPEECHES IN LIVY (Madvitfs text 4 Vols., 8vo., 1862, is referred to.}
I. PERSUASIVE.
By whom and to whom spoken.
Mettius Fufetius, Dictator of Alba,
to Tullus Hostilius, King of Rome.
i. 23.
Appius Claudius, Military Tribune,
to the Roman people.
v. 3-6.
Cornelius Lcnttilus, Chief of the
Embassy of the Romans, to the Consuls
and army.
ix. 4.
Decius Mus, Consul, to the people.
x. 7-8.
Abelux, a Spanish Noble, to Bostar,
Punic Governor of Saguntum.
xxii. 22.
M. Minucius, Master of the Horse, to
his own army.
xxii. 29.
M. Junius, in name of the soldiers
captured at Canna, to the Senate.
xxii. 59.
Subject of speech and its length in lines.
Urging 1 reconciliation and peace
between the Albans and Romans.
17 lines.
About continuing the war and
keeping the soldiers in their winter
quarters during the siege of Veii, in
opposition to the Tribunes of the
Plebs. [Discipline and perseverance
advocated.]
165 lines.
Recommending a voluntary sur-
render to the Samnites at the Cau-
dine Forks, since there was no hope
of escaping.
28 lines.
Advocating that augurs and
pontiffs should be made out of the
number of the plebeians.
50 lines.
Persuading him to return the hos-
tages to their several States which
Hannibal had caused to be sent into
custody at Saguntum.
8 lines.
About joining his camp to that of
Fabius, by whom he and his army had
been saved, after having suffered de-
feat from Hannibal.
13 lines.
Praying that they may be ransomed,
excusing their own surrender, and
appealing to the necessities of the State
and the pity of their countrymen.
61 lines.
XV111
Table of General References.
By ivhom and to whom spoken.
Subject of speech and its length in lines.
Varro, the Consul, to Ambassadors of
the Campanians who offered supplies.
Fabius Maximus to the people.
xxiv. 8.
Pnblius Siilpicius, the Consul, to the
people.
xxxi. 7.
Aristccnus, Generalissimo of the
Acliceans, to the Council of the Achccan
league.
xxxii. 20-21.
3L Porcius Cato, the Consul, to the
Senate.
xxxiv. 2-4.
Hannibal to the Council of Kiny
Aatiochus.
xxxvi. 7.
Q. Ccecilius MeteUiis to the Censors
]\[. JEmilius Lcpidus and M. Fulvius
Nobilior.
xl. 46.
J/. Servilius to the tribes in their
Assembly.
xlv. 37-39.
Urging them to fight Hannibal
themselves, reminding them of the
benefits they had received from Rome
and of the cruelty of the Carthaginians :
urging the duty of fidelity.
40 lines.
Against electing Otacilius Consul.
They ought to select some one capable
of conducting the war against Hanni-
bal : the qualifications required.
63 lines.
About transferring the war with
Macedonia and bringing aid to the
Athenians against Philip. Best to wage
war in the enemy's country.
47 lines.
Recommending that they should es-
pouse the cause of the Romans against
Philip, as their own interest clearly
required.
130 lines.
For maintaining the law, which
Oppius had carried in the 2nd Punic
Avar for restraining the luxury of
women, against the nobles and Tri-
bunes of the Plebs, who strove to re-
peal it.
124 lines.
Advocating alliance with Philip, and
showing how the war against the
Romans ought to be carried on.
62 lines.
Urging them to be reconciled one to
the other, and to abandon their private
quarrels for the public good.
32 lines.
In favour of granting a triumph to
L. ^Einilius Paullus after his conquest
of Macedonia : against S. Sulpicius
Galba, and Paullus' own soldiers, who
complained of the smallness of the
booty.
153 lines.
N.B. The text of this speech is very
corrupt.
II. DISSUASIVE.
Cn. Marches Coriolanus to the Sena-
tors.
ii. 34.
Against allowing corn to be sold
at the old price to the plebeians.
10 lines.
Oratorical.
xix
Jj>/ u'hom and to ivhom spoken.
Subject of speech and its length in lines.
Attius Tullius, prince of the Volscians,
to the Roman Consuls.
ii. 37.
Appius Claudius Crassus to the
people.
vi. 40-42.
T. Jfanlius Torquatus to the Senate.
xxii. 60.
Q. Fabius Maximus to the Senate.
xxviii. 40-42.
L. Valerius, Tribune of the People, to
the Comitia Tributa.
xxxiv. 5-7.
Against allowing the Volscians to
be present at the games.
13 lines.
Against the Licinian Rogations,
which proposed that one Consul should
be a plebeian, etc.
114 lines.
Against ransoming the Roman pri-
soners taken by Hannibal at Cannae,
accusing them of cowardice and pre-
mature surrender.
85 lines.
Against sending Scipio to conduct
the war in Africa. The war in Italy
must be finished first, and the interest
of the State consulted before Scipio' s
reputation.
164 lines.
Against the principle of sumptuary
laws, in reply to Cato, who had op-
posed the abrogation of the Lex
Oppia.
141 lines.
III. HORTATORY.
Tanaquil to her son-in-law, Servius
Tullius.
i. 41.
Julia to her husband Tarquinius.
i. 47.
Attius Tullius to the Volscians.
ii. 38.
Certain Seniors to the Senate.
iii. 52.
Valerius and Horatius to the people
on the Sacred Mount.
iii. 53.
Valerius, Consul, to his soldiers.
iii. 61.
Horatius, Consul, to his army.
iii. 62.
Inciting him to seize the vacant
throne.
7 lines.
That he should make himself king.
11 lines.
Exciting their indignation against
the Romans, who had expelled them
from the Games.
16 lines.
That the Decemvirate be abolished,
and Tribunes of the people again made.
14 lines.
That now their immediate object
had been gained by the abdication of
the Decemvirs, the Commons should
return to the city.
16 lines.
To fight bravely against the JEqui
and Volsci, and show themselves worthy
of their liberties.
24 lines. [Mostly Orat. obliq.~\
To fight decisively against the
Sabines.
10 lines. [Cp. siij).]
XX
Table of General References.
By whom and to ivliom spoken.
C. Canuleius, Tribune of the Plebs, to
the Commons of Home.
iv. 35.
Subject of speech and its length in lines.
In favour of his own proposal that
intermarriage should be allowed be-
tween patricians and plebeians, and
that one Consul should be a plebeian.
119 lines.
(Arguments against the measure in
Orat. obliq. in the preceding chapter).
IV. DEHORTATORY.
Vcttus Messius to his Volscian coun-
trymen.
iv. 28.
Mamerciis JEmilius, the Dictator, to
his men.
iv. 33.
Sex. Tempanius to the Roman cavalry.
iv. 38.
[That they should resume the offen-
sive and] to cut their way through the
Roman army.
9 lines.
Not to be afraid of the blazing
missiles of the Fidenates.
8 lines.
To follow his lance for a flag.
5 lines.
Camillus in exile to the people of
Ardea.
v. 44.
Camillus, Dictator, to his troops.
vi. 7, 8.
A. Cornelius Cossus, Dictator, to his
troops.
vi. 12.
M. Manlius Capitolinus to the Roman
Commons.
vi. 18.
M. Popillius Lanas to his men.
vi. 24.
M. Valerius Corvinus, Consul, to his
army.
vii. 32.
P. Decius, Tribunus Militum, to A.
Cornelius, the Consul.
vi. 34.
That he should lead them against
the Gauls now besieging the Capitol
of Rome. His own skill. The Ro-
man benefits, the hosts of the Gauls.
26 lines.
Not to be afraid of the numbers of
the allies against them, but to trust
his fortune.
17 lines.
To stand fast against, the attack of
their numerous foes until the Roman
cavalry take them in flank.
13 lines.
To make use of their strength and
numbers, and shake off the yoke of
the patricians : he will himself lead
them.
31 lines.
To slay the Gauls like wild beasts.
8 lines.
To regard the Samnites as no invin-
cible foes, and to follow his own
example.
36 lines. [Orat. obliq. the 1st part.]
To allow him to seize a commanding
position, and so save the army.
8 lines.
Oratorical.
xxi
By whom and to ivhom spoken.
Subject of speech and its length in linen.
P. Decius to his officers and soldiers.
vii. 34, 35.
Jf. Valerius Corvus to the army of
Campania, who had formed a plot for
seizing Capua.
vii. 40.
Titus Quinctitis to the same.
vii. 40.
L. Annius, of Setia, to the Council of
Latin Prcetors.
viii. 4.
L. Annius to the Roman Senate.
viii. 5.
Q. Fabius, Dictator, to his army.
ix. 23.
Verginia, wife of Volumnius, to the
Plebeian matrons.
x. 23.
Alorcus, a Spanish noble, to the
Saguntines.
xxi. 13.
P. Cornelius Scipio, Consul, to his
army.
xxi. 40, 41.
Hannibal to his soldiers.
xxi. 43, 44.
Explaining his plan of cutting their
way out through the Samnite camp by
night, and encouraging them to follow
his lead.
44 lines (2 speeches],
Appealing to their patriotism and to
their sense of his own merits to pre-
vent them from striking the first blow
against their own country.
39 lines.
Exhorting them to peace and obe-
dience to the powers of Rome.
11
The Latins must claim their rights
from the Romans, and demand one
Consul, and a proportionate share of
the Senate to the troops they fur-
nished.
38 lines.
He demands union on the terms
above stated.
18 lines.
To sally out of their own camp and
so drive the Samnites from their posi-
tion.
14 lines.
Let the women of the two orders
contend in chastity as the men in
valour.
5 lines.
That they should surrender to Han-
nibal, as there was no hope of escape.
Hard terms were better than none.
30 lines.
Boldly to fight the Carthaginians, so
often conquered by their fathers. In-
gratitude, cruelty, and weakness of the
enemy. The only hope of Rome lay
in themselves. Rome expected them
to do their duty.
83 lines.
They must conquer or die but vic-
tory was certain. They were as siipe-
rior to the Roman army as he was to the
Roman general. The difficulties they
had surmounted would teach them
how to rebuke Roman insolence. Rich
booty would reward the conquest.
79 lines.
XX11
Table of General References.
Jji/ ivhom and to whom spoken.
Subject of speech and its length in lines.
P. Sempronius Tuditanus to Roman
soldiers after Cannce.
xxii. 50.
Z. Pinarius to the legates from Henna
(cold their reply}.
xxiv. 37.
L. Pinarius to his own men.
xxiv. 38.
L. Marcius to the Roman army.
xxv. 38.
Scipio to his soldiers in Spain.
xxvii. 18.
Scipio to his soldiers, on taking the
command in Spain.
xxvi. 41.
J)/. Porcius Cato to his men.
xxxiv. 13.
T. Quinctius to the Greek allies.
xxxiv. 34.
3f. Acilius Glabrio, Consul, to his
army.
xxx vi. 17-
Rhodian Ambassadors to the Roman
Senate.
xxxvii. 54.
Cn. Manlius, Consul, to his men.
xxxviii. 17.
Perseus, King of Macedonia, to his
Court and his army.
xlii. 52.
To pluck up spirit, and fight their
way to Canusium through the enemy.
13 lines.
Refusing to give up the keys of the
town gates.
\_0rat. obliqJ]
They must anticipate the plot formed
to massacre them by strong measures,
and put to the sword the people of
Henna.
36 lines.
That they should sally out of their
camp and attack Hasdrubal, and so re-
venge the death of the two Scipios.
67 lines.
To fall upon Hasdrubal, whose trust
was only in his strong position.
12 lines \_0rat. obliqJ\
They must follow up the successes
already achieved, by driving the Car-
thaginians out of Spain.
73 lines.
To recover Spain on the Ebro side
from the rebellious tribes.
14 lines.
Assenting to the proposed siege of
Lacedsemon, he points out its dis-
advantages.
17 lines.
That King Antiochus is not so for-
midable a foe as was Philip. Now is the
opportunity for making Rome's empire
universal.
47 lines.
That, in recompense of the Rhodian
fidelity, the Romans should restore
their liberty to the Greek States which
they had conquered, as allies of the
Rhodians.
74 lines.
Not to be afraid of the Asiatic
Gauls, who were not so fearful as the
real Gauls, but easily daunted, arid who
had been often conquered by kings in-
ferior to the Romans.
57 lines.
Setting forth how excellent are his
prospects of victory over the Romans.
35 lines.
Oratorical.
xxin
By whom and to whom spol-cn.
Subject of speech and its length in lines.
Camillus to the Roman people.
v. 51, 52.
Pacuvius Calavius of Capua to his son
Perolla.
xxiii. 9.
Vibius Virrius to the Capuans.
xxvi. 13.
L. JEmilius Paulus to his soldiers.
xliv. 34.
Against the proposal of the Tribune,
that the Romans should abandon the
ruins of the city and migrate to Veii.
94 lines.
That he should not assassinate Han-
nibal, his father's guest and the pro-
tector of his country.
23 lines.
Against surrender to the Roman be-
siegers, although the case was despe-
rate : it were better to die by poison.
55 lines.
Not to criticise their general's tac-
tics. The duties of soldiers and of
their general.
13 lines {Or at. oWq.~]
Titllus Hostilius to the Romans.
i. 28.
the treachery of
Valerius and Horatius to the Com-
mons.
iii. 54.
V. MONITORY.
Denouncing
Mettius.
16 lines.
Proclaiming that Tribunes should
again be formally created.
Appius Claudius, the Decemvir, to the
Assembly.
iii. 56.
Verginius in reply to Appius.
iii. 57.
M. Duillius, Tribune, to the Senate.
iii. 59.
The Dictator of Tusculum to tin-
Roman Senate.
vi. 26.
T. Quinctius Cincinnatus, Dictator, to
Sempronius, Master of the Horse.
vi. 29.
Camillus to the people.
vi. 38.
Fabius and Licinius Stolo to certain
of the Senators.
vi. 36, 37.
8 lint
Appealing from his accusers to the
people and indicating his own motives.
He was really a patriot, but misunder-
stood.
24 lines {Orat. obliq.~]
The laws ought not to shelter such
a wretch : let the people remember his
misdeeds.
16 lines {Orat. obliq.']
Promising that there shall be no
more State prosecutions.
8 lines.
Protesting their innocence and de-
claring they will not resist should the
Romans attack them.
17 lines.
Directing the tactics of the battle
against the Prcenestines.
8 lines.
Against the abuse of the Tribunicial
power.
10 lines.
Arguments in support of the Licin-
ian rogations and the extension of the
power of the Commons.
50 lines.
XXIV
Table of General References.
whom and to whom spoken.
Subject of speech and its length in lines.
Ambassadors from Campania to the
Roman Senate.
vii. 30.
The Roman Senate to the Campanians.
vii. 31.
L. Fur ins Camillus to the Senate.
viii. 13.
Posturnius, Consul, to the Senate.
ix. 8.
The same to the same.
ix. 9.
Hannibal to his Spanish troops.
xxi. 21.
Q. Fabius Maximus to JEmilius
Paullus.
xxii. 39.
Hannibal to his men.
xx vii. 12.
P. iScipio to King Masinissa.
xxx. 14.
T. Quinctius Flamininus to the as-
sembled Greek allies.
xxxiv. 22.
Siilpicius to Minnie, Ambassador of
Kiny Antiochus.
xxxv. 16.
T. Quinctius to the Achceans.
xxxvi. 32.
Offering to become allies of the
Romans, and urg'iiig the advantages
of such alliance.
72 lines.
Bidding them not make war 011 the
Samnites (with their reply and offer to
become Roman subjects.)
11 lines.
They must determine at once upon
their policy towards the conquered
Latins, whether of cruelty or clemency :
the Latins ought not to be kept in
suspense.
28 lines.
Advising that he should be given up
to the Samnites in satisfaction of the
treaty.
26 lines.
Justifying his views of the law of
nations and the virtue of an oath.
80 lines.
Explaining that he intends to
transfer the war into other lands.
10 lines.
Warning him of Varro's character,
and advising him of the right system
of warring with Hannibal delay.
65 lines.
To defeat Marcellus.
5 lines \_0rat. obliq.~\
"Warning him against making So-
phoniba his wife, contrary to the
laws of morality and the rights of
Rome.
25 lines.
Asking whether war should be
levied against Nabis for his occupation
of Argos.
20 lines.
That there is no analogy between
the Greek subjects of Rome in Italy
arid the Greek cities subject to An-
tiochus.
21 lines.
That, for the good of the Achaean
league, the Romans will not admit
their claim to Zacynthus.
10 lines.
Oratorical.
xxv
By whom and to ivhom spoken.
Subject of speech and its length in lines.
T. Quinctitis to M. Acilius.
xxxvi. 34.
T. Quinctim to the JEtolians.
xxxvi. oo.
King Eumenes to the Praetor JEmilius.
xxx vii. 19.
Pointing out that his attention
should be given to Philip and to
sparing the .zEtolians.
9 lines.
He will use his good offices on their
behalf, though they did not deserve it.
8 lines.
That he ought not to accept An-
tiochus' terms of peace without the
command of the Senate and people.
13 lines.
VI. PETITIONING.
P. Licinius Calvus to the Roman
tribes.
v. 18.
Faliscan legates to the Senate.
v. 27.
Asking them to make his son
Military Tribune instead of himself.
14
Requesting them to receive the sur-
render of Falerii.
9 lines.
Dictator of Tiisciilum to the Senate of Suing that the Romans should keep
Rome.
vi. 26.
Sextus Tallius to the Dictator C.
Sulpicius.
vii. 13.
Campanian Ambassadors to the Roman
Senate.
vii. 30.
L. Annius, of Setia, to the Roman
Senate.
viii. o.
Q. Fabitts Maximus, Consul-designate,
to the people.
x. 13.
Minucius to Fabi/ts, the Dictator.
xxii. 30.
Sophoniba, wife of Syphax, to King
Masinissa.
xxx. 12.
Hannibal to King Antiochus.
xxxv. 19.
the peace, etc.
16 lines.
Beseeching him to lead his troops to
instant battle and certain victory.
35 lines.
Praying for aid against the Samnites
and offering' themselves as subject
allies of the Romans.
71 lines.
Praying for an equality of right be-
tween the Romans and Latins.
18 lines.
Requesting that he might be allowed
to nominate as his own colleague P.
Decius, so as to work well together.
15 lines. [Some Or at. obliq.~\
Praying that he and his people may
serve once more under Fabius' orders.
8 lines.
Praying that he will not suffer her
to be placed at the disposal of the
pride and cruelty of any Roman.
16 lines.
That the King should regard him as
among his chief supporters against the
Romans, after his thirty-six years'
warfare with them.
15 lines.
OF T
UNIVERSITY
xxvi Table of General References.
By ivhom and to whom spoken. Subject of speech and its length in lines.
Zeuxis, Ambassador of Antiochus, to [Requesting fair conditions of peace.
Scipio Africanus.
xxxvii. 45.
Eumenes, King of Pergamus, to the
Roman Senate.
xxxvii. 53.
8 lines.
Imploring them to recompense fitly
and fully his devotion and fidelity to
Home out of the spoils of King
Antiochus.
84 lines.
VII. PRECATORY.
Romulus to Jupiter Stator.
i. 12.
Q. Fabius, Prefect of the City, to the
Tribunes of the Plebs.
iii. 9.
Camillas, Dictator, to Apollo and
Juno.
v. 21.
P. Dccius, Consul, to the Gods of
Rome.
viii. 9.
Vergin'ms to his fellow soldiers.
iii. 50.
Aristanus, Prtetor of the Achccans,
to T. Quinctius Flamininus.
xxxiv. 24.
Praying that he will aid the Romans
against the Sabines.
10 lines.
Beseeching them to prevent the
passing of Terentilius' bill for defining
the Consuls' powers by law.
10 lines.
Praying them to be his allies at the
siege of Veil.
6 lines.
Devoting himself for his country.
9 lines.
Imploring their sympathy and pity
that he should have been forced to sslay
his own child.
17 lines.
Imploring that the' Romans may
deliver Greece from Nabis and the
yEtolians.
12 lines.
VIII. THANKSGIVING.
Romulus to Jupiter Fcretrius. Dedicating spoils and a temple.
i- 10. 5 lines.
Saguntine Ambassadors to the Roman Returning thanks for aid, and con-
iSenate. gratulating the Romans on their
xxviii. 39. victories.
50 lines.
IX. DENUNCIATORY.
C. Mucius Scarola to King Porsenna. Confessing his design to kill the
ii. 12. king.
11 lines.
Oratorical.
XXVll
X .CONGRATULATORY.
By whom and to whom spoken. Subject of speech and its length in lines.
Papirius Cursor, Dictator, to the
people.
viii. 35.
Syracusan Ambassadors to Marccllus.
xxv. 29.
T. Quinctius Flaniininus, to the Envoys
of the Greek States.
xxxiv. 49.
Pardoning 1 the insubordination of
young Q. Fabius, who had fought
against orders.
13 lines.
In surrendering their city they pro-
test the innocence of the people at
large, and congratulate the con-
querors.
28 lines.
He bids them farewell, with advice
to agree together, to use liberty with
moderation, and to hold fast to the
Romans.
30 lines.
XI. COMMENDATORY.
Scipio to Aluccius, Prince of the Cel-
tiberians.
xxvi. 50.
Sp. Ligustinus, a centurion, to the
people of Rome.
xlii. 34.
Restoring to him his betrothed, ho
bids him be the friend of the Romans,
who are his true friends.
16 lines.-
Recounting his own merits and long-
service, he recommends obedience by his
own example.
55 lines.
XII. LAUDATORY.
Hannibal to Scipio.
xxx. 30.
Philip, Kimj of Macedon, to Anti-
gunus.
xl. 56.
Praising* the great qualities and ex-
ploits of his adversary, he desires an
equal peace.
88 lines.
Offering to leave him the kingdom,
instead of his own unworthy son, Per-
seus.
10 lines.
XIII. VITUPERATIVE.
A. Verginius to the Plebs.
iii. 11.
Camillus to the schoolmaster of Falerii.
v. 27.
Postumius, Consul, to the Roman
people.
xxxix. 15, 16.
Condemning Ceeso Fabius.
5 lines.
Condemning his baseness, and refus-
ing to profit by it.
11 lines.
Exposing the horrid practices of thr
Bacchanalians, warning the people
against superstition, and declaring that
he and his colleague will put down the
strange rite with their full powers.
83 lines.
XXV111
Table of General References.
XIV. ACCUSATORY.
By whom and to whom spoken.
Q. Quinctius Cincinnatus, Consul, to
the people and Tribunes.
iii. 19.
Very mills to the people.
iii. 56.
M. Sextius, Tribune of the Plebs, to
the people.
iv. 49.
T. Manlius, Consul, to his san.
viii. 7.
C. Mecnius, Dictator, to the assembly.
ix. 26.
_P. Sempronius, Tribune of the Plebs,
to the people.
ix. 33.
Subject of speech and its length in lines.
Against Aulus Verginius and the
other Tribunes, denouncing them as
factious, dishonest, and unpatriotic
demagogues.
35 lines.
Impeaching Appius, the Decemvir.
10 lines.
Denouncing the haughtiness of Pos-
tumius Regillensis, Military Tribune.
12 lines.
Condemning him to death as the
penalty of insubordination.
15 lines.
Being accused by certain nobles of
treason, he retorts the charge, and
courts investigation.
25 lines.
Charging Appius the Censor with
violating the .ZEmilian law, which limi-
ted his term of office : inveighing
against the pride, etc., of Appius and
his family.
76 lines.
Hanno to the Carthaginian Senate.
xxi. 10.
P. Scipio to his mutinous soldiery.
xxviii. 27-29.
Ambassadors of King Philip to the
Comcil of the JEtolians.
xxxi. 29.
Athenian Ambassadors to the Council
of the JEtolians.
xxxi. 30.
L. Furius Purpurio and L. JEmilius
Paulus to the Senate.
xxxviii. 45, 46.
XV. ACCUSATORY.
Against Hannibal and the war party,
advocating that Hannibal should be
given up as the breaker of the treaty
with Rome, as the Roman legates de-
sired.
41 lines.
Upbraiding them with their sedition
and mutiny and want of patriotism :
the ringleaders alone shall be punished
with death.
123 lines.
Recounting the cruelty and bad go-
vernment of the Romans towards con-
quered States.
44 lines.
The crimes and profanities of Philip
in Attica.
29 lines. [Orat. obliy.]
Against granting a triumph to Cn.
Manlius, whom they accused of exceed-
ing his powers, and of needlessly pro-
longing and extending the war in u
spirit of vainglory and irreligion.
74 lines. [Orat. olliq. c. 45.]
Oratorical.
By whom and to whom spoken.
Subject of speech and its length in lines.
Perseus to King Philip, his father.
xl. 9-11.
Marcius, Roman Ambassador, to Per-
seus, King of Macedon.
xlii. 40.
Alexander, Prince of the ^Etolians, to
Philip, King of Macedon.
xxxii. 33.
Accusing his brother Demetrius of
treason and attempted parricide.
96 lines.
Accusing 1 him of divers violations of
the treaty with Rome, and demanding
redress.
38 lines.
Reproaching him that his method of
making war was more destructive to
his friends than to his foes. Either
peace must be made, or the war must
be waged with vigour.
18 lines, \_0rat. obliqJ]
XVI. DEFENSIVE OR APOLOGETIC.
M. Manlius to Cornelius Cossus, Dic-
tator, and the senators.
vi. 15.
Spurius Postumius to the Senate.
ix. 9.
Hanno to the Carthaginian Senate.
xxi. 12, 13.
Deputies of the soldiers who had
fought at Cannce to M. Marcellus.
M. Marcellus to the Senate.
xxvi. 31.
P. Cornelius Scipio to the Senate.
xxviii. 43, 44.
Hannibal to the Carthaginian Senate.
xxx. 44.
Defending himself from the charge
of appropriating the treasures of the
G-auls, and bringing counter charges
against the Dictator.
26 lines.
Against the Tribunes of the Plebs,
who tried to invalidate his view of the
surrender to the Samnites, by urging
that his own surrender will be enough.
61 lines.
Defending his own peace-at-any-
price policy, and warning them not to
put trust in Hannibal's victories.
50 lines.
Protesting against the ignominy
which had been inflicted on them by
the Senate, with petition for better
treatment.
70 lines.
Defending himself from the charge
of undue harshness to the Syracusans,
and justifying his plunder of their
city.
37 lines.
In answer to Q. Fabius Maximus he
pleads that he may be sent into Africa,
urging his own zeal for the service, the
feasibility of finishing the war, and the
advantages of transferring it
to the
enemy s country.
112 lines.
Justifying himself for laughing
when the rest wept, and foretelling the
future miseries of Carthage.
19 lines.
XXX
Table of General References.
whom and to whom spoken.
Subject of speech and its length in lines.
Roman Ambassadors to the Council of
the JEtolians.
xxxi. 31.
PMlip, King of Macedon, fo the
JEtolians and others.
xxxii. 34.
Nabis, tyrant of Lacedcemon , to T.
Qtiinctius Flamininus.
xxxiv. 31.
Cn. Manlius, Consul, to the Senate.
xxxviii. 47-49.
Lycortas, prcetor of the Achaean*, fo
Appius Claudius and the Roman envoys.
xxxix. 36, 37.
Demetrius, son of King Philip, to Jii*
father.
xl. 12-15.
ArcJto to the Achtcan Council.
xli. 24.
King Perseu* to Q. Marcius, the Human
ncoy.
xlii. 41, 42.
Q. JEtnilius Paulus, Consul, to the
people.
xliv. 22.
Q. ^Emilias Paulus to 7m army.
xliv. 38, 39.
In answer to the charges brought
against Rome by Philip's embassy,
they justify the policy of Rome to her
subjects, and urge the -ZEtolians to
espouse the cause of Rome rather than
that of the impious Philip.
72 lines.
Defending himself from the charge
of injuring his own allies, promising
redress, and making counter-charges
against them.
37 lines.
Appealing to the good faith of the
Romans, he defends his annexation of
Argos, and vindicates his democratic-
policy at home.
50 lines.
He defends himself from the charge
of needlessly attacking the Gauls, and
managing the war badly : and vindi-
cates his own just claims to a triumph.
126 lines.
Justifying the Achaean attack on
Sparta, and the severities inflicted after
the surrender by the example of
Roman conduct on like occasions.
78 lines.
He defends himself from the charges
of treason and conspiracy to kill his
father.
162 lines.
Against adopting an unfriendly
policy towards Perseus, the new King
of Macedon, whom he defends, while
peace still exists.
56 lines.
Explaining his alleged breaches of
the treaty : his acts had been only in
self-defence : he had given no real
cause for war.
80 lines.
Declining to be influenced by public'
opinion in his conduct of the war with
Ma-cedon, he invites them to help him
by disbelieving rumours and criticisms.
He will do his best to conclude the
Avar.
47 lines.
Explaining to them his reasons for
not fighting a battle on the day before.
67 lines.
Oratorical.
xxxi
By whom and to whom spoken.
Subject of speech and its length in linen.
Scipio to Hannibal.
xxx. 31.
P. Horatius to the people.
i. 26.
In refusing Hannibal's offer of
peace, now too late, he excuses the
Romans from the charge of having
provoked war.
30 lines.
Reproaching them with ingratitude
for condemning his son to death.
11 lines.
XVII. INVECTIVE.
T. Quinctius Cincinnatus, Consul, to
the Senate.
iii. 21.
0. Pontius to the Samnites.
ix. 1.
C. Pontius
the Roman envoys.
ix. 11.
M. Minucius to the Roman officers.
xxii. 14.
T. Quinctius Flamininus to Nabis,
tyrant of Lacedcemon.
xxxiv. 32.
Veturia to her son Coriolanus.
ii. 40.
Minnio, minister of King Antiochu
to Sulpicius, Roman envoy.
xxxv. 16.
Senators to the Censor Q. Fulvius
Flaccus.
xlii. 3.
P. Valerius Publicola to the people.
ii. 7.
A Senator of Carthage to the Roman
Ambassadors.
xxi. 18.
Refusing to allow himself to be re-
elected Consul contrary to the law.
16 lines.
Denouncing the vengeance of the
gods on the pride and injustice of
Rome. Justice of their own cause.
28 lines.
Exposing their perfidy in not carry-
ing out the Caudine convention.
37 lines.
Attacking the timid and cautious
tactics of Fabius, who left Sinuessa to
its fate : advocating boldness.
41 lines.
Denouncing his tyranny, crimes,
perfidy, and hypocrisy : repudiating'
his proffered alliance.
56 lines.
XVIII. EXPOSTULATORY.
Reproaching him for becoming the
leader of his country's foes.
14 lines.
Reproaching the Romans with in-
consistency, and with seeking cause
for war.
15 lines.
Expostulating with him for using
the materials of the Temple of Juno at
Croton to build a temple of Fortune
at Rome.
12 lines, \0rat. obliq.~\
Clearing himself from the charge of
aiming at the kingdom, because he
had built on the Velian hill.
10 lines.
Maintaining the good faith of the
Carthaginians, and shifting on to the
Romans the charge of seeking to renew
the war.
25 lines.
XXX11
Table of General References.
XIX.-COMPLAINING.
By whom and to whom spoken.
Subject of speech and its length in lines.
Lucretia to her husband and father.
i. 58.
P. Valerius Publiccla, Consul, to the
Tribunes and peop le .
iii. 17.
T. Quinctius Capitolinus, Consul, to
the people.
iii. 67, 68.
Perolla to his father Pacuvius, chief of
the Campanians.
xxiii. 9.
Dccius Mayius to the people of Capua.
xxiii. 10.
Envoys from the Samnites to Han-
nibal.
xxiii. 42.
Locrian Envoys to the Roman Senate.
xxix. 17, 18.
Philip, King of Macedon, to the Roman
Envoys.
xxxix. 28.
Philip to his sons and friends.
xl. 8.
Calibrates to the Council of the
jicliceans.
xli. 23.
Denouncing the crime of Sextus
Tarquinius.
11 lines.
Complaining of their unpatriotic
conduct in attending to legislation
while Appius Herdonius had seized
the Capitol : appealing to them in the
name of all the outraged gods of
Rome.
20 lines.
Remonstrating with them for being
immersed in schemes of reforming the
constitution while the enemy was
ready to attack them : exhorting them
to concord and to take up arms against
the common foe.
80 lines.
Complaining that he had thrice
betrayed his country.
8 lines.
Their liberties are violated in his
own person by Hannibal.
6 lines.
Pleading their own merits, they
reproach him for abandoning them to
the Romans, and implore aid.
40 lines.
Against Q. Pleminius, commander of
the Roman garrison, setting forth the
grievous wrongs they had suffered
from him and his soldiers.
125 lines.
Complaining that the Romans did
not treat him as an ally and friend,
but encouraged his enemies and re-
volted subjects.
45 lines.
His own miseries in having to judge
between two sons who were enemies to
one another. He upbraids his sons for
their unnatural feeling.
38 lines.
Recounting the misdeeds of the
Macedonians and Perseus, and warning
the Achseans not to be misled by the
king's overtures.
40 lines.
Oratorical. xxxiii
By whom and to ivhom spoken. Subject of speech and its length in lines.
L. jEmilius Paulus to the people. Contrasting his glories as a general
xlv. 41. with his domestic bereavements, which
reduced him to the level of Perseus,
his conquered foe, in misfortune.
40 lines.
XX. -OBJURGATORY.
Volscian Spaniards to the Roman The Roman conduct towards Sagun-
Icgates. turn was no encouragement to take
xxi. 20. their side.
7 lines.
M. Marcellus to his soldiers. Upbraiding them with cowardice in
xxviii. 13. yielding panic-struck to the assault of
Hannibal.
20 lines.
Aristcenus, Prcetor of the Achceans, Reproaching the Council with their
to the Achaean League. silence on the question of peace or war
xxxii. 20. with Philip and the Romans.
13 lines.
L. JEmilius Paulus to Perseus, King His folly in contending against
of Macedon. Rome : he was, however, expected to
xlv. 8. be treated with clemency. His fate an
example of the vicissitudes of human
fortune.
19 lines.
XXI. DEPRECATORY.
Verg'mius to his fellow-soldiers. Refusing to be elected Decemvir,
iii. 51. 5 lines.
T. Manlius, Consul, to the Senate. He appeals to the gods against
viii. 6, 7. entertaining the proposal to admit
Latins to the Senate, and sees the
finger of Providence in the fall of
T. Annius.
14 lines.
XXII. THREATENING.
Icilius to Appius, the Decemvir. Warning him of the consequences
iii. 45. if he persisted in ordering that Ver-
ginia should be given up.
18 lines.
Verginius to Appius, the Decemvir. The soldiers will not stand his
iii. 47. tyranny.
5 lines.
Cornelius Cossus, Dictator, to M. Man- He shall be imprisoned unless he
lius Capitolinus. reveals where are the treasures of the
vi. 15. Gauls.
13 lines.
XXXIV
Table of General References.
By whom and to whom spoken.
Subject of speech and its length in lines.
Q. JFabius, Dictator, to his army.
xxii. 29.
P. Cornelius Scipio to L. Ctecilius
Metellus and others.
xxi. 53.
T. Sempronius Gracchus to his army.
xxiv. 14.
T. Sempronius Gracchus to mutineers
and others,
xxiv. 16.
Pointing 1 out the consequences of
the rashness of Minucius.
5 lines.
He swears to kill any one who
deserts his country in her peril.
7 lines.
If any of them run away they shall
be punished as slaves ; but the brave
soldier shall be suitably rewarded.
10 lines. [Orat. obliq.']
Imposing" a nominal punishment in
consideration of subsequent good con-
duct.
10 lines.
XXIII.- INQUIEING.
C. Junius, Tribune of the Plebs, to
Tempanius.
iv. 40.
M. Manlius Capitolinus to the gods of
Home.
vi. 16.
Z. Papirius Cursor, Dictator, to Q.
Fabius, Master of the Hcrse.
viii. 32.
Philip, King of Macedon, to T. Quinc-
tius Flamininus, Consul.
xxxii. 36.
About Sempronius, the Consul, who
had shamefully deserted his camp in
the war against the Volscians.
13 lines.
Will they allow the defender of
their temples to be chained ?
5 lines.
Whether he had disobeyed the
orders of his superior officer.
16 lines.
Conference about the terms of peace.
17 lines.
TABLE OF GENERAL JREFEBENCES.
IV.
PHILOSOPHICAL.
L MORAL.
A. GOD, DEATH, IMMORTALITY, THE SUPERNATURAL.
Proof of the existence of God
From the universal consent of mankind
From contemplation of the works of God
Excellence, power, omniscience of God ,
Piety towards God
(rood gifts come from God .
Temples
Punishment of the wicked ,
CICERO, Tusc. Qtteest. i. 30.
de Nat. Deor. i. 43, 44 ;
ii. 68 ; i. 29, 63.
SENECA, Epist. cxvii.
CICERO, Tusc. Qucest. i. 70.
de Arusp. Resp. 19.
de Legg. i. \ 24, sqq.
de Nat. Deor. ii. 15, 90.
de Nat. Deor. ii. 121, 4, 5,
60, 25, 45 ; iii. 92.
Tusc. Qucest. i. 66.
,, pro Roscio Amer. 131.
SENECA, Nat. Qucest. vii. c. 30 ; i.
Prcefat. vii. c. 30.
de Benef. iv. c. 8 ; iv. c. 4.
CICERO, de Divinat. i. 117.
,, de Legg. ii. 15.
SENECA, Epist. Ixxxiii.
CICERO, de Off. ii. ad Jin.
SENECA, Epist. Ixxvi,
CICERO, de Nat. Deor. i. 4.
de Legg. ii. 71.
SENECA, Epist. cxvi.
de Benef. c. 6.
CICERO, de Legg. ii. 19, 25.
JUVENAL, Sat. xi. 116.
CICERO, de Legg. ii. 41.
pro Cluent. \ 194.
SENECA, Epist. xcv.
xc., xli., Ixxiii.
de Benef. iv. c. 6.
CICERO, de Nat. Deor. ii. 165, 79.
de Legg. ii. 26.
de Nat. Deor. iii. 83.
LIVY, xxxi. c. 18, 19, 21.
XXXVI
Prayer ....
Jfan, the noblest work of God
Table of General References.
SENECA, Epist. x.
VALEEIUS MAXIMUS, vi. c. 2.
JUVENAL, Sat. x. 347.
. CICEEO, de Legg. i. 22, 27, 59.
OVID, Met am. i. 84.
SENECA, de Benef. vi. c. 23 ; ii. c. 29.
SALLUST, Bell. Jugurth, c. 2.
Catilin. c. 1.
CICEEO, de Fin. ii. 39.
de Off. i. 14, 3.
SENECA, Epist. Ixxvi.
. CICEEO, Tusc. Qucest. i. 9, sqq. ;
93, sqq.
Tusc. Qucest. i. 18-70;
ii. 47; v. 68.
Tsc. Qucest. i. 72.
,, de Divinat. i. 57-59.
PLINY, Epist. vii. 27.
VIEGIL, Aen. ii. 270, *^. ; i. 350 ;
iii. 148, sqq.
Parts of the body, showing evidence of design CICEEO, de Nat. Dcor. lib. ii. 134.
tienses, perception by means of ... ,, Academ. Qucest. iv. 19.
Death not an evil .
Nature of the soul ; its immortality
Heaven and hell .
Ghosts .
B. MAN, HIS ATTEIBUTES AND DUTIES.
])csire of the knowledge of the truth
Excellence of learning .
Faults to be avoided in learning
The best knowledge is how to live well
Teaching and learning .
Honour paid to literary excellence .
Books and libraries
. CICEEO, de Off. i. 25, 17, 18.
Tusc. Qucest. i. 44.
de Fin. v. 48, 87.
Academ. iv. 127.
Tusc. Qucest. ii. 13.
VITEUVIUS, lib. vi. P reef at.
CICEEO, pro Archiil, 16.
de Fin. v. 53.
deOff.ii. 2,3; iii. 1,
,, Tusc. Qucest. i. 5.
PLINY, Epist. viii. 19.
. CICEEO, de Of. i. 18, 153.
de Fin. v. 49.
SENECA, de Brevit. Vit. c. 13, 14.
Epist. xhdii.
cxvii.
,, de Benef. vi. c. 1, 2.
. CICEEO, de Fin. iii. 65.
SENECA, Epist. vi., cviii.
CICEEO, de Orator, ii. 75, 76.
de Senect. 26, 22.
VALEEIUS MAXIMUS, viii. c. 7.
SENECA, Epist. Ixxvi.
. CICEEO, pro Archid, 25.
SUETONIUS, /. Ccesar, c. 42.
LrvY, iv. c. 35.
TACITUS, Ann. xi. c. 7.
VITEUVIUS, lib. ix. Prcefat.
SENECA, Epist. Ixiv.
Ixxxiv., ii., xlv.
PLINY, J^ns^.iii. 5.
Philosophical.
xxxvn
Books and libraries
Memory improved by cultivation .
Philosophy made practical by Socrates
Praises of philosophy .
Justice
The chief of the virtues .
Ought to be observed in spite of consequences
Sin and innocence depend upon the intention
and motive
Justice and expediency .
Ambition
Duty to one's neighbour
Calumny
Lying and dissimulation
forgiveness of injury .
War and peace
Good faith, oaths
Duties of masters and slaves
SENECA, de Tranquill. c. 9.
VITRUVIUS, lib. vii. Prccfat.
CICERO, de Fin. iii. 2
,, ad Attic, lib. i., Epist. iii.,
vi., viii.,ix., x.
QUINTILIAN, lib. xi. c. 2.
CICERO, Academ. iv. 2 ; ii. 104.
SENECA, Controvers. lib. i.
AUCTOR ad Hcrennium, iii. 1%,sqq.
CICERO, Academ. Qucest. i. 16.
,, Tusc. Qucest. v. . 5.
de Of. ii. 28 ; i. 10.
CORNELIUS NEPOS, in Aristide.
,, ,, in Chabriad.
SENECA, Epist. cxiii., Ixxxi.
,, de Benef. iv. c. 1.
SALLUST, Catilin. c. 54.
CICERO, dc Legg. i. 41, 48, 49.
de 0/11.56; ii. 33,41,38.
SENECA, Epist. Ixxvi.
CICERO, de Legg. i. 28.
de Off. i. 14, 20, 21 ; iii.
27, 22, 42, 29, 30, 23.
JUVENAL, Sat. xiii. 195.
SENECA, Epist. xcv.
CICERO, de Off. i. 30, 18, 37.
de Legg. i. 50, 51.
de Orat. i. 194.
,, pro Roscio Amer. 70.
de Off. iii. 37, 38.
iii. 15, 18, 64.
i. 62, sqq.
SENECA, Qucest. iii. in procem.
,, Epist. xciv. liii.
de Benef. vii. c. 20, 21.
CICERO, de Off. i. 23, 27 ; iii. 18 ;
i. 11.
HORAT. Sat. i. 4.
CICERO, de Off. i. 134.
,, pro Plancio, 57.
de Off. i. 23, iii. 58, 60,
63, 64, 69; i. 150.
,, pro Roscio Comced. 46.
SENECA, de Otio, c. 28.
de Ira, lib. ii. c. 32 ; iii. 5.
CICERO, pro Ligurio, 25.
SUETONIUS, /. Ccesar, c. 23.
CICERO, de Off. i. \ 34, 38.
' i. 13; iii. 26,27,
31, 33.
pro Balbo, 12.
de Off. i. 51.
SENECA, de Clement, i. c. 18.
,, de Ira, iii. c. 40.
Epist. xlvii.
XXXV111
Table of General References.
Duties of masters and slaves
Patriotism .
Duty to parents .
Parricide .......
Love of offspring . Duty of parents to chil-
dren
Education of children .
Duties of teachers ....
Husbands and wives ....
Friendship can only exist between good men
Friendship, value of .
Choice of friends. ....
PLINY, Epist. ii. 16 ; Epist. v.
19; Epist. vii. 1 and
18.
CICEEO, Epist. ad Fain. lib. xvi.
SENECA, Epist. xlvii.
VALERIUS MAXIMUS, vi. c. 8.
CICEEO, de Off. i. 57, 58, 59.
pro Scxtio, 47.
pro Plancio, 90.
de Orator, i. 196.
OVID, dc Ponto, i. 3.
LIVY, i. c. 56 ; viii. c. 6-9.
VALERIUS MAXIMUS, v. c. 6.
LIVY, x. c. 28; v. c. 33, 21.
SENECA, dc Bcnef. vi. c. 24.
CICERO, de Amicitid, 70.
de Off. iii. 31.
LIVY, vii. c. 4, 5 ; ii. c. 35, sqq.
VALERIUS MAXIMUS, v. c. 4.
CICERO, pro Eoscio Amerino, 37,
63, 64, 70.
de Fin. iii. 62.
Tusc. Quast. v. 79.
de Orator, ii. 168.
,, in Verrem, ii. 153.
Philipp. ix. 12.
SENECA, Epist. xxxi.
CICERO, in Verrem, iii. 159.
JUVENAL, Sat. xiv. 70.
QUINTILIAN, lib. i. c. 3.
TACITUS, de Orat. c. 28-32.
CICERO, dc Orator, iii. 141, 25.
QUINTILIAN, lib. i. c. 1, 2, sqq.
SENECA, de Ira, ii c. 11, 21.
CICERO, Brutus, 210.
de Divinat. ii. 2, 4.
SENECA, de Tranquill. c. 3.
QUINTILIAN, lib. ii. c. 2, 3.
CICERO, ad Fam. xvi. Episl. xxi.
lib. xii. 16.
SENECA, de Bencf. vi. c. 15, 16, 17.
de Ira, c. 32.
QUINTILIAN, i. c. 2, 3, 4 ; ii. c. 2.
PLINY, Epist. iii. 3.
SENECA, de Clement, i. c. 16, 17.
CICERO, de Orator, i. 5.
de Off. i. 53, 54.
VALERIUS MAXIMUS, iv. c. 6.
CICERO, de Off. ii. 74.
de Amicitid, 20, 18, 100.
de Off. i. 52.
SALLUST, Jugurtha, c. 31.
CICERO, de Amicitid, 17, 22, 102,
86.
62, 78.
SENECA, de Tranquill. c. 7.
Philosophical.
XXXIX
Love of friends
Respect between friends
True friends scarce
Benevolence
Natiiral to man
Must be tempered by discretion .
True kindness consists in the wofirt
Gratitude .....
Co urage
Of tivo kinds
Warlike .
Domestic .
Self-control .
Avoidance of temptatiot
Avarice
Contentment
CICERO, de Fin. i. 67.
de Off. iii. 45 ; i. 56.
,, de Amicitia, 12.
SENECA, Epist. iii.
CICERO, de Off. iii. 43, 44.
,, de Amicitia, 39, 40, 44,
62, 88, 91.
,, pro Plancio, 5.
SALLTJST, Catilin. c. 20.
SENECA, de Benef. vi. 29, 31, 32.
CICERO, de Off. i. 40, 42 ; ii. 63.
Tusc. Qucest. i. 32.
pro Ligurio, 37.
VALERIUS MAXIMUS, iv. c. 8.
CICERO, de Off. ii. 32.
i. 42, 49.
SENECA, de VitdBeatd, c. 20, 23, 24.
de Benef. iv. c. 10, 11.
PLINY, Epist. ix. 30.
SENECA, de Benef. ii. c. 16, 17.
i. c. 6-8; iv. c. :j.
14, 11, 25.
CICERO, de Off. i. c. 48, 49.
,, pro Plancio, 80.
SENECA, de Benef. vi. c. 27, 28 ; vii.
c. 30, 31; i. c. 12.
CICERO, de
i. 66, 62.
i. 77, 75.
LIVY, ii. c. 9, 10 ; xxii. c. 60.
CICERO, de Fin. 27-
de Off. i. 76.
,, pro Domo.
,, pro Balbo.
,, pro Plancio.
de Off. i. 67.
,, pro Ma-r cello, \ 8.
SENECA, Epist. cxiii.
,, Nat. Quasi, iii. in Trcefat.
de Benef. v. c. 7.
LIVY, xxx. c. 14.
,, xxiii. c. 2, 4, 18 ; xxiii. 4.5.
SENECA, Epist. Ii.
CICERO, de Off. i. 68 ; ii. 38.
Tusc. Qucest. iv. 24.
SENECA, Epist. cxv.
OVID, Fast. i. 195.
HORAT. Od. iv. 9 ; ii. 16.
CICERO, de Senect. 55.
SENECA, Epist. v.
de Benef. vii. c. 8, 12.
CICERO, de Off. ii. 71.
Tusc. Qucest. v. P. 9
92, 20.
SENECA, de Benef. v. c. 4, 6.
xl
Table of General References.
Riches, an evil .....
Ambition ......
Contempt of death and pain .
Good life better than long life
A good man will meet death cheerfully .
Burial
Pain, endurance of
Patience, taught by comparing the icocs of
others ivith ones own ....
Anger
Repression of anger .....
The tongue to be kept in check
Humility .......
Flattery .
Ostentation and vanity ....
SALLUST, Catilin. c. 10, 12.
SENECA, de Constantid, c. 5.
CICERO, Paradox, i.
de Of. i. 63.
Lrvr, x. c. 13 ; xxvi. c. 22.
CICEEO, de Off. i. 84.
SENECA, de Constantid, c. 19.
CICEEO, Tusc. Qucest. iii. 43 ;
ii. 2.
de Senect. 20.
Tusc. Quasi, i. 91, 95.
SENECA, Epist. Ixxvi.
de Brevit. Yit. c. 1,2.
Epist. Ixx., xcvii., ci.
CICEEO, de Senect. 69, 70.
Tusc. Qucest. i. 109.
de Orator, i. 231.
Tusc. Qucest. i. 6 116; iii.
71.
SENECA, Epist. xxiv., Ixx.
COENELIUS NEPOS, in Phocion.
SENECA, de Tranquill. c. 14.
de Vitii Beatd c. 15.
CICEEO, Tusc. Qucest. i. 103-109.
SENECA, de Tranquill. c. 14.
Epist. xcii.
CICEEO, de Lego. ii. 62.
Tusc. Qucest. iii. 43 ; ii.
53-58; v. 76.
LIVY, ii. c. 12.
CICEEO, Tusc. Qucest. ii. 35, 66.
VALEEIUS MAXIMUS, vii. c. 2.
CICEEO, ad Fam. iv. Epist. v.
de Off. i. 69.
SENECA, de Ird, i. c. 1 ; ii. c. 35 ;
iii. c. 4.
CICEEO, de Off. i. 89.
Tusc. Qucest. iv. 78.
SENECA, de Ird, iii. c. 12.
CICEEO, de Off. i. 88.
SENECA, de Ird, i. c. 16.
iii. c. 11 ; ii. c. 23 ;
iii. c. 8 ; iii. c.
22, 24.
CICEEO, de Off. i. 137.
,, Epist. ad Fratr. i.
VALEEITIS MAXIMUS, vi. 2.
LIVY, xlv. c. 8.
SENECA, de Bcncf. v. c. 25.
SUETONIUS, Vespasian, c. 12.
CICEEO, de Off. i. 91.
SENECA, Epist. xxix., cxxiii.
Nat. Qiicest. vi. c. 23.
,, de Ird, iii. c. 14.
AUCTOE ad Hercnnium, v. 63, sqq.
Philosophical.
xli
Resignation
Good men dear to God ....
Temperance Reason the guide of life .
Happiness consists in perfect control over
emotions .
SENECA, de Consolat. ad Hclv. c. la
5, 9.
,, Epist. Ixxix., civ.
,, de Benef. vi. c. 37.
,, de Provident, c. 1,2.
CICERO, Tusc. Qucest. ii. 5 47
v. 42.
de Fin. i. 47.
de Off. i. 93.
Popular errors concerning happiness
Government of the body and the appetites
Contentment
Bodily pleasures
Health
Luxury and frugality
Agriculture
Music .
Poetry and the drama
Respect to age
Influence of authority and example
Wit, humour, raillery, jokes, etc. .
Tusc. Quast. v. 15, 34.
de Fin. i. 58, 59.
SENECA, de Vita Beatd, c. 3, 4.
c. 1, 2.
JUVENAL, Sat. x.
SENECA, Epist. xxiii.,xiv., lxv.,xcii.,
viii., xc., Ixxviii., cxi.
Epist. cxix., iv.
de Consolat. ad Helv. c. 9.
CICEEO, de Off. ii. 105.
SENECA, de Benef. vii. c. 2.
CICEEO, de Off. ii. 86.
VALEEITIS MAXIMTJS, ii. c. 5.
AULUS G-ELLIUS, ii. c. 14, 2.
SENECA, Epist. Iviii., xcv., Ixxxvii.,
Ixxxvi.
de Tranquill c. 8, 9.
Epist. xc., Ixxii., Iv., Ivji.
de Benef. vi. c. 10.
CICEEO, pro Roscio ^.merino, 75, 51.
PLINY, xviii. c. 6.
COLUMELLA, lib. i.
CICEEO, de Legg. \ 38.
QUINTILIAN, lib. i. c. 10.
CICEEO, Tusc. Qucest. v.
ii. 27.
SENECA, Epist. cxv.
CICEEO, pro Quint. 78.
de Off. i. 122 ; ii.
de Senect. 26, 63.
JUVENAL, Sat. xiii. 54.
PLINY, Epist. viii. 14.
SENECA, Epist. xii.
xciv., xi.
CICEEO, de Off. i. 146, 147.
PLINY, Epist. i. 23.
CICEEO, de Orator, ii. 219-287.
SENECA, de Tranquill. c. 15.
CICEEO, de Off. i. 122, 148, 153.
SUETONIUS, Tiber, c. 28, 52.
,, de Gramm. c. 22.
CICEEO, de Orator, ii. 276, 280,
282, 262, 278.
ad Earn. lib. vii. Epist. xxx.
Tusc. Qucest. v. 63.
LIVY, ix. c. 16.
QUINTILIAN, lib, vi. c. 4.
46.
xlii
Table of General References.
Emulation .
Stings of Conscience
Duties of magistrates and rulers
Duties of judges .
Duties of citizens and subjects
QUINTILIAN, lib. i. c. 3.
CICEEO, de Fin. v. 61.
Tusc. Quast. iv. 43; i.
7, 3, 4.
pro Archid, 24.
SENECA, Epixt. xliii ; xcvii.
CICEEO, pro Milone, 61.
Tusc. Qucest. v. 61, 62.
SALLUST, Catilin. c. 15.
Jugurtha, c. 72.
TACITUS, Ann. vi. 6.
CICERO, de Legg. iii. 2, 5.
de Off.'\. 85, 86.
Epist. ad Quint, i.
de Off. ii. 77, 79; i.
156, 88, 89.
SENECA, de Ira, i. c. 15, 16.
CICEEO, de Off. ii. 51.
,, ad Attic, lib. i. Epist. xiv.
QUINTILIAN, lib. ii. c. 17 ; vi. c. 1 :
v. c. 9.
CICERO, de Off. iii. 43.
pro Cluent. 159.
pro Rabirio Postumio, 12.
de Legg. ii. 9, 11.
Philipp. ii. 28.
LIVY, xxxiv. c. 4.
TACITUS, Ann. iii. c. 26.
CICERO, pro Ccecina, 73.
Paradox, v.
II. POLITICAL.
Origin of human society
Origin of law and right
Religion necessary for society
Magistrates the mouthpiece of the law
Growth of the Roman empire
CICERO, de Inventione Rhetor, i.
de Legg. i. 18, sqq.
ii. 30.
iii. 2.
LIVY, Preface.
See also references in Oratorical section.
III. LITERARY, CRITICAL, &c.
, virtues and faults of
its origin
Orator, qualities necessary for a good
Orator, special knowledge necessary
Ideal in art .....
Witticisms .....
Oratory, usefulness of .
,, flourishing period of
,, decline of
Poetry compared ivith oratory
.Poetry, praise of . . . .
CICERO, de Orator, iii. 96, 155.
AUCTOR ad Herennium,\v. 17, s
CICERO, de Inventione, i. 27, 30.
i. 2-6
de Orator, i 16, 201.
i. 59.
Orator, 8.
de Orator, ii. 219-287.
TACITUS, de Orat. c. 5.
c. 36.
c. 39,40,41.
c. 9, 12.
c. 11.
P kilo soph ical. x 1 i i i
IV. PHYSICAL.
The study of Nature elevates the human mind SENECA, Nat. Qucest. Pr<zfat.lib. 1.
Meteors ,, ,, i. c. 1.
Rainbows, reflections ..... ,, ,, i. c. 2, 6.
The atmosphere ,, ii. c. 6.
Thunder and lightning ,, ,, ii.c. 12, sqq.
Prognostics ,, ,, ii. c. 32.
Fate and foreknowledge ,, ,, ii. c. 37.
Thunder and lightning in Roman religion . ,, ,, ii. c. 39, sg^.
Water, its nature ,, ,, iii. c. I, sqq.
Ebbing and flowing wells .... ,, ,, iii. c. 16.
Hot springs, geysers, etc ,, ui.c.24:,sqq.
The universal Deluge iii. c. 27, 28,
29.
The River Nile iv. c. 1,2.
Snow, hail, rain ,, iv. c. 3.
Winds ,, ,, v. c. 1, sqq.
Caverns, mines ,, ,, v. c. 15.
Pompeii destroyed by an earthquake ,, ,, vi. c. 1.
Causes of earthquakes ,, vi. c. 4, sqq.
TABLE OF GENERAL REFERENCES.
Y.
E P I ti T L A E Y.
(Arranged according to Topics.}
On political subjects (various]
On retirement and home life
Commendatory
Consolatory and sympathetic
Congratulatory
Literary topics (various]
Desponding or anxious in tom
Jocular and bantering fetter*
On travels ....
Local descriptions
CICERO, ad Famil. iii. 2 ; v. 30.
ad Alt. i. 17.
ad Q. Fratr. ii. 16.
PLINY, Epist. iii. 20 ; iv. 25 ; vi.
19 ; ix. 13.
SENECA, Epist. Nor. cxviii.
CICEBO, ad Famil. vii. 1, 28; ix.
1,20.
ad Att. xviii. ; xi. 6.
PLINY, Epist. i. 3, 6, 9 ; v. 14 ;
ix. 6, 15, 36, 40 ; iii.
1, 5; vi. 36, 40.
SENECA, Epist. Mor. Ixxxiii., Ixviii.
CICEEO, ad Famil. v. 5 ; vii. 5 ;
xiii. 1, 28.
PLINY, Epist. ii. 13 ; v. 19 ; ix. 21 ;
iv. 27.
CICEEO, ad Famil. iv. 5 ; v. 14,
17; vi. 3.
PLINY, Epist. v. 8, 16.
SENECA, de Consolatione. Epist.
Mor. xcix., Ixiii.
CICEEO, ad Famil. v. 7, 12.
PLINY, ix. 7, 19.
CICEEO, ad Famil. v. 12.
ad Att. xiii. 13.
ad Q. Fratr. iii. 5, 6.
PLIXY, Epist. i. 8, 13; ii. 10, 19;
v. 10; vi. 33; vii. 33;
viii. 4 ; ix. 23.
SENECA, Epist. Mor. cxiv.
CICEEO, ad Famil. v. 15 ; xiv.
1,2,4.
ad Att. iii. 7, 5 ; xii. 14.
PLINY, Epist. viii. 16 ; vi. 4.
SENECA, Epist. Mor. Ixxiv.
CICEEO, ad Famil. vii. 10, 12, 18,
32; xv. 16.
ad Att. xiii. 52.
PLINY, Epist. i. 15 ; iii. 2.
SENECA, Epist. Mor. Ixxxvii.
CICEEO, ad Att. v. 10.
SENECA, Ep is t. Mor. xxviii., Ixxviii.,
liii.
CICEEO, Tusc. Disp. v. 64.
PLINY, Epist. ii. 17 ; v. 6 ; viii. 8,
20 ; ix. 39 ; iv. 30.
SENECA, Epist. Mor. Ixxxvi., Iv.
TABLE OF GENEBAL BEFEBENCES.
VI.
MI SC E LLANE US.
Anecdotes PLINY, Epist. ii. 20 ; vii. 27 ; ix. 33.
Art . iii. 6.
MARTIAL, ix. 44.
CICERO, de Off. iii. 58.
Florid style
The luxury of the age .... SENECA, Epist. Mor. Ixxxix., xc.
The ideal in art CICERO, Orator. 3-22.
Fire at Lyons . SENECA, Epist. Mor. xci.
Music of the spheres ..... CICERO, Somnium Scipionis (De
Republica^ lib. vi.)
Eruption of Vesuvius .... FLINT, vi. 16.
The Flood SENECA, Nat. Quast. lib. iii. c. 27.
A Tiburtine villa . ... . . STATIUS, Silv. 1,2.
A Surrentine villa ..... ,, ,, 2, 3.
Roman triumph and fjamo* . . . CLATJDIAN, Cons. Honor. vi.
V* THE
| UNIVERSIT
PASSAGES FOE TRANSLATION INTO LATIN.
PART L
HISTORICAL.
DUMBARTON CASTLE TAKEN BY SURPRISE. A.D. 1571.
THE situation of the castle on the top of a high and almost
inaccessible rock, which rises in the middle of a plain,
rendered it extremely strong, and, in the opinion of that age,
impregnable ; as it commanded the river Clyde, it was of great con-
sequence, and was deemed the most proper place in the kingdom
for landing any foreign troops that might come to Mary's aid.
The strength of the place rendered Lord Fleming, the governor,
more secure than he ought to have been, considering its importance.
A soldier who had served in the garrison, and had been disgusted
by some ill-usage, proposed the scheme to the Regent, endeavoured
to show that it was practicable, and offered himself to go the fore-
most man on the enterprise. It was thought prudent to risk any
danger for so great a prize. Scaling ladders, and whatever else might
be necessary, were prepared with the utmost secrecy and despatch.
All the avenues to the castle were seized, that no intelligence of
the design might reach the governor. Towards evening Crawford
marched from Glasgow with a small but determined band. By
midnight they arrived at the bottom of the rock. The moon was
B
2 Materials and Models
set, and the sky, which hitherto had been extremely clear, was
covered with a thick fog. It was where the rock was highest that
the assailants made their attempt, because in that place there were
few sentinels, and they hoped to find them least alert.
The first ladder was scarcely fixed, when the weight and eager-
ness of those who mounted brought it to the ground. None of the
assailants were hurt by the fall, and none of the garrison alarmed
by the noise. Their guide and Crawford scrambled up the rock,
and fastened the ladder to the roots of a tree which grew in a cleft.
This place they all reached with the utmost difficulty, but were
still at a great distance from the foot of the wall. Their ladder
was made fast a second time ; but in the middle of the ascent, they
were met by an unforeseen difficulty. One of their companions
was seized with some sudden fit, and clung, seemingly without life,
to the ladder. All were at a stand. It was impossible to pass
him. To tumble him headlong was cruel ; and might occasion a
discovery. But Crawford's presence of mind did not forsake him.
He ordered the soldier to be bound fast to the ladder, that he
might not fall when the fit was over ; then turning the other side
of the ladder, they mounted with ease over his belly. Day now
began to break, and there still remained a high wall to scale ; but
after surmounting so many great difficulties, this was soon accom-
plished. A sentry observed the first man who appeared on the
parapet, and had just time to give the alarm, before he was
knocked on the head. The officers and soldiers of the garrison ran
out naked, unarmed, and more solicitous about their own safety,
than capable of making resistance. The assailants rushed forwards,
with repeated shouts and with the utmost fury ; took possession of
the magazine ; seized the cannon, and turned them against their
enemies. Lord Fleming got into a small boat, and fled all alone
into Argyleshire. Crawford, in reward of his valour and good
conduct, remained master of the castle. Robertson.
SALLTJST, Bell. Jugurth. c. 92, 93, 94. LIVY, xxiv. c. 3, 40.
xxv. c. 23, 24. ix. c. 24, 37.
For Latin Prose Historical. 3
SIEGE OF PLATsEA WORKS AND COUNTERWORKS,
THE mode of attack which Archidamus chiefly relied upon
was the same which had been employed by the Persians
against the Ionian cities. He attempted to raise a mound to a
level with the walls. It was piled up with earth and rubbish,
wood and stones, and was guarded on either side by a strong
lattice-work of forest timber, the growth of Citha?ron. As the
mound rose, the besieged devised various expedients for averting
the danger. First they surmounted the opposite part of their w^all
with a superstructure of brick taken from the adjacent houses,
which were pulled down for the purpose secured in a frame of
timber, and shielded from fiery missiles by a curtain of raw hides
and skins, which protected the workmen and their work. But
as the mound still kept rising as fast as the wall, they set about
contriving plans for reducing it. And first, issuing by night
through an opening made in the wall, they scooped out and
carried away large quantities of the eari)h from the lower part
of the mound. But the Peloponnesifins, on discovering this
device, counteracted it, by repairing the breach with layers of
stiff clay, pressed down close on wattles of reed. Thus bam"ed,
the besieged sunk a shaft within the walls, and thence working
upon a rough estimate dug a passage underground as far as the
mound, which they were thus enabled to undermine. And
against this contrivance the enemy had no remedy, except in
the multitude of hands, which repaired the loss almost as soon
as it was felt. Thirlwall.
LIVY, xxxviii. c. 7. CLESAR, Sell Civil, ii. c. 8, sqq.
SIEGE AND DEFENCE OF PL ATM A.
BUT the garrison, fearing that they should not be able to
struggle long with this disadvantage, and that their
wall would at length be carried by force of numbers, provided
against this event by building a second wall, in the shape of a
4 Materials and Models
half-moon, behind the raised part of the old wall, which was
the chord of the arc. Thus in the worst emergency they secured
themselves a retreat, from which they would be able to assail
the enemy to great advantage, and he would have to recommence
his work under the most unfavourable circumstances. This
countermine drove the besiegers to their last resources. They
had already brought battering engines to play upon the walls.
But the spirit and ingenuity of the besieged had generally
baffled these assaults, though one had given an alarming shock
to the superstructure in front of the half-moon. Sometimes
the head of an engine was caught up by means of a noose ;
sometimes it was broken off by a heavy beam, suspended by chains
from two levers placed on the wall. Now, however, after the
main hope of the Peloponnesians, which rested on their moun' 1 ,
was completely defeated by the countermine, Archidamus resolved
to try a last extraordinary experiment. He caused the hollow
between the mound and the wall, and all the space which he
could reach on the other side, to be filled up with a pile of
faggots, which, when it had been steeped in pitch and sulphur,
was set on fire. The blaze was such as had perhaps never
before been kindled by the art of men ; Thucydides compares it
to a burning forest. TJiirlwall.
LIVY, xxxviii. c. 7. C^SAR, Bell. Civil, ii. c. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.
THE ESCAPE FRO AT PL ATM A.
THE contrivers of the plan took the lead in the enterprise.
Scaling ladders of a proper height were the first requisite ;
and they were made upon a measurement of the enemy's wall, for
which the besieged had no other basis than the number of layers
of brick, which were sedulously counted over and over again by
different persons, until the amount, and consequently the height of
the wall, was sufficiently ascertained.
A dark and stormy night in the depth of winter was chosen
For Latin Prose Historical. 5
for the attempt. It was known that in such nights the sentinels
took shelter in the towers, and left the intervening battlements
unguarded; and it was on this practice that the success of the
adventure mainly depended. It was concerted, that the part of
the garrison which remained behind should make demonstrations
of attacking the enemy's lines on the side opposite to that by
which their comrades attempted to escape. And first a small
party lightly armed, the right foot bare, to give them a surer foot-
ing in the mud, keeping at such a distance from each other as to
prevent their arms from clashing, crossed the ditch, and planted
their ladders, unseen and unheard ; for the noise of their approach
was drowned by the wind. The first who mounted were twelve
men armed with short swords, led by Ammeas, son of Coroebus.
His followers, six on each side, proceeded immediately to secure
the two nearest towers. Next came another party with short
spears, their shields being carried by their comrades behind them.
But before many more had mounted, the fall of a tile, broken off
from a battlement by one of the Platseans, as he laid hold of it,
alarmed the nearest sentinels, and presently the whole force of the
besiegers was called to the walls. But no one knew what had
happened, and the general confusion was increased by the sally of
the besieged. Thirlwall.
LIVY, xxiv. c. 46. xxv. c. 23, 24. v. c. 39, sqq. xxi. c. 56, 58.
STORMING OF THE TEMPLE OF JERUSALEM BY TITUS.
MEANWHILE Titus advanced his. engines to the outer wall ;
but the strength of its compacted masonry still defied the
battering rams. He undermined the gates; his engines shook
their sustaining bulwarks ; but though the surface crumbled, the
mass stood firm, and barred ingress. He applied ladders, and the
Romans mounted without opposition. On the summit they were
met by a remnant of the defenders, who still, in the fury of their
despair, found strength to hurl them headlong. Finally, the
6 Materials and Models
assailants brought fire to the gates, and, meeting again with no
resistance, succeeded in melting the silver plates which encased
them, and in kindling the wood beneath. The flames now cleared
the way for their advance, and swept from pillar to pillar till they
enveloped all that was yet standing of the interior porticoes.
Hundreds of Jews perished in this storm of fire. Titus called
his chiefs together, and deliberated on the fate of the sanctuary.
" Destroy it utterly/' exclaimed some ; " retain it for ransom,"
suggested others ; but Titus himself, so at least we are assured by
his panegyrist, was anxious at all events to save it. Perhaps
he regarded it as a trophy of victory ; poesibly he had imbibed in
his Eastern service some f everence for fche mysteries it enshrined ;
and even the fortunes of his family disposed him to superstition,
He ordered the flames to be quenched ; biit while the soldiers were
employed in checking them, the Jews sallied from their inner
stronghold : a last struggle ensued. Titus swept the foe from the
court with a charge of cavalry, and, as they shut the gates behind
them, a Roman, climbing on his comrade's shoulders, flung a blazing-
brand through a latticed opening. The flames shot up : the Jews
shrank shrieking and yelling from the parapets. Merivale.
TACITUS, J7iV. iii. c. 71, 72, 73. iii. c. 29-33. Ann. xv. c. 38, 39, 40.
CAPTURE OF DUREN.
THE town was strong, and powerfully garrisoned. A storm
was thought impossible ; and the stores of provisions within
the wails would last till the winter, when a besieging army would
be driven from the field. The herald was told scornfully that
he might take his proclamation to those from whom it came ; the
soldiers of Duren know no reading; he pretended to come from
the Emperor ; the Emperor had fed the fishes of the Mediterranean
when he was seeking to return from Algiers, and from him they
had nothing to fear. Before forty-eight hours had expired, they
found reason to know that neither was Duren impregnable, nor the
For Latin Prose Historical. 7
Emperor a delusion. The second morning after their reply, the
Spaniards were led up to the walls, and after a struggle of three
hours, the garrison broke and fled. Seven hundred were killed.
The rest, attempting to escape on the other side of the town, fell
into the hands of the Prince of Orange. Charles, coolly merciless,
refused to spare a man who had borne arms against him. The
commander was hanged before the gates : the other prisoners were
variously executed. Froude.
TACITUS, Hist. iii. c. 30, 31. LIVY, xxxiii. c. 17, 18. xxiv. c. 19.
xxv. c. 19. CAESAR, Bell. Gall viL c. 11.
SIEGE OF LEY DEN.
ON" the other side, the king's men were not wanting in securing
their forts, and repairing them with earth, hay, and what-
soever else they could come by of most commodious ; and hoping
that the waters would swell no higher, they persuaded themselves
that they should, within a few days, finish their business. They
very well knew the townmen's necessities ; and that all their
victuals being already spent, the affairs within were drawing to
great extremity. While both sides were in these hopes and fears,
the time came wherein Nature, by way of her hidden causes, was
likewise to work her effects. About the end of September the sea
began to swell exceedingly, according as she useth to do in that
season of the year ; and pouring in at the high tides, no longer
waves, but even mountains of waters, into the most inward
channels and rivers, made so great an inundation as all the country
about Leyden seemed to be turned into a sea. It cannot be said
how much the rebels were hereby encouraged, and the king's men
discouraged. The former came presently forth with their fleet,
which consisted of about one hundred and fifty bottoms, a great
part whereof were made like galleys : and to these were added
many other boats which served only to carry victuals. Bentivoylio.
, Bdl. Gall. iii. c. 9. Bell. Alex. c. 2. TACITUS, Ann. ii. c. 8.
8 Materials and Models
SIEGE OF LEYDEN.
"Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem."
THE tidings of despair created a terrible commotion in the
starving city. There was no hope either in submission or
resistance. Massacre or starvation was the only alternative. But
if there was no hope within the walls, without there was still a
soldier's death. For a moment the garrison and the able-bodied
citizens resolved to advance from the gates in a solid column, to cut
their way through the enemy's camp, or to perish on the field. It
was thought that the helpless and the infirm, who would alone be
left in the city, might be treated with indulgence after the fighting
men had all been slain. At any rate, by remaining, the strong
could neither protect nor comfort them. As soon, however, as this
resolve was known, there was such wailing and outcry of women and
children as pierced the hearts of the soldiers and burghers, and
caused them to forego the project. They felt that it was cowardly
not to die in their presence. It was then determined to form all
the females, the sick, the aged, and the children, into a square, to
surround them with all the able-bodied men who still remained, and
thus arrayed to fight their way forth from the gates, and to conquer
by the strength of despair, or at least to perish all together.
, Bell. Gall. vii. c. 77, 78. LIVY, v. c. 42. xxi. c. 7-15.
xxviii. c. 22, 23. TACITUS, Ann. i. c. 70.
SIEGE OF GENOA SCARCITY OF FOOD.
WINTEK passed away, and spring returned, so early and so
beautiful on that garden-like coast, sheltered as it is from
the north winds by its belt of mountains, and open to the full rays
of the southern sun. Spring returned, and clothed the hill sides
within the lines with its fresh verdure. But that verdure was no
longer the mere delight of the careless eye of luxury, refreshing the
citizens by its liveliness and softness when they rode or walked up
thither from the city to enjoy the surpassing beauty of the prospect.
The green hill sides were now visited for a very different object ;
For Lai hi Prose Historical. 9
ladies of the highest rank might he seen cutting up every plant
which it was possible to turn to food, and hearing home the
common weeds of our road sides as a most precious treasure. The
French general pitied the distress of the people, hut the lives and
strength of his garrison seemed to him more important than the
lives of the Genoese, and such provisions as remained were reserved
in the first place for the French army. Scarcity became utter want,
and want became famine. In the most gorgeous palaces of that
gorgeous city, no less than in the humblest tenements of its hum-
blest poor, death was busy } not the momentary death of battle or
massacre, nor the speedy death of pestilence, "but the lingering and
most miserable death of famine.
TACITUS, Hist. iv. c. 60. LIVY, xxiii. c. 19, 30.
, Bell. Civil, iii. c. 58.
SIEGE OF SIENA CONSTANCY AND COURAGE OF THE
DEFENDERS.
WITH this view he fortified his own camp with great care,
occupied all the posts of strength round the place, and
having entirely cut off the besieged from any communication with
the adjacent country, he waited patiently until necessity should
compel them to open their gates. But their enthusiastic zeal for
liberty made the citizens despise the distresses occasioned by the
scarcity of provisions, and supported them long under all the
miseries of famine. Monluc, by his example and exhortations,
taught his soldiers to vie with them in patience and abstinence ;
and it was not until they had withstood a siege of ten months,
until they had eaten up all the horses, dogs, and other animals in
the place, and were reduced almost to their last morsel of bread, that
they proposed a capitulation. Even then they demanded honourable
terms ; and as Cosmo, though no stranger to the extremity of their
condition, was afraid that despair might prompt them to venture
upon some wild enterprise, he immediately granted them conditions
more favourable than they could have expected. Robertson.
LIVY, xxiii. c. 19, 30. CESAR, Bell. Civil, iii. c. 58.
LO Materials and Models
SIEGE OF BAZA-COURAGE AND DEVOTION OF THE
WOMEN.
XT OTWITHSTAKDIXG the vigour with which the siege
JL T! was pressed, Baza made no demonstration of submission.
The garrison was, indeed, greatly reduced in number ; the ammu-
nition was nearly expended ; yet there still remained abundant
supplies of provisions in the town, and no signs of despond-
ency appeared among the people. Even the women of the place,
with a spirit emulating that of the dames of ancient Carthage,
freely gave up their jewels, bracelets, necklaces, and other per-
sonal ornaments, of which the Moorish ladies were exceedingly
fond, in order to defray the charges of the mercenaries.
The camp of the besiegers, in the meanwhile, was also greatly
wasted both by sickness and the sword. Many, desponding under
perils and fatigues, which seemed to have no end, would even at
this late hour have abandoned the siege ; and they earnestly
solicited the queen's appearance in the camp, in the hope that she
would herself countenance this measure on witnessing their suffer-
ings. Others, and by far the larger part, anxiously desired the
queen's visit, as likely to quicken the operations of the &iege, and
bring it to a favourable issue. There seemed to be a virtue in her
presence, w^hich, on some account or other, made it earnestly desired
by all. W. Irving.
LIYY, xxv. c. 26. xxi. c. 18. xxviii. c. 22, 23. FLORUS, ii. c. 12.
OBSTINATE DEFENCE OF THE MOORS.
r I "HE Moors, unshaken by the fury of this assault, received the
-L assailants with brisk and well-directed volleys of shot and
arrows ; while the women and children, thronging the roofs and
balconies of the houses, discharged on their heads boiling oil, pitch,
and missiles of every description. But the weapons of the Moors
glanced comparatively harmless from the mailed armour of the
Spaniards ; while their own bodies, loosely arrayed in such habili-
For Latin Prose Historical. 1 1
inents as they could throw over them in the confusion of the night,
presented a fatal mark to their enemies. Still they continued to
maintain a stout resistance, checking the progress of the Spaniards
by barricades of timber hastily thrown across the streets ; and, as
their entrenchments were forced one after another, they disputed
every inch of ground with the desperation of men who fought for
life, fortune, liberty, all that was most dear to them. The con-
test hardly slackened till the close of the day, while the kennels
literally ran with blood, and every avenue was choked up with the
bodies of the slain. At length, however, Spanish valour proved
triumphant in every quarter, except where a small and desperate
remnant of the Moors, having gathered their wives and children
around them, retreated as a last resort into a large mosque near the
walls of the city, from which they kept up a galling fire on the
close ranks of the Christians. The latter, after enduring some loss,
succeeded in sheltering themselves so effectually under a roof or
canopy constructed of their own shields, in the manner practised
in war previous to the exclusive use of fire-arms, that they were
enabled to approach so near the mosque as to set fire to its doors ;
when its tenants, menaced with suffocation, made a desperate
sally, in which many perished, and the remainder surrendered at
discretion.
LIVY, xxi. c. 8, 11. TACITUS, Hist. iii. c. 29, 30, 71.
OESAR, Bell. Gall. v. c. 43.
SURPRISE AND STORMING OF ZAHARA.
I 1ST the midst of the night an uproar arose within the walls of
Zahara, more awful than the raging of the storm. A fearfid
alarm-cry, " The Moor! the Moor!" resounded through the streets,
mingled with the clash of arms, the shriek of anguish, and the
shout of victory. Muley Aben Hassan, at the head of a powerful
force, had hurried from Granada, and passed unobserved through
the mountains in the obscurity of the tempest. When the storm
pelted the sentinel from his post, and howled round tower and
i 2 Materials and Models
battlement, the Moors had planted their scaling ladders, and
mounted securely into both town and castle. The garrison was
unsuspicious of danger until battle and massacre burst forth within
its very walls. It seemed to the affrighted inhabitants, as if the
fiends of the air had come upon the wings of the wind, and pos-
sessed themselves of tower and turret. The war-cry resounded on
every side, shout answering shout, above, below, on the battle-
ments of the castle, in the streets of the town ; the foe was in
all parts, wrapped in obscurity, but acting in concert by the aid
of preconcerted signals. W. Irving.
TACITUS, Hist. iv. c. 29. LIYY, xxh'i. c. 35, ad Jin. y. c. 39, sqq.
xxi. c. 58. xxiv. c. 46.
STORMING OF THE BREACH AT BAD A JOS.
NOW a multitude bounded up the great breach as if driven by
a whirlwind, but across the top glittered a range of sword-
blades, sharp-pointed, keen-edged on both sides, and firmly fixed in
ponderous beams, which were chained together and set deep in the
ruins ; and for ten feet in front, the ascent was covered with loose
planks, studded with sharp iron points, on which the feet of the
foremost being set the planks moved, and the unhappy soldiers,
falling forward on the spikes, rolled down upon the ranks behind.
Then the Frenchmen, shouting at the success of their stratagem,
and leaping forward, plied their shot with terrible rapidity, for
every man had several muskets; and each musket in addition
to its ordinary charge contained a small cylinder of wood stuck
full of leaden slugs, which scattered like hail when they were
discharged.
Again the assailants rushed up the breaches, and again the
sword-blades, immoveable and impassable, stopped their charge,
and the hissing shells and thundering powder-barrels exploded
unceasingly. Hundreds of men had fallen, and hundreds more
were dropping, but still the heroic officers called aloud for new
trials, and sometimes followed by many, sometimes by a few,
For Latin Prose Historical. 13
ascended the ruins ; and so furious were the men themselves, that
in one of these charges the rear strove to push the foremost on to
the sword-blades, willing even to make a bridge of their writhing
bodies, but the others frustrated the attempt by dropping down ;
and men fell so fast from the shot, that it was hard to know who
went down voluntarily, who were stricken, and many stooped un-
hurt that never rose again. Napier.
LIVY, xxxviii. c. 5-7. xxiv. c. 46. xxv. c. 9, 10.
TACITUS, Hist. iii. c. 29, 71. CAESAR, Bell. Gall. v. c. 42, 43.
BATTLE OF NIEUPORT MAURICE OF NASSAU
ENCOURAGES HIS TROOPS.
IT was a bright warm midsummer day. The waves of the
German Ocean came lazily rolling in upon the crisp yellow
sand, the surf breaking at the very feet of the armies. A gentle
south-west wind was blowing, just filling the sails of more than a
thousand ships in the offing, which moved languidly along the
sparkling sea. It was an atmosphere better befitting a tranquil
holiday than the scene of carnage which seemed approaching.
Maurice of Nassau, in complete armour, sword in hand, with the
orange plumes waving from his helmet, and the orange scarf across
his breast, rode through the lines, briefly addressing his soldiers
with martial energy. Pointing to the harbour behind them, now
again impassable with the flood, to the ocean on the left where
rode the fleet, carrying with it all hope of escape by sea, and to the
army of the Archduke in front, almost within cannon range, he
simply observed that they had no choice between victory or death.
They must either utterly overthrow the Spanish army, he said, or
drink all the waters of the sea. Either drowning or butchery was
their doom if they were conquered, for no quarter was to be
expected from their insolent foe. He was there to share their
fate, to conquer or to perish with them, and from their tried valor. r
and from the God of battles he hoped a more magnificent victory
than had ever before been achieved in this almost perpetual war.
14 Materials and Models
The troops replied with, a shout that they were ready to live or die
with their chieftain, and eagerly demanded to be led upon the
enemy. Whether from hope or from desperation they were con-
fident and cheerful. Motley.
TACITUS, Ann. ii. c. 15. LIVY, xxi. c. 43. xxii. c. 5. xxxiv. c. 14.
xli. c. 2.
BOADICEA ATTACKS THE ROMANS.
BUT flushed with victory, impatient for the slaughter, animated
with desperate resolution to die or conquer, the Britons
cast no thought or look "behind them. Boadicea herself drove
from rank to rank, from nation to nation, with her daughters
beside her, attesting the outrage she had endured, the vengeance
she had already taken, proclaiming the gallant deeds of the queens
before her, under whom British warriors had so often triumphed,
denouncing as intolerable the yoke of Roman insolence, and
declaring that whatever the men might determine, the women
would now be free, or perish. The harangue of Suetonius, on the
other hand, was blunt and sarcastic. He told his men not to mind
the multitudes before them, nor the noise they made ; there were
more women among them than men : as for their own numbers, let
them remember that in all battles a few good swordsmen really did
the work ; the half-armed and dastardly crowds before them would
break and fly when they saw again the prowess of the Roman
soldiery. Thus encouraged, the legionaries could with difficulty be
restrained to await the onset ; and as soon as the assailants had
exhausted their missiles, bore down upon them in the wedge-
shaped column which had so often broken Greeks, Gauls, and
Carthaginians. The auxiliaries followed with no less impetuosity.
The horsemen, lance in hand, pierced through the ranks which
still kept their ground. But a single charge was enough. The
Britons were in a moment shattered and routed. Merivale.
TACITUS, Ann. xiv. c. 35, 36.
For Latin Prose Historical. 1 5
BATTLE OF CRECY.
A I A HERE were of the Genoese cross-bows about a fifteen thou-
-L sand ; but they were so weary of going a-foot that day a
six league armed with their crossbows, that they said to their con-
stables, " We be not well ordered to fight this day, for we be not
in the case to do any great deed of arms, as we have more need of
rest." These words came to the Earl of Alengon, who said, " A
man is well at ease to be charged with such a sort of rascals, to be
faint and fail now at most need." Also at the same season there
fell a great rain and eclipse, with a terrible thunder ; and before the
rain there came flying over both battles a great number of crows,
for fear of the tempest coming. Then anon the air began to wax
clear, and the sun to shine fair and bright, the which was right in
the Frenchmen's eyes, and on the Englishmen's backs. When the
Genoese were assembled together and began to approach, they
made a great leap and cry to abash the Englishmen ; but they
stood still, and stirred not for all that.
TACITUS, Hist. iii. c. 23, 56. LIVY, xxii. c. 45.
CAESAR, Sell. Gall vi. c. 39, 40.
SITE OF THE BATTLE OF TRASIMENE.
HERE at our feet lay the Trasimene, a broad expanse of blue,
mirroring in intenser hues the complexion of the heavens.
Three wooded islets lay floating as it seemed on its unruffled sur-
face. Towns and villages glittered on the verdant shore. Dark
heights of purple waved around ; but loftier far and far more dis-
tant the Apennines reared their crests of snow. Such was the
scene on which the sun shone on that eventful day when Rome
lay humbled at the feet of Carthage, when fifteen thousand of her
sons dyed yon plain and lake with their blood. From the height
of Monte Gualaridro the whole battle-field is within view. At the
foot of the hill, or a little further to the right, on the shores of the
1 6 Materials and Models
lake, Flaminius, on his way from Arretium, halted on the eve of
the battle. Ere the sun had risen on the morrow he entered the
pass between this hill and the water, and marched on into yon
Crescent- shaped plain, formed by the receding of the mountains
from the lake, unconscious that he was watched from those very
heights on which we stand by Hannibal's Balearic slingers and
light-armed troops, and that the undulating ground at our feet
concealed the enemy's horse. Dennis.
PLIXY, Epitt. lib. viii. S, 20. LIVY, xxii. c. 4.
BATTLE OF TRASIMENE.
SEEIXG the foe in front, he marched on through the pass
till it widens into the plain, and there, enveloped by a
dense mist which arose from the lake, he was suddenly attacked
on every side by Hannibal's main force in front, and by the
cavalry and other ambushers in the rear. Flaminius then saw he
was entrapped, but nothing daunted he made a more desperate
struggle for victory ; and so furious was the contest that ensued, so
intent were all on the work of destruction, that an earthquake
which overthrew many cities in Italy, turned aside the course of
rapid rivers, and cast down even mountains in mighty ruin, was
unknown, unfelt by any of the combatants. For three hours did
the Romans maintain the unequal contest, till at length when their
leader Flaminius fell they broke and fled, rushing some to tke
mountain steeps, which they were not suffered to climb, others
to the lake, in whose waters they vainly sought safety. Six
thousand, who had broken through the foe at the first attack, and
had retired to a height to await the issue of the fight, effected their
escape only to be captured on the morrow. Ten thousand scattered
fugitives can led the news to Borne. Dennis.
LIVY, xxii. c. 5, 6.
For Latin Prose Historical. i 7
DISASTROUS RETREAT OF THE ENGLISH FROM CABUL.
IT took two days of disorder, suffering, and death to carry the
army, now an army no more, to the jaws of the fatal pass.
Akbar Khan, who appeared like the Greeks' dread marshal from
the spirit-land at intervals upon the route, here demanded four
fresh hostages. The demand was acquiesced in. Madly along the
narrow defile crowded the undistinguishable host, whose diminished
numbers were still too numerous for speed : on every side rang the
war-cry of the barbarians : on every side plundered and butchered
the mountaineers : on every side, palsied with fatigue, terror, and
cold, the soldiers dropped down to rise no more. The next day, in
spite of all remonstrance, the general halted his army, expecting
in vain provisions from Akbar Khan. That day the ladies, the
children, and the married officers were given up. The march was
resumed. By the following night, not more than one-fourth of the
original number survived. Even the haste which might once have
saved now added nothing to the chances of life. In the middle of
the pass a barrier was prepared. There twelve officers died sword
in hand. A handful of the bravest or the strongest only reached
the further side alive : as men hurry for life, they hurried on
their way, but were surrounded and cut to pieces, all save a few
that had yet escaped. Six officers, better mounted or more fortu-
nate than the rest, reached a spot within sixteen miles of the goal :
but into the town itself rode painfully on a jaded steed, with the
stump of a broken sword in his hand, but one.
LIVY, xxi. c. 2o, 7-10. xxxv. c. 30. xxiii. c. 24.
CAESAR, Bell. Qall. v. c. 35-37.
DEFEAT OF CHARLES THE BOLD AND MASSACRE OF HIS
TROOPS AT MO RAT.
IN such a predicament braver soldiers might well have ceased
to struggle. The poor wretches, Italians and Savoyards, six
thousand or more in number, threw away their arms and made
c
1 8 Materials and Models
pitiable attempts to hide themselves from the merciless foe. In
the village they crept into chimneys and ovens. To smoke them
out or to smother them in their holes, afforded excellent sport
to the hunters. Others climbed the huge walnut trees that lined
the road, seeking concealment in the foliage. A cry of " Crows 1 "
was immediately raised, and the arquebusiers, gathering in a circle,
picked them off one by one, while calling to them to spread their
pinions, or asking if there, was not air enough to sustain them.
But the great mass was driven into the lake, men and horses
struggling together and trampling each other down, a few getting
rid of their armour and swimming out till they sank from exhaus-
tion, the rest when they had waded up to their chins, standing
in a dense crowd, their faces wild with terror, their arms thrown
up, their voices sending forth screams for mercy, which were
answered with derisive yells. " Ha, they are thirsty ! they are
learning to swim ! " While the spearmen waded after them or
collected boats, the arquebusiers calling to each other to mark
" the ducks," poured in their fire from the bank. For two hours
the slaughter went on, nor ceased until the water over a space
of miles was incarnadined with blood. Kirk.
TACITUS, Ann. ii. c. 17, 18. Hist. iii. c. 83. LIVY, xxii. c. 4, 6.
xliv. c. 42. iv. c. 33.
BATTLE IN THE MARSHES DEATH OF DECIUS.
IN the beginning of the action, the son of Decius, a youth of the
fairest hopes, and already associated to the honours of the
purple, was slain by an arrow in the sight of his afflicted father,
who, summoning all his fortitude, admonished the dismayed troops
that the loss of a single soldier was of little importance to the
Republic. The conflict was terrible, it was the conflict of despair
against grief and rage. The first line of the Goths at length gave
way in disorder ; the second, advancing to sustain it, shared its
fate ; and the third only remained entire, prepared to dispute the
passage of the morass, which was imprudently -attempted by the
For Latin Prose Historical. 19
presumption of the enemy. Here the fortune of the day turned,
and all things became adverse to the Eomans ; the place deep with
ooze, sinking under those who stood, slippery to such as advanced ;
their armour heavy, the waters deep ; nor could they wield, in that
uneasy situation, their weighty javelins. The barbarians, on the
contrary, were inured to encounter in the bogs, their persons tall,
their spears long, such as could wound at a distance. In this
morass the Roman army, after an ineffectual struggle, was irre-
coverably lost ; nor could the body of the Emperor ever be found.
Such was the fate of Decius in the fiftieth year of his age ; an
accomplished prince, active in war, and affable in peace ; who,
together with his son, has deserved to be compared, both in life
and death, with the brightest, examples of ancient virtue. Gibbon.
TACITUS, Ann. i. c. 68, 70. ii. c. 14. CAESAR, Bell. Gall. ii. c. 9, 18, 19.
LIVY, xsi. c. 5. xxii. c. 4-6.
IVRYTHE BATTLE RETRIEVED.
THERE was a panic. The whole royal cavalry wavered ; the
supporting infantry recoiled 1 ; the day seemed lost before the
battle was well begun. The King and Marshal Biron, who were
near each other, were furious with rage, but already doubtful of the
result. They exerted themselves to rally the troops under their
immediate command, and to reform the shattered ranks. However,
the German riders and French lancers under Brunswick and Bas-
sompierre had not done their work so thoroughly as Egmont had
done. The ground was so miry and soft that, in the brief space
which separated the hostile lines, they had not power to urge their
horses to full speed. Throwing away their useless lances, they
came on at a feeble canter, sword in hand, and were unable to
make a very vigorous impression on the more- heavily armed
troopers opposed to them. Meeting with a firm resistance to their
career, they wheeled, faltered a little, and fell a short distance
back. The King, whose glance on the battle-field was like inspi-
c 2
2O Materials and Models
ration, saw the blot, and charged upon them in person, with his
whole battalia of cavalry. The veteran Biron followed hard upon
the snow-white plume. The scene was changed, victory succeeded
to impending defeat, and the enemy was routed. The riders and
cuirassiers, broken into a struggling heap of confusion, strewed the
ground with their dead bodies, or carried dismay into the ranks of
the infantry as they strove to escape. Motley.
, Bell. Civil, ii. c. 41. Sell. Gall. vii. c. 80. viii. c. 48.
LIVY, x. c. 28. xxii. c. 28, 29.
HEROIC DEATH OF DUNDEE AT THE BATTLE OF
KILLIE CRANKIE.
LOCHIEL knew with how much difficulty Dundee had been
able to keep together, during a few days, an army composed
of several clans ; and he knew that what Dundee had effected with
difficulty, Cannon would not be able to effect at all. The life on
which so much depended must not be sacrificed to a barbarous
prejudice. Lochiel therefore adjured Dundee not to run into any
unnecessary danger. " Your lordship's business," he said, " is to
overlook everything, and to issue your commands. Our business
is to execute those commands bravely and promptly." Dundee
answered with calm magnanimity, that there was much weight in
what his friend Sir Ewan had urged, but that no general could
effect anything great without possessing the confidence of his men.
" I must establish my character for courage. Your people expect
to see their leaders in the thickest of the battle ; and to-day they
shall see me there. I promise you, on my honour, that in future
fights I will take more care of myself." ... At the beginning of
the action Dundee had taken his place in front of his little band
of cavalry. He bade them follow him, and rode forward. But
it seemed to be decreed that, on that day, the Lowland Scotch
should in both armies appear to disadvantage. The horse hesi-
tated. Dundee turned round, stood up in his stirrups, and, waving
his hat, invited them to come on. As he lifted his arm his cuirass
TTT
Latin Prose .
rose, and exposed the lower part of his left side. A musket ball
struck him : his horse sprang forward and plunged into a cloud
of smoke and dust which hid from both armies the fall of the
victorious general. A person named Johnstone was near him and
caught him as he sank down from the saddle. " How goes the
day ]" said Dundee. " Well for King James," answered John-
stone ; " but I am sorry for your lordship." " If it is well for him,"
answered the dying man, " it matters the less for me." He never
spoke again ; but when half an hour later, Lord Dunfermline and
some other friends came to the spot, they thought that they could
still discern some faint remains of life. The body, wrapped in two
plaids, was carried to the castle of Blair. Lord Macaulay.
LIVY, xxii. c. 49. CICERO, de Finibus, ii. 96, 97. C^SAR, Bell.
Afric. c. 16. CORNELIUS NEPOS, Epaminondas, c. 9.
BATTLE-FIELD OF ALBUERA.
A TEMPESTUOUS night closed the memorable day of
Albuera. The rain, which during the action had fallen
heavily at intervals, became more constant and severe as evening
advanced ; and the streams which rolled down the heights and
mingled with the waters of the river, were not unfrequently
observed to be deeply tinged with blood. The village of Albuera
had been plundered and destroyed by the enemy every house was
roofless every inhabitant had disappeared ; and had there been a
place of shelter near, there was neither carriage nor beast of burden
by which the wounded could have been removed. Throughout the
night, and during the following day, the dead and the disabled
lay upon the field as they had fallen ; and nothing could be
more painful than the groans and complainings of the wounded.
Almost every man who had escaped unhurt was wanted for picket-
duty ; and the few who remained otherwise disposable were quite
unable to afford assistance to half the sufferers who required it.
,
JLiVY, xxi. c. 56, 58. xxiv. c. 46.
22 Materials and Models
FIELD OF WATERLOO IMPOSING ARRAY OF THE FRENCH
STEADINESS AND COURAGE OF THE ENGLISH
ACKNOWLEDGED BY SOULT.
NEVER was a nobler spectacle witnessed than both armies
now exhibited ; its magnificence struck even the Penin-
sular and Imperial veterans with a feeling of awe.
On the French side eleven columns deployed simultaneously, to
take up their ground ; like huge serpents, clad in glittering scales,
they wound slowly over the opposite hills amid an incessant clang
of trumpets and rolling of drums, from the bands of 1 1 4 battalions
and 112 squadrons, which played popular French airs. Soon order
appeared to arise out of chaos ; four of the columns formed the first
line, four the second, three the third. The formidable forces of
France were seen in splendid array ; and the British soldiers con-
templated with admiration their noble antagonists.
Two hundred and fifty gnus, stretched along the crest of the
ridge in front, with matches lighted and equipment complete, gave
an awful presage of the conflict which was approaching. The
infantry in the first and second lines, flanked by dense masses of
cavalry, stood in perfect order. Four-and-twenty squadrons of
cuirassiers, behind either extremity of the second, were already
resplendent in the rays of the sun ; the grenadiers and lancers of
the guard in the third line were conspicuous from their brilliant
uniforms and dazzling arms ; while, in the rear of all, the four-and-
twenty battalions of the guard, dark and massy, occupied each side
of the road near La Belle Alliance, as if to terminate the contest.
The British army, though little less numerous, did not present so
imposing a spectacle to either army, from their being in great part
concealed by the swell of the ridge on which they stood. They
were drawn up in two lines, some in squares, with the cavalry
in rear, and the artillery in front skilfully disposed along the
summit of the ascent. No clang of trumpets or rolling of drums
was heard from their ranks ; silently, like the Greeks of old, the
men took up their ground, and hardly any sound was heard from
the vast array but the rolling of the guns, and occasional words of
command from the officers. Napoleon had been afraid that the
For Latin Prose Historical. 23
English would retreat during the night, and expressed the utmost
joy when their squares appeared in steady array next morning,
evidently with the design of giving battle. " I have them, these
English ! " said he ; " nine chances out of. ten are in our favour."
" Sire," replied Soult, " I know these English ; they will die on
the ground on which they stand before they lose it." Alison.
LIVY, xxiii. c. 29. xxvii. c. 14. xxx. c. 33. ix. c. 40. xxi. c. 45, 46.
NIGHT BEFORE THE BATTLE OF AGINCOURT.
TO the English it was a night of hope and fear, of suspense
and anxiety. They had been wasted with disease, broken
with fatigue, and weakened by the many privations which must
attend the march of an army through a hostile country, and in
the presence of a superior force. But they were supported by the
spirit and confidence of their gallant leader, and by the proud
recollection of the victories won in similar circumstances by
their fathers. As men, however, who had staked their lives on
the issue of the approaching battle, they spent the intervening
moments in making their wills, and in attending to the exercises of
religion. The king himself took little repose. He visited the
different quarters of the army, sent as soon as the moon arose
officers to examine the ground, arranged the operations of the next
day, ordered bands of music to play in succession during the night,
and before sunrise summoned the men to attend at matins and mass.
Erom prayer he led them into the field, and arrayed them after his
usual manner in three divisions and two wings ; but so near to each
other, that they seemed to form but one body. The archers, on
whom he rested his principal hope, were placed in advance of the
men-at-arms. Their well-earned reputation in former battles, and
their savage appearance on the present day, struck terror into their
enemies. Many had stripped themselves naked ; the others had
bared their arms and breasts, that they might exercise their limbs
with more ease and execution. Lingard.
LIVY, xxxvii. c. 47. xli. c. 3. TACITUS, Ann. i. c. 65.
24 Materials and Models
A FIELD OF BATTLE IN THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN, 1812.
THE emperor then inspected the field of battle ; and never was
there any that exhibited a more frightful spectacle. Every-
thing concurred to increase the horrors of it : a lowering sky, a cold
rain, a violent wind, habitations in ashes, a plain absolutely torn up
and covered with fragments and ruins : all round the horizon the
dark and funereal verdure of the north, soldiers roaming in every
part among the bodies of the slain, wounds of a most hideous de-
scription : noiseless bivouacs ; no songs of triumph, no lively nar-
rations ; but a general and mournful silence. Around the eagles
were the officers, and a few soldiers, barely sufficient to guard the
colours ; their clothes were torn by the violence of the wind, and
stained with blood ; yet notwithstanding all their rags, misery and
destitution, they displayed a lofty carriage, and even on the appear-
ance of the emperor, received him with acclamations of triumph.
These, however, seemed somewhat rare and forced ; for, in this
army, which was at once capable of discrimination and enthusiasm,
each individual could form a correct estimate of the position of the
whole.
The soldiers were annoyed to find so many of their enemies
killed, such vast numbers wounded, and nevertheless so few pri-
soners. The latter did not amount in all, to eight hundred. It
was by the number of these that they estimated their success. The
slain proved the courage of the conquered, rather than the victory.
If the rest retired in good order, under little discouragement, and
even with a firm and warlike attitude, what was the advantage of
gaining a mere field of battle? In a country of such immense
extent, there was ground to furnish these in endless succession.
Ireland Scholarship), 1851.
TACITUS, Hist. ii. c. 70. iv. c. 72. Ann. i. c. 61, 62.
LIVY, xxi. c. 56, 58.
For Latin Prose Historical. 25
BATTLE OF SE ATP AC II, A.D. 1386 HEROIC DEVOTION OF
ARNOLD VON WINKELRIED.
WHEN he came within view of Sempach, however, the
standards of the Confederates were already planted on
the heights, and their defenders ready for the charge. This was
an unexpected sight ; but goaded, on. by revenge and his natural
impetuosity, Leopold determined, to make the attack forthwith.
As the infantry had not yet come up, and apprehensive lest his
cavalry, from the nature of the ground, should be thrown into con-
fusion, he ordered his horsemen to dismount to the number of
several thousands. This done, he formed them into dense columns,
whose serried spears and polished mail presented a wall of iron,
and commanded them to charge the Confederates. An electric
shout responded to the word, and an easy victory seemed to await
them ; but the exulting shouts of the nobles were gravely checked
by the Baron Hassenburg, who better knew the men with whom
they had to contend. " Pride," said he, " will here avail us
nothing it will be time enough to proclaim the victory when it
is won. A strong arm is better than strong language." " But
here," added Leopold, impassionately, "here will I conquer or
die !" And with these words they made an impetuous charge
upon the Confederates, who received the shock on their impene-
trable phalanx without receding a step.
Their entire force did not exceed one thousand four hundred
men, and these very indifferently armed in comparison of the
steel-clad veterans to whom they were opposed. The combat was
maintained for some time with desperate courage ; they fell one by
one, not unavenged but still with fearful havoc on the part of the
half-armed Swiss, upon whom the heavy mass of their opponents
pressed with deadly effect. They were discouraged. Already
some faint symptoms of wavering were manifested, when a voice
like thunder restored them to courage, and once more stemmed the
tide that was now setting so strongly in upon them. " Brothers
kinsmen confederates ! " exclaimed the voice, " be mine the
task to open for you a passage to freedom ! Protect my wife and
26 Materials and Models
children, and from my example learn that your only path to glory
is through the enemy's front ! " As he uttered these words, he
rushed forward, and seizing in his powerful arms a sheaf of the
spears directed against him, entangled them in his own body, and
expired with them in his grasp. By this heroic sacrifice a tem-
porary gap was formed ; the Confederates, rushing over the dead
body of their comrade to the breach, broke the enemy's file, and
with their iron clubs and maces carried havoc and consternation
into the very centre.
The heroic individual who thus, like a second Decius, "devoted"
himself to his country, and, by one of the most extraordinary
exploits on record, snatched the victory from an overwhelming
force, was Arnold Von Winkelried, a knight of Unterwalden.
Seattle.
CAESAR, Bell. OalL iv. c. 25. ii. c. 25, 27. vi. c. 38. LIVY, viii.
c. 9. ix. c. 28, 29. CICERO, Tusc. Disp. ii. 54, 59. TACITUS,
Ann. ii. c. 20. VlRG. ^h. x. 365, sqq.
ROUT OF AN ARMY OCCASIONED BY A SWARM
OF FLIES.
THERE was a silence both in the city and in the field for a
few moments, and then followed a low sound at a distance
like the wind playing with the branches in June. It became
louder and stronger ; and presently a little cloud appeared in the
west. Darker and darker grew the sky, more and more fearful
grew the sound ; and in a few short minutes the heaven was black
with millions of flies. But the swarm passed over the city and
settled on the camp of the Persians. Then you might have seen
the horses stung into fury, dashing from their masters and gallop-
ing over the plain ; the elephants with their trunks raised in the
air, their broad ears flapping like sails, and their tails scourging
their sides, rushing madly through the ranks, bearing down men
and standards and tents before them, bellowing for pain and carry-
For Latin Prose Historical. 27
ing destruction right and left. You might have seen the soldiers
rolling on the ground to crush their tormentors, or tearing off their
armour in agony. And within an hour the tents and the scattered
helmets, and shields of the flying, were the only traces of the great
army that had so lately in all its pomp and glory surrounded the
city.
LIVY, xxvii. c. 14. C^SAR, Sell. Afric. c. 84.
THE FRENCH UNDER LOUIS VII. DEFEATED BY
THE TURKS.
IN the mean while, the Turks, who had kept by the side of
them, at a small distance, being covered from their sight by
some rising grounds, were informed by their scouts that the two
parts of the Christian army were separated so far as not to be able
to assist each other : upon which, with great expedition, they went
and possessed themselves of the top of the mountain, where the
French van-guard had been ordered to encamp. Then, having
formed a line of battle, they suffered the rear-guard to advance
unmolested, till their foremost squadrons had almost reached the
summit of the ascent, and the rest were far engaged in the deep
hollow ways which embarrassed the middle of the hill. Having
thus drawn them on to inevitable destruction, they made a sudden
attack upon them, first with showers of arrows and then sword in
hand ; which threw them immediately into the greatest confusion.
For, as they expected no enemy, but imagined that the troops they
saw over their heads had been their own van-guard, they marched
in a very careless, disorderly manner j and many of them, to ease
themselves of the weight of their arms, had thrown them into the
waggons that carried the baggage. All things concurred to aid the
Turks, and rendered the valour of the French ineffectual : the
narrow defiles, in which they could not form any order of battle ;
the roughness and steepness of the ascent, which made their heavy-
armed cavalry useless ; the impediment of their baggage which,
being placed in the midst of them, hindered those behind from
28 Materials and Models
assisting the foremost and the inferiority of their number to that
of the enemy : so that scarce seven thousand out of above thirty
thousand were able to escape, the rest being all either killed or
taken. Lyttelton.
LIVY, vii. c. 34. xxii. c. 4, 5.
REPULSE OF THE TLASCALANS BY CORTES, A.D. 1519.
O LOWLY and stealthily the Indians advanced, while the
^-J Christian camp, hushed in profound silence, seemed to
them buried in slumber. But no sooner had they reached the
slope of the rising ground, than they were astonished by the
deep battle-cry of the Spaniards, followed by the instantaneous
apparition of the whole army, as they sallied forth from the
works, and poured down the sides of the hill. Brandishing aloft
their weapons, they seemed to the troubled fancies of the Tlas-
calans, like so many spectres or demons hurrying to and fro
in mid air, while the uncertain light magnified their numbers,
and expanded the horse and his rider into gigantic and un-
earthly dimensions. Scarcely waiting the shock of their enemy,
the panic-struck barbarians let off a feeble volley of arrows, and
offering no other resistance, fled rapidly and tumultuously across
the plain. Prescott.
LlVY, x. c. 34. xxiii. c. 35 ad fin. v. c. 39. xxi. c. 58. xxiv. c. 46.
TACITUS, Hist. iii. c. 23, 77. iv. c. 29.
CORTES SURPRISED AND DEFEATED BY THE MEXICANS.
THEY marched in profound silence along the causeway
which led to Tacuba, because it was shorter than any of
the rest, and lying most remote from the road towards Tlascala
and the sea-coast, had been left more entire by the Mexicans.
They reached their first breach in it without molestation, hoping
For Latin Prose Historical. 29
that their retreat was undiscovered. But the Mexicans, un-
perceived, had not only watched all their motions with atten-
tion, but had made proper dispositions for a most formidable
attack. While the Spaniards were intent upon placing their
bridge in the breach, and occupied in conducting their horses
and artillery along it, they were suddenly alarmed with the
tremendous sound of warlike instruments, and a general shout
from an innumerable multitude of enemies. The lake was covered
with canoes ; nights of arrows and showers of stones poured in
upon them from every quarter ; the Mexicans rushing forward to
the charge with fearless impetuosity, as if they hoped in that
moment to be avenged for all their wrongs. Unfortunately the
wooden bridge, by the weight of the artillery, was wedged so
fast into the stones and mud that it was impossible to remove
it. Dismayed at this accident, the Spaniards advanced with
precipitation towards the second breach. The Mexicans hemmed
them in on every side, and though they defended themselves
with their usual courage, yet, crowded together as they were on
a narrow causeway, their discipline and military skill were of
little avail, nor did the obscurity of the night permit them to
derive great advantage from their firearms, or the superiority of
their other weapons. All Mexico was now in arms, and so eager
were the people on the destruction of their oppressors, that they
who were not near enough to annoy them in person, impatient
of the delay, pressed forward with such ardour, as drove on their
countrymen in the front with irresistible violence. Fresh warriors
instantly filled the place of those who fell. The Spaniards, weary
with slaughter, and unable to sustain the weight of the torrent
that poured in on them, began to give way. In a moment the
confusion was universal ; horse and foot, officers and soldiers,
friends and enemies, were mingled together ; and while all fought,
and many fell, they could hardly distinguish from what hand the
blow came. Prescott.
LIVY, xxii. c. 2, 4-6. vii. c. 34. TACITUS, Hist. ii. c. 42, 43.
3O Materials and Models
CROSSES THE RUBICON.
ABOUT ten miles from Ariminum, and twice that distance
from Kavenna, the frontier of Italy and Gaul was traced
by the stream of the Rubicon. This little river is formed by the
union of three mountain torrents, and is nearly dry in the sum-
mer, like most of the water-courses on the eastern side of the
Apennines. In the month of November the wintry flood might
present a barrier more worthy of the important position which it
once occupied ; but the northern frontier of Italy had long been
secure from invasion, and the channel was spanned by a bridge
of no great dimensions. Caesar seems to have made his last
arrangements in secret, and concealed his design till the moment
he had fixed for its accomplishment. On the morning of the
15th he sent forward some cohorts to the river, while he
remained himself at Ravenna, and showed himself at a public
spectacle throughout the day. He invited company to his table,
and entertained them with his usual ease and affability. It was
not till sunset that he made an excuse for a brief absence, and
then, mounting a car, yoked with mules, hired from a mill in
the vicinity, hastened with only a few attendants to overtake his
soldiers at the appointed spot. In his anxiety to avoid the risk of
being encountered, and his movements divulged, he left the high
road, and soon lost his way in the bye-paths of the country. One
after another the torches of his party became extinguished, and he
was left in total darkness. It was only by taking a peasant for a
guide, and alighting from his vehicle, that he at last reached his
destination. Merivale.
SUETONIUS, J. Ccesar, c. 31. LUCAN, Pharsal i. 213, sqq.
PASSAGE OF THE BERESINA.
AT the sight of the enemy those who had not already passed
mingled with the Polanders^ and rushed precipitately
towards the bridge. The artillery, the baggage-waggons, the
For Latin Prose Historical. 31
cavalry, and the foot-soldiers all pressed on, contending which
should pass the first. The strongest threw into the river those
who were weaker, and hindered their passage, or unfeelingly
trampled under foot all the sick whom they found in their
way. Many hundreds were crushed to death by the wheels of
the cannon : others, hoping to save themselves by swimming, were
frozen in the middle of the river, or perished by placing themselves
on pieces of ice, which sunk to the bottom. Thousands and
thousands of victims, deprived of all hope, threw themselves
headlong into the Beresina, and were lost in the waves.
The division of Girard made its way by force of arms
through all the obstacles that retarded its march ; and, climbing
over that mountain of dead bodies which obstructed the way,
gained the other side. Thither the Eussians would soon have
followed them, if they had not hastened to burn the bridge.
Then the unhappy beings who remained on the other side of the
Beresina abandoned themselves to absolute despair. Some of
them, however, yet attempted to pass the bridge, enveloped, as it
was, in flames ; but arrested in the midst of their progress, they
were compelled to throw themselves into the river, to escape a
death yet more horrible. At length the Eussians, being masters
of the field of battle, our troops retired : the uproar ceased, and a
mournful silence succeeded. Labaume.
LIVY, xxi. c. 5, 33. xxii. c. 5. TACITTJS, Hist. ii. c. 34, 36.
Annals i. c. 64, 65.
DIFFICULTIES OF CROSSING THE ALPSMACDONALD'S
MARCH. A.D. 1800.
IN summer, when the road is well cleared, it is possible to go in
three hours from the village of Splugen to the hospice on the
summit; but when the newly fallen snow has effaced all traces of the
path in those elevated regions, above the zone of the arbutus and
rhododendron ; when the avalanches or the violence of the winds
have carried off the black poles which mark the course of the road, it
OF TTTV
TTTSJ -TWT.-R P>TT Y
2 2 Materials and Models
is not possible to ascend with safety to the higher parts of the moun-
tain. The traveller must advance with cautious steps, sounding as
he proceeds, as in an unknown sea beset with shoals ; the most
experienced guides hesitate as to the direction which they should
take ; for in that snowy wilderness the horizon is bounded by icy
peaks, affording few landmarks to direct their steps, even if they
should be perceived for a few minutes from amidst the mantle of
cloudy which usually envelope their summits. It may easily be
conceived from'thi* description what labours are requisite during
the winter season to open this passage. It is necessary for an
extent of five leagues from the village of Splugen to that of Isola,
either to clear away the snow, so as to come to the earth, or to
form a passable road over its top ; and the most indefatigable efforts
cannot always secure success in such an enterprise. The frequent
variations of the atmosphere, the clouds which suddenly rise up
from the valleys beneath, the terrible storms of wind which arise
in these elevated regions, the avalanches which descend with irre-
sistible force from the overhanging glaciers, in an instant destroy
the labour of weeks, and obliterate by a colossus of snow the
greatest efforts of human industry.
Such were the difficulties which awaited Macdonald in the
first mountain ridge which lay before him in the passage of the
Alps. He arrived with the advanced guard on the evening of the
26th at the village of Splugen.
The country guides placed poles along the ascent, the labourers
followed and cleared away the snow ; the strongest dragoons next
marched to beat down the road by their horses' feet ; they had
already, after incredible fatigue, nearly reached the summit, when
the wind suddenly rose, an avalanche fell from the mountain, and
sweeping across the road cut right through the column, and preci-
pitated thirty dragoons near its head into the gulph beneath, where
they were dashed to pieces between the ice and the rocks, and
never more heard of. Alison.
LIVY, xxi. c. 32-38, 58. xliv. c. 5. SILIUS ITALICUS, Punic.
iii. 479, sqq. SlDONIUS APOLLINARIS, Panegyr. in Majorian. 470, sqq.
For Latin Prose Historical. 33
PASSAGE OF THE ALPS. (Continued.}
ENERAL LABOISSIEKE, who led the van, was ahead of
the cataract of snow, and reached the hospice ; but the
remainder of the column, thunderstruck by the catastrophe, re-
turned to Splugen ; and the wind, which continued for the three
succeeding days to blow with great violence, detached so many
avalanches, that the road was entirely blocked up in the upper
regions, and the guides declared that no possible efforts could
render it passable in less than fifteen days. Macdonald, however,
was not to be daunted by any such obstacles. Independently
of his anxiety to fulfil his destined part in the campaign, neces-
sity forced him on, for the unwonted accumulation of men and
horses in those elevated Alpine regions promised very soon to
consume the whole subsistence of the country, and expose his
troops to the greatest dangers from actual want. He instantly made
the best arrangement which circumstances would admit for re-
opening the passage. First marched four of the strongest oxen that
could be found in the Orisons, led by the most experienced guides ;
they were followed by forty robust peasants, who cleared or beat
down the snow ; two companies of sappers succeeded and improved
the track ; behind them marched the remnant of the squadron
of dragoons, which had suffered so much on the first ascent, and
who bravely demanded the post of danger in renewing the attempt.
After them came a convoy of artillery and a hundred beasts of
burden, and a strong rearguard closed the party. By incredible
efforts the heads of the column before night reached the hospice,
and although many men and horses were swallowed up by the
avalanches in the ascent, the order and discipline, so necessary
to the success of the enterprise, were maintained throughout.
LIYY, xxi. c. 32-38, 58. xliv. c. 5. SILIUS ITALTCUS, Punic.
iii. 479, sqq. SlDONlUS APOLLINARIS, Panegyr. in Majorian. 470, sqq.
34 Materials and Models
PASSAGE OF THE ALPS. (Continued.}
THOUGH no tempest had been felt in the deep valley of
"the Rhine, the snow had fallen during the night in such
quantities, that from the very outset the traces of the track were
lost, and the road required to be made anew, as at the commence-
ment of the ascent. The guides refused to proceed ; hut Macdonald
insisted upon making the attempt, and after six hours of unheard-
of fatigues the head of his column succeeded in reaching the
summit. In the narrow plain between the glaciers, however, they
found the road blocked up by an immense mass of snow, formed
by an avalanche newly fallen, upon which the guides refused to
enter, and in consequence the soldiers returned, unanimously
exclaiming that the passage was closed. Macdonald instantly
hastened to the front, revived the sinking spirits of his men,
encouraged the faltering courage of the guides, and advancing
himself at the head of the column, plunged into the perilous mass,
sounding every step as he advanced with a long staff, which often
sunk deep into the abyss. " Soldiers," said he, " the army of
reserve has surmounted the St. Bernard ; you must overcome the
Splugen ; your glory requires that you should rise victorious over
difficulties to appearance insuperable. Your destinies call you into
Italy; advance and conquer, first the mountains and the snow,
then the plains and the armies." Put to shame by such an ex-
ample, the troops and the peasants redoubled their efforts ; the vast
walls of ice and snow were cut through, and although the hurricane
increased with frightful rapidity, and repeatedly filled up their
excavations, they at length succeeded in rendering the passage
practicable. The tempest continued to blow with dreadful violence
during the passage to the hospice and the descent of the Cardinal ;
the columns were repeatedly cut through by avalanches, which fell
across the road, and more than one regiment was entirely dispersed
in the icy wilderness. At length, by the heroic exertions of the
officers, whom the example of their general had inspired with
extraordinary ardour, the head-quarters reached Isola, and rested
For Latin Prose Historical. 35
there during the two succeeding days, to really the regiments, which
the hardships of the passage had broken into a confused mass
of insulated men; but above one hundred soldiers, and as many
horses and mules, were swallowed up in the abyss of the moun-
tains, and never more heard of. Alison.
LIVY, xxi. c. 30, 31, 32-38, 58. xl. c. 21, 22. xliv. c.-5. SIDOXIUS
APOLLESTAlllS, Panegyr. in Majorian. 47-Oj sqq. SlLlUS ITALICTJS,
Punic, iii. 479, sqq.
DEFEAT OF THE FLEET OF XERXES.
THE subjects of Xerxes conducted thems.elves generally with
great bravery. Their signal defeat was not owing to any
want of courage ; but, first,, to the narrow space which rendered
their superior number a hindrance rather than a benefit ; next, to
their want of orderly line and discipline as- compared with the
Greeks \ thirdly, to the fact that when once fortune seemed to turn
against them, they had no fidelity or reciprocal attachment, and
each ally was willing to sacrifice or even to run down others, in
order to effect his own escape. Their numbers and absence of
concert threw them into confusion and caused them to run foul of
each other. Those in the front could not recede, nor could those in
the rear advance ; the oar-blades were broken- by collision, the
steersmen lost control of their ships, and could no longer adjust
the ship's course, so as to strike that direct blow with the beak
which was so essential in ancient warfare,. After some time of
combat, the whole Persian fleet was driven back and became
thoroughly unmanageable, so that the issue was no longer doubtful,
and nothing remained except the efforts of individual bravery to
protract the struggle. Grote.
LIVY, xxviii. c. 30. xxii. c. 19, 20. CLssAB, Bell. Civil, iii. c. 4-7.
36 Materials and Models
SEA FIGHT AND BURNING OF THE GREEK ADMIRAL'S
SHIP.
THE squadron of Tancred was completely hid from view in the
surging volumes of smoke, and it seemed by a red light which
began to show itself through the thick veil of darkness that one of the
flotilla had caught fire. Yet the Latins resisted with an obstinacy
worthy of their own courage, and the fame of their leader. Some ad-
vantage they had on account of the small size of their ships, and their
lowness in the water, as well as the clouded state of the atmo-
sphere, which rendered them difficult marks for the fire of the Greeks.
To make the most of these advantages, Tancred dispersed orders
through his fleet that each bark, disregarding the fate of the others,
should press forward individually, and that the men from each
should be put on shore, wheresoever they could reach it. Tancred
himself set the example. He was on board a stout vessel, fenced
in some degree against the Greek fire by being covered with raw
hides which had been recently steeped in water. This vessel con-
tained upwards of 100 warriors, most of them of knightly rank, who
had all night toiled at the oar, and now applied themselves to the
arblast and bow, weapons generally appropriated to soldiers of
lower rank. Thus armed, and thus manned, Tancred bestowed
upon his bark the full velocity which wind and tide and oar could
enable her to obtain, and placing her in the situation to profit
by them to the full, he drove with the speed of lightning among
the vessels of Lemnos, plying on either side, bows, crossbows,
javelins, and military missiles of every kind, with the greater
advantage that the Greeks, trusting to their artificial fire, had
omitted to arm themselves with other weapons ; so that when the
Crusader bore down upon them with so much fury, repaying their
fire with a storm of bolts and arrows, they began to feel that their
own advantage was much less than they had supposed, and that
the terrible Greek fire when undauntedly confronted, lost at least
one-half of its terror. Soon the Grecian admiral's vessel took
fire, owing to negligence in the management of the combustibles on
bo*ard. As the flames spread the consciousness of the nature of
For Latin Prose Historical. 37
their freight began to add despair to terror ; from the rigging, the
yards, and the sides, and every part of the vessel the crew were
seen dropping themselves, to exchange for the most part a watery
death for one by the more dreadful agency of fire. The crew of
Tancred's bark, ceasing by his orders to offer any additional annoy-
ance to their distressed enemy, ran their vessel ashore in a smooth
part of the bay, and jumping into the shallow sea made the land
without difficulty.
The cloud which had been raised by the conflict was now
driven to leeward before the wind, and the strait exhibited only
the relics of the combat. Here tossed upon, the billows, the
scattered and broken remains of one or two of the Latin vessels,
which had been burnt at the commencement of the combat, though
their crews, by the exertions of their comrades, had in general
been saved. Lower down were seen the remaining five vessels of
the Lemnos squadron, holding a disorderly and difficult retreat
towards the harbour of Constantinople. In the place so late the
scene of combat lay moored the hulk of the Grecian admiral, burnt
to the water's edge, and still sending forth a black smoke from its
scathed beams and planks. The flotilla of Tancred, busied in
discharging its troops, -lay irregularly scattered along the bay, the
men making ashore as they could, and taking their course to join
the standard of their leader. Various black substances floated on
the surface of the water ; some proved to be the wreck of the
vessels which had been destroyed, and others the lifeless bodies
of mariners who had fallen in the conflict. Sir W. Scott.
Livr, xxxvi, c. 43-45. xxxvii. c. 22-24, 29, 30. xxvi. c. 39.
xxviii. c. 30. xxir. c. 19, 20.
DEPARTURE OF THE SPANISH ARMADA.
THE scene, as the fleet passed out of the harbour, must have
been singularly beautiful. It was a treacherous interval
of real summer. The early sun was lighting the long chain of
38 Materials and Models
the Gallician mountains, marking with shadows the cleft defiles,
and shining softly on the white walls and vineyards of Coruna.
The wind was light, and falling towards a calm ; the great gal-
leons drifted slowly with the tide on the purple water, the long
streamers trailing from the trucks, the red crosses, the emblem of
the crusade, showing bright upon the hanging sails. The fruit
boats were bringing off the last fresh supplies, and the pinnaces
hastening to the ships with the last loiterers on shore. Out of
30,000 men who that morning stood upon the decks of the proud
Armada, 20,000 and more were never again to see the hills of
Spain. Of the remnant who in two short months crept back
ragged and torn, all but a few hundred returned only to die.
The Spaniards, though a great people, were usually over con-
scious of their greatness, and boasted too loudly of their fame
and prowess; but among the soldiers and sailors of the doomed
expedition against England the national vain-glory was singularly
silent. They were the flower of the country, culled and chosen
over the entire Peninsula, and they were going with a modest
nobility upon a service which they knew to be dangerous, but
which they believed to be peculiarly sacred.
LIVY, xxix. c. 25, 26, 27.
DISASTERS OF CPIARLES THE FIFTH'S ARMY IN AFRICA.
ON the second day after his landing, and before he had
time for anything but to disperse some light-armed Arabs
who molested his troops on their march, the clouds began to
gather, and the heavens to appear with a fierce and threatening
aspect ; towards the evening rain began to fall, accompanied with
violent wind ; and the rage of the tempest increasing during the
night, the soldiers, who had brought nothing ashore but their
arms, remained exposed to all its fury, without tents, or shelter,
or cover of any kind. The ground was soon so wet that they
could not lie down on it ; their camp, being in a low situation,
For Latin Prose Historical.
' "V
,n '
was overflowed with water, and they sunk at every step to the
ankles in mud ; while the wind blew with such impetuosity that,
to prevent their falling, they were obliged to thrust their spears
into the ground, and to support themselves by taking hold of
them. Philip was too vigilant an officer to allow an enemy in
such distress to remain unmolested. About the dawn of morning
he sallied out with soldiers, who having been screened from the
storm under their own roofs, were fresh and vigorous. A body
of Italians, who were stationed nearest the city, dispirited and
benumbed with cold, fled at the approach of the Turks. The
troops at the post behind them discovered greater courage ; but
the rain having extinguished their matches, and rendered their
arms useless, they were soon thrown into confusion. Robertson.
TACITUS, Ann. i. c. 63-68. LIVY, xxi. c. 58. xxii. c. 2, 3.
CHARLES V. DESTRUCTION OF HIS FLEET.
BUT all feeling or remembrance of this loss and danger were
quickly obliterated by a more dreadful as well as affecting
spectacle. It was now broad day : the hurricane had abated
nothing of its violence, and the sea appeared agitated with all the
rage of which that destructive element is capable ; all the ships,
on which alone the whole army knew that their safety and sub-
sistence depended, were seen driven from their anchors, some
dashing against each other, some beat to pieces on the rocks,
many forced ashore, and not a few sinking in the waves. In less
than an hour fifteen ships of war, and 140 transports, with 8,000
men, perished; and such of the unhappy crews as escaped the
fury of the sea were murdered without mercy by the Arabs as
soon as they reached land. The Emperor stood in silent anguish
and astonishment, beholding this fatal event ; which at once
blasted all his hopes of success, and buried in the depths the
vast stores he had provided, as well for annoying the enemy as
for subsisting his own troops. He had it not in his power to
4O Materials and Models
afford them any other assistance or relief than by sending some
troops to drive away the Arabs, and thus delivering a few, who
were so fortunate as to get ashore, from the cruel fate which
their companions had met with. At last the wind began to fall,
and to give some hopes that as many ships might escape as
would be sufficient to save the army from perishing by famine,
and transport them back to Europe. But these were only hopes ;
the approach of evening covered the sea with darkness ; and it
being impossible for the officers aboard the ships which had out-
lived the storm to send any intelligence to their companions who
were ashore, they remained during the night in all the anguish
of suspense and uncertainty. Robertson.
TACITUS, i. c. 70. ii. c. 23, 24, 25. LIVY, xxi. c. 49, 50.
xxii. c. 19, 20.
BURNING OF MOSCOW.
WHEN" he entered the gates of Moscow, Bonaparte, as if
unwilling to encounter the sight of the empty streets,
stopped immediately on entering the first suburb. His troops were
quartered in the desolate city. During the first few hours after
their arrival, an obscure rumour, which could not be traced, but
one of those which are sometimes found to get abroad before the
approach of some awful certainty, announced that the city would
be endangered by fire in the course of the night. The report
seemed to arise from those evident circumstances which rendered
the event probable, but no one took any notice of it, until at mid-
night, when the soldiers were startled from their quarters by the
report that the town was in flames. The memorable conflagration
began amongst the eoachmakers' warehouses and workshops in the
bazaar, or general market, which was the most rich district of the
city. It was imputed to accident, and the progress of the flames
was subdued by the exertions of the Erench soldiers. Napoleon
who had been roused by the tumult, hurried to the spot, and when
the alarm seemed at an end, he retired, not to his former quarters
For Latin Prose Historical. 41
in the suburbs, but to the Kremlin, the hereditary palace of the
only so\3reign whom he had ever treated as an equal, and over
whom his successful arms had now attained such an apparently
immense superiority.
LIVY, xxx. c. 5, 6. xxvi. c. 27. TACITUS, Ann. xv. c. 38-40.
Hist. iii. c. 33, 34, 71-73. CAESAR, Bell. Gall. vi:. c. 24, 25.
PLAGUE OF ATHENS.
WHEN it was found that neither the priest nor the physician
could retard the spread or mitigate the intensity of the
disorder, the Athenians abandoned themselves to despair, and the
space within the walls became a scene of desolating misery. Every
man attacked with the malady at once lost his courage a state of
depression, itself among the worst features of the case, which made
him lie down and die without any attempt to seek for preservatives.
And though at first friends and relatives lent their aid to tend
the sick with the usual family sympathies, yet so terrible was the
number of these attendants who perished, "like sheep," from such
contact, that at length no man would thus expose himself ; while
the most generous spirits, who persisted longest in the discharge of
their duty, were carried off in the greatest numbers. The patient
was thus left to die alone and unheeded. Sometimes all the inmates
of a house were swept away one after the other, no man being
willing to go near it j desertion on one hand, attendance on the
other, both tended to aggravate the calamity. There remained
only those who, having had the disorder and recovered, were
willing to tend the sufferers. These men formed the single excep-
tion to the all- pervading misery of the time for the disorder
seldom attacked any one twice, and when it did the second attack
was never fatal. Grote.
TACITUS, Ann. xvi. c. 13. AMMIANUS MARCELLIXUS, xix. c. 4.
LUCRETIUS, De Rtrum Nuturd, vi. 1138 to end. LIVY, vii. c. 2.
xxv, c. 2(5.
42 Materials and Models
PLAGUE OF ATHENS. (Continued.}
ELATE with their own escape, they deemed themselves out
of the reach of all disease, and were full of compassionate
kindness for others whose sufferings were just beginning. It was
from them too that the principal attention to the bodies of deceased
victims proceeded; for such was the state of dismay and sorrow
that even the nearest relatives neglected the sepulchral duties,
sacred beyond all others in the eyes of a Greek. Nor is there any
circumstance which conveys us so vivid an idea of the prevalent
agony and despair as when we read in the words of an eye-witness,
that the deaths took place among this close-packed crowd without
the smallest decencies of attention that the dead and the dying
lay piled one upon another not merely in the public roads but even
in the temples, in spite of the understood defilement of the sacred
building that half-dead sufferers were seen lying round all the
springs from insupportable thirst that the numerous corpses thus
unburied and exposed were in such a condition that the dogs which
meddled with them died in consequence, while no vultures or other
birds of the like habits ever came near. Those bodies which
escaped entire neglect were burnt or buried without the customary
mourning, and with unseemly carelessness. In some cases, the
bearers of a body, passing by a funeral pile on which another body
was burning, would put their own there to be' burnt also; or
perhaps, if the pile was prepared ready for a body not yet arrived,
would deposit their own upon it, set fire to the pile and then
depart. G-rote.
LIYY, xxv. c. 26. xli. c. 28. iii. c. 7, 8. iv. c. 30.
LUCRETIUS, De Rcrum Naturd, vi. 1138, sq^.
For Latin Prose Historical. 43
EARTHQUAKE AT LISBON, A.D. 1755.
IT was on the morning of this fatal day, between the hours
of nine and ten, that I was sitting down in my room, just
finishing a letter, when the papers and table I was writing on
began to tremble with a gentle motion, which rather surprised me,
as I could not perceive a breath of wind stirring. Whilst I was
reflecting what this could be owing to, but without having the
least apprehension of the real . cause, the whole house began to
shake from the very foundation, which at first I imputed to the
rattling of several coaches in the main street, which usually passed
that way at this time ; but on hearkening more attentively, I was
soon undeceived, as I found it was owing to a strange, frightful
kind of noise under ground, resembling the distant rumbling of
thunder. All this passed in less than a minute, and I must confess
I now began to be alarmed, as it naturally occurred to me that this
noise might possibly be the forerunner of an earthquake, as one
I remembered, which had happened about six or seven years
ago, in the Island of Madeira, commenced in the same manner,
though it did little or no damage.
Upon this I threw down my pen, and started to my feet, remain-
ing a moment in suspense, whether I should stay in the apartment
or run into the street, as the danger in both places seemed equal ;
and still nattering myself that this tremor might produce no other
effects than such inconsiderable ones as had been felt at Madeira ;
but in a moment I was roused from my dream, being stunned by a
horrible crash, as if every edifice in the city had tumbled down
at once. The house I was in shook with such violence, that the
upper stories immediately fell, and though my apartment (which
was the first floor) did not then share the same fate, yet everything
was thrown out of its place, in such a manner that it was with
no small difficulty I kept my feet, and expected nothing less than
to be soon crushed to death, as the walls continued rocking to and
fro in the frightfullest manner, opening in several places; large
stones falling down on every side from the cracks, and the ends
44 Materials and Models
of most of the rafters starting out from the roof. To add to this
terrifying scene, the sky in a moment became so gloomy that I
could now distinguish no particular object : it was an Egyptian
darkness, indeed, such as might be felt; owing, no doubt, to
the prodigious clouds of dust and lime raised from so violent a
concussion, and, as some reported, to sulphurous exhalations ; but
this I cannot affirm ; however, it is certain, I found myself almost
choked for near ten minutes. Davy.
PLIXY, Epist. lib. vi. 16. vi. 20.
SENECA, Nat. Qucest. lib. vi. c. 1.
EARTHQUAKE AT LISBON. (Continued.}
AS soon as the gloom began to disperse, and the violence of
the shock seemed pretty much abated, the first object I
perceived in the room was a woman sitting on the floor with an
infant in her arms, all pale and trembling. I asked her how
she got hither, but her consternation was so great she could give
me no account of her escape. I suppose that when the tremor first
began, she ran out of her own house, and finding herself in such
imminent danger from the falling stones, retired into the door of
mine, which was almost contiguous to hers, for shelter, and when
the shock increased, which filled the door with dust and rubbish,
ran upstairs into my apartment, which was then open : be it as
it might, this was no time for curiosity. I remember the poor
creature asked me, in the utmost agony, if I did not think the
world was at an end : at the same time she complained of being
choked, and begged, for God's sake, I would procure her a little
drink. Upon this I went to a closet where I kept a large jar
of water (which you know is sometimes a pretty scarce commodity
in Lisbon), but finding it broken in pieces, I told her she must not
now think of quenching her thirst but of saving her life, as the
house was just falling on our heads, and if a second shock came,
would certainly bury us both. I bade her take hold of my arm,
For Latin Prose Historical. 45
and that I would endeavour to bring her into some place of
security.
I shall always look upon it as a particular providence that I
happened on this occasion to be undressed, for had I dressed myself
as proposed when I got out of bed, in order to breakfast with a
friend, I should, in all probability, have run into the street at
the beginning of the shock, as the rest of the people in the house
did, and, consequently, have had my brains dashed out, as every
one of them had. However, the imminent danger I was in did
not hinder me from considering that my present dress, only a gown
and slippers, would render my getting over the ruins almost im-
possible ; I had, therefore, still presence of mind enough left to
put on a pair of shoes and a coat, the first that came in my
way, which was everything I saved, and in this dress I hurried
down stairs, the woman with me, holding by my arm, and made
directly to that end of the street which opens to the Tagus.
Finding the passage this way entirely blocked up with the fallen
houses, I turned back to the other end which led into the main
street, having helped the woman over a vast heap of ruins, with no
small hazard to my own life. Just as we were going into the
street, as there was one part I could not well climb over without
the assistance of my hands as well as feet, I desired her to let go
her hold, which she did, remaining two or three feet behind me, at
which instant there fell a vast stone from a tottering wall, and
crushed both her and the child in pieces. Davy.
PLINY, Epitt. lib. vi. 16. vi. 20.
MUSTAPHA, HEIR TO SOLYMAN THE MAGNIFICENT,
STRANGLED BY HIS FATHER'S ORDERS, A.D. 1553.
AT sight of his father's furious and unrelenting countenance,
Mustapha's strength failed, and his courage forsook him ;
the mutes fastened the bowstring about his neck, and in a moment
put an end to his life.
46 Materials and Models
The dead body was exposed before the Sultan's tent. The
soldiers gathered round it, and contemplating that mournful object
with astonishment and sorrow and indignation, were ready, if a
leader had not been wanting, to have broke out into the wildest
excesses of rage. After giving vent to the first expressions of their
grief, they retired each man to his tent, and shutting themselves
up, bewailed in secret the cruel fate of their favourite ; nor was
there one of them who tasted bread, or even water, during the
remainder of that day. Next morning the same solitude and
silence reigned in the camp : and Solyman, being afraid that some
dreadful storm would follow this sullen calm, in order to appease
the enraged soldiers, deprived Rustan of his office and ordered
him to leave the camp. Robertson.
LIVY, xl. c. 23, 24, 54-56. viii. c. 7. TACITUS, Ann. ii. c. 82.
ASSASSINATION OF THE EMPEROR PAUL.
ON the 10th March, the day preceding the fatal night (whether
Paul's apprehensions or anonymous information suggested
the idea, is not known), conceiving that a storm was ready to burst
upon him, he sent for Count Pahlen, the governor of the city, one
of the noblemen who had resolved upon his destruction. " I am
informed, Pahlen," said the Emperor, " that there is a conspiracy
on foot against me. Do you think it necessary to take any pre-
caution % " The Count, without betraying the least emotion, re-
plied, " Sire, do not suffer such apprehensions to haunt your mind.
If there were any combination forming against your majesty's
person, I am sure I should be acquainted with it." " Then I am
satisfied," said the Emperor, and the governor withdrew. Before
Paul retired to rest, he unexpectedly expressed the most tender
solicitude for the Empress and his children, kissed them with all
the warmth of farewell fondness, and remained with them longer
than usual ; and after he had visited the sentinels at their different
posts, he retired to his chamber, where he had not long remained,
For Latin Prose Historical. 47
before, under some pretext that satisfied the men, the guard was
changed by the officers who had the command for the night, and
were engaged in the confederacy. An hussar whom the Emperor
had particularly honoured by his notice and attention, always at
night slept at his bedroom door in the ante-chamber. It was im-
possible to remove this faithful soldier by any fair means. At this
momentous period silence reigned through the palace, except where
it was disturbed by the pacing of the sentinels, or by the distant
murmurs of the Neva, and only a few lights were to be seen
distantly and irregularly gleaming through the windows of this
dark colossal abode. Carr.
SUETONIUS, Domitian, c. 16, 17. Vitellius, c. 16, 17. Galba, c. 20.
Nero, c. 49. Caligula, c. 58. TACITUS, Hist. iii. c. 84, s(jq.
ASSASSINATION OF THE EMPEROR PAUL. (Continued.}
IN the dead of the night Z and his friends, amounting to
eight or nine persons, passed the drawbridge, easily ascended
a private staircase, which led to the Emperor's chamber, and met
no resistance till they reached the ante-room, where the faithful
hussar, awakened by the noise, challenged them and presented his
fusee. Much as they must have admired the brave fidelity of the
guard, neither time nor circumstances would admit of an act of
generosity which might have endangered the whole plan. Z
drew his sabre and cut the poor fellow down. Paul, awakened by
the noise, sprung from his sofa ; at this moment the whole party
rushed into the room, the unhappy sovereign, anticipating their
design, at first endeavoured to entrench himself behind the chairs
and tables, then recovering, he assumed a high tone, told them
they were his prisoners, and called on them to surrender. Finding
that they fixed their eyes steadily and fiercely on him, and con-
tinued advancing towards him, he implored them to spare his life,
declared his consent instantly to relinquish the sceptre, and to
accept any terms they would dictate. In his raving he offered to
48 Materials and Models
make them princes, and to give them estates and titles and
orders without end. They now began to press upon him, when he
made a convulsive effort to reach the window ; he failed in the
attempt, and indeed it was so high from the ground that had he
succeeded, the attempt to escape that way would only have put an
end to his misery. Although his hand had been severely cut by
the glass, he grasped a chair, and with it felled one of the assail-
ants, and a desperate struggle took place ; in the course of which
Prince Y - struck him on the temple with his fist and laid him
on the floor. Paul, recovering from the blow, again implored his
life. At this moment Z - relented, and on being observed to
tremble and hesitate, a young Hanoverian resolutely exclaimed,
" We have passed the Rubicon ; if we spare his life, we shall be
dead men before sunset to-morrow." Upon which he took off
his sash, turned it twice round the naked neck of the Emperor,
and giving one end to Z while he held the other himself, they
pulled for a considerable time with all their force, until their
miserable sovereign was no more. Carr.
SUETONIUS, Domitian, c. 16, 17. ViMlius, c. 10, 17. GaJha,c.2Q.
-ZVVro, c. 49. Caliyula, c. 58. TACITUS, Hist. iii. c. 84, sqq.
ASSASSINATION OF ALEXANDER DE MEDICI.
BUT while Lorenzo seemed to be sunk in luxury, and affected
such an appearance of indolence and effeminacy that he
would not wear a sword, and trembled at the sight of blood, he
concealed under this disguise a dark, designing, audacious spirit.
Prompted either by the love of liberty, or allured by the hope of
attaining the supreme power, he determined to assassinate Alexander,
his benefactor and friend. Though he long revolved this design in
his mind, his reserved and suspicious temper prevented him from
communicating it to any person whatever ; and continuing to live
with Alexander in their usual familiarity, he one night, under
pretence of having secured him an assignation with a lady of high
For Latin Prose Historical. 49
rank whom he had often solicited, drew that unwary Prince into a
secret apartment of his house, and there stabbed him while he lay
carelessly on a couch expecting the arrival of the lady whose com-
pany he had been promised. But no sooner was the deed done
than, standing astonished and struck with horror at its atrocity, he
forgot in a moment all the motives which had induced him to
commit it. Instead of rousing the people to recover their liberty
by publishing the death of the tyrant ; instead of taking any step
towards opening his own way to the dignity now vacant, he locked
the door of the apartment, and like a man bereaved of reason and
presence of mind, fled with the utmost precipitation out of the
Florentine territory. It was late next morning before the fate of
the unfortunate Prince was known, as his attendants, accustomed
to his irregularities, never entered his apartment early. Robertson.
TACITUS, Ann. iii. c. 30. CORNELIUS NEros, Dion. ix.
LIVY, i. c. 48. ii. c. 54. xxiv. c. 7.
DEATH OF NICHOLAS DI RIENZI, A.D. 1354.
IN the death, as in the life of Rienzi, the hero and the coward
were strangely mingled. When the Capitol was invested
by a furious multitude, when he was basely deserted by his civil
and military servants, the intrepid senator, waving the banner of
liberty, presented himself on the balcony, addressed his eloquence
to the various passions of the Eomans, and laboured to persuade
them that in the same cause himself and the republic must either
stand or fall. His oration was interrupted by a volley of im-
precations and stones ; and after an arrow had pierced his head
he sank into abject despair, and fled weeping to the inner cham-
bers, whence he was let down by a sheet before the windows
of the prison. Destitute of aid or hope he was besieged till the
evening : the doors of the Capitol were destroyed with axes and
fire ; and while the senator attempted to escape in a plebeian
habit he was discovered, and dragged to the platform of the
palace, the fatal scene of his judgments and executions. A whole
50 Materials and Models
hour, without voice or motion, he stood among the multitude
nearly naked, and half dead ; their rage was hushed into curiosity
and wonder : the last feelings of reverence and compassion yet
struggled in his favour ; and they might have prevailed, if a
bold assassin had not plunged a dagger in his breast. He fell
senseless with the first stroke ; the impotent revenge of his
enemies inflicted a thousand wounds ; and the senator's body was
abandoned to the dogs, to the Jews, and to the flames. Pos-
terity will compare the virtues and failings of this extraordinary
man; but in a long period of anarchy and servitude the name
of Eienzi has often been celebrated as the deliverer of his country,
and the last of the Eoman patriots. Gibbon.
TACITUS, Hist. iii. c. 84-86. SUETONIUS, Vittttius, c. 16, 17.
JUVENAL, Sat. x. o9-107. CLAUDIAN, In Rufin, lib. ii. 4CO, syq.
BURIAL OF JULIUS CALSAR.
MEANWHILE the curia was abandoned by the living, and
the marble elfigy of Pompeius looked mutely down upon
the prostrate corpse of his mighty rival. The assassins had pro-
posed at first to treat the body with the formal indignities due
to chastised traitors, and drag it ignominiously to the Tiber;
but they soon became aware that their own position was too
precarious to indulge in an act which might provoke popular
indignation, and all their care was directed to providing for their
own safety. During the first hours which followed only a few
curious eyes intruded upon the melancholy scene : at last three
of the murdered man's attendants summoned courage to enter
the hall, and removed the body, stretched upon a litter imper-
fectly supported at three corners, while one arm hung unheeded
over its side. Whether this was done in the darkness of the
night, or whether the people had shrunk at mid-day into their
houses, no sensation, it appears, was created by the passage of
this limping pageant to the pontifical mansion in the forum.
For Latin Prose Historical. 5 r
When the conspirators withdrew to the Capitol quiet was gra-
dually restored ; it was affirmed that they had abjured from the
first the extension of their vengeance even to the immediate
adherents of their victim. Some of them, it must be allowed,
had urged, as a necessary precaution, the massacre of Antonius
also; but Brutus, consistent in- the principles which he brought
to his crime, had forbidden an act which might seem to stain
with a trace of human passion the purity of their sublime
sacrifice. Merivale.
TACITUS, Hist. iii. c. 68, 83-86. i. c. 40-44. CICERO, Philipp. ii. 28.
SUETONIUS, Julius, c. 82.
ASSASSINATION OF WALLENSTEIN.
WHILE these three officers were thus deciding upon his
fate in the Castle of Egra, Wallenstein was occupied
in reading the stars with Seni. " The danger is not yet over,"
said the astrologer, with prophetic spirit. "It is," replied the
duke, who would give the law even to Heaven. " But," he
continued^ with equally prophetic spirit, " that thou, friend Seni,
thyself shalt soon bs thrown into prison ; that also is written
in the stars." The astrologer had taken his leave, and Walleii-
stein had retired to bed, when Captain Devereux appeared
before his residence with six halberdiers, and was immediately
admitted by the guard, who were accustomed to see him visit
the general at all hours. A page who met him upon the stairs,
and attempted to raise an alarm, was run through the body with
a pike. In the antechamber the assassins met a servant, who had
just come out of the sleeping-room of his master, and had taken
with him the key. Putting his finger upon his mouth the
terrified domestic made a sign to them to make no noise, as
the duke was asleep. " Eriend," cried Devereux, "it is time to
awake him ; " and with these words he rushed against the door,
which was also bolted from within, and burst it open. SchiUcr.
*
TACITUS, Ann. vi. c. 20, 21. LIVY, i. c. 40, 4,^-~p
"
OF THT
52 Materials and Models
ASSASSINATION OF WALLENSTEIN. (Continued.}
T T 7 ALLENSTEIN had been roused from his first sleep by
V V the report of a musket which had accidentally gone off,
and had sprung to the window to call the guard. At the same
moment he heard from the adjoining building the shrieks of the
two countesses, who had just learnt the violent fate of their
husbands. Ere he had time to reflect on these terrible events,
Devereux, with the other murderers, was in his chamber. The
duke was in his shirt, as he had leaped out of bed, and leaning
on a table near the window. " Art thou the villain," cried
Devereux to him, " who intends to deliver up the Emperor's
troops to the enemy, and to tear the crown from the head of
his majesty 1 ? Now thou must die!" He paused for a few
moments, as if expecting an answer, but rage and astonishment
kept Wallenstein silent. Throwing his arms wide open he received
in his breast the deadly blow of the halberts, and without utter-
ing a groan fell weltering in his blood. Schiller.
TACITUS, Ann. vi. c. 20, 21. Hist. i. c. 40-44. LIVY, i. c. 40, 48.
CLAUDIA^, In Rii.fin, lib. ii. 400, sqq.
ASSASSINATION OP PHILIP OF MACEDON.
THE monarch took part in the procession, dressed in white
robes, and crowned with a chaplet. A little behind him
walked his son and his new son-in-law, whilst his body-guards
followed at some distance, in order that the person of the sovereign
might be seen by all his subjects. Whilst thus proceeding through
the city, a youth suddenly rushed out of the crowd, and drawing a
long sword, which he had concealed under his clothes, plunged it
into Philip's side, who fell dead upon the spot. The assassin was
pursued by some of the royal guards, and having stumbled in
l:is flight, was despatched before he could reach the place where
horses had been provided for his escape. His name was Pausanias.
LIVY, xxiv. c. 7. i. c. 48. ii. c. 12.
For Latin Prose Historical. 53
SINGLE COMBAT BETWEEN COUNT ROBERT OF PARIS
AND THE VARANGIAN.
THESE preliminaries having been arranged, both the com-
batants put themselves in position to begin the fight. The
first blows were given and parried with great caution; but before
long the fiercer passions began as usual to awaken with the clash of
arms. The Greeks looked with astonishment on a single combat,
such as they had seldom witnessed, and held their breath as
they beheld the furious blows dealt by either warrior, and expected
with each stroke the annihilation of one or other of the com-
batants. For some time no decided advantage was gained by
either champion, until at length accident seemed about to decide
what had been hitherto an equal contest. The Count making a
feint on one side of his antagonist, struck him- on- the other, which
was uncovered, with the edge of his weapon, so that the Varangian
reeled, and seemed in the act of falling to the earth. The usual
sound made by spectators at the sight of any painful, or unpleasant
circumstance by drawing the breath between the teeth, was sud-
denly heard to pass through the assembly, while a female voice
loud and eagerly exclaimed " Count Robert, forget n'ot this day
that thou owest a life to Heaven and me." The Count was in the
act of seconding the blow, with what effect could- hardly be judged,
when this cry reached his ears, and apparently took away his
disposition for farther combat. "I acknowledge the debt," he
said, sinking his battle-axe and retreating two steps from his
antagonist, who stood in astonishment, scarcely recovered from the
stunning effect of the blow by which he was so nearly prostrated.
Sir W. Scott.
LIVY, vii. c. 10, 26. i. c. 25. VIRGIL, ^Eneid, v. 426-481.
xii. 887, sqq.
54 Materials and Models
ENCOUNTER OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR AND HIS SON
ROBERT COMBAT AND RECONCILIATION.
* I ^HIS war, which was carried on without anything decisive
JL for some time, ended by a very extraordinary and affecting
incident. In one of those skirmishes, which were frequent accord-
ing to the irregular mode of warfare in those days, "William and his
son Eobert, alike in a forward and adventurous courage, plunged
into the thickest of the fight, and, unknowingly, encountered each
other. But Eobert, superior by fortune, or by the vigour of his
youth, wounded and unhorsed the old monarch ; and w r as just on
the point of pursuing his unhappy advantage to the fatal extremity,
when the well-known voice of his father at once struck his ears
and suspended his arm. Blushing for his victory, and overwhelmed
with the united emotions of grief, shame, and returning piety, he
fell on his knees, poured out a flood of tears, and, embracing his
father, besought him for pardon. The tide of nature returning
strongly on both, the father in his turn embraced his son, and
bathed him with his tears ; whilst the combatants on either side,
astonished at so unusual a spectacle, suspended the fight, applauded
this striking act of filial piety and paternal tenderness, and pressed
that it might become the prelude to a lasting peace.
LIVY, xxv. c. 18. xxiii. c. 8, 9. xxi. c. 46.
TACITUS, Hist. iii. c. 25.
A SINGLE COMBAT.
THE Spaniard was of a large and powerful frame, and en-
deavoured to crush his enemy by weight of blows, or to
close with him and bring him to the ground. The latter, naturally
inferior in strength, was rendered still weaker by a fever, from
which he had not entirely recovered. He was more light and agile
than his adversary, however ; and superior dexterity enabled him
not only to parry his enemy's strokes, but to deal him occasionally
one of his own, while he sorely distressed him by the rapidity
For Latin Prose Historical. 55
of his movements. At length, as the Spaniard was somewhat
thrown off his balance by an ill-directed blow, Bayard struck him
so sharply on the gorget that it gave way, and the sword entered
his throat. Furious with the agony of the wound, Sotomayor
collected all his strength for a last struggle, and, grasping his
antagonist in his arms, they both rolled in the dust together.
Before either could extricate himself, the quick-eyed Bayard, who
had retained his poniard in his left hand during the whole combat,
while the Spaniard's had remained in his belt, drove the steel with
such convulsive strength under his enemy's eye, that it pierced
quite through the brain.
LIVT, vii. c. 10, 26. i. c. 25. xxv. c. 18. xxvi. c. 39. xxviii. c. 21.
VIRGIL, sEntid, v. 426. CAESAR, Sell Oall. v. c. 44.
JOY AT ROME ON THE NEWS OF THE BATTLE OF THE
ME TAURUS.
THE interest of his hearers grew more intense with every word ;
till at last the whole multitude broke out into a universal
cheer, and then rushed from the forum in all directions to carry the
news to their wives and children at home, or ran to the temples to
pour out their gratitude to the gods. The senate ordered a thanks-
giving of three days ; the pra3tor announced it in the forum ; and
for three days every temple was crowded ; and the Roman wives
and mothers, in their gayest dresses, took their children with them,
and poured forth their thanks to all the gods for this great deliver-
ance. It was like the burst of all nature, when a long frost suddenly
breaks up, and the snow melts, and the ground resumes its natural
colouring, and the streams flow freely. The Roman people seemed
at last to breathe and move at liberty : confidence revived ; and
with it the ordinary business of life regained its activity : he who
wanted money found that men were not afraid to lend it; what
had been hoarded came out into circulation ; land might be bought
without the dread that the purchase would be rendered worthless
56 Materials and Models
by Hannibal's ravages ; and, in the joy and confidence of the
moment, men almost forgot that their great enemy with his un-
broken army was still in Italy. Arnold.
LIVY, xxvii. c. 50, 51. xxviii. c. 9-11. HORACE, Carm. i. 4.
PANIC AT ROME ON THE APPROACH OF HANNIBAL.
EFOHE the sweeping pursuit of his Numidiaris, crowds of
fugitives were seen flying towards the city, while the smoke
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 Cannse had not em-
boldened him to venture. Some victory greater even than Cannae
must have given him this confidence ; 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 remaining force of the Eoman people,
and was come to Rome to finish his work. So the wives and
mothers of Home lamented as they hurried off to the temples, and
there, prostrate before the gods, and sweeping the sacred pavement
with their unbound hair in the agony of their fear, they remained
pouring forth their prayers for deliverance. Their sons and hus-
bands 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 resolution rather
than the resignation of despair, met in the forum, and there re-
mained assembled to direct every magistrate on the instant how he
might best fulfil his duty. Arnold.
LIVY, xxvii. c. 44. xxvi. c. 9. xxi. c. 57. xxii. c. 7, 8. ix. c. 7.
GZESAR, Eell. Gall. vii. 38.
For Latin Prose Historical. 57
TIDINGS OF THE DISASTER OF BRITISH ARMS IN
CABUL.
THOSE who have watched from some lofty point of shore
a well-known vessel making hasty preparations against a
storm too lately seen, who have waited almost breathless for the
moment when some drifting fringe of cloud should open once more
to their view the spot where she may or may not be still, should
best conceive the suspense with which in that winter of 1842
the Anglo-Indian community, their fears preponderating over their
hopes, expected tidings from Cabul. When at last their doubtful
anticipations gave way to a dreadful certainty, you might hardly
trace a distinction between the sense of national calamity and the
poignancy of private grief. And of the public despondency no
better parallel could be found than the dismay which fell upon
Kome when the news came of defeat at the hands of the Cherusci
in the denies of the German forests. It was Lord Auckland's fate
to experience the anguish and display the alarm which made Rome's
master tear his imperial robes and cry, " Yarus, give me back my
legions ! "
-o*
LiVY, ix. c. 7. xxii. c. 7, 54. xxiii. c. 25. SrETONius, Odavius, 22.
TACITUS, Ann. i. c. 65. Hut. ii. c. 70.
DISASTER OF THE ENGLISH IN CABUL.
r I ^HERE had been an invasion of an enemy's soil without any
J- secure basis of operations; there had been the practical
isolation of a great army separated from its frontier and its re-
sources by tremendous ghauts and arid deserts ; there had been the
gloss of peace thrown over the smouldering embers of conflict ;
there had been a fatal unwillingness on the part of the chief civil
officer to acknowledge any symptoms of disquiet ; there had been
an equally fatal selection of incompetent men and incompatible
tempers to conduct the military operations. A British force had
58 Materials and Models
been exposed to a harassing siege in an indefensible post, just so
near to a large city as to give opportunity of daily aggression to an
enemy, not near enough to derive any strength from the contiguity.
There had been, finally, a stupid vacillation and a dastardly despair
ending in the total annihilation of the host. The policy of the
Simlah Secret Council had been overthrown once and for ever.
Of England's late supremacy in Afghanistan there remained only
two military outposts, and two detached garrisons. Of the vast
horde which had thronged the chill passes of Khoord Cabul, there
were now left in existence a few disabled and frost-bitten sepoys,
whom Akbar Khan distributed among his chiefs ; a few wretched
camp followers who were offered in the streets of Cabul at one
rupee a-head ; a few stragglers who begged their daily dole at the
gate of some Affghan more merciful than the rest ; a few English
officers out of the 150; a few English ladies and children who,
with a handful of European privates, were inarched from fort to
fort among the snow-covered hills, and whose lot it was more
than once to traverse the narrow track where the bodies of the
slaughtered soldiers lay scattered and strewn like the plague-
smitten host of Sennacherib.
LIVY, xxi. c. 40, 8-10. xxii. c. 39. xxiii. c. 5. xxv. c. 36, 20, 21.
xxvi c. 3. FLOIULS, iv. c. 30. CICERO, pro h>ge Manilla 24-26.
TACITUS, Hist. ii. c. 70.
JULIAN' MADE EMPEROR BY HIS SOLDIERS.
AS soon as the approach of the troops was announced, the
Csesar went out to meet them, and ascended his tribunal,
which had been erected in a plain before the gates of the city.
After distinguishing the officers and soldiers, who by their rank
or merit deserved a peculiar attention, Julian addressed himself
in a studied oration to the surrounding multitude ; he celebrated
their exploits with grateful applause, encouraged them to accept,
with alacrity, the honour of serving under the eyes of a powerful
and liberal monarch; and admonished them, that the commands of
For Latin Prose Historical. 59
Augustus required an instant and cheerful obedience. The soldiers,
who were apprehensive of offending their general by an indecent
clamour, or of belying their sentiments by false and venal accla-
mations, maintained an obstinate silence ; and, after a short pause,
were dismissed to their quarters.
The principal officers were entertained by the Caesar, who pro-
fessed, in the warmest language of friendship, his desire and his
inability to reward, according to their deserts, the brave com-
panions of his victories. They retired from the feast full of grief
and perplexity, and lamented the hardship of their fate, which tore
them from their beloved general and their native country. The
only expedient which could prevent their separation was boldly
agitated, and approved; the popular resentment was insensibly
moulded into a regular conspiracy ; their just reasons of complaint
were heightened by passion, and their passions were inflamed by
wine ; as on the eve of their departure the troops were indulged in
licentious festivity. Gibbon.
TACITUS, Hist. ii. c. 48, (58, 79-82. i. c. 26-28, 36, 54-58. iv. c. 40.
Ann. i. c. 24, 25, 34. AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS, xx. c. 4.
JULIAN MADE EMPEROR BY HIS SOLDIERS. (Continued.}
AT the hour of midnight the impetuous multitude, with swords
and bows, and torches in their hands, rushed into the suburbs,
encompassed the palace, and careless of future dangers, pronounced
the fatal and irrevocable words, JULIAN AUGUSTUS ! The
prince, whose anxious suspense was interrupted by their disorderly
acclamations, secured the doors against their intrusion, and, as long
as it was in his power, secluded his person and dignity from the
accidents of a nocturnal tumult. At the dawn of day the soldiers,
whose zeal was irritated by opposition, forcibly entered the palace
and seized, with respectful violence, the object of their choice,
guarded Julian with drawn swords through the streets of Paris,
60 Materials and Models
placed him on the tribunal, and, with repeated shouts, saluted him
as their emperor.
Prudence, as well as loyalty, inculcated the propriety of resisting
their treasonable designs, and of preparing for his oppressed virtue
the excuse of violence. Addressing himself by turns to the multi-
tude and to individuals, he sometimes implored their mercy, and
sometimes expressed his indignation; conjured them not to sully
the fame of their immortal victories, and ventured to promise that
if they would immediately return to their allegiance, he would
undertake to obtain from the emperor not only their free and
gracious pardon, but even the revocation of the order which had
excited their resentment. But the soldiers, who were conscious of
their guilt, chose rather to depend on the gratitude of Julian than
on the clemency of the emperor. Their zeal was insensibly turned
into impatience, and their impatience into rage. The inflexible
Ctesar sustained, till the third hour of the day, their prayers, their
reproaches, and their menaces ; nor did he yield till he had been
repeatedly assured that, if he wished to live, he must consent to
reign. He was exalted on a shield in the presence and amidst the
unanimous acclamations of the troops ; a rich military collar, which
was offered by chance, supplied the want of a diadem ; the cere-
mony was concluded by the promise of a moderate donative, and
the new emperor, overwhelmed with real or affected grief, retired
into the most secret recesses of his apartment. Gibbon.
TACITUS, Hist. ii. c. 48, G8, 79-82. i. c. 26-28,36, 54-58. iv. c. 40.
Ann. i. c. 24, 25, 34. AMMIANUS MAHCELLINUS, xx. c. 4.
PERNICIOUS COUNSELS OF BONNIVET AND OBSTINACY
OF FRANCIS I. AT PA VIA.
THE Imperial generals, without suffering the ardour of their
troops to cool, advanced immediately towards the French
camp. On the first intelligence of their approach, Francis called a
council of war, to deliberate what course he ought to take. All his
For Latin Prose Historical. 61
officers of greatest experience were unanimous in advising him to
retire, and to decline a battle with an enemy who courted it from
despair. The Imperialists, they observed, would either be obliged
in a few weeks to disband an army which they were unable to
pay, and which they kept together only by the hope of plunder,
or the soldiers enraged at the non-performance of the promises to
which they had trusted, would rise in some furious mutiny, which
would allow their generals to think of nothing but their own safety ;
that meanwhile he might encamp in some strong post, and waiting
in safety the arrival of fresh troops from France and Switzerland,
might, before the end of spring, take possession of all the Milanese
without danger of bloodshed. Robertson.
CAESAR, Bell. Gall. v. c. 29. vii. c. 10-33. LIVY, xxi. c. 53.
xxiv. c. 19.
PERNICIOUS COUNSELS OF BONNIVET AND OBSTINACY
OF FRANCIS.
BUT in opposition to them, Bonnivet, whose destiny it was to
give counsels fatal to France during the whole campaign,
represented the ignominy that would reflect on their sovereign, if
he should abandon a siege which he had prosecuted so long, or
turn his back before an enemy to whom he was still superior in
number, and insisted on the necessity of fighting the Imperialists
rather than relinquish an undertaking, on the success of which the
King's future fame depended. Unfortunately Francis's notions of
honour were delicate to an excess that bordered on what was
romantic. Having often said that he would take Pavia, or perish
in the attempt, he thought himself bound not to depart from that
resolution, and rather than expose himself to the slightest imputa-
tion, he chosa to forego all the advantages which were the certain
consequences of a retreat, and determined to wait for the Imperial-
ists before the walls of Pavia. Robertson.
C.ESAR, Bell. Gall. v. c. 29. vii. c. 10, 33.
62 Materials and Models
CAUDINE FORKS MISTAKEN POLICY OF GAIUS PONTIUS
IN TRYING TO CONCLUDE AN EQUITABLE PEACE
WITH THE ROMANS.
THEY perceived, when it was too late, that they had suffered
themselves to be misled by a stratagem, and that the
Samnites awaited them, not at Luceria, but in the fatal pass of
Caudium. They attacked, but without hope of success, and
without definite aim ; the Roman army was totally unable to
manoeuvre, and was completely vanquished without a struggle.
The Roman generals offered to capitulate. It is only a foolish
rhetoric that represents the Samnite general as shut up to the
alternative of either dismissing or slaughtering the Roman army ;
he could not have done better than accept the offered capitulation
and make prisoners of the hostile army the whole force which for
the moment the Roman community could bring into action with
both its command ers-in-chief. In that case the way to Campania
and Latium would have stood open, aiid in the then existing state
of feeling when the Volsci and Hernici and the larger portion
of the Latins would have received him with open arms, Rome's
political existence would have been in serious danger. But instead
of taking this course, and concluding a military convention, Gaius
Pontius thought that he could at once terminate the quarrel by
an equitable peace; whether it was that he shared that foolish
longing of the confederates for peace to which Brutulus Papius
had fallen a victim in the previous year, or whether it was that
he was unable to prevent the party which was tired of the contest
from spoiling his unexampled victory. Mommsen.
LIVY, ix. c. 3, 4. CICERO, De OJJiciis. iii. 1C9.
For Latin Prose Historical. 63
MURMURS AND MUTINOUS SPIRIT OF THE PRAETORIAN
TROOPS.
BUT nothing could reconcile the haughty spirit of the prse-
torians. They attended the emperors on the memorable
day of their public entry into Rome; but amidst the general
acclamations, the sullen, dejected countenance of the guards
sufficiently declared that they considered themselves as the object,
rather than the partners of the triumph. "When the whole body
was united in their camp, those who had served under Maximin,
and those who had remained at Rome, insensibly communicated
to each other complaints and apprehensions. The emperors chosen
by the army had perished with ignominy ; those elected by the
senate were seated on the throne. The long discord between the
civil and military powers was decided by a war, in which the
former had obtained a complete victory. The soldiers must now
learn a new doctrine of submission to the senate; and whatever
clemency was affected by that politic assembly, they dreaded a
slow revenge, coloured by the name of discipline, and justified
by fair pretences of the public good. But their fate was still in
their own hands ; and if they had courage to despise the vain
terrors of an impotent republic, it was easy to convince the world,
that those who were masters of the arms, were masters of the
authority, of the state.
TACITUS, Hint. i. c. 4. ii. c. 7, 66. iii. c. 13. Ann. i. c. 31.
LIVY, xxiv. c. 14. xxiii. c. 35. xxii. c. 43.
CORTES HIS ARTFUL SUPPRESSION OF A MUTINY.
AS the proofs of Antonio's guilt were manifest, he was con-
demned after a short trial, and next morning he was seen
hanging before the door of the house in which he had lodged.
Cortes then called his troops together, and having explained to
them the atrocious purpose of the conspirators, as well as the
64 Materials and Models
justice of the punishment inflicted on Antonio, he added, with
an appearance of satisfaction, that he was entirely ignorant with
respect to all the circumstances of this dark transaction, as the
traitor, when arrested, had suddenly torn and swallowed a paper
which probably contained an account of it, and under the severest
tortures possessed such constancy as to conceal the names of his
accomplices. This artful declaration restored tranquillity to many
a breast that was throbbing, while he spoke, with consciousness
of guilt and dread of detection ; and by this prudent moderation,
Cortes had the advantage of having discovered, and of being able
to observe such of his followers as were disaffected ; while they,
flattering themselves that their past crime was unknown, endea-
voured to avert any suspicion of it by redoubling their activity
and zeal in his service. Robcrison.
TACITUS, Ann. i. c. 44. CICEKO, In Catilinam. iii. 9-13.
PETRARCH MADE A ROMAN CITIZEN; HIS GRATITUDE
AND ENTHUSIASM.
THE grant was ratified by the authority of the senate and
people ; and the character of citizen was the recompense
of his affection for the Roman name. They did him honour ; but
they did him justice. In the familiar society of Cicero and Livy,
he had imbibed the idea of an ancient patriot ; and his ardent
fancy kindled every idea to a sentiment, and every sentiment to
a passion. The aspect of the seven hills and their majestic ruins
confirmed these lively impressions; and he loved a country by
whose liberal spirit he had been crowned and adopted. The
poverty and debasement of Borne excited the indignation and pity
of her grateful son; he dissembled the faults of his fellow citizens ;
applauded with partial fondness the last of their heroes and
matrons : and in the remembrance of the past, in the hope of the
future, was pleased to forget the miseries of the present time.
For Latin Prose Historical. 65
Rome was still the lawful mistress of the world ; the pope and the
eanperor, his bishop and general, had abdicated their station by an
inglorious retreat to the Rhone and the Danube ; but if she could
resume her virtue, the republic might again vindicate her liberty
and dominion. Amidst the indulgence of enthusiasm and eloquence,
Petrarch, Italy, and Europe were astonished by a revolution which
realized for a moment his most splendid visions. Gibbon.
TACITUS, Ann. ii. c. 4. LIVY, xxii. c. 25, 26.
ANECDOTE OF MAXIMINHIS BODILY STRENGTH AND
ACTIVITY.
ABOUT thirty-two years before that event, the Emperor Severus,
returning from an eastern expedition, halted in Thrace to
celebrate with military games the birthday of his younger son
Geta. The country flocked in crowds to behold their sovereign,
and a young barbarian of gigantic stature earnestly solicited in his
rude dialect that he might be allowed to contend for the prize
of wrestling. As the pride of discipline would have been dis-
graced in the overthrow of a Roman soldier by a Thracian peasant,
he was matched with the stoutest followers of the camp, sixteen
of whom he successively laid on the ground. His victory was
rewarded by some trifling gifts, and a permission to enlist in the
troops. The next day the happy barbarian was distinguished
above a crowd of recruits, dancing and exulting, after the fashion
of his country. As soon as he perceived that he had attracted
the emperor's notice, he instantly ran up to his horse, and followed
him on foot, without the least appearance of fatigue, in a long and
rapid career. " Thracian," said Severus, with astonishment, " art
thou disposed to wrestle after thy race ^ " " Most willingly, sire."
replied the unwearied youth; and almost in a breath overthrew
seven of the strongest soldiers in the army. A gold collar was the
prize of his matchless vigour and activity, and he was immediately
F
66 Materials and Models
appointed to serve in the horse guards, who always attended on the
person of the sovereign. Maximin, for that was his name, though
born on the territories of the empire, descended from a mixed race
of barbarians. His father was a Goth, and his mother of the nation
of the Alani. Gibbon.
LIVY, ix. c. 16. TACITUS, Hist. ii. 8
COR'IES AND THE CHIEF OF CEMPOALLA.
ALONG conference ensued, from which the Spanish general
gathered much light respecting the state of the country.
He first announced to the chief that he was the subject of a great
monarch who dwelt beyond the waters ; that he had come to
the Aztec shores to abolish the inhuman worship which prevailed
there, and to introduce the knowledge of the true God. The
cacique replied that their gods, who sent them the sunshine and
the rain, were good enough for them ; that he was the tributary of
a powerful monarch also, whose capital stood on a lake far off
among the mountains : a stern prince, merciless in his exactions,
and in case of resistance or any offence, sure to wreak his vengeance
by carrying off their young men and maidens to be sacrificed to his
deities.
Cortes assured him that he would never consent to such enor-
mities ; he had been sent by his sovereign to redress abuses, and
to punish the oppressor ; and that if the Totonacs would be true
to him, he would enable them to throw off the detested yoke of the
Aztecs. Prescott.
LIVY, xxi. c. 20. xxxiii. c. 33. CAESAR, Bell. Gall. i. c. 14.
For Latin Prose Historical. 67
HEROIC CONSTANCY OF THE BURGOMASTER.
/ TpHERE stood the burgomaster, a tall, haggard, imposing figure,
-I with dark visage, and a tranquil but commanding eye. He
waved his broad-leaved felt hat for silence, and then exclaimed, in
language which has been almost literally preserved, " What would
ye, my friends ? Why do ye murmur that we do not break our
vows, and surrender the city to the Spaniards 1 a fate more horrible
than the agony which she now endures. I tell you I have made
an oath to hold the city, and may God give me strength to keep
my oath ! I can die but once ; whether by your hands, the enemy's,
or by the hand' of God. My own fate is indifferent to me, not so
that of the city intrusted to my care. I know that we shall starve
if not soon relieved ; but starvation is preferable to the dishonoured
death, which is the only alternative. Your menaces move me not ;
my life is at your disposal; here is my sword, plunge it in my
breast, and divide my flesh among you. Take my body to appease
your hunger, but expect no surrender, so long as I remain alive,"
TACITUS, Hist. iv. c. 67, 68. LIVY, v. c. 44.
CAESAR, Bell. OalL vii. c. 77.
CHARLES V. RELINQUISHES THE CROWN, AND RECOM-
MENDS A SUCCESSOR.
HE sketched his various wars, victories, and treaties of peace,
assuring his hearers that the welfare of his subjects and
the security of religion had ever been the leading objects of his
life. As long as God had granted him health, he continued, only
enemies could have regretted that Charles was living and reigning.
But now that his strength was but vanity, and life fast ebbing
away, his love for his dominion, his affection for his subjects, and
his regard for their interests, required his departure. Instead of a
decrepit man with one foot in the grave, he presented them with
a sovereign in the prime of life and the vigour of health. Turning
68 Materials and Models
toward Philip, he observed, that for a dying father to bequeath so
magnificent an empire to his son was a deed worthy of gratitude,
but that when the father thus descended to the grave before his
time, and by an anticipated and living burial sought to provide for
the welfare of his realms and the grandeur of his son, the benefit
thus conferred was surely far greater. He added that the debt
would be paid to him with usury, should Philip conduct himself in
his administration of the provinces with a wise and affectionate
regard to their true interests. Posterity would applaud his abdica-
tion, should his son prove worthy of his bounty : and that could
only be by living in the fear of God and by maintaining law,
justice, and religion in all their purity as the true foundation of the
realm. Motley.
TACITUS, Hist. i. c. 15, 16. JUVENAL, xi. 4-1.
CHARLES V. ADOPTS HIS SON PHILIP AS HIS
SUCCESSOR.
SUCH brave words as these, so many vigorous asseverations of
attempted performance of duty, such fervent hopes expressed
of a benign administration on behalf of the son, could not but affect
the sensibilities of the audience, already excited and softened by
the impressive character of the whole display. Sobs were heard
throughout every portion of the hall, and tears poured profusely
from every eye. The knights on the platform, and the burghers in
the background, were all melted with the same emotion. As for
the emperor himself, he sank almost fainting on his chair as he
concluded his address. An ashy paleness overspread his counte-
nance, and he wept like a child. Even the icy Philip was almost
softened as he rose to perform his part in the ceremony. Dropping
upon his knees before his father's feet, he reverently kissed his
hand. Charles placed his hands solemnly upon his son's head and
blessed him. Then raising him in his arms, he tenderly embraced
v .t,.ttt3iri
For Latin Prose Historical.
him, saying, as he did so, to the great potentates around him, that
he felt a sincere compassion for the son on whose shoulders so
heavy a weight had just devolved, and which only a lifelong labour
would enable him to support. Motley.
TACITUS, Hist. i. c. 17. Ann. i. c. 11.
EARL OF CHATHAM HIS LAST APPEARANCE IN THE
HOUSE OF LORDS.
NO sooner did he hear of the intended address than he deter,
mined to appear in the House of Lords and oppose it. For
such an exertion it was clear that he had not yet regained sufficient
strength of body, nor even composure of mind. His family and
friends endeavoured to dissuade him, but in vain.- On the 7th of
April, then, he came, or it might almost be said, was carried in,
walking with feeble steps, and leaning with one arm on his son
William, with the other on Lord Mahon. The earl spoke, but was
not like himself; his speech faltered, his sentences broken, and his
mind not master of itself. His words were shreds of unconnected
eloquence, and flashes of the same fire which he, Prometheus-like,
had stolen from heaven, and which were then returning to the place
whence they were taken. "With an unconquerable spirit he pro-
tested against surrendering the birthright of the British princes, and
the union of the British race and name. Lord Stanhope.
LIVY, xxxiii. c. 2. OICEEO, de Oratore, in. 2, 6. De Senectute, 16, 22.
NATIONAL SORROW FOR THE LOSS OF NELSON.
THE death of Nelson was felt in England as something more
than a public calamity ; men started at the intelligence, and
turned pale ; as if they had heard of the loss of a dear friend. An
7o Materials and Models
object of our admiration and affection, of our pride and of our
hopes, was suddenly taken from us ; and it seemed as if we had
never, till then, known how deeply we loved and reverenced him.
What the country had lost in its great naval hero the greatest
of our own and of all former times was scarcely taken into the
account of grief. So perfectly, indeed, had he performed his part,
that the maritime war after the "battle of Trafalgar was considered
at an end : the fleets of the enemy were not merely defeated, but
destroyed : new navies must be built, and a new race of seamen
reared for them, before the possibility of their invading our shores
could again be contemplated. It was not, therefore, from any
selfish reflection upon the magnitude of our loss that we mourned
for him : the general sorrow was of a higher character. The people
of England grieved that funeral ceremonies, and public monuments,
and posthumous rewards, were all which they could now bestow
upon him, whom the king, the legislature, and the nation, would
have alike delighted to honour ; whom every tongue would have
blessed ; whose presence in every .village -through which he might
have passed, would have wakened the church bells, have given
school-boys a holiday, have drawn children from their sports to
gaze upon him, and " old men from the chimney corner," to look
upon Nelson ere they died. Southey.
TACITUS, Ann. ii. c. 72, 73, 82. iii. c. 4, 5. Agricola, c. 43, 46.
FUNERAL OF OLIVER CROMWELL.
IT was the funeral-day of the late man who made himself to
be called Protector. And though I bore but little affection,
either to the memory of him, or to the trouble and folly of all
public pageantry, yet I was forced by the importunity of my com-
pany to go along with them, and be a spectator of that solemnity,
the expectation of which had been so great, that it was said to have
brought some very curious persons (and no doubt singular virtuosos)
For Latin Prose Historical. 71
as far as from the mount in Cornwall and from the Orcades. I
found there had been much more cost bestowed than either the
dead man, or indeed death itself could deserve. There was a
mighty train of black assistants, among which two divers princes
in the persons of their ambassadors (being infinitely afflicted for the
loss of their brother) were pleased to attend ; the hearse was mag-
nificent, the idol crowned, and (not to mention all other ceremonies
which are practised at royal interments, and therefore by no means
could be omitted here) the vast multitude of spectators made up, as
it uses to do, no small part of the spectacle itself.
But yQt, I know not how, the whole was so managed, that me-
thought it somewhat represented the life of him for whom it was
made; much noise, much tumult, much expense, much magnificence,
much vain-glory ; briefly, a great show, and yet after all this, but an
ill sight. At last (for it seemed long to me, and like his short
reign too, very tedious) the whole scene passed by, and I retired
back to my chamber, weary, and, I think, more melancholy than
any of the mourners. A. Cowley.
TACITUS, Ann. i. c. 8, 9, 10. iii. c. 2-6. Hist. iii. c. 84.
OLIVER CROMWELL HAUNTED BY REMORSE AND
TERRORS DURING HIS LATTER DAYS.
ALL composure of mind was now for ever fled from the Pro-
tector : he felt that the grandeur which he had attained,
with so much guilt and courage, could not ensure him that tran-
quillity which it belongs to virtue alone and moderation fully to
ascertain. Death too, which with such signal intrepidity he had
braved in the field, being incessantly threatened by the poignards
of fanatical or interested assassins, was ever present to his terrified
apprehension, and haunted him in every scene of business or
repose. Each action of his life betrayed the terrors under which
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he laboured. The aspect of strangers was uneasy to him : with
a piercing and anxious eye he surveyed every face to which he was
not daily accustomed. He never moved a step without strong
guards attending him : he wore armour under his clothes, and
farther secured himself by offensive weapons, which he always
carried about him. He returned from no place by the direct road,
or by the same way which he went. Every journey he performed
with hurry and precipitation. Seldom he slept above three nights
together in the same chamber : and he never let it be known
beforehand what chamber he intended to choose, nor intrusted
himself in any which was not provided with back doors, at which
sentinels were carefully placed. Society terrified him, while he
reflected on his numerous, unknown, and implacable enemies :
solitude astonished him, by withdrawing that protection which
he found so necessary for his security. Hume.
TACITUS, Hist. iii. c. 84. CICERO, In Verrem. Act ii. lib. i. 7, 8.
SALLTJST, Catilin. c. 15. CICERO, pro Roscio Amer. 66, 67.
YIRQIL, j&n. ii. 755.
REMORSE OF HEROD.
THE foes of Marianne pretended that she had plotted to
poison her husband. She was seized, examined, and
sentence of death formally passed upon her. The sentence may
have been intended only to intimidate her ; but its execution was
urged by the jealous passions of Salome, and Herod's fears were
worked upon till he consented to let the blow fall. Her misery
was crowned by the craven reproaches of her mother Alexandra,
who sought to escape partaking in her fate by basely cringing to
the murderer. But she, the last daughter of a noble race, endured
with constancy to the end, and the favour of her admiring country-
men has not failed to accord to her a distinguished place in the
long line of Jewish heroines. They recorded with grim delight
For Latin Prose Historical. 73
the tyrant's unavailing remorse, his fruitless yearnings for the
victim he had sacrificed, the plaintive exclamations he made to
echo through his palace, and the passionate upbraidings with which
he assailed her judges. He strove, it was said, by magical incanta-
tions to recall her spirit from the shades, and as if to drive from
his mind the intolerable recollection of her loss commanded his
attendants always to speak of her as one alive. Whether or not
the pestilence that ensued might justly be regarded as a Divine
judgment, the sharp disease and deep-settled melancholy which
afflicted the murderer formed a signal and merited retribution
for his crime.
TACITUS, Hist. iii. c. 84. CICERO, In Verrem. Act ii. lib. i. 7, 8.
Pro Roscio Amer. 66, 67. VIRGIL, ^En. iv. 457.
ZENOBIAHER HIGH-SPIRITED REPLY.
< e ~T) OMAN," said Zenobia, in reply, " I honour your frank-
-Lv. ness, and thank you for your faith in my generosity.
It is not, I assure you, misplaced. I am glad to know from so
authentic a source the policy of Aurelian. I surmised as much
before. All that I have thought will come true. The rumours
which are afloat are without foundation. Your emperor under-
stands that I have a policy as well as he, and a fixed purpose
as well as he. I will never fall from what I have been but into
ruin, final and complete. I have lived a sovereign queen, and
so I will die. The son of Valerian received Odenatus and Zenobia
as partners in empire. "We are representatives of Eome in the
East. Our dignities and our titles were those of Gallienus. It
were small boasting to say that they were worn not less worthily
here than in Rome. And this association with Eome I sought
it not. It was offered as a tribute to our greatness. Shall it
be dissolved at the will of Aurelian 1 and Palmyra, no longer
needed as a scourge for the great king, be broken down into a
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tributary province and obscure appendage of your greatness 1
May the gods forsake me that moment I am false to my
country ! "
LIVY, xxv. c. 29. xxxii. c. 42. TACITUS, Ann. xii. c. 36, 37.
YIRGIL, ^E)i. iv. 651-654.
INSOLENT REPL Y OF ALARIC TO THE ROMAN
AMBASSADORS.
THE last resource of the Eomans was in the clemency, or at
least in the moderation, of Alaric. The senate, who in this
emergency assumed the supreme powers of government, appointed
two ambassadors to negotiate with the Gothic prince. "When
they were introduced into his presence they declared, perhaps
in a more lofty style than became their abject condition, that
the Eomans were resolved to maintain their dignity, either in
peace or war ; and that, if Alaric refused them a fair and
honourable capitulation, he might sound his trumpets, and pre-
pare to give battle to an innumerable people, exercised in arms
and animated by despair. " The thicker the hay the easier it
is mowed," was the concise reply of the barbarian, and this
rustic metaphor was accompanied by a loud and insulting laugh,
expressive of his contempt for the menaces of an unwarlike
populace, enervated by luxury before they were emaciated by
famine. He then condescended to fix the ransom which he
would accept as the price of his retreat from the walls of Rome :
all the gold and silver in the city, all the rich and precious
moveables, and all the slaves who could prove their title to the
name of barbarians. The ministers of the senate presumed to ask
in a suppliant tone, " If such, king ! are your demands ; what
do you intend to leave us 1 " " Your lives," replied the haughty
conqueror. They trembled and retired.
LIVY, xxi. c. 13, 44. xxiii. c. 43, 44. xlv. c. 12. ix. c. 16. v, c. 36.
xxxvii. c. 45. CICERO, Philipp. viii. 23.
For Latin Prose Historical. 75
LETTER OF TIBERIUS DENOUNCING SE JANUS.
THE letter commenced with a passing reference to various
affairs of state; then diverged to a gentle reproof of
Sejanus himself for some trifling neglect ; then wandered again to
general subjects, mixed with strange complaints of the solitude
of the old man, and his precarious position. From these, how-
ever, the letter descended gradually to particulars, and proceeded
to demand the punishment of certain well-known adherents of
Sejanus. For some time the senators had been growing uneasy,
not knowing what to anticipate from a missive, the tone of
which waxed less and less in harmony with the addresses to
which they had been accustomed. One by one they slunk from
his side, and left him wondering and irresolute, still clinging to
the hope that aH would end well, and shrinking to the last from
an appeal to force, which must irrevocably compromise him. The
agitation of the assembly became more marked Sejanus looked
anxiously around. Suddenly, before the whole letter was yet
unrolled, he found himself thronged by the chiefs of the senate,
and precluded from shifting his position, while the sentence with
which the long missive terminated, denounced him as a traitor
by name, and required the consuls to place him under arrest.
Merivale.
SUETONIUS, Tiber, c. 48, 65. JUVENAL, Sat. x. 71.
TACITUS, Ann. iv. c. 2.
MO N MOUTH AT THE BATTLE OF SEDGMOOR.
MONMOUTH had hitherto done his part like a stout and
able warrior. He had been seen on foot, pike in hand,
encouraging his infantry by voice and by example. But he was
too well acquainted with military affairs not to know that all
was over. His men had lost the advantage which surprise and
darkness had given them. They were deserted by the horse and
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by the ammunition waggons. The king's forces were now united
and in good order. Feversham had been awakened by the firing,
had got out of bed, had adjusted his cravat, had looked at himself
well in the glass, and had come to see what his men were doing.
Meanwhile, what was of much more importance, Churchill had
rapidly made an entirely new disposition of the royal infantry.
The day was about to break. The event of a conflict on an open
plain, by broad sunlight, could not be doubtful. Yet Monmouth
should have felt that it was not for him to fly while thousands
whom affection for him had hurried to destruction, were still
fighting manfully in, his cause. But vain hopes, and the intense
love of life prevailed. He saw that if he tarried the royal cavalry
would soon be in his rear,, and would interrupt his retreat. He
mounted and rode from the field, Macaulay.
TACITUS, Hist. iii. c. 41, 42. LIVY, v. c. 38. xxv. c. 21.
ATTILA ANTICIPATING DEFEAT, ENCOURAGES HIS
SOLDIERS.
THE anxiety of Attila prompted him to consult his priests
and soothsayers. It was reported that, after scrutinizing
the entrails of victims and scraping their bones,, they revealed, in
mysterious language, his own defeat, with the death of his principal
adversary, and that the barbarian, by accepting the equivalent,
expressed his involuntary esteem for the superior merit of Aetius.
But the unusual despondency which seemed to prevail among the
Huns, induced Attila to use the expedient so familiar to the generals
of antiquity, of animating his troops by a military oration ; and his
language was that of a king who had often fought and conquered
at their head. He pressed them to consider their past glory, their
actual danger, and their future hopes. The same fortune, he said,
which opened the deserts and morasses of Scythia to their unarmed
valour, which had laid so many warlike nations prostrate at their
For Latin Prose Historical. 77
feet, had reserved the joys of this memorable field for the consum-
mation of their victories. The cautious steps of their enemies,
their strict alliance, and their advantageous posts he artfully repre-
sented as the effects not of prudence, but of fear. The Visigoths
alone were the strength and nerves of the opposite army ; and the
Huns might securely trample on the degenerate Komans, whose
close and compact order betrayed their apprehensions, and who
were equally incapable of supporting the dangers or the fatigues
of a day of battle. Gibbon.
TACITUS, Ann. ii. c. 45, 46. LIVY, xxiii. c. 29. xxi. c. 40, 45.
, Sell. Civil, iii. c. 73.
XIMENESHIS DISMISSAL.
XT' IMENES did not bear this treatment with his usual fortitude
./V of spirit. Conscious of his own integrity and merit, he
expected a more grateful return from a prince to whom he delivered
a kingdom more nourishing than it had been in any former age,
together with authority more extensive and better established than
the most illustrious of his ancestors possessed. He could not there-
fore on many occasions help giving vent to his indignation and
complaints. He lamented the fate of his country, and foretold
the calamities which it would suffer from the insolence, the rapacious-
ness, and the ignorance of strangers. While his mind was agitated
by these passions, he received a letter from the king, in which
after a few cold and formal expressions of regard, he was allowed
to retire to his diocese, that, after a life of such continued labour,
he might end his days in peace. This message proved fatal to
Xinienes. Ro bertson.
TACITUS, Ann. iv. c. 39, 41. xiv. c. 5g-56. xv. c. 45, 60.
7 8 Materials and Models
LORD RAGLAN IN THE CRIMEA HIS CHEERFULNESS
AND COURAGE WHEN THWARTED BY THE HOME
GOVERNMENT AND SURROUNDED BY DIFFICULTIES.
A "WISE man places his happiness as little as possible at the
mercy of other people's breath. His own conscience, and
the opinions of his friends, which become with the high-minded a
sort of second conscience, are the sole tribunals for whose tem-
porary verdict he in general cares. But without a just sensitiveness
to the opinion of his employers, no one who holds a responsible
situation can continue to serve in comfort. The peculiar circum-
stances of his case rendered the support of the Government of
unusual moment to the English commander; and he had, if ever
man had, a right to look for their uncompromising countenance.
It was entirely in obedience to their pressing instructions that he
had embarked in the adventure. It was under difficulties most
trying to mind and body that he had gallantly persevered in it.
He found himself now, with a divided command which had
thwarted his schemes and cut short his triumphs, encamped upon
a bleak and barren ridge, with soldiers sickly, dying, and dead,
while those who continued to stand at their posts were overtasked,
ill-sheltered, ill- clothed, and ill-fed. An enemy superior in number,
who had lately engaged with him in a terrific struggle which made
fainter hearts tremble for the ulterior consequences, encompassed
him round, perpetually harassed his troops, and threatened to fall
at every moment upon the remnant of his army, which grew daily
less. Many a time in that anxious interval officers hastened down
to head-quarters full of consternation at some rumour that the
.Eussians were about to attack our lines, and returned reassured
from the sole influence of his calm demeanour and cheerful words.
In the worst troubles he continued to speak a soldier's language,
and wear a soldier's countenance, and threw upon those w T ho
conversed with him the spell of his own undaunted nature.
LlVY, xxviii. c. 12. xxii. c. 43. xxv. c. 37, 38.
CAESAR, SeH. Civil, i. c. 48, sqq.
For Latin Prose Historical. 79
POMPEY AND C^SAR.
HERE was a trial, painful, unexpected, sudden ; such as any
man, at any age, might have honourably declined. The
very best contingency in such a struggle was that nothing might be
lost ; whilst, along with this doubtful hope, ran the certainty that
nothing could be gained. More glorious in the popular estimate
of his countrymen Pompey could not become; for his honours
were already historical, and touched with the autumnal hues of
antiquity, having been won in a generation gone by ; but, on the
other hand, he might lose everything; for in a contest with so
dreadful an antagonist as Caesar he could not hope to come off
unscorched ; and whatever might be the final event, one result
must have struck him as inevitable, that a new generation of men
who had come forward into the arena of life within the last
twenty years would watch the approaching collision with Caesar as
putting to the test a question much canvassed of late with regard
to the soundness and legitimacy of Pompey's military exploits. As
a commander-in-chief, Pompey was known to have been inequitably
fortunate. The bloody contests of Marius, Cinna, Sulla, and their
vindictive, but perhaps unavoidable, proscription, had thinned the
ranks of natural competitors, at the, very opening of Pompey's career.
The interval of about eight years, by which he was senior to Caesar,
happened to make the whole difference between a crowded list
of candidates for offices of trust, and no list at all. Even more
lucky had Pompey found himself in the character of his appoint-
ments, and in the quality of his antagonists. All his wars had
been of that class which yield great splendour of external show,
but impose small exertion, and less risk.
YELLEIUS PATERCULTJS, ii. c. 40, 41. SALLTJST, Catilin. c. 53, 54.
LiVY, . xxiv. c. 9. LUCAJT, Pharsal. i. 129, sqq.
ClCERO, pro lege ManiL 28, 47.
OF TTTF
UNIVERSITY
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HENRY IV. AND THE DUKE OF PARMA COMPARED.
THE two greatest captains of the age had at last met face
to face. Each might be considered to be still in the
prime of life, but Alexander, who was turned of forty-five, was
already broken in health, whilst the vigorous Henry was eight
years younger, and of an iron constitution. Both had passed
their lives in the field, but the king, from nature, education, and
the force of circumstances, preferred pitched battles to scientific
combinations, while the duke, having studied and practised his art
in the great Spanish and Italian schools of warfare, was rather a
profound strategist than a professional fighter, although capable
of great promptness and intense personal energy, when his judg-
ment dictated a battle. Both were born with that invaluable gift
which 110 human being can acquire authority, and both were
adored and willingly obeyed by their soldiers, so long as those
soldiers were paid and fed. Froude.
LlVY, xxx. c. 26, 30, 32. ix. c. 17. CICERO, pro hge Manil. 43.
SALLUST, Catilin. c. 54.
VACILLATION OF CICERO.
HIS mind was in a painful state of perplexity. At one mo-
ment he was resolved to sacrifice everything for Pompey,
whom he thought it base to desert in his adversity ; at another he
wavered, and contemplated the idea of going back to Koine. But
a strange obstacle deterred him. Even now he had not given
up his hopes of a triumph, and he was still attended by his lictors,
whom however he calls, as he well might, most troublesome com-
panions ; and he describes the fasces as laurel fetters. He could
not enter the city with them unless a triumph was accorded to
him ; and he could not bear to dismiss them, and thus abandon his
long-cherished dream, idle and silly as it was at such a moment.
For Latin Prose Historical. 81
If it were not the duty of a biographer to state the truth, and
in the portrait he draws endeavour to give a faithful copy of the
original, it would be far more agreeable not to unveil the weakness
which Cicero displayed in this great emergency of his life. The
one thing lacking in his character was decision. If there had been
more of iron in his nature he would have been not only, as he was,
the first orator, but the first statesman of his time. At this crisis
no one saw more clearly than he did that there were only two
courses to pursue. Either Caesar's terms must be complied with
and he was ready to make the concession to avoid a civil war or
the most energetic resistance must be offered, and every sinew
strained to meet him on equal terms in the field of battle. Forsyth.
CICEEO, Ad Alt. viii. Ep-ist. 2, 3. TACITUS, Hist. ii. c. 7.
VACILLATION OF PRESTON UNDER FEAR OF DEATH.
THE fate of Preston was long in suspense. The Jacobites
affected to be confident that the government would not
dare to shed his blood. He was, they said, a favourite at Ver-
sailles, and his death would be followed by a terrible retaliation.
They scattered about the streets of London papers in which it was
asserted that, if any harm befell him, Mountjoy and all the other
Englishmen of quality who were prisoners in France would be
broken on the wheel. These absurd threats would not have
deferred the execution one day. But those who had Preston in
their power were not unwilling to spare him on certain conditions.
He was privy to all the counsels of the disaffected party, and
could furnish information of the highest value. He was informed
that his fate depended on himself. The struggle was long and
severe. Pride, conscience, party spirit were on one side ; the
intense love of life on the other. He went during a time irreso-
lutely to and fro. He listened to his brother Jacobites ; and his
courage rose. He listened to the agents of the government ; and
G
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his heart sank within him. In an evening, when he had dined
and drunk his claret, he feared nothing. He would die like a man,
rather than save his neck by an act of baseness. But his temper
was very different when he woke the next morning, when the
courage which he had drawn from wine and company had evapo-
rated, when he was alone with the iron gates and stone walls, and
Avhen the thought of the block, the axe, and the sawdust rose
in his mind. During some time he regularly wrote a confession
every forenoon when he was sober, and burnt it every night when
he was merry. His non-juring friends formed a plan for bringing
Bancroft to visit the Tower, in the hope, doubtless, that the exhor-
tations of so great a prelate and so great a saint would confirm the
wavering virtue of the prisoner. Whether this plan would have
been successful, may be doubted : it was not carried into effect :
the fatal hour drew near ; and the fortitude of Preston gave way.
He confessed his guilt, and named his accomplices. Macaulay.
TACITUS, Ann. iii. c. 13-16. iv. c. 68-70. ii. c. 27-31. xiii. c. 42, 43.
xv. c. 48-03.
YOUTH OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
HOW much he lived in Homer's poetical world, may be partly
inferred from the story of Lysimachus just mentioned. It
was above all, as we know from more distinct evidence, the image
of Achilles that captivated his boyish fancy. But it was no
common interest that he took in the poet's creation : Achilles,
according to the traditions of his mother's house, was his own
ancestor. He felt the hero's blood in his veins. He too preferred
glory to length of days : he too knew the delight of a glowing and
constant friendship. At an age when it would not have been sur-
prising if these bright visions had so occupied his imagination as to
leave little room for the realities of life, he found an opportunity,
in his father's absence, of conversing with some ambassadors who
had been sent from Persia to the court of Macedonia. They could
For Latin Prose Historical. 83
have told him of many wonders of the gorgeous East, which were
celebrated in Greece; of the hanging gardens and golden plane-
tree, and all the state and splendour of the great king. His
curiosity was directed to subjects of quite another kind : it was
about the roads, the distances, the force of the armies, the con-
dition of the provinces, about their master's skill in arms, that
he questioned them, with an eagerness which alarmed them, it is
said, more than Philip's sagacity of which they had heard so much.
LlVY, xxvi. c. 19. CICERO, pro Arch, 24. Pro lege Manil. 28, 61.
TACITUS, Ann. ii. 73. VIRGIL, Oeo. ii. 114, sqq.
HAMILCAR THWARTED BY A PARTY AT HOME.
BUT further, Hamilcar was not only a military chief, he was
also a party leader. In opposition to the implacable
governing party, which eagerly but patiently waited for an oppor-
tunity of overthrowing him, he had to seek support among the
citizens ; and although their leaders might be ever so pure and
noble, the multitude was deeply corrupt, and accustomed by the
unhappy system of corruption to give nothing without being paid
for it. In particular emergencies indeed necessity or enthusiasm
might for the moment prevail, as everywhere happens even with
the most venal corporations; but if Hamilcar wished to secure
the permanent support of the Carthaginian community for his
plan, which at the best could only be executed after a series of
years, he had to supply his friends at home with regular con-
signments of money, as the means of keeping the mob in good
humour. Thus- compelled to beg or to buy from the lukewarm
and venal multitude permission to save it ; compelled to wring
from the arrogance of men whom he hated, and whom he had
constantly conquered, at the price of humiliation and of silence,
the respite indispensable for his ends, compelled to conceal from
those despised traitors to their country, who called themselves the
lords of his native country, his plans and his contempt the noble
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hero stood with few friends of congenial sentiments between
enemies without and enemies within, building upon the irreso-
lution of the one and of the other, at once deceiving both and
defying both, if only he might gain means, money, and men for
the contest with a land which, even were the army ready to strike
the blow, it . seemed difficult to reach, and scarce possible to van-
quish. He was still a young man, little beyond thirty, but he
had apparently, when he was preparing for his expedition, a fore-
boding that he would not be permitted to attain the end of his
labours, or to see otherwise than afar off the promised land.
LiVY,xxi.c. 1,2,9,63. xxiii. c. 11 13. SALLTJST, Jii(jurth,c.41,85.
CONTRAST BETWEEN FABIUS AND MARCELLUS.
SUCH a difference of behaviour in their two greatest leaders
soon occasioned two different parties in Eome. The old
people in general joined in crying up Fabius. Fabius was not
rapacious, as some others were; but temperate in his conquests.
In what he had done he had acted not only with that mode-
ration which becomes a Roman general, but with much prudence
and foresight. " These fineries," they cried, "are a pretty diversion
for an idle effeminate people : let us leave them to the Greeks.
The Romans desire no other ornaments of life than a simplicity
of manners at home, and fortitude against our enemies abroad. It
is by these arts that we have raised our name so high, and spread
our dominion so far : and shall we suffer them now to be exchanged
for a fine taste, and what they call elegance of living 1 !No, great
Jupiter, who presidest over the Capitol ! let the Greeks keep their
arts to themselves, and let the Romans learn only how to conquer
and to govern mankind." Another set, and particularly the
younger people, who were extremely delighted with the noble
works of the Grecian artists that had been set up for some time in
the temples, and porticos, and all the most public places of the city,
For Latin Prose Historical. 85
and- who used frequently to spend the greatest part of the day in
contemplating the beauties of them, extolled Marcellus as much for
the pleasure he had given them. " We shall now," said they, " no
longer be reckoned among the barbarians. That rust, which we
have been so long contracting, will soon be worn off. Other
generals have conquered our enemies, but Marcellus has conquered
our ignorance. We begin to see with new eyes, and have a new
world of beauties opening before us. Let the Romans be polite, as
well as victorious ; and let us learn to excel the nations in taste,
as well as to conquer them with our arms." Spence.
CICERO, De Senectute, 10. In Verrem, Act ii. lib. ii. 3, sqq.
lib. iii. 9. LIVY, xxxiv. c. 4. xxiv. c. 9.
SALLUST, Catilin. c. 53, 54.
CICERO'S LETTERS A PICTURE OF THE TIMES.
IN Cicero's extant correspondence we seem to be present at
the shifting scenes of the drama, as the plot unfolds itself
which involves the destinies of Rome. We hear the groans of the
expiring republic, which had been mortally wounded during the
long civil wars of Marius and Sylla, and was fast sinking under
the flood of social and political corruption, which is sure to follow
in the train of civil war. At one time we watch with eager
impatience the arrival of a courier at Tusculum, with a letter from
Atticus, telling his friend the news of the day; and in Cicero's
reply we read all the fluctuations of hope and fear, which agitated
him during the momentous crisis of his country's fate. At another,
we contemplate the great orator and statesman in the seclusion
of his villa, as a plain country gentleman, busying himself with
improvements on his estate, building farms, laying out and planting
shrubberies, and turning water-courses, or amusing himself with
pictures and statues, and the various objects which interest a man
of refined and cultivated taste. At another, we find him at Rome,
sick, weary, and disgusted with the din of strife, mistrusting every
86 Materials and Models
body where no one seems worthy of trust, and harping ever on the
vanity of ambition and the worthlessness of popular applause. We
see him at one moment exalted to the summit of human glory,
when saluted in the senate by the proud title of Pater Patriee ; and
at another sunk in the lowest depths of despair, when he is a
wandering fugitive, exiled from Eome, and tells his wife that while
he writes he is blinded by his tears. Forsyth.
CICERO, Ad Att. vii. Epist. 19, 20, 23.
DESPERATE PROJECTS OF CATILINE.
SUCH a state of society already trembled on the verge of
dissolution, and reflecting men must have shuddered at the
frailness of the bands which still held it together, and the manifold
energies at work for its destruction. Catiline's designs, suspended
for a moment, were ripening to another crisis ; and the citizens
pointed with horror to the victim of a guilty conscience, stalking
through the streets with abrupt and agitated gait, his eyes blood-
shot, his visage ashy pale, revolving in his restless soul the direst
schemes of murder and conflagration. Involved in ruinous debt,
his last hope of extrication had been the plunder of a province.
The spoils of the praetorship had been wrested from him by the
rapacity of his judges or his accuser, and access to the consul-
ship was denied him. But his recent escape confirmed him in the
assurance that he was too noble a culprit to be convicted : he
scarcely deigned to veil his intrigues, while he solicited the aid of
men of the highest families in the city.
SALLUST, Catilin. c. 15-18, 21. TACITUS, Hist. iii. c. 84.
ClCEEO, In CatiUnam, i. In Verrem, Act ii. lib. i. 7.
For Latin Prose Historical. 87
IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
THE place was worthy of such a trial. It was the great hall of
William Rufus, the hall which had resounded with acclama-
tions at the inauguration of thirty kings, the hall which had wit-
nessed the just sentence of Bacon and the just absolution of
Somers, the hall where the eloquence of Strafford had for a moment
awed and melted a victorious party inflamed with just resent-
ment, the hall where Charles had confronted the High Court of
Justice with the placid courage which has half redeemed his fame.
Neither military nor civil pomp was wanting. The avenues were
lined with grenadiers. The streets were kept clear by cavalry.
The. peers, robed in gold and ermine, were marshalled by the
heralds under Garter King-at-arms. The judges in their vestments
of state attended to give advice on points of law. The grey old
walls were hung with scarlet. The long galleries were crowded
by an audience such as has rarely excited the fears or the emula-
tion of an orator. There were gathered together, from all parts
of a great, free, enlightened, and prosperous empire, grace and
female loveliness, wit and learning, the representatives of every
science and of every art. There were seated round the queen
the fair-haired young daughters of the house of Brunswick.
There the ambassadors of great kings and commonwealths
gazed with admiration on a spectacle which no other country
in the world could present. There Siddons, in the prime of her
majestic beauty, looked with emotion on a scene surpassing all
the imitations of the stage. There the historian of the Roman
Empire thought of the days when Cicero pleaded the cause of
Sicily against Verres, and when, before a senate which still
retained some show of freedom, Tacitus thundered against the
oppressor of Africa. There were seen, side by side, the greatest
painter and the greatest scholar of the age. The spectacle had
allured Reynolds from that easel which has preserved to us the
thoughtful foreheads of so many writers and statesmen, and the
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sweet smiles of so many noble matrons. It had induced Parr to
suspend his labours in that dark and profound mine from which
he had extracted a vast treasure of erudition, a treasure too often
buried in the earth, too often paraded with injudicious and in-
elegant ostentation, but still precious, massive, and splendid.
Macaulay.
CICERO, pro Milone. 1-3. PLINY, Epist. ii. 11.
LUCAN, PharsaL i. 319.
IMPEACHMENT OF CATILINE.
ATTLINE had kept his seat throughout this terrible inflic-
tion, agitated by rage and apprehension, yet trusting to the
favour of his numerous connections, and relying on the stolid
incredulity of the mass of the audience ; for the habitual use of
exaggerated invective had blunted the force of truth, and rendered
the senators callous for the most part even to the most impassioned
oratory. The appearance, perhaps, of the consul's myrmidons, and
the fear, not of any legal sentence, but of popular violence, at last
made him start to his feet. He muttered a few broken sentences
in a tone of deprecation, appealing to his birth, rank, and aristo-
cratic sentiments in gage of his loyalty, and in contrast to the
specious pretensions of the base-born foreigner, his accuser. But
the senators, encouraged or awed by the presence of the knights,
murmured and groaned around him, calling him an enemy and a
parricide. Then at last, losing all self-command, Catiline rushed
wildly out of the chamber, exclaiming " Driven to destruction by
my enemies, I- will smother the conflagration of my own house in
the ruin of the city."
SALLUST, Catilin. c. 31. CICERO, In Catilinam,i.
For Latin Prose Historical. 89
PRUDENCE AND PERSEVERANCE OF WILLIAM III. IN
ORGANIZING OPPOSITION TO THE FRENCH.
A YEAR had hardly elapsed when arrangements were made
for renewing the contest with tenfold fury. The steps
which were taken at that time to compose, to reconcile, to unite,
and to discipline all Europe against the growth of France, cer-
tainly furnish to a statesman the finest and most interesting part
in the history of that great period. It formed the master-piece
of King William's policy, dexterity, and perseverance. Baffled as
that monarch was, and almost heart-broken at the disappointment
he met with in the mode he first proposed for that great end, he
held on his course. He was faithful to his object ; and in councils,
as in arms, over and over again repulsed, over and over again he
returned to the charge. He persevered to expel the fears of his
people by his fortitude, to steady their fickleness by his constancy,
to expand their narrow prudence by his enlarged wisdom, to sink
their factious temper in his public spirit. In spite of his people
he resolved to make them great and glorious ; to make England,
inclined to shrink into her narrow self, the arbitress of Europe,
the tutelary angel of the human race. In spite of the ministers,
who staggered under the weight that his mind imposed uj^on
theirs, he infused into them his own soul ; he renewed in them
their ancient heart ; he rallied them in the same cause.
LIYY, xxiii. c. 33. xxxiv. c. 6. xxxvi. c. 7, 41. xxviii. c. 12.
IRRESOLUTION OF THE EMPEROR NERO ON THE
REVOLT OF GAUL.
AT times, even in this hopeless situation, his native ferocity
returned upon him, and he was believed to have framed
plans for removing all his enemies at once the leaders of the
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rebellion, "by appointing successors to their offices, and secretly
sending assassins to despatch their persons ; the senate, by poison
at a great banquet ; the Gaulish provinces, by delivering them
up for pillage to the army; the city, by again setting it on fire,
whilst, at the same time, a vast number of wild beasts was to have
been turned loose upon the unarmed populace, for the double
purpose of destroying them, and of distracting their attention from
the fire. But, as the mood of his frenzy changed, these sanguinary
schemes were abandoned (not, however, under any feelings of
remorse, but from mere despair of effecting them), and on the same
day, but after a luxurious dinner, the imperial monster grew bland
and pathetic in his ideas; he would proceed to the rebellious
army ; he would present himself unarmed to their view ; and
would recall them to their duty by the mere spectacle of his tears.
TACITUS, Hist. iii. c. 36, 55-68. SUETONIUS, Nero, c. 43.
MUCIANUSHIS SPEECH AN ARTFUL MIXTURE OP
FLATTERY AND FREEDOM.
MUCIAN'S speech in Tacitus contains many important
matters in a small compass ; and in a few clear and
emphatical words goes through the principal topics of persuasion.
He presses and conjures Vespasian to dispute the empire with
Vitellius, by the duty he owes his bleeding country ; by the love
he has for his hopeful sons ; by the fairest prospect of success that
could be hoped for, if he once vigorously set upon that glorious
business; but if he neglected the present opportunity, by the
dismal appearance of the worst evils that could be feared ; he
encourages him by the number and goodness of his forces ; by the
interest and steadiness of his friends ; by the vices of his rival, and
his own virtues. Yet all the while this great man compliments
Vespasian and pays him honour, he is cautious not in the least to
diminish his own glory : if he readily allows him the first rank of
For Latin Prose Historical. 91
merit, he briskly claims the second to himself. Never were liberty
and complaisance of speech more happily mixed ; he conveys sound
exhortation in praise ; and at the same time says very bold and
very obliging things. In short, he speaks with the bravery of a
soldier, and the freedom of a friend ; in his address, there is the air
and the gracefulness of an accomplished courtier; in his advice,
the sagacity and caution of a consummate statesman. Blaclcwall.
TACITUS, Hist. ii. c. 76, 77. i. c. 10. ii. c. 80.
POLICE OF AUGUSTUS AS REPRESENTED TO THE
PATRICIANS AND TO THE PEOPLE.
AUGUSTUS pointed to the sacrifice he had made for the
general weal, and compared himself to a Mucius, a Curtius,
or a Decius. " Think not," he exclaimed, " that the ancients
alone were true patriots, behold in me a living proof that the love
of Eome burns still bright in her children. Such was the spirit of
the old patricians, and such still exists in the bosom of the high-
born offspring of Quirinus. They are the true rulers and fathers of
the commonwealth ; fear not that I will ever abandon it to the
sway of an unprincipled democracy : no, sooner will I perish,
sooner reign ! " He thus held out to them the dire figure of
royalty in the farthest distance, as a monster to be invoked only
in the last necessity to save the world from chaos. So far from
taking away the life of a single citizen to obtain the crown, he
would sooner lose his own life than wear one ! a life, be it remarked,
which the gods will surely protect, as they have avenged the death
of Caesar. To the people he affirmed that the sway of Eome over
the nations was now completed and assured. All nations should
bring their tribute to the Capitol : the Romans proud and untaxed
should enjoy the fruits of every zone and climate. Every gale
should waft corn to Italy, to be lavished on the citizens by the
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hand of their friend and benefactor. The Roman should fold his
arms in indolence and safety, while his subjects should labour, and
his rulers think for him. Merivale.
SUETONIUS, Octav. c. 28. CICERO, Phitipp. xiii. 22.
TACITUS, Ann. i. c. 9, 10.
SITE OF THE TOWN Of CARTHAGENA.
THE present town of Carthagena stands at the head of its
famous harbour, built partly on some hills of tolerable
height, and partly on the low ground beneath them, with a large
extent of marshy ground behind it, which is flooded after rains,
and its inner port surrounded by the buildings of the arsenal,
running deeply into the land on its western side. But in the
times of the second Punic war, the marshy ground behind was all a
lagoon, and its waters communicated artificially with those of the
port of the arsenal : so that the town was on a peninsula, and was
joined to the main land only by a narrow isthmus, which had itself
been cut through in one place to allow the lagoon-water to find an
outlet. Arnold.
LIYY, xxvi. c. 42. xxxvii. c. 27. xxiv. c. 3. xxxviii. c. 4. xliv. c. 46.
VIRGIL, JEn. i. CICERO, In Verrem. ii. lib. iv. 106, 117.
SITE OF AGRIGENTUM.
A GRIGENTUM excels all other cities, not only in the advan-
JL\. tages mentioned, but in strength likewise, and especially in
ornament and beauty. Situated at the distance of only eighteen
furlongs from the sea, it possesses all the conveniences which the
sea procures. The whole circuit of the city is made very strong
For Latin Prose Historical. 93
both, by nature and art. For the walls are built upon a rock,
which partly by nature and partly from the labour of art, is very
steep and broken. It is surrounded also by rivers on different
sides : on the side towards the south by a river of the same name
as the city ; and on the west and south-west by that which is
called the Hypsas. The citadel, which stands upon a hill upon the
north-east side, is secured all around the outside by a deep and
inaccessible valley : and has one way only by which it may be
entered from the city. On the summit of the hill is a temple
dedicated to Minerva, and another to Jupiter Atabyrius as at
Rhodes. For, as the Agrigentines were a colony from Rhodes,
they gave to this deity not improperly the same appellation by
which he was distinguished in the island from which they came.
The city also itself, which is in all respects magnificent, is adorned
with piazzas and temples. Among these the temple of Olympian
Jupiter, though not finished with so much splendour, is equal in
size and design to any of the temples of Greece.
LIVY, xxiv. c. 3. xxviii. c. 4. xliv. c. 46.
CICERO, In Verrem. Act ii. lib. iv. 117, sqq. TACITUS, Hist. v. c. 11.
CJESAB, Btll. Gall. vii. c. 69.
DESTRUCTION OF THE IMAGE OF SERAPIS REFLECTIONS
ON IDOL-WORSHIP.
THE colossal statue of Serapis was involved in the ruin of his
temple and religion. A great number of plates of different
metals, artificially joined together, composed the majestic figure of
the deity, who touched on either side the walls of the sanctuary.
The aspect of Serapis, his sitting posture, and the sceptre which he
bore in his left hand, were extremely similar to the ordinary repre-
sentations of Jupiter. He was distinguished from Jupiter by the
basket or bushel, which was placed on his head ; and by the
emblematic monster, which he held in his right hand, the head
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and body of a serpent branching into three tails, which were again
terminated by the triple heads of a dog, a lion, and a wolf. It was
confidently affirmed that if any impious hand should dare to
violate the majesty of the god, the heavens and the earth would
instantly return to their original chaos. An intrepid soldier,
animated by zeal, and armed with a weighty battle-axe, ascended
the ladder ; and even the Christian multitude expected, with some
anxiety, the event of the combat. He aimed a vigorous stroke
against the cheek of Serapis ; the cheek fell to the ground ; the
thunder was still silent, and both the heavens and the earth con-
tinued to preserve their accustomed order and tranquillity. The
victorious soldier repeated his blows : the huge idol was over-
thrown, and broken in pieces ; and the limbs of Serapis were
ignominiously dragged through the streets of Alexandria. His
mangled carcase was burnt in the amphitheatre, amidst the shouts
of the populace ; and many persons attributed their conversion to
this discovery of the impotence of their tutelar deity. The popular
modes of religion, that propose any visible and material objects of
worship, have the advantage of adapting and familiarizing them-
selves to the senses of mankind ; but this advantage is counter-
balanced by the various and inevitable accidents to which the faith
of the idolater is exposed. It is scarcely possible, that in every
disposition of mind, he should preserve his implicit reverence for
the idols, or the relics, which the naked eye and the profane hand
are unable to distinguish from the most common productions of art
or nature ; and if in the hour of danger their secret and miraculous
virtue does not operate for their own preservation, he scorns the
vain apologies of his priests, and justly derides the object and the
folly of his superstitious attachment.
After the fall of Serapis, some hopes were still entertained by the
pagans, that the Nile would refuse 'his annual supply to the
impious masters of Egypt; and the extraordinary delay of the
inundation seemed to announce the displeasure of the river-god.
But the delay was soon compensated by the rapid swell of the
waters. They suddenly rose to such an unusual height, as to
For Latin Prose Historical. 95
comfort the discontented party with the pleasing expectation of a
deluge ; till the peaceful river again subsided to the well-known
and fertilizing level of sixteen cubits, or about thirty English feet.
G-ibbon.
TACITUS, Hist. iv. c. 82, 84. ii. c. 3. MACROBIUS, Satumal. i. c. 20.
PLINY, Nat. Hist, xxxiii. 24. LUCAN, Pharsal. iii. v. 426, sqq.
CICERO, In Verrem. Act ii. lib. iv. o, 99-101.
DESCRIPTION OF SALONA.
A MISERABLE village still preserves the name of Salona.
About six or seven miles from the city Diocletian con-
structed a magnificent palace, and we may infer, from the greatness
of the work, how long he had meditated his design of abdicating
the empire. The choice of a spot which united all that could
contribute either to health or to luxury did not require the
partiality of a native. " The soil was dry and fertile, the air is
pure and wholesome, and, though extremely hot during the
summer months, this country seldom feels those sultry and noxious
winds to which the coasts of Istria and some parts of Italy are
exposed. The views from the palace are no less beautiful than
the soil and climate were inviting. Towards the west lies the
fertile shore that stretches along the Adriatic, in which a number
of small islands are scattered in such a manner as to give this part
of the sea the appearance of a great lake. On the north side lies
the bay, which led to the ancient city of Salona ; and the country
beyond it forms a proper contrast to that more extensive prospect
of water which the Adriatic presents both to the south and to the
east." Gibbon.
LIVY, xxiv. c. 3. xxvi. c. 42. PLINY, Epist. lib. v. 6. vi. 31.
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MAUSOLEUM OF AUGUSTUS.
HARD by the banks of the Tiber, in the grassy meadow
where the Roman youths disported themselves in athletic
and martial exercises, there rose a lofty marble tower with three
retiring stages, each of which had its terrace filled with earth and
planted with cypresses. These stages were pierced with numerous
chambers, destined to receive row within row and story upon story
the remains of every member of the imperial family, with many
thousands of their slaves and freedmen. In the centre of that
massive mound the great founder of the empire was to sleep his
last sleep, while his statue was ordained to rise conspicuous on its
summit, and satiate its everlasting gaze with the view of his
beloved city. Marcellus was the first for whom these lofty portals
opened. The people followed his remains with unavailing lamen-
tations, heaping reproaches on the unkindness of the gods, and
whispering horrid suspicions of the unfair practices of Julia. The
season, indeed, had been unusually fatal ; but in these cases the
breath of rumour can never be wiped away, and every historian has
thought it necessary to record that the guilt of Marcellus's death
was imputed at least to the mother of Tiberius. The emperor had
the fortitude to pronounce in person the panegyric of his favourite,
and dedicated in his name a magnificent theatre in the Campus
Martins. But amidst the vain and perishable memorials of the
deceased, which Augustus might fondly love to accumulate, he was
fortunate in obtaining from the gratitude of Virgil a monument
nobler and more durable than stone. Merivale.
SUETONIUS, Octav. c. 100. VIHGIL, ^En. vi. 872.
PLINY, Epist. lib. vi. 10. vii. 29. HORACE, Carm. iii. 30.
CHARNEL-FIELD OF THE CAMPUS ESQUILINUS TURNED
INTO A PARK BY MAECENAS.
THE prospect which this mansion embraced, the most varied
and extensive in Rome, was defaced by the frightful
charnel-neld of the Campus Esciuilinus, which lay at its feet
I* !**
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outside tlie city. Here between the roads which issued from the
Esquiliue and Viminal gates was the plot assigned for casting out
the carcasses of slaves, whose foul and half-burnt remains were
abandoned miserably to the vultures. The accursed field was
enclosed by neither wall nor fence to exclude the wandering steps
of man or beast, and from the public walk on the summit of the
ridge it must have been viewed in all its horrors. Here prowled in
troops the houseless dogs of the city and the suburbs ; here skulked
the solitary wolf from the Alban hills, and here, perhaps to the
doleful murmurs of the Marsic chant, the sorceress compounded her
philtres of the ashes of dead men's bones, tempered, with the sighs
of murdered children. It was high time to sweep away for ever
this abomination of a barbarous antiquity, now becoming a source
of pestilence to the habitations which daily encroached more
closely upon it, as well as offensive to every natural feeling.
Maecenas deserved the gratitude of the citizens when he obtained
from the emperor a grant of this piece of ground, cleansed it from
its pollutions, and transformed it into a spacious park or garden,
which was either itself thrown open for the recreation of the people,
or allowed at least to present an agreeable object to the frequenters
of the terrace above it. Merivale.
HORACE, Sat. I. viii, 14, sqq. Epod. v. 15, sqq.
TACITUS, Ann. xv. c. 42, 43. YIKGIL, JEn. vii. 753, sqq.
THE DUTCH NAVIGATORS SMALLNESS AND CLUMSINESS
OF THEIR SHIPS.
THE instruments of navigation too were but rude and defective
compared to the beautiful machinery with which modern
art and science now assist their votaries along the dangerous path
of discovery. The small yet unwieldy, awkward, and to the
modern mind most grotesque, vessels in which such audacious deeds
were performed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, awaken
H
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perpetual astonishment. A ship of a hundred tons burden built
up like a tower, both at stem and stern, and presenting in its broad
bulbous prow, its width of beam in proportion to its length, its
depression amidships, and its other sins against symmetry, as much
opposition to progress over the waves as could well be imagined
was the vehicle in which those indomitable Dutchmen circum-
navigated the globe and confronted the Arctic terrors of either
pole. Motley.
TACITUS, Ann. ii. c. 6. LIVY, xxviii. c. 45, ad fin.
CJESAR, Bell Gall. iii. c. 13.
PARMA'S BRIDGE OVER THE SCHELDT SIEGE OF
ANTWERP, A.D. 1585.
AS already stated, two strong structures, supported upon
piers, had been projected, reaching respectively 500 feet
into the stream. These two opposite ends were now connected
by a permanent bridge of boats. There were thirty-two of
these barges, each of them sixty-two feet in length, and twelve
in breadth, the spaces between each couple being twenty-two
feet wide, and all being bound together, stem, stern, and midships,
by quadruple hawsers and chains. Each boat was anchored at
stem and stern with loose cables. Strong timbers, with cross
rafters, were placed upon the boats, upon which heavy frame-
work the planked pathway was laid down. A thick parapet
of closely-fitting beams was erected along both the outer edges
of the whole fabric. Thus a continuous and well-fortified bridge,
2,400 feet in length, was stretched at last from shore to
shore. Each of the thirty-two boats, on which the central portion
of the structure reposed, was a small fortress, provided with two
heavy pieces of artillery, pointing, the one up, the other down
the stream, and manned by thirty-two soldiers and four sailors,
defended by a breast-work formed of gabions of great thickness.
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But, besides these "batteries, an additional precaution had been
taken. On each side, above and below the bridge, at a moderate
distance a bow-shot was anchored a heavy raft, floating upon
empty barrels. Each raft was composed of heavy timbers, bound
together, in bunches of three, the spaces between being connected
by ships' masts and lighter spar work, and with a tooth-like pro-
jection along the whole outer edge, formed of strong rafters, pointed
and armed with sharp prongs and hooks of iron. Thus a serried
phalanx, as it were, of spears, stood ever on guard to protect
the precious inner structure. Vessels coming from Zeeland or
Antwerp, and the floating ice-masses which were almost as for-
midable, were obliged to make their first attack upon these
dangerous outer defences. Each raft, floating in the middle of
the stream, extended 1,252 feet across, thus protecting the
whole of the bridge of boats, and a portion of that resting upon
piles.
CJESAR, Sell. Gall. iv. c. 17. vii. c. 23. Sell. Civil ii. c. 9, 10.
LlVY, xxi. c. 26, ad fin., 28. xxiv. c. 33, 34.
LUCAN, Pharsal. iv. 415, sqq.
SECULAR GAMES OF THE AZTECS.
WE have seen in the preceding chapter the Mexican's tradi-
tion of the destruction of the world at four successive
epochs. They looked forward confidently to another such cata-
strophe, to take place, like the preceding, at the close of a cycle,
when the sun was to be effaced from the heavens, the human race
from the earth, and when the darkness of chaos was to settle on the
habitable globe. The cycle would end in the latter part of Decem-
ber, and as the dreary season of the winter solstice approached,
and the diminished light of day gave melancholy presage of its
approaching extinction, their apprehensions increased ; and on
the arrival of the five unlucky days which closed the year they
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abandoned themselves to despair. They broke in pieces the little
images of their household gods, in whom they no longer trusted.
The holy fires were suffered to go out in the temples, and none
were lighted in their own dwellings. Their furniture and domestic
utensils were destroyed ; their garments torn in pieces, and every-
thing was thrown into disorder for the coming of the evil genii who
were to descend on the desolate earth.
On the evening of the last day a procession of priests, assuming
the dress and ornaments of their gods, moved from the capital
towards a lofty mountain, about two leagues distant. They
carried with them a noble victim, the flower of their captives,
and an apparatus for kindling the new fire, the success of which
was an augury of the renewal of the cycle. On reaching the
summit of the mountain the procession paused till midnight,
when, as the constellation of the Pleiades approached the zenith,
the new fire was kindled by the friction of the sticks placed on
the wounded breast of the victim. The flame was soon commu-
nicated to a funeral pile, on which the body of the slaughtered
captive was thrown. Prcscott.
LIVY, x. c. 38. TACITUS, Hist. iv. c. 53. German, c. 39, 40.
SECULAR GAMES OF THE AZTECS. (Continued.}
AS the light streamed up towards heaven shouts of joy and
triumph burst forth from the countless multitudes who
covered the hills, the terraces of the temples, and the house-tops,
with eyes anxiously bent on the mount of sacrifice. Couriers, with
torches lighted at the blazing beacon, rapidly bore them over
every part of the country ; and the cheering element was seen
brightening on altar and hearthstone for the circuit of many a
league, long before the sun, rising on his accustomed track, gave
assurance that a new cycle had commenced its march, and that the
laws of nature were not to be reversed for the Aztecs.
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The following thirteen days were given up to festivity. The
houses were cleansed and whitened ; the broken vessels were
replaced by new ones ; the people dressed in their gayest apparel,
and crowned with garlands and chaplets of flowers, thronged in
joyous procession to offer up their oblations and thanksgivings
in the temples. Dances and games were instituted, emblematical
of the regeneration of the world. It was the carnival of the
Aztecs, or rather the national jubilee, the great secular festival,
like that of the Romans, or ancient Etruscans, which few alive
had witnessed before, or could expect to see again. Prescott.
SUETONIUS, Tiberius, c. 5. LIVY, x. c. 38. xxvii. c. 51.
xxxiii. c. 33. TACITUS, Hist. iv. c. 53. German, c. 39, 40.
POLITY OF THE ANCIENT BRITONS.
THE Britons were divided into many small nations or tribes,
and being a military people, whose sole property was their
arms and their cattle, it was impossible, after they had acquired
a relish of liberty, for their princes or chieftains to establish any
despotic authority over them. The governments, though monar-
chical, were free, as well as those of all the Celtic nations ; and the
common people seem even to have enjoyed more liberty among them
than among the nations of Gaul, from whom they were descended.
Each state was divided into factions within itself : it was agitated
with jealousy or animosity against the neighbouring states : and
while the arts of peace were yet unknown, wars were the chief
occupation, and formed the principal object of ambition among the
people.
TACITUS, Agricola, c. 12. C.ESAK, Bell Gall. v. c. 12, 14.
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POLITY OF THE ANCIENT GERMANS.
WITH the Germans, the sovereignty resided in the great
assembly of the people. There were slaves, indeed, but
in small number, consisting either of prisoners of war, or of those
unfortunates who had gambled away their liberties in games of
chance. Their chieftains, although called by the Romans princes
and kings, were, in reality, generals, chosen by universal suffrage.
Elected in the great assembly to preside in war, they were raised
on the shoulders of martial freemen, amid wild battle-cries and the
clash of spear and shield. The army consisted entirely of volunteers,
and the soldier was for life infamous who deserted the field while
his chief remained alive. The same great assembly elected the
village magistrates, and decided upon all important matters both of
peace and war.
TACITUS, German, c. 11, 12, 13, 14. CAESAR, Sell. Gull. vi. c. 11-28.
THE SUE VI THEIR SUPERSTITION AND WARLIKE
CHARACTER.
IJS" that part of Upper Saxony beyond the Elbe, which is at
present called the Marquisate of Lusace, there existed in
ancient times a sacred wood, the awful seat of the superstition
of the SuevL Kone were permitted to enter the holy precincts
without confessing, 'by their servile bonds and suppliant posture,
the immediate presence of the sovereign Deity. Patriotism con-
tributed as well as devotion to consecrate the Somnenwald, or
wood of the Semnones. It was universally believed that the nation
had received its first existence on that sacred spot. At stated
periods the numerous tribes who gloried in the Suevic blood
resorted thither by their ambassadors ; and the memory of their
common extraction was perpetuated by barbaric rites and human
sacrifices. The wide-extended name of Suevi filled the interior
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countries of Germany, from the banks of the Oder to those of
the Danube. They were distinguished from the other Germans
by their peculiar mode of dressing their long hair, which they
gathered into a rude knot on the crown of the head : and they
delighted in an ornament that showed their ranks more lofty and
terrible in the eyes of the enemy. Jealous as the Germans were
of military renown, they all confessed the superior valour of the
Suevi : and the tribes of the Usipetes and Teucteri, who with a vast
army encountered the Dictator Caesar, declared that they esteemed
it not a disgrace to have fled before a people to whose arms the
immortal gods themselves were unequal. Gibbon.
LIVY, ix. c. 36. TACITUS, Germania, c. 38, 39.
, Bell. Gull. iv. c. 2, 3, 7. LUCAIST, Pharsal. iii. 399, sqq.
MANNERS OF THE ANCIENT GERMANS.
THESE northern people were distinguished by tall stature,
blue eyes, red hair and beards. They were indefatigable
in war, but indolent in sedentary labours. They endured hunger
more patiently than thirst, and cold than the heat of the meridian
sun. They disdained towns as the refuge of a timorous, and the
hiding-places of a thievish populace. They burnt them in the
countries which they conquered, or suffered them to fall into
decay ; and centuries elapsed before they surrounded their villages
with walls. Their huts, dispersed like those of the Alpine people,
were placed on the banks of rivulets, or near fountains, or in
woods, or in the midst of fields. Every farm constituted a distinct
centre round which the herds of the owner wandered, or where
among agricultural tribes the women and slaves tilled the land.
The Germans used very little clothing, for the habit of enduring
cold served them in its stead. The hides of beasts, the spoils of
the chase, hung from the shoulders of the warriors ; and the
women wore woollen coats ornamented with feathers, or with
patches of skins which they selected for their splendid and various
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tints. The use of clothes which, fitting accurately the different
parts of the body, covered the whole of it, was introduced many
ages afterwards, and was looked upon even then as a signal cor-
ruption of manners. Burl\e.
TACITUS, German, c. 4, 15, 17.
C-ZESAR, Bell. Gall. iv. c. 1-3. vi. c. 11-28.
LEGEND RESPECTING BRITAIN.
ONE hundred and lifty years after the reign of He-norms, the
gravest historian of the times describes the wonders of a
remote isle, whose eastern and western parts are divided by an
antique wall, the boundary of life and death, or more properly
of truth and fiction. The east is a fair country, inhabited by a
civilized people ; the air is healthy, the waters are pure and plen-
tiful, and the earth yields her regular and fruitful increase. In the
west, beyond the Avail, the air is infectious and mortal : the ground
is covered with serpents, and this dreary solitude is the region of
departed spirits, who -are transported from the opposite shores in
substantial boats and by living rowers. Some families of fishermen,
the subjects of the Franks, are excused from tribute in consider-
ation of the mysterious office which is performed by these Charons
of the ocean. Each in his turn is summoned, at the hour of
midnight, to hear the voices and even the names of the ghosts :
he is sensible of their weight : and he feels himself impelled by
an unknown but irresistible power. After this dream of fancy we
read with astonishment that the name of this island is Brittia :
that it lies in the ocean over against the mouth of the Ehine, and
less than thirty miles from the continent, and that it is possessed
by three nations, the Frisians, the Angles, and the Britons.
Gibbon.
TACITUS, Agricola, c. 6, 12.
VIRGIL, Gto. i. 231-251. <<En. vi. 300, sqq.
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ANCIENT AFRICA.
AFEIC is indeed a country of wonderful fertility. How blame-
able then is Tiinseus, who not only neglected to acquire a
proper knowledge of these matters, but with a childish weakness,
destitute of judgment, and trusting to the credit of ancient stories,
which have been long ago exploded, represents this whole part of
the world as a dry and barren sand, incapable of producing any
fruits. Nor is this country less remarkable with respect to the ani-
mals with which it abounds. For not only horses and oxen, but
sheep also and goats, are found in it more numerous than any other
part of the world perhaps can show. Upon this account it is, that
many of the inhabitants of this vast country, neglecting the culti-
vation of the lands, live upon the flesh of their cattle, and among
their cattle. Every one also knows that Afric breeds elephants,
lions, and leopards in great numbers, and of surprising strength ;
together with buffaloes, which are extremely beautiful, and ostriches
of an enormous size ; and that none of these animals are found in
any part of Europe ; but Timseus is silent with respect to all these
things ; and seems indeed as if he had designed to give such a
description of this country as should be contrary to the truth.
SALLUST, Bell. Jugurtli. c. 17.
INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
I PURPOSE to write the history of England from the accession
of King James the Second, down to a time which is within the
memory of men still living. I shall recount the errors which, in a
few months alienated a loyal gentry and priesthood from the House
of Stuart. I shall trace the course of that revolution which termi-
nated the long struggle between our sovereigns and their parliaments,
and bound up together the rights of the people and the title of the
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reigning dynasty. I shall relate how the new settlement was,
during many troubled years, successfully defended against foreign
and domestic enemies ; how, under that settlement, the authority of
law and the security of property were found to be compatible with
a liberty of discussion and of individual action never before known :
how, from the auspicious union of order and freedom, sprang a
prosperity of which the annals of human affairs had furnished no
example ; how our country, from a state of ignominious vassalage,
rapidly rose to the place of umpire among European powers ; how
her opulence and her martial glory grew together ; how, by wise
and resolute good faith, was gradually established a public credit
fruitful of marvels which to statesmen of any former age would
have seemed incredible ; how a gigantic commerce gave birth to a
maritime power, compared with which every other maritime power,
ancient or modern, sinks into insignificance ; how Scotland, after
ages of enmity, was at length united to England, not merely by
legal bonds, but by indissoluble bonds of interest and affection ;
how, in America, the British colonies rapidly became far mightier
and wealthier than the realms which Cortes and Pizarro had added
to the dominions of Charles the Fifth ; how, in Asia, British adven-
turers founded an empire not less splendid and more durable than
that of Alexander. Lord Macaulay.
LIVY, Preface, xxi. c. 1. FLOE.US, i. c. 1.
TACITUS, Hist. i. c. 1-4. SALLUST, Catilin. c. G, 12.
SEEDS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION SOWN BY THE
COURT OF THE REGENCY.
UPON the death of Louis XIV. the court threw off the hypo-
critical mask, and gloried in its unblushing infamy. The
Regent had no respect for virtue, and no desire to conceal his great
contempt for it. Restraint was weakness. The consequence of the
change was soon evident enough. Infidelity and immorality, that
For Latin Prose Historical. 107
blazed at the apex of society, found their way rapidly to its broad
and wide extended base. Literature reflected the tone of the
palace ; generally sparkling and clever, the publications of the day
were always intolerably indecent. The bloodiest heroes of the
Revolution were the sons and grandsons of the men who had been
taught by their rulers that there is no God in the universe, and no
happiness on earth that is not found in the overthrow of the moral
sense, and in the anarchy of the passions. The rising of the people
against authority, at the close of the eighteenth century had been
preceded by the rising of authority against the people at the begin-
ning of it. Had the Duke of Orleans, the nephew of Louis XIV.,
kept faith with the parliament, his last memorable descendant in all
probability would never have reached his kingly eminence, or earned
his bitter suffering. He broke that faith, he unloosed the bands
that kept society together, and so prepared the way for a catastrophe
that filled Europe with horror and amazement, but made no impres-
sion upon any member of the House of Orleans.
SALLTJST, Catrtin. c. 11-11. JTTVEXAL, Sat. iv. 150.
PLIXY, Panegyr. c. 48, 49.
THE PEACE PARTYTHEIR INFLUENCE FORFEITED IN A
SPECIAL CASE BY THE GENERAL EXTRAVAGANCE
OF THEIR DOCTRINES.
UPO^N" the question of peace or war (the very question upon
which more than any other a man might well desire to
make his counsels tell) these two gifted men had forfeited their
hold upon the ear of the country. They had forfeited it by their
former want of moderation. It was not by any intemperate words
upon- the question of this war with Eussia that they had shut them-
selves out from the counsels of the nation ; but in former years
they had adopted and put forward in their strenuous way some of
the most extravagant doctrines of the Peace Party. In times when
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no war was in question, they had run down the practice of war in
terms so broad and indiscriminate that they were understood to
commit themselves to a disapproval of all wars not strictly defen-
sive, and to decline to treat as defensive those wars which, although
not waged against an actual invader of the Queen's dominions,
might still be undertaken "by England in the performance of a
European duty r or for the purpose of checking the undue ascen-
dancy of another Power. Of course the knowledge that they held
doctrines of this wide sort disqualified them from arguing with any
effect against the war then impending. A man cannot have weight
as the opponent of any particular war if he is one who is known to
be against almost all war. It is vain for him to offer to be moderate
for the nonce, and to propose to argue the question in a way which
his hearers will recognise. Practical men know that his mind is
under the sway of an antecedent determination which dispenses him
from the more narrow but more important inquiry in which they
are engaged. Kinylake.
LIVY, xxiii. c. 13. CICERO, Phil xiii. ad init.
CONVENTION OF CINTRA, A.D. 1808.
MUCH of the subsequent clamour in England against the
authors of this treaty sprang from the error of confound-
ing grounds of argument essentially distinct. Conquest being
the sole foundation of any rights on the part of the French,
defeat, if complete, extinguished them, if incomplete, nullified a
part only. JSTow the issue of the appeal to arms not having been
answerable to the justice of the cause, an agreement ensued by
which a part was sacrificed for the sake of the remainder, and
upon the terms of that agreement the whole question of right
hinges. If the French were not prisoners of war, it follows
that they had not forfeited their claims, founded on the right
of conquest, but they were willing to exchange an insecure tenure
For Latin Prose Historical. 109
of the whole for a secure tenure of a part. The difficulty con-
sisted in denning exactly what was conceded, and what should
be recovered from them. With respect to the latter, the resti-
tution of plunder acquired anterior to the convention was clearly
out of the question ; if officially made, it was part of the rights
bargained for; and if individually, to what tribunal could the
innumerable claims which would follow such an article be referred 1 ?
Abstract notions of right in such a matter are misplaced. If
an enemy surrenders at discretion, the victors may say with
Brennus, "Woe to the vanquished;" but a convention implies
some weakness, and must be weighed in the scales of prudence,
not in those of justice.
CICERO, De Ojficiis, i. 33-41.
LIVY, xxi. c. 19. xxiv. c. 29. xxxix. c. 28.
LIBERTY IN AMERICA CONTRASTED WITH EARLIER
FORMS OF REPUBLICAN FREEDOM.
r I "'HERE had been nothing like it before in history. Greece
-L and Rome, though incomparably superior in their moral
and intellectual productions to the monarchies of the East, though
presenting in the intensity of their patriotism the narrow prototype
of an ampler fellowship to come, were, as was said before, really
republics of masters, the mass of the people being slaves. The
free cities of Italy, of Germany, of Flanders, produced, in virtue
of their freedom, fruits of civilization, as well as of industry,
far nobler and more abundant than those which were produced by
great feudal kingdoms. But their liberties were mere burgher
liberties, deeply tainted with the tyranny of guild over guild, of
city over city, of the inhabitants of the cities over the peasantry
beneath their sway : based upon no broad principles of equity or
respect for human rights, and doomed by their vices to an
extinction which we inourn for the sake of art, but which we
OF THF
UNIVERSITY
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cannot call unjust. Nor had these municipalities ever entirely cast
off the idea of allegiance to a suzerain, or pronounced in unfalter-
ing accents the name of freedom. The nation of the Old "World
which has approached most nearly to a commonwealth, though
under monarchical and aristocratical forms, is that of which, in
the hour when the love of the public good was strongest in the
hearts of its citizens and their political character at its grandest
elevation, the American Republic was born.
CICERO, De Repub. i. 44-50. TACITUS, Ann. iii. c. 24, 28.
LIVY, ii. c. 7. xxiii. c. 32, 33. SALLUST, Catilin. c. 7, 10.
RUINOUS EFFECTS OF JEALOUSY IN THE ITALIAN
REPUBLICS.
THE peace of Constance presented a noble opportunity to
the Lombards of establishing a permanent federal union
of small republics a form of government congenial from the
earliest ages to Italy, and that perhaps under which she is again
destined one day to nourish. They were entitled by the pro-
visions of that treaty to preserve their league, the basis of a more
perfect confederacy which the course of events would have eman-
cipated from every kind of subjection to Germany. But dark
long-cherished hatreds, and that implacable vindictiveness which,
at least in former ages, distinguished the private manners of
Italy, deformed her national character, which can only be the
aggregate of individual passions. For revenge she threw away
the pearl of great price, and sacrificed even the recollection of
that liberty which had stalked like an avenging spirit among the
ruins of Milan. It passed away,, that high disdain of absolute
power, that steadiness and self-devotion which raised the half-
civilized Lombards to the level of those ancient republics from
whose history our first notions of freedom and virtue are derived.
The victim by turns of selfish and sanguinary factions, of petty
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tyrants, and of foreign invaders, Italy lias fallen like a star from
its place in heaven ; she has seen her harvests trodden down by
the horses of the stranger, and the blood of her children wasted in
quarrels not their own : conquering or conquered, in the indignant
language of her poet, still alike a slave, a long retribution for the
tyranny of Rome. Hallam.
TACITUS, De Orat. c. 36. Annals, iii. c. 26, 27.
SALLTJST, Catilin. c. 53. Jugurth. c. 41.
ENGLAND'S VICTORIES DUE TO THE PROWESS OP HER
YEOMAN-ARCHERS.
SO great was the disparity of numbers upon those famous days,
that we cannot, with the French historians, attribute the
discomfiture of their hosts merely to mistaken tactics and too
impetuous valour. They yielded rather to that intrepid steadiness
in danger which had already become the characteristic of our
English soldiers, and which during five centuries has insured their
superiority, whenever ignorance or infatuation has not led them
into the field. But these victories and the qualities that secured
them must chiefly be ascribed to the freedom of our constitution,
and to the superior condition of the people. Not the nobility of
England won the battles of Crecy and Poitiers, for these were fully
matched in the ranks of France. It is well known that each of
the three great victories was due to our archers, who were chiefly of
the middle class. The yeomen who drew the bow with strong
and steady arms had become accustomed to its use in their
native fields, and had been rendered fearless by personal com-
petence and civil freedom. Hallam.
LIVY, ix. c. 17. xxiv. c. 15.
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THE ROMAN COUNTRY TRIBES THEIR J3USWESS AND
RECREA TIONS.
THE members of the country tribes, of those at least which
had been created within the last century, lived on their
lands, and probably only went up to Some to vote at the elec-
tions, or when any law of great national importance was proposed,
and there was a powerful party opposed to its enactment. They
were also obliged to appear in the Capitol on the day fixed by
the consuls for the enlistment of soldiers for the legions. Law
business might also call them up to Rome occasionally, and the
Roman games, or any other great festival, would no doubt draw
them thither in great numbers. With these exceptions, and when
they were not serving in the legions, they lived on their small
properties in the country ; their business was agriculture, their
recreations Avere country sports, and their social pleasures were
found in the meetings of their neighbours at seasons of festival ;
at these times there would be dancing, music, and often some pan-
tomimic acting, or some rude attempts at dramatic dialogue, one of
the simplest and most universal amusements of the human mind.
This was enough to satisfy all their intellectual cravings ; of the
beauty of painting or sculpture, of the charms of eloquence, and
of the highest poetry, of the deep interest which can be excited by
inquiry into the causes of all the wonders around us and within us,
of some of the highest and most indispensable enjoyments of an
Athenian's nature, the agricultural Romans of the fifth century
had no notion whatsoever.
LIVY, vii. c. 2. CICERO, pro Plancio, 9.
JUVENAL, Sat. iii. 168-184. xi. 56, sqq.
HORACE, Ars. Poet. 202, sqq. VIRGIL, Geo. ii. 513, sqq.
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GREEDINESS OF THE ROMANS IN AMASSING GREEK
WORKS OF ART.
FROM the time of the consul Mummius, who, whilst he plun-
dered the city of Corinth of its beautiful productions of art,
regarded them rather as household furniture, than as pieces of exqui-
site skill, the avidity of the Romans for the work of the Grecian
artists had been progressively increasing, till at length they became
the first objects of proconsular rapacity, in the highest gratification
of patrician luxury. The astonishing number which Verres had
acquired during his government of Sicily, forms one of the most
striking features of the invectives of Cicero ; who asserts, that
throughout that whole province, so distinguished by the riches and
taste of its inhabitants, there was not a single statue or figure, either
of bronze, marble, or ivory, not a picture, or a piece of tapestry, not
a gem or a precious stone, not even a gold or silver utensil, of the
workmanship of Corinth or of Delos, which Verres during his prse-
torship, had not sought out and examined, and if he approved of
it, brought it away with him ; insomuch that Syracuse under his
government, lost more statues than it had lost soldiers in the victory
of Marcellus. Such, however, was the desolation which took place
in Italy during the middle ages, that of the innumerable specimens
of art which had decorated the palaces and villas of the Roman
nobility, scarcely a specimen or a vestige was., in the beginning of
the fifteenth century, to be discovered.
CICERO, In Verrem. Act ii. lib. iv. 1, 2, 46, 47. Act i. 13, 14.
JUVENAL., viii. 87, sqq.
GRADUAL EXTENSION OF BRITISH DOMINION IN INDIA.
FOR two centuries, the history of the British possessions in
India was the history of accumulated successes. Dangers
there had been, and difficulties, but each onward movement, with
i
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here and there a fluctuation, ended in a triumph which that fluctua-
tion enhanced. There is no record of so many and such prosperous
struggles leading to such a supremacy in the previous annals of any
people save of the Eomans alone. Here, too, as there, the empire
seemed to grow by the very necessity of the case, New contracts
brought new collisions. The sagacity of the civilized race, the
steadfastness of the disciplined host, here by negotiation, there by
the shock of armies, widened the circle of conquest. There was
nothing which could be called a reverse to shade the bright outline
except that one instance which invested with horror the name of
Sooraj-ud-Dowlah. The memory of disasters is lost in the keener
recollection of disgrace. "We boast no longer that the flag of Britain
in India is free from the soil of dishonour. Koine had her Furcse
Caudinse. On the page of the English historian will stand out for
ever a blot unerased the tale of the Khyber Pass.
FLORUS, iii. c. 12. LIVY, ix. c. 7.
IMPOSSIBILITY OF ESCAPE FROM THE TYRANNY OF A
ROMAN EMPEROR. THE WORLD ONE PRISON TO 7"HE
VICTIMS OF HIS DISPLEASURE.
A MODEElsT tyrant, who should find no resistance either in his
*L\. own breast, or in his people, would soon experience a gentle
restraint from the example of his equals, the dread of present cen-
sure, the advice of his allies, and the apprehension of his enemies.
The object of his displeasure, escaping from the narrow limits of
his dominions, would easily obtain, in a happier climate, a secure
refuge, a new fortune adequate to his merit, the freedom of com-
plaint, and perhaps the means of revenge. But the empire of the
Eomans filled the world, and when that empire fell into the hands
of a single person, the world became a safe and dreary prison for
his enemies. The slave of imperial despotism, whether he was
condemned to drag his gilded chain in Eome and the senate, or to
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wear out a life of exile on the barren rock of Seriphus, or the
frozen banks of the Danube, expected his fate in silent despair.
To resist was fatal, and it was impossible to fly. On every side he
was encompassed with a vast extent of sea and land, which he
could never hope to traverse without being discovered, seized, and
restored to his irritated master. Beyond the frontiers, his anxious
view could discover nothing, except the ocean, inhospitable deserts,
hostile tribes of barbarians of fierce manners and unknown language,
or dependent kings, who would gladly purchase the emperor's
protection by the sacrifice of an obnoxious fugitive. " Wherever
you are," said Cicero to the exiled Marcellus, " remember that
you are equally within the power of the conqueror." Gibbon.
TACITUS, Ann. vi. c. 14. CICERO, Ep. ad Famil. iv. 7.
OVID, Trist. iii. el. 10. v. el. 1.
ROMAN EMPIRE IN ITS DECLINE.
I 1ST the first stages of the decline and fall of the Eoman empire,
our eye is invariably fixed on the royal city, which had given
laws to the fairest portion of the globe. We contemplate her
fortunes, at first with admiration, at length with pity, always with
attention ; and when that attention is diverted from the capital to
the provinces, they are considered as so many branches which have
been successively severed from the imperial trunk. The foundation
of a second Koine on the shores of the Bosphorus has compelled
the historian to follow the successors of Constantine ; and our
curiosity has been tempted to visit the most remote countries of
Europe and Asia, to explore the causes and the authors of the long
decay of the Byzantine monarchy. By the conquest of Justinian,
we have been recalled to the banks of the Tiber, to the deliverance
of the ancient metropolis; but that deliverance was a change, or
perhaps an aggravation, of servitude. Eome had been already
stripped of her trophies, her gods, and her Csesars ; nor was the
Gothic dominion more inglorious and oppressive than the tyranny
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of the Greeks. The name of Eome must yet command our involun-
tary respect ; the climate (whatsoever may be its influence) was no
longer the same : the purity of blood had been contaminated
through a thousand channels ; but the venerable aspect of her
ruins, and the memory of past greatness, rekindled a spark of the
national character. Gibbon.
LIVY, Preface, xxi. c. 1. FLORUS, i. c. 1, 22. ii. c. 19. iii. c. 12.
TACITUS, Ann. iv. c. 32, 33. Hist. iv. c. 54.
FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE NOT SO SURPRISING AS
ITS PERMANENCE.
THE rise of a city which swelled into an empire may deserve,
as a singular prodigy, the reflection of a philosophic mind.
But the decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable result of
immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay ;
the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest ;
and as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports,
the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight.
The story of its ruin is simple and obvious ; and instead of
inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed, we should rather
be surprised that it had subsisted so long. The victorious legions
who, in distant wars, acquired the vices of strangers and mercenaries,
first oppressed the freedom of the republic, and afterwards violated
the majesty of the purple. The emperors, anxious for their
personal safety and the public peace, were reduced to the base
expedient of corrupting the discipline which rendered them alike
formidable to their sovereign and to the enemy. The vigour of
the military government was released and finally dissolved by the
partial institutions of Constantine : and the Roman world was
overwhelmed by a deluge of barbarians. Gibbon.
SALLUST, Catilin. c. 53. Jugurth. c. 41. LIVY, Preface.
TACITUS, Hist. iv. c. 74.
HORACE, Carm. I. xxxv. 13, sqq. ; III. iv. 65.
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REAL DEGRADATION OF THE SO-CALLED GOLDEN AGE
OF ROME.
ALL this is true. A number of nations which had before
waged incessant war with one another had been forced into
a sort of unity. What court-poets call a golden age had set in.
Round the whole shore of the Mediterranean Sea and northward to
the Danube beyond the British Channel, national antipathies had
been suppressed, and war had ceased, while the lives of men were
regulated by an admirable code of laws. Yet, except to court-
poets, this age did not seem golden to those who lived in it. On
the contrary, they said it was something worse than an iron age ;
there was no metal from which they could name it. Never did
men live under such a crushing sense of degradation, never did
they look back with more bitter regret, never were the vices whicli
spring out of despair so rife, never was sensuality cultivated more
methodically, never did poetry curdle so readily into satire, never
was genius so much soured by cynicism, and never was calumny so
abundant, or so gross, or so easily believed. If morality depended
on laws, or happiness could be measured by comfort, this would
have been the most glorious era in the past history of mankind.
It was, in fact, one of the meanest and foulest, because a tone
or spirit is necessary to morality, and self-respect is needful to
happiness.
HORACE, Carm. IV. v. 15. OVID, Fast. T. 595-602, 611, sqq.
LIVY, xxxiii. c. 32, 33. xxxix. c. 6. JUVENAL, Sat. i. 87, sqq.
146, sqq. TACITUS, Hist. i. c. 1, 2, sqq. iii. c. 83. iv. c. 1, 2, 3.
Ann. xiv. c. 20, 21. SALLUST, Jugurth. c. 41. Catilin. c. 10-13.
DOWNFALL OF ROME THE NATURAL RESULT OF
CORRUPTION OF MORALS.
TO those who have duly estimated the considerations I have
enumerated, the downfall and moral debasement of the em-
pire can cause no surprise, though they may justly wonder that its
1 1 8 Materials and Models
agony should have "been" so protracted, that it should have produced
a multitude of good and great men, and that these should have
exercised as wide an influence as they unquestionably did. Almost
every institution or pursuit by which virtuous habits would natu-
rally have been formed had been tainted or destroyed, while agencies
of terrific power were impelling the people to vice. The rich,
excluded from most honourable paths of ambition, and surrounded
by countless parasites who inflamed their every passion, found
themselves absolute masters of innumerable slaves who were their
willing ministers, and often their teachers in vice. The poor, hating
industry, and destitute of all intellectual resources, lived in habitual
idleness, and looked upon abject servility as the normal road to for-
tune. Cut the picture becomes truly appalling when we remember
that the main amusement of both classes was the spectacle of blood-
shed, of the death, and sometimes of the torture, of men. The
gladiatorial games form, indeed, the one feature of Roman society
which to a modern mind is almost inconceivable in its atrocity.
That not only men but women, in an advanced period of civiliza-
tion men and women who not only professed but very frequently
acted upon a high code of morals should have made the carnage
of men their habitual amusement, that all this should have continued
for centuries with scarcely a protest, is one of the most startling
facts in moral history.
SALLUST, Jvgurtli. c. 41. Catilin. c. 10, 11, 12, 13.
SENECA, Epist. Moral, vii. PLINY, iv. Epist. 25. ix, Epist. 6.
TACITUS, Ann. xiv. c. 20, 21. CICEHO, Tusc. Disp. ii. 39, 41.
LIVY, xxxix. c. 6.
LEVITY OF THE ROMAN CHARACTER UNDER NERO.
YOUNG Eome of the time of JSTero was eminently conceited,
and I fear eminently shallow. Placing Seneca at their
head, as is the wont of the rising generation to shelter under a
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great name its own conscious self-distrust, the favourites of the
prince, accepted at the same time as the favourites of the multitude,
overbore the finer taste and judgment of the veterans of literature.
The faults and vices of youth were admired, humoured, and stimu-
lated. Reserve and modesty, persevering toil, patient self-examina-
tion, were regarded as irksome in themselves, and as a reflection on
the character of the prince. Talent flourished in such an atmo-
sphere, as in a forcing-house, but it was no climate for the natural
ripening of genius. The wit and cleverness of Lucan, considering
his years, is preternatural : the trumpet-tones of his scorn or admi-
ration, after more than thirty years' familiarity, still thunder in my
ears with startling intensity : but he has no divination of men and
things ; his imagination never clothes itself in the costume of the
past ; he is 'never transported out of himself ; he never saw the
conqueror of the Gauls ; he never trod the plains of ^Emathia.
TACITUS, De, Oratoribus, c. 29. Annah, xiii. c. 2, 3.
JUVENAL, Sat. vii. SALLUST, Catil. c. 10-13.
ROMAN SOCIETY IN THE TIME OF JUVENAL.
IT was a monstrous and unnatural period, that in which Juvenal
lived, of gigantic opulence and Titanic sin ; a time both of
blood and luxury ; when the world ate and drank more, and lied
and blasphemed more, and was at once more knowing and more
superstitious than it has ever been known to be. Something tropi-
cal is the effect that entering into it produces on the imagination
which still retains any healthy northern simplicity of character.
You gasp for air. The soul is in an atmosphere close and hot, cloudy
with coarse perfume; where the flowers and the vegetation have,
with monstrous proportions, something glaring and ghastly in their
beauty, and something sickly in their breath. Foul figures of every
land swarm round them brawny murderers from the Danube and
I2O Materials and Models.
dusky greasy scoundrels from the Nile. All that is bad is near.
There are sounds of revelry which are allied with unutterable
shame. The clashing of cymbals and the notes of lutes, the gleam
of gold and of wine do not charm here : they terrify. The smoke
of the wicked feasts blots the heaven above you, and, like the
drifting smoke from funeral piles, is heavy with the odours of
death. T. Hannay.
TACITUS, Hist. iii. c. 83. i. c. 2, 3. Ann. xiv. c. 20, 21.
SALLUST, Catilin. c. 10, 11, 12, 13. CICEEO, pro Sestio, 7, 8.
JUVENAL, Sat. i. iii.
AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS, xiv. c. 6. xxviii. c. 4.
LIVY, xxxix. c. G.
PART II.
C H AEA G TEES.
CHARACTER OF JAMES I. HIS INCONSISTENCY.
''''Nil cequale homini full illi."
HE was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge ;
sagacious in many individual cases, without having real
wisdom \ fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and aug-
ment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that and of him-
self, to the most unworthy favourites ; a big and bold assertor of
his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in
deeds ; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted ;
and one who feared war, where conquest might have been easy.
He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it
by undue familiarity ; capable of much public labour, yet often
neglecting it for the meanest amusement ; a wit, though a
pedant ; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the
ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not
uniform ; and there were moments of his Mfe, and those critical, in
which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in
trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required ; devout in
his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language; just
and beneficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and
oppressions of others. He was penurious respecting money which
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he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and un-
boundedly profuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those
good qualities which displayed themselves in particular cases and
occasions were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive
to regulate his general conduct ; and, showing themselves as they
occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed
on him by Sully that he was the wisest fool in Cliristendom.
Sir W. Scott.
SUETONIUS, Claud, c. 30, 31. SENECA, lusns de morte Claud, c. 5.
HOE. Sat. I. iii. 1-40.
JAMES I. CHARACTER OP A PEDANTIC KING.
NATURE and education had done their best to produce a
finished specimen of all that a king ought not to be.
His awkward figure, his rolling eye, his rickety walk, his ner-
vous tremblings, his slobbering mouth, his broad Scotch, accent,
were imperfections which might have have been found in the
best and greatest man. Their effect, however, was to make
James and his office objects of contempt, and to dissolve those
associations which had been created by the noble bearing of pre-
ceding monarchs, and which were in themselves no inconsiderable
fence to royalty. The sovereign whom James most resembled
was, we think, Claudius Csesar. Both had the same feeble
vacillating temper, the same childishness, the same coarseness,
the same poltroonery. Both were men of learning; both wrote
and spoke, not indeed well, but still in a manner which it seems
almost incredible that men so foolish should have written or
spoken. Claudius was ruled successively by two bad women,
James successively by two bad men. Lord Macaulay.
SUETONIUS, Claud, c. 30, 31. SENECA, lusus de morte Claud, c. 5.
For Latin Prose Characters. 123
CHARACTER OF PRINCE POTEMKIN.
IN this person were collected the most opposite defects and
advantages of every kind. He was avaricious and osten-
tatious, despotic and obliging, politic and confiding, licentious
and superstitious, bold and timid, ambitious and indiscreet ;
lavish of his bounties to his relations, his mistresses, and his
favourites ; yet frequently paying neither his household nor his
creditors. His consequence always depended on a woman, and
he was always unfaithful to her. Nothing could equal the
activity of his mind, nor the indolence of his body. No
dangers could appal his courage ; no difficulties force him to
abandon his projects. But the success of an enterprise always
brought on disgust. Everything with him was desultory : busi-
ness, pleasure, temper, courage. His presence was a restraint
on every company. He was morose to all that stood in awe
of him, and caressed all such as accosted him with fami-
liarity. One while he formed the project of becoming Duke
of Courland ; at another he thought of bestowing on himself
the crown of Poland. He built a superb palace, and wanted
to pull it down before it was finished. In his youth he had
pleased Catherine, by the ardour of his passion, by his valour,
and by his masculine beauty. He put out an eye to free it
from a blemish which marred its beauty. Banished by his
rival, he ran to meet death in battle, and returned with glory.
He died at the age of fifty-two. Byron.
TACITUS, Hist, i. c. 10. ii. c. 5. SALLUST, Catilin. c. 5, 22.
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.
r I ^HEKE is nothing more memorable in history than the
JL actions, fortunes, and character of this great man, whether
we consider the grandeur of the plans he formed, the courage
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and wisdom with which they were executed, or the splendour
of that success, which adorning his youth continued without the
smallest reserve to support his age even to the last moments
of his life. He lived above seventy years, and reigned, within
ten years, as long as he lived sixty over his dukedom, above
twenty over England both of which he acquired or kept by his
own magnanimity, with hardly any other title than he derived
from his arms ; so that he might be reputed in all respects as
happy as the highest ambition the most fully gratified, can make
a man. The silent inward satisfaction of domestic happiness he
neither had nor sought. He had a body suited to the character
of his mind ; erect, firm, large, and active, whilst to be active
was a praise ; a countenance stern, and which became command.
Magnificent in his living, reserved in his conversation, grave in
his common deportment, but relaxing with a wise facetiousness,
he knew how to relieve his mind, and preserve his dignity for
he never forfeited by a personal acquaintance that esteem he had
acquired by his great actions. Burke.
LIVY, ix. c. 16, sqq. TACITUS, Hist. i. c. 10, 48, 9. ii. c. 50, 86.
iii. c. 75, 86. iv. c. 5, 6. Ann. ii. c. 72, 73. iii. c. 30. iv. c. 1.
vi. c. 51. CICERO, Phil. ii. 116, 117. SUETONIUS, Octav. c. 79-84.
CHARACTER OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.
T T XLE AENED in books, he formed his understanding by the
v_y rigid discipline of a large and complicated experience. He
knew men much, and therefore generally trusted them but little ;
but when he knew any man to be good, he reposed in him an entire
confidence, which prevented his prudence from degenerating into a
vice. He had vices in his composition, and great ones ; but they
were the vices of a great mind : ambition, the malady of every
extensive genius, and avarice, the madness of the wise : one chiefly
actuated his youth, the other governed his age. The vices of young
and light minds, the joys of wine and the pleasures of love, never
For Latin Prose Characters. 125
reached his aspiring nature. The general run of men he looked on
with contempt, and treated with cruelty when they opposed him.
Nor was the vigour of his mind to be softened but with the appear-
ance of extraordinary fortitude in his enemies, which, by a sympa-
thy congenial to his own virtues, always excited his admiration and
ensured his mercy. So that there were often seen in this one man,
at the same time, the extremes of a savage cruelty and a generosity
that does honour to human nature. Hume.
LIVY, ix. c. 16, sqq. TACITUS, Hist. i. c. 10, 48, 9. ii. c. 50, 86.
iii. c. 75, 86. iv. c. 5, 6. Ann. ii. c. 72, 73. iii. c. 30.
iv. c. 1. vi. c. 51. CICERO, Phil. ii. 116, 117.
SUETONIUS, Octav. c. 66, 67. QUINTUS CUKTIUS, x. 6. 26.
CHARACTER OF DOMITIAN.
NERO had his social hours, and the temper to enjoy them.
His smile was attractive ; he could flatter and charm ; he
had companions and favourites, possibly friends and lovers. But
the genius of Domitian was always solitary and morose ; he seems
to have had no personal intimacies ; his humour, when he chose to
unbend, was caustic and saturnine. Shrewd enough to take an
accurate measure of the sycophants around him, he enjoyed a grim
satisfaction in playing on their fears. If you only talked with him
on the state of the weather, your life was at stake, says the satirist,
and you felt that it was at stake. In the depth of his dissimula-
tion he was an imitator of Tiberius, whom he professed to make his
model, both in his measures and his demeanour ; but the amuse-
ment he derived from dissembling with his victims was all his
own. Of the feats he performed in disguising his cruel intentions
from the wretches he was about to sacrifice, some ghastly stories
were circulated, which suffice at least to show the estimate com-
monly formed of him. Merivale.
JUVENAL, iv. 86. SUETONIUS, Domitian, c. 3, 11.
TACITUS, Hist. iv. c. 86.
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CHARACTER OF HENRY VIII. HIS VIOLENCE OF TEMPER.
BUT if lie was a bountiful master, lie was a most vindictive
enemy. His temper could not brook contradiction. Who-
ever hesitated to obey his will, or presumed to thwart his desire,
was marked out for his victim, and was pursued with the most
unrelenting vengeance. His passion was said to be the raving of a
madman, the fury of a savage beast. We are told that in its
paroxysms his eyes were spotted with blood, and his countenance
seemed of flame, his tongue poured a torrent of abuse and impreca-
tion, and his hands were employed to inflict vengeance on whatever
came within his reach ; and that on one occasion, when a favourite
minister had ventured to offer a plea in justification of the King of
Scots, Henry, in a burst of passion, called his minister a traitor,
threw down his cap, ungirt his sword, tore off his clothes, pulled
the silk coverlet from his couch, and, unable to do more mischief,
sat down, and gnawed the straw on the floor.
SENECA, DC, Ira, lib. iii. c. 14, 17, 21.
CICERO, Fhilipp. iii. 30, 31. vii. 17.
CHARACTER OF CHARLES II. HIS GOOD -NATURE AND
FRIVOLITY.
IT is creditable to Charles's temper that, ill as he thought of his
species, he never became a misanthrope. He saw little in
men but what was hateful. Yet he did not hate them. Nay, he
was so far humane that it was highly disagreeable to him to see
their sufferings, or to hear their complaints. This, however, is a
sort of humanity which, though amiable and laudable in a private
man, whose power to help or hurt is bounded by a narrow circle,
has in princes often been rather a vice than a virtue. More than
one well-disposed ruler has given up whole provinces to rapine
ml oppression, merely from a wish to see none but happy faces
For Latin Prose Characters. 127
round his own board and in his own walks. No man is fit to govern
great societies who hesitates about disobliging the few who have
access to him for the sake of the many whom he will never see.
The facility of Charles was such as has perhaps never been found in
any man of equal sense.
He was a slave without being a dupe. Worthless men and
women, to the very bottom of whose hearts he saw, and whom he
knew to be destitute of affection for him and undeserving of his
confidence, could easily wheedle him out of titles, places, domains,
state-secrets, and pardons. He bestowed much; yet he neither
enjoyed the pleasure nor acquired the fame of beneficence. He
never gave spontaneously ; but it was painful to him to refuse.
The consequence was, that his bounty generally went, not to those
who deserved it best, nor even to those whom he liked best, but to
the most shameless and importunate suitor who could obtain an
audience. Lord Macaulay.
LIVY, xli. c. 19, 20.
CHARACTER OF STEPHEN HIS GOOD-NATURE,
WEAKNESS, OB S TIN A C Y.
" Magistratus indicat virum"
STEPHEN" would have been regarded by all men to have been
most worthy of a crown, nisi imperasset. Of a kindly dis-
position, courteous to his equals, affable to his inferiors, he was
popular and beloved ; but he often wanted the ability to fulfil the
promises which his inconsiderate good-nature was lavish in making ;
and his friends, disappointed, denounced him as insincere, and were
frequently converted into enemies. His courage was indisputable,
but it often amounted to rashness ; and his chivalrous generosity,
while, at one time, it rendered his conduct impolitic, was not suffi-
cient on some occasions to prevent him from becoming cruel and
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unjust. Weak-minded and easy-tempered, he would sometimes
become perversely obstinate; and, though he could be ruled, it
was only by those who never showed they ruled, or permitted him
to perceive their dominion over his mind.
TACITUS, Hist. i. c. 49. ii. c. 47, 50. LIVY, xli. c. 20.
CHARACTER OF DORSET.
YET, in the midst of follies and vices, his courageous spirit, his
fine understanding, and his natural goodness of heart, had
been conspicuous. Men said that the excesses in which he indulged
were common between him and the whole race of gay young cava-
liers, bufc"that his sympathy with human suffering and the generosity
with which he made reparation to those whom his freaks had
injured were all his own. And yet, with all his good-nature, such
was the keenness of his wit that scoffers whose sarcasm all the town
feared stood in craven fear of the sarcasm of Dorset. All political
parties esteemed and caressed him : but politics were not much to
his taste. Had he been driven by necessity to exert himself, he
would probably have risen to the highest posts in the state : but he
was born to rank so high and wealth so ample that many of the
motives which impel men to engage in public affairs were wanting
to him.
NEPOS, Atticiis, c. 6.
CHARACTER OF THE DUKE OF ALVA.
THE Duke of Alva was inferior to no general of his age. As
a disciplinarian he was foremost in Spain, perhaps in
Europe. A spendthrift of time, he was an economist of blood,
and this was, perhaps, in the eye of humanity his principal virtue.
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" Time and myself are two," was a frequent observation of Philip, and
his favourite general considered the maxim as applicable to war as
to politics. Such were his qualities as a military commander. As
a statesman, he had neither experience nor talent. As a man, his
character was simple. He did not combine a great variety of vices,
but those which he had were colossal, and he possessed no virtues.
He was neither lustful nor intemperate, but his professed eulogists
admitted his enormous avarice, while the world has agreed that
such an amount of stealth and ferocity, of patient vindictiveness
and universal bloodthirstiness were never found in a savage beast of
the forest, and but rarely in a human bosom. His history was
now to show that his previous thrift of human life was not derived
from any love of his kind. Personally he was stern and overbear-
ing. As difficult of access as Philip himself, he was even more
haughty to those who were admitted to his presence. He addressed
every one with the depreciating second person plural. Possessing
the right of being covered in the presence of the Spanish monarch,
he had been with difficulty brought to renounce it before the Ger-
man Emperor. He was of an illustrious family, but his territorial
possessions were not extensive ; his duchy was a small one, furnish-
ing him with not more than 14,000 crowns of annual income, and
with 400 soldiers. He had, however, been a thrifty financier all
his life, never having been without a handsome sum of money at
interest. Motley.
LIVY, xxi. c. 4. TACITUS, Ann. vi. c. 51.
ClCERO, Tusc. Disp. v. 20, sqq.
CHARACTER OF BANNER. HIS VIRTUES AND VICES
THOSE OF A SOLDIER.
BANXEK at length terminated his career at Halberstadt in May,
1641, a victim to vexation and disappointment. He sus-
tained with great renown, though with varying success, the reputa-
tion of the Swedish arms in Germany, and by a train of victories
K
130 Materials and Models
showed himself worthy of his great master in the art of war. He
was fertile in expedients, which he planned with secrecy and exe-
cuted with boldness ; cautious in the midst of dangers, greater in
adversity than in prosperity, and never more formidable than when
upon the brink of destruction. But the virtues of the hero were
united with all the failings and vices which a military life creates,
or at least fosters. As imperious in private life as he was at the
head of his army, he oppressed the German princes no less by his
haughtiness, than their country by his contributions. He consoled
himself for the toils of war in voluptuousness and the pleasures of
the table, in which he indulged to excess, and was thus brought to
an early grave. But he turned from the arms of luxury into the
hardest fatigues, and placed himself in all his vigour at the head of
his army at the very moment his soldiers were murmuring at his
luxurious excesses. Schiller.
LIVY, xxi. c. 4. TACITUS, Hist. i. c. 10. SALLTJST, Catilin. c. 5.
MONDRAGON.
THIS was Mondragon's last feat of arms. Less than three
months afterwards, in Antwerp citadel, as the veteran was
washing his hands, before going to the dinner-table, he sat down
and died. Strange to say, this man who had spent almost a
century on the battle-field, who had been a soldier in nearly
every war that had been waged in any part of Europe during
that most belligerent age, who had come an old man to the
Netherlands before Alva's arrival, and had ever since been con-
stantly and personally engaged in the vast Flemish tragedy which
had now lasted well-nigh thirty years, had never himself lost a
drop of blood. His battle-fields had been on land and water, on
ice, in fire, and at the bottom of the sea; but he had never
received a wound. Nay, more ; he had been blown up in a
fortress the , Castle of Dauvilliers, in Luxembourg, of which he
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was governor where all perished save his wife and himself; and
when they came to dig among the ruins they excavated at last
the ancient couple, protected by the framework of a window, in
the embrasure of which they had been seated, without a scratch
or a bruise. He was a Biscayan by descent, but born in Medina
del Campo. A strict disciplinarian, very resolute and pertina-
cious, he had the good fortune to be beloved by his inferiors,
his equals, and his superiors. He was called the father of his
soldiers, the good Mondragon, and his name was unstained by
any of those deeds of ferocity which make the chronicles of the
time resemble rather the history of wolves than of men. Motley.
SALLTJST, Jugurth. c. 63. TACITUS, Ann. ii. c. 55.
LIVY, ix. c. 16. CICERO, de Senectute, 10-12 ; 16, 17, 37.
CHARACTER OF OLIVER CROMWELL.
THE conduct of the Protector in foreign affairs was full of
vigour and enterprise, and drew a consideration to his
country, which, since the reign of Elizabeth, it seemed to have
totally lost. It was his boast that he would render the name of
an Englishman as much feared and revered as ever was that of
a Boman; and as his countrymen found some reality in these
pretensions, their national vanity, being gratified, made them bear
with more patience all the indignities and calamities under which
they laboured.
The general behaviour and deportment of Cromwell, who had
been raised from a private station, and who had passed most of his
youth in the country, was such as might befit the greatest monarch.
He maintained a dignity without either affectation or ostentation ;
and supported with all strangers that high idea with which his
great exploits and prodigious fortune had impressed them. Among
his ancient friends he could relax himself; and by trifling and
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amusement, jesting, and making verses, he feared not exposing
himself to their most familiar approaches. Great regularity,
however, and even austerity of manners, were always main-
tained in his court ; and he was careful never by any liberties
to give offence to the most rigid of the godly. Some state was
upheld, but with little expense, and without any splendour. The
nobility, though courted by him, kept at a distance, and dis-
dained to intermix with those mean persons who were the
instruments of his government.
TACITUS, Ann. iv. c. 6. Hist. i. c. 48. LIVY, ix. c. 16.
xxxix. c. 41, 44. xxxiv. c. 27. SALLUST, Jugurth. c. 63.
CICERO, de Senedute, 10-12 ; 0.6, 17, 21. LIVY, xxi. c. 26, 27.
INFLUENCE OF WILBJERFQRCE AS AN ORATOR.
AGAINST all these accomplishments of a finished orator
there was little to set on the other side. A feeble con-
stitution, which made him say all his life that he never was
either well or ill ; a voice sweetly musical beyond that of most
men, and of great compass also, but sometimes degenerating into
a whine ; a figure exceedingly undignified and ungraceful, though
the features of the face were singularly expressive ; and a want
of condensation, in the latter years of his life especially,
lapsing into digression, and ill calculated for a very business-
like audience like the House of Commons, may be noted as the
only drawbacks which kept him out of the very first place among
the first speakers of his age, whom in pathos, and also in graceful,
and easy, and perfectly elegant diction, as well as harmonious
periods, he unquestionably excelled. The influence which Wilber-
force always commanded in the old Parliament, the great weight
which the head, indeed the founder, of a powerful religious sect
possessed in the country, would have given extraordinary
For Latin Prose Characters. 133
authority in the senate to one of far inferior personal endow-
ments. But when these partly accidental circumstances were
added to his powers, and when the whole were used and applied
with the habits of industry which naturally belonged to one of
his extreme temperance in every respect, it is difficult to
imagine any one bringing a greater force to any cause which
he might espouse. Lord Brougham.
CICERO, Brutus, 1-9; 141-143. De Oratore, iii. 2-6.
WARREN HASTINGS. HIS CHARACTER AND APPEARANCE
AT HIS TRIAL.
THE culprit was indeed not unworthy of that great presence.
He had ruled an extensive and populous country, and
made laws and treaties, had sent forth armies, had set up and
pulled down princes. And in his high place he had so borne
himself that all had feared him, that most had loved him, and
that hatred itself could deny him no title to glory, except virtue.
He looked like a great man, and not like a bad man. A person
small and emaciated, yet deriving dignity from a carriage which,
while it indicated deference to the court, indicated also habitual
self-possession and self-respect, a high and intellectual forehead, a
brow pensive but not gloomy, a mouth of inflexible decision, a
face pale and worn, but serene, on which was written, as legibly
as under the picture in the council-chamber at Calcutta, Mens
cequa in arduis ; such was the aspect w r ith which the great pro-
consul presented himself to his judges. Lord Macaulay.
TACITUS, Agricola, c. 44. CICEEO, Philipp. ii. 116-118.
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CHARACTER OF SIR R. WALPOLE.A SAFE MINISTER
FALSELY CHARGED WITH CORRUPTION. COARSE AND
OFFENSIVE IN MANNER.
HE was an honourable man, and a sound politician. He
was not, as the discontented of his time have repre-
sented him, and as ill-informed people still represent him, a
prodigal and corrupt minister. They charged him in their
libels and seditious conversations as having first reduced cor-
ruption to a system. Such was their cant. But he was far
from governing by corruption. He governed by party attach-
ments. The charge of systematic corruption is less applicable to
him, perhaps, than to any minister w r ho ever served the crown for
so great a length of time. He gained over very few from the
opposition. Without being a genius of the first class, he was an
intelligent, prudent, and safe minister. He loved peace ; and he
helped to communicate the same disposition to nations at least
as warlike and restless as that in which he had the chief direction
of affairs. With many virtues, public and private, he had his
faults; but his faults were superficial. A careless, coarse, and
over-familiar style of discourse, without sufficient regard to per-
sons or occasions, and an almost total want of political decorum,
were the errors by which he was most hurt in the public opinion ;
and those through which his enemies obtained the greatest ad-
vantage over him. But justice must be done. The prudence,
steadiness, and vigilance of that man, joined to the greatest
possible lenity in his character and his politics, preserved the
crown to this royal family ; and with it their laws and liberties
to this country. Lord Macaulay.
LIVY, xxxix. c. 40, 41. CICERO, de Seme. 10-12; 16, 17, 21.
TACITUS, de Orat. c. 1.
For Latin Prose Characters. 135
LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE.HIS FIRMNESS AND
SKILL AS A DIPLOMATIST.
HOW to negotiate with a perfect skill never degenerating into
craft, how to form such a scheme of policy that his
country might be brought to adopt it without swerving, and
how to pursue this always, promoting it steadily abroad, and
gradually forcing the home government to go all lengths in its
support, this he knew; and he was, moreover, so gifted by
nature, that whether men studied his despatches or whether they
listened to his spoken words, or whether they were merely by-
standers caught and fascinated by the grace of his presence, they
could scarcely help thinking that if the English nation was to be
maintained in peace or drawn into war by the will of a single
mortal, there was no man so worthy to fix its destiny. He had
faults, for his temper was fierce, and his assertion of self was so
closely involved in his conflicts that he followed up his opinions
with his feelings and with the whole strength of his imperious
nature. But his fierce temper, being always under control when
purposes of state so required, was far from being an infirmity ;
and was rather a weapon of exceeding sharpness, for it was so
wielded by him as to have more tendency to cause dread and
surrender than to generate resistance. Then, too, every judg-
ment which he pronounced was enfolded in words so complete as
to exclude the idea that it could ever be varied, and to convey
therefore the idea of duration. As though yielding to fate itself
the Turkish mind used to bend and fall down before him.
Kinglake.
LIYY, ix. c. 16. CICERO, pro lege Manil. 26-48.
136 Materials and Models
CHARACTER OF JEREMY BENTHAM.AN HONEST AND
INDEPENDENT PHILOSOPHER.
HE was slenderly furnished with fancy, and far more capable
of following a train of reasoning, expounding the theories
of others, and pursuing them to their legitimate consequences, than
of striking out new paths, and creating new objects, or even
adorning the creations of other men's genius. With the single
exception that he had something of the dogmatism of the school,
he was a person of most praiseworthy candour in controversy,
always of such self-denial that he sunk every selfish consideration
in his anxiety for the success of any cause which he espoused,
and ever ready to the utmost extent of his faculties, and often
beyond the force of his constitution, to lend his help for its
furtherance. In all the relations of private life he was irre-
proachable ; and he afforded a rare example of one born in humble
circumstances, and struggling, during the greater part of his
laborious life, with the inconveniences of restricted means, nobly
maintaining an independence as absolute in all respects as that
of the first subject in the land an independence, indeed, which
but few of the pampered children of rank and wealth are ever
seen to enjoy. For he could at all times restrain his wishes
within the limits of his resources ; was firmly resolved that his
own hands alone should ever minister to his wants ; and would,
at every period of his useful and virtuous life, have treated with
indignation any project that should trammel his opinions or his
conduct with the restraints which external influence, of whatever
kind, could impose. Lord Brougham.
LIVY, xxxix. c. 40, 44. CICERO, Philipp. ix. 10-12.
For Latin Prose Characters. 137
CHARACTER OF PITT. HIS HIGH-MINDEDNESS.
YET with all his faults and affectations, Pitt had, in a very
extraordinary degree, many of the elements of greatness.
He had genius, strong passions, quick sensibility, and vehement
enthusiasm for the grand and the beautiful. There was some-
thing about him which ennobled tergiversation itself. In an age
of low and dirty prostitution, 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 stooped to pilfer
her, a man whose errors arose, not from a sordid desire of
gain, but from a fierce thirst for power, for glory, and for ven-
geance. History owes to him this attestation, that, at a time when
anything short of direct embezzlement of the public money was
considered as quite fair in public men, he showed the most
scrupulous disinterestedness j that, at a time when it seemed to
be taken for granted that Government could be upheld only by
the basest and most immoral 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 statesmen of his day thought it possible to do, except by
means of corruption ; that he looked for support not to a strong
aristocratical connection, not to the personal favour of the Sove-
reign, but to the middle class of Englishmen; that he inspired
that class with a firm confidence in his integrity and ability 3
that, backed by them, he forced an unwilling court and an un-
willing oligarchy to admit him to an ample share of power ;
and that he used his power in such a manner as clearly proved
him to have sought it, not for the sake of profit or patronage,
but from a wish to establish for himself a great and durable
reputation by means of eminent services rendered to the State.
CICERO, Academ. Prior, ii. 1-6.
De Senectute, 10-12 ; also 16, 17, 37. LIVY, xxxix. c. 40, 44.
138 Materials and Models
PUT. HIS STRONG POINT PERSUASION, NOT
LEGISLATION.
HIS powerful intellect was ill supplied with knowledge. Of
this he had no more than a man can acquire while he
is a student at college. The stock of general information which
he brought with him from Cambridge, extraordinary for a boy,
was far inferior to what Fox possessed, and beggarly when com-
pared with the massy, the splendid, the various treasures laid
up in the large mind of Burke. He had no leisure to learn
more than was necessary for the purposes of the day which was
passing over him. What was necessary 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
produced 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 organizing fleets and
armies, of sending forth expeditions, he gave only the leavings of
his time, and the dregs of his 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. Lord Macaulay.
CICERO, Acad. Prior, ii. 1-6. De Senect. 10-12 ; 16, 17, 21.
CHARACTER OF PITT. HIS INTEGRITY, AUTHORITY,
AND ELOQUENCE.
ACHAEACTEE so exalted, so strenuous, so authoritative
astonished a corrupt age, and the Treasury trembled at the
name of Pitt through all her classes of venality. Corruption
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imagined, indeed, that she had found defects in this statesman, and
talked much of the inconsistency of his glory and much of the ruin
of his victories ; but the history of his country and the calamities
of the enemy answered and refuted her.
JSTor were his political abilities his only talents : his eloquence
was an era in the senate, peculiar and spontaneous, familiarly
expressing gigantic sentiments and instinctive wisdom ; not like
the torrent of Demosthenes or the splendid conflagration of Tully,
it resembled sometimes the thunder and sometimes the music of
the spheres. He did not, like Murray, conduct the understanding
through the painful subtilty of argumentation; nor was he, like
Townshend, for ever on the rack of exertion ; but rather lightened
upon the subject and reached the point by the flashings of the
mind, which,, like those of his eye, were felt but could not be
followed. Lord Macaulay.
VELLEIUS PATERCULUS, ii. c. 13. CICERO, de Sen. -16, 17, 37.
LIVY, xxxix. c. 40, 44. TACITUS, de Orat. c. 8.
CHARACTER OF JULIUS C^SAR.HIS VERSATILITY.
IT is possible to be a very great man and to be still very inferior
to Julius Csesar, the most complete character, so Lord Bacon
thought, of all antiquity. Nature seems incapable of such extra-
ordinary combinations as composed his versatile capacity, which
was the wonder even of the Eomans themselves. The first general
the only triumphant politician inferior to none in point of
eloquence comparable to any in the -attainments of wisdom in an
age made up of the greatest commanders, statesmen, orators, and
philosophers that ever appeared in the world; an author who
composed a perfect specimen of military annals in his travelling
carriage at one time in a controversy with Cato, at another
writing a treatise on punning, and collecting a set of good sayings
140 Materials and Models
fighting and making love at the same moment, and willing to
abandon both his empire and his mistress for a sight of the
fountains of the Nile. Such did Julius Coesar appear to his con-
temporaries, and to those of the subsequent ages who were the
most inclined to deplore and execrate his fatal genius. Lord
Byron.
VELLEIUS PATERCULTJS, ii. c. 41, 43.
CICERO, Tusc. Disp. v. 20, 21.
CHARACTER OP GONZALVO DE CORDOVA. HIS SHINING
QUALITIES, HIS COOLNESS, PRUDENCE, AND SAGACITY.
HIS splendid military successes, so gratifying to Castilian
pride, have made the name of Gonzalvo as familiar to his
countrymen as that of the Cid, which, floating down the stream of
popular melody, has been treasured up as a part of the national
history. His shining qualities, even more than his exploits, have
been often made the theme of fiction ; and fiction, as usual, has
dealt with them in a fashion to leave only confused and erroneous
conceptions of both. More is known of the Spanish hero, for
instance, to foreign readers, from Florian's agreeable novel, than
from any authentic record of his actions. Yet Florian, by dwelling
only on the dazzling and popular traits of his hero, has depicted
him as the very personification of romantic chivalry. This cer-
tainly was not his character, which might be said to have been
formed after a riper period of civilization than the age of chivalry.
At least it had none of the nonsense of that age, its fanciful
vagaries, reckless adventure, and wild romantic gallantry. His
characteristics were prudence, coolness, steadiness of purpose, and
intimate knowledge of men. He understood, above all, the temper
of his own countrymen. He may be said, in some degree, to have
formed their military character, their patience of severe training
and hardship, their unflinching obedience, their inflexible spirit
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under reverses, and their decisive energy in the hour of action. It
is certain that the Spanish soldier, under his hands, assumed an
entirely new aspect from that which he had displayed in the
romantic wars of the Peninsula.
LIVY, ix. c. 17, 18. xxi. c. 4. xxvi. c. 19. xxviii. c. 12.
xxxviii. c. 53.
CHARACTER OF CLAVERHOUSE.
11 Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re."
THE severity of his character, as well as the higher attributes of
undaunted and enterprising valour, which even his enemies
were compelled to admit, lay concealed under an exterior whicli
seemed adapted to the court or the saloon rather than to the field.
The same gentleness and gaiety of expression which reigned in his
features seemed to inspire his actions and gestures ; and, on the
whole, he was generally esteemed at first sight rather qualified to
be the votary of pleasure than of ambition. But under this soft
exterior was hidden a spirit unbounded in daring and in aspiring,
yet cautious and prudent as that of Machiavel himself. Profound
in politics, and imbued with that disregard for individual rights
which its intrigues usually generate, Claverhouse was cool and
collected in danger, fierce and ardent in pursuing success, careless
of facing death himself, and ruthless in inflicting it upon others.
Such are the characters formed in times of civil discord, when the
highest qualities, perverted by party spirit, and inflamed by habitual
opposition, are too often combined with vices and excesses which
deprive them at once of their merit and of their lustre. Sir W.
Scott.
VELLEIUS PATERCULTJS, ii. 29. TACITUS, Hist. ii. c. 47, 50.
LlVY, xxi. c. 4. xxxix. c. 44. CICERO, Acad. Prior, ii. 1, 2.
142 Materials and Models
CHARACTER OF AXIS TIDES.
AEISTIDES knew no cause, but that of justice and the
common weal : no party, but his friends. Thenristocles
had formed or entered into a union with men who were pledged to
mutual protection and assistance ; and he did not always shrink
from sacrificing the service of the people to his friends and
adherents ; he connived at their offences, seconded them in their
undertakings, and used their aid to further his views. In all such
cases a neutral and independent man, who kept aloof from all
factions, and exposed and resisted corrupt practices, wherever he
perceived them, might easily become a troublesome adversary.
Characters like that of Aristides, even when there is nothing
rugged and forbidding in their exterior, are seldom loved ; and so
probably there were many at Athens, who were not only displeased
that one man should be distinguished by the epithet of the Just;
but were offended by the vigilance and severity with which he
detected abuses, and guarded the public welfare. Without having
incurred accusation or reproach, without being suspected of any
ambitious designs, he was sent by the ostracism into honourable
banishment, as the wise Hermotimus by the Ephesians, because he
had no equal in the highest virtue. Thirlwall.
TACITUS, Hist. iii. c. 86. SALLUST, Catil. c. 53, 54.
LiVY, xxxix. c. 40, 44.
CHARACTER OF EPA MINONDAS. HIS TEMPERANCE,
INTEGRITY, PRUDENCE, AND OTHER VIRTUES.
EPAMINONDAS was born and educated in that honest
poverty which those less corrupted ages accounted the
glorious mark of integrity and virtue. The instructions of a
Pythagorean philosopher, to whom he was intrusted in his
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earliest years, formed him to all the temperance and severity
peculiar to that sect, and were received with a docility and
pleasure which bespoke an ingenuous mind. Music, dancing, and
all those arts which were accounted honourable distinctions, he
received from the greatest masters. In the athletic exercises
he became conspicuous, but soon learned to apply particularly to
those which might prepare him for the labours and occasions
of a military life. His modesty and gravity rendered him ready
to hear and receive instruction; and his genius enabled him to
learn and improve. A love of truth, a love of virtue, tender-
ness, and humanity, and an exalted patriotism, he had learned,
and soon displayed. To these glorious qualities he added pene-
tration and sagacity, a happiness in improving every incident,
a consummate skill in war, an unconquerable patience of toil
and distress, a boldness in enterprise, vigour, and magnanimity.
LIVY, xxvi. c. 19. CICERO, de Oratore, i. 48. iii. 34.
Tuscul. Disp. i. 2. COBNELIUS NEPOS, Epaminondas, passim.
AGRI COLA. HIS IMPARTIALITY, PRUDENCE, AND
CONCILIATORY CONDUCT.
IN the interval between his campaigns Agricola was em-
ployed in the great labours of peace. He knew that the
general must be perfected by the legislator ; and that the con-
quest is neither permanent nor honourable which is only an
introduction to tyranny. His first care was the regulation of
his household, which under former legates had been always full
of faction and intrigue, lay heavy on the province, and was as
difficult to govern. He never suffered his private partialities to
intrude into the conduct of public business ; nor in appointing
to employments did he permit solicitation to supply the place of
merit, wisely sensible that in a proper choice of officers is almost
the whole of government. He eased the tribute of the province,
144 Materials and Models
not so much by reducing it in quantity, as by cutting off all
those vexatious practices which attended the levying of it, far
more grievous than the imposition itself. Every step in securing
the subjection of the conquered country was attended with the
utmost care in providing for its peace and internal order.
Agricola reconciled the Britons to the Eoman government by
reconciling them to the Roman manners. His conduct is the
most perfect model for those employed in the unhappy but
sometimes necessary task of subduing a rude and free people.
Menvale.
TACITUS, Agric. c. 19, 21. CICERO, Acad. Prior, ii. 1-7.
De Senect. 10-12; 16, 17, 21.
DEATH OF POMPEY A NATIONAL LOSS. HIS
DISINTERESTEDNESS WHEN IN POWER.
BUT the tears that were shed for Pompey were not only
those of domestic affliction : his fate called forth a more
general and honourable mourning. No man had ever gained, at
so early an age, the affections of his countrymen ; none had
enjoyed them so largely, or preserved them so long with so little
interruption ; and at the distance of eighteen centuries the feeling
of his contemporaries may be sanctioned by the sober judgment
of history. He entered upon public life as a distinguished mem-
ber of an oppressed party which was just arriving at its hour
of triumph and retaliation ; he saw his associates plunged in
rapine and massacre, but he preserved himself pure from the con-
tagion of their crimes ; and when the death of Sulla left him
almost at the head of the aristocratical party, he served them ably
and faithfully with his sword, while he endeavoured to mitigate
the evils of their ascendancy by restoring to the commons of Eome,
on the earliest opportunity, the most important of those privi-
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leges and liberties which they had lost under the tyranny of
their late master. He received the due reward of his honest
patriotism in the unusual honours and trusts that were conferred
on him ; but his greatness could not corrupt his virtue ; and the
boundless powers with which he was repeatedly invested he
wielded with the highest ability and uprightness to the accom-
plishment of his task, and then, without any undue attempts to
prolong their duration, he honestly resigned them. Merivale.
LuCAN, ix. 165, sqq. 188, sqq. ClCEEO, pro lege Manil. 29, sqq.
Philipp. ix. 3. v. 16. TACITUS, Ann. ii. c. 72, 73, 82.
JULIUS CALSAR. FASCINATION OF HIS MANNER.
OF all the men that live in history, there is none, perhaps,
whom most of us would so much wish to have seen as
the great Julius Csesar. Tall in stature, and of commanding
aspect, delicate in feature, and graceful in form, we picture him
to ourselves as not less conspicuous for the beauty of his person
than for the eminence of his genius. But who can rest satisfied
with realizing to his imagination the mere outline of the hero's
figure, if he fail to obtain a glimpse of the expression which
informs it with mind and character? It is not enough to read
that Csesar's complexion was pale and fair, his eyes dark and
piercing, or to scan on busts and medals the ample volume of
his forehead, and the haughty curve of his nose. These monu-
ments present us, not without some variety of lineaments, the
signs of his intellectual energy and moral power ; but they fail
to mark the generous kindling of his glance, and the fascination
of his smile. There was in Csesar, we are told, a charm of man-
ner and address which captivated all beholders. Cato smiled on
the man whose treasons he denounced ; Brutus admired and Cicero
L
146 Materials and Models
loved him. Strange that a being whose public career was so
selfish and unfeeling, should have proved himself the most mer-
ciful to his enemies, the most considerate to his friends, the
most magnanimous to those who wronged him, of all his coun-
trymen.
SUETONIUS, Julius, c. 45. YELLEIUS TATERCULUS, ii. c. 41.
N, Pharsal. i. 143, sqq.
CHARACTER OF SCIPIO.HIS CLAIMS TO DIVINE
INSPIRATION, PI IS COMPLACENT SUPERIORITY.
"\ ZET a special charm lingers around the form of that graceful
JL hero : it is surrounded as with a dazzling halo, by the
atmosphere of serene and confident inspiration, in which Scipio
with mingled credulity and adroitness always moved. With quite
enough of enthusiasm to warm men's hearts, and enough of calcu-
lation to follow in every case the dictates of intelligence, while not
leaving out of account the vulgar ; not na'ive enough to share the
belief of the multitude in his divine inspirations, not straight-
forward enough to set it aside, and yet in secret thoroughly
persuaded that he was a man specially favoured of the gods, in
a word, a genuine prophetic nature, raised above the people, and
not less aloof from them ; a man steadfast to his word and kingly
in his bearing, who thought that he would humble himself by
adopting the ordinary title of a king, but could never understand
how the constitution of the republic should in his case be bind-
ing ; so confident in his own greatness that he knew nothing of
envy or of hatred : courteously acknowledged other men's merits,
and compassionately forgave other men's faults ; an excellent
officer and a refined diplomatist, without presenting the offensive
special stamp of either calling ; uniting Hellenic culture with the
fullest national feeling of a Eoman ; an accomplished speaker,
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and of graceful manners : Publius Scipio won the hearts of
soldiers and of women, of his countrymen, and of the Spaniards, of
his rivals in the senate, and of his greater Carthaginian antagonist.
Soon his name was on every one's lips, and his was the star
which seemed destined to bring victory and peace to his country.
Mommsen.
LIVY, xxvi. c. 19. xxxv. c. 14. xxxix. c. 40.
LUCAN, Pharsal. ix. 165. CICEEO, Academ. Prior, ii. 1-7.
CICERO. -STANDS ON A HIGPIER MORAL LEVEL THAN
OTHER ANCIENT STATESMEN.
BUT while Cicero stands justly charged with many grave
infirmities of temper and defects of principle, while we
remark with a sigh the vanity, the inconstancy, and the ingratitude
he so often manifested, while we lament his ignoble subserviencies
and his ferocious resentments, the high standard by which we claim
to judge him is in itself the fullest acknowledgment of his trans-
cendent merits. For undoubtedly had he not placed himself on a
higher moral level than the statesmen and sages of his day, we should
pass over many of his weaknesses in silence, and allow his preten-
sions to our esteem to pass almost unchallenged. But we demand
a nearer approach to the perfection of human wisdom and virtue in
one who sought to approve himself the greatest of their teachers.
Nor need we scruple to admit that the judgment of the ancients on
Cicero was for the most part unfavourable. The moralists of
antiquity required in their heroes virtues with which we can more
readily dispense ; and they too had less sympathy with many
qualities which a purer religion and a wider experience have taught
us to love and admire. Nor were they capable, from their position,
of estimating the slow and silent effects upon human happiness of
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the lessons which Cicero enforced. After all the severe judgments
we are compelled to pass on his conduct, we must acknowledge
that there remains a residue of what is amiable in his character
and noble in his teaching beyond all ancient example.
VELLEIUS PATERCTJLUS, ii. c. 66. TACITUS, De Oratore, c. 22, 23.
CICERO, In Verrem. Act. ii. lib. i. 1, sqq.
VIRGIL, ^Eneid, xi. 336, sqq.
CHARACTER OF CINE AS, PHILOSOPHER AND STATESMAN.
LIKE Themistocles, he was gifted with an extraordinary
memory ; the very day after his arrival at Koine, he was
able to address all the senators and citizens of the equestrian order
by their several proper names. He had studied philosophy, like
all his educated countrymen, and appears to have admired particu-
larly the new doctrine of Epicurus ; which taught that war and
state affairs were but toil and trouble, and that the wise man
should imitate the blissful rest of the gods, who dwelling in their
own divinity, regarded not the vain turmoil of this lower world.
Yet his life was better than his philosophy ; he served his king
actively and faithfully in peace and in war, and he wrote a military
work, for which he neither wanted ability nor practical knowledge.
He excited no small attention as he went to Rome, and his say-
ings at the places through which he passed were remembered and
recorded. Some stories said that he was the bearer of presents to
the influential senators, and of splendid dresses to win the favour
of their wives ; all which, as the Eoman traditions related, were
steadily refused. But his proposals required grave consideration,
and there were many in the senate who thought that the state of
affairs made it necessary to accept them. Arnold.
PLINY, Hist. Nat. vii. c. 24. CICERO, de Senectute, 43.
Tusc. Disp. 59. Epist. ad Fam. lib. ix. 25, 1.
LIYT, xxxiv. c. 4, 6, 7, 8.
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GROTIUS.HIS EXCELLENCE AS AN AUTHOR,
STATESMAN, AND CITIZEN.
SO great is the uncertainty of posthumous reputation, and so
liable is the fame even of the greatest men to be obscured
by those new fashions of thinking and writing which succeed each
other so rapidly among polished nations, that Grotius, who filled so
large a space in the eye of his contemporaries, is now perhaps
known to some of my readers only by name. Yet if we fairly
estimate both his endowments and his virtues, we may justly
consider him as one of the most memorable men who have done
honour to modern times. He combined the discharge of the
most important duties of active and public life with the attain
ment of that exact and various learning which is generally the
portion only of the recluse student. He was distinguished as an
advocate and a magistrate, and composed the most valuable works
on the law of his own country. He was almost equally cele-
brated as a historian, a scholar, a poet, and a divine. Unmerited
exile did not damp his patriotism; the bitterness of controversy
did not extinguish his charity. The sagacity of his numerous
and fierce adversaries could not discover a blot on his character ;
and in the midst of all the hard trials and galling provocations
of a turbulent political life, he never once deserted his friends
when they were unfortunate, nor insulted his enemies when they
were weak. Such was the man who was destined to give a new
form to the law of nations, or rather to create a science, of which
only rude sketches and undigested materials were scattered over
the writings of those who had gone before him.
CICERO, pro Archia, passim. Acad. Prior, ii. 1-7,
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CONTRAST OF A YOUNG PRINCE AND AN OLD KING.
INSTEAD of a monarch, jealous, severe, and avaricious, who,
in proportion as he advanced in years, was sinking still
deeper in these unpopular vices, a young prince of eighteen had
succeeded to the throne, who even in the eyes of men of sense
gave promising hopes of his future conduct, much more in those
of the people, always enchanted with novelty, youth, and royal
dignity. The beauty and vigour of his person, accompanied with
dexterity in every manly exercise, was further adorned with a
blooming and ruddy countenance, with a lively air, with the
appearance of spirit and activity in all his demeanour. His
father, in order to remove him from the knowledge of public
business, had hitherto occupied him entirely in the pursuits of
literature, and the proficiency which he made gave no bad
prognostic of his parts and capacity. Even the vices of vehe-
mence, ardour, and impatience, to which he was subject, and
which afterwards degenerated into tyranny, were considered only
as faults, incident to unguarded youth, which would be cor-
rected when time had brought him to greater moderation and
maturity.
SUETONIUS, Caligula, c. 3, 4. TACITUS, Hist. iv. c. 8G. i. c. 14.
LIVY, xxiv. c. 4, 5.
CLE OP A TRA . HER A CCOMPLISHMENTS.
THOUGH her own security had been her first object, and
her ambition the second, the inspirer of so many licentious
passions was at last enslaved herself. She might disdain the fear
of a rival potentate, and defy the indignation of Octavius, but
her anxiety about his sister was the instinct of the woman rather
than of the queen. She could not forget that a wife's legitimate
For Latin Prose Characters. 151
influence had once detained her lover from her side for more
than two whole years ; she might still apprehend the awakening
of his reason, and his renunciation of an alliance which at times
he felt she well knew to be bitterly degrading. To retain her
grasp of her admirer, as well as her seat upon the throne of
the Ptolemies, she must drown his scruples in voluptuous obli-
vion, and invent new charms to revive and amuse his jaded
passion. Her personal talents were indeed of the most varied
kind; she was an admirable singer and musician; she was skilled
in many languages, and possessed intellectual accomplishments
rarely found among the staidest of her sex, combined with the
archness and humour of the lightest. She pampered her lover's
grosser appetites by rank and furious indulgences; she stimulated
his flagging zest in them by ingenious surprises; nor less did
she gratify every reviving taste for nobler enjoyments with
paintings and sculptures and works of literature. She amused
him with sending divers to fasten salt-fish to the bait of his
angling-rod; and when she had pledged herself to consume the
value of ten million sesterces at a meal, amazed him by dissolving
in the humble cup of vinegar before her a pearl of inestimable
price. Me rivale.
CICEIIO, pro CluentiOy 12-16. SALLUST, CatiJin. c. 25.
HORACE, Od. I. xxxvii. Epod. ix.
PAET III.
OEA TO RIG AL.
INFECTIVE AGAINST MINISTERS, AND DENUNCIATION
OF WAR.
I AM not, nor did I ever pretend to be, a statesman ; but that
character is so tainted and so equivocal in our day, that I am
not sure that a pure and honourable ambition would aspire to it.
I have not enjoyed for thirty years, like these noble lords, the
emoluments of office. I have not set my sails to every passing
breeze. I am a plain and simple citizen, sent here by one of the
foremost constituencies of the Empire, representing feebly, perhaps,
but honestly, the opinions of very many, and the true interests of
all that have sent me here. Let it not be said that I am alone in
my condemnation of this war, or of an incompetent and guilty
Ministry. And, even if I were alone, if my voice were the solitary
one raised amid the din of arms and the clamours of a venal press,
I should have the consolation I have to-night and which I trust
will be mine to the last moment of my existence the priceless
consolation that I have never uttered one word that could promote
the squandering of my country's treasure, or the spilling of one
single drop of my country's blood. J. Bright.
SALLUST, Jugurth. c. 31. HORACE, Od. III. iii. 1-8.
LIVY, vi. c. 40. xxii. c. 34.
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 153
PASSIONATE CONDEMNATION OF THE POLICY, AND
PARTY OF PITT.
GENTLEMEN, I stand up in this contest against the friends
and followers of Mr. Pitt, or as they partially designate him,
the immortal statesman now no more. Immortal in the miseries of
his devoted country ! Immortal in the cruel wars which sprang
from his cold miscalculating ambition ! Immortal in the intolerable
taxes, the countless loads of debt which these wars have flung upon
us which the youngest man amongst us will not live to see the
end of i Immortal in the triumphs of our enemies, and the ruin
of our allies, the costly purchase of so much blood and treasure !
Immortal in the afflictions of England, and the humiliation of her
friends, through the whole results of his twenty years' reign, from
the first rays of favour with which a delighted court gilded his
early apostasy, to the deadly glare which is at this instant cast
upon his name by the burning metropolis of our last ally !* But
may no such immortality ever fall to my lot let me rather live
innocent and inglorious ; and when at last I cease to serve you,
and to feel for your wrongs, may I have a humble monument in
some nameless stone, to tell that beneath it there rests from his
labours in your service, " an enemy of the immortal statesman a
friend of peace and of the people !"
Friends ! you must now judge for yourselves and act accordingly.
Against us and against you stand those who call themselves the
successors of that man. They are the heirs of his policy ; and if not
of his immortality too, it is only because their talents for the work
of destruction are less transcendent than his. They are his sur-
viving colleagues. His fury survives in them, if not his fire ; and
they partake of all his infatuated principles, if they have lost the
genius that first made those principles triumphant. If you choose
* The news of the burning of Moscow had arrived by that day's
post.
154 Materials and Models
them for your delegates, you know to what policy you lend your
sanction what men you exalt to power. Should you prefer me,
your choice falls upon one who, if obscure and unambitious, will
at least give his own age no reason to fear him, or posterity to
curse him one whose proudest ambition it is to be deemed the
friend of Liberty and of Peace. Lord Brougham.
CICERO, Philipp. ii. 110, sqq. LIYY, xxi. c. 10. ix. c. 33.
SALLUST, BdL Juyurth. c. 31.
APPEAL DEPRECATING THE PERNICIOUS INFLUENCE OF
INDIAN RICHES UPON ENGLISH HONESTY.
AND now, my lords, in what a situation are we all placed !
This prosecution of the Commons (I wish to have it under-
stood, and I am sure I shall not be disclaimed in it) is a prosecution
not merely for preventing this and that offence, but it is a great
censorial prosecution, for the purpose of preserving the manners,
characters, and virtues that characterize the people of England.
The situation in which we stand is dreadful. These people
pour in upon us every day. They not only bring with them the
wealth which they have acquired, but they bring with them into
our country the vices by which it was acquired : formerly the
people of England were censured, and perhaps properly, with being
a sullen, unsocial, cold, unpleasant race of men, and as inconstant
as the climate in which they are born. These are the vices which
the enemies of the kingdom charged them with, and people are
seldom charged with vices of which they do not in some measure
partake. But nobody refused them the character of being an open-
hearted, candid, liberal, plain, sincere people ; qualities which
would conceal a thousand faults if they had them. But if, by
conniving at these faults, you once teach the people of England a
concealing, narrow, suspicious, guarded conduct ; if you teach them
qualities directly the contrary to those by which they have hitherto
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 155
boon distinguished ; if you make them a nation of concealers, a
nation of dissemblers, a nation of liars, a nation of forgers; my
lords, if you, in one word, turn them into a people of Banyans,
the character of England, that character, which more than our
arms and more than our commerce has made us a great nation, the
character of England will be gone and lost. Our liberty is as
much in danger as our honour and our national character. We,
who here appear representing the Commons of England, are not
wild enough not to tremble both for ourselves and for our con-
stituents at the effect of riches. " Opum metuenda potestas" We
dread the operation of money. Do we not know that there are
many men who wait, and who indeed hardly wait, the event of this
prosecution to let loose all the corrupt wealth of India, acquired by
the oppression of that country for the corruption of all the liberties
of this, and to fill the Parliament with men who are now the
object of its indignation? To-day the Commons of Great Britain
prosecute the delinquents of India. To-morrow the delinquents of
India may be the Commons of Great Britain. We know, I say,
and feel the force of money ; and we now call upon your lordships
for justice in this cause of money. We call upon you for the
preservation of our manners, of our virtues. We call upon you
for our national character. We call upon you for our liberties,
and hope that the freedom of the Commons will be preserved by
the justice of the Lords. Burke.
CICERO, In Verrem. Act i. 7-10 ; 43-52. Pro Cluentio. 158, 159.
JUVENAL, Sat. iii. 58, sqq. LIVY, xxxix. c. 6. xxxiv. c. 4.
SALLTJST, Catilin. c. 12.
MOTIVES OP THE GOVERNMENT IN UNDERTAKING THE
FRENCH WAR CONDEMNED, BY REDUCTION TO A
DILEMMA.
WILL he meet the matter fairly? Will he answer to this
one question distinctly 1 If France had abstained from
any act of aggression against Great Britain, and her ally, Holland,
156 Materials and Models
should we have remained inactive spectators of the last campaign,
idle, apart, and listening to the fray, leaving the contest to Austria
and Prussia, and whatever allies they could themselves have
obtained 1 If he says this, mark the dilemma into which he brings
himself, his supporters, and the nation. This war is called a war
unlike all other wars that ever man was engaged in. It is a war,
it seems, commenced on a different principle, and carried on for a
different purpose from all other wars. It is a war in which the
interests of individual nations are absorbed in the wider considera-
tion of the interests of mankind. It is a war in which personal
provocation is lost in the outrage offered generally to civilized man ;
it is a war for the preservation of the possessions, the morals,
and the religion of the world ; it is a war for the maintenance of
human order, and the existence of human society. Does he then
mean to say, that he would have sat still, that Great Britain would
have sat still, with arms folded ; and, reclining in luxurious ease in
her commercial couch, have remained an unconcerned spectator of
this mighty conflict, and left the cause of civil order, government,
morality, and religion, and its God, to take care of itself? or to
owe its preservation to the mercenary exertions of German and
Hungarian barbarians, provided only, that France had not impli-
cated Great Britain by a special offence, and forced us into this
cause of divine and univeral interest by the petty motive of a
personal provocation ? Sheridan.
CICERO, Philipp. viii. 7-13. xiv. 6, sqq. LIVY, xxii. c. 34.
IMPATIENCE OF SUBJUGATION A FEELING NATURAL TO
ALL NATIONS. ILLUSTRATED BY THE SPEECH OF AN
INDIAN CHIEF.
I HA YE not been considering it through the cold medium of
books, but have been speaking of man and his nature, and of
human dominion from what I have seen of them myself amongst
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 157
reluctant nations submitting to our authority. I know what they
feel, and how such feelings can alone be repressed. I have heard
them in my youth from a naked savage, in the indignant character
of a prince surrounded by his subjects, addressing the governor of a
British colony, holding a bundle of sticks in his hand, as the notes
of his unlettered eloquence : " Who is it," said the jealous ruler over
the desert, encroached upon by the restless foot of English adven-
ture " Who is it that causes this river to rise in the high moun-
tains, and to empty itself into the ocean ] Who is it that causes to
blow the loud winds of winter, and that calms them again in the
summer 1 Who is it that rears up the shade of those lofty forests,
and blasts them with the quick lightning at his pleasure 1 The
same Being who gave to you a country on the other side of the
waters, and gave ours to us ; and by this title we will defend it ! "
said the warrior, throwing down his tomahawk upon the ground,
and raising the war-sound of his nation. These are the feelings of
subjugated man all round the globe ; and depend upon it nothing
but fear will control where it is vain to look for affection. Lord
Erskine.
TACITUS, Agricola, c. 30-22. Q. CmTius, vii. c. 8.
ADVICE OF HERENNIUS PONTIUS TO HIS SON, HOW TO
DEAL WITH THE ROMANS CAPTURED AT THE
CAUDINE FORKS.
WE read, sir, in the history of ancient Rome, that when one of
the armies of the republic had fallen into the power of the
enemy, and was surrounded by the Samnites at the Caudine Forks,
the victorious general, desirous to make the most of the advantage
which he had obtained, despatched a message to his father, a
senator celebrated for his wisdom, to counsel him as to the most
expedient mode of disposing of his captives, " Dismiss them un-
158 Materials and Models
ransomed and unmolested ;" was the answer of the aged senator.
This was a strain of generosity too high for the comprehension of the
son. He re-despatched his messenger to consult his oracle again.
The answer then was : " Exterminate them to the last man." This
advice was so unlike the former, that it excited a suspicion that the
old man's intellects were deranged : he was brought to the camp
to explain the discordancy of his counsel. " By my first advice,"
said he, " which was the best, I recommended to you to insure the
everlasting gratitude of a powerful people ; by my second, which
was the worst, I pointed out to you the policy of getting rid of a
dangerous enemy. There is no third way. Tertium nullum con-
silium." When asked, what if a middle course should be taken,
what if they should be dismissed unhurt, but if at the same time
harsh laws should be imposed upon them as a conquered enemy?
" Ista quidem sententia" said the old man, " ea est quce neque amicos
parat neque inimicos toll it" The son, however, unhappily, for his
country, thought himself wiser than his father ; the middle course
was adopted : he neither liberated the Romans nor exterminated
them ; he passed their necks under the yoke and sent them home.
Canning.
LIVY, ix. c. 3, 4. CICERO, de 0/iciis. iii. 109.
ACKNOWLEDGED JUSTICE OF THE WAR AGAINST
BONAPARTE.
THE cause speaks for itself ; it excites feelings which words are
ill able to express ; involving every object and motive which
can engage the solicitude, affect the interests, or inflame the heart of
man. After a series of provocations and injuries, reciprocally sus-
tained and retaliated, the dispute betwixt us and our enemies is
brought to a short issue ; it is no longer which of the two nations
shall have the ascendant, but which shall continue a nation : it is a
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 159
struggle for existence, not for empire. It must surely be regarded
as a happy circumstance that the contest did not take this shape at
an earlier period, while many were deceived by certain specious
pretences of liberty into a favourable opinion of our enemies'
designs. The popular delusion is passed ; the most unexampled
prodigies of guilt have dispelled it; and after a series of rapine
and cruelty, have torn from every heart the last fibre of mistaken
partiality. The crimes of those with whom we have to contend
are legible in every part of Europe. There is scarcely a man to be
found who is not perfectly acquainted with the meaning of that
freedom they profess to bestow: that it is a freedom from the
dominion of laws to pass under the yoke of slavery, and from
the fear of God to plunge into crimes and impiety; an impious
barter of all that is good for all that is ill, through the utmost
range and limits of moral destiny. Robert Hall.
CICERO, Philipp. xiii. 1-7. viii. 12.
In Catil. i. 27, sqq. ii. 25, sqq.
PEACE WITH BONAPARTE IMPOSSIBLE.
NOR is it less easy to develop the character of our principal
adversary. A man bred in the school of ferocity, amid
the din of arms and the tumult of camps; his element war and
confusion; who has changed his religion with his uniform, and
has not spared the assassination of his own troops ; it is easy to
foresee what treatment such a man will give to his enemies, should
they fall into his power ; to these enemies especially who, saved
from the shipwreck of nations, are preserving as in an ark the
precious remains of civilization and order; and whom, after de-
stroying the liberties of every other country, he envies the
melancholy distinction of being the only people he has not en-
slaved. Engaged with such an enemy, no weak hopes of modern-
160 Materials and Models
tion or clemency can tempt us for a moment to relax in our
resistance to his power; and the only alternative which remains
is to conquer or to die. Robert Hall.
LIVY, xxi. c. 41. xxxi. c. 30.
ClCERO, Philipp. iii. 28, 29, 30, 34, 35, 36. vi. 18, 19. x. 19.
xiii. 47, sqq.
DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI.
T T J HAT though he has carried the flames of war through-
V V out Europe, and "gathered as a nest the riches of the
nations, while none peeped, nor muttered, nor moved the wing;"
he has yet to try his fortune on another field, he has yet to
contend on a soil filled with the monuments of freedom, enriched
with the blood of its defenders; with a people who, animated with
one soul, and inflamed with zeal for their laws and for their prince,
are armed in defence of all that is dear or venerable ; their wives,
their parents, their children, the sanctuary of God, and the
sepulchre of their fathers. We will not suppose there is one who
will be deterred from exerting himself in such a cause, by a
pusillanimous regard to his safety, when he reflects that he
has already lived too long who has survived the ruin of his
country; and that he who can enjoy life after such an event,
deserves not to have lived at all. It will suffice us, if our mortal
existence, which is at most but a span, be co-extended with that
of the nation which gave us birth. Robert Hall.
CICERO, Philipp. viii. 7-10. iii. 35.
VIRGIL, JEneid. xi. 399, sqy. HORACE, Od. III. ii.
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 161
BONAPARTE COMPARED TO A VULTURE.
RECOLLECT for a moment his invasion of Egypt, a country
which had never given him the slightest provocation; a
country so remote from the scene of his crimes, that it probably
did not know there was such a man in existence (happy ignorance,
could it have lasted!); but while he was looking around him, like
a vulture perched on an eminence, for objects on which he might
gratify his insatiable thirst of rapine, he no sooner beheld the
defenceless condition of that unhappy country, than he alighted
upon it in a moment. In vain did it struggle, flap its wings, and
rend the air with its shrieks ; the cruel enemy, deaf to its cries, had
infixed his talons, and was busy in sucking its blood, when the
interference of a superior power forced him to relinquish his
prey, and betake himself to flight. "Will that vulture, think you,
ever forget his disappointment on that occasion, or the numerous
wounds, blows, and concussions he received in a ten years' struggle?
It is impossible. It were folly to expect it. He meditates, no
doubt, the deepest revenge. He who saw nothing in the condition
of defenceless prisoners to excite his pity, nor in that of the com-
panions of his warfare, sick and wounded in a foreign land, to
prevent him from despatching them by poison, will treat in a
manner worthy of the impiety and inhumanity of his character, a
nation which he naturally dislikes as being free, dreads as the
rivals of his power, and abhors as the authors of his disgrace.
Robert Hall
LIVY, xxxi. c. 30. xxxiv. c. 32. ClCERO, Philipp. xiv. 8-10.
iii. 27. AESCHYLUS IN CICERO, Tusc. Disp. ii. 24.
VIRGIL, ^Sn. vi. 595-60.
M
162 Materials and Models
THE THREATENED INVASION OF BRITAIN, 1803.
BY a series of criminal enterprises the liberties of Europe have
been gradually extinguished; the subjugation of Holland,
Switzerland, and the free towns of Germany, has completed that
catastrophe ; and we are the -only people in the eastern hemisphere
who are in possession of equal laws and a free constitution.
Freedom, driven from every spot on the Continent, has sought an
asylum in a country which she always chose for her favourite
abode ; but she is pursued even here and threatened with de-
struction. The inundation of lawless power, after covering the
whole earth, threatens to follow us here ; and we are most exactly,
most critically placed in the only aperture where it can be success-
fully repelled in the Thermopylae of the world. As far as the
interests of freedom are concerned the most important by far of
sublunary interests ! you, my countrymen, stand in the capacity
of the federal representatives of the human race ; for with you it is
to determine (under God) in what condition the latest posterity
shall be born; their fortunes are entrusted to your care, and on
your conduct at this moment depend the colour and complexion of
their destiny. Robert Hall.
CICERO, Philipp. iii. 29. vi. 18, 19. x. 19. LIVY, xxi. c. 41.
SENSE OF CONCORD AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO PATRIOTIC
EXERTION.
HENCE that unexampled unanimity which distinguishes the
present season. In other wars we have been a divided
people; the effect of our external operations has been in some
measure weakened by intestine dissension. When peace has re-
turned, the breach has widened, while parties have been formed on
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 163
the merits of particular men, or of particular measures. These
have all disappeared : we have buried our mutual animosities in a
regard to the common safety. The sentiment of self-preservation,
the first law which nature has impressed, has absorbed every other
feeling ; and the fire of liberty has melted down the discordant
sentiments and minds of the British Empire into one mass, and
propelled them in one direction. Partial interests and feelings are
suspended, the spirits of the body are collected at the heart, and
we are awaiting with anxiety, but without dismay, the discharge of
that mighty tempest which hangs upon the skirts of the horizon,
and to which the eyes of Europe and of the world are turned in
silent and awful expectation. While we feel solicitude, let us not
betray dejection, nor be alarmed, at the past successes of our enemy,
since they have raised him from obscurity to an elevation which
has made him giddy, and tempted him to suppose everything within
his power. The intoxication of his success is the omen of his fall.
Robert Hall
CICERO, In Catilinam, iv. 14-16. Philipp. viii. 7, 8.
LIVY, xxxiv. c. 49.
ENGLAND THE LAST CHAMPION OF FREEDOM. (1803.)
IF liberty, after being extinguished on the Continent, is suffered
to expire here, whence is it ever to emerge in the midst of
that thick night that will invest it ? It remains with you then to
decide whether that freedom, at whose voice the kingdoms of
Europe awoke from the sleep of ages, to run a career of virtuous
emulation in everything great and good ; the freedom which dis-
pelled the mists of superstition, and invited the nations to behold
their God; whose magic touch kindled the rays of genius, the
enthusiasm of poetry, and the flame of eloquence ; the freedom
which poured into our lap opulence and arts, and embellished life
164 Materials and Models
with innumerable institutions and improvements, till it became a
theatre of wonders ; it is for you to decide whether this freedom
shall yet survive, or be covered with a funeral pall, and wrapt in
eternal gloom. It is not necessary to await your determination.
In the solicitude you feel to approve yourselves worthy of such
a trust, every thought of what is afflicting in warfare, every appre-
hension of danger must vanish, and you are impatient to mingle
in the battle of the civilized world. Go then, ye defenders of
your country, accompanied with every auspicious omen ; advance
with alacrity into the field, where God himself musters the hosts to
war. Robert Hall.
CICERO, Philipp. iii. 29. vi. 18, 19. x. 19. xiv. 30-35.
LIVY, xxi. c. 41.
ARGUMENT THAT ENGLAND HAS NOTHING TO DREAD
FROM THE PREPONDERANCE OF REPUBLICAN FRANCE
RIDICULED.
BUT if there are yet existing any people like me, old-fashioned
enough to consider that we have an important part of our
very existence beyond our limits, and who therefore stretch their
thoughts beyond the Ponioerium of England, for them, too, he has
a comfort which will remove all their jealousies and alarms about
the extent of the empire of regicide : " These conquests eventually
will be the cause of her destruction." So that they who hate the
cause of usurpation, and dread the power under any form, are to
wish her to be a conqueror, in order to accelerate her ruin. A little
more conquest would be still better. Every symptom of the exacer-
bation of the public malady is with him (as with the Doctor in
Moliere) a happy prognostic of recovery.
Flanders gone tant mieux ! Holland subdued Charming !
Spain beaten, and all the hither Germany conquered Bravo !
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 165
Better and better still. But they will retain all their conquests on
a treaty Best of all ! What a delightful thing it is to have a gay
physician, who sees all things, as the French express it, couleur de
rose ! What an escape we have had that we and our allies were
not the conquerors ! By these conquests previous to her utter
destruction, she is " wholly to lose that preponderance which she
held in the scale of European powers." Bless me ! this new system
of France, after changing all other laws, reverses the law of gravita-
tion. By throwing in weight after weight, her scale rises, and will
by-and-by kick the beam. Certainly there is one sense in which
she loses her preponderance : that is, she is no longer preponderant
against the countries she has conquered they are part of herself.
ClCEBO, Philipp. xiii. 35-48. xiv. 18. viii. 12, 13, sqq.
vi. 12, 13, 14, 15. iii. 24-27.
C^SAR.THE GREAT POWER OF HIS CHARACTER.
TO that grand array of aristocratic gravity, of military renown,
of learning and eloquence, of austere and indomitable
virtue, were opposed the genius and resources of one man. He
bore, indeed, an ancient and honourable name ; his talents for
war were, perhaps, the highest the world has ever witnessed ; his
intellectual powers were almost equally distinguished in the closet,
the forum, and the field ; his virtues, the very opposite to those of
Cato, have been not less justly celebrated. But one qualification
for success he possessed beyond all his rivals : the perfect simplicity
of his own character gave him tact to appreciate the real circum-
stances and tendencies of public affairs, to which his contemporaries
were signally blind. He watched the tide of events for many
anxious years, and threw himself upon it at the moment when its
current was most irresistible. Favoured on numerous occasions by
the most brilliant good fortune, he never lost the opportunities
1 66 Materials and Models
which were thus placed within his grasp. He neither indulged
himself in sloth like Lucullus, nor wavered like Pompeius, nor
shifted like Cicero, nor like Cato wrapped himself in impracticable
pride; but equally capable of commanding men and of courting
them, of yielding to events and of moulding them, he maintained
his course firmly and fearlessly, without a single false step, till he
attained the topmost summit of human power. Merivale.
LUCAN, Pharsal. i. 143-157.
CICERO, pro Marcello. 4-12. Philip?, ii. 116.
DEFENCE AND APPEAL TO THE PITY OF THE COURT.
1C ALL heaven and earth to witness, gentlemen, that in pleading
for the defendant I am acting with all openness and good
faith. I am not wittingly keeping back from you any offence of
his against the public weal. In the whole course of my investiga-
tions I found no ground for accusation or suspicion against him. I
may have seemed severe, nay, even merciless towards others, but in
that I only discharged my duty to my country. In other cases I
am bound to follow my own natural bent ;rand naturally, gentlemen,
I am as open to compassion as any of you. When I was severe it
was because I felt myself obliged to be so : I had to save my coun-
try from ruin, and it was nought but compassion for my fellow-
citizens that prompted such severity as the cause required. But
while patriotism led me to punish the guilty, my own feelings
prompt me to save the innocent ; and in my client, while there is
much to pity, there is nothing to hate. It is not from a wish to
avert any personal misfortune that he coines before you, but to pre-
vent a foul blot being cast upon his ancestral name. For what has
he now left to make life worth having ? Not long ago he held a
position which none could rival ; now he is stript of all, and he
makes no effort to recover what is lost. But he does intreat you,
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 167
gentlemen, not to take from him the last comfort which is left him
in his misfortune, the sympathy of his family and his friends. The
plaintiff might well be satisfied with the miseries he has already
inflicted, and only rob him of his seat ; for it is political rivalry,
and not personal ill-will that lies at the bottom of this suit.
CICERO, pro Ccetto, 77-79. Pro Milone, 99, sqq.
Pro Plancio, 101, sqq. PhiUpp. vii. 7.
DEVASTATION OP THE CARNATIC BY HYDER ALL
HE resolved, in the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious of
such things, to leave the whole Carnatic an everlasting
monument of vengeance, and to put perpetual desolation as a
barrier between him and those against whom the faith which holds
the moral elements of the world together was no protection. He
became at length so confident of his force, so collected in his might,
that he made no secret whatever of his dreadful resolution. Having
terminated his dispute with every enemy and every rival, who
buried their mutual animosities in their common detestation against
the creditors of the Nabob of Arcot, he drew from every quarter,
whatever a savage ferocity could add to his new rudiments in the
arts of destruction : and compounding all the materials of fury,
havoc, and desolation into one black cloud, he hung for a while on
the declivities of the mountains. Whilst the authors of all these
evils were idly and stupidly gazing on the menacing meteor which
blackened all their horizon, it suddenly burst and poured down the
whole of its contents upon the plains of the Carnatic. Then
ensued a scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart
conceived, and which no tongue can adequately tell. All the
horrors of war before known or heard of were mercy to that ne\v
havoc. A storm of universal fire blasted every field, consumed
every house, destroyed every temple. The miserable inhabitants,
1 68 Materials and Models
flying from the flaming villages, in part were slaughtered ; others
without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank, or the sacred-
ness of function fathers torn from children, husbands from wives,
enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and amidst the goading spears
of drivers and the trampling of pursuing horses were swept into
captivity in an unknown and hostile land. Those who were able
to evade this tempest fled to the walled cities : but escaping
from fire, sword, and exile, they fell into the jaws of famine.
Burke.
LIVY, xxxi. c. 30. i. c. 29. v. c. 21-37. xxii. c. 30, ad fin.
REPOSE NO PROOF OF WEAKNESS. COMPARISON OF
ENGLAND TO A SHIP OF WAR.
BUT while we thus control even our feelings by our duty, let it
not be said that we cultivate peace, either because we fear or
because we are unprepared for war ; on the contrary, if eight months
ago the Government did not hesitate to proclaim that the country
was prepared for war, if war should be unfortunately necessary,
every month of peace that has since passed has but made us so
much the more capable of exertion. The resources created by peace
are means of war. In cherishing those resources we but accumu-
late those means. Our present repose is no more a proof of inability
to act, than the state of inertness in which I have seen those mighty
masses, that float in the waters above your town, is a proof they
are devoid of strength, and incapable of being fitted out for action.
You well know, gentlemen, how soon one of those stupendous
masses, now reposing on their shadows in perfect stillness how
soon, upon any call of patriotism or necessity, it would assume the
likeness of an animated thing, instinct with life and motion how
soon it would ruffle, as it were, its swelling plumage, how quickly
would it put forth all its beauty and its bravery, collect its scattered
elements of strength, and awaken its dormant thunder. Such as is
(OF THK
UNIVERSITY
For Latin Prose Oratoricafe^^ 169
one of those magnificent machines when springing from inaction
into a display of its might such is England herself : while appa-
rently passive and motionless, she silently concentrates the power
to he put forth on an adequate occasion. Canning.
CICERO, PMlipp. viii. 11-19. Pro Sestio. 45-46.
YIRGIL, jEn. vi. 845, 854. LIVY, xxx. c. 42. xlv. c. 8.
TACITUS, Ann. xi. c. 24. SENECA, Epist. MOT. Ixvi. c. 40.
SALLTJST, Catilin. c. 9.
LORD BACON. HIS DEMEANOUR AT HIS IMPEACHMENT
CONTRASTED WITH THAT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
YOUE lordships know from history, and the records of this
House, that a Lord Eacon has been before you. Who is
there that, upon hearing this name, does not instantly recognise
everything of genius the most profound, everything of literature
the most extensive, everything of discovery the most penetrating,
everything of observation on human life the most distinguishirg
and refined ? All these must be instantly recognised, for they are
all inseparably associated with the name of Lord "Verulam. Yet
when this prodigy was brought before your lordships, by the com-
mons of Great Britain, for having permitted his menial servant to
receive presents, what was his demeanour ? Did he require his
counsel not " to let down the dignity of his defence 1 " No. That
Lord Bacon, whose least distinction was, that he was a peer of
England, a lord high chancellor, and the son of a lord keeper,
behaved like a man who knew himself; like a man who was
conscious of merits of the highest kind ; but who was at the same
time conscious of having fallen into guilt. The Hcusa of Commons
did not spare him. They brought him to your bar. They found
spots in that sun. And what, I again ask, was his behaviour ?
That of contrition, that of humility, that of repentance, that which
1 70 Materials and Models
belongs to the greatest men lapsed and fallen through human in-
firmity into error. He did not hurl defiance at the accusations of
his country, he bowed himself before it, yet with all his penitence
he could not escape the pursuit of the House of Commons, and the
inflexible justice of this court. Your lordships fined him forty
thousand pounds, notwithstanding all his merits ; notwithstanding
his humility ; notwithstanding his contrition ; notwithstanding the
decorum of his behaviour, so well suited to a man under the prose-
cution of the commons of England, before the peers of England.
You fined him in a sum fully equal to one hundred thousand pounds
of the present day. You imprisoned him during the king's plea-
sure ; and you disqualified him for ever from having a seat in this
House, and any office in this kingdom. This is the way in which
the commons behaved formerly, and in which your lordships acted
formerly ; when no culprit at this bar dared to hurl a recriminatory
accusation against his prosecutors, or dared to censure the language
in which they expressed their indignation at his crimes. Burke.
CICERO, In Verrem. Act. i. 1-10. LIVY, xxxviii. c. 50-53, 58-60.
ADDRESS OF SAINTE ALDEGONDE, BURGOMASTER OF
ANTWERP, TO THE PRINCE OF PARMA, ON SUR-
RENDERING THE CITY, A.D. 1585.
"T T 7E are not here, invincible Prince," he said, "that we
V V niay excuse, by an anxious legation, the long defence
which we have made of our homes. Who could have feared any
danger to the most powerful city in the Netherlands from so
moderate a besieging force 1 You would yourself have rather
wished for, than approved of, a greater facility on our part, for the
brave cannot love the timid. We knew the number of your troops,
we had discovered the famine in your camp, we were aware of
the paucity of your ships, we had heard of the quarrels in your
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 171
army, we were expecting daily to hear of a general mutiny among
your soldiers. "Were we to believe that with ten or eleven thou-
sand men you would be able to block up the city by land and
water, to reduce the open country of Brabant, to cut off all aid, as
well from the neighbouring towns as from the powerful provinces
of Holland and Zeeland, to oppose, without a navy, the whole
strength of our fleets, directed against thS dyke 1 Truly, if you had
been at the head of fifty thousand soldiers, and every soldier had
possessed one hundred hands, it would have seemed impossible for
you to meet so many emergencies, in so many places, and under so
many distractions. What you have done we now believe possible
to do, only because we see that it has been done." Motley.
LIVY, xxx. c. 30. xxv. c. 29.
ADDRESS OF SAINTE ALDEGONDE. (Continued.}
" "X/'OU have subjugated the Scheldt, and forced it to bear its
JL bridge, notwithstanding the strength of its current, the
fury of the ocean tides, the tremendous power of the icebergs, the
perpetual conflicts with our fleets. We destroyed your bridge,
with great slaughter of your troops. Eendered more courageous
by that slaughter, you restored that mighty work. We assaulted
the great dyke, pierced it through and through, and opened a path
for our ships. You drove us off when victorious, repaired the ruined
bulwark, and again closed to us the advance of relief. What
machine was there that we did not employ ? What miracles of fire
did we not invent 1 What fleets and floating citadels did we not
put in motion ? All that genius, audacity, and art could teach us
we have executed ; calling to our assistance water, earth, heaven,
and hell itself ! Yet with all these efforts, with all this enginry,
we have not only failed to drive you from our walls, but we have
seen you gaining victories over other cities at the same time. You
172 Materials and Models
have done a thing, Prince, than which there is nothing greater
either in ancient or modern story. It has often occurred, while a
general was besieging one city that he lost another situate further
off. But you, while besieging Antwerp, have reduced simul-
taneously Dendermonde, Ghent, i^ymegen, Brussels, and Mechlin."
Motley.
LIVY, xxx. c. 30. xxv. c. 29.
REMONSTRANCE OF SIR J. CHEKE WITH THE REBELS
WHO FOLLOWED A'ET THE TANNER OF NORFOLK,
A.D. 1547.
YE pretend to a commonwealth. How amend ye it by killing
of gentlemen, by spoiling of gentlemen, by imprisoning of
gentlemen ? A marvellous tanned commonwealth ! Why should
ye hate them for their riches, or for their rule 1 Rule, they never
took so much in hand as ye do now. They never resisted the
king, never withstood his council. Be faithful at this day, when ye
be faithless, not only to the king, whose subjects ye be, but also to
your lords, whose tenants ye be. Is this your true duty in
some of homage, in most of fealty, in all of allegiance to leave
your duties, go back from your promises, fall from your faith, and
contrary to law and truth, to make unlawful assemblies, ungodly
companies, wicked and detestable camps, to disobey your betters,
and to obey your tanners, to change your obedience from a King
to a Ket, to submit yourselves to traitors, and break your faith
to your true king and lords ! If riches offend you, because ye
would have the like, then think that to be no commonwealth, but
envy to the commonwealth. Envy it is to appair another man's
estate, without the amendment of your own ; and to have no
gentlemen, because ye be none yourselves, is to bring down an
estate, and mend none. Would ye have all rich alike ? That is
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 173
the overthrow of all labour, and utter decay of work in this realm.
For who will labour more if, when he hath gotten more, the idle
shall by lust, without right, take what him list from him, under
pretence of equality with him ? This is the bringing in of idleness,
which destroyeth the commonwealth, and not the amendment of
labour, which maintaineth the commonwealth.
LIVY, xxviii. c. 27-29.
CERIALIS TO THE GAULS. THEIR INTERESTS ARE
BOUND UP WITH THOSE OF ROME.
THE protection of the Republic has delivered Gaul from
internal discord and foreign invasions. By the loss of
national independence you have acquired the name and privileges
of Roman citizens. You enjoy in common with ourselves the
permanent benefits of civil government ; and your remote situation
is less exposed to the accidental mischiefs of tyranny. Instead
of exercising the rights of conquest, we have been contented to
impose such tributes as are required for your own preservation.
Peace cannot be secured without armies ; and armies must be
supported at the expense of the people. It is for your sake, not
for our own, that we guard the barrier of the Rhine against the
ferocious Germans, who have so often attempted and who will
always desire to exchange the solitude of their woods and morasses
for the wealth and fertility of Gaul. The fall of Rome would be
fatal to the provinces, and you would be buried in the ruins of
that mighty fabric which has been raised by the valour and wisdom
of eight hundred years. Your imaginary freedom would be
insulted and oppressed by a savage master; and the expulsion
of the Romans would be succeeded by the eternal hostilities of
the barbarian conquerors. Merivale.
TACITUS, Hist. iv. c. 73, 74.
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ENGLAND THE CHAMPION OF FREEDOM.
FOR as it was said by a great orator of antiquity, that no man
ever was the enemy of the republic who had not first de-
clared war against him, so I may say, with truth, that no man ever
meditated the subjugation of Europe, who did not consider the
destruction, or the corruption, of England as the first condition of
his success. If you examine history you will find, that no such
project was ever formed in which it was not deemed a necessary
preliminary, either to detach England from the common cause, or
to destroy her. It seems as if all the conspirators against the in-
dependence of nations, might have sufficiently taught other states
that England is their natural guardian and protector ; that she
alone has no interest but their preservation; that her safety is
interwoven with their own. When vast projects of aggrandise-
ment are manifested, when schemes of criminal ambition are carried
into effect, the day of battle is fast approaching for England. Her
free government cannot engage in dangerous wars, without the
hearty and affectionate support of her people. A state thus
situated cannot, without the utmost peril, silence those public
discussions, which are to point the popular indignation against
those who must soon be enemies. In domestic dissensions, it may
sometimes be the supposed interest of government to overawe the
press. But it never can be even their apparent interest when the
danger is purely foreign. Mackintosh.
CICERO, Philipp. ii. 1. LIVY, xxxiii. c. 33.
SOULT TO THE ARMY OF THE PYRENEES, A.D. 1813.
SOLDIERS ! I partake of your chagrin, your grief, your indig-
nation. I know that the blame of the present situation of
the army is imputable to others be the merit of repairing it
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 175
yours. I have borne testimony to the Emperor of your bravery
and zeal. His instructions are to drive the enemy from these lofty
heights which enable him proudly to survey our fertile valleys, and
chase him across the Ebro. It is on the Spanish soil that your
tents must next be pitched, and from thence your resources drawn.
No difficulties can be insurmountable to your valour and devotion.
Let us then exert ourselves with mutual ardour, and be assured that
nothing can give greater felicity to the paternal heart of the Empe-
ror than the knowledge of the triumphs of his army of its increas-
ing glory, of its having rendered itself worthy of him and of our
dear country.
TACITUS, Hist. i. c. 83. LIVY, xxi. c. 40, 41, 43, 44.
CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION
THEEE is, however, one man, who distinctly and audaciously
tells the Irish people, that they are not entitled to the
same privileges as Englishmen ; and who pronounces them, in every
particular which could enter his minute enumeration of the circum-
stances, by which fellow-citizenship is created, in race, in country,
and religion to be aliens; to be aliens in race, to be aliens in
country, to be aliens in religion ! The Duke of Wellington is not
a man of an excitable temperament. His mind is of a cast too
martial to be easily moved ; but notwithstanding his habitual in-
flexibility, I cannot help thinking that, when he heard his Eoman
Catholic countrymen (for we are his countrymen) designated by a
phrase as offensive as the abundant vocabulary of his eloquent con-
federate [Lord Lyndhurst], could supply, I cannot help thinking
that he ought to have recollected the many fields of fight, in which
we have been contributors to his renown. [At Waterloo], the
blood of England, Scotland, and of Ireland, flowed in the same
stream, and drenched the same field. When the chill morning
176 Materials and Models
dawned, their dead lay cold and stark together ; in the same deep
pit, their bodies were deposited ; the green corn of spring is now
breaking from their commingled dust ; the dew falls from heaven
upon their union in the grave. Partakers in every peril, in the
glory shall we not be permitted to participate 1 and shall we be
told, as a requital, that we are estranged from the noble country,
for whose salvation our life-blood was poured out 1 Shell.
LIVY, viii. c. 4, 5.
INDEPENDENCE PREFERABLE TO A SEA T IN
PARLIAMENT.
BUT if I profess all this impolitic stubbornness, I may chance
never to be elected into Parliament. It is certainly not
pleasing to be put out of the public service. But I wish to be a
member of Parliament, to have my share of doing good and resist-
ing evil. It would therefore be absurd to renounce my objects in
order to obtain my seat. I deceive myself indeed most grossly, if
I had not much rather pass the remainder of my life hidden in the
recesses of the deepest obscurity, feeding my mind even with the
visions and imaginations of such things, than to be placed on the
most splendid throne in the universe, tantalized with a denial of
the practice of all which can make the greatest situation any other
than the greatest curse. Gentlemen, I have had my day. I can
never sufficiently express my gratitude to you for having set me in
a place wherein I could lend the slightest help to great and laudable
designs. If by my vote I have aided in securing to families the
best possession, peace ; if I have joined in reconciling kings to their
subjects, and subjects to their prince; if I have thus taken part
with the best of men in the best of their actions, I can shut the
book. I might wish to read a page or two more ; but this is enough
for my measure, I have not lived in vain. Burke.
CICEBO, Philipp. i. 37, 38. Pro Sestio. 42-46.
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 177
BURKE CONTRASTS HIS OWN MERITS AND REWARDS
WITH THOSE OF THE DUKE OF BEDFORD.
IJN" truth his Grace is somewhat excusable for his dislike to a
grant like mine, not only in its quantity but in its kind so
different from his own. Mine was from a mild and benevolent
sovereign, his from Henry the Eighth. The merit of the grantee
whom he derives from was that of being a prompt and greedy
instrument of a levelling tyrant, who oppressed all descriptions of
his people, but who fell with particular fury on everything that was
great and noble. Mine has been in endeavouring to screen every
man in every class from oppression, and particularly in defending
the high and eminent, who in the bad time of confiscating princes,
confiscating chief governors, or confiscating demagogues, are the
most exposed to jealousy, avarice, and envy. The merit of the
origin of his Grace's fortune was in being a favourite and chief
adviser to a prince who left no liberty to their native country. My
endeavour was to obtain liberty for the municipal country in which
I was born, and for all descriptions and denominations in it. Mine
was to support with unrelaxing vigilance every right, every privi-
lege, every franchise, in this my adopted, my dearer and more com-
prehensive country ; and not only to preserve those rights in this
chief seat of empire, but in every nation, in every land, in every
climate, language, and religion in the vast domain that is still
under the protection, and the larger that was once under the
protection of the British crown. His founder's merits were, by
arts in which he served his master and made his fortune, to bring
poverty, wretchedness, and depopulation on his country. Mine
were under a benevolent prince, in promoting the commerce, manu-
factures and agriculture of his kingdom. Burke.
CICERO, In Pisonem. 24-33. Philipp. ii. 10-19.
LIVY, xxxiii. c. 33.
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UNIVERSITY
1 78 Materials and Models
NATIONAL LONGING FOR CHANGE.
THE love of change, gentlemen, is another characteristic of our
present intellectual condition. Love of any kind is only a
desire for something which we need ; and our great need now is, of
those truths which may restore and regenerate individuals and
society ; it is in the future only that we can expect to find them.
Hence our age is looking with hope and love to that future, and
gives itself up cheerfully to change. We seem to be living not so
much in the present as in the future, and receive each novelty with
rapturous enthusiasm ; as if, because new, it was that of which we
feel the want. The secret and unconscious longing of our hearts is
for something yet untried, as if it alone could satisfy our desires.
Hence that indiscriminate passion for revolution which makes us
the dupes and tools of each adventurer's ambitious dreams, and
renders vain the sacrifices and the cost of social convulsion. For,
observe, what we need is no outward change. Let society pass
through any number of outward revolutions, and unless the ideas
which it is in want of are thereby supplied, they will leave it
exactly where it was, and will be wholly useless. Eeflection alone
makes discoveries in truth, and peace is needed for reflection. Out-
ward revolutions are indeed of service, when they tend to realize
the truths which have already been discovered ; but to desire
revolution, when the truths for which an age is sighing are yet
unknown, and as a means for discovering them, is to commit the
absurdity of wishing that the consequence should produce its
principle, or an end its means.
CICERO, pro Sestio. 100, sqq. De Republica, ii. 7-8v
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 179
DESIRE OF CHANGE. UNREASONING IN THE
MULTITUDE.
THIS, however, is the very thing which the multitude does not
see ; it is so deluded as to expect, from every future change,
that new and unknown something which may make them happy.
They hurry on to revolution with blind madness, impatient of the
present, eager for the future. Before this torrent of popular passion
no institution can stand, no government endure. Hence such short-
lived popularity as we continually see. When a new man appears
in the political world, we greet him with admiration and honour.
Why ? Because we hope that in him we have at last found one
who can satisfy our wants. And what follows ] As he, no more
than we ourselves, has any answer for the problems which we wish
to solve, in a few weeks after his elevation to power we find him
barren and empty as his predecessors, and at once his popularity
declines. In our day, in fact, the mere possession of power is
reason sufficient for unpopularity. They only are, or can be popu-
lar, who have not yet acquired the power they seek. They, as yet,
have not uttered their secret ; and the moment when they are in a
position to declare it, and when it appears that they, like the rest,
have no more to tell, the warm favour which welcomed them grows
cool, for the illusion which made them great is gone.
CICERO, pro Sestio. 95, sqq. Pro Plancio, 6-11.
INEFFECTUAL LONGING FOR CHANGE.
FEOM what has now been said, gentlemen, we can readily
perceive the cause of the unhappiness of that collective
being, called a government in our day. The people are like
children who feel a want, and cry to the nurse for something
she can neither discover nor imagine what and which, very
i So Materials and Models
possibly, may be wholly out of reach. The people feel a painful
uneasiness, but they know not its cause; and they complain,
therefore, now of the form of government under which they live,
and then of those who conduct it, because the evil which they
suffer from is not rooted out. They for ever desire to substitute
other men for those now in power ; in place of established forms,
they would have new ones ; and for existing laws, and the social
order already prevailing, they seek new laws, and a new order ;
persuaded that the source of the evil is in the government, in the
laws, in the organization of society, and that, with the change of
these, they shall find what they seek. But, were all changed, they
would still remain as unhappy and discontented as at first ; for the
changes they desire are only outward and material, not moral, while
it is a moral change of which there really is a need. And, as long
as the desired solutions of these questions remain unfound, in the
light of which society is to be remodelled in a form adequate to the
wants of the human mind, so long will society continue to pass
through a constant succession of ineffectual changes.
CICERO, pro Scstio. 96-101. Pro Murena. 35, 36.
Pro Plancio. 6-11. PERSIUS, Sat. iii. 15, sqq.
ROBESPIERRE. HIS MURDERERS AS BAD AS HIMSELF.
NO PEACE POSSIBLE WITH THEM.
BUT who gave Robespierre the power of being a tyrant ? And
who were the instruments of his tyranny 1 ? The present
virtuous constitution-mongers. He was a tyrant, they were his
satellites and his hangmen. Their sole merit is in the murder of
their colleagues. They have expiated their other murders by a new
murder. It has always been the case among this banditti : they
have always had the knife at each other's throats, after they had
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 181
almost blunted it at the throat of every honest man. These
people thought that in the commerce of murder, he was like to
have the better of the bargain if any time was lost ; they therefore
took one of their short revolutionary methods, and massacred him
in a manner so perfidious and cruel as would shock all humanity if
the stroke was not struck by the present rulers on one of their
associates. But this last act of infidelity and murder is to expiate
all the rest, and to qualify them for the amity of a humane and
virtuous sovereign and civilized people. I have heard that a Tartar
believes when he has killed a man, that all his estimable qualities
pass with his clothes and arms to the murderer ; but I have never
heard that it was the opinion of any savage Scythian, that if he
kill a brother villain, he is, ipso facto, absolved of all his own
offences. The Tartarian doctrine is the most tenable opinion. The
murderers of Robespierre, besides what they are entitled to by
being engaged in the same tontine of infamy, are his representa-
tives, have inherited all his murderous qualities in addition to their
own private stock. But it seems we are always to be of a party
with the last and victorious assassins. I confess I am of a different
mind, and am rather inclined, of the two, to think and speak less
hardly of a dead ruffian, than to associate with the living. I could
better bear the stench of the gibbeted murderer than the society of
the bloody felons who yet annoy the world. Whilst they wait the
recompense due to their ancient crimes, they merit new punish-
ments by the new offences they commit. There is a period to the
offences of Robespierre. They survive in his assassins. Better a
living dog, says the old proverb, than a dead lion ; not so here.
Murderers and hogs never look well till they are hanged. From
villainy no good can arise but the example of its fate. Burke.
ClCERO, Philipp. xiii. 1-4 ; 48, sqq. ; xi. 9, sqq. ; v. 10-26.
In Catilin. ii. 17, 18, aqq.
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THE EMPEROR ADDRESSES A PROVINCIAL
DEPUTA TION.
WHEN", some years ago, I came for the first time to visit this
department, everything smiled upon my wishes. I had
just espoused the Empress, and I may say I had just wedded
France before eight millions of witnesses. Order was restored,
political passions were lulled to rest, and I foresaw for the country
a new era of greatness and prosperity. At home the union existing
among all good citizens presaged the peaceful dawn of liberty ;
abroad, I saw our glorious flag protecting every cause of civilizing
justice. During the last fourteen years many of my hopes have
been realized, and great progress has been accomplished. Dark
spots, however, have dimmed our horizon. But even as good
fortune has not dazzled me, so transient reverses will not dis-
courage me. How should I be discouraged when I see from one
end of France to the other the people greeting the Empress and
myself with acclamations in which is unceasingly associated the
name of our son ? To-day I do not come here only to celebrate
a glorious anniversary in the capital of ancient Flanders; I also
come to learn your wants, to heighten the courage of some, to
confirm the confidence of all, and to endeavour to increase the
prosperity of this great department by still further developing its
agriculture, manufactures, and commerce. You will aid me, gentle-
men, in this noble task, but you will not forget that the first
condition of the prosperity of a nation is to possess the conscious-
ness of its own strength, and not allow itself to be depressed by
imaginary fears, but to rely on the wisdom and patriotism of its
Government. Napoleon III.
TACITUS, Ann. iv. c. 37, 38. iii. c. 56.
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 183
PITT DESCRIBED AS A CRAFTY, TYRANNICAL, LA VISH,
MALIGNANT DEMAGOGUE.
ENGLAND, as you know, is governed by Pitt, the most
insidious of her demagogues, and the most hostile to
aristocracy. Jealous of power, and distrustful of the people that
raised him to it, he enriches and attaches to him the commercial
part of the nation by the most wasteful prodigality both in finance
and war, and he loosens from the landed the chief proprietors by
raising them to the peerage. Nearly a third of the lords have been
created by him, and prove themselves devotedly his creatures.
This Empusa puts his ass's foot on the French, and his iron one
on the English. He possesses not the advantage possessed by
insects, which, if they see but one inch before them, see that inch
distinctly. He knows not that the machine which runs on so
briskly, will fall to pieces the moment it stops. He will indeed
carry his point in debasing the aristocracy; but he will equally
debase the people. Undivided power he will continue to enjoy ;
but, after his death, none will be able to say from any visible proof
or appearance, how glorious a people did he govern ! He will have
changed its character in all ranks and conditions. After this it is
little to say that he will have exalted its rival, who, without his
interposition, would have sunk under distress and crime. But
interposition was necessary to his aggrandizement, enabling him to
distribute in twenty years, if he should live so long, more wealth
among his friends and partisans, than has been squandered by the
uncontrolled profusion of French monarchs, from the first Louis to
the last. W. S. Landor.
ClCERO, PhiUpp. ii. 44. sqq. SALLUST, Bell. Catilin. c. 5, 16.
184 Materials and Models
FEAR OF AN AVENGING WAR A SAFEGUARD FOR THE
PEACE OF EUROPE.
IT is the apprehension of this result which is the main safeguard
of peace. Any prince who might be inclined to do a wrong
to another State casts his eyes abroad to see the condition of the
great powers. If he observes that they are all in a sound state, and
headed by firm, able rulers, who are equal, if need be, to the duty
of taking up arms, he knows that his contemplated outrage would
produce a war of which he cannot foresee the scope or limit, and
unless he be a madman or a desperado, desiring war for war's sake,
he will be inclined to hold back. On the other hand, if he sees
that any great nation which ought to be foremost to resist him is in
a state of exceptional weakness, or under the governance of un-
worthy or incapable rulers, or is distracted by some whim or senti-
ment interfering with her accustomed policy, then, perhaps he
allows himself to entertain a hope that she may not have the spirit
or the wisdom to perform her duty. That is the hope, and it may
be said in these days it is the one only hope, which would drive a
sane prince to become the disturber of Europe. To frustrate this
hope in other words, to keep alive the dread of a just and avenging
war should be the care of every statesman who would faithfully
labour to preserve the peace of Europe. Kinrjldke.
ClCEHO, In Catilin. i. 29, sqq. Philipp. v. 13-15.
INFECTIVE AGAINST GOVERNMENT BY A CLASS.
I AM convinced that just laws, and an enlightened administration
of them, would change the face of the country. I believe
that ignorance and suffering might be lessened to an incalculable
extent, and that many an Eden, beauteous in flowers and rich in
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 185
fruits, might be raised up in the waste wilderness which spreads
before us. But no class can do that. The class which has hitherto
ruled in this country has failed miserably. It revels in power and
wealth, whilst at its feet, a terrible peril for its future, lies the
multitude which it has neglected. If a class has failed, let us try
the nation. That is our faith, that is our purpose, that is our cry
Let us try the nation. This it is which has called together these
countless numbers of the people to demand a change ; and, as I think
of it, and of these gatherings, sublime in their vastness and in their
resolution, I think I see, as it were, above the hill-tops of time, the
glimmerings of the dawn of a better and a nobler day for the country
and for the people that I love so well. J. Bright.
SALLUST, Jugurth, c. 31. Catilin. c. 20. LIYY, vi. c. 37, 39.
METE OR LIKE CAREER OF NAPOLEON I.
TO trace the wild and irregular grandeur of his career, to mark
the splendour of his rise or the gloom of his declension,
would be to record those extraordinary events which have rendered
the last thirty years the most important period in the history of the
world. The memory of these occurrences comes upon us as the
remembrance of a fearful vision. It is scarcely of the earth. It is
like the dim legend of a fabulous generation. We might almost
doubt of the important part which this man has acted on the great
stage of the world, because the last act of his "strange eventful
history " has been one of oblivion and obscurity, because he has
lain down like the commonest among us, pining with despondency
and wasting with disease, to die in silence and solitude, with not a
recollection of his glory about him. But his career has been one
that can never be forgotten, either in its power or in its guilt. He
will be the great mark of the age. For this is the man that carried
1 86 Materials and Models
revolutionary France in triumph through Europe, this is he that
raised himself to the consular chair, this is he that sat down on
the throne of the ancient Kings of France, and put the iron crown
of Italy on his brow, this is he that kings and emperors bowed
before, and that held queens captive, and gave princesses in dower,
this is he that conquered at Jena and Austerlitz, this is he that
seized upon the crown of Spain, this is he that defied the frosts as
well as the hardy soldiers of the North, and fell before their united
fury, this is he that the power of England drove out of Spain,
this is he that abdicated the throne to which the revolution had
raised him, this is he that leapt a second time into the seat of his
usurpation, and whose power crumbled into dust on the day of
Waterloo.
ClCERO, pro lege Manil. 29-31 ; 36. Pro Milone. 72-75.
LIVY, ix. c. 18. xxi. c. 4. xxxviii. c. 53.
LUCAN, Pharsal. i. 143.
PRAISE OF MR. COBDEN.IIIS SIMPLICITY OF
CHARACTER.
FULL of knowledge and wisdom, tried in the great struggles
of his public life, he came in his maturer years to his
native place, to exhibit the unvarying graces of a good and honest
man, and to practise those rare virtues of simplicity and tran-
quillity which adorned him even more than his vast knowledge
and unparalleled sagacity. Those who merely saw him could hardly
credit the large powers which lay hid in so easy and serene a
presence. To us who were honoured with his closer intimacy
there is a blank created by his loss which no subsequent friendship
can occupy. We cannot imagine any man with such varied gifts,
such signal opportunities, so wide an experience, and so wise a
mind, with so pure and simple a character. The charms of his
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 187
graceful simplicity, of his lucid language, his copious knowledge,
are no longer available for our instruction. No man's loss could
create such a waste, because no man ever occupied so large a space
in the habitual thoughts and affectionate intercourse of his more
intimate friends. To have lived familiarly within the influences
and convictions of a great and true mind, was to live happily
indeed, but to live within the range of a great sorrow. Rev. J. E.
T. Rogers.
CICERO, Brutus, 1-9; 265, 266. De Oratore, iii. 0-8.
Philipp. ix. 8, sqq.
SOUNDNESS OF THE POLITICAL INSTINCTS OF
ENGLISHMEN.
IN England we have not yet been completely embowelled of our
natural entrails ; we still feel within us, and we cherish and
cultivate those inbred sentiments which are the faithful guardians,
the active monitors of our duty, the true supporters of all liberal
and manly morals. We preserve the whole of our feelings still
native and entire ; unsophisticated by pedantry and infidelity.
We have real hearts of flesh and blood beating in our own bosoms.
We fear God : we look up with awe to kings, with affection to
parliaments, with duty to magistrates, with reverence to priests,
and with respect to nobility. Why ? Because when such ideas
are brought before our minds, it is natural to be so affected, because
all other feelings are false and spurious, and tend to corrupt our
minds, to vitiate our primary morals, to render us unfit for rational
liberty.
CICERO, Pro Sestio, 96-100; 136-139. '
SALLUST, Catilin. c. 6-9.
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REFORM BILL OF 1831 COMPARED TO THE SIBYLS
BOOKS.
MY Lords, I do not disguise the intense solicitude which I
feel for the event of this debate, because I know full well
that the peace of the country is involved in the issue. I cannot
look without dismay at the rejection of the measure. But grievous
as may be consequences of a temporary defeat temporary it can
only be ; for its ultimate, and even speedy success, is certain.
Nothing can now stop it. Do not suffer yourselves to be per-
suaded that, even if the present ministers were driven from the
helm, any one could steer you through the troubles which surround
you without reform. But our successors will take up the task in
circumstances far less auspicious. Under them, you will be fain
to grant a bill, compared with which, the one we now proffer you
is moderate indeed. Hear the parable of the Sibyl ; for it conveys
a wise and wholesome moral. She now appears at your gate, and
offers you mildly the volumes the precious volumes of wisdom
and peace. The price she asks is reasonable; to restore the
franchise, which, without any bargain, you ought voluntarily to
give : you refuse her terms her moderate terms she darkens the
porch no longer. But soon, for you cannot do without her wares,
you call her back ; again she comes, but with diminished treasures;
the leaves of the book are in part torn away by lawless hands in
part defaced with characters of blood. But the prophetic maid
has risen in her demands. It is parliaments by the year, it is vote
by the ballot, it is suffrage by the million ! From this you turn
away indignant, and for the second time she departs. Beware of
her third coming ; for the treasure you must have ; and what price
she may next demand, who shall tell 1 It may even be the mace
which rests upon that woolsack. What may follow your course of
obstinacy, if persisted in, I cannot take upon me to predict, nor
do I wish to conjecture. But this I know full well, that, as sure
as man is mortal, and to err is human, justice deferred enhances
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 189
the price at which you must purchase safety and peace ; nor can
you expect to gather in another crop than they did who went before
you, if you persevere in their utterly abominable husbandry, of
sowing injustice and reaping rebellion. Lord Brougliam.
LIVY, c. iv. 3-5. x. c. 7. 8. AULUS GELLIUS, lib. i. c. 19.
CiCERO, de Legibus. iii. 23, sqq. In Verrem. Divinat. 07-71. Act I.
1, sqq. Act. II. lib. iii. f 1, sqq. lib. v. 179, sqq,
JUVENAL, Sat. viii. 126.
SPEECH IN FAVOUR OF SEVERE ENFORCEMENT OF
THE LAWS.
I CONFESS my notions are widely different, and I never was
less sorry for any action of my life. I like the Bill the better
on account of the events of all kinds that followed it. It relieved
the real sufferers, it strengthened the State, and by the disorders that
ensued, we had clear evidence that there lurked a temper some-
where which ought not to be fostered by the laws. No ill conse-
quence whatever could be attributed to the Act itself. We knew
beforehand, or we were poorly instructed, that toleration is odious
to the intolerant, freedom to oppressors, property to robbers, and
all kinds and degrees of prosperity to the envious. We knew that
all these kinds of men would gladly gratify their evil dispositions
under the sanction of law and religion if they could ; if they could
not, yet to make way to their objects, they would do their utmost
to subvert all religion and all law. This we certainly knew. But
knowing this, is there any reason because thieves break in and
steal, and thus bring detriment to you and draw ruin on themselves,
that I am to be sorry that you are in possession of shops and of
warehouses, and of wholesome laws to protect them 1 Are you to
build no houses because desperate men may pull them down upon
their own heads 1
CICERO, Philipp. i. 21-26. In Catilwam. i. 27, sqq.
SALLUST, Bell. Catilin. c. 52.
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A BAD MINISTER DISCREDITS A GOOD PRINCE.
YOU will say, perhaps, that the situation of affairs at home
demanded and engrossed the whole of your attention. Here
I confess you have been active. An amiable, accomplished prince
ascends the throne under the happiest of all auspices, the acclama-
tions and united affections of his subjects. The first measures
of his reign, and even the odium of a favourite, were not able to
shake their attachment. Your services, my Lord, have been more
successful. Since you were permitted to take the lead, we have
seen the natural effects of a system of government at once both
odious and contemptible. We have seen the laws sometimes
scandalously relaxed, sometimes violently stretched beyond their
tone. We have seen the person of the sovereign insulted ; and,
in profound peace, and with an undisputed title, the fidelity of his
subjects brought by his own servants into public question.
Without abilities, resolution, or interest, you have done more than
Lord Bute could accomplish, with all Scotland at his heels.
Junius.
CICERO, Pldlipp. ii. 115, sqq. In Vatinium. 15-20.
INDIA TOO VAST TO BE GOVERNED BY ONE MAN.
I BELIEVE the duties of the Governor-General are far greater
than any human being can adequately fulfil. He has a power
omnipotent to crush anything that is good. If he so wishes he
can overbear and overrule whatever is proposed for the welfare of
India, while as to doing anything that is good, I could show that
with regard to the vast countries over which he rules he is really
almost powerless to effect anything that those countries require. The
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 191
hon. gentleman behind me has told us that there are twenty nations
in India, and that there are twenty languages. Has it ever happened
before that any one man governed twenty nations, speaking twenty
different languages, and bound them together in one great and
compact empire 1 My hon. friend mentions a great Parthian
monarch. No doubt there have been men strong in arm and in
head, and of stern resolution, who have kept great empires together
during their lives ; but as soon as they went the way of all flesh
and descended like the meanest of their subjects to the tomb, the
provinces they had ruled were divided into several states, and their
great empires vanished. J. Bright.
CICERO, ad Quintum Fratrem. I. Epist. i. 2, 7, 14.
Pro lege Manil. 14-16 ; 67, 68.
EULOGY OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
THE Duke of "Wellington left to his countrymen a great legacy
greater even than his glory. He left them the contem-
plation of his character. I will not say that his conduct revived
the sense of duty in England I will not say that of our country
but that his conduct inspired public life with a purer and more
masculine tone I cannot doubt. His career rebukes restless vanity,
and reprimands the irregular ebullitions of a morbid egotism. I
doubt not that among all orders of Englishmen, from those with
the highest responsibilities of our society, to' those who perform the
humblest duties, I dare say there is not a man who, in his toil and
his perplexity, has not sometimes thought of the Duke, and found in
his example support and solace. Though he lived so much in the
minds and hearts of his countrymen, though he occupied such emi-
nent posts, and fulfilled such august duties, it was not till he died
that we felt what a place he filled in the feelings and thoughts of
the people of England. Never was the influence of real greatness
more completely asserted than in his decease. In an age whose
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want of intellectual equality natters all our self-complacencies, the
world suddenly acknowledged that it had lost the greatest of men ;
in an age of utility, the most industrious and common-sense people
in the world could find no vent for their woe, and no representative
for their sorrow but the solemnity of a pageant ; and we, we who
have met here for such different purposes, to investigate the sources
of the wealth of nations, to enter into statistical research, and to
encounter each other in fiscal controversy, we present to the world
the most sublime and touching spectacle that human circumstances
can well produce the spectacle of a senate mourning a hero.
B. Disraeli.
CICEIIO, pro hfje Manil. 27-31 ; 36. Pro Balbo. 8-13.
Academ. Prior, ii. 1, sqq. Pro Milone. 96-98.
Pro Mar cello. 4-12.
SPEECH OF A PATRICIAN AGAINST ALTERING THE
FUNDAMENTAL LA WS OF ROME.
WHAT is there, then, ye will say to me, in this third ordinance
which thou so inislikest ? I will answer you in few words.
I mislike the changing of the laws of our fathers, especially when
these laws have respect to the worship of the gods. Many things
I know are ordered wisely for one generation, which notwithstand-
ing are by another generation no less wisely ordered otherwise.
There is room in human affairs for change, there is room also for
unchangeableness. But where shall we seek for that which is un-
changeable, but in those great laws which are the very foundation
of the Commonwealth, most of all in those which, having to do
with the immortal gods, should be also themselves immortal ? Now
it belongs to these laws that the office of Consul, which is as it
were the shadow of the majesty of Jove himself, should be held
only by men of the houses of the patricians. Ye know how that none
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 193
but the patricians may take any office of priesthood for the worship
of the gods of Rome ; nor interpret the will of the gods by augury.
For the gods being themselves many, have set also upon earth many
nations of men and many orders ; and one race may not take to
itself the law of another race, nor one order the law of another
order. Each has its own law, which was given to it from the
beginning ; and if we change these, the whole world will be full of
confusion. It is our boast that we Eomans have greater power over
our children than the men of any other nation ; with us the son,
even as long as he lives, is subject to his father's will, except his
father be pleased to give him his freedom. Now if a son were to
ask why he should not, when he has come to full age, be free from
his father's authority, what answer should we give other than this,
that the law of the Romans gave to fathers this power over their
children ; that to this law he had been born as surely as to those
other laws of his nature, which appointed him to be neither
a god nor a beast, but a man. These laws are not of to-day
nor of yesterday ; we know of no time when they have not
been. May neither we nor our children ever even see that time
when they shall have ceased to be. Arnold.
LIVY, vi. c. 40, 41. iv. c. 2. x. c. 8.
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT OF THE LICINIAN ROGATIONS
CONSIDERED.
TO such language as this the Tribunes ought to have replied by
denying that its principle was applicable to the particular
point at issue ; they might have urged that the admission of the
Commons to the Consulship was not against the original and un-
alterable laws of the Romans, inasmuch as strangers had been
admitted even to be kings at Rome. And the good King Servius,
whose memory was so fondly cherished by the people, was, accord-
ed
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ing to one tradition, not only a stranger by birth, but a slave. And
further they ought to have answered, that the law of intermarriage
between the Patricians and Commons was a breaking down of the
distinction of orders, and implied that there was no such difference-
between them as to make it profane in either to exercise the
functions of the other. But as to the principle itself, there is no
doubt that it did contain much truth. The ancient heathen world
craved, what all men must crave, an authoritative rule of conduct ;
and not finding it elsewhere, they imagined it to exist in the
fundamental and original laws of each particular race or people.
To destroy this sanction without leaving anything to substitute in
its place was deeply perilous ; and reason has been but too seldom
possessed of power sufficient to recommend its truths to the mass
of mankind by their own sole authority. Arnold.
LIVY, iv. c. 3, 4. x. c. 8. vi. c. 37.
CICERO, De Leyibus, ii. 8-13.
ENERGY AND SUCCESS OF THE AMERICAN'
WHALE-FISHERS.
AS to the wealth which the colonies have drawn from the sea
by their fisheries, you had all that matter fully opened at
your bar. You surely thought those acquisitions of value, for
they seemed even to excite your envy ; and yet the spirit by which
that enterprising employment has been exercised ought rather, in
my opinion, to have raised your esteem and admiration. And
pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it 1 Pass by the other parts,
and look at the manner in which the people of New England have
of late carried on the whale fishery. Whilst we follow them
among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them penetrat-
ing into the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay and Davis'
Strait ; whilst we are looking for them beneath the Arctic Circle,
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 195
we hear that they have pierced into the opposite region of polar
cold, that they are at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen
serpent of the South. Falkland Island, which seemed too remote
and romantic an object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a
stage and resting-place in the progress of their victorious industry.
]S T or is the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them than the
accumulated winter of both the poles. We know that whilst some
of them draw the line and strike the harpoon on the coast of
Africa, others run the longitude, and pursue their gigantic game
along the coast of Brazil. No sea but what is vexed by their
fisheries. No climate that is not witness to their toils. Neither
the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the
dexterous and firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever carried this
most perilous mode of hard industry to the extent to which it
has been pushed by this recent people a people who are still,
as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone
of manhood. Burlce.
CICERO, In Verrem. Act ii. lib. ii. 1-3, 7-9 ; Act ii. lib. iii. 227, 228.
TACITUS, Agricola, c. 30, 34.
OFFICIAL TRAINING NARROWS THE MIND.
ME. GEENVILLE was bred to the law, which is, in my
opinion, one of the finest and noblest of human sciences ;
a science which does more to quicken and invigorate the under-
standing than all the other kinds of learning put together ; but it
is not apt, except in persons very happily born, to open and
to liberalize the mind exactly in the same proportion. Passing
from that study, he did not go very largely into the world, but
plunged into business, I mean into the business of office, and the
limited and fixed methods and forms established there. Much
knowledge is to be had, undoubtedly, in that line, and there is no
knowledge which is not valuable. But it may be truly said that
196 Materials and Models
men too much, conversant in office are rarely minds of remarkable
enlargement. Their habits of office are apt to give them a turn to
think the substance of business not to be much more important
than the forms in which it is conducted. These forms are adapted
to ordinary occasions, and therefore persons who are nurtured in
office do admirably well as long as things go on in their common
order, but when the high roads are broken up, and the waters out,
when a new and troubled scene is opened, and the file affords no
precedent, then it is that a greater knowledge of mankind and a
far more extensive comprehension of tilings are requisite, than ever
office gave, or than office can ever give. Burke.
ClCERO, pro Murena, 19-25 ; 30. Pro Archia. 12-16.
FRENCH REVOLUTIONISTS COMPARED TO HARPIES.
ALL this in effect, I think, but I am not sure, I have said
elsewhere. It cannot at this time be too often repeated :
line upon line, precept upon precept, until it conies into the
currency of a proverb ; to innovate is not to reform. The French
revolutionists complained of everything ; they refused to reform
anything, and they left nothing, no, nothing at all, unchanged.
The consequences are before us not in remote history ; not in
future prognostication : they are about us ; they are upon us.
They shake the public security, they menace private enjoyment.
They dwarf the growth of the young ; they break the quiet of the
old. If we travel, they stop our way. They infest us in town ;
they pursue us to the country. Our business is interrupted, our
repose is troubled, our pleasures are saddened, our very studies are
poisoned and perverted, and knowledge is rendered worse than
ignorance, by the enormous evils of this dreadful innovation.
The revolution harpies of France sprung from night and hell,
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 197
or from that chaotic anarchy which generates equivocally " all
monstrous, all prodigious things," cuckoo-like, adulterously lay
their eggs, and brood over, and hatch them in the nest of every
neighbouring State. These obscene harpies, who deck themselves
in I know not what divine attributes, but who in reality are foul
and ravenous birds of prey (both mothers and daughters), nutter
over our heads, and souse down upon our tables, and leave nothing
unrent, unrifled, unravaged, or unpolluted with the slime of their
filthy offal. Burke.
CICERO, In Catilmam, ii. 24-26. Pro Milone, 72-77.
Pro Archia. 16, ad Jin. VIRGIL, ^Eneid, iii. 210, sqq.
WHAT CONSTITUTES THE PEOPLE?
BUT there must still be a large number of the people with-
out the sphere of the opulent man's influence : namely,
that order of men which subsists between the very rich and
the very rabble; those men who are possessed of too large for-
tunes to submit to the neighbouring man in power, and yet
are too poor to set up for tyranny themselves. In this middle
order of mankind are generally to be found all the arts, wisdom,
and virtues of society. This order is alone known to be the true
preserver of freedom, and may be called THE PEOPLE. Now it may
happen that this middle order of mankind may lose all its
influence in a State, and its voice be in a manner drowned in
that of the rabble : for if the fortune sufficient for qualifying a
person at present to give his voice in State affairs, be ten times
less than was judged sufficient upon forming the constitution, it
is evident that great numbers of the rabble will thus be intro-
duced into the political system, and they, ever moving in the
vortex of the great, will follow where greatness shall direct. In
such a state, therefore, all that the middle order has left is to
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preserve the prerogative and privileges of the one principal governor
with the most sacred circumspection. For he divides the power of
the rich, and calls off the great from falling with tenfold weight
on the middle order placed beneath them. Goldsmith.
CICERO, Pro Sestio, 96-100. Pro Plancio, 21-24.
Pro leye Manilla, 17, 18.
DEFENCE OF CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION ACT.
BUT they tell us that those fellow-citizens, whose chains we
have a little relaxed, are enemies to liberty and our free
constitution. !N"ot enemies, I presume, to their own liberty. And
as to the constitution, until we give them some share in it, I do not
know on what pretence we can examine into their opinions about
a business in which they have no interest or concern. But, after
all, are we equally sure that they are adverse to our constitution as
that our statutes are hostile and destructive to them? For my
part, I have reason to believe their opinions and inclinations in
that respect are various, exactly like those of other men, and if
they lean more to the crown than I and than many of you think
we ought, we must remember that he who aims at another's life is
not to be surprised if he flies into any sanctuary that will receive
him. The tenderness of the executive power is the natural asylum
of those upon whom the laws have declared war ; and to complain
that men are inclined to favour the means of their own safety, is
so absurd that one forgets the injustice in the ridicule.
LIVY, vi. c. 37, 39. iv. c. 15. CICERO, Phil-ipp. i. 20.
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 199
FRENCH NATIONAL CHARACTER FULL OF
CONTRADIC TIONS.
WHEN" I consider this nation in itself, it strikes me as
more extraordinary than any event in its own annals.
Was there ever any nation on the face of the earth so full of con-
trasts, and so extreme in all its actions ; more swayed by sen-
sations, less by principles ; led therefore always to do either worse
or better than was expected of it ; sometimes below the common
level of humanity, sometimes greatly above it ; a people so un-
alterable in its leading instincts that its likeness may still be
recognised in descriptions written 2,000 or 3,000 years ago, but
at the same time so mutable in its daily thoughts and in its tastes
as to become a spectacle and an amazement to itself, and to be
as much surprised as the rest of the world at the sight of what
it has done ; a people beyond all others, the child of home and the
slave of habit, when left to itself, but when once torn against its
will from the native hearth and from its daily pursuits, ready to
go to the end of the world, and to dare all things ; indocile by
temperament, yet accepting the arbitrary and even the violent rule
of a sovereign more readily than the free and regular government
of the chief citizen ; to-day the declared enemy of all obedience,
to-morrow serving with a sort of passion which the nations best
adapted for servitude cannot attain : guided by a thread as long
as no one resists, ungovernable when the example of resistance has
once been given : always deceiving its masters, who fear it either
too little or too much : never so free that it is hopeless to enslave
it, or so enslaved that it may not break the yoke again ; apt for all
things, but excelling only in war ; adoring chance, force, success,
splendour, and noise, more than true glory ; more capable of heroism
than of virtue, of genius than of good sense ; ready to conceive
immense designs rather than to consummate great undertakings ;
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the most brilliant and the most dangerous of the nations of
Europe, and that best fitted to become by turns an object of
admiration, of hatred, of pity, of terror, but never of indifference 1
CICERO, Pro Flacco. 9-19. JUVEXAL, Sat. iii. 58, sqq.
LlVY, xxxi. c. 29. xxiv. c. 25. xxxviii. c. 17. xxi. c. 20.
CAESAR, Bell. Gall. vi. c. 13-20.
THE REFORMATION A BATTLE-FIELD OF MARTYRS.
HERE, therefore, we are to enter upon one of the grand
scenes of history ; a solemn battle fought out to the death,
yet fought without ferocity, by the champions of rival prin-
ciples. Heroic men had fallen, and were still fast falling, for
what was called heresy ; and now those who had inflicted death
on others were called upon to bear the same witness to their
own sincerity. England became the theatre of a war between
two armies of martyrs, to be waged, not upon the open field,
in open action, but on the stake and on the scaffold, with
the nobler weapons of passive endurance. Each party were
ready to give their blood ; each party were ready to shed the
blood of their antagonists ; and the sword was to single out
its victims in the rival ranks, not as in peace among those
whose crimes made them dangerous to society, but, as on the
field of battle, where the most conspicuous courage most challenges
the aim of the enemy. It was war, though under the form of
peace; and if we would understand the true spirit of the time,
we must regard Catholics and Protestants as gallant soldiers,
whose deaths, when they fall, are not painful but glorious; and
whose devotion we are equally able to admire, even where we
cannot equally approve their cause. Courage and self-sacrifice are
beautiful alike in an enemy and in a friend. And while we exult
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 201
in that chivalry with which the Smithfield martyrs bought
England's freedom with their blood, so we will not refuse our
admiration to those other gallant men whose high forms, in the
sunset of the old faith, stand transfigured on the horizon, tinged
with the light of its dying glory. J. A. Froude.
CICERO, Pro Marcello, 17, 18, 30-32. PTiilipp. xiv. 31-34.
xii. 17. LUCAN, Pharsal. i. 67-128.
WAR SHOULD NOT BE LIGHTLY UNDERTAKEN THREATS
OF INVASION STIMULATE PATRIOTISM.
IT is most unfair to represent as advocates of a creeping
or unjust peacefulness those who, anxiously foreseeing many
of the evil consequences of war, are strenuous in producing facts
and arguments that tend to dissuade from it. A gift is not the
less a gift because the giver knows full well the value of what he
is giving ; and the people who go to war without reluctance do not
prove their valour or their magnanimity by so doing. We all know
that there are occasions when, as on the threat of foreign invasion,
a nation gathers itself up in all its strength when selfish aims are
thrown aside when ordinary life is felt to be tame, and buying
and selling are not much thought of when even great griefs that
are but private fall lightly on us, and when the bonds of society
are knit together so closely that the whole nation produces and
presents its full power of resistance. Then it is that the ambitious
man forgets his ambition ; the covetous man, if possible, his money ;
the civic crown with its glorious motto, OB GIVES SERVATOS, becomes
the chief desire of all brave men ; and tender mothers feel like the
Spartan matron of- old, who as she adjusted the buckler on her
young warrior's arm, could exclaim " Come back either with it or
upon it ! "
ClCERO, In Catilinam, ii. 24, sqq. LIVY, xxiii. c. 12, 13.
YlRGlL, sEneid, xi. 343, sqq. viii. 556-7.
2O2 Materials and Models
FRENCH REVOLUTIONISTS THEIR UTTER DEPRAVITY.
NOTHING that I can say, or that you can say, will hasten
them by a single hour in the execution of a design which they
have long since entertained. In spite of their solemn protesta-
tions, their soothing addresses, and the multiplied oaths which
they have taken, or forced others to take, they will assassinate the
king when his name will no longer be necessary to their designs.
Till the justice of the world is awakened, they will go on without
admonition, and without provocation, to every extremity. Those
who have made such an exhibition already as they have done, are
capable of every evil. They do not commit crimes for their designs,
but they form designs that they may commit crimes. It is not
their necessity, but their nature, that impels them. They are
modern philosophers ; which when you say of them you express
everything that is ignoble, savage, and hard-hearted. In truth,
they all resemble their leader. His blood they transfuse into their
mind and manners. Him they study ; him they meditate in all
the time they can spare from the laborious mischief of the day, or
the debauches of the night. Burlce.
CiCERO, In Caiilinam, ii. 9-11. Pro Plancio. 86.
Philipp. ii. 87, 66-68.
TO BE ACCUSED OF TOO GREAT BENEVOLENCE BRINGS
COMFORT.
AND now, gentlemen, on this serious day, when I come, as it
were, to make up my account with you, let me take to
myself some degree of honest pride on the nature of the charges
that are against me. I do not here stand before you accused of
venality or of neglect of duty. It is not said that, in the long
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 203
period of my service, I have in a single instance sacrificed the
slightest of your interests to my ambition or to my fortune. It is
not alleged that to gratify any anger or revenge of my own, or of
my party, I have had a share in wronging or oppressing any
description of men, or any one man in any description. No ! the
charges against me are all of one kind that I have pushed the
principles of general justice and benevolence too far ; further than
a cautious policy would warrant ; and further than the opinions of
many would go along with me. In every accident which may
happen through life, in pain, in sorrow, in depression and distress,
I will call to mind this accusation, and be comforted.
CICERO, Pro Sestio. 145, 146. Philipp. ii. 10, sqq. ; 118, 119.
INNATE WEAKNESS OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENTS.
RESISTANCE not only to evil, but to the principle of evil
not only to disorder, but to the passions and ideas which
engender disorder this is the paramount and peremptory duty of
every government. And the greater the empire of democracy, the
more important it is that government should hold fast to its true
character, and act its true part in the struggle which agitates
society. Why is it that so many democracies, some of them
very brilliant, have perished so rapidly 1 Because they would not
suffer their governments to do their duty and fulfil the objects for
which governments are instituted. They did more than reduce
them to weakness ; they condemned them to falsehood. It is the
melancholy condition of democratic governments, that while charged,
as they must be, with the repression of disorder, they are required
to be complaisant and indulgent to the causes of disorder ; they
are expected to arrest the evil when it breaks out, and yet they
are asked to foster it while it is hatching.
CICERO, De Repub. i. 67, 68. Pro Sestio. 100, 101.
2O4 Materials and Models
THE LESSONS OF ADVERSITY THROWN AWAY UPON
KINGS.
WHO says that suffering is the monitor of kings 1 "When has
it ever proved so ? No man living or dead ever passed
through such an apprenticeship for the business of his later life as
that forced upon Louis Philippe, king of the French, and yet how
has the painful lesson been thrown away ! Never had prince
greater opportunity for the acquirement of the knowledge, for the
want of which kings fail and command the sympathy of meaner
men. The page of history was open before him ; the records of his
own house were a history in themselves. He had himself been
cast upon the world nameless, houseless, the companion of the
unfortunate, the associate of the poor. With his own eyes he had
witnessed the wrongs of society, with his own ears he had heard
its loud and just complaints. Unknown and unrecognised, he had
moved amongst his fellows, and communed with them upon the
same low level. Flattery came not to him to beguile, or hypocrisy
to mislead his better judgment. He passed into exile with all the
experience furnished him by the fate of his family ; he issued from
it with all the further experience derived from his own personal
intimacy with mankind. In vain. Suffering teaches heroism, or
it confirms obstinacy. Poverty closes the heart entirely, or opens
it to Paradise.
CICERO, De OJficna, iii. 82, sqq. LIVY, ii. c. 2, 6, 9.
DOMINATION OF THE ARISTOCRACY MUST BE BROKEN
DOWN.
TWO centuries ago the people of this country were engaged in
a fearful conflict with the Crown. A despotic and trea-
cherous monarch assumed to himself the right to levy taxes with-
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 205
out the consent of Parliament and the people. That assumption
was resisted. This fair island became a battle-field, the kingdom
was convulsed, and an ancient throne overturned. And, if our
forefathers two hundred years ago resisted that attempt if they
refused to be the bondmen of a king, shall we be the born thralls
of an aristocracy like ours \ Shall we, who struck the lion down,
shall we pay the wolf homage ? or shall we not, by a manly and
united expression of public opinion, at once and for ever put an
end to this giant wrong 1 Our cause is at least as good as theirs.
We stand on higher vantage-ground ; we have large numbers at
our back : we have more of wealth, intelligence, and union, and
we understand better the rights and true interests of the country ;
and what is more than all this we have a constitutional weapon
which we intend to wield, and by means of which we are sure to
conquer, our laurels being gained, not in bloody fields, but upon
the election hustings and in courts of law. /. Bright.
LIVY, vi. c. 18. SALLUST, Jugurth. c. 31.
IMPOSSIBILITY OP A THOROUGH CONQUEST OF
AMERICA.
BUT the Americans must now be heard ; they have been con-
demned unheard. The indiscriminate hand of vengeance
has devoted thirty thousand British subjects of all ranks, ages, and
descriptions, to one common ruin. You may, no doubt, destroy
their cities ; you may cut them off from the superfluities, perhaps
the conveniences of life ; but, my lords, they will still despise your
power, for they have yet remaining their woods and their liberty.
What though you march from town to town, from province to pro-
vince ; though you should be able to enforce a temporary and local
submission : how shall you be able to secure the obedience of the
country you leave behind you, in your progress of eighteen hundred
206 Materials and Models
miles of continent, animated with the same spirit of liberty and of
resistance ^ This universal opposition to your arbitrary system of
taxation might have been foreseen ; it was obvious from the nature
of things, and from the nature of man, and, above all, from the
confirmed habits of thinking, from the spirit of Whiggism, nourish-
ing in America. The spirit which now pervades America is the
same which formerly opposed loans, benevolences, and ship money
in this country ; the same spirit which roused all England to action
at the revolution, and which established at a remote era your liber-
ties on the basis of that great fundamental maxim of the constitu-
tion, that no subject of England shall be taxed but by his own
consent. "What shall oppose this spirit, aided by the congenial
flame glowing in the breast of every generous Briton ? Earl of
Chatham.
TACITUS, Agricola, c. 30-32. QUINTUS CUETIUS, vii. c. 8.
VINDICA TION OF FREE SPEAKING.
I WILL consult my safety so far as T think becomes a prudent
man ; but not so far as to omit anything which I think
becomes an honest one. As to personal attacks beyond the law,
every man is liable to them ; as for danger within the law, I am
not guilty enough to fear any. For the good opinion of the world,
I know it is not to be had ; for that of worthy men, I hope I shall
not forfeit it ; for that of the great, or those in power, I may wish
I had it ; but if through misrepresentations (too common about
persons in that station) I have it not, I shall be sorry, but not
miserable, in the want of it.
It is certain, much freer satirists than I have enjoyed the en-
couragement and protection of the princes under whom they lived.
Augustus and Maecenas made Horace their companion, though he
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 207
had been in arms on the side of Brutus ; and allow me to remark
it was out of the suffering party too that they favoured and dis-
tinguished Virgil. It was under the greatest princes and best
ministers that moral satirists were most encouraged ; and then
poets exercised the same jurisdiction over the follies that historians
did over the vices of men. It may also be worth considering
whether Augustus himself makes the greater figure in the writings
of the former or of the latter ; and whether ]STero and Domitian do
not appear as ridiculous for their false taste and affectation in
Persius and Juvenal, as odious for their bad government in Tacitus
and Suetonius.
TACITUS, Ann. iv. c. 34, 35. JUVEXAL, Sat. i. 150, sqq.
EFFECTS OF USURIOUS TRANSACTIONS IN THE
CARNA TIC.
IN consequence of this double game all the territorial revenues
have, at one time or other, been covered by those locusts,
the English soucars. Not one single foot of the Carnatic has
escaped them, a territory as large as England. During these
operations what a scene has that country presented. The usurious
European assignee supersedes the nabob's native farmer of the
revenue ; the farmer flies to the nabob's presence to claim his
bargain ; whilst his servants murmur for wages, and his soldiers
mutiny for pay. The mortgage to the European assignee is then
resumed, and the native farmer replaced ; replaced, again to be
removed on the new clamour of the European assignee. Every
man of rank and landed fortune being long since extinguished,
the remaining miserable last cultivator, who grows to the soil,
after having his back scored by the farmer, has it again flayed
by the whip of the assignee, and is thus by a ravenous, because
X^TBHA^^X,
f OF THF
I UNIVERSITY
208 Materials and Models
a short-lived, succession of claimants, lashed from oppressor to
oppressor, whilst a single drop of blood is left as the means of
extorting a single grain of corn. Do not think I paint. Far, very
far from it : I do not reach the fact, nor approach to it. Men of
respectable condition, men equal to your substantial English yeo-
"men, are daily tied up and scourged, to answer the multiplied
demands of various contending and contradictory titles, all issuing
from one and the same source. Burke.
CICERO, In Verrem, Act ii. lib. iii. 20, 21 ; 64-66, 70 ; 188-200.
EVILS OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.
PENAL laws, it must be allowed, secure property in a State,
but they also diminish personal security in the same pro-
portion ; there is no positive law, how equitable soever, that may
not be sometimes capable of injustice. When a law, enacted
to make theft punishable with death, happens to be equitably
executed, it can at best only guard our possessions; but when,
by favour or ignorance, justice pronounces a wrong verdict, it
then attacks our lives, since, in such a case, the whole com-
munity suffers with the innocent victim ; if therefore, in order to
secure the effects of one man, I should make a law which should
take away the life of another, in such a case, to attain a smaller
good, I am guilty of a greater evil ; to secure society in the
possession of a bauble, I render a real and valuable possession
precarious. And indeed the experience of every age may serve
to vindicate the assertion. No law could be more just than that
called Icesce majestatis, when Eome was governed by emperors ;
it was but reasonable that every conspiracy against the adminis-
tration should be detected and punished ; yet what terrible
slaughters succeeded in consequence of its enactment ! proscrip-
For Latin Prose- Oratorical. 209
tions, stranglings, poisonings, in almost every family of distinc-
tion ; yet all done in a legal way, every criminal had his trial,
and lost his life by a majority of witnesses.
SALLUST, Bell. Catilin. c. 51.-
CICEBO, pro Roscio Amerino. 153, 154.
INDIAN GOVERNMENT IN 1784.
THE several irruptions of Arabs, Tartars, and Persians into
India were, for the greater part, ferocious and bloody, and
wasteful in the extreme. Our entrance into the dominion of
that country was, as generally, with small comparative effusion
of blood, being introduced by various frauds and delusions, and
by taking advantage of the incurable, blind, and senseless ani-
mosity which the several country powers bear towards each
other, rather than by open force. But the difference in favour
of the first conquerors is this : the Asiatic conquerors very soon
abated of their ferocity, because they made the conquered country
their own. They rose or fell with the rise or fall of the terri-
tory they lived in. Fathers there deposited the hopes of their
posterity, and children there beheld the monuments of their
fathers. Here their lot was finally cast ; and it is the natural
wish of all that their lot should not be cast in a bad land.
Poverty, sterility, and desolation, are not a recreating prospect
to the eye of man, and there are very few who can bear to grow
old among the curses of a whole people. If their passion or
their avarice drove the Tartar lords to acts of rapacity or tyranny,
there was time enough, even in the short life of man, to bring
round the ill effects of an abuse of power upon the power itself.
If hoards were made by violence and tyranny, they were still
domestic hoards ; and domestic profusion, or the rapine of a more
powerful and prodigal hand, restored them to the people. With
p
2io Materials and Models
many disorders, and with few political checks upon power, nature
had still fair play ; the sources of acquisition were not dried up,
and therefore the trade, the manufactures, and the commerce of
the country nourished. Even avarice and usury itself operated
both for the preservation and the employment of national wealth.
The husbandman and manufacturer paid heavy interest, but then
they augmented the fund from whence they were again to borrow.
Their resources were dearly bought, but they were sure, and the
general stock of the community grew by the general effort. Burke.
CICERO, In Verrem. Act ii. lib. iii. 19-21. 125, sqq.
Ad Quint um Fratrem, I. i. 32, sqq.
Pro kye Manilla, 65-67. 11-13.
In Verrem. Act ii. lib. ii. 3-5. 50-52. 146, sqq.
LIVY, xxxi. c. 29, 30. xxvi. c. 30. xxix. c. 17, 18.
INDIAN GOVERNMENT IN 1784. (Continued.)
BUT under the English government all this order is reversed.
The Tartar invasion was mischievous ; but it is our pro-
tection that destroys India. It was their enmity, but it is our
friendship. Our conquest there, after twenty years, is as rude as
it was the first day. The natives scarcely know what it is to see
the grey head of an Englishman. Young men (boys almost) govern
there, without society and without sympathy with the natives.
They have no more social habits with the people than if they still
resided in England, nor indeed any species of intercourse but that
which is necessary to making a sudden fortune with a view to a
remote settlement. Animated with all the avarice of age, and all
the impetuosity of youth, they roll in one after another, wave
after wave, and there is nothing before the eyes of the natives
but an endless, hopeless prospect of new nights of birds of prey
and passage, with appetites continually renewing for a food that is
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 2 1 1
continually wasting. Every rupee of profit made by an English-
man is lost for ever to India. AVith us are no retributory super-
stitions, by which a foundation of charity compensates, through
ages, to the poor, for the rapine and injustice of a day. "With us
no pride erects stately monuments, which repairs the mischiefs
which pride had produced, and which adorn a country out of its
own spoils. England has erected no churches, no hospitals, no
palaces, no schools. England has built no bridges, made no high
roads, cut no navigations, dug out no reservoirs. Every other
conqueror of every other description has left some monument,
either of state or beneficence, behind him. Were we to be
driven out of India this day, nothing would remain to tell that
it had been possessed, during the inglorious period of our
dominion, by any thing better than the ouran outang or the
tiger. Burlte.
CICERO, In Verrem. Act ii. lib. iii. 19-21. 125, sqq.
Ad Quint um Fratrem, I. i. 32, sqq.
Pro lege Manilla. 65-67. 11-13.
In Verrem. Act ii. lib. ii. 3-5. 50-52. 146, sqq.
Liyy, xxxi. c. 29, 30. xxvi. c. 30. xxix. c. 17, 18.
INDIAN GOVERNMENT IN 1784. (Concluded.}
THERE is nothing in the boys we send to India worse than
the boys whom we are whipping at school, or that we
see trailing a pike, or bending over a desk at home. But as
English youth in India drink the intoxicating draught of autho-
rity and dominion before their heads are able to bear it, and as
they are full grown in fortune long before they are ripe in prin-
ciple, neither nature nor reason has any opportunity to exert
itself for remedy of the excesses of their premature power.
The consequences of their conduct, which in good minds (and
many of theirs are probably such) might produce penitence or
2 1 2 Materials and Models
amendment, are unable to pursue the rapidity of their flight.
Their prey is lodged in England, and the cries of India are given
to seas and winds, to be blown about, in every breaking up of the
monsoon, over a remote and unhearing ocean. In India all the
vices operate by which sudden fortune is acquired ; in England
are often displayed, by the same persons, the virtues which dis-
pense hereditary wealth. Arrived in England the destroyers of the
nobility and gentry of a whole kingdom will find the best com-
pany in this nation at a board of elegance and hospitality. Here
the manufacturer and husbandman will bless the just and punctual
hand that in India has torn the cloth from the loom, or wrested
the scanty portion of rice and salt from the peasant of Bengal, or
wrung from him the very opium in which he forgot his oppres-
sions and his oppressor. They marry into your families, they
enter into your senate, they ease your estates by loans, they raise
their value by demand, they cherish and protect your relations
which lie heavy 011 your patronage ; and there is scarcely a house
in the kingdom that does not feel some concern or interest, that
makes all reform of our Eastern government appear officious and
disgusting, and on the whole a most discouraging attempt. In
such an attempt you hurt those who are able to return kindness or
to resent injury. If you succeed you save those who cannot so
much as give you thanks. All these things show the difficulty of
the work we have on hand, but they show its necessity too. Our
Indian government is, in its best state, a grievance ; it is necessary
that the correctives should be uncommonly vigorous, and the work
of men sanguine, warm, and even impassioned in the cause. But
it is an arduous thing to plead against abuses of a power which
originates from our own country, and affects those whom we are
used to consider as strangers. Burke.
ClCEiiO, In Verrem. Act ii. lib. iii. 19-21. 125, sqq.
Ad Quintum Fratrem, I. i. 32, sqq.
Pro lege Manilla, 65-67. 11-13.
In Verrem. Act. ii. lib. ii. 3-5. 50-52. 146, sgq.
LIVY, xxxi. c. 29, 30. xxvi. c. 30. xxix. c. 17, 18.
For Latin Prose -Oratorical. 2 1 3
INVECTIVE AGAINST THE VICEROY OF IRELAND.
IX another kingdom indeed, the blessings of his administration
have been more sensibly felt, his virtues better understood ;
or, at worst, they will not for him alone forget their hospitality.
As well might Verres have returned to Sicily. You have twice
escaped, my lord ; beware of a third experiment. The indignation
of a whole people plundered, insulted, and oppressed as they have
been, will not always be disappointed.
It is vain therefore to shift the scene. You can no more fly
from your enemies than from yourself. Persecuted abroad you
look into your own heart for consolation, and find nothing but
reproaches and despair. But, my lord, you. may quit the field of
business, though not the field of danger , and though you cannot
be safe you may cease to be ridiculous. I fear you have listened
too long to the advice of those pernicious friends with whose
interests you have sordidly united your own, and for whom you
have sacrificed everythizig that oiight fco be dear to a man of
honour. They are still base enough to encourage the follies of
your age as they once did the vices of your youth. As little
acquainted with the rules of decorum as with the laws of morality
they will not suffer you to profit by experience, nor even to con-
sult the propriety of a bad character. Even now they tell you
that life is no more than a dramatic scene, in which the hero
should preserve his consistency to the end j and that as you have
lived without virtue you should die without repentance. Juntas.
CICERO, Tn Verrem. Act ii. lib. i. 4-7.
Pro Roscio Amerino, 67. De Senectute, 70.
Tusc. Disp. v. 57, sqq. Ad Quintum .Fratrem, I. i. 46.
214 Materials and Models
ENORMITY OF THE CHARGES AGAINST WARREN
HASTINGS.
WE know, as we are to be served by men, that the persons
who serve us must be tried as men, and with a very
large allowance indeed to human infirmity and human error.
This, my lords, AVC knew, and we weighed before we came before
you. But the crimes which we charge in these articles are not
lapses, defects, errors of common human frailty, which, as we
know and feel, we can allow for. We charge this offender with no
crimes that have not arisen from passions which it is criminal to
harbour ; with no offences that have not their root in avarice,
rapacity, pride, insolence, or ferocity, treachery, cruelty, malig-
nity of temper ; in short in nothing that does not argue a total
extinction of all moral principle ; that does not manifest an
inveterate blackness of heart dyed in grain with malice, vitiated,
corrupted, gangrened to the very core. If we do not plant his
crimes in those vices which the breast of man is made to abhor,
and the spirit of all laws human and divine to interdict, we desire
no longer to be heard upon this occasion. Let everything that can
be pleaded on the ground of surprise or error, upon those grounds
be pleaded with success : we give up the whole of those predica-
ments. We urge no crimes, that were not crimes of forethought.
We charge him with nothing that he did not commit upon deli-
beration ; that he did not commit against advice, supplication, and
remonstrance ; that he did not commit against the direct command
of lawful authority ; that he did not commit after reproof and
reprimand of those who are authorized by the laws to reprove and
reprimand him. The crimes of Mr. Hastings are crimes not only
in themselves, but aggravated by being crimes of contumacy. They
were crimes, not against forms, but against those eternal laws of
justice, which are our rule and our birthright. Burke.
CICERO, In Verrem. Act i. 10-15. Act ii. lib. i. 6-9.
Jn Pisonem. 85-88. 97, sqq. Pro Milone, 72-77.
LIVY, xxxiv. c. 32.
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 215
CONSTITUTIONAL FREEDOM BETTER THAN THE
IDEAL SYSTEMS OF REVOLUTIONISTS.
THEY who have acted, as in France they have done, upon a
scheme wholly different, and who aim at the abstract and
unlimited perfection of power in the popular part, can be of no
service to us in any of our political arrangements. They, who in
their headlong career have overpassed the goal, can furnish no
example to those who aim to go no further. The temerity of such
speculators is no more an example than the timidity of others.
The one sort scorns the right ; the others fear it ; both miss it.
But those, who by violence go beyond the barrier, are without
question the most mischievous; because to go beyond it they destroy
and overturn it. To say they have spirit is to say nothing in their
praise. The untempered spirit of madness, blindness, immorality,
and impiety, deserves no commendation. He that sets his house
on fire because his fingers are frost-bitten can never be a fit instructor
in the method of providing our habitations with a cheerful and
salutary warmth. We want no foreign examples to rekindle in us
the flame of liberty. The example of our own ancestors is abund-
antly sufficient to maintain the spirit of freedom in its full vigour,
and to qualify it in all its exertions. The example of a wise,
moral, well-natured and well-tempered spirit of freedom, is that
alone which can be useful to us, or in the least degree reputable or
safe. Our fabric is so constituted, one part of it bears so much on
the other, the parts are so made for one another and for nothing
else, that to introduce any foreign matter into it is to destroy it.
CIGEKO, pro Sestio, 96-105. 136-143. SALLUST, Jugurth. c. 41.
216 Materials and Models
SIR JOHN MOORE.
A SOLDIER from his earliest youth, Moore thirsted for the
honours of his profession, and feeling that he was worthy
to lead a British army, hailed the fortune that placed him at the
head of the troops destined for Spain. As the stream of time
passed, the inspiring hopes of triumph disappeared, but the austerer
glory of suffering remained, and with a firm heart he accepted that
gift of a severe fate. Confiding in the strength of his genius, he
disregarded the clamours of presumptuous ignorance, and opposing
sound military views to the foolish projects so insolently thrust
upon him by the ambassador, he conducted his long and arduous
retreat with sagacity, intelligence, and fortitude ; no insult disturbed,
no falsehood deceived him, no remonstrance shook his determina-
tion ; fortune frowned, without subduing his constancy ; death
struck, but the spirit of the man remained unbroken, when his
shattered body scarcely afforded it a habitation. Having done all
that was just towards others, he remembered what was due to him-
self ; neither the shock of the mortal blow, nor the lingering hours
of acute pain -which preceded his dissolution, could quell the pride
of his gallant heart, or lower the dignified feeling with which, con-
scious of merit, he at the last moment asserted his right to the
gratitude of the country he had served so truly. If glory be a
distinction, for such a man death is not a leveller ! Napier.
CICERO, Philipp. ix. passim. TACITUS, Ann. ii. c. 71.
PLINY, Epist. ii. 1.
PANEGYRIC ON THE MILITARY AND MORAL GREATNESS
OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
SINCE last I had the honour of addressing you in this place
a series of eventful years has elapsed; but none without
some mark and note of your rising glory. The military triumphs
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 2 1 7
which your valour has achieved upon the banks of the Douro and
the Tagus, of the Ebro and the Garonne, have called forth the
spontaneous shouts of admiring nations. Those triumphs it is
needless on this day to recount ; their names have been written by
your conquering sword in the annals of Europe ; and we shall hand
them down with exultation to our children's children. It is not,
however, the grandeur of military success which has alone iixed
our admiration, or commanded our applause. It has been that
generous and lofty spirit which inspired your troops with unbounded
confidence, and taught them to know, that the day of battle was
always the day of victory, that moral courage and enduring forti-
tude, which, in perilous times, when gloom and doubt had beset
ordinary minds, stood, nevertheless, unshaken ; and that ascend-
ancy of character, which, uniting the energies of jealous and rival
nations, enabled you to wield at will the fate and fortunes of mighty
empires.
For the repeated thanks and grants bestowed upon you by this
house, in gratitude for your many and eminent services, you have
thought lit this day to offer us your acknowledgments ; but this
nation well knows that it is still largely your debtor. It owes to
you the proud satisfaction, that amidst the constellation of great
and illustrious warriors who have recently visited our country, we
could present to them a leader of our own, to whom all, by common
acclamation, conceded the pre-eminence; and when the will of
Heaven and the common destinies of our nature shall have swept
away the present generation, you will have left your great name
and example, as an imperishable monument, exciting others to like
deeds of glory, and serving at once to adorn, defend, and perpetuate
the existence of this country among the ruling nations of the earth.
CICERO, Pro lege Manilla, 10, 11. Philipp. xiv. 11-28.
Pro Marcello, 4-12. LIVY, xxviii. c. 12. xxiv. c. 8.
218 Materials and Models
A COALITION COMPARED TO THE JUNCTION OF
RIVERS.
I RECOLLECT to have seen a beautiful speech of a near
relation of the right hon. gentleman over against me, in
which, to discredit a coalition formerly made between the Duke
of Newcastle and my father, it was compared to the junction of
the Rhone and the Saone. Whatever the effect and truth and
dread of that comparison might have been at that time and upon
that occasion, I am not at all afraid of it now. I would not have
permitted that great and illustrious person, were he now living, to
compare the late coalition to the Rhone and the Saone as they join
at Lyons, where the one may be said to be too calm and tranquil
and gentle, the other to have too much violence and rapidity ; but
I would have advised him to take a view of those rivers a hundred
miles lower down, where having mingled and united their waters,
instead of the contrast they exhibited at their junction, they become
a broad, great, and most powerful stream, flowing with the useful
velocity that does not injure but adorns and benefits the country
through which it passes. This is a just type of the late coalition,
and I will venture to assert, after mature experience, that what-
ever the enemies of it may have hoped, it is as impossible now to
disunite or separate its parts as it would be to separate the waters
of those united streams. Earl Stanhope.
ClCERO, de Legibm, ii. 6. CAESAR, Sell. Gal . i. c. 12.
CLAUDIA^, In Eutr^in-m, ii. 265, sqq.
For Latin Prose Oratorical, 219
WAR MUST BE DECLARED WHEN PEACE CAN NO
LONGER BE MAINTAINED WITH HONOUR.
MY Lords, His Majesty succeeded to an empire as great in
extent as its reputation was unsullied. Shall we tarnish
the lustre of that empire by an ignominious surrender of its rights 1
Shall a people that seventeen years ago was the terror of the world
now stoop so low as to tell its ancient inveterate enemy, "Take all
we have, only give us peace." It is impossible. I wage war with
no man, or set of men. I wish for none of their employments, nor
would I co-operate with men who still persist in unretracted error.
But in God's name, if it is absolutely necessary to declare for peace
or war, and the former cannot be procured with honour, why is not
the latter commenced without hesitation ? I am not, I confess,
well informed of the resources of the kingdom, but I trust it has
still sufficient, though I know them not, to maintain its just
rights. My Lords, any state is better than despair. Let us at
least make one effort, and if AVC must fall, let us fall like men.
Lord Stanhope.
ClCERO, Philipp. iii. 34, sqq. iv. 11, sqq. vi. 16, sqq. vii. 7-9.
xiii. 5-7. VIRGIL, jEneid, xi. 399, sqq.
DEGRADATION OF THE FRENCH NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.
WITH a compelled appearance of deliberation, they vote
under the dominion of a stern necessity. They sit in the
heart, as it were, of a foreign republic ; they have their residence
in a city whose constitution has emanated neither from the
charter of their king, nor from their legislative power. There they
22O Materials and Models
are surrounded by an army not raised either by the authority of
the Crown, or by their command ; and which, if they should order
to dissolve itself, would instantly dissolve them. There they sit,
after a gang of assassins had driven away some hundreds of the
members ; whilst those who held the same moderate principles,
with more patience or better hope, continued every day exposed to
outrageous insults and murderous threats. There a majority, some-
times real, sometimes pretended, captive itself, compels a captive
king to issue as royal edicts, at third hand, the polluted nonsense
of their most licentious and giddy coffee-houses. It is notorious,
that all their measures are decided before they are debated. It is
beyond doubt, that under the terror of the bayonet, and the lamp-
post, and the torch to their houses, they are obliged to adopt all
the crude and desperate measures suggested by clubs composed of
a monstrous medley of all conditions, tongues, and nations. Among
these are found persons, in comparison of whom Catiline would be
thought scrupulous, and Cethegus a man of sobriety and mode-
ration The assembly, their organ, acts before them the farce
of deliberation with as little decency as liberty. They act like the
comedians of a fair before a riotous audience ; they act amidst the
tumultuous cries of a mixed mob of ferocious men, and of women
lost to shame, who, according to their insolent fancies, direct,
control, applaud, explode them ; and sometimes mix and take
their seats amongst them ; domineering over them with a strange
mixture of servile petulance and proud presumptuous authority.
Burke.
ClCERO, Philipp. xiii. 26-28. v. 12, sqq.
In Catilin. ii. 9-1 1. 18-23.
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 221
VIGOROUS PROSECUTION OF WAR THE BEST MEANS
TO HONOURABLE PEACE.
f ' Si vis pacein para helium.
Pa quccritur bello"
OF those who wish for peace, there are two classes. There
are some, and of those a very numerous body, who are
desirous for peace, as soon as peace can "be obtained on safe and
honourable terms. To such it must be clear that the object of
their wishes cannot be secured by laying aside the means of action.
But there are others who are of opinion that for the attainment
of peace, there are no terms which we ought not to accept, no law
to which we ought not to submit. Even those who entertain these
humiliating ideas would be guilty of insanity, were they to add to
the degradation, by laying aside one of the weapons to which they
trust for the acquisition of their darliiig object. Such conduct
would betray a desire not only to take any terms which the enemy
might be pleased to dictate, but to take every means to render these
terms as bad as possible. It is evident then that the measure
in agitation affects the question of peace, both as it depends upon
the period of its restoration and the terms on which it may be
concluded. Did the reasonings upon this subject leave any doubt
as to the fact, the conduct of the enemy through the whole course
of the war would put the matter beyond all question.
CICERO, Flilipp. xiii. 1-10.
BAD MINISTERS DISCREDIT A KING.
THE mention of this man has moved me from my natural
moderation. Let nie return to your Grace. You are the
pillar upon which I am determined to rest all my resentments.
222 Materials and Models
What idea can the best of sovereigns form to himself of his own
government 1 In what repute can he conceive that he stands with
his people, when he sees, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that,
whatever be the office, the suspicion of his favour is fatal to the
candidate, and that, when the party he wishes well to has the
fairest prospect of success, if his royal inclination should unfor-
tunately be discovered, it drops like an acid, and turns the
election? This event, among others, may perhaps contribute to
open his Majesty's eyes to his real honour and interest. In spite
of all your Grace's ingenuity, he may at last perceive the incon-
venience of selecting, with such a curious felicity, every villain in
the nation to fill the various departments of his government.
Yet I should be sorry to confine him in the choice either of his
footman or his friends. Junius.
CICERO, Plnlipp. v. 12-15. xiii. 26-28.
VINDICATION OF THE POLICY OF ENGLAND IN SPAIN.
TO such opinions Mr. Canning alluded, saying, it was said
that whenever Bonaparte declared he would accomplish
any measure, his declaration was to be received as the fiat of a
superior being, whom it was folly to resist. He never pledged
himself to anything but what he could accomplish ! His resolves
were insurmountable ! His career was not to be stopped ! Such,
said the orator, is not my opinion, nor the opinion of the British
people. Even were the ship on which we are embarked sinking,
it would be our duty still to struggle against the element. But
never can I acknowledge that this is our present state. "We are
riding proudly and nobly buoyant upon the waves ! To the
argument, that we ought, as Bonaparte had done, to have held
out a prospect of political reform to the Spaniards, he replied
we had no right to assume any dictatorial power over a country
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 223
which we went to assist. We were not to hold cheap the insti-
tutions of other countries because they had not ripened into that
maturity of freedom which we ourselves enjoyed ; nor were we to
convert an auxiliary army into a dominating garrison ; nor wiiile
openly professing to help the Spaniards, covertly endeavour to
force upon them those blessings of which they themselves must be
the best judges. If the Spaniards succeeded, they certainly would
be happier and freer than they had hitherto been ; but that
happiness and freedom must be of their own choice, not of our
dictation.
LlVY, xxviii. c. 43, 44. xxxiii. c. 12, 13, 33.
CICEHO, Philipp. xiv. 17-21.
LORD PALMERSTON DIFFICULTIES AND RESPONSIBILI-
TIES OF A STATESMAN AT A CRITICAL JUNCTURE.
PERHAPS there never was a time when augury was more
difficult. The man who should be forward to grasp the
helm is to be admired rather than envied, for he starts on his
course at nightfall, on an unknown and stormy sea. One cannot
but be reminded of the proverbial fate of those who first mount
the breach, or are the leaders in a revolution. Courage, however,
is always necessary, and England does not like a succession of
statesmen who shirk responsibility or take a waiting line. On the
other hand, the public is alive to the dangers of the time, and is
ready to give its forbearance as well as its confidence to a Govern^
ment standing on no other ground than the interest and honour of
the country. The vicissitudes in the public life of him we mourn
to-day are not without their moral at the present juncture. There
was a moment, not many years since, when he was suspected of
allowing the personal fears and wounded dignity of a great neigh.
224 Materials and Models
Lour to hurry the pace of our Legislature. He had to appeal to
the country to repair his damaged position, and the country gave
him its usual confidence. That confidence is still ready to be given
to the wisest policy, whether glorious or not. But we envy not
the man who has to decide for us and the nation, and to add with
his own hand one more stone to the great edifice of international
justice and right.
ClCEEO, pro leye Manilla, 43-46. Philipp. xi. 17, sqq. 21, sqq.
LIVY, xxii. c. 39.
aCONNELL. IMPOLICY OF MAKING A MARTYR OF
HIM.
IF he who was long the accepted champion of the majority
of his countrymen, whom Ireland, judging not as we judge,
still delights to honour that rare example among her sons of a
patriot foaming to the last, if he, then, who lived upon the
confines of treason, without ever passing the liubicon, over which
he kept flinging his eloquence, had ever heen carried away by the
swing of his own words, and had acted the rebellion which he
preached, if he had then been taken and hanged, as he probably
would have been, if he had died a brave death upon the scaffold,
as perhaps he might have done, and the Saxon hangman had then,
in due course of law, held up in the face of the Irish people that
head streaming with blood, and told them it was the head of a
traitor, where now, or to what distant century removed, would
be your hopes of Irish peace and prosperity 1 ? Where now your
great opening for English capital and Scotch bailiffs 1 In vain
would you have sought in that sister land a welcome from solitude,
in vain would the ravages of improvement have outdone, as
they have outdone, the ravages of war.
SALLUST, Caiilin. c. 51. CICERO, pro C. Eulirio, 11-13.
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 225
THE KING MUST REGAIN HIS SUBJECTS' LOVE BY
ACTING ON HIS OWN JUDGMENT.
YOU ascended the throne with a declared, and, I doubt not,
a sincere resolution of giving universal satisfaction to your
subjects. You found them pleased with the novelty of a young
prince whose countenance promised even more than his words, and
loyal to you not only from principle but passion. It was not a
cold profession of allegiance to the first magistrate, but a partial,
animated attachment to a favourite prince, the native of their
country. They did not wait to examine your conduct, nor to be
determined by experience, but gave you a generous credit for the
future blessings of your reign, and paid you in advance the dearest
tribute of their affections. Such, sir, was once the disposition of a
people who now surround your throne with reproaches and com-
plaints. Do justice to yourself. Banish from your mind those
unworthy opinions with which some interested persons have
laboured to possess you. Distrust the men who tell you that
the English are naturally light and inconstant that they com-
plain without a cause. Withdraw your confidence equally from
all parties from ministers, favourites, and relations; and let there
be one moment in your life in which you have consulted your own
understanding.
CICERO, Philipp. i. 33-35.
TACITUS, Ann. xiv. c. 52-54. xiii. c. 4, 5.
SHERIDAN ON THE DUPLICITY AND MEANNESS OF
WARREN HASTINGS.
ME. SHEBIDAN saw nothing great, nothing magnanimous,
nothing open, nothing direct in his measures or his mind.
On the contrary, he pursued the worst objects by the worst means.
Q
226 Materials and Models
His course was an eternal deviation from rectitude. At one time
he tyrannized over the will, and at another time deluded the under-
standing. He was by turns a Dionysius and a Scapin. As well
might the writhing obliquity of the serpent be compared to the
direct path of the arrow, as the duplicity of Mr. Hastings' ambition
to the simple steadiness of genuine magnanimity. In his mind all
was shuffling, ambiguous, dark, insidious, and little. Nothing
simple, nothing unmixed ; all aifected plainness and actual dis-
simulation. He was an heterogeneous mass of contradictory
qualities, with nothing great but his crimes, and those contrasted
by the littleness of his motives ; which at once denoted his
profligacy arid his meanness, and marked him for a traitor and a
juggler. In his style of writing Mr. Sheridan perceived the same
mixture of contrarieties. The most grovelling ideas he conveyed
in the most inflated language, giving mock consequence to low
cavils, and uttering quibbles in heroics ; so that his compositions
disgusted the taste of the understanding, as much as his actions
excited the abhorrence of the soul. Mr. Sheridan traced the same
character through almost every department of his government.
Alike in the military and political line, we might observe auctioneer-
ing ambassadors and trading generals. We saw a revolution
brought about by an affidavit, an army employed in executing an
arrest ; a town besieged on a note of hand ; and a prince dethroned
for the balance of an account. Thus it was, that a government
was exhibited, uniting the mock majesty of a bloody sceptre
and the little traffic of a merchant's counting-house; wielding
a truncheon with one hand, and picking a pocket with the
other.
CICERO, PhiUpp. xiii. 5. iii. 21, 22. xiii. 43-45.
ii. 35, 65-f>7. 92-95. 108.
For Latin Prose Oratorical.
PANEGYRIC ON FOX, MOVER OF THE EAST INDIA
BILL.
AND now, haying clone my duty to the hill, let me say a word
to the author. I should leave him to his own nohle senti-
ments, if the unworthy and illiberal language with which he has
been treated, beyond all example of parliamentary liberty, did not
make a few words necessary ; not so much in justice to him, as to
my own feelings. I must say, then, that it will be a distinction
honourable to the age, that the rescue of the greatest number of
the human race that ever were so grievously oppressed, from the
greatest tyranny that w r as ever exercised, has fallen to the lot of
abilities and dispositions equal to the task; that it has fallen to
one who has the enlargement to comprehend, the spirit to under-
take, and the eloquence to support, so great a measure of hazardous
benevolence. His spirit is not owing to his ignorance of the state
of men and things ; he well knows what snares are spread about
his path, from personal animosity, from court intrigues, and possibly
from popular delusion. But he has put to hazard his ease, his
security, his interest, his power, even his darling popularity, for
the benefit of a people whom he has never seen. This is the road
that all heroes have trod before him. He is traduced and abused
for his supposed motives. He will remember, that obloquy is a
necessary ingredient in the composition of all true glory : he will
remember, that it was not only in the Roman customs, but it is in
the nature and constitution of things, that calumny and abuse are
essential parts of triumph. These thoughts will support a mind,
which only exists for honour, under the burden of temporary
reproach. He is doing indeed a great good ; such as rarely falls to
the lot, and almost as rarely coincides with the desires of any man.
Let him use his time. Let him give the whole length of the reins
to his benevolence. He is now on a great eminence, where the
228 Materials and Models
eyes of mankind are turned to him. He may live long, he may do
much. But here is the summit. He never can exceed what he
does this day. Burke.
CICERO, pro Marcello. 4-12. Pro BaTbo. 9, 10.
Pro Sestio. 100, sqq.
PROGRESS OF JUSTICE SLOW COMPARED WITH THAT
OF CRIME.
" Pede p<xna clattdo"
IJS"OW proceed, my lords, to the next recriminatory charge,
which is delay. I confess I am not astonished at this
d large. From the first records of human impatience down to
the present time it has been complained that the march of
violence and oppression is rapid ; but that the progress of re-
medial and vindictive justice, even the divine, has almost
always favoured the appearance of being languid and sluggish.
Something of this is owing to the very nature and constitution
of human affairs ; because as justice is a circumspect, cautious,
scrutinizing, balancing principle, full of doubt even of itself, and
fearful of doing wrong even to the greatest wrong-doers, in the
nature of things its movements must be slow in comparison with
the headlong rapidity with which avarice, ambition, and revenge
pounce down upon the devoted prey of those violent and destruc-
tive passions. And indeed, my lords, the disproportion between
crime and justice, when seen in the particular acts of either, would
be so much to the advantage of crimes and criminals, that we
should find it difficult to defend laws and tribunals (especially in
great and arduous cases like this) if we did not look not to the
immediate, not to the retrospective, but to the provident operation
of justice. Its chief operation is in its future example; and this
For Latin Prose Oratorical. 229
turns the "balance, upon the total effect, in favour of vindictive
justice, and in some measure reconciles a pious and humble mind to
this great mysterious dispensation of the world.
CICERO, pro Milone. 81-85, De Ojficiis. ii. 40, sqq.
77/ SPEAKER, HIS END BEING NEAR, DECLARES HIS
DETERMINATION TO SPEAK THE TRUTH, AND TO
HOLD HIMSELF STILL RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS OPINIONS
AND ACTIONS.
IN this crisis I must hold my tongue, or I must speak with
freedom. Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case
whatever; but, as in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an
economy of truth. It is a sort of temperance, by whfch a man
speaks truth with measure that he may speak it the longer. But
as the same rules do not hold in all cases, what would be right for
you, who may presume on a series of years before you, would have
no sense for me, who cannot, without absurdity, count on six
months of life. What I say, I must say at once. "Whatever I
write is in its nature testamentary. It may have the weakness,
but it has the sincerity of a dying declaration. For the few days
I have to linger here I am removed completely from the busy scene
of the world ; but I hold myself to be still responsible for every-
thing that I have done whilst I continued on the place of action.
If the rawest tyro in politics has been influenced by the authority
of my grey hairs, and led by anything in my speeches or my
writings, to enter on this war, he has a right to call upon me to
know why I have changed my opinions, or why, when those I
voted with have adopted better notions, I persevere in exploded
error.
SENECA, Epist. Ixxvii.
CICERO, Philipp. ii. 118. xii. 17, 24, 29, 30.
PART IV.
PHIL SO PH 1C A L.
THE CONDITION' OF IMMORTALITY A SOURCE OF
COMFORT RATHER THAN OF TERROR.
r I ^HE ancient and modern Epicureans provoke my indignation
J. when they boast, as a mighty acquisition, their pretended
certainty that the body and the soul die together. If they had
this certainty, then, would the discovery be so very comfortable 1
When I consult my reason, I am ready to ask these men, as Xully
asked their predecessors, where that old doating woman can be
found who trembles at the " pit of Tophet " and the " fires of
hell," and all the infernal hobgoblins, furies with their snakes
and whips, devils with their cloven feet and lighted torches ?
Was there need of so much philosophy to keep these mighty
geniuses from living under the same terrors ? I would ask, further,
is the mean between atheism and superstition so hard to find 1
Or, mav not these men serve as examples to prove what Plutarch
affirms, " that superstition leads to atheism " 1 For me, who am
no philosopher, nor presume to walk out of the high road of plain
common sense, but content myself to be governed by the dictates
of nature, and am therefore in no danger of becoming atheistical,
superstitious, or sceptical, I should have no difficulty which to
choose, if the option was proposed to me, to exist after death,
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 231
or to die whole, as it has been called. Be there two worlds, or
be there twenty, the same God is the God of all, and wherever
we are, we are equally in His power. Far from fearing my
Creator, that all-perfect Being whom I adore, I should fear to
be no longer His creature. Lord Bolincjbrolte.
CICERO, Tusc. Lisp. i. 10, 24, 36, 37, 48, 49, 118.
SENECA, Epist. iv. xxiv. JUVENAL, Satir. xiii. 49.
SENECA, de Consolat. ad Marc. c. 19.
MAX, ELEVATED ABOVE THE OTHER ANIMALS BY HIS
CONSCIOUSNESS OF A GOD.
MAN was ever a creature separated from all others by his
instinctive sense of an existence superior to his own,
invariably manifesting this sense of the being of a God more
strongly in proportion to his own perfectness of mind and body,
and making enormous and self-denying efforts, in order to obtain
some persuasion of the immediate presence or approval of the
Divinity. So that, on the whole, the best things he did were
done as in the presence or for the honour of his gods ; and
whether in statues, to help him to imagine them, or temples
raised to their honour, or acts of self-sacrifice done in the hope
of their love, he brought whatever was best and skilfullest in
him into their service, and lived in a perpetual subjection to their
unseen power. Also, he was always anxious to know something
definite about them ; and his chief books, songs, and pictures
were filled with legends about them, or especially devoted to
illustration of their lives and nature.
SENECA, Epist. xci. xcii. Ixxiii. xli. Benef. vi. c. 23.
CICERO, de Legibus, i. 22, 27, 59.
Materials and Models
THE HUMAN SOUL ITS CAPABILITY OF RELIGION A
SIGN OF 17'S HEAVENLY ORIGIN AND ITS IMMOR-
TALITY.
BUT all these things are inconsiderable, and contribute but
little to our present purpose, in respect of that our incom-
parable dignity, that results to the human mind from its being
capable of religion, and having indelible characters thereof
naturally stamped upon it. It acknowledges a God, and worships
Him ; it builds temples to His honour ; it celebrates His never
enough exalted majesty with sacrifices, prayers, and praises ;
depends upon His bounty ; implores His aid ; and so carries on
a constant correspondence with heaven and, which is a very
strong proof of its being originally from heaven, it hopes at last
to return to it. And tnily, in my judgment, this previous
impression and hope of immortality, and these earnest desires
after it, are a very strong evidence of that immortality. These
impressions, though in most men they lie overpowered and almost
quite extinguished by the weight of their bodies, and an extrava-
gant love to present enjoyment, yet now and then, in time of
adversity, break forth and exert themselves, especially under the
pressure of severe distempers, and at the approaches of death.
But those whose minds are purified, and their thoughts habituated
to divine things, with what constant and ardent wishes do they
breathe after that blessed immortality ! How often do their
souls complain within them that they have dwelt so long in these
earthly tabernacles ! like exiles, they earnestly wish, make
interest, and struggle hard to regain their native country. More-
over, does not that noble neglect of the body and its senses,
and that contempt of all the pleasures of the flesh, which these
heavenly souls have attained, evidently show that, in a short
time, they will be taken from hence, and that the body and soul
are of a very different and almost contrary nature to one another ;
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 233
that, therefore, the duration of the one depends not upon the
other, but is quite of another kind ; and that the soul, set at
liberty from the body, is not only exempted from death, but, in
some sense, then begins to live, and then first sees the light!
Had we not this hope to support us, what ground should we have
to lament our first nativity, which placed us in a life so short, so
destitute of good, and so crowded with miseries a life which we
pass entirely in grasping phantoms of felicity, and suffering real
calamities ! So that, if there were not, beyond this, a life and
happiness that more truly deserve their names, who can help
seeing that, of all creatures, man would be the most miserable,
and, of all men, the best would be the most unhappy 1 Leighton.
CICERO, de Finibus, lib. ii. 45, 46, 47. De Leg. lib. i. 22-27.
Tusc. Disp. i. 118, 43, 44, 45, 46, 51, 56, 60 ; 66, 70-75, 93-99.
THE ARGUMENT OF DESIGN INHERENT IN FACTS.
THE argument of design is, that there is a certain construc-
tion which the facts of nature of themselves call for and
necessitate, not admitting of any other, and the construction,
namely, of design which attaches to visible arrangement, system,
and adaptation. This construction, we say, " adheres to the facts,"
is cemented to them, and cannot be separated from them. That
is our position. Look at the inside of an animal body. Is it
not, as a matter of fact, a machine 1 ? Yes, the apparatus of organs,
pipes, vessels, is a simple fact ; design is the construction which
we say cleaves to the fact. We have not gone to the clouds
then for design ; we have not invented the notion ; we have not
coined it ; it has not been spun out of our brain ; it has come
to us out of plain, solid, external, material, tangible facts. It is
stamped upon those facts. We have not sought it by speculation,
234 Materials and Models
but outward nature has forced it upon us. We have not first
conceived the idea independently of nature, and nature got the
impress from our fancy ; but the idea has been got out of
nature in the first instance, and we are only the recipients of it.
Quarterly Review.
CICERO, de Natur. Dcor. ii. 38, 87.
THE PROBABILITY OF THE RESURRECTION ARGUED
FROM THE CONSTANT VICISSITUDE OF NATURE.
TOVTO (JitV VKfHMTTlfif'lS
Xet/^ajj/es e'/c%<wpoO(ni' fVKapircf Gf'pei'
^lurnrrai Se vvicrbs ataj/fjy KVK\O?
T?7 AevKoirwAy <peyyos fjfJifpq, <p\<iyfiv.
BESIDE the principles of which we consist, and the actions
which flow, from us, the consideration of the things without
us, and the natural course of variations in the creature, will
render the resurrection yet more highly probable. Every space
of twenty-four hours teacheth thus much, in which there is
always a revolution amounting to a resurrection. The day dies
into a night, and is buried in silence and in darkness ; in the
next morning it appeareth again and reviveth, opening the grave
of darkness, rising from the dead of night : this is a diurnal
resurrection. As the day dies into night, so doth the summer
into winter ; the sap is said to descend into the root, and there
it lies buried in the ground: the earth is covered with snow,
or crusted with frost, and becomes a general sepulchre : when
the spring appeareth, all begin to rise ; the plants and flower*
peep out of their graves, revive and grow and flourish : this is
the annual resurrection. The corn by which we live, and for
want of which we perish with famine, is notwithstanding cast
upon the earth, and buried in the ground, with a design that
it may corrupt, and being corrupted may revive and multiply ;
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 235
our bodies are fed with this constant experiment, and we continue
this present life by a succession of resurrections. Thus all things
are repaired by corrupting, are preserved by perishing, and revive
by dying ; and can we think that man, the lord of all these
things which thus die and revive for him, should be detained in
death as never to live again 1 Is it imaginable that God should
thus restore all things to man, and not restore man to Himself?
Pearson.
CICERO, de Nat. Deor. lib. ii. 83-85, 93-98.
Tusc. Qucest. lib. i. 67-G9, 117, 118.
SENECA, de Bencficifs, iv. c. 13.
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, AS TAUGHT BY THE
DRUIDS.
THE Druids were eminent above all the philosophic law-
givers, of antiquity for their care in impressing the doctrine
of the soul's immortality on the minds of their people, as an
operative and leading principle. This doctrine was inculcated on
the scheme of transmigration, which some imagine them to have
derived from Pythagoras. But it is by no means necessary to
resort to any particular teacher for an opinion which ow r es its
birth to the weak struggles of unenlightened reason, and to
mistakes natural to the human mind. The idea of the soul's
immortality is indeed ancient, universal, and in a manner inherent
in our nature, but it is not easy for a rude people to conceive
any other mode of existence than one similar to what they had
experienced in life, nor any other world as the scene of such an
existence than this we inhabit, beyond the bounds of which the
mind extends itself with great difficulty. Admiration, indeed,
was able to exalt to heaven a few selected heroes ; it did not
seem absurd that those who in this mortal state had distinuished
236 Materials and Models
themselves as superior and overruling spirits, should after death
ascend to that sphere which influences and governs everything
below ; or that the proper abode of beings, at once so illustrious
and permanent, should be in that part of nature in which they had
always observed the greatest splendour and the least mutation.
But on ordinary occasions it was natural some should imagine that
the dead retired into a remote country, separated from the living
by seas and mountains. Burke.
CICERO, Tusc. Disp. lib. i. 27, 29, 30, 36.
C.ESAR, de Bello Gallico, vi. c. 14.
FALSE IDEAS OF A FUTURE STATE ARISING FROM A
CONFUSION OF THE ATTRIBUTES OF THE DEAD
BODY, AND THE SURVIVING SOUL.
IT was natural that some should follow their imagination with
a simplicity still purer, and pursue the souls of men no
further than the sepulchres in which their bodies had been
deposited ; whilst others, of deeper penetration, observing that
bodies worn out by age or destroyed by accidents still afforded
the materials for generating new ones, concluded likewise that a
soul being dislodged did not wholly perish, but was destined
by a similar revolution in nature to act again, and to animate
some other body. This last principle gave rise to the doctrine
of transmigration ; but we must not presume, of course, that
where it prevailed it excluded the other opinions ; for it is not
remote from the usual procedure of the human mind blending
in obscure matters imagination and reasoning together, to unite
ideas the most inconsistent. When Homer represents the ghosts
of his heroes appearing at the sacrifice of Ulysses, he supposes
them endued with life, sensation, and capacity of moving, but
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 237
lie has joined to these powers of living existence uncomelines.s,
want of strength, want of distinction the characteristics of a
dead carcase. This is what the mind is apt to do, namely, to
confound the ideas of the surviving soul and the dead body. The
vulgar have always and still do confound these irreconcilable
ideas. They lay the scene of apparitions in churchyards, they
habit the ghost in a shroud, and it appears in all the ghastly
paleness of a corpse. A contradiction of this kind has given
rise to a doubt whether the Druids did in reality hold the
doctrine of transmigration. Burke.
CICERO, Tusc. Lisp. i. 26-38. SENECA, EpistoL xcii.
EMOTIONS RAISED BY CONTEMPLATING THE DEATH OF
GREAT AND EXCELLENT MEN.
THERE is a sort of delight, which is alternately mixed with
terror and sorrow, in the contemplation of death. The
soul has its curiosity more than ordinarily awakened, when it
turns its thoughts upon the conduct of such as have behaved
themselves with an equal, a resigned, a cheerful, a generous, or
heroic temper in that extremity. We are affected with these
respective manners of behaviour as we secretly believe the part
of the dying person imitable by ourselves,- or such as we imagine
ourselves more particularly capable of. Men of exalted minds
march before us like princes, and are to the ordinary race of
mankind rather subjects of their admiration than example. How-
ever, there are no ideas strike more forcibly upon our imagination
than those which are raised from reflections upon the exits of
great and excellent men. Innocent men, who have suffered as
criminals, though they were benefactors to human society, seem
to be persons of the highest distinction among the vastly greater
238 Materials and Models
number of human race, the dead. When the iniquity of the
times brought Socrates to his execution, how great and wonderful
is it to behold him, unsupported by anything but the testimony
of his own conscience and conjectures of hereafter, receive the
poison with an air of warmth and good humour, and, as if going
on an agreeable journey, bespeak some deity to make it for-
tunate. Spectator.
ClCERO, Tusc. Disp. lib. i. 116, xqq. iii. 71.
SENECA, Epist. xxiv. Ixx.
.SYMPATHY WITH THE DEAD.
WE sympathize even with the dead, and, overlooking what
is of real importance in their situation, that awful
futurity on which they have entered, we are chiefly affected by
those circumstances which strike our senses, but can have no
influence upon their happiness. It is miserable, we think, to be
deprived of the light of the sun, to be shut out from life and
conversation, to be laid in the cold grave, a prey to corruption
and the reptiles of the earth, to be no more thought of in this
world, but to be obliterated in a little time from the affections,
and almost from the memory" of their dearest friends and rela-
tions. Surely, we imagine, we can never feel too much for tlio.se
who have suffered so dreadful a calamity. The tribute of our
fellow-feelings seems due to them now, when they are in danger
of being forgot by everybody ; and by the vain honours which
we pay to their memory, we endeavour, for our own misery,
artificially, to keep alive our melancholy remembrance of their
misfortune. That our sympathy can afford them no consolation
seems to be an addition to their calamity ; and to think that all
we can do is unavailing, and that what alleviates all other distress,"
the regret, the love, and the lamentations of their friends, can
JFor Latin Prose Philosophical. 239
yield no comfort to them, serves only to exasperate our sense of
their misery. The happiness of the dead, however, most assuredly
is affected by none of these circumstances, nor is it the thought
of these things which can disturb the profound security of their
repose. The idea of that dreary and endless melancholy, which
the fancy naturally ascribes to their condition, arises altogether
from our joining to the change which has passed upon them, our
own consciousness of that change, from our lodging, if I may
be allowed to say so, our own living souls in their inanimate
bodies, and thence conceiving what would be our emotion in
this case.
CICERO, Tusc. Disp. lib. i. 30, 36-38, 48, 49, 75, 88, 90-92, 107.
SENECA, de Consolat. ad Marc. c. 19.
CICERO ON THE NATURE OF THE SOUL, THAT IT JS
IMMORTAL.
HE held likewise the immortality of the soul, and its
separate existence after death in a state of happiness
or misery. This he inferred from that ardent thirst of immor-
tality, which was always the most conspicuous in the best and
most exalted minds, from which the truest specimen of their
nature must needs be drawn ' } from its unmixed and indivisible
e ssence, which had nothing separable or perishable in it ; from
its wonderful powers and faculties ; its principle of self-motion ;
its memory, invention, wit, comprehension, which were all in-
compatible with sluggish matter. The Stoics fancied that the
soul was a subtilized, fiery substance, which survived the body
after death, and subsisted a long time, yet not eternally, but was
to perish at last in the general conflagration ; in which they
allowed, as Cicero says, the only thing that was hard to con-
ceive, its separable existence from the body, yet denied what was
240 Materials and Models
not only easy to imagine, but a consequence of the other, its
eternal duration. Aristotle taught, that besides the four elements
of the material world, whence all other things were supposed to
draw their being, there was a fifth essence or nature, peculiar to
God and the soul, which had nothing in it that was common to
any of the rest. This opinion Cicero followed, and illustrated
with his usual perspicuity in the following passage. The origin
of the human soul, says he, is not to be found anywhere on
earth; there is nothing mixed, concrete, or earthly nothing of
water, air, or fire in it. For these natures are not susceptible of
memory, intelligence, or thought ; have nothing that can retain
the past, foresee the future, lay hold on the present; which
faculties are purely Divine, and could not possibly be derived
to man except from God. The nature of the soul therefore is
of a singular kind, distinct from these known and obvious
natures ; and whatever it be that feels and tastes, that lives
and moves in us, it must be heavenly and divine, and for that
reason eternal. I^or is God indeed Himself, whose existence we
may clearly discover, to be comprehended by us in any other
manner but as a free and pure mind, clear from all mortal
concretion, observing and moving all things, and endued witli
an eternal principle of self-motion. Of this kind, and of the
same nature, is the human soul. Middleton.
CICERO, Tusc. Qucest. lib. i. 31-G6.
SUPERIORITY OF THE HUMAN MIND OVER THAT OF
THE OTHER ANIMALS, CHIEFLY SHOWN IN ITS
SENSE OF A GOD.
"X T OTHING is more evident than that, besides life, and sense,
-1 N and animal spirits, which he has in common with the
brutes, there is in man something, more exalted, more pure, and
/ Or T75TB X
UNIVERSITY
V/"r ir l
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 241
that more nearly approaches to Divinity. God has given to the
former a sensitive soul, but to us a mind also ; and, to speak
distinctly, that spirit which is peculiar to man, and whereby he
is raised above all other animals, ought to be called mind rather
than soul. Be this as it may, it is hardly possible to say how
vastly the human mind excels the other with regard to its won-
derful powers, and next to them, with respect to its works, desires,
and inventions ; for it performs such great and wonderful things,
that the brutes, even those of the greatest sagacity, can neither
imitate nor at all understand, much less invent. Nay, man,
though he is much less in bulk, and inferior in strength to the
greatest part of them, yet, as lord and king of them all, he can
by surprising means, bend and apply the strength and industry
of all the other creatures, the virtues of all herbs and plants, and,
in a word, all the parts and powers of this visible world, to the
convenience and accommodation of his own life. He also builds
cities, erects commonwealths, makes laws, conducts armies, fits
out fleets, measures not only the earth but the heavens also, and
investigates the motions of the stars. He foretells eclipses many
years before they happen, and with very little difficulty sends
his thoughts to a great distance, bids them visit the remotest
cities and countries, mount above the sun and the stars, and even
the heavens themselves.
JUVENAL, Sat. xv. 142. HORAT. Ars. Pod. 391-399.
CICERO, de FinMue, lib. v. 41, 42, 43.
De Nat. Deor. lib. ii. 140, 147-159. De Invent, lib. i. 2.
FACULTIES IN MAN WHICH POINT TO A BETTER LIFE
TO COME.
I BELIEVE since my coming into this world my soul hath
formed or produced certain faculties, which are almost as
useless for this life as the above-named senses, seeing, hearing,
R
242 Materials and Models
and the rest,, were for the mother's womb ; and these faculties are
hope, faith, love, and joy, since they never rest upon any tran-
sitory object in this world, but extend themselves to something
further than can be here given, and, indeed, acquiesce only in
the perfect, eternal, and infinite. I confess they are of some
use here, yet I appeal to everybody whether any worldly felicity
did so satisfy their hope here, that they did not wish and hope
for something more excellent ; or whether they had ever such
faith in their own wisdom, or in the help of man, that they were
not constrained to have recourse to some diviner and superior
power than they could find on earth, to relieve them in their
danger or necessity ; whether they could place their love on any
earthly beauty, that it did not fade and wither, if not frustrate
or deceive them. Or whether their joy was ever so consummate
in anything they delighted in, that they did not want much more
than it, or indeed this world can afford, to make them happy.
The proper object of these faculties, therefore, though framed in
this world, is God only, upon whom faith, hope, and love were
never placed in vain, or remained long unrequited. Lord Clierbury.
CICERO, Tusc. Disp. i. 45, 46, 56-66.
De Legilus, lib. i. GO, 61, 62. SENECA, Epist. cxx.
CICERO'S OPINIONS IN REGARD TO THE TRUE, THE
PROBABLE, AND THE METHOD OF FORMING A
JUDGMENT IN MATTERS OF PHILOSOPHY.
WE are not of that sort, says he, whose mind is perpetually
wandering in error, without any particular end or object
of its pursuit ; for what would such a mind, or such a life indeed
be worth which had no determinate rule or method of thinking
and acting ? But the difference between us and the rest is, that,
whereas they call some things certain, and others uncertain, we
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 243
call the one probable, tlie oilier improbable. For what reason,
then, should not I pursue the probable, reject the contrary, and
declining the arrogance of affirming, avoid the imputation of
rashness, which of all things is the farthest removed from
wisdom ? Again, we do not pretend to say that there is no such
thing as truth, but that all truths have some falsehood annexed
to them, of so near a resemblance and similitude as to afford no
certain note of distinction whereby to determine our judgment
and assent ; whence it follows also of course that there a,re many
things probable, which, though not perfectly comprehended, yet
on account of their attractive and specious appearance are sufficient
to govern the life of a wise man. In another place, There is no
difference, says he, between us and those who pretend to know
things, but that they never doubt of the truth of what they
maintain ; whereas we have many probabilities which we readily
embrace, but dare not affirm. By this we preserve our judgment
free and unprejudiced, and are under no necessity of defending
what is prescribed and enjoined to us : whereas, in other sects,
men are tied down to certain doctrines, before they are capable of
judging what is the best ; and in the most infirm part of their
life, drawn either by the authority of a friend, or charmed with
the first master whom they happen to hear, they form a judgment
of things unknown to them ; and to whatever school they chance
to be driven by the tide, cleave to it as fast as the oyster to the
rock. Middleton.
CICEKO, Acad. Qucest. lib. iv. 38, 66, 99, 125, 126.
Tusc. Qttccst. lib. i. 17. ii. 5, 9.
THE MORAL TEACHING OF LUCRETIUS.
THE practical use of philosophy, according to Lucretius, is,
first, to inspire confidence in the room of an ignorant and
superstitious fear of the course of nature ; and, second, to show.
244 Materials and Models
what human nature really needs, and so to clear the heart from,
all Artificial desires and passions. A mind free from error, and
a heart neither incapable of natural enjoyment, nor vitiated "by
false appetite, are the objects which man needs, and which it is
in the power of philosophy to bestow. It is knowledge which
must enable us to overcome the natural fear of the gods and of
death, and also the passions of our own heart. Superstition and
the fear of death are the most deeply seated of evils. They infect
the whole human race ; they are the secret parents of the most
destructive modes of passion and desire.
The other passions which had assumed the largest dimensions,
and dominated over human happiness in the age of Lucretius, were
ambition and the lust of wealth. In the opening lines of the
second book, the strife of ambition, the revelries of rank and
intellect, are contrasted with the serene light of philosophy, as
darkness, error, and danger with light, certainty, and peace. To
be the master of armies and of navies, or to be clothed in gold
and purple, gives not that exemption from the real terrors and
anxieties of life which the power of reason only can bestow.
The desire of power and station leads to the shame and misery
of baffled hopes, of which the toil of Sisyphus is the type, and
also to the guilt which deluges the world in blood, and violates
the most sacred ties of nature. While to fail is degradation, to
succeed is often the prelude to the most sudden downfall. Weary
with bloodshed, and with forcing their way up the hostile and
narrow road of ambition, they reach the summit of their hopes
only to be hurled down by envy as by a thunderbolt. Men are
slaves to ambition, merely because they cannot distinguish the true
from the false ; because they cannot judge of things as they really
are, apart from the estimate which the world puts upon them
Sellar.
LUCRETIUS, de Nat. fierum, lib. vi. 20. ii. 48. iii. 70. v. 1131.
1133. 1125.
CICERO, de Finilus, lib. i. 57-60. Tusc. Qucest. lib. v. 5, 6-
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 245
ASTRONOMY A SCIENCE THAT ELEVATES AND
STRENGTHENS THE HUMAN MIND.
THE wisest and greatest of men, both amongst the ancients and
moderns, have confessed themselves charmed with the beauties
of this science. To contemplate the grand spectacle of the heavens
has ever been considered as the noblest privilege of our nature.
For it is here that we discover the wonders of the Deity, and
see His wisdom in the works of creation. Nor is there any
knowledge, attained by the light of nature, that gives us juster
ideas of this great Being, or furnishes us with stronger arguments
by which to demonstrate His existence and attributes. "The
heavens," as the Psalmist observes, " declare the glory of God,
and the firmament slieweth. His handy-work ; day unto day uttereth
speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge ; and there is
no speech or language where their voice is not heard." Thus
astronomy is not only valuable, as it affords us such exalted ideas
of God and His works ; but it also improves the mind, and
increases the force and penetration of the human understanding.
For, by means of this science, we are taught to discover the
spring and fountain of all the celestial motions ; to follow the foot-
steps of the Creator through the immense regions of His empire ;
and to trace the secret cause by which He regulates the great
machine of the universe. Were a knowledge of this kind attended
with no other advantage, it has rendered essential service to
humanity, by dissipating our superstitious opinions and vain
fears. Man is naturally timid, and terrified at dangers which
he cannot foresee. Before he is familiarized with nature, he
suspects her constancy, and regards many of her operations with
dread and apprehension. The regular and invariable order of
things will at length inspire him with confidence ; but still
there are some singular phenomena, which appear as alarming
exceptions to the general rule.
CICERO, de Senectute, 51, De Divin. lib. i. 1-3.
De Nat. Deor. lib. ii. 43, 44, 50-59, 102-104.
246 Materials and Models
MAN ALONE OF THE ANIMALS ENDOWED WITH THE
FACULTY OF PROGRESS.
MOREOVER, brutes differ from men in this : that they
cannot invent, cannot progress. They remain in the
use of those faculties and methods which nature gave them at
their birth. They are endowed by the law of their being with
certain weapons of defence, and they do not improve on them.
They have food, raiment and dwelling ready at command. They
need no arrow or noose to catch their prey, nor kitchen to dress
it ; no garment to wrap round them, nor roof to shelter them,
Their claws, their teeth, their viscera, are their butcher and their
cook ; and their fur is their wardrobe. The cave or the jungle
is their home ; or if they are to exercise some architectural craft,
they have not to learn it. But man comes into the world with
the capabilities rather than with the means and appliances of life.
He begins with a small capital, but one which admits of indefinite
improvement. He is in his very idea a creature of progress. He
starts the inferior of the brute animals, but he surpasses them
in the long-run ; he subjects them to himself, and he goes forward
on a career which at least hitherto has not found its limit.
CICERO, de Finibus, lib. ii. 45, sqq. lib. v. 42, 43, 58, 59.
SENECA, de Ira. i. c. 3. Epfst. cxxiv.
MAWS LACK OF GRATITUDE FOR THE COMMON
BLESSINGS OF LIFE.
ONE great cause of our insensibility to the goodness of the
Creator is the very extensiveness of His bounty. We
prize but little what we share in common with the rest, or with
the generality of our species. When we hear of blessings, we
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 247
think forthwith, of successes, of prosperous fortunes, of honours,
riches, preferments, i.e., of those advantages and superiorities over
others, which we happen either to possess, or to be in pursuit of, or
to covet. The common benefits of our nature entirely escape us.
Yet these are the great things. These constitute what most
properly ought to be accounted blessings of Providence ; what
alone, if we might so speak, are worthy of its care. Nightly
rest and daily bread, the ordinary use of our limbs, and senses,
and understandings, are gifts which admit of no comparison with
any other. Yet, because almost every man we meet possesses
these, we leave them out of our enumeration. They raise no
sentiment ; they move no gratitude. Now herein is our judgment
perverted by our selfishness. A blessing ought in truth to be
the more satisfactory, the bounty at least of the donor is rendered
more conspicuous by its very diffusion, its commonness, its cheap-
ness, by its falling to the lot, and forming the happiness, of the
great bulk and body of our species, as well as of ourselves. Nay,
even when we do not possess it, it ought to be the matter for
thankfulness that others do. But we have a different way of
thinking. We court distinction. That is not the worst : we
see nothing but what has distinction to recommend it. This
necessarily contracts our views of the Creator's beneficence within
a narrow compass; and most unjustly. It is in those things
which are so common as to be no distinction, that the amplitude
of the Divine benignity is perceived. Paley.
CICERO, de Nat. Deor. lib. ii. 98, 131-133.
SENECA, de Benef. lib. iv. c. 4, sqq.
248 Materials and Models
THAT MAN IS BUT A LINK IN THE CHAIN OF BEING:
AND THAT THE UNIVERSE PROBABLY CONTAINS
AS MANY SPECIES ABOVE MAN AS BELOW HIM.
THAT there should be more species of intelligent creatures
above us than there are of sensible and material below
us, is probable to me from hence, that in all the visible corporeal
world we see no chasms, no gaps. All quite down from us, the
descent is by easy steps, and a continued series of things, that in
each remove differ very little from the other. There are fishes
that have wings, and are not strangers to the airy region; and
there are some birds that are inhabitants of the water, whose
blood is cold as fishes', and their flesh so like in taste, that the
scrupulous are allowed them on fish days. There are animals
so near of kin, both to birds and beasts, that they are in the
middle between both ; amphibious animals link the terrestrial
and aquatic together; seals live on land and at sea, and
porpoises have the warm blood and entrails of a hog; not to
mention what is confidently reported of mermaids and sea- men.
There are some brutes that seem to have as much knowledge
and reason as some that are called men; and the animal and
vegetable kingdoms are so nearly joined, that if you will take
the lowest of one, and the highest of the other, there will scarce
be perceived any great difference between them ; and so on- till
we come to the lowest and the most inorganical parts of matter, we
shall find everywhere that the several species are linked together,
and differ but in almost insensible degrees. And when we consider
the infinite power and wisdom of the Maker, we have reason
to think that it is suitable to the magnificent harmony of the
universe, and the great design and infinite goodness of the
Architect, that the species of creatures should also, by gentle
degrees, ascend upward from us toward His infinite perfection,
as we see they gradually descend from us downward ; which,
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 249
if it be probable, we have reason then to be persuaded that
there are far more species of creatures above us than there are
beneath ; we being in degrees of perfection much more remote
from the infinite being of God than we are from the lowest state
of being, and that which approaches nearest to nothing. And
yet of all those distinct species we have no clear ideas.
CiCERO, de Nat. Deor. lib. ii. 33-39, 115, 120-130.
SENECA, Nat. Quasi, vi. c. 16.
ABSENCE OF SYMPATHY IN THE LOWER ANIMALS.
THOUGH the lower animals have feeling, they have no fellow-
feeling. Have I not seen the horse enjoy his feed of corn,
when his yoke-fellow lay dying in the neighbouring stall, and never
turn an eye of pity on the sufferer 1 They have strong passions,
but no sympathy. It is said that the wounded deer sheds tears ;
but it belongs to man only to "weep with them that weep," and by
sympathy to divide each other's sorrows, and double each other's
joys. When thunder, following the dazzling flash, has burst among
our hills ; when the horn of the Switzer has rung in his glorious
valleys ; when the boatman has shouted from the bosom of a rock-
girt loch ; wonderful were the echoes I have heard them make : but
there is no echo so fine or wonderful as that which, in the sympathy
of human hearts, repeats the cry of another's sorrow, and makes me
feel his pain almost as if it were my own.
SENECA, Epist. cxxi. xcv.
CICERO, de Officiis, lib. i. 21. lib. iii. 22, 23, 29, 30.
JUVENAL, Sat. xv. 131, usque adfinem. PLINY, vii. c. 1.
OVID, Metam. i. 84.
250 Materials and Models
THE CREDIBILITY OF PROPHECY MAINTAINED,
IT is the prerogative of God alone, or of those who are com-
missioned by Him, certainly to foretell future events : and the
consequence is so plain and necessary, from the believing of pro-
phecies to the believing of revelation, that an infidel hath no way
of evading the conclusion but by denying the premises. But why
should it be thought at all incredible for God upon special occasions
to foretell future events 1 or how could a Divine revelation (only sup-
posing that there was a Divine revelation) be better attested and con-
firmed than by prophecy ? It is certain that God hath perfect and
exact knowledge of futurity, and foresees all things to come as well
as comprehends everything past and present. It is certain, too, that
as He knoweth them perfectly himself, so He may reveal them to
others in what degrees and proportions He pleaseth ; and that He
actually hath revealed them in several instances, no man can deny,
who compares the several prophecies of Scripture with the events
fulfilling the same.
But so many ages have past since the spirit of prophecy hath
ceased in the world, that many persons are apt to imagine that no
such thing ever existed, and that what we call predictions are only
histories written, after the events had happened, in a prophetic
style and manner : which is easily said indeed, but hath never been
proved, nor is there one tolerable argument to prove it. On the
contrary, there are all the proofs and authorities, which can be had
in cases of this nature, that the prophet prophesied in such and
such ages ; and you have as much reason to believe these as you
have to believe any ancient matter of fact whatever ; and by the
same rule that you deny these, you might as well deny the credi-
bility of all ancient history. Blslwp Newton.
CICEHO, de Divin. lib. i. 2, 10, S4, 35, 37, 82, 117, 125.
lib. ii. 101, sqy.
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 251
THE BELIEF IN THE SOUL'S IMMORTALITY, ALTHOUGH
MIXED WITH SUPERSTITION, A SOURCE OF GREAT-
NESS IN THE ROMAN CHARACTER.
'""IT^HERE were in these quarters of the world, 1,600 years ago,
-I- certain speculative men, whose authority disposed the whole
religion of those times. By their means it became a received
opinion, that the souls of men departing this life do flit out of
one body into some other : which opinion, though false, yet en-
twined with a true, that the souls of men do never perish, abated
the fear of death in them which were so resolved, and gave them
courage unto all adventures. The Romans had a vain superstitious
custom in most of their enterprises, to conjecture beforehand of the
event by certain tokens which they noted in birds, or in the entrails
of beasts, or by other the like frivolous divinations. From whence
notwithstanding, as often as they could receive any sign, which
they took to be favourable, it gave them such hope, as if their gods
had made them more than half a promise of prosperous success.
Which many times was the greatest cause that they did prevail,
especially being men of their own natural inclination, hopeful and
strongly conceited, whatsoever they took in hand. But could their
fond superstition have furthered so great attempts, without the
mixture of a true persuasion concerning the irresistible force of
Divine power K-
CICERO, de Divin. lib. i. 11, 12, 95. lib. ii. 28, 148.
Tusc. QucKst. lib. i. 27.
252 Materials and Models
THE MOTION AND INFLUENCE OF THE SUN AND STARS
BEAR WITNESS TO THE POWER, WISDOM, AND
GOODNESS OF GOD.
LET the observer of nature consider the rising sun, about to
dispense his varied bounties. The sphere of human labour
and happiness is lighted up by its beams ; everything that lives and
moves feels and exhibits its genial influence. When he learns that
these daily gifts are repeated in every part of the globe, under every
variety of climate, and every vicissitude of season, his mind is im-
pressed with the conviction that the great luminary was intended
to dispense these multifarious benefits to man. He discovers the
evidence of power in the nicely poised orbs of the sun and planets,
whether moving or at rest in the ethereal world ; he perceives the
evidence of wisdom in the nice adaptation of the means to accom-
plish these beneficent ends ; and he feels and witnesses around him
an universal feeling that the ends thus effected are full of goodness.
From such evidence as this, his very nature compels him to con-
clude, that where power has been exerted, there must have been a
Being that is powerful ; where wisdom has been displayed, a
Being that is wise; and where goodness has been diffused, a
Being that is good. Addison.
CICERO, de Nat. Deor. lib. ii. 15-20, 49-58, 75.
Tusc. Qucest. lib. i. 67-70. SENECA, de Beneficiis, iv. c. 23.
THE FABRIC OF THE WORLD. THE FIRMAMENT AND
THE STARS PROCLAIM THEMSELVES THE WORK OF
AN INFINITE ARCHITECT.
IX- order to prove to any one the grandness of this fabric of
the world, one needs only to bid him consider the sun,
with that insupportable glory and lustre that surrounds it ', 4-0
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 253
demonstrate the vast distance, magnitude, and heat of it ; to
represent to him the courses of planets, moving periodically by
uniform laws in their several orbits around it, affording a
regular variety of aspect, guarded some of them by secondary
planets, and as it were emulating the state of the sun, and
probably all possessed by proper inhabitants ; to remind him of
those surprising visits the comets make us, the large train or
uncommon splendour which attends them, the far country they
come from, and the curiosity and horror they excite not only
among us, but in the inhabitants of other planets, who also
may be up to see the entry and progress of these ministers of
state ; to direct his eye and contemplation through those azure
fields and vast regions above him, up to the fixed stars, that
radiant, numberless host of heaven, and to make him under-
stand how unlikely a thing it is that they should be placed
there only to adorn and bespangle a canopy over our heads
(though that would be a great piece of magnificence too), and
much less to supply the places of so many glow-worms, by afford-
ing a feeble light to our earth, or even to all oiir fellow-planets ;
to convince him that they are rather so many other suns, with
their several regions and sets of planets about them ; to show
him, by the help of glasses, still more and more of these fixed
lights ; to beget in him an apprehension of their unaccountable
numbers, and of those immense spaces that lie retired beyond
our utmost reach, and even imagination I say one needs but to
do this, and explain to him such things as are now known almost
to everybody, and by it to show that if the world be not infinite,
it is infinito similify and therefore sure a magnificent structure,
and the work of an infinite Architect.
CICERO, de Nat. Dew. lib. ii. 15-20, 49-58, 75.
SENECA, de Beneficiia, iv. c. 23.
OF THB
UNIVERSITY
254 Materials and Models
DIFFICULTIES ATTENDING THE BELIEF IN A SPECIAL
PROVIDENCE.
ON the other hand, if, leaving the works of nature, we
trace the footsteps of invisible power in the various and
contrary events of human life, we are necessarily led into Poly-
theism, and the acknowledgment of several limited and imper-
fect deities. Storms and tempests ruin what is nurtured by the
sun. The sun destroys what is fostered by the moisture of dews
and rains. War may be favourable to a nation whom the in-
clemency of the seasons afflicts with famine. Sickness and
pestilence may depopulate a kingdom amid the most profuse
plenty. The same nation is not at the same time equally suc-
cessful by sea and by land. And a nation which now triumphs
over its enemies may anon submit to their more prosperous
arms. In short, the conduct of events, or what we call the
plan of a particular providence, is so full of variety and un-
certainty, that if we suppose it immediately ordered by any
intelligent beings we must acknowledge a contrariety in their
designs and intentions, a constant combat of opposite powers,
and a repentance or change of intention in the same power
from impotence or levity. Each nation has its tutelar deity.
Each climate is subjected to its invisible power or agent. The
province of each god is separate from that of another. Nor are
the operations of the same god always certain and invariable.
To-day he protects, to-morrow he abandons us. Prayers and
sacrifices, rites and ceremonies, well or ill performed, are the
sources of his favour or enmity, and produce all the good or
ill fortune which are to be found amongst mankind.
CICERO, dt Nat. Deor. lib. iii. 65, 79, 80, 86, 87, 92.
SENECA, de Benefiriis, iv. c. 4.
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 255
CHARACTER OF MINERVA AND THE GODS IN HOMER.
THEIR ATTRIBUTES LOWER THAN HUMAN.
THE Pallas Athene, like other Olympians, is more properly
infra-human than super-human, in spite of the wondrous
moral energy which moves in it. It must be so : a human being,
with far-reaching plans, and means ready for every end, with
restraint removed and powers vastly enhanced, becomes degraded
by the loss of equilibrium so caused. Thus on Olympus the
morals are on the whole impure, the sentiments paltry, the
motives ordinary mostly mere selfishness. For lofty character
we must look below Olympus ; but given the condition of beings
with almost nothing to hope or fear, free from change or death,
or wane, and with nothing to aspire to, and the resulting character
is such as Homer gives us. It was perhaps a more astounding
triumph of genius to succeed under these conditions than to
draw the highest type of man as imagined from experience.
And, on the whole, as her great march of action in the Odyssey
corresponds with the relief of the sufferings of the hero, and as
she thus borrows something of moral radiance from him, the
rigid harshness of her ethical character is mitigated. . . . We
note her indignation at wrong, and her championship of the
right, but she has little hearty sense of sympathy with right as
such. Her character is without tenderness or tie of any sort ; it
never owns obligation, it never feels pain or privation, it is
pitiless, with no gross appetites even that of sacrifice, conven-
tionally necessary to a god, is minimized in it its activity is
busy and restless, its partisanship unscrupulous, its policy astute,
and dissimulation profound. It is keenly satirical, crafty, ban-
tering, whispering base motives of the good, not " afraid to speak
evil of dignities," beating down the strong, mocking the weak, and
exulting in her own easy superiority over them, heartless as
regards deep and tender affection, yet staunch to a comrade,
256 Materials and Models
touched by a sense of liking for its like, of admiration for its
own faculties reflected, of truth to its party, ready to prompt
and back its friend through every hazard the divinity of human
society.
CICERO, de Nat. Deor. lib. i. 102. iii. 38.
HOMER'S GODS INFERIOR TO MEN IN PROWESS,
BEAUTY, AND INTELLECT.
IT was clearly the opinion of Homer's age that in a fair
fight the gods might have been found liable to defeat. The
gods, again, were generally beautiful ; but not more so than the
elite of mankind ; else why did these gods, both male and female,
continually persecute our race with their odious love ? which
love, be it observed, uniformly brought ruin upon its objects.
Intellectually the gods were undoubtedly below men. They pre-
tended to no great works in philosophy, in legislation, or in
the fine arts. Except only that as to one of these arts, namely,
poetry, a single god vaunted himself greatly in simple ages. But
he attempted neither a tragedy nor an epic poem. Even in what
he did attempt it is not worth while to follow his career. His lite-
rary fate was what might have been expected. After the Persian
war the reputation of his verses rapidly decayed. Wits arose in
Athens, who laughed so furiously at his style and his metre
in the Delphic oracles, that at length some echoes of their scoff-
ing began to reach Delphi, upon which the god and his inspired
ministers became sulky, and finally took refuge in prose, as the
only shelter they could think of, from the caustic venom of
Athenian malice.
ClCERO, de Nat. Deor. i. 46, sqq. 78, sqq. 94. iii. 43, sqq. 64.
iii. 33.
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 257
DEATH OF THE PAGAN GOD PAN, COINCIDENT IV7TH
THE COMMENCEMENT OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY.
IIS T the reign of Tiberius, an extraordinary thing happened to
some mariners in the Ionian sea. They were cruising at
daybreak among the islands of the Echinades, at the mouth of
the river Achelous, which falls into the Corinthian Gulf. As the
sun rose and touched with his first light the waves of the Archi-
pelago and the myrtle hillocks of the little islands, they heard a
marvellous voice, like softened thunder, pass over them, and die
away to the mainland among the JEtolian mountains. " Pan is
dead," it said, and then a sighing wind followed the voice, and
the frightened sailors hastened ashore to narrate what they had
heard. If it could be true at all, it must indeed have terrified
Greek seamen beyond measure ; and however that may be, the
report certainly travelled as far as the Roman court, where Tiberius
took it to be authentic, and consulted the soothsayers, who cut
open a great many beasts, and pored over the books without
making anything out of the affair. Tradition, which has given
us the strange tale, explains it by averring that on that morning
Christ commenced His teaching, and the narrative ever since has
held its place in the memory of men, and will not be forgotten.
CICERO, de Divin, lib, i, 101-104.
THAI DEATH IS ALWAYS NEAR AT EVERY STAGE OF
LIFE.
WE have lived so many years, and every day and every
minute we make an escape from thousands of dangers
and deaths that encompass us round about, and such escapings
258 Materials and Models
we must reckon to be an extraordinary fortune, and therefore
that it cannot last long. Vain are the thoughts of man, who
when he is young or healthful thinks he hath a long thread of
life to run over, and that it is violent and strange for young
persons to die, and natural and proper only for the aged. It is
as natural for a man to die by drowning as by a fever; and
what greater violence or more unnatural thing is it, that the
horse threw his rider into the river, than that a drinking-bout
cast him into a fever? And the strengths of youth are as soon
broken by the strong sicknesses of youth, and the stronger in-
temperance, as the weakness of old age by a cough, or an asthma,
or a continual rheum. Nay, it is more natural for young men
and women to die than for old; because that is more natural
that hath more natural causes, and that is more natural which
is most common : but to die of old age is an extreme rare thing :
and there are more persons carried forth to burial before the five
and thirtieth year of their age than after it. And therefore let
no vain confidence make you hope for long life ; if you have
lived but little, and are still in youth, remember that now you
are in your biggest throng of dangers both of body and soul;
and the proper sins of youth, to which they rush without con-
sideration, are also the proper and immediate instruments of
death. Jeremy Taylor.
CICERO, Tusc. Disp. i. 91, sqq. 119. SENECA, de Providentid, c. 6.
Epist. xii. Ixvi.
EXTREME CREDULITY AND FOLLY OF 7 HOSE WHO
ATTRIBUTE THE CREATION OF MAN TO 1 'HE
FORTUITOUS CONCOURSE OF ATOMS.
BUT if they will still be meddling with atoms, be hammer-
ing and squeezing imderstanding out of them, I would
advise them to make use of their own understanding for the in-
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 259
stance. Nothing in my opinion could run us down more effec-
tually than that ; for we readily allow that if any understanding
can possibly be produced by such clashing of senseless atoms, 'tis
that of an Atheist that hath the fairest pretensions and the best
title to it. (We know it is " the fool that hath said in his heart,
There is no God." And 'tis no less a truth than a paradox that
there are no greater fools than atheistical wits, and none so credu-
lous as infidels. No article of religion, though as demonstrable as
the nature of the thing can admit, hath credibility enough for
them. And yet these same cautious and quick-sighted gentlemen
can wink and swallow down this sottish opinion about percipient
atoms, which exceeds in incredibility all the fictions of ^Esop's
Fables. For is it not every whit as likely or more that cocks
and bulls might discourse, and hinds and panthers hold conferences
about religion, as that atoms can do so 1 that atoms can invent arts
and sciences, can institute society and government, can make
leagues and confederacies, can devise methods of peace and
stratagems of war ? Can any credulity be comparable with this 1
If a man should affirm that an ape, casually meeting with pen,
ink and paper, and falling to scribble, did happen to write exactly
the Leviathan of Thomas Hobbes, would an Atheist believe such
a story 1 And yet he can easily digest as incredible as that ; that
the innumerable members of a human body, which may admit of
almost infinite variations and transpositions above the twenty-
four letters of the alphabet, were at first fortuitously scribbled
and by mere accident compacted into this beautiful and noble
and most wonderfully useful frame, which we now see it carry_J
Bentley.
CICERO, de Fin. lib. i. 17, syq. ii. 113, sqq. ad finem. 26-36.
De Nat. Deor. lib. i. 67, 68, 91. lib. ii. 93.
260 Materials and Models
THE BEAUTY, REGULARITY, AND BENEFICENT OPERA-
TION OF THE HEAVENLY BODIES, PROVE THE
EXISTENCE OF A CONTROLLING GOD.
BUT if we lift our eyes and minds towards heaven, there in
a larger volume and in a brighter character we shall behold
the testimonies of perfection and majesty stupendous described :
as our eyes are dazzled with the radiant light coming thence, so
must the vast amplitude, the stately beauty, the decent order, the
steady course, the beneficial efficacy of those glorious lamps,
astonish our minds, fixing their attention upon them. He that
shall, I say, consider with what precise regularity and what per-
fect constancy those (beyond our imagination) vast bodies perform
their rapid motions, what pleasure, comfort, and advantage their
light and heat do yield us, how their kindly influences conduce
to the general preservation of all things here below, impregnating
the womb of this cold and dull lump of earth with various sorts
of life, with strange degrees of activity, how necessary or how
convenient at least the certain recourses of seasons made by them
are : how can we but wonder, and wondering adore that trans-
cendency of beneficent wisdom and power, which first disposed
them into, which still preserves them in such a state and order?
That all of them should be so regulated, as for so many ages
together (even through all memories of time) to persist in the
same posture, to retain the same appearances; not to alter dis-
cernibly in magnitude, in shape, in situation, in distance each from
other; but to abide fixed as it were in their unfixedness, and
steady in their restless motions ; not to vary at all sensibly in the
time of their revolution (so that no one year was ever observed to
differ in an hour, or one day in a minute from another) doth it not
argue a constant will directing them and a mighty hand upholding
them 1 Barrow.
CICERO, de Nat. Deor. lib. ii. 15-20, 49-58, 75, 93-115.
SENECA, de Beneficiis, iv. c. 23.
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 261
THE EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY BASED ON A LOW
STANDARD OF HUMAN NATURE.
BUT as the Stoics exalted human nature too high, so the
Epicureans depressed it too low ; as those raised it to the
heroic, these debased it to the brutal state ; they held pleasure
to be the chief good of man, death the extinction of his being,
and placed their happiness consequently in the secure enjoyment
of a pleasurable life ; esteeming virtue on no other account than
as it was a handmaid to pleasure, and helped to insure the
possession of it, by preserving health and conciliating friends.
Their wise man, therefore, had no other duty but to provide for
his own ease ; to decline all struggles ; to retire from public affairs
and to imitate the life of their gods, by passing his days in a
calm, contemplative, undisturbed repose, in the midst of rural
shades and pleasant gardens. This was the scheme that Atticus
followed ; he had all the talents that could qualify a man to be
useful to society great parts, learning, judgment, candour,
benevolence ; generosity; the same love of his country, and the
same sentiments in politics with Cicero.
CICERO, de Officiis, lib. iii. 116. De Natura Deorum, i. 49.
De Finibus, lib. i. 55-65. SENECA, Epist. Ixvi. xlv. xlvi.
THE ANCIENT ORACLES EXPOUNDERS OF MORAL
SENTIMENTS RATHER THAN FORETELLERS OF EVENTS.
IT) RIEFLY, the Oracles went out lamp after lamp as we
JD see oftentimes in some festal illumination that one glass
globe of light capriciously outlives its neighbour. Or they might
be described as melting away like snow on the gradual return of
vernal breezes. Large drifts vanish in a few hours ; but patches
262 Materials and Models
here and there, lurking in the angles of high mountainous grounds,
linger on into summer. Yet, whatever might have been their
distinctions or their advantages on collation with each other, none
of the ancients ever appear to have considered their pretensions
to divination or prescience (whether by the reading of signs, as in
the flight of birds, in the entrails of sacrificial victims or, again,
in direct spiritual prevision) as forming any conspicuous feature of
their ordinary duties. Accordingly, when Cato in the Pharsalia
is advised by Labienus to seek the counsel of Jupiter Ammon,
\vhose sequestered oracle was then near enough to be reached
without much extra trouble, he replies by a fine abstract of what
might be expected from an oracle j not predictions, but grand
sentiments bearing on the wisdom of life. These representative
sentiments, as shaped by Lucan, are fine and noble ; we might
expect it from a poet so truly Roman. But he dismisses these
oracular sayings as superfluous, because already familiar to medi-
tative men.
CiCERO, de Divin. lib. i. 34, 88, sqq. lib. ii. 77, 78, 115, 116, 117.
LUCAN, PharsaL ix. 548. SEXECA, Epist. xciv.
NATIONAL RELIGION FOSTERED BY ANCIENT STATES-
MEN AS AN ENGINE OF CIVILIZATION AND GOOD
GOVERNMENT.
THE ancient statesmen well knew the advantages resulting
from a union of civil and ecclesiastic authority, and the
philosophers, who were commonly themselves magistrates, senators,
and priests, watched over the interests of the establishment with
anxious care, although perfectly convinced of the fallacy of its
doctrines. Its festivals tended to humanize the people ; fear of
the avenging gods protected the sacramental oath ; and the control
over divination was a very convenient instrument in the hands
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 263
of governors. The emperor, moreover, was the supreme pontiff;
the principal senators formed the priesthood, and filled the college
of augurs. Together with these interested motives were associated
more amiable prejudices. Every noble family felt that the gods
of Paganism had been the gods of their fathers, who had for ages
worshipped them with honest devotion. In old times had their
beloved city been founded under the imaginary protection of these
sacred divinities, and under their guidance Roman heroes had
fought, Roman armies conquered, and Eome herself become
Mistress of the World. Wherever a noble Roman turned his
eyes, a beautiful temple raised its columns ; whatever grove or
stream he visited, the presiding deities, the Naiads of the fountain,
or the Dryads of the wood, animated the scene with ideal life, and
filled the mind with the recollections of the most pleasing passages
of national poetry. Pagan mythology was interwoven with the
eloquence of the orator, the narrative of the historian, the fictions
of the poet it shaped the actions of domestic life, and was inlaid
with the language of common discourse.
CICERO, de Divin. lib. i. 3-95, 97. lib. ii. 148, 149.
De Legibus, ii. 26, 30. LIVY, xxxvii. c. 8.
THE PROMINENCE GIVEN BY LIVY TO PRODIGIES THE
RESULT NOT OF SUPERSTITION, BUT OF AN APPRE-
CIATION OF THEIR POLITICAL IMPORTANCE.
THE belief that Livy is a credulous and superstitious writer
appears to have been derived from his detailed enumera-
tions of prodigies, and from his serious and careful manner of
treating those events which in our eyes are destitute of all his-
torical interest and importance. But these prodigies doubtless
occupied a prominent place in the official annals of the Chief
Pontiff; and from the care with which they were expiated by
264 Materials and Models
ceremonies conducted under the control of the public authorities,
we may be sure that they were at the time considered of the
highest moment. If they had not been duly attended to, and
adequately atoned for by proper observances, they would in many
cases have left on the minds of the people a religious dread not
less than that which ruined the Athenian army at Syracuse.
There were standing rules with respect to the expiation of certain
prodigies which prove the awe with which they were regarded
by the State, and the strong sense of the necessity which existed
for treating them as matters of national concern. It was laid
down that, whenever stones fell from heaven, there was to be a
religious celebration of nine days, appointed by public authority ;
and likewise, that whenever an ox was reported ^to have spoken,
a sitting of the Senate was to be held in the open air.
ClCERO, de Divin. lib. i. 3, 95, sqq. lib. ii. 148, 149.
LIVY, xliii. c. 13. xxyii. c. 23. xxiii. c. 36. xxi. c. 62.
xxiv. c. 10.
THE LIFE OF A PHILOSOPHER HISTORICALLY NOT THAT
OF A RECLUSE.
I AM very sorry to hear you treat philosophy and her followers
like a parcel of monks and hermits, and think myself
obliged to vindicate a profession I honour. The first man that
ever bore the name, if you remember, used to say that life was
like the Olympic games (the greatest public assembly of his age
and country), where some came to show their strength and agility
of body as the champions ; others, as the musicians, orators, poets,
and historians, to show their excellence in these arts ; the traders
to get money; and the better sort to enjoy the spectacle, and
judge of all these. They did not then run away from society for
fear of its temptations ; they passed their days in the midst of
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 265
it ; conversation was their business ; they cultivated the arts of
persuasion, on purpose to show men it was their interest, as well
as their duty, not to be foolish and false and unjust, and that too
in many instances with success ; which is not very strange, for
they showed by their life that their lessons were not impracticable,
and that pleasures were not temptations, but to such as wanted a
clear perception of the pains annexed to them.
CICERO, Tusc. Qucest. lib. v. 2-9. SENECA, Epist. Moral, viii. v.
ENJOYMENT OF WORLDLY PLEASURE ALLOWABLE
WITHIN THE LIMITS OF RELIGION AND VIRTUE.
ONE would not indeed covet any satisfactions in this life the
enjoyment whereof might deprive us of greater good : nor
would a wise man desire to be delivered from present pains by any
such methods as would draw after them a train of greater evils.
That would be folly and madness : and therefore it is the height of
imprudence to break in, at any time, upon the rules of religion and
virtue which are of eternal concernment, for the sake of any tem-
poral good ; besides that the practice of virtue is so generally
necessary to happiness even in a temporal respect that it can seldom
be of any real and lasting advantage to deviate from it. But
within these bounds, and with proper cautions, some degree of our
love may be reasonably placed upon temporal things. And indeed
there is no man so resigned and dead to the world as not to make
it in some measure the object of his aifection and care ; looking
upon the comforts and conveniences of life as the blessings of
Heaven, and as contributing to his repose and tranquillity. It is
possible (though it be a fault on the right hand and not very
266 Materials and Models
common) to love the world too little. Some have been so
superstitious as to think religion almost inconsistent with any
worldly ease or pleasure; and have run into an extreme of self-
denial, mortification, and corporal austerities. But this is a mis-
take. A cheerful and moderate enjoyment of the good things of
this life is well-pleasing to God, as well as suitable to the nature
of man.
SENECA, Epist. xiv. viii. xc. Iv. De Tranquil!, c. 9, 15.
CICEKO, de Off. i. 105. De Fin. i. -12-48.
RESTLESSNESS OF TYRANTS.
Polu 1\T ^ man > Anacreon, can rest anywhere in his native
.1 T| country who has deprived his fellow-citizens of
their liberties ; contented are they only who have taken nothing
from another, and few even of those. As by eating much habitu-
ally, we render our bodies by degrees capacious of more, and un-
comfortable without it, so after many acquisitions we think new
ones necessary. Hereditary kings invade each other's dominions
from the feelings of children, the love of having and of destroying ;
their education being always bad, and their intellects for the most
part low and narrow. But we who have great advantage over them
in our mental faculties, these having been constantly exercised and
exerted, and in our knowledge of men, wherein the least foolish of
them are quite deficient, find wars and civil tumults absolutely
needful to our stability and repose.
Anac. By Hercules ! you people in purple are very like certain
sea-fowl I saw in my voyage from Teios hither. In fine weather
they darted upward and downward, sidelong and circuitously,
and fished and screamed as if all they seized and swallowed was
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 267
a torment to them ; again when it blew a violent gale, they ap-
peared to sit perfectly at their ease, buoyant upon the summit of
the waves.
CICERO, de Ojficiis, iii. 82, sqq. PhiUpp. xi. 8.
SENECA, de Clementia, i. c. 26. Epist. Mor. Ixxvi. xxxi.
VIRGIL, Geo. i. 361-363, 383-387.
PLEASURES OF NOVELTY.
y\vitv.
EVERYTHING that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure
in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agree-
able surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which
it was not before possessed. We are indeed so often conversant
with one set of objects, and tired out with so many repeated
shows of the same things, that whatever is new or uncommon
contributes a little to vary human life, and to divert our minds,
for a while, with the strangeness of its appearance. It serves us
for a kind of refreshment, and takes off that satiety we are apt
to complain of in our usual and ordinary entertainments. It is
this that bestows charms on a monster, and makes even the im-
perfections of nature please us. It is this that improves what
is great or beautiful, and makes it afford the mind a double
entertainment. Groves, fields, and meadows are at any season
of the year pleasant to look upon, but never so much as in the
opening of the spring, when they are all new and fresh, with
their first gloss upon them, and not yet too much accustomed
and familiar to the eye.
CICERO, de Finilus, lib. v. 48-53. De Amidt. 67, 68.
De Nat. Deor. ii. 131, 132.
268 Materials and Models
TENDENCY IN THE HUMAN MIND TO HALLOW PLACES
ASSOCIATED WITH WHAT MEN LOVE.
THE mystery of holy shrines lies deep in human nature.
For however the more spiritual minds may be able to
rise and soar, the common man, during his mortal career, is
tethered to the globe that is his appointed dwelling-place ; and
the more his affections are pure and holy, the more they seem
to blend with the outward and visible world. Poets, bringing
the gifts of mind to bear upon human feelings have surrounded
the image of love with myriads of their dazzling fancies \ but
it has been said that in every country, when a peasant speaks
of his deep love he always says the same thing. He always
utters the dear name, and then only says that he "worships
the ground she treads." It seems that where she who holds
the spell of his life once touched the earth where the hills
and the wooded glen, and the pebbly banks of the stream,
have in them the enchanting quality that they were seen by
him and by her when they were together there always his
memory will cling. And it is vain that space intervenes, for
imagination, transcendent and strong of flight, can waft him
from lands far away till he lights upon the very path by the
river's bank which was blessed by her gracious step.
SEXECA, Epist. xli. ii. v. CICERO, de Legibus, ii. 26. ii. 4.
EMC7LA TION, THE GREA T INCENTIVE TO EXCELLENCE.
ONE of the best methods of rendering study agreeable is
to live with able men, and to suffer all those pangs of
inferiority which the want of knowledge always inflicts. Nothing
For Latin Prose Philosophical 269
short of some such powerful motive can drive a young person,
in the full possession of health and bodily activity, to such an
unnatural and such an unobvious mode of passing his life, as
study. But this is the way that intellectual greatness often
begins. The trophies of Miltiades drive away sleep. A young
man sees the honour in which knowledge is held by his fellow-
creatures ; and he surrenders every present gratification, that he
may gain it. The honour in which living genius is held, the
trophies by which it is adorned after life, it receives and enjoys
from the feelings of men not from their sense of duty : but men
never obey this feeling without discharging the first of all duties ;
without securing the rise and growth of genius, and increasing
the dignity of our nature, by enlarging the dominion of mind.
No eminent man was ever yet rewarded in vain ; no breath of
praise was ever idly lavished upon him ; it has never yet been
idle and foolish to rear up splendid monuments to his name :
the rumour of these things impels young minds to the noblest
exertions, creates in them an empire over present passions,
inures them to the severest toils, determines them to live only
for the use of others, and to leave a great and lasting memorial
behind them.
CICERO, Tusc. Qucest. lib. i. 32. iv. 44. lib. i. 3, 4.
Pro Archia. 26. De Fin. v. 61. iii. 97. De Ojfic. lib. i. 98.
YITRTJVIUS, lib. ix. Prcefat. QUINTILIAN, lib, i. c. 3.
SENECA, Ep. Ixiv.
COVETOUSNESS.
" Crescit amor nummi quantum ipsa pecunia crescit"
A MAN of moderate desires hath infinitely fewer wants
than a covetous man ; and because his desires are mode-
rate, a moderate estate will satisfy them. But the wants of a
270 Materials and Models
covetous mind are never to be supplied, because it hath ordered
the matter so cunningly as to want even that which it hath ; such
a man does not get riches to supply his wants, but is content to
want that he may be rich ; insomuch that he hath not the heart
to use his estate for the supply of his real necessities. How
many do almost starve themselves in the midst of plenty and
abundance? There is no greater sign of poverty than to be
deeply in debt ; now the covetous man lives and dies in debt
to himself. Some men have been so shamefully stingy and
penurious to themselves as even to die to save charges, which
yet perhaps is the most generous thing they ever did in their
whole lives, in respect to the Avorld ; because by this means
somebody may come to the enjoyment of their estates ; and that
great dunghill which they have been so long in raking together,
may by this means come to be spread abroad for the public
benefit.
SENECA, de Beneficiis, ii. c. 27. vii. c. 10.
FRIENDSHIPS RARE WHICH OUTLIVE ABSENCE AND
DEA TIL
WHEN my friend is dead, I will not run into his
grave and be stifled with his earth ; but I will mourn
for him, and perform his will, and take care of his relatives,
and do for him as if he were alive ; and I think that is the
meaning of that hard saying of a Greek poet :
TOVTOU, -jravrbs xp^M aT ^ s e '" T ' i(6pos.
Of such immortal, abstracted, pure friendships indeed there is
no great plenty, and to see brothers hate each other is not so
rare as to see them love at this rate. The dead and the absent
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 271
have few friends, say the Spaniards ; but they who are the same
to their friend aTroirpodev, when he is in another country or in
another world, these are they who are fit to preserve the sacred
fire for eternal sacrifices, and to perpetuate the memory of those
exemplar friendships of the Lest men, which have filled the world
with history and wonder : for in no other sense but this can it be
true that friendships are pure loves, regarding to do good more
than to receive it. He that is a friend after death hopes not for
a recompense from his friend, and makes no bargain either for
fame or love ; but is rewarded with the conscience and satis-
faction of doing bravely : but then this is demonstration that
they choose friends best who take persons so worthy that can and
will do so. This is the profit and usefulness of friendship ; and
he that contracts such a noble union must take care that his friend
be such who can and will ; but hopes that himself shall be first
used and put to act it.
CICERO, de Fin. lib. i. 65, sqq. lib. ii. 78, 79, 80.
De Amidt. 10, 11, 14, 15, 20, 33. SENECA, de Beneficiis, vi. c. 34.
USES OF FRIENDSHIP.
THE best way to represent to life the manifold uses of friend-
ship, is to cast and see how many things there are which
a man cannot do himself ; and then it will appear that it was a
sparing speech of the ancients, to say, "that a friend is another
himself ; " for that a friend is far more than himself. Men have
their time, and die many times in desire of some things which they
principally take to heart ; the bestowing of a child, the finishing of
a work, or the like. If a man have a true friend, he may rest
almost secure that the care of those things will continue after him ;
so that a man hath, as it were, two lives in his desires. A man
hath a body, and that body is confined to a place; but where
272 Materials and Models
friendship is, all offices of life are, as it were, granted to him and his
deputy ; for he may exercise them by his friend. How many
things are there which a man cannot, with any face, or comeliness,
say or do himself ! A man can scarce allege his own merits with
modesty, much less extol them ; a man cannot sometimes brook to
supplicate, or beg, and a number of the like : but all these things
are graceful in a friend's mouth, which are blushing in a man's own.
So again, a man's person hath many proper relations which he
cannot put off. A man cannot speak to his son but as a father :
to his wife but as a husband ; to his enemy but upon terms :
whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and not as it
sorteth with the person : Itut to enumerate these things were
endless ; I have given the rule, where a man cannot fitly play
his own part ; if he have not a friend he may quit the stage.
Bacon.
ClCERO, de Amicit. 22. SENECA, de TranquiU. c. 7.
HATRED OF AN ENEMY INCULCATED NO LESS THAN
LOVE OF A FRIEND BY ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF
MORALITY.
THAT system of morality, even in the times when it was
powerful and in many respects beneficial, had made it
almost as much a duty to hate foreigners as to love fellow-citizens.
Plato congratulates the Athenians on having shown in their rela-
tions to Persia, beyond all the other Greeks, " a pure and heart-
felt hatred of the foreign nature." Instead of opposing, it had
sanctioned and consecrated the savage instinct which leads us to
hate whatever is strange or unintelligible, to distrust those who
live on the further side of a river, to suppose that those whom
\ve hear talking together in a foreign tongue must be plotting
some mischief against ourselves. The lapse of time and the fusion
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 273
of races doubtless diminished this antipathy considerably, but at
the utmost it could but be transformed into an icy indifference,
for no cause was in operation to convert it into kindness. On the
other hand, the closeness of the bond which united fellow-citizens
was considerably relaxed. Common interests and common dangers
had drawn it close ; these in the wide security of the Roman
Empire had no longer a place. It had depended upon an imagined
blood-relationship ; fellow-citizens could now no longer feel them-
selves to be united by the tie of blood. Every town was full of
resident aliens and emancipated slaves, persons between whom and
the citizens nature had established no connection, and whose
presence in the city had originally been barely tolerated from
motives of expediency. The selfishness of modern times exists
in defiance of morality ; in ancient times it was approved,
sheltered, and even in part enjoined by morality.
CICERO, de Fin. lib. v. 65, 66, 67. De Officiis, i. 15, 17.
De Amicit. 19. SENECA, Epist. xcv. PLATO, Menex, 245 I).
SOFTENING EFFECT OF TIME ON HUMAN SENTIMENT.
r I A IME mellows ideas as it mellows wine. Things in theni-
JL selves indifferent, acquire a certain tenderness in recol-
lection; and the scenes of our youth, though remarkable neither
for elegance nor feeling, rise up to our memory dignified at the
same time and endeared. As countrymen in a distant land
acknowledge one another as friends, so objects, to which, when
present, we give but little attention, are nourished in distant
remembrance with a cordial regard. If in their own nature of
a tender kind the ties which they had on the heart are drawn
still closer, and we recall them with an enthusiasm of feeling
which the same objects of the immediate time are unable to
T
274 Materials and Models
excite. The ghosts of our departed affections are seen through
that softening medium, which, though it dims their brightness,
does not impair their attraction ; like the shade of Dido appear-
ing to ^Eneas :
" Agnovitque per umbram
Obscuram qualem primo qui surgere mense
Aut videfc aut vidisse putat per nubila lunam
Demisit lacrimas dulcique affatus amore est."
The hum of a little tune, to which in our infancy we have
often listened, the course of a brook which in our childhood we
have frequently traced, the ruins of an ancient building which we
remember almost entire : these remembrances sweep over the
mind with an enchanting power of tenderness and melancholy, at
whose bidding the pleasures, the business, the ambition of the
present moment fade and disappear.
CICERO, Brutus, 288. De Amicit. 67-70.
SENECA, Epist. Ixiii.
AGRICULTURAL LIFE TEACHES ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF
AND RESIGNATION TO THE POWER OF GOD.
I 1ST almost all the other trades and professions, whether com-
mercial or scientific, success appears to depend solely on
man himself on his talents, address, prudence and vigilance.
In agricultural life man is constantly in the presence of God,
and of His power. Activity, talents, prudence, and vigilance
are as necessary here as elsewhere to the success of his labours,
but they are evidently no less insufficient than they are neces-
sary. It is God who rules the seasons and the temperature,
the sun and the rain, and all those phenomena of nature which
determine the success or failure of the labours of man on the
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 275
soil which he cultivates. There is no pride which can resist
this dependence, no address which can escape it. Nor is it only
a sentiment of humility as to his power over destiny which
is thus inculcated upon man ; he learns also tranquillity and
patience. He cannot natter himself that the most ingenious
inventions or the most restless activity will ensure his success ;
when he has done all that depends upon him for the cultivation
and fertilization of the soil, he must wait with resignation.
CICERO, de Off, lib. i. 150, 151. De Senect. 24, 51-60.
Pro Roscio Amerino, 75, 51. HORACE, Ep. lib. i. x.
AGRICULTURAL LIFE A THEME OF PRAISE AMONG
POETS.
ALMOST all poets, except those who were not able to eat
bread without the bounty of great men, that is, without
what they could get by nattering of them, have not only with-
drawn themselves from the vices and vanities of the grand world
into the innocent happiness of a retired life, but have commended
and adorned nothing so much by their ever-living poems. Hesiod
was the first or second poet in the world, that remains yet extant
(if Homer, as some think, preceded him, but I rather believe they
were cotemporaries), and he is the first writer too of the art of
husbandry : he has contributed (says Columella) not a little to our
profession ; I suppose he means not a little honour, for the matter
of his instructions is not very important ; his great antiquity is
visible through the gravity and simplicity of his style. The most
acute of all his sayings concerns our purpose very much, and is
couched in the reverend obscurity of an oracle. nXeov TJJJ.UTV jravros.
The half is more than the whole. The occasion of the speech is
this : His brother Perses had by corrupting ' some great men
276 Materials and Models
r/as Sa>poc/>'iyouy, great bribe-eaters he calls them) gotten from
him the half of his estate. It is no matter (says he), they have not
done me so much prejudice as they imagine.
NTJTTJOJ oi>5' "HTOKTIV r 6(rcp ir\tov tffjiKTv iravrbs,
ouS' offov ev [j.a\d.xy T6 Koc * aff<poSe\(f /uey' uveiap,
s jap
This I conceive to have been honest Hesiod's meaning. A. CowJci/.
CICERO, de Senect. 51-60. De Off. i. 151.
Pro Roscio Amerino, 51, 75. PLINY, lib. xviii. c. 3.
SECURITY OF PROPERTY AND THE INSTITUTION 01'
MARRIAGE FORM THE CENTRE AROUND WHICH ALL
SOCIAL DUTIES RANGE THEMSELVES.
A CELEBRATED ancient orator, of whose poems we have but
a few fragments remaining, has well described the progress-
ive order in which human society is gradually led to its highest
improvements, under the guardianship of those laws which secure
property and regulate marriage. These two great institutions
convert the selfish as well as the social passions of our nature
into the firmest bands of a peaceable and orderly intercourse ;
they change the sources of discord into principles of quiet ; they
discipline the most ungovernable, they refine the grossest, and they
exalt the most sordid propensities; so that they become the per
petual fountain of all that strengthens, and preserves, and adorns
society : they sustain the individual, and they perpetuate the race.
Around these institutions all our social duties will be found at
various distances to range themselves : some more near, obviously
essential to the good order of human life ; others more remote, and
of which the necessity is not at first view so apparent ; and some so
For Lathi Prose Philosophical. 277
distant, that their importance has been sometimes doubted,, though
upon more mature consideration they will be found to be outposts
and advanced guards of these fundamental principles that man
should securely enjoy the fruits of his labour, and that the society
of the sexes should be so wisely ordered, as to make it a school of
the kind affections, and a fit nursery for the commonwealth.
Mackintosh.
CICERO, de Fin. lib. v. 65, 66. De Offic. i. 58, 59.
SENECA, de Benefictis, iv. 17, 18.
OUR NATIVE LAND DEARER THAN ALL OTHERS.
WHEXCE does this love of our country, this universal
passion, proceed 1 Why does the eye ever dwell with
fondness upon the scenes of infant life 1 Why do we breathe with
greater joy the breath of our youth 1 Why are not other soils as
grateful, and other heavens as gay 1 Why does the soul of man
ever cling to that earth where it first knew pleasure and pain, and,
under the rough discipline of the passions, was roused to the
dignity of moral life 1 Is it only that our country contains our
kindred and our friends 1 And is it nothing but a name for our
social affections ? It cannot be this ; the most friendless of human
beings has a country which he admires and extols, and which he
would, in the same circumstances, prefer to all others under heaven.
Tempt him with the fairest face of nature, place him by living-
waters under shadowy trees of Lebanon, open to his view all the
gorgeous allurements of the climates of the sun, he will love the
rocks and deserts of his childhood better than all these, and thou
canst not bribe his soul to forget the land of his nativity ; he will
sit down and weep by the waters of Babylon when he remembers
thee, oh Sion \-^Rev. Sydney Smith.
OVID, Tristia. lib. ii. eleg. ii. 21, sqq. iii. 53, s^.
De Ponto, i. 3. CICERO, de Oratore. i. 196.
278 Materials and Models
LOVE OF COUNTRY.
THAT we should love the land of our birth, of our happiness,
of that social system under which our happiness has been
produced and protected, the land of our ancestors, of all the great
names and great deeds which we have been taught most early to
venerate, is surely as little wonderful as that we should feel, what
we all feel, a sort of affection for the most trifling object which
we have merely borne about with us for any length of time.
Loving the very land of our birth, we love those who inhabit
it, who are to us a part, as it were, of the land itself, and the
part which brings it most immediately home to our affections
and services. It is a greater recommendation to our good-will,
indeed, to be a relative, or a friend, or a benefactor ; but it is
no slight recommendation, even without any of these powerful
titles, to be a fellow-countryman, to have breathed the same air
and trod the same soil, and lent vigour to the same political
institutions, to which our own aid has actively or passively
contributed. Broicns Lectures.
CICERO, de Officiia, i. 54-57. De Orat. i. 196.
SENECA, de Ird. ii. c. 31.
PATRIOTISM CONSISTS IN THE PERFORMANCE OF VARIOUS
DUTIES TOWARDS OUR NEIGHBOURS.
PATRIOTISM is, perhaps, not properly to be considered as
a distinct principle of our nature; but rather as a result
of a combination of the other affections. It leads us, by every
means in our power, to promote the peace and the prosperity
of our country, and to discourage, to the utmost of our ability,
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 279
whatever tends to the contrary. Every member of the com-
munity has something in his power in this respect. He may set
an example, in his own person, of dutiful and loyal respect to the
first authority, of strict obedience to the laws, and respectful
submission to the institutions of his country. He may oppose
the attempts of factious individuals to sow among the ignorant
the seeds of discontent, tumult, or discord. He may oppose and
repress attempts to injure the revenue of the state ; may aid in the
preservation of public tranquillity, and in the execution of public
justice. Finally, he may zealously exert himself in increasing the
knowledge and improving the moral habits of the people two of
the most important means by which the conscientious man, in any
rank of life, may aid in conferring a high and permanent benefit on
his country. Abercrombie's Moral Feelings.
CICERO, de Offidis, i. 57, 21. iii. 22.
/SENECA, de Tranquill. An. c. 3.
MAN'S CHIEF DUTIES ARE SOCIAL, PRACTICAL, AND
POLITICAL, NOT SELFISH.
I REMEMBER an old scholastic aphorism, which says, " that
the man who lives wholly detached from others must be
either an angel or a devil." When I see in any of these detached
gentlemen of our times the angelic purity, power, and beneficence,
I shall admit them to be angels. In the meantime we are born
only to be men. We shall do enough if we form ourselves to be
good ones. It is therefore our business carefully to cultivate in our
minds, to rear to the most perfect vigour and maturity, every sort
of generous and honest feeling that belongs to our nature. To
bring the dispositions that are lovely in private life into the service
and conduct of the commonwealth : so to be patriots as not to
forget we are gentlemen. To cultivate friendships and to incur
280 Materials and Models
enmities : to have both strong, but both selected : in the one, to be
placable ; in the other, immoveable. To model our principles to our
duties and our situation. To be fully persuaded that all virtue
which is impracticable is spurious ; and rather to run the risk of
falling into faults in a course which leads us to act with eifect and
energy, than to loiter out our days without blame and without use.
Public life is a situation of power and energy : he trespasses against
his duty who sleeps upon his watch, as well as he that goes over to
the enemy.
CICERO, de Fin. lib. v. 65, 66, 67. SENECA, Epist. viii.
De TranquilL c. 3.
THE USEFUL ARTS ONCE INVENTED ARE NEVER LOST.
FORTUNATELY for mankind the more useful, or at least,
more necessary arts can be performed without superior
talents or national subordination : without the powers of one or
the union of many. Each village, each family, each individual
must always possess both ability and inclination to perpetuate the
use of fire and of metals ; the propagation and service of domestic
animals ; the methods of hunting and fishing the rudiments of
navigation; the imperfect cultivation of corn, or other nutritive
grains ; and the simple practise of the mechanic trades. Private
genius and public industry may be extirpated, but these hardy
plants survive the tempest, and strike an everlasting root into the
most unfavourable soil. The splendid days of Augustus and Trajan
were eclipsed by a cloud of ignorance ; and the barbarians sub-
verted the laws and palaces of Rome. But the scythe, the inven-
tion or emblem of Saturn, still continued annually to mow tha
harvests of Italy, and the human feasts of the Lsestrygons have
never been renewed on the coasts of Campania. Since the first
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 281
discovery of the arts, war, commerce, and religious zeal have
diffused among the savages of the Old and New World these
inestimable gifts ; they have been successively propagated, they
can never be lost. We may thei^efore acquiesce in the pleasing
conclusion, that every age of the world has increased and still in-
creases, the real wealth, the happiness, the knowledge, and perhaps
the virtue of the human race. Gibbon.
CICERO, de Offic. lib. ii. .12, 13, 14, 15. SENECA, Epist. xc.
MEN CLING TO LIFE EVEN UNDER THE MOST
MISERABLE CONDITIONS.
I HAVE often thought with myself, that I went on too far, and
that in so long a voyage I should infallibly at last meet with
some severe shock. I perceived and oft enough declared that it
was time to be off, and that life was to be cut to the quick, accord-
ing to the surgeon's rule in the amputation of a limb ; and that
nature usually made him pay very dear interest who did not in due
time restore the principal. And yet I was so far from being then
ready, that in the eighteen months' time or thereabouts that I have
been in this uneasy condition, I have inured myself to it, I have
compounded with this colic, and have found therein to comfort
myself and to hope. So much are men enslaved to their miserable
being that there is no condition so wretched that they will not
accept for preserving it. Mtecenas said, "Let me be weak in hand,
back, loin, and teeth : what does it matter so that life remains 1 "
And Tamerlane with a foolish humanity palliated the fantastic
cruelty he exercised upon lepers when he put all he could hear of
to death, by pretending to deliver them from a painful life ; for
there was not one of them who would not rather have undergone a
triple leprosy than to be deprived of their being. Antisthenes the
282 Materials and Models
Stoic being very sick and crying out, " Who will deliver me from
these evils ] " Diogenes, who was come to visit him, " This," said
he, presenting him with a knife, " presently, if thou wilt." "I do
not say from my life," he replied, "but from my disease."
SENECA, Epist. ci. Iviii. adftnem. PLINY, Epist. vi. 26.
THAT HAPPINESS CONSISTS IN LIVING ACCORDING TO
NA TURE.
" r I A HIS," said a philosopher who had heard him with tokens
JL of great impatience, " is the present condition of a wise
man. The time is already come, when none are wretched but by
their own fault. Nothing is more idle than to inquire after happi-
ness, which nature has kindly placed within our reach. The way
to be happy is to live according to nature, in obedience to that uni-
versal and unalterable law, with which every heart is originally
impressed, which is not written on it by precept, but engraven by
destiny; not instilled by education, but infused at our nativity.
He that lives according to nature will suffer nothing from the delu-
sions of hope, or the importunities of desire : he will receive and
reject with equability of temper ; and act or suffer as the reason
of things shall alternately prescribe. Other men may amuse them-
selves with subtle definitions, or intricate ratiocinations. Let them
learn to be wise by easier means ; let them observe the hind of the
forest, and the linnet of the grove : let them consider the life of
animals whose motions are regulated by instinct ; they obey their
guide, and are happy. Let us therefore at length cease to dispute,
and learn to live ; throw away the incumbrance of precepts, which
they who utter them with so much pride and pomp do not under-
stand, and carry with us this simple and intelligible maxim, that
deviation from nature is deviation from happiness."
CICERO, de Fin. lib. v. 26. SENECA, de Vita Beata, c. 8.
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 283
A MORALIST OF BROBDINGNAG ON THE DEGENERACY OF
THE HUMAN RACE.
I HAVE perused many of their books, especially those on
history and morality. Among the rest I was much diverted
with a little old treatise which treats of the weakness of human
kind, and is in little esteem, except among the women and the
vulgar. However, I was curious to see what an author of that
country could say upon such a subject. This writer went through
all the usual topics of European moralists, showing how diminu-
tive, contemptible, and helpless an animal was man in his own
nature ; how unable to defend himself from inclemencies of the
air, or the fury of wild beasts \ how much he was excelled by one
creature in strength, by another in speed, by a third in foresight,
by a fourth in industry. He added that nature was degenerated
in these latter declining ages of the world, and could now produce
only small abortive births in comparison of those in ancient times.
He said it was very reasonable to think not only that the species
of men were originally much larger, but also that there must
have been giants in former ages ; which, as it is asserted by
history and tradition, so it hath been confirmed by huge bones
and skulls casually dug up in several parts of the kingdom, far
exceeding the common dwindled race of man in our days. He
argued that the very laws of nature absolutely required we should
have been made in the beginning of a size more large and robust,
not so liable to destruction from every little accident of a tile
falling from a house, or a stone cast from the hand of a boy, or
being drowned in a little brook. From, this way of reasoning
the author drew several moral applications, useful in the conduct
of life, but needless here to repeat. For my own part, I could
not avoid reflecting how universally this talent was spread, of
drawing lectures in morality, or, indeed, rather matter of dis-
284 Materials and Models
content and repining, from the quarrels we raise Avith nature.
And, I believe, upon a strict inquiry, these quarrels might "be
shown as ill-grounded among us as they are among that people.
Swift.
SENECA, Dialog, x. c. 1, 2. De Beneficiis, iv. c. 18.
VIRGIL, Geo. i. 493-497.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENTHOW FAR IS IT A SPECIFIC
AGAINST CRIME?
WE are all of us condemned to die, and that, as we well
know by an irrevocable sentence, of which the execution
cannot be many years deferred, and may be to-morrow and yet
how little do we think of this, not only when youth and health
seem to place between us and the dark valley beyond a hill which
we have yet to ascend, but when declining age and failing health
have brought us to the strait and sloping road, out of which
there is no turning, and of which, though we cannot see the exact
end, we know very well where to look for it. We are even
willing for the most futile causes to multiply the chances of death
which each day brings with it; we do it for the sake of gain,
we do it for the sake of pleasure, we do it even sometimes for
the want of something else to do.
Remembering this, and considering it as we should do, we may
well wonder that lawgivers should have trusted so much to the
threat of death, that is, to an increased probability of dying in a
particular way, as a sort of specilic against crime. But, in truth,
this was not, I think, the original reason of capital punishment.
The slaying of the homicide was at first meant as an act of
vengeance against him, rather than as a warning to others ; it
was rather given to the family of the sufferer as a consolation,
than exacted by society for its protection ; and this primitive
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 285
notion of the vindictive character of punishment is still, in cases
of murder at least, the one which prevails beyond all other notion*
in the popular mind, and the chief reason with the bulk of
mankind, as it is perhaps also the best reason in itself, for main-
taining in this instance the penalty of death.
CICERO, In Catilinam, iv. 4. SALLUST, Catil. c. 51.
SENECA, Epist. Ixxxii. xxx.
POMPEY THE GREAT AN INSTANCE OF THK
INSTABILITY OF HUMAN GREATNESS.
' ' Longa dies igitiir quid contulit ? "
HE saw all his mistakes at last, when it was out of his
power to correct them ; and, in his wretched flight from
Pharsalia was forced to confess, that he had trusted too much to
his hopes, and that Cicero had judged better, and seen further
into things than he. The resolution of seeking refuge in Egypt
finished the sad catastrophe of this great man. The father of
the reigning prince had been highly obliged to him for his pro-
tection at Rome, and restoration to his kingdom ; and the son
had sent a considerable fleet to his assistance, in the present war :
but, in this ruin of his fortunes, what gratitude was there to be
expected from a court governed by eunuchs and mercenary Greeks 1
all whose politics turned, not on the honour of the king, but the
establishment of their own power, which was likely to be eclipsed
by the admission of Pompey. How happy had it been for him
to have died in that sickness, when all Italy was putting up vows
and prayers for his safety ! or if he had fallen by the chance of
war, on the plains of Pharsalia, in the defence of his country's
liberty, he had died still glorious, though unfortunate : but as
if he had been reserved for an example of the instability of
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human greatness, he who a few days before commanded kings
and consuls, and all the noblest of Rome, was sentenced to die
by a council of slaves ; murdered by a base deserter ; cast out
naked and headless on the Egyptian strand ; and, when the
whole earth, as Velleius says, had scarce been sufficient for his
victories, could not find a spot upon it at last for a grave. His
body was burnt on the shore by one of his freedmen, with the
planks of an old fishing-boat : and his ashes being conveyed to
Rome, were deposited, privately, by his wife Cornelia, in a vault
of his .Alban villa. The Egyptians, however, raised a monument
to him on the place, and adorned it with figures of brass, which
being defaced afterwards by time, and buried almost in sand and
rubbish, was sought out and restored by the Emperor Hadrian.
Middleton.
CiCERO, (U Divinat. lib. ii. 22, 23, 24. Tusc. Disp. i. 86.
Philipp. ii. 39. JUVENAL, x. 278, sqq.
REVERENCE AND AFFECTION OF EDUCATED MEN FOR
THE GREAT MINDS OF FORMER AGES.
JUST such is the feeling which a man of liberal education
naturally entertains towards the great minds of former ages.
The debt which he owes to them is incalculable. They have
guided him to truth. They have filled his mind with noble and
graceful images. They have stood by him in all vicissitudes,
comforters in sorrow, nurses in sickness, companions in solitude.
These friendships are exposed to no danger from the occurrences
by which other attachments are weakened or dissolved. Time
glides on ; fortune is inconstant ; tempers are soured ; bonds which
seemed indissoluble are daily sundered by interest, b} r emulation,
or by caprice. But no such cause can affect the silent converse
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 287
which we hold with the highest of human intellects. That placid
intercourse is disturbed by no jealousies or resentments. These
are the old friends who are never seen with new faces, who are
the same in wealth and in poverty, in glory and in obscurity.
With the dead there is no rivalry. In the dead there is no
change. Plato is never sullen. Cervantes is never petulant.
Demosthenes never comes unseasonably. Dante never stays too
long. No difference of political opinion can alienate Cicero. No
heresy can excite the horror of Bossuet.
CICERO, pro Archia, 10.
CAUSES OF WAR BETWEEN PRINCES.
O OMETIMES the quarrel between two princes is to decide which
wJ} of them shall dispossess a third of his dominions, where
neither of them pretend to any right. Sometimes one prince quar-
relleth with another for fear the other should quarrel with him.
Sometimes a war is entered upon because the enemy is too strong ;
and sometimes because he is too weak. Sometimes our neighbours
want the things which we have, or have the things which we want ;
and we both fight till they take ours or give us theirs. It is a very
justifiable cause of a war, to invade a country after the people have
been wasted by famine, destroyed by pestilence, or embroiled by
factions among themselves. It is justifiable, to enter into a war
against our nearest ally, when one of his towns lies convenient for
us, or a territory of land, that would render our dominions round
and compact. If a prince sends forces into a nation where the
people are poor and ignorant, he may lawfully put half of them to
death, and make slaves of the rest, in order to civilize and reduce
them from their barbarous way of living. It is a very kingly,
honourable, and frequent practice, when one prince desires the
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assistance of another to secure him against an invasion, that the
assistant, when he hath driven out the invader, should seize on the
dominions himself, and kill, imprison, or banish the prince he
came to relieve. Alliance by blood or marriage is a frequent
cause of war between princes ; and the nearer the kindred is, the
greater is their disposition to quarrel : poor nations are hungry,
and rich nations are proud ; and pride and hunger will ever be at
variance.
ClCERO, dc Office's, i. 34, 35. 37, 39, 82. iii. 82, sqq.
SENECA, de dementia, i. c. 20.
TENDENCY OF MEN ENTRUSTED WITH THE ADMINIS-
TRATION OF LAWS TO WARP THEM GRADUALLY
7V THEIR OWN INTERESTS.
IF, in the first formation of a civil society, the only care to be
taken was that of establishing, once for all, the several duties
which every individual owes to others and to the state ; if those
who are entrusted with the care of procuring the performance of
these duties, had neither any ambition, nor any other private
passions, which such employment might put in motion, and furnish
the means of gratifying; in a word, if, looking upon their function
as a mere task of duty, they were never tempted to deviate from
the intentions of those who had appointed them : I confess, that,
in such a case, there might be no inconvenience in allowing every
individual to have a share in the government of the community of
which he is a member ; or rather, I ought to say, in such a society,
and among such beings, there would be no occasion for any govern-
ment.
But experience teaches us, that many more precautions, indeed,
are necessary to oblige men to be just towards each other ; nay, the
very first expedients that may be expected to conduce to such an
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 289
end, supply the most fruitful source of the evils which are proposed
to be prevented. Those laws which were intended to be equal for
all, are soon warped to the private convenience of those who have
been made the administrators of them : instituted at first for the
protection of all, they soon are made only to defend the usurpations
of a few ; and, as the people continue to respect them, while those
to whose guardianship they were entrusted make little account of
them, they at length have no other effect than that of supplying
the want of real strength in those few who have contrived to place
themselves at the head of the community, and of rendering regular
and free from danger the tyranny of the smaller number over the
greater.
TACITUS, Annal. iii. c. 25-28.
ClCERO, de Legibus, i. 42, aqy. iii. 23, sqq.
SALLUST, Jugurtha, c. 1, 2, 3.
MODERN LEGISLATORS.
ANCIENT lawgivers studied the nature of man, and formed his
mind to virtue and glory j but the founders of modern re-
publics think mind altogether unworthy of their attention. They
take no measures to prevent the existence of vice, but suppose they
have fulfilled their duty when they inflict punishment on the
vicious. What should we think of a physician to whom some
prince had committed the health of his subjects, who, instead of
recommending temperance and exercise, and using every means in
his power to prevent the existence of disease, instead of watching
the approaches of distemper, and administering in good time the
necessary remedies, should encourage the objects of his care in every
species of excess, and pay no attention whatever to the causes or
progress of indisposition; but when the patient should become
absolutely incurable, would order his head to be taken off by an
u
290 Materials and Models
attendant ? Such is the the conduct of modern legislators. They
never attempt to form the mind, to implant the seeds of honour,
patriotism, friendship, heroism, to awaken in the breast a love of
glory, and stir up the sparks of noble ambition. No, they permit
every species of vice to nourish until it has taken such deep root
in society that it cannot be extirpated. What then 1 The sapient
legislators assemble, and make a law against this productive vice ;
and, in obedience to this law, the sword of justice is sent forth to
destroy those members of the community who are most deeply in-
fected with the prevailing distemper a distemper which, if the
government had done its duty, would never have existed. Another
vice becomes universal, and another law is made against the vicious.
Crimes are multiplied, the laws are multiplied also, until men lose
the idea of right and wrong in that of lawful and unlawful ; and
however base, perfidious, and unjust their conduct may be, they
account themselves good men and true if they do not incur the
penalty of the law. It is amusing to hear those who thrive by the
vices and follies of others, and fatten on the corruption of society
boast of their civilization, and adduce the multiplicity of their laws
as a proof of their refinement ; whereas, in truth, the multiplicity
of their laws proves nothing but the multiplicity of their crimes.
De Buryli.
TACITUS, Annals, iii. c. 25-27. CICERO, de Leyibus, i. 28-31.
MONARCHY THE ONLY EFFICIENT FORM OF GOVERNMENT
IN CERTAIN STATES OF SOCIETY.
AT such times, society, distracted by the conflict of individual
wills, and unable to attain, by their free concurrence, to a
general will, which might unite and hold them in subjection, feels
an ardent desire for a sovereign power, to which all individuals
must submit ; and as soon as any institution presents itself which
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 291
bears any of the characteristics of legitimate sovereignty, society
rallies round it with eagerness ; as people under proscription take
refuge in the sanctuary of a church. This is what has taken place
in the wild and disorderly youth of nations such as those we have
just described. Monarchy is wonderfully suited to those times of
strong and fruitful anarchy, if I may so speak, in which society is
striving to form and regulate itself, but is unable to do so by the
free concurrence of individual wills. There are other times when
monarchy, though from a contrary cause, has the same merit.
Why did the Roman world, so near dissolution at the end of the
republic, still subsist for more than fifteen centuries under the
name of an empire, which, after all, was nothing but a lingering
decay, a protracted death-struggle 1 Monarchy only could produce
such an effect.
CICERO, de RepuWica, i. 65-69. ii. 48, 49.
TACITUS, Annals, iv. c. 33. SENECA, de dementia, i. c. 4.
A DIALOGUE BETWEEN SCIPIO AND POLYBIUS
ON HANNIBAL.
POLYBIUS. You will listen to me if I adduce the authority
of Lelius.
SCIPIO. Great authority ! and perhaps, as living and convers-
ing with those who remembered the action of Cannae, preferable
even to your own.
POLYBIUS. It was his opinion that, from the consternation of
Rome, the city might have been taken.
SCIPIO. It suited not the wisdom or the experience of Hannibal
to rely on the consternation of the Roman people. I too, that we
may be on equal terms, have some authority to bring forward.
The son of Africanus, he who adopted me into the family of the
Scipios, was, as you both remember, a man of delicate health
292 Materials and Models
and sedentary habits, learned, elegant, and retired. He related
to me, as having heard it from his father, that Hannibal after
the battle sent home the rings of the Kornan knights, and said
in his letter, " If you will instantly give me a soldier for each
ring, together with such machines as are already in the arsenal,
I will replace them surmounted by a statue of Capitoline Jupiter,
and our supplications to the gods of our country shall be made
along the streets and in the temples in the robes of the Eoman
senate." Could he doubt of so moderate a supply? he waited
for it in vain.
And now I will relate to you another thing, which I am per-
suaded you will accept as a sufficient reason of itself why Han-
nibal did not besiege our city after the battle of Canna?. His
own loss was so severe that, in his whole army, he could not
muster 10,000 men.
LIVY, xxiii. c. 11, 12, 13.
ATHENIAN CONSTITUTION IN NAME DEMOCRACY,
IN FACT THE TYRANNY OF A CLASS.
THE democracy of Athens may be regarded by the modern
democrat with an impartial eye, not because the altar of
Athenian liberty is overthrown, and its ashes poured out, but
because it burnt with alien fires. It has been remarked that
Athens was not a democracy only but an imperial democracy.
She was free, as the Grand Turk is free. But within the walls
sacred to liberty, and before the statues of Harmodius and
Aristogeiton, the domiciled alien, respectable and opulent, sighed
in vain for the privileges which were rigidly confined to pure
Athenian origin ; and the slightest taint in the blood-royal was
a mark for the taunts of the satirist, for the information of the
sycophant, and for the vengeance of the insulted law. The
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 293
female sex suffered the seclusion and displayed the vices of the
Oriental harem. The void thus caused in Athenian society
gave rise to the assemblies of Aspasia, and redeems her doubtful
fame. But there was something still more fatal to all true sen-
timents of liberty, and still more destructive to all claims to be
honoured in her name, and the glories of Marathon are marred,
when we reflect that the same victory which saved from the
yoke the Athenian freeman, riveted the fetters of the Athenian
slave.
ClCEBO, de Republica, i. 43-45. iii. 45.
ABSOLUTE EQUALITY IMPOSSIBLE. THE INTERESTS OF
THE MONARCH AND THE NOBILITY BEING NATU-
RALLY OPPOSITE, THEIR MUTUAL HOSTILITY FORMS
A SAFEGUARD TO THE FREEDOM OF THE PEOPLE.
" XT 0, sir/' replied I, " I
JL N gods ! Glorious lib
am for liberty, that attribute of
gods ! Glorious liberty ! that theme of modern decla-
mation. I would have all men kings. I would be a king
myself. We have all naturally an equal right to the throne :
we are all originally equal. This is my opinion, and was once
the opinion of a set of honest men who were called Levellers.
They tried to erect themselves into a community, where all
should be equally free. But, alas ! it would never answer ; for
there were some among them stronger, and some more cunning
than others, and these became masters of the rest ; for as sure as
your groom rides your horses, because he is a cunninger animal
than they, so surely will the animal that is cunninger or
stronger than he sit upon his shoulders in turn. Since, then,
it is entailed upon humanity to submit, and some are born to
command and others to obey, the question is, as there must
be tyrants, whether it is better to have them in the same
house with us, or in the same village, or still fartJieji^off, in
X**vTBR-?TpN.
f OF THF. ^
{UNIVERSITY }
294 Materials and Models <
tlie metropolis. Now, sir, for my own part, as I naturally hate
the face of a tyrant, the farther off he is removed from me the
better pleased am I. The generality of mankind are also of my
way of thinking, and have unanimously created one king, whose
election at once diminishes the number of tyrants, and puts
tyranny at the greatest distance from the greatest number of
people. ISTow the great who were tyrants themselves before the
election of one tyrant, are naturally averse to a power raised
over them, and whose weight must ever lean heaviest on the
subordinate orders. It is the interest of the great, therefore, to
diminish kingly power as much as possible ; because whatever
they take from that is naturally restored to themselves ; and all
they have to do in the state is to undermine the single tyrant,
by which they resume their primaeval authority." Goldsmith.
CICERO, de Republica, i. 65-69. ii. 48, 49.
SENECA, de dementia, i. c. 4, 5.
SELF-ASSERTION CHARACTERISTIC OF THE REPUBLICAN
STATESMAN OF ANCIENT ROME.
THE republican statesman of ancient Rome, an aristocrat by
birth, a despot by his military training, was characterized
by strong self-assertion, and rude independence of sentiment and
manner. He was active, earnest, and busy ; he left no moment
unoccupied; he rushed from the forum to the camp, from the
senate to his study, with marvellous rapidity and unwearied
diligence ; even the softer hours he allotted to polite con-
versation had their definite object of exercise and improvement.
The last age of the republic brought out in the strongest way
the harsher features of this unamiable character. The Romans
were hardened by success more than they were softened by
refinement. But about their qualities, such as they were, there
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 295
had been at least no disguise. The consul and imperator never
pretended to be indifferent to the honours and advantages of his
position. His countrymen, he knew, were proud both of the
office and of the men who filled it, and required no concession on
his part to any envious feelings on theirs. Believing himself the
greatest and noblest of his kind, he gave the world to know it
without reserve or delicacy. But with the advent of the Empire
all this was destined to undergo a complete change, though it
could not arrive immediately.
CICERO, Academ. Prior, ii. 1, syq.
GREAT RULERS AND CONQUERORS WISELY SEEK THE
HELP OF GOOD WRITERS TO PRESERVE THEIR ACTS
FROM OBLIVION.
WORTHY deeds are not often destitute of worthy relators ;
as by a certain fate great acts and great eloquence have
most commonly gone hand in hand, equalling and honouring each
other in the same ages. 'Tis true, that in obscurest times, by
shallow and unskilful writers, the indistinct noise of many battles,
and devastations of many kingdoms overrun and lost, hath come
to our ears. For what wonder, if in all ages, ambition and the
love of rapine hath stirred up greedy and violent men to bold
attempts in wasting and ruining wars, which to posterity have left
the work of wild beasts and destroyers, rather than the deeds and
monuments of men and conquerors. But he whose just and true
valour uses the necessity of war and dominion, not to destroy,
but to prevent destruction, to bring in liberty against tyrants,
law and civility among barbarous nations, knowing that when he
conquers all things else, he cannot conquer time or detraction,
wisely conscious of this his want, as well as of his worth not to
bs forgotten or concealed, honours and hath recourse to the aid of
296 Materials and Models
eloquence, his friendliest and best supply ; by whose immortal
record his noble deeds, which else were transitory, becoming fixed
and durable against the force of years and generations, he fails
not to continue through all posterity, over envy, death and time
also victorious. Milton.
HORACE, Carm. iv. 8, 9. ClCERO, Epist. ad Famil. v. xii.
VALERIUS MAXIMUS, Preface. CORNELIUS NEPOS, Preface.
WANT OF INTELLIGENT OBSERVATION IN SOME
TRA SELLERS.
TAKE again the case of persons of little intellect, and no
education, who perhaps have seen much of foreign coun-
tries, and who receive in a passive, otiose, unfruitful way, the
various facts which are forced upon them. Seafaring men, for
example, range from one end of the earth to the other ; but the
multiplicity of phenomena which they have encountered, forms
no harmonious and consistent picture upon their imagination ;
they, as it were, see the tapestry of human life on the wrong
side of it. They sleep, and they rise up, and they find them-
selves now in Europe, now in Asia ; they see visions of great
cities and wild regions ; they are in the marts of commerce, or
amid the islands of the ocean ; they gaze on the Andes, or they
are icebound ; and nothing which meets them carries them on
to any idea beyond itself. Nothing has a meaning, nothing has
a history, nothing has relations. Everything stands by itself, and
comes and goes in its turn, like the shifting sights of a show,
leaving the beholder where he was. Or, again, under other cir-
cumstances, everything seems to such persons strange, monstrous,
miraculous, and awful ; as in fable, to Ulysses and his companions
in their wanderings.
CICERO, Tusc. Disp. lib. v. 68-72. De Finilus, lib. iii. 21, 22.
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 297
HISTORIANS BOUND TO CENSURE AS WELL AS
TO PRAISE.
PASSING- political events are matters of importance to every
people, who enjoy any share of freedom or intelligence ;
to Englishmen they are matters of deep and momentous interest.
Sooner or later they must be known ; more or less they will be
known immediately ; but the more accurately they are known, the
better. The narration of them will disclose many things to the
honour and advantage of some men, to the shame and discredit
of others. In the great drama of human life the actors are not
all heroes. Fools, knaves and cowards play their part upon the
scene. Pericles and Agricola are contrasted with Cleon and
Domitian. It is the bu iness of the historian to represent men
as he finds them ; to tell us what they say and what they do.
If this be libellous, things must change their names ; the annals
of Tacitus must be called the libels of Tacitus ; Xenophon and
Thucydides the traducers of their countrymen; the old Bailey
calendar an infamous compilation of slander. What then is to
become of contemporary history ? Who is to furnish the ma-
terials, from which the philosopher of a future age shall draw
his lessons of practical wisdom? Are the virtues alone and not
the vices of man to be recorded 1 Is the chronicler of his own
times to be a mere composer of panegyric 1 Shall he describe
a golden age of happiness, which, in the iron days that follow,
the sad experience of mankind will force them to disbelieve 1 ?
Shall he leave to his successor the laborious task of unravelling
a tissue of misrepresentation 1 And if so, at what period shall
truth begin 1 Shall it commence with the epitaph 1 Or must the
dead still be honoured, to spare the feelings of the living; and
the monuments of literature contend with the sculptured marble
f< - the glory of perpetuating falsehood 1 It cannot be ! K"o
/-iTsR
/ OF TKE
I UNIVERSITY
298 Materials and Models
man may hope to escape from the sentence of his fellows. High
or low, it is the same. The villager receives a character from his
neighbours, the statesman from his country.
PLINY, Epist. v. viii.
USE AND ABUSE OF HISTORY.
WE do not draw the moral lessons we might from history.
On the contrary, without care it may be used to vitiate
our mind and to destroy our happiness. In history a great volume
is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future
wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind. It may
in the perversion serve for a magazine, furnishing offensive and
defensive weapons for parties in Church and State, and supplying
the means of keeping alive or reviving dissensions and animosities,
and adding fuel to civil fury. History consists, for the greater
part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition,
avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and
all the train of disorderly appetites which shake the public with
the same
" Troublous storms that toss
The private state, and render life unsweet."
These vices are the causes of those storms. Religion, morals,
laws, prerogatives, privileges, liberties, rights of men, are the
pretexts.
The pretexts are always found in some specious appearance of
a real good. You w^ould not secure men from tyranny and
sedition by rooting out of the mind the principles to which these
fraudulent pretexts apply 1 If you did, you would root out
everything that is valuable in the human breast. As these are
the pretexts, so the ordinary actors and instruments in great public
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 299
evils are kings, priests, magistrates, senates, parliaments, national
assemblies, judges, and captains. You would not cure the evil
by resolving that there should be no more monarchs, nor ministers
of state nor of the gospel; no interpreters of law, no general
officers, no public councils. You might change the names. The
things in some shape must remain. A certain quantum of power
must always exist in the community in some hands and under
some appellation. Wise men will apply their remedies to vices,
not to names ; to the causes of evil which are permanent, not to
the occasional organs by which they act, and the transitory modes
in which they appear. Otherwise you will be wise historically,
a fool in practice.
CICERO, de Republica, i. 46-53. SALLUST, Jugurtha, c. 4.
TACITUS, Annals, iv. c. 32, 33.
QUINTILIAJS T , Instit. Orat. x. c. i. 34.
HISTORY ITS EXCELLENCE CONSISTS IN REPRODUCING
THE SPIRIT OF PAST AGES.
r I A HE perfect historian is he in whose work the character and
-L spirit of an age are exhibited in miniature. He relates no
fact, he attributes no expression to his characters which is not
authenticated by sufficient testimony. But by judicious selection,
rejection, and arrangement, he gives to truth those attractions
which have been usurped by fiction. In his narrative a due
subordination is observed : some transactions are prominent, others
retire. But the scale on which he represents them is increased
or diminished, not according to the dignity of the persons con-
cerned in them, but according to the degree in which they
elucidate the condition of society, and the nature of man. He-
shows us the court, the camp, and the senate. But he shows us
also the nation. He considers no anecdote, no peculiarity of
300 Materials and Models
manners, no familiar saying, as too insignificant to illustrate the
operation of laws, of religion, and of education, and to mark the
progress of the human mind.
PLIXY, Epist. v. viii. TACITUS, Annals, iv. c. 32, 33.
THUCYDIDES UNRIVALLED AS AN HISTORIAN.
IT hath been noted by divers, that Homer in Poesie, Aristotle in
Philosophy, Demosthenes in Eloquence, and others of the
ancients in other knowledge, do still maintain their primacy, none
of them exceeded, some not approached by any in these later
ages. And in the number of these is justly ranked also our Thu-
cydides, a workman no less perfect in his work than any of the
former, and in whom (I believe with many others) the faculty of
writing history is at the highest. For the principal and proper
work of history being to instruct and enable men, by the knowledge
of actions past to bear themselves prudently in the present, and
providently towards the future, there is not extant any other
(merely human) that doth more fully and naturally perform it than
this of my author. It is true that there be many excellent and
profitable histories written since, and in some of them there be
inserted very wise discourses both of manners and policy. But
being discourses inserted, and not of the contexture of the narra-
tion, they indeed commend the knowledge of the writer, but not
the history itself, the nature whereof is merely narrative. In
others there be subtle conjectures at the secret aims and inward
cogitations of such as fall under their pen, which is also none of the
least virtues in a history, where the conjecture is thoroughly
grounded, not forced to serve the purpose of the writer, in adorn-
ing his style, or manifesting his subtlety in conjecturing.
QTJINTILIAN, Instit. Oral. x. c. 1, 31-34, 73-75.
CICERO, de Oratore, ii. 56.
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 301
SYMPATHY WITH HIS OWN TIMES NECESSARY TO FORM
A GOOD HISTORIAN.
A NTIQUARIANISM is the knowledge of the past enjoyed by
-/JL one who has no lively knowledge of the present. Thence
it is, when concerned with great matters, a dull knowledge. It
may be lively in little things, it may conceive vividly the shape
and colour of a dress, or the style of a building, because no man
can be so ignorant as not to have a distinct notion of these in his
own times ; he must have a full conception of the coat he wears and
the house he lives in. But the past is reflected to us by the present ;
so far as we see and understand the present, so far we can see and
understand the past : so far but no farther. And this is the reason
why scholars and antiquarians, nay, and men calling themselves
historians also, have written so uninstructively of the ancient
world. They could do no otherwise, for they did not understand
the world around them. How can he comprehend the parties of
other days who has no clear notion of those of his own 1 ? "What
sense can he have of the progress of the great contest of human
affairs in its earlier stages, when it rages around him at this actual
moment unnoticed, or felt to be no more than a mere indistinct
hubbub of sounds and confusion of weapons ? What cause is at
issue in the combat he knows not. Whereas, on the other hand,
he who feels his own times keenly, to whom they are a positive
reality with a good and evil distinctly perceived in them, such a
man will write a lively and impressive account of past times, even
though his knowledge be insufficient and his prejudices strong.
CICERO, de Fin. lib. v. 6, 7. TACITUS, Annals, iv. c. 32, 33.
SALLUST, Jugurtha, c. 4.
Materials and Models
UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE NECESSARY TO THE
PERFECT ORATOR.
I THINK I may with truth, say, that to form an eloquent
speaker, a knowledge of philosophy is indispensable, for
without philosophical instruction it is impossible in the examina-
tion of any subject to mark the distinction of genus and species ;
to explain its nature by definition ; to analyze it into all its compo-
nent parts ; to separate truth from falsehood ; to discern conse-
quences ; to see contrarieties ; to discriminate ambiguities. Hence
it is, says Cicero, that the instruction, by which we gain intellectual
acquirements, being different from that by which we arrive at the
art of expressing our thoughts, and the object of some being the
attainment of a knowledge of things but of others that of a com-
mand of words, no one can ever acquire genuine and perfect elo-
quence. In accordance with this opinion, Mark Antony, to whom
our forefathers assigned even the first place among the orators of
his day, remarks in the only book which he left on the subject,
that he had seen many who had the merit of clear and precise
expression, but none who possessed the talents peculiar to true elo-
quence. Thus it is obvious that there was seated in his mind an
idea of eloquence, which his imagination conceived, but which he
did not find realized by the fact. Other arts need no foreign aid,
each suffices for itself, but eloquence that is, the art of speaking
with science, skill, and elegance, acknowledges no well-defined dis-
trict, within the boundaries of which it is circumscribed. He who
professes this art must have the talent of speaking well on every
question which can form a subject of discussion amongst men, or
he must abandon all claim to the title of eloquence.
CICERO, de Oratore, i. 17-23, 85-95, 157-159. Orator. 14, sqq.
TACITUS, Orator, c, 31-32.
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 303
USEFULNESS OF BIOGRAPHIES OF GREAT MEN.
OUR forefathers still live among us in the records of their
lives, as well as in the acts they have done, and which live
also ; still sit by us at table, and hold us by the hand, furnishing
examples for our benefit, which we may still study, admire, and
imitate. Indeed, whoever has left behind him the record of a
noble life, has bequeathed to posterity an enduring source of good,
for it lives as a model for others to form themselves by in all time
to come ', still breathing fresh life into us, helping us to reproduce
his life anew, and to illustrate his character in other forms. Hence
a book containing the life of a true man is full of precious seed ; to
use Milton's words, "it is the precious life-blood of a master spirit,
embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life."
Such a book never ceases to exercise an elevating influence, and a
power for good.
VALERIUS MAXIMUS, Preface. CORNELIUS NEPOS, Preface.
SALLUST, Catiline, c. 3.
CHATHAM REACHED HIS HIGHEST EXCELLENCE WHEN
HE USED HIS ELOQUENCE TO KINDLE INTO ACTION
THE SPIRIT OF LIBERTY AMONG HIS COUNTRYMEN.
HATH AM' S genius, like Burke's, burnt brightest at the
last. The spark of liberty, which had lain concealed and
dormant, buried under the dirt and rubbish of state intrigue and
vulgar faction, now met with congenial matter, and kindled a
flame of sacred vehemence in his breast. It burst forth with a
fury and splendour that might have awed the world, and made
kings tremble. He spoke as a man should speak, because he felt
as a man should feel, in such circumstances. He came forward as
304 Materials and Models
the advocate of liberty, as the defender of the rights of his fellow-
citizens, as the enemy of tyranny, as the friend of his country and
of mankind. He did not stand up to make a vain display of
his talents, but to discharge a duty, to maintain that cause which
was nearest his heart, to preserve the ark of the British consti-
tution from every sacrilegious touch, as the high-priest of his
calling, with a pious zeal. The feelings and the rights of English-
men were enshrined in his heart; and with their united force
braced every nerve, possessed every faculty, and communicated
warmth and vital energy to every part of his being. The whole
man moved under this impulse. He felt the cause of liberty as
his own. He resented every injury done to her as an injury to
himself, and every attempt to defend it as an insult upon his
understanding. He did not stay to dispute about words, about
nice distinctions, about trifling forms. He laughed at the little
attempts of little retailers of logic to entangle him in senseless
argument. He did not come there as .to a debating club or law
court, to start questions, and hunt them down ; to wind and
unwind the web of sophistry, to pick out the threads, and untie
every knot with scrupulous exactness ; to bandy logic with every
pretender to a paradox ; to examine, to sift evidence ; to dissect a
doubt and halve a scruple ; to weigh folly and knavery in scales
together, and see on which side the balance preponderated; to
prove that liberty, truth, virtue, and justice were good things, or
that slavery and corruption were bad things ; he did not try to
prove those truths which did not require any proof, but to make
others feel them with the same force that he did ; and to tear off
the flimsy disguises with which the sycophants of power attempted
to cover them. The business of an orator is not to convince, but
to persuade ; not to inform, but to rouse the mind : to build upon
the habitual prejudices of mankind (for reason itself will do
nothing), and to add feeling to prejudice and action to feeling.
CICERO, de Oratore, iii. 1-12. De Claris Oratoribus, 1, 2.
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 305
QUALITIES REQUISITE TO FORM A GREAT ORATOR.
TO be a great orator does not require the highest faculties
of the human mind, but it requires the highest exertion
of the common faculties of our nature. He has no occasion to
dive into the depths of science, or to soar aloft on angels' wings.
He keeps upon the surface, he stands firm upon the ground ; but
his form is majestic, and his eye sees far and near ; he moves
among his fellows, but he moves among them as a giant among
common men. He has no need to read the heavens, to unfold
the system of the universe, or create new worlds for the de-
lighted fancy to dwell in; it is enough that he sees things as
they are, that he knows, and feels, and remembers the common
circumstances and daily transactions that are passing in the
world around him. He is not raised above others by being
superior to the common interests, prejudices, and passions of
mankind, but by feeling them in a more intense degree than
they do. Force then is the sole characteristic excellence of an
orator ; it is almost the only one that can be of any service to
him. Kefmement, depth; elevation, delicacy, originality, ingenuity,
invention are not wanted he must appeal to the sympathies of
human nature, and whatever is not founded on these is foreign
to his purpose. He does not create, he can only imitate or echo
back the public sentiment. His object is to call up the feelings
of the human breast ; but he cannot call up what is not already
there. The first duty of an orator is to be understood by every-
one; but it is evident that what all can understand, is not in
itself difficult of comprehension. He cannot add anything to
the materials afforded him by the knowledge and experience of
others. Lord Chatham, in his speeches, was neither philosopher
nor poet. As to the latter, the difference between poetry and
eloquence I take to be this ; that the object of the one is to
delight the imagination, that of the other to impel the will.
The one ought to enrich and feed the mind itself with tenderness
x
306 Materials and Models
and beauty, the other furnishes it with motives of action. The one'
seeks to give immediate pleasure, to make the mind dwell with
rapture on its own workings ; it is to itself both end and use. The
other endeavours to call up such images as will produce the strongest
effect upon the mind, and makes use of the passions only as instru-
ments to attain a particular purpose. The poet lulls and soothes
the mind into a forgetfulness of itself, and laps it in Elysium ; the
orator strives to awaken it to a sense of its real interests, and to
make it feel the necessity of taking the most effectual means for
securing them. The one dwells in an ideal world ; the other is
only conversant about realities. Hence poetry must be more orna-
mented, must be richer, and fuller, and more delicate, because it is
at liberty to select whatever images are naturally most beautiful,
and likely to give most pleasure ; whereas the orator is confined to
particular facts, which he may adorn as well as he can, and make
the most of, but which he cannot strain beyond a certain point
without running into extravagance and affectation, and losing his
end.
CICEHO, Orator. G9, sqq. ; 137-139. DC Oratore, i. 144, sqq. ;
ii. 182, sqq. QUINTILIAN, Instit. Orator, x. c. 1, 27, sqq. ; 105, sqq.
BURKE 'S STYLE THE OPPOSITE OF ARTIFICIAL.
r I ^HIS style, which is what we understand by the artificial, is
J- all in one key. It selects a certain set of words to repre-
sent all ideas whatever, as the most dignified and elegant, and
excludes all others as low and vulgar. The words are not fitted to
the things, but the things to the words. Every thing is seen
through a false medium. It is putting a mask on the face of nature,
which may indeed hide some specks and blemishes, but takes away
all beauty, delicacy and variety. It destroys all dignity or eleva-
tion, because nothing can be raised where all is on a level, and com-
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 307
pletely destroys all force, expression, truth, and character, by arbi-
trarily confounding the difference of things, and reducing everything
to the same insipid standard. To suppose that this stiff uniformity
can add anything to real grace or dignity, is like supposing that the
human body, in order to be perfectly graceful, should never deviate
from its upright posture. Another mischief of this method is,
that it confounds all ranks in literature. Where there is no room
for variety, no discrimination, no nicety to be shown in matching
the idea with its proper word, there can be no room for taste or
elegance. A man must easily learn the art of writing where every
sentence is to be cast in the same mould ; where he is only allowed
the use of one word he cannot choose wrong, nor will he be in much
danger of making himself ridiculous by affectation or false glitter,
when, whatever subject he treats of, he must treat it in the same way.
This indeed is to wear golden chains for the sake of ornament.
Burke was altogether free from the pedantry which I have here
endeavoured to expose. His style was as original, as expressive, as
rich, and varied as it was possible ; his combinations were as exqui-
site, as playful, as happy, as unexpected, as bold, and daring as his
fancy. If anything, he ran into the opposite extreme of too great an
inequality, if truth and nature could ever be carried to an extreme.
ClCERO, de Oratore, iii. 37, sqq. ; 96, sqq.
TACITUS, de Oratoribus, c. 19, 20, 22.
POETRY THE NATURAL OUTPOURING OF THE SOUL.
T)OETB,Y, as distinguished from other modes of composition,
JL does not rest in metre, and is not poetry if it make no
appeal to our passions or our imagination. One character belongs
to all true poets that they write from a principle within, not origi-
nating in anything without ; and the true poet's work is distin-
guished from all other works that assume to belong to the class of
308 Materials and Models
poetry as a natural from an artificial flower, or as the mimic garden
of a child from an enamelled meadow. In the former the flowers
are broken from their stems and stuck into the ground ; they are
beautiful to the eye and fragrant to the sense, but their colours
soon fade and their odour is transient as the smile of the planter ;
while the meadow may be visited again and again with renewed
delight; its beauty is innate in the soil, and its bloom is of the
freshness of nature.
HORACE, Od. iii. xxv. Satir. I. 3. 39, sqq.
Ars. Poetica, 408, sqq. Epist. i. 19, 21, sqq.
SENECA, Dialog, ix. c. 17, 10, 11. LUCRETIUS, i. 921,
VIRGIL, Oeo. iii. 10, sqq. ; 291, sqq.
JUDICIOUS USE OF PLAINNESS AND ORNAMENT A
REQUISITE OF ELOQUENCE.
FIGUEES and metaphors should, upon no occasion, be
scattered with too profuse a hand ; and they should
never be incongruous with the train of our sentiment. Nothing
can be more unnatural than for a writer to carry on a process of
reasoning, in the same kind of figurative language which he would
employ in description. When he reasons, we look only for per-
spicuity ; when he describes, we expect embellishment j when he
divides or relates, we desire plainness and simplicity. One of the
greatest secrets in composition is to know when to be simple.
This always lends a heightening to ornament, in its proper place.
The judicious disposition of shade makes the light and colour-
ing strike the more. He is truly eloquent who can discourse of
humble subjects in a plain style, who can treat important ones
with dignity, and speak of things which are of a middle nature
in a temperate strain. For one who upon no occasion can express
For Latin Prose ^Philosophical. 309
himself in a calm, orderly, distinct manner, but begins to be on
fire before his readers are prepared to kindle along with him, has
the appearance of a madman raving among persons who enjoy
the use of their reason, or of a drunkard reeling in the midst
of sober company. Irving.
CICERO, de Oratore, iii. 96, sqq. ; 155.
PERSPICUITY THE CHIEF MERIT OF STYLE.
A.eea>y.
A MOTHER virtue of an heroic poem is the perspicuity and
-Z~\. the facility of construction, and consisteth in a natural
contenture of the words, so as not to discover the labour but
the natural ability of the poet; and this is usually called a
good style. For the order of words, when placed as they ought
to be, carries a light before it, whereby a man may foresee the
length of his period as a torch in the night shows a man the
stops and unevenness in his way. But when placed unnaturally
the reader will often find unexpected checks, and be forced to go
back and hunt for the sense, and suffer such unease, as in a coach
a man unexpectedly finds in passing over a furrow. And though
the laws of verse put great restraints upon the natural course of
language, yet the poet, having the liberty to depart from what is
obstinate, and to choose somewhat else that is more obedient to
such laws and no less fit for his purpose, shall not be, neither by
the measure, nor by the necessity of rhyme, excused though a
translation often may. Hobbes.
, Inst. Orator, lib. vii. Preface.
CICERO, Ad Herennium, i. 15 ; iii. 16, sqq.
3 1 o Materials and Models
PREFACE TO ENDYMION.
KNOWIXG within myself the manner in which this poem
has been produced, it is not without a feeling of regret
that I make it public. What manner I mean will be quite
clear to the reader, who must soon perceive great inexperience,
immaturity, and every error, denoting a feverish attempt rather
than a deed accomplished. The two first books, and indeed the
two last, I feel sensible, are not of such completion as to warrant
their passing the press, nor should they, if I thought a year's
castigation would do them any good ; it will not, the foundations
are too sandy. It is just that this youngster should die away
a sad thought for me if I had some hope that while it is
dwindling I may be plotting and fitting myself for verses fit to
live. This may be speaking too presumptuously, and may deserve a
punishment, but no feeling man will be forward to inflict it ; he
will leave me alone with the conviction that there is not a fiercer
hell than the failure in a great object. This is not written
with the least atom of purpose to forestall criticisms of course,
but from the desire I have to conciliate men who are competent to
look, and who do look with a jealous eye to the honour of English
literature. The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature
imagination of a man is healthy, but there is a space of life
between in which the soul is in a ferment, the character un-
decided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted ;
thence proceeds mawkishness and all the thousand bitters Avhich
those men I speak of must necessarily taste in going over the
following pages. I hope I had not in too late a day touched
the beautiful mythology of Greece and dulled 'its brightness, for
I wish to try once more before I bid it farewell. Keats.
MARTIAL, Preface to Epiy. book xii.
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 3 1 1
DEGRADATION OF HOMERIC CHARACTERS BY LATER
GREEK WRITERS. THE ULYSSES OF EURIPIDES.
SUCH was the care with which, in each of these great and
wonderful characters, Homer provided against an exclusive
predominance of their leading trait. But in vain. Achilles too,
more slowly, however, than his rival, passed with later authors
into the wild beast; Ulysses descended at a leap into the mere
shopman of politics and war ; and it is singular to see how, when
once the basis of the character had been vulgarized, and the
key to its movements lost, it came to be drawn in attitudes the
most opposed to even the broadest and most undeniable of the
Homeric traits. There is nothing in the political character of
Ulysses more remarkable than his power of setting himself in
sole action against a multitude; whether w r e take him in the
government of his refractory crew during his wanderings, or in
the body of the Horse, when a sound would have ruined the
enterprise of the Greeks, so that he had to lay his strong hand
over the jaws of the babbler Anticlus ; or in the stern preli-
minaries to his final revenge upon the Suitors ; or in his
war with his rebellious subjects ; or, above all, in the despe-
rate crisis of the Second Iliad, when by his fearless courage,
decision, and activity, he saves the Greek army from total
and shameful failure. And yet, much as the Mahometans were
railed at by the poets of Italy, indeed of England, in the character
of image-worshippers, so Ulysses is held up to scorn in Euripides
as a mere waiter upon popular favour. Thus in the Hecuba
he is
6 TTOlKl\6(f>p<aV,
ic6iris, 7/8^X0709, drifMo^aptarr]^.
Now, when the most glaring and characteristic facts of the narra-
tive of Homer can be thus boldly travestied, there is scarcely room
for astonishment at any other kind of misrepresentation.
HORACE, de Arte Poet. 121. Epist. lib. i. Epist. ii. 1-31.
312 Materials and Models
THE LACRYMOSE TEMPER OF AENEAS JUSTIFIED.
IF tears are arguments of cowardice, what shall I say of Homer's
hero? Shall Achilles pass for timorous, because he wept,
and wept on less occasions than .ZEneas 1 Herein Virgil must be
granted to have excelled his master. For once both heroes are
described lamenting their lost loves. Briseis was taken away by
force from the Grecian : Creusa was lost for ever to her husband.
But Achilles went roaring " along the salt sea-shore," and, like a
booby, was complaining to his mother when he should have avenged
his injury by his arms. ^Eneas took a nobler course ; for, having
secured his father and son, he repeated all his former dangers to
have found his wife, if she had been above ground.
The tears of ^neas were always on a laudable occasion. Thus
he weeps out cf compassion and tenderness of nature, when in the
temple of Carthage he beholds the picture of his friends who sacri-
ficed their lives in defence of their country. He deplores the
lamentable end of his pilot Palinurus ; the untimely death of young
Pallas, his confederate ; and the rest which I omit. Yet even for
these tears his wretched critics dare condemn him. They make
^Eneas little better than a kind of St. Swithin's hero, always rain-
ing. One of these censors is bold enough to arraign him of coward-
ice, when in the beginning of the first book he not only weeps,
but trembles at an approaching storm. But to this I have answered
formerly, that his fear was not for himself, but his people. And
what can give a sovereign a better commendation, or recommend a
hero more to the affection of the reader ?
CICERO, Tusc. Quest, lib. ii. 7, 8, 16; iii. 19, 26.
SENECA, Epist. Moral, xcix.
For Latin Prose Philosophical* 313
SHAKESPEARE A MYRIAD-MINDED GENIUS.
THE name of Shakespeare is the greatest in our literature it is
the greatest in all literature. No man ever came near him
in the creative powers of the mind ; no man had ever such strength
at once and such variety of imagination. Coleridge has most felici-
tously applied to him a Greek epithet, given before to I know not
whom, certainly to none so deserving of it, 6 pvpiovovs the thou-
sand-souled Shakespeare. Neither he nor his contemporaries wrote
for the stage in the worst, and of late years the most usual sense ;
whereby the capacities of the poet's mind are limited by those of
the performers. If this poverty of the representative department
of the drama had weighed like an incumbent fiend on the creative
powers of Shakespeare, how would he have poured forth with inex-
haustible prodigality the vast diversity of characters which we find
in some of his plays 1 This it is in which he leaves far behind not
the dramatists alone, but all writers of fiction. Compare with him
Homer, the tragedians of Greece, the poets of Italy, the romancers
of the elder or later schools one man has far more than surpassed
them all. Others may have been as sublime, others may have been
more pathetic, others may have equalled him in grace and purity of
language, and shunned some of his faults ; but the philosophy of
Shakespeare, his intimate searching out of the human heart, whether
in the gnomic form of sentence or in the dramatic exhibition of
character, is a gift peculiarly his own.
QTJINTILIAN, Instit. Orator, x. c. 1, 46, sqq.
SENECA, Epist. Moral. Ixxxviii. v. sqq.
314 Materials and Models
HORACE BRIGHTNESS AND VIVIDNESS OF HIS
PICTURES.
HOEACE is the poet who is most frequently in our hands in
the rare moments of literary leisure. As we recur to his
pages, how many sunny and familiar images rise into our memory !
Visions of modest ease and honourable contentment ; pastoral pic-
tures of Cytherea and the Graces leading their moonlight dances,
or the goat-hoofed Satyrs listening while Bacchus sings ; groups of
youths and maidens outstretched under the nickering shadows of
the green arbute, while the young leaves ripple overhead, and the
green lizard nestles in the brambles, and the Massic wine lies cool-
ing in the soft well-head of hallowed founts ; Greek scenes of merry
revellers, their crowned locks dripping myrrh, their tables half-
hidden under wreaths of parsley, and rose, and lily, obeying with
mock gravity the regal behests of the symposiarch, and whispering to
each other the secret of their loves ; winter pieces of blazing hearths,
while outside the snow lies heavy on the woodland boughs, and the
summit of Soracte gleams white in the distance ; pictures even of
the dim Plutonian hall, with Sappho and Alcaeus thrilling with
their imperious melodies, the shadowy nations of the dead. So
light and felicitous is the poet's hand, that at the touching of a string
a word or two sets before us for ever the marble temple of Glycera
with the incense wreathing upward to its citron beams, or the
immortal Bandusian fount, with its lucent waters tinged with the
blood of victims, or the orchards of Tivoli, dewy with twinkling
rivulets. Horace seems at once to produce the right effect ; every
sentiment he has to express is always as clearly comprehensible as if
it were a Greek gnome, or a lesson for the people carved on the
base of the Hermse : every scene he wishes to describe hangs before
his readers like a clear picture in sunny air.
, Instit. Orator, x. c. 1, 61, sqq. ; 85, sqq.
HOEACE, Carm.
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 315
SERVICES OF THE SEA.
NOW for the services of the sea they are innumerable. It is
the great purveyor of the world's commodities to our use ;
conveyer of the excess of rivers ; uniter by traffic of all nations ; it
presents the eye with diversified colours and motions, and is, as it
were with rich brooches, adorned with various islands. It is an
open field for merchandize in peace : a pitched field for the most
dreadful fights of war. It hath 011 it tempests and calms to chas-
tise the sins, to exercise the faith of seamen. It maintaineth (as in
our island) a wall of defence and watery garrison to guard the state,
entertains the sun with vapours, the moon with obsequiousness, the
stars also with a natural looking-glass the sky with clouds, the air
with temperateness, the soil with suppleness, the rivers with tides,
the hills with moisture, the valleys with fertility. Once for why
should I longer detain you ? the sea yields action to the body,
meditation to the mind, the world to the world, all parts thereof to
each part, by this art of arts navigation. Samuel Purclias.
CICERO, de Nat. Dcor. lib. ii. 100.
SENECA, de Denef. iv. c. 28.
THE SERVICE OF RIVERS.
IIS" the present day water-courses no longer assume, in the history
of civilization, the high importance they once possessed, for now
they are not the only ways of communication between nations. jSTo
river can now be all that the Nile was to the Egyptians, at once their
father and their God, the cause from which sprung both a race of
husbandmen, and also the harvests which they gathered on the
river-mud, warmed by the rays of the sun. Another Ganges, with
its sacred waves, will never again flow over the surface of the earth,
316 Materials and Models
for man is no longer the slave of nature. He can now develop
artificial roads, which are shorter and more speedy than the roads
formed by nature ; and this second and even more vital nature,
which he has created by the labour of his own hands, supersedes
his adoration of that first nature which he has succeeded in regulat-
ing. Nevertheless, rivers will be more important as servants than
they have ever been as gods. They bear upon their waters ships,
and the products with which they are freighted, and serve as arteries,
to vast organisms of mountains, valleys, and plains, which are
sprinkled over with thousands of towns and millions of inhabitants.
They vivify the earth by their motion, carve it out afresh by their
erasions, and add to it by their ever-increasing deltas. Some day,
when the hand of man will be enabled to guide rivers, and to trace
out for them their beds, he will employ these potent workmen to
carve out a nature in harmony with his own will : water-courses
will wear away the hills, fill up lakes, and throw out promontories
into the sea in obedience to his orders ; their eternal and mighty
vitality will become the complement of ours. Reclus.
SENECA, Nat. Quest, iii. c. 28, 29 ; v. 18.
De Beneficiis, iv. c. 5.
THE EARTH A PART OF THE SYSTEM OF
THE UNIVERSE.
Sri irdvra. e?.
BUT since civilization has connected all the nations of the earth
in one common humanity ; since history has linked century to
century ; since astronomy and geology have enabled science to cast
her retrospective glance on epochs thousands and thousands of years
back; man has ceased to be an isolated being, and, if we may so
speak, is no longer merely mortal, he is become the consciousness
of the imperishable universe. No longer connecting the vitality
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 317
either of the stars or of the earth, merely with his own lieeting
existence, but comparing it with the duration of his own race, and
of all the beings who have lived before him, he has seen the celestial
vault resolve itself into infinite space, and has recognised the earth
as nothing but a little globe rotating in the midst of the " milky
way." The firm ground which he treads under his feet, long
thought to be immoveable, is replete with vitality, and is actuated
by incessant motion ; the very mountains rise or sink ; not only do
the winds and ocean currents circulate round the planet, but the
continents themselves, with their summits and their valleys, are
changing their places, and are slowly travelling round the circle of
the globe. In order to explain all these geological phenomena, it is
no longer necessary to imagine alterations in the earth's axis, rup-
tures of the solid crust, or gigantic subterranean downfalls. This is
not the mode in which nature generally proceeds : she is more calm
and more regular in her operations, and, chary of her might, brings
about changes of the grandest character, without even the knowledge
of the beings she nourishes. She upheaves mountains, and dries
up seas without disturbing the flight of the gnat. Some revolution
which appears to us to have been produced by a mighty cataclysm,
has perhaps taken thousands of years to accomplish. Time is the
earth's attribute. Year after year she leisurely renews her charming
drapery of foliage and flowers : just as, during the long lapse of ages,
she reconstitutes her seas and continents, and moves them slowly
over her surface. Redus.
SENECA, Nat. Quest, lib. iii. c. 10; vi. c. 1, 9, 16, 21, 31.
CICERO, de Natura Deorum.
VOLCANIC ERUPTION.
ONE of these explosions of entire summits which caused most
terror in modern times was that of the volcano of Coseguina.
The debris hurled into the air spread over the sky in a horrible arch,
3 1 8 Materials and Models
several hundreds of miles in width, and covered the plains, for a
distance of twenty-five miles, with a layer of dust at least sixteen feet
thick. At the very foot of the hill, the headland advanced 787
feet into the bay, and two new islands, formed of ashes and stones
falling from the volcano, rose in the midst of the water several
miles away. Beyond the districts round the crater, the bed of dust,
which fell gradually, became thinner, but it was carried by the wind
more than 40 degrees of longitude towards the west, and the ships
sailing in those waters penetrated with difficulty, the layer of
pumice-stone spread out on the sea. The uproar of the breaking up
of the mountain was heard as far as the high plateaus of Bogota,
situated 1,025 miles away in a straight line. Whilst the formidable
cloud was settling down round the volcano, thick darkness filled
the air. For forty-three hours nothing could be seen, except by the
sinister light of the flashes darting from the columns of steam, and
the red glare of the vent-holes opening in the mountain. To escape
from this prolonged night, the rain of ashes, and the burning atmo-
sphere, the inhabitants who dwelt at the foot of Coseguina, fled in
haste along a road running by the black waters of the bay of Fon-
seca. Men, women, children, and domestic animals, travelled pain-
fully along a difficult path, through quagmires and marshes. So
great it is said, was the terror of all animated beings during this
long night of horror, that the animals themselves, such as monkeys,
serpents, and birds, joined the band of fugitives, as if they recognised
in man a being endowed with intelligence superior to their own.
Mcdus.
PLINY, Ep. vi. 16, 20.
SENECA, Nat. Quest, iii. c. 27 ; ii. c. 26.
VIRGIL, j&Svwid, iii. 570. OVID, Metam. xv. 340.
SILIUS ITALICUS, xiv. 59.
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 319
NOXIOUS EXHALATIONS. LAKE OF AVERNUS.
IN" the island of Java there is a small crater called the " Valley of
Death," the amphitheatre of which, after the heavy tropical rains
is entirely filled with carbonic acid gas. No plant grows in this
vast cavity. According to the statements of London, the ground is
strewn with the skeletons of animals. At one time, there might
have been seen in it the remains of human beings who had been
doomed to perish from asphyxia in the poisoned air. The famous
cave in the vicinity of Naples also is well known, into which, to
satisfy the idle curiosity of travellers, the guides are cruel enough to
bring some wretched dogs, and forcing them into the layers of gas
which hang over the soil, cause them to pant for breath, and ulti-
mately die. At one time, the crater which is now filled up by the
gloomy lake of Avernus, which the ancients looked upon as the
entrance to the infernal regions, gave vent to so large a quantity of
carbonic acid gas, that birds flying over the lake, fell as if struck by
lightning : hence is derived the Greek name of the lake " without
birds." Redus.
SENECA, Nat. Quest, vi. c. 28; iii. 21, 25.
YIKGIL, ^E neid. iv. 5; vi. 201.
UNDULATIONS IN THE EARTH'S CRUST.
BE this as it may, it remains an unquestionable fact that an
incessant movement is causing an undulation in the so-called
rigid crust of our globe. Continents rise and sink as if through
some gentle act of respiration ; they move in long undulations,
which may be compared to the waves of the sea. The far-reaching
glance of science can already trace out these undulations through
320 Materials and Models
the long lapse of centuries. The time will come when geologists
will consider the quiescence of the terrestrial crust through a long
period of its history to be as improbable as an absolute calm in the
atmosphere during a whole season of the year.
In the universe everything is changing and everything is in
motion, for motion is the first condition of vitality. In bygone
days, men who, through isolation, hatred, and fear were left in their
native ignorance, and filled with a feeling of their own weakness,
could recognise in all that surrounded them only the immoveable
and the eternal. In their ideas the heavens were a solid vault
a firmament on which the stars were fastened ; the earth was
the firm, unshaken foundation of the heavens, and nothing but a
miracle could disturb its surface. Redus.
SENECA, Nat. Quest, vi. c. 1, 9, 16, 21, 31.
FLOODING OF THE RIVER OF THE AMAZONS.
WHEN the river Amazon overflows, it forms in some places
with the marshes on its banks a perfect sea of one hundred
or even two hundred miles in width. The animals seek a refuge in
the tree-tops, and the Indians who live by the sides of the river
make a kind of encampment on rafts. About the 8th of July,
when the river begins to sink, the water returning to its original
bed undermines the thoroughly soaked banks, and slowly washes
them away. A sudden fall then takes place, and masses of earth,
enormous in bulk, sink down into the water, carrying with them
the trees and animals existing upon them. The very islands are
exposed to sudden destruction ; when the entangled masses of fallen
trees, which serve as a breakwater to them, give way before the
violence of the current, a few hours, or even a few minutes, are
quite sufficient for their disappearance : they are literally washed
away by the flood. They may be observed visibly melting away,
.
Latin Prose Philosophical. 321
and the Indians who are quietly at work upon them collecting
turtle-eggs or drying the produce of their fisheries, are suddenly
compelled to fly for their lives. Then it is that the current of the
stream is encumbered with long floating piles of entangled trees,
that hitch together only to break away again, and accumulating
round some headland, are heaped up one above another all along
the banks. All round these immense trains of trees, which roll
and plunge heavily under the impetus of the current like great
marine monsters or drifting wrecks, great masses of the plant Canna
rana float on the surface of the water, giving to some parts of it a
resemblance to broad meadows. "We may thus readily comprehend
the almost religious awe which has been felt by travellers who have
made their way up the river of the Amazons, and, viewing these
whirlpools yellow with sand, have been eye-witnesses of their
destructive operation in tearing away the river banks, throwing
down trees, washing away islands in one place to form them again
in another, and drifting down the current long trains of trunks and
branches. Reclus.
SENECA, Nat. Qucest. lib. iv. c. 2; iii. c. 27, sqq. ; vi. c. 8.
THE BELIEF THAT THE EARTH IS ROUND RIDICULED.
IS there any one so foolish, he asked, as to believe that there
are antipodes with their feet opposite to ours ; people who
walk with their heels upwards and their heads hanging down :
that there is a part of the world in which all things are topsy-
turvy ; where the trees grow with their branches downward, and
where it rains, hails, and snows upward 1 The idea of the round-
ness of the earth, he added, was the cause of inventing this fable
of the antipodes, with their heels in the air ; for these philosophers,
having once erred, go on in their absurdities, defending one with
another, But more than this, to assert that there were inhabited
Y
322 Materials and Models
lands on the opposite side of the globe, would be to maintain
that there were nations not descended from Adam, it being im-
possible for them to have passed the intervening ocean.
CICERO, Acad. Qacest. lib. iv. 123.
WILD AND SUPERSTITIOUS BELIEF OF THE ANCIENTS
CONCERNING THE UNKNOWN REGIONS OF THE
NORTH.
A CCORDIXG to some speculators those seas enclosed a polar
./JL continent, where perpetual summer and unbroken daylight
reigned, and whose inhabitants, having attained a high degree of
culture, lived in the practice of every virtue and in the enjoyment
of every blessing. Others peopled these mysterious regions with
horrible savages, having hoofs of horses and heads of dogs, and
with no clothing save their own long ears coiled closely around
their limbs and bodies ; while it was deemed almost certain that
a race of headless men, with eyes in their breasts, were the most
enlightened amongst those distant tribes. Instead of constant
sunshine, it was believed by such theorists that the wretched
inhabitants of that accursed zone were immersed in almost inces-
sant fogs or tempests, that the whole population died every winter,
and were only recalled to temporary existence by the advent of a
tardy and evanescent spring. ]X"o doubt was felt that the voyager
in those latitudes would have to encounter volcanoes of fire and
mountains of ice, together with land and sea monsters more
ferocious than the eye of man had ever beheld ; but it was
universally admitted that an opening, either by strait or sea, into
the desired Indian haven would reveal itself at last.
TACITUS AgricoL c. 6, 7, 10. Ann. ii. c. 24. POMPOKIUS MELA, iii. 6.
For Latin Prose Philosophical. 323
THE END OF THE WORLD.
THE sea (they say) shall rise fifteen cubits above the highest
mountains, and thence descend into hollowness and prodigious
drought ; and when they are reduced again to their usual propor-
tions, then all the beasts and creeping things, the monsters and the
usual inhabitants of the sea, shall be gathered together, and make
fearful noises to distract mankind : the birds shall mourn and change
their songs into threnes and sad accents : rivers of lire shall rise from
the east to west, and the stars shall be rent into threads of light, and
scatter like the beards of comets : then shall be fearful earthquakes, and
the rocks shall rend in pieces, the trees shall distil blood, and the
mountains and fairest structures shall return unto their primitive
dust ; the wild beasts shall leave their dens, and come into the
companies of men, so that you shall hardly tell how to call them,
herds of men, or congregations of beasts ; then shall the graves open
and give up their dead, and those which are alive in nature and
dead in fear, shall be forced from the rocks whither they went to
hide them, and from caverns of the earth, where they would fain
have been concealed ; because their retirements are dismantled, and
their rocks are broken with wider ruptures, and admit a strange
light into their secret bowels ; and the men being forced abroad into
the theatre of mighty horrors, shall run up and down distracted and
nt their wits' end.
PLINY, Epist. viii. 17. vi. 16.
SENECA, Nat. Qucest. iii. c. 27, sq
324 Materials and Models*
DISASTROUS EFFECT OF A SUPPOSED INTERRUPTION OF
NATURES COURSE.
"XT W if Nature should intermit her course, and leave altogether,
.1 ^1 though it were only for a while, the observation of her own
laws ; if those principal and mother elements of the world, whereof
all things in this lower world are made, should lose the qualities
which now they have ; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected
over our heads should loosen and dissolve itself ; if celestial spheres
should forget their wonted motion, and by irregular volubility turn
themselves any way, as it might happen ; if the prince of the lights
of heaven, which now as a giant doth run his unwearied course,
should, as it were, through a languishing faintness, begin to stand
and to rest himself ; if the moon should wander from her beaten
way ; the times and seasons of the years blend themselves by dis-
ordered and confused mixture ; the winds breathe out their last
gasp ; the clouds yield no rain, and the earth be defeated of hea-
venly influence ; the fruits of the earth pine away, as children at
the withered breasts of their mother, no longer able to give them
relief, what would become of man himself, whom these things
now do all serve ? See we not plainly that the obedience of crea-
tures to the law of nature is the stay of the whole world.
CICERO, de Nat. Dear. iii. 39. De Oratore, iii. 178.
SENECA, de Bencficiis, iv. c. 5. De Providentia, c. 5.
PAET V.
EP I JS TO LAR Y.
THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE TO THE
HON. H. S. CON WAY.
STRAWBERRY HILL, August iStfi, i?74-
IT is very hard that because you do not get my letters you will
not let me receive yours, who do receive them. I have not
had a line from you these live weeks. Of your honours and glories
fame has told me ; and for aught I know, you may be a veldt-
marshal by this time, and despise such a poor cottager as me.
Take notice, I shall disclaim you in my turn, if you are sent on a
command against Dantzic or to usurp a new district in Poland. I
have seen no armies, kings, or empresses, and cannot send you such
august gazettes ; nor are they what I want to hear of. I like to
hear you are well and diverted. For my part, I wish you were
returned to your plough. Your Sabine farm is in high beauty. I
have lain there twice this week, going to and from a visit to
George Selwyn, near Gloucester : a tour as much to my taste as
yours to you. For fortified towns I have seen ruined castles. Un-
luckily, in that of Berkeley I found a whole regiment of militia in
garrison. I endeavoured to comfort myself by figuring that they
were guarding Edward II. I have seen many other ancient sights
without asking leave of the King of Prussia. They have found at
26 Materials and Models
least seventy thousand pounds of Lord Thomoiid's. George Howard
has decked himself with a red riband, money, and honours ! Charm-
ing things ! and yet one may be very happy- without them. What
can I tell you more 1 Nothing. Indeed, my letter is long enough.
Everybody's head but mine is full of elections. I had the satisfac-
tion at Gloucester, where George Selwyii is canvassing, of reflecting
on my own wisdom.
" Suave mart magno turbantibus cequora vent is"
etc. I am certainly the greatest philosopher in the world, without
ever having thought of being so ; always employed and never busy ;
eager about trifles, and indifferent to everything serious. Well, if
it is not philosophy, at least it is content. I am as pleased here
with my own nutshell as any monarch you have seen these two
months astride his eagle ; not but I was dissatisfied when I
missed you at Park-place, and w T as peevish at your being in an
aulic-chamber. Adieu ! Yours ever. P.S. They tell us from
Vienna that the peace is made between Tisiphone and the Turk ; is
it true ?
ClCERO, ad Atticum, lib. ii. Ep. vii. lib. iv. Ep. viii.
HOHACE, Epist. lib. I. iv. 10.
TO A NOBLEMAN IN THE COUNTRY.
SIR CLEMENT tells me you will shortly come to town. We
begin to want comfort in a few friends around us, while the
winds whistle and the waters roar. The sun gives a parting look,
but 'tis a cold one ; we are ready to change those distant favours of
a lofty beauty for a gross material fire that warms and comforts
more. I wish you could be here till your family come to town ;
you'll live more innocently, and kill fewer harmless creatures, nay,
none, except by your proper deputy, the butcher. It is fit for con-
For Latin Prose Epistolary. 327
science sake that you should come to town, and that the Duchess
should stay in the country, where no innocents of another species
may suffer by her. I -advise you to make man your game, hunt
and beat about here for coxcombs, and truss up rogues in satire : I
fancy thej^'ll turn to a good account, if you can produce them fresh,
or make them keep : and their relations will come and buy their
bodies of you.
CICERO, ad Famil. vii. 10.
Ad Quint um Fratrem, ii. 16.
SAMENESS IN THE DRAMA.
I HA YE always been an idle man, and have read or attended
the greater part of the plays that are extant, and will venture
to affirm that, exclusive of Shakespeare's and some Spanish pieces
never represented nor translated, there are barely half-a-dozen plots
among them, comic and tragic : so that it is evidently a much easier
matter to run over the usual variations than to keep entirely in
another tune and to raise up no recollections. Both in tragedies
and comedies the changes are pretty similar, and nearly in the same
place. You perceive the turnings and windings of the road a mile
before you, and you know exactly the precipice down which the
hero or heroine must fall ; you can discover with your naked eye
who does the mischief, and who affords the help ; where the assassin
bursts forth with the dagger, and where the old gentleman shakes
the crabstick over the shoulder of his dissolute nephew.
CICERO, ad Famil. vii. 1.
HORACE, Epist. lib. II. i. 168, sqq. A. P. 93, sqq.
PLINY, Epist. v. 3.
328 Materials and Models
ON POETRY. TO A NOBLE AUTHOR.
POETKY, I take it, is as universally contagious as the small-pox ;
every one catches it once in their life at least, and the
sooner the better, for methinks an old rhymster makes as ridiculous
a figure as Socrates dancing at fourscore. But I can never agree
with you that most of us succeed alike ; at least, I'm sure few do
like you : I mean not to natter, for I despise it heartily ; and I think
I know you to be as much above flattery as the use of it is beneath
every honest, every sincere man. Flattery to men of power is
analogous with hypocrisy to God, and both are alike mean and
contemptible ; nor is the one more an instance of respect, than the
other is a proof of devotion. I perceive I am growing serious,
and that is the first step to dulness ; but I believe you won't think
that in the least extraordinary, to find me dull in a letter, since you
have known me so often dull out of a letter.
CiCERO, ad Famil. ix. 10. HORACE, Ars. Poctica, 438, sqq.
JUVE:N T AL, Sat. vii. 50, sqq.
T
RUSTIC LIFE IN SWEDEN.
HERE is something patriarchal still lingering about rural life
in Sweden which renders it a fit theme for song. Almost
primaeval simplicity reigns over that northern land ; almost primaeval
solitude and stillness. You pass out of the gates of the city, and
as if by magic the scene changes to a wild woodland landscape.
Around you are forests of fir ; over head hang the long fan-like
branches, trailing with moss, and heavy with red and blue cones.
Under foot is a carpet of yellow leaves : and the air is warm and
balmy. On a wooden bridge you cross a little silver stream ; and
anon come forth into a pleasant and sunny land of farms. Wooden
fences divide the adjoining fields. Across the road are gates, which
are opened by troops of children. The peasants take off their hats
as you pass ; you sneeze, and they cry, " God bless you ! " The houses
For Latin Prose Epistolary. 329
in the villages and smaller towns are all built of hewn timber, and
for the most part painted red. The floors of the taverns are strewed
with the fragrant tips of fir-boughs. In many villages there are
no taverns, and the peasants take turns in receiving travellers.
Long/dime.
PLINY, Epist. i. 9. ii. 17. CICEKO, pro Plancio, 22.
LETTER TO MR. POPE.
I AM at this present moment writing in a house situated on
the banks of the Hebrus, which runs under my chamber
window. My garden is all full of cypress trees, upon the branches
of which, several couple of true turtles are saying soft things to one
another from morning till night. How naturally do l>ouglis and
vows come into my mind at this minute ! and must you not confess,
to my praise, that 'tis more than an ordinary discretion that can
resist the wicked suggestions of poetry, in a place where truth, for
once, furnishes all the ideas of pastoral ? The summer is already
far advanced in this part of the world ; and for some miles round
Adrianople, the whole ground is laid out in gardens, and the banks
of the rivers are set with rows of fruit trees, under which, all the
most considerable Turks divert themselves every evening ; not with
walking, that is not one of their pleasures, but a set party of them
choose out a green spot, where the shade is very thick, and there
they spread a carpet, on which they sit drinking their coffee, and
are generally attended by some slave with a fine voice, or that plays
on some instrument. Every twenty paces you may see one of these
little companies listening to the dashing of the river : and this taste
is so universal, that the very gardeners are not without it. I have
often seen them and their children sitting on the banks of the river,
and playing on a rural instrument, perfectly answering the descrip-
tion of the ancient fistula, being composed of unequal reeds, with a
simple but agreeable softness in the sound. Lady M. W. Montagu.
SENECA, Epist. Ixxxvi. Ixxxvii.
330 Materials and Models
OF SLANDER,
IT is not strange that you should be the subject of a false report;
for the sword of slander, like that of war, devours one as well
as another ; and a blameless character is particularly delicious to its
unsparing appetite. But that you should be the object of such a
report, you who meddle less with the designs of government than
almost any man that lives under it, this is strange indeed. It is well,
however, when they who account it good sport to traduce the repu-
tation of another, invent a story that refutes itself. I wonder they
do not always endeavour to accommodate their fiction to the real
character of the person ; their tale would then at least have an air
of probability, and it might cost a peaceable good man much more
trouble to disprove it. But perhaps it would not be easy to discern
what part of your conduct lies more open to such an attempt than
another ; or what it is that you either say or do, at any time, that
presents a fair opportunity to the most ingenious slanderer, to slip
in a falsehood between your words, or actions, that shall seem to
be of a piece with either. You hate compliment, I know ; but by
your leave this is not one it is a truth: worse and worse!
now I have praised you, indeed well, you must thank yourself for
it ; it was absolutely done without the least intention on my part, and
proceeded from a pen that, as far as I can remember, was never guilty
of flattery since I knew how to hold it. He that slanders me, paints
me blacker than I am, and he that flatters me, whiter they both
daub me ; and when I look in the glass of conscience, I see myself
disguised by both : I had as lief my tailor should sew gingerbread-nuts
on my coat instead of buttons, as that any man should call my Bristol
stone a diamond. The tailor's trick would not at all embellish my
suit, nor the flatterers make me at all the richer. I never make a
present to my friend of what I dislike myself. Ergo (I have reached
the conclusion at last), I did not mean to flatter you.
CICERO, pro Plancio, 57. De Offic. i. 134.
CICERO, ad Famil. xi. 27 ; i. 6 ; vii. 32.
s
f : or TTTK
rNIVE.F
For Latin Prose Epistolary.
Cy4 7 TION A GA INS T UN WA R Y JOKING.
" Qui captat risus homimtm, famamque dicacis"
TRUST me, this unwary pleasantry of thine will sooner or later
bring thee into scrapes and difficulties, which no afterwit can
extricate thee out of. In these sallies, too oft, I see it happens, that
a person laughed at considers himself in the light of a person injured,
with all the rights of such a situation belonging to him ; and when
thou viewest him in that light too, and reckonest up his friends, his
family, his kindred and allies and musterest up with them the
many recruits which will list under him from a sense of common
danger 'tis no extravagant arithmetic to say, that for every ten
jokes thou hast gotten an hundred enemies : and, till thou hast
gone on, and raised a swarm of wasps about thine ears, and art half
stung to death by them, thou wilt never be persuaded that it is so.
Bevenge from some baneful corner shall level a tale of dishonour
at thee, which no innocence of heart or integrity of conduct shall
set right. The fortunes of thy house shall totter, thy character
which led the way to them shall bleed on every side, thy faith
questioned, thy works belied, thy wit forgotten, thy learning
trampled on. To wind up the last scene of thy tragedy Cruelty
and Cowardice, twin ruffians, hired and set on by Malice in the
dark, shall strike together at all thy infirmities and mistakes.
The best of us, my dear lad, lie open there ; and trust me, trust
me, " when to gratify a private appetite, it is once resolved upon
that an innocent and an helpless creature shall be sacrificed, 'tis an
easy matter to pick up sticks enough from any thicket where it has
strayed, to make a fire to offer it up with."
HORAT. Serm. I. iv. 33-103. Serm. II. i. 1, usque ad fincm.
PLINY, iv. Epist. 11.
33 2 Materials and Models
DEFENCE AGAINST THE IMPUTATION OF HAVING
WRITTEN A PERSONAL SATIRE.
WHY in God's name must a portrait apparently collected from
twenty different men, be applied to one only 1 Has it his
eye ? no, it is very unlike. Has it his nose or mouth 1 no, they are
totally differing. What then, I beseech you ? Why, it has the mole
on his chin. Very well, but must the picture therefore be his, and
has no other man that blemish 1 Could there be a more melancholy
instance how much the taste of the public is vitiated, and turns the
most salutary and seasonable physic into poison, than if, amidst the
blaze of a thousand bright qualities in a great man, they shall only
remark there is a shadow about him, as what eminence is without 1
I am confident the author was incapable of imputing any such to
one whose whole life, to use his own expression in print of him, is
a continued series of good and generous actions. I know no man
who would be more concerned if he gave the least pain or offence to
any innocent person \ and none who would be less concerned if the
satire were challenged by any one at whom he would really aim
it. If ever that happens, I dare engage he will own it, with all the
freedom of one whose censures are just, and who sets his name to
them. Popds Letters.
HORAT. Sermon. I. iii. 25-75 ; I. iv.
ON THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 IN PARIS.
THEY manage more artistically in Paris. We are now at the
2 7 tli of February, and as the curtain rises for the second
time, we behold the preparations of a fete. The Republic is to
be proclaimed, and the proclamation is to be made to music, with
processions, and all the properties usual in such cases. France is
blessed with a Republic, and the people are satisfied ; that is to say,
For Latin Prose Epistolary. 333
as satisfied as they can be without money and work. The mob, in
more senses than one, has become its own master. At the same
moment that it threw off its monarch, it got rid of its employers.
What of that? "The Republic owes bread and the provision of
labour to all her children. She takes the solemn obligation to pro
vide it." The question of work being " of supreme importance," a
permanent commission is appointed to enable men to live without
working at all : an original idea, not to be found in any tragedy or
farce. And now all goes merrily on. The high-born are down,
the low-born are up. Jack is as good as his master. Liberty,
equality, and fraternity are established ; every man is to love his
neighbour better than himself ; selfishness has been put out by an
universal extinguisher ; a political millennium has been reached by
one tremendous effort in a single day. A government is indeed
hardly required for a people so thoroughly disposed to stifle selfish-
ness, and to find pleasure in the comfort and well-doing of one
another; but, in compliance with antiquated notions, a government,
as we saw, was formed, and now a National Assembly is summoned.
CICERO, ad Atticum, xiv. 12, 14; ix. 9. Ad FamiL xvi. 11, 12.
MISTAKES OF FOREIGNERS ABOUT ENGLISH OPINION.
I HAVE often been astonished, considering that we are divided
from you but by a slender dyke of about twenty-four miles,
and that the mutual intercourse between the two countries has
lately been very great, to find how little you seem to know of us.
I suspect that this is owing to your forming a judgment of this
nation from certain publications which do very erroneously, if they
do at all, represent the opinions and dispositions generally prevalent
in England. The vanity, restlessness, petulance, and spirit of in-
trigue of several petty cabals, who attempt to hide their total want
334 Materials and Models
of consequence in bustle and noise, and puffing and mutual quota-
tion of each other, makes you imagine that our contemptuous
neglect of their abilities is a general mark of acquiescence in their
opinions. No such thing, I assure you. Because half-a-dozen
grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importu-
nate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposing beneath the
shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not
imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of
the field ; that, of course, they are many in number ; or that after
all they are other than the little, shrivelled, meagre, hopping,
though loud and troublesome insects of the hour. Burke.
CICEEO, ad Famil. ix. 2.
THE VALENTIN DESCRIBED.
GENEVA, Oct. 7///, 1638.
MADAME, For your sake I have examined the Valentin
with more attention than I ever paid to anything else.
And since you desire that I should give you a description of it, I
will do so with the greatest exactitude of which I am capable. The
Valentin, madame, is a house, situated about a quarter of a league
from Turin, situated in a meadow, and on the banks of the Po.
On first arriving, you perceive may I die if I can tell what it is
you perceive on first arriving ! I believe it is a flight of steps : no,
no, it is a portico : I am mistaken, it is a flight of steps. By my
faith, I know not whether it be a flight of steps or a portico ! It is
but an hour ago that I knew the whole thing admirably, and my
memory has failed me. On my way back, I will inform myself
better, and I will not fail to send you a full report. I am, etc.
PLINY, Epist. i. 3
For Latin Prose Epistolary. 335
W. COWPER TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.
December ^th, 1784.
MY DEAR FRIEND, You have my hearty thanks for a very
good barrel of oysters : which necessary acknowledgment
once made, I might perhaps show more kindness by cutting short
an epistle, than by continuing one, in which you are not likely to
find your account either in the way of information or amusement.
The season of the year, indeed , is not very friendly to such com-
munications. A damp atmosphere and a sunless sky will have
their effect upon the spirits; and when the spirits are checked,
farewell to all hope of being good company, either by letter or
otherwise. I envy those happy voyagers who, with so much ease,
ascend to regions unsullied with a cloud, and date their epistles
from an extramuridane situation. No wonder if they outshine us
who poke about in the dark below, in the vivacity of their sallies,
as much as they soar above us in their excursions. Not but that I
should be very sorry to go to the clouds for wit \ on the contrary,
I am satisfied that I discover more by continuing where I am.
Every man to his business. Their vocation is, to see fine prospects,
and to make pithy observations upon the world below ; such as
these, for instance : that the earth, beheld from a height that one
trembles to think of, has the appearance of a circular plain that
England is a very rich and cultivated country, in which every
man's property is ascertained by the hedges that intersect the lands ;
and that London and Westminster, seen from the neighbourhood of
the moon, make but an insignificant figure. I admit the utility of
these remarks; but in the meantime, as I say, chacun a son gout ;
and mine is rather to creep than fly ; and to carry with me, if
possible, an unbroken neck to the grave. I remain, as ever, your
affectionate, WM. COWPER.
CICERO, ad Atticum, vii. 3. Ad Famil vii. 32, 10.
PLINY, Epist. vii. 5.
336 Materials and Models
COWPER TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.
December 2ist, 1780.
I ANNEX a long thought in verse for your perusal. It was pro-
duced about last Midsummer, but I never could prevail with
myself, till now, to transcribe it. You have bestowed some com-
mendations on a certain poem now in the press, and they, I suppose,
have at least animated me to the task. If human nature may be
compared to a piece of tapestry (and why not?), then human nature,
as it subsists in me., though it is sadly faded on the right side,
retains all its colour on the wrong. I am pleased with commenda-
tion, and though not passionately desirous of indiscriminate praise,
or what is generally called popularity, yet when a judicious friend
claps me on the back, I own I find it an encouragement. At this
season of the year, and in this gloomy, uncomfortable climate, it is
no easy matter for the owner of a mind like mine to divert it from
sad subjects, and fix it upon such as may administer to its amuse-
ment. Poetry, above all things, is useful to me in this respect.
Don't be alarmed. I ride Pegasus with a curb. He will never run
away with me again. Yours., WM. COWPER.
CiCERO, ad Quintum Fralrem, iii. .5, 6.
PLINY, Epist. iv. 14.
LETTER IN DESPONDENCY, TO A FRIEND AT A
DISTANCE.
IT is true that I write to you .very seldom, and have no pretence
of writing which satisfies me, because I have nothing to say
that can give you much pleasure, only merely that I am in being,
which in truth is of little consequence to one from whose conversa-
tion I am cut off by such accidents or engagements as separate us.
Are we never to live together more as we once did ? I find my life
For Latin Prose Epistolary. 337
ebbing apace, and my affections strengthening as my age increases.
Not that I am worse, in truth I am better, in my health than last
winter ; but my mind finds no amendment or improvement, nor
support to lean upon from those about me. And so I find myself
leaving the world as fast as it leaves me. Companions I have
enough, friends few, and those too warm in the concerns of the
world for me to keep pace with ; or else so divided from me that
they are but like the dead, whose remembrance I hold in honour.
I hear of what passes in the busy world with so little attention that
I forget it the next day, and as to the learned world there is
nothing passes in it. I have no more to add but that I am with
the same truth as ever yours.
CICERO, ad Famil. v. 15. xiv. 4. Ad Atticum. ii. 6.
DISCONTENT AT THE SPIOKTNESS OF LIFE,
IN proportion as the years both lessen and shorten, I set more
count upon their periods, and would fain lay my ineffectual
finger upon the spoke of the great wheel. I am not content to pass
away " like a weaver's shuttle," These metaphors solace me not,
nor sweeten the unpalatable draught of mortality. I care not to
be earned with the tide that smoothly bears human life to eternity,
and which is the inevitable course of destiny. I am in love with
this green earth ; the face of town and country \ the unspeakable
rural solitude, and the sweet security of streets. I would set up
my tabernacle here. I am content to stand still at the age to which
I am arrived : I, and my friends ; to be no younger, no richer, no
handsomer. I dp not want to be wearied by age, or drop like
mellow fruit, as they say, into the grave. Any alteration on this
earth of mine, in diet or in lodging, puzzles and discomposes me.
z
338 Materials and Models
My household gods plant a terrible, fixed foot, and are not rooted
up without blood. They do not willingly seek Lavinian shores.
A new state of being staggers me.
ClCERO, ad Quintum Fratrem, i. 3. Ad Famil. xiv. 4.
Ad Atticum, iii. 7. HORACE, Carm. ii. 14.
LIFE COMPARED TO A VOYAGE.
I HAVE often been thinking that this voyage to Italy might
properly enough be compared to the common stages and
journey of life. At our setting out through France, the pleasures
that we find, like those of our youth, are of the gay fluttering kind,
which grow by degrees, as we advance towards Italy, more solid,
manly, and rational, but attain not their full perfection till we
reach Eome : from which point we no sooner turn homewards, than
they begin again gradually to decline, and, though sustained for a
while in some degree of vigour, through the other stages and cities
of Italy, yet dwindle at last into weariness and fatigue, and a desire
to be at home ; where the traveller finishes his course, as the old
man does his days, with the usual privilege of being tiresome to his
friends by a perpetual repetition of past adventures.
SENECA, Epist. Moral. Ixxvii. (first part) Dialog, lib. vi. c. 17.
COUNTRY NEIGHBOURS.
I HAVE now changed the scene from the town to the country ;
from "Will's coffee-house to Windsor Forest. I find no other
difference than this, betwixt the common town-wits, and the down-
right country fools, that the first are pertly in the wrong, with a
little more flourish and gaiety ; and the last neither in the right nor
in the wrong, but confirmed in a stupid settled medium betwixt
both. However, methinks, those are most in the right, who quietly
and easily resign themselves over to the gentle reign of dulness,
For Latin Prose Epistolary. 339
which the wits must do at last, tho' after a great deal of noise and
resistance. Ours are a sort of modest inoffensive people, who
neither have sense nor pretend to any, but enjoy a jovial sort of
dulness. They are commonly known in the world by the name of
honest civil gentlemen. They live, much as they ride, at ran-
dom ; a kind of hunting life, pursuing with hazard and earnestness
something not worth the catching ; never in the way, nor out of it.
I can't but prefer solitude to the company of all these ; for tho' a
man's self may possibly be the worst fellow to converse with in the
world, yet one would think the company of a person whom we
have the greatest regard to and affection for, could not be very
unpleasant. Pope.
CICERO, pro Plancio, 22. SENECA, de Tranquil, c. xv.
PLINY, Epist. i. 9. ii. 9.
EDMUND GIBBON, ESQ., TO DR. ROBERTSON.
SIR, I am perfectly sensible of the very flattering distinction I
have received in your thinking me worthy of so noble a
present as that of your *' History of America." I have, however,
suffered my gratitude to be under some suspicion by delaying my
acknowledgment of so great a favour \ but my delay was only to
render my obligation to you more complete, my thanks to you, if
possible, more merited. The close of the session brought a great
deal of very troublesome, though not very important, business upon
me at once. I could not go through your work at one breath at
that time, though I have done it since. I am now enabled to thank
you, not only for the honour you have done me, but for the great
satisfaction, and the infinite variety and compass of instruction I
have received from your incomparable work. Every thing has been
done which was so naturally to be expected from the author of the
" History of Scotland," and the "Age of Charles the Fifth."
PLINY, Epist. iii. 20. CICERO, ad Famil. v. 12.
340 Materials and Models
DEATH IN WAR NOT TO BE SPECIALLY DEPLORED.
I SHOULD be sorry to think that what engrosses the attention
of my friend, should have no part of mine. Your mind is
now full of the fate of Dury ; but his fate is past, and nothing re-
mains but to try what reflection will suggest to mitigate the terrors
of a violent death, which is more formidable at the first glance,
than on a nearer and more steady view. A violent death is never
very painful : the only danger is, lest it should be unprovided.
But if a man can be supposed to make no provision for death in
war, what can be the state that would have awakened him to the
care of futurity ? When would that man have prepared himself to
die, who went to seek death without preparation ? What then can
be the reason why we lament more him that dies of a wound, than
him that dies of a fever 1 A man that languishes with disease, ends
his life with more pain, but with less virtue : he leaves no example
to his friends, nor bequeaths any honour to his descendants. The
only reason why we lament a soldier's death, is, that we think lie
might have lived longer \ yet this cause of grief is common to many
other kinds of death, which are not. so passionately bewailed.
PLIKY, Epist. T. 16. SENECA, Dialog, vi. c. 20.
HORACE, C'anw. iii. 2,
TO HIS MOTHER, ON THE DEATH OF HIS AUNT.
THE unhappy news I have just received from you equally
surprises and afflicts me. I have lost a person I loved very
much and have been used to from my infancy ; but am much more
concerned for your loss, the circumstances of which I forbear to
For Latin Prose Epistolary. 341
clwell upon, as you must be too sensible of them yourself and will,
I fear, more and more need a consolation which no one can give
except He who has preserved her to you so many years, and at last
when it was His pleasure has taken her from us to Himself : and
perhaps if we reflect upon what she felt in this life, we may look
upon this as an instance of His goodness both to her, and to those
that loved her. She might have languished many years before our
eyes in a continual increase of pain and totally helpless ; .she might
have long wished to end her misery without being able to attain it ;
or perhaps even lost all sense and yet continued to breathe ; a sad
spectacle to such as must have felt more for her than she could
have done for herself. However you may deplore your own loss,
yet think that she is at last easy and happy ; and has now more
occasion to pity us than we her. I hope and beg you will support
yourself with that resignation we owe to Him, who gave us our
being for our good, and who deprives us of it for the same reason.
I would have come to you directly, but you do not say whether
you desire I should or not ; if you do, I beg I may know it, for
there is nothing to hinder me, and I am in very good health.
Gray.
CICERO, ad Famil. vi, 3 ; iv. 5.
A COUNTRY SCENE.
WE amused ourselves next day, every one to his fancy, till
nine of the clock, when word was brought that the tea-
table was set in the library, which is a gallery on a ground-floor,
with an arched door at one end opening into a walk of limes,
where, as soon as we had drank tea, w r e were tempted by fine
weather to take a walk, which led us to a small mount of easy
ascent, on the top whereof we found a seat under a spreading tree.
Here w T e had a prospect on one hand of a narrow bay or creek of
34 2 Materials and Models
the sea, inclosed on either side by a coast beautified with rocks and
woods, and green banks and farm-houses. At the end of the bay
was a small town placed upon the slope of a hill, which, from the
advantage of its situation, made a considerable figure. Several
fishing-boats and lighters, gliding up and down on a surface as
smooth and bright as glass, enlivened the prospect. On the other
side, we looked down on green pastures, flocks, and herds, basking
beneath in sunshine, while we in our superior situation enjoyed the
freshness of air and shade. Here we felt that sort of joyful instinct
which a rural scene and fine weather inspire ; and proposed no small
pleasure in resuming and continuing our conference without interrup-
tion till dinner ; but we had hardly seated ourselves, and looked
about us, when we saw a fox run by the foot of our mount into an
adjacent thicket. A few minutes after we heard a confused noise of
the opening of hounds, the winding of horns, and the roaring of
country squires. "While our attention was suspended by this event,
a servant came running out of breath, and told Crito that his
neighbour Ctesippus, a squire of note, was fallen from his horse
attempting to leap over a hedge, and brought into the hall, where
he lay for dead. Upon which we all rose and walked hastily to
the house, where we found Ctesippus just come to himself.
FLTNY, Epist. v. 0. CICERO, de Ojficiis. iii. 58.
PLISY, Epist. ii. 17; vii. 8 ; ix. 7. ; ix. 36.
DESCRIPTION OF THE BOCAGE.
THIS country differs in its aspect, and still more in the manners
of the inhabitants, from most of the other provinces of
France. It is formed in general of small hills, unconnected with
any chain of mountains. The valleys are neither deep nor wide ;
inconsiderable streams run through them in various directions,
towards the Loire, or the sea ; others uniting, form small rivers.
For Latin Prose Epistolary. 343
Granite rocks appear everywhere. It may easily be conceived that
a country without either chains of mountains, rivers, extensive
valleys, or even a general slope, forms a sort of labyrinth. You
scarcely find any hill sufficiently elevated above the others to serve
for a point of observation, or to command the country. Approach-
ing Nantes along the Sevre, the country assumes an aspect of more
grandeur. The hills are more elevated and steeper. The river is
rapid, and flows between high banks ; and the general appearance
becomes wild instead of rural.
The eastern part of the Bocage is comparatively level and open.
The whole country, as may be supposed from the name, is well
wooded, although without extensive forests. Each field or meadow,
generally small, is fenced with a quickset hedge, and trees very
close together, not high nor spreading, the branches being lopped
off every five years twelve or fifteen feet above ground. The soil
is not fertile in grain ; and being often left untilled, becomes covered
with broom and furze. There is much grass land and pasture, and
the landscape is in general very green, and varied with many dwell-
ings and farm-houses, the flat-tile roofs of which, together with the
steeples of churches, peep here and there through the trees : the
view, in general bounded, extends occasionally to a few leagues.
PLINY, Epist. v. 6 ; ii. 17.
ATJSONIUS, Idyll. Mosella, x.
VISIT TO THE ALHAMBRA.
WE now found ourselves in a deep narrow ravine, filled with
beautiful groves, with a steep avenue, and various footpaths
winding through it, bordered with stone seats, and ornamented
with fountains. To our left we beheld the towers of the Alhambra
beetling above us ; to our right, on the opposite side of the ravine,
we were equally dominated by rival towers on a rocky eminence.
344 Materials and Models
These, we were told, were the Torres Vermejos, or Vermilion Towers,
so called from their ruddy hue. No one knows their origin. They
are of date anterior to the Alhambra \ some suppose them to have
been built by the Romans, others by some wandering colony of
Phoenicians. Ascending the steep and shady avenue, we arrived at
the foot of a huge square Moorish tower, forming a kind of barbican,
through which passed the main entrance to the fortress. Within
the barbican was another group of veteran invalids, one mounting
guard at the portal while the rest, wrapped in their tattered cloaks,
slept on the stone benches. This portal is called the Gate of Jus-
tice, from the tribunal held within its porch during the Moslem
domination for the immediate trial of petty causes, a custom com-
mon to the Oriental nations, and occasionally alluded to in the
sacred Scriptures. W. Irving.
TACITUS, Hist. v. c. 11 ; ii. c. 3. PLINY, Epist. ii. 17.
DESCRIPTION OF SPRINGS AT HOLYWELL.
THE road from hence is remarkably picturesque along a little
valley, bounded on one side by hanging woods, beneath
which the stream hurries towards the sea. Its origin is discovered
at the foot of a steep hill, beneath the town of Holywell, to which
it gave the name. The spring boils with vast impetuosity out of a
rock, and is formed into a beautiful polygonal well, covered with a
rich arch supported by pillars. The roof is most exquisitely carved
in stone. Over this spring is a chapel, of the same date with the
other building, a neat piece of architecture, but in a very ruinous
state. There are two different opinions about the origin of this
stream. One party makes it miraculous ; the other asserts it to be
owing only to natural causes. The waters are indisputably endowed
with every good quality attendant on cold baths, and multitudes
have here experienced the good effects that thus result from natural
qualities implanted in the several parts of matter by the Divine
Providence in order to fulfil His will. The spring is certainly one
For Latin Prose Epistolary. 345
of the finest in these kingdoms, and by the trials and calculations
lately made for my information is found to fling out about twenty-
one tons of water in a minute. It never freezes, and scarcely varies
in the quantity of water in droughts, or after the greatest rains.
After a violent fall of wet, it becomes discoloured by a wheyey
tinge. The stream formed by this fountain runs with a rapid
course to the sea, which it reaches in little more than a mile's
distance. The situation of the town is pleasant and healthy. The
back is a lofty hill, at times extremely productive of lead ore.
Towards the sea is a pretty valley bounded by woods ; the end
finishes on one side with the venerable abbey. To such as require
the use of a cold bath few places are more proper, for, besides the
excellence of the water, exceeding good medical assistance, and
comfortable accommodations may be found here, and the mind
entertained, and the body exercised in a variety of beautiful rides
and walks.
PLINY, Epist. viii. 8; ii. 17 ; iv. 30; v. 6; vi. 31 ; ix. 39.
SCENERY OF COMO AND THE VILLA PLINIANA
DESCRIBED.
SI^CE I last wrote to you we have been to Como looking for a
house. This lake exceeds anything I ever beheld in beauty,
with the exception of the arbutus islands of Killarney. It is long
and narrow, and has the appearance of a mighty river winding
among the mountains and the forests. We sailed from the town of
Como to a tract of country called the Tremezina, and saw the
various aspects presented by that part of the lake. The mountains
between Como and that village, or rather cluster of villages, are
covered on high with chestnut forests (the eating chestnuts, on
which the inhabitants of the country subsist in time of scarcity,)
which sometimes descend to the very verge of the lake, overhanging
it with their hoary branches. But usually the immediate border
of this shore is composed of laurel trees, and bay, and myrtle, and
346 Materials and Models
wild fig trees, and olives, which, grow in the crevices of the rocks,
and overhang the caverns, and shadow the deep glens, which are
filled with the flashing light of the water-falls. Other flowering
shrubs, of which I know not the name, grow there also. On high
the towers of village churches are seen white among the dark
forests. Beyond, on the opposite shore, which faces the south, the
mountains descend less precipitously to the lake, and although they
are much higher, and some covered with perpetual snow, there
intervenes between them and the lake a range of lower hills, which
have glens and rifts opening to the other, such as I should fancy
the " abysses " of Ida or Parnassus. Here are plantations of olive,
orange, and lemon trees which are now so loaded with fruit that
there is more fruit than leaves and vineyards.
PLINY, Epi&t. v. 6 ; vi. 31 ; ii. 17, 7, 39 ; iv. 30.
ANSONIUS, Idyll, Mosella, x. 152, sqq.
STATIUS, Silvarwn, lib. I. iii. 1-110; lib. II. ii. 1-132.
.SCENERY OF CO MO AND THE VILLA PLINIANA
DESCRIBED. ( Continued. )
THIS shore of the lake is one continued village, and the
Milanese nobility have their villas here. The union of
culture and the untameable profusion and loveliness of nature is
here so close that the line where they are divided can hardly be
discovered. But the finest scenery is that of the Villa Pliniana,
so-called from a fountain which ebbs and flows every three hours,
described by the young Pliny, which is in the court-yard. This
house, which was once a magnificent palace, and is now half in
ruins, we are endeavouring to procure. It is built upon terraces
raised from the bottom of the lake, together with its garden at
the foot of a semi-circular precipice, overshadowed by profound
forests of chestnut. The scene from the colonnade is the most ex-
traordinary, at once, and the most lovely that eye ever beheld. On
For Latin Prose Epistolary. 347
one side is the mountain, and immediately over you are clusters of
cypress-trees of an astonishing height, which seem to pierce the
sky. Above you, from among the clouds, as it were, descends a
water-fall of immense size, broken by the woody rocks into a thou-
sand channels to the lake. On the other side is seen the blue
extent of the lake and the mountains speckled with sails and spires.
The apartments of the Pliniana are immensely large, but ill-furnished
and antique. The terraces, which overlook the lake, and conduct
under the shade of such immense laurel-trees as deserve the epithet
of Pythian, are most delightful. We staid at Como two days, and
have now returned to Milan, waiting the issue of our negotiation
about a house. Como is only six leagues from Milan, and its
mountains are seen from the cathedral. Shelley.
PLINY, Epist. v. 6 ; vi. 31 ; ii. 17, 7, 39 ; iv, 30.
ANSONIUS, Idyll, Mosella, x. 152, sqq.
STATIUS, Silvarum, lib. I. iii. 1-110; lib. II. ii. 1-132.
HAMLET AND THE GHOST.
AT the sight of his father's spirit, Hamlet was struck with a
sudden surprise and fear. He at first called upon the angels
and heavenly ministers to defend them, for he knew not whether it
were a good spirit or bad ; whether it came for good or for evil :
but he gradually assumed more courage : and his father (as it
seemed to him) looked upon him so piteously, and as it were de-
siring to have conversation with him, and did in all respects appear
so like himself as he was when he lived, that Hamlet could not
help addressing him : he called him by his name Hamlet, King,
Father ! and conjured him that he would tell the reason why he
had left his grave, where they had seen him quietly bestowed, to
come again and visit the earth and the moonlight : and besought
him that he would let them know if there was anything which
they could do to give peace to his. spirit. And the ghost beckoned
348 Materials and Models
to Hamlet that he should go with him to some more removed place,
where they might be alone : and Horatio and Marcellus would have
dissuaded the young prince from following it, for they feared lest it
should he some evil spirit, who would tempt him to the neighbour-
ing sea, or to the top of some dreadful cliff, and there put on some
horrible shape which might deprive the prince of his reason.
61 Lamb.
PLINY, Epist. viii. 27. CICERO, De Divinatione, i. 57-59.
VIRGIL, ^Endd. ii. 270, sqg. ; iii. 148, sqq. ; i. 353.
DESCRIPTION OF THE CAMPAGNA OF ROME UNDER
EVENING LIGHT.
T)ERHAPS there is no more impressive scene on earth than the
JL solitary extent of the Campagna of Home under evening
light. Let the reader imagine himself for a moment withdrawn
from the sounds and motion of the living world, and sent forth
alone into this wild and wasted plain. The earth yields and
crumbles beneath his foot, tread he never so lightly, for its substance
is white, hollow, and carious, like the dusty wreck of the bones of
men. The long knotted grass waves and tosses feebly in the even-
ing wind, and the shadows of its motion shake feverishly along the
banks of ruin that lift themselves to the sunlight. Hillocks of
mouldering earth heave around him, as if the dead beneath were
struggling in their sleep ; scattered blocks of black stone, four-
square, remnants of mighty edifices, not one left upon another, lie
upon them to keep them down. A dull purple, poisonous haze
stretches level along the desert, veiling its spectral wrecks of mossy
ruins, on whose rents the red light rests like lying fire on defiled
altars. The blue ridge of the Alban mount lifts itself against a
solemn space of green, clear, quiet sky. Watchtowers of dark
clouds stand steadfastly along the promontories of the Apennines.
For Latin Prose Epistolary. 349
From the plain to the mountains, the shattered aqueducts, pier be-
yond pier, melt into the darkness, like shadowy and countless
troops of funeral mourners passing from a nation's grave. Buskin.
LIVY, xxii. c, 31.
DREAM OF THE OPIUM EATER.
MY dream commenced with a music which now I often heard
in dreams a music of preparation and of awakening
suspense ; a music like the opening of the coronation anthem,
and which, like that, gave the feeling of a vast march, of infinite
cavalcades filing off, and the tread of innumerable armies. The
morning was come of a mighty day, a day of crisis and of final
hope for human nature, then suffering some mysterious eclipse
and labouring in some dread extremity. Somewhere I knew
not where, somehow I knew not how, by some beings I knew
not whom, a battle, a strife, an agony was conducting, was
evolving like a great drama or piece of music, with which my
sympathy was the more insupportable from my confusion as to its
place, its course, its nature, and its probable issue. I, as is usual
in dreams (where, of necessity, we make ourselves central to every
movement), had the power, and yet had not the power, to decide it.
I had the power, if I could raise myself to will it ; and yet again
had not the power, for the weight of twenty Atlantics was upon
me, or the oppression of inexpiable guilt. " Deeper than ever
plummet sounded," I lay inactive. Then like a chorus the passion
deepened. Some greater interest was at stake ; some mightier cause
than ever yet the sword had pleaded or trumpet had proclaimed.
Then came sudden alarms, hurryings to and fro, trepidations of innu-
merable fugitives I knew not whether from the good cause or the
bad ; darkness and lights ; tempests and human faces ; and at last,
with the sense that all was lost, female forms, and the features that
were worth all the world to me, and but a moment allowed ; and
clasped hands, and heartbreaking partings, and then everlasting
350 Materials and Models
farewells ! and with a sigh such as the caves of hell sighed when
the incestuous mother uttered the abhorred name of Death, the
sound was reverberated everlasting farewells ! and again and yet
again reverberated everlasting farewells ! And I awoke in struggles,
and cried aloud, " I will sleep no more ! " De Quincey.
CICERO, Somnium Scipionis, 1, sqq.
VIRGIL, ^En. v. 580-595 ; vi. 364, sqq. ; ii. 622, sqq. ; vii. 50, sqq. ;
xii. 328, sqq. LlVY, i. c. 29.
FALSIFICATION IN ART NECESSARY FOR THE SAKE
OF EFFECT.
NOT all that is optically possible to be seen is to be shown
in every picture. The eye delightedly dwells upon the
brilliant individualities in a Marriage at Cana by Veronese or
Titian, to the very texture and colour of the wedding garments,
the rings glittering upon the bride's fingers, the metal and fashion
of the wine-pots ; for at such seasons there is leisure and luxury to
be curious. But in a " Day of Judgment," or in a " Day of lesser
horrors yet divine," as at the impious Feast of Belshazzar, the eye
should see as the actual eye of an agent or patient in tlie immediate
scene would see, only in masses and indistinction. Not only the
female attire and jewelry exposed to the critical eye of fashion, as
minutely as the dresses in a lady's magazine, in the criticised pic-
ture, but perhaps the curiosities of anatomical science, and studied
diversities of posture in the fallen angels and sinners of Michael
Angelo, have no business in their great subjects. There was no
leisure for them. By a wise falsification, the great masters of paint-
ing got at their true conclusions : by not showing the actual ap-
pearances, that is, all that was to be seen at any given moment by
an indifferent eye, but only what the eye might be supposed to see
in the doing or suffering of some portentious action. Suppose the
moment of the swallowing up of Pompeii. There they were to be
For Latin Prose Epistolary. 351
seen houses, columns, architectural proportions, differences of pub-
lic and private buildings, men and women at their standing occupa-
tions, the diversified thousand postures, attitudes, dresses, in some
confusion truly, but physically they were visible. But what eye
saw them at that eclipsing moment which reduces confusion to a
kind of unity, and when the senses are upturned from their pro-
prieties, when sight and hearing are a feeling only ? A thousand
years have passed, and we are at leisure to contemplate the weaver
fixed standing at his shuttle, the baker at his oven, and to turn over
with antiquarian coolness the pots and pans of Pompeii.
CICERO, Academ. lib. iv. 20.
THE FAUN OF PRAXITELES.
THE faun is the marble image of a young man, leaning his right
arm on the trunk or stump of a tree; one hand hangs carelessly
by his side ; in the other he holds the fragment of a pipe, or some
such sylvan instrument of music. His only garment a lion's skin
with the claws upon his shoulder falls half-way down his back,
leaving the limbs and entire front of the figure nude. The form
thus displayed is marvellously graceful, but has a fuller and more
rounded outline, more flesh and less of heroic muscle than the old
sculptors were wont to assign to their types of masculine beauty.
The character of the face corresponds with the figure : it is most
agreeable in outline and feature, but rounded and somewhat volup-
tuously developed, especially about the throat and chin ; the nose
is almost straight, but very slightly curves inward, thereby acquir-
ing an indescribable charm of geniality and humour. The mouth,
with its full yet delicate lips, seems so nearly to smile outright that
it calls forth a responsive smile. The whole statue, unlike anything
else that was ever wrought in that severe material of marble, con-
veys the idea of an amiable and sensual creature, easy, mirthful,
352 Materials and Models.
apt for jollity, yet not incapable of being touched by pathos. It
is impossible to gaze long at this stone image without conceiving a
kindly sentiment towards it, as if its substance were warm to the
touch, and imbued with actual life. Hawthorne.
PLINY, Epist. iii. 6.
WILD AND MELANCHOLY CHARACTER OF SOUTH
ITALIAN SCENERY.
WE are accustomed to hear the South of Italy spoken of as a
very beautiful country. Its mountain forms are graceful
above others, its sea bays exquisite in outline and hue ; but it is
only beautiful in superficial aspect : in closer detail it is wild and
melancholy. Its forests are sombre-leaved, labyrinth-stemmed ; the
olive, laurel, and ilex are alike in that strange, feverish twisting of
their branches, as if in spasms of half-human pain, Avernus forests.
One fears to break their boughs, lest they should cry to us from the
rents. The rocks they shade are of ashes of thrice-molten lava, iron
sponge, whose every pore has been filled with fire. Silent villages,
earthquake-shaken, without commerce, without industry, without
knowledge, without hope, gleam in white ruin from hill-side to hill-
side ; far-winding wrecks of immemorial walls surround the dust of
cities long forsaken ; the mountain streams moan through the cold
arches of their foundations, green with weed, and rage over the
heaps of their fallen towers. Rusk in.
SEXECA, Nat. Qitcest. iii. c. 10-29; vi. c. 9 28, 29.
VIRGIL, ^En. iii. 19, sqq. OVID, Mctam. viii. 741, sqq.
INDEX,
PAGE
ABOUT ten miles from Ariminum. ........ . .- . . <, 30
About thirty-two years before that event, the Emperor 65
According to some speculators, -those seas - 322
A celebrated ancient orator, of whose poems . 276
A character so exalted, so strenuous 138
Afric is indeed a country of wonderful fertility . . . . . ... 105
Against all these accomplishments of a finished orator . . . . . . 132
Agrigentum excels all other cities .- 92
All composure of mind was now for ever fled . 71
All this in effect, I think, but I am not sure 196
All this is true. A number of nations . . . 117
Almost all poets, except those who were not able to eat 275
A long conference ensued, -from which the Spanish general ..... 66
A man of moderate desires hath infinitely fewer wants 269
A miserable village still preserves the name of Salona 95
A modern tyrant, who should find no resistance . 114
Ancient lawgivers studied the nature of man 289
And now, gentlemen, on this serious day, when I come .- 202
And now, having done my duty to the bill 227
And now, my lords, in what a situation are we all placed 154
Another virtue of an heroic poem 309
Antiquarianism is the knowledge of the past . . . .- . . . . . 301
Aristides knew no cause, but that of justice 142
As already stated, two strong structures 98
A soldier from his earliest youth 216
As soon as the approach of the troops was announced- 58
As soon as the gloom began to disperse 44
As the light streamed up towards heaven- 100
As the proofs of Antonio's guilt were manifest 63
As to the wealth which the colonies have drawn 194
A tempestuous night closed the memorable day 21
At sight of his father's furious and unrelenting countenance .... 45
At such times, society, distracted by the conflict 290
At times, even in this hopeless situation 89
At the hour of midnight the impetuous multitude 59
A A.
354 Index.
PAOB
At the sight of his father's spirit, Hamlet was struck 347
At the sight of the enemy those who had not already passed .... 30
Augustus pointed to the sacrifice he had made 91
A wise man places his happiness as little as possible 78
A year had hardly elapsed when arrangements were made 89
BANNER at length terminated his career at Halberstadt 129
Before the sweeping pursuit of his Numidians 56
Beside the principles of which we consist 234
Be this as it may, it remains an unquestionable 319
Briefly, the Oracles went out lamp after lamp 261
But all feeling or remembrance of this loss and danger 39
But all these things are inconsiderable . . 232
But as the Stoics exalted human nature too high 261
But flushed with victory, impatient for the slaughter 14
But further, Hamilcar was not only a military chief ........ 83
But if he was a bountiful master 126
But if I profess all this impolitic stubbornness 176
But if there are yet existing any people like me . . . .. . . . 164
But if they will still be meddling with atoms 258
But if we lift o\ir eyes and minds towards heaven 260
But in opposition to them, Bonnivet, whose destiny 61
But nothing could reconcile the haughty spirit 63
But since civilization has connected all the nations 316
But the Americans must now be heard 205
But the garrison, fearing that they should not be able 3
But there must still be a large number of the people 197
But the tears that were shed for Pompey 144
But they tell us that those fellow-citizens 198
But under the English government all this order is reversed . . . . 210
But while Cicero stands justly charged 147
But while Lorenzo seemed to be sunk in luxury 48
But while we thus control even our feelings by our duty 168
But who gave Robespierre the power of being a tyrant 180
By a series of criminal enterprises 162
CATILINE had kept his seat throughout 88
Chatham's genius, like Burke's, burnt brightest 303
ELATE with their own escape, they deemed themselves 42
England, as you know, is governed by Pitt 183
Epaminondas was born and educated 142
Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure 267
FIGURES and metaphors should, upon no occasion 308
For as it was said by a great orator of antiquity 174
Fortunately for mankind the more useful 280
Index. 355
PAOK
For two centuries, the history of the British possessions 113
From the time of the consul Mummius, who 113
From what has now been said, gentlemen 179
Full of knowledge and wisdom, tried in the great struggles .... 186
GENEEAL LABOISSIEEE, who led the van 33
Gentlemen, 1 stand up in this contest against the friends 153
HARD by the banks of the Tiber 96
He held likewise the immortality of the soul . . 239
Hence that unexampled unanimity which distinguishes ^ 162
Here at our feet lay the Trasimene 15
He resolved, in the gloomy recesses of a mind . . . . . . 167
Here, therefore, we are to enter upon one 200
Here was a trial, painful, unexpected, sudden . . . ... . . . 79
He saw all his mistakes at last " 285
He sketched his various wars, victories, and treaties of peace . . . . 67
He was an honourable man, and a sound politician . 134
He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge . . . . 121
He was slenderly furnished with fancy ..136
His mind was in a painful state of perplexity 80
His powerful intellect was ill supplied with knowledge 138
His splendid military successes, so gratifying to Castilian 140
Horace is the poet who is most frequently in our hands 314
How much he lived in Homer's poetical world 82
How to negotiate with a perfect skill never degenerating . . . . . 135
I AM at this present moment writing in a house . . . . . . . . 329
I am convinced that just laws " 184
I am not, nor did I ever pretend to be, a statesman 152
I am very sorry to hear you treat philosophy 264
I annex a long thought in verse . . . . . . . 336
I believe since my coming into this world 241
I believe the duties of the Governor- General . .'. . .. . . . 190
I call heaven and earth to witness, gentlemen 166
I confess my notions are widely different 189
If he who was long the accepted champion 224
If, in the first formation of a civil society 288
If liberty, after being extinguished on the Continent 163
If tears are arguments of cowardice 312
I have always been an idle man 327
have not been considering it 156
have now changed the scene from the town 338
have often been astonished 333
have often been thinking that this voyage to Italy 338
have often thought with myself, that I went on too far 281
I have perused many of their books 283
356 Index.
PAGB
In almost all the other trades and professions 274
In another kingdom indeed the blessings 213
In Cicero's extant correspondence we seem to be present 85
In consequence of this double game 207
In England we have not yet been completely embo welled 187
In order to prove to any one the grandness 252
I now proceed, my lords, to the next 228
In proportion as the years both lessen and shorten 337
Instead of a monarch, jealous, severe, and avaricious 150
In such a predicament braver soldiers might well 17
In summer, when the road is well cleared 31
In that part of Upper Saxony beyond the Elbe 102
In the beginning of the action, the son of Decius 18
In the dead of the night Z and his friends 47
In the death, as in the life of Rienzi 49
In the first stages of the decline and fall of the Roman empire . . . 115
In the interval between his campaigns Agricola 143
In the island of Java there is a small crater 319
In the- mean while, the Turks 27
In the, midst of the night an uproar arose 11
In the present day water-courses no longer assume 315
In the reign of Tiberius, an extraordinary thing 257
In this crisis I must hold my tongue 229
In this person were collected the most opposite defects 123
In truth his Grace is somewhat excusable for his dislike 177
I purpose to write the 'history of England 105
I recollect to have seen a beautiful speech 218
I remember an old scholastic aphorism 279
I should be sorry to think that what engrosses 340
Is there any one so foolish, he asked 321
It hath been noted by divers, that Homer in Poesie 300
I think I may with truth say 302
It is creditable to Charles's temper that 126
It is most unfair to represent as advocates 201
It is not strange that you should be the subject 330
It is possible to be a very great man 139
It is the apprehension of this result 184
It is the prerogative of God alone 250
It is true that I write to you very seldom 336
It is very hard that because you do not get my letters 325
It took two days of disorder, suffering and death 17
It was a bright warm midsummer day 13
It was a monstrous and unnatural period 119
It was clearly the opinion of Homer's age 256
It was natural that some should follow their imagination 236
It was on the morning of this fatal day 43
It was the funeral-day of the late man 70
I will consult my safety so far as I think 206
Index. 357
PAOB
JUST such is the feeling which a man 286
KNOWING- within myself the manner 310
LET the observer of nature consider the rising sun 252
Like Themistocles, he was gifted 148
Lochiel knew with how much difficulty Dundee 20
MADAME, For your sake I have examined the Valentin 334
Man was ever a creature separated from all others 231
Meanwhile the curia was abandoned by the living 50
Meanwhile Titus advanced his engines 5
Monmouth had hitherto done his part 75
Moreover, brutes differ from men in this 246
Mr. G-renville was bred to the law 195
Mr. Sheridan saw nothing great, nothing magnanimous 225
Much of the subsequent clamour in England 108
Mucian's speech in Tacitus contains many important 90
My Dear Friend, You have my hearty thanks 335
My dream commenced with a music 349
My Lords, His Majesty succeeded to an empire 219
My Lords, I do not disguise the intense solicitude 188
NATURE and education had done their best 122
Nero had his social hours, and the temper 125
Never was a nobler spectacle witnessed 22
No man, Anacreon, can rest anywhere 266
Nor is it less easy to develop the character 159
" No, sir," replied I, " I ain for liberty " 293
No sooner did he hear of the intended address 69
Not all that is optically possible to be seen 350
Nothing is more evident than that, besides life 240
Nothing that I can say, or that you can say 202
Notwithstanding the vigour with which the siege 10
Now a multitude bounded up the great breach 12
Now for the services of the sea 315
Now if Nature should intermit her course 324
OF all the men that live in history, there is none 145
Of those who wish for peace, there are two classes 221
One great cause of our insensibility to the goodness 246
One hundred and fifty years after the reign of Honorius 104
One of the best methods of rendering study agreeable 268
One of these explosions of entire summits 317
One would not indeed covet any satisfactions in this life 265
On the other hand, if, leaving the works of nature 254
On the other side, the king's men were not wanting 7
On the second day after his landing 38
358 Index.
PAGE
On the 10th. March, the day preceding the fatal night 46
Our forefathers still live among us in the records 303
PASSING political events are matters of importance 297
Patriotism is, perhaps, not properly to be considered 278
Penal laws, it must be allowed, secure property 208
Perhaps there is no more impressive scene 348
Perhaps there never was a time when augury 223
Poetry, as distinguished from other modes . * 307
Poetry, I take it, is as universally contagious 328
Polybius. You will listen to me if I adduce 291
RECOLLECT for a moment his invasion of Egypt 161
Resistance not only to evil, but to the principle 203
" Roman," said Zenobia, in reply 73
SEEING the foe in front, he marched on 16
Since I last wrote to you we have been to Como 345
Since last I had the honour of addressing you 216
Sir Clement tells me you will shortly come to town 326
Sir, I am perfectly sensible of the very flattering 339
Slowly and stealthily the Indians advanced 28
So great is the uncertainty of posthumous reputation 149
So great was the disparity of numbers Ill
Soldiers! I partake of your chagrin, your grief 174
Sometimes the quarrel between two princes 287
Stephen would have been regarded by all men 127
Such a difference of behaviour in their two greatest leaders .... 84
Such a state of society already trembled 86
Such brave words as these, so many vigorous 68
Such was the care with which 311
TAKE again the case of persons of little intellect 296
That system of morality, even in the times . 272
That there should be more species 248
That we should love the land of our birth . . . , 278
The ancient and modern Epicureans 230
The ancient statesmen well knew the advantages 262
The anxiety of Attila prompted him, to consult 76
The argument of design is 233
The belief that Livy is a credulous 263
The best way to represent to life 271
The Britons were di vided into many small nations 101
The cause speaks for itself 158
The colossal statue of Serapis was involved 93
The conduct of the Protector in foreign affairs 131
The contrivers of the plan took the lead 4
Index. 359
PAGE
The culprit was indeed not unworthy 133
The death of Nelson was felt in England 69
The democracy of Athens may be regarded 292
The Druids were eminent above all 235
The Duke of Alva was inferior to no general of his age 128
The Duke of Wellington left to his countrymen 191
The emperor then inspected the field of battle 24
The fate of Preston was long in suspense 81
The faun is the marble image of a young man ......... 35 1
The foes of Marianne pretended 72
The grant was ratified by the authority 64
The imperial generals, without STiffering 60
The instruments of navigation, too, were but rude ........ 97
The interest of his hearers grew more intense ......... 55
The last resource of the Romans 74
The letter commenced with a passing reference ......... 75
The love of change, gentlemen 178
The members of the country tribes 112
The mention of this man has moved me 221
The mode of attack which Archidamus chiefly relied 3
The monarch took part in the procession 52
The Moors, unshaken by the fury of this assault 10
The mystery of holy shrines lies deep 268
The name of Shakespeare is the greatest 313
The Pallas Athene, like other Olympians 255
The peace of Constance presented a noble opportunity 110
The perfect historian is he in whose work 299
The place was worthy of such a trial 87
The practical use of philosophy, according to Lucretius ..... 243
The present town of Carthagena 92
The prospect which this mansion embraced 96
The protection of the Republic has delivered Gaul 173
There had been an invasion of an enemy's soil 57
There had been nothing like it before in history 109
There is a sort of delight, which is alternately . . . . , . . . . 237
There is, however, one man, who distinctly 175
There is nothing in the boys we send to India 211
There is nothing more memorable in history 123
There is something patriarchal still lingering 328
The republican statesman of ancient Rome 294
There stood the burgomaster 67
There was a panic. The whole royal cavalry wavered 19
There was a silence both in the city and in the field 26
There were in these quarters of the world 251
There were of the Genoese cross-bows 15
The rise of a city which swelled into an empire 116
The road from hence is remarkably picturesque 344
360 Index.
PAGE
The scene, as the fleet passed out of the harbour 37
The sea (they say) shall rise fifteen cubits 323
These northern people were distinguished 103
These preliminaries having been arranged 53
The several irruptions of Arabs 209
The severity of his character 141
The situation of the castle 1
The Spaniard was of a large and powerful frame 54
The squadron of Tancred was completely hid from view 36
The subjects of Xerxes conducted themselves 35
The tidings of despair created a terrible commotion 8
The town was strong, and powerfully garrisoned 6
The two greatest captains of the age 80
The unhappy news I have just received 340
The wisest and greatest of men, both amongst the ancients .... 245
They manage more artistically in Paris 332
They marched in prof ound silence . 28
They perceived,- when it was too late 62
They who have acted, as in France . 215
This country differs in its aspect 342
This, however,- is the very thing which the multitude 179
" This," said^ a philosopher who had heard him 282
This shore of the lake is one continued village 346
This style, which is what we understand 306
This war, which was carried 54
This was Mondragon's last feat of arms 130
Those who have watched from some lofty poiftt 57
Though her own security had been her first object 150
Though no tempest had been felt 34
Though the lower animals have feeling- 249
Time mellows ideas as it mellows wine 273
To be a great orator does not require the highest 305
To such language as this the Tribunes 193
To such opinions Mr. Canning alluded .- 222
To that grand array of aristocratic gravity 165
To the English it was a night of hope and fear 23
To those who have duly estimated the considerations 117
To trace the wild and irregular grandeur of his career 185
Trust me, this unwary pleasantry of thine 331
Two centuries ago the people of this country 204
UNLEAKNED in books, he formed his understanding 124
Upon the death of Louis XIV 106
Upon the question of peace or war 107
WALLENSTEIN had been roused from his first sleep 52
We amused ousel ves next day, every one to his fancy 341
Index. 361
PAGK
We are accustomed to hear the South of Italy 352
"We are all of us condemned to die 284
" We are not here, O invincible Prince " 170
"We are not of that sort, says he, whose mind 242
We do not draw the moral lessons 298
We have lived so many years 257
We have seen in the preceding chapter 99
We know, as we are to be served by men . 214
We now found ourselves in a deep narrow ravine 343
We read, sir, in the history of ancient Rome 157
We sympathize even with the dead 238
What is there, then, ye will say to me 192
What though he has carried the flames of war 160
When he came within view of Sempach 25
When he entered the gates of Moscow 40
When I consider this nation in itself 199
When it was found that neither the priest 41
When my frierid is dead 270
When, some years ago, I came for the first time 182
When the river Amazon overflows 320
Whence does this love of our country ..277
While these three officers were thus deciding 51
Who says that suffering is the monitor of kings 204
Why in God's name must a portrait 332
Will he meet the matter fairly 155
Winter passed away, and spring returned 8
With a compelled appearance of deliberation 219
With the Germans, the sovereignty resided 102
With this view he fortified his own camp 9
Worthy deeds are not often destitute 295
XIMENES did not bear this treatment 77
YE pretend to a commonwealth. How amend ye it 172
Yet a special charm lingers around the form 146
Yet, in the midst of follies and vices 128
Yet with all his faults and affectations 137
You ascended the throne with a declared 225
" You have subjugated the Scheldt" 171
You will say, perhaps, that the situation of affairs 190
Young Rome of the time of Nero 118
Your lordships know from history 169
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