book two

letters, which he unfolded.

"Is there much more?" demanded Camille. "I fear that I shall become short of funds, and be obliged to go back for more."

"Ah, these two letters! I will not part with them for a trifle; the second especially. It is only twelve lines in length; but what pretty English handwriting! Only see! and the style is loving and tender. I will add that it is signed. Ah, monsieur, Mademoiselle Moriaz will be charmed to see these scrawls again. Under what obligations will she be to you! You will make the most of it; you will tell her that you wrested them from me, your dagger at my throat--that you terrified me. With what a gracious smile she will reward your heroism! According to my opinion that smile is as well worth ten thousand francs as the medallion--the two gems are of equal value."

"If you want more, it makes no difference."

"No, monsieur; I have told you I have only one price."

"At this rate, it is twenty-five thousand francs that I owe you. You have nothing more to sell me?"

"Alas! that is all."

"Will you swear it?"

"What, monsieur! you admit then that Samuel Brohl has a word of honor--that when he has sworn he can be believed?"

"You are right; I am still very young."

"That is all, then, I swear to you," affirmed Samuel, sighing. "My shop is poorly stocked; I had commenced laying in a supply, but an unfortunate accident deranged my little business."

"Bah! be consoled," replied M. Langis; "you will find another opportunity: a genius of such lofty flights as yours is never at a loss. You have been unfortunate; some day Fortune will compensate you for the wrongs she has done you, and the world will accord justice to your fine talents."

Speaking thus, he laid on the table twenty-five notes of a thousand francs each. He counted them; Samuel counted them after him, and at once delivered to him the medallion, the hood, and the two letters.

Camille rose to leave. "Monsieur Brohl," he said, "from the first day I saw you, I formed the highest opinion of your character. The reality surpasses my expectations. I am charmed to have made your acquaintance, and I venture to hope that you are not sorry to have made mine. However, I shall not say _au revoir_."

"Who knows?" replied Samuel, suddenly changing his countenance and attitude. And he added, "If you are fond of being astonished, monsieur, will you remain still another instant in this den?"

He rolled and twisted the twenty-five one-thousand-franc notes into lamp-lighters; then with a grand gesture, _a la_ Poniatowski, he approached the candle, held them in the flame until they blazed, and then threw them on the hearth, where they were soon consumed.

Turning toward M. Langis, he cried, "Will you now do me the honor of fighting with me?"

"After such a noble act as that, I can refuse you nothing," returned Camille. "I will do you that signal honor."

"Just what I desire," replied Samuel. "I am the offended; I have the choice of arms." And in showing M. Langis out, he said, "I will not conceal from you that I have frequented the shooting galleries, and that I am a first-class pistol-shot."

Camille bowed and went out.

The next day, in a lucid interval, Mademoiselle Moriaz saw at the foot of her bed a medallion laid on a red hood. From that moment the physician announced an improvement in her symptoms.

Copyrighted by D. Appleton and Company, 1877.

LORD CHESTERFIELD

(1694-1773)

As the best representative of a creditable type among English noblemen in the reign of George II.,--an accomplished courtier, a diplomatic statesman worthy of reliance on occasions of emergency, a scholar, and a patron of literature,--Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth earl of Chesterfield, occupied a prominent place in the history of his country for more than forty years. He was the eldest son of Philip, third earl, and was born at London in 1694. Most of his boyhood was spent under the care of his grandmother, the Marchioness of Halifax. When eighteen, he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, and became "an excellent classical scholar." The principal events in his public career were his election to Parliament in his twenty-first year; his appointment as Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard in return for a political vote; his selection for special service as Ambassador to The Hague after his succession to the family title; his appointment as Lord High Steward, with the Garter, as a reward for his success in Holland; his expulsion from that position by Horace Walpole for political disobedience in opposing an excise bill; his second successful mission to The Hague; his selection, as a reward, for the responsible post of Viceroy in Ireland, and subsequently his resignation and acceptance of office as Secretary of State, this latter appointment being taken when the Earl had reached his fiftieth year. Chesterfield was first a warm friend, then a bitter enemy of Horace Walpole. He also antagonized George II., but that monarch finally succumbed to diplomatic treatment at his hands and offered his former antagonist a dukedom, which was courteously declined. In his fifty-eighth year, partial deafness caused him to withdraw almost wholly from public affairs. In diplomacy, his successful missions to The Hague made him strong with officials in power. His ability as a statesman was shown to great advantage in a firm yet popular administration of Irish affairs during a critical period in Irish history. As a patron of literature, Dr. Samuel Johnson deemed him a distinct failure, and expressed this opinion forcibly to that effect in his celebrated letter. His literary reputation rests chiefly on letters addressed to his natural son Philip, who died in his thirty-sixth year, greatly to his father's disappointment, he having looked forward to a great career for the young man. His letters of counsel and advice were to that end; oddly, they left the recipient still shy, awkward, tactless, and immature. These epistles, not intended for public perusal, were subsequently printed in book form.

The Earl of Chesterfield died in 1773. Four years after his death, 'Miscellaneous Works' were published in two volumes, also 'Characters.' 'The Art of Pleasing' and 'Letters to His Heir' appeared ten years from the date of his decease, and this was followed, a few months later, by 'Memoirs of Asiaticus.'

[Illustration: CHESTERFIELD.]

FROM 'LETTERS TO HIS SON'

CONCERNING MANNERS

There is a _bienseance_ with regard to people of the lowest degree; a gentleman observes it with his footman, even with the beggar in the street. He considers them as objects of compassion, not of insult; he speaks to neither _d'un ton brusque_, but corrects the one coolly, and refuses the other with humanity. There is no one occasion in the world, in which _le ton brusque_ is becoming a gentleman. In short, _les bienseances_ are another word for _manners_, and extend to every part of life. They are propriety; the Graces should attend in order to complete them: the Graces enable us to do genteelly and pleasingly what _les bienseances_ require to be done at all. The latter are an obligation upon every man; the former are an infinite advantage and ornament to any man.

THE CONTROL OF ONE'S COUNTENANCE

People unused to the world have babbling countenances, and are unskillful enough to show what they have sense enough not to tell. In the course of the world, a man must very often put on an easy, frank countenance, upon very disagreeable occasions; he must seem pleased, when he is very much otherwise; he must be able to accost and receive with smiles those whom he would much rather meet with swords. In Courts he must not turn himself inside out. All this may, nay, must be done, without falsehood and treachery: for it must go no further than politeness and manners, and must stop short of assurances and professions of simulated friendship. Good manners to those one does not love are no more a breach of truth than "your humble servant," at the bottom of a challenge, is; they are universally agreed upon and understood to be things of course. They are necessary guards of the decency and peace of society: they must only act defensively; and then not with arms poisoned with perfidy. Truth, but not the whole truth, must be the invariable principle of every man who hath either religion, honor, or prudence.

DRESS AS AN INDEX TO CHARACTER

I cannot help forming some opinion of a man's sense and character from his dress; and I believe most people do as well as myself. Any affectation whatsoever in dress implies in my mind a flaw in the understanding.... A man of sense carefully avoids any particular character in his dress; he is accurately clean for his own sake; but all the rest is for other people's. He dresses as well, and in the same manner, as the people of sense and fashion of the place where he is. If he dresses better, as he thinks,--that is, more than they,--he is a fop; if he dresses worse, he is unpardonably negligent: but of the two, I would rather have a young fellow too much than too little dressed: the excess on that side will wear off with a little age and reflection; but if he is negligent at twenty, he will be a sloven at forty and stink at fifty years old. Dress yourself fine where others are fine, and plain where others are plain; but take care always that your clothes are well made and fit you, for otherwise they will give you a very awkward air. When you are once well dressed for the day, think no more of it afterwards; and without any stiffness or fear of discomposing that dress, let all your motions be as easy and natural as if you had no clothes on at all.

SOME REMARKS ON GOOD BREEDING

A friend of yours and mine has justly defined good breeding to be "the result of much good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others, and with a view to obtain the same indulgence from them." Taking this for granted (as I think it cannot be disputed), it is astonishing to me that anybody who had good sense and good nature (and I believe you have both) can essentially fail in good breeding. As to the modes of it, indeed, they vary according to persons, places, and circumstances, and are only to be acquired by observation and experience; but the substance of it is everywhere and eternally the same. Good manners are to particular societies what good morals are to society in general--their cement and their security. And as laws are enacted to enforce good morals, or at least to prevent the ill effects of bad ones, so there are certain rules of civility, universally implied and received, to enforce good manners and punish bad ones. And indeed there seems to me to be less difference, both between the crimes and punishments, than at first one would imagine.... Mutual complaisances, attentions, and sacrifices of little conveniences, are as natural an implied compact between civilized people as protection and obedience are between kings and subjects: whoever in either case violates that compact, justly forfeits all advantages arising from it. For my own part, I really think that next to the consciousness of doing a good

## action, that of doing a civil one is the most pleasing: and the epithet

which I should covet the most, next to that of Aristides, would be that of "well-bred."

THE CHOICE OF A VOCATION

FROM 'MISCELLANEOUS WORKS'

It is very certain that no man is fit for everything; but it is almost as certain too that there is scarce any one man who is not fit for something, which something nature plainly points out to him by giving him a tendency and propensity to it. I look upon common-sense to be to the mind what conscience is to the heart,--the faithful and constant monitor of what is right or wrong. And I am convinced that no man commits either a crime or a folly but against the manifest and sensible representations of the one or the other. Every man finds in himself, either from nature or education,--for they are hard to distinguish,--a peculiar bent and disposition to some particular character; and his struggling against it is the fruitless and endless labor of Sisyphus. Let him follow and cultivate that vocation, he will succeed in it, and be considerable in one way at least; whereas if he departs from it he will at best be inconsiderable, probably ridiculous.

THE LITERATURE OF CHINA

BY ROBERT K. DOUGLAS

The distinguishing feature and the crowning glory of the Chinese nation is its literature. It is true that the Chinese can boast of an ancient empire, of a time-honored civilization, of conquests in the fields of science, and, in spite of recent events, in the field of battle; but in the mind of every true Son of Han these titles to fame sink into insignificance before that of the possession of a literature which dates back to a time when the Western world was yet in a state of barbarism, and which as centuries have rolled by has been worthily supplemented in every branch of knowledge.

[Illustration: CONFUCIUS]

It may now be accepted as beyond dispute that the Chinese migrated into China from southwestern Asia about B.C. 2300, bringing with them a knowledge of writing, and in all probability the beginnings of a literature. In the records of that distant past, history and fable are so closely intermingled that it is difficult to pronounce definitely upon any subject treated in them, and we are compelled to seek in comparative philology for reasonable explanations of many points which Chinese chroniclers are content to leave, not from want of assertion, in the mists of uncertainty.

By common consent it is acknowledged that the 'Yi King,' Book of Changes, is the oldest work extant in Chinese literature; though other works, the names of which only have come down to us, were contemporaneously current in the country. A peculiar veneration is naturally felt by the Chinese for this sole surviving waif from a past literature; and from the time of Confucius downward, scholars of every age have attempted to explain its mystic pages. The basis of the work is popularly believed to be eight diagrams, which are said to have been designed by Fuh-hi (B.C. 2852), and which by subdivision have become multiplied into sixty-four. One of these stands at the head of each of the sixty-four chapters into which the work is now divided. Following these diagrams is in each case an initial character, with short phrases which have been held by Confucius and every subsequent native commentator to explain the meaning of the diagrams. But the key to the puzzle was denied to these scholars, who made confusion worse confounded by their attempts to make sense of that which was unintelligible to them. So mysterious a text was naturally believed to be a work on divination; and accepting this cue, the commentators devoted their energies to forcing into the Procrustean bed of divination the disjointed phrases which follow the diagrams. The solution of the mystery, which had escaped the keen study of five-and-twenty centuries of native scholars, was discovered by the late Professor Terrieu de la Couperie, who by many irrefragable proofs demonstrated that the 'Yi King' consists "of old fragments of early times in China, mostly of a lexical character." With this explanation the futility of the attempts of the native scholars to translate it as a connected text at once becomes apparent. A large proportion of the chapters are merely syllabaries, similar to those of Chaldea. The initial character represents the word to be explained, and the phrases following express its various meanings.

An excellent translation of the 'Yi King' as it is understood by native scholars was published by Professor Legge in 'The Sacred Books of the East' (1882); and a comparison of his translation of the seventh chapter with Professor T. de la Couperie's rendering of the same passage must be enough to convince the most skeptical that even if he is not absolutely correct, the native scholars must undoubtedly be wrong. The chapter is headed by a diagram consisting of five divided lines and one undivided; and the initial character is Sze, which is described in modern dictionaries as meaning "a teacher," "instructor," "model," "an army," "a poet," "a multitude," "the people," "all," "laws," "an elder." Of the phrases which follow, Professor Legge gives the following rendering:--

"Sze indicates how, in the case which it supposes, with firmness and correctness, and [a leader of] age and experience, there will be good fortune and no error.

"The first line, divided, shows the host going forward according to the rules [for such a movement]. If these be not good, there will be evil.

"The second line, undivided, shows [the leader] in the midst of his host. There will be good fortune and no error. The king has thrice conveyed to him the orders [of his favor].

"The third line, divided, shows how the host may possibly have many inefficient leaders. There will be evil.

"The fourth line, divided, shows the host in retreat. There is no error.

"The fifth line, divided, shows birds in the fields, which it will be advantageous to seize and destroy. In that case there will be no error. If the oldest son leads the host, and younger men [idly occupy offices assigned to them], however firm and correct he may be, there will be evil.

"The topmost line, divided, shows the great ruler delivering his charges [appointing some], to be rulers of States, and others to undertake the headship of clans; but small men should not be employed [in such positions]."

[Illustration: _OLDEST CHINESE LETTERS_

From an inscription attributed to the Emperor Yao, 2350 B.C.

The most ancient historical books of the Chinese date from the time of Yao. The events of his reign were chronicled by contemporaneous writers; tradition being the foundation of all previous Chinese history.]

It is impossible to read such an extract as the above without being convinced that the explanation was not that which was intended by the author or authors; and on the doctrine of probabilities, a perusal of the following version by Professor T. de la Couperie would incline us to accept his conclusions. But his theory does not rest on probabilities alone; he is able to support it with many substantial proofs: and though exception may possibly be taken to some of his renderings of individual phrases, his general views may be held to be firmly established. This is his version of the chapter quoted above, with the exception of the words of good or ill omen:--

"Sze [is] a righteous great man. The Sze defines laws not biased. The centre of the army. The three conveying orders [officers] of the Sovereign. Sze [is] also corpse-like. Sze [is] an assistant officer. In the fields are birds [so called]; many take the name [?] The elder sons [are] the leaders of the army. The younger [are] the passive multitude [?] Great Princes instructing. The group of men who have helped in the organization of the kingdom. People gathered by the Wu flag [?]."

From what has been said, as well as from the above extracts, it will be observed that to all except the native scholars who imagine that they see in its pages deep divinatory lore, the chief interest of the 'Yi King' lies in the linguistic and ethnographical indications which it contains, and which at present we can but dimly discern. It is difficult to assign a date to it, but it is certain that it existed before the time of King Wen (B.C. 1143), who with his son the Duke of Chow edited the text and added a commentary to it. That parts of it are very much earlier than this period there can be no doubt; and it is safe to assume that in the oldest portion of the work we have one of the first literary efforts of the Chinese. It was not, however, until the time of Confucius that the foundations of the national literature may be said to have been laid.

From constant references in the early histories it is obvious that before that period a literature of a certain kind existed. The Chinese have an instinctive love of letters, and we know from the records that to the courts of the various princes were attached historians whose duty it was to collect the folk-lore songs of the people of the various States. "If a man were permitted to make all the ballads of a nation, he need not care who should make its laws," said Sir Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun. So thought the Chinese legislators, who designed their enactments with direct regard to the dispositions of the people as displayed in their songs. At the time of Confucius (B.C. 551-479) a large collection of these ballads existed in the archives of the sovereign State of Chow; and as is generally believed, the sage revised the collection, and omitting those he considered unworthy of preservation, formed an edition containing three hundred and five pieces. This work has come down to us under the title of the 'Shih King' or Book of Odes. The ballads are just such as we should expect to find under the circumstances. They are plainly the utterances of the people in a primitive state of civilization, who nevertheless enjoyed considerable freedom; and though they occasionally had to lament the tyranny of individual princes, they cannot be described as having been among the down-trodden nations of the earth. The domesticity which is still a distinctive feature of Chinese life figures largely in them, and the filial piety which to the present day is so highly esteemed finds constant expression. The measure in which the odes have been handed down to us makes it difficult to understand how any rhythm could be found in them. With few exceptions they are all written in lines of four characters each, and as read at the present day, consist therefore of only four syllables. This seems to be so stunted and unnatural a metre that one is inclined to accept Professor T. de la Couperie's suggestion, for which he had much to say,--that at the time at which they were sung, the characters which now represent a syllable each were polysyllabic. It would seem probable that certainly in some cases compound characters were pronounced as compounded of syllables in accordance with their component parts, as certain of them are read by the Japanese at the present time. Numerous translations of the odes into European languages have been made, and the following extracts from Professor Legge's rendering of the second ode, celebrating the industry and filial piety of the reigning queen, give a good idea of the general tone of the pieces.

"Sweet was the scene. The spreading dolichos Extended far, down to the valley's depths, With leaves luxuriant. The orioles Fluttered around, and on the bushy trees In throngs collected,--whence their pleasant notes Resounded far in richest melody....

Now back to my old home, my parents dear To see, I go. The matron I have told, Who will announcement make. Meanwhile my clothes, My private clothes, I wash, and rinse my robes. Which of them need be rinsed? and which need not? My parents dear to visit back I go."

Such were the odes which Confucius found collected ready to his hand; and faithful to his character of transmitter of the wisdom of the ancients, he made them the common property of his countrymen. But these were not the only records at the court of Chow which attracted his attention. He found there historical documents, containing the leading events in the history of the Chinese States from the middle of the twenty-third century B.C. to 721. These curious records of a past time possessed an irresistible attraction for him. By constant study he made them his own, and with loving care collated and edited the texts. These fragments are, from a historical point of view, of great value; and they incidentally furnish evidence of the fact that China was not always the stage on which the Chinese people have played their parts. There is no sign in these records of the first steps in ethics and science which one would expect to find in the primitive history of a race. The utterances of the sovereigns and sages, with which they abound, are marked by a comparatively matured knowledge and an advanced ethical condition. The knowledge of astronomy displayed, though not profound, is considerable, and the directions given by the Emperor Yao to his astronomers royal are quite such as may have been given by any Emperor of China until the advent of the Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth century; and the moral utterances of the sovereigns and their ministers are on a par with the sentiments expressed in the Peking Gazette at the present time. "Virtue," said the minister Yi addressing his Emperor Yue, "is the basis of good government; and this consists first in procuring for the people the things necessary for their sustenance, such as water, fire, metals, wood, and grain. The ruler must also think of rendering them virtuous, and of preserving them from whatever can injure life and health. When you would caution them, use gentle words; when you would correct, employ authority." "Do not be ashamed of mistakes, and thus make them crimes," was another piece of advice uttered forty centuries ago, which has a peculiarly modern ring about it.

According to the system in vogue at the Chinese courts, the duty of recording historical events was confided to historians of the right hand and of the left. To the latter was given the duty of recording the speeches and edicts of the sovereigns and their ministers, and to the first that of compiling chronicles of events. The historians who had placed on record the documents which Confucius edited in the 'Shu King' or Book of History were historians of the left hand, and in the only original work which we have by the Sage--'The Spring and Autumn Annals'--he constituted himself a historian of the right. In this work he traces the history of his native State of Lu from the year B.C. 722 to B.C. 484, and in the baldest and most calendar-like style enumerates, without any comment or expression of opinion, the facts which he considers of sufficient importance to report. However faulty we may consider his manner of treatment, any criticism should be leveled against the system rather than against the author. But in other respects Confucius cannot shelter himself under the plea of usage. As a historian, it was his bounden duty above all things to tell the truth, and to distribute praise and blame without fear or favor. In this elementary duty Confucius failed, and has left us a record in which he has obviously made events to chime in with his preconceived ideas and opinions. Considering the assumption of virtue with which Confucius always clothed himself, this is the more noticeable; and still more is it remarkable that his disciples should be so overcome by the glamour which attached to his name, that his obvious lapses from the truth are not only left unnoted, but the general tone and influence of the work are described in the most eulogistic terms. "The world," said Mencius, "had fallen into decay and right principles had dwindled away. Perverse discourses and oppressive deeds had again waxen rife. Cases had occurred of ministers who had murdered their rulers, and of sons who had murdered their fathers. Confucius was afraid and made the 'Ch'un ch'iu.'" So great, we are told, was the effect of the appearance of this work that "rebellious ministers quaked with fear, and undutiful sons were overcome with terror." Love of truth is not a characteristic of the Chinese people; and unhappily their greatest men, Confucius among them, have shown their countrymen a lamentable example in this respect.

So great is the admiration of the people for this work of Confucius that by universal consent the 'Ch'un ch'iu' has through all ages been included among the Five Classics of the country. Three others have already been spoken of, and there remains only one more, the Book of Rites, to mention. This work is the embodiment of, and authority for, the ceremonial which influences the national policy of the country, and directs the individual destinies of the people. We are informed on the highest authority that there are three hundred rules of ceremony and three thousand rules of behavior. Under a code so overwhelmingly oppressive, it is difficult to imagine how the race can continue to exist; but five-and-twenty centuries of close attention to the Book of Rites have so molded the nation within the lines of the ceremonial which it prescribes, that acquiescence with its rules has become a second nature with the people, and requires no more guiding effort on their part than does the automatic action of the nerves and limbs at the bidding of the brain. Within its voluminous pages every act which one man should perform to another is carefully and fully provided for; and this applies not only to the daily life of the people, but also to the official acts of the whole hierarchy of power from the Emperor downward. No court ceremony is undertaken without its guidance, and no official deed is done throughout the length and breadth of the eighteen Provinces of the Empire without its sanction. Its spirit penetrates every Yamen and permeates every household. It regulates the sacrifices which should be offered to the gods, it prescribes the forms to be observed by the Son of Heaven in his intercourse with his ministers, it lays down the behavior proper to officials of all ranks, and it directs the conduct of the people in every relation of life. It supplements in a practical form the teachings of Confucius and others, and forms the most important link in the chain which binds the people to the chariot wheels of the "Sages."

Of canonical authority equal to the Five Classics if not greater, are the 'Four Books' in which are recorded the _ipsissima verba_ of Confucius. These are the 'Lunyue' or Sayings of Confucius, twenty books, which contains a detailed description of the Sage's system of philosophy; the 'Ta Hsio,' the Great Learning, ten chapters; the 'Chung yung,' or the Doctrine of the Mean, thirty-three chapters; and the development of Confucianism as enunciated by his great follower Mencius in the 'Meng tz[)u],' seven books. These works cover the whole field of Confucianism; and as such, their contents claim the allegiance and demand the obedience of ninety-nine out of every hundred Chinamen. To the European student their contents are somewhat disappointing. The system they enunciate wants completeness and life, although the sentiments they express are unexceptionable; as for example when Confucius said: "Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles. Have no friends not equal to yourself. When you have faults, do not fear to abandon them." Admirable maxims such as these flowed from his lips in abundance, but he could offer no reason why a man should rather obey the advice thus presented than his own inclination. He had no reward to offer for virtue, and no terrors with which to threaten the doers of evil. In no sense do his teachings as they came from his lips constitute a religion. He inculcated no worship of the Deity, and he refrained altogether from declaring his belief or disbelief in a future existence.

The author of the 'Great Learning,' commonly said to be the disciple Tseng, describes the object of his work to be "to illustrate illustrious virtue; to renovate the people; and to rest in the highest excellence." And following on the lines indicated by his great master, he lays down the ethical means by which these admirable ends may in his opinion be attained. The 'Doctrine of the Mean' takes for its text the injunction, "Let the states of equilibrium and harmony exist in perfection, and a happy order will prevail throughout heaven and earth, and all things will be nourished and flourish." The author of this work, Tz[)u]ss[)u], goes deeper into the motives of human conduct than Confucius himself. "First he shows clearly how the path of duty is to be traced to its origin in Heaven, and is unchangeable, while the substance of it is provided in ourselves, and may not be departed from. Next he speaks of the importance of preserving and nourishing this, and of exercising a watchful self-scrutiny with reference to it. Finally he speaks of the meritorious achievements and transforming influence of sage and spiritual men in their highest extent."

In the teachings of Mencius (B.C. 372-289) we see a distinct advance on the doctrines of Confucius. He was a man of a far more practical frame of mind than his great predecessor, and possessed the courage necessary to speak plainly in the presence of kings and rulers. His knowledge of political economy was considerable, and he brought to the test of experience many of the opinions and doctrines which Confucius was willing to express only in the abstract. Filial piety was his constant theme. "The richest fruit of benevolence is this," he said,--"the service of one's parents. The richest fruit of righteousness is this,--the obeying of one's elder brothers. The richest fruit of wisdom is this,--the knowing of these two things, and not departing from them."

These Five Classics and Four Books may be said to be the foundations on which all Chinese literature has been based. The period when Confucius and Mencius taught and wrote was one of great mental activity all over the world. While the wise men of China were proclaiming their system of philosophy, the Seven Sages of Greece were pouring out words of wisdom in the schools at Athens, and the sound of the voice of Buddha (died 480 B.C.) had hardly ceased to be heard under the bodhi tree in Central India. From such beginnings arose the literatures which have since added fame and splendor to the three countries in Asia and Europe. In China the impetus given by these pioneers of learning was at once felt, and called into existence a succession of brilliant writers who were as distinguished for the boldness of their views as for the freedom with which they gave them utterance.

The main subject discussed by these men was the principle underlying the Confucian system; namely, that man's nature is in its origin perfectly good, and that so long as each one remains uncontaminated by the world and the things of the world, the path of virtue is to him the path of least resistance. While therefore a man is able to remain unenticed by the temptations which necessarily surround him, he advances in spotless purity towards perfection, until virtue becomes in him so confirmed a habit that neither the stings of conscience nor the exertion of intellectual effort is required to maintain him in his position of perfect goodness and of perfect peace.

These are still the opinions of orthodox Confucianists, but at different times scholars have arisen, who from their own experiences in the world, have come to conclusions diametrically opposed to those taught by the Sage. In their opinion the Psalmist was right when he said, "The heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." Scarcely had Confucius been gathered to his fathers when the Philosopher Hsuen enunciated this view, and since then the doctrine has formed the chief ground of contention among all schools of philosophy down to the present day. By certain writers it has been held that in man's nature there is a mixture of good and evil, and by no one was this view more ably expounded than by the philosopher Chu Hi (A.D. 1130-1200). In season and out of season this great writer, who has done more than any one else to elucidate the dark pages of the classics, "taught that good and evil were present in the heart of every man, and that just as in nature a duality of powers is necessary to the existence of nature itself, so good and evil are inseparably present in the heart of every human being."

But there were others who felt that the bald and conventional system proclaimed by Confucius was insufficient to satisfy the desire for the supernatural which is implanted in men of every race and of every clime, and then at once a school arose, headed by Laotz[)u] (sixth century B. C.), the Old Philosopher; which, adopting the spirit of Brahminism, taught its sectaries to seek by self-abnegation freedom from the entanglements of the world, and a final absorption into the Deity. The minds of most Chinamen are not attuned to the apprehension of philosophical subtleties, and the wisdom imparted by Laotz[)u] to his countrymen in the pages of his 'Taote King' (The Book of Reason and Virtue), soon became debased into a superstitious system by a succession of charlatans, who, adopting Laotz[)u]'s doctrine that death was only another form of life, taught their followers to seek to prolong the pleasures of the present state of existence by searching in the mazes of alchemy for the elixir of life and the philosopher's stone. Before the faith reached this degraded position, however, several writers supplemented and enlarged on the doctrines advanced by Laotz[)u]. Foremost among these were Litz[)u] and Chwangtz[)u], who were both men of great metaphysical ability, and whose speculations, though not always in harmony with those of their great master, help to some extent to elucidate his system and certainly add considerable interest to it.

Around the systems of Confucius and Laotz[)u] a considerable literature grew up, which was cherished, copied, and discussed by all those scholars who had time to spare from the contemplation of the records of the various States into which the country was divided. These records had assumed a permanent place in the literature of the land, and were bound up with the feudal system which then existed. The time came, however, when this feudal system was destined to come to an end. In the third century before Christ a leader arose who proclaimed the States an Empire and himself as Emperor. To so conservatively minded a people as the Chinese the revolution was difficult of acceptance, and Shi Hwangti, seeking to facilitate the transfer of their allegiance, ordered the destruction of all books which might preserve the memory of a bygone constitution. With ruthless severity the ukase was put into force, and all works, with the exception of those on medicine and alchemy, were thrown to the flames. Happily no tyrant, however powerful, can enforce the complete fulfillment of such an edict; and in spite of threats and persecutions, events showed that through all that fiery time manuscripts had been carefully preserved, and that men had been found ready to risk their lives in the sacred cause of learning.

Fortunately the Dynasty founded by Shi Hwangti was short-lived, and in 202 B.C. a revolution placed Kao ti, the founder of the Han Dynasty, on the throne. With commendable wisdom Kao ti placed himself at once in complete harmony with the national mind, and had no sooner assumed the imperial yellow than he notified his desire to restore the national literature to its former status. Under his fostering care, manuscripts which had lain hidden were brought out from their places of concealment; and to these works were added others, which were dictated by scholars who had treasured them in their memories. That the works thus again brought out were numerous, is proved by the fact that in the catalogue of the Imperial Library of the Han Dynasty (B.C. 202 to A.D. 25), mention is made of 11,312 works, consisting of volumes on the classics, philosophy, poetry, military tactics, mathematics and medicine.

It was during this dynasty that the national history and poetry took their rise in the shapes with which we are now familiar. After the night of turmoil and darkness which had just passed away, men, as though invigorated by the time of sterility, devoted themselves to the production of cultured prose and original though pedantic poetry. It was then that Ss[)u]ma Ch'ien, who has been called the Herodotus of China, wrote his 'Shichi' (Historical Records), which embraces a period of between two and three thousand years; namely, from the reign of Hwang ti (B.C. 2697) to the reign of Wu ti of the Han Dynasty (B.C. 140-86). Following the example of this great chronicler, Pan ku compiled the records of the Han Dynasty in a hundred and twenty books, and it is on the model thus laid down that all succeeding dynastic histories of China have been written. Almost without variation the materials of these vast depositories of information are arranged in the following order:--1. Imperial records, consisting of the purely political events which occurred in each reign. 2. Memoirs, including treatises on mathematical chronology, rites, music, jurisprudence, political economy, State sacrifices, astronomy, elemental influences, geography, literature, biographies, and records of the neighboring countries.

_Tempora non animi mutant_, and in the poetry of this period we see a close resemblance to the spirit which breathes in the odes collected by Confucius. The measure shows signs of some elasticity, five characters to a line taking the place of the older four-syllabled metre; but the ideas which permeate it are the same. Like all Chinese poetry, it is rather quaint than powerful, and is rather noticeable for romantic sweetness than for the expression of strong passions. There is for the most part a somewhat melancholy ring about it. The authors love to lament their absence from home or the oppressed condition of the people, or to enlarge on the depressing effect of rain or snow, and find sadness in the strange beauty of the surrounding scenery or the loveliness of a flower. The diction is smooth and the fancy wandering, but its lines do not much stir the imagination or arouse the passions. These are criticisms which apply to Chinese poetry of all ages. During the T'ang and Sung Dynasties (A.D. 618-1127), periods which have been described as forming the Augustan ages of Chinese literature, poets flourished abundantly, and for the better expression of their ideas they adopted a metre of seven characters or syllables, instead of the earlier and more restricted measures. Tu Fu, Li T'aipai, and a host of others, enriched the national poetry at the time, and varied the subjects which had been the common themes of earlier poets by singing the praises of wine. To be a poet it was considered necessary by them that a man should be a wine-bibber, and their verses describe with enthusiasm the pleasures of the cup and the joys of intoxication. The following is a specimen of such an ode, taken from the works of Li T'aipai:--

If life be nothing but an empty dream, Why vex one's self about the things of time? My part shall be to drain the flowing cup And sleep away the fumes of drowsy wine.

When roused to life again, I straightway ask The Bird which sings in yonder leafy trees, What season of the year had come its round. "The Spring," he says, "When every breath of air suggests a song."

Sad and disturbed, I heave a gentle sigh, And turn again to brightening, cheering wine, And sing until the moon shines, and until Sleep and oblivion close my eyes again.

But before the time of the T'ang Dynasty a new element had been introduced into the national literature. With the introduction of Buddhism the Chinese became acquainted with religious doctrines and philosophical ideas, of which until then they had only been faintly conscious from their contact with the debased form of Brahminical teaching which under the name of Taoism had long existed in the land. A complete knowledge of the teachings of Sakyamuni was however imparted to them by the arrival, at the beginning of the first century of our era, of two Shamans from India who settled at Loyang in the province of Honan, and who translated the Sanskrit Sutra in forty-two sections into Chinese. From this time onward a constant succession of Buddhist missionaries visited China and labored with indefatigable industry, both by oral teaching and by the translation of Sanskrit works into Chinese, to convert the people to their faith.

The knowledge thus acquired was of great advantage to the literature of the country. It enriched it with new ideas, and added wider knowledge to its pages. The history and geography of India, with which scholars had previously been scarcely acquainted, became, though indistinctly, matters of knowledge to them. Already Fahsien, the great forerunner of Chinese Buddhist pilgrims (B.C. 399), had visited India and had described in his 'Fuh kwo chi' (The Records of Buddhist Countries) the wonders which he had seen in Hindustan. With the spread of Buddhism in China, a desire to follow in his footsteps prompted others to undertake the long and arduous journey across the Mongolian steppes and over the passes of the Himalayas into the plains of India. Sung yun in the sixth century and Huean Ts'ang in the seventh are conspicuous among those who undertook this toilsome pilgrimage in the interest of the faith.

Notwithstanding the occasional influx of new sentiments, however, the circumscribed circle of knowledge which was within the reach of Chinese scholars, and the poverty of their vocabulary, have always necessarily limited the wealth of their ideas; and at an early period of the history of the country we see symptoms of sterility creeping over the national mind. It is always easier to remember than to think; and it cannot but be looked upon as a sign of decadence in a literature when collections of ready-made knowledge take the place of original compositions, and when scholars devote themselves to the production of anthologies and encyclopaedias instead of seeking out new thoughts and fresh branches of learning. In the sixth century, a period which coincides with the invention of printing, there was first shown that disposition to collect extracts from works of merit into anthologies, which have ever since been such a marked peculiarity of Chinese literature.

That the effect of these works, and of the encyclopaedias which are in a sense allied to them, has been detrimental to the national mind, there cannot be a doubt. Scholars are no longer required to search for themselves for the golden nuggets of knowledge in the mines of learning. They have but to turn to the great depositories of carefully extracted information, and they find ready to their hand the opinions and thoughts of all those who are considered to be authorities on the subject with which they desire to acquaint themselves. For the purposes of cram for students at the competitive examinations, these treasuries of knowledge are of inestimable value: and by their help, "scholars" who have neither depth of knowledge nor power of thought are able to make a show of erudition which is as hollow as it is valueless.

During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) this class of literature may be said to have reached its highest development. In the reign of the Emperor Yunglo (1403-1425) was compiled the largest encyclopaedia which has ever seen the light. This gigantic work, which was entitled 'Yunglo ta tien,' consisted of no fewer than 22,877 books, and covered every branch of knowledge possessed by the Chinese. Possibly owing to its immense extent, it was never published; and such volumes as still survive the destroying influences of neglect and decay are yet to be found in manuscript on the shelves of the Imperial Library. Inspired perhaps by the example thus set, the Emperor K'anghi of the present dynasty appointed a commission of scholars to compile a similar work; and after forty years had been consumed in extracting from the past literatures every passage bearing on the 6109 headings which it was the will of K'anghi should be illustrated, the compilers were able to lay before their sovereign a work consisting of 5020 volumes, which they entitled 'Kin L'ing ku kin t'u shu chi ch'eng.' Unlike Yunglo's great work, this one was printed; and though only, as it is said, a hundred copies were issued, some still remain of the original edition. One such copy, complete in every particular, is to be seen at the British Museum. For completeness from a Chinese point of view this work stands out pre-eminently above all others; but owing to the very limited number of copies, it has never superseded the 'Wen hsien t'ung k'ao' by Ma Twanlin, which, though published four hundred years earlier, still holds its own in popular estimation.

Much has been written by Chinese authors on scientific subjects, but the substance is remarkable for its extent rather than for its value. In each branch of knowledge they have advanced under foreign influence up to a certain point, and beyond that they have been unable to go. Their knowledge of astronomy, which is of Chaldean origin, is sufficient to enable them to calculate eclipses and to recognize the precession of the equinoxes, but it has left them with confused notions on subjects which are matters of common knowledge among Western people. It is the same in the case of medicine. They understand certain general principles of therapeutics and the use of certain herbs; but their knowledge is purely empirical, and their acquaintance with surgery is of the most elementary kind.

It is perhaps in their novels and plays, however, that the most marked defects in the national mind become apparent. The systems of education and the consequent mental habit in vogue are the outcomes of that lack of imagination which distinguishes the people, and which finds its reflection in all those branches of literature which are more directly dependent on the flow of new and striking ideas. There is little delineation of character either in their novels or their plays. The personages portrayed are all either models of virtue and learning, or shocking examples of ignorance and turpitude. Their actions are mechanical, and the incidents described have little or no connection with one another. The stories are in fact arranged much as a clever child might be expected to arrange them, and they are by no means free from the weary iterations in which untutored minds are apt to indulge. Chinese scholars are conscious of these defects, and attempt to explain them by describing novel-writing as being beneath the serious attention of all those who are interested in learning. This view is commonly accepted by their learned world, who divide literature into four classes, viz., Classics, History, Philosophy, and Belles-lettres. The last of these does not include either romances or plays; and with the exception of two or three standard works of fiction and the 'Hundred Plays of the Yuean Dynasty' (A.D. 1280-1368), no specimens of either of these two classes of literature would ever be found in a library of standing. But this contempt for works of imagination is probably less the cause of their inferiority than the result of it. The Providence which has given Chinamen untiring diligence, inexhaustible memories, and a love of learning, has not vouchsafed to touch their tongues with the live coal of imagination. They are plodding students, and though quite capable of narrating events and of producing endless dissertations on the interpretation of the classics and the true meaning of the philosophy on which they are based, are entirely unprovided with that power of fancy which is able to bring before the eye, as in a living picture, the phantoms of the brain.

[Signature: Nobert K. Douglas]

SELECTED MAXIMS

ON MORALS, PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, CHARACTER, CIRCUMSTANCES, ETC.

From the Chinese Moralists

Filial piety and fraternal submission, are they not the root of all benevolent actions?--CONFUCIAN AN., Heo Urh (ch. ii.).

The path of duty lies in what is near, and men seek for it in what is remote. The work of duty lies in what is easy, and men seek for it in what is difficult. If each man would love his parents and show due respect to his elders, the whole empire would enjoy tranquillity.--MENCIUS, Le Low (pt. i., ch. xi.).

Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles.--CONFUCIAN AN., Heo Urh (ch. viii.).

If what we see is doubtful, how can we believe what is spoken behind the back?--INSCRIPTION in "Celestial Influence Temple."

Words which are simple, while their meaning is far-reaching, are good words. Principles which are held as compendious, while their application is extensive, are good principles. The words of the superior man are not necessarily high-sounding, but great principles are contained in them.--MENCIUS, Tsin Sin (ch. xxxii.).

The superior man is correctly firm, and not firm merely.--CONFUCIAN AN., Wei Ling Kung (ch. xxxvi.).

For one word a man is often deemed to be wise; and for one word he is often deemed to be foolish. We ought to be careful indeed in what we say.--CONFUCIAN AN., Observations of Tsze Kung.

In archery we have something like the way of the superior man. When the archer misses the centre of the target, he turns round and seeks for the cause of his failure in himself.--DOCTRINE OF THE MEAN (ch. xiv.).

God leads men to tranquil security.--SHOO KING, ii., Numerous Officers (ch. ii.).

The glory and tranquillity of a State may arise from the excellence of one man.--SHOO KING, ii., Speech of the Duke of Tsin (ch. viii.).

Mencius said, The superior man has two things in which he delights, and to be ruler over the empire is not one of them.

That his father and mother are both alive, and that the condition of his brothers affords no cause for anxiety; this is one delight.

Then when looking up he has no occasion for shame before heaven, and below he has no occasion to blush before men; this is a second delight.--MENCIUS, Tsin Sin (pt. i., ch. xx.).

Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with virtue.--CONFUCIAN AN., Yang Ho (ch. xvii.).

I am pleased with your intelligent virtue, not loudly proclaimed nor portrayed, without extravagance or changeableness, without consciousness of effort on your part, in accordance with the pattern of God.--SHE KING, ii., Major Odes, Hwang I.

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.--CONFUCIAN AN., Wei Ching (ch. xv.).

Without recognizing the ordinances of Heaven it is impossible to be a superior man.--CONFUCIAN AN., Yaou Yue (ch. iii.).

Be tremblingly fearful, Be careful night and day; Men trip not on mountains, They trip on ant-hills. YAOU'S WARNING, Poem from Hwae Nan.

The ways of God are not invariable; on the good doer he sends down all blessings, and on the evil doer he sends down all miseries.--SHOO KING, Instructions of E (ch. iv.).

In the way of superior man there are four things, not one of which have I as yet attained:--To serve my father as I would require my son to serve me; to serve my Prince as I would require my minister to serve me; to serve my elder brother as I would require my younger brother to serve me; to set the example in behaving to a friend as I would require him to behave to me.--DOCTRINE OF THE MEAN (ch. xiii.).

Virtue has no invariable model. A supreme regard to what is good gives the model of it. What is good has no invariable characteristic to be supremely regarded; it is found where there is conformity to the uniform decision of the mind.--SHOO KING, Both Possessed Pure Virtue (ch. iii.).

This King Wan Watchfully and reverently With entire intelligence served God, And so secured the great blessing.-- SHE KING, Decade of King Wan II.

Man's nature to good is like the tendency of water to flow downwards. There are none but have this tendency to good, just as all water flows downwards.--MENCIUS, Kaou Tsze (pt. i., ch. ii).

Virtue is the root; wealth the result.--THE GREAT LEARNING (ch. x.).

Its sovereigns on their part were humbly careful not to lose the favor of God.--SHOO KING, ii., Numerous Officers (ch. viii.).

He who loves his parents will not dare to incur the risk of being hated by any man, and he who reveres his parents will not dare to incur the risk of being condemned by any man.--HSIAO KING, Filial Piety (ch. ii.).

Do not speak lightly; your words are your own. Do not say, This is of little importance; no one can hold my tongue for me; words are not to be cast away. Every word finds its answer; every good deed has its recompense.--SHE KING, ii., Major Odes, the Yi.

Looked at in friendly intercourse with superior men, you make your countenance harmonious and mild, anxious not to do anything wrong. Looked at in your chamber, you ought to be equally free from shame before the light which shines in. Do not say, This place is not public; no one can see me here: the approaches of spiritual beings cannot be calculated beforehand, but the more should they not be slighted.--SHE KING, ii., Major Odes, the Yi.

Let me not say that Heaven is high aloft above me. It ascends and descends about our doings; it daily inspects us wherever we are.--SHE KING, i., Sacrificial Odes of Kau, Ode, King Kih.

What future misery have they and ought they to endure who talk of what is not good in others?--MENCIUS, Le Low (pt. ii., ch. ix.).

Above all, sternly keep yourself from drink.--SHOO KING, Announcement about Drunkenness (ch. xiii.).

Of ten thousand evils, lewdness is the head. Of one hundred virtues, filial piety is the first. CONFUCIAN PROVERB.

There are three thousand offenses against which the five punishments are directed, and there is not one of them greater than being unfilial.--THE HSIAO KING, The Five Punishments.

Benevolence is man's mind and righteousness is man's path.

How lamentable is it to neglect the path and not pursue it, to lose the mind and not know to seek it again.--MENCIUS, Kaou Tsze (pt. i., ch. xi.).

Tsze Kung asked, saying, "What do you say of a man who is loved by all the people of his village?" The Master replied, "We may not for that accord our approval of him." "And what do you say of him who is hated by all the people of his village?" The Master said, "We may not for that conclude that he is bad. It is better than either of these cases that the good in the village love him and the bad hate him."--CONFUCIAN AN., Tsze Loo (ch. xxiv.).

Men must be decided on what they will not do, and then they are able to act with vigor in which they ought.--MENCIUS, Le Low (pt. ii., ch. viii.).

Learn as if you could not reach your object and were always fearing also lest you should lose it.--CONFUCIAN AN., T'ae Pih (ch. xvii.).

King Wan looked on the people as he would on a man who was wounded, and he looked toward the right path as if he could not see it.--MENCIUS, Le Low (pt. ii., ch. xx.).

To nourish the heart there is nothing better than to make the desires few.--MENCIUS, Tsin Sin (ch. xxxv.).

When Heaven is about to confer a great office on any man, it first exercises his mind with suffering, and his sinews and bones with toil. It exposes his body to hunger, and subjects him to extreme poverty. It confounds his undertakings. By all these methods it stimulates his mind, hardens his nature, and supplies his incompetencies.--MENCIUS, Kaou Tsze (pt. ii. ch. xv.).

You should ever stand in awe of the punishment of Heaven.--SHOO KING, ii.; Prince of Leu on Punishments.

Great Heaven is intelligent and is with you in all your doings. Great Heaven is clear-seeing, and is with you in all your wanderings and indulgences.--SHE KING, ii., Major Odes, the Pan.

Ke Loo asked about serving the spirits of the dead. The Master said, "While you are not able to serve men, how can you serve their spirits?" Ke Loo added, "I venture to ask about death." He was answered, "While you do not know life, how can you know about death?"--CONFUCIAN AN., Seen Tsin (ch. xi.).

For all affairs let there be adequate preparation. With preparation there will be no calamities.--SHOO KING, Charge of Yue (ch. i.).

As to what the superior man would feel to be a calamity, there is no such thing. He does nothing which is not according to propriety. If there should befall him one morning's calamity, the superior man does not account it a calamity.--MENCIUS, Le Low (pt. ii., ch. xxviii.).

God is with you, have no doubts in your heart.--SHE KING, Decade of King Wan II.

Beware. What proceeds from you will return to you again.--MENCIUS, King Hwuy (pt. ii., ch. xii.).

Show reverence for the weak.--SHOO KING, Timber of the Tsze Tree (ch. iii.).

When the year becomes cold, then we know how the pine and the cypress are the last to lose their leaves; _i.e._, men are not known save in times of adversity.--CONFUCIAN AN., Tsze Han (ch. xxvii.).

By nature men are nearly alike; by practice they get to be wide apart.--CONFUCIAN AN., Yang Ho (ch. ii.).

All are good at first, but few prove themselves to be so at the last.--SHE KING, ii., Major Odes, the Tang.

In serving his parents a son may remonstrate with them, but gently; when he sees that they do not incline to follow his advice he shows an increased degree of reverence, but does not abandon his purpose; and should they punish him he does not allow himself to murmur.--CONFUCIAN AN., Le Yin (ch. xviii.).

The Great God has conferred on the inferior people a moral sense, compliance with which would show their nature invariably right.--SHOO KING, Announcement of T'ang (ch. ii.).

Confucius said:--"There are three things which the superior man guards against. In youth when the physical powers are not yet settled, he guards against lust. When he is strong and the physical powers are full of vigor, he guards against quarrelsomeness. When he is old and the animal powers are decayed, he guards against covetousness."--CONFUCIAN AN., Ke She (ch. vii.).

He who stops short where stopping short is not allowable, will stop short in everything. He who behaves shabbily to those whom he ought to treat well, will behave shabbily to all.--MENCIUS, Tsin Sin (pt. i., ch. xliv.).

Men are partial where they feel affection and love; partial where they despise and dislike; partial where they stand in awe and reverence;

## partial where they feel sorrow and compassion; partial where they are

arrogant and rude. Thus it is that there are few men in the world who love and at the same time know the bad qualities of the object of their love, or who hate and yet know the excellences of the object of their hatred.--THE GREAT LEARNING (ch. viii.).

Heaven's plan in the production of mankind is this: that they who are first informed should instruct those who are later in being informed, and they who first apprehend principles should instruct those who are slower to do so. I am one of Heaven's people who first apprehended. I will take these principles and instruct this people in them.--MENCIUS, Wan Chang (pt. i., ch. vii.).

From 'The Proverbial Philosophy of Confucius': copyrighted 1895, by Forster H. Jennings; G. P. Putnam's Sons, Publishers

RUFUS CHOATE

(1799-1859)

BY ALBERT STICKNEY

[Illustration: RUFUS CHOATE]

Rufus Choate, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of advocates who have appeared at the English or American bar, was one of the most remarkable products of what is ordinarily considered hard, prosaic, matter-of-fact New England. He was a man quite apart from the ordinary race of lawyers or New-Englanders. He was as different from the typical New-Englander as was Hawthorne or Emerson. He had the imagination of a poet; and to his imagination, singular as it may seem, was largely due his success in handling questions of fact before juries.

He was born of good old English stock, in the southeastern part of the town of Ipswich, in the county of Essex and State of Massachusetts, on the first day of October, 1799. His ancestors had lived in Essex County from a very early date in its history and had filled important public positions. He was born and bred in sight of the sea, and his love for it stayed with him through life. One of his most eloquent addresses was on 'The Romance of the Sea.' And in his last illness at Halifax, his keenest pleasure was to watch the ships sailing in front of his windows. Dropping into sleep on one occasion, a few days before his death, he said to his attendant, "If a schooner or sloop goes by, don't disturb me; but if there is a square-rigged vessel, wake me."

Mr. Choate had the ordinary education then given in New England to young men who had a love of learning. He began with the district school; from there he went to the academy at Hampton, New Hampshire; and later he entered Dartmouth College, where he graduated the first scholar in his class, in 1819. It is hard to find an accurate standard of comparison between the scholarship of that period and that of the present. No doubt, in our New England colleges of to-day there is a larger number of young men who have a considerable store of knowledge on many subjects of classical learning. But it is very doubtful if the graduates of Harvard and Yale of to-day are able to read the standard classic authors at the day of their graduation, with the ease and accuracy of Mr. Choate at the end of his active professional career in the year 1859. His continued devotion to the classics is shown by the following extract from his journal in the year 1844, while he was a member of Congress:--

"1. Some professional work must be done every day.... Recent experiences suggest that I ought to be more familiar with evidence and Cowen's Phillips; therefore, daily for half an hour, I will thumb conscientiously. When I come home again, in the intervals of actual employment, my recent methods of reading, accompanying the reports with the composition of arguments upon the points adjudged, may be properly resumed.

"2. In my Greek, Latin, and French readings--Odyssey, Thucydides, Tacitus, Juvenal, and some French orator or critic--I need make no change. So, too, Milton, Johnson, Burke--_semper in manu--ut mos est._ To my Greek I ought to add a page a day of Crosby's Grammar, and the practice of parsing every word in my few lines of Homer. On Sunday, the Greek Testament, and Septuagint, and French. This, and the oration of the Crown, which I will completely master, translate, annotate, and commit, will be enough in this kind. If not, I will add a translation of a sentence or two from Tacitus."

A similar extract from his journal under the date of December 15th, 1844, reads:--

"I begin a great work,--Thucydides, in Bloomfield's new edition,--with the intention of understanding a difficult and learning something from an instructive writer,--something for the more and more complicated, interior, _inter-State_ American politics.

"With Thucydides, I shall read Wachsmuth, with historical references and verifications. Schomann on the Assemblies of the Athenians, especially, I am to meditate, and master Danier's Horace, Ode 1, 11th to 14th line, translation and notes,--a pocket edition to be always in pocket."

Throughout his life Mr. Choate kept up his classical studies. Few of the graduates of our leading colleges to-day carry from Commencement a training which makes the study of the Greek and Latin authors either easy or pleasant. Mr. Choate, like nearly every lawyer who has ever distinguished himself at the English bar, was a monument to the value of the study of the classics as a mere means of training for the active practical work of a lawyer.

Mr. Choate studied law at Cambridge in the Harvard Law School. Nearly a year he spent at Washington in the office of Mr. Wirt, then Attorney-General of the United States. This was in 1821. Thereafter he was admitted to the bar, in September, 1823. He opened his office in Salem, but soon removed to Danvers, where he practiced for four or five years.

During these earliest years of his professional life he had the fortune which many other brilliant men in his profession have experienced,--that of waiting and hoping. During his first two or three years, it is said, he was so despondent as to his chances of professional success that he seriously contemplated abandoning the law. In time he got his opportunity to show the stuff of which he was made. His first professional efforts were in petty cases before justices of the peace. Very soon however his great ability, with his untiring industry and his intense devotion to any cause in his hands, brought the reputation which he deserved, and reputation brought clients.

In 1828 he removed to Salem. The Essex bar was one of great ability. Mr. Choate at once became a leader. Among his contemporaries at that bar was Caleb Cushing. Mr. Choate at first had many criminal cases. In the year 1830 he was, with Mr. Webster, one of the counsel for the prosecution in the celebrated White murder case.

In 1830 he was elected to Congress as a member of the House of Representatives, at the age of thirty-one years. At once he laid out a course of study which was to fit him for the duties of his public life. An extract from it reads as follows:--

"Nov. 4, 1830.

"_Facienda ad munus nuper impositum_.

"i. Pers. quals. [personal qualities], Memory, Daily Food, and Cowper _dum ambulo_. Voice, Manner, _Exercitationes diurnae_.

"2. Current politics in papers. 1. _Cum Notulis_, daily,--Geog., &c. 2. Annual Reg., Past Intelligencers, &c.

* * * * *

"4. Civil History of U. States--in Pitkin and original sources.

"5. Exam. of Pending Questions: Tariff, Pub. Lands, Indians, Nullifications.

"6. Am. and Brit. Eloquence,--Writing, Practice."

Then follow in his manuscript upwards of twenty pages of close writing, consisting of memoranda and statements, drawn from a multitude of sources, on the subjects laid down by him at the beginning as the ones to be investigated.

In Congress he found himself in competition with many men of marked ability. Among the members of Congress then from Massachusetts were Mr. Webster in the Senate; and in the House, John Quincy Adams, Edward Everett, Nathan Appleton, George N. Briggs, and John Davis. In the Senate, from other States, were Peleg Sprague from Maine,--one of the ablest jurists this country has produced; Samuel Prentiss, Mr. Marcy, Mr. Dallas, Mr. Clayton, Mr. Clay, and Mr. Benton. In the House were James M. Wayne, Mr. McDuffie, Mr. Polk, Mr. Corwin, and Mr. Verplanck.

Among men of this calibre Mr. Choate at once, with ease, took rank as one of the first. He made but two speeches during the session; but these gave him a position which he ever afterwards held among the most eloquent and convincing speakers in public life.

In April 1833 Mr. Choate was re-elected to Congress. At this session he made a speech on the removal of the public deposits by President Jackson from the Bank of the United States. The following incident shows his power as an orator:--

Benjamin Hardin was then a member from Kentucky, of the House of Representatives; and was himself intending to speak on the same side of the question with Mr. Choate. In such cases, Mr. Hardin's rule was to listen to no other speaker before speaking himself. Consequently when Mr. Choate began speaking, Mr. Hardin started to leave the House. He waited however for a moment to listen to a few sentences from Mr. Choate, and with this result, as told in his own words:--"The member from Massachusetts rose to speak, and in accordance with my custom I took my hat to leave, lingering a moment just to notice the tone of his voice and the manner of his speech. But that moment was fatal to my resolution. I became charmed by the music of his voice, and was captivated by the power of his eloquence, and found myself wholly unable to move until the last word of his beautiful speech had been uttered."

At the close of this session Mr. Choate resigned his seat in Congress and went to Boston, there to follow the practice of his profession. At the Boston bar he met a remarkably brilliant group of men. There were Jeremiah Mason, whom Mr. Webster is said to have considered the strongest man that he ever met in any legal contest; Franklin Dexter; Chief Justice Shaw (then at the bar); Judges Wilde, Hoar, and Thomas, afterwards of the Massachusetts Supreme Court; Mr. Fletcher, Judge Benjamin R. Curtis, Sidney Bartlett, Richard H. Dana, William D. Sohier, Henry W. Paine, Edward D. Sohier, with others whose names are now almost forgotten. These men formed a bar the like of which has seldom if ever been assembled in any one jurisdiction. Here too Mr. Choate at once came to the front. With every talent which could make a man a great advocate,--with a marvelous memory, a keen logical intellect, a sound legal judgment,--he had now acquired a large professional experience and a very complete professional training. As has been seen, he had a thorough classical training,--that is, of the kind best fitted to his needs. His professional studies before beginning his professional practice had been the best then attainable; very possibly, for him, they were quite as good as can be had at any of the law schools of to-day. His range of reading and information was extremely wide. He had had several years of experience at Washington in Congress. And ever since leaving the law school his mere professional studies had been most severe. It is hard to see how any man could be better equipped for professional practice than Mr. Choate was at this time.

His success at the Boston bar was phenomenal. He was in a contest with giants. Mr. Webster alone could be deemed to dispute with Mr. Choate the place of supremacy. The general verdict has been that for pure intellectual power Mr. Webster was the superior. But it may well be doubted whether as an all-round advocate Mr. Choate did not carry off the palm. The common idea of Mr. Choate has been that his marvelous eloquence was his great source of strength and success in his forensic contests. This is an error. Eloquent he undoubtedly was; few men have ever been more so. But unless in frontier communities, eloquence alone has never commanded great success at the bar--if indeed it has ever existed--without strong logical power and sound judgment. The power of convincing intelligent men always depends largely and mainly on soundness of judgment in the selection of positions. Especially is this so in the profession of the law. There have been, no doubt, many instances where men of eloquence have captivated juries by appeals to passion or prejudice. But in the vast majority of cases, success as an advocate cannot be had without sound judgment in the selection of positions, coupled with the power of clear logical statement. Mr. Choate was no exception to this rule. Mr. Henry W. Paine, one of the leaders of the Boston bar in Mr. Choate's time,--himself one of the most logical of men,--once said that he did not care to hear Mr. Choate address a jury, but to hear him argue a bill of exceptions before the full bench of the Supreme Court was one of the greatest intellectual treats. With the ordinary twelve men in a jury-box Mr. Choate was a wizard. His knowledge of human nature, his wide and deep sympathies, his imagination, his power of statement, with his rich musical voice and his wonderful fascination of manner, made him a charmer of men and a master in the great art of winning verdicts. So far as the writer is able to form an opinion, there has never been at the English or American bar a man who has been his equal in his sway over juries. Comparisons are often condemned, but they are at times useful. Comparing Mr. Choate with Mr. Webster, it must be conceded that Mr. Webster might at times carry a jury against Mr. Choate by his force of intellect and the tremendous power of his personal presence. Mr. O'Conor once said that he did not consider Mr. Webster an eloquent man. "Mr. Webster," he said, "was an intellectual giant. But he never impressed me as being an eloquent man." The general judgment is that Mr. Webster had eloquence of a very high order. But Mr. Choate was a magician. With any opponent of his time except Mr. Webster, he was irresistible before juries. Mr. Justice Catron of the United States Court is reported to have said of Mr. Choate, "I have heard the most eminent advocates, but he surpasses them all." His success came from a rare combination of eloquence, sound logical judgment, and great powers of personal fascination.

In another respect the common opinion of Mr. Choate must be corrected. His great powers of persuasion and conviction undoubtedly gave him some victories which were not deserved by the mere merits of his cases. From this fact there went abroad the impression that he was a man without principle, and that his ethical standards were not high in his selection and conduct of cases. This impression is quite contrary to the judgment of the competent. The impression was due largely to his success in the celebrated defense of Tirrell. Tirrell was indicted for the murder of a woman named Bickford, with whom Tirrell had long associated, who was found dead in a house of ill-repute. At about the hour when the woman lost her life, either by her own hand or by that of Tirrell, the house caught fire. The cause of the fire was not proved. Tirrell had been in her company the preceding evening, and articles of clothing belonging to him were found in the morning in her room. Many circumstances seemed to indicate that the woman had been killed by Tirrell. He was also indicted for arson in setting fire to the house. In addition to other facts proved by the defense, it was shown by reputable witnesses that Tirrell had from his youth been subject to somnambulism; and one of the positions taken by Mr. Choate for the defense was that the killing, if done by Tirrell at all, was done by him while unconscious, in a condition of somnambulism. Tirrell was tried under both indictments and was acquitted on both. The indictment for murder was tried before Justices Wilde, Dewey, and Hubbard. The indictment for arson was tried before Chief Justice Shaw and Justices Wilde and Dewey. The foreman of the jury stated that the defense of somnambulism received no weight in the deliberations of the jury. The judgment of the profession has been that the verdicts were the only ones which could properly have been rendered on the evidence. In the arson case the charge to the jury was by Chief Justice Shaw, and was strongly in favor of the defense. No doubt the defense was extremely able and ingenious. But the criticisms against Mr. Choate for his conduct of those cases, in the opinion of those members of the profession best qualified to judge, have been held to be without good foundation. Lawyers--that is, reputable ones--do not manufacture evidence, nor are they the witnesses who testify to facts. The severe tests of cross-examination usually elicit the truth. No one ever charged Mr. Choate with manufacturing evidence. And no lawyer of good judgment, so far as the writer is aware, has ever charged him with practices which were not in keeping with the very highest professional standards.

In the space here allotted, any attempt to give an adequate idea of Mr. Choate's professional and public work is quite out of the question. In addition to the conduct of an unusually large professional practice he did a large amount of literary work, mainly in the delivery of lectures, which at that time in New England were almost a part of the public system of education. Throughout his life he took an active part in politics. He attended the Whig convention at Baltimore in 1852, where General Scott received his nomination for the Presidency, and where Mr. Choate made one of the most eloquent speeches of his life in his effort to secure the nomination for Mr. Webster.

Mr. Choate finally killed himself by overwork. Though a man of great physical strength and remarkable vitality, no constitution could stand the strain of his intense labors in the different lines of law, literature, and politics. His magnificent physique finally broke down. He died on July 13th, 1859, being not quite sixty years. His death was an important public event. In the public press, at many public meetings throughout the country, and by public men of the highest distinction, his death was treated as a public misfortune. In his day he rendered distinguished public services. He had the capacities and the interests which fitted him to be a great statesman. Had it not been for our system of short terms, and rotation in office, Mr. Choate would probably have remained in public life from the time of his entry into Congress, would have been a most valuable public servant, and would have left a great reputation as a statesman. As it was, he left, so far as now appears, only the ephemeral reputation of a great advocate.

This scanty sketch can best be closed by a quotation from the address of Richard H. Dana at the meeting of the Boston bar held just after Mr. Choate's death. That extract will show the judgment of Mr. Choate which was held by the giants among whom he lived and of whom he was the leader:--

"'The wine of life is drawn.' 'The golden bowl is broken.' The age of miracles has passed. The day of inspiration is over. The Great Conqueror, unseen and irresistible, has broken into our temple and has carried off the vessels of gold, the vessels of silver, the precious stones, the jewels, and the ivory; and like the priests of the temple of Jerusalem after the invasion from Babylon, we must content ourselves as we can with vessels of wood and of stone and of iron.

"With such broken phrases as these, Mr. Chairman, perhaps not altogether just to the living, we endeavor to express the emotions natural to this hour of our bereavement. Talent, industry, eloquence, and learning, there are still, and always will be, at the bar of Boston. But if I say that the age of miracles has passed, that the day of inspiration is over,--if I cannot realize that in this place where we now are, the cloth of gold was spread, and a banquet set fit for the gods,--I know, sir, you will excuse it. Any one who has lived with him and now survives him, will excuse it;--any one who like the youth in Wordsworth's Ode,--

'--by the vision splendid Is on his way attended, At length ... perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day.'"

It will also tend to secure justice to Mr. Choate's memory, if there be here recorded the statement by Judge Benjamin R. Curtis of the judgment of the men of Mr. Choate's own profession, as to the moral standards by which Mr. Choate was governed in his practice. Judge Curtis said in his address at the same meeting of the Boston Bar:--

"I desire, therefore, on this occasion and in this presence, to declare our appreciation of the injustice which would be done to this great and eloquent advocate by attributing to him any want of loyalty to truth, or any deference to wrong, because he employed all his great powers and attainments, and used to the utmost his consummate skill and eloquence, in exhibiting and enforcing the comparative merits of one side of the cases in which he acted. _In doing so he but did his duty. If other people did theirs, the administration of justice was secured._"

[Signature: Albert Stickney]

All the citations are from 'Addresses and Orations of Rufus Choate': copyrighted 1878, by Little, Brown and Company

THE PURITAN IN SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS LIFE

From Address Delivered at the Ipswich Centennial, 1834

Turn first now for a moment to the old English Puritans, the fathers of our fathers, of whom came, of whom were, planters of Ipswich, of Massachusetts, of New England,--of whom came, of whom were, our own Ward, Parker, and Saltonstall, and Wise, Norton, and Rogers, and Appleton, and Cobbet, and Winthrop,--and see whether they were likely to be the founders of a race of freemen or slaves. Remember then, the true, noblest, the least questioned, least questionable, praise of these men is this: that for a hundred years they were the sole depositaries of the sacred fire of liberty in England after it had gone out in every other bosom,--that they saved at its last gasp the English Constitution,--which the Tudors and the first two Stuarts were rapidly changing into just such a gloomy despotism as they saw in France and Spain,--and wrought into it every particle of freedom which it now possesses,--that when they first took their seats in the House of Commons, in the early part of the reign of Elizabeth, they found it the cringing and ready tool of the throne, and that they reanimated it, remodeled it, reasserted its privileges, restored it to its constitutional rank, drew back to it the old power of making laws, redressing wrongs, and imposing taxes, and thus again rebuilt and opened what an Englishman called "the chosen temple of liberty," an English House of Commons,--that they abridged the tremendous power of the crown and defined it,--and when at last Charles Stuart resorted to arms to restore the despotism they had partially overthrown, that they met him on a hundred fields of battle, and buried, after a sharp and long struggle, crown and mitre and the headless trunk of the king himself beneath the foundations of a civil and religious commonwealth. This praise all the historians of England--Whig and Tory, Protestant and Catholic, Hume, Hallam, Lingard, and all--award to the Puritans. By what causes this spirit of liberty had been breathed into the masculine, enthusiastic, austere, resolute character of this extraordinary body of men, in such intensity as to mark them off from all the rest of the people of England, I cannot here and now particularly consider. It is a thrilling and awful history of the Puritans in England, from their first emerging above the general level of Protestants, in the time of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., until they were driven by hundreds and thousands to these shores; but I must pass it over. It was just when the nobler and grander traits--the enthusiasm and piety and hardihood and energy--of Puritanism had attained the highest point of exaltation to which, in England, it ever mounted up, and the love of liberty had grown to be the great master-passion that fired and guided all the rest,--it was just then that our portion of its disciples, filled with the undiluted spirit, glowing with the intensest fervors of Protestantism and republicanism together, came hither, and in that elevated and holy and resolved frame began to build the civil and religious structures which you see around you.

Trace now their story a little farther onward through the Colonial period to the War of Independence, to admire with me the providential agreement of circumstances by which that spirit of liberty which brought them hither was strengthened and reinforced; until at length, instructed by wisdom, tempered by virtue, and influenced by injuries, by anger and grief and conscious worth and the sense of violated right, it burst forth here and wrought the wonders of the Revolution. I have thought that if one had the power to place a youthful and forming people like the Northern colonists, in whom the love of freedom was already vehement and healthful, in a situation the most propitious for the growth and perfection of that sacred sentiment, he could hardly select a fairer field for so interesting an experiment than the actual condition of our fathers for the hundred and fifty years after their arrival, to the War of the Revolution.

They had freedom enough to teach them its value and to refresh and elevate their spirits, wearied, not despondent, from the contentions and trials of England. They were just so far short of perfect freedom that instead of reposing for a moment in the mere fruition of what they had, they were kept emulous and eager for more, looking all the while up and aspiring to rise to a loftier height, to breathe a purer air, and bask in a brighter beam. Compared with the condition of England down to 1688,--compared with that of the larger part of the continent of Europe down to our Revolution,--theirs was a privileged and liberal condition. The necessaries of freedom, if I may say so,--its plainer food and homelier garments and humbler habitations,--were theirs. Its luxuries and refinements, its festivals, its lettered and social glory, its loftier port and prouder look and richer graces, were the growth of a later day; these came in with independence. Here was liberty enough to make them love it for itself, and to fill them with those lofty and kindred sentiments which are at once its fruit and its nutriment and safeguard in the soul of man. But their liberty was still incomplete, and it was constantly in danger from England; and these two circumstances had a powerful effect in increasing that love and confirming those sentiments. It was a condition precisely adapted to keep liberty, as a subject of thought and feeling and desire, every moment in mind. Every moment they were comparing what they had possessed with what they wanted and had a right to; they calculated by the rule of three, if a fractional part of freedom came to so much, what would express the power and value of the whole number! They were restive and impatient and ill at ease; a galling wakefulness possessed their faculties like a spell. Had they been wholly slaves, they had lain still and slept. Had they been wholly free, that eager hope, that fond desire, that longing after a great, distant, yet practicable good, would have given way to the placidity and luxury and carelessness of complete enjoyment; and that energy and wholesome agitation of mind would have gone down like an ebb-tide. As it was, the whole vast body of waters all over its surface, down to its sunless, utmost depths, was heaved and shaken and purified by a spirit that moved above it and through it and gave it no rest, though the moon waned and the winds were in their caves; they were like the disciples of the old and bitter philosophy of paganism, who had been initiated into one stage of the greater mysteries, and who had come to the door, closed, and written over with strange characters, which led up to another. They had tasted of truth, and they burned for a fuller draught; a partial revelation of that which shall be hereafter had dawned; and their hearts throbbed eager, yet not without apprehension, to look upon the glories of the perfect day. Some of the mystery of God, of Nature, of Man, of the Universe, had been unfolded; might they by prayer, by abstinence, by virtue, by retirement, by contemplation, entitle themselves to read another page in the clasped and awful volume?

THE NEW-ENGLANDER'S CHARACTER

From Address Delivered at the Ipswich Centennial, 1834

I hold it to have been a great thing, in the first place, that we had among us, at that awful moment when the public mind was meditating the question of submission to the tea tax, or resistance by arms, and at the more awful moment of the first appeal to arms,--that we had some among us who personally knew what war was. Washington, Putnam, Stark, Gates, Prescott, Montgomery, were soldiers already. So were hundreds of others of humbler rank, but not yet forgotten by the people whom they helped to save, who mustered to the camp of our first Revolutionary armies. These all had tasted a soldier's life. They had seen fire, they had felt the thrilling sensations, the quickened flow of blood to and from the heart, the mingled apprehension and hope, the hot haste, the burning thirst, the feverish rapture of battle, which he who has not felt is unconscious of one-half of the capacities and energies of his nature; which he who has felt, I am told, never forgets. They had slept in the woods on the withered leaves or the snow, and awoke to breakfast upon birch-bark and the tender tops of willow-trees. They had kept guard on the outposts on many a stormy night, knowing perfectly that the thicket half a pistol-shot off was full of French and Indian riflemen.

I say it was something that we had such men among us. They helped discipline our raw first levies. They knew what an army is, and what it needs, and how to provide for it. They could take that young volunteer of sixteen by the hand, sent by an Ipswich mother, who after looking upon her son equipped for battle from which he might not return, Spartan-like, bid him go and behave like a man--and many, many such shouldered a musket for Lexington and Bunker Hill--and assure him from their own personal knowledge that after the first fire he never would know fear again, even that of the last onset. But the long and peculiar wars of New England had done more than to furnish a few such officers and soldiers as these. They had formed that public sentiment upon the subject of war which re-united all the armies, fought all the battles, and won all the glory of the Revolution. The truth is that war in some form or another had been, from the first, one of the usages, one of the habits, of colonial life. It had been felt from the first to be just as necessary as planting or reaping--to be as likely to break out every day and every night as a thunder-shower in summer, and to break out as suddenly. There have been nations who boasted that their rivers or mountains never saw the smoke of an enemy's camp. Here the war-whoop awoke the sleep of the cradle; it startled the dying man on his pillow; it summoned young and old from the meeting-house, from the burial, and from the bridal ceremony, to the strife of death. The consequence was that the steady, composed, and reflecting courage which belongs to all the English race grew into a leading characteristic of New England; and a public sentiment was formed, pervading young and old and both sexes, which declared it lawful, necessary, and honorable to risk life and to shed blood for a great cause,--for our family, for our fires, for our God, for our country, for our religion. In such a cause it declared that the voice of God himself commanded to the field. The courage of New England was the "courage of conscience." It did not rise to that insane and awful passion, the love of war for itself. It would not have hurried her sons to the Nile, or the foot of the Pyramids, or across the great raging sea of snows which rolled from Smolensko to Moscow, to set the stars of glory upon the glowing brow of ambition. But it was a courage which at Lexington, at Bunker Hill, at Bennington, and at Saratoga, had power to brace the spirit for the patriot's fight, and gloriously roll back the tide of menaced war from their homes, the soil of their birth, the graves of their fathers, and the everlasting hills of their freedom.

OF THE AMERICAN BAR

From the Address before the Cambridge Law School, 1845

Something such has, in all the past periods of our history, been one of the functions of the American bar. To vindicate the true interpretation of the charters of the colonies, to advise what forms of polity, what systems of jurisprudence, what degree and what mode of liberty these charters permitted,--to detect and expose that long succession of infringement which grew at last to the Stamp Act and Tea Tax, and compelled us to turn from broken charters to national independence,--to conduct the transcendent controversy which preceded the Revolution, that grand appeal to the reason of civilization,--this was the work of our first generation of lawyers: to construct the American constitutions: the higher praise of the second generation. I claim it in part for the sobriety and learning of the American bar; for the professional instinct towards the past; for the professional appreciation of order, forms, obedience, restraints; for the more than professional, the profound and wide intimacy with the history of all liberty, classical, mediaeval, and above all, of English liberty,--I claim it in part for the American bar that, springing into existence by revolution,--revolution, which more than anything and all things lacerates and discomposes the popular mind,--justifying that revolution only on a strong principle of natural right, with not one single element or agent of monarchy or aristocracy on our soil or in our blood,--I claim it for the bar that the constitutions of America so nobly closed the series of our victories! These constitutions owe to the bar more than their terse and exact expression and systematic arrangements: they owe to it in part, too, their elements of permanence; their felicitous reconciliation of universal and intense liberty with forms to enshrine and regulations to restrain it; their Anglo-Saxon sobriety and gravity conveyed in the genuine idiom, suggestive of the grandest civil achievements of that unequaled race. To interpret these constitutions, to administer and maintain them, this is the office of our age of the profession. Herein have we somewhat wherein to glory; hereby we come into the class and share in the dignity of founders of States, of restorers of States, of preservers of States.

I said and I repeat that while lawyers, and because we are lawyers, we are statesmen. We are by profession statesmen. And who may measure the value of this department of public duty? Doubtless in statesmanship there are many mansions, and large variety of conspicuous service. Doubtless to have wisely decided the question of war or peace,--to have adjusted by a skillful negotiation a thousand miles of unsettled boundary-line,--to have laid the corner-stone of some vast policy whereby the currency is corrected, the finances enriched, the measure of industrial fame filled,--are large achievements. And yet I do not know that I can point to one achievement of this department of American statesmanship which can take rank for its consequences of good above that single decision of the Supreme Court which adjudged that an act of legislature contrary to the Constitution is void, and that the judicial department is clothed with the power to ascertain the repugnancy and to pronounce the legal conclusion. That the framers of the Constitution intended this should be so is certain; but to have asserted it against the Congress and the Executive,--to have vindicated it by that easy yet adamantine demonstration than which the reasonings of the mathematics show nothing surer,--to have inscribed this vast truth of conservatism on the public mind, so that no demagogue, not in the last stage of intoxication, denies it,--this is an achievement of statesmanship of which a thousand years may not exhaust or reveal all the good.

DANIEL WEBSTER

From Eulogy delivered at Dartmouth College, 1853

Sometimes it has seemed to me that to enable one to appreciate with accuracy, as a psychological speculation, the intrinsic and absolute volume and texture of that brain,--the real rate and measure of those abilities,--it was better not to see or hear him, unless you could see or hear him frequently, and in various modes of exhibition; for undoubtedly there was something in his countenance and bearing so expressive of command,--something even in his conversational language when saying "Parva summisse et modica temperate," so exquisitely plausible, embodying the likeness at least of a rich truth, the forms at least of a large generalization, in an epithet,--an antithesis,--a pointed phrase,--a broad and peremptory thesis,--and something in his grander forthputting, when roused by a great subject or occasion exciting his reason and touching his moral sentiments and his heart, so difficult to be resisted, approaching so near, going so far beyond, the higher style of man, that although it left you a very good witness of his power of influencing others, you were not in the best condition immediately to pronounce on the quality or the source of the influence. You saw the flash and heard the peal, and felt the admiration and fear; but from what region it was launched, and by what divinity, and from what Olympian seat, you could not certainly yet tell. To do that you must, if you saw him at all, see him many times; compare him with himself and with others; follow his dazzling career from his father's house; observe from what competitors he won those laurels; study his discourses,--study them by the side of those of other great men of this country and time, and of other countries and times, conspicuous in the same fields of mental achievement,--look through the crystal water of the style down to the golden sands of the thought; analyze and contrast intellectual power somewhat; consider what kind and what quantity of it has been held by students of mind needful in order to great eminence in the higher mathematics, or metaphysics, or reason of the law; what capacity to analyze, through and through, to the primordial elements of the truths of that science; yet what wisdom and sobriety, in order to control the wantonness and shun the absurdities of a mere scholastic logic, by systematizing ideas, and combining them, and repressing one by another, thus producing, not a collection of intense and conflicting paradoxes, but _a code_, scientifically coherent and practically useful,--consider what description and what quantity of mind have been held needful by students of mind in order to conspicuous eminence--long maintained--in statesmanship; that great practical science, that great philosophical art, whose ends are the existence, happiness, and honor of a nation; whose truths are to be drawn from the widest survey of man,--of social man,--of the particular race and particular community for which a government is to be made or kept, or a policy to be provided; "philosophy in action," demanding at once or affording place for the highest speculative genius and the most skillful conduct of men and of affairs; and finally consider what degree and kind of mental power has been found to be required in order to influence the reason of an audience and a nation by speech,--not magnetizing the mere nervous or emotional nature by an effort of that nature, but operating on reason by reason--a great reputation in forensic and deliberative eloquence, maintained and advancing for a lifetime,--it is thus that we come to be sure that his intellectual power was as real and as uniform as its very happiest particular display had been imposing and remarkable.

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

(A.D. 347-407)

BY JOHN MALONE

A strong soldier of the Cross and from good fighting stock was that John of Antioch who, among the people that were first of the earth to bear the name of Christian, was called Chrysostom--"mouth of gold." His father Secundus, who died about the time of Chrysostom's birth, was a military commander in Syria under Constantine and Constantius II. John was born at Antioch, A.D. 347, when the Eastern Empire and the City of Constantine were new. His young mother Arethusa, a Christian, then but twenty years of age, devoted herself to widowhood and the education of her son in the city of his birth. The youth's early years were passed under her careful guidance, and at the age of twenty he entered on the study of oratory and philosophy under the celebrated Libanius. In 369 he became a baptized Christian and reader in the house of Melitius the bishop. The unhappy reigns of Valens and Valentinian, when neo-paganism in the West and in the Gothic settlement in the East began to work the Empire's fall, saw John devoted to an ascetic life, after the example of the monks and hermits who sheltered in the mountains about the gay and queenly city of his birth. His mother's grief and loneliness brought him back from his cave to an energetic career as an outspoken preacher of God's Word and the eternal profit of good stout-hearted workaday well-doing. He made himself dear to the people of Antioch, for he had eloquence such as had been unknown to Greeks since Demosthenes, and he shrank not from labor and self-denial. So they called him "golden-mouth," as the Indians call their tried men "straight-tongues." On the death of Nectarius, the successor of Gregory of Nazianzenus, Theophilus of Alexandria and Arcadius the Emperor made him Metropolitan of Constantinople, A.D. 397. All before this time he was laying about him with good ear-smiting Greek at vice and luxury, of which there was abundance both in palace and in hovel; and his elevation to an Imperial neighborhood did not stay him. He cleared Byzantium of pagan shows, gathered the relics of the martyrs, and sent missionaries to preach to the Goths in their own speech. Not many years of this kind of leadership were allowed him. Arcadius, well disposed but indolent, was under the rule of a willful woman; and when Chrysostom turned his swayful voice against her pet vanities, the vexed Eudoxia intrigued his deposition. In 403 John went to exile in Bithynia, with the words "The Lord hath given, the Lord hath taken away" upon his lips. A great earthquake so frightened the Imperial City and family that with one outcry they called Chrysostom back. When the fear of the infirm earth had worn away, Eudoxia remembered her enmity and took it back to nurse. So one day when John had said in his sword-like invective that "Herodias was raging again," she showed less mercy than the Baptist had obtained; for under the plea that his restoration had been unwarranted, the Metropolitan was sent to a forced wandering in the wilds of outer provinces, from which there returned of him only the venerated relics of a martyr. Driven from spot to spot, sometimes in chains, always under the prod of guarding spears, one day of September, 407, he dragged himself to the tomb of the martyr Basiliscus at Comana in Pontus, and laid his soul in the hands of God. Thirty years afterward, Theodosius the Younger brought the body back to Constantinople.

In person Chrysostom was small and spare. His life of rigorous fasting and toil made him still more slight and hollow-cheeked, but it is told that there was always a blaze of fire in the deep-set eyes. The work of Chrysostom was chiefly ecclesiastical oratory, in which no one of his own or later time surpassed him. First of the great Christian preachers after the Church came from the caves, he was not less able as a teacher. His letters, full of sweetness and firm honesty, his poetry, delicate and musical, and his philosophic essays, rich with the clear-cut jewels of dialectics, are worthy of his station in the first order of the Doctors of the Church.

[Signature: John Malone]

THAT REAL WEALTH IS FROM WITHIN

From the 'Treatise to prove that no one can harm the man who does not injure himself'

What I undertake is to prove (only make no commotion) that no one of those who are wronged is wronged by another, but experiences this injury at his own hands.

But in order to make my argument plainer, let us first of all inquire what injustice is, and of what kind of things the material of it is wont to be composed; also what human virtue is, and what it is which ruins it; and further, what it is which seems to ruin it but really does not. For instance (for I must complete my argument by means of examples), each thing is subject to one evil which ruins it: iron to rust, wool to moth, flocks of sheep to wolves. The virtue of wine is injured when it ferments and turns sour; of honey when it loses its natural sweetness and is reduced to a bitter juice. Ears of corn are ruined by mildew and drought, the fruit and leaves and branches of vines by the mischievous host of locusts, other trees by the caterpillar, and irrational creatures by diseases of various kinds; and not to lengthen the list by going through all possible examples, our own flesh is subject to fevers and palsies and a crowd of other maladies. As then each one of these things is liable to that which ruins its virtue, let us now consider what it is which injures the human race, and what it is which ruins the virtue of a human being. Most men think that there are divers things which have this effect; for I must mention the erroneous opinions on the subject, and after confuting them, proceed to exhibit that which really does ruin our virtue, and to demonstrate clearly that no one could inflict this injury or bring this ruin upon us unless we betrayed ourselves. The multitude then, having erroneous opinions, imagine that there are many different things which ruin our virtue; some say it is poverty, others bodily disease, others loss of property, others calumny, others death, and they are perpetually bewailing and lamenting these things: and whilst they are commiserating the sufferers and shedding tears, they excitedly exclaim to one another, "What a calamity has befallen such and such a man! he has been deprived of all his fortune at a blow." Of another again one will say, "Such and such a man has been attacked by severe sickness and is despaired of by the physicians in attendance." Some bewail and lament the inmates of the prison, some those who have been expelled from their country and transported to the land of exile, others those who have been deprived of their freedom, others those who have been seized and made captives by enemies, others those who have been drowned, or burnt, or buried by the fall of a house, but no one mourns those who are living in wickedness; on the contrary, which is worse than all, they often congratulate them, a practice which is the cause of all manner of evils. Come then (only, as I exhorted you at the outset, do not make a commotion), let me prove that none of the things which have been mentioned injure the man who lives soberly, nor can ruin his virtue. For tell me, if a man has lost his all either at the hands of calumniators or of robbers, or has been stripped of his goods by knavish servants, what harm has the loss done to the virtue of the man?

But if it seems well, let me rather indicate in the first place what is the virtue of a man, beginning by dealing with the subject in the case of existences of another kind, so as to make it more intelligible and plain to the majority of readers.

What then is the virtue of a horse? is it to have a bridle studded with gold and girths to match, and a band of silken threads to fasten the housing, and clothes wrought in divers colors and gold tissue, and head-gear studded with jewels, and locks of hair plaited with gold cord? or is it to be swift and strong in its legs, and even in its paces, and to have hoofs suitable to a well-bred horse, and courage fitted for long journeys and warfare, and to be able to behave with calmness in the battle-field, and if a rout takes place, to save its rider? Is it not manifest that these are the things which constitute the virtue of the horse, not the others? Again, what should you say was the virtue of asses and mules? is it not the power of carrying burdens with contentment, and accomplishing journeys with ease, and having hoofs like rock? Shall we say that their outside trappings contribute anything to their own proper virtue? By no means. And what kind of vine shall we admire? one which abounds in leaves and branches, or one which is laden with fruit? Or what kind of virtue do we predicate of an olive? is it to have large boughs and great luxuriance of leaves, or to exhibit an abundance of its proper fruit dispersed over all parts of the tree? Well, let us act in the same way in the case of human beings also: let us determine what is the virtue of man, and let us regard that alone as an injury, which is destructive to it. What then is the virtue of man? Not riches, that thou shouldst fear poverty; nor health of body, that thou shouldst dread sickness; nor the opinion of the public, that thou shouldst view an evil reputation with alarm, nor life simply for its own sake, that death should be terrible to thee; nor liberty that thou shouldst avoid servitude: but carefulness in holding true doctrine, and rectitude in life. Of these things not even the devil himself will be able to rob a man, if he who possesses them guards them with the needful carefulness, and that most malicious and ferocious demon is aware of this.

Thus in no case will any one be able to injure a man who does not choose to injure himself; but if a man is not willing to be temperate, and to aid himself from his own resources, no one will ever be able to profit him. Therefore also that wonderful history of the Holy Scriptures, as in some lofty, large, and broad picture, has portrayed the lives of the men of old time, extending the narrative from Adam to the coming of Christ: and it exhibits to you both those who are vanquished and those who are crowned with victory in the contest, in order that it may instruct you by means of all examples that no one will be able to injure one who is not injured by himself, even if all the world were to kindle a fierce war against him. For it is not stress of circumstances, nor variation of seasons, nor insults of men in power, nor intrigues besetting thee like snow-storms, nor a crowd of calamities, nor a promiscuous collection of all the ills to which mankind is subject, which can disturb even slightly the man who is brave and temperate and watchful; just as on the contrary the indolent and supine man who is his own betrayer cannot be made better, even with the aid of innumerable ministrations.

Copyrighted by the Christian Literature Company, New York.

ON ENCOURAGEMENT DURING ADVERSITY

From the 'Letters to Olympias'

To my Lady, the most reverend and divinely favored Deaconess Olympias, I John, Bishop, send greeting in the Lord: Come now, let me relieve the wound of thy despondency, and disperse the thoughts which gather this cloud of care around thee. For what is it which upsets thy mind, and why art thou sorrowful and dejected? Is it because of the fierce black storm which has overtaken the Church, enveloping all things in darkness as of a night without a moon, and is growing to a head every day, travailing to bring forth disastrous shipwrecks, and increasing the ruin of the world? I know all this as well as you; none shall gainsay it, and if you like I will form an image of the things now taking place so as to present the tragedy yet more distinctly to thee. We behold a sea upheaved from the very lowest depths, some sailors floating dead upon the waves, others engulfed by them, the planks of the ships breaking up, the sails torn to tatters, the masts sprung, the oars dashed out of the sailors' hands, the pilots seated on the deck, clasping their knees with their hands instead of grasping the rudder, bewailing the hopelessness of their situation with sharp cries and bitter lamentations, neither sky nor sea clearly visible, but all one deep and impenetrable darkness, so that no one can see his neighbor; whilst mighty is the roaring of the billows, and monsters of the sea attack the crews on every side.

But how much further shall I pursue the unattainable? for whatever image of our present evils I may seek, speech shrinks baffled from the attempt. Nevertheless, even when I look at these calamities I do not abandon the hope of better things, considering as I do who the Pilot is in all this--not one who gets the better of the storm by his art, but calms the raging waters by his rod. But if he does not effect this at the outset and speedily, such is his custom--he does not at the beginning put down these terrible evils; but when they have increased and come to extremities, and most persons are reduced to despair, then he works wondrously and beyond all expectation, thus manifesting his own power and training the patience of those who undergo these calamities. Do not therefore be cast down. For there is only one thing, Olympias, which is really terrible, only one real trial, and that is sin; and I have never ceased continually harping upon this theme: but as for all other things, plots, enmities, frauds, calumnies, insults, accusations, confiscation, exile, the keen sword of the enemy, the peril of the deep, warfare of the whole world, or anything else you like to name, they are but idle tales. For whatever the nature of these things may be, they are transitory and perishable, and operate in a mortal body without doing any injury to the vigilant soul. Therefore the blessed Paul, desiring to prove the insignificance both of the pleasures and sorrows relating to this life, declared the whole truth in one sentence when he said, "For the things which are seen are temporal." Why then dost thou fear temporal things which pass away like the stream of a river? For such is the nature of present things, whether they be pleasant or painful. And another prophet compared all human prosperity not to grass, but to another material even more flimsy, describing the whole of it "as the flower of grass." For he did not single out any one part of it, as wealth alone, or luxury alone, or power, or honor; but having comprised all the things which are esteemed splendid amongst men under the one designation of glory, he said, "All the glory of man is as the flower of grass."

Nevertheless, you will say, adversity is a terrible thing and grievous to be borne. Yet look at it again compared with another image, and then also learn to despise it. For the railing, and insults, and reproaches, and gibes, inflicted by enemies and their plots, are compared to a worn-out garment and moth-eaten wool, when God says, "Fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings, for they shall wax old as doth a garment, and like moth-eaten wool so shall they be consumed." Therefore let none of these things which are happening trouble thee; but ceasing to invoke the aid of this or that person, and to run after shadows (for such are human alliances), do thou persistently call upon Jesus whom thou servest, merely to bow his head and in a moment of time all these evils will be dissolved. But if thou hast already called upon him, and yet they have not been dissolved, such is the manner of God's dealing (for I will resume my former argument); he does not put down evils at the outset, but when they have grown to a head, when scarcely any form of the enemy's malice remains ungratified, then he suddenly converts all things to a state of tranquillity and conducts them to an unexpected settlement. For he is not only able to turn as many things as we expect and hope, to good, but many more, yea infinitely more. Wherefore also Paul saith, "Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." Could he not, for example, have prevented the Three Children at the outset from falling into trial? But he did not choose to do this, thereby conferring great pain upon them. Therefore he suffered them to be delivered into the hands of barbarians, and the furnace to be heated to an immeasurable height and the wrath of the king to blaze even more fiercely than the furnace, and hands and feet to be bound with great severity, and they themselves to be cast into the fire; and then, when all they who beheld despaired of their rescue, suddenly and beyond all hope the wonder-working power of God, the supreme artificer, was displayed, and shone forth with exceeding splendor. For the fire was bound and the bondmen were released; and the furnace became a temple of prayer, a place of fountains and dew, of higher dignity than a royal court, and the very hairs of their head prevailed over that all-devouring element which gets the better even of iron and stone, and masters every kind of substance. And a solemn song of universal praise was instituted there by these holy men, inviting every kind of created thing to join in the wondrous melody: and they uttered hymns of thanksgiving to God for that they had been bound, and also burnt, as far at least as the malice of their enemies had power; that they had been exiles from their country, captives deprived of their liberty, wandering outcasts from city and home, sojourners in a strange and barbarous land: for all this was the outpouring of a grateful heart. And when the malicious devices of their enemies were perfected (for what further could they attempt after their death?) and the labors of the heroes were completed, and the garland of victory was woven, and their rewards were prepared, and nothing more was wanting for their renown, then at last their calamities were brought to an end, and he who caused the furnace to be kindled, and delivered them over to that great punishment, became himself the panegyrist of those holy heroes and the herald of God's marvelous deed, and everywhere throughout the world issued letters full of reverent praise, recording what had taken place, and becoming the faithful herald of the miracles wrought by the wonder-working God. For inasmuch as he had been an enemy and adversary, what he wrote was above suspicion even in the opinion of enemies.

Dost thou see the abundance of resource belonging to God? his extraordinary power, his loving-kindness and care? Be not therefore dismayed or troubled, but continue to give thanks to God for all things, praising and invoking him; beseeching and supplicating; even if countless tumults and troubles come upon thee, even if tempests are stirred up before thine eyes, let none of these things disturb thee. For our Master is not baffled by the difficulty, even if all things are reduced to the extremity of ruin. For it is possible for him to raise those who have fallen, to convert those who are in error, to set straight those who have been ensnared, to release those who have been laden with countless sins, and make them righteous, to quicken those who are dead, to restore lustre to decayed things, and freshness to those who have waxen old. For if he makes things which are not to come into being, and bestows existence on things which are nowhere by any means manifest, how much more will he rectify things which already exist!

Copyrighted by the Christian Literature Company, New York.

CONCERNING THE STATUTES

From Homily VIII.

Knowing these things, let us take heed to our life: and let us not be earnest as to the goods that perish; neither as to the glory that goeth out; nor as to that body which groweth old; nor as to that beauty which is fading; nor as to that pleasure which is fleeting: but let us expend all our care about the soul, and let us provide for the welfare of this in every way. For to cure the body when diseased is not an easy matter to every one; but to cure a sick soul is easy to all: and the sickness of the body requires medicines, as well as money, for its healing; but the healing of the soul is a thing easy to procure, and devoid of expense. And the nature of the flesh is with much labor delivered from those wounds which are troublesome; for very often the knife must be applied, and medicines that are bitter; but with respect to the soul there is nothing of this kind. It suffices only to exercise the will and the desire, and all things are accomplished. And this hath been the work of God's providence. For inasmuch as from bodily sickness no great injury could arise (for though we were not diseased, yet death would in any case come, and destroy and dissolve the body); but everything depends upon the health of our souls; this being by far the more precious and necessary, he hath made the medicining of it easy, and void of expense or pain. What excuse therefore or what pardon shall we obtain, if when the body is sick, and money must be expended on its behalf, and physicians called in, and much anguish endured, we make this so much a matter of our care (though what might result from that sickness could be no great injury to us), and yet treat the soul with neglect? And this, when we are neither called upon to pay down money, nor to give others any trouble, nor to sustain any sufferings; but without any of all these things, by only choosing and willing, have it in our power to accomplish the entire amendment of it: and knowing assuredly that if we fail to do this, we shall sustain the extreme sentence, and punishments, and penalties, which are inexorable! For tell me, if any one promised to teach thee the healing art in a short space of time, without money or labor, wouldst thou not think him a benefactor? Wouldst thou not submit both to do and to suffer all things, whatsoever he who promised these things commanded? Behold now, it is permitted thee without labor to find a medicine for wounds, not of the body, but of the soul, and to restore it to a state of health without any suffering! Let us not be indifferent to the matter! For pray what is the pain of laying aside anger against one who hath aggrieved thee? It is a pain indeed to remember injuries, and not to be reconciled! What labor is it to pray, and to ask for a thousand good things from God, who is ready to give? What labor is it, not to speak evil of any one? What difficulty is there in being delivered from envy and ill-will? What trouble is it to love one's neighbor? What suffering is it not to utter shameful words, nor to revile, nor to insult another? What fatigue is it not to swear? for again I return to this same admonition. The labor of swearing is indeed exceedingly great. Oftentimes, whilst under the influence of anger or wrath, we have sworn, perhaps, that we would never be reconciled to those who have injured us.

I am now for the sixth day admonishing you in respect of this precept. Henceforth I am desirous to take leave of you, meaning to abstain from the subject, that ye may be on your guard. There will no longer be any excuse or allowance for you; for of right, indeed, if nothing had been said on this matter, it ought to have been amended of yourselves, for it is not a thing of an intricate nature, or that requires great preparation. But since ye have enjoyed the advantage of so much admonition and counsel, what excuse will ye have to offer, when ye stand accused before that dread tribunal and are required to give account of this transgression? It is impossible to invent any excuse; but of necessity you must either go hence amended, or if you have not amended, be punished, and abide the extremest penalty! Thinking therefore upon all these things, and departing hence with much anxiety about them, exhort ye one another, that the things spoken of during so many days may be kept with all watchfulness in your minds; so that whilst we are silent, ye instructing, edifying, exhorting one another, may exhibit great improvement: and having fulfilled all the other precepts may enjoy eternal crowns; which God grant we may all obtain through the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Copyrighted by the Christian Literature Company, New York.

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO

(106-43 B.C.)

BY WILLIAM CRANSTON LAWTON

The outward life, the political career, of Marcus Tullius Cicero, is to nearly all students of history a tragic and pathetic story. He seems peculiarly unfitted to the people and the time in which his lot was cast. His enlightened love for the traditions of the past, his passionate sentiment of patriotism, his forceful eloquence as a debater in the Senate or as an orator in the Forum,--these qualities of a Burke or a Webster stand out violently dissevered from the lurid history of his time. This humane scholarly life was flung into the midst of the wildest century in all Rome's grim annals; the hundred years of civic turmoil and bloodshed, from the elder Gracchus's murder to the death of Cleopatra.

And yet such was the marvelous activity, the all-sided productiveness, of the Ciceronian intellect, that perhaps no human mind has ever so fully exploited all its powers. Moreover, in each intellectual field which he entered, the chances of time have removed nearly every Roman rival, leaving us no choice save to accept Cicero's guidance. There was many another orator, and history of eloquence. There were other practical treatises on rhetoric. Many a notable correspondence was actually preserved and published, though now lost. Even his free transcriptions from Greek philosophical treatises--hastily conned and perhaps imperfectly understood--have acquired, through the disappearance of the Greek scrolls themselves, an ill-deserved authority as to the tenets of the Epicurean and other schools.

Before and above all else, Cicero was a pleader. Out of that activity grew his ill-starred political activity, while his other literary tastes were essentially but a solace in times of enforced retirement. With the discussion of his oratory, therefore, we may best combine a rapid outline of his life.

By their common birthplace, Arpinum, and by a slight tie of kinship, Cicero was associated with Marius; and he began life, like Disraeli, with radical sympathies. He was the elder son of a wealthy Roman citizen, but no ancestor had ennobled the family by attaining curule office. After a most thorough course of training in Latin and Greek, Cicero began to "practice law." The pleader in ancient Rome was supposed to receive no fee, and even more than with us, found his profession the natural stepping-stone to political honors.

At the age of twenty-six, Cicero (in 80 B.C.) defended his first important client in a criminal case. In the closing days of the Sullan proscriptions, young Roscius, of Ameria in Umbria, was charged with murdering his own father in Rome. A pair of Roscius's kinsmen were probably the real culprits, and had arranged with Chrysogonus, a wealthy freedman and favorite of the Dictator, to insert the dead man's name among the outlawed victims and to divide the confiscated estate. The son was persecuted because he resisted this second outrage. Cicero says he is himself protected by his obscurity, though no other advocate has dared to plead for the unlucky youth. In our present text there are some audacious words aimed at Sulla's own measures: they were probably sharpened in a later revision. The case was won, against general expectation. Cicero may have played the hero that day: certainly the brief remainder of Sulla's life was spent by the young democratic pleader traveling in the East,--"for his health," as Plutarch adds, truly enough. At this time his style was chastened and his manner moderated by the teachers of Athens, and especially by Molo in Rhodes.

Cicero's quaestorship was passed in Sicily, 75-4 B.C. Here he knit close friendships with many Greek provincials, and did a creditable piece of archaeological work by rediscovering Archimedes's tomb. His impeachment of Verres for misgovernment in Sicily was in 70 B.C. This time the orator runs a less desperate risk. Since Sulla's death the old constitution has languidly revived. Speech was comparatively free and safe. The "knights" or wealthy middle class,--Cicero's own,--deprived by Sulla of the right to sit as the jurors in impeachment trials like Verres's, partially regain the privilege in this very year. The overwhelming mass of evidence made Verres flee into exile, and Hortensius, till then leader of the Roman bar, threw up the case in despair. Nevertheless Cicero published the stately series of orations he had prepared. They form the most vivid picture, and the deadliest indictments ever drawn, of Roman provincial government,--and of a ruthless art-collector. Cicero instantly became the foremost among lawyers. Moreover, this success made Cicero a leader in the time of reaction after Sulla, and hastened his elevation to posts where only men of sterner nature could be fully and permanently successful.

[Illustration: CICERO.]

Pompey, born in the same year, was at this time leading the revolt against Sulla's measures. The attachment now formed, the warmer hearted Cicero never wholly threw off. The young general's later foreign victories are nowhere so generously set forth as in Cicero's too-rhetorical plea "for the Manilian Law," in 66 B.C. Pompey was then wintering in the East, after sweeping piracy in a single summer from the Mediterranean. This plea gave him the larger command against Mithridates. Despite the most extravagant laudation, however, Pompey remains, here as elsewhere, one of those large but vague and misty figures that stalk across the stage of history without ever once turning upon us a fully human face. Far more distinct than he, there looms above him the splendid triumphal pageant of Roman imperialism itself.

Cicero's unrivaled eloquence won him not only a golden shower of gifts and legacies, but also the praetorship and consulship at the earliest legal age. Perhaps some of the old nobles foresaw and prudently avoided the Catilinarian storm of 63 B.C. The common dangers of that year, and the pride of assured position, may have hastened the full transfer of Cicero's allegiance to the old senatorial faction. Tiberius Gracchus, boldly praised in January, has become for Cicero a notorious demagogue; his slayers instead are the undoubted patriots, in the famous harangues of November. These latter, by the way, were certainly under the file three years afterward,--and it is not likely that we read any Ciceronian speech just as it was delivered. If there be any thread of consistency in Cicero's public career, it must be sought in his long but vain hope to unite the nobility and the _equites_, in order to resist the growing proletariat.

The eager vanity with which Cicero seized the proud title "Father of the fatherland" is truly pathetic. The summary execution of the traitors may have been prompted by that physical timidity so often associated with the scholarly temperament. Whether needless or not, the act returned to plague him.

The happiest effort of the orator in his consular year was the famous plea for Murena. This consul-elect for 62 was a successful soldier. Catiline must be met in the spring "in the jaws of Etruria." Cicero's dearest friend, Servius Sulpicius Rufus, a defeated candidate, accused Murena of bribery. The conditions of Roman politics, the character of Sulpicius, the tone of Cicero himself, bid us adjudge Murena probably guilty. Cicero had supported Sulpicius, but now feels it is no time to "go behind the returns," or to replace a bold soldier by a scholarly lawyer.

To win his case Cicero must heap ridicule upon his own profession in his friend's person, and upon Stoic philosophy, represented by Cato, Sulpicius's chief advocate. This he did so successfully that Cato himself exclaimed with a grim smile, "What a jester our consul is!" Cicero won his case--and kept his friends. This speech is cited _sixteen times_ by Quintilian, and is a model of forensic ingenuity, wit, and grace. Its patriotism may be plausibly defended, but hardly its moral standards.

The next year produced the famous and successful defense of Cluentius,--probably guilty of poisoning,--and also the most delightful of all Cicero's speeches, the oration for the poet Archias. Whether the old Greek's claim to Roman citizenship was beyond cavil we neither know nor greatly care. The legal argument is suspiciously brief. The praise of literature and the scholarly life, however, has re-echoed ever since, and still reaches all hearts. Brother Quintus, sitting in judgment as praetor, is pleasantly greeted.

This is the culmination in Cicero's career of success. Some boastful words uttered in these days make us doubt if he remembered Solon's and Sophocles's maxim, "Count no life happy before its close." The fast-growing power of Caesar presently made the two successful generals Pompey and Crassus his political tools. Cicero refused to enter, on similar conditions, the cabal later known as the "First Triumvirate." Caesar, about to depart for his long absence in Gaul, might well regard the patriotic and impulsive orator as the most serious source of possible opposition in his absence. Marcus refused, himself, to go along to Gaul a-soldiering, though Brother Quintus accepted a commission and served creditably. At last, reluctantly, Caesar suffered Cicero's personal enemy Clodius to bring forward a decree outlawing "those who had put Roman citizens to death without trial" (March, 58 B.C.). Cicero meekly withdrew from Rome, was condemned by name in absence, and his town house and villas pillaged.

As to the cowardice of this hasty retreat, none need use severer words than did the exile himself. It is the decisive event in his career. His uninterrupted success was ended. His pride could never recover fully from the hurt. Worst of all, he could never again pose, even before his own eyes, as the fearless hero-patriot. In short, Caesar, the consummate master of action and of men, had humanely but decisively crippled the erratic yet patriotic rhetorician.

In little more than a year the bad conduct of Clodius, the personal good-will of the "triumvirs," and the whirligig of politics, brought round Cicero's return from Greece. His wings were however effectively clipped. After a brief and slight flutter of independence, he made full, even abject, submission to the dominant Caesarian faction. This was in 56 B.C. The next five years, inglorious politically, were however full of

## activity in legal oratory and other literary work. In his eloquent

defense of Caelius Rufus, charged with an attempt to poison Clodia, Cicero perforce whitewashes, or at least paints in far milder colors than of old, Catiline, Caelius's lifelong friend! A still less pleasing feature is the abusive attack on the famous and beautiful Clodia, probably the "Lesbia" of Catullus. (The unhappy young poet seems to have preceded Caelius in the fickle matron's favor.)

The events of the year 52 well illustrate the unfitness of Cicero for politics in such an age. Rome was full of street brawls, which Pompey could not check. The orator's old enemy Clodius, at the head of his bravos, was slain by a fellow ruffian Milo in January. At Milo's trial in April Cicero defended him, or attempted to do so. A court-room encircled by a yelling mob and guarded by Pompey's legions caused him to break down altogether. As afterward written out at leisure, the speech is a masterpiece of special pleading. The exiled Milo's criticism on it is well known: "I'm glad you never delivered it: I should not now be enjoying the mullets of Marseilles."

The year 51-50 Cicero spent, most unwillingly, as proconsular governor in far-off Cilicia. Though really humane and relatively honest, he accumulated in these few months a handsome sum in "gifts" from provincials and other perquisites. Even Cicero was a Roman.

Meantime the civil war had all but broken out at home. Cicero hesitated long, and the correspondence with Atticus contains exhaustive analyses of his motives and temptations. His naive selfishness and vanity at times in these letters seem even like self-caricature. Yet through it all glimmers a vein of real though bewildered patriotism. Still the craving for a triumph--he had fought some savage mountain clans in Asia Minor!--was hardly less dominant.

Repairing late and with many misgivings to Pompey's camp in Epirus, Cicero seems to have been there a "not unfeared, half-welcome" and critical guest. Illness is his excuse for absence from the decisive battle. He himself tells us little of these days. As Plutarch relates the tale, after Pompey's flight to Egypt Cicero refused the supreme command, and was thereupon threatened with death by young Gneius Pompey; but his life was saved by Cato.

One thing at least is undisputed. The last man to decide for Pompey's cause, he was the first to hurry back to Italy and crave Caesar's grace! For many months he waited in ignoble retirement, fearing the success of his deserted comrades even more than Caesar's victory. It is this action that gives the _coup de grace_ to Cicero's character as a hero. With whatever misgivings, he had chosen his side. Whatever disturbing threats of violent revenge after victory he heard in Pompey's camp, he awaited the decisive battle. Then there remained, for any brave man, only constancy in defeat--or a fall upon his sword.

Throughout Caesar's brief reign,--or long dictatorship,--from 48 to 44, Cicero is the most stately and the most obsequious of courtiers. For him who would plead for clemency, or return thanks for mercy accorded, at a despot's footstool, there are no more graceful models than the 'Pro Ligario' and the 'Pro Marcello.' Caesar himself realized, and wittily remarked, how irksome and hateful such a part must be to the older, vainer, more self-conscious man of the twain.

Midway in this period Cicero divorced his wife after thirty years of wedlock, seemingly from some dissatisfaction over her financial management, and soon after married a wealthy young ward. This is the least pleasing chapter of his private life, but perhaps the mortification and suffering it entailed were a sufficient penalty. His only daughter Tullia's death in 45 B.C. nearly broke the father's heart.

Whatever the reason, Cicero was certainly not in the secret of Caesar's assassination. Twice in letters to members of the conspiracy in later months he begins: "How I wish you had invited me to your glorious banquet on the Ides of March." "There would have been no remnants," he once adds. That is, Antony would not have been left alive.

We have now reached the last two years--perhaps the most creditable time--in Cicero's eventful life. This period runs from March 15th, 44 B.C., to December 7th, 43 B.C. It was one long struggle, first covert, then open, between Antony and the slayers of Caesar. Cicero's energy and eloquence soon made him the foremost voice in the Senate once more. For the first time since his exile, he is now speaking out courageously his own real sentiments. His public action is in harmony with his own convictions. The cause was not hopeless by any means, so far as the destruction of Antony would have been a final triumph. Indeed, that wild career seemed near its end, when Octavian's duplicity again threw the game into his rival's reckless hands. However, few students of history imagine that any effective restoration of senatorial government was possible. The peculiar pathos of Cicero's end, patriot as he was, is this: it removed one of the last great obstacles to the only stable and peaceful rule Rome could receive--the imperial throne of Augustus.

This last period is however among the most creditable, perhaps the most heroic, in Cicero's career. Its chief memorials are the fourteen extant orations against Antony. The comparative sincerity of these 'Philippics,' and the lack of private letters for much of this time, make them important historical documents. The only one which ranks among his greatest productions--perhaps the classic masterpiece of invective--is the 'Second Philippic.' This was never delivered at all, but published as a pamphlet. This unquestioned fact throws a curious light on passages like--"He is agitated, he perspires, he turns pale!" describing Antony at the (imaginary) delivery of the oration. The details of the behavior of Catiline and others may be hardly more authentic. The 'Ninth Philippic' is a heartfelt funeral eulogy on that same Sulpicius whom he had ridiculed in the 'Pro Murena.'

"The milestones into headstones turn, And under each a friend."

A fragment from one of Livy's lost books says, "Cicero bore with becoming spirit none of the ills of life save death itself." He indeed perished not only bravely but generously, dissuading his devoted slaves from useless resistance, and extending his neck to Antony's assassins. Verres lived to exult at the news, and then shared his enemy's fate, rather than give up his Greek vases to Antony! Nearly every Roman, save Nero, dies well.

Upon Cicero's political career our judgment is already indicated. He was always a patriot at heart, though often a bewildered one. His vanity, and yet more his physical cowardice, caused some grievous blots upon the record. His last days, and death, may atone for all--save one. The precipitate desertion of the Pompeians is not to be condoned.

The best English life of Cicero is by Forsyth; but quaint, dogged, prejudiced old Middleton should not be forgotten. Plutarch's Cicero "needs no bush."

Cicero's oratory was splendidly effective upon his emotional Italian hearers. It would not be so patiently accepted by any Teutonic folk. His very copiousness, however, makes him as a rule wonderfully clear and easy reading. Quintilian well says: "From Demosthenes's periods not a word can be spared, to Cicero's not one could be added."

Despite the rout of Verres and of Catiline, the merciless dissection of Clodia, and the statelier thunders of the 'Philippics,' Cicero was most successful and happiest when "defending the interests of his friends." Perhaps the greatest success against justice was the 'Pro Cluentio,' which throws so lurid a light on ante-Borgian Italian criminology. This speech is especially recommended by Niebuhr to young philologues as a nut worthy of the strongest teeth. There is a helpful edition by Ramsay, but Hertland's 'Murena' will be a pleasanter variation for students wearying of the beaten track followed by the school editions. Both the failure of the 'Pro Milone' and the world-wide success of the 'Pro Archia' bid us repeat the vain wish, that this humane and essentially modern nature might have fallen on a gentler age. Regarding his whole political life as an uncongenial role forced on him by fate, we return devout thanks for _fifty-eight_ orations, nearly all in revised and finished literary form! Fragments of seventeen, and titles of still thirty more, yet remain. From all his rivals, predecessors, pupils, not one authentic speech survives.

The best complete edition of the orations with English notes is by George Long, in the Bibliotheca Classica. The 'Philippics' alone are better edited by J.R. King in the Clarendon Press series. School editions of select speeches are superabundant. They regularly include the four Catilinarians, the Manilian, and the pleas before the dictator, sometimes a selection from the 'Philippics' or Verrine orations.

There is no masterly translation comparable with the fine work done by Kennedy for Demosthenes. The Bohn version is respectable in quality.

Among Cicero's numerous works on rhetoric the chief is the 'De Oratore.' Actually composed in 55 B.C., it is a dialogue, the scene set in 91 B.C., the characters being the chief Roman orators of that day. L. Crassus, who plays the host gracefully at his Tusculan country-seat, is also the chief speaker. These men were all known to Cicero in his boyhood, but most of them perished soon after in the Marian proscriptions. Of real character-drawing there is little, and all alike speak in graceful Ciceronian periods. The exposition of the technical parts of rhetoric goes on in leisurely wise, with copious illustrations and digressions. There is much pleasant repetition of commonplaces. Wilkins's edition of the 'De Oratore' is a good but not an ideal one. The introductions are most helpful. Countless discussions on etymology, etc., in the notes, should be relegated to the dictionaries. Instead, we crave adequate cross-references to passages in this and other works. The notes seem to be written too largely piecemeal, each with the single passage in mind.

In Cicero's 'Brutus,' written in 46 B.C., Cicero, Brutus, and Atticus carry on the conversation, but it is mostly a monologue of Cicero and a historical sketch of Roman oratory. The affected modesty of the autobiographic parts is diverting. Brutus was the chief exponent of a terse, simple, direct, oratory,--far nearer, we judge, to English taste than the Ciceronian; and the opposition between them already appears. A convenient American edition is that by Kellogg (Ginn).

The opposition just mentioned comes out more clearly in the 'Orator.' This portrays the ideal public speaker. His chief accomplishments are summed up in versatility,--the power to adapt himself to any case and audience. An interesting passage discusses the rhythms of prose. This book has been elaborately edited by J.E. Sandys. In these three dialogues Cicero says everything of importance, at least once; and the other rhetorical works in the Corpus may be neglected here, the more as the most practical working rhetoric among them all, the 'Auctor ad Herennium,' is certainly not Cicero's. It is probably by Cornificius, and is especially important as the _first_ complete prose work transmitted to us in authentic Latin form. (Cato's 'De Re Rustica' has been "modernized.")

The later history of the Ciceronian correspondence is a dark and much contested field. (The most recent discussion, with bibliography, is by Schanz, in Iwan Mueller's Handbuch, Vol. viii., pp. 238-243.) Probably Cicero's devoted freedman Tiro laid the foundations of our collections. The part of Petrarch in recovering the letters during the "Revival of Learning" was much less than has been supposed.

The letters themselves are in wild confusion. There are four collections, entitled 'To Atticus,' 'To Friends,' 'To Brother Marcus,' 'To Brutus': altogether over eight hundred epistles, of which a relatively small number are written _to_ Cicero by his correspondents. The order is not chronological, and the dates can in many cases only be conjectured. Yet these letters afford us our chief sources for the history of this great epoch,--and the best insight we can ever hope to have into the private life of Roman gentlemen.

The style of the cynical, witty Caelius, or of the learned lawyer Sulpicius, differs perceptibly in detail from Cicero's own; yet it is remarkable that all seem able to write clearly if not gracefully. Cicero's own style varies very widely. The letters to Atticus are usually colloquial, full of unexplained allusions, sometimes made intentionally obscure and pieced out with a Greek phrase, for fear of the carrier's treachery! Other letters again, notably a long 'Apologia' addressed to Lentulus after Cicero's return from exile, are as plainly addressed in reality to the public or to posterity as are any of the orations.

Prof. R. Y. Tyrrell has long been engaged upon an annotated edition of all the letters in chronological order. This will be of the utmost value. An excellent selection, illustrating the orator's public life chiefly, has been published by Professor Albert Watson. This volume contains also very full tables of dates, bibliography of all Cicero's works, and in general is indispensable for the advanced Latin student. The same letters annotated by Professor Watson have been delightfully translated by G. E. Jeans. To this volume, rather than to Forsyth's biography, the English reader should turn to form his impressions of Cicero at first hand. It is a model of scholarly--and also literary--translation.

The "New Academy," to which Cicero inclined in philosophy, was skeptical in its tendencies, and regarded absolute truth as unattainable. This made it easier for Cicero to cast his transcriptions in the form of dialogues, revealing the beliefs of the various schools through the lips of the several interlocutors. Thus the 'De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum' sets forth in three successive conversations the ideas of Epicureans, of Stoics, and of the Academy, on the Highest Good. It is perhaps the chief of these treatises,--though we would still prefer to have even those later compendiums of the Greek schools through which Cicero probably cited the chief philosophers at second hand! J. S. Reid, an eminent English scholar, has spent many years upon this dialogue, and his work includes a masterly translation.

With a somewhat similar plan, the three books of the 'De Natura Deorum' contain the views of the three schools on the Divine Beings. The speakers are Cicero's Roman contemporaries. This rather sketchy work has been annotated by J. B. Mayor in his usual exhaustive manner. The now fragmentary dialogue entitled 'The Republic,' and its unfinished supplement 'The Laws,' were composed and named in avowed rivalry with Plato's two largest works, but fail to approach the master. The Roman Constitution is defended as the ideal mingling of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. The student of pure literature can for the most part neglect these, and others among the hastily written philosophic works, with the explicit approval of so indefatigable a student as Professor B. L. Gildersleeve.

The chief fragment preserved of the 'Republic' is the 'Dream of Scipio.' Its dependence on the vision at the close of Plato's 'Republic' should be carefully observed. It may be fairly described as a free translation and enlargement from Greek originals, of which Plato's passage is the chief. Plagiarism was surely viewed quite otherwise then than now. Still, the Roman additions and modifications are interesting also,--and even as a translator Cicero is no ordinary cicerone! Moreover, in this as in so many other examples, the Latin paraphrase had a wider and more direct influence than the original. It has been accepted with justice ever since, as the final and most hopeful pagan word in favor of the soul's immortality. The lover of Chaucer will recall the genial paraphrase of 'Scipio's Dream' in the 'Parlament of Foules' (stanzas 5-12). We give below, entire, in our quotations from Cicero, the masterly version of the 'Dream,' prepared by Prof. T. R. Lounsbury for his edition of Chaucer's poems. The speaker is the younger Scipio Africanus, and his visit to Africa as a subaltern here described was in 149 B.C., three years previous to his own decisive campaign against Carthage which ended in the destruction of the city.

Cicero shared in full the Roman tendency to give a practical, an ethical turn to all metaphysical discussion. This is prominent in the popular favorite among his larger volumes, the 'Tusculan Disputations.' In each of the five related books a thesis is stated negatively, to be triumphantly reversed later on:--

(1) "Death seems to me an evil."

(2) "I think pain the greatest of all evils."

(3) "Misery seems to me to befall the wise man."

(4) "It does not appear to me that the wise man can be secure from distress of mind."

(5) "Character does not seem to me sufficient for happiness in life."

The original portion of this work is relatively large, and many Roman illustrations occur. Dr. Peabody has included the Tusculans, the two brief essays next mentioned, and the 'De Officiis,' in his excellent series of versions (Little, Brown and Company).

The little dialogue on 'Old Age' is perhaps most read of all Cicero's works. Its best thoughts, it must be confessed, are freely borrowed from the opening pages of Plato's 'Republic.' Still, on this theme of universal human interest, the Roman also offers much pleasant food for thought. The moderation of the Greek is forgotten by Cicero, the professional advocate and special pleader, who almost cries out to us at last:--

"Grow old along with me: The best is yet to be. The last of life, for which the first was made!"

It was written in 45-4 B.C. The other little essay 'On Friendship' does not deserve to be bound up in such good company, though it usually is so edited. Bacon's very brief essay has more meat in it. Cicero had many good friends, but fully trusted hardly any one of them--not even Atticus. It was an age which put friendship to fearful trial, and the typical Roman seems to us rather selfish and cold. Certainly this essay is in a frigid tone. Professor Gildersleeve, I believe, has likened it to a treatise of Xenophon on hunting, so systematically is the _pursuit_ of friends discussed.

Perhaps the most practical among Roman Manuals of Morals is the treatise on Duties ('De Officiis'), in three books. Here the personal experience of sixty years is drawn upon, avowedly for the edification of young Marcus, the author's unworthy son. This sole Ciceronian survivor of Antony's massacres lived to be famous for his capacity in wine-drinking, and to receive officially, as consul under Augustus, the news of Antony's final defeat and death--a dramatic revenge.

Most of these philosophic treatises were composed near the end of Cicero's life, largely in one marvelously productive year, 45-4 B.C., just previous to the slaying of Caesar. Not all even of the extant works have been catalogued here. The 'Academica' and 'De Divinatione' should at least be mentioned.

Such were Cicero's distractions, when cut off from political life and oratory, and above all when bereft by Tullia's death. The especial 'Consolatio,' composed to regain his courage after this blow, must head the list of lost works. It took a most pessimistic view of human life, for which it was reproved by Lactantius. Another perished essay, the 'Hortensius,' introducing the whole philosophic series, upheld Milton's thesis, "How charming is divine philosophy," and first turned the thoughts of Augustine to serious study.

Cicero's poems, chiefly translations, are extant in copious fragments. They show metrical facility, a little taste, no creative imagination at all. A final proof of his unresting activity is his attempt to write history. Few, even among professional advocates, could have less of the temper for mere narration and truth. Indeed, reasonable disregard for the latter trammel is frankly urged upon a friend who was to write upon the illustrious moments of Cicero's own career!

We said at first that the caprice of fate had exaggerated some sides of Cicero's activity, by removing all competitors. In any case, however, his supremacy among Italian orators, and in the ornate discursive school of eloquence generally, could not have been questioned.

Yet more: As a stylist, he lifted a language hitherto poor in vocabulary, and stiff in phrase, to a level it never afterward surpassed. Many words he successfully coined, chiefly either by translation or free imitation of Greek originals. His clear, copious, rhythmical phrase was even more fully his own creation. Indeed, at the present moment, four or five great forms of living speech testify to Cicero's amazing mastery over both word and phrase. The eloquence of Castelar, Crispi, and Gambetta, of Gladstone and of Everett, is shot through and through, in all its warp and woof, with golden Ciceronian threads. The 'Archias' speaks to any appreciative student of Western Europe, as it were, in a mother tongue which dominates his vernacular speech. Human language, then, has become a statelier memorial of Cicero than even his vanity can ever have imagined.

(After writing the substance of this paragraph, I was glad to find myself in close agreement with Mackail's words in his masterly little 'Latin Literature,' page 62.)

RESUME OF GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

The chief encyclopaedia of facts and citations for this period is the cumbrous old 'Geschichte Roms, oder Pompeius Caesar Cicero und ihre Zeitgenossen' of W. Drumann (Koenigsberg: 1834-44). The plan is ideally bad, being a series of _family chronicles_, while these three men are more completely isolated from their families and kin than any other great trio in all Roman history! The book is however an exhaustive, inexhaustible, little acknowledged, but still worked quarry of erudition. The best single book in English is Watson's edition of the (selected) letters (or Jeans's translation), until it shall be superseded by the complete annotated edition of the correspondence, by Tyrrell.

Mommsen's severe judgment on Cicero is well known. The other standard historians are less severe. Forsyth's life is not the final word on the subject by any means, but gives a good general view. The stately Ciceronian Lexicon by Merguet, already complete for the orations, will eventually provide a complete concordance and copious elucidation for all the works. The most accessible complete edition of Cicero's writings in Latin is by Baiter and Kayser, in eleven volumes. The Index Nominum alone fills four hundred closely printed pages of Vol. xi. The great critical edition is that of Orelli (Zurich: 1826-38).

On Cicero as an author, and indeed in the whole field of Latin literature, the 'Geschichte der Roemischen Literatur' of Martin Schanz (in I. Mueller's 'Handbuch') is most helpful, and even readable.

[Signature: William Cranston Lawton]

OF THE OFFICES OF LITERATURE AND POETRY

From the 'Oration for the Poet Archias'

You ask us, O Gratius, why we are so exceedingly attached to this man. Because he supplies us with food whereby our mind is refreshed after this noise in the Forum, and with rest for our ears after they have been wearied with bad language. Do you think it possible that we could find a supply for our daily speeches, when discussing such a variety of matters, unless we were to cultivate our minds by the study of literature? or that our minds could bear being kept so constantly on the stretch if we did not relax them by that same study? But I confess that I am devoted to those studies; let others be ashamed of them if they have buried themselves in books without being able to produce anything out of them for the common advantage, or anything which may bear the eyes of men and the light. But why need I be ashamed, who for many years have lived in such a manner as never to allow my own love of tranquillity to deny me to the necessity or advantage of another, or my fondness for pleasure to distract, or even sleep to delay, my attention to such claims? Who then can reproach me, or who has any right to be angry with me, if I allow myself as much time for the cultivation of these studies as some take for the performance of their own business; or for celebrating days of festival and games; or for other pleasures; or even for the rest and refreshment of mind and body; or as others devote to early banquets, to playing at dice, or at ball? And this ought to be permitted to me, because by these studies my power of speaking and those faculties are improved, which as far as they do exist in me have never been denied to my friends when they have been in peril. And if that ability appears to any one to be but moderate, at all events I know whence I derive those principles which are of the greatest value. For if I had not persuaded myself from my youth upwards, both by the precepts of many masters and by much reading, that there is nothing in life greatly to be desired except praise and honor, and that while pursuing those things all tortures of the body, all dangers of death and banishment are to be considered but of small importance, I should never have exposed myself in defense of your safety to such numerous and arduous contests, and to these daily attacks of profligate men. But all books are full of such precepts, and all the sayings of philosophers, and all antiquity, are full of precedents teaching the same lesson; but all these things would lie buried in darkness if the light of literature and learning were not applied to them. How many images of the bravest men, carefully elaborated, have both the Greek and Latin writers bequeathed to us, not merely for us to look at and gaze upon, but also for our imitation! And I, always keeping them before my eyes as examples for my own public conduct, have endeavored to model my mind and views by continually thinking of those excellent men.

Some one will ask "What! were those identical great men, whose virtues have been recorded in books, accomplished in all that learning which you are extolling so highly?" It is difficult to assert this of all of them; but still I know what answer I can make to that question: I admit that many men have existed of admirable disposition and virtue, who without learning, by the almost divine instinct of their own mere nature, have been, of their own accord as it were, moderate and wise men. I even add this, that very often nature without learning has had more to do with leading men to credit and to virtue, than learning when not assisted by a good natural disposition. And I also contend that when to an excellent and admirable natural disposition there is added a certain system and training of education, then from that combination arises an extraordinary perfection of character: such as is seen in that godlike man whom our fathers saw in their time--Africanus; and in Caius Laelius and Lucius Furius, most virtuous and moderate men; and in that most excellent man, the most learned man of his time, Marcus Cato the elder: and all these men, if they had been to derive no assistance from literature in the cultivation and practice of virtue, would never have applied themselves to the study of it. Though even if there were no such great advantage to be reaped from it, and if it were only pleasure that is sought from these studies, still I imagine you would consider it a most reasonable and liberal employment of the mind: for other occupations are not suited to every time, nor to every age or place; but these studies are the food of youth, the delight of old age; the ornament of prosperity, the refuge and comfort of adversity; a delight at home, and no hindrance abroad; they are companions by night, and in travel, and in the country.

And if we ourselves were not able to arrive at these advantages, nor even taste them with our senses, still we ought to admire them even when we saw them in others.... And indeed, we have constantly heard from men of the greatest eminence and learning that the study of other sciences was made up of learning, and rules, and regular method; but that a poet was such by the unassisted work of nature, and was moved by the vigor of his own mind, and was inspired as it were by some divine wrath. Wherefore rightly does our own great Ennius call poets holy; because they seem to be recommended to us by some especial gift, as it were, and liberality of the gods. Let then, judges, this name of poet, this name which no barbarians even have ever disregarded, be holy in your eyes, men of cultivated minds as you all are. Rocks and deserts reply to the poet's voice; savage beasts are often moved and arrested by song; and shall we who have been trained in the pursuit of the most virtuous acts refuse to be swayed by the voice of poets? The Colophonians say that Homer was their citizen; the Chians claim him as theirs; the Salaminians assert their right to him; but the men of Smyrna loudly assert him to be a citizen of Smyrna, and they have even raised a temple to him in their city. Many other places also fight with one another for the honor of being his birthplace.

They then claim a stranger, even after his death, because he was a poet: shall we reject this man while he is alive, a man who by his own inclination and by our laws does actually belong to us? especially when Archias has employed all his genius with the utmost zeal in celebrating the glory and renown of the Roman people? For when a young man, he touched on our wars against the Cimbri and gained the favor even of Caius Marius himself, a man who was tolerably proof against this sort of study. For there was no one so disinclined to the Muses as not willingly to endure that the praise of his labors should be made immortal by means of verse. They say that the great Themistocles, the greatest man that Athens produced, said when some one asked him what sound or whose voice he took the greatest delight in hearing, "The voice of that by whom his own exploits were best celebrated." Therefore, the great Marius was also exceedingly attached to Lucius Plotius, because he thought that the achievement which he had performed could be celebrated by his genius. And the whole Mithridatic war, great and difficult as it was, and carried on with so much diversity of fortune by land and sea, has been related at length by him; and the books in which that is sung of, not only make illustrious Lucius Lucullus, that most gallant and celebrated man, but they do honor also to the Roman people. For while Lucullus was general, the Roman people opened Pontus, though it was defended both by the resources of the king and by the character of the country itself. Under the same general the army of the Roman people, with no very great numbers, routed the countless hosts of the Armenians. It is the glory of the Roman people that by the wisdom of that same general, the city of the Cyzicenes, most friendly to us, was delivered and preserved from all the attacks of the kind, and from the very jaws as it were of the whole war. Ours is the glory which will be for ever celebrated, which is derived from the fleet of the enemy which was sunk after its admirals had been slain, and from the marvelous naval battle off Tenedos: those trophies belong to us, those monuments are ours, those triumphs are ours. Therefore I say that the men by whose genius these exploits are celebrated make illustrious at the same time the glory of the Roman people. Our countryman Ennius was dear to the elder Africanus; and even on the tomb of the Scipios his effigy is believed to be visible, carved in the marble. But undoubtedly it is not only the men who are themselves praised who are done honor to by those praises, but the name of the Roman people also is adorned by them. Cato, the ancestor of this Cato, is extolled to the skies. Great honor is paid to the exploits of the Roman people. Lastly, all those great men, the Maximi, the Marcelli, and the Fulvii, are done honor to, not without all of us having also a share in the panegyric....

Certainly, if the mind had no anticipations of posterity, and if it were to confine all its thoughts within the same limits as those by which the space of our lives is bounded, it would neither break itself with such severe labors, nor would it be tormented with such cares and sleepless anxiety, nor would it so often have to fight for its very life. At present there is a certain virtue in every good man, which night and day stirs up the mind with the stimulus of glory, and reminds it that all mention of our name will not cease at the same time with our lives, but that our fame will endure to all posterity.

Do we all who are occupied in the affairs of the State, and who are surrounded by such perils and dangers in life, appear to be so narrow-minded as, though to the last moment of our lives we have never passed one tranquil or easy moment, to think that everything will perish at the same time as ourselves? Ought we not, when many most illustrious men have with great care collected and left behind them statues and images, representations not of their minds but of their bodies, much more to desire to leave behind us a copy of our counsels and of our virtues, wrought and elaborated by the greatest genius? I thought, at the very moment of performing them, that I was scattering and disseminating all the deeds which I was performing, all over the world for the eternal recollection of nations. And whether that delight is to be denied to my soul after death, or whether, as the wisest men have thought, it will affect some portion of my spirit, at all events I am at present delighted with some such idea and hope.

HONORS PROPOSED FOR THE DEAD STATESMAN SULPICIUS

From the 'Ninth Philippic'

Our ancestors indeed decreed statues to many men; public sepulchres to few. But statues perish by weather, by violence, by lapse of time; the sanctity of the sepulchres is in the soil itself, which can neither be moved nor destroyed by any violence; and while other things are extinguished, so sepulchres become holier by age.

Let then this man be distinguished by that honor also, a man to whom no honor can be given which is not deserved. Let us be grateful in paying respect in death to him to whom we can now show no other gratitude. And by that same step let the audacity of Marcus Antonius, waging a nefarious war, be branded with infamy. For when these honors have been paid to Servius Sulpicius, the evidence of his embassy having been insulted and rejected by Antonius will remain for everlasting.

On which account I give my vote for a decree in this form: "As Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the son of Quintus, of the Lemonian tribe, at a most critical period of the republic, and being ill with a very serious and dangerous disease, preferred the authority of the Senate and the safety of the republic to his own life; and struggled against the violence and severity of his illness, in order to arrive at the camp of Antonius, to which the Senate had sent him; and as he, when he had almost arrived at the camp, being overwhelmed by the violence of the disease, has lost his life in discharging a most important office of the republic; and as his death has been in strict correspondence to a life passed with the greatest integrity and honor, during which he, Servius Sulpicius, has often been of great service to the republic, both as a private individual and in the discharge of various magistracies: and as he, being such a man, has encountered death on behalf of the republic while employed on an embassy; the Senate decrees that a brazen pedestrian statue of Servius Sulpicius be erected in the rostra in compliance with the resolution of this order, and that his children and posterity shall have a place round this statue of five feet in every direction, from which to behold the games and gladiatorial combats, because he died in the cause of the republic; and that this reason be inscribed on the pedestal of the statue; and that Caius Pansa and Aulus Hirtius the consuls, one or both of them, if it seem good to them, shall command the quaestors of the city to let out a contract for making that pedestal and that statue, and erecting them in the rostra; and that whatever price they contract for, they shall take care the amount is given and paid to the contractor; and as in old times the Senate has exerted its authority with respect to the obsequies of, and honors paid to, brave men, it now decrees that he shall be carried to the tomb on the day of his funeral with the greatest possible solemnity. And as Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the son of Quintus of the Lemonian tribe, has deserved so well of the republic as to be entitled to be complimented with all those distinctions; the Senate is of opinion, and thinks it for the advantage of the republic, that the curule aedile should suspend the edict which usually prevails with respect to funerals, in the case of the funeral of Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the son of Quintus of the Lemonian tribe; and that Caius Pansa the consul shall assign him a place for a tomb in the Esquiline plain, or in whatever place shall seem good to him, extending thirty feet in every direction, where Servius Sulpicius may be buried; and that that shall be his tomb, and that of his children and posterity, as having been a tomb most deservedly given to them by the public authority."

OLD FRIENDS BETTER THAN NEW

From the 'Dialogue on Friendship'

But there arises on this subject a somewhat difficult question: Whether ever new friends, if deserving friendship, are to be preferred to old ones, just as we are wont to prefer young colts to old horses?--a perplexity unworthy of a man; for there ought to be no satiety of friendship as of other things: everything which is oldest (as those wines which bear age well) ought to be sweetest; and that is true which is sometimes said, "Many bushels of salt must be eaten together," before the duty of friendship can be fulfilled. But new friendships, if they afford a hope that, as in the case of plants which never disappoint, fruits shall appear, such are not to be rejected; yet the old one must be preserved in its proper place, for the power of age and custom is exceedingly great; besides, in the very case of the horse, which I just mentioned, if there is no impediment, there is no one who does not more pleasurably use that to which he is accustomed than one unbroken and strange to him; and habit asserts its power, and habit prevails, not only in the case of this, which is animate, but also in the cases of those things which are inanimate; since we take delight in the very mountainous or woody scenery among which we have long dwelt.

HONORED OLD AGE

From the 'Dialogue on Old Age'

But in my whole discourse remember that I am praising that old age which is established on the foundations of youth: from which this is effected which I once asserted with the great approbation of all present,--that wretched was the old age which had to defend itself by speaking. Neither gray hairs nor wrinkles can suddenly catch respect; but the former part of life honorably spent, reaps the fruits of authority at the close. For these very observances which seem light and common are marks of honor--to be saluted, to be sought after, to receive precedence, to have persons rising up to you, to be attended on the way, to be escorted home, to be consulted; points which, both among us and in other States, in proportion as they are the most excellent in their morals, are the most scrupulously observed. They say that Lysander the Lacedaemonian, whom I mentioned a little above, was accustomed to remark that Lacedaemon was the most honorable abode for old age; for nowhere is so much conceded to that time of life, nowhere is old age more respected. Nay, further: it is recorded that when at Athens during the games a certain elderly person had entered the theatre, a place was nowhere offered him in that large assembly by his own townsmen; but when he had approached the Lacedaemonians, who, as they were ambassadors, had taken their seats together in a particular place, they all rose up and invited the old man to a seat; and when reiterated applause had been bestowed upon them by the whole assembly, one of them remarked that the Athenians knew what was right, but were unwilling to do it. There are many excellent rules in our college, but this of which I am treating especially, that in proportion as each man has the advantage in age, so he takes precedence in giving his opinion; and older augurs are preferred not only to those who are higher in office, but even to such as are in actual command. What pleasures, then, of the body can be compared with the privileges of authority? which they who have nobly employed seem to me to have consummated the drama of life, and not like inexpert performers to have broken down in the last act. Still, old men are peevish, and fretful, and passionate, and unmanageable,--nay, if we seek for such, also covetous: but these are the faults of their characters, not of their old age. And yet that peevishness and those faults which I have mentioned have some excuse, not quite satisfactory indeed, but such as may be admitted. They fancy that they are neglected, despised, made a jest of; besides, in a weak state of body every offense is irritating. All which defects however are extenuated by good dispositions and qualities; and this may be discovered not only in real life, but on the stage, from the two brothers that are represented in 'The Brothers'; how much austerity in the one, and how much gentleness in the other! Such is the fact: for as it is not every wine, so it is not every man's life, that grows sour from old age. I approve of gravity in old age, but this in a moderate degree, like everything else; harshness by no means. What avarice in an old man can propose to itself I cannot conceive: for can anything be more absurd than, in proportion as less of our journey remains, to seek a greater supply of provisions?

DEATH IS WELCOME TO THE OLD

From the 'Dialogue on Old Age'

An old man indeed has nothing to hope for; yet he is in so much the happier state than a young one, since he has already attained what the other is only hoping for. The one is wishing to live long, the other has lived long. And yet, good gods! what is there in man's life that can be called long? For allow the latest period: let us anticipate the age of the kings of the Tartessii. For there dwelt, as I find it recorded, a man named Arganthonius at Gades, who reigned for eighty years, and lived one hundred and twenty. But to my mind nothing whatever seems of long duration, in which there is any end. For when that arrives, then the time which has passed has flowed away; that only remains which you have secured by virtue and right conduct. Hours indeed depart from us, and days and months and years; nor does past time ever return, nor can it be discovered what is to follow. Whatever time is assigned to each to live, with that he ought to be content: for neither need the drama be performed entire by the actor, in order to give satisfaction, provided he be approved in whatever act he may be; nor need the wise man live till the _plaudite_. For the short period of life is long enough for living well and honorably; and if you should advance further, you need no more grieve than farmers do when the loveliness of springtime hath passed, that summer and autumn have come. For spring represents the time of youth and gives promise of the future fruits; the remaining seasons are intended for plucking and gathering in those fruits. Now the harvest of old age, as I have often said, is the recollection and abundance of blessings previously secured. In truth, everything that happens agreeably to nature is to be reckoned among blessings. What, however, is so agreeable to nature as for an old man to die? which even is the lot of the young, though nature opposes and resists. And thus it is that young men seem to me to die just as when the violence of flame is extinguished by a flood of water; whereas old men die as the exhausted fire goes out, spontaneously, without the exertion of any force: and as fruits when they are green are plucked by force from the trees, but when ripe and mellow drop off, so violence takes away their lives from youths, maturity from old men; a state which to me indeed is so delightful, that the nearer I approach to death, I seem as it were to be getting sight of land, and at length after a long voyage to be just coming into harbor.

GREAT ORATORS AND THEIR TRAINING

From the 'Dialogue on Oratory'

For who can suppose that amid the great multitude of students, the utmost abundance of masters, the most eminent geniuses among men, the infinite variety of causes, the most ample rewards offered to eloquence, there is any other reason to be found for the small number of orators than the incredible magnitude and difficulty of the art? A knowledge of a vast number of things is necessary, without which volubility of words is empty and ridiculous; speech itself is to be formed, not merely by choice, but by careful construction of words; and all the emotions of the mind which nature has given to man, must be intimately known; for all the force and art of speaking must be employed in allaying or exciting the feelings of those who listen. To this must be added a certain portion of grace and wit, learning worthy of a well-bred man, and quickness and brevity in replying as well as attacking, accompanied with a refined decorum and urbanity. Besides, the whole of antiquity and a multitude of examples is to be kept in the memory; nor is the knowledge of laws in general, or of the civil law in particular, to be neglected. And why need I add any remarks on delivery itself, which is to be ordered by action of body, by gesture, by look, and by modulation and variation of the voice, the great power of which, alone and in itself, the comparatively trivial art of actors and the stage proves; on which though all bestow their utmost labor to form their look, voice, and gesture, who knows not how few there are, and have ever been, to whom we can attend with patience? What can I say of that repository for all things, the memory; which, unless it be made the keeper of the matter and words that are the fruits of thought and invention, all the talents of the orator, we see, though they be of the highest degree of excellence, will be of no avail? Let us then cease to wonder what is the cause of the scarcity of good speakers, since eloquence results from all those qualifications, in each of which singly it is a great merit to labor successfully; and let us rather exhort our children, and others whose glory and honor is dear to us, to contemplate in their minds the full magnitude of the object, and not to trust that they can reach the height at which they aim by the aid of the precepts, masters, and exercises that they are all now following, but to understand that they must adopt others of a different character.

In my opinion, indeed, no man can be an orator possessed of every praiseworthy accomplishment unless he has attained the knowledge of everything important, and of all liberal arts; for his language must be ornate and copious from knowledge, since unless there be beneath the surface matter understood and felt by the speaker, oratory becomes an empty and almost puerile flow of words....

"I am then of opinion," said Crassus, "that nature and genius in the first place contribute most aid to speaking; and that to those writers on the art to whom Antonius just now alluded, it was not skill and method in speaking, but natural talent that was wanting; for there ought to be certain lively powers in the mind and understanding, which may be acute to invent, fertile to explain and adorn, and strong and retentive to remember; and if any one imagines that these powers may be acquired by art (which is false, for it is very well if they can be animated and excited by art; but they certainly cannot by art be ingrafted or instilled, since they are all the gifts of nature), what will he say of those qualities which are certainly born with the man himself--volubility of tongue, tone of voice, strength of lungs, and a peculiar conformation and aspect of the whole countenance and body? I do not say that art cannot improve in these particulars (for I am not ignorant that what is good may be made better by education, and what is not very good may be in some degree polished and amended); but there are some persons so hesitating in their speech, so inharmonious in their tone of voice, or so unwieldy and rude in the air and movements of their bodies, that whatever power they possess either from genius or art, they can never be reckoned in the number of accomplished speakers; while there are others so happily qualified in these respects, so eminently adorned with the gifts of nature, that they seem not to have been born like other men, but molded by some divinity. It is indeed a great task and enterprise for a person to undertake and profess that while every one else is silent, he alone must be heard on the most important subjects, and in a large assembly of men; for there is scarcely any one present who is not sharper and quicker to discover defects in the speaker than merits; and thus whatever offends the hearer effaces the recollection of what is worthy of praise. I do not make these observations for the purpose of altogether deterring young men from the study of oratory, even if they be deficient in some natural endowments. For who does not perceive that to C. Caelius, my contemporary, a new man, the mere mediocrity in speaking which he was enabled to attain was a great honor? Who does not know that Q. Varius, your equal in age, a clumsy uncouth man, has obtained his great popularity by the cultivation of such faculties as he has?

"But as our inquiry regards the complete orator, we must imagine in our discussion an orator from whom every kind of fault is abstracted, and who is adorned with every kind of merit. For if the multitude of suits, if the variety of causes, if the rabble and barbarism of the forum, afford room for even the most wretched speakers, we must not for that reason take our eyes from the object of our inquiry. In those arts in which it is not indispensable usefulness that is sought, but liberal amusement for the mind, how nicely, how almost fastidiously, do we judge! For there are no suits or controversies which can force men, though they may tolerate indifferent orators in the forum, to endure also bad actors upon the stage. The orator therefore must take the most studious precaution not merely to satisfy those whom he necessarily must satisfy, but to seem worthy of admiration to those who are at liberty to judge disinterestedly. If you would know what I myself think, I will express to you, my intimate friends, what I have hitherto never mentioned, and thought that I never should mention. To me, those who speak best and speak with the utmost ease and grace, appear, if they do not commence their speeches with some timidity, and show some confusion in the exordium, to have almost lost the sense of shame; though it is impossible that such should not be the case: for the better qualified a man is to speak, the more he fears the difficulties of speaking, the uncertain success of a speech, and the expectation of the audience. But he who can produce and deliver nothing worthy of his subject, nothing worthy of the name of an orator, nothing worthy the attention of his audience, seems to me, though he be ever so confused while he is speaking, to be downright shameless; for we ought to avoid a character for shamelessness, not by testifying shame, but by not doing that which does not become us. But the speaker who has no shame (as I see to be the case with many) I regard as deserving not only of rebuke but of personal castigation. Indeed, what I often observe in you I very frequently experience in myself; that I turn pale in the outset of my speech, and feel a tremor through my whole thoughts, as it were, and limbs. When I was a young man, I was on one occasion so timid in commencing an accusation, that I owed to Q. Maximus the greatest of obligations for immediately dismissing the assembly as soon as he saw me absolutely disheartened and incapacitated through fear." Here, they all signified assent, looked significantly at one another, and began to talk together; for there was a wonderful modesty in Crassus, which however was not only no disadvantage to his oratory, but even an assistance to it, by giving it the recommendation of probity.

CICERO TO TIRO

[The following epistles are taken by permission from Jeans's 'Letters of Cicero.' This letter gives a vivid glimpse of Cicero's tenderness to his slaves and freedmen. Tiro was probably the first editor of his former master's letters.]

AEgypta arrived here on the 12th of April. Although he reported that you were now quite rid of your fever and going on very well, he nevertheless caused me some anxiety by his report that you were not able to write to me, the more so because Hermia, who ought to have been here on the same day, has not yet come. I am more anxious than you can believe about your health. Only free me from this anxiety and I will free you from all duties. I would write you more if I thought you could now read more with pleasure. Use all the talents you possess, of which I have no small opinion, to keep yourself safe for my sake as well as your own. Again and again I repeat, take every precaution about your health. Good-by.

P. S.--Hermia is just come. I have your note with its poor weak handwriting--no wonder, too, after so severe an illness. I send out AEgypta to stay with you because he is not a bad companion, and appeared to me to be fond of you; and with him a cook, for you to make use of his services. Good-by.

CICERO TO ATTICUS

[The family affection of Cicero might be illustrated by many such letters as the following:]

It being now eleven days since I left you, I am scrawling this little bit of a note just as I am leaving my country-house before it is light. I think of being at my place at Anagnia to-day, and Tusculum to-morrow; only one day there, so that I shall come up all right to time on the 28th; and oh, if I could but run on at once to embrace my Tullia and give Attica a kiss! Talking of this, by-the-by, do please write and let me know while I am stopping at Tusculum what her prattle is like, or if she is away in the country, what her letters to you are about. Meanwhile either send or give her my love, and Pilia too. And even though we shall meet immediately, yet will you write to me anything you can find to say?

P. S.--I was just fastening up this letter, but your courier has arrived here after a long night journey with your letter. I was very sorry, you may be sure, to find on reading it that Attica is feverish. Everything else that I was waiting for I now know from your note; but when you tell me that to have a little fire in the morning "_sent le vieillard_," I retort _il le sent plus_ for one's poor old memory to begin to totter: because it was the 29th I had promised to Axius; the 30th to you; and the day of my arrival, the 31st, to Quintus. So take that for yourself--you shall have no news. Then what on earth is the good of writing? And what good is it when we are together and chatter whatever comes to our tongues? Surely there is something in _causerie_ after all; even if there is nothing under it, there is always at least the delicious feeling that we are talking with one another.

SULPICIUS CONSOLES CICERO AFTER HIS DAUGHTER TULLIA'S DEATH

For some time after I had received the information of the death of your daughter Tullia, you may be sure that I bore it sadly and heavily, as much indeed as was right for me. I felt that I shared that terrible loss with you; and that had I but been where you are, you on your part would not have found me neglectful, and I on mine should not have failed to come to you and tell you myself how deeply grieved I am. And though it is true that consolations of this nature are painful and distressing, because those [dear friends and relations] upon whom the task naturally devolves are themselves afflicted with a similar burden, and incapable even of attempting it without many tears, so that one would rather suppose them in need of the consolations of others for themselves than capable of doing this kind office to others, yet nevertheless I have decided to write to you briefly such reflections as have occurred to me on the present occasion; not that I imagine them to be ignored by you, but because it is possible that you may be hindered by your sorrow from seeing them as clearly as usual.

What reason is there why you should allow the private grief which has befallen you to distress you so terribly? Recollect how fortune has hitherto dealt with us: how we have been bereft of all that ought to be no less dear to men than their own children--of country, position, rank, and every honorable office. If one more burden has now been laid upon you, could any addition be made to your pain? Or is there any heart that having been trained in the school of such events, ought not now to be steeled by use against emotion, and think everything after them to be comparatively light?

Or it is for her sake, I suppose, that you are grieving? How many times must you have arrived at the same conclusion as that into which I too have frequently fallen, that in these days theirs is not the hardest lot who are permitted painlessly to exchange their life for the grave! Now what was there at the present time that could attach her very strongly to life? what hope? what fruition? what consolation for the soul? The prospect of a wedded life with a husband chosen from our young men of rank? Truly, one would think it was always in your power to choose a son-in-law of a position suitable to your rank out of our young men, one to whose keeping you would feel you could safely intrust the happiness of a child. Or that of being a joyful mother of children, who would be happy in seeing them succeeding in life; able by their own exertions to maintain in its integrity all that was bequeathed them by their father; intending gradually to rise to all the highest offices of the State; and to use that liberty to which they were born for the good of their country and the service of their friends. Is there any one of these things that has not been taken away before it was given? But surely it is hard to give up one's children? It is hard; but this is harder still--that they should bear and suffer what we are doing.

A circumstance which was such as to afford me no light consolation I cannot but mention to you, in the hope that it may be allowed to contribute equally towards mitigating your grief. As I was returning from Asia, when sailing from AEgina in the direction of Megara, I began to look around me at the various places by which I was surrounded. Behind me was AEgina, in front Megara; on the right the Piraeus, on the left Corinth; all of them towns that in former days were most magnificent, but are now lying prostrate and in ruins before one's eyes. "Ah me," I began to reflect to myself, "we poor feeble mortals, who can claim but a short life in comparison, complain as though a wrong was done us if one of our number dies in the course of nature, or has met his death by violence; and here in one spot are lying stretched out before me the corpses of so many cities! Servius, be master of yourself, and remember that it is the lot of man to which you have been born." Believe me, I found myself in no small degree strengthened by these reflections. Let me advise you too, if you think good, to keep this reflection before your eyes. How lately at one and the same time have many of our most illustrious men fallen! how grave an encroachment has been made on the rights of the sovereign people of Rome! every province in the world has been convulsed with the shock: if the frail life of a tender woman has gone too, who being born to the common lot of man must needs have died in a few short years, even if the time had not come for her now, are you thus utterly stricken down?

Do you then also recall your feelings and your thoughts from dwelling on this subject, and as beseems your character bethink yourself rather of this: that she has lived as long as life was of value to her; that she has passed away only together with her country's freedom; that she lived to see her father elected Praetor, Consul, Augur; that she had been the wife of young men of the first rank; that after enjoying well-nigh every blessing that life can offer, she left it only when the Republic itself was falling. The account is closed, and what have you, what has she, to charge of injustice against Fate? In a word, forget not that you are Cicero--that you are he who was always wont to guide others and give them good advice; and be not like those quack physicians who when others are sick boast that they hold the key of the knowledge of medicine, to heal themselves are never able; but rather minister to yourself with your own hand the remedies which you are in the habit of prescribing for others, and put them plainly before your own soul. There is no pain so great but the lapse of time will lessen and assuage it: it is not like yourself to wait until this time comes, instead of stepping forward by your philosophy to anticipate that result. And if even those who are low in the grave have any consciousness at all, such was her love for you and her tenderness for all around her that surely she does not wish to see this in you. Make this a tribute then to her who is dead; to all your friends and relations who are mourning in your grief; and make it to your country also, that if in anything the need should arise she may be able to trust to your energy and guidance. Finally, since such is the condition we have come to, that even this consideration must perforce be obeyed, do not let your conduct induce any one to believe that it is not so much your daughter as the circumstances of the Republic and the victory of others which you are deploring.

I shrink from writing to you at greater length upon this subject, lest I should seem to be doubtful of your own good sense; allow me therefore to put before you one more consideration, and then I will bring my letter to a close. We have seen you not once but many times bearing prosperity most gracefully, and gaining yourself great reputation thereby: let us see at last that you are capable also of bearing adversity equally well, and that it is not in your eyes a heavier burden than it ought to seem; lest we should think that of all the virtues this is the only one in which you are wanting.

As for myself, when I find you are more composed in mind I will send you information about all that is being done in these parts, and the state in which the province finds itself at present. Farewell.

CICERO'S REPLY TO SULPICIUS

Yes, my dear Servius, I could indeed wish you had been with me, as you say, at the time of my terrible trial. How much it was in your power to help me if you had been here, by sympathizing with, and I may almost say, sharing equally in my grief, I readily perceive from the fact that after reading your letter I now feel myself considerably more composed; for not only was all that you wrote just what is best calculated to soothe affliction, but you yourself in comforting me showed that you too had no little pain at heart. Your son Servius however has made it clear, by every kindly attention which such an occasion would permit of, both how great his respect was for myself and also how much pleasure his kind feeling for me was likely to give you; and you may be sure that, while such attentions from him have often been more pleasant to me, they have never made me more grateful.

It is not however only your arguments and your equal share,--I may almost call it,--in this affliction which comforts me, but also your authority; because I hold it shame in me not to be bearing my trouble in a way that you, a man endowed with such wisdom, think it ought to be borne. But at times I do feel broken down, and I scarcely make any struggle against my grief, because those consolations fail me which under similar calamities were never wanting to any of those other people whom I put before myself as models for imitation. Both Fabius Maximus, for example, when he lost a son who had held the consulship, the hero of many a famous exploit; and Lucius Paulus, from whom two were taken in one week; and your own kinsman Gallus; and Marcus Cato, who was deprived of a son of the rarest talents and the rarest virtue,--all these lived in times when their individual affliction was capable of finding a solace in the distinctions they used to earn from their country. For me, however, after being stripped of all those distinctions which you yourself recall to me, and which I had won for myself by unparalleled exertions, only that one solace remained which has been torn away. My thoughts were not diverted by work for my friends, or by the administration of affairs of state; there was no pleasure in pleading in the courts; I could not bear the very sight of the Senate House; I felt, as was indeed too true, that I had lost all the harvest of both my industry and my success. But whenever I wanted to recollect that all this was shared with you and other friends I could name, and whenever I was breaking myself in and forcing my spirit to bear these things with patience, I always had a refuge to go to where I might find peace, and in whose words of comfort and sweet society I could rid me of all my pains and griefs. Whereas now, under this terrible blow, even those old wounds which seemed to have healed up are bleeding afresh; for it is impossible for me now to find such a refuge from my sorrows at home in the business of the State, as in those days I did in that consolation of home, which was always in store whenever I came away sad from thoughts of State to seek for peace in her happiness. And so I stay away both from home and from public life; because home now is no more able to make up for the sorrow I feel when I think of our country, than our country is for my sorrow at home. I am therefore looking forward all the more eagerly to your coming, and long to see you as early as that may possibly be; no greater alleviation can be offered me than a meeting between us for friendly intercourse and conversation. I hope however that your return is to take place, as I hear it is, very shortly. As for myself, while there are abundant reasons for wanting to see you as soon as possible, my principal one is in order that we may discuss together beforehand the best method of conduct for present circumstances, which must entirely be adapted to the wishes of one man only, a man nevertheless who is far-seeing and generous, and also, as I think I have thoroughly ascertained, to me not at all ill-disposed and to you extremely friendly. But admitting this, it is still a matter for much deliberation what is the line,--I do not say of action, but of keeping quiet,--that we ought by his good leave and favor to adopt. Farewell.

A HOMESICK EXILE

I send this with love, my dearest Terentia, hoping that you and my little Tullia and my Marcus are all well.

From the letters of several people and the talk of everybody I hear that your courage and endurance are simply wonderful, and that no troubles of body or mind can exhaust your energy. How unhappy I am to think that with all your courage and devotion, your virtues and gentleness, you should have fallen into such misfortunes for me! And my sweet Tullia too,--that she who was once so proud of her father should have to undergo such troubles owing to him! And what shall I say about my boy Marcus, who ever since his faculties of perception awoke has felt the sharpest pangs of sorrow and misery? Now could I but think, as you tell me, that all this comes in the natural course of things, I could bear it a little easier. But it has been brought about entirely by my own fault, for thinking myself loved by those who were jealous of me, and turning from those who wanted to win me.... I have thanked the people you wanted me to, and mentioned that my information came from you. As to the block of houses which you tell me you mean to sell--why, good heavens! my dear Terentia, what _is_ to be done! Oh, what troubles I have to bear! And if misfortune continues to persecute us, what will become of our poor boy? I cannot continue to write--my tears are too much for me; nor would I wish to betray you into the same emotion. All I can say is that if our friends act up to their bounden duty we shall not want for money; if they do not, you will not be able to succeed only with your own. Let our unhappy fortunes, I entreat you, be a warning to us not to ruin our boy, who is ruined enough already. If he only has something to save him from absolute want, a fair share of talent and a fair share of luck will be all that is necessary to win anything else. Do not neglect your health; and send me messengers with letters to let me know what goes on, and how you yourselves are faring. My suspense in any case cannot now be long. Give my love to my little Tullia and my Marcus.

DYRRACHIUM, Nov. 26.

P.S.--I have moved to Dyrrachium because it is not only a free city, but very much in my interest, and quite near to Italy; but if the bustle of the place proves an annoyance I shall betake myself elsewhere and give you notice.

CICERO'S VACILLATION IN THE CIVIL WAR

Being in extreme agitation about these great and terrible events, and having no means of discussing matters with you in person, I want at any rate to avail myself of your judgment. Now the question about which I am in doubt is simply this: If Pompeius should fly from Italy (which I suspect he will do), how do you think I ought to act? To make it easier for you to advise me, I will briefly set forth the arguments that occur to me on both sides of the question.

The obligations that Pompeius laid me under in the matter of my restoration, my own intimacy with him, and also my patriotism, incline me to think that I ought to make my decision as his decision, or in other words, my fortunes as his fortunes. There is this reason also: If I stay behind and desert my post among that band of true and illustrious patriots, I must perforce fall completely under the yoke of one man. Now although he frequently takes occasion to show himself friendly to me--indeed, as you well know, anticipating this storm that is now hanging over our heads, I took good care that he should be so long ago--still I have to consider two different questions: first, how far can I trust him; and secondly,--assuming it to be absolutely certain that he is friendly disposed to me,--would it show the brave man or the honest citizen to remain in a city where one has filled the highest offices of peace and war, achieved immortal deeds, and been crowned with the honors of her most dignified priesthood, only to become an empty name and undergo some risk, attended also very likely with considerable disgrace, should Pompeius ever again grasp the helm? So much for this side; see now what may be said on the other.

Pompeius has in our cause done nothing wisely, nothing strongly; nothing, I may add, that has not been contrary to my opinion and advice. I pass over those old complaints, that it was he who himself nourished this enemy of the republic, gave him his honors, put the sword into his hand--that it was he who advised him to force laws through by violence, trampling on the warnings of religion--that it was he who made the addition of Transalpine Gaul, he who is his son-in-law, he who as Augur allowed the adoption of Clodius; who showed more activity in recalling me than in preventing my exile; who took it on him to extend Caesar's term of government; who supported all his proceedings while he was away; that he too even in his third consulship, after he had begun to pose as a defender of the constitution, actually exerted himself to get the ten tribunes to propose that absence should not invalidate the election; nay more, he expressly sanctioned this by one of his own acts, and opposed the consul Marcus Marcellus, who proposed that the tenure of the Gallic provinces should come to an end on the 1st of March--but anyhow, to pass over all this, what could be more discreditable, what more blundering, than this evacuation of the city, or I had better say, this ignominious flight? What terms ought not to have been accepted sooner than abandon our country? The terms were bad? That I allow; but is anything worse than this? But he will win back the constitution? When? What preparations have been made to warrant such a hope? Have we not lost all Picenum? have we not left open the road to the capital? have we not abandoned the whole of our treasure, public and private, to the foe? In a word, there is no common cause, no strength, no centre, to draw such people together as might yet care to show fight for the Republic. Apulia has been chosen--the most thinly populated part of Italy, and the most remote from the line of movement of this war: it would seem that in despair they were looking for flight, with some easy access to the coast. I took the charge of Capua much against my will--not that I would evade that duty, but in a cause which evoked no sympathy from any class as a whole, nor any openly even from individuals (there was some of course among the good citizens, but as languid as usual), and where I saw for myself that the mass of the people, and all the lowest stratum, were more and more inclined to the other side, many even longing for a revolution, I told him to his face I would undertake to do nothing without forces and without money. Consequently I have had no responsibility at all, because I saw from the very first that nothing was really intended but flight. Say that I now follow this; then whither? Not with him; I had already set out to join him when I found that Caesar was in those parts, so that I could not safely reach Luceria. I must sail by the western sea, in the depth of winter, not knowing where to steer for. And again, what about being with my brother, or leaving him and taking my son? How then must I act, since either alternative will involve the greatest difficulty, the greatest mental anxiety? And then, too, what a raid he will make on me and my fortunes when I am out of the way--fiercer than on other people, because he will think perhaps that in outrages on me he holds a means of popularity. Again, these fetters, remember,--I mean these laurels on my attendants' staves,--how inconvenient it is to take them out of Italy! What place indeed will be safe for me, supposing I now find the sea calm enough, before I have actually joined him? though where that will be and how to get there, I have no notion.

On the other hand, say that I stop where I am and find some place on this side of the water, then my conduct will precisely resemble that of Philippus, or Lucius Flaccus, or Quintus Mucius under Cinna's reign of terror. And however this decision ended for the last-named, yet still he at any rate used to say that he saw what really did happen would occur, but that it was his deliberate choice in preference to marching sword in hand against the homes of the very city that gave him birth. With Thrasybulus it was otherwise, and perhaps better; but still there is a sound basis for the policy and sentiments of Mucius; as there is also for this [which Philippus did]: to wait for your opportunity when you must, just as much as not to lose your opportunity when it is given. But even in this case, those staves again of my attendants still involve some awkwardness; for say that his feelings are friendly to me (I am not sure that this is so, but let us assume it), then he will offer me a triumph. I fear that to decline may be perilous--[to accept] an offense with all good citizens. Ah, you exclaim, what a difficult, what an insoluble problem! Yet the solution must be found; for what can one do? And lest you should have formed the idea that I am rather inclined towards staying because I have argued more on that side of the question, it is quite possible, as is so frequently the case in debates, that one side has more words, the other more worth. Therefore I should be glad if when you give me your opinion you would look upon me as making up my mind quite dispassionately on a most important question. I have a ship both at Caieta and at Brundisium.

But lo and behold, while I am writing you these very lines by night in my house at Cales, in come the couriers, and here is a letter to say that Caesar is before Corfinium, and that in Corfinium is Domitius, with an army resolute and even eager for battle. I do not think our chief will go so far as to be guilty of abandoning Domitius, though it is true he had already sent Scipio on before with two cohorts to Brundisium, and written a dispatch to the consuls ordering that the legion enrolled by Faustus should go under the command of one consul to Sicily: but it is a scandal that Domitius should be left to his fate when he is imploring him for help. There is some hope, not in my opinion a very good one, but strong in these parts, that there has been a battle in the Pyrenees between Afranius and Trebonius; that Trebonius has been beaten off; that your friend Fabius also has come over to us with all his troops; and to crown it all, that Afranius is advancing with a strong force. If this be so, we shall perhaps make a stand in Italy. As for me, since Caesar's route is uncertain--he is expected about equally by way of Capua and of Luceria--I have sent Lepta to Pompeius with a letter, while I myself, for fear of falling in with him anywhere, have started again for Formiae. I thought it best to let you know this, and am writing with more composure than I have written of late; not inserting any opinion of my own, but trying to elicit yours.

CICERO'S CORRESPONDENTS

It seems desirable to add a few letters by other hands than Cicero's, to indicate the manifold side-lights thrown on the inner history of this intensely interesting period. Sulpicius's famous attempt at consolation has already been given above. Two brief letters by Caesar will illustrate the dictator's marvelous ability to comprehend and control other men. Pompey's gruff rudeness forms a contrast which is hardly accidental on the editor's part. Caelius's wit is biting as ever; and lastly, Matius's protest against being persecuted merely because he, who loved Caesar, openly mourned for his dead friend, has an unconscious tone of simple heroism unequaled in the entire correspondence.

W. C. L.

CAESAR TO CICERO

You know me too well not to keep up your character as an Augur by divining that nothing is more entirely alien from my nature than cruelty: I will add that while my decision is in itself a great source of pleasure to me, to find my conduct approved by you is a triumph of gratification. Nor does the fact at all disturb me that those people whom I have set at liberty are reported to have gone their ways only to renew the attack upon me; because there is nothing I wish more than that I may ever be as true to my own character as they to theirs.

May I hope that you will be near town when I am there, so that I may as usual avail myself in everything of your advice and means of assistance? Let me assure you that I am charmed beyond everything with your relation Dolabella, to whom I shall acknowledge myself indeed indebted for this obligation; for his kindliness is so great, and his feeling and affection for me are such, that he cannot possibly do otherwise.

CAESAR TO CICERO

Though I had fully made up my mind that you would do nothing rashly, nothing imprudently, still I was so far impressed by the rumors in some quarters as to think it my duty to write to you, and ask it as a favor due to our mutual regard that you will not take any step, now that the scale is so decisively turned, which you would not have thought it necessary to take even though the balance still stood firm. For it will really be both a heavier blow to our friendship, and a step on your part still less judicious for yourself, if you are to be thought not even to have bowed the knee to success--for things seem to have fallen out as entirely favorably for us as disastrously for them; nor yet to have been drawn by attachment to a particular cause--for that has undergone no change since you decided to remain aloof from their counsels;--but to have passed a stern judgment on some act of mine, than which, from you, no more painful thing could befall me; and I claim the right of our friendship to entreat that you will not take this course.

Finally, what more suitable part is there for a good peace-loving man, and a good citizen, than to keep aloof from civil dissensions? There were not a few who admired this course, but could not adopt it by reason of its danger: you, after having duly weighed both the conclusions of friendship and the unmistakable evidence of my whole life, will find that there is no safer nor more honorable course than to keep entirely aloof from the struggle.

POMPEY TO CICERO

To-day, the 10th of February, Fabius Vergilianus has joined me. From him I learn that Domitius with his eleven cohorts, and fourteen cohorts that Vibullius has brought up, is on his way to me. His intention was to start from Corfinium on the 13th, Hirrus to follow soon after with five of the cohorts. I decide that you are to come to us at Luceria; here, I think, you will be most in safety.

CAELIUS IN ROME TO CICERO IN CILICIA

The capture of his Parthian Majesty and the storming of Seleuceia itself had not been enough to compensate for missing the sight of our doings here. Your eyes would never have ached again if you had only seen the face of Domitius when he was not elected! The election was important, and it was quite clear that party feeling determined the side which people took: only a few could be brought to acknowledge the claims of friendship. Consequently Domitius is so furious with me that he scarcely hates any of his most intimate friends as much as he does me; and all the more because he thinks that it was to do him wrong that his hopes of being in the College of Augurs are snatched away, and that I am responsible for it. He is savage now to see everybody so delighted at his mortification, and myself more active than anybody, with one exception, on behalf of Antonius.

As to political prospects, I have often mentioned to you that I do not see any chance of peace lasting a year; and the nearer that struggle which must infallibly take place, is drawing to us, the more manifest does its danger become. The point at issue about which our lords and masters are going to fight is this: Pompeius has absolutely determined not to allow Caesar to be elected consul on any terms except a previous resignation of his army and his government, while Caesar is convinced that he must inevitably fall if he separates himself from his army. He offers however this compromise, that they should both of them resign their armies. So you see their great affection for one another and their much-abused alliance has not even dwindled down into suppressed jealousy, but has broken out into open war. Nor can I discover what is the wisest course to take in my own interests: a question which I make no doubt will give much trouble to you also. For while I have both interest and connections among those who are on one side, on the other too it is the cause and not the men themselves I dislike. You are not, I feel sure, blind to the fact that where parties are divided within a country, we are bound, so long as the struggle is carried on with none but constitutional weapons, to support the more honorable cause, but when we come to blows and to open war, then the safer one; and to count that cause the better which is the less likely to be dangerous. In the present division of feeling I see that Pompeius will have the Senate and all judicially minded people on his side; those who have everything to dread and little to hope for will flock to Caesar: the army is not to be compared. On the whole, we have plenty of time for balancing the strength of parties and making our decision.

I had all but forgotten my principal reason for writing. Have you heard of the wonderful doings of our censor Appius----how he is rigorously inquiring into our statues and pictures, our amount of land, and our debts? He has persuaded himself that his censorship is a moral soap or toilet powder. He is wrong, I take it; for while he only wants to wash off the dirt, he is really laying bare his veins and his flesh. Heaven and earth! you must run, and come to laugh at the things here----Appius questioning about pictures and statues. You must make haste, I assure you.

Our friend Curio is thought to have acted wisely in giving way about the pay of Pompeius's troops. If I must sum up my opinion, as you ask, about what will happen----unless one or other of them consents to go and fight the Parthians, I see a great split impending, which will be settled by the sword and by force; each is well inclined for this and well equipped. If it could only be without danger to yourself, you would find this a great and most attractive drama which Fortune is rehearsing.

MATIUS TO CICERO

I received great pleasure from your letter, because I found that your opinion of me was what I had hoped and wished it to be; not that I was in any doubt about it, but for the very reason that I valued it so highly, I was most anxious that it should remain unimpaired. Conscious however that I had done nothing which could give offense to the feelings of any good citizen, I was naturally the less inclined to believe that you, adorned as you are with so many excellences of the most admirable kind, could have allowed yourself to be convinced of anything on mere idle report; particularly seeing that you were a friend for whom my spontaneous attachment had been and still was unbroken. And knowing now that it has been as I hoped, I will answer those attacks which you have often opposed on my behalf, as was fairly to be expected from your well-known generosity and the friendship existing between us.

For I am well aware of all they have been heaping on me since Caesar's death. They make it a reproach against me that I go heavily for the loss of a friend, and think it cruel that one whom I loved should have fallen, because, say they, country must be put before friends----as though they have hitherto been successful in proving that his death really was the gain of the commonwealth. But I will not enter any subtle plea; I admit that I have not attained to your higher grades of philosophy: for I have neither been a partisan of Caesar in our civil dissensions,----though I did not abandon my friend even when his action was a stumbling-block to me,----nor did I ever give my approval to the civil war, or even to the actual ground of quarrel, of which indeed I earnestly desired that the first sparks should be trampled out. And so in the triumph of a personal friend I was never ensnared by the charms either of place or of money; prizes which have been recklessly abused by the rest, though they had less influence with him than I had. I may even say that my own private property was impaired by that act of Caesar, thanks to which many of those who are rejoicing at Caesar's death continued to live in their own country. That our defeated fellow countrymen should be spared was as much an object to me as my own safety. Is it possible then for me, who wanted all to be left uninjured, not to feel indignation that he by whom this was secured is dead? above all when the very same men were the cause at once of his unpopularity and his untimely end. You shall smart then, say they, since you dare to disapprove of our deed. What unheard of insolence! One man then may boast of a deed, which another is not even allowed to lament without punishment. Why, even slaves have always been free of this----to feel their fears, their joys, their sorrows as their own, and not at anybody else's dictation; and these are the very things which now, at least according to what your "liberators" have always in their mouths, they are trying to wrest from us by terrorism. But they try in vain. There is no danger which has terrors enough ever to make me desert the side of gratitude or humanity; for never have I thought that death in a good cause is to be shunned, often indeed that it deserves to be courted. But why are they inclined to be enraged with me, if my wishes are simply that they may come to regret their deed, desiring as I do that Caesar's death may be felt to be untimely by us all? It is my duty as a citizen to desire the preservation of the constitution? Well, unless both my life in the past and all my hopes for the future prove without any words of mine that I do earnestly desire this, I make no demand to prove it by my professions.

To you therefore I make a specially earnest appeal to let facts come before assertions, and to take my word for it that, if you feel that honesty is the best policy, it is impossible I should have any association with lawless villains. Or can you believe that the principles I pursued in the days of my youth, when even error could pass with some excuse, I shall renounce now that I am going down the hill, and with my own hands unravel all the web of my life? That I will not do; nor yet will I commit any act that could give offense, beyond the fact that I do lament the sad fall of one who was to me the dearest friend and the most illustrious of men. But were I otherwise disposed, I would never deny what I was doing, lest it should be thought I was at once shameless in doing wrong and false and cowardly in dissembling it.

But then I undertook the management of those games which Caesar's heir celebrated for Caesar's victory? Well, this is a matter which belongs to one's private obligations, not to any political arrangement; it was however in the first place a tribute of respect which I was called upon to pay to the memory and the eminent position of a man whom I dearly loved, even though he was dead, and also one that I could not refuse at the request of a young man so thoroughly promising, and so worthy in every way of Caesar as he is.

Again, I have frequently paid visits of compliment to the consul Antonius. And you will find that the very men who think me but a lukewarm patriot are constantly going to his house in crowds, actually for the purpose of soliciting or carrying away some favor. But what a monstrous claim it is, that while Caesar never laid any such embargo as this to prevent me from associating freely with anybody I pleased,----even if they were people whom he personally did not like,----these men who have robbed me of my friend should attempt by malicious insinuations to prevent my showing a kindness to whomsoever I will!

I have however no fear that the moderation of my life will hereafter prove an insufficient defense against false insinuations, and that even those who do not love me, because of my loyalty to Caesar, would not rather have their own friend imitate me than themselves. Such of life as remains to me, at least if I succeed in what I desire, I shall spend in quiet at Rhodes; but if I find that some chance has put a stop to this, I shall simply live at Rome as one who is always desirous that right should be done.

I am deeply grateful to our good friend Trebatius for having thus disclosed to me your sincere and friendly feeling, and given me even an additional reason for honoring and paying respect to one whom it has always been a pleasure to me to regard as a friend. Farewell heartily, and let me have your esteem.

THE DREAM OF SCIPIO

From the Dialogue (The Republic): Translation of Prof. T. R. Lounsbury

When I went into Africa with the consul Manius Manilius, holding the rank, as you are aware, of military tribune of the fourth legion, nothing lay nearer to my heart than to meet Masinissa, a king who, for good reasons, was on the most friendly terms with our family. When I had come to him, the old man embraced me with tears, and then looking up to heaven, said:----"I give thanks to thee, O supremest Sol, and to you, ye inhabitants of heaven! that before I depart this life I behold in my dominions, and under this roof, Publius Cornelius Scipio, by whose very name I am revived: so never passes away from my mind the memory of that best and most invincible hero." Thereupon I made inquiries of him as to the state of his own kingdom, and he of me as to our republic; and with many words uttered on both sides, we spent the whole of that day.

Moreover, after partaking of a repast prepared with royal magnificence, we prolonged the conversation late into the night. The old man would speak of nothing but Africanus, and remembered not only all his deeds, but likewise his sayings. After we parted to go to bed, a sounder sleep than usual fell upon me, partly on account of weariness occasioned by the journey, and partly because I had stayed up to a late hour. Then Africanus appeared to me, I think in consequence of what we had been talking about; for it often happens that our thoughts and speeches bring about in sleep something of that illusion of which Ennius writes in regard to himself and Homer, of which poet he was very often accustomed to think and speak while awake. Africanus showed himself to me in that form which was better known to me from his ancestral image than from my recollection of his person. As soon as I recognized him I was seized with a fit of terror; but he thereupon said:----

"Be of good courage, O Scipio! Lay aside fear, and commit to memory these things which I am about to say. Do you see that State which, compelled by me to submit to the Roman people, renews its former wars, and cannot endure to remain at peace?" At these words, from a certain lustrous and bright place, very high and full of stars, he pointed out to me Carthage. "To fight against that city thou now comest in a rank but little above that of a private soldier; but in two years from this time thou shalt as consul utterly overthrow it, and in consequence shalt gain by thy own exertions that very surname of Africanus which up to this time thou hast inherited from us. But when thou shalt have destroyed Carthage, shalt have had the honor of a triumph, and shalt have been censor, thou shalt during thy absence be chosen consul for a second time, shalt put an end to to a great war, and lay Numantia in ruins. But when thou shalt be carried in thy triumphal chariot to the capitol, thou wilt find the republic disturbed by the designs of my grandson. Then, O Scipio! it will be necessary that thou exhibit the purity and greatness of thy heart, thy soul, and thy judgment. But I see at that time a double way disclose itself, as if the Fates were undecided; for when thy life shall have completed eight times seven revolutions of the sun, and these two numbers (each one of which is looked upon as perfect; the one for one reason, the other for another) shall have accomplished for thee by their natural revolution the fatal product, to thee alone and to thy name the whole State shall turn; upon thee the Senate, upon thee all good men, upon thee the allies, upon thee the Latins, will fasten their eyes; thou wilt be the one upon whom the safety of the State shall rest; and in short, as dictator, it will be incumbent on thee to establish and regulate the republic, if thou art successful in escaping the impious hands of kinsmen."

At this point, Laelius uttered an exclamation of sorrow, and the rest groaned more deeply; but Scipio, slightly smiling, said, Keep silence, I beg of you. Do not awake me from my dream, and hear the rest of his words:--

"But, O Africanus! that thou mayest be the more zealous in the defense of the republic, know this: For all who have preserved, who have succored, who have aggrandized their country, there is in heaven a certain fixed place, where they enjoy an eternal life of blessedness. For to that highest God who governs the whole world there is nothing which can be done on earth more dear than those combinations of men and unions, made under the sanction of law, which are called States. The rulers and preservers of them depart from this place, and to it they return."

I had been filled with terror, not so much at the fear of death as at the prospect of treachery on the part of those akin to me; nevertheless at this point I had the courage to ask whether my father Paulus was living, and others whom we thought to be annihilated. "Certainly," said he: "they alone live who have been set free from the fetters of the body, as if from prison; for that which you call your life is nothing but death. Nay, thou mayest even behold thy father Paulus coming towards thee."

No sooner had I seen him than I burst into a violent fit of tears; but he thereupon, embracing and kissing me, forbade my weeping. I, as soon as I had checked my tears and was able again to speak, said to him, "Tell me, I beseech thee, O best and most sacred father! since this is life, as I hear Africanus say, why do I tarry upon earth? Why shall I not hasten to go to you?"--"Not so," said he; "not until that God, whose temple is all this which thou seest, shall have freed thee from the bonds of the body, can any entrance lie open to thee here. For men are brought into the world with this design, that they may protect and preserve that globe which thou seest in the middle of this temple, and which is called 'Earth.' To them a soul is given from these everlasting fires which you name constellations and stars, which, in the form of globes and spheres, run with incredible rapidity the rounds of their orbits under the impulse of divine intelligences. Wherefore by thee, O Publius! and by all pious men, the soul must be kept in the guardianship of the body; nor without the command of Him by whom it is given to you can there be any departure from this mortal life, lest you seem to have shunned the discharge of that duty as men which has been assigned to you by God. But, O Scipio! like as thy grandfather who stands here, like as I who gave thee life, cherish the sense of justice and loyal affection; which latter, in however great measure due to thy parents and kinsmen, is most of all due to thy country. Such a life is the way to heaven, and to that congregation of those who have ended their days on earth, and freed from the body, dwell in that place which you see,--that place which, as you have learned from the Greeks, you are in the habit of calling the Milky Way."

This was a circle, shining among the celestial fires with a most brilliant whiteness. As I looked from it, all other things seemed magnificent and wonderful. Moreover, they were such stars as we have never seen from this point of space, and all of such magnitude as we have never even suspected. Among them, that was the least which, the farthest from heaven, and the nearest to earth, shone with a borrowed light. But the starry globes far exceeded the size of the earth: indeed the earth itself appeared to me so small that I had a feeling of mortification at the sight of our empire, which took up what seemed to be but a point of it.

As I kept my eyes more intently fixed upon this spot, Africanus said to me:--"How long, I beg of thee, will thy spirit be chained down to earth? Seest thou not into what a holy place thou hast come? Everything is bound together in nine circles, or rather spheres, of which the farthest is the firmament, which embraces the rest, is indeed the supreme God himself, confining and containing all the others. To that highest heaven are fixed those orbits of the stars which eternally revolve. Below it are seven spheres, which move backward with a motion contrary to that of the firmament. One of these belongs to that star which on earth they call Saturn; then follows that shining orb, the source of happiness and health to the human race, which is called Jupiter; then the red planet, bringing terror to the nations, to which you give the name of Mars; then, almost directly under the middle region, stands the sun,--the leader, the chief, the governor of the other luminaries, the soul of the universe, and its regulating principle, of a size so vast that it penetrates and fills everything with its own light. Upon it, as if they were an escort, follow two spheres,--the one of Venus, the other of Mercury; and in the lowest circle revolves the moon, illuminated by the rays of the sun. Below it there is nothing which is not mortal and transitory, save the souls which are given to mankind by the gift of the gods; above the moon, all things are eternal. For that ninth sphere, which is in the middle, is the earth: it has no motion; it is the lowest in space; and all heavy bodies are borne toward it by their natural downward tendency."

I looked at these, lost in wonder. As soon as I had recovered myself I said, "What is this sound, so great and so sweet, which fills my ears?"--"This," he replied, "is that music which, composed of intervals unequal, but divided proportionately by rule, is caused by the swing and movement of the spheres themselves, and by the proper combination of acute tones with grave, creates with uniformity manifold and diverse harmonies. For movements so mighty cannot be accomplished in silence; and it is a law of nature that the farthest sphere on the one side gives forth a base tone, the farthest on the other a treble; for which reason the revolution of that uppermost arch of the heaven, the starry firmament, whose motion is more rapid, is attended with an acute and high sound; while that of the lowest, or lunar arch, is attended with a very deep and grave sound. For the ninth sphere, the earth, embracing the middle region of the universe, stays immovably in one fixed place. But those eight globes between, two[A] of which have the same essential

## action, produce tones, distinguished by intervals, to the number of

seven; which number indeed is the knot of almost all things. Men of skill, by imitating the result on the strings of the lyre, or by means of the human voice, have laid open for themselves a way of return to this place, just as other men of lofty souls have done the same by devoting themselves during their earthly life to the study of what is divine. But the ears of men, surfeited by this harmony have become deaf to it; nor is there in you any duller sense: just as, at that cataract which is called Catadupa,--where the Nile rushes down headlong from the lofty mountain-tops,--the people who dwell in that neighborhood have lost the sense of hearing in consequence of the magnitude of the sound. So likewise this harmony, produced by the excessively rapid revolution of the whole universe, is so great that the ears of men are not able to take it in, in the same manner as you are not able to look the sun in the eye, and your sight is overcome by the power of its rays." Though I was filled with wonder, nevertheless I kept turning my eyes from time to time to the earth.

[A] Mercury and Venus.

"I perceive," then said Africanus, "that thou still continuest to contemplate the habitation of the home of man. If that seems to thee as small as it really is, keep then thy eyes fixed on these heavenly objects; look with contempt on those of mortal life. For what notoriety that lives in the mouths of men, or what glory that is worthy of being sought after, art thou able to secure? Thou seest that the earth is inhabited in a few small localities, and that between those inhabited places--spots as it were on the surface--vast desert regions lie spread out; and that those who inhabit the earth are not only so isolated that no communication can pass among them from one to another, but that some dwell in an oblique direction as regards you, some in a diagonal, and some stand even exactly opposite you. From these you are certainly not able to hope for any glory.

"Moreover, thou observest that this same earth is surrounded, and as it were, girdled, by certain zones, of which thou seest that two--the farthest apart, and resting at both sides on the very poles of the sky--are stiffened with frost; and that, again, the central and largest one is burnt up with the heat of the sun. Two are habitable: of these the southern one, in which dwell those who make their footprints opposite yours, is a foreign world to your race. But even this other one, which lies to the north, which you occupy,--see with how small a part of it you come into contact! For all the land which is cultivated by you, very narrow at the extremities but wider at the sides, is only a small island surrounded by that water which on earth you call the Atlantic, or the great sea, or the ocean. But though its name is so high-sounding, yet thou beholdest how small it is. From these cultivated and well-known regions can either thy name or the name of any of us surmount and pass this Caucasus which thou seest, or cross yonder flood of the Ganges? Who in the farthest remaining regions of the rising and the setting sun, or on the confines of the north and the south, will hear thy name? When these are taken away, thou assuredly perceivest how immense is the littleness of that space in which your reputation seeks to spread itself abroad. Moreover, even those who speak of us, for how long a time will they speak?

"Nay, even if the generations of men were desirous, one after the other, to hand down to posterity the praises of any one of us heard from their fathers, nevertheless, on account of the changes in the earth,--wrought by inundations and conflagration, which are sure to recur at certain fixed epochs,--we are not simply unable to secure for ourselves a glory which lasts forever, but are even unable to gain a glory which lasts for a long time. Moreover, of what value is it that the speech of those who are to be born hereafter shall be about thee, when nothing has been said of thee by all those who were born before, who were neither fewer in number and were unquestionably better men; especially when no one is able to live in the memory of those very persons by whom one's name can be heard, for the space of one year?

"For men commonly measure the year by the return to its place of the sun alone, that is, of one star; but when all the stars shall have returned to that same point from which they once set out, and after a long period of time have brought back the same relative arrangement of the whole heaven, that, then, can justly be called the complete year. In it I hardly dare say how many ages of human life are contained. For once in the past the sun seemed to disappear from the eyes of men and to be annihilated, at the time when the soul of Romulus made its way into this very temple. When, from the same region of the sky and at the same moment of time, the sun shall have again vanished, then be sure that all constellations and stars have come back to the position they had in the beginning, and that the perfect year is completed. Of that year know that now not even the twentieth part has passed.

"Wherefore, if thou givest up the hope of a return to this place, in which all things exist for lofty and pre-eminent souls, yet of how much value is that human glory which can hardly endure for even the small part of a single year? But if, as I was saying, thou wishest to look on high, and to fix thy gaze upon this abode of the blest and this eternal home, never give thyself up to the applause of the vulgar, nor rest the recompense of thy achievements in the rewards which can be bestowed upon thee by men. It is incumbent on thee that Virtue herself shall draw thee by her own charm to true glory. As for the way in which others talk about thee, let them take care of that themselves; yet without doubt they will talk. But all such renown is limited to the petty provinces of the regions which thou seest: nor in the case of any one is it everlasting; for it both dies with the death of men and is buried in oblivion by the forgetfulness of posterity."

When he had said these things, "O Africanus!" I replied, "if the path that leads to the entrance of heaven lies open to those who have rendered great service to their country, although, in following from my boyhood in thy footsteps and in those of my father, I have not failed in sustaining the honor derived from you, yet henceforth I shall toil with far more zeal, now that so great a reward has been held out before me."--"Do thou indeed," said he, "continue to strive; and bear this in mind, that thou thyself art not mortal, but this body of thine. For thou art not the one which that form of thine proclaims thee to be: but the soul of any one, that alone is he; not that external shape which can be pointed out with the finger. Therefore know thyself to be a god, if that is essentially god which lives, which feels, which remembers, which foresees, which rules and regulates and moves that body over which it is put in authority, as the Supreme Being governs this universe. And as the eternal God moves the world, which in a certain point of view is perishable, so the incorruptible soul moves the corruptible body. For what always moves itself is eternal; but that which communicates to anything a motion which it has itself received from another source, must necessarily have an end of life when it has an end of motion: therefore that alone never ceases to move which moves itself, for the reason that it is never deserted by itself. This indeed is the well-head; this the beginning of motion to all other things that are moved. But to a beginning there is no birth; for all things are born from the beginning. But it itself cannot be born of anything; for that would not be a beginning which sprang from some other source. And just as it is never begotten, so it never dies; for a beginning annihilated could neither itself be brought back to life by anything else, nor could it create anything else out of itself, since it is necessary that all things should come from a beginning. So it results that the beginning of motion is in itself, because it is self-moved. And this can neither be born nor die, for if it did, the heavens would fall to ruin, and all nature would stand still; nor could it come into the possession of any power by the original impulse of which it might be put into motion.

"Since therefore it is clear that what is self-moved is eternal, who can deny that this essential characteristic has been imparted to the soul? For everything which is moved by a foreign impulse is without a soul; but that which lives is made to go by an inward motion of its own, for this is the special nature and power of the soul. But if it is the one thing among all which is self-moved, then certainly it has had no beginning, and is eternal. Do thou, then, employ it in the noblest duties. But those are the loftiest cares which are concerned with the well-being of our native land. The soul that is inspired by these, and occupied with them, will hasten the quicker into this its real home and habitation. So much the more speedily indeed will it do this, if while it is shut up in the body it shall pass beyond its limits, and by the contemplation of those things which are outside of it shall withdraw itself as far as possible from the body. For the souls of those who have given themselves up to sensual pleasures, and have made themselves as it were ministers to these, and who under the pressure of desires which are subservient to these pleasures have violated the laws of God and man, when they shall have parted from the body, will fly about the earth itself, nor will return to this place until they shall have suffered torments for many ages." He departed. I awoke from my sleep.

THE CID

(1045?-1099)

BY CHARLES SPRAGUE SMITH

In the Cid we have two distinct personages, Rodrigo or Ruy Diaz (Dia son of Diego) who flourished during the last half of the eleventh century; and that legendary hero of Spanish epic poems, ballads, and dramas, whom Philip II. tried to have canonized. We are not left to our own conjectures as to the character and life of the historical Cid. Both Spanish and Arabic records place the main facts beyond all controversy.

He was born at Bivar, a hamlet three miles north of Burgos (circa 1040-1050), of an ancient Castilian family claiming descent from Lain Calvo,--one of the two judges who, tradition declares, was named by the Castilian people as their governor after the Leonese king had treacherously put their counts to death (circa 923).

The period of the Cid coincides with the political disruption of Arabic Spain. The Caliphate of Cordova, which in the preceding century had attained its high point in power and in all the arts of civilization, had fallen. A multitude of petty Moorish States disputed with each other the heritage of the Ommiad caliphs. The Christian States were not slow to profit by their opportunity. Ferdinand I. of Leon-Castile (surnamed the Great, 1037-65) not only extended his territory at the expense of the Moors, but also imposed tribute upon four of their more important States--Saragossa, Toledo, Badajoz, and Seville. Valencia only escaped a similar fate through his death.

The Peninsula was at this time divided among a large number of mutually independent and warring States, Christian and Moslem. The sentiments of loyalty to religion and to country were universally subordinated to those of personal interest; Christians fought under Moorish banners, Moors under Christian. Humanity toward the enemy, loyalty to oaths, were not virtues in the common estimation. Between the Christian States of Leon and Castile great jealousy ruled. Castile had come into being as a border province of the Asturian kingdom, governed by military counts. From the first there seems to have been a spirit of resistance to the overrule of the Asturian kings (later known as kings of Leon). Finally, under its Count Fernan Gonzalez (who died 970), Castile secured its independence. But whether leading a separate political existence, or united with Leon, Castile was ever jealously sensitive of any precedence claimed or exercised by its sister kingdom. Ferdinand I. of Leon-Castile, treating his territorial possessions as personal property,--a policy repeatedly fatal to all advance in Spanish history,--divided them at his death (1005), among his five children. Sancho, the eldest, received Castile, Nahera, and Pampeluna; Alfonso, Leon, and the Asturias; Garcia, Galicia, and that portion of Portugal which had been wrested from the Moors; Urraca received the city of Zamora; and Elvira, Toro.

The expected occurred. Sancho made war on his brothers, compelling both to flee to Moorish territories, and wrested Toro from Elvira. Rodrigo Diaz, the Cid, appears first at this period. He is the _alferez, i.e._, the standard-bearer, or commander-in-chief under the King, in Sancho's army. The brother Kings, Sancho and Alfonso, had agreed to submit their dispute to a single combat, the victor to receive the territories of both. Alfonso's Leonese army conquered the Castilian, and relying upon the agreement withdrew to its tents. Rodrigo Diaz was already known as the Campeador, a title won through his having, vanquished in single combat the champion of Sancho of Navarre, and signifying probably one skilled in battle, or champion.

Rodrigo gave a wily counsel to the routed Castilians. "The Leonese are not expecting an attack," he said; "let us return and fall upon them at unawares." The counsel was followed; the victors, resting in their tents, were surprised at daybreak, and only a few, Alfonso among the number, escaped with their lives. Alfonso was imprisoned at Burgos, but soon released at the entreaty of the Princess Urraca, on condition of his becoming a monk. Availing himself of such liberty, he escaped from the monastery to the Moorish court of Mamoun, King of Toledo. Sancho ruled thus over the entire heritage of his father,--Zamora excepted, the portion of Urraca. While laying siege to that city, he was slain by a cavalier in Urraca's service, Bellido Dolfos, who, sallying from the city, made good his escape, though almost overtaken by the avenging Campeador, 1072.

Alfonso, the fugitive at Toledo, was now rightful heir to the throne; and however reluctant the Castilian nobles were to recognize the authority of a Leonese king, they yielded to necessity. It is asserted--but the historical evidence here is not complete--that before recognizing Alfonso's authority the Castilian nobles required of him an oath that he had no part in his brother's murder, and that it was the Campeador who administered this oath, 1073. Whatever the facts, Alfonso will have thought it wise to conciliate the good-will of the Castilian grandees, and especially that of their leader Rodrigo, until at least his own position became secure. To this we may attribute his giving to Rodrigo in marriage of Jimena, daughter of Diego, Count of Oviedo, and first cousin of the King. The marriage contract, bearing date 1074, is preserved at Burgos.

Some years later Rodrigo was sent to collect the tribute due Alfonso by his vassal Motamid, King of Seville. Finding the King of Granada at war with Motamid, Rodrigo requested him not to attack an ally of Alfonso. But prayers and threats were alike unavailing; it came to battle, and Rodrigo conquered. Among the prisoners were several Christians in the service of Granada, notably Garcia Ordonez, a scion of the royal Leonese house. Not long after, we find Rodrigo charged with having appropriated to his own use a portion of the tribute and gifts sent to Alfonso by Motamid, Garcia Ordonez being his chief accuser. Taking advantage of the pretext--it can have been but a pretext--of Rodrigo's attacking the Moors without first securing the royal consent, Alfonso banished him. Old wrongs still rankling in the King's memory furnished probably the real motive.

And now began that career as soldier of fortune which has furnished themes to Spanish poets of high and low degree, and which, transformed and idealized by tradition, has made of Rodrigo the perfect cavalier of crusading Christian Spain. He offered first, it would seem, his service and that of his followers to the Christian Count of Barcelona, and when refused by him, to the Moorish King of Saragossa. This State was one of the more important of those resulting from the distribution of the Caliphate of Cordova. The offer was accepted, and Rodrigo remained here until 1088, serving successively three generations of the Beni-Hud, father, son, and grandson, warring indifferently against Christians and Moors, and through his successes rising to extraordinary distinction and power.

At this time--1088--the attention of both Mostain, the King of Saragossa, and of his powerful captain Rodrigo, was drawn to Valencia. This city after the fall of the Caliphate of Cordova had been ruled for forty-four years by descendants of Almanzor, the great Prime Minister of the last period of the Ommiad dynasty. Mamoun, King of Toledo, who sheltered the fugitive Alfonso, deposed the last of these Valencian kings, his son-in-law, and annexed the State to his own dominion. At Mamoun's death in 1075 Valencia revolted; the governor declared himself independent and placed himself under Alfonso's protection.

Ten years later Mamoun's successor, the weak Cadir, finding his position a desperate one, offered to yield up to Alfonso his own capital Toledo, on condition that the latter should place Valencia in his hands. Alfonso consented. Valencia was too weak to offer resistance, but Cadir proved equally incompetent as king and as general. Depending entirely upon his Castilian soldiery, captained by Alvar Fanez, a kinsman of Rodrigo, he grievously burdened the people in order to satisfy the demands of this auxiliary troop. But grinding taxes and extortions alike failed; and the soldiery, their wages in arrears, battened upon the country, the dregs of the Moorish population joining them. The territory was delivered at last from their robberies, rapes, and murders, by the appearance of the Almoravides. This new Moslem sect had grown strong in Africa, attaining there the political supremacy; and in their weakness the Moorish kings of Spain implored its assistance in repelling the attacks of the Christian North.

King Alfonso, alarmed at the appearance of these African hordes, recalled Alvar Fanez, was defeated by the Almoravides at Zallaca in 1086, and could think no more of garrisoning Valencia for Cadir. The position of Cadir became thus critical, and he appealed for help both to Alfonso and to Mostain of Saragossa. Mostain sent Rodrigo, ostensibly to his assistance; but a secret agreement had been made, Arabic historians assert, between the king and his general, whereby Cadir was to be despoiled, the city fall to Mostain, the booty to Rodrigo (1088).

The expedition was a successful one: Cadir's enemies were compelled to withdraw, and Rodrigo established himself in Valencian territory. As the recognized protector of the lawful king, in reality the suzerain of Valencia, Rodrigo received a generous tribute; but he had no intention of holding to his agreement with Mostain and assisting the latter to win the city. It is clear on the contrary that he had already resolved to secure, when opportunity offered, the prize for himself. Meanwhile he skillfully held off, now by force, now by ruse, all other competitors, Christian and Moslem alike; including among these King Alfonso, whose territories he wasted with fire and sword when that monarch attempted once, in Rodrigo's absence, to win Valencia for himself.

At another time we find him intriguing simultaneously with four different rivals for the control of the city,--Alfonso and Mostain among the number,--deceiving all with fair words.

As head of an independent army, Rodrigo made now successful forays in all directions; despoiling, levying tribute, garrisoning strongholds, strengthening thus in every way his position. At last the long awaited opportunity came. During his temporary absence, Cadir was dethroned and put to death; and the leader of the insurgents, the Cadi Ibn Djahhof, named president of a republic.

Rodrigo returned, and appealing in turn to ruse and force, at last sat down before the city to reduce it by famine. During the last period of the siege, those who fled from the city to escape the famine were thrown to dogs, or burned at slow fires. The city capitulated on favorable terms, June 15th, 1094. But all the conditions of the capitulation were violated. The Cadi-President was buried in a trench up to his arm-pits, surrounded with burning brands, and slowly tortured to death, several of his kinsmen and friends sharing his fate. Rodrigo was with difficulty restrained from throwing into the flames the Cadi's children and the women of his harem. Yet the lives and property of Ibn Djahhof and his family had been expressly safeguarded in the capitulation. It is probable that Rodrigo's title of "the Cid" or "my Cid" (Arabic, Sid-y = my lord) was given to him at this time by his Moorish subjects.

Master of Valencia, the Cid dreamed of conquering all that region of Spain still held by the Moors. An Arab heard him say, "One Rodrigo (the last king of the Goths) has lost this peninsula; another Rodrigo will recover it." Success crowned his arms for several years. But in 1099 the troops he had sent against the Almoravides were utterly routed, few escaping. The Cid, already enfeebled in health, died, it is said of grief and shame (July, 1099). His widow held the city for two years longer. Besieged at that time by the Almoravides, she sought help of Alfonso. He came and forced the enemy to raise the siege; but judging that it was not possible for him to defend a city so remote from his dominions, counseled its abandonment. As the Christians, escorting the body of the Cid, marched out, Valencia was fired; and only ruins awaited the Almoravides (1102).

The Cid's body was brought to San Pedro de Cardena, a monastery not far from Burgos; enthroned, it is said, beside the high altar for ten years, and thereafter buried. Jimena survived her husband until 1104.

Ibn Bassam, an Arabic contemporary, writing at Seville only ten years after the death of the Cid, after describing his cruelty and duplicity, adds:--"Nevertheless, that man, the scourge of his time, was one of the miracles of the Lord in his love of glory, the prudent firmness of his character, and his heroic courage. Victory always followed the banner of Rodrigo (may God curse him!); he triumphed over the barbarians, ... he put to flight their armies, and with his little band of warriors slew their numerous soldiery."

The Cid, a man not of princely birth, through the exercise of virtues which his time esteemed,--courage and shrewdness,--had won for himself from the Moors an independent principality. Legend will have begun to color and transform his exploits already during his lifetime. Some fifty years later he had become the favorite hero of popular songs. It is probable that these songs (_cantares_) were at first brief tales in rude metrical form; and that the epic poems, dating from about 1200, used them as sources. The earliest poetic monument in Castilian literature which treats of the Cid is called 'The Poem of My Cid.' While based upon history, its material is largely legendary. The date of its composition is doubtful,--probably about 1200. The poem--the beginning is lost--opens with the departure of "My Cid" from Bivar, and describes his Moorish campaigns, culminating with the conquest of Valencia. Two Leonese nobles, the Infantes (Princes) of Carrion, beseech Alfonso to ask for them in marriage the conqueror's daughters. The Cid assents--to his King he would refuse nothing--and the marriages are celebrated in Valencia with due pomp. But the princes are arrant cowards. To escape the gibes of the Cid's companions, after securing rich wedding portions they depart for Carrion. In the oak wood of Carpes they pretend a desire to be left alone with their wives. Despoiling them of their outer garments, with saddle-girth and spurred boot they seek to revenge upon the Cid's daughters the dishonor to which their own base conduct subjected them while at the Cid's court. But time brings a requital. The Infantes, called to account, forfeit property and honor, esteeming themselves fortunate to escape with their lives from the judicial duels. Princes of Navarre and Aragon present themselves as suitors, and in second marriages Dona Elvira and Dona Sola become queens of Spain. The marriages with the Infantes of Carrion are pure invention, intended perhaps to defame the Leonese nobility, these nobles being princes of the blood royal.

The second marriages, if we substitute Barcelona for Aragon, are historical. Of the Cid's two daughters, one married Prince Ramiro of Navarre and the other Count Raynard Berenger III. of Barcelona. In 1157 two of the Cid's great-grandchildren, Sancho VI. of Navarre and his sister Dona Blanca, queen of Sancho III. of Castile, sat on Spanish thrones. Through intermarriage the blood of the Cid has passed into the Bourbon and Habsburg lines, and with Eleanor of Castile into the English royal house.

The 'Poem of My Cid' is probably the earliest monument of Spanish literature. It is also in our opinion the noblest expression--so far as the characters are concerned; for the verse halts and the description sometimes lags--of the entire mediaeval folk epic of Europe. Homeric in its simplicity, its characters are drawn with clearness, firmness, and concision, presenting a variety true to nature, far different from the uniformity we find in the 'Song of Roland.' The spirit which breathes in it is of a noble, well-rounded humanity, a fearless and gentle courage, a manly and modest self-reliance; an unswerving loyalty and simple trust toward country, king, kinsmen, and friends; a child-faith in God, slightly tinged with superstition, for "My Cid" believes in auguries; and a chaste tender family affection, where the wife is loved and honored as wife and as mother, and the children's welfare fills the father's thoughts.

The duplicity of the historical Cid has left indeed its traces. When abandoning Castile he sends to two Jewish money-lenders of Burgos, chests filled, as he pretends, with fine gold, but in reality with sand; borrows upon this security, and so far as we are informed, never repays the loan. The Princes of Carrion, his sons-in-law, are duped into thinking that they will escape from the accounting with the loss of Tizon and Colada, the swords which the Cid gave them. But a certain measure of prudent shrewdness is not out of place in dealing with men of the treacherous character of the Infantes. And as to the Jewish money-lenders, to despoil them would scarce have been regarded as an offense against the moral law in mediaeval Spain.

The second poetic monument is variously named. Amadar de los Rios, a historian of Spanish literature, styles it 'The Legend or Chronicle of the Youth of Rodrigo.' Its date also is disputed, some authorities placing its composition earlier, others later than that of the Poem. The weight of evidence seems to us in favor of the later date. It is rude and of inferior merit, though not without vigorous passages. It treats the earliest period of the Cid's life, and is (so far as we know) purely legendary. The realm of Castile-Leon is at peace under the rule of Ferdinand (the First), when the Count Don Gomez of Gormaz makes an unprovoked descent upon the sheep-folds of Diego Lainez. A challenge of battle follows. Rodrigo, only son of Diego, a lad in his thirteenth year, insists upon being one of the hundred combatants on the side of his family, and slays Don Gomez in single combat. Jimena, the daughter of Gomez, implores justice of the King; but when Ferdinand declares that there is danger of an insurrection if Rodrigo be punished, she proposes reconciliation through marriage. Diego and his son are summoned to the court, where Rodrigo's appearance and conduct terrify all. He denies vassalship, and declares to King Ferdinand, "That my father kissed your hand has foully dishonored me."

Married to Jimena against his will (Jimena Diaz, not Jimena Gomez, was his historical wife), he vows never to recognize her as wife until he has won five battles with the Moors in open field. Ferdinand plays a very unkingly role in this poem. While his fierce vassal is absent the King is helpless; and Rodrigo draws near only to assert anew his contempt for the royal authority by blunt refusals of Ferdinand's requests. He is always ready, however, to take up the gauntlet and defend the realm against every enemy, Christian or Moor. But this rude courage is coupled with devout piety, and is not insensible to pity. At the ford of the Duero a wretched leper is encountered: all turn from him with loathing save Rodrigo, who gives to him a brother's care. It is Saint Lazarus, who departing blesses him.

At last a formidable coalition is formed against Spain. The Emperor of Germany and the King of France, supported by the Pope and Patriarch, require of Spain, in recognition of her feudal dependence upon the Roman empire, a yearly tribute of fifteen noble virgins, besides silver, horses, falcons, etc. Rodrigo appears when Ferdinand is in despair, and kisses at last the royal hand in sign of vassalship. Though the enemy gather "countless as the herbs of the fields," even Persia and Armenia furnishing contingents, their battle array is vain.

The five Kings of Spain cross the Pyrenees. Arrived before Paris, Rodrigo passes through the midst of the French army, strikes with his hand the gates of the city, and challenges the twelve French peers to combat. The allies in alarm implore a truce. At the council, Rodrigo, seated at the feet of his King and acting as Ferdinand's spokesman, curses the Pope when the latter offers the imperial crown of Spain. "We came for that which was to be won," he declares, "not for that already won." Against Rodrigo's advice the truce is accorded to all. Here the poem is interrupted.

Besides these two epic poems, we have in the earlier Spanish literature two chronicles in prose which describe the life of the Cid,--'The General Chronicle of Alfonso the Learned' and 'The Chronicle of the Cid,' the latter being drawn from the former. Both rest in part upon historical sources, in part upon legend and tradition. Two centuries and more after the Poem, we meet with the Romances or Ballads of the Cid. For the earliest of these do not in their present form date far back of 1500. These ballads derive from all sources, but chiefly from the Cid legend, which is here treated in a lyric, sentimental, popular, and at times even vulgar tone.

Guillem de Castro (1569-1631) chose two themes from the life of the Cid for dramatic treatment, composing a dual drama styled 'Las Mocedades del Cid' (The Youth of the Cid). The first part is the more important. De Castro, drawing from the ballads, told again the story of the insult to Don Diego (according to the ballads, a blow in the face given by Don Gomez in a moment of passion), its revenge, the pursuit of Rodrigo by Jimena, demanding justice of King Ferdinand, and finally the reconciliation through marriage. But De Castro added love, and the conflict in the mind of Rodrigo and in that of Jimena between affection and the claims of honor.

Corneille recast De Castro's first drama in his 'Le Cid,' condensing it and giving to the verse greater dignity and nobility. The French dramatist has worked with entire independence here, and both in what he has omitted and what he has added has usually shown an unerring dramatic instinct. In certain instances, however, through ignorance of the spirit and sources of the Spanish drama he has erred. But the invention is wholly De Castro's, and many of Corneille's most admired passages are either free translations from the Spanish or expressions of some thought or sentiment contained in De Castro's version.

In more recent times Herder has enriched German literature with free renderings of some of the Cid ballads. Victor Hugo has drawn from the Cid theme, in his 'La Legende des Siecles' (The Legend of the Centuries), fresh inspiration for his muse.

[Signature: Charles Sprague Smith]

FROM 'THE POEM OF MY CID'

LEAVING BURGOS

With tearful eyes he turned to gaze upon the wreck behind, His rifled coffers, bursten gates, all open to the wind: Nor mantle left, nor robe of fur; stript bare his castle hall; Nor hawk nor falcon in the mew, the perches empty all. Then forth in sorrow went my Cid, and a deep sigh sighed he; Yet with a measured voice and calm, my Cid spake loftily,-- "I thank thee, God our Father, thou that dwellest upon high, I suffer cruel wrong to-day, but of mine enemy!" As they came riding from Bivar the crow was on the right; By Burgos's gate, upon the left, the crow was there in sight. My Cid he shrugged his shoulders and he lifted up his head: "Good tidings, Alvar Fanez! we are banished men!" he said. With sixty lances in his train my Cid rode up the town, The burghers and their dames from all the windows looking down; And there were tears in every eye, and on each lip one word: "A worthy vassal--would to God he served a worthy Lord!"

FAREWELL TO HIS WIFE AT SAN PEDRO DE CARDENA

The prayer was said, the mass was sung, they mounted to depart; My Cid a moment stayed to press Jimena to his heart; Jimena kissed his hand,--as one distraught with grief was she; He looked upon his daughters: "These to God I leave," said he.... As when the finger-nail from out the flesh is torn away, Even so sharp to him and them the parting pang that day. Then to his saddle sprang my Cid, and forth his vassals led; But ever as he rode, to those behind he turned his head.

BATTLE SCENE

Then cried my Cid--"In charity, as to the rescue--ho!" With bucklers braced before their breasts, with lances pointing low, With stooping crests and heads bent down above the saddle-bow, All firm of hand and high of heart they roll upon the foe. And he that in a good hour was born, his clarion voice rings out, And clear above the clang of arms is heard his battle shout: "Among them, gentlemen! Strike home for the love of charity! The champion of Bivar is here--Ruy Diaz--I am he!" Then bearing where Bermuez still maintains unequal fight, Three hundred lances down they come, their pennons flickering white; Down go three hundred Moors to earth, a man to every blow; And when they wheel, three hundred more, as charging back they go. It was a sight to see the lances rise and fall that day: The shivered shields and riven mail, to see how thick they lay; The pennons that went in snow-white came out gory red; The horses running riderless, the riders lying dead; While Moors call on Mohammed, and "Saint James!" the Christians cry, And sixty score of Moors and more in narrow compass lie.

THE CHALLENGES

[Scene from the challenges that preceded the judicial duels. Ferrando, one of the Infantes, has just declared that the did right in spurning the Cid's daughters. The Cid turns to his nephew.]

"Now is the time, 'Dumb Peter'; speak. O man that sittest mute! My daughters' and thy cousins' name and fame are in dispute: To me they speak, to thee they look to answer every word. If I am left to answer now, thou canst not draw thy sword." Tongue-tied Bermuez stood; a while he strove for words in vain, But look you, when he once began he made his meaning plain. "Cid, first I have a word for you: you always are the same, In Cortes ever gibing me,--'Dumb Peter' is the name; It never was a gift of mine, and that long since you knew; But have you found me fail in aught that fell to me to do?-- You lie, Ferrando, lie in all you say upon that score. The honor was to you, not him, the Cid Campeador; For I know something of your worth, and somewhat I can tell. That day beneath Valencia wall--you recollect it well-- You prayed the Cid to place you in the forefront of the fray; You spied a Moor, and valiantly you went that Moor to slay; And then you turned and fled--for his approach you would not stay Right soon he would have taught you 'twas a sorry game to play, Had I not been in battle there to take your place that day. I slew him at the first onfall; I gave his steed to you; To no man have I told the tale from that hour hitherto. Before my Cid and all his men you got yourself a name, How you in single combat slew a Moor--a deed of fame; And all believed in your exploit; they wist not of your shame. You are a craven at the core,--tall, handsome, as you stand; How dare you talk as now you talk, you tongue without a hand?... Now take thou my defiance as a traitor, trothless knight; Upon this plea before our King Alfonso will I fight; The daughters of my lord are wronged, their wrong is mine to right. That ye those ladies did desert, the baser are ye then; For what are they?--weak women; and what are ye?--strong men. On every count I deem their cause to be the holier, And I will make thee own it when we meet in battle here. Traitor thou shalt confess thyself, so help me God on high, And all that I have said to-day my sword shall verify."

Thus far these two. Diego rose, and spoke as ye shall hear: "Counts by our birth are we, of stain our lineage is clear. In this alliance with my Cid there was no parity. If we his daughters cast aside, no cause for shame we see. And little need we care if they in mourning pass their lives, Enduring the reproach that clings to scorned rejected wives. In leaving them we but upheld our honor and our right, And ready to the death am I, maintaining this, to fight." Here Martin Antolinez sprang upon his feet: "False hound! Will you not silent keep that mouth where truth was never found? For you to boast! the lion scare have you forgotten too? How through the open door you rushed, across the court-yard flew; How sprawling in your terror on the wine-press beam you lay? Ay! never more, I trow, you wore the mantle of that day. There is no choice; the issue now the sword alone can try; The daughters of my Cid ye spurned; that must ye justify. On every count I here declare their cause the cause of right, And thou shalt own thy treachery the day we join in fight." He ceased, and striding up the hall Assur Gonzalez passed; His cheek was flushed with wine, for he had stayed to break his fast; Ungirt his robe, and trailing low his ermine mantle hung; Rude was his bearing to the court, and reckless was his tongue. "What a to-do is here, my lords! was the like ever seen? What talk is this about my Cid--him of Bivar I mean? To Riodouirna let him go to take his millers' rent, And keep his mills a-going there, as once he was content. He, forsooth, mate his daughters with the Counts of Carrion!" Upstarted Muno Gustioz: "False, foul-mouthed knave, have done! Thou glutton, wont to break thy fast without a thought or prayer; Whose heart is plotting mischief when thy lips are speaking fair; Whose plighted word to friend or lord hath ever proved a lie; False always to thy fellow-man, falser to God on high,-- No share in thy good-will I seek; one only boon I pray, The chance to make thee own thyself the villain that I say." Then spoke the king: "Enough of words: ye have my leave to fight, The challenged and the challengers; and God defend the right."

CONCLUSION

And from the field of honor went Don Roderick's champions three. Thanks be to God, the Lord of all, that gave the victory!... But in the lands of Carrion it was a day of woe, And on the lords of Carrion it fell a heavy blow. He who a noble lady wrongs and casts aside---may he Meet like requital for his deeds, or worse, if worse there be! But let us leave them where they lie--their meed is all men's scorn. Turn we to speak of him that in a happy hour was born. Valencia the Great was glad, rejoiced at heart to see The honored champions of her lord return in victory: And Ruy Diaz grasped his beard: "Thanks be to God," said he, "Of part or lot in Carrion now are my daughters free; Now may I give them without shame, whoe'er their suitors be." And favored by the king himself, Alfonso of Leon, Prosperous was the wooing of Navarre and Aragon. The bridals of Elvira and of Sol in splendor passed; Stately the former nuptials were, but statelier far the last. And he that in a good hour was born, behold how he hath sped! His daughters now to higher rank and greater honor wed: Sought by Navarre and Aragon, for queens his daughters twain; And monarchs of his blood to-day upon the thrones of Spain. And so his honor in the land grows greater day by day. Upon the feast of Pentecost from life he passed away. For him and all of us the grace of Christ let us implore. And here ye have the story of my Cid Campeador.

Translation of John Ormsby.

EARL OF CLARENDON

(EDWARD HYDE)

(1609-1674)

[Illustration: EARL OF CLARENDON]

The statesman first known as Mr. Hyde of the Inner Temple, then as Sir Edward Hyde, and finally as the Earl of Clarendon, belongs to the small but most valuable and eminent band who have both made and written history; a group which includes among others Caesar, Procopius, Sully, and Baber, and on a smaller scale of active importance, Ammianus and Finlay. Born in Dinton, Wiltshire, 1609, he was graduated at Oxford in 1626, and had attained a high standing in his profession when the civil troubles began, and he determined to devote all his energies to his public duties in Parliament. During the momentous period of the Long Parliament he was strongly on the side of the people until the old abuses had been swept away; but he would not go with them in paralyzing the royal authority from distrust of Charles, and when the civil war broke out he took the royal side, accompanying the King to Oxford, and remaining his ablest adviser and loyal friend.

He was the guardian of Charles II. in exile and in 1661, after the Restoration, was made Lord Chancellor and chief minister. Lord Macaulay says of him:--"He was well fitted for his great place. No man wrote abler state papers. No man spoke with more weight and dignity in council and Parliament. No man was better acquainted with general maxims of statecraft. No man observed the varieties of character with a more discriminating eye. It must be added that he had a strong sense of moral and religious obligation, a sincere reverence for the laws of his country, and a conscientious regard for the honor and interest of the Crown." But his faults were conspicuous. One of his critics insists that "his temper was arbitrary and vehement. His arrogance was immeasurable. His gravity assumed the character of censoriousness."

He took part in important and dangerous negotiations, and eventually alienated four parties at once: the royalists by his Bill of Indemnity; the low-churchmen and dissenters by his Uniformity act; the many who suffered the legal fine for private assemblages for religious worship; and the whole nation by selling Dunkirk to France. By the court he was hated because he censured the extravagance and looseness of the life led there; and finally Charles, who had long resented his sermons, deprived him of the great seal, accused him of high treason, and doomed him to perpetual banishment. Thus, after being the confidential friend of two kings (and the future grandfather of two sovereigns, Mary and Anne), he was driven out of England, to die in poverty and neglect at Rouen in 1674. But these last days were perhaps the happiest and most useful of his life. He now indulged his master passion for literature, and revised his 'History of the Rebellion,' which he had begun while a fugitive from the rebels in the Isle of Jersey. In this masterpiece, "one of the greatest ornaments of the historical literature of England," he has described not only the events in which he participated, but noted people of the time whom he had personally known. The book is written in a style of sober and stately dignity, with great acuteness of insight and weightiness of comment; it incorporates part of an autobiography afterwards published separately, and is rather out of proportion. His other works are 'The Essay on an Active and Contemplative Life'; 'The Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon'; 'Dialogues on Education and the Want of Respect Paid to Age'; 'Miscellaneous Essays' and 'Contemplation of the Psalms of David.'

THE CHARACTER OF LORD FALKLAND

If celebrating the memory of eminent and extraordinary persons, and transmitting their great virtues for the imitation of posterity, be one of the principal ends and duties of history, it will not be thought impertinent in this place to remember a loss which no time will suffer to be forgotten, and no success or good fortune could repair. In this unhappy battle was slain the Lord Viscount Falkland; a person of such prodigious parts of learning and knowledge, of that inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of so flowing and obliging a humanity and goodness to mankind, and of that primitive simplicity and integrity of life, that if there were no other brand upon this odious and accursed civil war than that single loss, it must be most infamous and execrable to all posterity.

Before this Parliament, his condition of life was so happy that it was hardly capable of improvement. Before he came to twenty years of age he was master of a noble fortune, which descended to him by the gift of a grandfather without passing through his father or mother, who were then both alive, and not well enough contented to find themselves passed by in the descent. His education for some years had been in Ireland, where his father was Lord Deputy; so that when he returned into England to the possession of his fortune, he was unentangled with any acquaintance or friends, which usually grow up by the custom of conversation; and therefore was to make a pure election of his company, which he chose by other rules than were prescribed to the young nobility of that time. And it cannot be denied, though he admitted some few to his friendship for the agreeableness of their natures and their undoubted affection to him, that his familiarity and friendship, for the most part, was with men of the most eminent and sublime parts, and of untouched reputation in the point of integrity; and such men had a title to his bosom.

He was a great cherisher of wit and fancy and good parts in any man; and if he found them clouded with poverty or want, a most liberal and bountiful patron towards them, even above his fortune; of which, in those administrations, he was such a dispenser as if he had been trusted with it to such uses; and if there had been the least of vice in his expense he might have been thought too prodigal. He was constant and pertinacious in whatsoever he resolved to do, and not to be wearied by any pains that were necessary to that end. And therefore having once resolved not to see London, which he loved above all places, till he had perfectly learned the Greek tongue, he went to his own house in the country and pursued it with that indefatigable industry that it will not be believed in how short a time he was master of it, and accurately read all the Greek historians.

In this time, his house being within ten miles of Oxford, he contracted familiarity and friendship with the most polite and accurate men of that university; who found such an immenseness of wit and such a solidity of judgment in him, so infinite a fancy bound in by a most logical ratiocination, such a vast knowledge that he was not ignorant in anything, yet such an excessive humility as if he had known nothing, that they frequently resorted and dwelt with him, as in a college situated in a purer air; so that his house was a university bound in a less volume, whither they came not so much for repose as study, and to examine and refine those grosser propositions which laziness and consent made current in vulgar conversation....

The great opinion he had of the uprightness and integrity of those persons who appeared most active, especially of Mr. Hampden, kept him longer from suspecting any design against the peace of the kingdom; and though he differed commonly from them in conclusions, he believed long their purposes were honest. When he grew better informed what was law, and discerned (in them) a desire to control that law by a vote of one or both Houses, no man more opposed those attempts, and gave the adverse party more trouble by reason and argumentation; insomuch as he was, by degrees, looked upon as an advocate for the court, to which he contributed so little that he declined those addresses and even those invitations which he was obliged almost by civility to entertain. And he was so jealous of the least imagination that he should incline to preferment, that he affected even a morosity to the court and to the courtiers, and left nothing undone which might prevent and divert the King's or Queen's favor towards him, but the deserving it. For when the King sent for him once or twice to speak with him, and to give him thanks for his excellent comportment in those councils which his Majesty graciously termed doing him service, his answers were more negligent and less satisfactory than might have been expected; as if he cared only that his actions should be just, not that they should be acceptable, and that his Majesty should think that they proceeded only from the impulsion of conscience, without any sympathy in his affections; which from a stoical and sullen nature might not have been misinterpreted; yet from a person of so perfect a habit of generous and obsequious compliance with all good men, might very well have been interpreted by the King as more than an ordinary averseness to his service: so that he took more pains and more forced his nature to actions unagreeable and unpleasant to it, that he might not be thought to incline to the court, than any man hath done to procure an office there....

Two reasons prevailed with him to receive the seals, and but for those he had resolutely avoided them. The first, consideration that it [his refusal] might bring some blemish upon the King's affairs, and that men would have believed that he had refused so great an honor and trust because he must have been with it obliged to do somewhat else not justifiable. And this he made matter of conscience, since he knew the King made choice of him before other men especially because he thought him more honest than other men. The other was, lest he might be thought to avoid it out of fear to do an ungracious thing to the House of Commons, who were sorely troubled at the displacing of Harry Vane, whom they looked upon as removed for having done them those offices they stood in need of; and the disdain of so popular an incumbrance wrought upon him next to the other. For as he had a full appetite of fame by just and generous actions, so he had an equal contempt of it by any servile expedients; and he had so much the more consented to and approved the justice upon Sir Harry Vane in his own private judgment, by how much he surpassed most men in the religious observation of a trust, the violation whereof he would not admit of any excuse for.

For these reasons he submitted to the King's command and became his secretary, with as humble and devout an acknowledgment of the greatness of the obligation as could be expressed, and as true a sense of it in his own heart. Yet two things he could never bring himself to whilst he continued in that office, that was to his death; for which he was contented to be reproached, as for omissions in a most necessary part of his office. The one, employing of spies, or giving any countenance or entertainment to them. I do not mean such emissaries as with danger would venture to view the enemy's camp and bring intelligence of their number and quartering, or such generals as such an observation can comprehend; but those who by communication of guilt or dissimulation of manners wound themselves into such trusts and secrets as enabled them to make discoveries for the benefit of the State. The other, the liberty of opening letters upon a suspicion that they might contain matter of dangerous consequence. For the first he would say, such instruments must be void of all ingenuity and common honesty, before they could be of use; and afterwards they could never be fit to be credited: and that no single preservation could be worth so general a wound and corruption of human society as the cherishing such persons would carry with it. The last, he thought such a violation of the law of nature that no qualification by office could justify a single person in the trespass; and though he was convinced by the necessity and iniquity of the time that those advantages of information were not to be declined and were necessarily to be practiced, he found means to shift it from himself; when he confessed he needed excuse and pardon for the omission: so unwilling he was to resign anything in his nature to an obligation in his office.

In all other particulars he filled his place plentifully, being sufficiently versed in languages to understand any that [are] used in business, and to make himself again understood. To speak of his integrity, and his high disdain of any bait that might seem to look towards corruption, _in tanto viro, injuria virtutum fuerit_ [in the case of so great a man, would be an insult to his merits]....

He had a courage of the most clear and keen temper, and so far from fear that he was not without appetite of danger; and therefore, upon any occasion of action, he always engaged his person in those troops which he thought by the forwardness of the commanders to be most like to be farthest engaged; and in all such encounters he had about him a strange cheerfulness and companionableness, without at all affecting the execution that was then principally to be attended, in which he took no delight, but took pains to prevent it, where it was not by resistance necessary; insomuch that at Edgehill, when the enemy was routed, he was like to have incurred great peril by interposing to save those who had thrown away their arms, and against whom, it may be, others were more fierce for their having thrown them away: insomuch as a man might think he came into the field only out of curiosity to see the face of danger, and charity to prevent the shedding of blood. Yet in his natural inclination he acknowledged that he was addicted to the profession of a soldier; and shortly after he came to his fortune, and before he came to age, he went into the Low Countries with a resolution of procuring command, and to give himself up to it, from which he was converted by the complete inactivity of that summer: and so he returned into England and shortly after entered upon that vehement course of study we mentioned before, till the first alarm from the North; and then again he made ready for the field, and though he received some repulse in the command of a troop of horse of which he had a promise, he went volunteer with the Earl of Essex.

From the entrance into this unnatural war his natural cheerfulness and vivacity grew clouded, and a kind of sadness and dejection of spirit stole upon him which he had never been used to; yet being one of those who believed that one battle would end all differences, and that there would be so great a victory on the one side that the other would be compelled to submit to any conditions from the victor (which supposition and conclusion generally sunk into the minds of most men, and prevented the looking after many advantages which might then have been laid hold of), he resisted those indispositions, _et in luctu, bellum inter remedia erat_ [and in his grief, strife was one of his curatives]. But after the King's return from Brentford, and the furious resolution of the two Houses not to admit any treaty for peace, those indispositions which had before touched him grew into a perfect habit of uncheerfulness; and he who had been so exactly unreserved and affable to all men that his face and countenance was always present and vacant to his company, and held any cloudiness and less pleasantness of the visage a kind of rudeness or incivility, became, on a sudden, less communicable; and thence, very sad, pale, and exceedingly affected with the spleen. In his clothes and habit, which he had intended before always with more neatness and industry and expense than is usual in so great a mind, he was now not only incurious, but too negligent; and in his reception of suitors, and the necessary or casual addresses to his place, so quick and sharp and severe that there wanted not some men (who were strangers to his nature and disposition) who believed him proud and imperious,--from which no mortal man was ever more free.

The truth is, that as he was of a most incomparable gentleness, application, and even a demissness and submission to good and worthy and entire men, so he was naturally (which could not but be more evident in his place, which objected him to another conversation and intermixture than his own election had done) _adversus malos injucundus_ [toward evil-doers ungracious] and was so ill a dissembler of his dislike and disinclination to ill men that it was not possible for such not to discern it. There was once in the House of Commons such a declared acceptation of the good service an eminent member had done to them, and as they said, to the whole kingdom, that it was moved, he being present, that the Speaker might in the name of the whole House give him thanks; and then, that every member might as a testimony of his particular acknowledgment stir or move his hat towards him; the which (though not ordered) when very many did, the Lord Falkland (who believed the service itself not to be of that moment, and that an honorable and generous person could not have stooped to it for any recompense), instead of moving his hat, stretched both his arms out and clasped his hands together upon the crown of his hat, and held it close down to his head; that all men might see how odious that flattery was to him, and the very approbation of the person, though at that time most popular.

When there was any overture or hope of peace, he would be more erect and vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to press anything which he thought might promote it; and sitting amongst his friends, often, after a deep silence and frequent sighs, would with a shrill and sad accent ingeminate the word _Peace, Peace_; and would passionately profess that the very agony of the war and the view of the calamities and desolation the kingdom did and must endure, took his sleep from him, and would shortly break his heart. This made some think or pretend to think that he was so much enamored on peace, that he would have been glad the King should have bought it at any price; which was a most unreasonable calumny. As if a man that was himself the most punctual and precise in every circumstance that might reflect upon conscience or honor, could have wished the King to have committed a trespass against either....

In the morning before the battle, as always upon action, he was very cheerful, and put himself into the first rank of the Lord Byron's regiment, who was then advancing upon the enemy, who had lined the hedges on both sides with musketeers, from whence he was shot with a musket in the lower part of the belly, and in the instant falling from his horse, his body was not found till the next morning; till when, there was some hope he might have been a prisoner; though his nearest friends, who knew his temper, received small comfort from that imagination. Thus fell that incomparable young man, in the four-and-thirtieth year of his age, having so much dispatched the business of life that the oldest rarely attain to that immense knowledge, and the youngest enter not into the world with more innocence: and whosoever leads such a life needs not care upon how short warning it be taken from him.

MARCUS A.H. CLARKE

(1846-1881)

Although a native of England, Marcus Clarke is always classed as an Australian novelist. The son of a barrister, he was born in Kensington April 24th, 1846. In 1864 he went to seek his fortune in Australia. His taste for adventure soon led him to "the bush," where he acquired many experiences afterwards used by him for literary material. Drifting into journalism, he joined the staff of the Melbourne Argus. After publishing a series of essays called 'The Peripatetic Philosopher,' he purchased the Australian Magazine, the name of which he changed to the Colonial Monthly, and in 1868 published in it his first novel, entitled 'Long Odds.' Owing to a long illness, this tale of sporting life was completed by other hands. When he resumed his literary work he contributed to the Melbourne Punch, and edited the Humbug, a humorous journal. He dramatized Charles Reade's and Dion Boucicault's novel of 'Foul Play'; adapted Moliere's 'Bourgeois Gentilhomme'; wrote a drama entitled 'Plot,' successfully performed at the Princess Theatre in 1873; and another play called 'A Daughter of Eve.' He was connected with the Melbourne press until his death, August 2d, 1881.

Clarke's literary fame rests upon the novel 'His Natural Life,' a strong story, describing the life of an innocent man under a life sentence for felony. The story is repulsive, but gives a faithful picture of the penal conditions of the time, and is built upon official records. It appeared in the Australian Magazine, and before it was issued in book form, Clarke, with the assistance of Sir Charles Gavin Duffy, revised it almost beyond recognition. It was republished in London in 1875 and in New York in 1878. He was also the author of 'Old Tales of a New Country'; 'Holiday Peak,' another collection of short stories; 'Four Stories High'; and an unfinished novel called 'Felix and Felicitas.'

Clarke was a devoted student of Balzac and Poe, and some of his sketches of rough life in Australia have been compared to Bret Harte's pictures of primitive California days. His power in depicting landscape is shown by this glimpse of a midnight ride in the bush, taken from 'Holiday Peak':--

"There is an indescribable ghastliness about the mountain bush at midnight, which has affected most imaginative people. The grotesque and distorted trees, huddled here and there together in the gloom like whispering conspirators; the little open flats encircled by bowlders, which seem the forgotten altars of some unholy worship; the white, bare, and ghostly gum-trees, gleaming momentarily amid the deeper shades of the forest; the lonely pools begirt with shivering reeds and haunted by the melancholy bittern only; the rifted and draggled creek-bed, which seems violently gouged out of the lacerated earth by some savage convulsion of nature; the silent and solitary places where a few blasted trees crouch together like withered witches, who, brooding on some deed of blood, have suddenly been stricken horror-stiff. Riding through this nightmare landscape, a whirr of wings and a harsh cry disturb you from time to time, hideous and mocking laughter peals above and about you, and huge gray ghosts with little red eyes hop away in gigantic but noiseless bounds. You shake your bridle, the mare lengthens her stride, the tree-trunks run into one another, the leaves make overhead a continuous curtain, the earth reels out beneath you like a strip of gray cloth spun by a furiously flying loom, the air strikes your face sharply, the bush--always gray and colorless--parts before you and closes behind you like a fog. You lose yourself in this prevailing indecision of sound and color. You become drunk with the wine of the night, and losing your individuality, sweep onward, a flying phantom in a land of shadows."

HOW A PENAL SYSTEM CAN WORK

From 'His Natural Life'

The next two days were devoted to sight-seeing. Sylvia Frere was taken through the hospital and the workshops, shown the semaphores, and shut up by Maurice in a "dark cell." Her husband and Burgess seemed to treat the prison like a tame animal, whom they could handle at their leisure, and whose natural ferocity was kept in check by their superior intelligence. This bringing of a young and pretty woman into immediate contact with bolts and bars had about it an incongruity which pleased them. Maurice Frere penetrated everywhere, questioned the prisoners, jested with the jailers; even, in the munificence of his heart, bestowed tobacco on the sick.

With such graceful rattlings of dry bones, they got by-and-by to Point Puer, where a luncheon had been provided.

An unlucky accident had occurred at Point Puer that morning, however; and the place was in a suppressed ferment. A refractory little thief named Peter Brown, aged twelve years, had jumped off the high rock and drowned himself in full view of the constables. These "jumpings-off" had become rather frequent lately, and Burgess was enraged at one happening on this particular day. If he could by any possibility have brought the corpse of poor little Peter Brown to life again, he would have soundly whipped it for its impertinence.

"It is most unfortunate," he said to Frere, as they stood in the cell where the little body was laid, "that it should have happened to-day."

"Oh," says Frere, frowning down upon the young face that seemed to smile up at him, "it can't be helped. I know those young devils. They'd do it out of spite. What sort of a character had he?"

"Very bad. Johnson, the book."

Johnson bringing it, the two saw Peter Brown's iniquities set down in the neatest of running-hand, and the record of his punishments ornamented in quite an artistic way with flourishes of red ink.

"20th November, disorderly conduct, 12 lashes. 24th November, insolence to hospital attendant, diet reduced. 4th December, stealing cap from another prisoner, 12 lashes. 15th December, absenting himself at roll-call, two days' cells. 23d December, insolence and insubordination, two days' cells. 8th January, insolence and insubordination, 12 lashes. 20th January, insolence and insubordination, 12 lashes. 22d February, insolence and insubordination, 12 lashes and one week's solitary. 6th March, insolence and insubordination, 20 lashes."

"That was the last?" asked Frere.

"Yes, sir," says Johnson.

"And then he--hum--did it?"

"Just so, sir. That was the way of it."

Just so! The magnificent system starved and tortured a child of twelve until he killed himself. That was the way of it....

After the farce had been played again, and the children had stood up and sat down, and sung a hymn, and told how many twice five were, and repeated their belief in "One God the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and earth," the party reviewed the workshops, and saw the church, and went everywhere but into the room where the body of Peter Brown, aged twelve, lay starkly on its wooden bench, staring at the jail roof which was between it and heaven.

Just outside this room Sylvia met with a little adventure. Meekin had stopped behind, and Burgess being suddenly summoned for some official duty, Frere had gone with him, leaving his wife to rest on a bench that, placed at the summit of the cliff, overlooked the sea. While resting thus she became aware of another presence, and turning her head, beheld a small boy with his cap in one hand and a hammer in the other. The appearance of the little creature, clad in a uniform of gray cloth that was too large for him, and holding in his withered little hand a hammer that was too heavy for him, had something pathetic about it.

"What is it, you mite?" asked Sylvia.

"We thought you might have seen him, mum," said the little figure, opening its blue eyes with wonder at the kindness of the tone.

"Him? Whom?"

"Cranky Brown, mum," returned the child; "him as did it this morning. Me and Billy knowed him, mum; he was a mate of ours, and we wanted to know if he looked happy."

"What do you mean, child?" said she, with a strange terror at her heart; and then, filled with pity at the aspect of the little being, she drew him to her, with sudden womanly instinct, and kissed him.

He looked up at her with joyful surprise. "Oh!" he said.

Sylvia kissed him again.

"Does nobody ever kiss you, poor little man?" said she.

"Mother used to," was the reply; "but she's at home. Oh, mem," with a sudden crimsoning of the little face, "may I fetch Billy?"

And taking courage from the bright young face, he gravely marched to an angle of the rock, and brought out another little creature, with another gray uniform, and another hammer.

"This is Billy, mum," he said. "Billy never had no mother. Kiss Billy."

The young wife felt the tears rush to her eyes.

"You two poor babies!" she cried. And then, forgetting that she was a lady, dressed in silk and lace, she fell on her knees in the dust, and folding the friendless pair in her arms, wept over them.

"What is the matter, Sylvia?" said Frere, when he came up. "You've been crying."

"Nothing, Maurice; at least, I will tell you by-and-by."

When they were alone that evening she told him of the two little boys, and he laughed.

"Artful little humbugs," he said, and supported his argument by so many illustrations of the precocious wickedness of juvenile felons that his wife was half convinced against her will.

Unfortunately, when Sylvia went away, Tommy and Billy put into execution a plan which they had carried in their poor little heads for some weeks.

"I can do it now," said Tommy. "I feel strong."

"Will it hurt much, Tommy?" said Billy, who was not so courageous.

"Not so much as a whipping."

"I'm afraid! Oh, Tom, it's so deep! Don't leave me, Tom!"

The bigger boy took his little handkerchief from his neck, and with it bound his own left hand to his companion's right.

"Now I _can't_ leave you."

"What was it the lady that kissed us said, Tommy?"

"Lord, have pity of them two fatherless children!" repeated Tommy.

"Let's say it, Tom."

And so the two babies knelt on the brink of the cliff, and raising the bound hands together, looked up at the sky, and ungrammatically said, "Lord, have pity on we two fatherless children." And then they kissed each other, and "did it."

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH

From 'His Natural Life'

It was not until they had scrambled up the beach to safety that the absconders became fully aware of the loss of another of their companions. As they stood on the break of the beach, wringing the water from their clothes, Gabbett's small eye, counting their number, missed the stroke oar.

"Where's Cox?"

"The fool fell overboard," said Jemmy Vetch, shortly. "He never had as much sense in that skull of his as would keep it sound on his shoulders."

Gabbett scowled. "That's three of us gone," he said, in the tones of a man suffering some personal injury.

They summed up their means of defense against attack. Sanders and Greenhill had knives. Gabbett still retained the axe in his belt. Vetch had dropped his musket at the Neck; and Bodenham and Cornelius were unarmed.

"Let's have a look at the tucker," said Vetch.

There was but one bag of provisions. It contained a piece of salt pork, two loaves, and some uncooked potatoes. Signal Hill station was not rich in edibles.

"That ain't much," said the Crow, with rueful face. "Is it, Gabbett?"

"It must do, anyway," returned the giant, carelessly.

The inspection over, the six proceeded up the shore, and encamped under the lee of a rock. Bodenham was for lighting a fire; but Vetch, who by tacit consent had been chosen leader of the expedition, forbade it, saying that the light might betray them. "They'll think we're drowned, and won't pursue us," he said. So all that night the miserable wretches crouched fireless together.

* * * * *

Morning breaks clear and bright, and--free for the first time in ten years--they comprehend that their terrible journey has begun. "Where are we to go? How are we to live?" asks Bodenham, scanning the barren bush that stretches to the barren sea. "Gabbett, you've been out before--how's it done?"

"We'll make the shepherds' huts, and live on their tucker till we get a change o'clothes," said Gabbett, evading the main question. "We can follow the coast-line."

"Steady, lads," said prudent Vetch; "we must sneak round yon sandhills, and so creep into the scrub. If they've a good glass at the Neck, they can see us."

"It does seem close," said Bodenham, "I could pitch a stone on to the guard-house. Good-by, you bloody spot!" he adds, with sudden rage, shaking his fist vindictively at the penitentiary, "I don't want to see you no more till the Day o' Judgment."

Vetch divides the provisions, and they travel all that day until dark night. The scrub is prickly and dense. Their clothes are torn, their hands and feet bleeding. Already they feel out-wearied. No one pursuing, they light a fire, and sleep. The second day they come to a sandy spit that runs out into the sea, and find that they have got too far to the eastward, and must follow the shore-line to East Bay Neck. Back through the scrub they drag their heavy feet. That night they eat the last crumb of the loaf. The third day at high noon, after some toilsome walking, they reach a big hill, now called Collins's Mount, and see the upper link of the ear-ring, the isthmus of East Bay Neck, at their feet. A few rocks are on their right hand, and blue in the lovely distance lies hated Maria Island. "We must keep well to the eastward," said Greenhill, "or we shall fall in with the settlers and get taken." So, passing the isthmus, they strike into the bush along the shore, and tightening their belts over their gnawing bellies, camp under some low-lying hills.

The fourth day is notable for the indisposition of Bodenham, who is a bad walker, and falling behind, delays the party by frequent cooeys. Gabbett threatens him with a worse fate than sore feet if he lingers. Luckily, that evening Greenhill espies a hut; but not trusting to the friendship of the occupant, they wait until he quits it in the morning, and then send Vetch to forage. Vetch, secretly congratulating himself on having by his counsel prevented violence, returns bending under half a bag of flour. "You'd better carry the flour," said he to Gabbett, "and give me the axe." Gabbett eyes him for a while, as if struck by his puny form, but finally gives the axe to his mate Sanders. That day they creep along cautiously between the sea and the hills, camping at a creek. Vetch, after much search, finds a handful of berries, and adds them to the main stock. Half of this handful is eaten at once, the other half reserved for "to-morrow." The next day they come to an arm of the sea, and as they struggle northward Maria Island disappears, and with it all danger from telescopes. That evening they reach the camping-ground by twos and threes; and each wonders--between the paroxysms of hunger--if his face is as haggard and his eyes as blood-shot as those of his neighbor.

On the seventh day Bodenham says his feet are so bad he can't walk, and Greenhill, with a greedy look at the berries, bids him stay behind. Being in a very weak condition, he takes his companion at his word, and drops off about noon the next day. Gabbett, discovering this defection, however, goes back, and in an hour or so appears, driving the wretched creature before him with blows, as a sheep is driven to the shambles. Greenhill remonstrates at another mouth being thus forced upon the party, but the giant silences him with a hideous glance. Jemmy Vetch remembers that Greenhill accompanied Gabbett once before, and feels uncomfortable. He gives hint of his suspicions to Sanders, but Sanders only laughs. It is horribly evident that there is an understanding among the three.

The ninth sun of their freedom, rising upon sandy and barren hillocks, bristling thick with cruel scrub, sees the six famine-stricken wretches cursing their God, and yet afraid to die. All round is the fruitless, shadeless, shelterless bush. Above, the pitiless heaven. In the distance the remorseless sea. Something terrible must happen. That gray wilderness, arched by gray heaven stooping to gray sea, is a fitting keeper of hideous secrets. Vetch suggests that Oyster Bay cannot be far to the eastward,--the line of ocean is deceitfully close,--and though such a proceeding will take them out of their course, they resolve to make for it. After hobbling five miles they seem no nearer than before, and nigh dead with fatigue and starvation, sink despairingly upon the ground. Vetch thinks Gabbett's eyes have a wolfish glare in them, and instinctively draws off from him. Said Greenhill, in the course of a dismal conversation, "I am so weak that I could eat a piece of a man."

On the tenth day Bodenham refuses to stir, and the others, being scarcely able to drag along their limbs, sit on the ground about him. Greenhill, eyeing the prostrate man, said slowly, "I have seen the same done before, boys, and it tasted like pork."

Vetch, hearing his savage comrade give utterance to a thought all had secretly cherished, speaks out, crying, "It would be murder to do it; and then perhaps we couldn't eat it."

"Oh," said Gabbett, with a grin, "I'll warrant you that; but you must all have a hand in it."

Gabbett, Sanders, and Greenhill then go aside, and presently Sanders, coming to the Crow, said, "He consented to act as flogger. He deserves it."

"So did Gabbett, for that matter," shudders Vetch.

"Ay, but Bodenham's feet are sore," said Sanders, "and 'tis a pity to leave him."

Having no fire, they made a little break-wind; and Vetch, half dozing behind this, at about three in the morning hears some one cry out "Christ!" and awakes, sweating ice.

No one but Gabbett and Greenhill would eat that night. That savage pair, however, make a fire, fling ghastly fragments on the embers, and eat the broil before it is right warm. In the morning the frightful carcass is divided.

That day's march takes place in silence, and at the mid-day halt Cornelius volunteers to carry the billy, affecting great restoration from the food. Vetch gives it him, and in half an hour afterward Cornelius is missing. Gabbett and Greenhill pursue him in vain, and return with curses. "He'll die like a dog," said Greenhill, "alone in the bush." Jemmy Vetch, with his intellect acute as ever, thinks that Cornelius prefers such a death to the one in store for him, but says nothing.

The twelfth morning dawns wet and misty, but Vetch, seeing the provision running short, strives to be cheerful, telling stories of men who have escaped greater peril. Vetch feels with dismay that he is the weakest of the party, but has some sort of ludicro-horrible consolation in remembering that he is also the leanest. They come to a creek that afternoon, and look until nightfall in vain for a crossing-place. The next day Gabbett and Vetch swim across, and Vetch directs Gabbett to cut a long sapling, which being stretched across the water, is seized by Greenhill and the Moocher, who are dragged over.

"What would you do without me?" said the Crow, with a ghastly grin.

They cannot kindle a fire, for Greenhill, who carries the tinder, has allowed it to get wet. The giant swings his axe in savage anger at enforced cold, and Vetch takes an opportunity to remark privately to him what a _big_ man Greenhill is.

On the fourteenth day they can scarcely crawl, and their limbs pain them. Greenhill, who is the weakest, sees Gabbett and the Moocher go aside to consult, and crawling to the Crow, whimpers, "For God's sake, Jemmy, don't let 'em murder me!"

"I can't help you," says Vetch, looking about in terror. "Think of poor Tom Bodenham."

"But he was no murderer. If they kill me, I shall go to hell with Tom's blood on my soul."

He writhes on the ground in sickening terror, and Gabbett, arriving, bids Vetch bring wood for the fire. Vetch going, sees Greenhill clinging to wolfish Gabbett's knees, and Sanders calls after him, "You will hear it presently, Jem."

The nervous Crow puts his hands to his ears, but is conscious, nevertheless, of a dull crash and a groan. When he comes back, Gabbett is putting on the dead man's shoes, which are better than his own.

"We'll stop here a day or so and rest," said he, "now we've got provisions."

Two more days pass, and the three, eying each other suspiciously, resume their march. The third day--the sixteenth of their awful journey--such portions of the carcass as they have with them prove unfit to eat. They look into each other's famine-sharpened faces, and wonder "Who next?"

"We must all die together," said Sanders, quickly, "before anything else must happen."

Vetch marks the terror concealed in the words, and when the dreaded giant is out of ear-shot, says, "For God's sake, let's go on alone, Alick. You see what sort of a cove that Gabbett is,--he'd kill his father before he'd fast one day."

They made for the bush, but the giant turned and strode toward them. Vetch skipped nimbly on one side, but Gabbett struck the Moocher on the forehead with the axe. "Help! Jem, help!" cried the victim, cut but not fatally, and in the strength of his desperation tore the axe from the monster who bore it, and flung it to Vetch. "Keep it. Jemmy," he cried; "let's have no more murder done!"

They fare again through the horrible bush until nightfall, when Vetch, in a strange voice, called the giant to him.

"He must die."

"Either you or he," laughs Gabbett. "Give me the axe."

"No, no," said the Crow, his thin malignant face distorted by a horrible resolution. "I'll keep the axe. Stand back! You shall hold him, and I'll do the job."

Sanders, seeing them approach, knew his end had come, and submitted, crying, "Give me half an hour to pray for myself." They consent, and the bewildered wretch knelt down and folded his hands like a child. His big stupid face worked with emotion. His great cracked lips moved in desperate agony. He wagged his head from side to side, in pitiful confusion of his brutalized senses. "I can't think o' the words, Jem!"

"Pah," snarled the cripple, swinging the axe, "we can't starve here all night."

Four days had passed, and the two survivors of this awful journey sat watching each other. The gaunt giant, his eyes gleaming with hate and hunger, sat sentinel over the dwarf. The dwarf, chuckling at his superior sagacity, clutched the fatal axe. For two days they had not spoken to each other. For two days each had promised himself that on the next his companion must _sleep_--and die. Vetch comprehended the devilish scheme of the monster who had entrapped five of his fellow-beings to aid him by their deaths to his own safety, and held aloof. Gabbett watched to snatch the weapon from his companion, and make the odds even for once and forever. In the daytime they traveled on, seeking each a pretext to creep behind the other. In the night-time when they feigned slumber, each stealthily raising a head caught the wakeful glance of his companion. Vetch felt his strength deserting him, and his brain overpowered by fatigue. Surely the giant, muttering, gesticulating, and slavering at the mouth, was on the road to madness. Would the monster find opportunity to rush at him, and braving the blood-stained axe, kill him by main force? or would he sleep, and be himself a victim? Unhappy Vetch! It is the terrible privilege of insanity to be sleepless.

On the fifth day, Vetch, creeping behind a tree, takes off his belt, and makes a noose. He will hang himself. He gets one end of the belt over a bough, and then his cowardice bids him pause. Gabbett approaches; he tries to evade him, and steal away into the bush. In vain. The insatiable giant, ravenous with famine and sustained by madness, is not to be shaken off. Vetch tries to run, but his legs bend under him. The axe that has tried to drink so much blood feels heavy as lead. He will fling it away. No--he dares not. Night falls again. He must rest, or go mad. His limbs are powerless. His eyelids are glued together. He sleeps as he stands. This horrible thing must be a dream. He is at Port Arthur, or will wake on his pallet in the penny lodging-house he slept at when a boy. Is that the deputy come to wake him to the torment of living? It is not time--surely not time yet. He sleeps--and the giant, grinning with ferocious joy, approaches on clumsy tiptoe and seizes the coveted axe.

On the northeast coast of Van Diemen's Land is a place called St. Helen's Point, and a certain skipper, being in want of fresh water, landing there with a boat's crew, found on the banks of the creek a gaunt and blood-stained man, clad in tattered yellow, who carried on his back an axe and a bundle. When the sailors came within sight of him he made signs to them to approach, and opening his bundle with much ceremony, offered them some of its contents. Filled with horror at what the maniac displayed, they seized and bound him. At Hobart Town he was recognized as the only survivor of the nine desperadoes who had escaped from Colonel Arthur's "natural penitentiary."

MATTHIAS CLAUDIUS

(1740-1815)

[Illustration: MATTHIAS CLAUDIUS]

Matthias Claudius, best known as "the Wandsbecker Bote" (the Messenger from Wandsbeck), was born at Reinfeld in Holstein, August 15th, 1740. He was of excellent stock, coming from a long line of clergymen. It was said that scarcely another family in Schleswig-Holstein had given to the church so many sons.

There is but little to record of the quiet boyhood passed in the picturesque stillness of the North German village. At the outset the education of Claudius was conducted by his father, the village pastor. From beginning to end his life was simple, moderate, and well ordered. After finishing his school days at Ploen, he entered the University of Jena (1759), with the intention of studying theology, in order to follow the traditions of the family and enter the ministry. This idea he was soon obliged to relinquish on account of a pulmonary weakness, and he turned instead to the study of jurisprudence. His strongest attraction was towards literature. He became a member of the literary guild in Jena; and later, when he had attained fame as the "Wandsbecker Bote," he was intimately associated with Voss, F.L. Stolberg, Herder, and others of the Goettingen fraternity. His first verses, published in Jena in 1763, under the title "Taendeleien und Erzaehlungen' (Trifles and Tales), gave no indication of his talents, and were no more than the usual student efforts of unconscious imitation; they have absolutely no poetic value, and are interesting only as they indicate a stage of development. In editing his works in later years, Claudius preserved of this early poetry only one song, 'An eine Quelle' (To a Spring).

After leaving the university in 1764, he took a position as private secretary to Count Holstein in Copenhagen; and here, under the powerful influence of Klopstock, whose friendship was at this time the most potent element of his life, and in the brilliant circle which that poet had drawn around him, Claudius entered fully into the life of sentiment and ideas which conduced so largely to his intellectual development. Some years later, after a fallow period spent in the quiet of his father's house at Reinfeld, he settled at Wandsbeck, near Altona (1771), where in connection with Bode he published the Wandsbecker Bote, the popular weekly periodical so indissolubly associated with his name. His contributions under the name of "Asmus" found everywhere the warmest acceptance. In 1775, through Herder's recommendation, Claudius was appointed Chief Land Commissioner at Darmstadt; but circumstances rendering the position uncongenial, he returned to his beloved Wandsbeck, where he supported his family by his pen until 1788, when Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark appointed him revisor of the Holstein Bank at Altona. He died in Hamburg, January 1st, 1815, in the house of his son-in-law, the bookseller Perthes.

A collection of his works, with the title 'Asmus omnia sua secum portans, oder Saemmtliche Werke des Wandsbecker Boten' (The Collected Works of the Wandsbeck Messenger), appeared at Hamburg, 1775-1812. These collected works comprise songs, romances, fables, poems, letters, etc., originally published in various places. The translation of Saint Martin and Fenelon marked the pietistic spirit of his later years, and is in strong contrast to the exuberance which produced the 'Rheinweinlied' (Rhine Wine Song) and 'Urian's Reise um die Welt' (Urian's Journey around the World).

Claudius as a poet won the hearts of his countrymen. His verses express his idyllic love of nature and his sympathy with rustic life. The poet and the man are one. His pure and simple style appealed to the popular taste, and some of his lyrics have become genuine folk-songs.

SPECULATIONS ON NEW YEAR'S DAY

From the Wandsbecker Bote

A happy new year! A happy new year to my dear country, the land of old integrity and truth! A happy new year to friends and enemies, Christians and Turks, Hottentots and Cannibals! To all on whom God permits his sun to rise and his rain to fall! Also to the poor negro slaves who have to work all day in the hot sun. It's wholly a glorious day, the New Year's Day! At other times I can bear that a man should be a little bit patriotic, and not make court to other nations. True, one must not speak evil of any nation. The wiser part are everywhere silent; and who would revile a whole nation for the sake of the loud ones? As I said, I can bear at other times that a man should be a little patriotic: but on New Year's Day my patriotism is dead as a mouse, and it seems to me on that day as if we were all brothers, and had one Father who is in heaven; as if all the goods of the world were water which God has created for all men, as I once heard it said.

And so I am accustomed, every New Year's morning, to sit down on a stone by the wayside, to scratch with my staff in the sand before me, and to think of this and of that. Not of my readers. I hold them in all honor: but on New Year's morning, on the stone by the wayside, I think not of them; but I sit there and think that during the past year I saw the sun rise so often, and the moon,--that I saw so many rainbows and flowers, and breathed the air so often, and drank from the brook,--and then I do not like to look up, and I take with both hands my cap from my head and look into that.

Then I think also of my acquaintances who have died during the year; and how they can talk now with Socrates and Numa, and other men of whom I have heard so much good, and with John Huss. And then it seems as if graves opened round me, and shadows with bald crowns and long gray beards came out of them and shook the dust out of their beards. That must be the work of the "Everlasting Huntsman," who has his doings about the twelfth. The old pious long-beards would fain sleep. But a glad new year to your memory and to the ashes in your graves!

RHINE WINE

With laurel wreathe the glass's vintage mellow, And drink it gayly dry! Through farthest Europe, know, my worthy fellow, For such in vain ye'll try.

Nor Hungary nor Poland e'er could boast it: And as for Gallia's vine, Saint Veit the Ritter, if he choose, may toast it,-- We Germans love the Rhine.

Our fatherland we thank for such a blessing, And many more beside; And many more, though little show possessing, Well worth our love and pride.

Not everywhere the vine bedecks our border, As well the mountains show, That harbor in their bosoms foul disorder; Not worth their room below.

Thuringia's hills, for instance, are aspiring To rear a juice like wine; But that is all; nor mirth nor song inspiring, It breathes not of the vine.

And other hills, with buried treasures glowing, For wine are far too cold; Though iron ores and cobalt there are growing, And 'chance some paltry gold.

The Rhine,--the Rhine,--there grow the gay plantations! Oh, hallowed be the Rhine! Upon his banks are brewed the rich potations Of this consoling wine.

Drink to the Rhine! and every coming morrow Be mirth and music thine! And when we meet a child of care and sorrow, We'll send him to the Rhine.

WINTER

A SONG TO BE SUNG BEHIND THE STOVE

Old Winter is the man for me-- Stout-hearted, sound, and steady; Steel nerves and bones of brass hath he: Come snow, come blow, he's ready!

If ever man was well, 'tis he; He keeps no fire in his chamber, And yet from cold and cough is free In bitterest December.

He dresses him out-doors at morn, Nor needs he first to warm him; Toothache and rheumatis' he'll scorn, And colic don't alarm him.

In summer, when the woodland rings, He asks "What mean these noises?" Warm sounds he hates, and all warm things Most heartily despises.

But when the fox's bark is loud; When the bright hearth is snapping; When children round the chimney crowd, All shivering and clapping;--

When stone and bone with frost do break, And pond and lake are cracking,-- Then you may see his old sides shake, Such glee his frame is racking.

Near the North Pole, upon the strand, He has an icy tower; Likewise in lovely Switzerland He keeps a summer bower.

So up and down--now here--now there-- His regiments manoeuvre; When he goes by, we stand and stare, And cannot choose but shiver.

[Illustration: _WINTER._ Photogravure from a painting by L. Munthe.]

NIGHT SONG

The moon is up in splendor, And golden stars attend her; The heavens are calm and bright; Trees cast a deepening shadow; And slowly off the meadow A mist is rising silver-white.

Night's curtains now are closing Round half a world, reposing In calm and holy trust; All seems one vast, still chamber, Where weary hearts remember No more the sorrows of the dust.

Translations of Charles T. Brooks.

HENRY CLAY

(1777-1852)

BY JOHN R. PROCTER

Henry Clay must not be judged as an orator by his reported speeches, which are but skeletons of the masterly originals, but by the lasting effect of these speeches on those who heard them, and by his ability as an originator of important measures and his success in carrying these measures to a conclusion by convincing and powerful oratory. Judged by his achievements and by his wide-spread influence, he must take rank as a statesman and orator of pre-eminent ability. The son of a poor Baptist clergyman, with but scant advantages for acquiring an education; leaving home at an early age and going among strangers to a community where family ties and social connections were a controlling element;--this poor boy, with no family influence, assumed at once, by sheer force of character and ability, a leadership which he held undisputed until his death. And years after he had passed away, it was the "followers of Henry Clay" who kept Kentucky from joining the States of the South in their unsuccessful efforts to withdraw from the Union.

Of his oratory Robert C. Winthrop wrote after a lapse of years: "I can only bear witness to an impressiveness of speech never exceeded, if ever equaled, within an experience of half a century, during which I have listened to many of the greatest orators on both sides of the Atlantic." As a parliamentary leader, Rhodes calls him the greatest in our history. "His leadership," says Mr. Schurz, "was not of that mean order which merely contrives to organize a personal following; it was the leadership of a statesman zealously striving to promote great public interests."

As a presiding officer he was the most commanding Speaker the National House of Representatives has ever had. Winthrop, who served long with him in Congress, said of him:--"No abler or more commanding presiding officer ever sat in the Speaker's chair on either side of the Atlantic. Prompt, dignified, resolute, fearless, he had a combination of intellectual and physical qualities which made him a natural ruler over men." He was six times elected Speaker, sometimes almost by acclamation; and during the many years which he presided over the House not one of his decisions was ever reversed.

As a Secretary of State, during his term of four years the treaties with foreign countries negotiated by him exceeded in numbers all that had been negotiated by other secretaries, during the previous thirty-five years of our constitutional history. As a diplomat, he showed himself at Ghent more than a match for the trained diplomatists of the old world.

And with all these he was--at his ideal country home, Ashland, surrounded by wooded lawns and fertile acres of beautiful blue-grass land--a most successful farmer and breeder of thoroughbred stock, from the Scotch collie to the thoroughbred race-horse. I have been told by one who knew him as a farmer that no one could guess nearer to the weight of a Shorthorn bullock than he. He was as much at home with horses and horsemen as with senators and diplomats. I have known many men who were friends and followers of Mr. Clay, and from the love and veneration these men had for his memory, I can well understand why the historian Rhodes says, "No man has been loved as the people of the United States loved Henry Clay."

Clay seemed to have had honors and leadership thrust upon him. Arriving in Kentucky in 1797, he at once advocated the gradual emancipation of slaves, regardless of the strong prejudices to the contrary of the rich slaveholding community in which he had cast his lot; yet, unsolicited on his part, this community elected him to the State Legislature by a large majority in 1803, and before three years of service he was chosen by his fellow members to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate. And until his death in 1852, his constituents in Kentucky vied with each other in their desires to keep him as their representative in either the national Senate or House of Representatives. He entered the latter in 1811, and was selected as Speaker of that body almost by acclamation on the first day of his taking his seat. After a long life spent in his country's service he was elected _unanimously_ to the Senate in 1848, despite party strife and the fact that the two parties were almost evenly divided in Kentucky.

No attempt can here be made to even recapitulate the events of importance connected with his long public services. I will call attention only to some of the most important measures which he carried by his magnificent leadership.

[Illustration: HENRY CLAY.]

WAR OF 1812

Clay assumed the leadership of those who urged resistance to the unjust and overbearing encroachments of Great Britain, and he more than any one else was instrumental in overcoming opposition and forcing a declaration of war. This war--a second war for independence, which changed this country from a disjointed confederacy liable to fall asunder, to a compact, powerful, and self-respecting Union--will ever be regarded as one of the crowning glories of his long and brilliant career. He proved more than a match in debate for Randolph, Quincy, and other able advocates for peace. When asked what we were to gain by war, he answered, "What are we not to lose by peace? Commerce, character,--a nation's best treasure, honor!"

In answer to the arguments that certificates of protection authorized by Congress were fraudulently used, his magnificent answer, "The colors that float from the mast-head should be the credentials of our seamen," electrified the patriots of the country. There is but a meagre report of this great speech, but the effect produced was overwhelming and bore down all opposition. It is said that men of both parties, forgetting all antipathies under the spell of his eloquence, wept together. Mr. Clay's first speech on entering Congress was in favor of the encouragement of domestic manufactures, mainly as a defensive measure in anticipation of a war with Great Britain; arguing that whatever doubts might be entertained as to the general policy of encouraging domestic manufactures by import duties, none could exist regarding the propriety of adopting measures for producing such articles as are requisite in times of war. If his measure for the increase of the standing army had been adopted in time, the humiliating reverses on land during the early part of the war would have been averted. He carried through a bill for the increase of the navy, and the brilliant naval victories of the war of 1812 followed. In the debate on the bill to provide for a standing army, it was argued that twenty-five thousand could not be had in the United States. Clay aroused the people of Kentucky to such enthusiasm that fifteen thousand men volunteered in that State alone, and members of Congress shouldered their muskets and joined the ranks.

TREATY OF GHENT

Henry Clay's faith in the destiny of his country, and his heroic determination that a continuation of the war was preferable to the terms proposed, prevented humiliating concessions. The American Commissioners were Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, Albert Gallatin, James A. Bayard, and Jonathan Russell, and the British Commissioners Lord Gambier, Henry Goulbourn, and William Adams. The news received by Clay on his arrival in Europe was not calculated to inspire him with hope. From Mr. Bayard he received a letter (dated April 20th, 1814) with news of the triumph of the allies over Napoleon, and stating:--

"There is reason to think that it has materially changed the views of the British Ministry.... The great augmentation of their disposable force presents an additional temptation to prosecute the war."

By the same mail Mr. Gallatin writes from London (April 22d, 1814):--

"You are sufficiently aware of the total change in our affairs produced by the late revolution, and by the restoration of universal peace in the European world, from which we are alone excluded. A well-organized and large army is at once liberated from any European employment, and ready, together with a superabundant naval force, to act independently against us. How ill prepared we are to meet it in a proper manner, no one knows better than yourself; but above all, our own divisions and the hostile attitude of the Eastern States give room to apprehend that a continuation of the war might prove vitally fatal to the United States."

Mr. Russell writes from Stockholm (July 2d, 1814):--

"My distress at the delay which our joint errand has encountered has almost been intolerable, and the kind of comfort I have received from Mr. Adams has afforded very little relief. His apprehensions are rather of a gloomy cast with regard to the result of our labors."

Mr. Crawford, our Minister to France, who with Clay favored a vigorous prosecution of the war, writes to him (July 4th, 1814):--

"I am thoroughly convinced that the United States can never be called upon to treat under circumstances less auspicious than those which exist at the present moment, unless our internal bickerings shall continue to weaken the effects of the government."

With discouraging news from home, the seat of government taken, and the Capitol burned, the Eastern States opposing the war and threatening to withdraw from the Union, and his fellow commissioners in the despondent mood evidenced by the above-quoted letters,--it is amazing that Clay, whom some historians have called a compromiser by nature, opposed any and all concessions and wished that the war should go on.

By the third article of the treaty of 1783 it was agreed that citizens of the United States should not fish in the waters or cure fish on the land of any of the maritime provinces north of the United States after they were settled, without a previous agreement with the inhabitants or possessors of the ground.

By the eighth article of the same treaty, it was agreed that the navigation of the Mississippi River should _ever_ remain free and open to the subjects of Great Britain and the United States. It was then supposed that the British Canadian possessions included the head-waters of this river. By the Jay treaty of 1794 this was confirmed, and "that all ports and places on its eastern side, to whichsoever of the parties belonging, might be freely resorted to and used by both parties." At this time Spain possessed the sovereignty of the west side of the river, and both sides from its mouth to 31 deg. north latitude. The United States acquired by the Louisiana purchase of 1803 all the sovereignty of Spain which had previously been acquired by France.

Gallatin proposed to insert a provision for the renewal to the United States of the rights in the fisheries, and as an equivalent to give to Great Britain the right to the navigation of the Mississippi River. This was favored by Gallatin, Adams, and Bayard, and opposed by Clay and Russell. Mr. Clay, seeing that he was in a minority, stated that he would affix his name to no treaty which contained such a provision. After his firm stand Mr. Bayard left the majority. Clay's "obstinacy" in opposing concessions is well shown in Mr. Adams's Journal:--

"To this last article [the right of the British to navigate the Mississippi River] Mr. Clay makes strong objections. He is willing to leave the matter of the fisheries as a nest-egg for another war.... He considers it a privilege much too important to be conceded for the mere liberty of drying fish upon a desert, but the Mississippi was destined to form a most important part of the interests of the American Union.... Mr. Clay, of all the members, had alone been urgent to present an article stipulating the abolition of impressment. Mr. Clay lost his temper, as he generally does whenever the right of the British to navigate the Mississippi is discussed....

"December 11th. He [Clay] was for war three years longer. He had no doubt but three years more of war would make us a warlike people, and that then we should come out of the war with honor.... December 22d. At last he turned to me, and asked me whether I would not join him now and break off negotiations."

After five months of weary negotiations under most adverse conditions so far as the American commissioners were concerned, the treaty was signed on December 24th, 1814. During all these months Clay had resisted any and all concessions, and none were made. The Marquis of Wellesley declared in the House of Lords that the American commissioners had shown a most astonishing superiority over the British during the whole of the correspondence.

During Mr. Clay's absence at Ghent, his admiring constituents returned him to Congress by an almost unanimous vote. A year later in Congress, Clay referred to his part in the bringing on the war as follows:--

"I gave a vote for a declaration of war. I exerted all the little influence and talent I could command to make the war. The war was made. It is terminated. And I declare with perfect sincerity, if it had been permitted to me to lift the veil of futurity and to foresee the precise series of events which had occurred, my vote would have been unchanged. We had been insulted and outraged and spoliated upon by almost all Europe,--by Great Britain, by France, Spain, Denmark, Naples, and to cap the climax, by the little contemptible power of Algiers. We had submitted too long and too much. We had become the scorn of foreign powers and the derision of our own citizens. What have we gained by the war? Let any man look at the degraded condition of this country before the war, the scorn of the universe, the contempt of ourselves; and tell me if we have gained nothing by the war? What is our situation now? Respectability and character abroad, security and confidence at home."

Clay more than any other man forced the war. It was the successful military hero of this war--the victor of New Orleans--who defeated him in after years for the Presidency.

MISSOURI COMPROMISE

The heated struggle in Congress over the admission of Missouri into the Union first brought prominently forward the agitation of the slavery question. This struggle, which lasted from 1818 to 1821, threatened the very existence of the Union. Jefferson wrote from Monticello:--

"The Missouri question is the most portentous one that has ever threatened the Union. In the gloomiest moments of the Revolutionary War I never had any apprehension equal to that I feel from this source."

Mr. Schurz, writing of the feeling at the time, says:--

"While thus the thought of dissolving the Union occurred readily to the Southern mind, the thought of maintaining the government and preserving the Union by means of force hardly occurred to anybody. It seemed to be taken for granted on all sides that if the Southern States insisted on cutting loose from the Union, nothing could be done but to let them go."

The two sections were at this time so evenly balanced that the maintenance of the Union by force could not have been successfully attempted. The compromise which admitted Missouri to the Union as a slave State, and recognized the right of settlers to carry slaves into the territory south of 36 deg. 30', was carried through by the splendid leadership of Clay, who thus earned the title of "the great pacificator." Future historians will accord to him the title of the savior of the Union.

Upon the adoption of the compromise measures Mr. Clay resigned his seat in Congress to give his attention to his private affairs, being financially embarrassed by indorsing for a friend. During his stay at home there was a fierce controversy over the issue of paper money and relief measures to favor debtors who had become involved through the recklessness following such inflation. Against what seemed to be an overwhelming popular feeling, Clay arrayed himself on the side of sound money and sound finance. In 1823 he was again returned to the House of Representatives without opposition, and was chosen Speaker by a vote of 139 to 42.

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS

Soon after his entrance into Congress Clay took advanced ground in favor of building roads, improving water-ways, and constructing canals by the general government, in order to connect the seaboard States with the "boundless empire" of the growing West. He became the leader, the foremost champion, of a system which was bitterly opposed by some of the ablest statesmen of the time as unauthorized by the Constitution. Clay triumphed, and during his long public service was the recognized leader of a system which though opposed at first, has been accepted as a national policy by both of the great political parties. That he was actuated by a grand conception of the future destiny of the country, and the needs of such improvements to insure a more perfect union, his able speeches on these questions will show. In one he said:--

"Every man who looks at the Constitution in the spirit to entitle him to the character of statesman, must elevate his views to the height to which this nation is destined to reach in the rank of nations. We are not legislating for this moment only, or for the present generation, or for the present populated limits of the United States; but our acts must embrace a wider scope,--reaching northward to the Pacific and southwardly to the river Del Norte. Imagine this extent of territory with sixty or seventy or a hundred millions of people. The powers which exist now will exist then; and those which will exist then exist now.... What was the object of the Convention in framing the Constitution? The leading object was UNION,--Union, then peace. Peace external and internal, and commerce, but more particularly union and peace, the great objects of the framers of the Constitution, should be kept steadily in view in the interpretation of any clause of it; and when it is susceptible of various interpretation, that construction should be preferred which tends to promote the objects of the framers of the Constitution, to the consolidation of the Union.... No man deprecates more than I do the idea of consolidation; yet between separation and consolidation, painful as would be the alternative, I should greatly prefer the latter."

Congress now appropriates yearly for internal improvements a sum far greater than the entire revenue of the government at the time Clay made this speech.

SPANISH-AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

It was but natural that Clay's ardent nature and his love of liberty would incline him to aid the people of Central and South America in their efforts to free themselves from Spanish oppression and misrule. Effective here as in all things undertaken by him, his name must always be linked with the cause of Southern American independence. Richard Rush, writing from London to Clay in 1825, says: "The South-Americans owe to you, more than to any other man of either hemisphere, their independence." His speeches, translated into Spanish, were read to the revolutionary armies, and "his name was a household name among the patriots." Bolivar, writing to him from Bogota in 1827, says:--"All America, Colombia, and myself, owe your Excellency our purest gratitude for the incomparable services which you have rendered to us, by sustaining our cause with sublime enthusiasm."

In one of his speeches on this subject Clay foreshadows a great American Zollverein. The failure of the Spanish-American republics to attain the high ideals hoped for by Clay caused him deep regret in after years.

THE AMERICAN SYSTEM

The tariff law of 1824 was another triumph of Clay's successful leadership, since which time he has been called the father of what has been termed the "American System." It must be remembered that Clay was first led to propose protective duties in order to prepare this country for a war which he felt could not be avoided without loss of national honor. When in 1824 he advocated increased tariff duties in order to foster home industries, protection was universal; even our agricultural products were excluded from British markets by the Corn Laws. The man who would now advocate in Congress duties as low as those levied by the tariff law of 1824, would be called by protectionists of the present day a free-trader. When in 1833 nullification of the tariff laws was threatened, Clay, while demanding that the laws should be enforced and that if necessary nullification should be put down by the strong arm of the government, feared that the growing discontent of the South and the obstinacy of a military President threatened the Union, introduced and carried to a conclusion a compromise tariff measure that brought peace to the country.

SECRETARY OF STATE

It was unfortunate that Clay temporarily relinquished his leadership in Congress to accept the premiership in the Cabinet of President Adams. Although the exacting official duties were not congenial, and proved injurious to his health, his administration of this high office was brilliant and able, as is well attested by the number of important treaties concluded, and by his brilliant state papers. His instructions to the United States delegates to the Panama Congress of American Republics will grow in importance in the years to come, because of the broad principles there enunciated,--that private property should be exempt from seizure on the high seas in times of war.

His chivalrous loyalty to President Adams was fully appreciated, and his friendship reciprocated. After the close of his administration Mr. Adams in a speech said:--

"As to my motives for tendering him the Department of State when I did, let the man who questions them come forward. Let him look around among the statesmen and legislators of the nation and of that day. Let him select and name the man whom, by his pre-eminent talents, by his splendid services, by his ardent patriotism, by his all-embracing public spirit, by his fervid eloquence in behalf of the rights and liberties of mankind, by his long experience in the affairs of the Union, foreign and domestic, a President of the United States intent only upon the honor and welfare of his country ought to have preferred to Henry Clay."

Just before the close of his administration President Adams offered him a position on the bench of the Supreme Court, which he declined.

HIS POSITION ON AFRICAN SLAVERY

Clay was a slaveholder, a kind master--but through his entire public life an open advocate of emancipation. He probably received his early predilections against slavery from his association with Chancellor Wythe, before removing from Virginia, as indeed the best part of his education probably came from personal contact with that able man. The intellectual forces of the border slave States were arrayed in favor of emancipation, until, as Clay writes with some feeling in 1849, they were driven to an opposite course "by the violent and indiscreet course of ultra abolitionists in the North"; but Clay remained to his death hopeful that by peaceable means his country might be rid of this great evil. In the letter above quoted, writing of his failure to establish a system of gradual emancipation in Kentucky, he says:--

"It is a consoling reflection that although a system of gradual emancipation cannot be established, slavery is destined inevitably to extinction by the operation of peaceful and natural causes. And it is also gratifying to believe that there will not be probably much difference in the period of its existence, whether it terminates legally or naturally. The chief difference in the two modes is that according to the first, we should take hold of the institution intelligently and dispose of it cautiously and safely; while according to the other it will some day or other take hold of us, and constrain us in some manner or other to get rid of it."

As early as 1798, he made his first political speeches in Kentucky advocating an amendment to the State Constitution, providing for the gradual emancipation of the slaves. Referring to the failure to adopt this amendment, he said in a speech delivered in the capital of Kentucky in 1829:--

"I shall never cease to regret a decision, the effects of which have been to place us in the rear of our neighbors who are exempt from slavery, in the state of agriculture, the progress of manufactures, the advance of improvements, and the general progress of society."

In these days, when public men who should be leaders bend to what they believe to be the popular wishes, the example of Clay, in his bold disregard of the prejudices and property interests of his constituents, is inspiring.

George W. Prentice was sent from New England to Kentucky to write a life of Clay, and writing in 1830 he says:--

"Whenever a slave brought an action at law for his liberty, Mr. Clay volunteered as his advocate, and it is said that in the whole course of his practice he never failed to obtain a verdict in the slave's favor.... He has been the slaves' friend through life. In all stations he has pleaded the cause of African freedom without fear from high or low. To him more than to any other individual is to be ascribed the great revolution which has taken place upon this subject--a revolution whose wheels must continue to move onward till they reach the goal of universal freedom."

Three years before this was written, Clay in a speech before the Colonization Society said:--

"If I could be instrumental in eradicating this deepest stain upon the character of my country, and removing all cause of reproach on account of it by foreign nations; if I could only be instrumental in ridding of this foul blot that revered State which gave me birth, or that not less beloved State which kindly adopted me as her son, I would not exchange the proud satisfaction which I should enjoy for the honor of all the triumphs ever decreed to the most successful conqueror."

He longed to add the imperial domain of Texas to this country, but feared that it would so strengthen the slave power as to endanger the Union; and when finally he yielded to the inevitable, the Free-Soilers threw their votes to Birney and thus defeated Clay for the Presidency. He deprecated the war with Mexico, yet gave his favorite son as a soldier, who fell at Buena Vista. He stood for the reception of anti-slavery petitions by Congress, against the violent opposition of the leading men of his own section. He continued steadfast to the end, writing in 1849 that if slavery were, as claimed, a blessing, "the principle on which it is maintained would require that one portion of the white race should be reduced to bondage to serve another portion of the same race, when black subjects of slavery could not be obtained." He proposed reasonable schemes for gradual emancipation and deportation, which would, if adopted, have averted the war and settled peaceably the serious problem. He warned the Southerners in 1849 that their demands were unreasonable, and would "lead to the formation of a sectional Northern party, which will sooner or later take permanent and exclusive possession of the Government."

Seeming inconsistencies in Mr. Clay's record on this subject will disappear with a full understanding of the difficulties of his position. Living in a State midway between the North and South, where slavery existed in its mildest and least objectionable form, yet fully alive to its evils, recognizing that the grave problem requiring solution was not alone slavery, but the presence among a free people of a numerous, fecund, servile, alien race; realizing that one section of the country, then relatively too powerful to be ignored, was ready to withdraw from the Union rather than to submit to laws that would endanger slavery; loving the Union with an ardor not excelled by that of any public man in our history; wishing and striving for the emancipation of the slaves, yet too loyal to the Union to follow the more zealous advocates of freedom in their "higher law than the Constitution" crusade,--Mr. Clay in his whole course on this question was consistent and patriotic in the highest degree.

THE COMPROMISE OF 1850

The crowning triumph of a long life of great achievements was his great compromise measures of 1850. These, with their predecessors of 1821 and 1833, have caused some writers to speak of Clay as a man of compromising nature. The reverse is true. Bold, aggressive, uncompromising, and often dictatorial by nature, he favored compromise when convinced that only by such means could civil war or a disruption of the Union be averted. And he was right. He averted a conflict or separation from the Union when the relative strength of the South was such as to have rendered impossible the preservation of the Union by force. The Constitution was a compromise, without which there would have been no union of States. That the compromise did not long survive him was no fault of Clay's, but chargeable to the agitators of both sections, who cared less for the Union than for their pet theories or selfish interests.

Two years after his death the compromise measures were repealed, and the most destructive civil war of modern times and a long list of resultant evils are the result. Those who knew Henry Clay and had felt his wonderful power as a leader, are firm in the belief that had he been alive and in the possession of his faculties in 1861, the Civil War would have been averted. His name and the memory of his love for the Union restrained his adopted State from joining the South.

The struggle over the passage of the compromise measures, lasting for seven months, was one of the most memorable parliamentary struggles on record. The old hero, Henry Clay, broken in health, with the stamp of death upon him, for six weary months led the fight with much of his old-time fire and ability. Sustained by indomitable will and supreme love of country, "I am here," he said, "expecting soon to go hence, and owing no responsibility but to my own conscience and to God."

In his opening speech, which lasted for two days, he said:--

"I owe it to myself to say that no earthly power could induce me to vote for a specific measure for the introduction of slavery where it had not before existed, either south or north of that line. Sir, while you reproach, and justly too, our British ancestors for the introduction of this institution upon the continent of America, I am for one unwilling that the posterity of the present inhabitants of California and New Mexico shall reproach us for doing just what we reproach Great Britain for doing to us."

He upbraided on the one hand the ultra abolitionists as reckless agitators, and hurled defiance at disunionists of the South, while at the same time appealing to the loftier nature and patriotic impulses of his hearers:--

"I believe from the bottom of my soul that this measure is the reunion of the Union. And now let us discard all resentments, all passions, all petty jealousies, all personal desires, all love of peace, all hungering after gilded crumbs which fall from the table of power. Let us forget popular fears, from whatever quarter they may spring. Let us go to the fountain of unadulterated patriotism, and performing a solemn lustration, return divested of all selfish, sinister, and sordid impurities, and think alone of our God, our country, our conscience, and our glorious Union."

As described by Bancroft, Clay was "in stature over six feet, spare and long-limbed; he stood erect as if full of vigor and vitality, and ever ready to command. His countenance expressed perpetual wakefulness and

## activity. His voice was music itself, and yet penetrating and

far-reaching, enchanting the listeners; his words flowed rapidly without sing-song or mannerism, in a clear and steady stream. Neither in public nor in private did he know how to be dull."

Bold, fearless, commanding, the lordliest leader of his day, he was yet gentle, and as an old friend wrote, "was the most emotional man I ever knew. I have seen his eyes fill instantly on shaking the hand of an old friend, however obscure, who had stood by him in his early struggles." The manliest of men, yet his voice would tremble with emotion on reading aloud from a letter the love messages from a little grandchild.

The following, told me by a gentleman who knew Mr. Clay, illustrates the true gentleman he was:--

"When I was a small boy my father took me with him to visit Mr. Clay at his home Ashland. We found some gentlemen there who had been invited to dinner. Just before they went in to dinner my father told me privately to run out and play on the lawn while they were dining. As the gentlemen came out, Mr. Clay saw me, and calling me to him said, 'My young friend, I owe you an apology.' Turning to the gentlemen he said, 'Go into the library, gentlemen, and light your cigars--I will join you presently.' Taking me by the hand he returned with me to the table, ordered the servants to attend to my wants, and conversed most delightfully with me until I had finished my dinner."

He had the faculty of making friends and holding them through life by ties which no circumstances or conditions could sever.

When Clay passed away there was no one whose Unionism embraced all sections, who could stand between the over-zealous advocates of abolition of slavery on the one side and the fiery defenders of the "divine institution" on the other. Sectionalism ran riot, and civil war was the result. During the many years when the North and South were divided on the question of slavery, and sectional feeling ran high, Henry Clay was the only man in public life whose broad nationalism and intense love for the Union embraced all sections, with no trace of sectional bias. He can well be called "The Great American."

[Signature: John R. Procter]

PUBLIC SPIRIT IN POLITICS

From a Speech at Buffalo, July 17th, 1839

Are we not then called upon by the highest duties to our country, to its free institutions, to posterity, and to the world, to rise above all local prejudices and personal partialities, to discard all collateral questions, to disregard every subordinate point, and in a genuine spirit of compromise and concession, uniting heart and hand to preserve for ourselves the blessings of a free government, wisely, honestly, and faithfully administered, and as we received them from our fathers, to transmit them to our children? Should we not justly subject ourselves to eternal reproach, if we permitted our differences about mere men to bring defeat and disaster upon our cause? Our principles are imperishable, but men have but a fleeting existence, and are themselves liable to change and corruption during its brief continuance.

ON THE GREEK STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE

From a Speech in 1824

Are we so mean, so base, so despicable, that we may not attempt to express our horror, utter our indignation, at the most brutal and atrocious war that ever stained earth or shocked high Heaven? at the ferocious deeds of a savage and infuriated soldiery, stimulated and urged on by the clergy of a fanatical and inimical religion, and rioting in all the excesses of blood and butchery, at the mere details of which the heart sickens and recoils?

If the great body of Christendom can look on calmly and coolly while all this is perpetrated on a Christian people, in its own immediate vicinity, in its very presence, let us at least evince that one of its remote extremities is susceptible of sensibility to Christian wrongs, and capable of sympathy for Christian sufferings; that in this remote quarter of the world there are hearts not yet closed against compassion for human woes, that can pour out their indignant feelings at the oppression of a people endeared to us by every ancient recollection and every modern tie. Sir, attempts have been made to alarm the committee by the dangers to our commerce in the Mediterranean; and a wretched invoice of figs and opium has been spread before us to repress our sensibilities and to eradicate our humanity. Ah, sir! "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" or what shall it avail a nation to save the whole of a miserable trade and lose its liberties?

SOUTH-AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE AS RELATED TO THE UNITED STATES

From a Speech before the House of Representatives in 1818

It is the doctrine of thrones that man is too ignorant to govern himself. Their partisans assert his incapacity, in reference to all nations; if they cannot command universal assent to the proposition, it is then demanded as to particular nations; and our pride and our presumption too often make converts of us. I contend that it is to arraign the dispositions of Providence himself, to suppose that he has created beings incapable of governing themselves, and to be trampled on by kings. Self-government is the natural government of man, and for proof I refer to the aborigines of our own land. Were I to speculate in hypotheses unfavorable to human liberty, my speculations should be founded rather upon the vices, refinements, or density of population. Crowded together in compact masses, even if they were philosophers, the contagion of the passions is communicated and caught, and the effect too often, I admit, is the overthrow of liberty. Dispersed over such an immense space as that on which the people of Spanish America are spread, their physical and I believe also their moral condition both favor their liberty.

With regard to their superstition, they worship the same God with us. Their prayers are offered up in their temples to the same Redeemer whose intercession we expect to save us. Nor is there anything in the Catholic religion unfavorable to freedom. All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All separated from government are compatible with liberty. If the people of Spanish America have not already gone as far in religious toleration as we have, the difference in their condition from ours should not be forgotten. Everything is progressive; and in time I hope to see them imitating in this respect our example. But grant that the people of Spanish America are ignorant, and incompetent for free government; to whom is that ignorance to be ascribed? Is it not to the execrable system of Spain, which she seeks again to establish and to perpetuate? So far from chilling our hearts, it ought to increase our solicitude for our unfortunate brethren. It ought to animate us to desire the redemption of the minds and bodies of unborn millions from the brutifying effects of a system whose tendency is to stifle the faculties of the soul, and to degrade them to the level of beasts. I would invoke the spirits of our departed fathers. Was it for yourselves only that you nobly fought? No, no! It was the chains that were forging for your posterity that made you fly to arms; and scattering the elements of these chains to the winds, you transmitted to us the rich inheritance of liberty.

FROM THE VALEDICTORY TO THE SENATE, DELIVERED IN 1842

From 1806, the period of my entrance upon this noble theatre, with short intervals, to the present time, I have been engaged in the public councils at home or abroad. Of the services rendered during that long and arduous period of my life it does not become me to speak; history, if she deign to notice me, and posterity, if the recollection of my humble actions shall be transmitted to posterity, are the best, the truest, and the most impartial judges. When death has closed the scene, their sentence will be pronounced, and to that I commit myself. My public conduct is a fair subject for the criticism and judgment of my fellow men; but the motives by which I have been prompted are known only to the great Searcher of the human heart and to myself; and I trust I may be pardoned for repeating a declaration made some thirteen years ago, that whatever errors--and doubtless there have been many--may be discovered in a review of my public service, I can with unshaken confidence appeal to that divine Arbiter for the truth of the declaration that I have been influenced by no impure purpose, no personal motive; have sought no personal aggrandizement; but that in all my public acts I have had a single eye directed and a warm and devoted heart dedicated to what, in my best judgment, I believed the true interests, the honor, the union, and the happiness of my country required.

During that long period, however, I have not escaped the fate of other public men, nor failed to incur censure and detraction of the bitterest, most unrelenting, and most malignant character; and though not always insensible to the pain it was meant to inflict, I have borne it in general with composure and without disturbance, waiting as I have done, in perfect and undoubting confidence, for the ultimate triumph of justice and of truth, and in the entire persuasion that time would settle all things as they should be; and that whatever wrong or injustice I might experience at the hands of man, He to whom all hearts are open and fully known, would by the inscrutable dispensations of His providence rectify all error, redress all wrong, and cause ample justice to be done.

But I have not meanwhile been unsustained. Everywhere throughout the extent of this great continent I have had cordial, warm-hearted, faithful, and devoted friends, who have known me, loved me, and appreciated my motives. To them, if language were capable of fully expressing my acknowledgments, I would now offer all the return I have the power to make for their genuine, disinterested, and persevering fidelity and devoted attachment, the feelings and sentiments of a heart overflowing with never-ceasing gratitude. If, however, I fail in suitable language to express my gratitude to them for all the kindness they have shown me, what shall I say, what can I say, at all commensurate with those feelings of gratitude with which I have been inspired by the State whose humble representative and servant I have been in this chamber?

I emigrated from Virginia to the State of Kentucky now nearly forty-five years ago; I went as an orphan boy who had not yet attained the age of majority; who had never recognized a father's smile, nor felt his warm caresses; poor, penniless, without the favor of the great, with an imperfect and neglected education, hardly sufficient for the ordinary business and common pursuits of life; but scarce had I set my foot upon her generous soil when I was embraced with parental fondness, caressed as though I had been a favorite child, and patronized with liberal and unbounded munificence. From that period the highest honors of the State have been freely bestowed upon me; and when in the darkest hour of calumny and detraction I seemed to be assailed by all the rest of the world, she interposed her broad and impenetrable shield, repelled the poisoned shafts that were aimed for my destruction, and vindicated my good name from every malignant and unfounded aspersion. I return with indescribable pleasure to linger a while longer, and mingle with the warm-hearted and whole-souled people of that State; and when the last scene shall forever close upon me, I hope that my earthly remains will be laid under her green sod with those of her gallant and patriotic sons....

That my nature is warm, my temper ardent, my disposition--especially in relation to the public service--enthusiastic, I am ready to own; and those who suppose that I have been assuming the dictatorship, have only mistaken for arrogance or assumption that ardor and devotion which are natural to my constitution, and which I may have displayed with too little regard to cold, calculating, and cautious prudence, in sustaining and zealously supporting important national measures of policy which I have presented and espoused....

I go from this place under the hope that we shall mutually consign to perpetual oblivion whatever personal collisions may at any time unfortunately have occurred between us; and that our recollections shall dwell in future only on those conflicts of mind with mind, those intellectual struggles, those noble exhibitions of the powers of logic, argument, and eloquence, honorable to the Senate and to the nation, in which each has sought and contended for what he deemed the best mode of accomplishing one common object, the interest and the most happiness of our beloved country. To these thrilling and delightful scenes it will be my pleasure and my pride to look back in my retirement with unmeasured satisfaction....

May the most precious blessings of Heaven rest upon the whole Senate and each member of it, and may the labors of every one redound to the benefit of the nation and to the advancement of his own fame and renown. And when you shall retire to the bosom of your constituents, may you receive the most cheering and gratifying of all human rewards,--their cordial greeting of "Well done, good and faithful servant."

FROM THE LEXINGTON 'SPEECH ON RETIREMENT TO PRIVATE LIFE'

It would neither be fitting, nor is it my purpose, to pass judgment on all the acts of my public life; but I hope I shall be excused for one or two observations which the occasion appears to me to authorize.

I never but once changed my opinion on any great measure of national policy, or on any great principle of construction of the national Constitution. In early life, on deliberate consideration, I adopted the principles of interpreting the federal Constitution which have been so ably developed and enforced by Mr. Madison in his memorable report to the Virginia Legislature; and to them, as I understood them, I have constantly adhered. Upon the question coming up in the Senate of the United States to re-charter the first Bank of the United States, thirty years ago, I opposed the re-charter upon convictions which I honestly entertained. The experience of the war which shortly followed, the condition into which the currency of the country was thrown without a bank, and I may now add, later and more disastrous experience, convinced me I was wrong. I publicly stated to my constituents, in a speech in Lexington (that which I made in the House of Representatives of the United States not having been reported), my reasons for that change, and they are preserved in the archives of the country. I appeal to that record, and I am willing to be judged now and hereafter by their validity.

I do not advert to the fact of this solitary instance of change of opinion as implying any personal merit, but because it is a fact. I will however say that I think it very perilous to the utility of any public man to make frequent changes of opinion, or any change, but upon grounds so sufficient and palpable that the public can clearly see and approve them. If we could look through a window into the human breast and there discover the causes which led to changes of opinion, they might be made without hazard. But as it is impossible to penetrate the human heart and distinguish between the sinister and honest motives which prompt it, any public man that changes his opinion, once deliberately formed and promulgated, under other circumstances than those which I have stated, draws around him distrust, impairs the public confidence, and lessens his capacity to serve his country.

I will take this occasion now to say, that I am and have been long satisfied that it would have been wiser and more politic in me to have declined accepting the office of Secretary of State in 1825. Not that my motives were not as pure and as patriotic as ever carried any man into public office. Not that the calumny which was applied to the fact was not as gross and as unfounded as any that was ever propagated. Not that valued friends and highly esteemed opponents did not unite in urging my acceptance of the office. Not that the administration of Mr. Adams will not, I sincerely believe, advantageously compare with any of his predecessors, in economy, purity, prudence, and wisdom. Not that Mr. Adams was himself wanting in any of those high qualifications and upright and patriotic intentions which were suited to the office....

But my error in accepting the office arose out of my under rating the power of detraction and the force of ignorance, and abiding with too sure a confidence in the conscious integrity and uprightness of my own motives. Of that ignorance I had a remarkable and laughable example on an occasion which I will relate. I was traveling in 1828 through--I believe it was Spottsylvania County in Virginia, on my return to Washington, in company with some young friends. We halted at night at a tavern, kept by an aged gentleman who, I quickly perceived from the disorder and confusion which reigned, had not the happiness to have a wife. After a hurried and bad supper the old gentleman sat down by me, and without hearing my name, but understanding that I was from Kentucky, remarked that he had four sons in that State, and that he was very sorry they were divided in politics, two being for Adams and two for Jackson; he wished they were all for Jackson. "Why?" I asked him.--"Because," he said, "that fellow Clay, and Adams, had cheated Jackson out of the Presidency."--"Have you ever seen any evidence, my old friend," said I, "of that?"--"No," he replied, "none," and he wanted to see none. "But," I observed, looking him directly and steadily in the face, "suppose Mr. Clay were to come here and assure you upon his honor that it was all a vile calumny, and not a word of truth in it, would you believe him?"--"No," replied the old gentleman, promptly and emphatically. I said to him in conclusion, "Will you be good enough to show me to bed?" and bade him good-night. The next morning, having in the interval learned my name, he came to me full of apologies; but I at once put him at his ease by assuring him that I did not feel in the slightest degree hurt or offended with him....

If to have served my country during a long series of years with fervent zeal and unshaken fidelity, in seasons of peace and war, at home and abroad, in the legislative halls and in an executive department; if to have labored most sedulously to avert the embarrassment and distress which now overspread this Union, and when they came, to have exerted myself anxiously at the extra session, and at this, to devise healing remedies; if to have desired to introduce economy and reform in the general administration, curtail enormous executive power, and amply provide at the same time for the wants of the government and the wants of the people, by a tariff which would give it revenue and then protection; if to have earnestly sought to establish the bright but too rare example of a party in power faithful to its promises and pledges made when out of power: if these services, exertions, and endeavors justify the accusation of ambition, I must plead guilty to the charge.

I have wished the good opinion of the world; but I defy the most malignant of my enemies to show that I have attempted to gain it by any low or groveling arts, by any mean or unworthy sacrifices, by the violation of any of the obligations of honor, or by a breach of any of the duties which I owed to my country....

How is this right of the people to abolish an existing government, and to set up a new one, to be practically exercised? Our revolutionary ancestors did not tell us by words, but they proclaimed it by gallant and noble deeds. Who are the people that are to tear up the whole fabric of human society, whenever and as often as caprice or passion may prompt them? When all the arrangements and ordinances of existing organized society are prostrated and subverted, as must be supposed in such a lawless and irregular movement as that in Rhode Island, the established privileges and distinctions between the sexes, between the colors, between the ages, between natives and foreigners, between the sane and the insane, and between the innocent and the guilty convict, all the offspring of positive institutions, are cast down and abolished, and society is thrown into one heterogeneous and unregulated mass. And is it contended that the major part of this Babel congregation is invested with the right to build up at its pleasure a new government? that as often, and whenever, society can be drummed up and thrown into such a shapeless mass, the major part of it may establish another and another new government in endless succession? Why, this would overturn all social organization, make revolutions--the extreme and last resort of an oppressed people--the commonest occurrences of human life, and the standing order of the day. How such a principle would operate in a certain section of this Union, with a peculiar population, you will readily conceive. No community could endure such an intolerable state of things anywhere, and all would sooner or later take refuge from such ceaseless agitation in the calm repose of absolute despotism....

Fellow-citizens of all parties! The present situation of our country is one of unexampled distress and difficulty; but there is no occasion for any despondency. A kind and bountiful Providence has never deserted us; punished us he perhaps has, for our neglect of his blessings and our misdeeds. We have a varied and fertile soil, a genial climate, and free institutions. Our whole land is covered in profusion with the means of subsistence and the comforts of life. Our gallant ship, it is unfortunately true, lies helpless, tossed on a tempestuous sea amid the conflicting billows of contending parties, without a rudder and without a faithful pilot. But that ship is our country, embodying all our past glory, all our future hopes. Its crew is our whole people, by whatever political denomination they are known. If she goes down, we all go down together. Let us remember the dying words of the gallant and lamented Lawrence, "Don't give up the ship." The glorious banner of our country, with its unstained stars and stripes, still proudly floats at its mast-head. With stout hearts and strong arms we can surmount all our difficulties. Let us all, all, rally round that banner, and finally resolve to perpetuate our liberties and regain our lost prosperity.

Whigs! Arouse from the ignoble supineness which encompasses you; awake from the lethargy in which you lie bound; cast from you that unworthy apathy which seems to make you indifferent to the fate of your country. Arouse! awake! shake off the dewdrops that glitter on your garments, and once more march to battle and to victory. You have been disappointed, deceived, betrayed; shamefully deceived and betrayed. But will you therefore also prove false and faithless to your country, or obey the impulses of a just and patriotic indignation? As for Captain Tyler, he is a mere snap, a flash in the pan; pick your Whig flints and try your rifles again.

From 'The Speeches of Henry Clay; Edited by Calvin Colton.' Copyright, 1857, by A. S. Barnes and Company.

CLEANTHES

(331-232 B.C.)

Cleanthes, the immediate successor of Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, was born at Assos, in the Troad, in B.C. 331. Of his early life we know nothing, except that he was for a time a prize-fighter. About the age of thirty he came to Athens with less than a dollar in his pocket, and entered the school of Zeno, where he remained for some nineteen years. At one time the Court of Areopagus, not seeing how he could make an honest livelihood, summoned him to appear before it and give an account of himself. He did so, bringing with him his employers, who proved that he spent much of the night in carrying water for gardens, or in kneading dough. The court, filled with admiration, offered him a pension, which he refused by the advice of his master, who thought the practice of self-dependence and strong endurance an essential part of education. Cleanthes's mind was slow of comprehension but extremely retentive; like a hard tablet, Zeno said, which retains clearest and longest what is written on it. He was not an original thinker, but the strength and loftiness of his character and his strong religious sense gave him an authority which no other member of the school could claim. For many years head of the Stoa, he reached the ripe age of ninety-nine, when, falling sick, he refused to take food, and died of voluntary starvation in B.C. 232. Long afterwards, the Roman Senate caused a statue to be erected to his memory in his native town. Almost the only writing of his that has come down to us is his noble Hymn to the Supreme Being.

HYMN TO ZEUS

Most glorious of all the Undying, many-named, girt round with awe! Jove, author of Nature, applying to all things the rudder of law-- Hail! Hail! for it justly rejoices the races whose life is a span To lift unto thee their voices--the Author and Framer of man. For we are thy sons; thou didst give us the symbols of speech at our birth, Alone of the things that live, and mortal move upon earth. Wherefore thou shalt find me extolling and ever singing thy praise; Since thee the great Universe, rolling on its path round the world, obeys:-- Obeys thee, wherever thou guidest, and gladly is bound in thy bands, So great is the power thou confidest, with strong, invincible hands, To thy mighty ministering servant, the bolt of the thunder, that flies, Two-edged, like a sword, and fervent, that is living and never dies. All nature, in fear and dismay, doth quake in the path of its stroke, What time thou preparest the way for the one Word thy lips have spoke, Which blends with lights smaller and greater, which pervadeth and thrilleth all things, So great is thy power and thy nature--in the Universe Highest of Kings! On earth, of all deeds that are done, O God! there is none without thee; In the holy ether not one, nor one on the face of the sea, Save the deeds that evil men, driven by their own blind folly, have planned; But things that have grown uneven are made even again by thy hand; And things unseemly grow seemly, the unfriendly are friendly to thee; For so good and evil supremely thou hast blended in one by decree. For all thy decree is one ever--a Word that endureth for aye, Which mortals, rebellious, endeavor to flee from and shun to obey-- Ill-fated, that, worn with proneness for the lordship of goodly things, Neither hear nor behold, in its oneness, the law that divinity brings; Which men with reason obeying, might attain unto glorious life, No longer aimlessly straying in the paths of ignoble strife. There are men with a zeal unblest, that are wearied with following of fame, And men with a baser quest, that are turned to lucre and shame. There are men too that pamper and pleasure the flesh with delicate stings: All these desire beyond measure to be other than all these things. Great Jove, all-giver, dark-clouded, great Lord of the thunderbolt's breath! Deliver the men that are shrouded in ignorance dismal as death. O Father! dispel from their souls the darkness, and grant them the light Of reason, thy stay, when the whole wide world thou rulest with might, That we, being honored, may honor thy name with the music of hymns, Extolling the deeds of the Donor, unceasing, as rightly beseems Mankind; for no worthier trust is awarded to God or to man Than forever to glory with justice in the law that endures and is One.

SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS (MARK TWAIN)

(1835-)

Samuel L. Clemens has made the name he assumed in his earliest "sketches" for newspapers so completely to usurp his own in public and private, that until recently the world knew him by no other; his world of admirers rarely use any other in referring to the great author, and even to his intimate friends the borrowed name seems the more real. The pseudonym so lightly picked up has nearly universal recognition, and it is safe to say that the name "Mark Twain" is known to more people of all conditions, the world over, than any other in this century, except that of some reigning sovereign or great war captain. The term is one used by the Mississippi River pilots to indicate the depth of water (two fathoms) when throwing the lead. It was first employed by a river correspondent in reporting the state of the river to a New Orleans newspaper. This reporter died just about the time Mr. Clemens began to write, and he "jumped" the name.

Mr. Clemens was born in Hannibal, Missouri, a small town on the west bank of the Mississippi, in 1835. He got the rudiments of an education at a village school, learned boy-life and human nature in a frontier community, entered a printing office and became an expert compositor, traveled and worked as a journeyman printer, and at length reached the summit of a river boy's ambition in a Mississippi steamboat in learning the business of a pilot. It is to this experience that the world is indebted for some of the most amusing, the most real and valuable, and the most imaginative writing of this century, which gives the character and interest and individuality to this great Western river that history has given to the Nile. If he had no other title to fame, he could rest securely on his reputation as the prose poet of the Mississippi. Upon the breaking out of the war the river business was suspended. Mr. Clemens tried the occupation of war for a few weeks, on the Confederate side, in a volunteer squad which does not seem to have come into collision with anything but scant rations and imaginary alarms; and then he went to Nevada with his brother, who had been appointed secretary of that Territory. Here he became connected with the Territorial Enterprise, a Virginia City newspaper, as a reporter and sketch-writer, and immediately opened a battery of good-natured and exaggerated and complimentary description that was vastly amusing to those who were not its targets. Afterwards he drifted to the Coast, tried mining, and then joined that group of young writers who illustrated the early history of California. A short voyage in the Sandwich Islands gave him new material for his pen, and he made a successful debut in San Francisco as a humorous lecturer.

The first writing to attract general attention was 'The Jumping Frog of Calaveras,' which was republished with several other sketches in book form in New York. Shortly after this he joined the excursion of the Quaker City steamship to the Orient, wrote letters about it to American newspapers, and advertised it quite beyond the expectations of its projectors. These letters, collected and revised, became 'The Innocents Abroad,' which instantly gave him a world-wide reputation. This was followed by 'Roughing It,' most amusing episodes of frontier life. His pen became immediately in great demand, and innumerable sketches flowed from it, many of them recklessly exaggerated for the effect he wished to produce; always laughter-provoking, and nearly always having a wholesome element of satire of some sham or pretense or folly. For some time he had charge of a humorous department in the Galaxy Magazine. These sketches and others that followed were from time to time collected into volumes which had a great sale. About this time he married, and permanently settled in Hartford, where he began the collection of a library, set himself to biographical and historical study, made incursions into German and French, and prepared himself for the more serious work that was before him.

A second sojourn in Europe produced 'A Tramp Abroad,' full of stories and adventures, much in the spirit of his original effort. But with more reading, reflection, and search into his own experiences, came 'Old Times on the Mississippi,' 'Tom Sawyer,' and 'Huckleberry Finn,' in which the author wrote out of his own heart. To interest in social problems must be attributed the beautiful idyl of 'The Prince and the Pauper,' and 'The Yankee at the Court of King Arthur,' which latter the English thought lacked reverence for the traditions of chivalry.

During all this period Mr. Clemens was in great demand as a lecturer and an after-dinner speaker. His remarks about New England weather, at a New England dinner in New York, are a favorite example of his humor and his power of poetic description. As a lecturer, a teller of stories, and delineator of character, he had scarcely a rival in his ability to draw and entertain vast audiences. He made a large income from his lectures in America and in England, and from his books, which always had a phenomenally large sale. Very remunerative also was the play of 'Colonel Sellers,' constructed out of a novel called 'The Gilded Age.'

[Illustration: S. L. CLEMENS.]

Since 1890 Mr. Clemens and his family have lived most of the time in Europe. For some time before he had written little, but since that his pen has again become active. He has produced many magazine papers, a story called 'Pudd'nhead Wilson,' and the most serious and imaginative work of his life in 'The Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc,' feigned to be translated from a contemporary memoir left by her private secretary. In it the writer strikes the universal chords of sympathy and pathos and heroic elevation. In 1895-6 he made a lecturing tour of the globe, speaking in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and India, and everywhere received an ovation due to his commanding reputation. He is understood to be making this journey the subject of another book.

Mr. Clemens is universally recognized as the first of living humorists; but if the fashion of humor changes, as change it may, he will remain for other qualities--certain primordial qualities such as are exhibited in his work on the Mississippi--a force to be reckoned with in the literature of this century. Mr. Clemens's humor has the stamp of universality, which is the one indispensable thing in all enduring literary productions, and his books have been translated and very widely diffused and read in German, French, and other languages. This is a prophecy of his lasting place in the world of letters.

THE CHILD OF CALAMITY

From 'Life on the Mississippi': copyright 1883, by James R. Osgood and Company

By way of illustrating keelboat talk and manners, and that now departed and hardly remembered raft life, I will throw in, in this place, a chapter from a book which I have been working at by fits and starts during the past five or six years, and may possibly finish in the course of five or six more. The book is a story which details some passages in the life of an ignorant village boy, Huck Finn, son of the town drunkard of my time out West there. He has run away from his persecuting father, and from a persecuting good widow who wishes to make a nice truth-telling respectable boy of him; and with him a slave of the widow's has also escaped. They have found a fragment of a lumber raft (it is high water and dead summer-time), and are floating down the river by night and hiding in the willows by day,--bound for Cairo,--whence the negro will seek freedom in the heart of the free States. But in a fog, they pass Cairo without knowing it. By-and-by they begin to suspect the truth, and Huck Finn is persuaded to end the dismal suspense by swimming down to a huge raft which they have seen in the distance ahead of them, creeping aboard under cover of the darkness, and gathering the needed information by eavesdropping:--

But you know a young person can't wait very well when he is impatient to find a thing out. We talked it over, and by-and-by Jim said it was such a black night now that it wouldn't be no risk to swim down to the big raft and crawl aboard and listen,--they would talk about Cairo, because they would be calculating to go ashore there for a spree, maybe, or anyway they would send boats ashore to buy whisky or fresh meat or something. Jim had a wonderful level head, for a nigger: he could 'most always start a good plan when you wanted one.

I stood up and shook my rags off and jumped into the river, and struck out for the raft's light. By-and-by, when I got down nearly to her, I eased up and went slow and cautious. But everything was all right--nobody at the sweeps. So I swum down along the raft till I was 'most abreast the camp fire in the middle, then I crawled aboard and inched along and got in amongst some bundles of shingles on the weather side of the fire. There was thirteen men there--they was the watch on deck, of course. And a mighty rough-looking lot too. They had a jug, and tin cups, and they kept the jug moving. One man was singing--roaring, you may say; and it wasn't a nice song--for a parlor anyway. He roared through his nose, and strung out the last word of every line very long. When he was done they all fetched a kind of Injun war-whoop, and then another was sung. It begun:--

"There was a woman in our towdn. In our towdn did dwed'l (dwell), She loved her husband dear-i-lee, But another man twyste as wed'l.

"Singing too, riloo, riloo, riloo, Ri-loo, riloo, rilay---e, She loved her husband dear-i-lee, But another man twyste as wed'l."

And so on--fourteen verses. It was kind of poor, and when he was going to start on the next verse one of them said it was the tune the old cow died on; and another one said, "Oh, give us a rest." And another one told him to take a walk. They made fun of him till he got mad and jumped up and begun to cuss the crowd, and said he could lam any thief in the lot.

They was all about to make a break for him, but the biggest man there jumped up and says:--

"Set whar you are, gentlemen. Leave him to me; he's my meat."

Then he jumped up in the air three times and cracked his heels together every time. He flung off a buckskin coat that was all hung with fringes, and says, "You lay thar tell the chawin-up's done;" and flung his hat down, which was all over ribbons, and says, "You lay thar tell his sufferins is over."

Then he jumped up in the air and cracked his heels together again and shouted out:--

"Whoo-oop! I'm the old original iron-jawed, brass-mounted, copper-bellied corpse-maker from the wilds of Arkansaw!--Look at me! I'm the man they call Sudden Death and General Desolation! Sired by a hurricane, dam'd by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly related to the small-pox on the mother's side! Look at me! I take nineteen alligators and a bar'l of whisky for breakfast when I'm in robust health, and a bushel of rattlesnakes and a dead body when I'm ailing! I split the everlasting rocks with my glance, and I squench the thunder when I speak! Whoo-oop! Stand back and give me room according to my strength! Blood's my natural drink, and the wails of the dying is music to my ear! Cast your eye on me, gentlemen!--and lay low and hold your breath, for I'm 'bout to turn myself loose!"

All the time he was getting this off, he was shaking his head and looking fierce and kind of swelling around in a little circle, tucking up his wrist-bands and now and then straightening up and beating his breast with his fist, saying "Look at me, gentlemen!" When he got through he jumped up and cracked his heels together three times, and let off a roaring "Whoo-oop! I'm the bloodiest son of a wildcat that lives!"

Then the man that had started the row tilted his old slouch hat down over his right eye; then he bent stooping forward, with his back sagged and his south end sticking out far, and his fists a-shoving out and drawing in in front of him, and so went around in a little circle about three times, swelling himself up and breathing hard. Then he straightened, and jumped up and cracked his heels together three times before he lit again (that made them cheer), and he begun to shout like this:--"Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, for the kingdom of sorrow's a-coming! Hold me down to the earth, for I feel my powers a-working! whoo-oop! I'm a child of sin; _don't_ let me get a start! Smoked glass, here, for all! Don't attempt to look at me with the naked eye, gentlemen! When I'm playful I use the meridians of longitude and parallels of latitude for a seine, and drag the Atlantic Ocean for whales! I scratch my head with the lightning and purr myself to sleep with the thunder! When I'm cold I bile the Gulf of Mexico and bathe in it; when I'm hot I fan myself with an equinoctial storm; when I'm thirsty I reach up and suck a cloud dry like a sponge; when I range the earth hungry, famine follows in my tracks! Whoo-oop! Bow your neck and spread! I put my hand on the sun's face and make it night in the earth; I bite a piece out of the moon and hurry the seasons; I shake myself and crumble the mountains! Contemplate me through leather--_don't_ use the naked eye! I'm the man with a petrified heart and biler-iron bowels! The massacre of isolated communities is the pastime of my idle moments, the destruction of nationalities the serious business of my life! The boundless vastness of the great American desert is my inclosed property, and I bury my dead on my own premises!" He jumped up and cracked his heels together three times before he lit (they cheered him again), and as he came down he shouted out: "Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, for the pet child of calamity's a-coming!"

Then the other one went to swelling around and blowing again--the first one--the one they called Bob; next, the Child of Calamity chipped in again, bigger than ever; then they both got at it at the same time, swelling round and round each other and punching their fists 'most into each other's faces, and whooping and jawing like Injuns; then Bob called the Child names, and the Child called him names back again: next, Bob called him a heap rougher names, and the Child come back at him with the very worst kind of language; next, Bob knocked the Child's hat off, and the Child picked it up and kicked Bob's ribbony hat about six foot; Bob went and got it and said never mind, this warn't going to be the last of this thing, because he was a man that never forgot and never forgive, and so the Child better look out; for there was a time a-coming, just as sure as he was a living man, that he would have to answer to him with the best blood in his body. The Child said no man was willinger than he was for that time to come, and he would give Bob fair warning, _now_, never to cross his path again, for he could never rest till he had waded in his blood; for such was his nature, though he was sparing him now on account of his family, if he had one.

Both of them was edging away in different directions, growling and shaking their heads and going on about what they was going to do; but a little black-whiskered chap skipped up and says:--

"Come back here, you couple of chicken-livered cowards, and I'll thrash the two of ye!"

And he done it, too. He snatched them, he jerked them this way and that, he booted them around, he knocked them sprawling faster than they could get up. Why, it warn't two minutes till they begged like dogs--and how the other lot did yell and laugh and clap their hands all the way through, and shout "Sail in, Corpse-Maker!" "Hi! at him again, Child of Calamity!" "Bully for you, little Davy!" Well, it was a perfect pow-wow for a while. Bob and the Child had red noses and black eyes when they got through. Little Davy made them own up that they was sneaks and cowards, and not fit to eat with a dog or drink with a nigger; then Bob and the Child shook hands with each other very solemn, and said they had always respected each other and was willing to let bygones be bygones. So then they washed their faces in the river; and just then there was a loud order to stand by for a crossing, and some of them went forward to man the sweeps there, and the rest went aft to handle the after-sweeps.

A STEAMBOAT LANDING AT A SMALL TOWN

From 'Life on the Mississippi': copyright 1883, by James R. Osgood and Company

Once a day a cheap gaudy packet arrived upward from St. Louis, and another downward from Keokuk. Before these events, the day was glorious with expectancy; after them, the day was a dead and empty thing. Not only the boys but the whole village felt this. After all these years I can picture that old time to myself now, just as it was then: the white town drowsing in the sunshine of a summer's morning; the streets empty, or pretty nearly so; one or two clerks sitting in front of the Water Street stores, with their splint-bottomed chairs tilted back against the wall, chins on breasts, hats slouched over their faces, asleep--with shingle-shavings enough around to show what broke them down; a sow and a litter of pigs loafing along the sidewalk, doing a good business in watermelon rinds and seeds; two or three lonely little freight piles scattered about the "levee"; a pile of "skids" on the slope of the stone-paved wharf, and the fragrant town drunkard asleep in the shadow of them; two or three wood flats at the head of the wharf, but nobody to listen to the peaceful lapping of the wavelets against them; the great Mississippi, the majestic, the magnificent Mississippi, rolling its mile-wide tide along, shining in the sun; the dense forest away on the other side; the "point" above the town and the "point" below, bounding the river-glimpse and turning it into a sort of sea, and withal a very still and brilliant and lonely one. Presently a film of dark smoke appears above one of those remote "points"; instantly a negro drayman, famous for his quick eye and prodigious voice, lifts up the cry, "S-t-e-a-m-boat a-comin'!" and the scene changes! The town drunkard stirs, the clerks wake up, a furious clatter of drays follows, every house and store pours out a human contribution, and all in a twinkling the dead town is alive and moving. Drays, carts, men, boys, all go hurrying from many quarters to a common centre, the wharf. Assembled there, the people fasten their eyes upon the coming boat, as upon a wonder they are seeing for the first time. And the boat _is_ rather a handsome sight too. She is long and sharp and trim and pretty; she has two tall fancy-topped chimneys, with a gilded device of some kind swung between them; a fanciful pilot-house, all glass and "gingerbread," perched on top of the "texas" deck behind them; the paddle-boxes are gorgeous with a picture or with gilded rays above the boat's name; the boiler deck, the hurricane deck, and the texas deck are fenced and ornamented with clean white railings; there is a flag gallantly flying from the jack-staff; the furnace doors are open and the fires glaring bravely; the upper decks are black with passengers; the captain stands by the big bell, calm, imposing, the envy of all; great volumes of the blackest smoke are rolling and tumbling out of the chimneys--a husbanded grandeur created with a bit of pitch-pine just before arriving at a town; the crew are grouped on the forecastle; the broad stage is run far out over the port bow, and an envied deck hand stands picturesquely on the end of it with a coil of rope in his hand; the pent steam is screaming through the gauge-cocks; the captain lifts his hand, a bell rings, the wheels stop; then they turn back, churning the water to a foam, and the steamer is at rest. Then such a scramble as there is to get aboard, and to get ashore, and to take in freight and to discharge freight, all at one and the same time; and such a yelling and cursing as the mates facilitate it all with! Ten minutes later the steamer is under way again, with no flag on the jack-staff and no black smoke issuing from the chimneys. After ten more minutes the town is dead again, and the town drunkard asleep by the skids once more.

THE HIGH RIVER: AND A PHANTOM PILOT

From 'Life on the Mississippi': copyright 1883, by James R. Osgood and Company

During this big rise these small-fry craft were an intolerable nuisance. We were running chute after chute,--a new world to me,--and if there was a particularly cramped place in a chute, we would be pretty sure to meet a broad-horn there; and if he failed to be there, we would find him in a still worse locality, namely, the head of the chute, on the shoal water. And then there would be no end of profane cordialities exchanged.

Sometimes, in the big river, when we would be feeling our way cautiously along through a fog, the deep hush would suddenly be broken by yells and a clamor of tin pans, and all in an instant a log raft would appear vaguely through the webby veil, close upon us; and then we did not wait to swap knives, but snatched our engine bells out by the roots and piled on all the steam we had, to scramble out of the way! One doesn't hit a rock or a solid log raft with a steamboat when he can get excused.

You will hardly believe it, but many steamboat clerks always carried a large assortment of religious tracts with them in those old departed steamboating days. Indeed they did. Twenty times a day we would be cramping up around a bar, while a string of these small-fry rascals were drifting down into the head of the bend away above and beyond us a couple of miles. Now a skiff would dart away from one of them, and come fighting its laborious way across the desert of water. It would "ease all," in the shadow of our forecastle, and the panting oarsmen would shout, "Gimme a pa-a-per!" as the skiff drifted swiftly astern. The clerk would throw over a file of New Orleans journals. If these were picked up _without comment_, you might notice that now a dozen other skiffs had been drifting down upon us without saying anything. You understand, they had been waiting to see how No. 1 was going to fare. No. 1 making no comment, all the rest would bend to their oars and come on now; and as fast as they came the clerk would heave over neat bundles of religious tracts, tied to shingles. The amount of hard swearing which twelve packages of religious literature will command when impartially divided up among twelve raftsmen's crews, who have pulled a heavy skiff two miles on a hot day to get them, is simply incredible.

As I have said, the big rise brought a new world under my vision. By the time the river was over its banks we had forsaken our old paths and were hourly climbing over bars that had stood ten feet out of water before; we were shaving stumpy shores, like that at the foot of Madrid Bend, which I had always seen avoided before; we were clattering through chutes like that of 82, where the opening at the foot was an unbroken wall of timber till our nose was almost at the very spot. Some of these chutes were utter solitudes. The dense untouched forest over-hung both banks of the crooked little crack, and one could believe that human creatures had never intruded there before. The swinging grapevines, the grassy nooks and vistas, glimpsed as we swept by, the flowering creepers waving their red blossoms from the tops of dead trunks, and all the spendthrift richness of the forest foliage, were wasted and thrown away there. The chutes were lovely places to steer in; they were deep, except at the head; the current was gentle; under the "points" the water was absolutely dead, and the invisible banks so bluff that where the tender willow thickets projected you could bury your boat's broadside in them as you tore along, and then you seemed fairly to fly.

Behind other islands we found wretched little farms and wretcheder little log cabins; there were crazy rail fences sticking a foot or two above the water, with one or two jeans-clad, chills-racked, yellow-faced male miserables roosting on the top rail, elbows on knees, jaws in hands, grinding tobacco and discharging the result at floating chips through crevices left by lost teeth; while the rest of the family and the few farm animals were huddled together in an empty wood flat riding at her moorings close at hand. In this flatboat the family would have to cook and eat and sleep for a lesser or greater number of days (or possibly weeks), until the river should fall two or three feet and let them get back to their log cabin and their chills again--chills being a merciful provision of an all-wise Providence to enable them to take exercise without exertion. And this sort of watery camping out was a thing which these people were rather liable to be treated to a couple of times a year: by the December rise out of the Ohio, and the June rise out of the Mississippi. And yet these were kindly dispensations, for they at least enabled the poor things to rise from the dead now and then, and look upon life when a steamboat went by. They appreciated the blessing too, for they spread their mouths and eyes wide open and made the most of these occasions. Now what _could_ these banished creatures find to do to keep from dying of the blues during the low-water season!

Once in one of these lovely island chutes we found our course completely bridged by a great fallen tree. This will serve to show how narrow some of the chutes were. The passengers had an hour's recreation in a virgin wilderness while the boat hands chopped the bridge away; for there was no such thing as turning back, you comprehend.

From Cairo to Baton Rouge, when the river is over its banks, you have no

## particular trouble in the night, for the thousand-mile wall of dense

forest that guards the two banks all the way is only gapped with a farm or wood-yard opening at intervals, and so you can't "get out of the river" much easier than you could get out of a fenced lane; but from Baton Rouge to New Orleans it is a different matter. The river is more than a mile wide, and very deep--as much as two hundred feet, in places. Both banks, for a good deal over a hundred miles, are shorn of their timber and bordered by continuous sugar plantations, with only here and there a scattering sapling or row of ornamental China-trees. The timber is shorn off clear to the rear of the plantations, from two to four miles. When the first frost threatens to come, the planters snatch off their crops in a hurry. When they have finished grinding the cane, they form the refuse of the stalks (which they call _bagasse_) into great piles and set fire to them, though in other sugar countries the bagasse is used for fuel in the furnaces of the sugar-mills. Now the piles of damp bagasse burn slowly, and smoke like Satan's own kitchen.

An embankment ten or fifteen feet high guards both banks of the Mississippi all the way down that lower end of the river, and this embankment is set back from the edge of the shore from ten to perhaps a hundred feet, according to circumstances; say thirty or forty feet as a general thing. Fill that whole region with an impenetrable gloom of smoke from a hundred miles of burning bagasse piles, when the river is over the banks, and turn a steamboat loose along there at midnight and see how she will feel. And see how you will feel too! You find yourself away out in the midst of a vague dim sea that is shoreless, that fades out and loses itself in the murky distances; for you cannot discern the thin rib of embankment, and you are always imagining you see a straggling tree when you don't. The plantations themselves are transformed by the smoke and look like a part of the sea. All through your watch you are tortured with the exquisite misery of uncertainty. You hope you are keeping in the river, but you do not know. All that you are sure about is that you are likely to be within six feet of the bank _and_ destruction, when you think you are a good half-mile from shore. And you are sure also that if you chance suddenly to fetch up against the embankment and topple your chimneys overboard, you will have the small comfort of knowing that it is about what you were expecting to do. One of the great Vicksburg packets darted out into a sugar plantation one night, at such a time, and had to stay there a week. But there was no novelty about it: it had often been done before.

I thought I had finished this chapter, but I wish to add a curious thing while it is in my mind. It is only relevant in that it is connected with piloting. There used to be an excellent pilot on the river, a Mr. X., who was a somnambulist. It was said that if his mind was troubled about a bad piece of river, he was pretty sure to get up and walk in his sleep and do strange things. He was once fellow pilot for a trip or two with George Ealer, on a great New Orleans passenger packet. During a considerable part of the first trip George was uneasy, but got over it by-and-by, as X. seemed content to stay in his bed when asleep. Late one night the boat was approaching Helena, Arkansas; the water was low, and the crossing above the town in a very blind and tangled condition. X. had seen the crossing since Ealer had, and as the night was particularly drizzly, sullen, and dark, Ealer was considering whether he had not better have X. called to assist in running the place, when the door opened and X. walked in. Now on very dark nights, light is a deadly enemy to piloting; you are aware that if you stand in a lighted room on such a night, you cannot see things in the street to any purpose; but if you put out the lights and stand in the gloom you can make out objects in the street pretty well. So on very dark nights pilots do not smoke; they allow no fire in the pilot-house stove if there is a crack which can allow the least ray to escape; they order the furnaces to be curtained with huge tarpaulins and the skylights to be closely blinded. Then no light whatever issues from the boat. The undefinable shape that now entered the pilot-house had Mr. X.'s voice. This said:--

"Let me take her, George; I've seen this place since you have, and it is so crooked that I reckon I can run it myself easier than I could tell you how to do it."

"It is kind of you, and I swear _I_ am willing. I haven't got another drop of perspiration left in me. I have been spinning around and around the wheel like a squirrel. It is so dark I can't tell which way she is swinging till she is coming around like a whirligig."

So Ealer took a seat on the bench, panting and breathless. The black phantom assumed the wheel without saying anything, steadied the waltzing steamer with a turn or two, and then stood at ease, coaxing her a little to this side and then to that, as gently and as sweetly as if the time had been noonday. When Ealer observed this marvel of steering, he wished he had not confessed! He stared and wondered, and finally said:--

"Well, I thought I knew how to steer a steamboat, but that was another mistake of mine."

X. said nothing, but went serenely on with his work. He rang for the leads; he rang to slow down the steam; he worked the boat carefully and neatly into invisible marks, then stood at the centre of the wheel and peered blandly out into the blackness, fore and aft, to verify his position; as the leads shoaled more and more, he stopped the engines entirely, and the dead silence and suspense of "drifting" followed; when the shoalest water was struck, he cracked on the steam, carried her handsomely over, and then began to work her warily into the next system of shoal marks; the same patient, heedful use of leads and engines followed, the boat slipped through without touching bottom, and entered upon the third and last intricacy of the crossing; imperceptibly she moved through the gloom, crept by inches into her marks, drifted tediously till the shoalest water was cried, and then, under a tremendous head of steam, went swinging over the reef and away into deep water and safety!

Ealer let his long-pent breath pour out in a great relieving sigh, and said:--

"That's the sweetest piece of piloting that was ever done on the Mississippi River! I wouldn't believed it could be done, if I hadn't seen it."

There was no reply, and he added:--

"Just hold her five minutes longer, partner, and let me run down and get a cup of coffee."

A minute later Ealer was biting into a pie, down in the "texas," and comforting himself with coffee. Just then the night watchman happened in, and was about to happen out again, when he noticed Ealer and exclaimed:--

"Who is at the wheel, sir?"

"X."

"Dart for the pilot-house, quicker than lightning!"

The next moment both men were flying up the pilot-house companion-way, three steps at a jump! Nobody there! The great steamer was whistling down the middle of the river at her own sweet will! The watchman shot out of the place again; Ealer seized the wheel, set the engine back with power, and held his breath while the boat reluctantly swung away from a "towhead" which she was about to knock into the middle of the Gulf of Mexico!

By-and-by the watchman came back and said:--

"Didn't that lunatic tell you he was asleep when he first came up here?"

"No."

"Well, he was. I found him walking along on top of the railings, just as unconcerned as another man would walk a pavement; and I put him to bed; now just this minute there he was again, away astern, going through that sort of tightrope deviltry the same as before."

"Well, I think I'll stay by, next time he has one of those fits. But I hope he'll have them often. You just ought to have seen him take this boat through Helena crossing. _I_ never saw anything so gaudy before. And if he can do such gold-leaf, kid-glove, diamond-breastpin piloting when he is sound asleep, what _couldn't_ he do if he was dead!"

AN ENCHANTING RIVER SCENE

From 'Life on the Mississippi': copyright 1883, by James R. Osgood and Company

The face of the water in time became a wonderful book--a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day. Throughout the long twelve hundred miles there was never a page that was void of interest, never one that you could leave unread without loss, never one that you would want to skip, thinking you could find higher enjoyment in some other thing. There never was so wonderful a book written by man; never one whose interest was so absorbing, so unflagging, so sparklingly renewed with every re-perusal. The passenger who could not read it was charmed with a peculiar sort of faint dimple on its surface (on the rare occasions when he did not overlook it altogether); but to the pilot that was an _italicized_ passage; indeed it was more than that,--it was a legend of the largest capitals, with a string of shouting exclamation-points at the end of it; for it meant that a wreck or a rock was buried there, that could tear the life out of the strongest vessel that ever floated. It is the faintest and simplest expression the water ever makes, and the most hideous to a pilot's eye. In truth, the passenger who could not read this book saw nothing but all manner of pretty pictures in it, painted by the sun and shaded by the clouds; whereas to the trained eye these were not pictures at all, but the grimmest and most dead-earnest of reading matter.

Now when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something too. I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry had gone out of the majestic river! I still kept in mind a certain wonderful sunset which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me. A broad expanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating, black and conspicuous; in one place a long slanting mark lay sparkling upon the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling tumbling rings that were as many-tinted as an opal; where the ruddy flush was faintest, was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and radiating lines, ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left was densely wooded, and the sombre shadow that fell from this forest was broken in one place by a long ruffled trail that shone like silver; and high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single leafy bough, that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed splendor that was flowing from the sun. There were graceful curves, reflected images, woody heights, soft distances; and over the whole scene, far and near, the dissolving lights drifted steadily, enriching it every passing moment with new marvels of coloring.

I stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture. The world was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this at home. But as I have said, a day came when I began to cease from noting the glories and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight wrought upon the river's face; another day came when I ceased altogether to note them. Then, if that sunset scene had been repeated, I should have looked upon it without rapture and should have commented upon it inwardly after this fashion: This sun means that we are going to have wind to-morrow; that floating log means that the river is rising, small thanks to it; that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which is going to kill somebody's steamboat one of these nights, if it keeps on stretching out like that; those tumbling "boils" show a dissolving bar and a changing channel there; the lines and circles in the slick water over yonder are a warning that that troublesome place is shoaling up dangerously; that silver streak in the shadow of the forest is the "break" from a new snag, and he has located himself in the very best place he could have found to fish for steamboats; that tall dead tree, with a single living branch, is not going to last long, and then how is a body ever going to get through this blind place at night without the friendly old landmark?

No, the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river. All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat. Since those days I have pitied doctors from my heart. What does the lovely flush in a beauty's cheek mean to a doctor but a "break" that ripples above some deadly disease? Are not all her visible charms sown thick with what are to him the signs and symbols of hidden decay? Does he ever see her beauty at all, or doesn't he simply view her professionally and comment upon her unwholesome condition all to himself? And doesn't he sometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lost most by learning his trade?

THE LIGHTNING PILOT

From 'Life on the Mississippi': copyright 1883, by James R. Osgood and Company

Next morning I felt pretty rusty and low-spirited. We went booming along, taking a good many chances, for we were anxious to "get out of the river" (as getting out to Cairo was called) before night should overtake us. But Mr. Bixby's partner, the other pilot, presently grounded the boat, and we lost so much time getting her off that it was plain the darkness would overtake us a good long way above the mouth. This was a great misfortune; especially to certain of our visiting pilots, whose boats would have to wait for their return, no matter how long that might be. It sobered the pilot-house talk a good deal. Coming up-stream, pilots did not mind low water or any kind of darkness; nothing stopped them but fog. But down-stream work was different; a boat was too nearly helpless, with a stiff current pushing behind her; so it was not customary to run down-stream at night in low water.

There seemed to be one small hope, however: if we could get through the intricate and dangerous Hat Island crossing before night, we could venture the rest, for we would have plainer sailing and better water. But it would be insanity to attempt Hat Island at night. So there was a deal of looking at watches all the rest of the day, and a constant ciphering upon the speed we were making; Hat Island was the eternal subject; sometimes hope was high, and sometimes we were delayed in a bad crossing, and down it went again. For hours all hands lay under the burden of this suppressed excitement; it was even communicated to me, and I got to feeling so solicitous about Hat Island, and under such an awful pressure of responsibility, that I wished I might have five minutes on shore to draw a good full relieving breath, and start over again. We were standing no regular watches. Each of our pilots ran such portions of the river as he had run when coming up-stream, because of his greater familiarity with it; but both remained in the pilot-house constantly.

An hour before sunset, Mr. Bixby took the wheel and Mr. W---- stepped aside. For the next thirty minutes every man held his watch in his hand and was restless, silent, and uneasy. At last somebody said with a doomful sigh:--

"Well, yonder's Hat Island--and we can't make it."

All the watches closed with a snap, everybody sighed and muttered something about its being "too bad, too bad--ah, if we could _only_ have got here half an hour sooner!" and the place was thick with the atmosphere of disappointment. Some started to go out, but loitered, hearing no bell-tap to land. The sun dipped behind the horizon, the boat went on. Inquiring looks passed from one guest to another; and one who had his hand on the door-knob and had turned it, waited, then presently took away his hand and let the knob turn back again. We bore steadily down the bend. More looks were exchanged, and nods of surprised admiration--but no words. Insensibly the men drew together behind Mr. Bixby, as the sky darkened and one or two dim stars came out. The dead silence and sense of waiting became oppressive. Mr. Bixby pulled the cord, and two deep mellow notes from the big bell floated off on the night. Then a pause, and one more note was struck. The watchman's voice followed, from the hurricane deck:--

"Labboard lead, there! Stabboard lead!"

The cries of the leadsmen began to rise out of the distance, and were gruffly repeated by the word-passers on the hurricane deck.

"M-a-r-k three!... M-a-r-k three!... Quarter-less-three!... Half twain!... Quarter twain!... M-a-r-k twain!... Quarter-less--"

Mr. Bixby pulled two bell-ropes, and was answered by faint jinglings far below in the engine-room, and our speed slackened. The steam began to whistle through the gauge-cocks. The cries of the leadsmen went on--and it is a weird sound always in the night. Every pilot in the lot was watching now, with fixed eyes, and talking under his breath. Nobody was calm and easy but Mr. Bixby. He would put his wheel down and stand on a spoke, and as the steamer swung into her (to me) utterly invisible marks--for we seemed to be in the midst of a wide and gloomy sea--he would meet and fasten her there. Out of the murmur of half-audible talk one caught a coherent sentence now and then, such as:--

"There; she's over the first reef all right!"

After a pause, another subdued voice:--

"Her stern's coming down just _exactly_ right, by _George_!"

"Now she's in the marks; over she goes!"

Somebody else muttered:--

"Oh, it was done beautiful--_beautiful_!"

Now the engines were stopped altogether, and we drifted with the current. Not that I could see the boat drift, for I could not, the stars being all gone by this time. This drifting was the dismalest work; it held one's heart still. Presently I discovered a blacker gloom than that which surrounded us. It was the head of the island. We were closing right down upon it. We entered its deeper shadow, and so imminent seemed the peril that I was likely to suffocate; and I had the strongest impulse to do _something_, anything, to save the vessel. But still Mr. Bixby stood by his wheel, silent, intent as a cat, and all the pilots stood shoulder to shoulder at his back.

"She'll not make it!" somebody whispered.

The water grew shoaler and shoaler, by the leadsman's cries, till it was down to--

"Eight-and-a-half!... E-i-g-h-t feet!... E-i-g-h-t feet!... Seven-and--"

Mr. Bixby said warningly through his speaking-tube to the engineer:--

"Stand by, now!"

"Ay-ay, sir!"

"Seven-and-a-half! Seven feet! _Six_-and--"

We touched bottom! Instantly Mr. Bixby set a lot of bells ringing, shouted through the tube, "_Now_ let her have it--every ounce you've got!" then to his partner, "Put her hard down! snatch her! snatch her!" The boat rasped and ground her way through the sand, hung upon the apex of disaster a single tremendous instant, and then over she went! And such a shout as went up at Mr. Bixby's back never loosened the roof of a pilot-house before!

There was no more trouble after that. Mr. Bixby was a hero that night; and it was some little time, too, before his exploit ceased to be talked about by river men.

AN EXPEDITION AGAINST OGRES

From 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court': copyright 1889, by Charles L. Webster and Company

My expedition was all the talk that day and that night, and the boys were very good to me, and made much of me, and seemed to have forgotten their vexation and disappointment, and come to be as anxious for me to hive those ogres and set those ripe old virgins loose as if it were themselves that had the contract. Well, they _were_ good children--but just children, that is all. And they gave me no end of points about how to scout for giants, and how to scoop them in; and they told me all sorts of charms against enchantments, and gave me salves and other rubbish to put on my wounds. But it never occurred to one of them to reflect that if I was such a wonderful necromancer as I was pretending to be, I ought not to need salves, or instructions, or charms against enchantments, and least of all arms and armor, on a foray of any kind--even against fire-spouting dragons and devils hot from perdition, let alone such poor adversaries as these I was after, these commonplace ogres of the back settlements.

I was to have an early breakfast, and start at dawn, for that was the usual way; but I had the demon's own time with my armor, and this delayed me a little. It is troublesome to get into, and there is so much detail. First you wrap a layer or two of blanket around your body for a sort of cushion, and to keep off the cold iron; then you put on your sleeves and shirt of chain-mail--these are made of small steel links woven together, and they form a fabric so flexible that if you toss your shirt on to the floor it slumps into a pile like a peck of wet fish-net; it is very heavy and is nearly the uncomfortablest material in the world for a night shirt, yet plenty used it for that--tax collectors and reformers, and one-horse kings with a defective title, and those sorts of people; then you put on your shoes--flatboats roofed over with interleaving bands of steel--and screw your clumsy spurs into the heels. Next you buckle your greaves on your legs and your cuisses on your thighs; then come your backplate and your breastplate, and you begin to feel crowded; then you hitch on to the breastplate the half-petticoat of broad overlapping bands of steel which hangs down in front but is scolloped out behind so you can sit down, and isn't any real improvement on an inverted coal-scuttle, either for looks, or for wear, or to wipe your hands on; next you belt on your sword; then you put your stove-pipe joints on to your arms, your iron gauntlets on to your hands, your iron rat-trap on to your head, with a rag of steel web hitched on to it to hang over the back of your neck--and there you are, snug as a candle in a candle-mold. This is no time to dance. Well, a man that is packed away like that is a nut that isn't worth the cracking, there is so little of the meat, when you get down to it, by comparison with the shell.

The boys helped me, or I never could have got in. Just as we finished, Sir Bedivere happened in, and I saw that as like as not I hadn't chosen the most convenient outfit for a long trip. How stately he looked; and tall and broad and grand. He had on his head a conical steel casque that only came down to his ears, and for visor had only a narrow steel bar that extended down to his upper lip and protected his nose; and all the rest of him, from neck to heel, was flexible chain-mail, trousers and all. But pretty much all of him was hidden under his outside garment, which of course was of chain-mail, as I said, and hung straight from his shoulders to his ankles; and from his middle to the bottom, both before and behind, was divided, so that he could ride and let the skirts hang down on each side. He was going grailing, and it was just the outfit for it, too. I would have given a good deal for that ulster, but it was too late now to be fooling around. The sun was just up; the king and the court were all on hand to see me off and wish me luck; so it wouldn't be etiquette for me to tarry. You don't get on your horse yourself; no, if you tried it you would get disappointed. They carry you out, just as they carry a sun-struck man to the drug-store, and put you on, and help get you to rights, and fix your feet in the stirrups; and all the while you do feel so strange and stuffy and like somebody else--like somebody that has been married on a sudden, or struck by lightning, or something like that, and hasn't quite fetched around yet, and is sort of numb, and can't just get his bearings. Then they stood up the mast they called a spear in its socket by my left foot, and I gripped it with my hand; lastly they hung my shield around my neck, and I was all complete and ready to up anchor and get to sea. Everybody was as good to me as they could be, and a maid of honor gave me the stirrup-cup her own self. There was nothing more to do now but for that damsel to get up behind me on a pillion, which she did, and put an arm or so around me to hold on.

And so we started; and everybody gave us a good-by and waved their handkerchiefs or helmets. And everybody we met, going down the hill and through the village, was respectful to us except some shabby little boys on the outskirts. They said:--

"Oh, what a guy!" and hove clods at us.

In my experience boys are the same in all ages. They don't respect anything, they don't care for anything or anybody. They say "Go up, bald-head!" to the prophet going his unoffending way in the gray of antiquity; they sass me in the holy gloom of the Middle Ages; and I had seen them act the same way in Buchanan's administration; I remember, because I was there and helped. The prophet had his bears and settled with his boys; and I wanted to get down and settle with mine, but it wouldn't answer, because I couldn't have got up again. I hate a country without a derrick.

Straight off, we were in the country. It was most lovely and pleasant in those sylvan solitudes in the early cool morning in the first freshness of autumn. From hilltops we saw fair green valleys lying spread out below, with streams winding through them, and island groves of trees here and there, and huge lonely oaks scattered about and casting black blots of shade; and beyond the valleys we saw the ranges of hills, blue with haze, stretching away in billowy perspective to the horizon, with at wide intervals a dim fleck of white or gray on a wave-summit, which we knew was a castle. We crossed broad natural lawns sparkling with dew, and we moved like spirits, the cushioned turf giving out no sound of footfall; we dreamed along through glades in a mist of green light that got its tint from the sun-drenched roof of leaves overhead, and by our feet the clearest and coldest of runlets went frisking and gossiping over its reefs and making a sort of whispering music comfortable to hear; and at times we left the world behind and entered into the solemn great deeps and rich gloom of the forest, where furtive wild things whisked and scurried by and were gone before you could even get your eye on the place where the noise was; and where only the earliest birds were turning out and getting to business, with a song here and a quarrel yonder and a mysterious far-off hammering and drumming for worms on a tree-trunk away somewhere in the impenetrable remoteness of the woods. And by-and-by out we would swing again into the glare.

About the third or fourth or fifth time that we swung out into the glare--it was along there somewhere, a couple of hours or so after sun-up--it wasn't as pleasant as it had been. It was beginning to get hot. This was quite noticeable. We had a very long pull, after that, without any shade. Now it is curious how progressively little frets grow and multiply after they once get a start. Things which I didn't mind at all at first, I began to mind now--and more and more, too, all the time. The first ten or fifteen times I wanted my handkerchief I didn't seem to care; I got along, and said never mind, it isn't any matter, and dropped it out of my mind. But now it was different: I wanted it all the time; it was nag, nag, nag, right along, and no rest; I couldn't get it out of my mind; and so at last I lost my temper, and said hang a man that would make a suit of armor without any pockets in it. You see I had my handkerchief in my helmet, and some other things; but it was that kind of a helmet that you can't take off by yourself. That hadn't occurred to me when I put it there; and in fact I didn't know it. I supposed it would be particularly convenient there. And so now the thought of its being there, so handy and close by, and yet not get-at-able, made it all the worse and the harder to bear. Yes, the thing that you can't get is the thing that you want, mainly; every one has noticed that. Well, it took my mind off from everything else; took it clear off and centred it in my helmet; and mile after mile there it stayed, imagining the handkerchief, picturing the handkerchief; and it was bitter and aggravating to have the salt sweat keep trickling down into my eyes, and I couldn't get at it. It seems like a little thing on paper, but it was not a little thing at all; it was the most real kind of misery. I would not say it if it was not so. I made up my mind that I would carry along a reticule next time, let it look how it might and people say what they would. Of course these iron dudes of the Round Table would think it was scandalous, and maybe raise sheol about it, but as for me, give me comfort first and style afterwards. So we jogged along, and now and then we struck a stretch of dust, and it would tumble up in clouds and get into my nose and make me sneeze and cry; and of course I said things I oughtn't to have said,--I don't deny that. I am not better than others. We couldn't seem to meet anybody in this lonesome Britain, not even an ogre; and in the mood I was in then, it was well for the ogre; that is, an ogre with a handkerchief. Most knights would have thought of nothing but getting his armor; but so I got his bandana, he could keep his hardware for all me.

Meantime it was getting hotter and hotter in there. You see the sun was beating down and warming up the iron more and more all the time. Well, when you are hot, that way, every little thing irritates you. When I trotted I rattled like a crate of dishes, and that annoyed me; and moreover I couldn't seem to stand that shield slatting and banging, now about my breast, now around my back; and if I dropped into a walk my joints creaked and screeched in that wearisome way that a wheelbarrow does, and as we didn't create any breeze at that gait, I was like to get fried in that stove; and besides, the quieter you went the heavier the iron settled down on you, and the more and more tons you seemed to weigh every minute. And you had to be always changing hands and passing your spear over to the other foot, it got so irksome for one hand to hold it long at a time.

Well, you know when you perspire that way, in rivers, there comes a time when you--when you--well, when you itch. You are inside, your hands are outside: so there you are; nothing but iron between. It is not a light thing, let it sound as it may. First it is one place; then another; then some more; and it goes on spreading and spreading, and at last the territory is all occupied, and nobody can imagine what you feel like, nor how unpleasant it is. And when it had got to the worst, and it seemed to me that I could not stand anything more, a fly got in through the bars and settled on my nose, and the bars were stuck and wouldn't work, and I couldn't get the visor up; and I could only shake my head, which was baking hot by this time, and the fly--well, you know how a fly acts when he has got a certainty: he only minded the shaking enough to change from nose to lip, and lip to ear, and buzz and buzz all around in there, and keep on lighting and biting in a way that a person already so distressed as I was simply could not stand. So I gave in, and got Alisande to unship the helmet and relieve me of it. Then she emptied the conveniences out of it and fetched it full of water, and I drank and then stood up and she poured the rest down inside the armor. One cannot think how refreshing it was. She continued to fetch and pour until I was well soaked and thoroughly comfortable.

It was good to have a rest--and peace. But nothing is quite perfect in this life at any time. I had made a pipe a while back, and also some pretty fair tobacco; not the real thing, but what some of the Indians use: the inside bark of the willow, dried. These comforts had been in the helmet, and now I had them again, but no matches.

Gradually, as the time wore along, one annoying fact was borne in upon my understanding--that we were weather-bound. An armed novice cannot mount his horse without help and plenty of it. Sandy was not enough; not enough for me, anyway. We had to wait until somebody should come along. Waiting in silence would have been agreeable enough, for I was full of matter for reflection, and wanted to give it a chance to work. I wanted to try and think out how it was that rational or even half-rational men could ever have learned to wear armor, considering its inconveniences; and how they had managed to keep up such a fashion for generations when it was plain that what I had suffered to-day they had had to suffer all the days of their lives. I wanted to think that out; and moreover I wanted to think out some way to reform this evil and persuade the people to let the foolish fashion die out: but thinking was out of the question in the circumstances. You couldn't think where Sandy was. She was a quite biddable creature and good-hearted, but she had a flow of talk that was as steady as a mill and made your head sore like the drays and wagons in a city. If she had had a cork she would have been a comfort. But you can't cork that kind; they would die. Her clack was going all day, and you would think something would surely happen to her works by-and-by; but no, they never got out of order; and she never had to slack up for words. She could grind and pump and churn and buzz by the week, and never stop to oil up or blow out. And yet the result was just nothing but wind. She never had any ideas, any more than a fog has. She was a perfect blatherskite; I mean for jaw, jaw, jaw, talk, talk, talk, jabber, jabber, jabber;--but just as good as she could be. I hadn't minded her mill that morning, on account of having that hornet's nest of other troubles; but more than once in the afternoon I had to say:--

"Take a rest, child; the way you are using up all the domestic air, the kingdom will have to go to importing it by to-morrow, and it's a low enough treasury without that."

By permission of S. L. Clemens and his publishers.

THE TRUE PRINCE AND THE FEIGNED ONE

From 'The Prince and the Pauper': copyright 1889, by Charles L. Webster and Company

At last the final act was at hand. The Archbishop of Canterbury lifted up the crown of England from its cushion and held it out over the trembling mock king's head. In the same instant a rainbow radiance flashed along the spacious transept; for with one impulse every individual in the great concourse of nobles lifted a coronet and poised it over his or her head--and paused in that attitude.

A deep hush pervaded the Abbey. At this impressive moment a startling apparition intruded upon the scene--an apparition observed by none in the absorbed multitude, until it suddenly appeared, moving up the great central isle. It was a boy, bare-headed, ill shod, and clothed in coarse plebeian garments that were falling to rags. He raised his hand with a solemnity which ill comported with his soiled and sorry aspect, and delivered this note of warning:--

"I forbid you to set the crown of England upon that forfeited head. _I_ am the king!"

In an instant several indignant hands were laid upon the boy, but in the same instant Tom Canty, in his regal vestments, made a swift step forward and cried out in a ringing voice:--

"Loose him and forbear! He _is_ the king!"

A sort of panic of astonishment swept the assemblage, and they partly rose in their places and stared in a bewildered way at one another and at the chief figures in this scene, like persons who wondered whether they were awake and in their senses or asleep and dreaming. The Lord Protector was as amazed as the rest, but quickly recovered himself and exclaimed in a voice of authority:--

"Mind not his Majesty, his malady is upon him again--seize the vagabond!"

He would have been obeyed, but the mock king stamped his foot and cried out:--

"On your peril! Touch him not, he is the king!"

The hands were withheld; a paralysis fell upon the house; no one moved, no one spoke; indeed no one knew how to act or what to say, in so strange and surprising an emergency. While all minds were struggling to right themselves, the boy still moved steadily forward, with high port and confident mien; he had never halted from the beginning; and while the tangled minds still floundered helplessly, he stepped upon the platform, and the mock king ran with a glad face to meet him, and fell on his knees before him and said:--

"O my lord the king, let poor Tom Canty be first to swear fealty to thee, and say, 'Put on thy crown and enter into thine own again!'"

The Lord Protector's eye fell sternly upon the new-comer's face; but straightway the sternness vanished away, and gave place to an expression of wondering surprise. This thing happened also to the other great officers. They glanced at each other, and retreated a step by a common and unconscious impulse. The thought in each mind was the same: "What a strange resemblance!"

The Lord Protector reflected a moment or two in perplexity; then he said, with grave respectfulness:--

"By your favor, sir, I desire to ask certain questions which--"

"I will answer them, my lord."

The duke asked him many questions about the court, the late king, the prince, the princesses,--the boy answered them correctly and without hesitating. He described the rooms of state in the palace, the late king's apartments, and those of the Prince of Wales.

It was strange; it was wonderful; yes, it was unaccountable--so all said that heard it. The tide was beginning to turn, and Tom Canty's hopes to run high, when the Lord Protector shook his head and said:--

"It is true it is most wonderful--but it is no more than our lord the king likewise can do." This remark, and this reference to himself as still the king, saddened Tom Canty, and he felt his hopes crumbling under him. "These are not _proofs_," added the Protector.

The tide was turning very fast now, very fast indeed--but in the wrong direction; it was leaving poor Tom Canty stranded on the throne, and sweeping the other out to sea. The Lord Protector communed with himself--shook his head; the thought forced itself upon him, "It is perilous to the State and to us all, to entertain so fateful a riddle as this; it could divide the nation and undermine the throne." He turned and said:--

"Sir Thomas, arrest this--No, hold!" His face lighted, and he confronted the ragged candidate with this question:--

"Where lieth the Great Seal? Answer me this truly, and the riddle is unriddled; for only he that was Prince of Wales _can_ so answer! On so trivial a thing hang a throne and a dynasty!"

It was a lucky thought, a happy thought. That it was so considered by the great officials was manifested by the silent applause that shot from eye to eye around their circle in the form of bright approving glances. Yes, none but the true prince could dissolve the stubborn mystery of the vanished Great Seal--this forlorn little impostor had been taught his lesson well, but here his teachings must fail, for his teacher himself could not answer _that_ question--ah, very good, very good indeed; now we shall be rid of this troublesome and perilous business in short order! And so they nodded invisibly and smiled inwardly with satisfaction, and looked to see this foolish lad stricken with a palsy of guilty confusion. How surprised they were, then, to see nothing of the sort happen--how they marveled to hear him answer up promptly in a confident and untroubled voice and say:--

"There is naught in this riddle that is difficult." Then, without so much as a by-your-leave to anybody, he turned and gave this command with the easy manner of one accustomed to doing such things: "My lord St. John, go you to my private cabinet in the palace,--for none knoweth the place better than you,--and close down to the floor, in the left corner, remotest from the door that opens from the ante-chamber, you shall find in the wall a brazen nail-head; press upon it and a little jewel-closet will fly open, which not even you do know of--no, nor any soul else in all the world but me and the trusty artisan that did contrive it for me. The first thing that falleth under your eye will be the Great Seal--fetch it hither."

All the company wondered at this speech, and wondered still more to see the little mendicant pick out this peer without hesitancy or apparent fear of mistake, and call him by name with such a placidly convincing air of having known him all his life. The peer was almost surprised into obeying. He even made a movement as if to go, but quickly recovered his tranquil attitude and confessed his blunder with a blush. Tom Canty turned upon him and said sharply:--

"Why dost thou hesitate? Hast not heard the king's command? Go!"

The lord St. John made a deep obeisance--and it was observed that it was a significantly cautious and non-committal one, it not being delivered at either of the kings, but at the neutral ground about half-way between the two--and took his leave.

Now began a movement of the gorgeous particles of that official group which was slow, scarcely perceptible, and yet steady and persistent,--a movement such as is observed in a kaleidoscope that is turned slowly, whereby the components of one splendid cluster fall away and join themselves to another--a movement which little by little, in the present case, dissolved the glittering crowd that stood about Tom Canty and clustered it together again in the neighborhood of the new-comer. Tom Canty stood almost alone. Now ensued a brief season of deep suspense and waiting--during which even the few faint-hearts still remaining near Tom Canty gradually scraped together courage enough to glide, one by one, over to the majority. So at last Tom Canty, in his royal robes and jewels, stood wholly alone and isolated from the world, a conspicuous figure, occupying an elegant vacancy.

Now the lord St. John was seen returning. As he advanced up the mid-aisle, the interest was so intense that the low murmur of conversation in the great assemblage died out and was succeeded by a profound hush, a breathless stillness, through which his footfalls pulsed with a dull and distant sound. Every eye was fastened upon him as he moved along. He reached the platform, paused a moment, then moved toward Tom Canty with a deep obeisance, and said:--

"Sire, the Seal is not there!"

A mob does not melt away from the presence of a plague-patient with more haste than the band of pallid and terrified courtiers melted away from the presence of the shabby little claimant of the crown. In a moment he stood all alone, without friend or supporter, a target upon which was concentrated a bitter fire of scornful and angry looks. The Lord Protector called out fiercely:--

"Cast the beggar into the street, and scourge him through the town--the paltry knave is worth no more consideration!"

Officers of the guard sprang forward to obey, but Tom Canty waved them off and said:--

"Back! Whoso touches him perils his life!"

The Lord Protector was perplexed in the last degree. He said to the lord St. John:--

"Searched you well?--but it boots not to ask that. It doth seem passing strange. Little things, trifles, slip out of one's ken, and one does not think it matter for surprise; but how so bulky a thing as the Seal of England can vanish away and no man be able to get track of it again--a massy golden disk--"

Tom Canty, with beaming eyes, sprang forward and shouted:

"Hold, that is enough! Was it round?--and thick?--and had it letters and devices graved upon it?--Yes? Oh, _now_ I know what this Great Seal is, that there's been such worry and pother about! An ye had described it to me, ye could have had it three weeks ago. Right well I know where it lies; but it was not I that put it there--first."

"Who then, my liege?" asked the Lord Protector.

"He that stands there--the rightful king of England. And he shall tell you himself where it lies--then you will believe he knew it of his own knowledge. Bethink thee, my king--spur thy memory--it was the last, the very _last_ thing thou didst that day before thou didst rush forth from the palace, clothed in my rags, to punish the soldier that insulted me."

A silence ensued, undisturbed by a movement or a whisper, and all eyes were fixed upon the new-comer, who stood with bent head and corrugated brow, groping in his memory among a thronging multitude of valueless recollections for one single little elusive fact, which, found, would seat him upon a throne--unfound, would leave him as he was for good and all--a pauper and an outcast. Moment after moment passed--the moments built themselves into minutes--still the boy struggled silently on, and gave no sign. But at last he heaved a sigh, shook his head slowly, and said, with a trembling lip and in a despondent voice:--

"I call the scene back--all of it--but the Seal hath no place in it." He paused, then looked up, and said with gentle dignity, "My lords and gentlemen, if ye will rob your rightful sovereign of his own for lack of this evidence which he is not able to furnish, I may not stay ye, being powerless. But--"

"Oh folly, oh madness, my king!" cried Tom Canty in a panic; "wait!--think! Do not give up!--the cause is not lost! nor _shall_ be, neither! List to what I say--follow every word--I am going to bring that morning back again, every hap just as it happened. We talked--I told you of my sisters, Nan and Bet--ah yes, you remember that; and about my old grandam--and the rough games of the lads of Offal Court--yes, you remember these things also; very well, follow me still, you shall recall everything. You gave me food and drink, and did with princely courtesy send away the servants, so that my low breeding might not shame me before them--ah yes, this also you remember."

As Tom checked off his details, and the other boy nodded his head in recognition of them, the great audience and the officials stared in puzzled wonderment; the tale sounded like true history, yet how could this impossible conjunction between a prince and a beggar boy have come about? Never was a company of people so perplexed, so interested, and so stupefied before.

"For a jest, my prince, we did exchange garments. Then we stood before a mirror; and so alike were we that both said it seemed as if there had been no change made--yes, you remember that. Then you noticed that the soldier had hurt my hand--look! here it is, I cannot yet even write with it, the fingers are so stiff. At this your Highness sprang up, vowing vengeance upon that soldier, and ran toward the door--you passed a table--that thing you call the Seal lay on that table--you snatched it up and looked eagerly about, as if for a place to hide it--your eye caught sight of--"

"There, 'tis sufficient!--and the dear God be thanked!" exclaimed the ragged claimant, in a mighty excitement. "Go, my good St. John,--in an arm-piece of the Milanese armor that hangs on the wall, thou'lt find the Seal!"

"Right, my king! right!" cried Tom Canty; "_now_ the sceptre of England is thine own; and it were better for him that would dispute it that he had been born dumb! Go, my lord St. John, give thy feet wings!"

The whole assemblage was on its feet now, and well-nigh out of its mind with uneasiness, apprehension, and consuming excitement. On the floor and on the platform a deafening buzz of frantic conversation burst forth, and for some time nobody knew anything or heard anything or was interested in anything but what his neighbor was shouting into his ear, or he was shouting into his neighbor's ear. Time--nobody knew how much of it--swept by unheeded and unnoted.--At last a sudden hush fell upon the house, and in the same moment St. John appeared upon the platform and held the Great Seal aloft in his hand. Then such a shout went up!

"Long live the true king!"

For five minutes the air quaked with shouts and the crash of musical instruments, and was white with a storm of waving handkerchiefs; and through it all a ragged lad, the most conspicuous figure in England, stood, flushed and happy and proud, in the centre of the spacious platform, with the great vassals of the kingdom kneeling around him.

Then all rose, and Tom Canty cried out:--

"Now, O my king, take these regal garments back, and give poor Tom thy servant his shreds and remnants again."

The Lord Protector spoke up:--

"Let the small varlet be stripped and flung into the Tower."

But the new king, the true king, said:--

"I will not have it so. But for him I had not got my crown again--none shall lay a hand upon him to harm him. And as for thee, my good uncle, my Lord Protector, this conduct of thine is not grateful toward this poor lad, for I hear he hath made thee a duke"--the Protector blushed--"yet he was not a king; wherefore, what is thy fine title worth now? To-morrow you shall sue to me, _through him_, for its confirmation, else no duke, but a simple earl, shalt thou remain."

Under this rebuke his Grace the Duke of Somerset retired a little from the front for the moment. The king turned to Tom, and said kindly:--

"My poor boy, how was it that you could remember where I hid the Seal, when I could not remember it myself?"

"Ah, my king, that was easy, since I used it divers days."

"Used it,--yet could not explain where it was?"

"I did not know it was _that_ they wanted. They did not describe it, your Majesty."

"Then how used you it?"

The red blood began to steal up into Tom's cheeks, and he dropped his eyes and was silent.

"Speak up, good lad, and fear nothing," said the king. "How used you the Great Seal of England?"

Tom stammered a moment in a pathetic confusion, then got it out:--

"To crack nuts with!"

Poor child, the avalanche of laughter that greeted this nearly swept him off his feet. But if a doubt remained in any mind that Tom Canty was not the king of England and familiar with the august appurtenances of royalty, this reply disposed of it utterly.

Meantime the sumptuous robe of state had been removed from Tom's shoulders to the king's, whose rags were effectually hidden from sight under it. Then the coronation ceremonies were resumed; the true king was anointed and the crown set upon his head, whilst cannon thundered the news to the city, and all London seemed to rock with applause.

By permission of S.L. Clemens and his publishers.

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH

(1819-1861)

BY CHARLES ELIOT NORTON

The intellectual mood of many of the finest spirits in England and New England during the second quarter of the nineteenth century had something of the nature of a surprise to themselves, no less than to those who came within their influence. It was indeed a natural though unforeseen result of forces, various in kind, that had long been silently at work. The conflicting currents of thought and moral sentiment, which in all ages perplex and divide the hearts of men, took a new direction and seemed to have gathered volume and swiftness. Hardly since the Reformation had there been so deep and general a stirring of the questions, the answers to which, whether they be final or merely provisional, involve conclusions relating to the deepest interests of men. Old convictions were confronted by new doubts; ancient authority was met by a modern spirit of independence. This new intellectual mood was perhaps first distinctly manifest in England in Carlyle's essays, and correspondingly in New England in the essays and poems of Emerson; it was expressed in 'In Memoriam' and 'Maud'; it gave the undertone of Arnold's most characteristic verse, and it found clear and strikingly distinctive utterance in the poems of Clough. His nature was of rare superiority alike of character and intellect. His moral integrity and sincerity imparted clearness to his imagination and strength to his intelligence, so that while the most marked distinction of his poems is that which they possess as a mirror of spiritual conditions shared by many of his contemporaries, they have hardly less interest as the expression and image of his own individuality.

Arthur Hugh Clough was born at Liverpool on New Year's Day, 1819.[A] His father, who came of an old Welsh family (his mother, Anne Perfect, was from Yorkshire), had established himself in Liverpool as a cotton merchant. Toward the end of 1822 he emigrated with his wife and four children to Charleston, South Carolina, and here for four years was their home. For Arthur they were important years. He was a shy, sensitive boy, "already considered as the genius of the family." He was his mother's darling. She was a woman "rigidly simple in her tastes and habits, of stern integrity"; of cultivated intelligence, fond of poetry, a lover of nature, and quickly sympathetic with high character, whether in real life or in the pages of romance. While his father taught him his Latin grammar and his arithmetic, his mother read with him from Pope's Iliad and Odyssey, from Scott's novels and other books fitted to quicken the imagination. Her influence was strong in the shaping of his taste and disposition.

[A] Ruskin and Lowell were his close contemporaries; they were born in February of the same year.

In 1828 the family returned for a visit to England, and Arthur was put to school at Chester, whence in the next year he was transferred to Rugby. Dr. Arnold had then very lately become the headmaster at Rugby, and was already giving to the school a tone and quality unknown previously to the public schools of England. He strove to impress upon the boys the sense of personal responsibility, and to rouse their conscience to the doing of duty, not so much as a matter essential to the discipline of the school as to the formation of manly and religious character. The influence of his high, vigorous, and ardent nature was of immense force. But its virtue was impaired by the artificiality of the ecclesiastical system of the Church of England, and the irrationality of the dogmatic creed which, even to a nature as liberal as Dr. Arnold's, seemed to belong to the essentials of religion, and to be indissoluble from the foundation of morality.

Clough became Arnold's devoted disciple, but he had intellectual independence and sincerity enough to save him from yielding his own individuality to any stream of external influence, however powerful. What he called "the busy argufying spirit of the prize schoolboy" stood him in good stead. But the moral stress was great, and it left him early with a sense of strain and of perplexity, as his mind opened to the wider and deeper problems of life, for the solution of which the traditional creed seemed insufficient. His career at school was of the highest distinction; and when he was leaving Rugby for Oxford in 1836, Dr. Arnold broke the rule of silence to which he almost invariably adhered in the delivery of prizes, and congratulated Clough on having gained every honor which Rugby could bestow, and on having done the highest credit to the school at the University,--for he had won the Balliol Scholarship, "then and now the highest honor which a schoolboy could obtain."

Clough went into residence at Oxford in October, 1837. It was a time of stirring of heart and trouble of mind at the University. The great theological controversy which was to produce such far-reaching effects upon the lives of individuals, and upon the Church of England as a whole, was then rising to its height. Newman was at the acme of his popularity and influence. His followers were zealous and active. Ward, his most earnest disciple, was one of Clough's nearest friends. Clough, not yet nineteen years old, but morally and intellectually developed beyond his years and accustomed already to independent speculation in regard to creed and conduct, was inevitably drawn into the deep waters of theological discussion. He heard, too, those other voices which Matthew Arnold in his admirable lecture on Emerson has spoken of as deeply affecting the more sensitive youthful spirits of the Oxford of this time,--the voices of Goethe, of Carlyle, and of Emerson. He studied hard, but his studies seemed, for the moment at least, to be of secondary importance. Although unusually reserved in demeanor and silent in general company, his reputation grew, not merely as a scholar, but as a man distinguished above his fellows for loftiness of spirit, for sweetness of disposition, and for superiority of moral no less than of intellectual qualities. With much interior storm and stress, his convictions were gradually maturing. He resisted the prevailing tendencies of Oxford thought, but did not easily find a secure basis for his own beliefs. In 1841 he tried for and missed his first class in the examinations. It was more a surprise and disappointment to others than to himself. He knew that he had not shown himself in the examinations for what he really was, and his failure did not affect his confidence in his own powers, nor did others lose faith in him, as was shown by his election in the next year to a fellowship at Oriel, and the year later to his appointment as tutor.

His livelihood being thus assured, he led from 1843 to 1848 a "quiet, hard-working, uneventful tutor's life, diversified with reading parties" in the vacations. He was writing poems from time to time, but his vocation as poet was not fully recognized by himself or by others. He had been obliged, in assuming the duties of tutor, to sign the Thirty-nine Articles,--though as he wrote to a friend, "reluctantly enough, and I am not quite sure whether or not in a justifiable sense. However, I have for the present laid by that perplexity, though it may perhaps recur at some time or other; and in general, I do not feel perfectly satisfied about staying in my tutor capacity at Oxford."

The perplexity would not down, but as the years went on, the troubled waters of his soul gradually cleared themselves. He succeeded in attaining independence of mind such as few men attain, and in finding, if not a solution of the moral perplexities of life, at least a position from which they might be frankly confronted without blinking and without self-deception. It became impossible for him to accept, however they might be interpreted, the doctrines of any church. He would not play tricks with words nor palter with the integrity of his soul. This perfect mental honesty of Clough, and his entire sincerity of expression, were a stumbling-block to many of his more conventional contemporaries, and have remained as a rock of offense to many of the readers of his poetry, who find it disturbing to be obliged to recognize in his work a test of their own sincerity in dealing with themselves. With how few are conviction and profession perfectly at one! The difficulty of the struggle in Clough's case, the difficulty of freeing himself from the chains of association, of tradition, of affection, of interest, which bound him to conformity with and acceptance of the popular creed in one or the other of its forms, has led superficial critics of his life and poetry to find in them evidence that the struggle was too hard for him and the result unsatisfactory. There could not be a greater error. Clough's honest acceptance of the insolubility of the vain questions which men are perpetually asking, and his recognition of the insufficiency of the answers which they are ready to accept or to pretend to accept, left him as regards his most inward soul one of the serenest of men. The questions of practical life, of action, of duty, indeed presented themselves to his sensitive and contemplative nature with their full perplexity; but his spiritual life was based on a foundation that could not be shaken. He had learned the lesson of skepticism, and accepted without trouble the fact of the limitation of human faculties and the insolubility of the mystery of life. He was indeed tired with the hard work of years, and worried by the uncertainty of his future; when at length, in order to deliver himself from a constrained if not a false position, and to obtain perfect freedom of expression as well as of thought, he resigned in 1848 both his fellowship and tutorship.

It was a momentous decision, for it left him without any definite means of support, it alienated the authorities of the University, it isolated him from many old friends. Immediately after resigning his tutorship Clough went to Paris with Emerson, then on a visit to Europe, as his companion. They were drawn thither by interest in the strange Revolution which was then in progress, and by desire to watch its aspects. The social conditions of England had long been matter of concern to Clough. He had been deeply touched by the misery of the Irish famine in 1847, and had printed a very striking pamphlet in the autumn of that year, urging upon the students at Oxford retrenchment of needless expenditure and restrictions of waste and luxury. His sympathies were with the poor, and he was convinced of the need of radical social reform. He therefore observed the course of revolution on the Continent not merely with curiosity, but with sympathetic hope.

In the autumn of this year, after his return home, and while at Liverpool with his mother and sister, he wrote his first long poem, 'The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich; a Long-Vacation Pastoral.' It had no great immediate success, but it made him known to a somewhat wider public than that of Oxford. It was in its form the fruit of the reading parties in the Highlands in previous summers. It was in hexameters, and he asked Emerson to "convey to Mr. Longfellow the fact that it was a reading of his 'Evangeline' aloud to my mother and sister, which, coming after a re-perusal of the Iliad, occasioned this outbreak of hexameters." It is a delightful poem, full of vitality and variety, original in design, simple in incident. It has the freshness and wholesomeness of the open air, the charm of nature and of life, with constant interplay of serious thought and light humor, of gravity and gayety of sentiment.

Its publication was followed speedily by a little volume entitled 'Ambarvalia,' made up of two parts; one, of poems by Clough, and one, of those by an old school and college friend, Mr. Burbidge. Clough's part consisted, as he wrote to Emerson, of "old things, the casualties of at least ten years." But many of these "casualties" are characteristic expressions of personal experience, to which Clough's absolute sincerity gives deep human interest. They are the records of "his search amid the maze of life for a clue whereby to move." They deal with the problems of his own life, and these problems perplex other men as well. "I have seen higher, holier things than these," he writes in 1841:--

"I have seen higher, holier things than these, And therefore must to these refuse my heart, Yet I am panting for a little ease; I'll take, and so depart."

But he checks himself:--

"Ah, hold! the heart is prone to fall away, Her high and cherished visions to forget; And if thou takest, how wilt thou repay So vast, so dread a debt?"

The little volume appealed to but a small band of readers. The poems it contained did not allure by fluency of fancy or richness of diction; they were not of a kind to win sudden popularity: but they gave evidence of a poet who, though not complete master of his art, and not arrived at a complete understanding of himself, had yet a rare power of reflection and expression and a still rarer sincerity of imaginative vision. They were poems that gave large promise, and that promise was already in part fulfilled by the 'Bothie.'

Early in 1849 the headship of University Hall in London was offered to Clough and accepted by him. This was an institution professedly non-sectarian, established for the purpose of receiving students in attendance upon the lectures at University College. He was not to enter upon the duties of the place until October, and he spent the greater part of the intervening period in a fruitful visit to Italy. He reached Rome in April. All Italy was in revolution. The Pope had fled from Rome. The Republic had been declared, and Mazzini was in control of the government. The French army was approaching to besiege the city, and Clough resolved to await the event. No more vivid and picturesque account of aspects of the siege exists than is to be found in his poem of 'Amours de Voyage,' written in great part at Rome, under the pressure and excitement of the moment; then laid aside in the poet's desk, and not published till long afterward. It consists of a series of letters supposed to be written by various persons, in which a narrative of passing events is interwoven with a love story. The hero of the story is a creation of extraordinary subtlety and interest. He has much of the temperament of Hamlet: not wanting in personal courage, nor in resolution when forced to action, but hesitating through sensitiveness of conscience, through dread of mistaking momentary impulse for fixed conviction, through the clearness with which diverging paths of conduct present themselves to his imagination, with the inevitable doubt as to which be the right one to follow. The character, though by no means an exact or complete image of the poet's own, is yet drawn in part from himself, and affords glimpses of his inner nature, of the delicacy of his sensitive poetic spirit, of his tendency to subtle introspective reflection, of his honesty in dealing with facts and with himself. To see things as they are, to keep his eyes clear, to be true to

"The living central inmost I Within the scales of mere exterior--"

was the principle of his life. The charm of 'Amours de Voyage,' however, consists not merely in animated description, in delicate sentiment, and in the poetic representation of sensitive, impressionable, and high-minded youth, but in its delicate humor in the delineation of character, and in its powerful, imaginative, picturesque reproduction of the atmosphere and influence of Rome, and of the spirit of the moment to which the poem relates. It is as unique and as original in its kind as the 'Bothie.' It is a poem that appeals strongly to the lovers of the poetry of high culture, and is not likely to lack such readers in future generations.

From Rome in July Clough went to Naples, and there wrote another of his most striking poems, 'Easter Day.' In the autumn of 1850 he again went during a short vacation to Italy, but now to Venice; and while there began his third long poem, 'Dipsychus,' of which the scene is in that city. In this poem, which represents the conflict of the soul in its struggles to maintain itself against the temptations of the world and the Devil, Clough again wrote out much of his inner life. It is not so much a piece of strict autobiography of the spirit of an individual, as an imaginative drama of the spiritual experience common in all times to men of fine nature, seeking a solution of the puzzle of their own hearts. In none of his other poems is there such variety of tone, or such an exhibition of mature poetic power. It is indeed loosely constructed; but its separate parts, each contributing to the development of its main theme, with their diversity of imagination, reflection, wit, and sentiment, combine in an impressive unity of effect.

The position at University Hall proved not altogether satisfactory; and no other opening for him offering itself in England, Clough determined after much hesitation and deliberation to try his fortune as a teacher and writer in America. He sailed in October, 1852, on a steamer on which he had Lowell and Thackeray for fellow passengers. He spent the next eight months at Cambridge, employed in tutoring and in literary work, winning the warm regard of the remarkable group of men of letters who then gave distinction to the society of Cambridge and of Boston, and especially keeping up his friendship with Emerson by frequent visits to Concord. There seemed a fair prospect of success for him in his new career. But his friends at home, deeply attached to him, and ill content that he should leave them, obtained for him an appointment as examiner in the Education Department of the Council Office. The salary would give to him a secure though moderate income. He was the more drawn to accept the place, because shortly before leaving England he had become engaged to be married; and accordingly in July, 1853, he returned home and at once entered on the duties of his office. In June 1854 he married. For the next seven years his life was tranquil, laborious, and happy. The account of these years contained in the beautiful sketch of his life by his wife, which is prefixed to the collection of his 'Letters, Poems and Prose Remains,'[B] gives a picture of Clough's domestic felicity, and of the various interests which engaged him outside of the regular drudgery of official work. His own letters bear witness to the content of his days. He had little leisure for poetry. He was overworked, and in 1860 his health gave way. Leave of absence from the office was given to him. He went to the seashore; he visited the Continent: but though at times he seemed to gain strength, there was no steady recovery. In the autumn of 1861 he went to Italy, accompanied by his wife; he enjoyed the journey, but they had only reached the Lakes when he experienced a touch of fever. They went on to Florence; he became more seriously ill. He began however apparently to recover, but a sudden blow of paralysis struck him down, and on the 13th day of November he died.

[B] It is on this sketch of his life that the present account of him is mainly based.

Among the most original and beautiful of Matthew Arnold's poems is his 'Thyrsis, a Monody,' to commemorate his friend Arthur Hugh Clough. Thyrsis his mate has gone:--

"No purer or more subtle soul"

than he ever sought the light that

"leaves its seeker still untired,-- Still onward faring by his own heart inspired."

The lament is as true as it is tender. The singer continues:--

"What though the music of thy rustic flute Kept not for long its happy country tone; Lost it too soon, and learnt a stormy note Of men contention-tost, of men who groan, Which tasked thy pipe too sore, and tired thy throat,-- It failed, and thou wast mute! Yet hadst thou always visions of our light."

Yes, always visions of the light! But Arnold's usual felicity of discrimination is lacking in this last stanza. The stormy note is not the characteristic note of Clough's mature song, nor does his art betray the overtasked pipe. His pipe indeed is not attuned, as was Arnold's own, to the soft melancholy of regret at leaving behind the happy fields of the past in the quest for the light that shines beyond and across the untraveled and dim waste before them; its tone was less pathetic, but not less clear. The music of each is the song of travelers whose road is difficult, whose goal is uncertain. Their only guide is the fugitive light, now faint, now distinct, which allures them with irresistible compulsion. Their pathways at times diverge; but when most divergent, the notes of their accordant pipes are heard in the same direction.

The memory of Clough remains, with those who had the happiness of knowing him in life, distinct and precious. It is that of one of the highest and purest souls. Sensitive, simple, tender, manly, his figure stands as one of the ideal figures of the past, the image of the true poet, the true friend, the true man. He died too young for his full fame, but not too young for the love which is better than fame.

[Signature: Charles Eliot Norton]

THERE IS NO GOD

"There is no God," the wicked saith, "And truly it's a blessing, For what he might have done with us It's better only guessing."

"There is no God," a youngster thinks, "Or really, if there may be, He surely didn't mean a man Always to be a baby."

"There is no God, or if there is," The tradesman thinks, "'twere funny If he should take it ill in me To make a little money."

"Whether there be," the rich man says, "It matters very little, For I and mine, thank somebody, Are not in want of victual."

Some others, also, to themselves, Who scarce so much as doubt it, Think there is none, when they are well, And do not think about it.

But country folks who live beneath The shadow of the steeple; The parson and the parson's wife, And mostly married people;

Youths green and happy in first love, So thankful for illusion; And men caught out in what the world Calls guilt, in first confusion;

And almost every one when age, Disease, or sorrows strike him,-- Inclines to think there is a God, Or something very like him.

THE LATEST DECALOGUE

Thou shalt have one God only: who Would be at the expense of two? No graven images may be Worshiped, save in the currency. Swear not at all; since for thy curse Thine enemy is none the worse. At church on Sunday to attend Will serve to keep the world thy friend: Honor thy parents; that is, all From whom advancement may befall. Thou shalt not kill; but need'st not strive Officiously to keep alive. Adultery it is not fit Or safe (for woman) to commit. Thou shalt not steal: an empty feat, When 'tis as lucrative to cheat. Bear not false witness: let the lie Have time on its own wings to fly. Thou shalt not covet; but tradition Approves all forms of competition.

TO THE UNKNOWN GOD

O Thou whose image in the shrine Of human spirits dwells divine; Which from that precinct once conveyed, To be to outer day displayed, Doth vanish, part, and leave behind Mere blank and void of empty mind, Which willful fancy seeks in vain With casual shapes to fill again!

O Thou that in our bosom's shrine Dost dwell, unknown because divine! I thought to speak, I thought to say, "The light is here,"--"Behold the way,"-- "The voice was thus,"--and "Thus the word,"-- And "Thus I saw,"--and "That I heard,"-- But from the lips that half assayed The imperfect utterance fell unmade.

O Thou, in that mysterious shrine Enthroned, as I must say, divine! I will not frame one thought of what Thou mayest either be or not. I will not prate of "thus" and "so," And be profane with "yes" and "no"; Enough that in our soul and heart Thou, whatsoe'er Thou may'st be, art.

Unseen, secure in that high shrine Acknowledged present and divine, I will not ask some upper air, Some future day to place Thee there; Nor say, nor yet deny, such men And women say Thee thus and then: Thy name was such, and there or here To him or her Thou didst appear.

Do only Thou in that dim shrine, Unknown or known, remain, divine; There, or if not, at least in eyes That scan the fact that round them lies, The hand to sway, the judgment guide, In sight and sense Thyself divide: Be Thou but there, in soul and heart,-- Will not ask to feel Thou art.

EASTER DAY

NAPLES, 1849

Through the great sinful streets of Naples as I past, With fiercer heat than flamed above my head, My heart was hot within me; till at last My brain was lightened when my tongue had said-- Christ is not risen!

Christ is not risen, no-- He lies and molders low; Christ is not risen!

What though the stone were rolled away, and though The grave found empty there?-- If not there, then elsewhere; If not where Joseph laid him first, why then Where other men Translaid him after, in some humbler clay. Long ere to-day Corruption that sad perfect work hath done, Which here she scarcely, lightly, had begun: The foul engendered worm Feeds on the flesh of the life-giving form Of our most Holy and Anointed One. He is not risen, no-- He lies and molders low; Christ is not risen!

What if the women, ere the dawn was gray, Saw one or more great angels, as they say (Angels, or Him himself)? Yet neither there, nor then, Nor afterwards, nor elsewhere, nor at all, Hath he appeared to Peter or the Ten; Nor, save in thunderous terror, to blind Saul; Save in an after-Gospel and late Creed, He is not risen, indeed,-- Christ is not risen!

Or what if e'en, as runs a tale, the Ten Saw, heard, and touched, again and yet again? What if at Emmaues's inn, and by Capernaum's Lake, Came One, the bread that brake-- Came One that spake as never mortal spake, And with them ate, and drank, and stood, and walked about? Ah! "some" did well to "doubt"! Ah! the true Christ, while these things came to pass, Nor heard, nor spake, nor walked, nor lived, alas! He was not risen, no-- He lay and moldered low; Christ was not risen!

As circulates in some great city crowd A rumor changeful, vague, importunate, and loud, From no determined centre, or of fact Or authorship exact, Which no man can deny Nor verify; So spread the wondrous fame; He all the same Lay senseless, moldering low; He was not risen, no-- Christ was not risen!

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; As of the unjust, also of the just-- Yea, of that Just One, too! This is the one sad Gospel that is true-- Christ is not risen!

Is he not risen, and shall we not rise? Oh, we unwise! What did we dream, what wake we to discover? Ye hills, fall on us, and ye mountains, cover! In darkness and great gloom Come ere we thought it is _our_ day of doom; From the cursed world, which is one tomb, Christ is not risen!

Eat, drink, and play, and think that this is bliss: There is no heaven but this; There is no hell, Save earth, which serves the purpose doubly well, Seeing it visits still With equalest apportionment of ill Both good and bad alike, and brings to one same dust The unjust and the just With Christ, who is not risen.

Eat, drink, and die, for we are souls bereaved: Of all the creatures under heaven's wide cope We are most hopeless, who had once most hope, And most beliefless, that had most believed.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; As of the unjust, also of the just-- Yea, of that Just One, too! It is the one sad Gospel that is true-- Christ is not risen!

Weep not beside the tomb, Ye women, unto whom He was great solace while ye tended him; Ye who with napkin o'er the head And folds of linen round each wounded limb Laid out the Sacred Dead; And thou that bar'st him in thy wondering womb; Yea, Daughters of Jerusalem, depart, Bind up as best you may your own sad bleeding heart: Go to your homes, your living children tend, Your earthly spouses love; Set your affections _not_ on things above, Which moth and rust corrupt, which quickliest come to end: Or pray, if pray ye must, and pray, if pray ye can, For death; since dead is he whom ye deemed more than man, Who is not risen: no-- But lies and molders low-- Who is not risen!

Ye men of Galilee! Why stand ye looking up to heaven, where him ye ne'er may see, Neither ascending hence, nor returning hither again? Ye ignorant and idle fishermen! Hence to your huts, and boats, and inland native shore, And catch not men, but fish; Whate'er things ye might wish, Him neither here nor there ye e'er shall meet with more. Ye poor deluded youths, go home, Mend the old nets ye left to roam, Tie the split oar, patch the torn sail: It was indeed an "idle tale"-- He was not risen!

And oh, good men of ages yet to be, Who shall believe _because_ ye did not see-- Oh, be ye warned, be wise! No more with pleading eyes, And sobs of strong desire, Unto the empty vacant void aspire, Seeking another and impossible birth That is not of your own, and only mother earth. But if there is no other life for you, Sit down and be content, since this must even do; He is not risen!

One look and then depart, Ye humble and ye holy men of heart; And ye! ye ministers and stewards of a Word Which ye would preach, because another heard-- Ye worshipers of that ye do not know, Take these things hence and go:-- He is not risen!

Here, on our Easter Day We rise, we come, and lo! we find Him not, Gardener nor other, on the sacred spot: Where they have laid Him there is none to say; No sound, nor in, nor out--no word Of where to seek the dead or meet the living Lord. There is no glistering of an angel's wings, There is no voice of heavenly clear behest: Let us go hence, and think upon these things In silence, which is best. Is He not risen? No-- But lies and molders low? Christ is not risen?

IT FORTIFIES MY SOUL TO KNOW

It fortifies my soul to know That though I perish, Truth is so; That howsoe'er I stray and range, Whate'er I do, Thou dost not change; I steadier step when I recall That if I slip, Thou dost not fall!

SAY NOT, THE STRUGGLE NAUGHT AVAILETH

Say not, the struggle naught availeth, The labor and the wounds are vain, The enemy faints not, nor faileth, And as things have been, they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; It may be, in yon smoke concealed, Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, And but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, Seem here no painful inch to gain, Far back, through creeks and inlets making, Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light; In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly! But westward, look, the land is bright.

COME BACK

Come back, come back! behold with straining mast And swelling sail, behold her steaming fast: With one new sun to see her voyage o'er, With morning light to touch her native shore. Come back, come back!

Come back, come back! while westward laboring by, With sailless yards, a bare black hulk we fly. See how the gale we fight with sweeps her back To our lost home, on our forsaken track. Come back, come back!

Come back, come back! across the flying foam We hear faint far-off voices call us home: Come back! ye seem to say; ye seek in vain; We went, we sought, and homeward turned again. Come back, come back!

Come back, come back! and whither back, or why? To fan quenched hopes, forsaken schemes to try; Walk the old fields; pace the familiar street; Dream with the idlers, with the bards compete. Come back, come back!

Come back, come back! and whither and for what? To finger idly some old Gordian knot, Unskilled to sunder, and too weak to cleave, And with much toil attain to half-believe. Come back, come back!

Come back, come back! yea, back indeed do go Sighs panting thick, and tears that want to flow; Fond fluttering hopes upraise their useless wings, And wishes idly struggle in the strings. Come back, come back!

Come back, come back! more eager than the breeze The flying fancies sweep across the seas, And lighter far than ocean's flying foam The heart's fond message hurries to its home. Come back, come back!

Come back, come back! Back flies the foam; the hoisted flag streams back; The long smoke wavers on the homeward track; Back fly with winds things which the wind obey: The strong ship follows its appointed way.

AS SHIPS BECALMED

As ships becalmed at eve, that lay With canvas drooping, side by side, Two towers of sail, at dawn of day, Are scarce long leagues apart descried.

When fell the night, up sprang the breeze, And all the darkling hours they plied; Nor dreamt but each the self-same seas By each was clearing, side by side:

E'en so--but why the tale reveal Of those whom, year by year unchanged, Brief absence joined anew, to feel, Astounded, soul from soul estranged?

At dead of night their sails were filled. And onward each rejoicing steered; Ah! neither blame, for neither willed Or wist what first with dawn appeared.

To veer, how vain! On, onward strain, Brave barks!--in light, in darkness too! Through winds and tides one compass guides To that and your own selves be true.

But O blithe breeze! and O great seas! Though ne'er that earliest parting past, On your wide plain they join again, Together lead them home at last.

One port, methought, alike they sought,-- One purpose hold, where'er they fare; O bounding breeze, O rushing seas, At last, at last, unite them there.

THE UNKNOWN COURSE

Where lies the land to which the ship would go? Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know; And where the land she travels from? Away, Far, far behind, is all that they can say.

On sunny noons upon the deck's smooth face, Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace! Or, o'er the stern reclining, watch below The foaming wake far widening as we go.

On stormy nights, when wild Northwesters rave, How proud a thing to fight with wind and wave! The dripping sailor on the reeling mast Exults to bear, and scorns to wish it past.

Where lies the land to which the ship would go? Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. And where the land she travels from? Away, Far, far behind, is all that they can say.

THE GONDOLA

Afloat; we move--delicious! Ah, What else is like the gondola? This level flow of liquid glass Begins beneath us swift to pass. It goes as though it went alone By some impulsion of its own. (How light it moves, how softly! Ah, Were all things like the gondola!)

How light it moves, how softly! Ah, Could life, as does our gondola, Unvexed with quarrels, aims, and cares, And moral duties and affairs, Unswaying, noiseless, swift, and strong, For ever thus--thus glide along! (How light we move, how softly! Ah, Were life but as the gondola!)

With no more motion than should bear A freshness to the languid air; With no more effort than expressed The need and naturalness of rest, Which we beneath a grateful shade Should take on peaceful pillows laid! (How light we move, how softly! Ah, Were life but as the gondola!)

In one unbroken passage borne To closing night from opening morn, Uplift at whiles slow eyes to mark Some palace-front, some passing bark; Through windows catch the varying shore, And hear the soft turns of the oar! (How light we move, how softly! Ah, Were life but as the gondola!)

[Illustration: _THE GONDOLA._ View on the Grand Canal in Venice. Photogravure from a Photograph.]

THE POET'S PLACE IN LIFE

Come, Poet, come! A thousand laborers ply their task, And what it tends to, scarcely ask, And trembling thinkers on the brink Shiver, and know not what to think. To tell the purport of their pain, And what our silly joys contain; In lasting lineaments portray The substance of the shadowy day; Our real and inner deeds rehearse, And make our meaning clear in verse-- Come, Poet, come! for but in vain We do the work or feel the pain, And gather up the evening gain, Unless before the end thou come To take, ere they are lost, their sum.

Come, Poet, come! To give an utterance to the dumb, And make vain babblers silent, come; A thousand dupes point here and there, Bewildered by the show and glare; And wise men half have learnt to doubt Whether we are not best without. Come, Poet; both but wait to see Their error proved to them in thee.

Come, Poet, come! In vain I seem to call. And yet Think not the living times forget. Ages of heroes fought and fell That Homer in the end might tell; O'er groveling generations past Upstood the Doric fane at last; And countless hearts on countless years Had wasted thoughts, and hopes, and fears, Rude laughter and unmeaning tears,-- Ere England Shakespeare saw, or Rome The pure perfection of her dome. Others, I doubt not, if not we, The issue of our toils shall see; Young children gather as their own The harvest that the dead had sown-- The dead forgotten and unknown.

ON KEEPING WITHIN ONE'S PROPER SPHERE

From 'The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich'

[A party of Oxford men spend their long vacation in Scotland. In due course they return to their colleges. Adam, one of the party,--

"The grave man nicknamed Adam, White-tied, clerical, silent, with antique square-cut waistcoat,"

receives a letter at Christmas from Philip (Hewson),

"The Chartist, the poet, the eloquent speaker."]

What I said at Balloch has truth in it; only distorted. Plants are some for fruit, and some for flowering only; Let there be deer in parks as well as kine in paddocks, Grecian buildings upon the earth, as well as Gothic. There may be men perhaps whose vocation it is to be idle, Idle, sumptuous even, luxurious, if it must be: Only let each man seek to be that for which Nature meant him, Independent surely of pleasure, if not regardless, Independent also of station, if not regardless; Irrespective also of station, as of enjoyment; Do his duty in that state of life to which God, not man, shall call him.

If you were meant to plow, Lord Marquis, out with you and do it; If you were meant to be idle, O beggar, behold I will feed thee: Take my purse; you have far better right to it, friend, than the Marquis. If you were born for a groom,--and you seem by your dress to believe so,-- Do it like a man, Sir George, for pay, in a livery-stable; Yes, you may so release that slip of a boy at the corner, Fingering books at the window, misdoubting the Eighth Commandment. What, a mere Dean with those wits, that debtor-and-creditor headpiece! Go, my detective D.D., take the place of Burns the gauger. Ah, fair Lady Maria, God meant you to live and be lovely: Be so then, and I bless you. But ye, ye spurious ware, who Might be plain women, and can be by no possibility better! Ye unhappy statuettes, ye miserable trinkets, Poor alabaster chimney-piece ornaments under glass cases, Come, in God's name, come down! the very French clock by you Puts you to shame with ticking; the fire-irons deride you. Break your glasses; ye can! come down; ye are not really plaster, Come, in God's name, come down! do anything, be but something!

You, young girl, who have had such advantages, learnt so quickly, Can you not teach? Oh, yes, and she likes Sunday-school extremely, Only it's soon in the morning. Away! if to teach be your calling, It is no play, but a business: off! go teach and be paid for it. Surely that fussy old dowager yonder was meant for the counter; Oh, she is notable very, and keeps her servants in order Past admiration. Indeed, and keeps to employ her talent How many, pray? to what use? Away! the hotel's her vocation.

Lady Sophie's so good to the sick, so firm and so gentle: Is there a nobler sphere than of hospital nurse and matron? Hast thou for cooking a turn, little Lady Clarissa? in with them, In with your fingers! Their beauty it spoils, but your own it enhances; For it is beautiful only to do the thing we are meant for.

But they will marry, have husbands, and children, and guests, and households-- Are there so many trades for a man,--for women one only, First to look out for a husband and then to preside at his table?

* * * * *

Have you ever, Philip, my boy, looked at it in this way? When the armies are set in array, and the battle beginning, Is it well that the soldier whose post is far to the leftward Say, I will go to the right, it is there I shall do best service? There is a great Field-Marshal, my friend, who arrays our battalions; Let us to Providence trust, and abide and work in our stations.

CONSIDER IT AGAIN

"Old things need not be therefore true." O brother men, nor yet the new; Ah! still awhile the old thought retain, And yet consider it again!

The souls of now two thousand years Have laid up here their toils and fears, And all the earnings of their pain,-- Ah, yet consider it again!

We! what do you see? each a space Of some few yards before his face; Does that the whole wide plan explain? Ah, yet consider it again!

Alas! the great world goes its way, And takes its truth from each new day; They do not quit, nor yet retain, Far less consider it again.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

(1772-1834)

BY GEORGE E. WOODBERRY

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the English poet and philosopher, was born at Ottery St. Mary, in Devonshire, October 21st, 1772. He was the ninth and youngest son of the vicar of the parish,--a man characterized by learning and also by some of its foibles,--under whose care he passed his childhood; but on the death of his father he was sent up to London to be educated at Christ's Hospital, and there spent, in companionship with Lamb, his school days from 1782 to 1791. He went in the latter year to Jesus College Cambridge. His career as an undergraduate was marked by an escapade,--his enlistment in the King's Regiment of Light Dragoons in the winter of 1793-94, from which he was released by the influence of his relatives; and in more important ways by his friendship with Southey, whom he found on a visit to Oxford, and his engagement to Sarah Fricker in the summer of 1794. He had already been attached to another young lady, Mary Evans, with whose family he had been intimate. In December 1794 he left Cambridge without taking a degree, and on October 21st, 1795, he was married. His biography from this point is one of confused and intricate detail, which only a long story could set forth plainly and exactly. Its leading external events were a residence in Germany in 1798-99 and a voyage to Malta, with travel in Sicily and Italy in 1804-6; in its inward development, the turning-points of his life were his first intimacy with the Wordsworths in 1797, during which his best poems were composed; his subjection to the opium habit, with increasing domestic unhappiness, in 1801-2; and his retreat under medical control to Highgate in 1816. He was practically separated from his family from the time of his voyage to Malta. Troubles of many kinds filled all these years, but he had always a power to attract friends who were deeply interested in his welfare, and he was never without admirers and helpers. Before he withdrew to Highgate he had resided first at Stowey in the neighborhood of Tom Poole, and later at Greta Hall near the Wordsworths; but he was often away from home, and after he ceased to be an inmate there, from 1806 to 1816, he led a wandering life, either in lodgings frequently changed, or in visits to his friends. His resources were always small, and from the start his friends were his patrons, making up subscriptions, loans, and gifts for him; in 1798 the Wedgwoods gave him a pension of L150 for life, which was soon secured for the support of his family, and in 1812 one-half of this was withdrawn; in 1825 he was granted a royal pension of one hundred guineas, and when this lapsed in 1830 Frere made it up to him. De Quincey had distinguished himself by an act of singular and impulsive generosity to him, upon first acquaintance. He was always cared for, though his indulgence in opium made it difficult for those who knew the fact to assist him directly in a wise way. His pecuniary embarrassment, however, was constant and trying during a great part of his life; his own wretchedness of spirit, under the painful conditions of his bodily state and his moral as well as material position, was very great; but through all these sufferings and trials he maintained sufficient energy to leave behind him a considerable body of literary work. He died July 25th, 1834.

The poetic genius of Coleridge, the highest of his many gifts, found brilliant and fascinating expression. His poems--those in which his fame lives--are as unique as they are memorable; and though their small number, their confined range, and the brief period during which his faculty was exercised with full freedom and power, seem to indicate a narrow vein, yet the remainder of his work in prose and verse leaves an impression of extraordinary and abundant intellectual force. In proportion as his imaginative creations stand apart, the spirit out of which they came must have possessed some singularity: and if the reader is not content with simple aesthetic appreciation of what the gods provide, but has some touch of curiosity leading him to look into the source of such remarkable achievement and its human history, he is at once interested in the personality of the "subtle-souled psychologist," as Shelley with his accurate critical insight first named him; in experiencing the fascination of the poetry one remembers the charm which Coleridge had in life, that quality which arrested attention in all companies and drew men's minds and hearts with a sense of something marvelous in him--"the most wonderful man," said Wordsworth, "that I ever met." The mind and heart of Coleridge, his whole life, have been laid open by himself and his friends and acquaintances without reserve in many volumes of letters and memoirs; it is easy to figure him as he lived and to recover his moods and aspect: but in order to conceive his nature and define its traits, it is necessary to take account especially of his incomplete and less perfect work, of his miscellaneous interests, and those activities which filled and confused his life without having any important share in establishing his fame.

[Illustration: SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.]

The intellectual precocity which is the leading trait of Coleridge's boyhood, in the familiar portrait of "the inspired charity-boy" drawn by Lamb from schoolboy memories, is not unusual in a youth of genius; but the omnivorousness of knowledge which he then displayed continued into his manhood. He consumed vast quantities of book-learning. It is a more remarkable characteristic that from the earliest period in which he comes into clear view, he was accustomed to give out his ideas with freedom in an inexhaustible stream of talk. The activity of his mind was as phenomenal as its receptivity. In his college days, too, he was fanatical in all his energies. The remark of Southey after Shelley's visit to him, that here was a young man who was just what he himself had been in his college days, is illustrative; for if Southey was then inflamed with radicalism, Coleridge was yet more deeply infected and mastered by that wild fever of the revolutionary dawn. The tumult of Coleridge's mind, its incessant action, the lack of discipline in his thought, of restraint in his expression, of judgment in his affairs, are all important elements in his character at a time which in most men would be called the formative period of manhood, but which in him seems to have been intensely chaotic; what is most noticeable, however, is the volume of his mental energy. He expressed himself, too, in ways natural to such self-abundance. He was always a discourser, if the name may be used, from the London days at the "Salutation and the Cat" of which Lamb tells, saying that the landlord was ready to retain him because of the attraction of his conversation for customers; and as he went on to the more set forms of such monologue, he became a preacher without pay in Unitarian chapels, a journalist with unusual capacity for ready and sonorous writing in the press, a composer of whole periodicals such as his ventures The Watchman and The Friend, and a lecturer using only slight notes as the material of his remarks upon literature, education, philosophy, theology, or whatever the subject might be. In all these methods of expression which he took up one after the other, he merely talked in an ample way upon multifarious topics; in the conversation, sermon, leading article, written discourse, or flowing address, he was master of a swelling and often brilliant volubility, but he had neither the certainty of the orator nor the unfailing distinction of the author; there was an occasional and impromptu quality, a colloquial and episodical manner, the style of the irresponsible speaker. In his earlier days especially, the dominant note in Coleridge's whole nature was excitement. He was always animated, he was often violent, he was always without the principle of control. Indeed, a weakness of moral power seems to have been congenital, in the sense that he was not permanently bound by a practical sense of duty nor apparently observant of what place duty has in real life. There was misdirection of his affairs from the time when they came into his own hands; there was impulsiveness, thoughtlessness, a lack of judgment which augured ill for him; and in its total effect this amounted to folly. His intoxication with the scheme known as Pantisocracy, by which he with Southey and a few like-minded projectors were to found a socialistic community on the banks of the Susquehanna, is the most obvious comment on his practical sense. But his marriage, with the anecdotes of its preliminaries (one of which was that in those colloquies with Lamb at the London tavern, so charmingly described by his boon companion, he had forgotten his engagement or was indifferent to it), more strikingly exemplifies the irresponsible course of his life, more particularly as it proved to be ill-sorted, full of petty difficulties and makeshift expedients, and in the end a disastrous failure. A radical social scheme and an imprudent marriage might have fallen to his share of human folly, however, without exciting remark, if in other ways or at a later time he had exhibited the qualities which would allow one to dismiss these matters as mere instances of immaturity; but wherever Coleridge's reasonable control over himself or his affairs is looked to, it appears to have been feeble. On the other hand, the constancy of his excitement is plain. It was not only mental, but physical. He was, as a young man, full of energy and capable of a good deal of hard exercise; he had animal spirits, and Wordsworth describes him as "noisy" and "gamesome," as one who

"His limbs would toss about him with delight, Like branches when strong winds the trees annoy;"

and from several passages of his own writing, which are usually disregarded, the evidence of a spirit of rough humor and fun is easily obtained. The truth is that Coleridge changed a great deal in his life; he felt himself to be very different in later years from what he was in the time when to his memory even he was a sort of glorified spirit: and this earlier Coleridge had many traits which are ignored sometimes, as Carlyle ignored them, and are sometimes remembered rather as idealizations of his friends in their affectionate thoughts of him, but in any event are irreconcilable with the figure of the last period of his life.

It has been suggested that there was something of disease or at least of ill health in Coleridge always, and that it should be regarded as influencing his temperament. Whether it were so or not, the plea itself shows the fact. If excitement was the dominant note, as has been said, in his whole nature, it could not exist without a physical basis and accompaniment; and his bodily state appears to have been often less one of animation than of agitation, and his correspondence frequently discloses moods that seem almost frantic. In the issue, under stress of pain and trouble, he became an opium-eater; but his physical nature may fairly be described as predisposed to such states as lead to the use of opium and also result from its use, with the attendant mental moods. His susceptibility to sensuous impressions, to a voluptuousness of the entire being, together with a certain lassitude and languor, lead to the same conclusion, which thus seems to be supported on all sides,--that Coleridge was, in his youth and early manhood, fevered through all his intellectual and sensuous nature, and deficient on the moral and practical sides in those matters that related to his personal affairs. It is desirable to bring this out in plain terms, because in Coleridge it is best to acknowledge at once that his character was, so far as our part--the world's part--in him is concerned, of less consequence than his temperament; a subtler and more profound thing than character, though without moral meaning. It is not unfair to say, since literature is to be regarded most profitably as the expression of human personality, that with Coleridge the modern literature of temperament, as it has been lately recognized in extreme phases, begins; not that temperament is a new thing in the century now closing, nor that it has been without influence hitherto, but that now it is more often considered, and has in fact more often been, an exclusive ground of artistic expression. The temperament of Coleridge was one of diffused sensuousness physically, and of abnormal mental moods,--moods of weakness, languor, collapse, of visionary imaginative life with a night atmosphere of the spectral, moonlit, swimming, scarcely substantial world; and the poems he wrote, which are the contributions he made to the world's literature, are based on this temperament, like some Fata Morgana upon the sea. The apparent exclusion of reality from the poems in which his genius was most manifest finds its analogue in the detachment of his own mind from the moral, the practical, the usual in life as he led it in his spirit; and his work of the highest creative sort, which is all there is to his enduring fame, stands amid his prose and verse composition of a lower sort like an island in the waste of waters. This may be best shown, perhaps, by a gradual approach through his cruder to his more perfect compositions.

The cardinal fact in Coleridge's genius is that notwithstanding his immense sensuous susceptibilities and mental receptivity, and the continual excitement of his spirit, he never rose into the highest sphere of creative activity except for the brief period called his _annus mirabilis_, when his great poems were written; and with this is the further related fact that in him we witness the spectacle of the imaginative instinct overborne and supplanted by the intellectual faculty exercising its speculative and critical functions; and in addition, one observes in his entire work an extraordinary inequality not only of treatment, but also of subject-matter. In general, he was an egoistic writer. His sensitiveness to nature was twofold: in the first place he noticed in the objects and movements of nature evanescent and minute details, and as his sense of beauty was keen, he saw and recorded truly the less obvious and less common loveliness in the phenomena of the elements and the seasons, and this gave distinction to his mere description and record of fact; in the second place he often felt in himself moods induced by nature, but yet subjective,--states of his own spirit, which sometimes deepened the charm of night, for example, by his enjoyment of its placid aspects, and sometimes imparted to the external world a despair reflected from his personal melancholy. In his direct treatment of nature, however, as Mr. Stopford Brooke points out, he seldom achieves more than a catalogue of his sensations, which though touched with imaginative detail are never lifted and harmonized into lyrical unity; though he can moralize nature in Wordsworth's fashion, when he does so the result remains Wordsworth's and is stamped with that poet's originality; and in his own original work Coleridge never equaled either the genius of Shelley, who can identify nature with himself, or the charm of Tennyson, who can at least parallel nature's phenomena with his own human moods. Coleridge would not be thought of as a poet of nature, except in so far as he describes what he observes in the way of record, or gives a metaphysical interpretation to phenomena. This is the more remarkable because he had to an eminent degree that intellectual power, that overmastering desire of the mind, to rationalize the facts of life. It was this quality that made him a philosopher, an analyst, a critic on the great lines of Aristotle, seeking to impose an order of ethics and metaphysics on all artistic productions. But in those poems in which he describes nature directly and without metaphysical thought, there is no trace of anything more than a sensuous order of his own perceptions. Beautiful and often unique as his nature poems are, they are not creative. They are rather in the main autobiographic; and it is surprising to notice how large a proportion of his verse is thus autobiographic, not in those phases of his own life which may be, or at least are thought of as representative of human life in the mass, but which are personal, such as the lines written after hearing Wordsworth read the 'Prelude,' or those entitled 'Dejection.' When his verse is not confined to autobiographic expression, it is often a product of his interest in his friends or in his family. What is not personal in it, of this sort, is apt to be domestic or social.

If we turn from the poems of nature to those concerned with man, a similar shallowness, either of interest or of power, appears. He was in early years a radical; he was stirred by the Revolution in France, and he was emotionally charged with the ideas of the time,--ideas of equality, fraternity, and liberty. But this interest died out, as is shown by his political verse. He had none but a social and a philosophical interest in any case. Man, the individual, did not at any time attract him. There was nothing dramatic in his genius, in the narrow and exact sense: he did not engage his curiosity or his philosophy in individual fortunes. It results from this limitation that his verse lacks human interest of the dramatic kind. The truth was that he was interested in thought rather than in deeds, in human nature rather than in its concrete pity and terror. Thus he did not seize on life itself as the material of his imagination and reflection. In the case of man as in the case of nature he gives us only an egoistic account, telling us of his own private fortune, his fears, pains, and despairs, but only as a diary gives them; as he did not transfer his nature impressions into the world of creative art, so he did not transfer his personal experiences into that world.

What has been said would perhaps be accepted, were it not for the existence of those poems, 'The Ancient Mariner,' 'Christabel,' 'Kubla Khan,' which are the marvelous creations of his genius. In these it will be said there is both a world of nature new created, and a dramatic method and interest. It is enough for the purpose of the analysis if it be granted that nowhere else in Coleridge's work, except in these and less noticeably in a few other instances, do these high characteristics occur. The very point which is here to be brought out is that Coleridge applied that intellectual power, that overmastering desire of the mind to rationalize the phenomena of life, which has been mentioned as his great mental trait,--that he applied this faculty with different degrees of power at different times, so that his poetry falls naturally into higher and inferior categories; in the autobiographic verse, in the political and dramatic verse which forms so large a part of his work, it appears that he did not have sufficient feeling or exercise sufficient power to raise it out of the lower levels of composition; in his great works of constructive and impersonal art, of moral intensity or romantic beauty and fascination, he did so exercise the creative imagination as to make these of the highest rank, or at least one of them.

'The Ancient Mariner,' apart from its many minor merits, has this distinction in Coleridge's work,--it is a poem of perfect unity. 'Christabel' is a fragment, 'Kubla Khan' is a glimpse; and though the 'Ode to France,' 'Love, Youth, and Age,' and possibly a few other short pieces, have this highest artistic virtue of unity, yet in them it is of a simpler kind. 'The Ancient Mariner,' on the other hand, is a marvel of construction in that its unity is less complex than manifold; it exists, however the form be examined. In the merely external sense, the telling of the tale to the Wedding Guest, with the fact that the wedding is going on, gives it unity; in the merely internal sense, the moral lesson of the salvation of the slayer of the albatross by the medium of love felt toward living things, subtly yet lucidly worked out as the notion is, gives it unity; but in still other ways, as a story of connected and consequential incidents with a plot, a change of fortune, a climax, and the other essentials of this species of tale-telling, it has unity; and if its conception either of the physical or the ethical world be analyzed, these too--and these are the fundamental things--are found consistent wholes. It nevertheless remains true that this system of nature as a vitalized but not humanized mode of life, with its bird, its spirit, its magical powers, is not the nature that we know or believe to be,--it is a modern presentation of an essentially primitive and animistic belief; and similarly this system of human life,--if the word human can be applied to it, with its dead men, its skeleton ship, its spirit sailors, its whole miracle of spectral being,--is not the life we know or believe to be: it is an incantation, a simulacrum. It may still be true therefore that the imaginative faculty of Coleridge was not applied either to nature or human life, in the ordinary sense. And this it is that constitutes the uniqueness of the poem, and its wonderful fascination. Coleridge fell heir, by the accidents of time and the revolutions of taste, to the ballad style, its simplicity, directness, and narrative power; he also was most attracted to the machinery of the supernatural, the weird, the terrible, almost to the grotesque and horrid, as these literary motives came into fashion in the crude beginnings of romanticism in our time; his subtle mind, his fine senses, his peculiar susceptibility to the mystic and shadowy in nature,--as shown by his preference of the moonlight, dreamy, or night aspects of real nature, to its brilliant beauties in the waking world,--gave him ease and finesse in the handling of such subject-matter; and he lived late enough to know that all this eerie side of human experience and imaginative capacity, inherited from primeval ages but by no means yet deprived of plausibility, could be effectively used only as an allegoric or scenic setting of what should be truth to the ethical sense; he combined one of the highest lessons of advanced civilization, one of the last results of spiritual perception,--the idea of love toward life in any form,--with the animistic beliefs and supernatural fancies of the crude ages of the senses. This seems to be the substantial matter; and in this he was, to repeat Shelley's phrase, the "subtle-souled psychologist." The material of his imagination, on the sensuous side, was of the slightest: it was the supernaturalism of the romantic movement, somewhat modified by being placed in connection with the animal world; and he put this to use as a means of illustrating spiritual truth. He thus became the first of those who have employed the supernatural in our recent literature without losing credence for it, as an allegory of psychological states, moral facts, or illusions real to the eye that sees them and having some logical relation to the past of the individual; of such writers Hawthorne and Poe are eminent examples, and both of them, it may be remarked, are writers in whom temperament rather than character is the ground of their creative work. The intimate kinship between imagination so directed and the speculative philosophical temper is plain to see. In 'Christabel' on the other hand, the moral substance is not apparent: the place filled by the moral ideas which are the centres of the narrative in 'The Ancient Mariner,' is taken here by emotional situations; but the supernaturalism is practically the same in both poems, and in both is associated with that mystery of the animal world to man, most concentrated and vivid in the fascination ascribed traditionally to the snake, which is the animal motive in 'Christabel' as the goodness of the albatross in the 'The Ancient Mariner.' In these poems the good and the bad omens that ancient augurs minded are made again dominant over men's imagination. Such are the signal and unique elements in these poems, which have besides that wealth of beauty in detail, of fine diction, of liquid melody, of sentiment, thought, and image, which belong only to poetry of the highest order, and which are too obvious to require any comment. 'Kubla Khan' is a poem of the same kind, in which the mystical effect is given almost wholly by landscape; it is to 'The Ancient Mariner' and 'Christabel' what protoplasm is to highly organized cells.

If it be recognized then that the imagery of Coleridge in the characteristic parts of these cardinal poems is as pure allegory, is as remote from nature or man, as is the machinery of fairy-land and chivalry in Spenser, for example, and he obtains credibility by the psychological and ethical truth presented in this imagery, it is not surprising that his work is small in amount; for the method is not only a difficult one, but the poetic machinery itself is limited and meagre. The poverty of the subject-matter is manifest, and the restrictions to its successful use are soon felt. It may well be doubted whether 'Christabel' would have gained by being finished. In 'The Ancient Mariner' the isolation of the man is a great advantage; if there had been any companion for him, the illusion could not have been entire: as it is, what he experiences has the wholeness and truth within itself of a dream, or of a madman's world,--there is no standard of appeal outside of his own senses and mind, no real world; but in 'Christabel' the serpentine fable goes on in a world of fact and action, and as soon as the course of the story involved this fable in the probabilities and actual occurences of life, it might well be that the tale would have turned into one of simple enchantment and magic, as seems likely from what has been told of its continuation; certainly it could not have equaled the earlier poem, or have been in the same kind with it, unless the unearthly magic, the spell, were finally completely dissolved into the world of moral truth as is the case with 'The Ancient Mariner.' Coleridge found it still more impossible to continue 'Kubla Khan.' It seems a fair inference to conclude that Coleridge's genius, however it suffered from the misfortunes and ills of his life, was in these works involved in a field, however congenial, yet of narrow range and infertile in itself. In poetic style it is to be observed that he kept what he had gained; the turbid diction of the earlier period never came back to trouble him, and the cadences he had formed still gave their music to his verse. The change, the decline, was not in his power of style; it was in his power of imagination, if at all, but the fault may have laid in the capacities of the subject-matter. A similar thing certainly happened in his briefer ballad poetry, in that of which 'Love,' 'The Three Graces,' 'Alice Du Clos,' and 'The Dark Ladie,' are examples; the matter there, the machinery of the romantic ballad, was no longer capable of use; that sort of literature was dead from the exhaustion of its motives. The great 'Ode to France,' in which he reached his highest point of eloquent and passionate expression, seems to mark the extinction in himself of the revolutionary impulse. On the whole, while the excellence of much of the remainder of his verse, even in later years, is acknowledged, and its originality in several instances, may it not be that in his greatest work Coleridge came to an end because of an impossibility in the kind itself? The supernatural is an accessory rather than a main element in the interpretation of life which literary genius undertakes; Coleridge so subordinates it here by making it contributory to a moral truth; but such a practice would seem to be necessarily incidental to a poet who was also so intellectual as Coleridge, and not to be adopted as a permanent method of self-expression.

From whatever cause, the fact was that Coleridge ceased to create in poetry, and fell back on that fluent, manifold, voluminous faculty he possessed of absorbing and giving out ideas in vast quantities, as it were by bulk. He attended especially to the theory of art as he found it illustrated in the greatest poets, and he popularized among literary men a certain body of doctrine regarding criticism, its growth and methods; and in later years he worked out metaphysical theological views which he inculcated in ways which won for him recognition as a practical influence in contemporary church opinion. In these last years of his lecturing and discoursing in private, the figure he makes is pathetic, though Carlyle describes it with a grim humor, as any one may read in the 'Life of Sterling': over against that figure should be set the descriptions of the young Coleridge by Dorothy Wordsworth and Lamb; and after these perhaps the contrast which Coleridge himself draws between his spirit and his body may enable a reader to fuse the two--youth and age--into one. Whatever were the weaknesses of his nature and the trials of his life, of which one keeps silent, he was deeply loved by friends of many different minds, who if they grew cold, had paid at least once this tribute to the charm, the gentleness, and the delight of his human companionship.

[Signature: G. E. Woodberry]

KUBLA KHAN

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree, Where Alph the sacred river ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With wall and towers were girdled round; And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover: A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced; Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail; And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves; Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw; It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song To such a deep delight 'twould win me That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air--

That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! beware His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed And drunk the milk of Paradise.

THE ALBATROSS

From 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'

With sloping masts and dripping prow, As who, pursued with yell and blow, Still treads the shadow of his foe, And forward bends his head, The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, And southward aye we fled.

And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold; And ice, mast-high, came floating by, As green as emerald.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts Did send a dismal sheen; Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken-- The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around; It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an Albatross: Thorough the fog it came; As if it had been a Christian soul, We hailed it in God's name.

It ate the food it ne'er had eat, And round and round it flew. The ice did split with a thunder-fit; The helmsman steered us through!

And a good south-wind sprung up behind; The Albatross did follow, And every day, for food or play, Came to the mariner's hollo!

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perched for vespers nine; Whilst all the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmered the white moonshine.--

God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the fiends that plague thee thus! Why look'st thou so?--With my cross-bow I shot the Albatross!

* * * * *

The Sun now rose upon the right; Out of the sea came he, Still hid in mist, and on the left Went down into the sea.

And the good south-wind still blew behind, But no sweet bird did follow, Nor any day for food or play Came to the mariner's hollo!

And I had done a hellish thing, And it would work 'em woe: For all averred, I had killed the bird That made the breeze to blow. Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay, That made the breeze to blow!

Nor dim nor red, like God's own head The glorious Sun uprist: Then all averred, I had killed the bird That brought the fog and mist. 'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, That bring the fog and mist.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea.

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, 'Twas sad as sad could be; And we did speak only to break The silence of the sea!

All in a hot and copper sky, The bloody Sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the Moon.

Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink: Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot: O Christ! That ever this should be! Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs Upon the slimy sea.

About, about, in reel and rout The death-fires danced at night; The water, like a witch's oils, Burnt green, and blue, and white.

And some in dreams assured were Of the spirit that plagued us so; Nine fathoms deep he had followed us From the land of mist and snow.

And every tongue, through utter drought, Was withered at the root; We could not speak, no more than if We had been choked with soot.

Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks Had I from old and young! Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung.

TIME, REAL AND IMAGINARY

On the wide level of a mountain's head (I knew not where, but 'twas some faery place), Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails outspread, Two lovely children run an endless race, A sister and a brother! This far outstript the other; Yet ever runs she with reverted face, And looks and listens for the boy behind: For he, alas! is blind! O'er rough and smooth with even step he passed, And knows not whether he be first or last.

DEJECTION: AN ODE

Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon, With the old Moon in her arms; And I fear, I fear, my Master dear! We shall have a deadly storm.

BALLAD OF SIR PATRICK SPENCE.

Well! if the bard was weather-wise, who made The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence Unroused by winds that ply a busier trade Than those which mold yon cloud in lazy flakes, Or the dull sobbing draft that moans and rakes Upon the strings of this AEolian lute, Which better far were mute.

For lo! the New Moon, winter-bright And overspread with phantom light, With swimming phantom light o'erspread, But rimmed and circled by a silver thread; I see the old Moon in her lap, foretelling The coming on of rain and squally blast. And oh! that even now the gust were swelling, And the slant night-shower driving hard and fast! Those sounds, which oft have raised me, whilst they awed, And sent my soul abroad, Might now perhaps their wonted impulse give-- Might startle this dull pain and make it move and live.

A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear-- A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief, Which finds no natural outlet, no relief, In word, or sigh, or tear-- O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood, To other thoughts by yonder throstle wooed, All this long eve, so balmy and serene, Have I been gazing on the western sky, And its peculiar tint of yellow-green; And still I gaze--and with how blank an eye! And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars, That give away their motion to the stars,-- Those stars that glide behind them or between, Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen; Yon crescent Moon, as fixed as if it grew In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue: I see them all so excellently fair-- I see, nor feel, how beautiful they are!

My genial spirits fail; And what can these avail, To lift the smothering weight from off my breast? It were a vain endeavor, Though I should gaze forever On that green light that lingers in the west: I may not hope from outward forms to win The passion and the life whose fountains are within.

O lady! we receive but what we give, And in our life alone does Nature live; Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud! And would we aught behold of higher worth Than that inanimate cold world allowed To the poor loveless, ever-anxious crowd-- Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud Enveloping the earth; And from the soul itself must there be sent A sweet and potent voice of its own birth, Of all sweet sounds the life and element!

O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me What this strong music in the soul may be, What and wherein it doth exist, This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist, This beautiful and beauty-making power: Joy, virtuous lady! Joy that ne'er was given Save to the pure, and in their purest hour, Life, and life's effluence, cloud at once and shower-- Joy, lady, is the spirit and the power Which wedding nature to us, gives in dower A new Earth and Heaven, Undreamt-of by the sensual and the proud; Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud-- We in ourselves rejoice! And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight, All melodies the echoes of that voice, All colors a suffusion from that light. There was a time when, though my path was rough, This joy within me dallied with distress; And all misfortunes were but as the stuff Whence fancy made me dreams of happiness. For hope grew round me like the twining vine; And fruits and foliage, not my own, seemed mine.

But now afflictions bow me down to earth, Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth; But oh! each visitation Suspends what nature gave me at my birth, My shaping spirit of imagination. For not to think of what I needs must feel, But to be still and patient, all I can; And haply by abstruse research to steal From my own nature all the natural man-- This was my sole resource, my only plan; Till that which suits a part infects the whole, And now is almost grown the habit of my soul.

Hence, viper thoughts that coil around my mind-- Reality's dark dream! I turn from you, and listen to the wind, Which long has raved unnoticed. What a scream Of agony, by torture lengthened out, That lute sent forth! Thou wind, that ravest without! Bare crag, or mountain-tairn, or blasted tree, Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb, Or lonely house, long held the witches' home, Methinks were fitter instruments for thee, Mad lutanist! who in this month of showers, Of dark-brown gardens, and of peeping flowers, Makest devils' Yule, with worse than wintry song, The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among! Thou actor, perfect in all tragic sounds! Thou mighty poet, e'en to frenzy bold! What tell'st thou now about? 'Tis of the rushing of a host in rout, With groans of trampled men, with smarting wounds-- At once they groan with pain, and shudder with the cold

But hush! there is a pause of deepest silence! And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd, With groans and tremulous shudderings--all is over-- It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and loud! A tale of less affright, And tempered with delight, As Otway's self had framed the tender lay; 'Tis of a little child Upon a lonesome wild-- Not far from home, but she hath lost her way; And now moans low in bitter grief and fear-- And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother hear.

'Tis midnight, but small thoughts have I of sleep; Full seldom may my friend such vigils keep! Visit her, gentle Sleep, with wings of healing! And may this storm be but a mountain-birth; May all the stars hang bright above her dwelling, Silent as though they watched the sleeping earth! With light heart may she rise,-- Gay fancy, cheerful eyes-- Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice; To her may all things live, from pole to pole-- Their life the eddying of her living soul! O simple spirit, guided from above! Dear Lady! friend devoutest of my choice! Thus mayest thou ever, evermore rejoice.

THE THREE TREASURES

COMPLAINT

How seldom, Friend! a good great man inherits Honor or wealth, with all his worth and pains! It sounds like stories from the land of spirits, If any man obtain that which he merits, Or any merit that which he obtains.

REPROOF

For shame, dear Friend; renounce this canting strain! What wouldst thou have a good great man obtain? Place--titles--salary--a gilded chain-- Or throne of corses which his sword has slain? Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends! Hath he not always treasures, always friends, The good great man? three treasures,--love and light, And calm thoughts, regular as infant's breath; And three firm friends, more sure than day and night-- Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.

TO A GENTLEMAN

COMPOSED ON THE NIGHT AFTER HIS RECITATION OF A POEM ON THE GROWTH OF AN INDIVIDUAL MIND

Friend of the Wise! and Teacher of the Good! Into my heart have I received that lay More than historic, that prophetic lay. Wherein (high theme by thee first sung aright) Of the foundations and the building up Of a Human Spirit thou hast dared to tell What may be told, to the understanding mind Revealable; and what within the mind. By vital breathings secret as the soul Of vernal growth, oft quickens in the heart Thoughts all too deep for words!

Theme hard as high! Of smiles spontaneous, and mysterious fears, The first-born they of Reason, and twin-birth; Of tides obedient to external force, And currents self-determined, as might seem, Or by some inner Power; of moments awful. Now in thy inner life, and now abroad, When Power stream'd from thee, and thy soul received The light reflected, as a light bestowed Of fancies fair, and milder hours of youth. Hyblean murmurs of poetic thought, Industrious in its joy, in Vales and Glens Native or outland, Lakes and famous Hills! Or on the lonely High-road, when the Stars Were rising; or by secret mountain Streams. The Guides and the Companions of thy way!

Of more than Fancy, of the Social Sense Distending wide, and Man beloved as Man, Where France in all her town lay vibrating Like some becalmed bark beneath the burst Of Heaven's immediate thunder, when no cloud Is visible, or shadow on the Main. For thou wert there, thine own brows garlanded, Amid the tremor of a realm aglow. Amid a mighty nation jubilant, When from the general heart of humankind Hope sprang forth like a full-born Deity! ... Of that dear Hope afflicted and struck down So summoned homeward, thenceforth calm and sure, From the dread watch-tower of man's absolute Self With light unwaning on her eyes, to look Far on--herself a glory to behold, The Angel of the vision! Then (last strain) Of Duty, chosen laws controlling choice,

## Action and Joy!--An Orphic song indeed,

A song divine of high and passionate thoughts, To their own music chanted!

O great Bard! Ere yet that last strain, dying, awed the air, With stedfast eye I viewed thee in the choir Of ever-enduring men. The truly Great Have all one age, and from one visible space Shed influence! They, both in power and act, Are permanent, and Time is not with _them_, Save as it worketh _for_ them, they _in_ it. Nor less a sacred roll than those of old, And to be placed, as they, with gradual fame Among the archives of mankind, thy work Makes audible a linked lay of Truth, Of Truth profound a sweet continuous lay, Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes! Ah! as I listened with a heart forlorn, The pulses of my being beat anew: And even as life returns upon the drowned, Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains-- Keen Pangs of Love, awakening as a babe Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart; And Fears self-willed that shunned the eye of Hope, And Hope that scarce would know itself from Fear, Sense of past Youth; and Manhood come in vain, And all which I had culled in wood-walks wild, And all which patient toil had reared, and all, Commune with _thee_ had opened out--but flowers Strewed on my corse, and borne upon my bier, In the same coffin, for the self-same grave!

That way no more! and ill beseems it me Who came a welcomer in herald's guise Singing of Glory and Futurity, To wander back on such unhealthful road. Plucking the poisons of self-harm! And ill Such intertwine beseems triumphal wreaths Strewed before _thy_ advancing!

Nor do thou, Sage Bard! impair the memory of that hour Of my communion with thy nobler mind Pity or Grief, already felt too long! Nor let my words import more blame than needs. The tumult rose and ceased: for Peace is nigh Where Wisdom's voice has found a listening heart. Amid the howl of more than wintry storms, The Halcyon hears the voice of vernal hours Already on the wing.

Eve following eve, Dear tranquil time, when the sweet sense of Home Is sweetest! moments for their own sake hailed And more desired, more precious for thy song, In silence listening, like a devout child, My soul lay passive, by the various strain Driven as in surges now beneath the stars, With momentary Stars of my own birth, Fair constellated Foam, still darting off Into the darkness; now a tranquil sea, Outspread and bright, yet swelling to the Moon. And when--O Friend! my comforter and guide! Strong in thyself, and powerful to give strength!-- Thy long-sustained song finally closed, And thy deep voice had ceased--yet thou thyself Wert still before my eyes, and round us both That happy vision of beloved faces-- Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close, I sate, my being blended in one thought (Thought was it? or Aspiration? or Resolve?) Absorbed, yet hanging still upon the sound-- And when I rose, I found myself in prayer.

ODE TO GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE

ON THE TWENTY-FOURTH STANZA IN HER 'PASSAGE OVER MOUNT GOTHARD'

And hail the Chapel! hail the Platform wild! Where Tell directed the avenging Dart, With well-strung arm, that first preserved his Child, Then aim'd the arrow at the Tyrant's heart.

Splendor's fondly fostered child! And did you hail the platform wild Where once the Austrian fell Beneath the shaft of Tell? O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! Whence learnt you that heroic measure?

Light as a dream your days their circlets ran; From all that teaches Brotherhood to Man, Far, far removed! from want, from hope, from fear. Enchanting music lulled your infant ear, Obeisance, praises, soothed your infant heart; Emblazonments and old ancestral crests, With many a bright obtrusive form of art, Detained your eye from nature's stately vests That veiling strove to deck your charms divine; Rich viands and the pleasurable wine, Where yours unearned by toil; nor could you see The unenjoying toiler's misery. And yet, free Nature's uncorrupted child, You hailed the Chapel and the Platform wild, Where once the Austrian fell Beneath the shaft of Tell! O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! Where learnt you that heroic measure?

There crowd your finely fibred frame, All living faculties of bliss; And Genius to your cradle came, His forehead wreathed with lambent flame, And bending low, with godlike kiss Breathed in a more celestial life; But boasts not many a fair compeer A heart as sensitive to joy and fear?

And some, perchance, might wage an equal strife, Some few, to nobler being wrought, Co-rivals in the nobler gift of thought. Yet _these_ delight to celebrate Laureled War and plumy State; Or in verse and music dress Tales of rustic happiness-- Pernicious Tales! insidious Strains! That steel the rich man's breast, And mock the lot unblest, The sordid vices and the abject pains, Which evermore must be The doom of Ignorance and Penury! But you, free Nature's uncorrupted child. You hailed the Chapel and the Platform wild, Where once the Austrian fell Beneath the shaft of Tell! O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! Where learnt you that heroic measure?

You were a Mother! That most holy name, Which Heaven and Nature bless, I may not vilely prostitute to those Whose Infants owe them less Than the poor Caterpillar owes Its gaudy Parent Fly. You were a Mother! at your bosom fed The Babes that loved you. You, with laughing eye, Each twilight-thought, each nascent feeling read. Which you yourself created. Oh, delight! A second time to be a Mother, Without the Mother's bitter groans: Another thought, and yet another, By touch, or taste, by looks or tones, O'er the growing Sense to roll, The Mother of your infant's Soul! The Angel of the Earth, who while he guides His chariot-planet round the goal of day, All trembling gazes on the Eye of God, A moment turned his face away; And as he viewed you, from his aspect sweet New influences in your being rose, Blest Intuitions and Communions fleet With living Nature, in her joys and woes!

Thenceforth your soul rejoiced to see The shrine of social Liberty! O beautiful! O Nature's child! 'Twas thence you hailed the Platform wild, Where once the Austrian fell Beneath the shaft of Tell! O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! Thence learnt you that heroic measure.

THE PAINS OF SLEEP

Ere on my bed my limbs I lay, It hath not been my use to pray With moving lips or bended knees; But silently, by slow degrees, My spirit I to Love compose, In humble Trust mine eyelids close, With reverential resignation; No wish conceived, no thought expressed! Only a _sense_ of supplication, A sense o'er all my soul imprest That I am weak, yet not unblest; Since in me, round me, everywhere, Eternal Strength and Wisdom are.

But yesternight I prayed aloud In anguish and in agony, Upstarting from the fiendish crowd Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me: A lurid light, a trampling throng, Sense of intolerable wrong, And whom I scorned, those only strong! Thirst of revenge, the powerless will Still baffled, and yet burning still! Desire with loathing strangely mixed On wild or hateful objects fixed. Fantastic passions! maddening brawl! And shame and terror over all! Deeds to be hid which were not hid, Which, all confused, I could not know Whether I suffered, or I did: For all seemed guilt, remorse, or woe,-- My own or others', still the same Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame. So two nights passed: the night's dismay Saddened and stunned the coming day. Sleep, the wide blessing, seemed to me Distemper's worst calamity. The third night, when my own loud scream Had waked me from the fiendish dream, O'ercome with sufferings strange and wild, I wept as I had been a child; And having thus by tears subdued My anguish to a milder mood, Such punishments, I said, were due To natures deepliest stained with sin; For aye entempesting anew The unfathomable hell within, The horror of their deeds to view, To know and loathe, yet wish to do!

Such griefs with such men well agree, But wherefore, wherefore fall on me? To be beloved is all I need, And whom I love, I love indeed.

SONG, BY GLYCINE

A sunny shaft did I behold, From sky to earth it slanted; And poised therein a bird so bold-- Sweet bird, thou wert enchanted!

He sunk, he rose, he twinkled, he trolled Within that shaft of sunny mist; His eyes of fire, his beak of gold, All else of amethyst!

And thus he sang: "Adieu! adieu! Love's dreams prove seldom true. The blossoms, they make no delay: The sparkling dewdrops will not stay. Sweet month of May, We must away; Far, far away! To-day! to-day!"

YOUTH AND AGE

Verse, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying, Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee-- Both were mine! Life went a-Maying With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, When I was young! _When_ I was young?--Ah, woful _when_! Ah, for the change 'twixt now and then! This breathing house not built with hands, This body that does me grievous wrong, O'er airy cliffs and glittering sands, How lightly _then_ it flashed along:-- Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore, On winding lakes and rivers wide, That ask no aid of sail or oar, That fear no spite of wind or tide! Naught cared this body for wind or weather When Youth and I lived in't together.

Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like, Friendship is a sheltering tree; O the joys that came down shower-like, Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty! Ere I was old! _Ere_ I was old? Ah, woful _Ere_, Which tells me Youth's no longer here! O Youth! for years so many and sweet, 'Tis known that thou and I were one; I'll think it but a fond conceit-- It cannot be that thou art gone! Thy vesper bell hath not yet tolled:-- And thou wert aye a masker bold! What strange disguise hast now put on To _make believe_ that thou art gone? I see these locks in silvery slips, This drooping gait, this alter'd size: But spring-tide blossoms on thy lips, And tears take sunshine from thine eyes! Life is but thought: so think I will That Youth and I are housemates still.

PHANTOM OR FACT?

AUTHOR

A lovely form there sate beside my bed, And such a feeding calm its presence shed, A tender love, so pure from earthly leaven That I unnethe the fancy might control, 'Twas my own spirit newly come from heaven, Wooing its gentle way into my soul! But ah! the change--it had not stirred, and yet-- Alas! that change how fain would I forget! That shrinking back like one that had mistook! That weary, wandering, disavowing Look! 'Twas all another,--feature, look, and frame,-- And still, methought, I knew it was the same!

FRIEND

This riddling tale, to what does it belong? Is't history? vision? or an idle song? Or rather say at once, within what space Of time this wild disastrous change took place?

AUTHOR

Call it a _moment's_ work (and such it seems); This tale's a fragment from the life of dreams: But say that years matured the silent strife, And 'tis a record from the dream of Life.

WILLIAM COLLINS

(1721-1759)

[Illustration: WILLIAM COLLINS]

There is much to inspire regretful sympathy in the short life of William Collins. He was born at Chichester, and received his education at Winchester College and at Magdalen College, Oxford. A delicate, bookish boy, he had every stimulus toward a literary career. With a fine appreciation of beauty in all forms of art, and a natural talent for versification, he wrote poems of much promise when very young. His 'Persian Eclogues' appeared when he was only seventeen. Then Collins showed his impatient spirit and fickleness of purpose by deserting his work at Oxford and going to London with the intention of authorship. His head was full of brilliant schemes,--too full; for with him as with most people, conception was always easier than execution. But finding it far more difficult to win fame than he anticipated, he had not courage to persevere, and fell into dissipated, extravagant ways which soon exhausted his small means.

In 1746 he published the 'Odes, Descriptive and Allegorical,' his most characteristic work. They were never widely read, and it took the public some time to appreciate their lyric fervor, their exquisite imagery, and their musical verse. In spite of occasional obscurities induced by careless treatment, they are among the finest of English odes. His love for nature and sympathy with its calmer aspects is very marked. Speaking of the 'Ode to Evening,' Hazlitt says that "the sounds steal slowly over the ear like the gradual coming on of evening itself." According to Swinburne, the 'Odes' do not contain "a single false note." "Its grace and vigor, its vivid and pliant dexterity of touch," he says of the 'Ode to the Passions,' "are worthy of their long inheritance of praise."

But the inheritance did not come at once, although Collins has always received generous praise from fellow poets. His mortified self-love resented lack of success. With a legacy bequeathed him by an uncle he bought his book back from the publisher Millar, and the unsold impressions he burned in "angry despair."

Meantime he went on planning works quite beyond his power of execution. He advertised 'Proposals for a History of the Revival of Learning,' which he never wrote. He began several tragedies, but his indolent genius would not advance beyond devising the plots. As he was always wasteful and dissipated, he was continually in debt. In spite of his unusual gifts, he had not the energy and self-control necessary for adequate literary expression. Dr. Johnson, who admired and tried to befriend him, found a bailiff prowling around the premises when he went to call. At his instigation a bookseller advanced money to get Collins out of London, for which in return he was to translate Aristotle's 'Poetics' and to write a commentary. Probably he never fulfilled the agreement. Indeed, he had some excuse. "A man doubtful of his dinners, or trembling at a creditor, is not disposed to abstract meditation or remote inquiries," comments Dr. Johnson.

Collins was always weak of body, and when still a young man was seized by mental disease. Weary months of despondency were succeeded by madness, until he was, as Dr. Wharton describes it, with "every spark of imagination extinguished, and with only the faint traces of memory and reason left." Then the unhappy poet was taken to Chichester and cared for by a sister. There he who had loved music so passionately hated the cathedral organ in his madness, and when he heard it, howled in distress.

Among the best examples of his verse, besides the poems already mentioned, are the 'Dirge to Cymbeline,' 'Ode to Fear,' and the 'Ode on the Poetical Character,' which Hazlitt calls "the best of all."

HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest By all their country's wishes blest! When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallowed mold, She there shall dress a sweeter sod Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung, By forms unseen their dirge is sung; There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that wraps their clay, And Freedom shall a while repair, To dwell a weeping hermit there!

THE PASSIONS

When Music, heavenly maid! was young, While yet in early Greece she sung, The Passions oft, to hear her shell, Thronged around her magic cell. Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting, Possest beyond the Muse's painting; By turns they felt the glowing mind Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined: Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired, Filled with fury, rapt, inspired, From the supporting myrtles round They snatched her instruments of sound, And as they oft had heard apart Sweet lessons of her forceful art, Each--for Madness ruled the hour-- Would prove his own expressive power.

First Fear his hand, its skill to try, Amid the chords bewildered laid; And back recoiled, he knew not why, E'en at the sound himself had made.

Next Anger rushed; his eyes on fire, In lightnings owned his secret stings; In one rude clash he struck the lyre, And swept with hurried hand the strings.

With woful measures wan Despair-- Low solemn sounds--his grief beguiled, A sullen, strange, and mingled air; 'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.

But thou, O Hope! with eyes so fair, What was thy delighted measure? Still it whispered promised pleasure, And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail! Still would her touch the strain prolong, And from the rocks, the woods, the vale, She called on Echo still through all the song; And where her sweetest theme she chose, A soft responsive voice was heard at every close, And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair.

And longer had she sung,--but with a frown, Revenge impatient rose; He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down, And with a withering look The war-denouncing trumpet took, And blew a blast so loud and dread, Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe! And ever and anon he beat The doubling drum with furious heat; And though sometimes, each dreary pause between, Dejected Pity, at his side, Her soul-subduing voice applied, Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien, While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head.

Thy numbers, Jealousy, to naught were fixed, Sad proof of thy distressful state! Of differing themes the veering song was mixed, And now it courted Love, now raving called on Hate.

With eyes upraised, as one inspired, Pale Melancholy sat retired; And from her wild sequestered seat, In notes by distance made more sweet, Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul; And dashing soft from rocks around, Bubbling runnels joined the sound. Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole, Or o'er some haunted streams with fond delay, Round an holy calm diffusing, Love of peace and lonely musing, In hollow murmurs died away.

But oh, how altered was its sprightlier tone When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue, Her bow across her shoulders flung, Her buskins gemmed with morning dew, Blew an inspiring air that dale and thicket rung! The hunter's call, to Faun and Dryad known. The oak-crowned Sisters, and their chaste-eyed Queen, Satyrs and sylvan boys were seen, Peeping from forth their alleys green; Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear, And Sport leapt up, and seized his beechen spear.

Last came Joy's ecstatic trial; He with viny crown advancing, First to the lively pipe his hand addrest; But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol, Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best. They would have thought who heard the strain, They saw in Tempe's vale her native maids,

Amidst the festal sounding shades, To some unwearied minstrel dancing; While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings, Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round; Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound; And he, amidst his frolic play, As if he would the charming air repay, Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings.

O Music! sphere-descended maid, Friend of pleasure, Wisdom's aid! Why, goddess, why, to us denied, Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside? As in that loved Athenian bower, You learned an all-commanding power, Thy mimic soul, O nymph endeared! Can well recall what then it heard. Where is that native simple heart, Devote to Virtue, Fancy, Art? Arise, as in that elder time, Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime! Thy wonders, in that godlike age, Fill thy recording Sister's page. 'Tis said--and I believe the tale-- Thy humblest reed could more prevail, Had more of strength, diviner rage, Than all which charms this laggard age; E'en all at once together found Cecilia's mingled world of sound. Oh bid our vain endeavors cease, Revive the just designs of Greece; Return in all thy simple state! Confirm the tales her sons relate!

TO EVENING

If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song, May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear Like thy own solemn springs, Thy springs and dying gales;

O nymph reserved! while now the bright-haired sun Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts, With brede ethereal wove, O'erhang his wavy bed:--

Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing; Or where the beetle winds His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path, Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum: Now teach me, maid composed, To breathe some softened strain,

Whose numbers, stealing through thy dark'ning vale, May not unseemly with its stillness suit, As, musing slow, I hail Thy genial loved return!

For when thy folding-star arising shows His paly circlet, at his warning lamp The fragrant hours, and elves Who slept in buds the day,

And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, And sheds the freshening dew, and lovelier still, The pensive Pleasures sweet, Prepare thy shadowy ear,--

Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene, Or find some ruin 'midst its dreary dells, Whose walls more awful nod By thy religious gleams.

Or if chill blustering winds, or driving rain, Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut That from the mountain's side Views wilds and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires, And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all Thy dewy fingers draw The gradual dusky veil.

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont, And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve! While Summer loves to sport Beneath thy lingering light:

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves; Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air, Affrights thy shrinking train, And rudely rends thy robes:

So long, regardful of thy quiet rule, Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace, Thy gentlest influence own, And love thy favorite name!

ODE ON THE DEATH OF THOMSON

In yonder grave a Druid lies, Where slowly winds the stealing wave! The year's best sweets shall duteous rise, To deck its poet's sylvan grave!

In yon deep bed of whisp'ring reeds His airy harp shall now be laid; That he whose heart in sorrow bleeds May love through life the soothing shade.

Then maids and youths shall linger here, And while its sounds at distance swell, Shall sadly seem in Pity's ear To hear the woodland pilgrim's knell.

Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore When Thames in summer wreaths is drest; And oft suspend the dashing oar To bid his gentle spirit rest.

And oft as Ease and Health retire To breezy lawn, or forest deep, The friend shall view yon whitening spire, And 'mid the varied landscape weep.

But thou, who own'st that earthly bed, Ah! what will every dirge avail! Or tears which Love and Pity shed, That mourn beneath the gliding sail!

Yet lives there one, whose heedless eye Shall scorn thy pale shrine glimm'ring near-- With him, sweet bard, may Fancy die, And Joy desert the blooming year.

But thou, lorn stream, whose sullen tide No sedge-crowned sisters now attend, Now waft me from the green hill's side, Whose cold turf hides the buried friend!

And see, the fairy valleys fade, Dun Night has veiled the solemn view! Yet once again, dear parted shade, Meek Nature's child, again adieu!

The genial meads, assigned to bless Thy life, shall mourn thy early doom! There hinds and shepherd girls shall dress With simple hands thy rural tomb.

Long, long, thy stone and pointed clay Shall melt the musing Briton's eyes: "O vales and wild woods!" shall he say, "In yonder grave your Druid lies!"

WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS

(1824-1889)

[Illustration: WILKIE COLLINS]

Wilkie Collins has proved that the charm of a story does not necessarily depend upon the depiction of character or an appeal to the sympathies. As he said:--"I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of a work of fiction should be to tell a story." He also aspired to draw living men and women, in which he was less successful. Count Fosco, Miss Gwilt, Armadale, Laura Fairlie, and others, are indeed distinct; but the interest centres not on them but on the circumstances in which they are involved. This is the main reason why the critics, even in admiring his talent, speak of Collins with faint depreciation, as certainly not one of the greatest novelists of the century, although holding a place of his own which forces recognition. For novel-readers have delighted in his many volumes in spite of the critics, and there is a steady demand for the old favorites. Translated into French, Italian, Danish, and Russian, many of them continue to inspire the same interest in foreign lands.

Wilkie Collins, born January 8th, 1824, did not show any special precocity in boyhood and youth. He probably learned much more from his self-guided reading than from his schooling at Highbury, especially after his acquisition of French and Italian during two years in Italy in his early teens. The influences about him were strongly artistic. His father, William Collins, was distinguished as a landscape painter. The well-known portrait painter Mrs. Carpenter was his aunt, and the distinguished Scotch artist David Wilkie his godfather. But human action and emotion interested him more than art. He was very young when he expressed a desire to write, and perpetrated blank verse which justified his father in vigorous opposition to his adoption of authorship as a profession. So, his school days ended, he presented the not unusual figure of a bright young Englishman who must earn his bread, yet had no

## particular aptitude for doing it. He tried business first, and became

articled clerk with a City house in the tea trade. But the work was uncongenial; and after a few unsatisfactory years he fell in with his father's views, and was entered at Lincoln's Inn and in due time admitted to the bar, although he never practiced law.

He continued writing for amusement, however, producing sketches and stories valuable as training. On his father's death he prepared a biography of that artist in two volumes (1848), which was considered a just as well as a loving appreciation. His first novel, however, was rejected by every publisher to whom he submitted it. His second, 'Antonina,' a story of the fall of Rome, was mediocre. He was about twenty-six when he met Charles Dickens, then a man of forty, at the height of his fame, and with the kindliest feeling for younger writers still struggling for recognition. Dickens, whose own work was always prompted by sympathetic intuition, and to whom character development came more easily than ingenious plots, cordially admired Collins's skill in devising and explaining the latter. He invited the younger man to become collaborator upon Household Words, and thus initiated a warm friendship which lasted until his own death. Encouraged by him, Collins essayed drama and wrote 'The Light-House,' played at Gadshill by distinguished amateurs, Dickens himself among them. At first thought, his would seem an essentially dramatic talent, and several of his novels have been successfully dramatized. But the very cleverness and intricacy of his situations make them unsuited to the stage. They are too difficult of comprehension to be taken in at a glance by an average audience, in the swift passage of stage action.

It was also the influence of Dickens which inspired Collins to attempt social reform. In 'Man and Wife' he tries to show the injustice of Scotch marriage laws; in 'The New Magdalen,' the possible regeneration of fallen women; in 'Heart and Science,' the abuses of vivisection; and other stories are incumbered with didactic purpose. Mr. Swinburne comments upon this aspect of his career in a jocular couplet--

"What brought good Wilkie's genius nigh perdition? Some demon whispered, 'Wilkie! have a mission!'"

But in all "tendency" novels it is not the discussion of problems that makes them live; and Wilkie Collins, like others, survives by purely literary qualities. Soon after his death the critic of the Spectator gave the following capable summary of his peculiar method:--

"He was a literary chess player of the first force, with power of carrying his plan right through the game and making every move tell. His method was to introduce a certain number of characters, set before them a well-defined object, such as the discovery of a secret, the re-vindication of a fortune, the tracking of a crime, or the establishment of a doubted marriage, and then bring in other characters to resist or counterplot their efforts. Each side makes moves, almost invariably well-considered and promising moves; the counter-moves are equally good; the interest goes on accumulating till the looker-on--the reader is always placed in that attitude--is rapt out of himself by strained attention; and then there is a sudden and totally unexpected mate. It is chess which is being played; and in the best of all his stories, the one which will live for years,--'The Moonstone,'--the pretense that it is anything else is openly disregarded."

This analysis however must not be too narrowly construed, as petty critics often do, to mean that the only interest in Mr. Collins's novels is that of disentangling the plot. If this were so, no one would read them more than once; while in fact the best of them are eminently readable again and again. This shallow judgment evidently galled the novelist himself, and 'The New Magdalen' in one aspect was a throwing-down of the gauntlet to the critics; for in it he tells the plot page by page, almost paragraph by paragraph, as he goes along, and even far in advance of the story, yet it is one of the most fascinating of his novels. He proved that he could do admirably what they said he could not do at all--make people read his story with breathless absorption when they knew its end long before they came to it; and it was as interesting backward as forward. 'No Name' is in some sort a combination of the two methods,--a revelation of the end, with perpetual interest in the discovery of means.

'The Moonstone' and 'The Woman in White' are unquestionably his masterpieces. In both he throws light upon a complex plot by means of his favorite expedient of letters and diaries written by different characters, who thus take the reader into their confidence and bewilder him with conflicting considerations, until the author comes forward with an ingenious and lucid solution. 'The Moonstone,' however, is immensely superior in matter even to its fellow; its plot is better (in one place 'The Woman in White' comes to a dead wall which the author calmly ignores and goes on), and some passages are worth reading over and over for pure pathos or description. Mr. Collins was in fact, aside from his special gift, a literary artist of no mean power, even if not the highest: with an eye for salient effects, a skill in touching the more obvious chords of emotion, a knowledge of life and books, that enrich his stories with enough extraneous wealth to prolong their life for many years, and some of them perhaps for generations.

THE SLEEP-WALKING

From 'The Moonstone'

[This episode is related by the physician in charge of Mr. Franklin Blake, whose good name he wishes to clear from a charge of fraud.]

Two o'clock A.M.--The experiment has been tried. With what result I am now to describe.

At eleven o'clock I rang the bell for Betteredge and told Mr. Blake that he might at last prepare himself for bed.... I followed Betteredge out of the room, and told him to remove the medicine chest into Miss Verinder's sitting-room.

The order seemed to take him completely by surprise. He looked as if he suspected me of some occult design on Miss Verinder! "Might I presume to ask," he said, "what my young lady and the medicine chest have got to do with each other?"

"Stay in the sitting-room and you will see."

Betteredge appeared to doubt his own unaided capacity to superintend me effectually, on an occasion when a medicine chest was included in the proceedings.

"Is there any objection, sir," he asked, "to taking Mr. Bruff into this part of the business?"

"Quite the contrary! I am now going to ask Mr. Bruff to accompany me down-stairs."

Betteredge withdrew to fetch the medicine chest without another word. I went back into Mr. Blake's room, and knocked at the door of communication. Mr. Bruff opened it, with his papers in his hand--immersed in Law, impenetrable to Medicine.

"I am sorry to disturb you," I said. "But I am going to prepare the laudanum for Mr. Blake; and I must request you to be present and to see what I do."

"Yes," said Mr. Bruff, with nine-tenths of his attention riveted on his papers, and with one-tenth unwillingly accorded to me. "Anything else?"

"I must trouble you to return here with me, and to see me administer the dose."

"Anything else?"

"One thing more. I must put you to the inconvenience of remaining in Mr. Blake's room to see what happens."

"Oh, very good!" said Mr. Bruff. "My room or Mr. Blake's room,--it doesn't matter which; I can go on with my papers anywhere. Unless you object, Mr. Jennings, to my importing _that_ amount of common-sense into the proceedings?"

Before I could answer, Mr. Blake addressed himself to the lawyer, speaking from his bed.

"Do you really mean to say that you don't feel any interest in what you are going to do?" he asked. "Mr. Bruff, you have no more imagination than a cow!"

"A cow is a very useful animal, Mr. Blake," said the lawyer. With that reply he followed me out of the room, still keeping his papers in his hand.

We found Miss Verinder pale and agitated, restlessly pacing her sitting-room from end to end. At a table in a corner stood Betteredge, on guard over the medicine chest. Mr. Bruff sat down on the first chair that he could find, and (emulating the usefulness of the cow) plunged back again into his papers on the spot.

Miss Verinder drew me aside, and reverted instantly to her one all-absorbing interest--the interest in Mr. Blake.

"How is he now?" she asked. "Is he nervous? is he out of temper? Do you think it will succeed? Are you sure it will do no harm?"

"Quite sure. Come and see me measure it out."

"One moment. It is past eleven now. How long will it be before anything happens?"

"It is not easy to say. An hour, perhaps."

"I suppose the room must be dark, as it was last year?"

"Certainly."

"I shall wait in my bedroom--just as I did before. I shall keep the door a little way open. It was a little way open last year. I will watch the sitting-room door; and the moment it moves I will blow out my light. It all happened in that way on my birthday night. And it must all happen again in the same way, mustn't it?"

"Are you sure you can control yourself, Miss Verinder?"

"In _his_ interests I can do anything!" she answered fervently.

One look at her face told me I could trust her. I addressed myself again to Mr. Bruff.

"I must trouble you to put your papers aside for a moment," I said.

"Oh, certainly!" He got up with a start--as if I had disturbed him at a

## particularly interesting place--and followed me to the medicine chest.

There, deprived of the breathless excitement incidental to the practice of his profession, he looked at Betteredge and yawned wearily.

Miss Verinder joined me with a glass jug of cold water which she had taken from a side table. "Let me pour out the water," she whispered; "I _must_ have a hand in it!"

I measured out the forty minims from the bottle, and poured the laudanum into a glass. "Fill it till it is three parts full," I said, and handed the glass to Miss Verinder. I then directed Betteredge to lock up the medicine chest, informing him that I had done with it now. A look of unutterable relief overspread the old servant's countenance. He had evidently suspected me of a medical design on his young lady!

After adding the water as I had directed, Miss Verinder seized a moment--while Betteredge was locking the chest and while Mr. Bruff was looking back at his papers--and slyly kissed the rim of the medicine glass. "When you give it to him," whispered the charming girl, "give it to him on that side."

I took the piece of crystal which was to represent the Diamond from my pocket and gave it to her.

"You must have a hand in this too," I said. "You must put it where you put the Moonstone last year."

She led the way to the Indian cabinet, and put the mock Diamond into the drawer which the real Diamond had occupied on the birthday night. Mr. Bruff witnessed this proceeding, under protest, as he had witnessed everything else. But the strong dramatic interest which the experiment was now assuming proved (to my great amusement) to be too much for Betteredge's capacity of self-restraint. His hand trembled as he held the candle, and he whispered anxiously, "Are you sure, miss, it's the right drawer?"

I led the way out again, with the laudanum and water in my hand. At the door I stood to address a last word to Miss Verinder.

"Don't be long in putting out the lights," I said.

"I will put them out at once," she answered. "And I will wait in my bedroom with only one candle alight."

She closed the sitting-room door behind us. Followed by Bruff and Betteredge, I went back to Mr. Blake's room.

We found him moving restlessly from side to side of the bed, and wondering irritably whether he was to have the laudanum that night. In the presence of the two witnesses I gave him the dose, and shook up his pillows, and told him to lie down again quietly and wait.

His bed, provided with light chintz curtains, was placed with the head against the wall of the room, so as to leave a good open space on either side of it. On one side I drew the curtains completely, and in the part of the room thus screened from his view I placed Mr. Bruff and Betteredge to wait for the result. At the bottom of the bed I half drew the curtains, and placed my own chair at a little distance, so that I might let him see me or not see me, just as the circumstances might direct. Having already been informed that he always slept with a light in the room, I placed one of the two lighted candles on a little table at the head of the bed, where the glare of the light would not strike on his eyes. The other candle I gave to Mr. Bruff; the light in this instance being subdued by the screen of the chintz curtains. The window was open at the top so as to ventilate the room. The rain fell softly; the house was quiet. It was twenty minutes past eleven by my watch when the preparations were completed, and I took my place on the chair set apart at the bottom of the bed.

Mr. Bruff resumed his papers, with every appearance of being as deeply interested in them as ever. But looking toward him now, I saw certain signs and tokens which told me that the Law was beginning to lose its hold on him at last. The suspended interest of the situation in which we were now placed was slowly asserting its influence even on _his_ unimaginative mind. As for Betteredge, consistency of principle and dignity of conduct had become in his case mere empty words. He forgot that I was performing a conjuring trick on Mr. Franklin Blake; he forgot that I had upset the house from top to bottom; he forgot that I had not read 'Robinson Crusoe' since I was a child. "For the Lord's sake, sir," he whispered to me, "tell us when it will begin to work."

"Not before midnight," I whispered back. "Say nothing and sit still."

Betteredge dropped to the lowest depth of familiarity with me, without a struggle to save himself. He answered by a wink!

Looking next toward Mr. Blake, I found him as restless as ever in his bed; fretfully wondering why the influence of the laudanum had not begun to assert itself yet. To tell him in his present humor that the more he fidgeted and wondered the longer he would delay the result for which we were now waiting, would have been simply useless. The wiser course to take was to dismiss the idea of the opium from his mind by leading him insensibly to think of something else.

With this view I encouraged him to talk to me, contriving so to direct the conversation, on my side, as to lead him back again to the subject which had engaged us earlier in the evening,--the subject of the Diamond. I took care to revert to those portions of the story of the Moonstone which related to the transport of it from London to Yorkshire; to the risk which Mr. Blake had run in removing it from the bank at Frizinghall; and to the expected appearance of the Indians at the house on the evening of the birthday. And I purposely assumed, in referring to these events, to have misunderstood much of what Mr. Blake himself had told me a few hours since. In this way I set him talking on the subject with which it was now vitally important to fill his mind--without allowing him to suspect that I was making him talk for a purpose. Little by little he became so interested in putting me right that he forgot to fidget in the bed. His mind was far away from the question of the opium at the all-important time when his eyes first told me that the opium was beginning to lay its hold upon his brain.

I looked at my watch. It wanted five minutes to twelve when the premonitory symptoms of the working of the laudanum first showed themselves to me.

At this time no unpracticed eye would have detected any change in him. But as the minutes of the new morning wore away, the swiftly subtle progress of the influence began to show itself more plainly. The sublime intoxication of opium gleamed in his eyes; the dew of a steady perspiration began to glisten on his face. In five minutes more the talk which he still kept up with me failed in coherence. He held steadily to the subject of the Diamond; but he ceased to complete his sentences. A little later the sentences dropped to single words. Then there was an interval of silence. Then he sat up in bed. Then, still busy with the subject of the Diamond, he began to talk again--not to me but to himself. That change told me the first stage in the experiment was reached. The stimulant influence of the opium had got him.

The time now was twenty-three minutes past twelve. The next half-hour, at most, would decide the question of whether he would or would not get up from his bed and leave the room.

In the breathless interest of watching him--in the unutterable triumph of seeing the first result of the experiment declare itself in the manner, and nearly at the time, which I had anticipated--I had utterly forgotten the two companions of my night vigil. Looking toward them now, I saw the Law (as represented by Mr. Bruff's papers) lying unheeded on the floor. Mr. Bruff himself was looking eagerly through a crevice left in the imperfectly drawn curtains of the bed. And Betteredge, oblivious of all respect for social distinctions, was peeping over Mr. Bruff's shoulder.

They both started back on finding that I was looking at them, like two boys caught out by their schoolmaster in a fault. I signed to them to take off their boots quietly, as I was taking off mine. If Mr. Blake gave us the chance of following him, it was vitally necessary to follow him without noise.

Ten minutes passed--and nothing happened.

Then he suddenly threw the bedclothes off him. He put one leg out of bed. He waited.

"I wish I had never taken it out of the bank," he said to himself. "It was safe in the bank."

My heart throbbed fast; the pulses at my temples beat furiously. The doubt about the safety of the Diamond was once more the dominant impression in his brain! On that one pivot the whole success of the experiment turned. The prospect thus suddenly opened before me was too much for my shattered nerves. I was obliged to look away from him, or I should have lost my self-control.

There was another interval of silence.

When I could trust myself to look back at him he was out of his bed, standing erect at the side of it. The pupils of his eyes were now contracted; his eyeballs gleamed in the light of the candle as he moved his head slowly to and fro. He was thinking; he was doubting; he spoke again.

"How do I know?" he said. "The Indians may be hidden in the house."

He stopped, and walked slowly to the other end of the room. He turned,--waited,--came back to the bed.

"It's not even locked up," he went on. "It's in the drawer of her cabinet. And the drawer doesn't lock."

He sat down on the side of the bed. "Anybody might take it," he said.

He rose again restlessly, and reiterated his first words. "How do I know? The Indians may be hidden in the house."

He waited again. I drew back behind the half-curtain of the bed. He looked about the room, with the vacant glitter in his eyes. It was a breathless moment. There was a pause of some sort. A pause in the action of the opium? a pause in the action of the brain? Who could tell? Everything depended now on what he did next.

He laid himself down again on the bed!

A horrible doubt crossed my mind. Was it possible that the sedative

## action of the opium was making itself felt already? It was not in my

experience that it should do this. But what is experience where opium is concerned? There are probably no two men in existence on whom the drug acts in exactly the same manner. Was some constitutional peculiarity in him feeling the influence in some new way? Were we to fail, on the very brink of success?

No! He got up again very abruptly. "How the devil am I to sleep," he said, "with _this_ on my mind?"

He looked at the light burning on the table at the head of his bed. After a moment he took the candle in his hand.

I blew out the second candle burning behind the closed curtains. I drew back, with Mr. Bruff and Betteredge, into the farthest corner by the bed. I signed to them to be silent, as if their lives depended on it.

We waited--seeing and hearing nothing. We waited, hidden from him by the curtains.

The light which he was holding on the other side of us moved suddenly. The next moment he passed us, swift and noiseless, with the candle in his hand.

He opened the bedroom door and went out.

We followed him along the corridor. We followed him down the stairs. We followed him along the second corridor. He never looked back; he never hesitated.

He opened the sitting-room door and went in, leaving it open behind him.

The door was hung (like all the other doors in the house) on large old-fashioned hinges. When it was opened, a crevice was opened between the door and the post. I signed to my two companions to look through this, so as to keep them from showing themselves. I placed myself--outside the door also--on the opposite side. A recess in the wall was at my left hand, in which I could instantly hide myself if he showed any signs of looking back into the corridor.

He advanced to the middle of the room, with the candle still in his hand; he looked about him,--but he never looked back.

I saw the door of Miss Verinder's bedroom standing ajar. She had put out her light. She controlled herself nobly. The dim white outline of her summer dress was all that I could see. Nobody who had not known it beforehand would have suspected that there was a living creature in the room. She kept back in the dark; not a word, not a movement escaped her.

It was now ten minutes past one. I heard through the silence the soft drip of the rain, and the tremulous passage of the night air through the trees.

After waiting irresolute for a minute or more in the middle of the room, he moved to the corner near the window where the Indian cabinet stood.

He put his candle on the top of the cabinet. He opened and shut one drawer after another, until he came to the drawer in which the mock Diamond was put. He looked into the drawer for a moment. Then he took the mock Diamond out with his right hand. With the other hand he took the candle from the top of the cabinet.

He walked back a few steps toward the middle of the room and stood still again.

Thus far he had exactly repeated what he had done on the birthday night. Would his next proceeding be the same as the proceeding of last year? Would he leave the room? Would he go back now, as I believed he had gone back then, to his bed-chamber? Would he show us what he had done with the Diamond when he had returned to his own room?

His first action, when he moved once more, proved to be an action which he had _not_ performed when he was under the influence of the opium for the first time. He put the candle down on a table and wandered on a little toward the farther end of the room. There was a sofa here. He leaned heavily on the back of it with his left hand--then roused himself and returned to the middle of the room. I could now see his eyes. They were getting dull and heavy; the glitter in them was fast dying out.

The suspense of the moment proved too much for Miss Verinder's self-control. She advanced a few steps,--then stopped again. Mr. Bruff and Betteredge looked across the open doorway at me for the first time. The prevision of a coming disappointment was impressing itself on their minds as well as on mine. Still, so long as he stood where he was, there was hope. We waited in unutterable expectation to see what would happen next.

The next event was decisive. He let the mock Diamond drop out of his hand.

It fell on the floor, before the doorway--plainly visible to him and to every one. He made no effort to pick it up; he looked down at it vacantly, and as he looked, his head sank on his breast. He staggered--roused himself for an instant--walked back unsteadily to the sofa--and sat down on it. He made a last effort; he tried to rise, and sank back. His head fell on the sofa cushions. It was then twenty-five minutes past one o'clock. Before I had put my watch back in my pocket he was asleep.

It was over now. The sedative influence had got him; the experiment was at an end.

I entered the room, telling Mr. Bruff and Betteredge that they might follow me. There was no fear of disturbing him. We were free to move and speak.

"The first thing to settle," I said, "is the question of what we are to do with him. He will probably sleep for the next six or seven hours at least. It is some distance to carry him back to his own room. When I was younger I could have done it alone. But my health and strength are not what they were--I am afraid I will have to ask you to help me."

Before they could answer, Miss Verinder called to me softly. She met me at the door of her room with a light shawl and with the counterpane from her own bed.

"Do you mean to watch him while he sleeps?" she asked.

"Yes. I am not sure enough of the action of the opium in this case, to be willing to leave him alone."

She handed me the shawl and the counterpane.

"Why should you disturb him?" she whispered. "Make his bed on the sofa. I can shut my door and keep in my room."

It was infinitely the simplest and the safest way of disposing of him for the night. I mentioned the suggestion to Mr. Bruff and Betteredge, who both approved of my adopting it. In five minutes I had laid him comfortably on the sofa, and had covered him lightly with the counterpane and the shawl. Miss Verinder wished us good-night and closed the door. At my request we three then drew round the table in the middle of the room, on which the candle was still burning, and on which writing materials were placed.

"Before we separate," I began, "I have a word to say about the experiment which has been tried to-night. Two distinct objects were to be gained by it. The first of these objects was to prove that Mr. Blake entered this room and took the Diamond last year, acting unconsciously and irresponsibly, under the influence of opium. After what you have both seen, are you both satisfied so far?"

They answered me in the affirmative, without a moment's hesitation.

"The second object," I went on, "was to discover what he did with the Diamond after he was seen by Miss Verinder to leave her sitting-room with the jewel in his hand on the birthday night. The gaining of this object depended, of course, on his still continuing exactly to repeat his proceedings of last year. He has failed to do that; and the purpose of the experiment is defeated accordingly. I can't assert that I am not disappointed at the result--but I can honestly say that I am not surprised by it. I told Mr. Blake from the first that our complete success in this matter depended on our completely reproducing in him the physical and moral conditions of last year; and I warned him that this was the next thing to a downright impossibility. We have only partially reproduced the conditions, and the experiment has been only partially successful in consequence. It is also possible that I may have administered too large a dose of laudanum. But I myself look upon the first reason that I have given as the true reason why we have to lament a failure, as well as to rejoice over a success."

After saying those words I put the writing materials before Mr. Bruff, and asked him if he had any objection, before we separated for the night, to draw out and sign a plain statement of what he had seen. He at once took the pen, and produced the statement with the fluent readiness of a practiced hand.

"I owe you this," he said, signing the paper, "as some atonement for what passed between us earlier in the evening. I beg your pardon, Mr. Jennings, for having doubted you. You have done Franklin Blake an inestimable service. In our legal phrase, you have proved your case."

Betteredge's apology was characteristic of the man.

"Mr. Jennings," he said, "when you read 'Robinson Crusoe' again (which I strongly recommend you to do), you will find that he never scruples to acknowledge it when he turns out to have been in the wrong. Please to consider me, sir, as doing what Robinson Crusoe did on the present occasion." With those words he signed the paper in his turn.

Mr. Bruff took me aside as we rose from the table.

"One word about the Diamond," he said. "Your theory is that Franklin Blake hid the Moonstone in his room. My theory is that the Moonstone is in the possession of Mr. Luker's bankers in London. We won't dispute which of us is right. We will only ask, which of us is in a position to put his theory to the test first?"

"The test in my case," I answered, "has been tried to-night, and has failed."

"The test in my case," rejoined Mr. Bruff, "is still in process of trial. For the last two days I have had a watch set for Mr. Luker at the bank; and I shall cause that watch to be continued until the last day of the month. I know that he must take the Diamond himself out of his bankers' hands, and I am acting on the chance that the person who has pledged the Diamond may force him to do this by redeeming the pledge. In that case I may be able to lay my hand on the person. And there is a prospect of our clearing up the mystery exactly at the point where the mystery baffles us now! Do you admit that, so far?"

I admitted it readily.

"I am going back to town by the ten o'clock train," pursued the lawyer. "I may hear, when I get back, that a discovery has been made--and it may be of the greatest importance that I should have Franklin Blake at hand to appeal to if necessary. I intend to tell him, as soon as he wakes, that he must return with me to London. After all that has happened, may I trust to your influence to back me?"

"Certainly!" I said.

Mr. Bruff shook hands with me and left the room. Betteredge followed him out.

I went to the sofa to look at Mr. Blake. He had not moved since I had laid him down and made his bed,--he lay locked in a deep and quiet sleep.

While I was still looking at him I heard the bedroom door softly opened. Once more Miss Verinder appeared on the threshold in her pretty summer dress.

"Do me a last favor," she whispered. "Let me watch him with you."

I hesitated--not in the interest of propriety; only in the interest of her night's rest. She came close to me and took my hand.

"I can't sleep; I can't even sit still in my own room," she said. "Oh, Mr. Jennings, if you were me, only think how you would long to sit and look at him! Say yes! Do!"

Is it necessary to mention that I gave way? Surely not!

She drew a chair to the foot of the sofa. She looked at him in a silent ecstasy of happiness till the tears rose in her eyes. She dried her eyes and said she would fetch her work. She fetched her work, and never did a single stitch of it. It lay in her lap--she was not even able to look away from him long enough to thread her needle. I thought of my own youth; I thought of the gentle eyes which had once looked love at _me_. In the heaviness of my heart I turned to my Journal for relief, and wrote in it what is written here.

So we kept our watch together in silence,--one of us absorbed in his writing; the other absorbed in her love.

Hour after hour he lay in deep sleep. The light of the new day grew and grew in the room, and still he never moved.

Toward six o'clock I felt the warning which told me that my pains were coming back. I was obliged to leave her alone with him for a little while. I said I would go up-stairs and fetch another pillow for him out of his room. It was not a long attack this time. In a little while I was able to venture back and let her see me again.

I found her at the head of the sofa when I returned. She was just touching his forehead with her lips. I shook my head as soberly as I could, and pointed to her chair. She looked back at me with a bright smile and a charming color in her face. "You would have done it," she whispered, "in my place!"...

It is just eight o'clock. He is beginning to move for the first time.

Miss Verinder is kneeling by the side of the sofa. She has so placed herself that when his eyes first open they must open upon her face.

Shall I leave them together?

Yes!

COUNT FOSCO

From 'The Woman in White'

He looks like a man who could tame anything. If he married a tigress instead of a woman, he would have tamed the tigress. If he had married _me_, I should have made his cigarettes as his wife does; I should have held my tongue when he looked at me as she holds hers.

I am almost afraid to confess it even to these secret pages. The man has interested me, has attracted me, has forced me to like him. In two short days he has made his way straight into my favorable estimation; and how he has worked the miracle is more than I can tell.

It absolutely startles me, now he is in my mind, to find how plainly I see him! how much more plainly than I see Sir Percival, or Mr. Fairlie, or Walter Hartright, or any other absent person of whom I think, with the one exception of Laura herself. I can hear his voice as if he was speaking at this moment. I know what his conversation was yesterday, as well as if I was hearing it now. How am I to describe him? There are peculiarities in his personal appearance, his habits, and his amusements, which I should blame in the boldest terms or ridicule in the most merciless manner, if I had seen them in another man. What is it that makes me unable to blame them or to ridicule them in _him_?

For example, he is immensely fat. Before this time, I have always especially disliked corpulent humanity. I have always maintained that the popular notion of connecting excessive grossness of size and excessive good-humor as inseparable allies was equivalent to declaring either that no people but amiable people ever get fat, or that the accidental addition of so many pounds of flesh has a directly favorable influence over the disposition of the person on whose body they accumulate. I have invariably combated both these absurd assertions by quoting examples of fat people who were as mean, vicious, and cruel as the leanest and worst of their neighbors. I have asked whether Henry the Eighth was an amiable character? whether Pope Alexander the Sixth was a good man? whether Mr. Murderer and Mrs. Murderess Manning were not both unusually stout people? whether hired nurses, proverbially as cruel a set of women as are to be found in all England, were not, for the most part, also as fat a set of women as are to be found in all England?--and so on through dozens of other examples, modern and ancient, native and foreign, high and low. Holding these strong opinions on the subject with might and main, as I do at this moment, here nevertheless is Count Fosco, as fat as Henry the Eighth himself, established in my favor at one day's notice, without let or hindrance from his own odious corpulence. Marvelous indeed!

Is it his face that has recommended him?

It may be his face. He is a most remarkable likeness, on a large scale, of the great Napoleon. His features have Napoleon's magnificent regularity; his expression recalls the grandly calm immovable power of the Great Soldier's face. This striking resemblance certainly impressed me, to begin with; but there is something in him besides the resemblance, which has impressed me more. I think the influence I am now trying to find is in his eyes. They are the most unfathomable gray eyes I ever saw; and they have at times a cold, clear, beautiful, irresistible glitter in them, which forces me to look at him, and yet causes me sensations, when I do look, which I would rather not feel. Other parts of his face and head have their strange peculiarities. His complexion, for instance, has a singular sallow-fairness, so much at variance with the dark-brown color of his hair that I suspect the hair of being a wig; and his face, closely shaven all over, is smoother and freer from all marks and wrinkles than mine, though (according to Sir Percival's account of him) he is close on sixty years of age. But these are not the prominent personal characteristics which distinguish him, to my mind, from all the other men I have ever seen. The marked peculiarity which singles him out from the rank and file of humanity lies entirely, so far as I can tell at present, in the extraordinary expression and extraordinary power of his eyes.

His manner, and his command of our language, may also have assisted him in some degree to establish himself in my good opinion. He has that quiet deference, that look of pleased attentive interest, in listening to a woman, and that secret gentleness in his voice in speaking to a woman, which say what we may, we can none of us resist. Here too his unusual command of the English language necessarily helps him. I had often heard of the extraordinary aptitude which many Italians show in mastering our strong hard Northern speech, but until I saw Count Fosco I had never supposed it possible that any foreigner could have spoken English as he speaks it. There are times when it is almost impossible to detect by his accent that he is not a countryman of our own; and as for fluency, there are very few born Englishmen who can talk with as few stoppages and repetitions as the Count. He may construct his sentences more or less in the foreign way; but I have never yet heard him use a wrong expression, or hesitate for a moment in his choice of words.

All the smallest characteristics of this strange man have something strikingly original and perplexingly contradictory in them. Fat as he is, and old as he is, his movements are astonishingly light and easy. He is as noiseless in a room as any of us women; and more than that, with all his look of unmistakable mental firmness and power, he is as nervously sensitive as the weakest of us. He starts at chance noises as inveterately as Laura herself. He winced and shuddered yesterday when Sir Percival beat one of the spaniels, so that I felt ashamed of my own want of tenderness and sensibility by comparison with the Count.

The relation of this last incident reminds me of one of his most curious peculiarities, which I have not yet mentioned--his extraordinary fondness for pet animals.

Some of these he has left on the Continent; but he has brought with him to this house a cockatoo, two canary-birds, and a whole family of white mice. He attends to all the necessities of these strange favorites himself, and he has taught the creatures to be surprisingly fond of him and familiar with him. The cockatoo, a most vicious and treacherous bird toward every one else, absolutely seems to love him. When he lets it out of its cage it hops on to his knee, and claws its way up his great big body, and rubs its topknot against his sallow double chin in the most caressing manner imaginable. He has only to set the doors of the canaries' cage open, and to call them; and the pretty little cleverly trained creatures perch fearlessly on his hand, mount his fat outstretched fingers one by one when he tells them to "go up-stairs," and sing together as if they would burst their throats with delight when they get to the top finger. His white mice live in a little pagoda of gayly painted wire-work, designed and made by himself. They are almost as tame as the canaries, and they are perpetually let out, like the canaries. They crawl all over him, popping in and out of his waistcoat, and sitting in couples, white as snow, on his capacious shoulders. He seems to be even fonder of his mice than of his other pets; smiles at them, and kisses them, and calls them all sorts of endearing names. If it be possible to suppose an Englishman with any taste for such childish interests and amusements as these, that Englishman would certainly feel rather ashamed of them, and would be anxious to apologize for them in the company of grown-up people. But the Count apparently sees nothing ridiculous in the amazing contrast between his colossal self and his frail little pets. He would blandly kiss his white mice and twitter to his canary-birds amidst an assembly of English fox-hunters, and would only pity them as barbarians when they were all laughing their loudest at him.

It seems hardly credible while I am writing it down, but it is certainly true that this same man, who has all the fondness of an old maid for his cockatoo, and all the small dexterities of an organ-boy in managing his white mice, can talk, when anything happens to rouse him, with a daring independence of thought, a knowledge of books in every language, and an experience of society in half the capitals of Europe, which would make him the prominent personage of any assembly in the civilized world. This trainer of canary-birds, this architect of a pagoda for white mice, is (as Sir Percival himself has told me) one of the first experimental chemists living, and has discovered among other wonderful inventions a means of petrifying the body after death, so as to preserve it, as hard as marble, to the end of time. This fat, indolent, elderly man, whose nerves are so finely strung that he starts at chance noises, and winces when he sees a house spaniel get a whipping, went into the stable-yard the morning after his arrival, and put his hand on the head of a chained bloodhound--a beast so savage that the very groom who feeds him keeps out of his reach. His wife and I were present, and I shall not forget the scene that followed, short as it was.

"Mind that dog, sir," said the groom; "he flies at everybody!" "He does that, my friend," replied the Count quietly, "because everybody is afraid of him. Let us see if he flies at _me_." And he laid his plump yellow-white fingers, on which the canary-birds had been perching ten minutes before, upon the formidable brute's head, and looked him straight in the eyes. "You big dogs are all cowards," he said, addressing the animal contemptuously, with his face and the dog's within an inch of each other. "You would kill a poor cat, you infernal coward. You would fly at a starving beggar, you infernal coward. Anything that you can surprise unawares--anything that is afraid of your big body, and your wicked white teeth, and your slobbering, bloodthirsty mouth, is the thing you like to fly at. You could throttle me at this moment, you mean miserable bully; and you daren't so much as look me in the face, because I'm not afraid of you. Will you think better of it, and try your teeth in my fat neck? Bah! not you!" He turned away, laughing at the astonishment of the men in the yard; and the dog crept back meekly to his kennel. "Ah! my nice waistcoat!" he said pathetically. "I am sorry I came here. Some of that brute's slobber has got on my pretty clean waistcoat." Those words express another of his incomprehensible oddities. He is as fond of fine clothes as the veriest fool in existence, and has appeared in four magnificent waistcoats already--all of light garish colors and all immensely large, even for him--in the two days of his residence at Blackwater Park.

His tact and cleverness in small things are quite as noticeable as the singular inconsistencies in his character, and the childish triviality of his ordinary tastes and pursuits.

I can see already that he means to live on excellent terms with all of us during the period of his sojourn in this place. He has evidently discovered that Laura secretly dislikes him (she confessed as much to me when I pressed her on the subject), but he has also found out that she is extravagantly fond of flowers. Whenever she wants a nosegay he has got one to give her, gathered and arranged by himself; and greatly to my amusement, he is always cunningly provided with a duplicate, composed of exactly the same flowers, grouped in exactly the same way, to appease his icily jealous wife, before she can so much as think herself aggrieved. His management of the Countess (in public) is a sight to see. He bows to her; he habitually addresses her as "my angel"; he carries his canaries to pay her little visits on his fingers, and to sing to her; he kisses her hand when she gives him his cigarettes; he presents her with sugar-plums in return, which he puts into her mouth playfully, from a box in his pocket. The rod of iron with which he rules her never appears in company--it is a private rod and is always kept up-stairs.

His method of recommending himself to _me_ is entirely different. He flatters my vanity by talking to me as seriously and sensibly as if I was a man. Yes! I can find him out when I am away from him; I know he flatters my vanity, when I think of him up here in my own room--and yet when I go down-stairs and get into his company again he will blind me again, and I shall be flattered again, just as if I had never found him out at all! He can manage me as he manages his wife and Laura, as he manages the bloodhound in the stable yard, as he manages Sir Percival himself every hour in the day. "My good Percival! how I like your rough English humor!"--"My good Percival! how I enjoy your solid English sense!" He puts the rudest remarks Sir Percival can make on his effeminate tastes and amusements quietly away from him in that manner--always calling the baronet by his Christian name; smiling at him with the calmest superiority; patting him on the shoulder; and bearing with him benignantly, as a good-humored father bears with a wayward son.

The interest which I really cannot help feeling in this strangely original man has led me to question Sir Percival about his past life.

Sir Percival either knows little, or will tell me little about it. He and the Count first met many years ago, at Rome, under the dangerous circumstances to which I have alluded elsewhere. Since that time they have been perpetually together, in London, in Paris, and in Vienna--but never in Italy again; the Count having, oddly enough, not crossed the frontiers of his native country for years past. Perhaps he has been made the victim of some political persecution? At all events, he seems to be patriotically anxious not to lose sight of any of his own countrymen who may happen to be in England. On the evening of his arrival, he asked how far we were from the nearest town, and whether we knew of any Italian gentlemen who might happen to be settled there. He is certainly in correspondence with people on the Continent, for his letters have all sorts of odd stamps on them; and I saw one for him this morning, waiting in his place at the breakfast-table, with a huge official-looking seal on it. Perhaps he is in correspondence with his government? And yet that is hardly to be reconciled, either, with my other idea that he may be a political exile.

How much I seem to have written about Count Fosco! And what does it all amount to?--as poor dear Mr. Gilmore would ask in his impenetrable business-like way. I can only repeat that I do assuredly feel, even on this short acquaintance, a strange, half-willing, half-unwilling liking for the Count. He seems to have established over me the same sort of ascendency which he has evidently gained over Sir Percival. Free and even rude as he may occasionally be in his manner toward his fat friend, Sir Percival is nevertheless afraid, as I can plainly see, of giving any serious offense to the Count. I wonder whether I am afraid too? I certainly never saw a man, in all my experience, whom I should be so sorry to have for an enemy. Is this because I like him, or because I am afraid of him? _Chi sa?_--as Count Fosco might say in his own language. Who knows?

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.

2. Images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the closest paragraph break. Also the footnotes have been moved to the end of the paragraph or poem in which they are referred.

3. The words Croesus and manoeuvre use "oe" ligature in the original.

4. In this text, u with a breve is represented by [)u].

5. Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained.