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LATIN PROSE EXERCISES
RAMSAY
HENRY FROWDE
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE
AMEN CORNER, E.G.
LaL-Qr
ftfamfoon |jms Series
EXERCISES
IN
LATIN PROSE COMPOSITION
WITH
INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND PASSAGES
OF GRADUATED DIFFICULTY FOR TRANSLATION
INTO LATIN
BY
GEORGE G. RAMSAY, M.A., LL.D.
LATE SCHOLAR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD
PROFESSOR OF HUMANITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW
Second Edition
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1885
[ All rights reserved ]
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
THE following collection of Exercises has been drawn
up with a view to meet the special wants of my own
students. I have used various collections ail good of
their kind but have found none of them exactly suited
to my purpose. Every teacher has his own methods of
teaching ; and there are peculiar difficulties in the way
of teaching Latin Prose to large classes, containing
students at various stages of advancement, and who can
devote but a small portion of their time to composition.
I have attempted therefore to put together a series of
exercises of progressive difficulty, such as I have found
by experience to be suited to the wants of those with
whom I have to deal.
Parts I and II have a twofold object. They are in-
tended to carry the student rapidly over the field of
Syntax, with examples of every important construction,
both in Simple and Compound sentences, and also to serve
as a gradual introduction to the writing of continuous prose.
It is presumed that every student brings with him to the
University a sound knowledge of his Grammar, including
vi PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION-.
Syntax ; but as this presumption is not always borne out
by facts, it is necessary in the junior classes to commence
the session with a series of easy exercises to enforce the
ordinary rules of Syntax. But I have no faith in sets
of exercises which are arranged so as each to illustrate
some special rule. When a student finds the 'Dative,'
' qui with the Subjunctive ' or ' Indirect Question,' at
the head of a set of sentences, all he has to do is boldly
to throw in the Dative or the Subjunctive wherever they
can be inserted without absurdity, and in five cases out
of six he will be right. In this way a teacher may find
little to correct, and yet to his dismay discover at a later
stage that his pupil has gained no real mastery over the
constructions he has practised. It will be found accord-
ingly that Parts I and II contain scarcely a sentence
wfeich illustrates only, or even mainly,- one single rule.
Headings have been prefixed throughout ; but these only
indicate that in the sentences which follow the teacher
will find examples enough to illustrate the particular rule
indicated, while alongside of these he will find other con-
structions from which it must be distinguished, and more
especially those with which a careless student would be
likely to confound it.
I have eschewed Simple sentences even in Part I. Sim-
ple sentences may be necessary for mere beginners ; and
nothing but the Ollendorf principle is suitable for chil-
dren, whose minds are not capable of grasping the logical
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. vii
relations of a compound sentence, even in their own
language. But as the Dean of Westminster has well
pointed out in the preface to his admirable edition of
T. K. Arnold's Latin Prose Composition, it is impossible
to make any real use of a language as an instrument
of thought, for expressing even the most' simple events
of life, without introducing subordinate clauses : the
attempt therefore to construct a series of exercises on
a strictly progressive principle, so as never to introduce
a construction in a sentence until it has been separately
explained and illustrated, is not only very tedious in
itself, but it postpones indefinitely the interest which a
learner feels when he finds he can make real use for
his own purposes of the language which he is studying.
For this reason Compound sentences, especially such
as contain simple. Adjectival clauses, have been intro-
duced from the very beginning. If the teacher finds
they are beyond the strength of his pupil, it will be
easy for him to begin by breaking up the Compound
sentence, and to put before his pupil, for his first lesson,
the simple sentences into which it may be resolved.
Thus, while practising himself in the simpler rules of
Syntax, the learner will, at the same time, and almost
unconsciously, be acquiring some knowledge of more
difficult constructions, and gaining by habit, as every
child does when he learns his own language, some
familiarity with the principles of composition.
viii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
Not less important is it that the teacher should insist,
from the very first day, upon the necessity of observing
the true Latin order of the words. From writing only
simple sentences, which leave no room for variety, the
learner acquires the fatal habit of following the English
order of words in a sentence, and this habit it is most
difficult to unlearn. It cannot be impressed upon a
learner too soon that it is as gross a fault in writing
Latin to use a non-Latin order of the words as it is
to commit a positive error in construction.
Following here, too, the Dean of Westminster's ex-
ample, I have made the English of the sentences as
idiomatic, and as unlike the corresponding Latin, as I
could. No process of thought is involved, no mastery
over the construction of a language gained, when a
pupil in translating is allowed to use the same words,
the same constructions, which he would use in English :
he cannot be taught too early that Latin and English
are two different languages, and that he performs no
act of translation if he merely takes the words of one
language and translates them into those of another.
For the Exercises in Part I, a general reference has
been given to the Public School Latin Primer, which
the student should study carefully for each construction
in succession. For the more difficult Exercises in Part
II, he is referred throughout to the excellent book of
the Dean of Westminster, where he will find not only
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. ix
a full account of every important construction, and of
almost all the niceties of Latin idiom, but also a vivid
appreciation of the special points of contrast between
Latin and English all given with a force, point, and
clearness which recall to us who had the privilege of
being his pupils why we have always deemed him an
almost unapproachable master in the art of teaching
not only how to write Latin Prose, but how to think
it also. In the chapters of the Dean of Westminster's
book the student will find all he needs in the way of
explanation and information ; it will be for him to apply
that instruction to his own sentences. All further hints,
references, or explanations are omitted. It is good to
indicate to a student where he will find the guidance
that he needs : to supply him with a finger-post at
every turn is not to help him in his work, but to do
his work for him.
Part III contains a number of easy, selected passages
for translation into Continuous Prose, at about the level
of our ordinary Pass Degree. They will be found
graduated in point of difficulty, and consist mainly of
simple historical narratives or anecdote, such as are
useful for students who are making their first essays in
acquiring a Latin Prose style. There are some ex-
cellent collections of passages for Latin Prose in exist-
ence, but I know none which contains a sufficient
number of easy passages, to bridge over the gulf
X PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
between isolated sentences and passages difficult in
thought as well as in style. For some of the passages
in Part III, I have to thank my friend the Rev. C. Dar-
nell of Cargilfield, whose remarkable power of teaching
Latin Prose to boys is known to all who have examined
his pupils.
Part IV consists of more difficult passages, all of
them, it is thought, passages of literary excellence, and
which have approved themselves as suitable for trans-
lation into Latin. They have been arranged in subdivi-
sions, in accordance with the character of their contents.
A few of these passages have appeared in other collec-
tions.
It is not my intention to publish a Key to this collec-
tion : indeed, my main object in compiling it has been
that there may be at least one Latin Prose book in
existence which has no Rey. My experience as a
teacher is that nothing is so injurious to sound scholar-
ship, nothing so much baffles the efforts of the teacher,
and retards the progress of the learner, as the use of
keys and translations, especially by those who are not
far enough advanced to know how to make a right
use of them. To an advanced scholar, who can ap-
preciate, if he cannot produce, what is good, nothing
is more stimulating than to have put before him as a
model a finished version by a good scholar ; but for a
student who has not yet reached this stage it is more
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. xi
useful to have his own exercise taken as a basis, so
far as it has any merit at all, and to be shown how it
can be corrected, shaped, and smoothed into something
like good Latin. In cases where a teacher requires a
fair copy of every exercise, as a regular part of the
class-work, it is essential that each pupil should produce
his own exercise corrected and put into shape, rather
than his teacher's exercise. In this case, what is true
of more general subjects is true also of the teaching
of Latin Prose : nothing is more encouraging to a
teacher than to see a pupil applying to his own work
the principles he /has endeavoured to explain to him :
nothing is more distasteful than to have his own ideas
served up to him in his own words. To put before a
student a version which bears no relation to his own,
and which is separated by a gulf impassable from his
own best efforts, is to render him a doubtful service, and
to foster the too common idea that a ' Fair Copy ' is to
be looked upon as an answer to a riddle which can
be rightly answered in only one way. A scholar cannot
learn too soon that there are many ways in which a
passage can be well rendered, or too soon accustom
himself t move freely among a choice of phrases.
For a similar reason I have given no Vocabulary.
I object entirely to the system now so popular amongst
schoolmasters of making everything so easy to a learner
that it is impossible for him to go wrong. If a student
xii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
has a Vocabulary which gives him the exact word or
phrase to use, he has no thought, no choice, to exercise,
and the act leaves no impression on his memory. The
whole merit of a vocabulary, as of an analysis of a book,
consists in its having been drawn up by the student
himself. A learner cannot begin too soon to construct
a vocabulary, and to select his phrases, out of his own
reading ; if he is supplied with the very words or phrases
which he needs ready-made, the whole good of the
process is at an end. The art of compiling for boys
school editions in which every possible fragment of in-
formation which can be extracted from the subject is
tabulated, formulated, analysed, and presented in its
most concise shape to the learner, is being now carried
to a very high pitch of perfection. Small portions of
authors, parts even of one book, are published separ-
ately, each with a Vocabulary, with Notes, with an Intro-
duction, even a Grammar of its own. Boys no longer
go through, as best they can, the healthy process of
discovering for themselves how to get up their author,
but everything is done for them ; they have no longer
to study books, but to get up all that can be said about
books, or tortured out of them, by their instructors and
annotators. Nothing soon will be left for teachers but
to make boys learn by heart, in quantities suited to
their capacity, small doses of this concentrated essence
of information. But my experience is that this process
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. xiii
has already done much harm to education. Boys of
fourteen years of age, especially those prepared for
Scholarship examinations, are by expeditious methods
stuffed so full of formulae and compressed knowledge,
that they can pass examinations which some years ago
would have been thought creditable for boys of sixteen ;
but from what I have seen, I doubt very much whether
the scholarship, the extent of reading, and the general
width and robustness of intelligence which boys of nine-
teen carry away with them from our great public schools
to the universities, are at the present moment so great
as they were before the early-forcing system was intro-
duced. In Scotland our deficiencies are of another kind ;
but to those who are familiar with English classical educa-
tion, and who have taught in a Scottish University,
nothing is more surprising than to see the freshness and
vigour with which students who have had little or no
advantages of early training, apply themselves to the
higher scholarship, and to note the ' leaps and bounds '
which mark their progress a progress which is mainly
due to the fact that they have had to fight out their
own difficulties for themselves.
In the sentences in Parts I and II, I have purposely
avoided introducing students to a large vocabulary, as
is done in some exercise books. My object is not to
make the learner acquainted with a large number of
words a work which I hold he must do for himself,
xiv PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
but to fix his attention upon the constructions. The
subjects of the sentences revolve within a comparatively
small circle of ideas ; but they all have to do with the
principal phases of Roman life, public or private, with
the phraseology of which it is essential that a student
should have some acquaintance. Such technical phrases
as occur will be found given in full in Ramsay's Manual
of Antiquities.
My best thanks are due to the Dean of Westminster,
Professor Butcher, and Mr. Arthur Sidgwick, who have
kindly supplied me with some English passages of special
excellence, included in Part IV.
G. G. R.
UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW,
December, 1883.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
THE present Edition of these Exercises has been much
enlarged, and to a considerable extent recast, in accord-
ance with suggestions received from various quarters.
In Part I many of the sentences were found some-
what difficult for beginners. I have therefore added a
number of easy exercises containing sentences illustrating
single rules, as free as possible from idiomatic matter.
Into these, however, pronouns, numerals, conjunctions,
and other terms of common occurrence have been sys-
tematically introduced, that the student may be gradually
exercised in all those .minor points of scholarship which
cause difficulty to the beginner, and without a knowledge
of which the writing of correct prose is impossible.
With a view, further, to paving the way gradually for
the writing of continuous prose, the sentences in many of
the exercises are made to refer to some particular subject
or story. When the sentences have been singly mastered,
the teacher can lead on his pupils to connect them with
each other by appropriate conjunctions, to vary the con-
struction and order of the words in each, and thus teach
him practically the art of combining detached sentences
into a simple connected narrative.
xvi PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
Part II has been entirely re-written. Besides largely
increasing the number of the exercises, I have added
explanations of the various forms of the Compound
Sentence, such as I have myself found to be necessary
in teaching to a class the principles of Latin Prose. In
doing this, I have confined my attention to leading princi-
ples, and have sought to avoid the mistake, for teaching
purposes, which seems to me to attach to all Manuals of
Latin Prose, viz. that they are too complete. In such
books, prominence is necessarily given to exceptions
and refinements; but these only perplex the learner's
mind, if they be presented before he is in a condition
to receive them. Grammatical rules are hard, and are
learnt painfully ; it is therefore of the utmost importance
that the learner's attention should be concentrated on
what is essential and fundamental. It is generally more
easy to acquire a language than to comprehend the
Grammar or the Manual which explains it : and it has
been well remarked by Mr. Mark Twain in his
study on the German language, that its difficulties
are not lightened by a Grammar which contains three
pages of exceptions to three lines of rules. It is neces-
sary that complete manuals should exist, for purposes
of reference; but a practical teacher will neglect ex-
ceptions until he has impressed the principle of the
main rule, clearly and emphatically, upon his pupil's
mind ; and in nine cases out of ten, a knowledge of the
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION, xvii
rule and of the principle on which it depends, carries
with it a knowledge of the exception also.
The Introduction to Parts III and IV contains such
^general observations on Style, Order, and Phraseology
as it seems to me possible to formulate apart from par-
ticular examples ; the rest must be done by individual
explanation with the pupil. For an admirable example
of the mode in which such explanation should be given,
I may refer to the ' Specimen Lecture on Latin Prose
Composition' in Bradley' s 'Aids to Latin Prose/ p. 147.
The number of Exercises included in Parts III and
IV has been largely increased ; they have been classified
according to their difficulty and the character of their
contents. My thanks are due to Professor Sellar and
Professor E. A. Sonnenschein for having suggested some
excellent passages.
GEORGE G. RAMSAY.
GLASGOW UNIVERSITY,
January i, 1885.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION TO PARTS I AND II xxi
PART I. EXERCISES ON SYNTAX i
PART II. THE COMPOUND SENTENCE, WITH EXPLANA-
TIONS . 35
INTRODUCTION TO PARTS III AND IV . . 87
PART III. SIMPLE PASSAGES FOR TRANSLATION INTO
LATIN PROSE, ARRANGED AS FOLLOWS :
A. EASY PASSAGES 102
B. NARRATIVES FROM ROMAN HISTORY . . .123
C. MISCELLANEOUS NARRATIVE PASSAGES . . 150
D. MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES 169
PART IV. MORE DIFFICULT PASSAGES FOR TRANSLATION
INTO LATIN PROSE, ARRANGED AS FOLLOWS :
A. NARRATIVE AND HISTORICAL .... 190
B. CHARACTERS OF EMINENT MEN .... 232
C. REFLECTIVE AND PHILOSOPHICAL . . .252
D. ORATORICAL 292
E. EPISTOLARY 312
b2
INTRODUCTION TO PARTS I. AND II.
As already indicated in the Preface, the Exercises in
Parts I and II are intended not only to familiarise the
student with the correct use of Latin Constructions, but
also gradually to pave the way for his acquiring the art of
writing Continuous Latin Prose. With this object, the
student must bear in mind that in the translation of every
sentence into Latin three distinct points have to be kept
in view :
I. Every construction must be correct.
IT. In every sentence the words must be placed in the
proper Latin order.
III. The words and phrases chosen to translate the
English must be either such as are actually used by Latin
authors, or such as a Latin author might be expected to
use, to convey a similar meaning.
I. To the first, and most indispensable of these three
requisites, he will be guided by the Rules of Grammar, to
which reference is made at the head of each Exercise. In
each case he should study the reference given as a
whole ; for in all the Exercises more constructions than
one will be brought into play, and exceptions are illustrated
as well as rules. The student must, therefore, understand
the rule thoroughly, so as to know to which cases it is
applicable.
xxii INTRODUCTION TO PARTS I. AND II.
II. On the proper order of words in Latin, some
remarks will be found in the Introduction to Part III. For
the structure of single sentences, the following Rules will
suffice :
1 . The Principal Verb should stand at the end of a sentence.
2. The Subject should stand at the beginning, or as near
the beginning as possible.
3. The Object should stand, as a rule, between the Subject
and the Verb, in such a position as to make its connection
with the Verb clear.
4. An Adjective should, as a rule, stand after, not before,
the Noun which it qualifies.
5. In the Ablative Absolute the above order is reversed :
the Participle or Adjective usually stands first, the Noun
follows. Thus amissis armis periit is better than armis
amissis periit.
6. Where an Infinitive depends upon a Finite Verb, it
should be placed close before the Verb which governs it.
7. If three or more words are combined to form a single
Substantival phrase, place them in such an order as to bring
out clearly their connection with each other.
Thus for ' A man with white hair/ it would be better to
say Albis vir capillis than Vir albis capillis; for 'The
remarkable wisdom of the Roman people/ Mir a Romani
poptdi sapientia would be a better translation than Mira
sapientia populi Romani. In the same way Sola Spartano
militi arma ensis clypevsque fuerunt is a better order than
Sola arma Spartano militi, etc., and armis conditione positis
aut defatigatione abjectis is better than armis positis con-
ditione aut abjectis defatigatione.
III. As to the choice of proper Latin equivalents for
INTRODUCTION TO PARTS I. AND II. xxiii
English words and phrases, see Introduction to Part III.
The following rules, however, are applicable to the simplest
sentences :
1. Use the English- Latin Dictionary as littk as possible,
and draw your vocabulary from your own reading.
If you have any doubt as to the suitability of some Latin
word to express what you want, look it out in your Latin-
English Dictionary. You will there see if it is used in the
sense which you require, and if so, with what construc-
tion.
2. Avoid Abstract terms and phrases as far as possible :
throw your sentences, wherever you can, into a Concrete form.
Thus in Exercise XI. 3, for ' Highly pleased with this
concession,' say ' Pleased because this had been granted
to them/ In Exercise XVII. 2, for ' When the extent of
the calamity was known/ say ' When it was known how
great this calamity was/ In Exercise XIV. i, for ' It is a
common frailty to envy,' say ' Most men envy/ In XXII.
i, for 'The election of Caesar to the consulship,' say
'Caesar elected consul/ In XV. i, for 'The foundation
of the temple was laid,' say ' The temple was founded ; '
and so on.
3. Be careful in translating metaphors and all idiomatic
phrases which are not literally true.
Figurative expressions are much more common in
English than in Latin, and we use many metaphors
which would have been quite unintelligible to a Roman.
In all such phrases, therefore, if you do not know the
Latin equivalent, attempt to reproduce the essence of the
idea, rather than the expression. Thus in Exercise XXII.
7, ' To make a fortune/ is equivalent to ' To become rich/
xxiv INTRODUCTION TO PARTS L AND II.
In XXII. 8, ' I was on the most intimate terms with him,'
should be translated 'I used him most familiarly/ In
XXXI. 6, ' He was devoted to learning/ may be turned
' He was very fond (studiosissimus) of books (or of know-
ledge).' On this point, see further the Introduction to
Part III.
It will be noted that in many of the Exercises in Part I,
the sentences refer to a common subject, and can therefore
readily be thrown into the form of Continuous Prose. If
this be done, reference should be made to the remarks on
Continuous Prose prefixed to Part III.
EXERCISES IN
LATIN PROSE COMPOSITION.
PART I.
EXERCISES ON SYNTAX.
See the Public School Latin Primer, 87-147, and
Bradley's edition of T. K. Arnold's Latin Prose
Composition, Exercises xxv. to xliv. and liii.
The Exercises in Part I. will be found to follow the order
of the Primer.
EXERCISE I.
( The Concords, Apposition, Transitive Verbs, etc. See L. P.
87-960
1. THE people of Rome were at first governed by kings.
2. Romulus was the first king of Rome.
3. There were two brothers: the one was called
Romulus, the other Remus.
4. Romulus slew his brother in a passion.
5. Some wished Romulus for king, others Remus : the
rest desired to have no king at all.
6. Neither would yield to the other, so the augurs were
consulted.
2 THE CONCORDS. [PART i.
7. They said : ' Whomsoever the birds shall choose,
that man shall be king/
8. All the best men approved of this plan.
EXERCISE II.
( The same, continued^}
1. So on a fixed day each of the two brothers took up
a high position for himself, and watched the sky.
2. Soon Remus saw six great vultures ; but a little
while afterwards Romulus saw twelve.
3. The former said he ought to be chosen because he
had seen the birds first.
4. But the latter, having seen the greater number of
birds, claimed the kingdom for himself.
5. This made Remus very angry.
6. After assuming the kingship, Romulus built a low
wall, only three feet high, round the city.
7. Remus contemptuously jumped over it.
8. Then Romulus pierced him through and through
with his sword, and said :
9. ' So perish every one who shall leap over the walls
of my city.'
EXERCISE III.
( The same, continued?)
1. Romulus divided the citizens into three trib*es, which
he called the Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres.
2. The united people, when assembled in their assem-
blies, were styled Populus Romanus Quirt tes or Quiritium.
3. Each tribe, again, was subdivided into ten curiae,
each one of which had a name of its own.
4. The curiae were composed of a certain number of
PART I.]
THE ACCUSATIVE.
families, whilst each family was made up of individual
members.
5. All the families of one gens were held to derive their
origin from a common ancestor ; hence they were called
gentiles, and bore a common name.
6. Every true Roman had three names, of which the
second indicated the gens to which he belonged, the
third his family, whilst the first distinguished him as an
individual.
EXERCISE IV.
( The Accusative, Transitive Verbs, Time and Place, Prepositions*
SeeL. P. 95-1030
1. Romulus had built his city; but there was a want
of inhabitants for it.
2. So he determined to draw to Rome needy and brave
men from every quarter.
3. With this object he opened an asylum upon the
Capitoline hill, between the two groves.
4. To this spot he invited from the neighbouring
nations all restless spirits, whether slaves or freemen, and
all who wished for change.
5. Thus a great multitude of men, good and bad,
flocked together to the new city, and Rome had citizens
enough.
6. Nearly all of these men, however, had lived rough
and wicked lives, and were ignorant of all law.
7. So Romulus taught them obedience by severe dis-
cipline, and made them worthy of the city which he had
founded.
8. ' Citizens,' said he, ' so long as you observe my laws,
and obey me, our city will prosper.'
B 2
4 THE ACCUSATIVE. [PARTI.
EXERCISE V.
(The same, continued.'}
1. But though there were men enough and to spare,
there was a scarcity of women.
2. Romulus asked the Fathers for their opinion. In
accordance with their advice he sent messengers round
to the neighbouring tribes.
3. ' Like all other things,' said they, f cities spring from
small beginnings : if men have valour, they will gain
riches and a name for themselves/
4. 'Let your daughters therefore wed our sons ; neither
valour nor fortune will fail their descendants.'
5. But some despised, others feared, the new city and
its inhabitants : by none were the envoys kindly received.
6. The youth of Rome took this ill, and resolved to
take by force what they had been unable to gain by good
will.
7. With this view, Romulus ordered games to be pre-
pared as handsomely as possible, and invited people to
Rome from all the towns about.
EXERCISE VI.
(The same, continued.}
1. At daybreak, on the appointed day, a vast multitude
poured into Rome, being anxious to see the town.
2. Having first wandered through and admired the
streets, they took up a position near the Circus Maximus,
below the Palatine hill.
3. Here they watched the games for many hours, with
PARTI.] THE ACCUSATIVE. 5
their wives and daughters, and were just about to depart,
when a sudden tumult arose behind them.
4. For, at a given signal, the young men had rushed
down among the spectators, and were carrying off all the
maidens whom they could seize.
5. Then the strangers saw that they had been de-
ceived, and sought to flee : but the Romans were
superior to them in number and in strength.
6. Trembling in their limbs, and overcome in their
minds with rage and terror, the maidens were carried off
to the homes of their captors.
7. Unable to rescue them, their fathers hurried out of
the city, asking the gods for vengeance, and sent ambas-
sadors to the surrounding nations to complain of their
wrongs.
EXERCISE VII.
(The same, continued. Use of Prepositions, etc.)
1. When a Roman was adopted into another gens, he
assumed in full the name of the man who had adopted
him.
2. To this name he added that of the gens which he
had left, writing it, however, with the termination in -anus
instead of that in -us.
3. Thus when C. Octavius Csepias was adopted by the
will of C. Julius Caesar his great-uncle, he became a
Julius instead of an Octavius, and bore the name of Caius
Julius Caesar Octavianus.
4. There was attached to every patrician house a body
of dependents called clients : these termed the patricians
to whom they belonged their patrons.
6 THE ACCUSATIVE. [PARTI.
5. The client had the right of asking his patron for aid
in any emergency : the patron was bound to protect his
client, and to expound for him the laws.
6. The client, on the other hand, had to aid and obey
his patron, and was bound to furnish him with money
when called upon.
EXERCISE VIII.
( The same, continued?)
1. Distinct both from the patricians and their clients
were the Plebs or Commons of Rome.
2. The Plebs were composed of the inhabitants of con-
quered cities, who were first transported to Rome, it is
believed, by Tullus Hostilius.
3. As long as the patricians and plebeians remained
politically distinct, the former alone, with their clients,
were designated as the Populus.
4. According to the judgment of the consul Appius
Claudius, a tribune of the plebs had no jurisdiction over
any except plebeians.
5. The plebeians originally had no political rights :
neither the right of voting, nor that of being eligible to
public offices.
6. It was with great difficulty, and only after many
years' struggle, that they gained for themselves the right
of appeal against the decision of the consuls.
7. The former right that of voting was given them
by Servius Tullius, when they were included in the classes ;
the right of appeal they first acquired in the consulship of
P. Valerius Publicola.
PARTI.] THE DATIVE.
(The Dative ; Verbs Transitive and Intransitive^)
Many Verbs whose meaning is Transitive in English
are Intransitive in Latin, and are therefore followed not
by the Accusative of the Direct Object, but by the Dative
of the Remoter Object. Such Verbs can only be used im-
personally in the Passive. The following are the principal
Verbs of this class :
Pareo, suadeo^placeo, noceo,faveo, indulgeo, parco, credo ^
ignosco, fidO) confido, diffido^ resisto^ obsto, obedio, invideo,
servzo, subvenio, impero, occurro.
EXERCISE IX.
1. The cities which were near to Rome joined together
and declared war against her.
2. But each chose a time suitable to itself, and, indif-
ferent to the rest, consulted only its own interests.
3. This proved very advantageous to the Romans:
for they could with ease resist their enemies when attack-
ing them one by one.
4. But the last war, that waged by the Sabines, was
by far the most formidable : for they added craft to
violence.
5. Having discovered that Tarpeius, who commanded
the Roman citadel, had a fair daughter, they offered her
a bribe.
6. Now the golden bracelets which they wore had hit
her fancy : ' Give me what you wear on your left arms,'
she said, ' and I will help you.'
7. So she let the enemy into the citadel, and was given
what she had asked, though not what she wished : for
8 THE DATIVE. TRANSITIVE AND [PARTI.
the Sabines cast upon her their shields, which they bore
on their left arms, instead of the gifts of gold, and thus
punished her for her treachery.
EXERCISE X.
(The same, continued?)
1. Next day the Sabines in full array descended into
the plain below the Palatine hill : and the Romans came
forth to meet them.
2. The fight was sturdily maintained on both sides,
but the ground favoured the Sabines : they were confident
in their strength, and bearing on like lions drove the
enemy back.
3. Then Romulus lifted up his hands to heaven, and
prayed Jupiter to remove terror from the Romans.
4. * If thou wilt only spare my people,' he cried, ' and
come to our help, I vow to build here a temple to thee,
as the Stayer of Flight.'
5. Having thus satisfied Religion and gained the favour
of the Gods, ' Let us wrench victory,' he cried, ' from the
enemy, and expose their bodies to wild beasts ! '
6. ' Now, now, must we stand up against the enemy ;
now must you, soldiers, display all your valour.'
7. As thus they fought, the Sabine women rushed in
upon them, and implored their fathers to forgive their
husbands, their husbands to spare their fathers.
8. ' If ye are ashamed of this alliance, fathers, it is us,
not our husbands, that ye must slay/
9. ' If ye repent, husbands, of having taken us as wives,
let our death be to you a consolation, and to us an expia-
tion of our wrong/
PARTI.] INTRANSITIVE VERBS. 9
EXERCISE XI.
(The same, continued.}
1. The plebeians were not admitted to the right of
intermarriage with the patricians until the passing of the
Canuleian Law in the year B.C. 445.
2. They had long desired to obtain the privilege, but
not until that year had the tribunes been able to persuade
the people to pass the law.
3. Highly pleased by the concession, the plebeians
obeyed the tribunes, who advised them to abstain from
further violence against the patricians.
4. The patricians on their part forgave those who had
favoured the new laws, and spared those whom they
might have injured.
5. Those who had favoured the new law were forgiven
by the patricians, and those whom they might have injured
were spared.
6. Thus their leaders taught the people patience, and
to believe that right was better than might.
EXERCISE XII.
(The same, continued?)
1. It is only the brave whom fortune favours: if you
rely upon yourself, your soldiers will rely on you.
2. If you spare your enemies when victorious, do you
suppose that they will spare you when you are con-
quered ?
3. My opinion is that you should stand up against the
enemy now that he is yielding, and give him no time to
repair his fortunes
io THE DATIVE. [PART i.
4. Fortune helps the daring : the enemy who is con-
tinually resisted will end by despairing of his own fortunes.
5. I promise you that you will never repent of having
taken so rash a step.
6. A long delay is injurious to an army, however much
it may be elated by success : the conqueror who hesitates
to turn a victory to account, is as good as conquered.
EXERCISE XIII.
(The same, continued. Use of Pronouns?)
1. The wisest of all men is he who both invents and
executes what is best ; next to him comes the man who
obeys the wise counsels of others.
2. The one knows of himself what is good both for
himself and others; the other has the wisdom to know
that he is ignorant.
3. Most men are by nature kind to those of their own
family ; all without exception are well disposed to them-
selves.
4. Cicero was very like his mother: it was she who
taught him his letters when a child. He also resembled
his brother Quintus.
5. A certain man asked Socrates ' Who is the wisest
man in the world? Is there anyone wiser than yourself?'
6. ' Whoever pretends to wisdom/ replied the philoso-
pher, ' is a fool : if I am wise at all, it is because I know
my own ignorance.'
7. It is thus that all the wise men may be distinguished
from the common herd. All men at times go astray : but
only the wise know that they have done so.
PARTI.] ACCUSATIVE AND DATIVE. II
EXERCISE XIV.
(The same, continued?)
1. It is a common frailty to envy those who have most
benefited us.
2. Whoever can best command his own business, that
man is most to be envied.
3. Who in the world is there who would not prefer to
be of service to his fellow-citizens, rather than be a slave
to his own passions ?
4. Can anyone doubt that it is more happy to lead a
life of virtue than to earn the hatred of mankind by selfish-
ness and self-indulgence ?
5. To live in harmony with Nature was the great object
of those who professed the Stoical philosophy.
6. That we ought to obey the precepts of philosophy
is a maxim which is in every one's lips : but how many
are there who carry it out in their lives ?
7. Whatever is disgraceful in an ordinary mortal is
unpardonable in a king : and once a king has become
odious to his subjects, no one will come to his assistance.
EXERCISE XV.
(Accusative and Dative. Use of Pronouns?)
1 . That same Brutus threw himself before his father's
feet and begged for forgiveness.
2. Let it not be counted as a disgrace to me or as a
loss to my country that I have slain only those found in
arms, and spared their wives and children.
12 ACCUSATIVE AND DATIVE. [PARTI.
3. For whose benefit did he win the victory? Did he
or any other man ever prefer his friend's advantage to his
own ?
4. I will entrust you with this office if you desire it, but
you will consult best your own interests by declining it.
5. For power when too great has proved a danger to
many; no man can please his friends and serve his
country at the same time.
6. If you promote your friends to honour, they will
feel no gratitude towards you ; if you raise their fears or
disappoint their hopes, they will abuse you and fail you
in time of danger.
7. A private individual is permitted to be just; those
raised to office must obey the orders of the people without
regard for justice.
8. Having reached the city by night, he appeared before
the Senate next morning, and addressed the fathers for
two hours.
9. If you oppose me in this way, I will not place you
in command of the army.
10. The Roman army hung over Capua like a cloud
for several years, and surrounded the entire city with a
wall of great height.
1 1 . Your granting me so great a favour is a proof that
I have won your good-will.
12. Whatever end you place before yourself as the one
most to be desired, devote yourself to it with all your
might ; for whosoever is not true to himself will be hated
by all good men.
PARTI.] MOTION, PLACE, TIME, ETC. 13
EXERCISE XVI.
( The same, continued. Various constructions?)
1. The name of Augustus was given to Octavianus
because he had appeared to come to the rescue of his
distressed country like a god.
2. From the time that he opposed the policy of Anto-
nius, he became more popular with the Romans.
3. The life and character of Augustus bear a marked
resemblance to those of Napoleon the Third.
4. Pompey imputed it as a fault to Caesar that he
wished his command in Gaul to be prolonged for a second
period of five years.
5. Caesar promised to come to the assistance of his
friends in Rome with three legions.
6. When my colleague comes to relieve me in my com-
mand, I shall travel with all speed and appear before Rome
in three days.
7. Before laying down his command, he had discharged
a great part of his foot soldiers, all the best of his officers,
and no less than five thousand cavalry.
EXERCISE XVII.
{Motion, Place, Time, and Distance?)
1. The messenger who came to Rome with the news
of the battle of Cannae had ridden over a hundred miles
in about eight hours.
2. The whole city was seized with panic : when the
extent of the calamity was known, the Senate was kept
1 4 THE ABLA TIVE ; PAR TICIPLES. [PART I.
sitting by the praetors for two whole days without inter-
mission.
3. Upon the return of Varro to the city, the magistrates
publicly thanked him for not having despaired of the
commonwealth.
4. The consul ^Emilius had lived a long life and had
fought many successful battles : ashamed to fly or ask an
enemy for his life, he preferred to perish gloriously, and
was cut to pieces by a Numidian horseman.
5. Hannibal at once despatched to Carthage messengers
laden with spoil to announce his victory ; but Maharbal,
the commander of his cavalry, advised him to march
straight for Rome.
6. 'I will go forward with the cavalry/ said he, ' and
within five days you will be feasting a conqueror in the
Capitol.'
7. Hannibal praised Maharbal for his zeal, but thought
his counsel too rash to follow. 'You know how to
conquer, Hannibal/ replied Maharbal, ' but you do not
know how to use your victory.'
(The Ablative. Use of Participles in English and Latin)
Note especially that there is no Past Participle Active,
and no Present Participle Passive, in Latin. Deponent
Verbs alone, being Passive in form, have Past Participles
with an Active signification.
EXERCISE XVIII.
i. Wearied with his long journey, but still exulting in
his victory, Hercules arrived at length at the Palatine hill,
driving his oxen before him.
PARTI.] THE ABLATIVE ; PARTICIPLES. 15
2. Here lived a monster, Cacus by name, who was the
terror of the neighbourhood, by reason of his huge bodily
strength and cruelty.
3. ' This monster you must subdue for us/ said the
king Evander, ' either by arms or by guile.'
4. Attracted by the beauty of the cattle, Cacus attempted
treacherously to carry off all the biggest of them into his
cave.
5. Knowing that Hercules was stronger than himself,
and having seen that he was asleep, he made use of the
following device.
6. Having marked in his mind those which he wished
to seize, he rushed suddenly upon them and dragged them
off from the meadow where they were feeding by their
tails.
7. At daybreak Hercules awoke, and on counting the
cattle perceived that some were wanting to the number.
8. In vain he ran over the whole hill-side with his eyes,
expecting to be able to follow up the cattle by their
tracks.
EXERCISE XIX.
{The same, continued.)
1. He was just about to depart, and was driving what
was left of his herd from the place, when some of the
imprisoned cattle gave back a lowing from the cave.
2. Turning back at once to the sound, he made for
the cave with all speed, confident in spirit and eager for a
fight.
3. The doors of the cave were at the back, and were
made of hard oak bound together with iron.
16 THE ABLATIVE; PARTICIPLES. [PARTI.
4. The cave itself was full of dead men's bones and all
the booty of which Cacus had despoiled the rustics of the
neighbourhood.
5. ' Surely here is a monster worthy of a shameful end/
said Hercules : ' I must put forth all my strength, and rid
the world of so great a scourge.'
6. Cacus meanwhile had recourse to his father's arts,
and spitting forth fire from his mouth filled the whole
place with smoke.
7. But Hercules, laying hold of a stone which propped
the door, shook it with all his strength, loosened it, and
hurled it down into the river below.
8. Quicker than lightning he rushed on by the way
thus opened, seized Cacus by the middle, and dashed
him against the rocks.
9. Having thus manfully discharged his duty, and
gained possession of his own oxen, he set out again from
Rome next day.
EXERCISE XX.
(The same, continued.)
1. On hearing this remark, he snatched the drawn
sword out of the Consul's hand in the nick of time.
2. Having set out from Carthage in the midst of
summer, they arrived in Italy just before the autumnal
equinox.
3. The various Roman magistrates had to go out of
office each on a fixed day.
4. Livia was accused of the murder of her two step-
PART i.] THE ABLA TIVE ; PAR TICIPLES. 1 7
children, Lucius and Caius; but she was, in fact, quite
incapable of committing such a crime.
5. C. Verres was accused of extortion by Cicero, after
having violently plundered all the most wealthy of the
Sicilians.
6. He was a man of excellent family, of great personal
strength, and highly educated ; but he was entirely desti-
tute of all moral principle, and took thought for nothing
but his own interests.
7. By force and bribery he had either terrified or cor-
rupted the native authorities, and it was only when the
province was completely exhausted that he left it.
EXERCISE XXI.
{The same, continued.)
1. Having been chosen by Caesar to be his legate in
the province of Africa, he remained at Carthage for six
months.
2. The Senate, having exempted Caesar from the laws,
was unable to set any bounds on his ambition.
3. The comitia having been convened by the Dictator,
and consuls elected, a levy was held outside the walls in
the Campus Martius.
4. All the soldiers, on presenting themselves for enrol-
ment, had to take the military oath of obedience: one
individual repeated the words of the oath, while the others
took the same obligation upon themselves.
5. In consequence of the alacrity and unanimity which
prevailed, the army was enrolled, and all were ready to
march upon Tusculum by six o'clock.
c
1 8 THE ABLATIVE. [PARTI.
6. Every soldier had been ordered to bring with him
twelve stakes, together with provisions for three days;
they were allowed to use what weapons they chose.
7. The bringing of the stakes proved the salvation of
the besieged army : great were the thanks given to Cin-
cinnatus by the liberated soldiers and their commander,
for it turned out that they had only food for one day left.
EXERCISE XXII.
{The same, continued.}
1. Whether by chance or design, there can be no
doubt that Caesar's conduct during his consulship caused
me much personal loss.
2. Whether he still intends to carry out the evil designs
he has formed, or has adopted better principles with his
election, I know not ; but we must be prepared for the
worst.
3. Having been raised to power by the popular vote as
a young man, it is not likely that he will free himself
from evil associations in middle life.
4. He promised to go with me to Caesar's house, and
beg him to spare my brother ; but when Caesar threatened
him with imprisonment or death, he was too timid to
fulfil his promise.
5. Caesar was apparently kind and considerate to every
one ; but in reality he was much more cruel than Harms.
6. I have always thought that Caesar's talents as well
as his virtues were over-rated. Like all successful men,
he deemed everything of lower importance than success.
7. To buy cheap and sell dear is the very essence of
PARTI.] TIME, PLACE, DISTANCE. 19
successful commerce. No trader can make a fortune on
any other principle.
8. Whether it was in summer that he came or in winter,
by night or by day, I was always glad to see him. I was
on the most intimate terms with him for many years.
EXERCISE XXIII.
(The Ablative. Time, Place, and Distance?)
1. After remaining three months at Carthage, JEneas
sailed for Italy.
2. At Drepanum he celebrated games in honour of his
father Anchises: then sailing past the coasts of Sicily
and Lucania, he landed at Ostia, not many miles distant
from Rome.
3. Horace set out for the war from Athens, where he
was studying philosophy, and joined the party of Brutus
and Cassius.
4. At Philippi he threw away his shield, like Alcaeus,
and separated himself forthwith from the liberators.
5. He was at that time a very young man, not two
years older than Octavianus.
6. Preferring safety to glory, and believing that any
kind of peace was better than 'civil war, he betook himself
forthwith to Rome, and enrolled himself among the sup-
porters of the young emperor.
7. Europe is many parts smaller than America, but it
is much more populous.
8. Having purchased his own freedom at a great price,
he now thinks that he paid more than was right for it.
9. He sped from Sardes in midwinter, stayed three
c 2
20 THE ABLATIVE. [PARTI.
days at Miletus, and crossed thence to Athens in six hours ;
but finding that that town was somewhat colder than he
expected, he set out again by the land-route and reached
home by the Hellespont, almost before people knew that
he was gone.
10. After living many years at Athens, Ephesus,
Carthage, and other foreign places, he came finally to
Rome, and lived there three years before he died.
EXERCISE XXIV.
{Recapitulatory ; various constructions.}
1. The Roman legion, as established by Romulus, con-
tained 3000 soldiers; and we have no evidence of any
increase or diminution of this number during the regal
period.
2. From the expulsion of the Tarquins until the begin-
ning of the Second Punic war the strength of the legion
was raised to 4000 or 4200, and sometimes, on emergen-
cies, reached as high as 5200.
3. In the time of Polybius, no one could stand for any
of the great offices of state until he had served for twenty
years in the infantry or for ten years in the cavalry.
4. In the time of the kings the legion was marshalled
as a solid body, and drawn up in the same manner as
the Greek phalanx.
5. The first lines were composed of the richer citizens,
whose means enabled them to provide themselves with a
complete suit of armour.
6. Those of the second and third classes were less
exposed to danger, and therefore needed fewer arms.
PARTI.] ABLATIVE ABSOLUTE. 21.
Those of the fourth and fifth classes were provided only
with missiles, and fought from a distance.
7. The names of all those of military age were called
over, the order in which each tribe or class was sum-
moned being determined by lot. Those who were the
first to volunteer, or who appeared most suitable, were
selected, and their names were entered on the muster
roll.
8. After the number was complete, the recruits had
the military oath administered to them, in terms of which
they swore to obey their leaders and never to desert their
standards.
EXERCISE XXV.
{Participles; Ablative Absolute. See Bradley, Hii.}
1. Having been elected consul, Cicero left Rome ac-
companied by a great crowd.
2. Caesar having been elected consul, Cicero despaired
of the republic.
3. Whilst the senators were deliberating, the soldiers
had chosen an emperor.
4. Whilst the senators were deliberating, they were
informed that the soldiers had chosen an emperor.
5. Having said these words, Caesar, without further
delay, led his troops across the river.
6. Under your leadership, even though the consuls are
unwilling, we will joyfully attack the barbarians.
7. Having then refreshed his men with food and sleep,
the general gave them the order to advance.
8. Upon the slaughter of Brutus and Cassius, Csesar
22 ABLATIVE ABSOLUTE. [PART i.
laid aside the name of triumvir and amidst universal
approbation assumed the consulship.
9. Upon the instigation of his own friends, and without
any opposition on the part of the plebeians, he abdicated
the dictatorship.
10. In spite of my advice to the contrary, and though
liberty had now been a thing unknown for more than
twenty years, he determined to restore the republic upon
its old footing.
11. Their long-cherished hopes thus dashed to the
ground, and persuaded that no man except Caesar could
heal the wounds of the state, the people suffered him to
gather all the functions of government into his own
hand.
12. Such a pitch of madness had been reached that
many men even thought of abandoning Rome for
good.
13. The gates having been burst open by force, and
the citadel captured, we entered the city without oppo-
sition.
EXERCISE XXVI.
(The same, continued.}
1 . The foundation of the great temple of Jupiter on the
Capitol was laid in the reign of Tarquin, but it was not
dedicated until the consulship of Brutus and Valerius.
2. When the people of Tarquinii attempted to restore
the Tarquins by force, a great battle took place, in which
Aruns and Tarquinius perished, each by the hand of the
other.
3. Cicero, having been persuaded that Caesar would
PARTI.] DATIVE, ABLATIVE, GENITIVE. 23
before long take possession of Rome, reluctantly departed
from Italy and crossed to Dyrrhachium.
4. After the overthrow of the monarchy, the whole of
the royal powers, except such as were of a religious cha-
racter, were transferred to the consuls.
5. Then Pompey, having driven all the fugitives into a
wood from which they could not escape, put them all
to death.
6. Having thus spoken, he persuaded the people to
put the prisoners to death without even granting them
a hearing.
7. Having lost more than a thousand men, and seeing
no hope of receiving reinforcements before the setting in
of winter, he reluctantly raised the siege.
8. It was by your advice, and in spite of my most
vehement opposition, that the senate agreed to the reso-
lution proposed by Bibulus.
EXERCISE XXVII.
(The Dative, Ablative, and Genitive?)
1. In spite of the fact that he had conferred the highest
honours upon me, I always regarded him with the greatest
loathing.
2. Relying on his own resources, indifferent to the suf-
ferings of others, he inflicted punishment on all alike, and
preferred making himself obeyed through fear rather than
through affection.
3. There is need of haste, you say, rather than of de-
liberation: but those who feel no anxiety, and decide
24 7 HE GENITIVE. [PARTI.
with rashness, will learn when too late that they stand in
need of the very things which are essential to success.
4. Pompey was a man of great abilities and conspi-
cuous virtue ; but he was destitute of the qualities by which
alone in troublous times men can be either attached or
controlled.
5. When the authority of the law has once been broken,
it is wise for a time rather to give way before the current
of the popular will than to attempt to stem it.
6. Having been elected to the consulship, Caesar set
out for Gaul, the government of which had been assigned
to him by the people for a period of five years.
7. Upon the election of Antony to the consulship, Cicero
felt that the cause of liberty was Tost.
8. It is the characteristic of a great general, when he
has gained a great victory, to perceive how to turn it to
the utmost advantage.
EXERCISE XXVIII.
(The Genitive?)
1. The people of Alba had long been at war with Rome,
and the strength of both was well-nigh exhausted with
constant battles.
2. The Roman king Tullus was a man of great bravery
and huge bodily strength, and deemed peace of less value
than victory.
3. But the Alban leader had a gentle and wise spirit :
sending a messenger to the Roman camp, he demanded
a conference with the king.
4. ' It is the part of good rulers,' he said, ' to spare
PARTI.] THE GENITIVE. 25
their people as much as possible : it is perhaps your in-
terest to gain a victory over us, but is it equally the
interest of your people ? '
5. ' Let us rather choose three brave men out of each
army, and decide our dispute by their contest with as little
loss as possible to either people.'
6. ' You have already displayed enough courage, you
have gained victories enough and to spare: those are
rightly esteemed the bravest of all men who can set
bounds to their desires/
7. Though anxious for battle, and unused to obey
others, Tullus ventured not to resist advice so full of
wisdom.
8. A little delay took place while the chosen com-
batants on each side were preparing for the fight.
EXERCISE XXIX.
(The same, continued. Impersonal Verbs.)
1. After a long and obstinate hand-to-hand conflict,
first one, then a second, of the Roman brothers fell : the
third, as though lost to honour and only anxious for his
life, took to flight.
2. Having fled for a little distance however, and per-
ceiving that his enemies were following at considerable
intervals, he suddenly turned upon them and slew them
one by one.
3. Amid the rejoicing of the whole army, Horatius was
led back to Rome : his sister alone, who met him at the
gate, was sorry for his victory.
26 THE GENITIVE. [PARTI.
4. For she was about to wed one of the Curiatii who
had been slain : and though she loved her brother, she
could not be unmindful of her lover.
5. * Away with thee !' cried her brother in a rage ; ' as
thou hast forgotten thy brothers and thy country, thou art
worthy of a shameful death/ So saying, he plunged his
sword into her breast.
6. All pitied the hapless maiden, and were ashamed of
a deed so cruel and unholy.
7. Then Horatius was accused of murder : but though
all knew that he was guilty, he was acquitted of the charge
out of admiration for his valour rather than from the justice
of his cause.
8. I valued his father very highly : himself not at all.
9. He put a high value upon his horses, but in the end
sold them for two hundred sesterces apiece.
EXERCISE XXX.
(The same, continued?)
1. Cicero brought an action against Piso for extortion
and theft : he was found guilty of extortion and capitally
condemned.
2. We all of us repent of those crimes of which we
have been proved guilty : how many are there who repent
of those which are known to none but themselves ?
3. It is both my interest and that of the nation that no
man should be convicted of treason unheard.
4. It is of great importance what kind of friends a man
makes for himself.
5. After waiting for reinforcements at Veii for ten days
PARTI.] THE GENITIVE. 27
in vain, he sent a despatch to the consuls at Rome, im-
ploring them to come to his help at once.
6. I ,pity all who have to live during the winter at
Athens, a city which I myself never intend to see.
7. The year after his departure from Italy he spent six
months at Thebes : he was just getting weary of that place
when he died, at the age of twenty-nine.
EXERCISE XXXI.
( The same, continued?)
1 . It is the duty of a magistrate to obey even an unjust
law; but he may advise the people, when opportunity
offers, to repeal it.
2. In spite of your absence, and the unwillingness of
every one to confer fresh distinctions on you, I did every-
thing in my power to advance your interests and those of
your family.
3. How few kings there are who really devote them-
selves to further the interests of their subjects !
4. Is it not a sign of the highest folly to wish to injure
an enemy even at the risk of sustaining a great loss
oneself?
5. Is it a proof of prudence for a general to inform an
enemy of his plans ?
6. He was a man devoted to learning, but most un-
skilled in the management of affairs.
7. Although advanced in years, he showed all the ac-
tivity of a youth ; after marching twenty miles on foot he
at once attacked the enemy, and gained a brilliant victory
without the loss of a single soldier.
28 PRONOUNS, ETC. [PART i.
8. Do we value any of our friends more highly than
those who have proved their fidelity over a course of
many years ?
EXERCISE XXXII.
(Pronouns, etc. See L. P. 38, and Bradley, xlv-xlviii.}
1 . M. Manlius was accused of treason : so also was
P. Clodius Pulcher. The former was condemned, but the
latter was acquitted.
2. The saying of the ancient philosopher is well known,
that you cannot tell whether a man is happy or not before
he is dead.
3. Does anyone stand for any public office unless he
has deserved well of his country ?
4. He denies that there is anyone who naturally consi-
ders the interests of others rather than his own.
5. Some thought that Rome would never recover from
so great a disaster : nor did anyone imagine that within a
few years she would be more powerful than ever.
6. Anything is enough for those who desire no more
than what is necessary.
7. One of the consuls was distinguished for his elo-
quence, the other for his prudence, both alike for bravery.
Fabius was the older of the two ; he was also the most
popular.
8. Some men are devoted to wealth, some to learning;
others place happiness in holding public office ; the rest of
mankind believe that pleasure is the highest good.
PART I.] GERUND AND GERUNDIVE. 29
EXERCISE XXXIII.
(Gerund and Gerundive. See L. P. 141-145, and Bradley,
xlix, /.)
1 . The desire of living happily is implanted in all men.
2. It is by living virtuously that most men become
happy.
3. Men are impelled to living virtuously by the hope of
happiness.
4. He was desirous of hearing all the best speakers.
5. The desire of ruling is common to all men : but
some men are born to rule, others to obey.
6. He sent his horsemen to lay waste the fields.
7. Caesar brought upon himself his own death by
favouring his enemies overmuch.
8. If we would rise to greatness we must work strenu-
ously and do without many pleasures.
9. You must use all diligence and acquire many arts if
you desire to become rich by cultivating land.
10. We must all die : bearing that in mind, you ought
to have cultivated virtue and despised pleasures when
you were young.
1 1. In the midst of the fighting he looked round; seeing
what had happened, he chose to meet a certain death for
the sake of wrenching the standard out of the enemy's
hand.
EXERCISE XXXIV.
(The same, continued?)
i. You ought to have promoted your friends to honours,
and not incurred the suspicion of insincerity by enriching
your enemies.
30 GERUND AND [PART i.
2. You must enjoy ease while you can : once engaged
in battle you will have to provide for the safety of others,
not your own.
3. Plans have been formed by many persons for the
destruction of the city.
4. Fabius sent his colleague home to hold a meeting
for the election of consuls.
5. It is only by reading the great orators that men can
become eloquent.
6. He set out with a lightly-equipped force to pursue
the enemy.
7. Ambassadors were sent to Carthage to declare war.
8. It is not by storming cities, by laying waste whole
countries, and by wholesale slaughter of the inhabitants
that men earn for themselves true glory, but rather by
ruling their own spirit, and setting bounds to their own
passions.
9. Caesar assigned to all his veterans cities to inhabit
and lands to till.
EXERCISE XXXV.
( The same, continued.')
1 . Men are loved by their friends in proportion to their
private worth ; but a man often acquires popularity with
the mob in proportion to his recklessness and folly.
2. Whenever a new law was proposed the comitia had
to be called together.
3. The art of governing a state is one of the noblest of
all arts, nor is there any which is more rare.
4. For good writing, as for good speaking, continued
PARTI.] GERUNDIVE. 31
practice is necessary : if we wish to arrest attention we
must speak with point as well as accuracy.
5. In the governing of a state true honour is only to be
obtained by one who neglects his own interests and gives
himself up entirely to promote those of his fellow-country-
men.
6. You ought to have written at once for the purpose of
consoling your friends, who believed that you were dead.
7. If we desire to conquer we must make use of every
opportunity: we must spare the vanquished, but do battle
to the death with those who still resist.
8. The matter you speak of must by no means be
neglected : the people must at once decide whether this
contest is one which tends to the preservation or the
destruction of the constitution.
EXERCISE XXXVI.
( The same, continued,}
1. It is possible that by deserving well of our friends we
may injure the commonwealth : it is by consulting his
country's interests rather than his own, by checking in-
justice and greed, and by dealing impartial justice to all,
that a statesman truly earns the title of Great.
2. Having thus seized the principal conspirators, he
handed them over to the guardianship of the city praetor.
3. The dictator summoned the comitia for the election
of consuls; then, handing over the government of the
city to the praetor, he set out to pursue the enemy.
4. Whilst the general was thus drawing up his line of
battle, the Gauls proceeded to roll down huge stones on
to the front ranks from the top of the hill.
32 THE SUPINES. [PART i.
5. So long as I remain consul I shall endeavour to do
my duty to all impartially, without yielding either to fear
or favour : whatever command I give shall be executed.
6. When you return to the city you will hear that I
have been acquitted of the charge of bribery.
7. As soon as my father has breathed his last I shall
return to Rome, for the purpose of standing for the
prsetorship.
8. Up to the middle of the day we might have escaped;
but once the battle was over, the greatest confusion pre-
vailed in the city, and it was no longer possible for us to
leave the town.
(The Supines.)
Note that the Supine in -um is the Accusative, the Supine
in -u the Ablative, of a Verbal Noun of the Fourth Declen-
sion. The Supine in -um is only used after Verbs of motion,
and governs the same case as the Verb to which it be-
longs. The Supine in -u is an Ablative of Respect.
The Future Infinitive Passive is compounded of the Supine
in -um, and the Passive of the Verb eo, ' I go,' used im-
personally. Thus ' I think that they will be loved ' is ex-
pressed in Latin by puto eos amatum iri, which literally
means ' I think that it is being gone to the loving of them.'
Here amatum is an Accusative of Motion after the Verb
iri: eos is an Accusative of the Direct Object after the
Transitive Verbal Noun amatum.
EXERCISE XXXVII.
1. Messengers were sent by the Samnites to demand
satisfaction.
2. The inhabitants came in crowds to congratulate
Caesar.
PARTI.] NUMERALS, MONEY, DATES, ETC. 33
3. These things are hard to tell, but very agreeable to
hear.
4. Agamemnon was persuaded that upon some pretext
or other his daughter Iphigenia would be slain.
5. They came to see : they came that they themselves
might be seen.
6. Augustus gave his daughter Julia in marriage to
Agrippa.
7. Such things are very difficult to do : but when done
I am confident that all men will be satisfied.
8. Such conduct is disgraceful to tell of: those who
take part in such designs are on the way to ruin their
country.
EXERCISE XXXVIII.
(Numerals, Money, Dates, etc.}
1. The emperor sent two hundred and fifty-three ships
to his legate in Africa.
2. He came to the throne on July 19, 1418.
3. These goods, worth six million sesterces, were pur-
chased for two thousand.
4. You have decided that Antony has embezzled seven
hundred million sesterces of public money.
5. I have entered as received from bequests more than
ten million sesterces.
6. Five hundred and sixty-seven men were slain, two
thousand were taken prisoners.
7. Numa reigned for forty-three years, Romulus for
thirty-seven.
D
34 NUMERALS, MONEY, DATES, ETC,
8. The agreement was that they should give up their
arms and horses, pay three hundred pieces of money for
each Roman, two hundred for each of the allies, and
depart with one garment apiece*
9. Augustus left the city upon the ist of August, and
fought the battle of Actium on the 2nd of September,
B.C. 31.
PART II.
THE COMPOUND SENTENCE.
A Compound Sentence is one which, instead of ex-
pressing only a single thought, or several single thoughts
joined together by co-ordination, comprises within itself
one or more Dependent Clauses, that is, clauses which are
not co-ordinate with the main clause, but are linked on to
it by subordination, and cannot stand alone. Such sub-
ordinate or dependent clauses may be of three kinds :
1. ADJECTIVAL.
2. SUBSTANTIVAL.
3. ADVERBIAL.
ADJECTIVAL CLAUSES.
An Adjectival Clause qualifies a particular noun
or pronoun in a sentence exactly in the same way as an
Adjective.
Thus in the sentence ' Savages who eat men are called
cannibals/ the clause 'who eat men' qualifies ' savages' as
an Adjective, and the word ' man-eating ' might be substi-
tuted for it. 'A man who is merciful spares his beast'
might equally well be expressed 'A merciful man spares
his beast/ An Adjectival Clause, therefore, is simply an
expanded Adjective, used sometimes for variety or em-
phasis, more commonly in cases where the definition given,
or quality attributed, is too complicated to be expressed by
a single word. In Latin such clauses can only be intro-
D 2
36 ADJECTIVAL CLAUSES. [PART n.
duced by the Relative, or a word with the force of a Rela-
tive ; and as the Relative in these cases is used in its simple
connecting sense, without any additional meaning, no rule
has to be laid down as to the mood of the Verb in the
Adjectival clause. The Verb will be in the Indicative
mood, unless the meaning of the principal clause on which
it depends be such as to require the Subjunctive.
Care, however, must be taken to distinguish the cases in
which qui introduces a purely adjectival clause from those
in which qui carries with it an additional meaning of pur-
pose, consequence, or cause. Such clauses are in fact Ad-
verbial not Adjectival clauses (see below, p. 63).
EXERCISE XXXIX.
(Adjectival Clauses.')
1. Tarquin died at Cumae, to which town he had betaken
himself upon the defeat of the Latins at Lake Regillus.
2. Never having been instructed in the principles of
philosophy, he could not with patience hear the Stoics,
who held that virtue was superior to happiness.
3. Those men who take the greatest pains to secure
happiness are generally less successful in the search than
those who think only of the good of others.
4. As the Romans began to retreat at that point,
M. Valerius, who was in command of the left wing, put
spurs to his horse and came up to support the wavering
line.
5. Inflamed with a desire that the family which had
had the glory of expelling the kings should also have the
honour of slaying them, he made at Tarquin with his
sword.
PART ii.] ADJECTIVAL CLAUSES. 37
6. I can forgive young men for being reckless ; I can-
not forgive old men who stir up one war after another.
7. The Romans captured the enemy's camp with the
same rush which had burst through their line.
8. Why did you impel him to use language which has
stirred up odium not only against him, but against our
principles and our order as a whole ?
EXERCISE XL.
(The same, continued!)
1. He was buried on the same hill and close to the
very spot in which his distinguished father lies.
2. On seeing the faces of those killed when fighting
against him, Caesar repented that he had involved his
country in war.
3. Some of those who joined Caesar were senators,
some were philosophers and men of letters; but the
greater number belonged to the dregs of the people.
4. During all the years that the English pursued a con-
quering career in India, not a single able native general
arose to lead his countrymen against the foreigner.
5. Does yonder monster, pray, appear to you to be
more worthy of this great honour than those who send
you out to colonies with gifts of lands and houses ?
6. The wounded of whom there was still some hope,
he ordered to be tended carefully : those at the point of
death he left where they were upon the field of battle.
7. Turning to Publius, who stood near him, he re-
marked : * If all your countrymen are such as these whom
I have fought to-day, I shall do well if I return home
without disaster/
38 SUBSTANTIVAL CLAUSES. [PART n.
8. He cut down as many poppies as there were notable
men in the city, and said, ' Go, deal with your antagonists
in the same way as I have treated these poppies/
9. Although the tribunes had weighed out as large
a sum of money as had been agreed upon, the Gauls
were by no means satisfied.
SUBSTANTIVAL CLAUSES.
A Substantival Claiise is one which stands.to the
Verb of the principal clause in the relation of a Substan-
tive, and that either in the Nominative or the Accusative
case. Thus in the sentence Constat mundum rotundum
esse, ' It is established that the world is round,' the words
mundum rotundum esse must be regarded as forming the
Subject to the Verb constat : ' the fact that the world is
round is established.' Again in Ita factum est ut omnes
perierint, 'The result was that all died,' the clause ut
omnes perierint forms the Subject to factum est : ' the
circumstance that all perished was the result/
So in the phrases accidit ut, fieri potest ut, reliquum est
ut, tantum alest ut, etc., the clause introduced by ut is to
be regarded as a Substantive in the Nominative case,
acting as Subject to the Verb.
But, in by far the greater number of cases, the Substan-
tival Clause must be regarded as an Accusative of the
Direct Object, coming after a Verb of Transitive meaning.
How simply a Subject-Clause can pass into an Object-
Clause may be seen by comparing the following sen-
tences :
(a) Factum est ut imlelles timidique videremur.
PART II.] SUBSTANTIVAL CLAUSES. 39
(b) Caesar effect t ut imbelles timidique videremur.
(c) Caesar id effecit ut imbelles timidique videremur.
In (a) the clause ut videremur is the Subject to the
Passive "V r erb factum est.
In (b) the same clause is the Object to the Transitive
Verb effecit.
In (c) id is the Direct Object to effecit ; the Clause ut
videremur is a Substantival Clause in apposition to id.
This being premised, Substantival Clauses may be
grouped under four main heads as follows :
1. Indirect Statement or Oratio Obliqua.
2. Indirect Question.
%.\Indirect Command or Entreaty.
4.) Clauses introduced by UT or NE as Objects
to Transitive Verbs of Causing, Determining, Striving, etc.,
or by ut or ut non (sometimes by quod} as Subjects to
Verbs of Happening, Resulting, etc., or to various imper-
sonal phrases expressive of facts or states, such as tantum
abest, reliquum est, restat, aequum est, necessse est, etc.
Heads 3 and 4 we shall treat as one, because the Con-
structions required are the same : but it would be more
logical to treat separately the three possible forms of
Indirect or Reported Speech.
For every sentence which expresses a thought or mean-
ing of any kind, must be either
(a) A Statement ; or,
() A Question; or,
(c) A Command 1 ;
1 The Optative Mood is elliptical, being in reality the statement
of a wish.
40 SUBSTANTIVAL CLAUSES. [PART n.
and any one of these three meanings may be expressed
either Directly or Indirectly.
Thus ' The day is fine ' is a direct statement ; but the
same statement becomes indirect when it is subordinated
to a Verb of saying or thinking, as ' He said that the day
was fine.'
So the question 'Has he gone out?' is direct: but it
becomes indirect if subordinated to some Verb of asking,
as ' I asked whether he had gone out.' The sentence as
a whole is now no longer a question, but a statement :
viz. that I asked a certain question : but the question
originally asked is given in an indirect form, as the
Subject of the Verb ' I asked.'
An Indirect Question must be connected with the Verb
on which it depends by some interrogative Pronoun or
Conjunction, such as quis, ecquis, num, an, utrum, uter,
quo, quando, cur, etc.
So also with a Command or Prohibition. ' Do this ' is
a direct command ; ' Don't do this ' is a direct prohibition :
but in the sentences 'He ordered me to do this/ 'He
prohibited his men from charging/ the command and
prohibition respectively are stated indirectly. Those
sentences contain assertions, not commands: they do
not give orders, they only assert that orders have been
given.
Substantival Clauses introduced by ut or ne, of the kind
instanced above under head 4, do not belong to the
Category of Indirect Speech ; but as the Rules for their
construction are the same as those for Indirect Com-
mands, it will be simpler, in the following Exercises, to
consider the two kinds of Clauses together.
PART ii.] ORATIO OBLIQUA. 41
The student must observe with great care the rules for
transposing the various forms of Direct speech into
Indirect speech in Latin.
1. Oratio Obliqua.
The essence of the Oratio Obliqua is that it gives a
statement (or thought) not in the words actually used by
the speaker, but as reported either by himself or by another.
The statement or thought must therefore be introduced
by a Verb expressing statement or thought a Verbum
sentiendi aut declarandi and the thought or statement
forms an Object-Clause after such Verb. Thus if I say,
' The day is fine/
I use the Oratio Recta. These words may be reported :
and the reporter, if he chooses, may reproduce my words
exactly as I spoke them, thus :
' He said : " The day is fine." '
The words are given as they were spoken, and are still
in Oratio Recta. But the reporter may prefer to report
the speech indirectly or obliquely, thus :
' He says that the day is fine ;'
or, if he report the speech as past,
' He said that the day was fine/
In this case the original statement as to the day is no
longer given in the actual words of the speaker, but in
Oratio Obliqua.
In English, the change from Oratio Recta to Oratio
Obliqua involves nothing more than the introduction of
the word ' that,' and the necessary changes (if any) in the
42 ORATIO OBLIQUA. [PART n.
tenses and pronouns. But in Latin the whole framework
of the construction undergoes a change, and the following
rules must rigorously be observed.
1 . The first main rule as to Mood is this :
Every statement contained in a Principal Clause of the
Oratio Recta must be expressed by the Infinitive Mood
in the Oratio Obliqua : or, in other words, all Verba sen-
tiendi aut declarandi must be followed by the Accusative
and the Infinitive. Thus the sentence
Dies clarus est,
when turned into the Oratio Obliqua, becomes
Dicit diem clarum esse,
or
Dixit diem clarum esse,
or
Dicet diem clarum esse,
according as the speech is reported as spoken in present,
past, or future time.
2. The next point to note is that the Tense of the Infini-
tive to be used does not depend upon the absolute time at
which the action indicated takes place, but upon the
time of that action relatively to that of the Verb of state-
ment which introduces the oblique narration. This Verb
we shall call the Introducing Verb. The rule may be put
as follows :
(1) If the time at which the action of the Infinitive
is regarded as taking place is simultaneous with that of the
Introducing Verb, the Present Infinitive must be used ;
(2) If the time of the action of the Infinitive is anterior
to that of the Introducing Verb, the Perfect Infinitive must
be used ; and
PART IL] ORATIO OBLIQUA. 43
(3) If the time of the action of the Infinitive is subse-
quent to that of the Introducing Verb, the Future Infinitive
must be used. Thus
(1) (a) Audio Caesar em consulem esse,
v I hear that Caesar is consul.'
() Audivi Caesar em consulem esse,
' I heard that Csesar was consul/
(c) Audiam Caesar em consulem esse,
' I shall hear that Caesar is consul/
In (a) the consulship of Caesar is regarded as present
with reference to the speaker; in (b) as past; in (c) as
future : yet in all three cases alike the Present Infinitive is
used because the time of Caesar's consulship is in each
case regarded as contemporaneous with the time of the
hearing, i. e. of the Introducing Verb.
But again
(2) (a) Audio Caesar em consulem fuisse,
' I hear that Csesar has been consul/
(3) Audivi Caesar em consulem fuisse,
' I heard that Csesar had been consul/
(c] Audiam Caesar em consulem fuisse,
' I shall hear that Caesar has been consul/
In each case the Perfect Infinitive is used, because the
time of the consulship is regarded as anterior to the time
of the hearing. Lastly
(3) (a) Audio Caesar em consulem futurum esse,
' I hear that Csesar will be consul/
(3) Audivi Caesar em consulem futurum esse,
' I heard that Caesar was about to be consul/
(c) Audiam Caesar em consulem futurum esse,
' I shall hear that Csesar is about to be consul/
44 ORATIO OJ5LIQUA. [PART n.
The Future Infinitive is used in each case because the
time of the consulship is regarded as subsequent to that of
the hearing.
3. Next comes the question of Pronouns. In transposing
from the Oratio Recta to the Oratio Obliqua the Pronouns
must be altered to suit the altered relations of the persons
reported as speaking or being spoken to. It is commonly
said that the first and second persons disappear entirely
from the Oratio Obliqua, and are converted into the third
(so Bradley, Ixv) ; but this is a mistake. No doubt the third
person is usually employed in Oratio Obliqua, because, in the
great majority of cases, speeches are not reported by the
speakers themselves, nor is the report directed to those
addressed originally. But if a person reports a speech
of his own, or if a reported speech be addressed to those to
whom the speech was made, the first and second persons will
appear exactly as in the original speech ; and it is no part of
the essence of the Oratio Obliqua to discard those persons.
A general says to his troops
' I order you to abstain from plunder.'
Next day he reminds them
' Remember that / have ordered you to abstain from
plunder.'
His original statement is now in the Oratio Obliqua,
governed by the introducing verb Remember : but the
pronouns are not changed, because the persons speak-
ing and addressed remain the same. But had the speech
been reported by a third person, and to third persons, it
would have run
' The general reminded his soldiers that he had ordered
them to abstain from plunder.'
PART ii.] ORATIO OBLIQUA. 45
The change of Pronouns caused by Oratio Obliqua is
thus exactly the same in Latin as in English : and nothing
but common sense is required to determine what persons
must be used. And Latin has this great advantage over
English that, by means of the Reflexive pronoun se, it can
distinguish between the third person when referring to the
speaker, and any other person. Thus the confused Eng-
lish sentence
' He promised that he would give him money if he asked
him, 1
becomes palpably clear in
Promisit se ei donum daturum esse si rogaret (or rogasset\
The rules above given apply only to Principal Sen-
tences. The rules for the mood and tense of Subordinate
Clauses in Oratio Obliqua will be given under the next
head.
EXERCISE XLI.
(Oratio Obliqua in Principal Clauses. See above, and Bradley,
v, vi, xvi, lxv.~]
1. He says that the consul is living. He says that the
consul has died. He says that the consul will die. He
says that the consul must die.
2. He believes that the king is alive. He believes that
the king was alive. He believes that the king will be
alive. Men thought the king would have to yield.
3. There is a report that the emperor is being killed.
There is a report that the emperor has been killed. There
is a report that the emperor was killed by his own son.
It is believed that the emperor will be killed. Men think
you ought to have done what your father wished.
4. Men assert that the world is round. Men will assert
46 INDIRECT QUESTION. [PART n.
that the world is round. Men have asserted that the
world is round.
5. We believed that the consul was being slain. We
believed that the consul had been slain. We believed
that the consul would be slain.
6. Caesar declared that he was conquering the enemy.
Caesar declared that he would conquer the enemy. Caesar
declared that he had conquered the enemy.
7. All men will think that he is telling the truth. All
men will think that he has told the truth. All men will
think that he will tell the truth. All men will think that
he ought to have told the truth.
2. Indirect Question.
1. First, as to Mood.
As the Infinitive is the universal Mood for Verbs in
Principal Clauses in Oratio Obliqua, so the Subjunctive is
the universal Mood to be employed for Verbs in Indirect
Questions.
Thus the question,
Quota hora est? ' What o'clock is it?'
becomes, when put indirectly,
Rogo quota hora sit> ' I ask what o'clock it is/
Similarly,
Quota hora erat? s What o'clock was it ? '
becomes, when put indirectly,
Rogavi quota hora esset, ' I asked what o'clock it was/
2. Secondly, as to Tense.
The rule as to Tense is easy, for it is exactly the same
as that observed in English.
PART ii.] INDIRECT QUESTION. 47
As in the case of Oratio Obliqua, we distinguish three
distinct relations of time :
(1) Where the time of the Verb in the Indirect Ques-
tion is simultaneous with that of the Introducing Verb of
asking, on which the question depends ;
(2) Where the time of the Verb in the Indirect Ques-
tion is anterior to that of the Introducing Verb ; and
(3) Where the time of the Verb of the Indirect Ques-
tion is subsequent to that of the Introducing Verb.
In each case the Introducing Verb may itself be in
Present, Past> or Future time. Thus
(1) If the time of the Verb of the Indirect Question be
simultaneous with that of an Introducing Verb in the
Present or the Future, the Present must be employed : if
simultaneous with an Introducing Verb- in the Past, the
Imperfect (in rare cases the Perfect) must be used,
Thus
(a) JRogo quid agas,
'I ask what you are doing/
(6) Rogabo quid agas,
' I shall ask you what you are doing.'
But
(c) Rogabam \
Rogavi > quid ageres,
Rogaveram )
' I asked, or had asked, what you were doing/
(2) If the time of the Verb of the Indirect Question be
anterior to that of the Introducing Verb in the Present or
Future, the Perfect must be employed ; if anterior to an
introducing Verb in the Past, the Pluperfect must be
used. Thus
48 INDIRECT QUESTION. [PART n.
(a) Rogo quid egen's,
' I ask what you have done/
($) Rogabo quid egeris,
1 1 will ask what you have done.'
(c) Rogabam \
Rogavi > quid egisses,
Rogaveram )
1 1 was asking, asked, or had asked, what you had
done.'
(3) If the time of the Verb of the Indirect Question be
subsequent to that of an Introducing Verb in the Present
or Future, we must use the Participle in -rus with the
Present Tense of sum : if subsequent to an Introducing
Verb in the Past, the same Participle with the Imperfect
of sum. Thus
(a) Rogo quid aclurus si's,
' I ask you what you are going to do.'
(3) Rogabo quid acturus si's,
'I shall ask you what you are going to do.'
(c) Rogabam \
Rogavi > quid acturus esses,
Rogaveram )
* I was asking, asked, had asked, what you were
about to do.'
It is to be noted that under i (c) egeris might be used
for ageres if one instantaneous act were intended : simi-
larly under 3 (c) acturus fueris for acturus esses.
Note further that the true Perfect or Present-Perfect
/ have asked is to be considered as a Present Tense.
Thus ' I have asked what you are doing ' will be trans-
lated Rogavi quid agas.
PART ii.] INDIRECT QUESTION. 49
The rules for the Consecution of Tenses here given
apply not only to Indirect Questions, but to all forms of
subordinate clauses in Oratio Obliqua.
EXERCISE XLII.
{Indirect Question. See above, and Bradley, xxii.}
1. I ask how much money he has. I ask how much
money he had. I ask how much money he has had.
I ask how much money he will have.
2. I asked why he was leaving Rome. I asked why
he had left Rome. I asked why he was going to leave
Rome.
3. I will ask him what kind of life he is leading. I will
ask him what kind of life he has led. I will ask him
what kind of life he will lead.
4. I have asked him what he thinks. I have asked
him what he thought. I have asked him what he will
think. I have asked him. what he would have thought.
5. It happened that on the next day he met Antony
in the street. Antony asked him why he had left his
province. ' To raise the price of votes at Rome,' was his
rejoinder.
Oratio Obliqua with Subordinate Clauses.
The rule for the Tense and Mood of Verbs in Subor-
dinate Clauses of Oratio Obliqua is precisely similar to
that for Indirect Questions. The Mood must always be
the Subjunctive ; and the Tense depends partly upon the
Tense of the Verb introducing the Oratio Obliqua, partly
E
50 SUBORDINATE CLAUSES [PART n.
upon the relation between the time of the Introducing
Verb and that of the Subordinate Clause.
(1) If the time denoted by the Introducing Verb be
Present or Future, and the time of the Subordinate Clause
be the same as that of the Introducing Verb, the Verb of
the Subordinate Clause will be in the Present. Thus
Putat \
Putabit } e S qm rrare >
1 He thinks, will think, that those who say scare wrong.'
But if the Subordinate Verb denotes a time simultaneous
to an Introducing Verb in the past, it must be in the
Imperfect '; as
Putabat \
Putavit > eos qui id dicer ent err are,
Putaverat )
1 He thought, etc., that those who said so were wrong.'
(2) If the Subordinate Verb denote a time anterior to
the time of an Introducing Verb in the Present or Future,
the Perfect must be used ; if a time anterior to an Intro-
ducing Verb in the Past, the Pluperfect. Thus
Putat \
D , , ., f eos qui id dixennt err are.
Putabit )
'He thinks, etc., that those who have said so are wrong.'
But
Putabat \
Putavit > eos quid id dixissent errare.
Putaverat )
'He thought, etc., that those who had said so were
wrong.'
(3) If the Subordinate Verb denote a time subsequent to
that of an Introducing Verb in the Present or Future, the
PART ii.] IN ORATIO OBLIQUA. 51
Participle in -rus with the Present Tense must be used: if
a time subsequent to an Introducing Verb in the Past, the
Participle in -rus with the Imperfect must be used. Thus
Putat \
. 7 . fees out ita dicturi sint err are.
Putaht )
But
Putdbat \
Putamt > eos qui ita dicturi essent errare.
Putaverat )
EXERCISE XLIII.
(Oratio Obliqua with Subordinate Clauses. See above.}
1 . The city which he loves best of all is Athens. He
says that the city which he loves best of all is Athens.
2. Those who say so are wrong. He says that those
who say so are wrong. He says that those who have
said so are wrong.
3. Those who said so were wrong. He asserted that
those who said so were wrong. He asserted that those
who had said so were wrong.
4. Those who go to Athens will become philosophers.
He says that those who go to Athens will become philo-
sophers. He says that all who have gone to Athens have
become philosophers. He said that all who had gone to
Athens had become philosophers.
5. That is a poor house in which there are not many
things to spare. Horace says that that is a poor house in
which there are not many things to spare. Horace said
that that was a poor house in which there were not many
things to spare.
6. As soon as he reached the summit of the hill, Han-
E 2
52 ORATIO OBLIQUA [PART n.
nibal pointed out to his soldiers the plains of Italy.
Polybius relates that as soon as Hannibal reached the top
of the hill he pointed out to his soldiers the plains of Italy.
7. Hannibal told his troops that they would have
abundance of good things, and that they would carry all
before them, so soon as they descended into Italy.
8. Whilst Hannibal was watching the fight near the
river, a picked body of Gauls charged down upon the
cavalry from the mountain. Livy relates that while Han-
nibal was watching the fight near the river, a picked
body of Gauls charged down on the cavalry from the
mountain.
9. As the cavalry were emerging from the defile, the
enemy charged down from the mountain. Hannibal
believed that as the cavalry were emerging from the defile
the enemy would charge down from the mountain. He
thought that the enemy would have made their attack
before his own men had emerged from the defile.
EXERCISE XLIV.
(Oratio Obliqua, continued?)
1. The longer I live, the more I am persuaded that
honesty is the best policy, both in public and in private
affairs.
2. He was the first to neglect the auspices before en-
gaging the enemy, for he thought that they must fight
that day at any hazard.
3. Cicero reproached Antony with having acted towards
him in an unfriendly manner, inasmuch as he had read a
letter of his aloud in open court.
PART 1 1.] WITH SUBORDINATE CLAUSES. 53
4. She said that she had seen the enemy, and that they
were taking the city.
5. Everyone felt that the bravery of the troops was
worthy of all admiration.
6. He wrote to his friends that he had been seriously
ill, but that he was now well again and would reach
London in a week.
7. He told his soldiers that he could be saved from
such a disgrace only by their valour : let them therefore
all determine with one heart to attack an enemy whom
they had already beaten in the field and stripped of his
camp.
8. I am satisfied that he would never have made use
of such language if he had known that Caesar was
present.
9. I believe now that he would ask your pardon if he
thought that you would grant it.
10. Caesar always maintained that Pompey would not
have been defeated if he had not listened to so many
counselors.
n. I am rather inclined to believe that the reason of
the indignation of the soldiers was that their general had
given them no booty.
EXERCISE XLV.
(Oratio Obliqua, continued?)
1. He must needs confess that remedies against pain
cannot be sought by one who has said that pain is the
greatest of all evils.
2. Publius said that he had but a short time to live :
but he had not been able to restrain himself in his old age
54 ORATIO OBLIQUA. [PART n.
from lifting up his voice to assert a claim over that terri-
tory which he had himself won in battle.
3. I ask you whether ought I to have risked the
fortunes of the state when I knew that I had left home
under doubtful auspices, or to have taken the auspices a
second time ?
4. He declared that the people, who had sovereign
power in their hands, had never wreaked their anger on
generals who had lost armies through rashness or folly,
further than to inflict on them a pecuniary fine.
5. He declared that he would stand fast to his purpose,
and not remit to one who had fought against his orders
any part of the punishment which he had justly deserved.
6. He declared that the matter stood thus : there was
nothing which the Carthaginian general at that moment
feared less than that they, besieged and attacked as they
were, should make an attack on his camp. Let them
dare to do what the enemy believed to be impossible. The
task was easy from the very fact that it seemed most
difficult: he would himself lead them out in the third
watch ; he had ascertained that the enemy kept no
proper guard, and with the first assault they would capture
his camp. If they attacked then, there was some hope of
success : they had already tested their own strength, and
that of their enemy. There was no other way of ensuring
success. The enemy had one army near, two more not
far away; let them therefore wait for nothing but the
opportunity to be afforded by the night following. Let
them now go and take some rest, that they might burst
fresh into the enemy's camp, and with the same spirit
with which they had guarded their own.
PART ii.] VIRTUAL ORATIO OBLIQUA. 55
EXERCISE XLVI.
{Virtual ratio Obliqua.)
1 . It would more often occur to me to complain of my
mode of life than to be glad that I was alive.
2. Most writers praise Socrates for having brought
down philosophy from the clouds, and for busying himself
with the life of man.
3. He congratulated me on having saved my country
from a great peril, and upon being the most eloquent
speaker of my time.
4. The Sicilians complained of Verres because (as they
asserted) he had put several Sicilians to death without a
trial.
5. All feel that one who confesses to having slain a
man ought not to gaze upon the light of day.
6. He told me that the man whom I saw yesterday died
of some sudden illness this morning.
7. They asserted that there was no street in which a
house had not been hired for Otho.
8. He ordered the chickens to be thrown into the water
that they might drink at least, as they would not eat.
9. He dismissed his legates unjustly, and, in spite of
my remonstrances, on the ground that they had mismanaged
the affair.
EXERCISE XL VII.
(Indirect Question, continued.}
i. Brutus summoned the consuls to his seat, and having
asked them what they intended to do with regard to the
election of consuls, went forward with them to the as-
sembly.
56 INDIRECT QUESTION. [PART n.
2. Antony asked why Cicero was not more grateful to
him, seeing that he had spared his life at Brundusium.
3. He had sent messengers to ascertain whether the
barbarous tribes on the way would favour him.
4. Cicero enquired whether there was any person at
Messina who desired to give evidence against Verres.
5. On being informed that Heius had been shamefully
treated by the praetor, and would gladly give evidence,
Cicero turned round to Heius and asked him how it was
that he had consented to form one of the deputation sent
to Rome expressly to praise Verres ?
6. Tell me whom you have captured, and I will tell
you whom you ought to spare.
7. He wanted to know for what offence I had struck
him, and when I would give him an opportunity of re-
turning the blow.
8. You perceive in what direction the suspicion of the
jury points, and you can with certainty predict what
verdict they will give.
9. He could not tell who he was, whence he had come,
or what he was about to do.
10. It is of no consequence to a philosopher whether
he rots in the earth or in the sky.
EXERCISE XLVIII.'
(Indirect Question, continued.}
T. Upon the murder of Caesar, Antonius addressed the
multitude, and asked them why their imperato'r had been
slain. With one voice they replied that it was because he
loved the people.
PART ii.] INDIRECT QUESTION. 57
2. Had Caesar been slain at that time, it is uncertain
whose leadership the people would have followed; cer-
tainly not that of Antony.
I told you whom to select, whom to avoid : now that I
have learned that you will not take good advice when it is
offered you, it is impossible for me to put confidence in
you any longer.
3. He wondered why Tarpeia had opened the city gates,
and which party she intended to favour.
4. He was anxious to know what we thought of his
plan, and on what day we would inform him of our
decision.
5. I have often before now observed, Romans, how
much the patricians despise you, how often they have
deemed you unworthy to be in the same city and enclosed
by the same walls as themselves.
6. I shall ask them whether they mean to prevent a
plebeian from living next door to a patrician, or standing
in the same forum with him. If they say no, I shall ask
for what reason they are seeking to annul all marriages
between patricians and plebeians.
7. I beseech you, Publius, to tell us where our legions
are, whether you have been deserted or have yourself
deserted your commander and your army ? whether we are
this day conquerors or conquered ? whether we are about
to acquire a new province, or to fight for our own
country ?
58 INDIRECT COMMAND. [PART n.
?>.\Indirect Command or Entreaty.
^Substantival Clauses with ut, ne, etc.
The rules for the use of Mood and Tense in Indirect
Commands, as well as for Substantival Clauses under Class
IV, are the same as in Indirect Questions, so far as they
are applicable ; for it is obvious that a command or entreaty
can only refer to the time at which it is given. Thus the
possible forms are :
(i)Impero \ uthoc/aci
Imperam j
' I order you, have ordered you, to do this.'
(2) Imperabo ut hoc facias,
' I will order you to do this.'
(3) Imperabam \
Imperavi > ut hocfaceres,
Imperaveram )
' I was ordering you, etc., to do this.'
But note that some verbs belonging to these classes
such zsju&eo, veto,prohibeo>conor usually take an Infinitive
after them, not a dependent clause (see Bradley, xvi.)
EXERCISE XLIX.
{Substantival Clauses, with ut, ne, etc. See above.)
1. He orders his soldiers to attack the town. He
ordered his soldiers to attack the town. He will order
his soldiers to attack the town. He has ordered his sol-
diers to attack the town.
2. I am afraid that he is unwell. I am afraid that he
has been unwell. I am afraid that he was unwell. I was
afraid that the enemy would depart. I shall be afraid that
the enemy depart.
3. I fear that these waters are not doing you good. I
PART ii.] SUBSTANTIVAL CLAUSES WITH UT, NE. 59
feared that these waters were not doing you good. I fear
that these waters have not done you good. I fear that these
waters are not likely to do you good. There will be a
danger of the enemy making an assault upon the city.
4. He is advising the people to obey the law. He has ad-
vised the people to obey the law. He will advise the people
to obey the law. He advised the people to obey the law.
5. The senate passed a decree that the consuls should
see that the state suffered no harm.
6. I was persuaded that he would come : for I had
begged him not to forget his old associates, and he had
promised that he would come if possible.
7. He caused the jury to acquit his brother of the
charge of bribery : for he had ordered some soldiers to
stand at the door and ask each juror in turn how he
intended to vote.
8. It has often happened that the best candidates have
been rejected by the people out of ignorance of the public
services which they have rendered.
EXERCISE L.
( The same, continued.}
1. The dictator ordered the master of the horse not to
leave the camp till he himself should return.
2. I have ordered the tribunes to send for the fugitives
and bring them back.
3. A soothsayer warned Caesar not to go to the senate
that day.
4. He prayed Dolabella to set out for Macedonia.
5. I am so far from yielding to the enemy that I have
conquered them.
60 SUBSTANTIVAL CLAUSES WITH UT, NE. [PART n.
6. I am still of the opinion that we should do nothing
but what seems to be agreeable to Caesar.
7. Our long friendship, and your unfailing kindness
towards me, have encouraged me to write and tell you
what I considered at once conducive to your safety, and
not inconsistent with your self-respect.
8. On the first day in which the senate was consulted,
it decreed that a double tribute should be imposed that year.
9. He proposed a motion to the people that no soldier
should be prejudiced in consequence of having taken part
in the secession.
10. A law was passed forbidding any one in future
from holding a meeting of the comitia outside the city.
n. He begged me to defend him against his own
father, should he claim from him five million sesterces.
12. If anything new occurs, I shall take care to inform
you of it.
13. He was so far from conciliating his enemies that he
did not satisfy even his friends.
14. Pompey hastened to be present when the whole
people congratulated me on my return from Cilicia.
15. It seldom happens that a man recovers if attacked
by disease after his seventieth year.
1 6. Let us therefore grant this to the philosophers,
that the wise man is always happy.
EXERCISE LI.
( The same, continued.)
i. So far was he from desiring to have the province of
Macedonia allotted to him, that we could scarcely prevail
upon him to leave Rome when he had obtained it.
PART ii.] ADVERBIAL CLAUSES. 6 1
2. It is quite impossible that I can forgive a man who
has inflicted on me so great an injury.
3. It has never happened to me to be accused of in-
gratitude, and this circumstance is a very great consolation
to me at the present moment.
4. He gave orders not to spare a single person who had
been present at the burning of the city.
5. It frequently happens that men are ungrateful to
those who have heaped upon them the greatest benefits.
6. It frequently happened that Caesar attacked his
enemies before they were aware that he was on the
march.
7. I will cause you to repent bitterly of having abused
one who has hitherto shown himself to be your best
friend.
8. I will cause you to repent of your ingratitude to-
wards me.
ADVERBIAL CLAUSES.
An Adverbial Clause is one which qualifies the Verb
of a sentence in the same way as an Adverb : that is, it
states the why, or the when, or any other of the attendant
circumstances which qualify or explain the action of a
Verb in the same way as an Adverb does. All Adverbial
Clauses fall under one or other of the following heads :
1. Final: which state the end or object of an action,
corresponding to the English * in order that.'
2. Consecutive: which state the result or consequence of
an action, corresponding to the English ' so that/
3. Causal: which give the cause or reason why the
action has taken place, corresponding to c because.'
62 ADVERBIAL CLAUSES. [PART 11.
4. Concessive: which grant or suppose the existence of
an opposing reason, or a reason why the action in
question should not take place, or have taken place ; cor-
responding to our ' although ' or ' granted that/
5. Temporal: which define the time of an action ;
1 when/ ' as soon as/ ' while/ etc.
6. Conditional: which state the condition or conditions
on which its taking place depends ; corresponding to our
' if/ ' provided that.'
7. Comparative: which institute a comparison between
an action or thing and some other thing or action ; cor-
responding to our ' as/ ' as if/ ' like as/ etc.
Every Adverbial Clause is linked on to the main clause
by a subordinating conjunction suitable to its meaning;
and it is of the greatest importance that the student should
learn and bear in mind what mood is appropriate to each.
The following is a list of the principal subordinating con-
junctions in Latin, with a statement of the mood or
moods by which they must be followed :
1 . FINAL : ut, ne, quo, quominus, invariably followed by
the Subjunctive.
2. CONSECUTIVE : ut, ut non, quin, invariably followed by
the Subjunctive.
3. CAUSAL : quod, quia, quandoquidem with the Indica-
tive ; quum with the Subjunctive.
4. CONCESSIVE: etsi, quamquam, tametsi, signifying in
spite of the fact that, and therefore followed by the Indica-
tive; quum, licet, quamvis, ut, signifying even on the sup-
position that, and therefore followed by the Subjunctive.
5. TEMPORAL : quum, quando, ubi, ut, postquam, prius-
quam, antequam, dum, donee, quoad, simul ac, all followed by
PART ii.] ADVERBIAL CLAUSES. , 63
the Indicative if they refer merely to time, by the Subjunc-
tive if there be an additional notion of purpose or conse-
quence. Thus, dum, l during the time that/ takes the
Indicative : if it mean * during such time as,' ' so long as,'
the Subjunctive. So with antequam, priusquam, etc.
A peculiar idiom is that quum with the Imperfect or
Pluperfect invariably requires the Subjunctive mood.
6. CONDITIONAL : si, nisi, sive, dum, modo : almost in-
variably followed by the Subjunctive. But in certain cases
where si almost amounts to ' when,' { in cases where,' the
Indicative may be employed.
7. COMPARATIVE : ta?nquam, quasi, ceu, velut are fol-
lowed by the Subjunctive, because they imply hypothetical
or impossible cases : ut, quemadmodum, proinde ac, quo
(signifying proportion), are used with the Indicative, be-
cause they refer to actual facts.
Use of QUI t introducing Adverbial Clauses,
with the Subjunctive Mood.
The use of the relative qui in Latin is remarkable. It
has been said above that Adjectival Clauses are intro-
duced by qui, and all clauses introduced by qui are adjec-
tival .when it has none other than its ordinary relative
meaning. But by a peculiar delicacy of language qui is
capable of conveying an additional meaning of (a) pur-
pose, (b) consequence, (c) cause, (d) concession, and in all
such cases it must be followed by the Subjunctive.
Thus
(a) PURPOSE:
Vidilegatum qui pacem orabat^
64 QUI, WITH ADVERBIAL CLAUSES. [PART 11.
means simply, 'I saw the envoy who was asking for
peace;' but
Misi legatum qui pacem oraret,
means, ' I sent an envoy to beg for peace/ or ' in order
that he might beg for peace.'
In this case qui is equivalent to ut Final and is ' in
order that he ' and therefore requires the Subjunctive
(5) CONSEQUENCE :
Non is est qui his rebus utitur,
means only, 'He is not the person who is using these
things.' But
Non is est qui his rebus utatur,
means, ' He is not a man of such a kind as to use these
things,' or 'He isnotthemantouse these things/ So again
Innocentia est adfectio talis animi quae (=ut ea) noceat
nemini,
' Innocence is a state of mind of such a kind that it
injures no one.'
Quae has a consecutive force and so requires the Sub-
junctive.
(c) CAUSE:
Fortunatus adolescens est qui virtufem invenit,
means only, ' A youth who has discovered virtue is happy/
but
fortunate adolescens, qui virtutem inveneris !
' O happy young man, since you have discovered
virtue ! '
Here qui is equivalent to quum tu, 'since you/ and
therefore requires the Subjunctive.
(d) CONCESSION:
The concessive sense of qui is analogous to the causal :
PART ii.] FINAL CLAUSES. 65
the context must decide which meaning is intended.
Thus
Amo te qui tarn bonus sis,
means, ' I love you because you are so good.' But
Odi te qui tarn bonus si's,
can only mean, * I hate, you although you are so good.'
So Cicero
Absolvite Verrem qui sefateatur pecunias accepisse,
'Acquit Verres although he confesses he has received
bribes;' but
Condemnate Verrem qui sefateatur pecunias accepisse,
would mean, ' Condemn Verres because he confesses he has
received bribes.'
In all these cases it is obvious that the relative qui in-
troduces Adverbial, not merely Adjectival, Clauses.
Final Clauses, i.e. Clauses denoting Purpose.
The Conjunctions expressing purpose in Latin are ut,
quo, ne, quominus. They all require the Subjunctive
mood.
The rule for the Consecution of Tenses in Final Clauses
is that the Imperfect must be used in subordination to a
Past Tense, the Present in subordination to a Present or
a Future ; thus
(a) Veniebam \
Veni > Romam ut te viderem,
Vtneram )
' I was coming, came, had come, to Rome, that I
might see you ' or ' to see you/
F
66 FINAL CLAUSES. [PART n.
(b) Veni \
Venio > Romam ut te videam,
Veniam )
' I have come, am coming, will come to Rome to
see you.'
EXERCISE LII.
(Final Clauses. See above: also Bradley, xiv, and L. P. p. 163.)
1. He forgives his enemies in order that he may be
praised by good men.
2. He forgave his enemies in order that he might be
praised by good men.
3. He has forgiven his enemies in order that he may
be praised by good men.
4. It is said that he left Rome in order that he might
not be accused of theft.
5. He has returned to the city in order that he may
not be deprived of his property in his absence.
6. He promised to return that no one might be able to
say that he had failed to help a friend in danger.
7. I have spared many evil men whom I might have
slain, in order that my own crimes may be forgiven.
8. The Carthaginians will arrive here to-morrow with
all their forces to besiege our city.
9. There is no doubt that he made that speech with
the object of pleasing those worthless friends of yours.
10. He praises his friends before their face in order
that he may never be abused by them in his absence.
11. I shall return to the city at once to put an end to
the calumnies of my enemies.
PART 1 1.] FINAL CLAUSES. 67
12. I think you should write to him to make him return
more quickly to his home.
EXERCISE LIII.
(The same, continued?)
1. Cicero went to Sicily to enquire into the charges
raised against Verres.
2. I have nothing to write to you in return, but pray
send me one line to say how you are.
3. I have sent letters to him entreating him to return
and clear himself of the charges brought against him.
4. A doctor gives medicine to the sick that they may
live the longer, even though he knows that they cannot
recover altogether.
5. He used always to praise those of his scholars who
answered well, that they might become more fond of
reading.
6. He remained for two years abroad after he had
gained his victory, to avoid being overmuch praised by his
countrymen on his return.
7. He forgave all his most bitter enemies, that no one
might be able to reproach him with cruelty.
8. It is commonly reported that he forgave his enemies
that no one might be able to reproach him with cruelty.
9. Most men will say that he has left the city to avoid
saluting the new consul.
10. I will never bring myself to say what I know is not
true in order to please the dictator.
F 2
68 CONSECUTIVE CLAUSES. [PART n.
Consecutive Clauses, i.e. Clauses denoting
a Consequence.
The Conjunctions expressing a result or consequence
are ut, ut non, quin, quominus, all of which require the
Subjunctive.
In the Consecution of Tenses in Consecutive Clauses
more variety is possible than in the case of Final Clauses.
A consequence may take place subsequently to its cause,
as well as simultaneously with it ; whereas a motive can
only be regarded as simultaneous with the action which it
prompts. Thus in Final Clauses we can only say
(a) I did \ .
T , , . > in order that I might.
I had done )
(3) / do, am doing, or have done in order that I may.
(c) I shall do in order that I may.
But in Consecutive Clauses we may say
(a) / acted ) so that I was, etc. (of a continuous
/ had acted I state).
(I) I acted, etc. so that I did or was (of a single act, or
momentary state).
(c) I acted so that I now am (where the cause is
past, the consequence present).
r , , , , so that I am.
1 have acted
(d) 2 act )
(e) I am acting ) so that I shall\ (where the cause is
/ have acted ) present, the consequence future).
(f) I shall act so that I shall, or so as to be.
For most of the above cases no special rules are needed,
PART ii.] CONSECUTIVE CLAUSES. 69
as the Latin tense will correspond to the English. But
the following points must specially be noted :
(1) The Perfect Subjunctive is to be employed when a
result in the past is regarded as a single fact, the Imperfect
where it denotes a continuous act or state.
(2) The Present tense is used in Subordination to a
Future.
(3) A negative consequence is expressed by ut non, not
by ne. Thus
(1) Ita se gessit ut nocens haberetur, 'He so bore him-
self as to be held guilty ; ' but
Ita se gessit ut condemnatus sit, ' He bore himself in
such a way that he was condemned.'
(2) Ita me geram ut absolvar, ' I shall bear myself in
such a manner as to be acquitted/
(3) Ita se gessit ut non condemnatus sit, ' He bore him-
self in such a way that he was not condemned.' But
Ita se gessit ne condemnaretur would mean, ' He bore
himself thus in order that he might not be condemned.'
EXERCISE LIV.
(Consecutive Clauses. See above: also Bradley, xv, and
L. P.p. 162.)
1. He forgives his enemies so generously that he is
praised by all good men.
2. The army left the camp so hurriedly that they had
not even time to pack up their effects.
3. He has attacked the consuls so bitterly as to rouse
the indignation of all just-minded men.
70 CONSECUTIVE CLAUSES. [PART n.
4. He has conducted himself in such a manner that he
cannot be held to be in possession of his senses.
5. The infantry charged with such impetuosity, that, had
not night come on, they would have captured the camp.
6. He has told so many falsehoods that no one believes
him even on his oath.
7. He told me that he would remain at home to please
me ; and then left so suddenly that, had not his wife
informed me of his intention, I should never have seen
him again alive.
8. The matter has turned out so badly that I shall
displease those whom I wished to serve, and benefit those
whom I wished to injure.
9. So little did he succeed in gaining popularity that
by his persistent calumnies he alienated even his best
friends.
EXERCISE LV.
{Consecutive Clauses, continued.}
1. Verres having been found guilty of extortion, Cicero
was so pleased with his success that he never ceased to
tell people how great eloquence he had shown.
2. I have nothing more to say: I write this that you
may not think that I have forgotten you, but I am so ill
that I cannot write without pain.
3. For a long time past the conditions of our life and of
public affairs have been such as to exclude all hope for
the future.
4. What resources have you in your own homes, I ask,
to make up for the losses you have sustained ?
PART ii.] CAUSAL CLAUSES. fi
5. The interposition of the Gods in our affairs at this
conjuncture has been so evident that I deem it impossible
for us to be neglectful of their worship.
6. They deemed any course more safe to take than
that of establishing their innocence.
7. He will never establish his innocence so completely
as to be able to stand for a public office.
8. He was prevented by the presence of the enemy in
great force from crossing the river at the point which he
had chosen.
9. I have never made any pretensions, I do not to-day
make any, which can justly offend the most spiteful of
mankind.
10. Of all the generals that I have ever known, he was
the one most fitted to win the favour of his soldiers.
1 1. Since the power of the man we fear extends so far
that it has embraced the whole world, would you not
rather be safe at home than unsafe abroad ?
12. A merchant cannot become bankrupt without
involving many other persons in his ruin.
Causal Clauses.
The Conjunctions denoting Cause in Latin are quod,
quia, quoniam, quandoquidem, which are followed by the
Indicative, and quum, followed by the Subjunctive. Causal
clauses are also, as we have seen, introduced by qui with
the Subjunctive. The Causal Conjunctions occur so
frequently throughout the exercises that it is not neces-
sary to give special exercises to illustrate their use.
72 CONCESSIVE AND TEMPORAL CLAUSES. [PART 11.
Concessive Clauses.
Of the Concessive Conjunctions some take the Indica-
tive, some the Subjunctive.
Etsi) quamquam, tametsi,
take the Indicative, because they imply that an obstacle
really exists, and therefore mean, ' in spite of the fact that ; '
but
quum, licet, quamvis, ut,
refer to supposed or imaginary difficulties, and therefore
are followed by the Subjunctive. Licet means properly
' allowed that,' ut ' supposing that/ quamvis ' however much
you please : ' quum, meaning ' although ' or * since/ takes
the Subjunctive for the same reason as qut t with a con-
cessive or causal meaning (see pp. 64, 65).
Temporal Claiises.
The principal Temporal Conjunctions in Latin are
quum, quando, ubi, &/, postquam, priusquam, antequam,
dum, donee, quoad, simul ac.
Of these quum is followed by the Subjunctive Mood
if the Imperfect or Pluperfect Tense be used : with
other Tenses it takes the Indicative. The other Con-
junctions are followed by the Indicative if they refer
merely to time, by the Subjunctive if they carry with them
an additional notion of purpose or consequence. Thus
dum = ' during the time that/ takes the Indicative Mood;
if it mean ' until such time as/ the Subjunctive : thus,
Dum te reficis, morabor,
' I shall wait during the time that you are recovering/
PART IL] TEMPORAL CLAUSES. 73
But
Dum te reficias (or. refeceris] morabor,
' I shall wait until such time as you are recovering '
or * have recovered.'
And
Multa quoque et bello passus dum conderei urbem,
'He suffered many things in war till he should
found (i.e. in the hope, with the purpose, of
founding) a city/
It need scarcely be added that while the Indicative is
the mood used ordinarily after the above Conjunctions,
any one of them may be followed by the Subjunctive if
the general sense of the passage be such as for other and
independent reasons to require it.
EXERCISE LVI.
( Temporal Clauses. See above : also Bradley, liv, Iv, and
L.P.p. 163.)
1. As soon as he heard this, he determined on taking
the field at once, that he might bring on an engagement
before the citizens should repent of having declared war.
2. Scouts brought word that as soon as the enemy
landed they began to plunder.
3. Before learning that there were not sufficient soldiers
left to guard the city, he had determined to use the
utmost caution.
4. This being the case, I cannot help asking you from
what source you obtain the means of subsistence.
5. Whenever he heard a man blaming his friends and
74 TEMPORAL CLAUSES. [PART n.
praising his enemies, he would ask him in which category
he placed himself.
6. No sooner had he been made aware of the defeat
of the enemy than he proposed that the senate should
ordain a public thanksgiving.
7. Whilst one of the consuls presided at the elections,
the other marshalled the army in the Campus Martius.
8. Forbear to ask the question until he has recovered
from his illness.
9. Let them do what they like, provided only they do
not betray a man who has deserved so well of his
country.
10. He did not enter upon political life until the death
of his father enabled him to espouse openly the cause
which he had long secretly favoured.
EXERCISE LVIL
(Temporal Clauses, continued.}
1. Antonius left the city before hearing that Caesar
had returned.
2. Antonius had the wisdom to leave the city before
he could be informed of Caesar's return.
3. They kept turning their eyes and faces in every
direction to which the weeping of women and the crash
of falling houses attracted them.
4. The war with Veii did not come to an end until
the Alban Lake was drained, in accordance with the
divine command.
5. Having met my brother a few days after his de-
PART IL] CONDITIONAL CLAUSES. 75
parture from Rome. Pompeius recalled to his memory all
the steps he had taken to ensure my safety.
6. I went straight on to Macedonia before these wicked
men could have heard of my arrival.
7. Am I to remain inactive before Athens until my
whole army be destroyed ?
8. Whilst these things were going on, news was brought
to Hannibal that the Romans had crossed the river.
9. Claudius made use of this statue so long as he kept
the forum adorned in honour of the immortal Gods.
10. He determined to engage the enemy whilst his
colleague was ill.
n. Provided only the fact remains, let them fashion
phrases as they will.
Conditional Clauses.
A Conditional Proposition contains two clauses :
(1) A Subordinate Clause, introduced by if or a word
of similar meaning, which states a Condition ; and,
(2) A Principal Clause, which states the result which
did, or may, or would, follow upon the realisation of the
Condition.
The Subordinate or Condition Clause is called the
Protasis ; the Principal or Result Clause is called the
Apodosis.
As the Principal Clause is contingent upon the fulfil-
ment of the Condition, and as a Condition is in its
essence hypothetical, it might be supposed that all Verbs
in Conditional Propositions must necessarily be in the
Subjunctive. In the great majority of cases, the Sub-
76 CONDITIONAL CLAUSES. [PART n.
junctive is required : but in Latin, as in English, there
are propositions which are hypothetical in form only, and
which state the existence of a relation between a con-
dition and a result as an absolute fact. To these cases
the Indicative is appropriate, and it may be used with
Past, Present, or Future time.
' If I saw five men, I saw a hundred ;' ' If you have the
cholera, I have it ; ' { If you condemn me, you will con-
demn him ;' are propositions conditional in form only.
In fact they are positive statements, to the effect that one
circumstance, if true, necessarily carries another along
with it. Nothing is implied as to the likelihood or non-
likelihood of the condition : nothing is asserted but that
one fact or set of facts is, was, or will be, accompanied
by another set.
In such cases we may use the Indicative in Latin,
and say
/ \ o- r> IT- (videbas\ . ( videbas
(1) Si Puolium \ .,..>, stultum hominem \ . ,. ,.
v ; { mdisti j 1 vidish,
1 If you saw Publius, you saw a fool.'
(2) Si me amas, ego te amo,
' If you love me, I love you.'
( adjuvabis "|
n) oz me \ T . . > , ego admvaoo te,
( adjuvens J '
' If you help me, I will help you/
But such propositions which in reality are not Con-
ditional at all are infrequent ; and in all true Conditional
propositions the Subjunctive must be employed according
to one or other of the following types :
(i) Si hoc negassem, mentitus essem,
' If I had denied this, I should have lied.'
PART ii.] CONDITIONAL CLAUSES. 77
(2) Si hoc negarem, mentirer,
Either, ' If I had been denying this I should have
been lying,' or, ' If I were denying this, I should
be lying.'
(3) Si hoc negem, mentiar,
1 If I were to deny this now, I should be lying/
(i) presents no difficulty. Condition and result alike
belong to the past and the impossible. The time for
realising the condition is gone ; the result therefore cannot
occur.
But there is more difficulty in distinguishing accurately
between (2) and (3). Both refer to conditions in the
highest degree improbable, which it is implied have not,
and will not, occur, but which are yet rhetorically regarded
as possible.
The Imperfect refers to a continuous state in the imme-
diate Past time, extending up to the Present ; the Present
refers to a continuous state in the Present. Thus in (2)
the Imperfect^ referring to a time already past, and there-
fore beyond recall, denotes a more remote and less
possible contingency ; in (3), the Present denotes a con-
tingency which will not occur, but which, if it did occur,
could only be realised at the present moment.
In both cases the exact idea of time gets lost in an idea
of contingency. Both contingencies are remote, and im-
plied to be impossible ; but the contingency of the imper-
fect is the more remote, being represented as actually past.
The sense of the Imperfect Subjunctive is best caught by
comparing it with the same tense in the Indicative. Thus :
Si hoc dicelam mentiebar means ' If I was saying this (I
do not say whether I was or not), I was lying.'
78 CONDITIONAL CLAUSES. [PART n.
-Si' hoc dicerem^ mentirer, ' If I were saying this
(which I am not) I should be lying.' Here the contin-
gency is so remote that the idea of definite time dis-
appears, and we may translate, ' If I were to say so I
should be lying/ or ' should lie ; ' and it is impossible to
decide whether the contingency refers to the immediate
past or to the present. We may therefore translate, ' If
I were to say so I should lie/ or ' be lying.' Thus Haec
si videres, lacrimas non teneres (Cic. Fam. vii. 3), c If you
were seeing, or were to see, at any time, these things, you
would not refrain from weeping.' Here the reference to
time is perfectly vague : but had Cicero said
Haec si videas, lacrimas non teneas,
he would have meant, ' Were you seeing these things now
(as I am) you would not restrain your tears.'
EXERCISE LVIII.
(Conditional Clauses. See above: also Bradley, Ivii, Iviii,
and L.P.p. 164.)
1 . If you do this you will be hated by all men.
2. If you know of any precepts better than mine, im-
part them to me : if not, use these along with me.
3. If you are now at home, write and tell me what you
are about.
4. If you come to Rome you will repent it.
5. If he saw a rose, he would think that the spring had
arrived.
6. If he had asked my pardon, I should have forgiven
him.
PART ii.] CONDITIONAL CLAUSES. 79
7. If he were to ask my pardon now, I should not
forgive him.
8. If he had said so, I should not have believed him.
If he were to say so on oath, I should not believe him.
9. The whole army would have been destroyed if the
consul had pursued the fugitives.
10. The whole army might have been destroyed had
we pursued the fugitives.
11. He will die unless he changes his mode of life.
He will die if he does not change his mode of life.
12. Whether he was absent by chance or intentionally
is of little consequence : what we wish to discover is
whether he was absent or present.
EXERCISE LIX.
(Conditional Clauses, continued.')
1. He would never have accused Verres at all unless
he had hoped by so doing to win the favour of the people
and to be elected consul.
2. Had you said so at once, I should perhaps have for-
given you : but I know how often you have deceived
others, and I do not doubt that you are ready to deceive
me.
3. Had the senate passed a wise decree, the Republic
would have been saved, and all would now be well.
4. If I were asked what is my opinion of Hannibal, I
should say that he was the first general of antiquity, even
Alexander the Great not excepted.
5. I would not have consented to do what you asked
8o CONDITIONAL CLAUSES. [PART n.
had I not feared that worse things would have befallen
me had I refused.
6. I should not be fit for the conduct of any case,
gentlemen of the jury, if I did not understand this prin-
ciple, which has been fixed and implanted by the hand of
nature herself in the hearts of all men.
7. I envy you your present happiness : but if you were
to be convicted of treachery, I should envy you no more.
8. If the senate had permitted Caesar to stand for the
consulship in absence, all these senators would not have
been slain, and the Republic would still be standing.
9. Were I to see the state in the hands of wicked men,
as I know has occurred in former times, no bribes, no
dangers even, would induce me to join their cause.
10. Most men believe that if Brutus had not been
defeated at Philippi, the commonwealth would not have
been overturned.
11. It is certain that if the English had not retreated in
time, they would all have been cut off to a man.
12. The dictator declared that if Hannibal would give
him a fair opportunity, he would engage him immediately.
EXERCISE LX.
{Conditional Clauses in Oratio Obliqua. See Bradley, lix.}
1. If I say so, I am wrong. I know that if I say so I
am wrong.
2. If Caesar were to conquer Pompey, the common-
wealth would be overthrown. It is certain that if Caesar
were to conquer Pompey, the commonwealth would be
PART ii.] COMPARATIVE CLAUSES. 81
overturned. Cicero declared that if Caesar were to con-
quer Pompey the commonwealth would be overthrown.
3. If Pompey had not left Italy, Rome would not have
fallen. Cicero declared frequently that if Pompey had not
left Italy Rome would not have fallen. All men are now
of opinion that had not Pompey left Italy Rome would
not have been captured.
4. Do you suppose that if Pompey had been victorious
he would have spared you alone ? Acknowledge that if
he were now to return you would be the first to pay the
penalty. It is certain that if he had returned you would
have been the first to pay the penalty.
5. He announced that he would give a crown of gold
as a prize to the man who should first enter the city.
6. I ask what you would have done had you seen the
enemy entering the city.
7. I was so closely connected with Caesar that, if he had
been slain in his attack on the city, I should have fallen
with him.
Comparative Clauses.
The Comparative Conjunctions, tamquam, ceu, velut are
followed by the Subjunctive because they imply hypothe-
tical or impossible cases ; /, quemadmodum, quo (signifying
proportion), proinde ac, similis ac, pariter ac, etc., are
used with the Indicative when they refer to actual facts.
8 2 LA TIN PR OSE [PART 1 1 .
EXERCISE LXL
{Concessive and Comparative Clauses. See Bradley, Ix, Ixii,
and L. P.p. 165.)
1. In spite of the fact that the public land had been
acquired by the whole people, the patricians for a long
time kept the use of it exclusively to themselves.
2. Even though I were innocent, I should be condemned
all the same.
3. However guilty a man may be, it is right that a jury
should hear patiently all that can be urged in his defence.
4. In spite of the extreme cold, and the great difficulties
encountered in his ascent, Hannibal carried a large part
of his army over the Alps.
5. Fie behaved very differently from what I had ex-
pected.
6. The consul, with his usual timidity of disposition,
determined to carry on the war with deliberation rather
than with vigour.
7. The longer we delay, the smaller is our hope of
victory : you are in reality stronger than the enemy, yet
you act as though you expected to be defeated in every
encounter.
EXERCISE LXII.
(Qui with Subjunctive. See Bradley, Ixiii, Ixiv, and L. P. p. 166.)
1. Those of the enemy who had escaped, seeing that
their only hope of safety lay in reaching some place of
refuge before daybreak, made straight for Athens.
2. He at once despatched a messenger to inform his
father of his situation.
PART ii.] EXERCISES. 83
3. The men who were condemned yesterday ought not
to be forgiven. We ought not to forgive men who do not
repent of the injury which they have done us.
4. It is useless to address so great a multitude, which
no human voice can possibly reach.
5. He was not the man to allow himself to be insulted
with impunity.
6. I will send you a letter to inform you how I am, and
on what day I intend to arrive at Mantua.
7. How fortunate I deem myself to be to have heard
him in his best days ! for though I am no orator myself, I
am unable to listen to commonplace speakers.
8. There are many nations who deem themselves in-
vincible ; there is but one which never has been con-
quered.
9. He had no place on which to set his foot.
10. He was unworthy of being raised to the throne.
EXERCISE LXIII.
(Qui with Subjunctive, continued.)
1. One of the legions was given to Fabius to be led
against the enemy.
2. How unfortunate I am not to have been present on
that occasion !
3. He is too wise to go to Rome to stand for office.
4. He is just the man to conquer a savage enemy with
a small force.
5. I hope that you will give me something to do.
6. They do not now seem worthy to be free : but
formerly many were found to venture on taking up arms.
G 2
84 LATIN PROSE [PART n
7. There Caesar complained bitterly of my vote, as he
had already seen Crassus at Ravenna, and had there been
incensed by him against me.
8. Their prayers were such as could not be resisted.
9. A certain scribe was found to publish the calendar
to the people, and filch from the lawyers their learning.
10. There are some who think that a man cannot
become a good orator unless he knows all sciences.
1 1 . There remained but one house in which you could
take refuge.
12. Those also are to be deemed mean persons who
buy goods from merchants with the object of selling them
immediately.
13. I commend Publius to you for his father's sake,
though he has always shown himself a most bitter enemy
to me.
14. I was not surprised at this, for I knew he was a
man of the greatest ability.
EXERCISE LXIV.
(QUOMINUS, QUIN. See Bradley, xvii. and L. P.p. 167.)
1. There is no doubt that the Romans had no just
ground for war with the Carthaginians.
2. It is quite impossible that you do not love me, con-
sidering that you have always preferred to obtain for me
an honour rather than to get it for yourself.
3. I could not but accuse Verres, seeing that the
Sicilians had shown me such forbearance when I was
amongst them.
PART 1 1 .] EXER CISES. 8 5
4. There is no one who does not think that he is
guilty.
5. So convinced were the jury of his guilt, that they
could scarcely be restrained from condemning him un-
heard.
6. He was very near meeting his death on that day :
had he not been protected by an armed force, nothing
would have prevented the mob from tearing him to pieces.
7. The more silent a man is, the wiser he is generally
esteemed.
EXERCISE LXV.
{Subjunctive used independently. See Bradley, xix. and
L.P.p. 152.)
1 . What was I to do ? Was I to pronounce him inno-
cent, when I knew he had been guilty of the gravest
crimes ?
2. What am I to say ? I can scarcely affirm that he is
mad, but I do assert that his acts are the acts of a mad-
man.
3. I would do anything rather than disbelieve the evi-
dence of my own eyes.
4. Granted that Hannibal was a general of consummate
ability, are we on that account to forget Alexander, Ha-
milcar, Camillus, and the other great commanders whom
various countries have produced ?
5. Let us rather die with honour than fall into the
hands of a perfidious enemy.
6. Under all circumstances you should study modera-
tion, and avoid ever the ' Too much/ whether in word or
deed.
86 LATIN PROSE EXERCISES.
7. Would that we had shown courage at the time when
it was most needed ! May we even now learn to bear our
misfortunes with equanimity.
EXERCISE LXVI.
( The same, continued?)
1. Are we to believe everything we hear? Is there to
be no end put to lying and slandering ? Better be con-
demned at once of malversation than die by degrees of
weariness and despair.
2. 'To whom was I to turn ?' asked Cicero : ' I am not
the man to be diverted from my enquiry by difficulties,
but I felt that you, the injured persons, ought before all
others to have assisted me/
3. I would rather that this had not been done.
4. Would that I had consulted only my own interests
when I might have done so with impunity !
5. May I perish if I do not think you would rather be
consulted by Caesar than by me.
6. Would that the Roman people had only one neck 1
7. Let us hope for what we wish, but let us endure
whatever happens.
8. Do not cross the Iberus ; have nothing to do with
the Romans.
9. You may escape by flight those evils which you
cannot bear.
i o. May they be all well and flourish : may they all
obtain whatever they desire.
INTRODUCTION TO PARTS III. AND IV.
On Continuous Prose.
THE writing of Continuous Prose is an essentially
different thing from the translation of detached sen-
tences. A series of detached sentences, placed one
after another, each correct in itself and formed after a
similar pattern, would bear but little resemblance to a
passage of Cicero or Livy. A passage of any length
must be viewed as an artistic whole, and constructed ac-
cordingly ; and it is as necessary for the effect of the
whole that the various clauses of which it is composed
should be arranged in a certain order relatively to each
other, as it is that the proper order should be observed
in the words of a single sentence.
Some remarks on style, and on the order of words in
single sentences, have been given above in the Intro-
duction to Part I. It was there pointed out that for the
composition of good Latin sentences, three things are
necessary :
1. To write with grammatical correctness;
2. To choose appropriate words and phrases in trans-
ferring English ideas into Latin ; and
3. To place the words of a sentence in their proper
Latin order.
But for the writing of good Continuous Prose some-
thing more is needed. The object here is not merely to
88 INTRODUCTION TO
reproduce the meaning of a single sentence, but to catch
the drift of an entire passage. If the thought in a passage
of English be not presented in a Latin form, or developed
in a Latin order, we may have to take the whole structure
to pieces ; unbuild it first, and then reconstruct it in such
an order, and with such changes of construction and con-
nection, as may be necessary to clothe the thought in a
distinctively Latin dress.
In the selection of single sentences, with the main
object of illustrating particular constructions, care is
taken to avoid ideas and constructions which do not
lend themselves readily to translation into Latin: but
in translating whole passages from English authors we
encounter ideas, phrases, turns, and constructions, which
are wholly foreign to Latin thought, and which must be
entirely re-cast before they can appear in a Latin form.
To do this well, we must translate freely rather than
literally, and pay some attention to style ; point and
neatness must be considered as well as correctness ;
effect and harmony of sound must be aimed at as well
as a faithful reproduction of the sense.
It may be well to illustrate at greater length the differ-
ences between Latin and English phraseology which
have been shortly indicated in the Introduction to Part I.
Abstract Terms and Metaphors.
Latin is a direct, concrete, literal language, which goes
straight to the point : a quality which has been well ex-
pressed by the saying that Latin always speaks the truth.
Hence it eschews the use of abstractions which stand for
PARTS III. AND IV. 89
concrete things ; it avoids figurative phrases, which do not
carry their own explanation with them, and the attribution
of personality and personal acts to abstractions or inanimate
things. Thus such phrases as ' the majority of mankind/
' the world/ ' society/ 'public life/ etc., are inadmissible in
a literal form ; we must turn them into their concrete equi-
valents, and say Plerique hominum, Homines, Qui venusti
et urbani sunt, Qui in publicis versantur rebus, or whatever
similar expressions may suit the context. To translate
literally into Latin such phrases as ' Famine stared them
in the face/ ' Confusion on thy banners wait/ * Darkness
compelled him to desist/ ' Privation teaches us many a
useful lesson/ 'Necessity is the mother of invention/ would
be absurd, or at least contrary to the genius of classical
Latin. The difficulty of thus attributing personal acts to
inanimate objects or abstractions may frequently be over-
come by turning the sentence from an Active into a Passive
form, as in the following renderings : Prope inedia consumpti
sunt; Obortis tenebris cessavit; Necessitate docti nova usque
homines exquirunt.
Abstract terms are continually being used in English,
as in other modern languages, where concrete things are
meant : every such term must therefore be closely scanned
to ascertain whether it is in reality an abstract term, i. e.
the name of a quality, such as ' virtue/ ' wisdom/ ' clear-
ness/ ' density/ and the like, or whether it is in fact some
concrete object, or collection of objects, disguised under a
general term. In the latter case the use of an abstract
term in Latin must carefully be avoided. For phrases
like 'humanity/ 'youth/ 'old age/ etc., we must write
'men/ 'the young/ ' the old/ and so on. But even where an
90 INTRODUCTION TO
abstract term is used legitimately to express an abstract
idea, it will frequently be advisable to turn the idea into
a concrete form. Thus ' Temperance is the best "guarantee
for health/ should be transposed into ' Those who are
temperate are generally healthy ; ' ' Honesty is the best
policy/ into ' Those who are most honest are also most
fortunate.'
This love for the concrete and the direct is further seen
in the preference of Latin for the Verb over the Substantive
to express states and processes, whether of the mind or in
external objects. Such terms as 'action/ 'agitation/
' opinion/ ' transformation/ ' delusion/ etc., should gene-
rally be translated by Verbs rather than by Verbal Sub-
stantives. Thus, 'Your action in this matter/ will be Quae
in hac re fecisti ; ' Your present occupation/ Quae nunc
agis ; ' What is your opinion of the Germans ? ' De Ger-
manis quid sentis ? 'The sudden transformation of our
enemies into friends is truly marvellous/ Mirum est- quam
subito hostes in amicos sint mutati!
In like manner, care should be taken in translating
phrases of a figurative or metaphorical character. Modern
languages abound in figurative expressions ; the field of
knowledge open to us is infinitely wider than that which
was open to the ancients, and the extent of the objects
from which illustrations can be drawn is larger in the
same proportion. The main object of a metaphor or
comparison of any kind is to present some less familiar
idea or object in the form of one more familiar : to illus-
trate the less known by a reference to the more known.
It follows that no such comparison can be conducive
to its end unless it appeals to the experience of those
PARTS III. AND IV. 91
addressed ; the wider the circle of our ideas, the larger will
be the fund on which the writer or the speaker may draw
for purposes of explanation or illustration. Before using
therefore a metaphor in Latin we must consider whether
it belongs to the circle of ideas which could have been
brought within the reach of an ancient mind ; or if it in-
troduces ideas obviously modern, whether it can be put in
such a way as to carry its own information with it, or to
fit in with the general lines of ancient thought and life.
In many cases it will be well to substitute some analogous
metaphor, taken from some department of life, some
sphere of thought, to which an ancient might naturally
have appealed, or one actually employed for such purpose
by Latin authors. If the English figure of speech be
obviously too violent or modern in its character to pass
muster as a metaphor in Latin, it may be employed as a
simile, and introduced by some particle of comparison.
In this way direct attention is called to the fact that a
comparison is instituted; a knowledge of the thing to
which the comparison is made is not taken for granted,
as in the metaphor ; information is conveyed as well as
illustration. Or if the metaphor seem bold, but not over-
bold for use, it may be softened apologetically by the use
of some such phrase as ut ita dicam, quasi, ut insolentius
loquar, etc., etc.
There are many figurative expressions whose figurative
character is not apparent at first sight. They have been
in use for so many generations that their original meaning
has been worn off. We are scarcely conscious that we
are using figurative language when we speak of ' the foot/
' the shoulder/ ' the face/ ' the side/ ' the profile/ ' the
92 INTRODUCTION TO
back/ of a mountain; but elementary and universal as
these conceptions are, there are some of them which could
not be transferred directly into Latin. So the expressions
' to propose/ ' to intend/ ' to object/ ' to conceive/ are all
figurative, being illustrations of mental acts taken from
acts of the body; and it so happens that they are all used
in Latin as well as English. But we cannot use them
correctly in Latin without bearing their original meaning
in mind, and applying the constructions which those
meanings require. We will thus say Hoc mihi proposui ut,
not simply proposui, for 'I proposed;' intendere animum,
' to stretch/ or ' strain the mind/ upon a thing ; haec mihi
objecit, ' he placed these things in my way/ ' cast up these
things against me/ or haec objecit, ' he made these objec-
tions ; ' concipere ammo, not concipere alone. The student
has constantly to be on his guard against being entrapped
by similarities of this kind.
But there are a large number of familiar metaphors
which are quite untranslateable, and for which must
generally be substituted the simple idea involved, without
figure of any kind. Such are the following phrases about
time : ' to beat time/ ' to kill time/ ' to take time by the
forelock/ ' procrastination is the thief of time/ ' time is
money/ Or again ' to steal a person's heart/ ' to steal a
march upon some one/ ' to steal away;' ' to be the victim
of circumstances;' 'to nurse one's wrath/ etc., are only
some among hundreds of familar metaphorical phrases
which it would be impossible to translate by a metaphor
without absurdity, or by a comparison without pedantry.
Let the student carefully examine every metaphor; let
him strip off the figure, and pierce to the essence of the
PARTS III. AND IV. 93
idea. If he finds that the actual sense can be suitably
expressed by the use of the same, or some analogous
k figure, well and good; if not, let him leave aside the
figurative part of the expression, and express the idea
itself in its simplest direct form.
In all these cases we see the same principle at work.
Everything in Latin should be expressed directly, simply,
forcibly: to be literal and luminous should be the two
main objects of a writer of Latin.
General Structiire of Latin.
THE PERIOD.
Turning now to the general structure of the two lan-
guages, there are two points as to which Latin differs
materially from English.
1. The more frequent use of lengthy Periods, containing
many Subordinate Propositions.
2. The use of Conjunctions and Relative words to indi-
cate the logical connection between one sentence and
another.
(i) In English, were a style loaded with Subordinate
Propositions, it would appear cumbrous and involved;
and, as a general rule, the best styles are those in which
the sentences are short. A Latin writer, on the contrary,
rejoices in the period', he loves artistically to group a
number of subordinate propositions round one or more
central ideas, giving each its logical place in reference to
the whole, and developing them one by one in the order
most conducive either to emphasis or clearness. Thus
94 INTRODUCTION TO
a sense of unity is obtained ; each part of an argument or
narrative stands out in its proper relief; while the wealth
of Latin in words and constructions suited to the expres-
sion of subordinate ideas enables the thought to move
easily along, without fear of confusion or obscurity.
A good example of the Latin Period will be found in
Tacitus, Annals i. 2 :
'Postquam Bruto et Cassio caesis nulla iam publica arma,
Pompeius apud Siciliam oppressus, exutoque Lepido, inter-
fecto Antonio, ne lulianis quidem partibus nisi Caesar dux
reliquus, posito triumviri nomine consulem se ferens et ad
tuendam plebem tribunicio iure contentum, ubi militem donis^
populum annona, cunctos dulcedine otii pellexit, insurgere
paulatim^ munia senatus magistratuum legum in se trahere,
nullo adversante, cum ferocissimi per acies aut proscriptione
cecidissent^ ceteri nobilium, quanto quis servitio promptior,
opibus et honoribus extollerentur, ac novis ex rebus aucti
tuta et praesentia quam vetera etpericulosa mallent!
Such a passage, if literally translated into English, would
be complicated and cumbrous in the extreme. To give it
a good English form, it would be necessary to split it up
into a number of independent sentences, somewhat as
follows :
' On the field where Brutus and Cassius fell, the last
republican army was destroyed. The defeat of Pompey
in Sicily, the deprivation of Lepidus, and the death of
Antony, left Caesar the undisputed leader of the Julian
party. Upon that, he laid aside the title of Triumvir;
and proclaiming himself Consul, declared that he would
be satisfied with the tribunitian power for the protection
of the people. But when he had won over the soldiery
PARTS III. AND IV. 95
by donatives, the populace by cheap corn, the whole world
by the sweets of peace, by degrees his pretentions rose,
and he gathered into his own hands the functions of the
Senate, the magistrates, and the legislature. Opposition
there was none : for the most independent spirits had
fallen in battle or in the proscriptions, while the rest of
the nobles, finding themselves advanced to wealth and
office in proportion to their servility, found profit in the
new state of things, and preferred the safety of the present
to the dangers of the past.'
In performing the reverse process of translating from
English into Latin it will often, conversely, be advisable to
combine several sentences into a single period, in which
the various parts shall stand in their due logical relation
to each other.
In addition to the frequent use of Subordinate Proposi-
tions, Latin has various other means and devices for con-
densing thought, and thus enabling several ideas to be
included in a single sentence. Latin is chary of Finite
Verbs, whether in Principal or Subordinate Clauses ; and
has various modes of economising their use. The string-
ing together of several co-ordinate Verbs by means of the
copula and is especially to be avoided. The Past Participle,
the Ablative Absolute, a Subordinate clause introduced
by quum, or the emphatic position of a single word, will
frequently be the best equivalent for an English clause with
a finite verb of its own. Compare the following :
Fugatus in castra se recepit hostis,
1 The enemy was routed, and took refuge in his camp.'
Desertus a suis imperator interfectus est,
1 The general was deserted by his men and slain.'
9 6 INTRODUCTION TO
Fug at os Publius hostes usque ad urbem persecutus est,
'Publius routed the enemy and pursued them up to
the city gates.'
Comitiis habitis consul ad urbem rediit,
' So soon as the elections were over, the consul returned
to the city.'
Privato mihi populus hunc honor em detulit,
'The people conferred upon me this honour before I
had held any public office.'
Invalidus pede consul pugnam declinabat^
' The consul was averse to engage as he was wounded
in the foot.'
(2) Next, the student must note that the connection
between the various sentences of a passage is much more
explicitly brought out in Latin than in English. As a
Latin writer developes his argument, he generally indi-
cates at each step the logical connection which subsists
between its different portions. For this purpose the
most commonly used word is the relative qui : a cursory
reference to any author will show what an extraordinary
number of sentences begin with gui, or the collocation qui
quum. In the same manner such words and phrases as qui-
dcm, autem, vero, at, itaut^ qttum turn, sic ut, nempe, etc.,
are continually used to denote a continuation or a break in
an argument, a transition or a resumption, a contrast or a
correspondence. The natural sequences of time, of cause
and effect, are in the same way marked with great pre-
cision and fulness. In English, on the contrary, to
multiply such indications of connection would be thought
wearisome, and even insulting to the intelligence of the
reader; it is often more forcible to place ideas in mere
PARTS III. AND IV. 97
juxtaposition to each other, leaving the reader to make
the connection for himself.
It is therefore a ruling maxim in writing Latin that
wherever a connection can be discerned between the
various clauses of a passage whether it be a con-
nection of inference, or of contrast, or simply of addition
to what has been said before that connection should be
distinctly indicated.
A further important rule, which tends in the same direc-
tion, is to avoid, as far as possible, a change of Subject.
In English a frequent change of Subject is usual, and indeed
necessary, to give variety: and the constant repetition of
the pronoun enables a person to be referred to now in the
nominative case, now in the accusative, without confusion,
if not always without inelegance. But in Latin such
sentences as ' When Caesar went to Gaul, he left the city
by night;' ' As soon as I saw him he departed,' are impos-
sible. The subject should not be changed until necessity
requires ; and, in particular, the subject of a subordinate
clause should be the same, if possible, as that of the clause
on which it depends. Thus, in translating the sentences
above, we should write : Caesar ; quum in Galliam profedus
esf, urbem node reliquit, and Qui simul atque a me visus est,
abtit.
On Latin Order.
Some rules for the order of words in simple sentences
have been given in the Introduction to Part I ; it is more
difficult to lay down rules applicable to continuous pas-
sages. The principles of order are necessarily more
flexible than the rules of grammar, and depend upon a
98 INTRODUCTION TO
variety of considerations. There is no such thing as an
invariable rule for the order of words either in a sentence
or in a period ; for an inflectional language like Latin is
by its very nature more elastic, and admits of a greater
variety of order than a language like our own in which
the order is the main factor in determining the sense.
The order of the sentence ' Brutus stabbed Cassar ' cannot
be altered without altering the sense, or at least rendering
it ambiguous; whereas in Latin we can transpose the
words as we please, and say Brutus interfecit Caesarem
or Caesarem interfecit Brutus or Interfecit Brutus Caesa-
rem or Interfecit Caesarem Brutus or Brutus Caesarem
interfecit or Caesarem Brutus interfecit indifferently;
there being a difference of emphasis in each case,
but no difference of meaning. But whilst the order of
words in a sentence, or in a number of sentences when
combined in a passage, is determined mainly by the sense,
it is influenced largely by the sound also. The first pur-
pose of a writer is to make his meaning clear ; with this
view he arranges his ideas in the logical order which
appears most natural to those whom he is addressing.
But besides clearness, a good writer aims at producing
agreeable effect ; he endeavours to make his sentences run
smoothly and pleasantly to the ear. For this purpose he
must have a good ear himself, that is, a sense of balance
and harmony in speech ; and here again he must satisfy
the requirements of those for whom he writes.
A knowledge, therefore, of the principles of Latin order,
that is, of what the Romans considered the most natural
sequence of thought, and what they felt to be the most
harmonious arrangement of words, can only be gained by
PARTS III. AND IV. 99
a careful study of the best Latin authors. As we read
good Latin, we acquire gradually a kind of intuitive
sense of the manner in which a Roman addressing
Romans would arrange his thoughts and his words. But
the variety of styles is infinite, and style is too subtle and
delicate a quality to be reduced to rule.
In the structure of single sentences we have seen that
certain general rules of order can be laid down, though
even in these none are so absolute that it may not some-
times be necessary to depart from them, according as
sense, or emphasis, or variety, may demand. As a rule, the
principal verb should stand at the end of a sentence, the
subject at the beginning. For the end is the most em-
phatic place in a sentence ; the next most emphatic is the
beginning. The principal finite verb generally contains
the most important idea, the operative part, so to speak,
of a sentence : hence it usually stands last. Close before
it conies any prolate infinitive which may depend upon it.
If there be two verbs or verbal ideas, the more important
will stand at the end. It will generally be well to express
the less important of the two in some other way, as by a
participle, an ablative absolute, or a subordinate clause.
The subject of a sentence is logically, of course, as
important as the predicate, and, in thought precedes it.
It therefore usually stands first, if it be expressed at all ;
for in Latin, if the subject has been already expressed, and
no confusion is possible, it is not repeated.
An adjective should, as a rule, stand after, not before
the word which it qualifies ; but in the ablative absolute
the adjective or participle should stand first. The reason
for this difference is clear. Where an adjective is only
H 2
ioo INTRODUCTION TO
an epithet, it is less important in meaning than the noun.
But in the ablative absolute the emphatic part of the
phrase is in the participle or adjective : e. g. A missis armis
periit, 'Having lost his arms, he fell;' Invalido corporehosti
rest's/ere non potuit, Being weak in body, he could offer
no resistance to the enemy/
Care should be taken to avoid loosely connected phrases,
collocations of three or more words, such as frequently
occur in English, with no tie but the order to show the
connection between them. In English such phrases cause
no ambiguity, because the sense is determined by the order;
but in an inflectional language like Latin, mere sequence
is not sufficient to indicate connection. Thus there is no
ambiguity in the sentence, ' A Gaul with a long nose threw
Papirius down ;' but the Latin Gallus quidam longo naso Pa-
pirium dejecit, would naturally mean, ' A Gaul threw down
Papirius with his long nose.' To bring out the connection
between the Gaul and the nose, it would be necessary to
make the phrase more compact, and say, longo Gallus naso,
or longi Gallus nasi, or else, to use an adjectival clause,
Gallus quidam cui longus nasus, etc. Similarly, we have
seen that it would be better to say, Mira Romani populi
sapientia, than Mira sapientia populi Romani. The inclu-
sion of Romani populi between the noun and its adjective
makes the phrase compact, and prevents all ambiguity as
to the connection. No such loose sentence as the follow-
ing would occur in Latin : ' There were many instances of
vessels returning home after long absence and laden with
rich cargo being boarded within a day's sight of land/
etc. The Latin would run : ' It often happened that
PARTS III. AND IV. 101
vessels which were returning home laden with booty
were attacked when land was almost within sight/
In grouping clauses together to form a Period, the same
general principles of order must be observed. The prin-
cipal idea of the whole should come at the end, to clinch
and complete the sense. The main subject should be
introduced at the beginning; the various subordinate
clauses should be grouped in their natural logical order,
so as to allow no pause or abrupt transition till the end is
reached. To prevent monotony, the order of the words in
the different subordinate propositions should be consider-
ably varied.
One word of caution to the young scholar. In first
attempting to write connected prose, let him take care to
avoid complicated and obscure constructions. The Latin
period may sometimes appear to us to be complicated;
obscure it certainly is not. It commended itself to a
Roman writer, not because it was complex, but because it
seemed to him more natural and logical to state all the
parts of an argument or statement in one breath, and to
indicate as he went along the connection between its parts.
Clearness of thought, simplicity, and intelligibility, are the
first objects to aim at in writing Latin. Baldness is more
tolerable than obscurity. If the march of the sense be
not clear and natural from the beginning to the end,
the writer has failed to reproduce the chief excellence of
Latin, as of all human speech.
PART III. A.
EASY PASSAGES.
EXERCISE LXVII.
THERE once lived in the city of Sparta a man whose
name was Lycurgus. He belonged to a noble family,
and was the son of Eunomus, the brother of Polydectes
the Spartan king. Upon the death of the latter, his wife
promised to kill her son and obtain for him the kingdom.
Lycurgus seemed to consent ; but fearing treachery, he
saved the child's life, and slaying the mother, handed the
kingdom over to her son.
EXERCISE LXVIII.
Lycurgus was the wisest of all men at that time. In
order to make the Spartans more powerful than their
neighbours, he instituted laws by which gold and silver
were excluded from the country. All the men were
engaged either in cultivating the fields or in military
exercises. That the people might not change his laws
he bound them by an oath that they would not alter
them durin<r his absence.
PART in.] EASY PASSAGES. 103
EXERCISE LXIX.
Demetrius had taken the city of Megara. Upon his
asking Stilpo, the philosopher, if he had lost anything,
the other answered, * I have lost nothing ; for all my
property is still mine.' Yet his patrimony had been
plundered, his sons carried off, and his country con-
quered.
EXERCISE LXX.
The Gauls were now besieging Clusium, a city of Etru-
ria. The Clusians applied to the Romans, entreating
them to send ambassadors and letters to the barbarians.
Accordingly they sent three illustrious persons of the
Fabian family, who had borne the highest offices of the
State. The Gauls received them courteously, on account
of the name of -Rome, and, putting a stop to their opera-
tions against the town, came to a conference.
EXERCISE LXXI.
Hannibal, being conquered by Scipio, fled to Antiochus,
King of Syria. Ambassadors were sent from Rome to
Antiochus, among whom was Scipio, who asked Hannibal
whom he thought to ,be the greatest general. Hannibal
replied, that Alexander, King of Macedon, seemed to him
to have been the greatest, because with small forces he
had routed innumerable armies.
EXERCISE LXXII.
At six o'clock the enemy's fleet appeared in view. Ap-
pius gave the order to advance. No regular order was
104 EASY PASSAGES. [PART in.
observed. Each ship moved on as best it could, singled
out its own antagonist, and engaged in a kind of land-
fight. No quarter was given on either side. The en-
gagement lasted for four hours, and ended in a complete
victory for the Romans.
EXERCISE LXXIII.
Regulus was conquered by the Carthaginians under the
leadership of Xanthippus. Only two thousand men re-
mained out of the whole Roman army. Regulus himself
was captured and thrown into prison. Afterwards he was
sent to Rome to consult about an exchange of prisoners,
after giving an oath that he would return to Carthage if
he did not accomplish what he wished.
EXERCISE LXXIV.
Panic reigned. No one knew what to believe. Some
said a battle had been lost ; others that the emperor was
murdered ; the rest that the army was in revolt. Guards
were posted at the gates : a new levy was ordered and
equipped : an embassy was despatched, prepared for either
peace or war, and amid the deepest gloom the day came
to a close.
EXERCISE LXXV.
The news arrived at six o'clock. At once excited
multitudes thronged the streets. Some denounced the
Senate. Others blamed the consuls. Others declared
that the anger of the Gods had been aroused by the
violation of the auspices. The Senate deliberated all
through the night. Every senator was asked individually
PART in.] EAS Y PASS A GES. I o 5
to give his opinion. After considering every plan, within
hearing of the mob outside, the Senate determined to
resist to the last, and ordered the consuls to see that the
republic took no harm.
EXERCISE LXXVI.
Then Hannibal crossed the Alps, and after laying
waste the plains of Etruria far and wide, encamped upon
the rising ground above the lake of Thrasymene. Seeing
Flaminius in hot pursuit, and knowing that if he entered
the defile between the mountain and the lake he could
surround him on every side, he halted his infantry on the
hill beyond the pass, led his cavalry and light armed troops
round the heights at the back, and having addressed a
few words of exhortation to the soldiers, awaited with
confidence the advance of the enemy.
EXERCISE LXXVII.
Turn into Oratio Recta :
Samnites, concilio Etruscorum coacto, dicunt se multos
per annos cum Romanis dimicasse : petisse pacem, quum
bellum tolerare non possent : rebellasse, quod pax ser-
vientibus gravior, quam liberis bellum, esset : unam sibi
spem reliquam in Etmscis restare. Samnitem illis exer-
citum paratum, instructum armis, stipendio, venisse : statim
secuturos, vel si ad ipsam Romam oppugnandam ducant.
EXERCISE LXXVIII.
Turn into Oratio Recta :
Turn Tribuni; 'quidnam id esset? num veterum con-
tumeliarum memoriam deponere posse? an quicquam
io6 EASY PASSAGES. [PART in.
esse turpius ? reminisceretur plebs pristinae virtutis ; sed
nolle se van a loqui.'
And into Oratio Obliqua, after a verb of assertion in the
past tense :
Unus ego sum ex omni civitate, qui adduci non potui
ut jurem, vel liberos tibi meos dedam. Ob hanc rem ex
civitate profugi, quod solus neque jurejurando neque
obsidibus teneri volui. Si mihi veniam dederis, numquam,
mehercule, aut te aut senatum poenitebit.
EXERCISE LXXIX.
Of those that fought against Hannibal at Cannae, some
escaped by flight, others were taken prisoners. The latter
were very numerous ; but though Hannibal offered to re-
lease them for a small sum, the Senate refused it by a
decree, and left them to be sold or put to death. Those
that had fled were sent to Sicily, with orders not to return
to Italy until Hannibal should leave it. These came to
Marcellus, and begged to be admitted into the army ; but
though Marcellus was inclined to yield, the Senate de-
creed that the Commonwealth had no need of cowards.
EXERCISE LXXX.
But now His Majesty was summoned to drive back the
barbarians, who were threatening the land. He levied
soldiers from beyond the southern frontier, and from all
parts of his empire. He placed me at the head of these
troops. I summoned captains and rulers from every
part that they might train and drill the forces. I was
the representative of the king ; everything fell upon me,
PART in.] EASY PASSAGES. 107
for there was no man above me but he only. To the
utmost of my power I laboured; never was any army
better officered or disciplined. It marched without let or
hindrance until it arrived at the land of the Arabians. It
laid waste the country, burning the villages, and cutting
down vine and fig trees \ many thousands of the foe were
taken prisoners.
EXERCISE LXXXI.
We do not dwell here ; a land quite as beautiful as this
lies on the opposite side of the sea, but it is far off. To
reach it, we have to cross the deep waters, and there is
no island midway on which we may rest at night ; one
little solitary rock rises from the waves, and upon it we
only just find room enough to stand side by side. There
we spend the night in our human form, and when the sea
is rough, we are sprinkled by its foam ; but we are
thankful for this resting-place, for without it we should
never be able to visit our dear native country.
EXERCISE LXXXII.
Only once in the year is this visit to the home of our
fathers permitted ; we require two of the longest days for
our flight, and can remain here only eleven days, during
which time we fly over the large forest, whence we can
see the palace in which we were born, where our father
dwells, and the tower of the church in which our mother
was buried. Here, even the trees and bushes seem of
kin to us ; here the wild horses still race over the plains,
as in the days of our childhood ; here the charcoal-
1 08 EAS Y PASS A GE$. [p ART 1 1 1 .
burner still sings the same old tunes to which we used to
dance in our youth; hither we are still attracted; and
here we have found thee.
EXERCISE LXXXIII.
Once after supper, when the shades of night had fallen,
I went to seek repose. I lay down and stretched myself
upon the carpets of my house ; my soul began to seek
after sleep. But lo ! armed men had assembled to attack
me; I was helpless as the torpid snake in the field.
Then I aroused myself, and collected all my strength,
but it was to strike at a foe who made no stand. If
I encountered an armed rebel I made the coward turn
and fly ; not even in the darkness was he brave ; no one
fought. Nor was there ever a time of need that found
me unprepared. And when the day of my passing hence
came, and I knew it not, I had never given ear to those
who desired me to abdicate in thy favour.
EXERCISE LXXXIV.
The Trojans issued from the city and beheld with
wonder the horse which their enemies had left behind.
They long doubted what should be done with it. Many
of them were anxious to dedicate it to the gods as a
token of gratitude for their deliverance ; but the more
prudent spirits advised them to distrust an enemy's gift.
Laocoon struck the side of the horse with his spear.
The sound revealed that the horse was hollow, but the
Trojans heeded not this warning. The unfortunate
Laocoon perished before the eyes of his countrymen,
PART in.] EASY PASSAGES. log
together with one of his sons ; two serpents being sent
by the gods out of the sea to destroy him. By this ter-
rific spectacle, together with the perfidious counsels of
Sinon a traitor whom the Greeks had left behind for the
special purpose of giving false information the Trojans
were induced to make a breach in their own walls, and to
drag the fatal horse with triumph and exultation into
their city.
EXERCISE LXXXV.
Then turning again to the conscripts he cried : ' Your
Emperor can kill me, but he cannot compel me to be
a soldier ! Before God I deny his right. I will not fight
for him, for he is a devil. If every man in France had
my heart, he would not reign another day; he would
have no army; he would have no sheep to lead to the
slaughter. Go to your Emperor and do his bloody
work! I shall remain at home.'
EXERCISE LXXXVI.
Translate the following passage into the Oratio Ob-
liqua :
Imperator, milites hortatus, * Instate' inquit. 'Cur
nunc hie moramur ? Num hostis morabitur ? Ne dubi-
tate de vestra virtute aut de mea vigilantia. Si ignavus
fuissem, vos deseruissem ; urbs enim, ut opinor, non
facile capietur, neque frigoris vis mitescet. Sed nolo
ignavia vitam emere. Quod imperatorem decuit id per-
feci ; quod si pro patria moriar, mortem non invitus
oppetam.'
no EASY PASSAGES. [PART in.
EXERCISE LXXXVII.
This general, who gives an account of his warlike
doings in the south, also tells us that he was a 'kind
master and gentle of heart, a governor who loved his
city.' He ruled for many years in his district, and he
says : ' I kept back nothing for myself; no little child
was vexed through me ; no widow was afflicted. I never
interfered with the fisherman or troubled the shepherd
during my command. There was neither famine nor
hunger. I diligently cultivated every field in my district
to its utmost extent, so that there was food enough for
all. I gave to the widow as to the married woman, and
I never showed favour to the great above the lowly/
EXERCISE LXXXVIII.
For nine years and more the Greeks had besieged
the city of Troy, and being more numerous and better
ordered, and having very strong and valiant chiefs, they
had pressed the men of the city very hard, so that these
dared not go outside the walls. This being so, it was the
custom of the Greeks to leave a part of their army to
watch the besieged city, and to send a part on expeditions
against such towns in the country round about as they
knew to be friendly to the men of Troy, or as they
thought to contain good store of provision and treasure.
For having been away from home now many years, they
were in great want of things needful, nor did they care
much how they got them.
PART ill.] EASY PASS A GES. 1 1 1
EXERCISE LXXXIX.
They encountered severe storms and piercing winds.
When half-way up the mountain, a thundering noise was
heard ; it grew louder, and the next moment a field of
ice and snow came down, sweeping away thirty horses
and their riders, who disappeared for ever. The sight
struck the soldiers with horror, for flight and retreat
were hopeless. On they must go, or death was certain !
' Soldiers/ exclaimed their commander, ' you are called
to Italy ! your general needs you ! Advance and conquer :
first the snow, and then the enemy.' And the brave gen-
eral pressed forward. Two weeks were occupied in this
perilous march, and two hundred men perished in the
undertaking.
EXERCISE XC.
The meeting of Senate took place in the Curia of
Pompey. Caesaj had been advised to be on his guard
on the 1 5th; on that morning his wife had a dream
which terrified her, and she begged him to stay at home.
But he went all the same : the conspirators awaited him :
and when he came into the Senate house, Tillius Cimber
approached, and laying hold of his robe, pretended that
he had a favour to ask. Casca gave the first blow ;
the rest then fell on himj; and the great Caesar fell,
pierced by three and twenty wounds. -
EXERCISE XCI.
Old age, which renders others talkative, imposes silence
upon me. In my youth, I wrote many and long letters, at
1 1 2 EAS Y PASS A GES. [PART in.
present I write very short ones, and those only to par-
ticular friends. With respect to you, whom I have never
seen, whom I know little but love much, I shall write only
this : That your book pleases me, and that I am very
thankful for your good opinion. I know that I am un-
worthy of your praises ; but you must indeed love virtue
much if you value its shadow so highly. If you treat me
so generously, what kindness would you not show a man
who had in very truth proved himself to be virtuous ?
EXERCISE XCII.
They were now about to fight, when from the ranks
of the Trojans Paris rushed forth. He had a panther's
skin over his shoulders, and a bow and a sword, and in
either hand a spear, and he called aloud to the Greeks
that they should send forth their bravest to fight
with him. But when Menelaus saw him he was glad,
for he thought that now he should avenge himself on
the man who had done him such wrong. So a lion is
glad when, being sorely hungered, he finds a stag or a
wild goat : he devours it, and will not be driven from it
by dogs or hunters.
EXERCISE XCIII.
That evening the General gave a supper in his tent
to the King. ( The food served had all been taken from
the Gauls, as the Romans had nothing} The King, with
his son, and his principal lords, was seated at the chief
table, and was waited upon by the General himself, who
showed every mark of humility. He would not sit down
PART in.] EAS Y PASS A GES. 1 1 3
at the table, though pressed to do so, but said that he was
not worthy of so great an honour; nor did it become
him to seat himself at the table of so great a King, or of
so valiant a man as he had shown himself by his actions
that day. He did his utmost to cheer the King, saying^
' Dear Sir, do not make a poor meal because the Gods
have not gratified your wishes in the event of this day/
EXERCISE XCIV.
Thothmes addressed his army, and told them of the
information he had just received concerning the position
of the enemy, who had said, ' I will withstand the King
of Egypt at Megiddo.' ' And now,' said the king, ' tell
me the way by which we shall go to break into the city/
The army with one accord entreated to be led by any way
but that which wound along by the Jordan. ' It has been
told us/ they said, ' that the foe lies there in ambush, and
that the way is impassable for a great host ; one horse
cannot stand there beside another, nor can one man find
room by another. The army would be blocked, and
be helpless before the enemy. Whithersoever our vic-
torious leader goes we will follow him, only we pray that
he will not take us by the impassable way/
EXERCISE XCV.
It chanced that Persephone was playing with the daugh-
ters of Oceanus in a flowery meadow, where they were
picking flowers and making garlands. She happened
to quit her companions for a moment to pluck a narcissus
which had caught her fancy : suddenly the ground opened
I
H 4 EASY PASSAGES. [PART in.
at her feet, and Pluto, the god of the infernal regions,
appeared in a chariot drawn by snorting horses. Swift as
the wind, he seized the terrified maiden in spite of all her
struggles, and vanished into the regions of darkness before
her companions were aware of what had happened to her.
When Demeter missed her darling child, and none could
tell where she had gone, she kindled torches, and during
many days and nights wandered in anguish through all
the countries of the earth, not even resting for food or
sleep.
EXERCISE XCVI.
Great trouble fell on all the colony soon. The ships in
which the settlers came over had brought out a stock of food
sufficient to last them till they should reap the fruits of
their own labour; that is, it would have been sufficient if
the provisions had been good; but even before the ap-
proach of winter the colonists discovered, to their dismay,
that a great deal of the food was unfit for use.
They had already suffered much from sickness, owing
to the heat of the climate, which they found very different
from that of their own country, and here was famine
staring them in the face. In a short time nearly half
their number perished ; and many of the survivors would
have lost heart altogether, if it had not been for a few
brave, good men who still preserved their cheerful trust in
God, and strove to keep up the courage of their com-
panions.
EXERCISE XCVII.
The story runs that at Athens once upon a time, during
the celebration of the games, an old gentleman, much
PART in.] EASY PASSAGES. 115
advanced in years, entered the theatre. Among his
countrymen who were present in that large assembly
no one offered him a place. He turned to the Lacedae-
monians, who as ambassadors had a certain place allotted
to them. They rose in a body and begged him to sit
amongst them. Loud shouts of applause arose from the
whole theatre ; whereupon it was remarked that the Athe-
nians knew their duty, but were slow to exemplify it in
their conduct.
EXERCISE XCVIII.
Alexander, in the three hundred-and-thirty-second year
before the birth of Christ, invaded Egypt, which had long
been subject to the Persians. While he was staying there,
he founded the city of Alexandria, which at one time
he wished to be considered the metropolis of his empire,
and which to this day bears his name. Elated with
success, he now laid claim to divine honours, and among
the very priests there were found persons so base as to
flatter him in this, and make him believe he was the son
of Jupiter Ammon. Many of his soldiers died of fatigue
and thirst while marching to the temple of this imaginary
god, which was distant a journey of seven days from
Alexandria.
EXERCISE XCIX.
The Frogs, living an easy free life everywhere among
the lakes and ponds, assembled together one day in a
very tumultuous manner, and petitioned Jupiter to let
them have a king, who might inspect their morals and
make them live a little honester. Jupiter, being at that
I 2
n6 EASY PASSAGES. [PART in.
time in pretty good humour, was pleased to laugh heartily
at their ridiculous request, and throwing a little log down
into the pool, cried, < There is a king for you/ The
sudden splash which this made by its fall into the water,
at first terrified them so exceedingly that they were afraid
to come near it ; but in a little time, seeing it lay still with-
out moving, they ventured by degrees to approach it ; and
at last, finding there was no danger, they leaped upon it,
and, in short, treated it as familiarly as they pleased.
EXERCISE C.
But not contented with so insipid a king as this was,
they sent their deputies to petition again for another sort
of one, for this they neither did nor could like. Upon
that he sent them a stork, who, without any ceremony, fell
a-devouring and eating them up, one after another, as
fast as he could. Then they applied themselves privately
to Mercury, and got him to speak to Jupiter in their be-
half, that he would be so good as to bless them again with
another king, or to restore them to their former state.
' No,' says he, ' since it was their own choice, let the
obstinate wretches suffer the punishment due to their
folly/
EXERCISE CI.
Of this bird Sophia, then about thirteen years old, was
so extremely fond that her chief business was to feed and
tend it, and her chief pleasure to play with it. By these
means little Tommy, for so the bird was called, was
become so tame that it would feed out of the hand of its
PART HI.] EASY PASSAGES. 1 1 7
mistress, would perch upon her finger, and lie contented
in her bosom, where it seemed almost sensible of its own
happiness ; though she always kept a small string about
its leg, nor would ever trust it with the liberty of flying
away.
EXERCISE GIL
Among the most important gods of the Romans was
the celebrated Janus, a deity quite unknown to the Greeks.
He was god of the light and of the sun, like the Greek
Apollo, and thus became the god of all beginnings ; New
Year's Day was his most important festival. Now the
Romans had a most superstitious belief in the importance
of a good beginning for everything, concluding that this
had a magical influence on the good or evil result of every
undertaking. So neither in public nor in private life did
they ever undertake anything of importance without fir^t
confiding the beginning to the protection of Janus. When
the youth of the city marched out to war, an offering
was made to the god by the departing general, and the
temple, or covered passage, sacred to the god, was left
open during the continuance of the war, as a sign that
the god had departed with the troops and had them under
his protection.
EXERCISE CIII.
A follower of Pythagoras had bought a pair of shoes
from a cobbler, for which he promised to pay him on a
future day. He went with his money on the day ap-
pointed, but found that the cobbler had in the interval
departed this life. Without saying anything of his errand,
he withdrew secretly, rejoicing at the opportunity thus
1 1 8 EAS Y PASS A GES. [PART in.
unexpectedly afforded him of gaining a pair of shoes
for nothing. His conscience, however, says Seneca,
would not suffer him to remain quiet under such an act of
injustice; so, taking up the money, he returned to the
cobbler's shop, and, casting in the money, said, ' Go thy
ways, for though he is dead to all the world besides, yet
he is alive to me.'
EXERCISE CIV.
While Athens was governed by the thirty tyrants,
Socrates, the philosopher, was summoned to the Senate
House, and ordered to go with some other persons,
whom they named, to seize one Leon, a man of rank
and fortune, whom they determined to put out of the way,
that they might enjoy his estate. This commission So-
crates positively refused. ' I will not willingly/ said he,
' assist in an unjust act/ Charicles sharply replied, ' Dost
thou think, Socrates, to talk in this high tone and not to
suffer?' 'Far from it,' replied he, 'I expect to suffer a
thousand ills, but none so great as to do unjustly/
EXERCISE CV.
To the spot where the prince was standing the inhabit-
ants of the surrounding country were wont to come, to
raise their hands in prayer and offer oblations. It so
chanced that on one of these feast days the prince arrived
at this spot about the hour of mid-day, and he laid himself
down to rest in the shade of this great god. The sun
was in the zenith when he dreamed, and lo ! the god
spoke to him with his own mouth as a father speaks to
PART in.] EAS Y PASS A GES. 1 1 9
his son. * Behold me, look at me, my son ! for I am thy
father. The kingdom shall be given thee, and thou shalt
wear the white crown and the red crown on thy throne.
The world shall be thine in its length and its breadth ;
plenty and riches shall be thine, the best from the interior
of the land, and rich tributes from all nations/
EXERCISE CVI.
King Porus, in a battle with Alexander the Great,
being severely wounded, fell from the back of his elephant.
The Macedonian soldiers, supposing him dead, pushed
forward, in order to despoil him of his rich clothing and
accoutrements ; but the faithful elephant, standing over the
body of his master, boldly repelled every one who dared to
approach, and while the enemy stood at bay, took the
bleeding Porus up on his trunk, and placed him again on
his back. The troops of Porus came by this time to his
relief, and the king was saved ; but the elephant died of
the wounds which it had received in the heroic defence of
its master.
EXERCISE CVII.
In the winter season a commonwealth of ants was
busily employed in the management and preservation of
their corn, which they exposed to the air in heaps round
about their little country habitation. A grasshopper who
had chanced to outlive the summer, and was ready to
starve with cold and hunger, approached them with great
humility, and begged that they would relieve his necessity
with one grain of wheat or rye. One of the ants asked
1 2 o EAS Y PASS A GES. [PART in.
him how he had disposed of his time in summer, that he
had not taken pains, and laid in a stock, as they had done.
' Alas ! gentlemen/ says he, ' I passed away the time
merrily and pleasantly, in drinking, singing, and dancing,
and never orice thought of winter/ ' If that be the case,'
replied the ant, laughing, ' all I have to say is, that they
who drink, sing, and dance in the summer, must starve in
winter/
EXERCISE CVIII.
After growing up amid the solitude of the forest, and
strengthening himself by contests with wild beasts, Diony-
sus at length planted the vine. Both the god and his
attendants soon became intoxicated with its juice ; crowned
with wreaths of laurel and ivy, and accompanied by a
crowd of nymphs, satyrs, and fauns, he ranged the woods,
which resounded with the joyful cries of his inspired
worshippers. His education was then completed by
Silenus, the son of Pan. In company with his preceptor
and the rest of his train, he then set forth to spread his
worship and the cultivation of the vine among the nations
of the earth. He did not confine himself to mere vine-
planting, however, but proved a real benefactor of man-
kind by founding cities, and by introducing more civilised
manners and a more pleasant and sociable mode of life
among men.
EXERCISE CIX.
After the execution of Sabinus, the Roman general,
who suffered death for his attachment to the family of
Germanicus, his body was exposed to the public upon the
PART 1 1 1 .] EAS Y PASS A GES. 1 2 1
precipice of the Gemonise, as a warning to all who should
dare to befriend the house of Germanicus : no friend had
courage to approach the body ; one only remained true
his faithful dog. For three days the animal continued
to watch the body ; his pathetic howlings awakening the
sympathy of every heart. Food was brought him, but
on taking the bread, instead of obeying the impulse of
hunger, he fondly laid it on his master's mouth, and re-
newed his lamentations : days thus passed, nor did he
for a moment quit the body.
EXERCISE CX.
When a boar of huge size was destroying the cattle
on Mount Olympus, and likewise many of the country
people, persons were sent to implore the assistance of
the King. Atys, one of the King's sons, a youth of
high spirit, urged his father to let him go, and assist
in killing the boar. The King, remembering a dream,
in which he saw his son perish by a spear, refused at
first to permit him to go ; reflecting, however, that the
tooth of a wild beast was not to be dreaded so much
as the pointed spear, he consented. The youth accord-
ingly set out, and while all of them were eagerly intent
on slaying the boar, a spear thrown by one of the country
people pierced the heart of the young Atys, and thus
realised his father's dream.
EXERCISE CXI.
A certain jackdaw was so proud and ambitious, that,
not contented to live within his own sphere, he picked
122 EASY PASSAGES. [PART in.
up the feathers which fell from the peacocks, stuck them
in among his own, and very confidently introduced himself
into an assembly of those beautiful birds. They soon
found him out, stripped him of his borrowed plumes, and
falling upon him with their sharp bills, punished him as
his presumption deserved. Upon this, full of grief and
affliction, he returned to his old companions, and would
have flocked with them again ; but they industriously
avoided him, and refused to admit him into their com-
pany. One of them, at the same time, gave him this
serious reproof : ' If, friend, you had been contented with
our station, and had not disdained the rank in which
Nature has placed you, you had not been used so scurvily
by those upon whom you intruded yourself, nor suffered
the slight we have now put upon you.'
EXERCISE CXIL
One of the officers of Artaxerxes, King of Persia, of
the name of Artibarzanes, solicited his majesty to confer
a favour upon him, which, if complied with, would be an
act of injustice. The king, learning that the promise of
a considerable sum of money was the only motive that
induced the officer to make such an unreasonable request,
ordered his treasurer to give him thirty thousand dariuses,
being a present of equal value with that which he was
to have received. ' Here/ says the king, giving him an
order for the money, ' take this token of my friendship
for you ; a gift of this nature cannot make me poor, but
complying with your request would render me poor in-
deed, since it would make me unjust.'
PART 1 1 1.] NARRATIVES FROM ROMAN HISTORY. 123
PART III. B.
NARRATIVES FROM ROMAN HISTORY.
EXERCISE CXIII.
As King Numa one morning, from the ancient palace
at the foot of the Palatine, raised his hands in prayer to
Jove, beseeching his protection and favour for the infant
state of Rome, the god let fall from heaven, as a mark of
his favour, an oblong brazen shield. At the same time
a voice was heard declaring that Rome should endure as
long as this shield was preserved. Numa then caused
the sacred shield, which was recognised as that of Mars,
to be carefully preserved. The better to prevent its
abstraction, he ordered eleven others to be made exactly
similar, and instituted for their protection the college of
the Salii, twelve in number, like the shields, who were
selected from the noblest families in Rome.
EXERCISE CXIV.
The two daughters of Servius were married to their
cousins, the two young Tarquins. In each pair there
was a fierce and a gentle one. The fierce Tullia was the
wife of the gentle Aruns Tarquin ; the gentle Tullia had
married the proud Lucius Tarquin. Aruns' wife tried to
I2 4 NARRATIVES FROM [PART in.
persuade her husband to seize the throne that had be-
longed to his father, and when he would not listen to
her, she agreed with his brother Lucius that, while he
murdered her sister, she should kill his brother, and then
that they should marry. The horrid deed was carried
out, and old Servius, seeing what a wicked pair were
likely to come after him, began to consider with the
Senate whether it would not be better to have two consuls
or magistrates chosen every year than a king.
EXERCISE CXV.
This made Lucius Tarquin the more furious, and,
going to the Senate, where the patricians hated the king
as the friend of the plebeians, he stood upon the throne,
and was beginning to tell the patricians that this would
be the ruin of their greatness, when Servius came in and,
standing on the steps of the doorway, ordered him to
come down. Tarquin sprang on the old man and
hurled him backwards, so that the fall killed him, and his
body was left in the street. The wicked Tullia, wanting
to know how her husband had sped, came out in her
chariot on that road. The horses gave back before the
corpse. She asked what was in their way; the slave who
drove her told her it was the king's body. ' Drive on,'
she said. The horrid deed caused the street to be known
ever after as ' Sceleratus,' or the wicked.
EXERCISE CXVL
Titus Manlius was the son of a sour and imperious
father, who banished him from his house as a blockhead
PART in.] R OMAN HISTOR Y. 125
and a scandal to the family. This Manlius, hearing that
his father's life was in question, and a day named for his
trial, went to the tribune who had undertaken the cause,
and discoursed with him about it. The tribune told him
the appointed time, and withal, as a kindness to the young
man, that his cruelty to his son would be part of the
charge. Upon this, Manlius took the tribune aside, and
presenting a poniard to his breast, ' Swear,' said he, ' that
you will let this cause drop, or you shall have this 'dagger
in your heart ; and it is now in your choice which way
my father shall be saved.' The tribune swore, and kept
his word ; and made a fair report of the whole matter to
the beiich.
EXERCISE CXVII.
Pyrrhus was unwilling to fight till his allies arrived.
After a few days, the armies met on the banks of the
river, and the battle commenced. One wing of the
Roman army was victorious, but the other was driven
back to the camp by the elephants of Pyrrhus. The
Romans fought very bravely, but were unable to with-
stand the second charge of the enemy. They took to
flight, and on that account have been accused of cow-
ardice. Pyrrhus gained a complete victory, and took the
enemy's camp without resistance. On the following day
he visited the field of battle, and, seeing the bodies of the
Romans turned towards the enemy, he pronounced them
brave men, Having delayed a few days, he returned to
Tarentum.
1 2 6 NARRA TIVES FR OM [p ART 1 1 1 .
EXERCISE CXVIII.
Now they knew at Rome that the armies had joined
battle, and as the day wore away all men longed for
tidings. And the sun went down, and suddenly there
were seen in the forum two horsemen, taller and fairer
than the tallest and fairest of men, and they rode on
white horses, and they were as men just come from the
battle, and their horses were all bathed in foam. They
alighted by the Temple of Vesta, where a spring of water
bubbles up from the ground, and fills a small deep pool.
There they washed away the stains of the battle, and
when men crowded round them, and asked for tidings,
they told them how the battle had been fought, and how
it was won. And they mounted their horses, and rode
from the forum, and were seen no more, and men sought
for them in every place, but they were not found.
EXERCISE CXIX.
Papirius was encamped over against the Samnites ; and
perceiving that, if he fought, victory was certain, he
desired the omens to be taken. The fowls refused to
peck ; but the chief soothsayer observing the eagerness of
the soldiers to fight, reported to the consul that the
auspices were favourable. But some among the sooth-
sayers divulged to certain of the soldiers that the fowls
had not pecked. This was told to Spurius Papirius, the
nephew of the consul, who reported it to his uncle ; but
the latter straightway bade him mind his own business,
for that so far as he himself and the army were con-
PART in.] ROMAN HISTOR Y. 127
cerned, the auspices were fair. It so chanced that as
they advanced against the enemy, the chief soothsayer
was killed by a spear thrown by a Roman soldier ; when
the consul heard this, he said, 'All goes well; for by
the death of this liar the army is purged of blame/
EXERCISE CXX.
But an opposite course was taken by Appius Pulcher,
in Sicily, in the first Carthaginian war. For desiring to
join battle, he bade the soothsayers take the auspices, and
on their announcing that the fowls refused to feed, he
answered, ' Let us see, then, whether they will drink ;'
and, so saying, caused them to be thrown into the sea.
After which he fought and was defeated. For this he
was condemned at Rome, while Papirius was honoured ;
not so much because the one had gained while the other
had lost a battle, as because in their treatment of the
auspices the one had behaved discreetly, the other with
rashness.
EXERCISE CXXL
Cato was unfortunate enough to live at a time when
avarice, luxury, and ambition prevailed at Rome, when
religion and the laws were disregarded, and when the
whole appearance of the state was so changed and dis-
figured that if one of the former generation had risen from
the dead he would hardly have recognised the Roman
people. Cato was one of a few who supported the cause
of virtue, who could neither be allured by promises nor
terrified by threats, and who would not flatter the great at
128 NARRA TIVES FR OM [PART 1 1 1 .
the expense of the truth. Though his countrymen were
too depraved to be influenced by his example, they could
not do otherwise than admire him in their hearts.
EXERCISE CXXII.
Cato spoke to an audience well disposed to go with
him. Silanus went round to his first view, and the mass
of senators followed him. Caesar attempted to reply ; but
so fierce were the passions that had been roused, that again
he was in danger of violence. The young knights who
were present as a senatorial guard rushed at him with
their drawn swords. A few friends protected him with
their cloaks, and he left the Curia not to enter it again for
the rest of the year. When Caesar was gone, Cicero rose
to finish the debate. He too glanced at Caesar's infidelity,
and as Caesar had spoken of the wisdom of past genera-
tions, he observed- that in the same generations there had
been a pious belief that the grave was not the end of
human existence. With an ironical compliment to the
prudence of Caesar's advice, he said that his own interest
would lead him to follow it ; he would have the less to fear
from the irritation of the people.
EXERCISE CXXIII.
Pontius placed two spears in the ground and laid a third
across them. Under this 'yoke' the Roman army was
led with its two consuls, four legates, and twelve tribunes.
But when the messengers reached Rome, the whole people
was moved with anger and shame. The senate declared
PART 1 1 1 .] R OMAN HIS TOR Y. 129
that they, who alone had power to make treaties, had had
no part in the transaction. The consuls were afraid to
assume their insignia. Twice was a dictator nominated :
and twice the augurs refused their assent. Nothing was
done until the interrex named Cursor and Philo for the
consulship. Then Postumius begged the people to reject
the treaty which he himself had made : but he added that
the leader who had erred must be surrendered to the
Samnites. Accordingly, when he had been led by heralds
into the enemies' camp, he Struck one of them on the
head, and exclaimed, ' I am no longer a Roman but a
Samnite.'
EXERCISE CXXIV.
From his ship Caesar perceived the rocks covered with
armed men. At this spot the sea was so close to the
cliffs that a dart thrown from the heights could reach the
beach. The place appeared to him in no respect con-
venient for landing. This description agrees with that
which Q. Cicero gave to his brother, of coasts surmounted
by immense rocks. Caesar cast anchor, and waited in vain
till the ninth hour for the arrival of the vessels which were
delayed. In the interval he called together his lieutenants
and the tribunes of the soldiers, communicated to them his
plan, as well as the information brought by Volusenus,
and urged upon them the execution of his orders instan-
taneously on a simple sign, as maritime war required, in
which the manoeuvres must be as rapid as they are varied.
It is probable that Caesar had till then kept secret the
point of landing.
130 NARRATIVES FROM [PART in.
EXERCISE CXXV.
This tardy gratitude consoled Cornelia, who retained in
a distant retirement the memory of the greatness both of
her parents and her offspring. In her dwelling on the
promontory of Misenum, surrounded by the envoys of
kings and the representatives of Grecian literature, she
rejoiced in recounting to her admiring visitors the life and
death of her noble children, without shedding a tear, but
speaking calmly of them, as heroes of ancient days. Only
she would conclude her account of her father Africanus
with the words : ' The grandchildren of this great man
were my sons. They perished in the temples and groves
of the gods. They deserved to fall in those holy spots,
for they gave their lives for the noblest end, the happiness
of the people/
EXERCISE CXXVL
Some of the wounded came and assured Otho that the
battle was lost. His friends strove to encourage him and
keep him from desponding ; but the attachment of the
soldiers to him exceeds all belief. None of them left
him, or went over to the enemy, or consulted his own
safety, even when their chief despaired of his. On the
contrary, they crowded his gates; they called him em-
peror; they left no form of application untried; they
kissed his hands, they fell at his feet, and with groans
and tears entreated him not to forsake them, nor give
them up to their enemies. One of the private men,
drawing his sword, thus addressed himself to Otho :
'Know, Caesar, what your soldiers are ready to do for
you;' and immediately plunged the steel into his own
heart.
PART in.] ROMAN HISTOR Y. 131
EXERCISE CXXVII.
When Virginia died by her father's "hand, the commons
of Rome withdrew under arms to the Sacred Hill. Where-
upon the senate sent messengers to demand by what
sanction they had deserted their commanders and assem-
bled there in arms. And in such reverence was the
authority of the senate held, that the commons, lacking
leaders, durst make no reply. ' Not,' says Titus Livius,
'that they were at a loss what to answer, but because
they had none to answer for them ; ' words which clearly
show how helpless a thing is the multitude when without
a head.
EXERCISE CXXVIII.
To such language as this the tribunes might have re-
plied by denying that its principle was applicable to the
particular point at issue ; they might have urged that the
admission of the commons to the consulship was not
against the original and unalterable laws of the Romans,
inasmuch as strangers had been admitted even to be
kings at Rome ; and the good king Servius, whose
memory was so fondly cherished by the people, was,
according to one tradition, not only a stranger by birth,
but a slave. And further, they might have answered that
the law of intermarriage between the patricians and
commons was a breaking down of the distinction of
orders, and implied that there was no such difference
between them as to make it profane in either to exercise
the functions of the other.
K 2
132 NARRATIVES FROM [PART in.
EXERCISE CXXIX.
In this almost hopeless danger one of the military tri-
bunes, Publius Decius Mus, discovered a little hill above
the enemy's camp, and asked leave to lead a small body
of men to seize it, since he would be likely thus to draw
off the Samnites, and while they were destroying him, as
he fully expected, the Romans could get out of the valley.
Hidden by the wood, he gained the hill, and there the
Samnites saw him, to their great amazement ; and while
.they were considering whether to attack him, the other
Romans were able to march out of the valley. Finding
he was not attacked, Decius set guards, and, when night
came on, marched down again as quietly as possible to
join the army, who were now on the other side of the
Samnite camp.
EXERCISE CXXX.
Day dawned ; the main army broke up from its camp,
and began to enter the defile ; while the natives, finding
their positions occupied -by the enemy, at first looked on
quietly, and offered no disturbance to the march. But
when they saw the long narrow line of the Carthaginian
army winding . along the steep mountain side, and the
cavalry and baggage-cattle struggling, at every step, with
the difficulties of the road, the temptation to plunder was
too strong to be resisted ; and from many points of the
mountain, above the road, they rushed down upon the
Carthaginians. The confusion was terrible ; for the
track was so narrow, that the least crowd or disorder
pushed the heavily-loaded baggage-cattle down the steep
PART in.] ROMAN HISTOR Y. 1 33
below ; and the horses, wounded by the barbarians' mis-
siles, and plunging about wildly in their pain and terror,
increased the mischief.
EXERCISE CXXXI.
Two years later the two consuls, Titus Veturius and
Spurius Posthumius, were marching into Campania, when
the Samnite commander, Pontius Herennius, sent forth
people disguised as shepherds to entice them into a narrow
mountain pass near the city of Caudium, with only one
way out, which the Samnites blocked up with trunks of
trees. As soon as the Romans were within this place
the other end was blocked in the same way, and thus
they were all closed up at the mercy of their enemies.
What was to be done with them? asked the Samnites;
and they went to consult old Herennius, the father of
Pontius, the wisest man in the nation. ' Open the way
and let them all go free,' he said. ' What ! without
gaining any advantage ? ' * Then kill them all/ He was
asked to explain such extraordinary advice. He said that
to release them generously would be to make them friends
and allies for ever ; but if the war was to go on, the best
thing for Samnium would be to destroy such a number of
enemies at a blow.
EXERCISE CXXXII.
Rome was at war with the city of Gabii, and as the city
was not to be subdued by force, Tarquin tried treachery.
His eldest son, Sextus Tarquinus, fled to Gabii, complain-
I 3 4 NARRATIVES FROM [PART in.
ing of ill-usage by his father, and showing marks of a
severe scourging. The Gabians believed him, and he was
soon so much trusted by them as to have the whole com-
mand of the army, and manage everything in the city.
Then he sent a messenger to his father to ask what he
was to do next. Tarquin was walking through a corn-
field. He made no answer in words, but with a switch
cut off the heads of all the poppies and taller stalks of
corn, and bade the messenger tell Sextus what he had
seen. Sextus understood, and contrived to get all the
chief men of Gabii exiled or put to death, and without
them the city fell an easy prey to the Romans.
EXERCISE CXXXIII.
Caesar was in his chair, in his consular purple, wearing
a wreath of bay, wrought in gold. The honour of the
wreath was the only distinction which he had accepted
from the Senate with pleasure. He retained a remnant
of youthful vanity, and the twisted leaves concealed his
baldness. Antony, his colleague in the consulship, ap-
proached with a diadem, and placed it on Caesar's head,
saying, ' The people give you this by my hand.' He an-
swered in a loud voice ' that the Romans had no king but
God/ and ordered that the diadem should be taken to the
Capitol, and placed on the statue of Jupiter. The crowd
burst into an enthusiastic cheer ; and an inscription on a
brass tablet recorded that the Roman people had offered
Caesar the crown by the hands of the consul, and that
Caesar had refused it.
PART in.] ROMAN HISTOR Y. 135
EXERCISE CXXXIV.
When Veil fell, the commons of Rome took up the
notion that it would be to the advantage of their city
were half their number to go and dwell there. For they
argued that as Veil lay in a fertile country and was a well-
built city, a moiety of the Roman people might in this way
be enriched ; while, by reason of its vicinity to Rome, the
management of civil affairs would in no degree be affected.
To the senate, however, and the wiser among the citizens,
the scheme appeared so rash and mischievous that they
publicly declared that they would die sooner than consent
to it. The controversy continuing, the commons grew
so inflamed against the senate that violence and blood-
shed must have ensued, had not the senate for their
protection put forward certain old and esteemed citizens,
respect for whom restrained the populace and put a stop
to their violence.
EXERCISE CXXXV.
For ten days the army marched over level ground
without encountering any difficulty. The Allobrogian
chiefs, who, as it seems, were not averse to plunder,
dreaded the cavalry of Hannibal and his Gaulish escort.
But when the latter had returned home, and Hannibal
entered the defiles of the mountains, he found the road
blocked up by the mountaineers in a place where force
could avail nothing. He was informed by his guides that
the enemy were accustomed to keep the heights guarded
1 3 6 NARRA TIVES FR OM [p ART 1 1 1 .
only by day, and to retire in the night to their neighbour-
ing town. He therefore caused his light-armed troops to
occupy the pass in the night. The attacks of the bar-
barians, who returned on the following day and harassed
the slowly advancing line of march, were repulsed without
much difficulty. Yet Hannibal lost a number of beasts of
burden and a good deal of his baggage, the latter being no
doubt the principal object of the barbarians. Fortunately
many of the animals and some prisoners were recovered
in the town which lay near the pass, and which contained
also provisions for a few days.
EXERCISE CXXXVI.
By many arguments and instances it can be clearly
established that in their military enterprises the Romans
set far more store on their infantry than on their cavalry,
and trusted to the former to carry out all the chief objects
which their armies were meant to effect. Among many
other examples of this, we may notice the great battle
which they fought with the Latins near the lake Regillus,
where to steady their wavering ranks they made their
horsemen dismount, and renewing the combat on foot
obtained a victory. Here we see plainly that the Romans
had more confidence in themselves when they fought
on foot than when they fought on horseback. The same
expedient was resorted to by them in many of their other
battles, and always in their sorest need they found it their
surest stay.
PART in.] ROMAN HISTOR Y. 137
EXERCISE CXXXVII.
Not long after there yawned a terrible chasm in the
Forum, most likely from an earthquake, but nothing
seemed to fill it up, and the priests and augurs consulted
their oracles about it. These made answer that it would
only close on receiving what was most precious. Gold
and jewels were thrown in, but it still seemed bottomless,
and at last the augurs declared that it was courage that was
the most precious thing in Rome. Thereupon a patrician
youth named Marcus Curtius decked himself in his
choicest robes, put on his armour, took his shield, sword,
and spear, mounted his horse, and leapt headlong into
the gulf, thus giving it the most precious of all things
courage and self-devotion. After this one story says it
closed of itself, another that it became easy to fill it up
with earth.
EXERCISE CXXXVIII.
While the Romans were besieging the city of Falerii,
a schoolmaster contrived to lead the children of the
principal men of the city into the Roman camp. The
novelty of such baseness surprised the Roman com-
mander, and he so much abhorred it, that he immediately
ordered the arms of the traitor to be tied, and giving each
of the scholars a whip, bade them whip their master back
to the city, and then return to their parents. The boys
executed their task so well in this instance, that the wretch
died under their blows as they entered the city. The
generosity of the Romans touched the Faliscans so
138 NARRATIVES FROM [PART m.
sensibly, that the next day they submitted themselves to
the Romans on honourable terms.
EXERCISE CXXXIX.
When the Gauls approached, he affected fear, as Caesar
had done, and he secretly formed a body of cavalry, of
whose existence they had no suspicion. Induciomarus
became careless. Day after day he rode round the
entrenchments, insulting the Romans as cowards, and
his men flinging their javelins over the walls. Labienus
remained passive, till one evening, when, after one of
these displays, the loose bands of the Gauls had scattered,
he sent his horse out suddenly with orders to fight neither
with small nor great, save with Induciomarus only, and
promising a reward for his head. Fortune favoured him.
Induciomarus was overtaken and killed in a ford of the
Ourthe.
EXERCISE CXL.
There the council decided on his death, and sent a
soldier to kill him ; but the fierce old man stood glaring at
him and said, ' Barest thou kill Caius Marius ? ' The
man was so frightened that he ran away, crying out, ' I
cannot kill Caius Marius/ The Senate of Minturnse took
this as an omen, and remembered besides that he had
been a good friend to the Italians, so they conducted him
through a sacred grove to the sea, and sent him off to
Africa. On landing, he sent his son to ask shelter from
one of the Numidian princes, and, while waiting for an
answer, he was harassed by a messenger from a Roman
PART in.] ROMAN HIS TOR Y. 139
officer of low rank, forbidding his presence in Africa.
He made no reply till the messenger pressed to know
what to say to his master. Then the old man looked up,
and sternly answered, * Say that thou hast seen Caius
Marius sitting in the ruins of Carthage/
EXERCISE CXLI.
The armies came to an engagement at a short distance
from the foot of Mount Vesuvius. The Roman con-
suls, before they led out their forces to the field, per-
formed sacrifices. We are told that the Haruspex
showed Decius that the head of the liver was wounded
on one side; but Manlius found the omens highly
favourable. On which Decius said, 'All is well yet,
since my colleague's offering has been accepted.' With
their troops arrayed in the order already described, they
marched forth to battle. Manlius commanded the right
wing ; Decius the left. At the beginning, the conflict
was maintained with equal vigour, and like courage, on
both sides ; afterwards the Roman hastati on the left
wing, unable to withstand the violence of the Latin
charge, retreated towards the precipices. On this dis-
order happening, the brave Decius, offering up a prayer
to the gods, ordered his lictors to go to Titus Manlius, his
colleague, and to inform him without delay that he had
devoted himself for the army. He himself in full armour
leapt upon his horse, and plunged into the midst of the
enemy. He appeared in the view of both armies far more
majestic than one of human race, as if sent from heaven
to expiate all the wrath of the gods, to avert destruction
1 40 NARRATIVES FROM [PART in.
from his friends, and transfer it to the side of their
enemies.
EXERCISE CXLII.
It is related that the Romans, after defeating on two
different occasions armies of the Samnites with forces
sent by them to succour the Capuans, whom they thus
relieved from the war which the Samnites were waging
against them, being desirous to return to Rome, left
behind two legions to defend the Capuans, that the
latter might not, from being altogether deprived of their
protection, once more become a prey to the Samnites.
But these two legions, rotting in idleness, began to
take such delight therein, that, forgetful of their country
and the reverence due to the senate, they resolved to seize
by violence the city they had been left to guard by their
valour. For to them it seemed that the citizens of Capua
were unworthy to enjoy advantages which they knew not
how to defend. The Romans, however, getting timely
notice of this design, at once met and defeated it.
EXERCISE CXLIII.
When the battle had come to a standstill, and Romans
and Sabines were facing each other and ready to begin the
battle afresh, behold, the Sabine women rushed between
the combatants, praying their fathers and brothers on the
one side, and their husbands on the other, to end the
bloody strife or to turn their arms against them, the cause
of the slaughter. Then the men were all quiet, for they
thought the advice of the women reasonable ; and the
chiefs on each side came forward and consulted together
PART in.] R OMAN HIS TOR Y. 141
and made peace; and to put an end to all disputes for
ever, they decided to make one people of the Romans and
Sabines, and to live peaceably together as citizens of one
town. Thus the Sabines remained in Rome, and the city
was doubled in size and in the number of its inhabitants,
and Titus Tatius, the Sabine king, reigned jointly with
Romulus.
EXERCISE CXLIV.
The following year, Manlius, in order to restore military
discipline, ordered that no one should leave his station to
fight. By chance his son had approached the camp of
the enemy ; and the commander of the Latin cavalry, on
recognising the consul's son, said, ' Will you fight with me
that the result may show how much a Latin horseman
excels a Roman ? ' Forgetful of the general's order, the
youth rushes to the conflict, and slays the Latin. Having
collected the spoils, he returns to his father. The consul
at once summons the troops with the trumpet ; then he
addresses his son as follows : ' Since thou, my son, hast
not obeyed the order of the consul, it behoves you to
restore discipline by punishment. Go, lictor, bind him to
the stake.' His head was then cut off by the lictor with
an axe. It is well known that only the old men went out
to meet Manlius when he was returning home : he was
always afterwards hated by the youth.
EXERCISE CXLV.
When Hannibal had arrived at the foot of the Alps, and
saw that the soldiers feared the exceedingly difficult and
dangerous march, he summoned an assembly and ad-
142 NARRATIVES FROM [PART in.
dressed it as follows (use Oratio Recta) : ' I have observed
with pain that your hearts are not inspired with the same
courage that animates my own, otherwise they w r ould not
lie thus paralysed by a sudden terror ; hearts too never
before undaunted. For twenty years you have served
victoriously, and did not leave Spain until all the countries
embraced by the two seas belonged to the Carthaginians :
then, in indignation at the demand made by the Romans,
that all those who had besieged Saguntum should be
delivered up to them, you crossed the Ebro, in order to
blot out the Roman name from the face of the earth, and
to set the world free/
EXERCISE CXLVI.
' What are the Alps but very high mountains ? There
is no spot on earth that reaches up to the sky, or is
absolutely impassable to human daring and endurance :
the Alps are actually inhabited ; they produce and support
living creatures ; being passable to individuals, why do
they seem to you impassable for an army? Nothing
presents such difficulties as to be insurmountable to the
soldier, who carries with him only the implements
of war. How great was the danger, how infinite the
exertions which you endured for eight months, in the
struggle to take Saguntum ! If at that time you had had
no more patience than you show now, you would never
have captured that city. Yield the palm of courage and
bravery to the Gauls and Romans, or else resolve that
nothing short of the Tiber shall be the goal of your
march. On the other side of the Alps you are in Italy.
Will you go forward, my men, or will you not ? '
PART in.] ROMAN HISTORY. 143
EXERCISE CXLVII.
Hannibal marched from Spain with a large army into
Italy across the Alps. When he had defeated the Romans
at the river Trebia, he went into Etruria. Flaminius,
having been made consul by the Romans, thought that
his soldiers would be cowards if they should allow Han-
nibal to do injury to the allies. Therefore having followed
Hannibal, Flaminius was deceived by an ambush and
perished with all his soldiers at Lake Thrasymenus. But
the Romans, although alarmed by the victories of the
Carthaginians, were still desirous of fighting, and having
despised the advice of Fabius, they made Varro general,
a man of foolish rashness, but beloved by the common
people.
EXERCISE CXLVIII.
Having finished the German War, Caesar resolved for
many reasons that he must cross the Rhine, a very broad,
deep, and rapid river, which divides Gaul from Germany.
His strongest reason was that, seeing the Germans were
so easily induced to make inroads into Gaul, he wished to
show them that the Romans had both the power and the
courage to carry the war into their country. Accordingly,
he made the necessary preparations, and, considering it
neither safe, nor suitable to his own dignity and that of the
Roman people, to make the passage in boats, he caused a
bridge to be constructed over the river, by which to trans-
port his troops. Having placed a strong guard at either
end of the bridge, he marched the rest of his army with all
possible speed into the territories of the Sygambri.
144 NARRATIVES FROM [PART in.
EXERCISE CXLIX.
After the Romans had nearly exhausted themselves
in fruitless efforts to break through the barbarian line,
their leader Septimuleius bethought himself of a stratagem
which seemed to offer a last hope of safety. He com-
manded a soldier to set fire to the baggage, in order to
excite the cupidity of the Germans and distract their at-
tention from the battle. The night was already approach-
ing, and no sooner did the barbarians behold the rapidly
spreading blaze, than they feared that the rich booty
would be torn from their grasp. They began therefore to
be less eager for the fight ; whole ranks soon abandoned
the unprofitable toil of conflict, and rushed to the burning
pile. Hermann sought first by threats and then by
prayers to restrain his men. Let them only endure, he
said, a little longer ; within an hour every man of the
hated race would meet with the death which he had
deserved, while they themselves would win eternal fame ;
nor was it right that at such a moment they should think
of gain, while battling for the freedom of their father-
land.
EXERCISE CL.
Violent dissensions breaking out in Rome between the
commons and the nobles, it appeared to the Veientines
and Etruscans that now was their time to deal a fatal blow
to the Roman supremacy. Accordingly, they assembled
an army and invaded the territories of Rome. The senate
sent Caius Manlius and Marcus Fabius to meet them,
whose forces encamping close by the Veientines, the latter
PART in.] ROMAN HISTOR Y. 145
ceased not to reproach and vilify the Roman name with
every sort of taunt and abuse, and so incensed the Romans
by their unmeasured insolence that, from being divided
they became reconciled, and giving the enemy battle,
broke and defeated them. The Veientines imagined that
they could conquer the Romans by attacking them while
they were at feud among themselves ; but this very attack
reunited the Romans and brought ruin on their assailants.
EXERCISE CLL
A considerable part of the voyage was accomplished,
when the melancholy and deathlike silence which reigned
in the ship began to fill Pompey with uneasiness; he
attempted however to conceal his fear by talking. Ac-
cordingly, turning to Septimius, he said, ' If I am not
mistaken, my friend, your face is not unfamiliar to me ;
were we not on one occasion comrades in the field ? '
Septimius, without answering a syllable, nodded his head ;
and the same silence, as before, prevailed, until they
reached the shore. The moment Pompey took the hand
of his freedman Philippus, in order to rise with the greater
ease, Septimius ran him through the body with his sword
from behind. Seeing that he could not save his life,
Pompey drew his toga over his face and endured every
stab that was inflicted upon him with the greatest for-
titude, until he fell lifeless on the seashore.
EXERCISE CLII.
The orator Domitius was once in great danger from an
inscription which he had put upon a statue erected by
L
146 NARRATIVES FROM [PART m.
him in honour of Caligula, wherein he had declared that
that prince was a second time consul at the age of twenty-
seven. This he intended as an encomium ; but Caligula
taking it as a sarcasm upon his youth, and his infringe-
ment of the laws, raised a process against him, and pleaded
himself in person. Domitius, instead of making a defence,
repeated part of the emperor's speech with the highest
marks of admiration, after which he fell upon his knees,
and begging pardon, declared that he dreaded more the
eloquence of Caligula than his imperial power. This
piece of flattery succeeded so well, that the emperor not
only pardoned, but also raised him to the consulship.
EXERCISE CLIII.
Lucius chose Lucius Tarquitius to be master of the
horse, a brave man, and of a burgher's house; but so
poor withal, that he had been used to serve among the
foot soldiers instead of among the horse. Then the
master of the people and the master of the horse went
together into the forum, and bade every man to shut up
his booth, and stopped all causes at law, and gave an
order that none should look to his own affairs till the
consul and his army were delivered from the enemy.
They ordered also that every man who was of an age to
go out to battle should be ready in the Field of Mars
before sunset, and should have with him victuals for five
days, and twelve stakes; and the older men dressed the
victuals for the soldiers, whilst the soldiers went about
everywhere to get their stakes ; and they cut them where
they would, without any hindrance. So the army was
PART in.] ROMAN HIS TOR Y. 147
ready in the Field of Mars at the time appointed, and they
set forth from the city, and made such haste, that ere the
night was half spent they came to Algidus ; and when
they perceived that they were near the enemy, they made
a halt.
EXERCISE CLIV.
After routing the Romans at Cannae, Hannibal sent
messengers to Carthage to announce his victory, and to
ask support. A debate arising in the Carthaginian senate
as to what was to be done, Hanno, an aged and wise
citizen, advised that they should prudently take advantage
of their victory to make peace with the Romans, while as
conquerors they might have it on favourable terms, and
not wait to make it after a defeat ; since it should be their
object to show the Romans that they were strong enough
to fight them, but not to peril the victory they had won in
the hope of winning a greater. This advice was not fol-
lowed by the Carthaginian senate, but its wisdom was well
seen later, when the opportunity to act upon it was gone.
EXERCISE CLV.
Coriolanus, having left Rome, retired to the country of
the Volsci. Attius Tullius, a distinguished man and bitter
enemy to the Romans, received him kindly into his house,
and formed a strong friendship with him. The Volscians
hoped that he would assist them in their wars. Not long
afterwards, war was declared between them and the
Romans, and having divided their army into two parts,
they gave one to Coriolanus, and the other to Attius.
L 2
148 NARRATIVES FROM [PART in.
Coriolanus got possession of many cities, some of which
belonged to the Romans, and some to the Latins. At
length he approached Rome, and pitched his camp five
miles from the city. The plebeians were unwilling to take
up arms, and the senate sent ambassadors to the camp to
sue for peace.
EXERCISE CLVL
Decius, having resolved to devote himself, called out to
Manlius with a loud voice, and demanded of him how to
devote himself and what form of words he should use.
By his directions, therefore, being clothed in a long robe,
his head covered, and his arms stretched forward, standing
upon a javelin, he devoted himself to the gods for the
safety of Rome. Then arming himself, and mounting his
horse, he rode furiously into the midst of the enemy,
striking terror wherever he came, till he fell covered with
wounds. The Roman army considered this deed as an
omen of success; and having put the Latins to flight,
they pursued them with so great slaughter that scarcely
a fourth part of them escaped.
EXERCISE CLVIL
The Romans wanted to treat about the prisoners
Pyrrhus had taken, so they sent Caius Fabricius to the
Greek camp for the purpose. Kineas reported him to be
a man of no wealth, but esteemed as a good soldier and
an honest man. Pyrrhus tried to make him take large
presents, but nothing would Fabricius touch ; and then, in
the hope of alarming him, in the middle of a conversation
PART in.] ROMAN HISTORY. 149
one side of the tent suddenly fell, and disclosed the
biggest of all the elephants, who waved his trunk over
Fabricius and trumpeted frightfully. The Roman quietly
turned round and smiled, as he said to the king, ' I am
no more moved by your gold than by your great beast.'
At supper there was a conversation on Greek philosophy,
of which the Romans as yet knew nothing. When the
doctrine of Epicurus was mentioned, that man's life was
given to be spent in the pursuit of joy, Fabricius greatly
amused the company by crying out, ' O Hercules ! grant
that the Greeks may be heartily of this mind so long as
we have to fight with them.'
EXERCISE CLVIII.
Thereupon the consul declared that he, for one, would
never consent to the passing of such a measure. The
question was too important to be disposed of in so sum-
mary a manner. If the object of the measure was no
greater than could be inferred from the speeches of its
supporters, why did they not limit its operation to the
particular circumstances of time and place in which the
abuses complained of had occurred? If the bill were
passed in its present shape, it would be impossible for
any man engaged in the most ordinary mercantile trans-
action to secure himself from a charge of fraud.
EXERCISE CLIX.
The emperor Trajan would never suffer any one to be
condemned upon suspicion, however strong and well
150 NARRATIVE PASSAGES. [PART in.
grounded; saying it was better a thousand criminals
should escape unpunished, than that one innocent person
be condemned. When he appointed Subarranus Captain
of his Guards, and presented him according to custom
with a drawn sword, the badge of his office, he used these
memorable words : ' Employ this sword for me, but if
I deserve it, turn it against me.' Trajan would not allow
his freed men any share in the administration. Notwith-
standing this, some persons having a suit with one of
them of the name of Eurythmus, seemed to fear the
influence of the imperial freedman; but Trajan assured
them that the cause should be heard, discussed, and
decided, according to the strictest law of justice; adding,
' For neither is he Polycletus, nor I Nero.' Polycletus, it
will be recollected, was the freedman of Nero, and as
infamous as his master for rapine and injustice.
PART III. C.
MISCELLANEOUS NARRATIVE PASSAGES.
EXERCISE CLX.
When Alexander the Great thought to add to his
renown by founding a city, Dinocrates the architect came
and showed him how he might build it on Mount Athos ;
PART in.] NARRATIVE PASSAGES. 151
which not only offered a strong position, but could be so
handled that the city built there might present the
semblance of the human form, which would be a thing
strange and striking, and worthy of so great a monarch.
But on Alexander asking how the inhabitants were to live,
Dinocrates answered that he had not thought of that.
Whereupon Alexander laughed, and leaving Mount Athos
as it stood, built Alexandria ; where the fruitfulness of the
soil, and the vicinity of the Nile and the sea, might attract
many to take up their abode.
EXERCISE CLXL
Meanwhile Duke William went back to Hastings, and
left a garrison in the fort which he had built there. He
waited there some days thinking that men would come
in and bow to him, but none came. So he set out to win
the land bit by bit. First he went to Romney. It seems
that some of his people had been there already ; perhaps
one or more of the ships had gone astray and got on
shore there. At all events there had been a fight between
some of his men and the men of Romney, in which many
were killed on both sides, but in the end the English had
driven the Frenchmen away. So Duke William now, we
are told, took from the men of Romney what penalty or
satisfaction he chose for the men whom they had killed, as
if he had been making them pay a fine. I suppose this
means that he put them all to death.
1 5 2 NARRA TIVE PASS A GES. [p ART 1 1 1 .
EXERCISE CLXIL
Six miles from this celebrated city stood the temple of
Juno Lacinia, more celebrated even than the city itself, and
venerated by all the surrounding states. Here was a grove
fenced with a dense wood and tall fir trees, with rich
pastures in its centre, in which cattle of every kind, sacred
to the goddess, fed without any keeper ; the flocks of
every kind going out separately and returning to their
folds without ever sustaining any harm, either from the
lying in wait of wild beasts, or the dishonesty of men.
These flocks were therefore a source of great revenue,
from which a column of solid gold was formed and con-
secrated, and the temple became distinguished for its
wealth, as well as for the reverence in which it was held.
Rumour. says that there is an altar in the vestibule of
the temple, the ashes of which are never moved by any
wind.
EXERCISE CLXIII.
Clearchus, tyrant of Pleraclea, being in exile, it so hap-
pened that on a feud arising between the commons and
the nobles of that city, the latter, perceiving they were
weaker than their adversaries, began to look with favour
on Clearchus, and conspiring with him, in opposition to
the popular voice, recalled him to Heraclea and deprived
the people of their freedom. Clearchus finding himself
thus placed between the arrogance of the nobles, whom he
could in no way either satisfy or correct, and the fury of
the people, who could not put up with the loss of their
PART in.] NARRATIVE PASSAGES. 153
freedom, resolved to rid himself at a stroke from the
harassment of the nobles, and recommend himself to the
people. Wherefore, watching his opportunity, he caused
all the nobles to be put to death, and thus, to the extreme
delight of the people, satisfied one of those desires by
which they are possessed, namely, the desire for ven-
geance.
EXERCISE CLXIV.
His influence over his men was supreme. He knew
just what his troops could do, and would do, and when.
He led them frequently in person and they never failed to
follow. Everyone remembers the occasion when he
changed the whole course of a battle by his single pre-
sence. But he possessed the same power with individuals
as with masses. A soldier, wounded under his eyes,
stumbled and was falling to the rear, but the General
cried : ' Never mind, my man, there 's no harm done ;'
and the soldier went on till he dropped dead on the field.
EXERCISE CLXV.
After subduing Africa and Asia, and reducing nearly
the whole of Greece to submission, the Romans became
perfectly assured of their freedom, and seemed to them-
selves no longer to have any enemy whom they had cause
to fear. But this security and the weakness of their adver-
saries led them in conferring the consulship, no longer to
look to merit, but only to favour, selecting for the office
those who knew best how to pay court to them, not those
154 NARRATIVE PASSAGES. [PART in.
who knew best how to vanquish their enemies. And after-
wards, instead of selecting those who were best liked, they
came to select those who had most influence ; and in this
way, from the imperfection of their institutions, good men
came to be wholly excluded.
EXERCISE CLXVI.
The rioters seemed for a moment stunned with surprise
by the loss of their leader ; and before they had time to
recover themselves, the young king, with astonishing pre-
sence of mind, rode up to them, and said, ' My friends,
be not concerned for the loss of your unworthy leader ;
I will be your leader.' And turning his horse, he rode
into the open fields at the head of the multitude ; who
seemed to follow him unconsciously, and without knowing
why. A cry meanwhile had arisen in the city that the
king had fallen into the hands of rebels, and instantly
some thousands of brave men flew to his rescue. When
they appeared, the mob, seized with a panic, fell on their
knees before the king, imploring his pardon, which he
granted on condition that they dispersed and returned to
their homes. This they all did ; and thus the insurrection
melted away like snow.
EXERCISE CLXVII.
Harold hastened by quick marches to reach this new
invader; but though he was reinforced at London and
other places with fresh troops, he found himself also
weakened by the desertion of his old soldiers, who, from
PART in.] NARRATIVE PASSAGES. 155
fatigue and discontent at Harold's refusing to divide the
Norwegian spoil among them, secretly withdrew from
their colours. His brother Gurth, a man of bravery and
conduct, began to entertain apprehensions of the event,
and remonstrated with the king that it would be better
policy to prolong the war ; urging that, if the enemy were
harassed with small skirmishes, straitened in provisions,
and fatigued with the bad weather and deep roads during
the winter season, which was approaching, they must fall
an easy and a bloodless prey. Above all he exhorted his
brother not to expose his own person : but Harold was
deaf to all these remonstrances.
EXERCISE CLXVIII.
When Dio had seized the town of Syracuse, and his
friends exhorted him to give the persons and property of
his enemies over to the fury of the soldiery, he answered
as follows (Oratio Obltqua) : ' All other generals care for
nothing but the business of war and the practice of arms :
I have devoted myself for many years to the study of
philosophy, and think more of conquering anger, hatred,
and revenge than of vanquishing an enemy. This is a
victory which is won not by a courteous attitude towards
friends, but by a spirit of forgiveness and gentleness
towards one's enemies. I believe I shall gain more by
mercy than by rigour.'
156 NARRATIVE PASSAGES. [PART in.
EXERCISE CLXIX.
It is said that Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, was a
fluent writer of verse, and that he prided himself more on
his literary achievements than on his military successes.
The poet Philoxenus, however, who had heard some of
these verses read aloud, frankly avowed that he entertained
a poor opinion of them. The result was that he was
ordered off to the stone quarries, which served as a kind
of public prison at Syracuse. He was subsequently par-
doned, and again admitted to the king's table. The
tyrant once more read a trifle which he had composed to
Philoxenus, and handing him the poem asked him to give
his opinion of it. ' Surely/ he thought, ' the fear of the
prison will make him give me a word of praise.' Phi-
loxenus made no answer, but calling the officers, re-
quested them to take him straight off to the stone quarries.
Nor did his wit and courage meet with punishment.
EXERCISE CLXX.
When Francis I of France in the year 1515 resolved on
invading Italy in order to recover the province of Lombardy,
those hostile to his attempt looked mainly to the Swiss,
who it was hoped would stop him in passing through their
mountains. But this hope was disappointed by the event.
For leaving on one side two or three defiles which were
guarded by the Swiss, the king advanced by another un-
known pass, and was in Italy and upon his enemies before
they knew. Whereupon they fled terror-stricken into
Milan; while the whole population of Lombardy, finding
PART ill.] NARRATIVE PASSAGES. 157
themselves deceived in their expectation that the French
would be detained in the mountains, went over to their
side.
EXERCISE CLXXI.
Three of these people were at the city when the late
King was there. The Monarch himself talked to them
a good while, and they were made to see our fashions, our
pomp, and the form of a fine city; after which somebody
asked their opinion, and wanted to know of them what
things they most admired of all they had seen. To which
they made answer, three things, of which I am sorry I
have forgot the third, but two I yet remember. They said,
in the first place, they thought it very strange that so many
tall men, wearing great beards, strong and well armed
about the King's person, should submit to obey a child,
and did not rather choose out one among themselves to
command ; secondly, that they had taken notice of men
amongst us who were fat and crammed with all manner
of good things, whilst their halves were begging at the
gates, lean and half starved with hunger and poverty.
EXERCISE CLXXIL
Lycurgus, the founder of the Spartan Republic, think-
ing nothing so likely to relax his laws as an admixture of
new citizens, did all he could to prevent intercourse with
strangers; with which object, besides refusing these the
right to marry, the right of citizenship, and all such other
social rights as induce men to become members of a com-
munity, he ordained that in this republic of his the only
money current should be of leather, so that none might
158 NARRATIVE PASSAGES. [PART in.
be tempted to repair thither to trade or to carry on any
art. Under such circumstances the number of the inha-
bitants of that State could never much increase. For as
all our actions imitate nature, and it is neither natural nor
possible that a puny stem should carry a great branch,
so a small republic cannot assume control over cities
or countries stronger than herself; or, doing so, will re-
semble the tree whose boughs being greater than its
trunk, are supported with difficulty, and snapped by every
gust of wind.
EXERCISE CLXXIII.
In the dead of night his friend appeared to him in his
sleep and begged him for help against the host, who was
about to murder him. He rose, but seeing nothing, lay
down again. Again the vision of his friend presented
itself, praying him that, since he had not come to his aid
while alive, he should at any rate not suffer his death to be
unavenged : he related that he had been murdered by the
host and cast upon a cart, and that his body had been
covered with manure. He besought him to be present
next morning early at the city gate, before the cart left the
town. Deeply agitated by the vision, he did as he was
bidden ; and on seeing a cart there asked the driver what
was in it : the latter fled in terror, and beneath the heap of
manure the dead body was discovered.
EXERCISE CLXXIV.
In the war with the Germans, this cruel and arbitrary king,
being desirous of making, in the night-time, some altera-
PART in.] NARRATIVE PASSAGES. 159
tions in his camp, ordered that, under pain of death, neither
fire nor candle should be burning in the tents after a cer-
tain hour. 'He went round the camp himself, to see that
his orders were obeyed: and as he passed by Captain
Tullius' tent, he perceived a light. He entered, and saw
the Captain seal a letter, which he had just finished writing
to his wife, whom he tenderly loved. ' What are you doing
there ? ' said the king. ' Do you not know the orders ? '
Tullius threw himself at his feet, and begged for mercy,
but he had no power, and made no attempt, to deny his
fault. * Sit down/ said the king to him, ' and add a few
words that I shall dictate.' The officer obeyed, and the
king dictated, ' To-morrow I shall perish on the scaffold/
Tullius wrote it, and he was executed the next day.
EXERCISE CLXXV.
As Trajan was once setting out for Rome, at the head
of a numerous army, to make war in Wallachia, he was
suddenly accosted by a woman, who called out in a
pathetic but bold tone, ' To Trajan I appeal for justice ! '
Although the emperor was pressed by the affairs of a most
urgent war, he instantly stopped, and alighting from his
horse, heard the suppliant state the cause of her com-
plaint. She was a poor widow, and had been left with
an only son, who had been foully murdered ; she had sued
for justice on his murderers, but had been unable to obtain
it. Trajan, having satisfied himself of the truth of her
statements, decreed her on the spot the satisfaction which
she demanded, and sent the mourner away comforted. So
much was this action admired, that it was afterwards
160 NARRATIVE PASSAGES. [PART in.
represented on the pillar erected to Trajan's memory,
as one of the most resplendent instances of his goodness.
EXERCISE CLXXVI.
Crcesus, king of Lydia, after showing Solon the Athe-
nian much besides, at last displayed to him the boundless
riches of his treasure-house, and asked him what he
thought of his power. Whereupon Solon answered that
he thought him no whit more powerful in respect of these
treasures, for as war is made with iron and not with gold,
another coming with more iron might carry off his gold.
After the death of Alexander the Great a tribe of Gauls,
passing through Greece on their way into Asia, sent envoys
to the King of Macedonia to treat for terms of accord ;
when the king, to dismay them by a display of his re-
sources, showed them great store of gold and silver. But
these barbarians, when they saw all this wealth, in their
greed to possess it, though before they had looked on
peace as settled, broke off negotiations ; and thus the king
was ruined by those very treasures he had amassed for his
defence.
EXERCISE CLXXVIL
Demetrius, immediately after this victory, dispatched
Aristodemus the Milesian, with the news of it, to his
father Antigonus. When he arrived at court, and was
brought in to Antigonus, he stood silent for some time,
keeping him in suspense ; and then, as in a transport of
joy, he uttered aloud these words, ' Prosperity and happi-
ness to king Antigonus ! We have overthrown king
PART in.] NARRATIVE PASSAGES. 161
Ptolemy at sea ; Cyprus is ours ; we have taken sixteen
thousand eight hundred men prisoners.' Antigonus an-
swered, ' Prosperity and happiness to thee too ! Never-
theless, because thou hast kept me so long in suspense,
thou shalt in some degree be punished, and wait in thy
turn for thy reward/ Antigonus was so elated with this
victory, that thenceforth he assumed the title of king, and
gave it likewise to his son Demetrius ; which the Egypt-
ians hearing of, honoured Ptolemy with the same title,
that he might, though defeated, be upon the level with the
conqueror.
EXERCISE CLXXVIII.
Wallenstein had no suspicion of the conspiracy which
was being formed against his life. In the full confidence
that his indulgence and benevolence had won over all his
enemies, he had dismissed his body-guard and retired to
the privacy of the Biirgermeister's house, where he spent a
short time in peace and quiet. But his energetic spirit
could not rest content with the eminence which his success-
ful career had already reached ; he therefore determined,
in his eagerness to have a hand in some great and impor-
tant enterprise, to renew the war on his own account ;
and commenced making the preparations necessary for
the execution of this plan. He sent sixteen thousand men
and five thousand cavalry into Saxony, and took all means
to secure his position in Austria during his absence. His
friends, convinced that he was aiming at the throne,
thought that an opportunity had now come of gaining
it for him.
M
1 62 NARRATIVE PASSAGES. [PART in.
EXERCISE CLXXIX.
The quinquereme was not merely twice as large as a
trireme, but was of a different build and construction. It
was necessary, therefore, to obtain either shipwrights or a
model from some nation to which such moving castles had
been long familiar. Here chance was on the side of the
Romans. A Carthaginian quinquereme had run ashore
on the coast of Bruttium two or three years before, and
had fallen into the hands of the Romans. This served as
a model ; and it is asserted by more than one writer that
within sixty days a growing wood was felled and trans-
formed into a fleet of a hundred ships of the line and
twenty triremes. The next difficulty was to find men for
the fleet, and when they had been found, to train them for
their duties.
EXERCISE CLXXX.
The battle raged with great fury, and victory was already
doubtful, when the Raja of Anhalwara arrived with a strong
reinforcement to the Hindus. This unexpected addition
to their enemies so dispirited the Mussulmans that they
began to waver, when Mahmud, who had prostrated him-
self to implore the divine assistance, leaped upon his horse,
and cheered his troops with such energy, that, ashamed to
abandon a king under whom they had so often fought and
bled, they, with one accord, gave a loud shout, and rushed
forwards with an impetuosity which could no longer be
withstood. Five thousand Hindus lay dead after the
charge ; and so complete was the rout of their army, that
the garrison gave up all hopes of further defence, and,
PART in.] NARRATIVE PASSAGES. 163
breaking out to the number of four thousand men, made
their way to their boats ; and, though not without con-
siderable loss, succeeded in escaping by sea.
EXERCISE CLXXXI.
After Hieronymus, the Syracusan tyrant, was put to
death, there being at that time a great war between the
Romans and the Carthaginians, the citizens of Syracuse
fell to disputing among themselves with which nation they
should take part. And so fierce grew the controversy
between the partisans of the two alliances, that no course
could be agreed on, and they took part with neither;
until Apollonides, one of the foremost of the Syracusan
citizens, told them in a speech replete with wisdom, that
neither those who inclined to hold by the Romans, nor
those who chose rather to side with the Carthaginians, were
deserving of blame ; but that what was utterly to be con-
demned was doubt and delay in taking one side or other.
For from such uncertainty he clearly foresaw the ruin of
their republic; whereas, by taking a decided course, what-
ever it might be, some good might come.
EXERCISE CLXXXII.
Before, however, he had completed his march to Gor-
dium, intelligence was conveyed to him of the deeds of
Memnon. Chios had already yielded to his powerful fleet ;
and in Lesbos Mitylene was the only town which held out
against him, and prevented the progress of his powerful
armament to the Hellespont itself, whence he threatened
M 2
1 64 NARRATIVE PASSAGES. [PART in.
an immediate attack on the hereditary dominions of Alex-
ander. Antipater, who was left at Pella with the power of
legate, employed indeed all the means which he could
command in order to raise such a navy as would protect
the Macedonian shores ; but, had not Memnon died while
as yet he was only beginning to realise his extensive plans,
the Grecian confederacy must have recalled their general
from his victorious career in Asia, to combat the Persian
legions within the limits of Europe. The loss of Memnon,
however, defeated the views of Darius about invading
Greece.
EXERCISE CLXXXIII.
He descended into the Forum, and returned to his own
house. The people thronged round him with acclaiming
shouts, and it was perhaps then that Cato, as we are told
by Appian, hailed him father of his country. ' A bright
light/ says Plutarch, ' shone through the streets from the
lamps and torches set up at the doors, and the women
showed lights from the tops of the houses in honour of
Cicero, and to behold him returning with a splendid
train of the principal citizens.' He always looked back
to this as the proudest moment of his life, and yet it was
the beginning of infinite sorrow and trouble to him, for,
as we shall see, his exile from Rome and the ruin of his
fortunes may be distinctly traced to his conduct on this
day. He had put to death Roman citizens without a trial;
and this was the accusation which was henceforth to be
the watchword of his enemies, and to overshadow the rest
of his life.
PART in.] NARRATIVE PASSAGES. 165
EXERCISE CLXXXIV.
On the other side, the king's men were not wanting in
securing their forts, and repairing them with earth, and
whatsoever else they could come by of most commodious ;
and hoping that the waters would swell no higher, they
persuaded themselves that they should, within a few days,
finish their business. They very well knew the towns-
men's necessities, and that, all their victuals being already
spent, the affairs within were drawing to great extremity.
While both sides were in these hopes and fears, about the
end of September, the sea began to swell exceedingly,
according as she useth to do in that season of the
year ; and pouring in no longer waves, but even moun-
tains of waters, into the most inward channels and rivers,
made so great an inundation as all the country about the
town seemed to be turned into a sea. It cannot be said
how much the rebels were hereby encouraged, and the
king's men discouraged.
EXERCISE CLXXXV.
Night was now coming on, and, under cover of the
darkness, the light-armed took to flight. Some fled on
foot, some on the horses which had carried the fallen
leaders to the battle. The Normans pursued, and, as in
an earlier stage of the day, the fleeing English found means
to take their revenge on their conquerors. On the north
side of the hill the descent is steep, almost precipitous, the
ground is irregular and marshy. No place could be less
suited for horsemen, unaccustomed to the country, to
1 66 NARRATIVE PASSAGES. [PART in.
pursue, even by daylight, light-armed foot, to many of
whom every step of ground was familiar. In the darkness
or imperfect light of the evening, their case was still more
hopeless than in the similar case, earlier in the day. In
the ardour of pursuit horse and man fell head foremost
over the steep, where they were crushed by the fall,
smothered in the morass, or slain outright by the swords
and clubs of the English. For the fugitives, seeing the
plight of their pursuers, once more turned and slaughtered
them without mercy.
EXERCISE CLXXXVI.
The people mourned bitterly over their beloved prince.
They thought that he had been poisoned. Suspicions
were entertained against different men about the court,
and these were even shared by the queen. The queen
seems still to have remained Raleigh's friend, but could do
nothing for him. He had addressed her a letter before,
asking her to exert herself to obtain his liberation, that
he might assist in the plantation of his former colony of
Virginia. He had heard with interest of the new attempt
to plant this colony, and of the difficulties through which
it had to struggle, till at last it was placed on a secure
footing. He must have longed to be able to aid in carry-
ing on the work which he had himself first begun. ' I do
still humbly beseech your majesty/ he writes to the queen,
' that I may rather die in serving the king and my country
than perish here.'
PART in.] NARRATIVE PASSAGES. 167
EXERCISE CLXXXVII.
The Emperor Caracalla, being with his armies in Meso-
potamia, had with him Macrinus, who was more of a
statesman than a soldier, as his prefect. But because
princes who are not themselves good are always afraid
lest others treat them as they deserve, Caracalla wrote
to his friend Maternianus in Rome to learn from the
astrologers whether any man had ambitious designs upon
the empire, and to send him word. Maternianus, accord-
ingly, wrote back that such designs were entertained by
Macrinus. But this letter, ere it reached the emperor,
fell into the hands of Macrinus, who, seeing when he
read it that he must either put Caracalla to death before
further letters arrived from Rome, or else die himself,
committed the business to a centurion, named Martialis,
whom he trusted, and whose brother had been slain by
Caracalla a few days before, who succeeded in killing
the emperor.
EXERCISE CLXXXVIII.
Alexander, the son of Philip, was just twenty years of
age at the death of his father; and those who had admired
the talents of the father believed that his great projects
would die with him. At Athens the news awakened the
wildest delight : Demosthenes appeared in the assembly,
crowned with flowers. But the friends of liberty and of
Greece cherished empty hopes. There is an idle story
that the temple of Diana at Ephesus was burned to the
1 6 8 NARRA TIVE PASS A GES. [PART 1 1 1 .
ground on the very day that Alexander was born, and
although the story is clearly false, and invented to reflect
glory on the hero (a man named Erostratus having
kindled the fire), it shows how far the son of Philip rose
above his sire. Alexander, the pupil of Aristotle, surpassed
perhaps every one that ever existed in the endowments
that fit a man to be a conqueror.
EXERCISE CLXXXIX.
Having advanced thus far without hindrance, Xerxes
now heard with surprise that a handful of Greeks made a
show as if they thought of intercepting his march. He
waited at the opening of the mountains four days, to give
them time to recover their senses. But in vain ; he then
sent a message to Leonidas, commanding him to quit the
post he had chosen, and deliver up his arms ; to which
Leonidas with Spartan brevity replied, ' Come and take
them/ Xerxes at last became convinced that nothing
but force would move this heroic band. He believed,
however, that a show of force would be sufficient for the
purpose, and ordered the Medes to go and bring the
defenders of the pass, with Leonidas their chief, alive to
his presence. The Medes met with a different reception
from what their sovereign expected, and \vere driven back
with disgrace.
.
PART in.] MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES.
PART III. D.
MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES.
EXERCISE CXC.
ON the Rhine had Napoleon paused, facing the waves
of avenging hosts. He had lifted up his finger, like King
Canute of old, and he had said : ' Thus far and no far-
ther/ Yet the waves still roared, and the tide still rose.
Would he be submerged ? Would his evil genius fail him
at last? These were the supreme questions of that au-
tumn. The whole world was against him ; nay, the world,
and the sea, and the sky ! Yet he had overcome these
before; he might overcome them again. His word was
still a power, his presence an inspiration. He might
emerge again, and then ? There was little left for the
stabbed and bleeding earth but to die; for, alas! she
could bear no more.
EXERCISE CXCI.
These diversities in the form of Government spring up
among men by chance. For in the beginning of the
world, its inhabitants, being few in number, for a time
lived scattered after the fashion of beasts ; but afterwards,
as they increased and multiplied, gathered themselves into
societies, and, the better to protect themselves, began to
170 MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES. [PART in.
seek who among them was the strongest and of the
highest courage, to whom, making him their head, they
rendered obedience. Next arose the knowledge of such
things as are honourable and good, as opposed to those
which are bad and shameful. For observing that when a
man wronged his benefactor, hatred was universally felt
for the one and sympathy for the other/ and reflecting
that the wrongs they saw done to others might be done
to themselves, they resorted to making laws and fixing
punishments against any who should transgress them;
and in this way grew the recognition of Justice. Whence
it came that afterwards, in choosing their rulers, men no
longer looked about for the strongest, but for him who
was the most prudent and the most just.
EXERCISE CXCII.
Any one, therefore, who undertakes to control a people,
either as their prince or as the head of a commonwealth,
and does not make sure work with all who are hostile to
his new institutions, founds a government which cannot
last long. Undoubtedly those princes are to be reckoned
unhappy, who, to secure their position, are forced to ad-
vance by unusual and irregular paths, and with the people
for their enemies. For while he who has to deal with a
few adversaries only, can easily and without much or
serious difficulty secure himself, he who has an entire
people against him can never feel safe ; and the greater
the severity he uses the weaker his authority becomes;
so that his best course is to strive to make the people his
friends.
PART in.] MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES. 171
EXERCISE CXCIII.
'Diego Mendez, my son/ said the venerable admiral,
' none of those whom I have here understand the great
peril in which we are placed, excepting you and myself.
We are few in number, and these savage Indians are
many, and of fickle and irritable natures. On the least
provocation they may throw firebrands from the shore,
and consume us in our straw-thatched cabins. The
arrangement which you have made with them for pro-
visions, and which at present they fulfil so cheerfully,
to-morrow they may break in their caprice, and may
refuse to bring us anything; nor have we the means to
compel them by force, but are entirely at their pleasure.
I have thought of a remedy, if it meets with your views.
In this canoe, which you have purchased, some one may
pass over to Hispaniola, and procure a ship, by which we
may all be delivered from this great peril into which we
have fallen. Tell me your opinion on the matter/
EXERCISE CXCIV.
The house was full. The conspirators were in their
places with their daggers ready. Attendants came in to
remove Caesar's chair. It was announced that he was
not coming. Delay might be fatal. They conjectured
that he already suspected something. A day's respite, and
all might be discovered. Decimus Brutus, whom it was
impossible for him to distrust, went to entreat his attend-
ance, giving reasons to which he knew that Caesar would
listen, unless the plot had been actually betrayed. It was
1 7 2 MISCELLANE US PASS A GES. [PART 1 1 1 .
now eleven in the forenoon. Caesar shook off his uneasi-
ness, and rose to go. As he crossed the hall, his statue
fell, and shivered on the stones. As he still passed on, a
stranger thrust a scroll into his hand, and begged him to
read it on the spot. It contained a list of the conspirators,
with a clear account of the plot. He supposed it to be a
petition, and placed it carelessly among his other papers.
The fate of the Empire hung upon a thread, but the thread
was not broken.
EXERCISE CXCV.
As he was carried to the Senate House in a litter, a
man gave him a writing and begged him to read it in-
stantly; but he kept it rolled in his hand without looking.
As he went up the steps he said to the augur Spurius,
' The Ides of March are come.' ' Yes, Caesar,' was the
answer, ' but they are not passed/ A few steps further on,
one of the conspirators met him with a petition, and the
others joined in it, clinging to his robe and his neck, till
another caught his toga, and pulled it over his arms, and
then the first blow was struck with a dagger. Caesar
struggled at first as all fifteen tried to strike at him, but
when he saw the hand uplifted of his treacherous friend
Decimus, he exclaimed, Et tu, Brute!' drew his toga
over his head, and fell dead at the foot of the statue of
Pompeius.
EXERCISE CXCVI.
Waving his dagger, dripping with Caesar's blood, Brutus
shouted to Cicero by name, congratulating him that liberty
was restored. The Senate rose with shrieks and con-
PART in.] MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES. 173
fusion, and rushed into the Forum. The crowd outside
caught the words that Caesar was dead, and scattered to
their houses. [ Antony, guessing that those who had killed
Caesar would not spare himself, hurried off into conceal-
ment. ) The murderers, bleeding some of them from
wounds which they had given one another in their eager-
ness, followed, crying that the tyrant was dead, and that
Rome was free j and the body of the great Caesar was
left alone in the house where a few weeks before Cicero
told him that he was so necessary to his country that
every senator would die before harm could reach
him!
EXERCISE CXCVII.
Pitt ceased to breathe on the morning of the 23rd of
January, 1806. It was said that he died exclaiming, 'O
my country.' This is a fable ; but it is true that his last
words referred to the alarming state of public affairs. He
was in his 47th year. For nineteen years he had been un-
disputed chief of the administration. No English statesman
has held supreme power so long. It was proposed that
Pitt should be honoured with a public funeral and a monu-
ment. This proposal was opposed by Fox. His speech
was a model of good taste and good feeling. The task
was a difficult one. Fox performed it with humanity and
delicacy. The motion was carried in spite of the speech,
and the 22nd of February was fixed for the ceremony.
EXERCISE CXCVIII.
Pitt came in to conduct a war, and this time a necessary
war ; for I am convinced that with the perfidy and rapine
1 7 4 MISCELLANE US PA SSA GES. [PART 1 1 1 .
of Bonaparte no peace could be made, that the struggle
with him was a struggle for the independence of all nations
against the armed and disciplined hordes of a conqueror
as cruel and as barbarous as Attila. If utter selfishness,
if the reckless sacrifice of humanity to your own interest
and passions be vileness, history has no viler name. I can
look with pride upon the fortitude and constancy which
England displayed in the contest with the universal tyrant.
The position in which it left her at its close was fairly won :
though she must now be content to retire from this tem-
porary supremacy, and fall back into her place as one of
the community of nations. But Pitt was still destined to
fail as a war minister ; and Trafalgar was soon cancelled
by Austerlitz: ' How I leave my country ! ' Such, it
seems, is the correct version of Pitt's last words. Those
words are perhaps his truest epitaph. They express the
anguish of a patriot who had wrecked his country.
EXERCISE CXCIX.
When we contemplate the excellent qualities of Romu-
lus, Numa, and Tullus, the first three kings of Rome,
and note the methods which they followed, we recognise
the extreme good fortune of that city in having her first
king fierce and warlike, her second peaceful and religious,
and her third, like the first, of a high spirit and more dis-
posed to war than to peace. For it was essential for
Rome that almost at the outset of her career, a ruler
should be found to lay the foundations of her civil life ;
but, after that had been done, it was necessary that her
rulers should return to the virtues of Romulus, since
PART in.] MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES. 175
otherwise the city must have grown feeble, and become a
prey to her enemies.
EXERCISE CC.
Those citizens who first devised a dictatorship for Rome
have been blamed by certain writers, as though this had
been the cause of the tyranny afterwards established there,
For these authors allege that the first tyrant of Rome
governed it with the title of Dictator, and that, but for the
existence of the office, Csesar could never have cloaked
his usurpation under a constitutional name. He who first
took up this opinion had not well considered the matter,
and his conclusion has been accepted without good ground.
For it was not the name nor office of Dictator which
brought Rome to servitude, but the influence which certain
of her citizens were able to assume from the prolongation
of their term of power; so that even had the name of
Dictator been wanting in Rome, some other had been found
to serve their ends, since power may readily give titles, but
not titles power.
EXERCISE CCI.
The duke was indeed a very extraordinary person : and
never any man in any age, nor, I believe, in any country or
nation, rose in so short a time to so much greatness of
honour, fame, and fortune, upon no other advantage or
recommendation, than of the beauty and gracefulness and
becomingness of his person. And I have not the least
purpose of undervaluing his good parts and qualities, of
which there will be occasion shortly to give some testimony,
176 MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES. [PART in.
when I say that his first introduction into favour was purely
from the handsomeness of his person.
EXERCISE CCII.
The safety of his soldiers, he said, and the honour of
their country, were in their own hands ; defeated, they
had no hope and no retreat; conquerors, the glory of
victory and the spoils of England lay before them. But
of victory there could be no doubt : God would fight for
those who fought for the righteous cause, and what people
could ever withstand the Normans in war ? They were
the descendants of men who had won Neustria from the
Franks, and who had reduced Frankish kings to submit to
the most humiliating of treaties. Were they to yield to
the felon English, never renowned in war, whose country
had been over and over again harried and subdued by the in-
vading Dane ? Let them lift up their banners and march on ;
let them spare no man in the hostile ranks; they were
marching on to certain victory, and the fame of their ex-
ploits would resound from one end of heaven to the other.
EXERCISE CCIII.
And now the Protector's foot was on the threshold of
success. His glory, the excellence of his administration,
his personal dignity and virtues were founding his govern-
ment in the allegiance of the people. The friends of order
were beginning to perceive that their best chance of order
lay in giving stability to his throne. Some of the great
families, acting on this view, had connected themselves by
PART in.] MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES. 177
marriage with his house. His finances were embarrassed ;
but he was about again to meet a Parliament which would
probably have voted him supplies and concurred with him
in settling the constitution. His foot was on the threshold
of success ; but on the threshold of success stood Death.
It was death in a strange form for him : for after all his
battles and storms, and all the plots of assassins against his
life, this terrible chief died of grief at the loss of his
favourite daughter and of watching at her side.
EXERCISE CCIV.
Any one comparing the present with the past will soon
perceive that in all cities and in all nations there prevail
the same desires and passions as always have prevailed;
for which reason it should be an easy matter for him who
carefully examines past events, to foresee those which are
about to happen in any republic, and to apply such
remedies as the ancients have used in like cases; or
finding none which have been used by them, to strike
out new ones, such as they might have used in similar
circumstances. But these lessons being neglected or not
understood by readers, or, if understood by them, being
unknown to rulers, it follows that the same disorders are
common to all times.
EXERCISE CCV.
Whence it happens I know not, but it is seen, from
examples both ancient and recent, that no grave calamity
has ever befallen any city or country which has not been
N
1 7 8 MISCELLANE US PASS A GES. [PART 1 1 1 .
foretold by vision, by augury, by portent, or by some
other Heaven-sent sign. And not to travel too far afield
for evidence of this, every one knows that long before the
invasion of Italy by Charles VIII. of France, his coming
was foretold by the friar Girolamo Savonarola ; and how,
throughout the whole of Tuscany, the rumour ran that
over Arezzo horsemen had been seen fighting in the air.
And who is there who has not heard that before the
death of the elder Lorenzo de' Medici, the highest pin-
nacle of the cathedral was rent by a thunderbolt, to the
great injury of the building?
EXERCISE CCVI.
It suited not the wisdom or the experience of Hannibal
to rely on the consternation of the Roman people. I too,
that we may be on equal terms, have some authority to
bring forward. The son of Africanus, he who adopted
me into the family of the Scipios, was, as you both
remember, a man of delicate health and sedentary habits,
learned, elegant, and retired. He related to me, as
having heard it from his father, that Hannibal, after the
battle, sent home the rings of the Roman knights, and
said in his letter, ' If you will instantly give me a soldier
for each ring, together with such machines as are already
in the arsenal, I will replace them, surmounted by the
statue of Capitoline Jupiter, and our supplications to the
gods of our country shall be made along the streets and
in the temples and on the robes of the Roman senate-'
Could he doubt of so moderate a supply ? He waited for
it in vain.
PART in.] MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES. 179
EXERCISE CCVII.
Gradually, after so many brave warriors had fallen,
resistance grew fainter; but still even now the fate of the
battle seemed doubtful. While Harold lived, while the
horse and the rider still fell beneath his axe, the heart of
England failed not, the hope of England had not wholly
died away. Around the two-fold ensigns the war was
still fiercely raging, and to that point every eye and every
arm in the Norman host was directed. The battle had
raged ever since nine in the morning, and evening was
now drawing in. New efforts, new devices were needed
to overcome the resistance of the English, diminished as
were their numbers, and wearied as they were with the
livelong toil of that awful day. The Duke ordered his
archers to shoot in the air, that their arrows might, as it
were, fall straight from heaven. The effect was immediate
and fearful. No other device of the wily Duke that day
did such frightful execution.
EXERCISE CCVIII.
The corpse was borne to Westminster Abbey with great
pomp. A splendid train of princes, nobles, bishops, and
councillors followed. The grave of Pitt had been made
near to the spot where his great father lay ; it was also
near to the spot where his great rival was soon to lie..
The sadness of the assistants was beyond that of or-
dinary mourners; for Pitt had died of sorrows and
anxieties in which they had a share. Wilberforce, who
carried the banner, describes the ceremony with deep
N 2
i8o MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES. [PART m.
feeling. As the coffin descended into the earth, he says,
the eagle face of Chatham from above seemed to look
down with consternation into the dark house which was
receiving all that remained of so much power and glory.
EXERCISE CCIX.
1 But, gentlemen, though the summer is fast approaching,
we shall not, I fancy, be found indulging in ease and
indolence, but on the contrary entering upon a new and
arduous field of activity. Our labours will no longer be
confined to the walls of this house; the battle will be
fought out in the heat and in the dust, in full armour and
before the face of the world : we shall have to meet the
enemies of the state; we shall have to meet the deter-
mined onslaught of the enemies of the Church, and to
meet them with a bold heart ; our weapons will be public
speeches and literature. And let us not forget that it will
behove us to be eloquent as Ulysses, cunning as Mercury,
and deft as Vulcan.'
EXERCISE CCX.
On receiving the intelligence that their ally, the king of
Sweden, was dead, the general addressed his soldiers and
exhorted them not to lose heart. Heaven, he said, would
smile upon them and their cause, inasmuch as they had
been true to their oath; while their enemies would be
found to have incurred the displeasure of the powers
above, for having held their vows so cheap. Let them
only remember their ancestors, who with small armies had
PART in.] MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES. 181
often defeated immense forces arrayed against them ; let
them not show themselves unworthy of such a lineage.
It was only a few days since they had won a victory
against overwhelming odds, and victory, moreover, that
involved the annihilation of their enemy, a victory won in
a battle fought for a cause not their own.
EXERCISE CCXI.
That ' nothing is more fickle and inconstant than the
multitude/ is affirmed not by Livius only, but by all other
historians, in whose chronicles, of human actions we
often find the multitude condemning some citizen to
death, and afterwards lamenting him and grieving greatly
for his loss; as the Romans grieved and lamented for
Manlius Capitolinus, whom they had themselves con-
demned to die. In relating which circumstance our
author observes that ' in a short time the people, having
no longer cause to fear him, began to deplore his death.'
And elsewhere, when speaking of what took place in
Syracuse after the murder of Hieronymus, grandson of
Hiero, he says, ' that it is the nature of the multitude to be
an abject slave, or a domineering master.'
EXERCISE CCXII.
Many authors, and among others that most grave
historian Plutarch, have thought that in acquiring their
empire the Romans were more beholden to their good
fortune than to their valour; and besides other reasons
which they give for this opinion, they affirm it to be
1 82 MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES. [PART in.
proved by the admission of the Romans themselves ;
since their having erected more temples to Fortune than
to any other deity, shows that it was to her that they
ascribed their success. This, however, is an opinion
with which I can in no way concur, and which, I take it,
cannot be made good. For if no commonwealth has
ever been found to grow like the Roman, it is because
none was ever found so well fitted by its institutions to
make that growth. For by the valour of her armies she
spread her empire, while by her conduct of affairs, and
by other methods peculiar to herself and devised by her
first founder, she was able to keep what she acquired.
EXERCISE CCXIII.
Now their separate characters are briefly these. The
man's power is active, progressive, defensive. He is
eminently the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the de-
fender. His intellect is for speculation and invention ;
his energy for adventure, for war, and for conquest, where-
ever war is just, wherever conquest necessary. But the
woman's power is for rule, not for battle, and her in-
tellect is not for invention or creation, but for sweet
ordering, arrangement, and decision. She sees the
qualities of things, their claims, and their places. Her
great function is praise : she enters into no contest, but
infallibly adjudges the crown of contest.
EXERCISE CCXIV.
He issued from the palace, clothed in black, his family
in mourning around him. His infant child was borne in a
PART in.] MIS CELL A NE US PASS A GES. 1 8 3
litter. The procession might have been taken for a
funeral. The people applauded compassionately, but the
soldiers frowned in silence. Vitellius made a short
harangue in the forum, and then, taking his dagger from
his side, as the ensign of power, tendered it to the consul
Caecilius. The soldiers murmured aloud, and the consul,
in pity or from fear, declined to accept it. He then
turned towards the temple of Concord, meaning there to
leave the symbols of imperial office, and retire to the
house of his brother. But the soldiers now interposed.
They would not suffer him to hide himself in a private
dwelling, but compelled him to retrace his steps to the
palace, which he entered once more, hardly conscious
whether he were still emperor or not.
EXERCISE CCXV.
As soon as we got through the woods we drew up the
twelve cohorts in order of battle. The other two legions
had not yet come up. Antony immediately brought all
his troops out of the village, ranged likewise in order of
battle, and without delay engaged us. At first they fought
so briskly on both sides that nothing could possibly be
fiercer ; though the right wing, in which I was, with eight
cohorts of the Martial legion put Antony's thirty -fifth
legion to flight at the first onset, and pursued it above
five hundred paces from the place where the action began.
Wherefore, observing the enemy's horse attempting to
surround our wing, I began to retreat, and ordered the
light-armed troops to make head against them, and prevent
their coming upon us from behind.
1 84 MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES. [PART in.
EXERCISE CCXVI.
There was an apartment which had been sometimes
used as a prison. It was eighteen feet square, and fit for
two or three persons in such a climate as that of Calcutta.
It was above ground and had two windows. It was not
like a dungeon or black hole, but it will be called the
' Black Hole ' as long as language lasts. One hundred
and forty-six prisoners were ordered into this apartment.
When it was full they were driven in. There they were
kept through the summer night. No cries for air availed:
the viceroy was asleep, he must not be disturbed. While
he was asleep, the prisoners were dying fast. When the
door was opened in the morning, twenty-three were alive.
They looked so ghastly that their own friends did not
know them.
EXERCISE CCXVII.
Prince Edward returned to the battlefield with his forces
wearied after their long pursuit. Eager to learn his
father's fate, he made a circuit of the town to reach the
castle, and thence forced his way into the priory. Night
was now advancing, and many of the royalist nobles
thought it prudent to seek safety in flight. Some were
drowned in the river and the marshes, but many suc-
ceeded in making their way to Pevensey, where they em-
barked for France. Nevertheless, the fight still continued
hot round the castle and the priory. Fiery missiles were
hurled from the castle upon the besiegers, and were
thrown back by them upon the priory. Prince Edward
was preparing for a last sally, when Earl Simon sent pro-
PART in.] MISCELLANE US PASS A GES. 1 8 5
posals for a truce for the night. They were accepted, and
the battle ceased.
EXERCISE CCXVIII.
Whosoever makes war, whether from policy or ambi-
tion, means to acquire and to hold what he acquires, and
to carry on the war he has undertaken in such a manner
that it shall enrich and not impoverish his native country
and state. It is necessary, therefore, whether for acquiring
or holding, to consider how cost may be avoided, and
everything done most advantageously for the public
welfare. But whoever would effect all this, must take the
course and follow the methods of the Romans; which
consisted, first of all, in making their wars, as the French
say, great and short. For entering the field with strong
armies, they brought to a speedy conclusion whatever
wars they had with the Latins, the Samnites, or the
Etruscans.
EXERCISE CCXIX.
Polyphemus, waking, roared with the pain, so loud, that
all the cavern broke into claps like thunder. Ulysses and
his companions fled, and dispersed into corners. He
plucked the burning stake from his eye, and hurled the
wood madly about the cave. Then he cried out with a
mighty voice for his brethren the Cyclops that dwelt hard
by in caverns upon hills. They, hearing the terrible shout,
came flocking from all parts to inquire what ailed Poly-
phemus, and what cause he had for making such horrid
clamours in the night-time to break their sleep ; if his
fright proceeded from any mortal ; if strength or craft had
186 MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES. [PART in.
given him his death-blow. He made answer from within,
that Noman had hurt him, Noman had killed him,
Noman was with him in the cave. They replied, ' If no
man has hurt thee, and no man is with thee, then thou
art alone ; and the evil that afflicts thee is from the hand
of Heaven, which none can resist or help/
EXERCISE CCXX.
We hear that another state has been rising up gradually
to power in the centre of Italy. It \vas originally formed
of a band of pirates from some distant country, who took
possession of two eminences, fortified long before, and
overlooking a wide extent of country. Under these
eminences, themselves but of little elevation, are five hil-
locks, on which they enclosed their cattle by night. It is
reported that here were the remains of an ancient and
extensive city, which served the robbers for hiding-places ;
and temples were not wanting in which to deprecate the
vengeance of the Gods for the violences and murders they
committed daily. The situation is unhealthy, which per-
haps is the reason why the city was abandoned, and is
likewise a sufficient one why it was rebuilt by the present
occupants. They might perpetrate what depredations they
pleased, confident that no force could long besiege them
in a climate so pestilential.
EXERCISE CCXXI.
But, be this as it may, certain it is that in every
country of the world, even the least considerable, the
PART in.] MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES. 187
Romans found a league of well-armed republics, most
resolute in the defence of their freedom, whom it is clear
they never could have subdued had they not been endowed
with the rarest and most astonishing valour. To cite a
single instance, I shall take the case of the Samnites, who,
strange as it may now seem, were, on the admission of
Titus Livius himself, so powerful and so steadfast in arms,
as to be able to withstand the Romans down to the consul-
ship of Papirius Cursor, son to the first Papirius, a period
of six and forty years, in spite of numerous defeats, the loss
of many of their towns, and the great slaughter which over-
took them everywhere throughout their country. And this .
is the more remarkable when we see that country, which
once contained so many noble cities, and supported so
great a population, now almost uninhabited.
EXERCISE CCXXIL
She, admiring to hear such complimentary words pro-
ceed out of the mouth of one whose outside looked so
rough and uncompromising, made answer : ' Stranger, I
discern neither sloth nor folly in you ; and yet I see that
you are poor and wretched : from which I gather that
neither wisdom nor industry can secure felicity; only
Jove bestows it upon whomsoever he pleases. He, per-
haps, has reduced you to this plight. However, since your
wanderings have brought you so near to our city, it lies in
our duty to supply your wants. Clothes, and what else
a human hand should give to one so suppliant, and so
tamed with calamity, you shall not want. We will show you
our city, and tell you the name of our people. This is the
1 8 8 MISCELLANE US PASS A GES. [PART 1 1 1 .
land of the Phaeacians, of which my father, Alcinous, is
king.'
EXERCISE CCXXIII.
The slaves of a Roman family were not always treated
ill ; they often became their masters' friends. The villicus
of a rich man was a person of great power ; and many
others lived happily, and had need of nothing. Still there
is no doubt that the most of them appeared to a Roman
to be mere cattle. Cato says that old slaves ought to be
sold ; Cicero was ashamed of his grief for the death
of a faithful slave; and the best of the Romans use
language which would seem cruel to us about a dog or a
horse. Urbilius, for example, of whom we are speaking,
was not moved by this horrible spectacle : he only said to
his wife that a servant who neglected his duty deserved
to die, and asked her why she trembled at seeing a corpse.
Having moved it with his foot, he raised his hands towards
heaven, and then told the steward that, since he had
prayed for the dead man's soul, a funeral was not necessary.
Scarcely had he spoken the rough jest, when some one
cried out from a neighbouring house, ' The son of Urbilius
is dying/
EXERCISE CCXXIV.
The captains of our day, as they have abandoned all
the other customs of antiquity, and pay no heed to any
part of the ancient discipline, so also have discarded this
method of disposing their men, though it was one of no
small utility. For to insure the defeat of a commander
who so arranges his forces as to be able thrice during an
PART in.] MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES. 189
engagement to renew his strength, Fortune must thrice
declare against him, and he must be matched with an
adversary able three times over to defeat him ; whereas he
whose sole chance of success lies in his surviving the first
onset, as is the case with all the armies of Christendom at
the present day, may easily be vanquished, since any
slight mishap, and the least failure in the steadiness of
his men, may deprive him of victory.
EXERCISE CCXXV.
Manners and institutions, differing in different cities,
seem here to produce a harder and there a softer race ;
and a like difference may also be discerned in the character
of different families in the same city. And while this holds
good of all cities, we have many instances of it in reading
the history of Rome. For we find the Manlii always stern
and stubborn ; the Valerii kindly and courteous ; the Clau-
dii haughty and ambitious ; and many families besides
similarly distinguished from one another by their peculiar
qualities. These qualities we cannot refer wholly to the
blood, for that must change as a result of repeated inter-
marriages, but must ascribe rather to the different training
and education given in different families. For much turns
on whether a child of tender years hears a thing well or
ill spoken of, since this must needs make an impression on
him whereby his whole conduct in after-life will be in-
fluenced.
PART IV. A.
NARRATIVE AND HISTORICAL PASSAGES.
EXERCISE CCXXVI.
IF the ardour, never great, of France for the war had some-
what abated, such was not the case with England. She
was more than ever bent upon pursuing it to an effective
close. All her energies had been devoted to strengthening
herself for the task. She was determined to show that, if
her system had brought suffering and disaster on her
soldiers, she knew how to make atonement for the past by
a future, in which their endurance and their valour should
be put to no unfair trial through want of due provision
for the contingencies of warfare. Our dockyards and
arsenals were busily adding to the already overwhelming
strength of our fleet, and the country provided with lavish
hands whatever funds were necessary to enable its
generals to lead their troops wherever they determined
that the enemy might be assailed with the best assurance
of success.
EXERCISE CCXXVII.
A letter which a Roman provincial, Sidonius Apollinaris,
wrote in warning to a friend who had embarked as an
PART iv.] NARRATIVE & HISTORICAL PASSAGES. 191
officer in the fleet, gives us a glimpse of these freebooters
as they appeared to the civilised world of the fifth century.
' When you see their rowers/ says he, ' you may make up
your mind that every one of them is an arch-pirate, with
such wonderful unanimity do all of them at once command,
obey, teach, and learn their business of brigandage.' This
is why I have to warn you to be more than ever on your
guard in this warfare. Your foe is of all foes the fiercest.
He attacks unexpectedly ; if you expect him, he makes
his escape ; he despises those who seek to block his path ;
he overthrows those who are off their guard ; he cuts off
any enemy whom he follows ; while, for himself, he never
fails to escape when he is forced to fly. These men
know the dangers of the deep like men who are every day
in contact with them; for since a storm throws those
whom they wish to attack off their guard, while it hinders
their own coming onset from being seen from afar, they
gladly risk themselves in the midst of wrecks and sea-
beaten rocks, in the hope of making profit out of the very
tempest.
EXERCISE CCXXVIII.
After reading I entered upon my exhortation, which
was rather calculated at first to amuse them than to
reprove. I previously observed that no other motive but
their welfare could induce me to this ; that I was their
fellow-prisoner, and now got nothing by preaching. I
was sorry, I said, to hear them so very profane ; because
they got nothing by it, but might lose a great deal ; * for
be assured, my friends,' cried I, ' for you are my friends,
however the world may disclaim your friendship, though
192 NARRATIVE AND [PART iv.
you swore twelve thousand oaths in a day, it would not
put one penny in your purse. Then what signifies calling
every moment upon the devil, and courting his friendship,
since you find how scurvily he uses you ? He has given
you nothing here, you find, but a mouthful of oaths and
an empty belly ; and, by the best accounts I have of him,
he will give you nothing that 's good hereafter/
EXERCISE CCXXIX.
But her spirit was invincible. When the tidings of the
disaster of Thrasymenus reached the city, the people
crowded to the forum and called upon the magistrates to
tell them the whole truth. The praetor peregrinus, M.
Pomponius Matho, ascended the rostra, and said to the
assembled multitude, ' We have been beaten in a great
battle; our army is destroyed; and C. Flaminius, the consul,
is killed.' Our colder temperaments scarcely enable us
to conceive the effect of such tidings on the lively feelings
of the people of the south, or to image to ourselves the
cries, the tears, the hands uplifted in prayer, or clenched
in rage, the confused sound of ten thousand voices giving
utterance with breathless rapidity to their feelings of eager
interest, of terror, of grief, or of fury. All the northern
gates of the city were beset with crowds of wives and
mothers, imploring every fresh fugitive from the fatal field
for some tidings of those most dear to them.
EXERCISE CCXXX.
Strange and delusive destiny of man ! The pope was
at his villa of Malliana when he received intelligence that
PART iv.] HISTORICAL PASSAGES. 193
his party had triumphantly entered Milan : he abandoned
himself to the exultation arising naturally from the suc-
cessful completion of an important enterprise, and looked
cheerfully on at the festivities his people were preparing
on the occasion. He paced backwards and forwards
till deep in the night, between the window and a blazing
hearth it was the month of November. Somewhat ex-
hausted, but still in high spirits, he arrived at Rome, and
the rejoicings there celebrated for his triumph were not
yet concluded when he was attacked by a mortal disease.
' Pray for me/ said he to his servants, ' that I may yet
make you all happy/ We see that he loved life ; but his
hour was come, he had not time to receive the viaticum
nor extreme unction. So suddenly, so prematurely, and
surrounded by hopes so bright, he died as the poppy
fadeth.
EXERCISE CCXXXI.
A question was started, how far people who disagree in a
capital point can live in friendship together : Johnson said
they might. Goldsmith said they could not, as they had
not the ' idem velle atque idem nolle,' the same likings
and the same aversions. Johnson : ' Why, sir, you must
shun the subject as to which you disagree. For instance,
I can live very well with Burke ; I love his knowledge, his
genius, his diffusion, and affluence of conversation ; but I
would not talk to him of the Rockingham party.' Gold-
smith : ' But, sir, when people live together who have
something as to which they disagree, and which they want
to shun, they will be in the situation mentioned in the
story of Bluebeard. You may look into all the chambers
o
194 NARRATIVE AND [PART iv.
but one. But we should have the greatest inclination to
look into that chamber, to talk of that subject. Johnson
(with a loud voice) : ' Sir, I am not saying that you could
live in friendship with a man from whom you differ as to
some point, I am only saying that I could do it. You
put me in mind of Sappho in Ovid.'
EXERCISE CCXXXII.
The worst kind of government is that which is regarded
by its subjects as divine, and at the same time is really
weak. Such was the government of Constantius, of
Honorius, of Valentinian III ; imbecile, and at the same
time despotic, plaguing the world like an angry deity,
and misgoverning it like an angry child. But these were
exceptional cases. Government during this period was
commonly at a higher level. It was Asiatic, but it was
commonly able. Compared with Asiatic governments
it was good. If the emperor was regarded as a divinity,
at least he earned his deification for the most part by
merit. He was not such a deity as those which Egypt
worshipped, a sacred ape or cat, but rather a Hercules or
Quirinus, who had risen by superhuman labours to divine
honours. But compared with the government of the
Antonines, it was barbaric. The empire has fallen into
a lower class of states. Reason and simplicity have dis-
appeared from it. Subjects have lost all rights, and
government all responsibility. The reign of political
superstition has set in. Abject fear paralyses the people,
and those that rule are intoxicated with insolence and
cruelty. It is an Iron Age.
PART iv.] HISTORICAL PASSAGES. 195
EXERCISE CCXXXIII.
It was now three of the clock in the afternoon, the
weather very fair, and very warm (it being the 2gih day
of June), and the King's army being now together, his
Majesty resolved to prosecute his good fortune, and to go
to the enemy, since they would not come to him, and, to
that purpose, sent two good parties to make way for him
to pass, both at Cropredy-bridge and the other pass a
mile below, over which the enemy had so newly passed ;
both which places were strongly guarded by them. To
Cropredy they sent such strong bodies of foot, to relieve
each other as they should be pressed, that those sent by
the king thither could make no impression upon them;
but were repulsed, till the night came, and severed them,
all parties being tired with the duties of the day. But
they who were sent to the other pass a mile below, after
a short resistance, gained it and a hill adjoining ; where,
after they had killed some, they took the rest prisoners ;
and from thence did not only defend themselves that and
the next day, but did the enemy much hurt ; expecting
still that their fellows should master the other pass, that
so they might advance together.
EXERCISE CCXXXIV.
Our family had now made several attempts to be fine ;
but some unforeseen disaster demolished each as soon as
projected. I endeavoured to take the advantage of every
disappointment to improve their good sense, in propor-
tion as they were frustrated in ambition. ' You see, my
o 2
196 NARRATIVE AND [PART iv.
children/ cried I, ' how little is to be got by attempts to
impose upon the world in coping with our betters. Such
as are poor, and will associate with none but the rich, are
hated by those they avoid, and despised by those they
follow. Unequal combinations are always disadvantageous
to the weaker side, the rich having the pleasure, and the
poor the inconveniences, that result from them. But,
come Dick, my boy, and repeat the fable you were
reading to-day, for the good of the company.'
EXERCISE CCXXXV.
After the mutual and repeated discharge of missile
weapons, in which the archers of Scythia might signalize
their superior dexterity, the cavalry and infantry of the
two armies were furiously mingled in closer combat.
The Huns, who fought under the eyes of their king,
pierced through the doubtful and feeble centre of the
allies, separated their wings from each other, and wheeling
with a rapid effort to the left, directed their whole force
against the Visigoths. As Theodoric rode along the
ranks, to animate his troops, he received a mortal wound
from the javelin of Andages, a noble Ostrogoth, and
immediately fell from his horse. The wounded king was
oppressed in the general disorder, and trampled under
the feet of his own cavalry; and this important death
served to explain the ambiguous answer of the haru-
spices.
EXERCISE CCXXXVL
In far different plight, and with far other feelings than
those with which they had entered the pass of Caudium,
PART iv.] HISTORICAL PASSAGES. 197
did the Roman army issue out from it again upon the
plain of Campania. Defeated and disarmed, they knew
not what reception they might meet with from their
Campanian allies ; it was possible that Capua might shut
her gates against them, and go over to the victorious
enemy. But the Campanians behaved faithfully and
generously; they sent supplies of arms, of clothing, and
of provisions, to meet the Romans even before they ar-
rived at Capua ; they sent new cloaks, and the lictors and
fasces of their own magistrates, to enable the consuls to
resume their fitting state ; and when the army approached
their city, the Senate and people went out to meet them,
and welcomed them both individually and publicly with
the greatest kindness. No attentions, however, could
soothe the wounded pride of the Romans : they could
not bear to raise their eyes from the ground, nor to speak
to anyone. Full of shame they continued their march to
Rome ; when they came near to it, all those soldiers who
had a home in the country dispersed and escaped to their
several homes singly and silently : whilst those who lived
in Rome lingered without the walls till the sun was set,
and stole to their homes under cover of the darkness.
The consuls were obliged to enter the city publicly and in
the light of day, but they looked upon themselves as no
longer worthy to be the chief magistrates of R.ome, and
they shut themselves up at home in privacy.
EXERCISE CCXXXVII.
The division of the gold took place in the presence of
the youthful chief who had made the gift. As the Span-
198 NARRATIVE AND [PART iv.
iards were weighing it out, a violent quarrel arose among
them as to the size and value of the pieces which fell to
their respective shares. The high-minded savage was
disgusted at this sordid brawl among beings whom he had
regarded with such reverence. In the first impulse of his
disdain, he struck the scales with his fist, and scattered
the glittering gold about the porch. { Why,' said he,
' should you quarrel for such a trifle ? If this gold is
indeed so precious in your eyes, that for it alone you
abandon your homes, invade the peaceful lands of others,
and expose yourselves to such sufferings and perils, I will
tell you of a region where you may gratify your wishes to
the utmost. Behold those lofty mountains/ continued he,
pointing to the south : ' beyond these lies a mighty sea.
All the streams which flow down into that sea abound in
gold, and the kings who reign upon its borders eat and
drink out of golden vessels. There gold is as plentiful
and common as iron is among you Spaniards.'
EXERCISE CCXXXVIII.
It is by means of familiar words that style takes hold of
the reader and gets possession of him. It is by means
of these that great thoughts get currency and pass for
true metal, like gold and silver which have had a recog-
nised stamp put upon them. They beget confidence in
the man who, in order to make his thoughts more clearly
perceived, uses them ; for people feel that such an em-
ployment of the language of common human life betokens
a man who knows that life and its concerns, and who
keeps himself in contact with them. Besides, these words
PART iv.] HISTORICAL PASSAGES. 199
make a style frank and easy. They show that an author
has long made the thought or the feeling expressed his
mental food ; that he has so assimilated them and fami-
liarised them, that the most common expressions suffice
him in order to express ideas which have become every-
day ideas to him by the length of time they have been in
his mind. And lastly, what one says in such words looks
more true ; for, of all the words in use, none are so clear
as those which we call common words ; and clearness is
so eminently one of the characteristics of truth, that often
it even passes for truth itself.
EXERCISE CCXXXIX.
Scipio having assembled the troops together, exhorted
them not to be disheartened by the loss which they had
sustained. That their defeat was by no means to be as-
cribed to the superior courage of the Carthaginians ; but
was occasioned only by the treachery of the Spaniards,
and the imprudent division which the generals, reposing
too great a confidence in the alliance of that people, had
made of their forces : that the Carthaginians themselves
were now in the same condition with respect to both these
circumstances ; for besides that they were divided into
separate camps they had also alienated by injurious treat-
ment the affections of their allies, and had rendered them
their enemies ; that from thence it had happened that one
part of the Spaniards had already sent deputies to the
Romans ; and that the rest, as soon as the Romans should
have passed the river, would hasten with alacrity to join
them; not so much indeed from any motive of affection, as
200 NARRATIVE AND [PART iv.
from a desire to revenge the insults which they had suffered
from the Carthaginians ; that there was still another cir-
cumstance, even of greater moment : that the dissension
which prevailed among their leaders would prevent the
enemy from uniting their whole strength in an engage-
ment ; and if they should venture on a battle with divided
forces, that they would then most easily be defeated ; that
with all these advantages in prospect, they should now,
therefore, pass the river with the greatest confidence,
and leave to himself, and to the rest of the commanders,
the whole care of what was afterwards to be done.
EXERCISE CCXL.
We must take men as we find them. No man can live
up to the best which is in him. To expect a human crea-
ture to be all genius, all intellect, all virtue, all dignity,
would be as absurd as to expect that midnight should be
all stars. Curiosity in the lives of great men is to a certain
degree legitimate, and even profitable ; but there is perhaps
a danger of it being carried too far. To find the great on
a level with ourselves may gratify our vanity, but it may
sometimes lead to very erroneous results. Mr. Hookham
Frere once related the following anecdote about Canning :
' I remember one day going to consult Canning on a matter
of great importance to me, when he was staying at En-
field. We walked into the woods. As we passed some
ponds I was surprised to find that it was new to him that
tadpoles turn into frogs. " Now. don't you," he added, " go
and tell that story to the next fool you meet." Canning
could rule, and did rule, a great nation ; but people are
PART iv.] HISTORICAL PASSAGES. 201
apt to think that a man who does not know the natural
history of frogs must be an imbecile in the treatment of
men.'
EXERCISE CCXLI.
When the conqueror, having passed within the lines, saw
the most beautiful city of his age stretched beneath his
feet, the sense alike of his own magnificent success and of
that city's glorious past overcame him, and he burst, it is
said, into tears of mingled joy and emotion. A crowd of
associations rose before him ; the navy of Athens en-
gulphed beneath those waters ; the annihilation of her two
splendid armies, with two illustrious commanders; the
prolonged and fierce struggle with Carthage ; the long
roll of tyrants and sovereigns : in their foreground the
prince whose memory was still green, the fame of his vir-
tues and his prosperity second only to the splendour of
his services to Rome.
EXERCISE CCXLII.
Where was there ever such peace, such tranquillity, such
justice, such honours paid to virtue, such rewards dis-
tributed to the good and punishments to the bad ; when
was ever the state so wisely guided, as in the time when
the world had obtained one head, and that head Rome ?
the very time wherein God deigned to be born of a
Virgin, and to dwell upon earth. To every single body
there has been given a head ; the whole world therefore
also, which is called by the poet a great body, ought to be
content with one temporal head. For every two-headed
animal is monstrous ; how much more horrible and
202 NARRA TIVE A ND [PART I v.
hideous a portent must be a creature with a thousand
different heads, biting and fighting against one another !
If, however, it is necessary that there be more heads than
one, it is nevertheless evident that there ought to be one
to restrain all and preside over all, so that the peace of
the whole body may abide unshaken. Assuredly both in
heaven and in earth the sovereignty of one has always
been best.
EXERCISE CCXLIII.
The vigilant Peter the Headstrong was not to be de-
ceived. Sending privately for the commander-in-chief of
all the armies, and having heard all his story with the
customary pious oaths, protestations, and ejaculations,
' Harkee, comrade/ cried he, ' though by your own ac-
count you are the most brave, upright, and honourable
man in the whole province, yet do you lie under the mis-
fortune of being traduced and immeasurably despised.
Now, though it is certainly hard to punish a man for his
misfortunes, I cannot consent to venture my armies with
a commander whom they despise, or to trust the welfare
of my people to a champion whom they distrust. Retire,
therefore, my friend, from the irksome cares and toils of
public life with this comforting reflection that if guilty,
you are but enjoying your just reward ; and if innocent,
you are not the first great and good man who has most
wrongfully been slandered and maltreated in this wicked
world, doubtless to be better treated in another world,
where there shall be neither error nor calumny nor per-
secution. In the meantime, let me never see your face
PART iv.] HISTORICAL PASSAGES. 203
again, for I have a horrible antipathy to the countenances
of unfortunate great men like yourself.'
EXERCISE CCXLIV.
In the last days of Pope Eugenius the Fourth, two of
his servants, the learned Poggius and a friend, ascended
the Capitoline hill, reposed themselves among the ruins of
columns and temples, and viewed from that commanding
spot the wide and various prospect of desolation. The
place and object gave ample scope for moralising on the
vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the
proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in
a common grave ; and it was agreed that, in proportion to
her former greatness, the fall of Rome was the more awful
and deplorable. Her primeval state, such as she might
appear in a more remote age, when Evander entertained
the stranger from Troy, has been delineated by the fancy
of Virgil. This Tarpeian rock was then a savage and
solitary thicket : in the time of the poet it was crowned
with the golden roofs of a temple: the temple is over-
thrown, the gold has been pillaged, the wheel of fortune
has accomplished her revolution, and the sacred ground is
again disfigured with thorns and bramble's.
EXERCISE CCXLV.
The emperor, to whom frequent accounts of these
transactions were transmitted while he was still in Flanders,
was sensible of his own imprudence and that of his
ministers, in having despised too long the murmurs and
204 NARRATIVE AND [PART iv.
remonstrances of the Castilians. He beheld with deep
concern a kingdom, the most valuable of any he possessed,
and in which lay the strength and sinews of his power,
just ready to disown his authority, and on the point of
being plunged into all the miseries of civil war. But
though his presence might have averted this calamity, he
could not at that time visit Spain without endangering the
imperial crown, and allowing the French king full leisure
to execute his ambitious schemes. The only point now
to be deliberated upon was, whether he should attempt
to gain the malcontents by indulgence and concessions,
or prepare directly to suppress them by force : and he
resolved to make trial of the former, while at the same
time, if that should fail of success, he prepared for the
latter.
EXERCISE CCXLVI.
The town is most pleasantly seated, having a very good
wall with round and square bulwarks, after the old manner
of fortifications. We came thither in the night, and indeed
were very much distressed by sore and tempestuous wind
and rain. After a long march, we knew not well how to
dispose of ourselves; but finding an old abbey in the
suburbs, and some cabins and poor houses, we got into
them, and had opportunity to send ' the garrison ' a
summons. They shot at my trumpeter, and would not
listen to him for an hour's space ; but having some officers
in our party whom they knew, I sent them to let them
know I was there with a good part of the army. We shot
not a shot at them ; but they were very angry, and fired
very earnestly upon us, telling us it was not a time of
PART iv.] HISTORICAL PASSAGES. 205
night to send a summons. But yet in the end the
governor was willing to send out two commissioners, I
think rather to see whether there was a force sufficient to
force him, than to any other end. After almost a whole
night spent in treaty, the town was delivered to me the
next morning, upon terms which we usually called
honourable ; which I was the willinger to give, because I
had little above two hundred foot, and neither ladders nor
guns, nor anything else to force them.
EXERCISE CCXLVIL
Such will be the impotent condition of those men of
great hereditary estates who indeed dislike the designs
that are carried on, but whose dislike is rather that of
spectators than of parties that may be concerned in the
catastrophe of the piece. But riches do not in all cases
secure an inert and passive resistance. There are always
in that description men whose fortunes, when their minds
are once vibrated by passion or evil principle, are by no
means a security from their actually taking their part
against the public tranquillity. We see to what low and
despicable passions of all kinds many men in that class
are ready to sacrifice the patrimonial estates, which might
be perpetuated in their families, with splendour and with
the fame of hereditary benefactors of mankind, from
generation to generation. Do we not see how lightly
people treat their fortunes, when under the influence of
the passion of gaming ? The game of ambition or resent-
ment will be played by many of the rich and great as
desperately and with as much blindness to the conse-
quences as any other game.
206 NARRATIVE AND [PART iv.
EXERCISE CCXLVIII.
The English and Normans now prepared themselves
for this important decision, but the aspect of things on the
night before the battle was very different in the two camps.
The English spent the time in riot and jollity and disorder,
the Normans in silence and in prayer, and in the functions
of their religion. On the morning the Duke called to-
gether the most considerable of his chieftains and made
them a speech suitable to the occasion. He represented to
them that the event which they and he had long wished for
was approaching, and the whole fortune of war now de-
pended on their sword, and would be decided in a single
action. That never army had greater motives for exerting
a vigorous courage, whether they considered the prize that
would attend their victory, or the inevitable destruction
that must ensue on their discomfiture. That if once their
martial and veteran bands could break those raw soldiers
who had rashly dared to approach them, they conquered a
kingdom at one blow, and were justly entitled to all their
possessions as the reward of their prosperous valour; that
on the contrary, if they remitted in the least their wonted
prowess, an enraged enemy hung upon their rear, the sea
met them in their retreat, and an ignominious death was
the certain punishment of their cowardice. He then
ordered the signal of battle to sound, and the whole army,
moving at once and singing the hymn of Roland the
famous peer of Charlemagne, advanced in order and
with alacrity towards the enemy.
PART iv.] HISTORICAL PASSAGES. 207
EXERCISE CCXLIX.
Another of the king's chief men, approving of his
words and exhortations, presently added : ' The present
life of man, O king, seems to me, in comparison of that
time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a
sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in
winter with your commanders and ministers, and a good
fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow pre-
vail abroad ; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and
immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from
the wintry storm ; but after a short space of fair weather,
he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark
winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man ap-
pears for a short space, but of what went before, or what
is to follow, we are utterly ignorant. If, therefore, this
new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems
justly to deserve to be followed.' The other elders and
king's counsellors, by Divine inspiration, spoke to the same
effect.
EXERCISE CCL.
In a modern state, the poor and ignoble, even though
they may be wholly shut out from the government of the
state, are still as much members of the state as the rich
and noble. But, when we take in what the Roman com-
mons really were, we shall see that it is only in a very
imperfect sense that they were members of the state at all.
The patricians were the old citizens, the commons were
the new. The patricians were the men of the old settle-
ments on the Palatine and the Capitoline. The commons
208 NARRATIVE AND [PART iv.
were the later settlers on the Aventine, dwelling, indeed,
within the city wall, but not admitted within the sacred
shelter of the pomcerium. Many among them might be
rich, many might have been noble in earlier homes ; but
neither riches nor nobility could win for them political
equality with the older citizens. It is not very wonderful
if on such men the tie of allegiance sat loosely : they were
only half Romans, and it seemed to them no strange
thing to leave Rome and plant a new town somewhere
else.
EXERCISE CCLI.
The most singular and striking circumstance in the
Peruvian government is the influence of religion upon its
genius and laws. Religious ideas make such a feeble im-
pression on the mind of a savage, that their effect upon
his sentiments and manners are hardly perceptible. Among
the Mexicans, religion, reduced into a regular system, and
holding a considerable place in their public institutions,
operated with conspicuous efficacy in forming the peculiar
character of that people. But in Peru, the whole system
of civil policy was founded on religion. The Inca ap-
peared not only as a legislator, but as the messenger of
Heaven. His precepts were received, not merely as the
injunctions of a superior, but as the mandates of a Deity.
His race was held to be sacred, and in order to preserve
it distinct, without being polluted by any mixture of in-
ferior blood, the sons of the house married their own
sisters, and no person was ever admitted to the throne who
could not claim it by such a pure descent. To those
children of the Sun, for that was the appellation bestowed
PART IV.]
HISTORICAL PASSAGES.
209
upon all the offspring of the first Inca, the people looked
up with the reverence due to beings of a superior order.
They were deemed to be under the immediate protection
of the Deity from whom they issued, and by him every
order of the reigning Inca was supposed to be dictated.
EXERCISE CCLII.
But notwithstanding the fortunate dexterity with which
he had eluded this blow, Cortes was so sensible of the pre-
carious tenure by which he held his power, that he dis-
patched deputies to Spain with a pompous account of the
success of his arms, with further specimens of the pro-
ductions of the country, and with rich presents to the
emperor, as the earnest of future contributions from his
new conquest, requesting, in recompence for all his
services, the approbation of his proceeding's, and that he
might be entrusted with the government of those terri-
tories which his conduct and the valour of his followers
had added to the crown of Castile. The juncture in which
his deputies reached the court was favourable. The in-
ternal commotions in Spain, which had disquieted the
beginning of Charles's reign, were just appeased. The
ministers had leisure to turn their attention towards foreign
affairs. The account of Cortes' victories filled his country-
men with admiration. The extent and value of his con-
quests became the object of vast and interesting hopes.
Whatever stain he might have contracted, by the irregu-
larity of the steps which he took in order to attain power,
was so fully effaced by the splendour and merit of the
great actions which this had enabled him to perform, that
210 NARRATIVE AND [PART iv.
every heart revolted at the thought of inflicting any censure
on a man whose services entitled him to the highest marks
of distinction.
EXERCISE CCLIII.
In such a time as this, did the prince of the Apostles
advance towards the heathen city, where, under divine
guidance, he was to fix his seat. He toiled along the
stately road which led him straight onwards to the capital
of the world. He met throngs of the idle and the busy,
of strangers and natives, who peopled the interminable
suburb. He passed under the high gate, and wandered
on amid high palaces and columned temples ; he met
processions of heathen priests and ministers in honour of
their idols ; he met the wealthy lady, borne on her litter
by her slaves ; he met the stern legionaries who had been
the ' massive iron hammers ' of the whole earth ; he met
the busy politician, with his ready man of business at his
side to prompt him on his canvass for popularity; he met
the orator returning home from a successful pleading, with
his young admirers and his grateful or hopeful clients.
He saw about him nothing but a vigorous power, grown
up into a definite establishment, formed and matured in
its religion, its laws, its civil tradition, its imperial ex-
tension through the history of many centuries ; and what
was he but a poor, feeble, aged, stranger, in nothing
different from the multitude of men, an Egyptian, or a
Chaldean, or perhaps a Jew, some Eastern or other, as
passers-by would guess according to their knowledge of
human kind, carelessly looking at him, as we might turn
our eyes upon a Hindu or a gipsy, as they met us, without
PART iv.] HISTORICAL PASSAGES. 211
the shadow of a thought that such a one was destined
then to commence an age of religious sovereignty, in
which the heathen state might live twice over, and not see
its end.
EXERCISE CCLIV.
Looking back upon the troubles which ended in the
outbreak of war, one sees the nations at first swaying
backward and forward like a throng so vast as to be
helpless, but afterwards falling slowly into warlike array.
And when one begins to search for the man or the men
whose volition was governing the crowd, the eye falls
upon the towering form of the Emperor Nicholas. He
was not single-minded, and therefore his will was un-
stable, but it had a huge force ; and, since he was armed
with the whole authority of his Empire, it seemed plain
that it was this man and only he who was bringing
danger from the north. And at first, too, it seemed that
within his range of action there was none who could be
his equal : but in a little while the looks of men were
turned to the Bosphorus, for thither his ancient adversary
was slowly bending his way. To fit him for the en-
counter, the Englishman was clothed with little authority
except what he could draw from the resources of his own
mind, and from the strength of his own wilful nature.
Yet it was presently seen that those who were near him
fell under his dominion, and did as he bid them, and that
the circle of deference to his will was always increasing
around him ; and soon it appeared that, though he moved
gently, he began to have mastery over a foe who was
consuming his strength in mere anger. When he had
p 2
2 1 2 NARRA TIVE AND [PART i v.
conquered, he stood as it were with folded arms, and
seemed willing to desist from strife.
EXERCISE CCLV.
With these discourses they went on their way, until
they arrived at the very spot where they had been trampled
upon by the bulls. Don Quixote knew it again, and said
to Sancho, 'This is the meadow where we alighted on
the gay shepherdesses and gallant shepherds, who intended
to revive in it and imitate the pastoral Arcadia ; in imita-
tion of which, if you approve it, I could wish, O Sancho,
we might turn shepherds, at least for the time I must live
retired. I will buy sheep and all other materials neces-
sary for the pastoral employment ; we will range the
mountains, and woods, and the meadows, singing here,
and complaining there, drinking the liquid crystal of the
fountains, of the limpid brooks, or of the mighty rivers.
The oaks with a plentiful hand shall give their sweetest
fruit ; the trunks of the hardest cork-trees shall afford us
seats; the willows shall furnish shade, and the roses
scent; the spacious meadow shall yield us carpets of a
thousand colours ; the air, clear and pure, shall supply
breath, the moon and stars afford light; singing shall
furnish pleasure, and complaining yield delight; Apollo
shall provide verses and love-conceits ; with which we
shall make ourselves famous and immortal, not only in
the present but in future ages.'
PART iv.] HISTORICAL PASSAGES. 213
EXERCISE CCLVI.
The road, all down the long descent, and through the
plain to the banks of the river, was lined, mile after mile,
with spectators. From the West Gate to the Cathedral
Close the pressing and shouting on each side was such as
reminded Londoners of the crowds on the Lord Mayor's
Day. Doors, windows, balconies, and roofs were thronged
with gazers. An eye accustomed to the pomp of war would
have found much to criticise in the spectacle. For several
toilsome marches in the rain, through roads where one who
travelled on foot sank at every step up to the ancles in
clay, had not improved the appearance of men or their
accoutrements. But the people of Devonshire, altogether
unused to the splendour of well-ordered camps, were
overwhelmed with delight and awe. Descriptions of the
martial pageant were circulated all over the kingdom.
They contained much that was well-fitted to gratify the
vulgar appetite for the marvellous. For the Dutch army,
composed of men who had been born in various climates 3
and had served under various standards, presented an
aspect at once grotesque, gorgeous, and terrible to
islanders, who had, in general, a very indistinct notion of
foreign countries.
EXERCISE CCLVII.
I set boldly forward the next morning. Every day
lessened the burden of my moveables, like JEsop and his
basket of bread ; for I paid them for my lodgings to the
Dutch, as I travelled on. When I came to Louvain I
214 NARRATIVE AND [PART iv.
was resolved not to go to the lower professors, but openly
tendered my talents to the Principal himself. I went, had
admittance, and offered him my service as a master of
the Greek language, which I had been told was a de-
sideratum in his University. The Principal seemed at
first to doubt of my abilities ; but of these I offered to
convince him, by turning a part of any Greek author into
Latin. Finding me perfectly earnest in my proposal, he
addressed me thus : ' You see me, young man ; I never
learned Greek, and I don't find that I have ever missed
it. I have had a doctor's cap and gown without Greek ;
I eat heartily without Greek ; and, in short,' continued he,
' as I don't know Greek, I do not believe there is any
good in it/
EXERCISE CCLVIII.
Nature had destined Pompeius, if ever any one, to be
a member of an aristocracy; and nothing but selfish
motives had carried him over as a deserter to the demo-
cratic camp. That he should now revert to his Sullan
traditions, accorded alike with his character and his interest.
Perhaps the majority, at any rate the flower of the citizens,
belonged to the constitutional party: it wanted nothing
but a leader. Marcus Cato, its present head, did the
duty, as he understood it, of its leader amidst daily peril
to his life, and perhaps without hope of success ; his
fidelity to duty deserves respect, but more than this is
required of a commander. If, instead of this man, who
knew not how to act either as party chief, or as general,
a man of the political and military mark of Pompeius
should raise the banner of the existing constitution, the
PART iv.] HISTORICAL PASSAGES. 215
free townsmen of Italy would necessarily flock towards it
in crowds, that under it they might help to fight, if not
for the kingship of Pompeius, at any rate against the
kingship of Caesar.
EXERCISE CCLIX.
This goal, it is true, was not to be reached without a
struggle. The constitution, which had endured for five
hundred years, and under which the insignificant town on
the Tiber had risen to unprecedented greatness and glory,
had sunk its roots into the soil to a depth beyond human
ken, and no one could at all calculate to what extent the
attempt to overthrow it would penetrate and convulse civil
society. Several rivals had been outrun by Pompeius in
the race towards the great goal, but had not been wholly
set aside. It was not altogether impossible that all these
elements might combine to overthrow the new holder of
power, and that Pompeius might find Quintus Catulus and
Marcus Cato united in opposition to him with Marcus
Crassus, Gaius Caesar, and Titus Labienus. But the
inevitable and undoubtedly serious struggle could not well
be undertaken under circumstances more favourable. It
was in a high degree probable that, under the fresh im-
pression of the Catilinarian revolt, a rule which promised
order and security, although at the price of freedom, would
receive the submission, not only of the whole middle
party, but also of a great part of the aristocracy.
2i6 NARRATIVE AND [PART iv.
EXERCISE CCLX.
Every one is well aware that the establishment of the
barbarian nations on the ruins of the Roman empire in
the West was accompanied or followed by an almost
universal loss of that learning which had been accumulated
in the Latin and Greek languages, and which we call ancient
or classical a revolution long prepared by the decline of
taste and knowledge for several preceding ages, but acce-
lerated by public calamities in the fifth century with over-
whelming rapidity. The last of the ancients, and one
who forms a link between the classical period of literature
and that of the middle ages, in which he was a favourite
author, is Boethius, a man of fine genius, and interesting
both from his character and his death. It is well known
that, after filling the dignities of consul and senator in the
court of Theodoric, he fell a victim to the jealousy of a
sovereign from whose memory, in many respects glorious,
the stain of that blood has never been effaced. The Con-
solation of Philosophy, the chief work of Boethius, was
written in his prison. Few books are more striking from
the circumstances of their production.
EXERCISE CCLXI.
Meantime the tide was rising fast. The Mountjoy
began to move, and soon passed safe through the broken
stakes and floating spars. But her brave master was no
more. A shot from one of the batteries had struck him ;
and he died by the most enviable of all deaths, in sight of
the city which was his birthplace, which was his home,
PART rv.] HISTORICAL PASSAGES. 217
and which had just been saved by his courage and self-
devotion from the most frightful form of destruction. The
night had closed in before the conflict at the boom began;
but the flash of guns was seen, and the noise heard, by
the lean and ghastly multitude which covered the walls of
the city. When the Mountjoy grounded, and when the
shout of triumph rose from the Irish on both sides of the
river, the hearts of the besieged died within them. Even
after the barricade had been passed, there was a terrible
hour of suspense. It was ten o'clock before the ships
arrived at the quay. The whole population was there to
welcome them.
EXERCISE CCLXII.
So little did the Roman missionaries know of the coun-
try to which they had been sent, that it was with surprise
that they found themselves confronted by Christians whose
usages were in some ways not their own and who, in their
horror at these differences, refused not only to eat with
the Roman priests, but even to take their meals in the
same house with them. A miracle, which Augustine be-
lieved himself to have wrought, failed to convince the
Welsh of their errors in these matters ; and when seven
of their bishops, with monks and scholars from the
great abbey at Bangor by the Dee, assembled at the place
of conference, they were in no humour for hearkening to
his claims on their obedience as archbishop. The story
ran that they consulted a solitary as to their course.
( Let the stranger arrive first/ replied the hermit ; ' if then
he rise at your approach, hear him submissively as one
218 NARRATIVE AND [PART iv.
meek and lowly, and who has taken on him the yoke of
Christ. But if he rise not at your coming, and despise
you, let him also be despised of you/ Augustine failed to
rise ; and the conference broke off with threats from the
Roman missionaries that if the Britons would not join in
peace with their brethren, they should be warred upon
by their enemies.
EXERCISE CCLXIII.
What do we look for in studying the history of a past
age ? Is it to learn the political transactions and charac-
ters of the leading public men ? Is it to make ourselves
acquainted with the life and being of the time ? If we set
out with the former grave purpose, where is the truth, and
who believes that he has it entire ? As we read in these
delightful volumes of the Spectator, the past age returns,
the England of our ancestors is revivified. The May-
pole rises in the Strand again in London, the churches
are thronged with daily worshippers, the beaux are gather-
ing in the coffee-houses, the gentry are going to the
drawing-room, the ladies are thronging to the toy-shops,
the chairmen are jostling in the streets, the footmen are
running with links before the chariots or fighting round
the theatre. I say the fiction carries a greater amount of
truth in solution than the volume which purports to be all
true. Out of the fictitious book I get the expression of
the life of the time ; of the manners, of the movement, the
dress, the pleasures, the laughter, the ridicule of society
the old times live again, and I travel in the old country of
England.
PART iv.] HISTORICAL PASSAGES. 219
EXERCISE CCLXIV.
His success in this scheme for reducing the power of
the nobility encouraged him to attempt a diminution of
their possessions, which were no less exorbitant. During
the contest and disorder inseparable from the feudal
government, the nobles, ever attentive to their own in-
terests, and taking advantage of the weakness and distress of
their monarchs, had seized some parts of the royal demesne,
obtained grants of others, and having gradually wrested
almost the whole out of the hands of the princes, had
annexed them to their own estates. The titles by which
most of the grandees held their lands were extremely de-
fective: it was from some successful usurpation, which
the crown had been too feeble to dispute, that many
derived their only claim to possession. An inquiry car-
ried back to the origin of these encroachments, which
were almost coeval with the feudal system, was imprac-
ticable; as it would have stripped every nobleman in
Spain of great part of his lands, it must have excited
a general revolt.
EXERCISE CCLXV.
Such a step was too bold even for the enterprising
spirit of Ximenes. He confined himself to the reign of
Ferdinand: and beginning with the pensions granted
during that time, refused to make any further payment,
because all right to them expired with his life. He then
called to account such as had acquired crown-lands under
the administration of that monarch, and at once resumed
220 NARRATIVE AND [PART iv.
whatever he had alienated : the effects of this revocation
extended to many persons of high rank, for, though Fer-
dinand was a prince of little generosity, yet he and Isabella
having been raised to the throne of Castile by a powerful
faction of the nobles, they were obliged to reward the
zeal of their adherents with great liberality, and the royal
demesnes were their only fund for that purpose.
EXERCISE CCLXVI.
Hippolytus issued from the prison, looking more like a
young martyr than a criminal. He was now perfectly
quiet, and a sort of unnatural glow had risen into his cheeks,
the result of the enthusiasm and conscious self-sacrifice
into which he had worked himself during the night. He
had only prayed, as a last favour, that he might be taken
through the street in which the house of the Metelli stood;
for he had lived, he said, as everybody knew, in great hos-
tility with that family, and he now felt none any longer,
and wished to bless their house as he passed it. The
magistrates, for more reasons than one, had no objection ;
the old priest, with tears in his eyes, said that the dear boy
would still be an honour to his family, as surely as he
would be a saint in heaven; and the procession moved
on. The main feeling of the crowd, as usual, was one of
curiosity ; but there were few indeed in whom it was not
mixed with pity, and many women found the sight so
intolerable that they were seen moving away down the
streets, weeping bitterly, and unable to answer the ques-
tions of those they met.
PART iv.] HISTORICAL PASSAGES. 221
EXERCISE CCLXVII.
After his departure everything tended to the wildest
anarchy. Faction and discontent had often risen so high
among the old settlers that they could hardly be kept
within bounds. The spirit of the new-comers was too un-
governable to bear any restraint. Several among them
of better rank were such dissipated, hopeless young men
as their friends were glad to send out in quest of whatever
fortune might betide them in a foreign land. Of the
lower order, many were so profligate or desperate, that
their country was happy to throw them out as nuisances
to society. Such persons were little capable of the regu-
lar subordination, the strict economy, and persevering
industry, which their situation required. The Indians,
observing their misconduct, and that every precaution for
sustenance or safety was neglected, not only withheld the
supplies of provisions which they were accustomed to
furnish, but also harassed them with continual hostilities.
All their subsistence was derived from the stores which
they had brought from England : these were soon con-
sumed ; then the domestic animals sent out to breed in
the country were devoured ; and by this inconsiderate
waste they were reduced to such extremity of famine, as
not only to eat the most nauseous and unwholesome roots
and berries, but to feed on the bodies of the Indians
whom they slew, and even on those of their companions
who sank under the oppression of such complicated dis-
tresses. In less than six months, of five hundred persons
whom Smith left in Virginia, only sixty remained : and they
so feeble and dejected that they could not have survived
222 NARRATIVE AND [PART iv.
for ten days if succour had not arrived from a quarter
whence they did not expect it.
EXERCISE CCLXVIII.
He thought that the people of that country, sick of an
effete government, would be quiescent under such a
change ; and although it should prove otherwise, the con-
fidence he reposed in his own fortune, unrivalled talents,
and vast power, made him disregard the consequences,
while the cravings of his military and political system,
the danger to be apprehended from the vicinity of a
Bourbon dynasty, and above all the temptations offered
by a miraculous folly which outrun even his desires,
urged him to a deed that, well accepted by the people of
the Peninsula, would have proved beneficial, but being
enforced contrary to their wishes, was unhallowed either
by justice or benevolence.
EXERCISE CCLXIX.
In an evil hour for his own greatness and the happiness
of others, he commenced this fatal project. Founded in
violence, and executed with fraud, it spread desolation
through the fairest portions of the Peninsula, was cala-
mitous to France, destructive to himself; and the conflict
between his hardy veterans and the vindictive race he
insulted assumed a character of unmitigated ferocity dis-
graceful to human nature for the Spaniards did not fail
to defend their just cause with hereditary cruelty, while
the French army struck a terrible balance of barbarous
actions. Napoleon observed with surprise the unexpected
PART iv.] HISTORICAL PASSAGES. 223
energy of the people, and therefore bent his whole force
to the attainment of his object, while England, coming to
the assistance of the Peninsula, employed all her resources
to frustrate his efforts. Thus the two leading nations of
the world were brought into contact at a moment when
both were disturbed by angry passions, eager for great
events, and possessed of surprising power.
EXERCISE CCLXX.
No sooner had he thus won the crown than he endea-
voured to consolidate on a fresh basis of law, justice, and
morality, a throne which owed its origin to violent and
bloody usurpation. Being aware that a state of warfare,
with its inevitably brutalising tendencies, was fatal to the
assimilation of these better principles, he made it his first
object to humanise his subjects by weaning them from the
soldier's life, and by familiarising them with peaceful
pursuits. After gaining the goodwill of the neighbouring
governments by treaties of alliance, he felt that the rude
spirits of his nation needed some restraining influence to
compensate for the withdrawal of foreign foes and of
military discipline. He recognised the necessity of a
state religion, as the most effective of all checks that
could be brought to bear on masses of men, in the low
level of culture and civilisation to which his countrymen
had then attained.
EXERCISE CCLXXI.
He said with great humility, that although on one hand
very much evil had been spoken of him which was not
224 NARRATIVE AND [PART iv.
true, he had no doubt that, on the other, many things had
been said about their holiness and the good that they did
which went far beyond the truth. For his own part, he
said he had adopted that manner of life through having
long seen enough of the manners and vanities of the
world ; and holding them in low esteem, was resolved to
spend the best of his life in mortifications and devotion,
in charity, and in constant preparation for death.
EXERCISE CCLXXII.
It is not the purpose of this work to enter into any
minute descriptions of the Roman exercises. We shall
only remark that they comprehended whatever could add
strength to the body, activity to the limbs, or grace to the
motions. The soldiers were diligently instructed to march,
to run, to leap, to swim, to carry heavy burdens, to handle
every species of arms that was used either for offence or
for defence, either in distant engagement or in a closer
onset : to form a variety of evolutions ; and to move to
the sound of flutes, in the Pyrrhic or martial dance. In
the midst of peace, the Roman troops familiarised them-
selves with the practice of war ; and it is prettily remarked
by an ancient historian who had fought against them, that
the effusion of blood was the only circumstance which
distinguished a field of battle from a field of exercise.
EXERCISE CCLXXIII.
But, before we acquaint you with the purport of her
speech, we must premise, that in the land of Lycia, which
PART iv.] HISTORICAL PASSAGES. 225
was at that time pagan, above all their other gods the in-
habitants did in an especial manner adore the deity who
was supposed to have influence in the disposing of people's
affections in love. This god, by the name of Cupid, they
feigned to be a beautiful boy, and winged; as indeed,
between young persons, these frantic passions are usually
least under constraint ; while the wings might signify the
haste with which these ill-judged attachments are com-
monly dissolved; and they painted him blindfolded, because
these silly affections of lovers make them blind to the
defects of the beloved object, which every one is quick-
sighted enough to discover but themselves; or because
love is for the most part led blindly, rather than directed
by the open eye of the judgment, in the hasty choice of a
mate.
EXERCISE CCLXXIV.
Our shame stalks abroad in the open face of day ; it is
become too common even to excite surprise. We treat it as
a matter of small importance that some of the electors of
Great Britain have added treason to their corruption, and
have traitorously sold their votes to foreign Powers ; that
some of the members of our Senate are at the command
of a distant tyrant ; that our Senators are no longer the re-
presentatives of British virtue, but the vices and pollutions
of the East.
EXERCISE CCLXXV.
But the prospect at home was not over-clouded merely ;
it was the very deepest darkness of misery. It has been
well said that long periods of general suffering make far
Q
226 NARRATIVE AND [PART iv.
less impression on our minds, than the short sharp struggle
in which a few distinguished individuals perish ; not that
we over-estimate the horror and the guilt of times of open
blood-shedding, but we are much too patient of the greater
misery and greater sin of periods of quiet legalised op-
pression ; of that most deadly of all evils, when law, and
even religion herself, are false to their divine origin and
purpose, and their voice is no longer the voice of God,
but of his enemy. In such cases the evil derives advan-
tage, in a manner, from the very amount of its own
enormity. No pen can record, no volume can contain,
the details of the daily and hourly sufferings of a whole
people, endured without intermission, through the whole
life of man, from the cradle to the grave. The mind itself
can scarcely comprehend the wide range of the mischief.
EXERCISE CCLXXVI.
At such times, society, distracted by the conflict of in-
dividual wills, and unable to attain by their free concurrence
to a general will, which might unite and hold them in sub-
jection, feels an ardent desire for a sovereign power, to
which all individuals must submit ; and as soon as any
institution presents itself which bears any of the character-
istics of legitimate sovereignty, society rallies round it with
eagerness ; as people under proscription take refuge in
the sanctuary of a church. This is what has taken place
in the wild and disorderly youth of nations, such as those
we have just described. Monarchy is wonderfully suited
to those times of strong and fruitful anarchy, if I may so
speak, in which society is striving to form and regulate
PART iv.] HISTORICAL PASSAGES. 227
itself, but is unable to do so by the free concurrence of
individual wills. There are other times when monarchy,
though from a contrary cause, has the same merit. Why
did the Roman world, so near dissolution at the end of
the republic, still subsist for more than fifteen centuries
under the name of an empire, which, after all, was nothing
but a lingering decay, a protracted death-struggle ? Mon-
archy only could produce such an effect.
EXERCISE CCLXXVII.
In this embarrassing situation he formed the chimerical
scheme, not only of achieving great exploits by a deputy,
but of securing to himself the glory of conquests which
were to be made by another. In the execution of this
plan, he fondly aimed at reconciling contradictions. He
was solicitous to choose a commander of intrepid resolu-
tion, and of superior abilities, because he knew these to be
requisite in order to ensure success ; but, at the same time,
from the jealousy natural to little minds, he wished this
person to be of a spirit so tame and obsequious, as to be
entirely dependent on his will. But when he came to
apply those ideas in forming an opinion concerning the
several officers who occurred to his thoughts as worthy of
being intrusted with the command, he soon perceived that
it was impossible to find such incompatible qualities united
in one character. Such as were distinguished for courage
and talents were too high-spirited to be passive instru-
ments in his hands. Those who appeared more gentle
and tractable were destitute of capacity, and unequal to the
charge. This augmented his perplexity and his fears,
Q 2
228 NARRATIVE AND [PART iv.
EXERCISE CCLXXVIII.
Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying
it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought
to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim
is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to
go into the water until he had learned to swim. If men
are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in
slavery, they may indeed wait for ever. Therefore it is
that we decidedly approve of the conduct of Milton and
the other wise and good men, who, in spite of much that
was ridiculous and hateful in the conduct of their associates,
stood firmly by the cause of public liberty. We are not
aware that the poet has been charged with personal
participation in any of the blameable excesses of hte
time.
EXERCISE CCLXXIX.
He felt that it would be madness in him to imitate the
example of Monmouth, to cross the sea with a few British
adventurers, and to trust to a general rising of the popula-
tion. It was necessary, and it was pronounced necessary
by all those who invited him over, that he should carry an
army with him. Yet who could answer for the effect
which the appearance of such an army might produce?
The government was indeed justly odious. But would the
English people, altogether unaccustomed to the interference
of continental powers in English disputes, be inclined to
look with favour on a deliverer who was surrounded by
foreign soldiers ? If any part of the royal forces resolutely
withstood the invaders, would not that part soon have on
TART iv.] HISTORICAL PASSAGES. 229
its side the patriotic sympathy of millions ? A defeat would
be fatal to the whole undertaking. A bloody victory
gained in the heart of the island by the mercenaries of the
States General over the Coldstream Guards and the Buffs
would be almost as great a calamity as a defeat. Such a
victory would be the most cruel wound ever inflicted on
the national pride of one of the proudest of nations. The
crown so won would never be worn in peace or security.
Many, who had hitherto contemplated the power of France
with dread and loathing, would say that, if a foreign yoke
must be borne, there was less ignominy in submitting to
France than in submitting to Holland.
EXERCISE CCLXXX.
Their first complaints were respectful and modest ; they
accused the subordinate ministers of oppression, and pro-
claimed their wishes for the long life and victory of the
emperor. ' Be patient and attentive, ye insolent railers ! '
exclaimed Justinian ; ' be mute, ye Jews, Samaritans, and
Manichaeans ! ' The greens still attempted to awaken his
compassion. ' We are poor, we are innocent, we are
injured, we dare not pass through the streets : a general
persecution is exercised against our name and colour.
Let us die, O emperor! but let us die by your command,
and for your service ! ' But the repetition of partial and
passionate invectives degraded, in their eyes, the majesty
of the purple ; they renounced allegiance to the prince
who refused justice to his people ; lamented that the father
of Justinian had been born ; and branded his son with the
opprobrious names of an homicide, an ass, and a perjured
230 NARRATIVE AND [PART iv.
tyrant. 'Do you despise your lives?' cried the indignant
monarch : the blues rose with fury from their seats ; their
hostile clamours thundered in the hippodrome ; and their
adversaries, deserting the unequal contest, spread terror
and despair through the streets of Constantinople.
EXERCISE CCLXXXI.
Two centuries ago the people of this country were
engaged in a fearful conflict with the Crown. A despotic
and treacherous monarch assumed to himself the right to
levy taxes without the consent of Parliament and the
people. That assumption was resisted. This fair island
became a battle-field, the kingdom was convulsed, and an
ancient throne overturned. And if our forefathers two
hundred years ago resisted that attempt, if they refused to
be the bondmen of a king, shall we be the born thralls of
an aristocracy like ours ? Shall we, who struck the lion
down, pay homage to the wolf? Or shall we not by a
manly and united expression of public opinion at once
and for ever put an end to this giant wrong ? Our cause
is at least as good as theirs. We stand on higher vantage-
ground ; we have larger numbers at our back ; we have
more of wealth, intelligence, and union, and we understand
better the rights and true interests of the country; and,
what is more than all this, we have a constitutional weapon
which we intend to wield, and by means of which we are
sure to conquer, our laurels being gained, not in bloody
fields, but upon the election hustings, and in courts of
law.
PART iv.] HISTORICAL PASSAGES. 231
EXERCISE CCLXXXII.
I purpose to write the history of England from the
accession of King James the Second down to a time which
is within the memory of men still living. I shall recount
the errors which, in a few months, alienated a loyal gentry
and priesthood from the House of Stuart. I shall trace
the course of that revolution which terminated the long
struggle between our sovereigns and their parliaments,
and bound up together the rights of the people and the
title of the reigning dynasty. I shall relate how the new
settlement was, during many troubled years, successfully
defended against foreign and domestic enemies; how,
under that settlement, the authority of law and the security
of property were found to be compatible with a liberty of
discussion and of individual action never before known ;
how from the auspicious union of order and freedom
sprang a prosperity of which the annals of human affairs
had furnished no example ; how our country, from a state
of ignominious vassalage, rapidly rose to the place of
empire among European powers ; how her opulence and
her martial glory grew together.
232 CHARACTERS OF [PART iv.
PART IV. B.
CHARACTERS OF EMINENT MEN.
EXERCISE CCLXXXIII.
FAR as the greatness of his genius raised Caesar above
the level of ordinary men, he was nevertheless prone to
certain weaknesses, to which those are often found to suc-
cumb, who are attended in life by unvarying success and
good fortune. Caesar's luck in all the chances and changes
of his life, the flattering encomiums with which he was
everywhere received, and the distinguished offices which
the Roman people conferred upon him, gradually filled
him with such a degree of pride, that he took little pains
to disguise the contempt with which he regarded the mass
of his fellow citizens. It is true that after winning a
complete victory over his opponents, he took steps to win
over and enlist on his side the favour and affection of
Rome. But, none the less, he was so far from hiding his
arrogant pride, that he was considered a tyrant rather than
a merciful victor, and many patriotic Romans lamented
the overthrow and decay of freedom, and sought to
avenge it.
EXERCISE CCLXXX1V.
Literature was a neutral ground on which he could
approach his political enemy without too open discredit,
and he courted eagerly the approval of a critic whose
literary genius he esteemed as highly as his own. Men of
PART iv.] EMINENT MEN. 233
genuine ability are rarely vain of what they can do really
well. Cicero admired himself as a statesman with the
most unbounded enthusiasm. He was proud of his verses,
which were hopelessly commonplace. In the art in which
he was without a rival he was modest and diffident. He
sent his various writings for Caesar's judgment. ' Like the
traveller who has overslept himself/ he said, ' yet by ex-
traordinary exertions reaches his goal sooner than if he
had been earlier on the road, I will follow your advice and
court this man. I have been asleep too long. I will
correct my slowness with my speed ; and as you say he
approves my verses, I shall travel not with a common
carriage, but with a four-in-hand of poetry.'
EXERCISE CCLXXXV.
He was rash, but with a calculated rashness, which the
event never failed to justify. His greatest successes were
due to the rapidity of his movements, which brought him
on the enemy before they heard of his approach. He
travelled sometimes a hundred miles a day, reading or
writing in his carriage, through countries without roads,
and crossing rivers without bridges. In battle he some-
times rode ; but he was more often on foot, bareheaded,
and in a conspicuous dress, that he might be seen and
recognised. Again and again by his own efforts he re-
covered a day that was half-lost. He once seized a panic-
stricken standard-bearer, turned him round, and told him
that he had mistaken the direction of the enemy. He
never misled his army as to an enemy's strength, or, if he
mis-stated their numbers, it was only to exaggerate.
234 CHARACTERS OF [PART iv.
EXERCISE CCLXXXVL
Of his genius there is little question. Clarendon him-
self could not be blind to the fact that such a presence as
that of this Puritan soldier had seldom been felt upon the
scene of history. ' Necessity, who will have the man and
not the shadow, had chosen him from among his fellows
and placed her crown upon his brow. I say again let us
never glorify revolution ; let us not love the earthquake
and the storm more than the regular and beneficent course
of nature. Yet revolutions send capacity to the front
with volcanic force across all the obstacles of envy and
of class. It was long before law-loving England could
forgive one who seemed to have set his foot on law ; but
there never perhaps was a time when she was not at heart
proud of his glory, when she did not feel safer beneath
the segis of his victorious name. As often as danger
threatens us, the thought returns that the race which pro-
duced Cromwell may, at its need, produce his peer, and
that the spirit of the Great Usurper may once more stand
forth in arms.
EXERCISE CCLXXXVIL
To whatever age they may belong, the greatest, the most
god-like of men, are men, not gods. They are the off-
spring, though the highest offspring, of their age. They
would be nothing without their fellow-men. Did Crom-
well escape the intoxication of power which has turned the
brains of other favourites of fortune, and bear himself
always as one who held the government as a trust from
God ? It was because he was one of a religious people.
PART TV.] EMINENT MEN. 235
Did he, amidst the temptations of arbitrary rule, preserve
his reverence for law, and his desire to reign under
it ? It was because he was one of a law-loving people.
Did he, in spite of fearful provocation, show on the whole
remarkable humanity ? It was because he was one of a
brave and humane people. A somewhat larger share of
the common qualities this, and this alone it was which,
circumstances calling him to a great trust, had raised him
above his fellows.
EXERCISE CCLXXXVIII.
Yet the secret of his power escaped perhaps the eyes of
Augustus himself, blinded as they doubtless were by the
fumes of national incense. Cool, shrewd, and subtle, the
youth of nineteen had suffered neither interest nor vanity
to warp the correctness of his judgments. The accom-
plishment of his designs was marred by no wandering
imaginations. His struggle for power was supported by
no belief in a great destiny, but simply by observation of
circumstances, and a close calculation of his means. As
he was a man of no absorbing tastes or fervid impulses,
so he was also free from all illusions. The young Octa-
vius commenced his career as a narrow-minded aspirant
for material power. But his intellect expanded with his
fortunes, and his soul grew with his intellect. The em-
peror was not less magnanimous than he was magnificent.
With the world at his feet, he began to conceive the real
grandeur of his position. He became the greatest of
Stoic philosophers, inspired with the strongest enthusiasm,
impressed the most deeply with a consciousness of divinity
within him. He acknowledged, not less than a Cato or a
236 CHARACTERS OF [PART iv.
Brutus, that the man-God must suffer as well as act
divinely; and though his human weakness still allowed
some meannesses and trivialities to creep to light, his self-
possession both in triumphs and reverses was consistently
dignified and imposing.
EXERCISE CCLXXXIX.
His countenance never had a nobler aspect than in the
last years of his life. The character is written in the
face : here were none of those fatal lines which indicate
craft or insincerity, greed or sensuality. All was clear,
open, pure-minded, honest. He was patient in bearing
criticism and contradiction. He delighted in wit and
humour. Few men had a greater love of freedom in its
deepest, and in its widest sense, than the prince. As all
know, he was a man of many pursuits and various accom-
plishments, with an ardent admiration for the beautiful,
both in nature and in art. There was one very rare qua-
lity to be noticed in him : he had the greatest delight in
anybody else saying a fine thing, or doing a great deed.
He delighted in humanity doing well. We meet with
people who can say fine sayings, and do noble actions,
but who do not like to speak of the great sayings and
noble deeds of other persons.
EXERCISE CCXC.
It is said there might be some great and peculiar moral
derived from the life of any man, if we knew it intimately.
I think I can see the moral to be derived from a study of
the Prince's life. It is one which applies to a few amongst
PART iv.] EMINENT MEN. 237
the highest natures : he cared too much about too many
things. And everything in which he was concerned must
be done supremely well to please and satisfy him. The
great German poet, Goethe, had the same defect, or rather
the same superabundance. He took great pains in writing
a short note, that it should be admirably written. He did
not understand the merit of second best. Everything that
was done must be done perfectly. It was thus with the.
Prince.
EXERCISE CCXCL
Never perhaps did any man suffer death with more jus-
tice or deserve it less. The character I have given of
him is drawn partly from what I saw of him myself, and
partly from information. I am aware that a man of real
merit is never seen in so favourable a light as through
the medium of adversity: the clouds that surround him
are shades that set off his good qualities. Misfortune cuts
down the little vanities that in prosperous times serve as so
many spots in his virtues, and gives a tone of humility
that makes his worth more amiable. His spectators, who
enjoy a happier lot, are less prone to detract from it
through envy, and are more disposed by compassion to
give him the credit he deserves, and perhaps even to
magnify it.
EXERCISE CCXCII.
Instead of a monarch, jealous, severe, and avaricious,
who, in proportion as he advanced in years, was sinking
still deeper in these unpopular vices, a young prince of
eighteen had succeeded to the throne, who even in the
eyes of men of sense gave promising hopes of his future
238 CHARACTERS Of [PART iv.
conduct, much more in those of the people, always en-
chanted with novelty, youth, and royal dignity. The
beauty and vigour of his person, accompanied with dex-
terity in every manly exercise, were further adorned with
a blooming and ruddy countenance, with a lively air, with
the appearance of spirit and activity in all his demeanour.
His father, in order to remove him from the knowledge of
public business, had hitherto occupied him entirely in the
pursuits of literature, and the proficiency which he made
gave no bad prognostic of his parts and capacity. Even
the vices of vehemence, ardour, and impatience, to which
he was subject, and which afterwards degenerated into
tyranny, were considered only as faults incident to un-
guarded youth, which would be corrected when time had
brought him to greater moderation and maturity.
EXERCISE CCXCIII.
Shakespeare was the man, who, of all modern, and
perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most compre-
hensive soul. All the images of nature were present to
him; and he drew them not laboriously but luckily.
When he describes anything, you more than see it, you
feel it. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning,
give him the greater commendation. He was naturally
learned ; he needed not books to read nature ; he looked
inwards and he found her there. I cannot say he is
everywhere alike ; but he is always great when some great
occasion is presented to him. No man can say he ever
had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself
high above the rest of poets.
PART iv.] EMINENT MEN. 239
EXERCISE CCXCIV.
He was a man of singular force of temperament and
character, one of those who seemed destined, in what-
ever rank they enter life, to carve for themselves a career.
An adept in all the requirements alike of statesmanship
and of business, he united in himself the able city func-
tionary and the skilful agriculturalist. The heights of
office are scaled by different paths ; legal lore, eloquence,
military fame, alike lead their votaries to eminence. We
have in him one whose happy genius followed every track
with like success; the employment of the hour seemed
the one purpose which had called him into being.
EXERCISE CCXCV.
The unhappy Louis XVI. was a man of the best
intentions that probably ever reigned. He was by no
means deficient in talents. He had a most laudable
desire to supply, by general reading, and even by the
acquisition of elemental knowledge, an education in all
points originally defective ; but nobody told him (and it
was no wonder he should not himself divine it) that the
world of which he read, and the world in which he lived,
were no longer the same. Desirous of doing everything
for the best, fearful of cabal, distrusting his own judg-
ment, he sought his ministers of all kinds upon public
testimony. But as courts are the field for caballers, the
public is the theatre for mountebanks and impostors.
The cure for both these evils is in the discernment of the
240 CHARACTERS OF [PART iv.
prince. But an accurate and penetrating discernment is
what in a young prince could not be expected.
EXERCISE CCXCVI.
If the character of men be estimated according to the
steadiness with which they have followed the true prin-
ciple of action, we cannot assign a high place to Han-
nibal. But if patriotism were indeed the greatest of
virtues, and a resolute devotion to the interests of his
country were all the duty that a public man can be
expected to fulfil, he would then deserve the most lavish
praise. Nothing can be more unjust than the ridicule
with which Juvenal has treated his motives, as if he had
been actuated merely by a romantic desire of glory. On
the contrary, his whole conduct displays the loftiest
genius, and the boldest spirit of enterprise, happily sub-
dued and directed by a cool judgment, to the furtherance
of the honour and interests of his country ; and his sacri-
fice of selfish pride and passion, when after the battle of
Zama, he urged the acceptance of peace, and lived to
support the disgrace of Carthage, with the patient hope
of one day repairing it, affords a strong contrast to the
cowardly despair with which some of the best of the
Romans deprived their country of their services by suicide.
Of the extent of his abilities, the history of his life is the
best evidence ; as a general, his conduct remains un-
charged by a single error; for the idle censure which
Livy presumes to pass on him for not marching to Rome
after the battle of Cannae, is founded on such mere
ignorance, that it does not deserve any serious notice.
1
PART iv.] EMINENT MEN. 241
EXERCISE CCXCVII.
Dryden began to write about the time of the Restora-
tion, and continued long in his literary career. He
brought to the study of his native tongue a vigorous mind
fraught with various knowledge. There is a richness in
his diction, a copiousness, ease, and variety in his ex-
pression, which have never been surpassed by any of
those who have succeeded him. His clauses are never
balanced, nor his periods modelled ; every word seems
to drop by chance, though it falls into its proper place ;
nothing is cold or languid ; the whole is airy, animated,
and vigorous ; what is little is gay; what is great is
splendid. Though all is easy, nothing is feeble ; though
all seems careless, there is nothing harsh; and though,
since the publication of his works, more than a century
has elapsed, yet they have nothing uncouth or obsolete.
EXERCISE CCXCVIII.
There was one contemporary figure, the most famous
Stoic of the age, the younger Cato, who shows us in
a striking form the strength and weakness of the standard
by which he ruled his life. No one had more than he
the courage to avow his principles and act up to his
convictions ; in an age of political corruption there was
no stain upon his honour ; and his moral influence, when
once exerted to check the bribery of candidates for office,
did more, we are told, than all the laws and penal sanc-
tions which enforced them. In the worst crisis of the
revolution, when the spirits of other men were soured,
R
242 CHARACTERS OF [PART iv.
and the party cries grew fiercer, his temper seemed to
become gentler, and to forebode the miseries of civil war.
Inflexible before, he pleaded for concessions to avert the
storm ; and when they were refused, he raised his voice
still for moderate counsels, and spoke to unwilling ears of
the claims of humanity and mercy.
EXERCISE CCXCIX.
Early in life he attached himself to the school of the
Stoics, and became an ardent champion of their system
and doctrines ; he never could induce himself to become
an atheist ; and the Epicureans, and those who maintained
that the world and all else came into being through a
fortuitous combination of molecules, always moved him
either to ridicule or scorn. A genuine votary of science,
he found a charm in pure study and in thought, and
shrunk from all idea of entering upon politics or active
life. He always made it his aim to insist on a scientific
treatment not only of the study of nature, but also of
modern and ancient history : it may be that, in applying
on too rigid a logical system the laws of natural science
to subjects which fall within the domain of moral and
practical life, he fell into the error of those who demand
demonstration and mathematical evidence where such
reasoning is quite inadmissible.
EXERCISE CCC.
The memory of Pitt has been assailed times innumer-
able, often justly, often unjustly ; but it has suffered much
PART iv.] EMINENT MEN. 243
less from his assailants than from his eulogists. For, during
many years, his name was the rallying cry of a class of
men with whom at one of those terrible conjunctures
which confound all ordinary distinctions, he was accidentally
and temporarily connected, but to whom, on almost all
great questions of principle, he was diametrically opposed
.... History will vindicate the real man from calumny
under the semblance of adulation, and will exhibit him as
what he was, a minister of great talents and honest inten-
tions, pre-eminently qualified intellectually and morally for
the part of a parliamentary leader, and capable of ad-
ministering with prudence and moderation the government
of a prosperous and tranquil country, but unequal to sur-
prising and terrible emergencies, and liable, in such emer-
gencies, to err grievously both on the side of weakness and
on the side of violence.
EXERCISE CCCL
A mind like Scipio's, working its way under the peculiar
influences of his time and country, cannot but move irregu-
larly ; it cannot but be full of contradictions. Two hun-
dred years later the mind of the dictator Caesar acquiesced
contentedly in Epicureanism : he retained no more of
enthusiasm than was inseparable from the intensity of his
intellectual power, and the fervour of his courage, even
amidst his utter moral degradation. But Scipio could not
be like Caesar. His mind rose above the state of things
around him; his spirit was solitary and kingly; he was
cramped by living among those as his equals whom he felt
fitted to guide as from some higher sphere ; and he retired
R 2
244 CHARACTERS OF [PART iv.
at last to Liternum to breathe freely, to enjoy the simplicity
of childhood, since he could not fill his natural calling to
be a hero-king.
EXERCISE CCCIL
Voltaire's wits came to their maturity twenty years sooner
than the wits of other men, and remained in full vigour
thirty years longer. The charm which our style in general
gets from our ideas, his ideas get from his style. Voltaire
is sometimes afflicted, sometimes strongly moved; but
serious he never is. His very graces have an effrontery
about them. He had correctness of judgment, liveliness
of imagination, nimble wits, quick taste, and a moral sense
in ruins. He is the most debauched of spirits, and the
worst of him is that one gets debauched along with him.
If he had been a wise man, and had had the self-discipline
of wisdom, beyond a doubt half his wit would have been
gone ; it needed an atmosphere of license in order to play
freely. Those people who read him every day, create for
themselves, by an invincible law, the necessity for liking
him. But those people who, having given up reading him,
gaze steadily down upon the influences which his spirit
has shed abroad, find themselves in simple justice and duty
compelled to detest him. It is impossible to be satisfied
with him, and impossible not to be fascinated by him.
EXERCISE CCCIII.
He is gone, my friend ; my munificent patron, and not
less the benefactor of my intellect ! He who, beyond all
other men known to me, added a fine and ever-wakeful
PART iv.] EMINENT MEN. 245
sense of beauty to the most patient accuracy in experi-
mental philosophy and the profounder researches of meta-
physical science ; he who united all the play and spring of
fancy with the subtlest discrimination and an inexorable
judgment; and who controlled an almost painful ex-
quisiteness of taste by a warmth of heart which, in the
practical relations of life, made allowance for faults as
quickly as the moral taste detected them : a warmth of
heart which was indeed noble and pre-eminent, for alas !
the genial feelings of health contributed no spark towards
it. Were it but for the remembrance of him alone, and
of his lot here below, the disbelief of a future state would
sadden the earth around me, and blight the very grass in
the field.
EXERCISE CCCIV.
Darnley's external accomplishments had excited that
sudden and violent passion which raised him to the
throne. But the qualities of his mind corresponded ill
with the beauty of his person. Of a weak understanding,
and without experience, conceited at the same time of his
own abilities, he ascribed his extraordinary success entirely
to his distinguished merit. All the queen's favour made no
impression on such a temper. All her gentleness could
not bridle his imperious and ungovernable spirit. All her
attention to place about him persons capable of directing
his conduct, could not preserve him from rash and im-
prudent actions. Fond of all amusements, and ever prone
to all the vices of youth, he became by degrees careless of
her person and a stranger to her company. To a woman,
and a queen, such behaviour was intolerable. The lower
246 CHARACTERS OF [PART iv.
she had stooped in order to raise him, his behaviour ap-
peared the more ungenerous and criminal; and in pro-
portion to the strength of her first affection, was the
violence with which her disappointed passion operated.
EXERCISE CCCV.
Tiberius had nominated for his heir Caligula the son of
Germanicus, his grandson by adoption, and joined with
him Tiberius the son of Drusus, his grandson by blood.
The former enjoyed, on his father's account, the favour of
the people, and the Senate, to gratify them, set aside the
right of his colleague, and conferred on him the empire
undivided. The commencement of his reign was signal-
ized by a few acts of clemency, and even of good policy.
He restored the privileges of the Comitia, which had been
suspended by his predecessor, and abolished arbitrary
prosecutions for crimes of state. But tyrannical and cruel
by nature, he substituted military execution for legal punish-
ment ; the provinces were loaded with the most oppressive
and before unheard-of taxes ; and daily cruel and capri-
cious confiscations helped to fill the imperial coffers. The
follies and absurdities of Caius were equal to his vices, and
were they not attested would exceed all belief. It is hard
to say whether he was the object most of hatred or con-
tempt to his subjects. But they submitted to him too
long. Seneca's reflection that Nature seemed to have
brought him forth to show what was possible to be pro-
duced by the greatest vice supported by the greatest
authority, is but a faint description of matters.
PART iv.] EMINENT MEN. 247
EXERCISE CCCVI.
Of the outward life and circumstances of Marcus Aure-
lius, beyond these notices which he has himself supplied,
there are few of much interest and importance. There is
the fine anecdote of his speech when he heard of the
assassination of the revolted Avidius Cassius, against whom
he was marching : he was sorry, he said, to be deprived of
the pleasure of pardoning him. And there are one or two
more anecdotes of him which show the same spirit. But
the great record for the outward life of a man who has left
such a record of his lofty inward aspirations as that which
Marcus Aurelius has left, is the clear consenting voice of
all his contemporaries, high and low, friend and enemy,
pagan and Christian, in praise of his sincerity, justice,
and goodness. The world's charity does not err on the
side of excess, yet the world was obliged to declare that he
walked worthily of his profession. Long after his death,
his bust was to be seen in the houses of private men
through the wide Roman empire ; these busts of Marcus
Aurelius, in the homes of Gaul, Britain, and Italy, bore
witness, not to the inmates' frivolous curiosity about princes
and palaces, but to their reverential memory of the passage
of a great man upon the earth.
EXERCISE CCCVIL
Through the mist of calumny and fable it is but dimly
that the truth of the man can be discerned, and the out-
lines that appear serve to quicken rather than appease the
curiosity with which we regard one of the most extra-
248 CHARACTERS OF [PART iv.
ordinary personages in history. A sensualist, yet also
a warrior and a politician; a profound lawgiver and an
impassioned poet ; in his youth, fired by crusading fervour,
in later life, persecuting heretics, while himself accused of
blasphemy and unbelief; of winning manners, and ardently
beloved by his followers, but with the stain of more than
one cruel deed upon his name, he was the marvel of his
own generation, and succeeding ages looked back with
awe, not unmingled with pity, upon the inscrutable figure
of the last Emperor who had braved all the terrors of the
Church, and died beneath her ban, the last who had ruled
from the sands of the ocean to the shores of the Sicilian
sea. But while they pitied they condemned. The undy-
ing hatred of the Papacy threw round his memory a
lurid light; him and him alone of all the imperial line,
Dante, the worshipper of the Empire, must perforce deliver
to the flames of hell.
EXERCISE CCCVIII.
He belonged to those thin and pale men, as Caesar
names them, who sleep not in the night, and who think
too much : before whom the most fearless of all hearts has
shaken. The quiet peacefulness of a face always the
same, hid a busy, fiery soul, which stirred not even the
veil behind which it worked, and was equally inaccessible
to cunning, or love ; and a manifold formidable never-
tiring mind, sufficiently soft and yielding momentarily to
melt into every form, but sufficiently proved to lose itself
in none, and strong enough to bear every change of for-
tune. None was a greater master than he in seeing
PART iv.] EMINENT MEN. 249
through mankind, and in winning hearts ; no,t that he let
his lips, after the manner of a court, confess a bondage to
which his proud heart gave the lie ; but because he was
neither covetous nor extravagant in the marks of his favour
and esteem, and by a prudent economy in those means
through which one binds men, he multiplied his real store
of them. Did his mind bear slowly, so were its fruits
perfect : did his resolve ripen late, so was it firmly and
unshakeably fulfilled. The plan to which he once had
paid homage as the first, no resistance would tire, no
chances destroy; for they had all stood before his soul
before they really took place. As much as his mind was
raised above terror and joy, so much was it subjected to
fear ; but his fear was there earlier than the danger, and
in the tumult he was tranquil because he had trembled
when at rest.
EXERCISE CCCIX.
A soldier from his earliest youth, Moore thirsted for the
honours of his profession, and feeling that he was worthy
to lead a British army, hailed the fortune that placed him
at the head of the troops destined for Spain. As the
stream of time passed, the inspiring hopes of triumph
disappeared, but the austerer glory of suffering remained,
and with a firm heart he accepted that gift of a severe
fate. Confiding in the strength of his genius, he dis-
regarded the clamours of presumptuous ignorance, and
opposing sound military views to the foolish projects so
insolently thrust upon him by the ambassador, he con-
ducted his long and arduous retreat with sagacity, intelli-
gence, and fortitude ; no insult disturbed, no falsehood
250 CHARACTERS OF [PART iv.
deceived him, no remonstrance shook his determination ;
fortune frowned, without subduing his constancy; death
struck, but the spirit of the man remained unbroken when
his shattered body scarcely afforded it a habitation. Hav-
ing done all that was just towards others, he remembered
what was due to himself; neither the shock of the mortal
blow, nor the lingering hours of acute pain which pre-
ceded his dissolution, could quell the pride of his gallant
heart, or lower the dignified feeling with which, conscious
of merit, he at the last moment asserted his right to the
gratitude of the country he had served so truly. If glory
be a distinction, for such a man death is not a leveller !
EXERCISE CCCX.
The austere frugality of the ancient republicans, their
carelessness about the possession and the pleasures of
wealth, the strict regard for law among the people, its
universal steadfast loyalty during the happy centuries when
the constitution, after the pretensions of the aristocracy
had been curbed, was flourishing in its full perfections,
the sound feeling which never amid internal discord
allowed of an appeal to foreign interference, the abso-
lute empire of the laws and customs and the steadiness
with which nevertheless whatever in them was no longer
expedient was amended, the wisdom of the constitution
and of the laws, the ideal perfection of fortitude realised
in the citizens and in the state, all these qualities un-
questionably excite a feeling of reverence, which cannot
be awakened equally by the contemplation of any other
people. Yet after all, if we bring those ages vividly be-
PART iv.] EMINENT MEN. 251
fore our minds, something of horror will mingle with our
admiration. For those virtues from the earliest times
were leagued and compromised with the most fearful
vices ; insatiable ambition, unprincipled contempt for the
rights of foreigners, unfeeling indifference for their suffer-
ings, avarice, even while rapine was yet a stranger, and, as
a consequence of the severance of ranks, inhuman hard-
heartedness, not only toward slaves or foreigners, but even
toward fellow-citizens. Those very virtues prepared the
way for all these vices to get the mastery, and so were
themselves swallowed up.
EXERCISE CCCXI.
In an age, therefore, of the utmost libertinism, when the
public discipline was lost and the government itself totter-
ing, he struggled with the same zeal against all corruption,
and waged a perpetual war with a superior force, whilst
the rigour of his principles tended rather to alienate friends,
than reconcile enemies ; and by provoking the power which
he could not subdue, helped to hasten that ruin which he
was striving to avert; so that after a perpetual course of
disappointments and repulses, rinding himself unable to
pursue his old way any further, instead of taking a new
one, he was driven by his philosophy to put an end to his
life.
252 REFLECTIVE AND [PART iv
PART IV. C.
REFLECTIVE AND PHILOSOPHICAL PASSAGES.
EXERCISE CCCXIL
IT being so, then, that arms employ the mind as well as
letters, let us next see whose mind labours most, the
scholar's or the warrior's. Now the end and design of
letters is to regulate justice, and give to every man his due;
to know good laws, and cause them to be strictly observed :
an end most certainly generous and exalted, and worthy
of high commendation; but not equal to that which is
annexed to the profession of arms, whose object and end is
peace, the greatest blessing men can wish for in this life.
Accordingly, the first good news the world and men re-
ceived was what the angels brought on that night which
was our day, when they sang in the clouds, ' Glory be to
God on high, and on earth peace, and good-will towards
men/ This peace is the true end of war; for to say arms
or war is the same thing. Let us come now to the bodily
labours of the scholar, and to those of the professor of
arms, and let us see which are the greatest.
EXERCISE CCCXIIL
I say, then, that the hardships of the scholar are these :
In the first place, poverty ; not that they are all poor, but I
would put the case in the strongest manner possible ; and
PART iv.] PHILOSOPHICAL PASSAGES. 253
when I have said that he endures poverty, methinks no more
need be said to show his misery ; for he who is poor is
destitute of everything. But notwithstanding all this, it is
not so great but that he still eats, though somewhat later
than usual, either of the rich man's scraps or leavings, or,
which is the scholar's greatest misery, by going a-begging.
Neither do they always want a fire-side or chimney-corner
of some other person, which, if it does not quite warm
them, at least abates their extreme cold; and lastly, at
night they sleep somewhere under cover. By this painful
way they arrive to the degree they desire ; which being
attained, we have seen many who, from a chair, command
and govern the world ; their hunger converted into fulness,
their pinching cold into refreshing coolness, their nakedness
into embroidery, and their sleeping on a mat to reposing
in fine linen and damask.
EXERCISE CCCXIV.
But their hardships fall far short of those of the warrior,
as I shall presently show. Since in speaking of the scholar,
we began with his poverty, let us see whether the soldier be
richer ; and we shall find that poverty itself is not poorer ;
for he depends on his wretched pay, which comes late, or
perhaps never; or else on what he can pilfer, with great
peril of his life and conscience. And sometimes his naked-
ness is such, that his laced -jacket serves him both for finery
and shirt ; and, in the midst of winter, being in the open
field, he has nothing to warm him but the breath of his
mouth, which, issuing from an empty place, must needs
come out cold. But let us wait until night, and see whether
254 REFLECTIVE AND [PART iv.
his bed will make amends for these inconveniences ; and
that, if it be not his own fault, will never offend in point of
narrowness ; for he may measure out as many feet of earth
as he pleases, and roll himself thereon at pleasure, without
fear of rumpling the sheets.
EXERCISE CCCXV.
Suppose, now, the day and hour come of taking the
degree of his profession, I say, suppose the day of battle
come, and then his academical cap will be of lint, to cure
some wound made by a musket-shot which, perhaps, has
gone through his temples, or lamed him a leg or an arm.
And though this should not happen, but he should escape
unhurt, he shall remain, perhaps, in the same poverty as
before ; and there must happen a second and a third en-
gagement, and battle after battle, and he must come off
victor from them 'all, to get anything considerable by it.
But these miracles are seldom seen. And tell me, gentle-
men, how much fewer are they who are rewarded for their
services in war, than those who have perished in it ? The
dead cannot be reckoned up, whereas those who live, and
are rewarded, may be numbered right easily. All this is
quite otherwise with scholars, who are all handsomely pro-
vided for. Thus, though the hardships of the soldier are
greater, his reward is less.
EXERCISE CCCXVI.
The old proverb holds true : ' Tell me the company you
keep, and I will tell you what you are.' The first company
to which a young man really attaches himself often fixes
PART iv.] PHILOSOPHICAL PASSAGES. 255
his career. This, however, he often falls into at random,
or more frequently has not decision of character to cast off
when detected. Among many things which render bad
company poisonous, one of the saddest is the extreme
difficulty of getting rid of a deceitful friend. In the posi-
tion which I occupy I am constantly observing that this or
that youth is held down by the weight of evil comrades.
To shake them off is a Herculean task; the ill attach-
ment sticks like the coat of Nessus. Indeed, solitary
amendment is often easier than disentangling oneself from
corrupting alliance.
EXERCISE CCCXVII.
What the religion of Greece was to philosophy and art,
that the Roman religion may be said to have been to
political and social life. It was the religion of the family :
the religion also of the empire of the world. Beginning in
rustic simplicity, the traces of which it ever afterwards re-
tained, it grew with the power of the Roman state, and
became one with its laws. No fancy or poetry moulded
the forms of the Roman gods : they are wanting in cha-
racter, and hardly distinguishable from one another. Not
what they were, but their worship is the point of interest
about them. Those inanimate beings occasionally said
a patriotic word at some critical juncture of the Roman
affairs, but they had no attributes or qualities : they are
the mere impersonation of the needs of the state.
256 REFLECTIVE AND [PART iv.
EXERCISE CCCXVIII.
There is a sort of delight, which is alternately mixed
with terror and sorrow, in the contemplation of death. The
soul has its curiosity more than ordinarily awakened when
it turns its thoughts upon the subject of such as have
behaved themselves with an equal, a resigned, a cheerful,
a generous, or heroic temper in that extremity. We are
affected with these respective manners of behaviour, as we
secretly believe the part of the dying person imitable by
ourselves, or such as we imagine ourselves more particu-
larly capable of. Men with exalted minds march before
us like princes, and are, to the ordinary race of mankind,
rather subjects for their admiration than example.
EXERCISE CCCXIX.
Why should we ever treat of any dead authors but the
famous ones? Mainly for this reason: because, from
these famous personages, home or foreign, whom we all
know so well, and of whom so much has been said, the
amount of stimulus which they contain for us has been in
a great measure disengaged ; people have formed their
opinion about them, and do not readily change it. One
may write of them afresh, combat received opinions
about them, even interest one's readers in so doing; but
the interest one's readers receive has to do, in general,
rather with the treatment than with the subject ; they are
susceptible of a lively impression rather of the course
of the discussion itself, its turns, vivacity, and novelty,
than of the genius of the author who is the occasion
PART iv.] PHILOSOPHICAL PASSAGES. 257
of it. And yet what is really precious and inspiring, in
all that we get from literature, except this sense of an
immediate contact with genius itself, and the 'stimulus
towards what is true and excellent which we derive
from it ?
EXERCISE CCCXX.
1 Thou sayest, " Men cannot admire the sharpness of
thy wits." Be it so ; but there are many other things of
which thou canst not say, " I am not formed for them by
nature/' Show those qualities, then, which are altogether
in thy power, sincerity, gravity, endurance of labour,
aversion to pleasure, contentment with thy portion and
with few things, benevolence, frankness, no love of super-
fluity, freedom from trifling, magnanimity. Dost thou
not see how many qualities thou art at once able to
exhibit, as to which there is no excuse of natural inca-
pacity and unfitness, and yet thou still remainest volun-
tarily below the mark? Or art thou compelled, through
being defectively furnished by nature, to murmur, and to
be mean, and to flatter, and to find fault with thy poor
body, and to try to please men, and to make great
display, and to be so restless in thy mind ? No, indeed ;
but thou mightest have been delivered from these things
long ago/
EXERCISE CCCXXI.
The mere philosopher is a character which is commonly
but little acceptable in the world, as being supposed to
contribute little either to the advantage or pleasure of
society ; while he lives remote from communication with
s
258 REFLECTIVE AND [PART iv.
mankind, and is wrapped up in principles and notions
equally remote from their comprehension. On the other
hand, the mere ignorant is still more despised; nor is
anything deemed a surer sign of an illiberal genius in an
age and nation where the sciences flourish, than to be
entirely destitute of all relish for those noble entertainments.
The most perfect character is supposed to be between
those extremes : retaining an equal ability and taste for
books, company, and business ; preserving in conversation
that discernment and delicacy which arise from polite
letters ; and in business that probity and accuracy which
are the natural result of a just philosophy. In order to
diffuse and cultivate so accomplished a character, nothing
can be more useful than compositions of easy style and
manner which draw not too much from life, require no
deep application or retreat to be comprehended, and send
back a student among mankind full of noble sentiments
and wise precepts, applicable to every exigence of human
life. By means of such compositions virtue becomes
amiable, science agreeable, company instructive, and re-
tirement entertaining.
EXERCISE CCCXXIL
Tragedy is thus denned by Aristotle : ' It is an imita-
tion of one entire, great, and probable action, not told, but
represented. It must be one or single, that is, it must not
be a history of one man's life, but one single action of
his life.' This was the practice of the Grecian stage. But
Terence made an innovation in the Roman ; all his plays
have double action. It was his custom to translate two
PART iv.] PHILOSOPHICAL PASSAGES. 259
Greek comedies and weave them into one ; yet so that
one was principal, the other secondary. The action ought
to be great and to consist of great persons. The action
ought to be probable, as well as admirable and great. It
it not necessary that there should be historical truth in it ;
but it is always necessary that there should be a likeness
of truth. To invent a probability and to make it won-
derful is a most difficult undertaking in poetry ; for that
which is not wonderful is not great, and that which is not
probable will not delight a reasonable audience.
EXERCISE CCCXXIII.
Poetry and music are things beyond my power to
achieve, but not to enjoy. The experience of life which
cannot be translated into poetry or music is a lifeless and
.profitless experience. I mean to say that, man of business
though I am, I am not unacquainted with the writings of
poets, and I take great delight in them. The wisest thing
a man can do is to augment the enjoyment of other men.
Commerce and politics aim to develop our own wealth and
power at the cost of others ; but poetry, like love, gives to
all, and asks for nothing except to be received.
EXERCISE CCCXXIV.
A drama is itself the only adequate commentary on its
persons. It makes them live for us, or it does not. If
we submit them to ethical analysis, this may be interesting
to us, and instructive to those who have not seen or read
the piece. But for a spectator or reader of the play, the
S 2
260 REFLECTIVE AND [PART iv.
men and women must be those whom he finds there.
When we personally know a character in real life,
another's estimate of it is seldom more than a key to
his point of view rarely a mental light which we feel
that we can appropriate. And it may be permitted to
say in passing that this is a reason why the reviving taste
for good drama seems likely to aid in correcting a literary
fault of the day which is frequently acknowledged the
tendency to adopt ready made critical estimates of books
which the adopter, at least, has not read. No one who
sees a play can helpTorming some opinion of his own
about the characters. If he reports it honestly that is
criticism, not necessarily good, but not sham.
EXERCISE CCCXXV.
We see, too, that in the choice of magistrates a people
will choose far more honestly than a prince ; so that
while you shall never persuade a people that it is ad-
vantageous to confer dignities on the infamous and profli-
gate, a prince may readily, and in a thousand ways, be
drawn to do so. Again, it may be seen that a people,
when once they have come to hold a thing in abhorrence,
remain for many ages of the same mind ; which we do
not find happen with princes. For the truth of both of
which assertions the Roman" people are my sufficient
witness, who, in the course of so many hundred years,
and in so many elections of consuls and tribunes, never
made four appointments of which they had reason to
repent; and, as I have said, so detested the name of king,
that no obligation they might be under to any citizen who
PART iv.] PHILOSOPHICAL PASSAGES. 261
affected that name, could shield him from the appointed
penalty.
EXERCISE CCCXXVI.
Men do always, but not always with reason, commend
the past and condemn the present, and are so much the
partisans of what has been, as not merely to cry up those
times which are known to them only from the records left
by historians, but also, when they grow old, to extol the
days in which they remember their youth to have been
spent. And although this preference of theirs be in most
instances a mistaken one, I can see that there are many
causes to account for it ; chief of which I take to be that
in respect of things long gone by we perceive not the
whole truth, those circumstances that would detract from
the credit of the past being for the most part hidden from
us, while all that gives it lustre is magnified and embel-
lished. For the generality of writers render this tribute
to the good fortune of conquerors, that they not merely
exaggerate the great things they have done, but also lend
such a colour to the actions of their enemies, that any
one born afterwards has cause to marvel at these men and
these times, and is constrained to praise and love them
beyond all others.
EXERCISE CCCXXVII.
The Epicurean school professes, in the first instance, to
be founded on the senses and the feeling, to be based on
reality, as popularly understood. It appeals to our im-
mediate perception and feeling, and declares that these
262 REFLECTIVE AND [PART iv.
must never be recklessly set aside. What we immediately
feel and perceive, that is true ; what we directly find our-
selves to be, that is what we ought to do. Act what
thou art is its motto, and sense and feeling tell thee with
sufficient distinctness what thou art. But the promise
thus held out is certainly not kept to the letter. What
we supposed to be our feelings and sensations turn out
to be less trustworthy than we had been, up to this point,
led to suppose. The greater number of our beliefs and
opinions are due to hasty and erroneous inferences.
What seemed to be perception was really reasoning.
We must, therefore, get back to our original perceptions.
We were told originally that we must believe nothing for
which we have not the evidence of the senses and the
feeling. It becomes apparent that that evidence does not
go so far as we had supposed. Our senses and our feel-
ings seem to mislead, and yet, if we reject all sense and
feeling, knowledge is made impracticable.
EXERCISE CCCXXVIII.
The wise man alone is free, the Stoics said, for he can
make himself independent of the whims of fortune, can
rise superior to so-called troubles, guard himself alike
from care and fear and passionate desire, and enjoy the
bliss of an unruffled calm. It is true that in another
sense he is not free, has indeed less sense of freedom
than the careless crowd, for he can recognise the general
law of destiny within which all things revolve. His will,
he knows, is mysteriously linked to the long chain of
natural causes, but he seems free in that he can willingly
PART iv.] PHILOSOPHICAL PASSAGES. 263
obey the dictates of his nature without being helplessly
determined by things external to himself. He decides on
that which reason points to, and he acts under no sense
of constraint or irksome pressure, for his will and universal
intellect are one.
EXERCISE CCCXXIX.
It is scarcely possible that the translation of a book of
the highest class can be equal to the original. But though
much may be lost in the copy, the great outline must
remain. So the genius of Homer is seen in the poorest
version of the Iliad. Let it not be supposed that I wish
to dissuade any person from studying either the ancient
languages or those of modern Europe. Far from it ! I
prize most highly those keys of knowledge. I always
much admired a saying of the Emperor Charles V.
' When I learn a new language,' he said, ' I feel as if
I had got a new soul.' But I would console those who
have not time to make themselves linguists by assuring
them that by means of their own mother-tongue they may
obtain access to vast intellectual treasures, treasures such
as might have been envied in the age of Charles the Fifth,
surpassing those which were possessed by Aldus, by Eras-
mus, by Melanchthon.
EXERCISE CCCXXX.
If it be true that the understanding and the will are the
two eminent faculties of the reasonable soul, it follows
necessarily that wisdom and virtue, which are the best
improvement of those two faculties, must be the perfection
264 REFLECTIVE AND [PART iv.
also of our reasonable being, and, therefore, the undeni-
able foundation of a happy life. There is not any duty to
which Providence has not annexed a blessing; not any
institution of Heaven, which even in this life we may not
be the better for ; nor any temptation, either of fortune or
of appetite, that is not subject to our reason; not any
passion or affliction, for which virtue has not provided
a remedy. So that it is our own fault, if we either fear
or hope for anything terrestrial; and these two affections
are at the root of all our miseries.
EXERCISE CCCXXXI.
One very common and at the same time the most ab-
surd ambition that ever showed itself in human nature is
that which comes upon man with experience and old age,
the season when it might be expected he should be the
wisest, and therefore cannot receive any of those lessen-
ing circumstances which do in some measure excuse the
disorderly ferments of youthful blood ; I mean the passion
for getting money, exclusive of the character of the provi-
dent father, the affectionate husband, or the generous
friend. It may be remarked for the comfort of honest
poverty that this desire reigns most in those who have
but few qualities to recommend them. This is a weed
that will grow in a barren soil. Humanity, good nature,
and the advantage of a liberal education are incompatible
with avarice. 'Tis strange to see how suddenly this ab-
ject passion kills all the noble sentiments and generous
ambitions that adorn human nature; it renders the man
who is overrun with it a peevish and ctuel master, a
PART iv.] PHILOSOPHICAL PASSAGES. 265
severe parent, an unsociable husband, a distant and mis-
trustful friend. But it is more to the present purpose to
consider it as an absurd passion of the heart rather than
as a vicious affection of the mind. As there are frequent
instances to be met with of a proud humility, so this
passion, contrary to most others, affects applause by
avoiding all show and appearance; for this it will not
sometimes endure even the decencies of apparel.
EXERCISE CCCXXXII.
But the hopes and fears of man are not limited to this
short life, and to this visible world. He finds himself
surrounded by the signs of a power and wisdom higher
than his own; and, in all ages and nations, men of all
orders of intellect, from Bacon and Newton, down to the
rudest tribes of cannibals, have believed in the existence
of some superior mind. Thus far the voice of mankind is
almost unanimous. But whether there be one God, or
many, what may be his natural and what his moral attri-
butes, in what relation his creatures stand to him, whether
he have ever disclosed himself to us by any other revela-
tion than that which is written in all the parts of the glorious
and well-ordered world which he has made, whether his
revelation be contained in any permanent record, how
that record should be interpreted, and whether it have
pleased him to appoint any unerring interpreter on earth,
these are questions respecting which there exists the
widest diversity of opinion, and respecting which a large
part of our race has, ever since the dawn of regular
history, been deplorably in error.
266 REFLECTIVE AND [PART iv.
EXERCISE CCCXXXIII.
But let us return to the earth, our habitation ; and we
shall see this happy tendency of virtue, by imagining an
instance not so vast and remote ; by supposing a kingdom
or society of men upon it perfectly virtuous for a succes-
sion of many ages ; to which, if you please, may be given
a situation advantageous for universal monarchy. In such
a state there would be no such thing as faction, but men
of the greatest capacity would of course all along have the
chief direction of affairs willingly yielded to them; and
they would share it among themselves without envy.
Each of these would have the part assigned him to which
his genius was peculiarly adapted; and others who had
not any distinguished genius would be safe and think
themselves very happy by being under the protection and
guidance of those who had.
EXERCISE CCCXXXIV.
Though it is scarcely possible to avoid judging, in some
way or other, of almost everything which offers itself to
one's thoughts ; yet it is certain, that many persons, from
different causes, never exercise their judgment upon what
comes before them, in the way of determining whether it
be conclusive, and holds. They are perhaps entertained
with some things, not so with others ; they like, and they
dislike ; but whether that which is proposed to be made
out be really made out or not ; whether a matter be stated
according to the real truth of the case, seems to the gene-
PA RT iv.] PHIL OSOPH1CAL PASS A GES. 267
rality of people merely a circumstance of no consideration
at all. Arguments are often wanted for some accidental
purpose ; but proof, as such, is what they never want for
themselves, for their own satisfaction of mind, or conduct
in life. Not to mention the multitude who read merely
for the sake of talking, or to qualify themselves for the
world, or some such kind of reasons ; there are, even of
the few who read for their own entertainment, and have
a real curiosity to see what is said, several, which is pro-
digious, who have no sort of curiosity to see what is true.
EXERCISE CCCXXXV.
I have often observed a passage in Socrates' behaviour
at his death, in a light wherein none of the critics have
considered it. That excellent man, entertaining his
friends a little before he drank the bowl of poison, with
a discourse on the immortality of the soul, at his entering
upon it, says, that he does not believe any of the most
comic genius can censure him for talking upon such a
subject at such a time. This passage, I think, evidently
glances upon Aristophanes, who writ a comedy on purpose
to ridicule the discourses of that divine philosopher. It
has been observed by many writers, that Socrates was
so little moved at this piece of buffoonery, that he was
several times present at its being acted on the stage, and
never expressed the least resentment of it. But with sub-
mission, I think the remark I have here made shows us
that this unworthy treatment made an impression upon
his mind, though he had been too wise to discover it.
268 REFLECTIVE AND [PART iv.
EXERCISE CCCXXXVI.
But as the Stoics exalted human nature too high, so
the Epicureans depressed it too low; as those raised it
to the heroic, these defaced it to the brutal state. They
held pleasure to be the chief good of man ; death the
extinction of his being ; and placed their happiness con-
sequently in the secure enjoyment of a pleasurable life,
esteeming virtue of no other account, than as it was
a handmaid to pleasure, and helped to ensure the pos-
session of it by preserving health and conciliating friends.
Their wise man, therefore, had no other duty but to pro-
vide for his own ease ; to decline all struggles ; to retire
from public affairs, and to imitate the life of the Gods
by passing his days in a calm, contemplative, undisturbed
repose in the midst of rural shades and pleasant gardens.
This was the scheme that Atticus followed. He had all
the talents that could qualify a man to be useful in
society ; / great parts, learning, judgment, candour, bene-
volence, generosity : the same love of his country,) and
the same sentiments in politics with Cicero, whom he was
always advising and urging to act, yet determined never
to act himself, or never at least so far as to disturb his
rest or endanger his safety.
EXERCISE CCCXXXVIL
The soul after death takes its way to the regions below,
and there stands unveiled before the bar of judgment, and
nothing can possibly hinder the judges from searching all
PART iv.] PHILOSOPHICAL PASSAGES. 269
its secrets. Men's souls contract sores and ulcers from
the vices they have committed in this life. The judges
again mark closely the nature of the sores, and judge
whether the sores are curable or not. If so, they are chas-
tised and corrected by punishment and healed. When
incurable, they are tortured for ever and ever with the
direst agony, from which they themselves derive no bene-
fit, but are held out as examples for others. Those who
have remained their whole life through free from spot, pass
into the islands of the blessed, and there live an undying
life of bliss. I believe then this tale, dear Callicles, and
have ever deemed it my supreme duty to present myself
'before my judge with the healthiest of souls; and I en-
treat you to keep yourself chaste and pure, and to dismiss
all vain pursuits. Otherwise when you come to the judg-
ment seat below, you will be wracked with pain, may be,
and will hesitate, and be at your wits' end for excuses, and
be visited with the utmost contumely.
EXERCISE CCCXXXVIII.
Amongst too many instances of the great corruption
and degeneracy of the age in which we live, the great and
general want of sincerity in conversation is not the least.
The world is grown so full of dissimulation and compli-
ment, that men's words are hardly any signification of
their thoughts ; and if any man measure his words by his
heart, and speak as he thinks, and do not express more
kindness to every man, than men usually have for any
man, he can hardly escape the censure of breeding. The
old English plainness and sincerity, that generous integrity
270 REFLECTIVE AND [PART iv.
of nature, and honesty of disposition, which always argue
true greatness of mind, and are usually accompanied with
undaunted courage and resolution, are in a great measure
lost amongst us ; there has been a long endeavour to
transform us into foreign manners and fashions, and to
bring us to a servile imitation of none of the best of
our neighbours in some of the worst of their qualities.
The dialect of conversation is now-a-days so swelled
with vanity and compliment, and so surfeited, as I may
say, of expressions of kindness and respect, that if a
man that lived an age or two ago should return into the
world again, he would really want a dictionary to help him
to understand his own language, and to know the true
intrinsic value of the phrase in fashion, and would hardly
at first believe at what a low rate the highest strains and
expressions of kindness imaginable do commonly pass in
common payment; and when he should come to understand,
it would be a great while before he could bring himself
with a good countenance and a good conscience to con-
verse with men upon equal terms and in their own way.
EXERCISE CCCXXXIX.
Were it possible for you to have spent an hour with
Epicurus, you would have been delighted with him, for his
nature was like the better part of yours. He who shows
us how fear may be reasoned with and purified, how death
may be disarmed of terrors, how pleasure may be united with
innocence and constancy ; he who persuades us that vice
is painful and vindictive, and that ambition, deemed the
most manly of our desires, is the most childish and illusory,
PART iv.] PHILOSOPHICAL PASSAGES. 271
deserves our gratitude. If you must quarrel with Epicurus
on the principal good, take my idea. The happy man is
he who distinguishes the boundary between desire and
delight, and stands firmly on the higher ground ; he who
knows that pleasure not only is not possession, but is often
to be lost and always to be endangered by it. In life, as
in those prospects which if the sun were above the horizon
we should see from hence, the objects covered with the
softest light, and offering the most beautiful forms in the
distance, are wearisome to attain and barren.
EXERCISE CCCXL.
With every power that we have we can do two things :
we can work, and we can play. Every power that we
have is at the same time useful to us and delightful to us.
Even when we are applying them to the furtherance of
our personal objects, the activity of them gives us plea-
sure ; and when we have no useful end to which to apply
them, it is still pleasant to us to use them ; the activity of
them gives us pleasure for its own sake. There is no
motion of our body or mind which we use in work, which
we do not also use in play or amusement. If we walk in
order to arrive at the place where our interest requires us
to be, we also walk about the fields for enjoyment. If we
apply our combining and analysing powers to solve the
problems of mathematics, we use them sometimes also in
solving double acrostics.
272 REFLECTIVE AND [PART iv.
EXERCISE CCCXLI.
The ambassador being present in the council when
these matters were being discussed, told them 'that he
thought it of far greater moment for them to consider what
they were to do than what they were to say ; for when
their resolves were formed, it would be easy to clothe them
in fit words.' Now this was sound advice, and such as
every prince and people should lay to heart. But not less
mischievous than doubtful resolves are those which are
late and tardy, especially when they have to be made on
behalf of a friend. For from their lateness they help none,
and hurt ourselves. Tardy resolves are due to want of
spirit or want of strength, or to the perversity of those who
have to determine, who being moved by a secret desire to
overthrow the government, or to carry out some selfish
purpose of their own, suffer no decision to be come to,
but only thwart and hinder. Whereas, good citizens,
even when they see the popular mind to be bent on dan-
gerous courses, will never oppose the adoption of a fixed
plan, more particularly in matters which do not brook
delay.
EXERCISE CCCXLII.
On the other hand, it may be argued that there are
many advantages to be gained by awaiting the attack of
your enemy. For without putting yourself much about,
you may harass him by intercepting his supplies, whether
of victual or of whatsoever else an army stands in need.
From your better knowledge of the country you can im-
PART iv.] PHILOSOPHICAL PASSAGES. 273
pede his movements; and because men muster more
willingly to defend their homes than to go on distant
expeditions, you can meet him with more numerous forces.
If defeated you can more easily repair your strength,
because the bulk of your army, finding shelter at hand,
will be able to save itself, and your reserves will have no
distance to come. In this way you can use your whole
strength without risking your entire fortunes ; whereas, in
leaving your country, you risk your entire fortunes without
putting forth your whole strength.
EXERCISE CCCXLIIL
Men are apt enough of themselves to fall into the most
astonishing delusions about the opportunities which time
affords, but they are even more deluded by the talk of
the people about them. When children hear that a new
carriage has been ordered of the builder, they expect to
see it driven up to the door in a fortnight, with the paint
quite dry on the panels. All people are children in this
respect, except the workman, who knows the endless
details of production ; and the workman himself, notwith-
standing the lessons of experience, makes light of the
future task. What gigantic plans we scheme, and how
little we advance in the labour of a day ! If there is one
lesson which experience teaches, surely it is this, to make
plans that are strictly limited, and to arrange our work
in a practicable way within the limits that we must accept.
274 REFLECTIVE AND [PART iv.
EXERCISE CCCXLIV.
There are wonders in true affection ; it is a body of
enigmas, mysteries, and riddles, wherein two so become
one as they both become two ; I love my friend before
myself, and yet methinks, I do not love him enough. Some
few months hence, my multiplied affection will make me
believe I have not loved him at all. When I am from him,
I am dead till I am with him. United souls are not
satisfied with embraces, but desire to be truly each other,
which being impossible, these desires are infinite, and must
proceed without a possibility of satisfaction. Another
misery there is in affection, that whom we truly love like
our own selves, we forget their looks, nor can our memory
retain the idea of their faces; and it is no wonder, for
they are ourselves, and our affections make their looks
our own. This noble affection falls not on vulgar and
common constitutions, but on such as are marked for
virtue. He that can love his friend with this noble ardour
will, in a competent degree, effect all.
EXERCISE CCCXLV.
On the whole comparison there can be little doubt that
the balance of advantage lies in favour of the modern
system of large states. The small republic indeed de-
velops its individual citizens to a pitch which in the large
kingdom is utterly impossible. But it so develops them
at the cost of bitter political strife within, and of almost
constant warfare without. It may even be doubted whether
PART iv.] PHILOSOPHICAL PASSAGES. 275
the highest form of the city-commonwealth does not re-
quire slavery as a condition of its most perfect develop-
ment. The days of glory of such a commonwealth are
indeed glorious beyond comparison; but it is a glory
which is too brilliant to last, and in proportion to the
short splendour of its prime is too often the unutterable
wretchedness of its long old age. The republics of
Greece seem to have been shown to the world for a
moment, like some model of glorified humanity, from
which all may draw the highest of lessons, but which
none may hope to reproduce in its perfection. As the
literature of Greece is the groundwork of all later liter-
ature, as the art of Greece is the groundwork of all later
art, so in the great democracy of Athens we recognise the
parent state of law and justice and freedom, the wonder
and the example of every later age. But it is an
example which we can no more reproduce than we can
call back again the inspiration of the Homeric singer,
the more than human skill of Pheidias, or the untaught
and inborn wisdom of Thucydides. We can never be
like them, if only because they have gone before.
EXERCISE CCCXLVI.
Silence is a privilege of the grave, a right of the departed:
let him, therefore, who infringes that right by speaking
publicly of, for, or against, those who cannot speak for
themselves, take heed that he opens not his mouth without
a sufficient sanction. Only to philosophy enlightened by
the affections does it belong justly to estimate the claims
of the deceased on the one hand, and of the present age
T 2
276 REFLECTIVE AND [PART iv.
and future generations on the other, and to strike a balance
between them. Such philosophy runs a risk of becoming
extinct among us, if the coarse intrusions into the recesses,
the gross breaches into the sanctities, of domestic life, to
which we have lately been more and more accustomed,
are to be regarded as indications of a vigorous state of
public feeling. The wise and good respect, as one of
the noblest characteristics of Englishmen, that jealousy
of familiar approach, which, while it contributes to the
maintenance of private dignity, is one of the most effica-
cious guardians of rational public freedom.
EXERCISE CCCXLVII.
It might very well be thought serious trifling to tell my
readers that the greatest men had ever a high esteem for
Plato ; whose writings are the touchstone of a hasty and
shallow mind ; whose philosophy has been the admiration
of ages ; which supplied patriots, magistrates, and law-
givers to the most flourishing States, as well as Fathers to
the Church, and doctors to the schools. Albeit in these
days the depths of that old learning are rarely fathomed ;
and yet it were happy for these lands if our young nobility
and gentry, instead of modern maxims, would imbibe the
notions of the great men of antiquity. It may be modestly
presumed there are not many among us, even of those
who are called the better sort, who have more sense,
virtue, and love of their country than Cicero, who, in a
letter to Atticus, could not forbear exclaiming, ' O Socrates,
et Socratici viri ! nunquam vobis gratiam referam.' Would
to God many of our countrymen had the same obligations
PART iv.] PHILOSOPHICAL PASSAGES. 277
to those Socratic writers ! Certainly, where the people are
well educated, the art of piloting a State is best learned
from the writings of Plato. But among bad men, void of
discipline and education, Plato, Pythagoras, and Aristotle
themselves, were they living, could do but little good.
EXERCISE CCCXLVIII.
When I travelled I took a particular delight in hearing
the songs and fables that are come from father to son,
and are most in vogue among the common people of
the countries through which I passed ; for it is impossible
that anything should be universally tasted and approved
by a multitude, though they are only the rabble of a
nation, which hath not in it some peculiar aptness to
please and gratify the mind of man. Human nature is
the same in all reasonable creatures ; and whatever falls
in with it will meet with admirers amongst readers of all
qualities and conditions. Moliere, as we are told by M.
Boileau, used to read all his comedies to an old woman
who was his housekeeper, as she sate with him at her
work by the chimney corner ; and foretell the success of
his play at the theatre from the reception it met at his
fireside, for he tells us the audience always followed the
old woman, and never failed to laugh in the same place.
EXERCISE CCCXLIX.
One of the strongest incitements to excel in such arts
and accomplishments as are in the highest esteem among
men, is the natural passion for glory which the mind of
278 REFLECTIVE AND [PART iv.
man has : which, though it may be faulty in the excess of
it, ought by no means to be discouraged. Perhaps some
moralists are too severe in beating down this principle,
which seems to be a spring implanted by nature to give
motion to all the latent powers of the soul, and is always
observed to exert itself with the greatest force in the most
generous dispositions. The men whose characters have
shone brightest among the ancient Romans appear to
have been strongly animated by this passion. Cicero,
whose learning and services to his country are so well
known, was inflamed by it to an extravagant degree, and
warmly .presses Lucceius, who was composing a history
of those times, to be very particular and zealous in re-
lating the story of his consulship; and to execute it
speedily, that he might have the pleasure of enjoying in
his lifetime some part of the honour which he foresaw
would be paid to his memory. This was the ambition of
a great mind, but he is faulty in the degree of it, and
cannot refrain from soliciting the historian, upon this
occasion, to neglect the strict laws of history, and in
praising him, even to exceed the strict bounds of truth.
The younger Pliny appears to have had the same passion
for fame, but accompanied with greater chasteness and
modesty.
EXERCISE CCCL.
But among all the arts it is only poetry that can confer
this supreme kind of fame, because speech is the only
mirror in which' the whole universe can be reflected.
With colours or in marble we can express only what
we see, but there is nothing that the mind can think
PART iv.] PHILOSOPHICAL PASSAGES. 279
which cannot be uttered in speech. And, therefore, in
the poetry of all ages we possess, as it were, a shifting
view of the universe as it has appeared to successive
generations of men. According to the predominant in-
clination of the human mind in each age is the poetry of
that age. At one time it is busy with the brave deeds of
the hero, the contest and the laurel wreath; at another
time with mere enjoyment, with wine and love. Then it
describes the struggle of man against destiny, heroic forti-
tude and endurance in the midst of little hope ; at another
time it pictures man as in probation, purified in adversity,
and having a hope beyond the grave. At one time it
becomes idyllic, delights in country life, simple pleasures,
simple loves, a wholesome and peaceful existence; at
another time it loves cities, and deals in refinements,
courtesies, gallantries, gaieties. And sometimes it takes
a philosophical tone, delights in the grandeur of eternal
laws, aspires to communion with the soul of the world, or
endeavours to discover, in the construction of things, the
traces of a beneficent plan.
EXERCISE CCCLI.
That system of morality, even in the times when it was
powerful and in many respects beneficial, had made it
almost as much a duty to hate foreigners as to love fellow-
citizens. Plato congratulates the Athenians on having
shown in their relations to Persia, beyond all the other
Greeks, 'a pure and heartfelt hatred of the foreign na-
ture/ Instead of opposing, it had sanctioned and conse-
crated the savage instinct which leads us to hate whatever
280 REFLECTIVE AND [PART iv.
is strange or unintelligible ; to distrust those who live on
the farther side of a river ; to suppose that those whom
we hear talking together in a foreign tongue must be
plotting some mischief against ourselves. The lapse of
time and the fusion of races doubtless diminished this
antipathy considerably, but at the utmost it could but
be transformed into an icy indifference, for no cause
was in operation to convert it into kindness. On the
other hand, the closeness of the bond which united fellow-
citizens was considerably relaxed. Common interests and
common dangers had drawn it close; these in the wide
security of the Roman Empire had no longer a place.
It had depended upon an imagined blood-relationship ;
fellow-citizens could now no longer feel themselves to be
united by the tie of blood. Every town was full of resi-
dent aliens and emancipated slaves, persons between
whom and the citizens nature had established no connec-
tion, and whose presence in the city had originally been
barely tolerated from motives of expediency. The selfish-
ness of modern times exists in defiance of morality; in
ancient times it was approved, sheltered, and even in part
enjoined by morality.
EXERCISE CCCLII.
It is the curse of our species that the great and wealthy
seldom or never pursue this straight and righteous path to
dominion. They insist upon governing mankind without
taking the trouble to acquire those qualities which make
mankind willing to be governed by them. They choose
to rule by mere dint of naked wealth and station, unallied
PART iv.] PHILOSOPHICAL PASSAGES. 281
with those beneficent ingredients which bestow upon
rulers an empire over human hearts as well as over
human persons. Then come the strain and tug to
make the influence of wealth alone in worthless and un-
gifted hands equal to that of wealth and mental excellence
united. Wealth in itself, apart from all personal merit,
insures the power of conferring favours and inflicting in-
juries. It enables a man to deal out bribes, open or dis-
guised, with one hand, and blows with the other. It will
not indeed obtain for him the heartfelt esteem of a willing
public, but it serves as a two-edged sword to compel delu-
sive indications of it. It will steal away simulated demon-
strations of esteem, and extort those votes which he has
not virtue enough to earn.
EXERCISE CCCLIII.
The Brahmins assert that the world arose from an infi-
nite spider, who spun this whole complicated mass from
his bowels, and annihilates afterwards the whole, or any
part of it, by absorbing it again, and resolving it into his
own essence. Here is a theory which appears to us
ridiculous ; because a spider is a little contemptible ani-
mal, whose operations we are never likely to take for
a model of the whole universe. But still it is in keep-
ing with what goes on in our globe. And were there
a world wholly inhabited by spiders (which is very pos-
sible) this theory would there appear as natural and ir-
refragable as that which in our planet ascribes the origin
of all things to design and intelligence, as explained by
Cleanthes. Why an orderly system may not be spun
282 REFLECTIVE AND [PART iv.
from the belly, as well as from the brain, it will be difficult
for him to give a satisfactory reason.
EXERCISE CCCLIV.
We all feel that our old, limited, hereditary monarchy is
a blessing to the country, if it be only on account of the
quiet and good order which its principle of succession
ensures, compared with the mischief which would follow,
if the post of chief magistrate among us were to be
intrigued for by the ringleaders of clubs, or fought for by
ambitious soldiers. It is, of course, impossible to secure
a succession of good and wise princes; nor can human
foresight calculate when a Marcus Aurelius will be fol-
lowed by a Commodus. Hence, our constitution is rightly
cautious and restrictive. It is framed not for a single
generation, or with reference to the personal qualities of
a particular ruler ; but it is the fruit of the experience of
many ages, and is designed for duration and permanence,
It therefore provides checks and securities against the
ambition, and passions, and weaknesses of human nature ;
it fixes limitations sufficient to secure a large amount
of good government, and to protect liberty, even under
a bad prince. But it leaves open a wide field for the
exercise of the virtues of a good one. The constitutional
sovereigns of England who understand and act up to
their true political duties ; who also employ the high in-
fluence of their station and example for the encouragement
of social and domestic virtue, for the advancement of
learning, and the well-judged patronage of art, earn nobly
PART iv.] PHILOSOPHICAL PASSAGES. 283
the gratitude of the people : and that debt would be paid
honestly, if requisite, in act as well as in feeling.
EXERCISE CCCLV.
. No Greek or Roman philosopher was also a great
reformer of religion. Some, like Socrates, were punctual
in the observance of religious rites, paying their vows to
the gods, fearful of offending against the letter as well as
the spirit of divine command; they thought that it was
hardly worth their while to rationalise the Greek mytho-
logy, when there were so many things nearer home to do.
Others, like the Epicureans, transferred the gods into
a distant heaven, where they were no more heard of;
some, like the Stoics, sought to awaken a deeper sense of
moral responsibility. There were devout men, such as
Plutarch, who thought with reverence of the past, seeking
to improve the old heathen faith, and also lamenting its
decline ; there were scoffers too, like Lucian, who found
inexhaustible amusement in the religious follies of man-
kind. Others, like Herodotus in earlier ages, accepted
with child-like faith the more serious aspect of heathenism,
or contented themselves, like Thucydides, with ignoring it.
The various feelings with which different classes of men
regarded the statues, temples, sacrifices, oracles, and festi-
vals of the gods, with which they looked upon the conflict
of religions meeting on the banks of the Tiber, are not
exhausted in the epigrammatic formula of the modern
historian : ' All the heathen religions were looked upon
by the vulgar as equally true, by the philosopher as equally
false, by the magistrate as equally useful/
284 REFLECTIVE AND [PART iv.
EXERCISE CCCLVL
It is constantly said that human nature is heartless.
Do not believe it. Human nature is kind and generous ;
but it is narrow and blind, and can only with difficulty
conceive anything but what it immediately sees and feels.
People would instantly care for others as well as them-
selves if only they could imagine others as well as them-
selves. Let a child fall into the river before the roughest
man's eyes ; he will usually do what he can to get it out,
even at some risk to himself; and all the town will triumph
in the saving of one little life. Let the same man be
shown that hundreds of children are dying of fever for
want of some sanitary measure which it will cost him
trouble to urge, and he will make no effort ; and probably
all the town would resist him if he did. So also the lives
of many deserving women are passed in a succession of
petty anxieties about themselves, and gleaning of minute
interests and mean pleasures in their immediate circle,
because they are never taught to make any effort to look
beyond it, or to know anything about the mighty world
in which their lives are fading, like blades of bitter grass
in fruitless fields.
EXERCISE CCCLVIL
Will you go and gossip with your housemaid, or your
stable-boy, when you may talk with queens and kings ; or
flatter yourselves that it is with any worthy consciousness of
your own claims to respect, that you jostle with the hungry
and common crowd for entree here, and audience there,
PART iv.] PHILOSOPHICAL PASSAGES. 285
when all the while this eternal court is open to you, with
its society, wide as the world, multitudinous as its days, the
chosen and the mighty of every place and time ? Into
that you may enter always ; in that you may take fellow-
ship and rank according to your wish ; from that, once
entered into it, you can never be an outcast but by your
own fault ; by your aristocracy of companionship there,
your own inherent aristocracy will be assuredly tested, and
the motives with which you strive to take high place in
the society of the living, measured, as to all the truth and
sincerity that are in them, by the place you desire to take
in this company of the Dead.
EXERCISE CCCLVIII.
When Socrates was building himself a house at Athens,
being asked by one that observed the littleness of the de-
sign, why a man so eminent would not have an abode
more suitable to his dignity? he replied, that he should
think himself sufficiently accommodated, if he could see
that narrow habitation rilled with real friends. Such was
the opinion of this great master of human life concerning
the infrequency of such an union of minds as might de-
serve the name of friendship, that among the multitudes
whom vanity or curiosity, civility or veneration, crowded
about him, he did not expect that very spacious apart-
ments would be necessary to contain all that should regard
him with sincere kindness, or adhere to him with steady
fidelity. So many qualities are indeed requisite to the
possibility of friendship, and so many accidents must
concur to its rise and its continuance, that the greatest
286 REFLECTIVE AND [PART iv.
part of mankind content themselves without it, and supply
its place as they can, with interest and dependence. Multi-
tudes are unqualified for a constant and warm reciprocation
of benevolence, as they are incapacitated for any other
elevated excellence, by perpetual attention to their interest,
and unresisting subjection to their passions. Long habits
may superinduce inability to deny any desire, or repress,
by superior motives, the importunities of any immediate
gratification, and an inveterate selfishness will imagine all
advantages diminished in proportion as they are com-
municated.
EXERCISE CCCLIX.
It is difficult to think too highly of the merits and
delights of truth; but there is often in men's minds an
exaggerated notion of some bit of truth, which proves a
great assistance to falsehood. For instance, the shame of
finding that he has in some special case been led mto
falsehood becomes a bugbear which scares a man into a
career of false dealing. He has begun making a furrow
a little out of the line, and he ploughs on in it, to try and
give some consistency and meaning to it. He wants
almost to persuade himself that it was not wrong, and
entirely to hide the wrongness from others. This is a
tribute to the majesty of truth : also to the world's opinion
about truth. It proceeds, too, upon the notion that all
falsehoods are equal, which is not the case, or on some
fond craving for a show of perfection, which is sometimes
very inimical to the reality. The practical, as well as the
high-minded, view in such cases, is for a man to think how
he can be true now. To attain that, it may, even for this
PART iv.] PHILOSOPHICAL PASSAGES. 287
world, be worth while for a man to admit that he has been
inconsistent, and even that he has been untrue. His
hearers, did they know anything of themselves, would be
fully aware that he was not singular, except in the courage
of owning his insincerity.
EXERCISE CCCLX.
I have often thought upon death, and I find it the least
of evils. All that which is past is as a dream ; and he
that hopes or depends upon time coming dreams waking.
So much of our life as we have discovered is already dead,
and all those hours which we share, even from the breast
of our mother, until we return to our grandmother the
earth, are part of our dying day ; whereof even this is one,
and those that succeed are of the same nature ; for we die
daily, and as others have given place to us, so we must in
the end give way to others. Physicians in the name of
death include all sorrow, anguish, disease, calamity, or
whatsoever can fall in the life of man, either grievous or
unwelcome : but these things are familiar unto us, and we
surfer them every hour ; therefore we die daily, and I am
older since I affirmed it. I know many wise men that fear
to die ; for the change is bitter, and flesh would refuse to
prove it : besides the expectation brings terror, and that
exceeds in evil. But I do not believe that any man fears
to be dead, but only the stroke of death : and such are my
hopes that if Heaven be pleased, and nature renew but
my lease for twenty-one years more, without asking
longer days, I shall be strong enough to acknowledge
without mourning that I was begotten mortal.
288 REFLECTIVE AND [PART iv.
EXERCISE CCCLXI.
There are two theories on the subject of land now
abroad, and in contention ; both false. The first is that,
by Heavenly law, there have always existed, and must
continue to exist, a certain number of hereditarily sacred
persons to whom the earth, air, and water of the world
belong, as personal property; of which earth, air, and
water, these persons may, at their pleasure, permit, or for-
bid, the rest of the human race to eat, to breathe, or to drink.
This theory is not for many years longer tenable. The
adverse theory is that a division of the land of the world
among the mob of the world would immediately elevate
the said mob into sacred personages ; that houses would
then build themselves, and corn grow of itself; and that
everybody would be able to live, without doing any work
for his living. This theory would also be found highly
untenable in practice.
EXERCISE CCCLXIL
I often apply this rule to myself ; and when I hear of a
satirical speech or writing that is aimed at me, I examine
my own heart, whether I deserve it or not. If I bring in
a verdict against myself, I endeavour to rectify my conduct
for the future in those particulars which have drawn the
censure upon me ; but if the whole invective be grounded
upon a falsehood, I trouble myself no further about it, and
look upon my name at the head of it to signify no more
PART iv.] PHILOSOPHICAL PASSAGES. 289
than one of those fictitious names made use of by an
author to introduce an imaginary character. Why should
a man be sensible of the sting of a reproach, who is a
stranger to the guilt that is implied in it ? or subject him-
self to the penalty, when he knows he has never com-
mitted the crime ? This is a piece of fortitude, which
every one owes to his own innocence, and without which
it is impossible for a man of any merit or figure to live at
peace with himself in a country that abounds with wit and
liberty.
EXERCISE CCCLXIII.
It is noble to be capable of resigning entirely one's own
portion of happiness, or chances of it : but after all this
self-sacrifice must be for some end : it is not its own end ;
and if we are told that its end is not happiness, but virtue
which is better than happiness, I ask, Would the sacrifice
be made if the hero or martyr did not believe that it would
earn for others immunity from similar sacrifices ? Would
it be made if he thought that his renunciation of happiness
for himself would produce no fruit for any of his fellow-
creatures, but to make their lot like his, and place them
also in the condition of persons who have renounced
happiness? All honour to those who can abnegate for
themselves the personal enjoyment of life, when by such
renunciation they contribute worthily to increase the
amount of happiness in the world ; but he who does it, or
professes to do it, for any other purpose, is no more
deserving of admiration than the ascetic mounted on
his pillar. He may be an inspiriting proof of what men
u
290 REFLECTIVE AND [PART iv.
can do, but assuredly is not an example of what they
should.
EXERCISE CCCLXIV.
For, as Aristotle saith, that children at the first will
call every woman mother, but afterward they come to
distinguish according to truth : so experience, if it be in
childhood, will call every philosophy mother, but when it
cometh to ripeness, it will discern the true mother ; so as
in the meantime it is good to see the several glosses and
opinions upon nature, whereof it may be every one in some
one point hath seen clearer than his fellows ; therefore I
wish some collection to be made painfully and understand-
ingly de antiquis philosophies, out of all the possible light
which remaineth to us of them : which kind of work I
find deficient. But here I must give warning that Jt be
done distinctly and severally, the philosophies of every
one throughout by themselves, and not by titles packed
and faggoted up together, as hath been done by Plutarch,
For it is the harmony of a philosophy in itself which giveth
it light and credence ; whereas if it be singled and broken
it will seem more foreign and dissonant. For as when I
read in Tacitus the actions of Nero or Claudius with cir-
cumstances of times, inducements, and occasions, I find
them not so strange ; but when I read them in Suetonius
Tranquillus, gathered into titles and bundles, and not in
order of time, they seem more monstrous and incredible ;
so is it of any philosophy reported entire, and dismembered
by articles.
PA RT iv.] PHIL OSOPHICAL PASS A GES. 2 9 1
EXERCISE CCCLXV.
The end of a man's life is often compared to the
winding-up of a well-written play, where the principal
persons still act in character, whatever the fate is they
undergo. There, is scarce a great person in the Grecian
or Roman history, whose death has not been remarked
upon by some writer or other, and censured or applauded
according to the genius or principles of the person who
has descanted upon it. Monsieur de St. Evremont is very
particular in setting forth the constancy and courage of
Petronius Arbiter during his last moments, and thinks he
discovers in them a greater firmness of mind and resolution
than in the death of Seneca, Cato, or Socrates. There
is no question but this polite author's affectation of appear-
ing singular in his remarks, and making discoveries which
had escaped the observation of others, threw him into this
course of reflexion. It was Petronius's merit, that he died
in the same gaiety of temper in which he lived ; but as his
life was altogether loose and dissolute, the indifference
which he showed at the close of it is to be looked upon
as a piece of natural carelessness and levity, rather than
fortitude. The resolution of Socrates proceeded from
very different motives, the consciousness of a well-spent
life, and a prospect of a happy eternity. If the ingenious
author above-mentioned was so pleased with gaiety of
humour in a dying man, he might have found a much
nobler instance of it in our countryman Sir Thomas
More.
U 2
292 OR A TOR 1C A L PASS A GES. [PART i v.
PART IV. D.
ORATORICAL PASSAGES.
EXERCISE CCCLXVI.
As a nation, Athens is the school of Greece ; and her
individual citizens are the most accomplished specimens
of the human race. Nor is this idle boasting; for experi-
ence and reality are its warrants. The power and pro-
tection of Athens are felt in every land ; and the fears
or gratitude of mankind are the noblest evidence of her
greatness. And such a country well deserves that her
children should die for her. They have died for her, and
her praise is theirs. My task is then mostly completed;
yet it may be added that their glorious and beautiful lives
have been crowned by a most glorious death. Enjoying
and enjoyed as has been their life, it never tempted them
to seek by unworthy fear to lengthen it. To repel their
country's enemies was dearer to them than the fairest
prospect that added years could offer them; having gained
this they w r ere content to die ; and their last field witnessed
their brightest glory, undimmed by a single thought of
weakness.
EXERCISE CCCLXVIL
These are maxims so old and so trite, that no man
cares to dwell on them, for fear of being told that he is
PART iv.] ORATORICAL PASSAGES. 293
repeating what he learned of his nurse. But they are not
the less true for being trite ; and when men surfer them-
selves to be hurried away by a set of new-fangled notions
diametrically opposite, they cannot be repeated too often.
If we persist in the other course, we must go on increasing
our debt till the burden of our taxes becomes intolerable.
That boasted constitution, which we are daily impairing,
the people will estimate not by what it once has been, or
is still asserted to be in the declamations against anarchy,
but by its practical effects; and we shall hardly escape
the very extreme we are so anxiously desirous of shun-
ning.
EXERCISE CCCLXVIII.
The old government of France was surely provided
with sufficient checks against the licentiousness of the
people ; but of what avail were those checks when the
ambition and prodigality of the Government had ex-
hausted every resource by which established governments
can be supported ? Ministers attempt to fix upon others
the charge of innovation, while they themselves are, every
session, making greater innovations than that which they
now call the most dreadful of all, namely, a reform in the
representation in parliament. But it is the infatuation of
the day that, while fixing all our attention upon France,
we almost consider the very name of liberty as odious ;
nothing of the opposite tendency gives us the least
alarm.
294 ORATORICAL PASSAGES. [PART iv.
EXERCISE CCCLXIX.
Detesting the corrupt and destructive maxims of des-
potism, I have considered the happiness of the people as the
end of government. Submitting my actions to the laws of
prudence, of justice, and of moderation, I have trusted the
event to the care of Providence. Peace was the object
of my counsels as long as peace was consistent with the
public welfare; but when the imperious voice of my
country summoned me to arms, I exposed my person to
the dangers of war, with the clear foreknowledge (which I
had acquired from the art of divination) that I was destined
to fall by the sword. I now offer my tribute of gratitude
to the Eternal Being, who has not suffered me to perish by
the cruelty of a tyrant, by the secret dagger of conspiracy,
or by the slow tortures of lingering disease.
EXERCISE CCCLXX.
The highest orders in England will always be able to
procure the best medical assistance. Who suffers by the
bad state of the Russian school of surgery? The Em-
peror Nicholas ? By no means ! The whole evil falls on
the peasantry. If the education of a surgeon should
become very expensive, if his fees should consequently rise,
if the supply of regular surgeons should diminish, the suf-
ferers would be, not the rich, but the poor in our villages,
who would again be left to barbers and old women. The
honourable gentleman speaks of sacrificing the interests of
humanity to those of science. This is not a mere ques-
PART iv.] ORATORICAL PASSAGES, 295
tion of science ; it is a question between health and sick-
ness, between ease and torment, between life and death.
EXERCISE CCCLXXI.
Does the honourable gentleman know from what cruel
sufferings the improvement of surgery has rescued our
species ? I will tell him a story, the first that comes into
my head. He may have heard of Leopold, Duke of
Austria, the same who imprisoned our Richard Cceur de
Lion. Leopold's horse fell under him, and crushed his
leg. The doctors said the limb must be amputated, but
none of them knew how to do it. Leopold in his agony
laid a hatchet on his thigh, and ordered his servant
to strike with a mallet. The leg was cut off, and the Duke
died of the loss of blood. Such was the end of that
powerful prince ! There is now no labouring man who
falls from a ladder in England who cannot obtain better
assistance than the sovereign of Austria in the thirteenth
century.
EXERCISE CCCLXXII.
'Officers, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers! I
wish personally to convey through you, to the regiments
assembled here this day, my hearty welcome on their
return to England in health and full efficiency. Say to
them, that I have watched anxiously over the difficulties
and hardships which they have so nobly borne, that I
have mourned with deep sorrow for the brave men who
have fallen in their country's cause, and that I have felt
296 ORATORICAL PASSAGES. [PART iv.
proud of that valour, which, with their gallant allies, they
have displayed on every field. I thank God, that your
dangers are over, while the glory of your deeds remains ;
but I know, that should your services be again required,
you will be animated with the same devotion, which in the
Crimea has rendered you invincible.'
EXERCISE CCCLXXIII.
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and
that is the lamp of experience. I know of no w r ay of
judging the future but by the past. And, judging by the
past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct
of the British Ministry to justify those hopes with which
gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves ? Is it
that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately
received ? Trust it not, sir ; it will prove a snare to your
feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask
yourselves how this gracious reception comports with, those
warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken
our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of
love and reconciliation? These are the implements of
war and subjugation, the last arguments to which kings
resort. Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be
heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable, and
let it come. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace but there
is no peace. The next gale that sweeps from the north
will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. Is
life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the
cost of chains and slavery ? Forbid it, Almighty God !
PART iv.] ORATORICAL PASSAGES. 297
I know not what course others may take, but as for me,
give me liberty or give me death.
EXERCISE CCCLXXIV.
I call that mind free which protects itself against the
usurpations of society, which does not cower to human
opinion, which feels itself accountable to a higher tribunal
than man's, which respects a higher law than fashion,
which respects itself too much to be the slave or tool of
the many or the few. I call that mind free which, through
confidence in God and in the power of virtue, has cast off
all fear but that of wrong-doing, which no menace or peril
can enthral, which is calm in the midst of tumults, and
possesses itself though all else be lost. I call that mind
free which resists the bondage of habit, which does not
mechanically repeat itself and copy the past, which does
not live on its old virtues, which does not enslave itself to
precise rules, but which forgets what is behind, listens for
new and higher monitions of conscience, and rejoices to
pour itself forth in fresh and higher exertions. I call that
mind free which is jealous of its own freedom, which
guards itself from being merged in others, which guards
its empire over itself as nobler than the empire of the
world.
EXERCISE CCCLXXV.
It is a truth, Mr. Speaker, and a familiar truth, that
safety and preservation are to be preferred before benefit
or increase, inasmuch as those counsels which tend to
preservation seem to be attended with necessity ; whereas,
298 ORATORICAL PASSAGES. [PART iv.
those deliberations which tend to benefit, seem only ac-
companied with persuasion. And it is ever gain and no
loss, when at the foot of the account there remains the
purchase of safety. The prints of this are everywhere to
be found : the patient will ever part with some of his blood
to save and clear the rest ; the sea-faring man will, in a
storm, cast over some of his goods to save and assure the
rest ; the husbandman will afford some foot of ground for
his hedge and ditch, to fortify and defend the rest. Why,
Mr. Speaker, the disputer will, if he be wise and cunning,
grant somewhat that seemeth to make against him, because
he will keep himself within the strength of his opinion,
and the better maintain the rest.
EXERCISE CCCLXXVI.
' No, sir,' replied I, ' I am for liberty ! that attribute of
God's ! Glorious liberty ! that theme of modern declama-
tion ! I would have all men kings : I would be a king my-
self. We have all naturally an equal right to the throne :
we are all originally equal. This is my opinion, and was
once the opinion of a set of honest men who were called
Levellers. They tried to erect themselves into a commu-
nity, where all should be equally free. But, alas ! It
would never answer ; for there were some among them
stronger and some more cunning than others, and these
became masters of the rest; for, as sure as your groom
rides your horses, because he is a cunninger animal than
they, so surely will the animal that is cunninger or stronger
than he, sit upon his shoulders in turn. Since, then, some
are born to command and others to obey, the question is,
PART iv.] ORATORICAL PASSAGES. 299
as there must be tyrants, whether it is better to have them
in the same house with us, or in the same village, or, still
further off in the metropolis/
EXERCISE CCCLXXVIL
This Government holds a man responsible for every
thought that an indiscreet or an incautious friend, or a
concealed enemy, or a tool of power, reveals. If it
succeeds in this attempt, it will not rest satisfied with this
victory over the remnant of our freedom. It is not in the
nature of things that it should. A Government that will
not tolerate censure must forbid discussion. You are now
asked to put down writing. When that has been done
conversation will be attacked. Paris will resemble Rome
under the successors of Augustus : already the suppression
of the press has produced a malaise which I never felt or
observed before. What will be the feelings of the nation
when all that is around it is concealed, when every avenue
by which light could penetrate is stopped, when we are
exposed to all the undefined terrors and exaggerated
dangers that accompany utter darkness ?
EXERCISE CCCLXXVIII.
It is true, my lords, that I have, perhaps more than any
other man in this country, struggled to maintain a state of
peace. I have done so, because I thought it a duty to the
people of this country, a duty to God and man, first to
exhaust every possible measure to obtain peace before we
engaged in war. I may own, though I trust my con-
300 ORATORICAL PASSAGES. [PART iv.
science acquits me of not having done the utmost, that I
only regret not having done enough, or lest I may have
lost some possible means of averting what I consider the
greatest calamity that can befall a country. It has been
said that my desire for peace unfits me to make war ; but
how and why do I wish to make war? I wish to make
war in order to obtain peace, and no weapon that can be
used in war can make the attainment of peace so sure
and speedy, as to make that war with the utmost vigour
and determination.
EXERCISE CCCLXXIX.
Society talks, by preference, about amusements ; it does
so because when people meet for recreation they wish to
relieve their minds from serious cares, and also for the
practical reason that society must talk about what its
members have in common, and their amusements are more
in common than their work. As M. Thiers recommended
the republican form of government in France on the
ground that it was the form which divided his countrymen
least, so a polite and highly civilized society chooses for
the subject of general conversation the topic which is
least likely to separate the different people who are
present. It almost always happens that the best topic
having this recommendation is some species of amuse-
ment ; since amusements are easily learnt outside the
business of life, and we are all initiated into them in
youth.
PART iv.] ORATORICAL PASSAGES. 301
EXERCISE CCCLXXX.
Friends and fellow soldiers, the seasonable period of
my departure is now arrived, and I discharge, with the
cheerfulness of a ready debtor, the demands of nature.
I have learned from philosophy how much the soul is
more excellent than the body, and that the separation of
the nobler substance should be the subject of joy rather
than of affliction. I have learned from religion that an
early death has often been the reward of piety; and I ac-
cept, as a favour of the gods, the mortal stroke that secures
me from the danger of disgracing a character which has
hitherto been supported by virtue and fortitude. I die
without remorse, as I have lived without guilt. I am
pleased to reflect on the innocence of my private life ; and
I can affirm with confidence that the supreme authority,
the emanation of the Divine Power, has been preserved in
my hands pure and immaculate.
EXERCISE CCCLXXXI.
I am not unaware how vast are the resources at the
command of that nobility whom I, single-handed, power-
less, with nothing but the empty semblance of office, am
undertaking to dislodge from their supremacy; I know
full well with how much more safety a guilty faction can
act, than innocence when unsupported. But over and
above the good hope which I have of your assistance a
hope which has conquered fear I have come to the settled
conviction that it is better for a brave man to fight and
fail for freedom's sake, than not to fight at all. Yet so it
302 ORATORICAL PASSAGES. [PART iv.
is that all others, who have been elected to maintain your
rights, have turned against you all the weight and influ-
ence of their high positions, and count it better to sin for
gain, than to do right for nothing. And, accordingly, all
have now given way to the tyranny of a few who have
seized upon the treasury, upon armies, kingdoms, and
provinces : while you, the commonalty, yield yourselves
up, like cattle, to individuals for their possession and pro-
fit, stripped of all that heritage which your ancestors
bequeathed to you.
EXERCISE CCCLXXXII.
Sir, does he suppose it in his power to exhibit a Caro-
lina name so bright as to produce envy in my bosom?
No, sir, increased gratification and delight rather. I
thank God that if I am gifted with little of the spirit which
is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none,
as I trust, of that other spirit which would drag angels
down. When I shall be found, sir, in my place here in
the Senate, or elsewhere, to sneer at public merit, because
it happens to spring up beyond the little limits of my own
State or neighbourhood ; when I refuse for any such
cause, or for any cause, the homage due to American
talent or elevated patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty
and the country; or if I see an uncommon endowment of
Heaven, if I see extraordinary capacity and virtue in any
son of the south, and if, moved by local prejudice or
gangrened by State jealousy, I get up here to abate the
tithe of a hair from his just character and just fame, may
my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth !
PART iv.] ORATORICAL PASSAGES. 303
EXERCISE CCCLXXXIII.
I have great hopes, O my judges, that it is infinitely to
my advantage that I am sent to death ; for it must of
necessity be that one of these two things must be the
consequence : death must take away all these senses, or
convey me to another life. If all sense is to be taken
away, and death is no more than that profound sleep
without dreams in which we are sometimes buried, O
heavens, how desirable is it to die ? How many days do
we know in this life preferable to such a state ? But if it
be true that death is but a passage to places which they
who lived before us do now inhabit, how much still hap-
pier is it to go from those who call themselves judges to
appear before those who are really such, and to meet men
who have lived with justice and truth? Do you think it
nothing to speak with Orpheus, Musseus, Homer, and
Hesiod? I would indeed suffer many deaths to enjoy
these things.
EXERCISE CCCLXXXIV.
I am grieved, gentlemen, if I offend you ; though many
of you are older in years than I am, not one probably is
so old in public life. I may be addressing you for the last
time, and I feel that my last words ought to contain all
the warnings that I think may be useful to you. This
Assembly will soon end as all its predecessors have
ended ; its acts, its legislation, may perish with it, but its
reputation, its fame for good or for evil, will survive. Within
a few minutes you will do an act by which that reputation
will be seriously affected, by which it may be raised, by
304 ORATORICAL PASSAGES. [PART iv.
which it may be deeply, perhaps irrecoverably, sunk.
Your vote to-night will show whether you possess free-
dom, and whether you deserve it. As for myself I care
but little, a few months or even years of imprisonment are
among the risks which every public man who does his
duty in revolutionary times must encounter, and which the
most important men of the country have incurred, either
at the outset of their career or at its close.
EXERCISE CCCLXXXV.
And, sir, if he who now addresses you finds some work
to do in life, it is because he belongs to a land which men
like these have raised to fame, to power, to greatness ; not
least of all because he practises, to the utmost limits of his
strength, qualities in which they stood pre-eminent fair
dealing, industry, self-control, the protection of the dis-
tressed, the detestation of the bad, an affinity of habits
scarcely, I imagine, less close than that of which noble
lords can boast, community of blood and identity of name.
EXERCISE CCCLXXXVI.
I am sensible that our happiness depends on the secu-
rity of his Majesty's title, and the preservation of the
present government upon those principles which established
them at the late glorious revolution ; and which, I hope,
will continue to actuate the conduct of Britons to the
latest generations. These have always been my princi-
ples ; and whoever will give himself the trouble of looking
over the course of these papers, will be convinced that
PART iv.] ORATORICAL PASSAGES. 305
they have been my guide ; but I am a blunt plain-dealing
old man, who am not afraid to speak the truth ; and as I
have no relish for flattery myself, I scorn to bestow it on
others. I have not, however, been sparing of just praise,
nor slipped any reasonable opportunity to distinguish the
royal virtues of their present Majesties. More than this I
cannot do ; and more than this will not, I hope, be ex-
pected. Some of my expressions, perhaps, may have
been thought too rough and unpolished for the climate of
a court ; but they flowed purely from the sincerity of my
heart; and the freedom of my writings has proceeded
from my zeal for the interest of my king and country.
EXERCISE CCCLXXXVII.
I defy the noble lord to point out a single action of my
life in which the popularity of the times ever had the
smallest influence on my determinations. I thank God, I
have a more permanent and steady rule for my conduct,
the dictates of my own breast. Those who have foregone
that pleasing adviser, and given up their mind to be the
slave of every popular impulse, I sincerely pity; I pity
them still more, if their vanity leads them to mistake the
shouts of a mob for the trumpet of fame. Experience
might inform them that many who have been saluted with
the huzzas of a crowd one day, have received their execra-
tions the next ; and many, who by the popularity of their
times have been held up as spotless patriots, have never-
theless appeared upon the historian's page, when truth has
triumphed over delusion, the assassins of liberty. Why
then the noble lord can think I am ambitious of present
x
306 ORATORICAL PASSAGES. [PART iv.
popularity, that echo of folly and shadow of renown, I am
at a loss to determine.
EXERCISE CCCLXXXVIII.
Gentlemen, it is a most extraordinary case. This
bloody drama excited no suddenly-exerted, ungovernable
rage. The actors in it were not surprised by a lion-like
temptation springing upon their virtue, and overcoming it
before resistance could begin. Nor did they do the deed
to glut savage vengeance or satiate long-settled or deadly
hate. It was a cool, calculating, money-making murder.
It was all hire and salary, not revenge. It was the
weighing of money against life ; the counting out of so
many pieces of silver against so many ounces of blood.
The circumstances now clearly in evidence spread out the
whole scene before us. A healthful old man, to whom
sleep was sweet, the first sound slumbers of the night held
him in their soft but strong embrace. The assassin enters
through the window already prepared, with noiseless foot
he paces the lonely hall, winds up the stairs to the door of
the chamber, moves the lock till it turns on its hinges
without noise: the beams of the moon resting on the
gray locks show him where to strike. The victim passes
without a struggle to the repose of death. His assassin
retraces his steps to the window and escapes. No eye has
seen him, no ear has heard him. The secret is his own,
and it is safe ! Ah ! gentlemen, that was a dreadful mis-
take, such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection
even by men.
PART iv.] ORATORICAL PASSAGES. 307
EXERCISE CCCLXXXIX.
Even then and there men condemned such deeds,
although they were not wholly without excuse. But now,
when tens of thousands of brave souls have gone up to God
under the shadow of the flag, when thousands more,
maimed and shattered in the contest, are sadly awaiting
the deliverance of death, now when three years of terrific
warfare have raged over us, when our armies have pushed
the rebellion back over mountains and rivers, and crowded
it into narrow limits, until a wall of fire girds it : now,
when the uplifted hand of a majestic people is about to
hurl the bolts of its conquering power upon the rebellion ;
now, in the quiet of this Hall, hatched in the lowest depths
of a similar dark treason, there rises a Benedict Arnold,
and proposes to surrender all, body and spirit, the nation
and the flag, its genius and its honour, once and for ever,
to the accursed traitors of our country. And that proposi-
tion comes God forgive and pity my beloved State it
comes from a citizen of the time-honoured and loyal
commonwealth of Ohio ! I implore you, brethren in this
House, to believe that not many births ever gave pangs to
my mother-state such as she suffered when that traitor
was born. I beg you not to believe that on the soil of that
State another such growth deforms the face of nature and
darkens the light of God's day.
EXERCISE CCCXC.
Does a design against the constitution of this country
exist ? If it does, and if it is carried on with increasing
X 2
308 ORATORICAL PASSAGES. [PART iv.
vigour and activity by a restless faction, and if it receives
countenance by the most ardent and enthusiastic applauses
of its object, in the great council of this kingdom, by men
of the first parts, which this kingdom produces, perhaps by
the first it has ever produced, can I think that there is no
danger ? If there be danger, must there be no precaution
at all against it ? If you ask whether I think the danger
urgent and immediate, I answer, thank God, I do not.
The body of the people is yet sound, the constitution is
still in their heart, while wicked men are endeavouring to
put another into their heads. But if I see the very same
beginnings, which have commonly ended in great calami-
ties, I ought to act as if they might produce the very same
effects. Early and provident fear is the mother of safety;
because in that state of things the mind is firm and col-
lected, and the judgment unembarrassed. But when the
fear, and the evil feared, come on together, press at once
upon us, deliberation itself is ruinous, which saves upon all
other occasions ; because when perils are instant, it delays
decision, the man is in a flutter, and in a hurry, and his
judgment is gone.
EXERCISE CCCXCI.
You will ask, gentlemen, the secret of my enthusiasm
for my client. It is this. I owe to him, and to men like
him, the tonic that braces my spirits after the din of these
courts, the opiate that gives rest to nerves jaded with the
wrangling of the bar. Do you imagine that I could
possibly plead day after day on such a multiplicity of
subjects, if I did not cultivate my powers by study, or that
PART iv.] ORATORICAL PASSAGES. 309
without the relaxation of study they could bear the strain
to which they are daily exposed ? For myself, I frankly
own that I am a fellow-votary of these same pursuits.
Let those blush to make the avowal who have buried
themselves for long years in their books without finding
there any one thing which they can contribute to the
common good, aught which will face the daylight of the
outer world. But for me, why should I blush, living the
life that I have lived for years? Never have I allowed
my own interest or my own repose, never have I suffered
the seductions of pleasure, nor even the calls of sleep,
to prevent me from aiding a single client in his hour of
need.
EXERCISE CCCXCII.
You ascended the throne with a declared, and, I doubt
not, a sincere resolution of giving universal satisfaction to
your subjects. You found them pleased with the novelty
of a prince whose countenance promised even more than
his words, and loyal to you not only from principle but
passion. It was not a cold profession of allegiance to the
first magistrate, but a partial, animated attachment to a
favourite prince, the native of their country. They did not
wait to examine your conduct, nor to be determined by
experience, but gave you a generous credit for the future
blessings of your reign, and paid you in advance the dearest
tribute of their affections. Such, sir, was once the disposi-
tion of a people who now surround your throne with
reproaches and complaints. Do justice to yourself. Banish
from your mind those unworthy opinions with which some
interested persons have laboured to possess you. Distrust
310 ORATORICAL PASSAGES. [PART iv.
the men who tell you that the English are naturally light
and inconstant, that they complain without a cause. With-
draw your confidence equally from all parties from
ministers, favourites, and relations ; and let there be one
moment in your life in which you have consulted your
own understanding.
EXERCISE CCCXCIII.
But if your position as the friend of the accused bars your
path, I will step forward as your deputy and discharge
your office, taking upon me a task which I never recog-
nised as my own. Only let us hear no more murmurs
from right honourable gentlemen and noble lords at the
readiness of this nation, now and in all ages of its history,
to entrust high office to untitled energy. It is no matter
of complaint that the claims of merit should be paramount
in a land which owes to merit its imperial position. We
do not grudge the peer his ancestral portrait gallery ; we
are content that he should shine in the borrowed lustre of
departed greatness and honour ; the character, the services
of the illustrious dead give them a title to the affections not
of a single household, but of a collective nation.
EXERCISE CCCXCIV.
Laws must not only be made, they must be enforced.
Peisistratus enforced Solon's laws. He insisted on peace
and order in the city. He stopped by main force the per-
petual political agitation which is the ruin of any common-
wealth. Let the reader remember that without sound
PART iv.] ORATORICAL PASSAGES. 311
intellectual culture all political training is and must be
simply mischievous. A free constitution is perfectly absurd,
if the opinion of the majority is incompetent. I fear it is
almost hopeless to persuade English minds that a des-
potism may in some cases be better for a nation than a
more advanced constitution. And yet no students of
history can fail to observe that even yet very few nations
in the world are fit for diffused political privileges. The
nations that are fit are so manifestly the greatest and best,
and consequently the most prosperous, that inferior races
keep imitating their institutions, instead of feeling that these
institutions are the result and not the cause of true national
greatness. In the case of the Irish the English nation has
in vain given them its laws, and even done something to
enforce them. I believe the harshest despotism would be
more successful, and perhaps in the end more humane.
EXERCISE CCCXCV.
If I thought that our power in India had originated
in crime and was maintained by brute force, it would have
no interest for me. In that case I should turn my atten-
tion to other matters and leave a hopeless system to reach
its natural end by its own road. I feel, however, that such
a view is utterly false, and that we, the English nation, can
hardly degrade ourselves more deeply than by repudiating
the achievements of our ancestors, apologising for acts of
which we ought to feel as proud as the inheritors of great
names and splendid titles must feel of the deeds by which
they were won, and evading like cowards and sluggards
the arduous responsibilities which have devolved upon us.
3 1 2 EPISTOLAR Y [PART iv.
I say, let us acknowledge them with pride. Let us grapple
with them like men. That will enable our sons to praise
us for something more manly than reviling our fathers.
Let them praise us, not for atoning for the misdeeds, but
for following the examples of Clive and Hastings, and the
two Wellesleys, and Dalhousie, and Canning, and Henry
Laurence, and Havelock, and others, whom I do not
mention because they still live, and because I have the
honour to call some of them my friends. I deny that
ambition and conquest are crimes ; I say that ambition is
the greatest incentive to every manly virtue, and that
conquest is the process by which every state in the world
has been built up.
PART IV. E.
EPISTOLARY PASSAGES.
EXERCISE CCCXCVI.
BUT that which makes me wonder most of all is, how it
could occur to you that you can no longer be of any use
to your country or your friends, and therefore that you
have no motive for desiring to live. I will say no more,
nor will I attempt to express what I think on this subject,
further than this, which I declare and will maintain as long
as I live, that I have derived more advantage from my
acquaintance with you, than from all the time I have spent
PART iv.] PASSAGES. 313
on my travels. This is enough for the present. But, my
dear Hubert, do not think it is either arrogance, which I
hope is not one of my faults, nor mere loquacity, which,
however, Xenophon thought no fault in young Cyrus, but
an inclination, or rather impulse of my mind that has
moved me to write thus much to you : I was desirous to
do what I could to relieve you from that distress, which I
perceived was somewhat disturbing you ; and yet I readily
allow that all this comes under the proverb, Sus Mimrvam.
EXERCISE CCCXCVII.
Had it pleased God to continue to me the hopes of
succession, I should have been according to my medi-
ocrity, and the mediocrity of the age I live in, a sort of
founder of a family : I should have left a son, who, in all
the points in which personal merit can be viewed, would
not have shown himself inferior to the Duke, or to any of
those whom he traces in his line. But a Disposer whose
power we are little able to resist, and whose wisdom it
behoves us not at all to dispute, has ordained it in another
manner, and, whatever my querulous weakness might sug-
gest, a far better. The storm has gone over me. I am
stripped of all my honours, I am torn up by the roots, and
lie prostrate on the earth ! There, and prostrate there, I
most unfeignedly recognise the divine justice, and in some
degree submit to it. But whilst I humble myself before
God, I do not know that it is forbidden to repel the
attacks of unjust and inconsiderate men. The patience
of Job is proverbial. After some of the convulsive
struggles of our irritable nature, he submitted himself,
3 1 4 EPISTOLAR Y [PART iv.
and repented in dust and ashes. But even so, I do not
find him blamed for reprehending, and with a considerable
degree of verbal asperity, those ill-natured neighbours of
his, who visited his dunghill to read moral, political, and
economical lectures on his misery. I am alone. I have
none to meet my enemies in the gate. Indeed, my lord,
I greatly deceive myself if, in this hard season, I would
give a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called fame and
honour in the world.
EXERCISE CCCXCVIII.
My dear friend, I received a letter from Mrs. Darner a
few days ago, informing me of the melancholy event that
has taken place with you ; and I have seen her since and
learnt the particulars concerning it. I sympathise with
you and your sister most truly : for I know well that the
advanced age of a parent, which makes such a loss ex-
pected, and for which we ought to be prepared, does not,
therefore, make it less afflicting. That he has lived to a
great age, in health and comfort far beyond what most old
people enjoy, and that your society and affection have so
greatly contributed to it, is pleasing to remember; but
long habits broken up, and the removal of the object of
those habits, who bore to you affection of a nature which
no other can bear, makes for a time a sad blank in the
heart, which will not be comforted by reason. I am glad
for your sakes that your father had recovered from all the
fatigue of travelling before he was taken ill, and I am glad
both for your sake and his own, that his illness was so
short and his end without suffering.
PART iv.] PASS A GES. 3 1 5
EXERCISE CCCXCIX.
We have shared together many hours of study, and you
have been willing, at the cost of much patient labour, to
cheer the difficult paths of intellectual toil by the unfailing
sweetness of your beloved companionship. It seems to
me that all those things which we have learned together
are doubly my own; whilst those other studies which I
have pursued in solitude have never yielded me more than
a maimed and imperfect satisfaction. The dream of my
life would be to associate you with all I do if that were
possible ; but since the ideal can never be wholly realized,
let me at least rejoice that we have been so little separated,
and that the subtle influence of your finer taste and more
delicate perception is ever, like some penetrating perfume,
in the whole atmosphere around me.
EXERCISE CCCC.
Even your expostulations are pleasing to me ; for though
they show you angry, yet they are not without many ex-
pressions of your kindness ; and therefore I am proud to
be so chidden. Yet I cannot so far abandon my own
defence, as to confess any idleness or forgetfulness on my
part. What has hindered me from writing to you was
neither ill-health nor a worse thing, ingratitude, but a flood
of little businesses, which yet are necessary to my sub-
sistence, and of which I hoped to have given you a good
account before this time : but the court rather speaks
kindly of me than does anything for me, though they
promise largely ; and perhaps they think I will advance as
3 1 6 EPISTOLAR Y [PART iv.
they go backward, in which they will be much deceived ;
for I can never go an inch beyond my conscience and my
honour. If they will consider me as a man who has done
my best to improve the language and especially the poetry
of my country, and will be content with my acquiescence
under the present government, and forbearing satire on it,
that I can promise, because I can perform it; but I can
neither take the oaths nor forsake my religion. . . . Truth
is but one ; and they who have once heard of it can plead
no excuse if they do not embrace it. But these are things
too serious for a trifling letter.
EXERCISE CCCCI.
Dear Brother, I should have answered your letter
sooner, but in truth I am not fond of thinking of the
necessity of those I love, when it is so very little in my
power to help them. I am sorry to find you are still every
way unprovided for ; and what adds to my uneasiness is,
that I have received a letter from my sister Johnson, by
which I learn that she is pretty much in the same circum-
stances. As to myself, I believe I could get both you and
my poor brother-in-law something like that which you de-
sire, but I am determined never to ask for little things, nor
exhaust any little interest I may have, until I can serve you,
him, and myself more effectually. As yet no opportunity
has offered, but I believe you are pretty well convinced that
I will not be remiss when it arrives. The king has lately
been pleased to make me Professor of Ancient History in
a Royal Academy of Painting, which he has just estab-
lished, but there is no salary annexed; and I took it
PART iv.] PASSAGES. 31 y
rather as a compliment to the institution, than any benefit
to myself. Honours to one in my situation are something
like ruffles to a man that wants a shirt.
EXERCISE CCCCII.
London, Sept. 13, 1831.
My dear Sister, I am in high spirits at the thought
of soon seeing you all in London, and being again one of
a family which I love so much. It is well that one has
something to love in private life ; for the aspect of public
affairs is very menacing; fearful, I think, beyond what
people in general imagine. Three weeks, however, will
probably settle the whole, and bring to an issue the ques-
tion, Reform or Revolution. One or the other I am
certain that we must and shall have. I assure you that
the violence of the people, the bigotry of the Lords, and
the stupidity and weakness of the Ministers alarm me so
much, that even my rest is disturbed by vexation and
uneasy forebodings ; not for myself, for I may gain and
cannot lose, but for this noble country, which seems
likely to be ruined without the miserable consolation of
being ruined by great men.
EXERCISE CCCCIII.
No man carries further than I do the policy of making
government pleasing to the people. But the widest range
of this politic complaisance is confined within the limits of
justice. I would not only consult the interests of the
people, but I would cheerfully gratify their humours. We
3 1 8 EPISTOLAR Y [PART i v.
are all a sort of children that must be soothed and man-
aged. I think I am not austere or formal in my nature.
I would bear, I would even myself play my part in any
innocent buffooneries, to divert them. But I never will
act the tyrant for their amusement. If they will mix
malice in their sports, I shall never consent to throw them
any living, sentient creature whatsoever, no, not so much
as a kitling, to torment.
EXERCISE CCCCIV.
Let us consider you then as arrived at the summit of
worldly greatness ; let us suppose that all your plans of
avarice and ambition are accomplished, and your most
sanguine wishes gratified in the fear as well as the hatred
of the people ; can age itself forget that you are now in the
last act of life ? Can grey hairs make folly venerable ?
And is no period to be preserved for meditation and re-
tirement ? For shame ! my Lord ; let it not be recorded
of you that the latest moments of your life were dedicated
to the same unworthy pursuits, the same busy agitations,
in which your youth and manhood were exhausted. Con-
sider that, although you cannot disgrace your former life,
you are violating the character of age, and exposing the
impotent imbecility, after you have lost the vigour of your
passions.
EXERCISE CCCCV.
In the various objects of knowledge, which I have had
the pleasure of seeing you study under my care, as well as
those which you have acquired under the various teachers
PART iv.] PASS A GES. 3 1 9
who have hitherto instructed you, the most material branch
of information which it imports a human being to know?
has been entirely overlooked ; I mean, the knowledge of
yourself. There are indeed very few persons who possess
at once the capability and the disposition to give you this
instruction. Your parents, who alone are perhaps suffi-
ciently acquainted with you for the purpose, are usually
disqualified for the task, by the very affection and par-
tiality which would prompt them to undertake it. Your
masters, who probably labour under no such prejudices,
have seldom either sufficient opportunities of knowing
your character, or are so much interested in your welfare,
as to undertake an employment so unpleasant and la-
borious.
EXERCISE CCCCVI.
You are as yet too young and inexperienced to perform
this important office for yourself, or indeed to be sensible
of its very great consequence to your happiness. The
ardent hopes and the extreme vanity natural to early youth
blind you at once to everything within and everything
without, and make you see both yourself and the world in
false colours. This illusion, it is true, will gradually wear
away as your reason matures and your experience in-
creases; but the question is, What is to be done in the
meantime ? Evidently there is no plan for you to adopt
but to make use of the reason and experience of those
who are qualified to direct you. Of this, however, I can
assure you, both from my own experience and from the
opinions of all those whose opinions deserve to be valued,
that if you aim at any sort of eminence or respectability in
320 EP1STOLAR Y [PART iv.
the eyes of the world, or in those of your friends ; if you
have any ambition to be distinguished in your future
career for your virtues, or talents, or accomplishments,
this self-knowledge of which I am speaking is above all
things requisite. It is therefore my intention, in this
letter, to offer you a few hints on this most important
subject.
EXERCISE CCCCVII.
The mention of this man has moved me from my na-
tural moderation. Let me return to your Grace. You
are the pillow upon which I am determined to rest all my
resentments. What idea can the best of sovereigns form
to himself of his own government ? In what repute can
he conceive that he stands with his people, when he sees
beyond the possibility of a doubt that, whatever be the
office, the suspicion of his favour is fatal to the candidate,
and that, when the party he wishes well to has the fairest
prospect of success, if -his royal inclination should unfor-
tunately be discovered, it drops like an acid, and turns the
election. This event, among others, may perhaps con-
tribute to open his Majesty's eyes to his real honour and
interest. In spite of all your Grace's ingenuity, he may
at last perceive the inconvenience of selecting, with such
a curious felicity, every villain in the nation to fill the
various departments of his government. Yet I should be
sorry to confine him in the choice either of his footmen
or his friends.
EXERCISE CCCCVIII.
It is quite high time that I should write to you, for
weeks and months go by, and it is quite startling to think
PART I v.J PASS A GES. 3 2 1
how little communication I hold with many of those whom
I love most dearly. And yet these are times when I am
least of all disposed to loosen the links which bind me to
my oldest and dearest friends, for I imagine we shall all
want the union of all the good men we can get together ;
and the want of sympathy which I cannot but feel towards
so many of those whom I meet with, makes me think how
delightful it would be to have daily intercourse with those
with whom I ever feel it thoroughly. What men do in
middle life without a wife and children to turn to I cannot
imagine ; for I think the affections must be sadly checked
and chilled, even in the best men, by their intercourse
with people, such as one usually finds them in the world.
I do not mean that one does not meet with good and
sensible people; but then their minds are set, and our
minds are set, and they will not, in mature age, grow into
each other. But with a home filled with those whom we
entirely love and sympathize with, and with some old
friends, to whom one can open one's heart fully from time
to time, the world's society has rather a bracing influence
to make one shake off mere dreams of delight.
EXERCISE CCCCIX.
I covet rest neither for my friends nor yet for myself, so
long as we are able to work ; but, when age or weakness
comes on, and hard labour becomes an unendurable
burthen, then the necessity of work is deeply painful, and
it seems to me to imply an evil state of society wherever
such a necessity generally exists. One's age should be
tranquil as one's childhood should be playful : hard work
322 EPISTOLARY [PART iv.
at either extremity of human existence seems to me out of
place ; the morning and the evening should be alike cool
and peaceful; at mid-day the sun may burn, and men
may labour under it.
EXERCISE CCCCX.
I am heartily sensible of your loss, which yet admits of
alleviation, not only from the common motives which have
been repeated every day for upwards of five thousand
years, but also from your own peculiar knowledge of the
world and the variety of distresses which occur in all ranks
from the highest to the lowest : I may add too from the
peculiar times in which we live, which seem to threaten
still more wretched and unhappy times to come. Nor is
it a small advantage that you have a peculiar resource
against distress from the gaiety of your own temper. Such
is the hypochondriac melancholy complexion of us
Islanders, that we seem made of butter, every accident
makes such a deep impression upon us ; but those elastic
spirits, which are your birthright, cause the strokes of
fortune to rebound without leaving a trace behind them ;
though, for a time, there is and will be a gloom, which, I
agree with your friends, is best dispelled at the court and
metropolis, amidst a variety of faces and amusements.
EXERCISE CCCCXI.
Sir I think I have been more congratulated on my
Egyptian appointment than on any other of the offices
which I have ever held ; the reason of this is that people
PART iv.] PASS A GES. 323
have supposed that I could terminate the long pro-
tracted troubles in Egypt in a manner not inconsistent
with the dignity of the British nation. I hope that Heaven
has approved the appointment, and will continue to stand
by me when the time for action comes. One thing I have
no hesitation in saying, that I will try my best to give the
nation no cause to be disappointed in me. Do you, on
your part, believe ~ only what I write to the Government or
yourself, and refuse to give countenance to unauthorised
rumours by believing in them. It is a common experience,
but I have verified it in the present war, that no one is so
entirely superior to common report as not to be influenced
by it in his action. In every social gathering, and Heaven
save the mark at every dinner party, there are gentlemen
to be found, who, in their own opinion, are capable of
conducting an Egyptian campaign, who know where the
camp should be pitched, at what time and by what route
the country should be entered, where the magazines should
be located, what is the right moment to commence action,
and when to desist from action. Nor do they merely lay
down the law as to the right course of action ; but if any-
thing is done in a manner which does not accord with
their fiat, they accuse the general as if he were on his trial.
All this is a great source of difficulty to practical men. It
is not given to every one to be as unflinching and resolute
in the face of hostile criticism as Wellington, who delibe-
rately preferred to have his power curtailed by the light-
headedness of the people, to discharging his duties less
well for gaining a reputation. I am not one of those who
think that generals should not receive advice : on the con-
trary, I think that the man who relies entirely upon his
Y 2
324 EPISTOLARY [PART iv.
own unaided judgment is a coxcomb rather than a wise
man. What then is my drift ? Advice should be tendered
in the first instance by practical men, who have had special
experience in military affairs ; in the second place, by such
as are present on the spot, who know the ground and the
enemy, and are watching for the right moment, who row
in the same boat and share the same perils. If, then,
there is any one who is sure that he can advise me to the
public advantage in the war on which I am about to enter,
let him not refuse to help, but let him come out with me
to Egypt : I will place a steamer, a camel, and a tent at
his disposal, and will pay his expenses. If he is afraid to
do this, and prefers an armchair at his club to service in
the field, then, say I, let him not try to steer the ship from
the shore. There is enough gossip in town ; let him con-
fine his powers of talk to this area, and rest assured that I
shall be satisfied with the counsel of military men.
EXERCISE CCCCXII.
I know not when I have been more delighted by any
letter, than by that which I lately received from you.
It contains a picture of your present state which is truly a
cause for thankfulness, and, speaking after the manner of
men, it is an intense gratification to my sense of justice, as
well as to my personal regard for you, to see a life of hard
and insufficiently paid labour well performed, now, before
its decline, rewarded with comparative rest and with com-
fort. I rejoiced in the picture which you gave of your
house and fields and neighbourhood ; there was a freshness
and a quietness about it which always goes very much to
PART iv.] PASSAGES. 325
my heart, and which at times, if I indulged the feeling,
could half make me discontented with the perpetual tur-
moil of my own life. I sometimes look at the mountains
which bound our valley, and think how content I could be
never to wander beyond them any more, and to take rest
in a place which I love so dearly. But whilst my health is
so entire, and I feel my spirits still so youthful, I feel
ashamed of the wish, and I trust that I can sincerely
rejoice in being engaged in so active a life, and in having
such constant intercourse with others.
EXERCISE CCCCXIII.
We are going to leave this place, if all be well, on
Monday ; and I confess that it makes me rather sad to
see the preparations for our departure, for it is like going
out of a very quiet cove into a very rough sea ; and I am
every year approaching nearer to that time of life when
rest is more welcome that exertion. Yet, when I think of
what is at stake on that rough sea, I feel that I have no
right to lie in harbour idly ; and indeed I do yearn more
than I can say to be able to render some service where
service is so greatly needed. It is when I indulge such
wishes most keenly, and only then, that strong political
differences between my friends and myself are really
painful; because I feel that not only could we not act
together, but there would be no sympathy the moment I
were to express anything beyond a general sense of
anxiety and apprehension, in which I suppose all good
men must share.
326 EPISTOLARY [PART iv.
EXERCISE CCCCXIV.
You are now embracing the cause full of enthusiasm
and zeal, and this is very well ; how else could we run out
the race, unless we began with some little fire ? But this
will not last, and unless you are warned, you may be
offended and fall away. When you have lived longer in
this world and outlived the enthusiastic and pleasing illu-
sions of youth, you will find your love and pity for the
race increase tenfold, your admiration and attachment to
any particular party fall away altogether. You will not
find the royal cause perfect any more than any other, nor
those embarked in it free from mean and sordid motives,
though you think now that all of them act from the
noblest. This is the most important lesson that a man
can learn that all men are really alike; that all creeds
and opinions are nothing but the mere result of chance
and temperament; that no party is on the whole better
than another ; that no creed does more than shadow im-
perfectly forth some one side of truth ; and it is only when
you begin to see this that you can feel that pity for man-
kind, that sympathy with its disappointments and follies,
and its natural human hopes, which have such a little
time of growth, and such a sure season of decay.
EXERCISE CCCCXV.
My dear Walter, I know that you are too reasonable
a man to expect anything like punctuality of correspond-
ence from a translator of Homer, especially from one who
is a doer also of many other things at the same time ; for
PART iv.] PASSAGES. 327
I labour hard not only to acquire a little fame for myself,
but to win it also for others, men of whom I know nothing,
not even their names, who send me their poetry, that, by
translating it out of prose into verse, I may make it more
like poetry than it was. Having heard all this, you will
feel yourself not only inclined to pardon my long silence,
but to pity me also for the cause of it. You may, if you
please, believe likewise, for it is true, that I have a faculty
of remembering my friends even when I do not write to
them, and of loving them not one jot the less, though I
leave them to starve for want of a letter from me. And
now, I think, you have an apology both as to style, mat-
ter, and manner, altogether unexceptionable.
EXERCISE CCCCXVI.
My dear Friend, A dearth of materials, a conscious-
ness that my subjects are for the most part and must be
uninteresting and unimportant, and above all a poverty of
animal spirits, that makes writing much a great fatigue to
me, have occasioned my choice of smaller paper. Ac-
quiesce in the justness of these reasons for the present ;
and if ever the times should mend with me, I sincerely
promise to amend with them.
Homer says on a certain occasion that Jupiter, when he
was wanted at home, was gone to partake of an entertain-
ment provided for him by the ^Ethiopians. If by Jupiter
we understand the weather or the season, as the ancients
frequently did, we may say that our English Jupiter has
been absent on account of some such invitation : during
the whole month of June he left us to experience almost
328 E PISTOL A R Y [PART i v.
the rigours of winter. This fine day, however, affords us
some hope that the feast is ended, and that we shall enjoy
his company without the interruption of his ^Ethiopian
friends again.
I have bought a great dictionary, and want nothing but
Latin authors to furnish me with the use of it. Had I pur-
chased them first, I had begun at the right end. But I
could not afford it. I beseech you admire my prudence.
Yours affectionately, WILLIAM COWPER.
EXERCISE CCCCXVII.
I cannot let this night close without offering a few lines
of reply to your kind, sad letter just received. It truly
grieves me that you write in so desponding a style of your
health, but I trust that very great deduction must be made
on the score of morbid feeling. I have known you at
other times less apprehensive of the same complaint.
Any thoughts of your being a traveller at this season I
had, I may say, given up before; and in truth, when I
found your complaint so obstinate, my wish was that you
should consult your feelings and nurse yourself. I am
unwilling, however, to give up the hope so long cherished
of seeing you here at some time. And in spring, so far
as it is right and lawful, I trust we shall meet.
EXERCISE CCCCXVIII.
JOHN WILKES TO H. C.
Paris, January 2oth.
But I am to await the event of these two trials; and Philips
can never persuade me that some risk is not run. I have
PART iv.] PASSAGES. 329
in my own case experienced the fickleness of the people.
I was almost adored one week; the next, neglected,
abused, and despised. With all the fine things said and
wrote of me, have not the public, till this moment, left me
in the lurch, as to the expenses of so great a variety of
law-suits? Can I trust, likewise, a rascally Court, who
bribe my own servants to steal out of my house ? Which
of the Opposition, likewise, can call on me and expect my
services ? I hold no obligation to any of them, but to Lord
Temple ; who is really a superior being. It appears, then,
that there is no call of honour. I will now go on to the
public cause, that of every man liberty. Is there then
any one point behind to be tried? I think not. The
two important decisions have secured for ever an English-
man's liberty and property. They have grown out of my
firmness, and the affair of the North Briton : but in this
case neither are we nor our posterity concerned whether
John Wilkes, or some one else, wrote or published the
North Briton.
EXERCISE CCCCXIX.
But that a man before whom the two paths of literature
and politics lie open, and who might hope for eminence in
either, should choose politics, and quit literature, seems to
me madness. On the one side is health, leisure, peace of
mind, the search after truth, and all the enjoyments of
friendship and conversation. On the other side is almost
certain ruin to the constitution, constant labour, constant
anxiety. Every friendship which a man may have, be-
comes precarious as soon as he engages in politics. As
330 EPISTOLARY [PART iv.
to abuse, men soon become callous to it, but the discipline
which makes them callous is very severe. And for what
is it that a man who might, if he chose, rise and lie down
at his own hour, engage in any study, enjoy any amuse-
ment, and visit any place, consents to make himself as
much a prisoner as if he were within the rules of the
Fleet ; to be tethered during eleven months of the year
within the circle of half a mile round Charing Cross ; to
sit or stand night after night for ten or twelve hours, inhaling
a noisome atmosphere, and listening to harangues of which
nine-tenths are far below the level of a leading article in
a newspaper ? Is it for fame ? Who would compare the
fame of Charles Townshend to that of Hume ? Who can
look back on the life of Burke, and not regret that the
years which he passed in ruining his health and temper by
political exertions were not passed in the composition of
some great and durable work ? But these, as I have said,
are meditations in a quiet garden, situated far beyond the
contagious influence of English faction. What I might
feel if I again saw Downing Street and Palace Yard, is
another question. I tell you sincerely my present feelings.
EXERCISE CCCCXX.
I could have supported this evil fortune with less grief,
Columbus wrote, had my person alone been in jeopardy,
since I am a debtor for my life to the Supreme Power,
and have at other times been within a step of death. But
it was a cause of infinite sorrow and trouble to think that,
after having been illuminated with faith and certainty to
undertake this enterprise, after having victoriously achieved
PART iv.] PASSAGES. 331
it, and when on the point of convincing my opponents,
and securing to your highnesses a vast increase of dominion,
the divine majesty should be pleased to defeat all by my
death. It would have been more supportable, also, had I not
been accompanied by others who had been drawn on by
my persuasions, and who in their distress cursed not only
the hour of their coming, but the fear inspired by my
words, which prevented their turning back, as they had
repeatedly determined. My grief was doubled when I
thought of my two sons, whom I had left at school in
Spain, destitute, in a strange land, without any testimony
of services rendered by their father, which might have in-
duced your highnesses to befriend them. And although
I was comforted by faith that the Deity would not permit
a work of such exaltation, wrought through so many
troubles and contradictions, to remain imperfect, yet I
reflected on my own faults and failures, which might with
perfect justice deprive me of the glory that was almost
resting on my brow.
INDEX TO SELECTED PASSAGES.
No. of Exercise. First Words.
cxi. . . A certain jackdaw was so proud
CLI. . . A considerable part of the voyage
cccxxiv. . A drama is itself
cm. . . A follower of Pythagoras .
ccxxvu. . A letter which a Roman .
ccci. . . A mind like Scipio's
ccxxxi. . A question was started
cccix. . . A soldier from his earliest
cviii. . . After growing up ...
CLXXXI. . After Hieronymus .
CCLXVII. . After his departure .
ccxxvm. . After reading I entered
CLIV. . . After routing the Romans
CLXV. . . After subduing Africa
cix. . . After the execution of Sabinus .
CCXXXV. . After the mutual and repeated .
CXLIX. . . After the Romans had nearly .
xcvm. . . Alexander, in the three hundred
CLXXXVIII. . Alexander the son of Philip
en. . . Among the most important
cccxxxvm. . Amongst too many instances
ccm. . . And now the Protector's foot .
CCCLXXXV. . And, sir, if he who now .
CCXLix. . . Another of the king's chief men
cciv. . . Any one comparing the present .
CXCH. . . Any one, therefore, who undertakes
CCCLXVI. . As a nation, Athens .
cxcv. . . As he was carried to the Senate
CXiii. . . As King Numa one morning .
ccxv. . . As soon as we got through
CLXXV. . . As Trajan was once setting out
LXXII. . . At six o'clock the enemy's fleet
CCLXXVI. . At such times, society
CLXXXII. . Before, however, he had completed
CCCL. . . But among all the arts
cxx. . . But an opposite course was
cccxxxvi. But as the Stoics exalted .
Page.
121
H5
259
II 7
190
243
193
249
120
I6 3
221
I 9 I
H7
'53
120
I 9 6
I 44
"5
167
"7
269
176
304
207
177
170
292
172
123
183
159
163
278
127
268
334
INDEX TO SELECTED PASSAGES.
No. of Exercise. First Words. Page.
ccxxi. . . But, be this as it may . . . .186
CCLXXIII. . But, before we acquaint . . . .224
ccix. . . But, gentlemen, though the summer . . 180
ccxxix. . But her spirit was invincible . . . 192
ccccxvui. . But I am to await the event . . . 328
cccxcui. . But if your position as the friend . . 310
cccxxxin. . But let us return to the earth . . . 266
LXXX. . . But now His Majesty . . . .106
C. . . . But not contented with so . . . . 116
CCLII. . . But notwithstanding 209
CCCCXIX. . But that a man before whom . . . 329
CCCXCVI. . But that which makes me . . . .312
cccxxxn. . But the hopes and fears . . . .265
CCLXXV. . But the prospect at home . . . . 225
cccxiv. . But their hardships 253
cxxxvi. . By many arguments 136
cxxxill. . Caesar was in his chair . . . .134
cxxil. . . Cato spoke to an audience . . .128
cxxi. . . Cato was unfortunate enough . . . 127
CLXIII. . . Clearchus, tyrant of Heraclea . . . 152
CLV. . . Coriolanus, having left Rome . . . 147
CLXXVI. . Croesus, king of Lydia . . . .160
CCCiv. . . Darnley's external accomplishments . . 245
cxxx. . . Day dawned; the main army . . . 132
cccci. . . Dear Brother, I should have . . . 316
CLVI. . . Decius, having resolved . . . .148
LXIX. . . Demetrius had taken the city . . .103
CLXXVII. . Demetrius immediately after . . .160
CCCLXIX. . Detesting the corrupt . . . .294
cxciil. . . Diego Mendez, my son . . . . 171
CCCXC. . . Does a design against .... 307
CCCLXXI. . Does the honourable gentleman . . 295
CCXCVii. . Dryden began to write .... 241
ccxcix. . . Early in life he attached . . . .242
CCCLXXXIX. . Even then and there 307
CCCC. . . Even your expostulations . . . 315
CCLX. . . Every one is well aware . . . .216
CCLXXXIII. . Far as the greatness of his genius . . 232
CCCLXIV. . For, as Aristotle saith .... 290
LXXXVIII. . For nine years and more . . . .no
cxxxv. . . For ten days the army . . . .135
CCCLXXX. . Friends and fellow-soldiers . . .301
cxxiv. . . From his ship Qesar . . . .129
CCCLXXXVIII. Gentlemen, it is a most .... 306
ccvu. . . Gradually, after so many . . . .179
xcvi. . . Great trouble fell on all . . . .114
INDEX TO SELECTED PASSAGES.
335
No. of Exercise.
First Words.
Page.
CCCXCVII.
Had it pleased God to ...
313
LXXI. .
Hannibal being conquered
103
CXLVII. .
Hannibal marched from Spain .
143
CLXVII. .
Harold hastened by quick
*54
CLXXXIX.
Having advanced thus far . .
. 168
CXLVIII.
Having finished the German
J 43
CCCVIII.
He belonged to those thin
. 248
CLXXXIII.
He descended into the Forum .
. 164
CCLXXIX.
He felt that it would be .
. 228
CCCIII. .
He is gone, my friend
. 244
CCXIV. .
He issued from the palace
. isl
CCLXXI.
He said with great humility
223
CCLXVIII.
He thought that the people
222
CCXCIV. .
He was a man of singular force
2 39
CCLXXXV.
He was rash, but with
2 33
CCLXVI. .
Hippolytus issued from
22O
CCLXXXIX. .
His countenance never had
. 2 3 6
CLXIV. .
His influence over his men
!53
CCLXIV.
His success in this scheme
. 219
CCCLXXXIV. .
I am grieved, gentlemen .
303
ccccx. .
I am heartily sensible
322
CCCLXXXI.
I am not unaware
. 3oi
CCCLXXXVI. .
I am sensible that our happiness
304
CCCLXXIV.
I call that mind free ....
. 297
CCCCXVII.
I cannot let this night close
. 328
ccccxx.
I could have supported
330
CCCCIX. .
I covet rest neither for my friends
32i
CCCLXXXVII. .
I defy the noble lord
- 305
CCCLXXIII.
I have but one lamp ....
296
CCCLXXXIII. .
I have great hopes ....
303
cccxxxv.
I have often observed
. 267
CCCLX. .
I have often thought upon death
. 287
CCCCXII.
I know not when I have been .
- 324
CCCLXII.
I often apply this rule
. 288
CCLXXXII.
I purpose to write the history .
. 231
CCCXIII.
I say, then, that the hardships .
. 252
CCLVII.
213
cccxcv.
If I thought that our power
3 i f
cccxxx.
If it be true that the .
. 263
CCXXVI.
If the ardour, never great .
. 190
CCXCVI.
If the character of men
. 240
LXXXVI.
Imperator, milites hortatus
. io 9
CCL.
In a modern state ....
. 207
CCCXI.
251
CCLXIX.
222
CCXXXVI.
In far different plight . , .
196
336
INDEX TO SELECTED PASSAGES.
No. of Exercise. First Words. Page.
CCLin. . In such a time as this . . . . 210
CCXCii. . . Instead of a monarch .... 237
CLXXIII. . In the dead of night 158
CCXLIV. . . In the last days of Pope Eugenius . . 203
ccccv. . . In the various objects . . . .318
CLXXIV. . In the war with the Germans . . .158
evil. . . In the winter season 119
cxxix. . . In this almost hopeless danger . . . 132
CCLXXVII. . In this embarrassing situation . . .227
cccxn. . . It being so, then 252
xcv. . . It chanced that Persephone . . . 113
CCCLXXV. . It is a truth, Mr. Speaker . . . .297
ccxxxvin. . It is by means of familiar .... 198
CCCLVi. . It is constantly said 284
CCCLix. . It is difficult to think . . . .286
CCCLXIII. . It is noble to be capable . . . .289
CCLXXII. . It is not the purpose 224
ccccvin. . It is quite high time 320
CXLII. . It is related that the Romans . . .140
CLXix. . . It is said that Dionysius . . . .156
ccxc. . . It is said there might be . . . .236
cccxxix. . It is scarcely possible . . . 263 -
CCCLII. . . It is the curse of our species . . .280
CCCLXXVIII. . It is true, my lords 299
CCCXLVII. . It might very well be thought . . .276
ccvi. . . It suited not the wisdom . . . .178
ccxxxili. . It was now three of the clock . . . 195
CVI. . . King Porus in a battle . . . .119
cccxciv. . Laws must not only be made . . . 310
cccciv. . . Let us consider you then . . . .318
CCLXXXIV. . Literature was a neutral ... . . 232
CCLIV. . . Looking back upon the troubles . . 211
CLIII. . . Lucius chose L. Tarquitius . . .146
CLXXII. . . Lycurgus the founder . . . .157
LXVIII. . . Lycurgus was the wisest . . . . 102
ccxxv. . . Manners and institutions . . . .189
CCXii. . . Many authors, and among . . . 181
CCLXXVIII. . Many politicians of our time . . . 228
CCLXI. . . Meantime the tide was rising . . . 216
CLXI. . . Meanwhile Duke William . . . 151
CCCXLIII. . Men are apt enough 273
cccxxvi. . Men do always, but not always . . 261
CCCCXVi. . My dear friend, a dearth .... 327
cccxcviii. . My dear friend, I received . . .314
CCCCii. . . My dear sister, I am in high . . . 317
ccccxv. . My dear Walter 326
INDEX TO SELECTED PASSAGES.
337
No. of Exercise.
CCLVIII.
CCXCI. .
CLXXXV.
CCCLV. .
CCCCIII.
CCCLXXVI.
CCLXX. .
CXXXVII.
CCXIII. .
CXVIII. .
CCLXXXVI. .
CCCVI. .
CI.
LXXIX. .
CCCLXXII.
XCI.
ccx.
CCCXLII.
CLXXXIV.
CXC.
CCCXLV.
LXXXIII.
CXII.
CCCXLIX.
CCCXXXI.
LXXXII. .
CCXXXIV.
CCLXXIV.
LXXIV. .
CXIX.
CXCVIII.
CXCVII. .
CCCXXIII.
CCXIX. .
CXXIII. .
CCXVII. .
CXVII. .
LXXIII. .
CXXXII. .
LXXVII.
CCXXXIX.
CCXCIII.
ccxxir. .
CCCXLVI.
CCCLXXXII. .
CCCCXI. .
First Words.
Nature had destined Pompeius .
Never perhaps did any man
Night was now coming on
No Greek or Roman philosopher
No man carries further
' No, sir/ I replied, ' I am for liberty
No sooner had he thus
Not long after there yawned
Now their separate characters .
Now they knew at Rome .
Of his genius there is little
Of the outward life .
Of this bird Sophia ....
Of those that fought against
Officers, non-commissioned officers .
Old age, which renders
On receiving the intelligence
On the other hand ....
On the other side, the king's
On the Rhine had Napoleon
On the whole comparison .
Once after supper .
One of the officers of Artaxerxes
One of the strongest incitements
One very common ....
Only once in the year .
Our family had now made
Our shame stalks abroad .
Panic reigned . . . .
Papirius was encamped
Pitt came in to conduct
Pitt ceased to breathe
Poetry and music are things
Polyphemus, waking, roared
Pontius placed two spears
Prince Edward returned .
Pyrrhus was unwilling
Regulus was conquered by
Rome was at war ....
Samnites, concilio Etruscorum .
Scipio having assembled .
Shakespeare was the man .
She, admiring to hear
Silence is a privilege
Sir, does he suppose it ...
Sir I think I have been .
Page-
2I 4
237
I6 5
283
317
298
223
J 37
182
126
234
2 47
116
1 06
295
in
1 80
272
165
169
274
1 08
122
2 77
264
107
195
225
104
126
173
173
259
185
128
184
125
104
133
105
199
238
187
275
302
338
INDEX TO SELECTED PASSAGES.
No. of Exercise. first Words.
CLXii. . . Six miles from this celebrated .
CCLXII. . . So little did the Roman .
CCCLXXIX. . Society talks, by preference
cxxvi. . . Some of the wounded
ccxxx. , . Strange and delusive .
CCLXV. . . Such a step was too bold .
CCXLVII. . Such will be the impotent
CCCXV. . . Suppose, now, the day
xcni. . . That evening the general .
ccxi. . . That nothing is more fickle
CCCLI. . . That system of morality .
CCCXLI. . . The ambassador being present .
CXLI. . . The armies came to an
CCCX. . . The austere frugality
CLXXX. . The battle raged with great fury
CCCLiil. . The Brahmins assert
ccxxiv. . The captains of our day .
ccvui. . . The corpse was borne
ccxxxvn. . The division of the gold .
CCI. . . The duke was indeed
CLXXXVII. . The Emperor Caracalla .
CLIX. . . The Emperor Trajan
CCXLV. . . The Emperor, to whom .
CCCLXV. . The end of a man's life
CCXLVIII. . The English and Normans
cccxxvu. . The Epicurean school professes
CXLIV. . . The following year, Manlius
XCix. . . The frogs, living an easy free life
LXX. . . The Gauls were now besieging .
CCCLXX. . The highest orders in England .
cxciv. . . The house was full .
XC. . . The meeting of Senate
CCC. . . The memory of Pitt .
CCCCVii. . The mention of this man .
CCCXXI. . . The mere philosopher
CCLI. . . The most singular and striking .
LXXV. . . The news arrived at six o'clock
CCCLXVIII. . The old government of France .
CCCX vi. . . The old proverb holds true
CLii. . . The orator Domitius
CLXXXVI. . The people mourned bitterly .
CLXXIX. . The quinquereme was not .
CLXVI. . . The rioters seemed for a moment
CCLVI. . . The road, all down the long
CLVII. . . The Romans wanted to treat .
ecu. . . The safety of his soldiers .
Page.
I 5 2
217
300
130
193
219
205
254
IT2
181
279
272
139
250
162
281
188
179
197
J 75
167
149
203
291
206
261
141
"5
103
294
171
in
242
320
257
208
104
393
254
1 66
162
154
213
148
176
INDEX TO SELECTED PASSAGES.
339
No. of Exercise. First Words.
ccxxin. . The slaves of a Roman family .
cccxxxvii. . The soul after death takes
xcvii. . . The story runs that at Athens .
CCXLVL . . The town is most pleasantly
LXXXIV. . The Trojans issued from the city
CXiv. . . The two daughters of Servius .
CCXCV. . . The unhappy Louis XVI. .
CCXLIII. . The vigilant Peter the Headstrong
cccxxvin. . The wise man alone is free
ccxxxil. . The worst kind of government .
CCLXXX. . Their first complaints were
LXXVI. . . Then Hannibal crossed the
LXXXV. . . Then turning again to
CCCLXI. . There are two theories
CCCXLiv. . There are wonders in true
cccxvui. . There is a sort of delight .
LXVII.- . . There once lived in the city
CXL. . . There the council
ccxvi. . . There was an apartment .
ccxcvin. . There was one contemporary .
CLVIII. . . Thereupon the consul
CCCLXVII. . These are maxims so old .
cxci. . . These diversities in the form
LXXXIX. . They encountered severe storms
xcn. . . They were now about to fight .
LXXXVII. . This general, who gives .
CCLIX. . . This goal, it is true .
CCCLXXVII. . This government holds
cxv. . . This made Lucius Tarquin
cxxv. . . This tardy gratitude .
Xciv. . . Thothmes addressed .
CC. . . Those citizens who first .
CCCXX. . . Thou sayest men cannot .
CCCXXXiv. . Though it is scarcely possible .
CLXXI. . . Three of these people
CCCVII. . . Through the mist of calumny .
CCCV. . . Tiberius had nominated .
cxvi. . . Titus Manlius was the son
cv. . . To the spot where the prince .
Cxxvin. . To such language as this .
CCLXXXVII. . To whatever age they may belong
cccxxn. . Tragedy is thus defined .
LXXVIII. . Turn Tribuni ....
CCLXXXI. . Two centuries ago .
cxxxi. . . Two years later the two consuls
CL. . Violent dissensions breaking
Page.
1 88
268
114
204
108
123
239
202
262
I 94
22 9
105
I0 9
288
274
256
102
138
I8 4
2 4 I
149
292
l6 9
III
112
IIO
215
299
I2 4
130
"3
175
III
'57
247
246
124
us
13'
234
258
105
230
133
144
340
INDEX TO SELECTED PASSAGES.
No. of Exercise.
First Words.
Page.
CCCII. .
Voltaire's wits came to their
244
CLXXVIII.
Wallenstein had no suspicion .
. 161
CXCVI. .
Waving his dagger ....
. 172
CCCLIV. .
We all feel that our old .
. 282
CCCCXIII.
We are going to leave
325
LXXXI. .
We do not dwell here
. 107
CCCXCIX.
We have shared together .
3i5
ccxx.
We hear that another
. 186
CCXL. .
We must take men ....
200
cccxxv.
We see, too, that in the choice .
. 260
CCCXXXIX. .
Were it possible for you .
. 270
CXLVI.
What are the Alps ....
142
CCLXIII.
What do we look for ...
. 218
CCCXVII.
W 7 hat the religion of Greece
2 55
ex.
When a boar of huge size .
121
CLX.
When Alexander the Great
150
CLXVIII.
When Dio had seized
ICC
CLXX. .
When Francis I. of France
?
. I 5 6
CXLV. .
When Hannibal had arrived
141
CCCXLVIII. .
When I travelled I took .
277
CCCLVIII.
W T hen Socrates was building
. 285
CXLIII. .
When the battle had come
140
CCXLI. .
When the conqueror, having
201
CXXXIX.
When the Gauls approached
138
CXXXIV.
When Veii fell ....
135
CXXVII.
When Virginia died ....
131
CXCIX. .
W T hen we contemplate
. 174
ccv.
Whence it happens I know
177
CCXLII. .
Where was there ever such
201
CIV.
While Athens was governed
. 118
CXXXVIII.
While the Romans were besieging .
J 37
CCXVIII.
Whosoever makes war
. 185
CCCXIX.
Why should we ever
. 256
CCCLVII.
Will you go and gossip .
. 284
CCCXL. .
CCLV. .
With every power ....
With these discourses
. 271
212
CCLXXXVIII. .
Yet the secret of his power
235
CCCCVI. .
You are as yet too young .
319
CCCCXIV.
You are now embracing
. 326
CCCXCII.
You ascended the throne .
309
CCCXCI.
You will ask, gentlemen .
308
September, 1888.
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