O
LD
j
SHORT SAYINGS
OF
GKEAT MEN
WITH
HISTOEICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
BY
SAMUEL ARTHUR BENT, A.M.
Plato was asked if some saying of his would not be recorded.
" Wait until we become famous," he replied, " and then there
will be many."
Pereaut illi qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.
DONATUS.
Wer kann was Dummes, wer was Kluges denken,
Das nicht die Vorwelt schon gedacht?
Faust.
SECOND EDIT")N.
BOSTON
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY
1882
44'. S "3
COPYRIGHT, 1882,
BY JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY.
All rights reserved.
/
jFrankltn
RAND, AVERY, AND COMPANY,
BOSTON.
.
PEEFAOE.
OF some one of the many thousand brief and pith} 7 re-
marks which the great men and women of history have
uttered, generally without premeditation, yet stamped with
the seal of immortality, the question is often asked, " Who
said it ? When was it said ? Under what circumstances? '
These questions are to some extent answered in the follow-
ing pages. Curiosity, if not gratitude, would wish to fol-
low to their source words which have, during the centuries
since their first appearance, come repeatedly to man's aid
in the sudden emergencies wherein history repeats itself.
Many of them adorn the page of the historian, giving to
narrative its local color, and lending to descriptions of char-
acter the air and dignity of authenticity. Research may,
therefore, pay the debt of history by relieving such sayings
of all adventitious circumstance, by removing those which
belong to history from the domain of tradition, and rele-
gating others to the abode of myth. Strangest of the fictions
of history are the historic mots which have made Julian a
blasphemer, Charles IX. a murderer, and Louis XIII. a mon-
ster. To banish calumny from serious literature is a service
to truth. Only the romantic element of history will thereby
111
IV PREFACE.
suffer. The weeds and vines which gave a parasitic charm
to the ruins of Rome hastened their decay : they were there-
fore removed.
A Latin poet has asserted that there was no saying which
had not been already said. In later times, Henry IV. will
be surprised to know that Agesilaus preceded him in that
royal game of romps which both kings thought only a father
could appreciate. The poet Rogers was not the first to pre-
fer the art of forgetting to that of memory ; and Talleyrand
has reason to invoke the curse of Donatus, " Perish the men
who said our good things before us ! ' No one better than
Fournier, in his "Esprit dans 1'Histoire," has plucked the
stolen plumage from the daw. I cannot acknowledge my
obligations to this iconoclast of bons mots without borrowing
Madame du Deffand's judgment of Montesquieu's "Esprit
des Lois," that his "Wit in History" should be called
"Wit on History."
In collecting true and notable sayings, and happy thoughts
flashed in the heat of controversy or the war of wit, I have
taken no account of what men have written in books, save
as such written words illustrate their own or others' speech ;
nor will all the sayings of ancient or modern times be in-
cluded in five hundred pages. Such a compilation would be
as impossible as to bring into one volume every historic
event which has stirred man to heroic utterance, or every
idea with which the sublime and the beautiful have inspired
the scholar and the poet. Too liberal an intention has not
been given to the title, "Great Men." Those who remem-
o '
ber Lysauder's maxim, that, " where the lion's skin fails to
PREFACE.
reach, it must be pieced out with the fox's," may ask if it
is the lion's robe which covers both Julius Caesar and Sir
Boyle Roche. If so, they have forgotten that Goethe did
not confine his question to the clever things which one cen-
tury borrows from another, even dulness has its place :
" Who can think wise or stupid things at all,
That were not thought already in the past ? "
BOSTON, Aug. 1, 1882.
AUTHOES OF SAYINGS.
PAGE
ADAMS, JOHN 1, 554
ADAMS, J. Q 2
ADDISON 2
184
508
AGESILAUS II 3,279
AGIS II 4, 5
AGIS IV 5
AGRIPPINA 422
ALARIC 24
ALBOUYS 495
ALCIBIADES 5
D'ALEMBERT G
D'ALENCON, Due 338
ALEXANDER THE GREAT . . 7
ALEXANDER 1 5, 11, 522
ALFONSO X 12
ALFRED THE GREAT .... 351
ALONSO OF ARAGON .... 466
ALVA 13,59
ALVANLEY, LORD 503
AMBROSE, ST 14
AMES, FISHER 15
AN ACH ARSIS 508, 509
ANAXAGORAS 16
ANDRE, MAJOR 267
ANGUS, EARL OF 16
AXHALT-DESSAU, L. VON . . 16
AN.IOU, CHARLES OF .... 278
ANTAGORAS 17
ANTIGONUS I. ... 17, 163, 541
ANTIGONUS II 18
APELLES 18
PAGE
APPLETON, T. G 19
AQUINAS, ST. T 19
ARAGON, PETER OF .... 278
ARBUTHNOT 567
ARCHESTRATUS 9
ARCHIDAMUS III 20
ARCHIMEDES 20
D' ARGENSON, COMTE , . . 21 , 565
D'ARGENSON, MME 22
ARIOSTO 207
ARISTIDES ........ 22
ARISTOTLE 22
ARNAUD, ABBOT 121
D'ARNAUD, BACULARD . . . 234
ARNAULD, A 65
ARNOUD, PERE 514
ARNOULD, SOPHIE 23
ASHLEY, LORD 17
ATHENODORUS 28
ATTILA 24
D'AUDRIFFET-PASQUIER ... 26
AUGEREAU 26
AURELIUS, MARCUS .... 252
AUGUSTUS 24, 532
D'AUTEROCHES, COMTE . . 391, 408
D'AZEGLIO, MASSIMO .... 539
BACON, FRANCIS 28
BACON, SIR N 30
BAILLY 31, 387
BANCAL 495
BARBAROUX 32, 67
BABCA 270
vii
Vlll
AUTHORS OF SAYINGS.
PAGE
BARERE 33, 406
BARNAVE 34
BARRAS 496
BARRE, COL 36
BART, JEAN 36
BASSOMPIERRE 36
BATBIE 37
BATH, MARQUIS OF .... 558
BAUDIN, A 32
BAWR, MME. DE 67
BAYARD, CHEVALIER .... 37
BAZIRE 39
BEACONSFIELD, EARL OF, 39, 68, 71,
128, 185, 218, 251, 438, 542, 566.
BEAUCLERK, T 292
BECKET, THOMAS A .... 49
BEECHER, H. W 49
BEETHOVEN 50
BELISARIUS 30
BENTIVOGLIO, CARDINAL . . 381
BENTLEY, RICHARD .... 51
BERNARDIN DE ST.-PIERRE . 495
BERNIS, CARDINAL DE . . . 52
BERRYER 52, 350, 389
BETTERTON, T 53
BEUGNOT, COUNT 355
BEZA, THEODORE DE . . . . 555
BIAS 53,507,523
BIEVRE, MARQUIS DE. . . . 54
BIRON, Due DE 54
BISMARCK 55, 168, 526
BITONTE, BISHOP OF .... 121
BLESSINGTON, LADY .... 63
BLOIS, BISHOP OF 544
BLOMFIELD, BISHOP .... 521
BOERNE 388
BOILEAU 64, 158
BOLINGBROKE, LORD .... 66
BONAPARTE, CHARLES ... 67
BONIFACE VIII 68
BORGIA, CAESAR 221
BOSQUET, GEN 68
BOSSUET 68, 211, 342
BOURDALOUE 70
PAGE
BOUVARD, DR 522
BRANDENBURG, ALBERT OF . 424
BRENNUS 70
BRESSE, COMTE DE .... 3ot>
BKIL.GEWATER, LORD .... 195
BRIGHT, JOHN 47, 70
BRISSOT 71
BRISTOL, LORD 453
BROUGHAM, LORD . . . . 27, 72
BRUMMELL, "BEAU" ... 74
BRUTUS, MARCUS 96
BUFFON 74
BULLER, JUSTICE 502
BURGER 76
BURGH LEY, LORD 76
BURGUNDY, DUKE OF .... 76
BURGUNDY, DUCHESS OF . . 77
BURKE, E., 77, 288, 410, 427, 447, 531,
535, 508, 569.
BURR, A 86
BUSBY, DR 114
BYRON, LORD ... 87, 396, 465
OESAR, JULIUS ... 89, 106, 143
CALIGULA 96, 484, 532
CALONNE 97
CAMBRONNE 423
CAMDEN, LORD 226
CANNING 73,97,432
CARACCIOLI 545
CARACTACUS 99
CARLYLE, T 99, 487
CARNOT 495,522,523
CAROLINE MATILDA .... 100
CASTLEREAGH, LORD .... 101
CATHERINE II 93, 102
CATHERINE OF A R AGON . . 102
CATHERINE DE MEDICI . . . 103
CATINAT 163,233
CATO 103
CAVOUR 107, 574
CHAILLON 495
CHAMBORD, COMTE DE . . . 108
CHAMFORT 109, 380, 556
AUTHORS OF SAYINGS.
IX
PAGE
CHARLES 1 31, 111
CHARLES II 112
CHARLES V., EMPEROR, 105, 117,
223, 271, 398.
CHARLES V. (FRANCE) . . . 430
CHARLES IX. " ... 119
CHARLES X. " . 122, 343
CHARLES XII. (SWEDEN), 123, 404,
435, 559.
CHARLES ALBERT 124
CHATEAUBRIAND . . 125, 523, 561
CHATHAM, LORD . . . 126, 153
CHEKE, SIR JOHN 332
CHENIER, A 129
CHESTERFIELD, LORD, 75, 127, 130,
379, 526.
CHILO 137, 508
CHOATE, RUFUS 138
CHRISTIAN OF BRUNSWICK . 200
CHRISTINA, QUEEN .... 140
CICERO . 8, 15, 52, 105, 141, 511, 532
CINEAS 454
CLAUDIUS, APPIUS 415
CLAY, HENRY 149
CLEMENT 1 150
CLEMENT VII 150
CLEMENT XIV. ...... 150
CLEOBULINE 151
CLEOBULUS . . . .151, 356, 508
CLERMONT-TONNERRE, Due DE, 325
CLOTAIRE 1 151
CLOUGH, A. H 100
CLOVIS 1 152
COBDEN, R 220
COKE, SIR E 86, 153
COLERIDGE, S. T., 154, 386, 403, 515,
526.
COLIGNY 119
CONDE, PRINCE DE .... 157
CONDE, PRINCE DE (THE GREAT), 37,
70, 157, 163.
CONDORCET 244
CONFUCIUS 158, 508
CONSTANT, B. ...... 346
PAGE
CONST ANTINE THE GREAT . . 1(50
CONSTANTINK, GRAND DUKE . 161
CONSTANTIUS 163
CORDAY, CHARLOTTE. . . . 161
CORNELIA 162
CORNUEL, MME. DE . . . . 163
CORREGGIO 164
CORTEZ 14
COWLEY, LORD 57
CRANMER, ARCHBISHOP . . . 165
CREWE, SIR R 165
CRILLON 152
CRITTENDEN, J. J. . . 179, 180
CROMWELL .... 166, 204, 553
CRUGER 78
CUMBERLAND, BISHOP . . . 169
CURRAN, J. P., 169,427,464,511,513
DANTON 172
DARC, JEANNE 177
DAVID 178,462
DECATUR, COM 179
DEFFAND, MME. DU . . 180, 213
DEMADES 182, 442
DEMOCRITUS 189
DEMONAX 28, 158, 182
DEMOSTHENES . . . 173, 183, 213
DENMAN, LORD 184
DENNIS, JOHN 184
DE QUINCEY, T 100
DERBY, EARL OF ... 185, 276
DESAIX 186
DESMOULINS, CAMILLE, 122, 180, 187,
535.
DEWITT 130
DIDEROT . . . 102, 188, 214, 469
DIOCLETIAN 118
DIOGENES 104, 188, 379
DIONYSIUS 190
Dix, JOHN A 190
DRUSUS, M. L 190
DUBOIS, CARDINAL .... 191
DUCLOS 368
Ducos 191
AUTHORS OF SAYINGS.
PAGE
DUDLEY, LORD .... 383, 503
DUFOCE 72
DUFRESXY 298
DUGOMMIER, GEN 496
DUMOURIEZ 192
DUPIN 193
EDGE WORTH, ABBE .... 353
EDWARD III 194
EGLINTOUNE, EARL OF ... 313
ELDON, LORD .... 73, 195, 293
ELIOT, SIR HUGH 238
ELISABETH, MME 408
ELIZABETH, QUEEN . . 195, 455
ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA . . 199
ELLENBOROUGH, LORD . . . 200
EMERSON, R. W 99, 139
D'ENGHIEN, Due 202
EPAMIXONDAS 4, 271
D'EPERNON, Due 204
EPICURUS 551
ERASMUS 204, 397, 398
ERIGENA 205
ERMELAND, BISHOP OF ... 238
ERSKIXE, LORD, 143, 192, 206, 221,
433.
ESSEX, EARL OF 510
D'ESTE, CARDINAL .... 207
D'ESTREES, CARDINAL . . . 343
ETEOCLES 9
EUCLID 208
EUGENIE, EMPRESS .... 208
FAILLY, GEN. DE 109
FAYORIXUS 209
F AYR AS, MARQUIS DE . . . 368
FAYRE, JULES ... 61, 209, 472
FEXELON 210, 484
FEUDIXAXD 1 372
FERDINAND II 267
FERRY, JULES 212
FERTE, MARSHAL DE LA . . 486
FIESCO 89
FLETCHER OF SALTOUN . . . 481
PAGE
FONTENELLE . . .66, 212, 322, 551
FOOTE, SAMUEL 214
FOUCHE 123, 202, 217
Fox, C. J., 81, 205, 218, 447, 515, 561
FRANCIS I. ... 12, 38, 221, 291
FRANCIS II 119
FRANCIS II., EMPEROR . 225, 406
FRAXCIS JOSEPH 57
FRANCIS, SIR P 88
FRANKLIN, B 189, 225
FREDERICK 1 229
FREDERICK III 230
FREDERICK THE GREAT, 155, 181,
189, 218, 231, 252, 302, 315, 345,
390.
FREDERICK, ELECTOR . . . 199
FREDERICK WILLIAM I. . . 336
FRERE, HOOKHAM . . . 157, 239
FREUNDSBERG, G. VON . . . 359
FUSELI 239
GAINSBOROUGH, T 240
GALIANI, ABBE .... 240, 283
GALILEO 241
GALLITZIN, PRINCE .... 204
GAMBETTA . 173, 178, 242, 418, 529
GARFIELD, J. A 244
GARRICK 259
GARTH, DR 245
GENLIS, MME. DE 64
GEXTIL 495
GEOFFRIN, MME. DE . . . . 245
GEORGE 1 246, 248
GEORGE II 246, 248, 334
GEORGE III 113, 247
GEORGE IV 248
GLADSTONE, W. E., 63, 101, 249, 438,
471.
GOETHE, 58, 69, 75, 88, 100, 138, 208,
252, 320, 328, 381, 384, 394, 403, 405,
432, 474, 480, 508, 530, 551.
GOLDSMITH, OLIVER, 259, 313, 314,
318.
GORDON OF GLENBUCKET . . 38
AUTHORS OF SAYINGS.
XI
PAGE
GORTSCHAKOFF 2G1
GOURGUES, D. DE 194
GRANT, U. S 2G1
GRATTAN, H. . . 154, 2G3, 312, 561
GREGORY 1 2G3
GREGORY VII 02
GRETRY 2G4
GRIMM, BARON 75
GUATEMOZIN 2G5
GUISE, Due DE 119
GUIZOT 2G5
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS . . . 2GG
HADRIAN 267, 336
HALE, NATHAN 2G7
HALIFAX, VISCOUNT .... 113
HALL, ROBERT, 15, 86, 268, 3G5,
552.
HAMMOND, J. H 489
HAMPDEN, JOHN 166
HANDEL 269
HANNIBAL 106, 270
HARDINGE, GEORGE .... 35
HARLAY, ARCHBISHOP . . . 21,1
HARRISON, W. H 463
HAUSSMANN, BARON .... 227
HAYES, R. B 271
HAZLITT, WILLIAM .... 325
HEINE 55, 253, 272
HENAULT, PRESIDENT . . . 182
HENRY II 49
HENRY VIII. . . . 223,273,396
HENRY IV. (FRANCE), 95, 152, 167,
221, 274, 458.
HENRY V., EMPEROR. . . . 145
HENRY, PATRICK .... 149, 280
D'HERBOIS, COLLOT .... 473
HOBBES 276
HOLLAND, LORD 483
HOOK, THEODORE 280
HOPE, BERESFORD 44
D'HOUDETOT, MME 324
HUGO, VICTOR, 225, 260, 281, 511, 554
Huss, JOHN 284
PAGE
INNOCENT XII 211
ISABELLA, QUEEN 456
ISNARD Ill
JACKSON, ANDREW. . . .92, 284
JAMES I. ... 196, 285, 480, 5i':;
JAMES II 2<S6
JAMES V 198
JEFFERSON, THOMAS . . .32, 287
JEKYLL, JOSEPH . . 202, 288, 372
JERROLD, DOUGLAS .... 289
JERVIS, CHIEF JUSTICE . . . 259
JOHN II 291
JOHN XII 232
JOHN, ELECTOR 230
JOHNSON, DR., 23, 64, 69, 75, 83, 86,
105, 137, 164, 208, 215, 220, 221,
231, 259, 260, 291, 320, 363, 373,
444, 481, 488, 532, 557, 558.
JONES\PAUL 314
JOSEPH II 102, 314, 469
JOSEPHINE 410
JUGURTHA 265
JULIAN THE APOSTATE . . 117, 316
JULIUS II. .....'... 317
JULIUS III .431
JUNOT 317
JUSTINIAN 317
KAMES, LORD 318
KARR, ALPHONSE .... 318, 526
KEATS 319
KELL, DEPUTY 463
KNELLER, SIR G 319
KOSCIUSKO 326, 424, 564
KOSSUTH 282
LABERIUS 148
LACORDAIRE . . .91, 169, 319, 559
LA FAYETTE .... 323, 497, 561
LA FAYETTE, MME. DE . . . 487
LA FONTAINE 321
LA HARPE 485
LALANDE, M. DE 512
Xll
AUTHORS OF SAYINGS.
PAGE
LAMARTINE 322, 530
LAMB, CHARLES 324
LA MEILLERAYE, MME. DE . 325
LAMENNAIS 319, 419
LANGRISHE, SIR H. . . . .. 82
LANNES 117, 401
LANSDOWNE, LORD .... 505
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD . . 329, 529
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD-LIAN . 352, 391
LA ROCHEJAQUELIN .... 221
LASKER 58
LATLMER, BISHOP 325
LAUDERDALE, LORD .... 523
LAURAGUAIS, COMTE DE . . 545
LAVICOMTERIE 495
LAWRENCE, CAPT 326
LAYARD, A. H 327
LEBCEUF, MARSHAL .... 209
LECARO, F. M 343
LEE, HENRY 561
LEHNERT 395
LEIBNITZ 396
L'ENCLOS, N. DE 327
LENTHALL, SPEAKER .... 112
LEO X 205, 329
LEONIDAS 329
LEOPOLD, ARCHDUKE .... 332
LESCZINSKA, MARIE .... 330
LE TELLIER, ARCHBISHOP . . 286
LEVIS, Due DE 331
LEWIS, SIR G C 331
LioARirs 96
LIGNE, PRINCE DE 332
LINCOLN, A 333
LINGUET 332
LITTRE 415
Lons XI 335
Louis XII 13, 336
Louis XIII 337
Louis XIV. . 36, 163, 338, 355, 377
Louis XV., 110, 195, 351, 449, 450, 546
Louis XVI 73, 350, 404
Louis XVIII 222, 354
Louis (DAUPHIN) 353
PAGE
Louis (PRINCE IMPERIAL) . . 417
Louis PHILIPPE 1 356, 522
LOUISA, QUEEN 402
LOUGHBOROUGH, LORD . . . 113
LOWNDES, WILLIAM .... 131
LUCULLUS, L 357
LUTHER . 204, 253, 270, 358, 372, 396
LUTTRELL, II 360
LUXEMBOURG, MARSHAL . . 361
LYCURGUS 362
LYNDHURST, LORD .... 482
LYSANDER 9, 362
LYTTELTON, LORD 363
LYTTON, LORD 363
MABLY, ABBE 77
MACAULAY, LORD 363
MACKINTOSH, SIR J. . . 263, 364
MACMAHON, MARSHAL . 109, 365
MAINE, Due DE 347
MAINTENON, MME. DE, 349, 366, 377
MALEBRANCHE 549
MALESHERBES 367
MALHERBE 368
MANCINI, MARIA 369
MANNING, Gov 489
MANSFIELD, LORD . . . 370, 466
MARAT 270, 373
MARCIAX 24
MARCY, W. L 288
MARIA THERESA 356
MARIE ANTOINETTE . 35, 315, 375
MARION, FRANCIS 39
MARIUS, CAIUS .... 143, 376
MARMONTEL 240
MARY, QUEEN 419
MASSILLON . . . 235, 350, 377, 508
MASSIEU 254
MATHER, COTTON 226
MAUPERTUIS .... 75, 377, 423
MAURY, ABBE 378
MAXIMILIAN 1 360
MAYNARD, SIR J 379
MAZARIN, CARDINAL, 132,250,350,380
AUTHORS OF SAYINGS.
xni
PAGE
M/KCENAS 437
MELANCHTHON 437
MENAGE 153
METTERNICH 261, 381
MIALL, EDWARD 47
MICHAEL ANGELO 383
MIGNARD 347
MILLAUD 58
MILLICENT, SIR J 297
MILLER, COL. J 326
MILO 143
MILTON, JOHN 385
MIKABEAU, 36, 89, 228, 349, 376, 386,
494, 505, 522.
MlRABEAU, VlCOMTE DE . . 390
MOHAMMED 275,393
MOLIERE 394
MOLTKE 395
MONTALEMBERT 320
MONTCALM 334
MONTESQUIEU 396
MONTEZUMA 187
MONTMORENCY, CONST. DE . 349
MOORE, T 396, 429
MORE, SIR T 397
MORTON, EARL OF .... 117
MOTLEY, J. L 19
MOUNTAIN, BISHOP .... 398
MURAT 349,425
NAPIER, SIR CHARLES . 93, 94
NAPOLEON L, 5, 8, 11, 12, 15, 51, 60,
90, 112, 152, 161, 164, 167, 177,
186, 198, 200, 203, 204, 218, 222,
225, 232, 233, 252, 254, 258, 267,
270, 271, 287, 302, 318, 336, 348,
350, 368, 377, 382, 389, 391, 398,
418, 438, 488, 496, 520, 523, 564,
565.
NAPOLEON III. ... 57, 282, 400
NAPOLEON, PRINCE (JEROME) 193
NASH, "BEAU" 395
NASSAU, MAURICE OF ... 271
NECKER 388,412
PAGE
NELSON, LORD .... 400, 419
NERO 421, 450
NEWCASTLE, DUKE OF ... 126
NEWTON, SIR 1 422
NEY, MARSHAL 2, 4i';i
NICHOLAS 1 90, 425
NICOLE 259
NORBURY, LORD . . . 154, 426
NORTH, LORD 427
NORTHCOTE, JAMES . 240, 428, 440
O'CONNELL, D. . . . 40, 73, 429
OLLIVIER, E 209, 408
OMAR, CALIPH 429
D'ORLEANS, REGENT . . 430, 545
D'ORLEANS, Due (EGALITE),431,495
ORMOND, DUKE OF .... 230
D'OllTHEZ, VlCQMTE .... 121
OVID 511
OXENSTIERN 431
PAGANEL 495
PALAFOX 94
PALMERSTON, LORD . . 142, 432
PANAT, CHEVALIER DE . . . 521
PAOLI 67
PARR, DR 208, 271, 432
PAUL III * 384
PAUL IV 69
PAUL, ARCHDUKE 332
PAULET, SIR A 25
PAULUS, ^EMILIUS 433
PEDRO II 284
PEEL, SIR R 98, 433
PEMBROKE, EARL OF . . . . 313
PENN, WILLIAM . . . 114, 434
PERDICCAS 8
PERICLES 434
PERRY, O. H 326
PESTEL, COUNT 435
PF.TER THE GREAT ... 9, 435
PETER III 5
PETERBOROUGH, LORD . . . 133
PEYRAT . 243
AUTHORS OF SAYINGS.
PAGE
PHILIP OF MACEDON ... 8, 436
PHILIP II 118, 250, 438
PHILIP IV 224
PHILIP AUGUSTUS 457
PHILLIPS, WENDELL . 283, 407, 439
PHILISKUS 385
PHOCION 112,435,441
PHOCION, "WIFE OF .... 163
PlCO DE LA MlRANDOLA . . 504
PIGOTT, SIR A 490
PlNCKNEY, C. C 442
PlRON 443
PlTTACUS 271, 508
PITT, WILLIAM .... 220, 445
Pius VII 404
Pius IX 82, 212, 346
PLATO .... 189, 208, 379, 447
PLINY (THE ELDER) .... 486
PLINY (THE YOUNGER) . 143, 145
PLUNKET, LORD 448
POLIGNAC, ABBE DE . . . . 343
POMPADOUR, MME. DE . . . 449
POMPEY THE GREAT . . .66, 531
PONIATOWSKI 424
POPE, A 75, 450, 488, 499
POPHAM, SPEAKER .... 521
PORSON, DR 220, 452
PORUS 453
POWELL, SIR J 86
PREFELN, G. DE 388
PULCHER, CLAUDIUS .... 106
PYM, JOHN 453
PYRRHUS 106, 454
PYTHAGORAS 454
PYTHEAS 17
RABELAIS 28, 277
RALEIGH, SIR W 455
RAMEAU 368
RATCLIFFE, SIR E 455
REYNOLDS, SIR J. . . . 312, 456
RICASOLI 418
RICHARD 1 275,457
RICHELIEU, CARDINAL . . . 458
PAGE
RIVAROL . . 217, 234, 259, 390, 460
ROBESPIERRE . 217, 244, 462, 496
ROBINSON, SPEAKER .... 559
ROCHE, SIR B. . . . 44, 290, 463
ROCHESTER, EARL OF ... 287
ROE, SIR THOMAS 426
ROGERS, SAMUEL, 73, 81, 220, 361,
414, 464, 492, 499.
ROHAN, CHEVALIER DE . . . 544
ROLAND, MME. ... 32, 110, 466
ROLAND, M 4C8
ROUHER 468
ROUSSEAU, J. J. . . 210, 265, 468
ROYER-COLLARD .... 52, 469
RUDOLF 1 470
RUMBOLD, R 521
RUSSELL, EARL 47, 471
ST. BERNARD 51, 69
ST. REMI 152
SABLIERE, MME. DE . . . . 322
SAINT-ANDRE, J.-B 495
SAINTE-BEUVE 472
SAINT-JUST .... 173, 180, 473
SAINT-SIMON 474
SALES, ST. F. DE 211
SALVANDY, COMTE DE . . . 123
SAXE, MARSHAL 474
SAXE-WEIMAR, B. VON . 200, 535
SCARRON 475
SCHILLER 400
SCHLEIERMACHER 476
SCHWENDI, L. VON . . . 145, 173
SCIPIO AFRICANUS . . 90, 392, 476
SCOPAS 19
SCOTT, SIR W. . . . 66, 116, 477
SEBASTIANI, MARSHAL . . . 477
SELDEN, JOHN, 209, 224, 299, 431, 478
SELWYN, GEORGE .... 85, 482
SENECA . . . 131, 191, 384, 476, 483
SEVERUS, SEPTIMIUS .... 384
SEVIGNE, MME. DE . . 400, 485
SEWARD, W. H 489
SHAFTESBURY, LORD .... 114
AUTHORS OF SAYINGS.
xv
PAGE
SHERBROOKE, LORD .... 46
SHERIDAN, R. B. . 39, 445, 489, 544
SIDNEY, A 385, 492
SIDNEY, SIR PHILIP .... 493
SIEYES 387,487,494
SIGISMUND, EMPEROR . . . 231
SIMON, JULES 418
SIMONIDES 487
SIXTUS V 498
SMITH, JAMES 498
SMITH, SYDNEY, 73, 206, 295, 298,
300, 327, 364, 499, 564.
SOANEN, BISHOP 505
SOBIESKI 93
SOCRATES, 51, 159, 210, 254, 379, 433,
488, 506, 526.
SOLON 27,384,507
SOPHIA CHARLOTTE . . . . 396
SOPHOCLES 509
SOULT, MARSHAL 564
SOUTHEY, R 157
STAEL, MME. DE, 12, 141, 406, 510, 523
STAIR, LORD 345
STARK, GEN 513
SULLA 60, 89
SULLY, Due DE . . . . 277, 279
SUMNER, C 333, 489
Suw ARROW 93, 387
SWIFT, DEAN c . . . 135, 513
SYMONDS, REV. S 479
TALLEYRAND, 7, 15, 101, 125, 191,
201, 202, 203, 217, 327, 332, 381,
382, 389, 390, 400, 461, 465, 478,
492, 512, 516, 526, 527, 545, 562.
TANEY, R. B 370
TATNALL, J 523
TAYLOR, GEN 180
TESSE, MME. DE 513
THALES 138, 360, 507
THEANO 337, 547
THEMISTOCLES . . . 103, 465, 524
THEODORA 200
THIERS . . 11,39,57,243,244,525
PAGE
THURLOW, LORD . . 154, 530, 568
TIBERIUS 98, 450, 531
TIGRANES 358
TILLOTSON, ARCHBISHOP . . 58
TILLY 409
TIMON 6, 254
TlMOTHEUS 533
TITUS 533
TOOKE, II 5:34
TOWNSHEND, C 534
TOWNSHEND, MARQUIS . . . 535
TRIVULCE, MARSHAL .... 173
TRUDAINE 129
TURGOT .... 218, 228, 431, 501
TURENNE . 93, 535
VANE, SIR H. 349
VAUGELAS 254
VERGNIAUD .... 162, 441, 535
VERNET, J 457
VERTOT, ABBE 537
VESPASIAN 355, 537
VICTOR EMMANUEL II., 90, 315, 365,
417, 538, 559.
VILLARS, MARSHAL .... 540
VILLARS, MME 542
VILLEROI, MARSHAL .... 343
VIRCHOW, PROFESSOR ... 61
VITELLIUS 543
VlVONNE, DUG DE 343
VOLTAIRE, 10, 58, 66, 75, 181, 205,
210, 213, 232, 248, 269, 276, 297,
353, 357, 380, 386, 390, 395, 426,
447, 469, 470, 485, 486, 497, 540,
543.
WALLENSTEIN 541
WALLER, E 85, 555
WALPOLE, H. . 114, 433, 487, 556
WALPOLE, SIR R. . . . 274, 557
WARBURTON, BISHOP . . . 558
WASHINGTON, GEORGE . 539, 559
WEBSTER, DANIEL, 1, 149, 260, 425,
439, 454, 562.
XVI
AUTHORS OF SAYINGS.
PAGE
WELLINGTON, DUKE OF, 391, 447,
471, 564.
WETHERELL, SIR C 567
WHATELY, ARCHBISHOP . . 567
WlLBERFORCE, WlLLIAM . . 447
WILKES, JOHN . 389, 390, 568, 574
WILKINS, BISHOP 543
WILKINS, SERJEANT .... 297
WILLIAM 1 94, 569
WILLIAM III 167, 570
WILLIAM IV 571
WILLIAM OF ORANGE . . . 571
WINDHAM, WILLIAM, 220, 364, 445
WlNKELRIED, A. VON . . . 536
WlNTHROP, R. C,
WOLCOTT, DR. .'.
WOLFE, GEN . . J|
WOLSEY,
WORDSWORTH,
WOTTON, SIR H.
. . J . . 57
IIC VON . 22
PAGE
. . 179
. . 26
. . 334
. . 572
. 78,573
573
230
WURTEMBERG, ULRIC
XERXES THE GREAT .... 574
YOUNG, DR. E 447
ZAMOYSKI, JAN 525
ZANGIACOMI 495
ZEUXIS 575
\
SHOET SAYINGS OP GEEAT MEN,
JOHN ADAMS.
[One of the most prominent advocates of the American War of
Independence ; born in Braintree, Mass., Oct. 19, 1735 ; graduated
from Harvard College ; member of the first Continental Congress,
of the committee to prepare the Declaration of Independence ; Com-
missioner to France, 1777 ; Commissioner to England, 1782, and Min-
ister, 1785 ; Vice-president, 1789-1797 ; President of the United States,
1797-1801 ; died July 4, 1826.]
Sink or swim, live or die.
In a eulogy upon Adams and Jefferson, Aug. 2, 1826, Daniel
Webster introduced a speech, supposed to have been made by
Mr. Adams in favor of the adoption of the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, with the words, " Sink or swim, live or die, survive or
perish, I give my heart and my hand to this vote." The expres-
sion was derived from the record of a conversation between Mr.
Adams and Jonathan Sewall in 1774 : " I answered that the die
was now cast; I had passed the Rubicon. Sink or swim, live
or die, survive or perish with my country, was my unalterable
determination ! " Mr. Webster's imaginary speech closed with
the words, " Independence now, and independence forever ! "
Being roused by the discharge of cannon 011 the morning of the
last day of his life, President Adams asked the cause ; when told'
that it was Independence Day, he murmured, "Independence
forever ! " He had on the 30th of June given those words in
answer to a request for a toast to be offered in his name on the
following 4th of July. He was asked if he would add nothing
v to it : " Not one word," was his reply. Life of John Adams, by
J. Q. ADAMS.
1
JOSEPH ADDISON.
In a letter to Mrs. Adams, July 3, 1776, Mr. Adams spoke of
the passage of the resolution on the previous day in favor of
American Independence, the Declaration itself not being agreed
to until the 4th. <; The second day of July, 1776, will be the
most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt
to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations
as the great anniversary festival."
The last words of President Adams were, " Thomas Jefferson
still survives." His successor in the presidential office had
already died on the morning of that day. The last words of
t, v
John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States, who
was struck with paralysis in the House of Representatives, Feb.
21, 1S48, were, " This is the last of earth ! I am content."
JOSEPH ADDISOX.
[An English poet and essayist, born in Wiltshire, May 1, 1672;
educated at Oxford; under-secretary of state, 1705; entered Parlia-
ment, 1708; commenced writing for the " Tatler," 1709, and " Spec-
tator," 1711; chief secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,
member of the Board of Trade, 1715; married the dowager-countess
of "Warwick, 1716; one of the principal secretaries of state, 1717; died
June 17, 1719, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.]
I have sent for you that you may see how a Christian
can die.
Shortly before his death, to his step-son, Lord "Warwick, who
was a young man of irregular life. " What effect this interview
had," says Johnson, "I know not: he likewise died himself in
a short time." Life.
" There taught us how to live; and (oh! too high
. The price for knowledge) taught us how to die."
TICKELL: On the Death of Addison.
Marshal Xey exclaimed to the handful of men with whom he
dashed upon the enemy at the close of the battle of Waterloo,
" Come and see how a marshal of France can die ! ' ( Vencz voir
comment meurt un martclial de France /)
Once when a lady complained to Addison that he took but
little part in conversation, he replied, " Madam, I have but nine-
AGESILAUS II.
pence in ready money, but I can draw for a thousand pounds."
BOSWELL'S Johnson, 1773. Lady Mary Montague, however,
declared him to be " the best company in the world ; " but Pope's
testimony confines the " Spectator's " agreeability to his friends :
before strangers he maintained a stiff silence.
J s>
AGESILAUS II.
[One of -the most distinguished of the Spartan kings, ascended
the throne 398 B.C.; commanded an expedition to Persia, but was
called home about 394; saved Sparta when threatened by Epammon-
das, 3G2; died about 301.]
I have heard the nightingale herself.
When told of a man who imitated the nightingale to perfec-
tion. PLUTARCH : Life.
Being asked which was the better virtue, valor or justice, he
replied, " Unsupported by justice, valor is good for nothing; and
if all men were just, there would be no need of valor." Ibid.
When the physician Menecrates, who, from his cure of desper-
ate cases, was called Jupiter, addressed him a letter, "Menecrates
Jupiter to King Agesilaus, health," the Spartan returned a laconic
answer: "King Agesilaus to Menecrates, his senses." -Ibid.
Upon his arrival in Egypt, where he had taken a command
under Tachos, his small stature and mean attire made the Egyp-
tians declare the fable to be true that " the mountain had brought
O
forth a mouse ; " to which the king replied, " They will find me
a lion by and by." ATHEX/EUS, quoted by PLUTARCH: Life.
Observing that a certain malefactor bore torture with remark-
able firmness, he said, " What a great rogue he must be, whose
courage and constancy are bestowed on crime alone ! "
When asked what boys should learn, he replied, " That which
they will use when men." - -PLUTARCH : Laconic Apothegms.
From this course of life, we reap liberty.
To one who wondered at the poor attire and fare of the Spar-
tans. When asked why they wore their hair long, he replied,
"Because of all personal ornaments it costs the least." Having
kept at a distance the enemies of Sparta, lie could say, "Xo
Spartan woman has ever seen the smoke of the enemy's camp."
AGESILAUS II.
He showed the citizens in arms to one who asked why Sparta
had no walls, with the words, "These are the walls of Sparta."
He used to say that " cities should be walled with the courage
of the inhabitants." PLUTARCH : Life. When asked where the
boundaries of Sparta were, he replied, " On the points of our
spears."
Being shown a well-walled city, and asked if it were not a
fine thing; " For women," he answered, "not men, to live in."
Thus Agis II., observing the high and strong walls of Corinth,
asked, " What women live there ? " Laconic Apothegms.
When asked what good the laws of Lycurgus had brought to
Sparta, he replied, " Contempt of pleasure; " and in answer to the
question how he acquired his great reputation for bravery, " By
contemning death." Agis II. made the same answer when asked
how a man could be always free.
Youth, thy words need an army.
To a Megarian talking boastfully of his city. Also told of
Lysander. PLUTARCH : Life. When a well-contrived but diffi-
cult plan to free Greece was proposed to Agis II., he replied,
"Friend, thy words need an army and a treasure." Laconic
Apotlteym*. Shakespeare says, "The phrase would be more ger-
man to the matter, if we could carry a cannon by our sides."
Hamlet, V. 2.
Accepting an inferior seat at a public dancing, Agesilaus
said, "It is not the places which grace men, but men the places."
He thought with Rob Roy, " Where Macgregor sits, there is the
head of the table."
To one commending the skill of a certain orator in magnify-
ing petty matters, the king replied, " I do not think that shoe-
maker a good workman who makes a great shoe for a little
foot."
On his death-jbed, charging his friends that no fiction or
counterfeit (so he called statues) should be made of him, Agesi-
laus said, "If I have done any honorable exploit, that is my
monument ; but if I have done none, all your statues will signify
nothing."
Epaminondas declared on his death-bed that his victories of
AGIS II.
" Leuctra and Man tinea are daughters enough to keep my name
alive."
Alexander I., of Russia, declined a monument to commemo-
rate his military exploits, with the words, "May a monument be
erected to me in your hearts, as it is to you in mine ; " an echo
of the sentiment of the Czar Peter III. (1728-1702), refusing a
golden statue, " If by good government I could raise a memorial
in my people's hearts, that would be the statue for me."
" They offer me a statue," said Bonaparte, when First Con-
sul, "but I must look at the pedestal: they may make it a
prison."
AGIS II.
[King of Sparta, 427 B.C.; defeated the Athenians and their allies
at Mautinea, about 414; died 399.]
The Spartans do not inquire how many the enemy are,
but where they are.
PLUTARCH : Laconic Apothegms. Being asked what was chiefly
learned at Sparta, he replied, " To know how to govern, and to
be governed." Ibid.
He said to an orator who asserted that speech was the best
thing, "You, then, when you are silent, are worth nothing."
Ibid.
Agis IV., called by Plutarch "the younger," king of Sparta
244210 B.C., replied to the jeer of an Athenian at the Lace-
daemonian short-swords, " The jugglers would easily swallow
them," by saying, " And yet we can reach our enemies' hearts
with them." Apothegms of Kings and Great Commanders.
ALCIBIADES.
[Born in Athens 450 B.C.; of remarkable personal beauty, and
powerful and versatile intellect, but fickle and licentious; was the
ward of Pericles and the favorite pupil of Socrates; accused of
sacrilege, and condemned in his absence, he joined the Sicilians
against his countrymen, 413; recalled 411, gained several victories,
but was finally defeated and superseded; withdrawing into Asia
from the Thirty Tyrants, he was attacked by night, and killed, 404. J
6 JEAN D'ALEMBERT.
I would have the Athenians talk of this, lest they
should find something worse to say of me.
"\Vhen told that all Athens rung with the story of his treat-
ment of a dog of uncommon size and beauty, the tail of \vhich
he caused to be cut off. PLUTARCH : Life.
Happening to go into a grammar-school, he asked the master
for a volume of Homer; and, upon his making answer that he
had nothing of Homer's, gave him a box on the ear, and left
him. Another schoolmaster telling him that he had Homer
corrected by himself, " How ! " said Alcibiades, " do you employ
your time in teaching children to read ? You, who are able to
correct Homer, might seem to be fit to instruct men." Ibid.
Calling at the house of Pericles, and being told that he was
considering how to give in his accounts to the people, and was
therefore not at leisure, Alcibiades remarked, " He had better
consider how to avoid giving in any account at all." Hid.
His answer, when summoned out of Sicily by the Athenians
to plead for his life, was, " A criminal is a fool who studies a
defence when he might fly for it." Apothegms.
The misanthropic Timon rejoiced at a later period to see Alci-
biades carried in honor from the place of assembly, and said,
" Go on, my brave boy, and prosper ; for your prosperity will
cause the ruin of all this crowd." Life of Alcibiades.
JEAN D'ALEMBEET.
[An eminent French geometer and philosopher, born at Paris,
Nov. 16, 1717; elected to the Academy of Sciences, 1741; to the French
Academy 1754, of which he became secretary 1772; joint editor with
Diderot of the Encyclopaedia, and the friend of Voltaire; died Oct.
29, 1783.]
A philosopher is a fool who torments himself while he
is alive, to be talked of after he is dead.
He declined in 1762 an urgent invitation from Catherine II.,
of Russia, to undertake at St. Petersburg the education of her
son, at a salary of one hundred thousand francs, with the words,
" What I have learned from books is a little science and satis-
faction, but not the harder art of fashioning princes."
ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 7
He said of the French philosophers, " They believe themselves
profound, while they are only hollow" (77s se croient prof o nth, < t
ne sont que creux). Talleyrand said of Sieyes and his political
day-dreams, in answer to some one who called him profound,
"Perhaps you mean hollow' (Pro/one?, hem! vous voulez dire,
peut-ttre, creux). Victor Hugo appropriated the remark by
saying, " Sieyes, homme profond, qui e'tait devenu creux." Quatre-
Vinyt-Treize, I. 3, 5.
Go on, and the light will come to you.
ALEXANDER THE GHEAT.
[Son of Philip of Macedon, "born 356 B.C.; ascended the throne, 330;
took Thebes by assault, 335; crossed the Hellespont, 334; defeated the
Persians at the Granicus, took Halicarnassus, marched through Asia
Minor, defeated Darius at Issus, 333; took possession of Phoenicia and
Egypt; marching again against Darius, defeated a million Persians
at Arbela; conquered Media and the northern and central provinces
of Asia; crossed the Indus, 327, and defeated Porus; on his return
died of fever at Babylon, 323.]
My father will leave me nothing to do.
Hearing when a boy of Philip's military successes. PLU-
TARCH: Apothegms.
When his father had been run through the thigh, and was
troubled by his lameness, Alexander encouraged him by saying,
" Be of good cheer, father ; and show yourself in public, that you
may be reminded of your bravery at every step." Fortune of
Alexander the Great.
His father encouraged him, being nimble and light-footed, to
run in the races at the Olympic games : he promised to, " if
there are any kings there to run with me ; for I can conquer
only private men, while they may conquer a king." - Apothegm*.
When Philip asked him what forfeit he would pay if he could
not ride Bucephalus, he replied, " I will pay the price of the
horse." The price asked by his owner, a Thessalian, was thir-
teen talents (2518), or, as Pliny says, sixteen talents. After
Alexander had turned the horse to the sun so as to remove the
shadow which had frightened him, and, gently stroking him,
8 ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
leaped upon his back, pushed him to a full gallop, and re-
turned safely, Philip cried, " Seek another kingdom, my son,
that may be worthy of thy abilities ; for Macedonia is too small
for thee." Life.
When Philip stumbled from the effect of passion and wine,
at the festival of his second marriage, Alexander exclaimed,
"Men of Macedon, what a fine hero the states of Greece have
to lead their armies from Europe to Asia ! he is not able to pass
from one table to another without falling ! " Ibid.
Were I not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.
Because when he came to converse with the cynic philosopher
at Corinth, he was so struck with his life and learning that he
said, " Had I not been a philosopher in deeds, I would have de-
voted myself to the study of words." PLUTARCH: Fortune of
. Alexander the Great. It was at this interview that Alexander,
asking Diogenes what he could do for him, was told, "Only stand
a little out of my sunshine." Xapoleon, speaking in 1814 of the
Macedonian's Russian namesake, said, " If I were not Xapoleon,
I would be Alexander."
When he divided his revenues among his friends, w T hile pre-
paring his Asian campaign, and Perdiccas asked him what he
retained for himself, he answered, "Hope." "If hope is suffi-
cient for Alexander," replied his general, "it is sufficient for
Perdiccas."
f*F^***
At the tomb of Achilles, Meander exclaimed, " O fortunate
youth, who found a Homer to proclaij^thy valor! " w r hich Cicero
quotes in the oration for the poi.-t. Arc-bias : " fortunate adoles-
cens, qui tuce virtutis Homerum prcecoi^Jinveneris ! " When asked
at Ilium if he would like to see the lyre of Paris, he replied,
"I would rather see the lyre of Achilles," preferring that to
which the warrior had sung the glorious actions of the brave.
Life.
He always travelled with a copy of the Iliad, which he called
a portable treasure of military knowledge; and after the defeat
of Darius he put it into a rich casket found among the spoil of
the Persian camp, saying, " Darius used to keep his ointments
in it ; but I, w T ho have no time to anoint myself, will convert
it to a nobler use." Ibid.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
So would I, if I were Parmenio.
To Parmenio, who said that if he were Alexander, he would
accept the offer of Darius to pay him ten thousand talents, to
cede to him all the countries west of the Euphrates, and to give
him his daughter in marriage. PLUTARCH : Life. Thus when
Lysander was offered a bribe of fifty talents, and Oleander said
he would take it, were he Lysander ; " So would I," replied the
latter, "were I Oleander."
Alexander declined the proposition of Darius, saying, " Heav-
en cannot support two suns, nor earth two masters ; " or, as Plu-
tarch has it in his "Apothegms," "nor Asia two kings." Thus
it was said by Eteocles, of Lysander, who allowed himself to
be influenced by the resentments of his friends, " Greece cannot
bear two Lysanders." Ibid. When the conduct of Alcibiades
was considered an insult to the laws of Athens, Archestratus
observed, "Greece cannot bear another Alcibiades." Life of
Alcibiades. Peter the Great exclaimed after a severe defeat by
Charles XII. of Sweden, at Narva, 1700, " My brother Charles
affects to play the Alexander, but he shall not find in me a
Darius."
Being advised by Parmenio not to cross the Granicus, of the
depth of which they were ignorant, so late in the day, Alexan-
der said, " The Hellespont would blush, if, after having passed
it, I should be afraid of the Granicus." He refused to attack
Darius at Arbela in the nigMfeaying, " I will not steal a vic-
tory." Life. _
A wound which he received in the ankle gave him an oppor-
tunity of rebuking iuose Tvho were wont to call him a god.
" That is blood, as you see, and not, as Homer saith,
' Such humor as distils from blessed gods.' " Iliad, V. 340.
PLUTARCH: Apothegms.
When the mother of Darius threw herself at Hephaistion's
feet, thinking him to be Alexander from his superior height and
more magnificent dress, the king ; raised her, saying, " You have
not deceived yourself, my mother : he also is Alexander ! " An-
tipater wrote the king a letter full of complaints against the
10 ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
latter's mother, who was not allowed to interfere as she would
have liked in state affairs : his reply was, " Antipater knows not
that one tear of a mother can blot out a thousand such com-
plaints."
Craterus is the friend of the king, but Hephaistion is
the friend of Alexander.
Appearing to respect Craterus, but to love Hephaistion. The
former was a distinguished general, who, on the death of
Alexander, received the government of Macedonia and Greece
in common with Antipater. Hephaistion was brought up
with Alexander : he died at Ecbatana, after an illness of
seven days, 325 B.C., and was mourned extravagantly by the
king.
AVhen his friends became so devoted to the luxury of Asia
that they considered long inarches and campaigns as a burden,
and by degrees spoke ill of him, Alexander said to them,
"There is something noble in hearing myself ill spoken of, when
I am doing well ; " or, as it is given in the " Apothegms," " To do
good, and be evil spoken of, is kingly," which Carlyle saw writ-
ten in Latin on the tow r n-hall of Zittau, in Saxony, Bene facere
et male audire regiitm est. Frederick the Great, XV. 13. Voltaire
said, " It is a noble thing to make ingrates."
AVhen Antipater was commended for not degenerating into
Persian luxury in the use of purple, Alexander remarked, " Out-
wardly Antipater wears wiiite clothes, but within he is all pur-
ple."
Taxiles, whose dominions in India were said to be as large as
Egypt, asked Alexander why there should be any conflict be-
tween them. "If," he said, "I am richer than you, I am willing
to oblige you with part : if I am poorer, I have no objection to
sharing your bounty." Charmed with his frankness, Alexander
took his hand, saying, "You are much deceived if you expect to
escape without a conflict. I will dispute it with you to the last,
but it shall be in favors and benefits; for I will not have you
exceed me in generosity." He thereupon gave him a thousand
talents. PLUTARCH : Life.
Clitus had saved Alexander's life at the battle of the Granicus,
but provoked the king's anger by insolent language at a banquet,
ALEXANDER I. 11
when both were heated with wine. Striking him down with his
javelin, Alexander exclaimed, "Go, then, and join Philip and
Parmenio." lie was, however, on coming to himself, inconsola-
ble at his friend's death. Parmenio had been put to death on
a charge, preferred by his own son, of plotting against the king's
life.
He refused his assent to a proposal to carve Mount Athos into
the figure of a man, in imitation of the attempt of Xerxes to
cut a road through it ; saying, " Mount Athos is already the
monument of one king's folly : I will not make it that of an-
other."
To his soldiers, disaffected after their long campaigns, he ex-
claimed, " Go home, and tell them that you left Alexander to
conquer the world alone."
He said to a young Macedonian named Alexander, who was
about to attack, with others, a fort at the top of a steep height,
" You must behave gallantly, my young friend, to do justice to
your name."
At the passage of the Indus in face of the army of Porus,
having always in mind the praises he envied of Athens, he
exclaimed, " O Athenians ! how much it costs to be praised by
you ! "
To the most worthy.
When asked to whom he left his empire. Thus Thiers, in
answer to the question in 1871, to whom supreme power should
be given in France, replied, " To the wisest " (A u plus sage).
Napoleon said of Alexander, " He commenced his career with
the mind of Trajan, but he closed it with the heart of Nero and
the morals of Heliogabalus."
ALEXANDER I.
[Emperor of Russia, born 1777; succeeded his father, Paul, 1801;
joined Austria against Napoleon, 1804, and took part in the coali-
tions until his overthrow; entered Paris with the allied armies, July,
1815; formed the holy alliance with the sovereigns of Austria and
Prussia; died at Taganrog, Dec. 1, 1825.]
12 ALFONSO X.
I am, then, only a happy accident.
In conversing with Madame de Stael, in Paris, upon the form
of government to take the place of the empire, she said to him
with characteristic enthusiasm, " Sire, your character is a con-
stitution ! ' His reply referred to the temporary and accidental
expedients, which, from the time of Sieyes, the French had dig-
nified with the name of constitutions. Napoleon's opinion of
the czar w T as less flattering than Madame de Stael's. He said
to O'Meara at St. Helena, Dec. 5, 1816, " He is an extremely
hypocritical man ; a Greek of the lower empire " (C'est un Iwmme
extremement faux ; un Grec du bas empire). What more could he
have said if he had foreseen that the liberal emperor was to form
an alliance wdth two despotic sovereigns wliich should be for
thirty years the bulwark of reactionary ideas ?
Disraeli said of Lord Palmerston, " He has the smartness of
an attorney's clerk, and the intrigues of a Greek of the lower
empire." Runmjmede Letters, 1836.
After Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, in 1812, the Russian
and Prussian sovereigns met in Breslau, where Frederick Wil-
liam III. was moved to tears in speaking of the losses his king-
dom had suffered by being obliged to furnish a contingent to
the French expedition. " Courage, brother," said Alexander to
him: "these are the last tears Napoleon shall draw from you."
The next year saw the opening of the "War of Liberation."
The Dardanelles are the key of my house. Let me get
possession of them, and my power is irresistible.
Thus Napoleon said, " Constantinople is an empire in itself ; "
and Francis I. of France declared that if he became emperor
of Germany, he would be in Constantinople in three years, or
would die upon the road.
ALFONSO X.
[King of Leon and Castile, surnamed "The "Wise;" born 1226;
succeeded to the throne, 1252; bore a high reputation for learning and
eloquence, and was distinguished for his patronage of science and
literature; gave Europe the Alphonsine astronomical tables; died
1284.]
DUKE OF ALYA. 13
Had I been present at the creation, I could have
given some useful hints for the better ordering of the
universe.
Directed against the conceit of the court astronomers. With-
out that explanation, the remark has subjected Alfonso to the
same charge.
Carlyle refers the saying to the Ptolemaic system, likewise in
sarcasm, " It was a pity the Creator had not taken advice ! '
Frederick the Great, II. 7. He finds no other utterance of the
Castilian on record, but the following has been attributed to
him : " To make a good marriage, the husband should be deaf,
and the wife blind."
DUKE OF ALVA.
[Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, a celebrated Spanish general under
Charles V. and Philip II., born 1508; defended Naples against the
French and Papal armies, 1556-57; sent by Philip II. to quell the
insurrection in the Low Countries, 1507, where he displayed great
ability, but extreme rigor and cruelty; recalled 1573; invaded Portu-
gal, and annexed it to Spain, 1580; died 1582.]
Better build them a golden bridge than offer a decisive
battle.
To Charles V.,' who consulted him in regard to attacking the
Turks ; an illustration of his constitutional dislike of fighting
when he could accomplish his purpose by strategy. Thus, when
the Archbishop of Cologne urged him to attack the Dutch there,
he replied, " The object of a general is not to fight, but to con-
quer : he fights enough who obtains the victory." The expres-
sion, "to build a bridge for an enemy," is of frequent occurrence.
Rabelais says, " Open unto your enemies all your gates and ways,
and make to them a bridge of silver, rather than fail that you
may get quit of them." Gargantua, Book I. chap. 43. The
Count de Patillan is quoted in the French Divers Propos Memo-
rabies des nobles et illustres Homines de la Chrestiente as saying of
war, "Make a bridge of gold for a flying enemy" (Quand ton
ennemy voudra fuir,fais luy un pont d'or). Brantome cites Louis
XII., that "one should not spare a bridge of silver to chase his
enemy ; " and Cervantes substitutes silver for gold in the remark
of the Count de Patillan. Don Quixote, II. 58.
14 ST. AMBROSE.
AVhen asked by Charles V. about an eclipse of the sun during
the battle of Miihlberg, 1546, Alva replied, "I had too much to
do on earth to trouble myself with the heavens."
He preferred while in the Low Countries to capture one im-
portant heretic than many insignificant ones ; saying, " Better a
salmon's head than ten thousand frogs."
Having been called by Philip II. to account for treasures seized
at Lisbon, 1581, Alva proudly made answer, "If the king asks
me for an account, I will make him a statement of kingdoms
preserved or conquered, of signal victories, of successful sieges,
and of sixty years' service."
Voltaire states that Charles V having asked who that man
was, as Cortez, unable to obtain an audience of the emperor after
his second expedition to Mexico, pushed through the crowd sur-
rounding the royal carriage, the latter replied, " One who has
given you more kingdoms than you had towns before." Ewai
siw les Aloeurs, chap. 147. Prescott finds no authority for what
he calls " this most improbable story, which may have served
Voltaire to point a moral." Conquest of Mexico, VII. 5, note.
There is no doubt, however, of the cold reception given to the
suit of Cortez, who found in his old age that " the gratitude of a
court has reference to the future much more than to the past."
ST. AMBROSE.
[One of the Latin fathers of the Church; born at Treves about 340
A.D.; governor of Liguria, 374; elected bishop of Milan, which office
he filled with great ability; died 397.]
When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
The advice St. Ambrose gave St. Augustine in regard to con-
formity to local custom. The authority of the see of Milan
almost equalled that of Rome, and each Christian society had
its particular rule for the observance of rites and customs. "My
mother," said St. Augustine, "having joined me at Milan, found
that the church there did not fast on Saturdays, as at Rome,
and was at a loss what to do. I consulted St. Ambrose of holy
memory, who replied, ' When I am at Rome, I fast on a Satur-
day : when I am at Milan I do not. Do the same. Follow the
FISHER AMES. 15
custom of the church where you are.' ' - Epistle to Januarius,
II. 18.
Burton derives a custom from this advice, "When they are at
Rome, they do as they see done." -Anatomy of Melancholy,
Part III., IV., 2, 1. Jeremy Taylor gives it in verse :-
" Cum fueris Romre, Romano vivito more;
Cum fueris alibi, vivito sicut ibi."
Dnctor Diibitantium, I. 1, 5.
Professor Lowell (" Among my Books ") calls Dante " extremely
practical in the affairs of this life. He has made up his mind
to take things as they come, and to do at Rome as the Romans
do." He quotes this couplet : -
"Ah, savage company ! but in the church
"With saints, and in the taverns with the gluttons ! "
Inferno, XXII. 13.
Napoleon said, " A man who goes into a country must comply
with the ceremonies in use there." O'MEARA : Napoleon in
Exile, 1817.
FISHER AMES.
[An American orator and statesman; born in Dedham, Mass.,
April 9, 1758; member of Congress, 1789-1796; elected president of
Harvard College, but declined on account of ill health; died July 4,
1808.]
Sober, second thought.
In a speech on Biennial Elections, 178S, Mr. Ames said, " I
consider biennial elections as a security that the sober, second
thought of the people shall be law." Matthew Henry, in his
"Exposition of Job," VI. 29, had already spoken of "their own
second and sober thoughts," which Euripides pronounced the
best among mortals. PHppolytus, 438. Cicero, having said that
any man might err, quotes a proverb that " second thoughts are
apt to be best" (poste.riores cogitation es, itt aiunt, sapientiores solent
esse). First Philippic. Talleyrand, however, paradoxically ad-
vises " never to act on first impulses, as they are always right; "
which Robert Hall qualifies by saying that " in matters of con-
science first thoughts are best, in matters of prudence the last."
16 AXAXAGQRAS.
ANAXAGORAS.
[A philosopher of the Ionian school, born 500 B.C. ; came to Athens,
where he was the friend of Pericles, who saved his life from a charge
of impiety; banished from Athens, he retired to Lampsacus, where
he died 428.]
Take it back : if he wished to keep the lamp alive, he
should have administered the oil before.
When Pericles sent him money, hearing that he was dying of
want. He had left Athens with the words, "It is not I who lose
the Athenians, but the Athenians me."
Being asked what should be done to honor him after death, he
replied, " Give the boys a holiday."
EARL OF ANGUS.
[Archibald Douglas, fifth earl, sometimes called the "Great Earl
of Angus," lord chancellor of Scotland about the end of the fifteenth
century; a powerful, ambitious, and lawless subject; died about
1527.] *
Heed it not, I'll bell the cat.
To the Scotch nobles in 1482, who were conspiring against
Cochran, Earl of Mar, favorite of James III. An allusion to
the fable of the mice who wished to put a bell on the cat's neck
to warn them of her approach : the plan was a good one, only
no one was found willing to bell the cat.
PRINCE OF ANHALT-DESSAU.
[Leopold, called the " Old Dessauer," composer of the "Dessauer
March; " a general in the Prussian service, born 1676; commanded the
Prussian forces under Prince Eugene in Italy and Flanders, 1706-
1712; accompanied Frederick the Great in his campaigns, and gained
the victory of Kesseldorf, 1745; died 1747.]
O God, assist our side: at least, avoid assisting the
enemy, and leave the result to me.
His prayer on entering battle, "reverently doffing his hat,"
says Carlyle, "before going in; prayer mythically true; mythi-
ANTIGONUS I. 17
cally, not otherwise." -Life of Frederick the Great, Book XV.
chap. 14.
Somewhat similar was that of Lord Ashley, a royalist general,
who had served under Gustavns Adolphus, and commanded the
last remnant of the army of Charles I. : " God, thou knowest how
much I have to do to-day : if I forget thee, do not forget me."
The " Old Dessauer " called Luther's hymn, Ein' feste Burg
ist unser Gott, " God Almighty's Grenadier March." Ibid., IV. 2.
ANTIGONUS I.
[Surnamed the " one-eyed," a general of Alexander the Great;
born in Macedon about 382 B.C.; obtained after Alexander's death
Lycia and other provinces ; made himself master of a large portion
of Asia, but was opposed by successive coalitions, by the last of
which he was defeated and slain at Ipsus in Phrygia, 301.]
Thy words smell of the apron.
To Aristodemus, supposed to be a cook's son, who advised
him to moderate his gifts and expenses. PLUTARCH: Apothegms.
So Pytheas, the orator, said of the orations of Demosthenes,
"They smell of the lamp," alluding to the underground cave to
which the orator retired for study, and which was lighted by a
lamp. Demosthenes retorted sharply, "Yes, indeed; but your
lamp and mine, my friend, are not conscious of the same labors."
Life of Demosthenes.
When urged to put a garrison into Athens, to keep the Greeks
in subjection, Antigonus replied, "I have not a stronger garri-
son than the affections of my people."
He corrected a sycophant who told him that the will of kings
was the rule of justice: "No: rather justice is the rule of the
will of kings."
Coming up behind Antagoras the poet, who was boiling a
conger-eel, the king asked, " Do you think, Antagoras, that
Homer boiled congers when he wrote the deeds of Agamem-
non ?' : To which Antagoras replied, "Do you think, O king,,
that Agamemnon, when he did such exploits, was peeping in
his army to see who boiled congers ? " Apothegms.
When Thrasyllus the cynic begged a drachm of him, " That,"
18 AXTIGONUS II.
said Antigonus, "is too little for a king to give." "Then give
me a talent [6,000 drachms]." "That is too much for a cynic
[i. e., a dog] to receive." Ibid.
He that teacheth the king of Macedon teacheth all
his subjects.
Like princes, like people (qualis rex, talis grex).
ANTIGONUS II.
[Antigonus Gonatus, son of Demetrius Poliorcetes, and grandson
of the preceding ; king of Macedon, 277 B.C.; expelled by Pyrrhus,
and again on his return by the son of Pyrrhus, but finally recovered
his dominions; died 239.]
But how many ships do you reckon my presence to
be worth ?
To the pilot, before a naval battle with the lieutenants of
Ptolemy, when told that the enemy's ships outnumbered his
own . PLUTARCH: Apothegms. He denied, on another occasion,
that he had fled, when he retreated before the superior numbers
of the enemy; but explained it by the euphemism, "I betook
myself to an advantage that lay behind rue."
APELLES.
[A celebrated Greek painter, born probably in Ionia ; the contem-
porary and friend of Alexander the Great, who allowed only him to
paint his portrait. The time and place of his death are unknown.]
.Ne sutor supra [not ultra] crepidam.
In German, Schuster, bleib' bei deinem Leisten.
Apelles was in the habit of exhibiting his pictures to the
passers-by, while he heard their comments without being seen.
One day a shoemaker criticised the shoes in a certain picture,
u
and found next day that they had been repainted. Proud of his
success as a critic, he began to find fault with the thigh of the
figure; when Apelles cried out from behind the canvas, " Shoe-
maker, stick to your last." PLINY, H. N. 35. Told by Lucian
of Phidias.
THOMAS GOLD APPLETON. 19
The success of Apelles was due to his constant practice, so
that he allowed no day to pass without drawing at least a line,
which Pliny formulated into a rule, "No day without its line"
(Nulla dies sine linea). Ibid.
THOMAS GOLD APPLETON.
[An American wit and author, noted for his conversational pow-
ers, born in Boston, Mass., March 31, 1812 ; graduated from Harvard
College, 1831.]
Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris.
Perpetuated by the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," chap,
vi., as the saying of one of the " Seven Wise Men of Boston,"
this is perhaps the most celebrated American moi. The saying
of another of the " wise men," John Lothrop Motley the his-
torian, was, "Give me the luxuries of life, and we will dispense
with its necessaries." Voltaire made a proverbial expression
when he wrote in "Le Mondain,"-
" Le superflu, chose tres uecessaire."
When one of his friends asked Scopas the Thessaliari for
something that could be of little use to him, he answered, "It
is in these useless and superfluous things that I am rich and
happy." PLUTARCH : Life of Cato.
In allusion to a peculiarity of the climate, Mr. Appleton said,
" A Boston man is the east wind made flesh ; " and with similar
reference to a noted summer resort, "Nahant is cold roast
Boston."
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS.
[Surnanied the " Angelic Doctor," a celebrated scholastic teacher ;
born in the kingdom of Naples, about 1225; joined the Dominicans,
and became famous for learning and talents, but refused prefeirnent;
taught in Paris and Rome; died 1274. J
By reading one book.
When asked in what way a man might become learned.
Entering the presence of Innocent II. , before whom a large
sum of money was spread out, the Pope observed, " You see, the
20 ARCHIDAMUS III.
Church is no longer in that age in which she said, ' Silver and
gold have I none.'" "True, holy father," replied Aquinas;
" neither can she any longer say to the lame, ' Rise up and
walk.' " Vide Acts iii. 2-8.
ARCHIDAMUS III.
[King of Sparta ; resisted successfully the attack of Epaminondas,
362 B.C.; ascended the throne, 361; having passed over to Sicily to
aid the Tarantines, was killed in battle, 328.]
If you measure your shadow, you will find it no greater
than before the victory.
To Philip of Macedon, who sent him a haughty letter after
the battle of Chseronea. PLUTARCH : Laconic Ajwllieyms.
When asked how much land the Spartans possessed, he replied,
" As much as their spears reach." Ibid.
Periander was a skilful physician, but wrote very bad poems,
which caused the king to say to him, "Why, Periander, instead
of a good physician, are you eager to be called a bad poet ? "
Ibid.
The allies were consulting together in regard to the amount
of treasure necessary to carry on the Peloponnesian War, and
how they should raise it. Archidamus thought the discussion
futile. " War," he said, " cannot be put on a certain allow-
ance ; " or, as Plutarch also gives it in his " Apothegms of
Kings and Great Commanders," "War has a very irregular
appetite."
When he saw for the first time a dart shot out of an engine
brought from Sicily, he exclaimed, thinking the fashion of war
would be thereby changed, " Good God ! true valor is gone for-
ever ! " Laconic Apothegms.
AH CHIMEDES.
[The greatest geometer of antiquity; born in Syracuse, of Greek
extraction, about 287 B.C. ; enjoyed the favor of King Hiero, for whom
he made many inventions in the art of war ; killed at the capture of
Syracuse, 212.]
Eureka! or Heureka, as it should be in analogy with Evprjua, the
Greek form.
COUNT D'ARGENSON. 21
Archimedes was consulted by the king in regard to a gold
crown, suspected of being fraudulently alloyed with silver.
"\Vhile considering the best method of detecting any fraud, he
plunged into a full bathing-tub ; and with the thought that the
water which overflowed must be equal in bulk to his body, he
discovered the method of ascertaining the bulk of the crown
compared with an equally heavy mass of pure gold. Excited by
the discovery he ran through the streets, undressed, crying, " I
have found it ! "
Equally celebrated is his remark, " Give me where to stand,
and I will move the world," ddf TTOV OTU aal rbv Kon^ov KLVTJCU (or
"universe").
This saying may, however, be doubted, because the fulcrum
must have been placed outside the kosmos, which is impossible.
His only remark to the Roman soldier who entered his room
while he was engaged in geometrical study was, "Don't step
upon my circle; " which has come down to us in the Latin form,
Noli turbare circulos meos, or, as given by Valerius Maximus,
Noli obsecro istum \_circulum~] disturbare. Brandis (Scholia in
Aristotdem') quotes the Prolegomena of an unnamed author to
the Keo-Platonic Porphyrius, who gives the remark of the phi-
losopher, " My head, but not my circle." Refusing to follow the
soldier to Marcellus, who had captured the city, he was killed on
the spot.
*
COUNT D'ARGENSON.
[A French cabinet minister, born 1697; secretary for war, 1743-57;
an able administrator, a patron of letters, the friend of Voltaire and
the Encyclopaedists ; died 1764.]
I don't see the necessity of it (Je n'en vois pas la neces-
site).
In reply to the Abbe des Fontaines, who was brought before
him for publishing libels, and who apologized for them by say-
ing, " After all, inonseigneur, I must live " (Apres tout, ilfaut lien
que je vive).- - VOLTAIRE, CEuvres Completes, XL VIII. 99. At-
tributed by Renault (Mc'moires, 4) to Count d'Argental, censor
of books.
,
22 ARISTIDES.
Mme. d'Argenson, being asked which of two brothers she
preferred, replied, " When I am with one, I prefer the other "
(Quand je suis avec Vun^faime mieux Vautre).
ARISTIDES.
[An Athenian general and statesman, called " the Just; " the rival
of Themistocles, by whose intrigues he was ostracised 483 B.C.; re-
called to oppose Xerxes, and commanded the Athenian force at Pla-
tsea, 479; died about 468.]
May the Athenians never see the day which shall force
them to remember Aristides.
On leaving Athens after his banishment. The Persian Mar-
donius attempted to bribe the Athenians to desert the cause of
the Greeks ; but by the advice of Aristides, who had now re-
turned, the offer was spurned, the latter saying, " As long as this
sun shall shine, the Athenians will wage war against the Per-
sians for their ravaged country and for their violated temples."
He once sat as judge between two persons, one of whom was
charged by the other with having done many injuries to Aris-
tides. "Tell me," said "the Just," "what injury he has done
to thee ; for it is thy cause I am judging, not my own."
One of his maxims was, " Power gotten by the assistance of
friends is an encouragement of the unjust." PLUTARCH : Apo-
thegms.
He was sent on an embassy with Themistocles, with whom he
was at variance ; but, concerned only for the cause they had
undertaken, he asked his rival, " Are you content, Themistocles,
to leave our enmity at the borders? Then, if you please, we
will take it up again on our return." Ibid.
ARISTOTLE.
[One of the most illustrious philosophers of antiquity; born at
Stagira in Thrace, 384 B.C., and hence called the " Stagirite; " visited
Athens at the age of seventeen, and became the pupil of Plato; was
the instructor of Alexander the Great, and afterwards opened at
Athens the school called the Lyceum, or the Peripatetic School; died
at Chalcis, 322 B.C.]
SOPHIE ARNOULD. 23
Plato is dear, but truth still dearer.
When unable to adopt all the principles of his master's phi-
losophy, he was accustomed to make use of the formula which
comes to us through the Latin, Amicus Plato, sed may is arnica ver-
itas. This was the opposite of the motto of the disciples of
Pythagoras, "The master has said it." According to Ammonias
(Life of Aristotle), the name of Socrates should be substituted
for that of Plato.
Being about to leave Athens, after a charge of impiety had
been preferred against him by those who thought him a friend
of 'Macedon, he alluded to his departure and to the death of Soc-
rates, by saying, " I do not wish to see the Athenians sin twice
against philosophy."
SOPHIE ARNOULD.
[A popular French actress, born in Paris about 1744; noted for her
conversational talent and bons-mots ; died 1803.]
The good time when I was unhappy.
A saying put into verse by Rulhiere, -
" Un jour, une actrice fameuse
Me contait les fureurs de son premier amant ;
Moitie revant, rnoitie rieuse,
Elle ajoute ce mot charmant :
Oh ! c'e'tait le bon temps, j'etais bien mameureuse."
The truth of this sentiment is illustrated by a saying of Dr.
Johnson's, "Employment and hardship prevent melancholy."
I entered the world through a celebrated door.
She was born in the room where Admiral Coligny was assas-
sinated.
Being told that a Capuchin monk had been devoured by rats,
she exclaimed, "Poor animals! what a terrible thing hunger
must be ! " (Pauvres betes ! il faut que la faim soil une chose ter-
rible ! )
She called marriage "the sacrament of adultery."
Of a very thin actress she observed, " One needn't go to St.
Cloud to see les eaux " (les os).
24 ATTILA.
The names of three sisters, Rose, Marguerite, and Hyacinthe,
suggested the exclamation, " What a flower-bed ! " (Ah, quel plate-
lande /) Her comment upon an actress who appeared in mid-
winter with a dress covered with flowers was, " You look like a
hot-house" (Vous avez I* air d'une terre clientele).
ATTILA.
[Chief of the Huns; invaded the Roman empire, A.D. 447, and de-
feated the armies of Theodosius, who was forced to pay him tribute,
which his successor Marcian refused to do, saying, " I have gold for
my friends, and iron for my enemies;" was defeated at Chalons,
451, but invaded Italy; retiring, however, to Hungary, where he
died about 453.]
Grass never grows again where my horse has once
trodden.
The boast of the "Scourge of God."
The men who clustered around Victor Hugo when his roman-
tic dramas banished the classic style from the stage were called
" barbarians." " We accept the comparison," replied one of them,
the critic Paul de Saint-Victor. " The grass did not grow where
Attila had passed : where Victor Hugo has passed, the dismal
thistles and artificial flowers of the pseudo-classics spring up
no more."
Victor Hugo called Cromwell, the hero of his first drama,
"an Attila educated by Machiavelli."
Alaric, king of the Visigoths, invaded Italy in 408, and ad-
vanced to Rome : the citizens induced him to withdraw by the
payment of five thousand pounds of gold and thirty thousand
pounds of silver. When they complained of these terms, he said,
" The closer hay is pressed, the easier it is cut."
AUGUSTUS.
[Caius Julius Cresar Octavianus, called Augustus by the senate and
people, 27 B.C., emperor of Rome; born Sept. 23, B.C. 63; educated
under the eye of Julius Cresar, who made him his heir ; divided the
empire, after Csesar's death, with Antony and Lepidus; defeated
the republicans at Philippi, 42, and Antony at Actiurn, 31; sole chief
of the Roman state for life, B.C. 23 ; died at Nola, Aug. 26, A.D. 14.]
CAESAR AUGUSTUS. 25
They will pay on the Greek Kalends (ad Kalendas
Grcecas).
In ordinary conversation, says Suetonius, he made use of sev-
eral peculiar expressions, as appears from letters in his own
handwriting; in which, now and then, when he means to inti-
mate that some, persons would never pay their debts, he says,
" They will pay at the Greek Kalends," -the Greeks having no
such day in their calendar; whereas in Rome the Kalends, or
first day of the month, were the usual pay-day. Life, chap. 87.
He thought nothing more derogatory of the character of an
accomplished general than precipitancy and rashness ; on which
account he had frequently in his mouth these proverbs : 27rei)c5e
(Bpadsus (" Make haste slowly," or, as it is often quoted in its
Latin form, Festina lente) ; and, " That is done fast enough which
is done well enough" (Sat celeriter fit quidquid Jiat satis lene).-
Ibid.
When Sir Amyas Paulet saw that too much haste was being
made in any matter, he used to say, " Stay a while, that we may
make an end the sooner."
" Wisely and slow : they stumble that run fast."
Romeo and Juliet, II. 3.
I love treason, but do not commend traitors.
When Rymetalces, king of Thrace, boasted of forsaking An-
tony, and going over to Octavianus. PLUTARCH : Apothegms.
After the battle of Philippi, he answered one of the defeated
and captive republicans, who entreated that at least he might
not remain unburied, " That will be in the power of the birds."
SUETONIUS : Life.
When in Egypt he wished to see the sarcophagus and body of
Alexander the Great, which were taken out of the cell in which
they rested ; being asked if he would like to see the tombs of
the Ptolemies also, he replied, "I wish to see a king, not dead
men." Ibid.
He refused to give the freedom of the city to a tributary Gaul,
but offered to remit his taxes; saying, "I would rather surfer
some loss in my exchequer, than that the citizenship of Rome be
rendered too common."
26 CJESAR AUGUSTUS.
He often invited Virgil and Horace to his table. The former
was asthmatic, the latter had weak eyes ; so th it the emperor
used to say, "Here I am, between sighs and tears."
Varus, give me back my legions !
The German soldier Hermann (Arminius) had entered the
Roman army, and obtained the rank of knighthood, with the
privileges of citizenship. Being indignant au the oppression of
his country under the emperor's lieutenant, Quintilius Varus,
he induced the Roman commander to advance his army beyond
the Rhine, where it suffered a severe defeat in the marshes
near Lippe, A.D. 9 ; three legions, with the commander, his lieu-
tenants, and all the auxiliaries, being cut off. " The emperor
was in such consternation at this event," says Suetonius, " that he
let the hair of his head and beard grow for several months, and
sometimes knocked his head against the door-posts, crying out, ' O
Quintilius Varus ! give me back my legions ! ' ' (redde legiones !)
The Due d'Audriffet-Pasquier, defending, in the French As-
sembly, 1871, after the Franco-German war, a report severely
criticising the war contracts of the Second Empire, exclaimed,
in reply to Rouher, " Give us back our lost legions ! Give us
back the glory of our fathers ! Give us back our provinces ! "
Dr. AVolcott (Peter Pindar), when asked on his death-bed, by
his physician, what could be done for him, replied, " Give ine
back my youth ! "
Marshal Augereau, reproached by Napoleon on the morning of
the battle of Leipsic, Oct. 16, 1813, with being no longer the
Augereau of Castiglione (1796), replied, " I shall always be
the Augereau of Castiglione, when your majesty gives me back
the soldiers of Italy."
A monument to Hermann on the Teutoberg, near Detmold,
in the principality of Lippe, was unveiled in presence of the
German emperor, Aug. 16, 1875.
I found Rome brick, I leave it marble.
The boast he was able to make, after improving the condition
of the city, which had been often burned, and was exposed to
the inundations of the Tiber. The saying recorded by Sueto-
nius has another version given it by Dion Cassius, who applies
C.ESAR AUGUSTUS. 27
it to his consolidation of the government, in the following form :
" That Rome, which I found built of mud, I shall leave you firm
as a rock." -LVI. 589. The most important of the public build-
ings erected by Augustus were a forum containing a Temple of
Mars the Avenger, the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine Hill,
and the Temple of Jupiter Tonans in the Capitol, the Portico
and Basilica of Lucius and Cains, the Porticoes of Livia and
Octavia, and the Theatre of Marcellus. His own dwelling-house
on the Palatine was of the most modest description.
The finest use of this boast of the Roman emperor is con-
tained in the peroration of Brougham's speech on Law Reform,
in the House of Commons, February, 1828 : " It was the boast
of Augustus, it formed part of the glare in which the perfidies
of his earlier years were lost, that he found Rome of brick,
and left it of marble ; a praise not unworthy a great prince, and
to which the present reign also has its claims. But how much
nobler will be the sovereign's boast when he shall have it to
say that he found law dear, and left it cheap ; found it a sealed
book, left it a living letter ; found it the patrimony of the rich,
left it the inheritance of the poor ; found it the two-edged sw r ord
of craft and oppression, left it the staff of honesty and the shield
of innocence ! ' :
When Piso built his house with great thoroughness from top
to bottom, Augustus said to him, "You cheer my heart, who
build as if Rome would be eternal." PLUTARCH: Apothegms.
Is not this the first time that Rome is spoken of as the " Eternal
City"? Its first occurrence in literature is in Tibullus, who
speaks of "eternal Rome" (Roma eterna), II. 5, 23, which Am-
mianus Marcellinus, a Roman historian of the fourth century,
repeats. Rerun Gestarum, XVI. chap. 10, 14.
That is why I weep.
When told that his tears could not bring his dead friend to life.
Solon, when told that weeping for his dead son would not re-
store him to life, replied, " Therefore I weep, because weeping
will not help." But it is an expression open to misconstruction,
as in the case of the man who put upon his wife's tombstone
the words, " Tears will not restore thee, therefore I weep."
28 LORD BACON.
To the young Galba, who came once with other boys to pay
his respects to Augustus, the emperor, pinching his cheek, said
in Greek, " And thou, child, too, shalt taste our empire." SUE-
TOXIUS : Life of Galba.
Athenodorus, the philosopher, begged leave that he might retire
from court on account of his old age ; his petition being granted,
he said on taking leave, " Remember, Caesar, whenever you are
angry, to say or do nothing before you have repeated the four-
and-twenty letters of the alphabet to yourself." Whereupon
Augustus grasped his hand, saying, " I have need of your pres-
ence still : the reward of silence is a sure reward ; " an expres-
sion which Horace put into verse,
" Est et fideli tuta silentio
Merces."
Odes, III. 2, 25.
In endeavoring to pacify some young men who showed an
imperious temper, and gave but little heed to him, he said,
"Young men, hear an old man to whom old men hearkened
when he was young." PLUTARCH: Apothegms.
Upon the day of his death, he asked the friends who were ad-
mitted to his room the question used by actors to solicit applause
as they left the stage, " Do you think that I have acted my part
on the stage of life well ? " adding two lines of a Greek poet,
" If all be right, with joy your voices raise,
In loud applauses to the actor's praise."
SUETONIUS : Life.
Among the last words attributed to Rabelais without sufficient
reason, was an expression used by Demonax, the cynic philoso-
pher of Athens, A.D. 150, "Draw the curtain, the farce is
ended " (in French, Tirez le rideau, la farce est joue'e).
LOUD BACON.
[Francis Bacon, created Baron Verulam, and Viscount St. Albans,
but commonly called Lord Bacon; born 1561; solicitor-general, 1607;
attorney-general, 1613; lord keeper, 1617; lord chancellor, 1618; pub-
lished the " Novum Organum," 1620; impeached for corrupt practices,
and sentenced to fine and imprisonment, 1621; imprisoned but two
days, and the fine remitted; died 1626.]
LORD BACOX. 29
Just two years younger than your majesty's happy
reign.
When asked by Queen Elizabeth how old he was, on her visit
to his father in 1572. He was then eleven, and his ready an-
swer caused the queen to call him her " little lord keeper," from
the office his father then held.
He replied later in life to Elizabeth, who asked his opinion of
enclosures in a case which had been referred to the judges,
" Madam, my mind is known : I am against all enclosures, and
especially against enclosed justice." He said in introducing a
bill into Parliament in 1597, "against enclosures and the depopu-
lation of towns," "I should be sorry to see within this kingdom
that piece of Ovid's verse prove true, 'jam seyes ubi Troja full;'
in England nought but green fields, a shepherd, and a dog."
He protested on one occasion to the queen, that he spoke from
a sense of duty : " I am not so simple but I know the common
beaten way to please."
When a change was proposed in the Church of England which
Bacon thought fatal, he said, " The subject we talk of is the eye
of England : if there be a speck or two in the eye, we endeavor
to take them off ; he would be a strange oculist, who should pull
out the eye."
He remarked of the increase of windows in houses in 1567,
"You shall have sometime your house so full of glass that we
cannot tell where to come to be out of the sun or the cold."
Sir Henry Montague said he hoped to bring the staff from
Newmarket where King James was, meaning that he wished to
be made lord treasurer. "Take heed," said Bacon, "what you
do, my lord : wood is dearer at Newmarket than at any other
place in England." The office, with the title of Mandeville, cost
him, says Dixon, twenty thousand pounds. Life of Bacon.
Mr. Attorney, I respect you, I fear you not ; and the less
you speak of your own greatness, the more I will
think of it.
To Coke, who presumed on his superior position as attorney-
general, to say in court, "Mr. Bacon, if you have any tooth
against me pluck it out, for it will do you more hurt than all the
teeth in your head will do you good."
30 SIR NICHOLAS BACOX.
He wrote to Coke, "Rich soils are often to be weeded;"
meaning that the latter, who had a large and fruitful mind,
should not so much labor what to speak, as to find what to
leave unspoken.
Pope declares it to be as necessary in poetry as in oratory :
" E'en copious Dry den wanted, or forgot,
The last and greatest art, the art to blot."
Epistles, L, II., 280.
I besaech your lordships to be merciful to a broken
reed.
Acknowledging the charge of corruption for which he was
impeached. He said to James I. after his fall, " I would live to
^^
study, and not gtudy to live ; yet I am prepared for date obolum
Belisario, and I that had borne a bag (that containing the great
seal) can bear a wallet."
Belisarius, a Byzantine general of great ability, was born in
Illyria about 505 A.D. He was appointed by Justinian general-
in-chief of the army of the East, was employed against the Os-
trogoths, and recovered Rome from their possession, but was
recalled, 5-10. Having been accused of a conspiracy against the
life of Justinian, his fortune was sequestered; but that he was
deprived of sight, and reduced to beggary, sitting at the gate of
the city and addressing the passers-by with the words quoted by
Lord Bacon, "Give a penny to Belisarius," is, says Gibbon, "a
fiction of later times, which has obtained credit, or rather favor,
as a strong example of the vicissitudes of fortune." Decline
and Fall, IV. 286, note.
In a private letter to James I., accompanying the "Xovum
Organum," Bacon said, " I am persuaded that the work will
gain upon men's minds in ages." He had this in view when he
wrote in his last will and testament : " For mv name and
i
memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches, to foreign na-
tions, and to the next ages."
SIR NICHOLAS BACOX.
[Father of Lord Bacon; "born 1510; appointed lord keeper of the
great seal by Queen Elizabeth, which he held twenty years; died
1579.]
JEAN BAILLY. 31
Your highness has made me too great for my house.
To Queen Elizabeth, who remarked during her visit to him in
1572, that his house was too small, but (referring to his corpu-
lence) that his soul lodged well.
When asked by the queen his opinion of the monopoly license,
he replied by quoting, "Licentid omnes deteriores sumus " (We are
all the worse for licenses).
A convicted criminal, named Hog, implored mercy on the
ground of kindred. "But you and I," said the lord keeper, "can-
not be kindred except you be hanged, for Hog is not Bacon until
it be well hanyed."
The Earl of Leicester asked his opinion of two persons the
queen thought well of. "By my troth, my lord," was his reply,
" the one is a grave counsellor ; the other is a proper young man,
and he will be as long as he lives."
JEAN BAILLY.
[A French astronomer and philosopher, born 1736; member of the
French Academy; deputy to the States-General, 178!), of which lie
was president ; mayor of Paris the same year ; condemned to death
by the Jacobins, and executed, Nov. 12, 1793.]
It is only from cold.
When told, on the way to execution, that he trembled. " The
populace," says Carlyle, "would not have him executed in the
Champ de Mars, but by the river-side. The guillotine is taken
down, is carried to the river-side ; is there set up again, with
slow numbness ; pulse after pulse counting itself out in the old
man's weary heart. For hours long, amid curses and bitter frost-
rain. 'Bailly, thou tremblest,' said one. ' Mon ami, c'e*t de
froid." 1 Crueller end had no mortal." French Revolution. An
almost identical answer is put by Shakespeare into the mouth of
Lord Say, who is brought up for sentence before Jack Cade,
Dick. Why dost thou quiver, man ?
Say. The palsy, and not fear, provoketh me.
2 Henry VI., IV. 7.
Charles I., of England, put on two shirts the morning of his
execution, saying, " If I tremble with cold, my enemies will say
32 CHARLES JEAN BARBAROUX.
it was from fear : I will not expose myself to such reproaches."
LIXGARD : History of England, X., chap. 5.
Bailly handed, as mayor, the keys of Paris to Louis XVI.,
after the ratification of the constitution in the Champ de Mars,
saying, " I bring your majesty the same keys which were pre-
sented to Henry IV. He reconquered his people : here the
people have reconquered their king."
When told that his election to the States-General was secure,
he replied in the same words used of candidature for office by
Thomas Jefferson, " That honor ought neither to be solicited nor
refused."
When some regretted that by his election his studies would be
suspended, he made the patriotic answer, " I am a Frenchman ;
and if I can co-operate in the enactment of a good law, that is
preferable to a hundred astronomical calculations."
CHARLES JEAN BARBAROUX.
[A French revolutionist, the friend of Charlotte Corday and
Madame Roland, who said that artists would not have despised his
head for the model of an Antinous ; born 1767; deputy from Mar-
seilles to the Legislative Assembly, 1791; voted for the death of Louis
XVI., but with an appeal to the people; having been condemned
with the Girondists, lie was discovered near Bordeaux, and shot
himself, 1794. " Over whose black doom," says Carlyle, " there shall
flit, nevertheless, a certain ruddy fervor."]
Send me six hundred men who know how to die (qui
savent mourir).
His message to the municipality of Marseilles, June, 1792,
when an invasion of France by the Duke of Brunswick seemed
imminent. It was for this band of revolutionists that Rouget
de Lisle wrote the "Marseillaise," called by Carlyle "the lucki-
est musical composition ever promulgated."
Antoine Baudin, a member of the Corps Legislatif, was shot
while resisting the coup d'etat of 1851. To some workmen who
refused to assist him in erecting barricades, saying, " Do you
think that we wish to be killed, that you may retain your twen-
ty-five francs a day? " (the salary of members), he replied, "You
will see how one dies for twenty-five francs a day" (Vous allez
BERTRAXD BARERE. 33
voir comment on meurt pour vingt-cinq francs). Gambetta brought
himself into notice in 1868, by defending certain opposition
journals which were prosecuted for opening subscription-lists
for a monument to Bautlin.
Barbaroux spoke with the extravagance of the revolutionists
to the electoral assembly of the Benches du Rhone, Sept. 3, 1792 :
" Mine is the soul of a free man ; ever since my fourth year it
has been nourished on hatred to kings." He used brave words
when they were dangerous, of the Jacobins in 1793 : " You may
compel me to sink under their daggers : you shall not make
me fall at their feet ; " and after the arrest of the Girondists,
with whom he had acted, he refused military protection, say-
ing, " I require no bayonets to defend the liberty of my
thoughts."
BERTRAND BARERE.
[Called the " Anacreon of the guillotine," on account of the flowery
style with which he adorned the most atrocious measures of the Reign
of Terror; born 1755; deputy to the States-General; voted in the Con-
vention for the death of the king; moved the condemnation of Robes-
pierre; banished 1806; returned to France, 1830 ; died miserably, 1811.]
Only the dead return not (H ri>y a que les morts qui ne
remennent pas).
A pun on reviennent, to return, or to stalk as a ghost; and so,
sarcastically, "Only dead men's ghosts do not walk." In the
Convention, 1794. The entire sentence is : " If a year ago the
English soldiers had been refused pardon, which they begged
on their knees ; if our troops had destroyed them, one and all,
instead of allowing them to disturb our fortresses, --the British
government would not this year have renewed its attack upon
our frontiers. It is only the dead who do not return." Napo-
leon used the expression in regard to himself, on the 17th July
and 12th December, 1816. --O'MEARA : Napoleon in Exile.
To Barere are due some of the most bloodthirsty utterances
of this bloody epoch. He declared in the Convention, in 1792,
" The tree of liberty only grows when watered by the blood of
tyrants " (L'arbre de la liberte ne croit qu'arrose par le sang des
tyrant?). He said to Robespierre and other Jacobins at dinner
34 ANTOIXE BARNAVE.
what Saint-Just repeated in public in 1794, " The ship of the
revolution can only arrive in port on water red with blood "
(sur une mer rougie de jiots de sang). When it was feared that
his exertions in the Reign of Terror would injure his health, he
replied that he was less busy than they supposed. " The guillo-
tine governs," he coolly adds. He called the executioner's cart,
or the tumbril which carried the condemned from prison to the
scaffold, "the bier of the living."
Barere asserted in the Convention that revolutionary measures
should be spoken of with respect : " Liberty is a virgin whose
veil it is not lawful to lift."
One of his expressions was calculated to flatter the vanity
of the Jacobins : " You are called upon to remake history "
(Vous etes appeles a recommencer Vhistoire). MARTIN: Histoire
de France, XVI. end.
ANTOINE BARNAVE.
[A politician of the French Revolution; born at Grenoble, 1761;
elected to the States-General, 1789; appointed to attend the royal
family on their return from the flight to Varennes, and became from
that time a defender of the throne; retired at the close of the Assem-
bly, 1791; executed, November, 1793.]
Was the blood which has just been shed so pure ? (Le
sang qui vient de se repandre, etait-il done si pur ?)
" The inexcusable and fatal expression," says Sainte-Beuve,
"which cost him his entire life, and at last his death, to obliter-
ate;" called forth in reply to a denunciation of the murder of the
intendants, Foulon and Bartier, who were hanged to lamp-posts
by the mob in 1790. Of Foulon, who had been appointed min-
ister, accounts vary; sympathizers with the revolution calling
him harsh and exacting, while Taine ("French Revolution")
pronounces him a strict master, but intelligent and useful, who
expended sixty thousand francs the winter before his death in
giving employment to the poor. On the day of Barnave's execu-
tion, two men placed themselves opposite the cart in the court-
yard of the Palace of Justice ; when he appeared, they jeeringly
applied to him his own words, " Barnave, is the blood that is
about to flow so pure ? "
ANTOINE BARXAYE. 35
Perish the colonies, rather than a principle!
In the Constituent Assembly, May 7, 1791, upon a proposition
to give colonial legislatures composed of whites the initiative of
legislation concerning persons. Dupont de Nemours, replying
to those who maintained that the colonies would be lost without
distinction of caste, exclaimed, "Better sacrifice the coloi
than a principle ! " and Robespierre added, " Perish the colonies,
if they wish to force us to decree according to their interests ! "
From these two phrases Barnave formed the more compact one,
" Pe'rissent les colonies plutot qu'un principe ! "
Of the many forms of this expression, perhaps the earliest
may be found in Corneille's " Rodogune," 1648, "Let the sky
fall, so that I be avenged ! " (Tombe que moi le del, pourvu que je
me venge .') Danton exclaimed, "Perish my reputation, rather
than my country ! ' (" Perisse ma reputation, plutot que ma pa-
trie /) Vergniaud was probably more sincere, in the Convention,
1792, "Perish our memory, but let France be free!" {Perisse
noire me'?noire, pourvu que la France soil libre .')
George Hardinge uttered a similar expression in the House
of Commons, during a debate on the Traitorous Correspondence
Bill, March 22, 1793 : " Perish commerce, let the constitution
live ! "
Take courage, madame: it is true that our banner is
torn, but the word "Constitution" is still legible
thereon.
To Marie Antoinette on the return from Varennes, 1791. The
queen said of Barnave on this occasion, " If ever power is again
in our hands, pardon is already written in our hearts ; " again
she declared, " I will place myself between Barnave and the exe-
cutioner, but Lafayette I never can forgive." Her daughter, the
Duchess d'Angouleme, thought that if the queen could have
overcome her prejudice against Lafayette, and had shown him
greater confidence, the royal family would not have perished.
The queen considered him a traitor to the court and to his
caste. "Better perish," she once exclaimed, "than owe our lives
to Lafayette and the constitutional party ! "
The last words of Barnave, on the scaffold, "stamping with
36 ISAAC BARRE.
his foot, and looking upward," were, " This, then, was my re-
ward ! "
Mirabeau declared of Barnave, when, as Dumont says, he
was satisfied with him, certainly before their great struggle over
the king's veto, " He is a tree, growing to become some day the
mast of a line-of -battle ship." Recollections of Mirabeau.
ISAAC BARRE.
[An English soldier and politician, born 1726; served in Canada
under Wolfe; entered Parliament, 1761; opposed North's administra-
tion; privy councillor, 1766; died ]S02.]
They planted by your care ! No, your oppression
planted them in America.
In reply to Charles Townshend, February, 1765, who asked if
colonies planted by British care would grudge taxation.
JEAN BART.
[A French naval commander, born 1651 ; distinguished himself as
a privateersinan ; appointed by Louis XIV. chief of squadron, 1697 ;
died 1702.]
I learned to smoke in the king's service : he will not
take offence at it.
His reply to the courtiers, who expressed their surprise at
seeing him light his pipe in the waiting-room at Versailles.
When the king told him of his appointment to the command
of the fleet, he exclaimed, "Well done, your majesty!" (Vous
avez bien fait, votre majeste!) To show his contempt of their
comments upon the sailor's uncouth manners, the king said to
his courtiers, " No doubt Jean Bart does not talk like you, but
who of vou could act like Jean Bart?"
BARON DE BASSOMPIERRE.
[Francois de Bassompierre, Marquis d'Harouel, born in Lorraine,
1579 ; distinguished himself at the court of Henry IV., who appointed
him colonel-general of the Swiss Guards ; made marshal of France
ANSELME BATBIE. 37
by Louis XIII. ; imprisoned in the Bastille by Richelieu, 1G31 ; re-
leased on the cardinal's death, 1G42 ; died 164G.]
I am looking for a passage which I do not find.
During his long imprisonment in the Bastille, his secretary
found him on one occasion reading the Bible, and asked him
what he was looking for. " A passage I do not find," he replied
(Je cherche un passage que je ne saurais trouver), meaning a pas-
sage out of the Bastille.
When the Prince of Coude and his brother were sent to the
same prison by Mazarin in 1650, they were asked what books
they would like to have brought to them. The Prince de Conti
requested the "Imitation of Jesus Christ," by Thomas a Kempis.
Conde said he should prefer the imitation of the Due de Beau-
fort, who had recently escaped from the Bastille.
ANSELME BATBIE.
[A French politician, born 1828 ; member of the National Assem-
bly and Senate ; Minister of Public Instruction, Worship, and Fine
Arts, 1873.]
We must organize against the progress of revolution-
ary barbarism a government of combat.
The expression un gouvernement de combat, which M. Batbie used
in a parliamentary report, November, 1872, during the presidency
of Thiers, became the watchword and counter-watchword of the
conservative and republican parties during the parliamentary
struggle which ended in the overthrow of the monarchical com-
bination by the elections of 1877.
CHEVALIER BAYARD.
[Pierre de Terrail, the Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, born
1475 ; accompanied Charles VIII. and Louis XII. in their Italian
wars ; having assumed command of the French army against the Im-
perialists, was mortally wounded at Ivrea, while effecting a retreat,
and died on the field, 1524.]
Glorious sword.
Francis I. of France insisted that the honor of knighthood,
which had never been conferred upon him, should be given
CHEVALIER BAYARD.
him by Bayard, after the battle of Marignano, September, 1515.
When the ceremony had been performed, the Chevalier apos-
trophized his sword, " Glorious sword, who hast been honored
by conferring knighthood on the greatest king in the world, I
will never use thee again, save against the infidel, the enemy of
the Christian name ! " After his surrender at Pavia, Francis
exclaimed, " Ah, Bayard ! if I had you, I should not be here
now ! " It was a similar cry to that of Gordon of Glenbucket,
at the battle of Sheriff muir, Nov. 13, 1715, between the Scotch
rebels under the Earl of Mar, and the royalists commanded by
Argyle. During the heat of the conflict, Gordon called for the
terrible Grahame of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, who fell at
the pass of Killiecrankie, 1689, " Oh for an hour of Dundee ! "
which Wordsworth has versified,
" Oh for a single hour of that Dundee
"Who on that day the word of onset gave ! "
Sonnet in the Pass of Killiecrankie.
Several maxims and proverbial expressions are recorded of
Bayard ; as, " What the gauntlet gains, the gorget consumes "
(Ce que le gantelet gagne, le gorgerin le mange).
Being asked the difference between a wise man and a fool, he
replied, " The same that there is between a sick man and his
doctor."
He said to two boys whom he was punishing for swearing,
" A bad habit contracted in youth is no little thing, but a great
thing indeed."
He answered the question, "What should a father leave his
children? '" by saying, " The father should leave that which fears
no rain, tempest, or the force of man, or the weakness of human
justice, that is, wisdom and virtue; like indeed unto him who
would plant a garden, and put therein good seed and sound
trees."
" Xo place is weak," he said, " where there are men capable of
defending it."
A man who fights against his country deserves pity
more than I.
His last words ; to the Due de Bourbon, of the opposing army,
who had abandoned the cause of France for the service of the
CLAUDE BAZIRE. 39
Emperor Charles V., and visited Bayard upon the battle-field,
under the tree where the wounded knight had directed himself
to be placed, saying, "Let me die facing the enemy."
Francis Marion, an American general of the Revolution, re-
plied to a British officer who pitied the half-starved condition
of the partisan leader and his men, " Pity me not. I am hap-
pier than you ; for I am fighting to be free, while you are striv-
ing to enslave your countrymen."
Thiers called Marshal MacMahon "the Bayard of our time."
CLAUDE BAZIHE.
[A member of the French Convention, born 1764 ; voted for the
death of Louis XVI. ; having become a partisan of Danton, was
executed, 1794.]
We have made a compact with death.
When, in a debate in the Convention, on foreign affairs, he
was asked if a treaty had been made with victory.
EARL OF BEACONSFIELD.
[Benjamin Disraeli, an English statesman and author, born in Lon-
don, 1805 ; produced his first work, 1826 ; entered Parliament, 1837 ;
Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1852, 1858-59, 1866-68; became premier
in the latter year, and again in 1874 ; raised to the peerage, 1876 ;
attended the Berlin Congress, 1878 ; died April 19", 1881.]
I have begun several times many things, and have
often succeeded at last. I will sit down now, but
the time will come when you will hear me.
The close of his unsuccessful maiden speech in the House
of Commons, Dec. 7, 1837, on an Irish-election petition. The
prophecy, after its fulfilment, became famous.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, being told by Woodfall the printer,
after his first speech, which was on a petition against his election
for Stafford, Nov. 20, 1780, that speaking was not in his line,
and that he had better stick to his former pursuits, rested his
head on his hand a few minutes, and then vehemently exclaimed,
" It is in me, however, and, by G , it shall come out ! "
MOORE : Life, I. 228.
40 EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD.
Disraeli's attempts, in 1832 and 1835, to enter Parliament as
a radical, were unsuccessful. To the electors of High Wycombe
he spoke, in 1831, of " the people, that bewildering title under
which a miserable minority contrive to coerce and plunder the
nation." At Taunton, in 1835, he assailed Daniel O'Connell,
who had favored his candidature at High Wycombe, and who
now said of the ungrateful radical, " I cannot divest my mind
of the belief that if this fellow's genealogy were traced, it would
be found that he is the lineal descendant and true heir-at-law of
the impenitent thief who atoned for his crimes upon the cross."
During this time the Hon. Mrs. Xorton brought about an
interview between Disraeli and Lord Melbourne, who asked him
what he really wanted to be. " I want to be prime minister,"
was the unabashed reply. When asked by an elector of Taunton,
after his opponent had made a dull speech, upon what he was
standing as a parliamentary candidate, he answered, " Upon my
head."
The right honorable gentleman [Sir Robert Peel]
caught the Whigs bathing, and walked away with
their clothes.
In a debate on the opening of letters at the post-office, Feb.
28, 1845. Disraeli added, of an assumption of Whig principles
by the Conservative leader, " He has left them in the full enjoy-
ment of their liberal position, and he is himself a strict con-
servative of their garments ; " and in the same speech, " I look
upon him as a man who has tamed the shrew of Liberalism by
her own tactics. He is the political Petruchio, who has outbid
you all." The violence with which Disraeli attacked Sir Robert
Peel is well known. Thus, in a debate on the premier's proposal
of an increased grant to Maynooth College in Ireland, Disraeli
said that with him " great measures are always rested on small
precedents : he always traces the steam-engine back to the tea-
kettle ; in fact, all his precedents are tea-kettle precedents."
And in the same speech, " We have a great parliamentary
middle-man. It is well known what a middle-man is : he is a
man who bamboozles one party and plunders the other."
He said of Peel, in the same year, " Such a man is no more a
great statesman than the man who gets up behind a carriage is
EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 43
a great whip." Also, in a speech on the Corn Importation
May 5, 1846, "His life has been one great appropriation claiit ^
lie is a burglar of others' intellects. There is no statesman who
has committed political petty larceny on so great a scale." He
compared the conversion of Peel's party to the abolition of the
Corn Laws, to the Saxons under Charlemagne, "who, according
to the chronicle, were converted in battalions, and baptized in
platoons."
An organized hypocrisy.
In a debate in the House of Commons, on agricultural inter-
ests, March 17, 1845, Disraeli said, "For me there remains this,
at least, --the opportunity of expressing thus publicly my belief
that a conservative government is an organized Irypocrisy." And
in the same speech, " There is a difference in the demeanor of
the same individual, as leader of the opposition, and as Minister
of the Crown. You must not contrast too strongly the hours of
courtship with the years of possession."
The blue ribbon of the turf.
Disraeli, in his Biography of Lord George Bentinck, gives an
account of an interview with him after Lord George had aban-
doned horse-racing for statesmanship, and had met a defeat in
Parliament, as leader of the Conservative party, a few days be-
fore the horse " Serapis," which he had sold, won the Derby :
" It w r as in vain to offer solace. He gave a sort of stifled groan.
' All my life I have been trying for this, and for what have I
sacrificed it ? You do not know what the Derby is,' he moaned
out. ' Yes, I do : it is the blue ribbon of the turf. ' " It is to
racing what the ribbon of the garter is in social and political
distinction.
Free trade is not a principle : it is an expedient.
A good illustration of the alliterative style of his epigram-
matic sayings occurred in the speech on the Maynooth grant,
before alluded to : " Why, Hansard [the reporter of the Par-
liamentary Debates], instead of being the Delphi of Downing
Street, is but the Dunciad of politics."
40 EARL OF BEACOXSFIELD.
D : the debate in answer to the Queen's speech, Jan. 24, 1860,
9 v3 said, "It is much easier to be critical than to be correct."
And at Oxford, Nov. 25, 1864, "I hold that the characteristic of
the present age is craving credulity." " Time is precious," he
said at Aylesbury, Sept. 11, 1865 ; " but truth is more precious
than time."
" A precedent," he said in a speech on the Expenditures of the
Country, Feb. 22, 1848, "embalms a principle."
" Figures," he declared, " are not party men. You may cross
the House, yet you cannot convert 15,000 tons into 20,000 tons "
(Speech on the Sugar Duties, July 28, 1846).
In a speech on the Railway Bill, April 22, 1846, he noticed
" the sort of anxiety which seems to exist among the members
of the government, that it would be generally supposed that they
had a sort of partnership with Providence."
Philosophical ideas in opposition to political prin-
ciple.
In a speech on the expulsion of the British ambassador from
Madrid, June 5, 1848, Disraeli stated his objection to liberalism
to be this : " that it is the introduction into the practical business
of life of the highest kind namely, politics of philosophical
ideas instead of political principle."
"There is a great difference," he once declared, "between
nationality and race. Nationality is the miracle of political in-
dependence. Race is the principle of physical analogy " (Speech
on the Navy Estimates, Aug. 9, 1848).
" It is not at all impossible that a man, always studying one
subject, will view the general affairs of the world through the
colored prism of his own atmosphere " (Speech on Railways-in-
Ireland Bill, Feb. 15, 1847).
He called " the memory of a great name, and the inheritance
of a great example, the legacy of heroes " (On the Address in
answer to the Queen's speech, Feb. 1, 1849).
He quoted a great w r riter, who said that " peace was beauty
in action : " "I say that justice is truth in action " (Speech on
Agricultural Distress, Feb. 11, 1851).
EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 43
England does not love coalitions.
In a speech on the Budget, Dec. 3, 1852, he declared that
" coalitions, although successful, have always this : their tri-
umph has been brief. This I know, that England does not
love coalitions."
A gentleman of the press.
Disraeli defended, in the House of Commons, in 1853, the
Emperor Napoleon, who was denounced for curtailing the free-
dom of the press ; at the same time he denied that he should
ever say or do any thing himself to depreciate the influence or
diminish the power of Parliament or the press. "My greatest
honor is to be a member of this House, in which all my thoughts
and feelings are concentrated ; and as for the press, I am myself
a gentleman of the press, and have no other escutcheon."
"A tu quoque argument," he said in a speech on the Prosecu-
tion of the Crimean War, May 24, 1855, " should always be good-
humored, for it has nothing else to recommend it."
Addressing the House on Ways and Means, May 3, 1861, he
spoke of a resolution having been carried by a very small major-
ity: "as it is in its 'teens,' it can hardly be called a majority
at all."
" The history of superannuation in this country," he declared,
" is the history of spoliation. It is a very short history, for it
may be condensed in one sentence : You promised a fund, and
you exacted a tax " (Speech on the Civil Service Superannu-
ation Bill, Feb. 15, 1856).
" Youth is, w r e all know, somewhat reckless in assertion ; and
when we are juvenile and curly, one takes a pride in sarcasm and
invective " (On the amendments to the Address to the Queen,
June 7, 1859).
A superior person.
In a speech on a vote of censure of the government, for its
course towards Denmark, July 8, 1864, Disraeli characterized the
member for Stroud, the Right Hon. Edward Horsman, as " the
superior person of the House of Commons."
In a eulogy of Richard Cobden, April 3, 1865, he declared
44 EARL OF BEACONSFIELD.
that " there are some members of Parliament, who, though not
present in the body, are still members of the House : independent
of dissolution, of the caprice of constituencies, even of the course
of time."
During the discussion in committee on the Reform Bill of
1867, Mr. Beresford Hope spoke of Disraeli as the " Asian Mys-
tery." " The action of the former while speaking," says Jen-
nings ("Anecdotal History of Parliament ''), and, it may be added,
his descent from the family of Hope of Amsterdam, gave point
to Disraeli's sarcastic reply : " When he talks about an Asian
mystery,' I will tell him that there are Batavian graces in all
he says, which I notice with satisfaction, and which charm me."
He called Goldwin Smith " an itinerant spouter of stale sedi-
tion."
In a speech at the Mansion House, Nov. 9, 1878, he said,
" The government of the world is carried on by sovereigns and
statesmen, and not by anonymous paragraph-writers or the hair-
brained chatter of irresponsible frivolity."
He said of Lord Salisbury, in 1874, " He is a great master of
gibes, and pouts, and sneers."
Sanitas sanitatum.
In a speech at the meeting of an agricultural society at Ayles-
bury, in 1864, he quoted the observation of a very great scholar,
that, in his opinion, the declaration of the wisest of mankind,
" Vanity of vanities, ah 1 is vanity," was not a misprint, but a
mistake of the copyist, and that he believed that the words were
not Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas, but Sanitas sanitatum, omnia
sanitas. This caused a member of the Liberal party to char-
acterize the views of the opposition as "a policy of sewage."
Posterity a pack-horse.
Replying to Lord Palmerston, in a debate on fortifications
and works, June 3, 1862, he accused the noble lord of seeming
to think that "posterity is a pack-horse, always ready to be
loaded." This reminds one of Sir Bovle Roche's unanswerable
t
question in the Irish Parliament, " Why should we legislate for
posterity ? What has posterity ever done for us ? "
EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 45
In reply to Sir Robert Peel, who appealed from the judgment
of his critics to the verdict of posterity, Disraeli said, " Very few
people reach posterity. Who among us may arrive at that desti-
nation, I presume not to vaticinate. Posterity is a most limited
assembly. Those gentlemen who reach posterity are not much
more numerous than the planets."
I am on the side of the angels.
At a meeting of the Oxford Diocesan Society in 1861. Mr.
Disraeli gave his view r s upon the popular idea of Darwinism :
" What is the question which is now placed before society, with
the glib assurance which to me is most astounding ? That ques-
tion is this : Is man an ape, or an angel ? I am on the side of
the angels. I repudiate with indignation and abhorrence those
new-fangled theories."
Party is organized opinion.
In a speech at Oxford, Nov. 25, 1864.
During a debate on the redistribution of seats, May 14, 1866,
he declared, "Ignorance never settles a question."
He professed, in an address at an agricultural meeting at
Sal thill, Oct. 5, 1864, to have learned what he had often learned
before, --"that you should never take any thing for granted."
" Xobody," he said, " ever acted on a testimonial who had not
afterwards cause to regret it" (Speech on a proposed pension
to Mr. Young, an Irish poet, March 22, 1867).
Assassination has never changed the history of the
world.
(Speech in the House of Commons on the assassination of
President Lincoln, May, 1865.)
"Re-action," he said, "is the law of life; and it is the charac-
teristic of the House of Commons " (On the address in reply
to the Queen's Speech, Feb. 6, 1867). "Change," he remarked
at a Conservative banquet at Edinburgh, Oct. 29, 1867, "change
is inevitable in a progressive country. Change is constant."
46 EARL OF BEACONSFIELD.
I had to educate our party.
He spoke in the same address (at the banquet in Edinburgh)
of reform, and particularly of the bill passed under his leader-
ship during the administration of Lord Derby; and said of the
interval between 1860 and the passage of the act, " I had to
prepare the mind of the country, and to educate, --if it be not
arrogant to use such a phrase, to educate our party."
The Right Hon. Robert LOAVC said, after the passage of the
bill, " We must now at least educate our masters." It was of
this statesman (Lord Sherbrooke) that Disraeli declared, " What
is more remarkable than his learning and his logic is that power
of spontaneous aversion which particularly characterizes him."
At another time he called him " an inspired schoolboy."
The mountains of Rasselas.
In moving a vote of thanks in the House of Commons to Sir
R. Xapier's army after the Abyssinian campaign of 1808, he
gave utterance to one of his most florid periods : ' They brought
the elephant of Asia to convey the artillery of Europe to de-
throne one of the kings of Africa, and to hoist the standard of
St. George upon the mountains of Rasselas."
Apologies only account for -what they do not alter.
Speech on the Order of Business, July 28, 1871.
He called the national debt " a mere flea-bite."
The Irish Church Bill was stigmatized by him in 1868, as
" legalized confiscation and consecrated sacrilege."
"Parliamentary speaking," he said, "like playing on the fid-
dle, requires practice." (Elections Bill, July 13. 1871.)
Of ritualism he once said, " What I do object to is the mass
in masquerade."
A range of exhausted volcanoes.
In a speech to the Conservatives of Lancashire, at Manchester,
April 3, 1872, Disraeli said, " As I sat opposite the Treasury
Bench, the ministers reminded me of one of those marine land-
scapes not very unusual on the coasts of South America. You
behold a range of exhausted volcanoes - - not a flame flickers
EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. 47
on a single pallid crest, but the situation is still dangerous.
There are occasional earthquakes, and, ever and anon, the dark
rumbling of the sea." In the same speech he called "increased
means and increased leisure the two civilizers of man."
Mr. Bright made a humorous allusion to the conservative
ministry, in a speech on Reform, at Birmingham, in 1SG6. " The
government of Lord Derby in the House of Commons, sitting all
in a row, reminds me very much of a number of amusing and
ingenious gentlemen whom I dare say some of you have seen
and listened to. I mean the Christy Minstrels."
Of ministers' speeches during the recess of 1872, Disraeli said,
" Her Majesty's ministers may be said during the last six
months to have lived in a blaze of apology ; " and in a letter to
Earl Grey de Wilton, Oct. 3, 1873, " For nearly five years the
present ministers have harassed every trade, worried every pro-
fession, and assailed or menaced every class, institution, and
species of property."
Burning questions.
An expression first used by Edward Miall, M.P., a late well-
known advocate of disestablishment, in a letter to some of his
political friends. Disraeli appropriated it in a speech in the
House of Commons, March, 1873, in which he said that the aris-
tocratic principle, the constitution of the House of Commons,
the position of the National Church, "would in due time become
great and burning questions." The expression is, however, bor-
rowed from the German. In the preface of Hagenbach's
. " Grundlinien cler Liturgik und Homiletik," 1803, the 'author
asks, " Who will burden himself with your liturgical parterre,
when the burning questions (brennende Fragen) of the day invite
to very different toils?'
Peace with honor.
On his return from the Berlin Congress, July 10, 1878, Lord
Beaconsfield said, " Lord Salisbury and myself have brought you
back peace but a peace, I hope, with honor, which may satisfy
our sovereign, and tend to the welfare of the country."
Lord John Russell spoke at Greenock, September, 1853, of the
48 EARL OF BEACOXSFIELD.
duty of securing the rights of nations by peace, and added, "But,
while we endeavor to maintain peace, I certainly should be the
last to forget, that, if peace cannot be maintained with honor, it
is no longer peace."
A correspondent of "Xotes and Queries " calls attention to a
singular similarity of expression in Fletcher's " Queen of Cor-
inth," I. 1:-
Eraton. The general is returned, then?
Neantlies. With much honor.
Sosicles. And peace concluded with the place of Argos?
Neantlies. To the queen's wishes.
Of the results of the Berlin Congress as applied to Greece,
Lord Beaconsfield said in the House of Peers, July 18, 1878,
"Greece has a future; and I would say, if I might be permitted,
to Greece, what I would say to an individual who has a future,
1 Learn to be patient.' "
Imperium et libertas.
In a speech at Guildhall, Nov. 9, 1879, Lord Beaconsfield
said, "One of the greatest of Romans, when asked what was his
politics, replied, 'Imperiwn et libertas.' That would not make a
bad programme for a British ministry." Tacitus said of Xerva,
" He joined two things hitherto incompatible, imperium et liber-
tatem."
He accused a former secretary of foreign affairs, the fifteenth
Earl of Derby, in the House of Lords, March 5, 1881, of an
opposite principle : " I do not know that there is any thing that
excites enthusiasm in him except when he contemplates the
surrender of some national policy."
The key of India is not at Candahar: the key of
India is in London.
In the House of Lords, 1881, on the abandonment of the
policy of the previous (conservative) administration in Afghanis-
tan.
You see I never contradict, and I sometimes forget.
When asked why he was a favorite of the Queen.
THOMAS A BECKET. 49
THOMAS (I BECKET.
[An English ecclesiastic, horn 1117; Lord Chancellor, 1158; Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, 11(32. Having resisted the attempt of Henry
II. to limit ecclesiastical authority, he fled to France, but was per-
mitted to return, and continued to defy the king's authority, until
assassinated, Dec. 29, 1170.]
Sit I at the helm, and would you have me sleep? (Cla-
I'um teneo, et ad somnum me vocas ?)
Being advised to show greater moderation in his controversy
with Henry II. When, finally, the king exclaimed, " Of all the
cowards who eat mv bread, is there not one who will free me
v
from this turbulent priest ? " four knights left his table, crossed
the channel, and attacked the archbishop at the foot of the altar
of Canterbury Cathedral. He met them with undismayed front :
" In vain you menace me. If all the swords in England were
brandishing over my head, your terrors could not move me."
HENRY WARD BEECHER.
[An American pulpit -orator, born in Litchfield, Conn., 1813;
pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, from 1847.]
Doctrine is nothing 'but the skin of truth set up and
stuffed.
From sermons and addresses collected in "Life Thoughts:"
Happiness is not the end of life : character is.
Mozart and Raphael ! as long as the winds make the air give-
sounds, and the sun paints the earth with colors, so long shall,
the world not let these names die.
" I can forgive, but I cannot forget," is only another way of
saying, "I cannot forgive."
The truest self-respect is not to think of self.
Flowers are the sweetest things that God ever made, and for-
got to put a soul into.
What we call wisdom is the result, not the residuum, of all the
wisdom of past ages.
Never forget what a man says to you when he is angry.
Anger is a bow that will shoot sometimes when another feel-
ing will not.
50 LUDWIG VOX BEETHOVEN.
Reason can tell us how love affects us, but cannot tell what
lore is.
Refinement which carries us away from our fellow-men is not
God's refinement.
There is somebody to believe in anybody who is uppermost.
The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom.
Selfishness is that detestable vice which no one will forgive in
others, and no one is without in himself.
The real man is one who always finds excuses for others, but
never for himself.
The elect are those who will, and the non-elect those who won't.
Success is full of promise till men get it ; and then it is a last-
year's nest, from which the birds have flown.
In the morning we carry the w r orld like Atlas ; at noon we
stoop and bend beneath it ; and at night it crushes us flat to the
ground.
A cunning man overreaches no one half so much as himself.
The philosophy of one century is the common-sense of the
next.
* Men are called fools in one age for not knowing what they
were called fools for averring in the age before.
Not that which men do worthily, but that they do success-
fully, is what history makes haste to record.
There are many people who think that Sunday is a sponge to
wipe out all the sins of the week.
Some men are like pyramids, which are very broad where they
touch the ground, but grow narrow as they reach the sky.
LUDWIG VON BEETHOVEN.
[The celebrated composer, born at Bonn, of Dutch extraction,
Dec. 17, 1770; settled in Vienna, where from 1802 to his death, in
March, 1827, he produced the works which attest the sublimity of his
genius.]
I close my eyes with the blessed consciousness that I
have left one shining track upon the earth.
His last words. He asked, during his last illness, his friend
and pupil, Hummel, " Is it not true that I have some talent, after
all?"
RICHARD BENTLEY. 51
RICHARD BENTLEY.
[An able critic and scholar; born in Yorkshire, England, Jan. 27,
16G2; educated at Cambridge ; keeper of the royal library, It;'.).'); master
of Trinity College, Cambridge, 1700; degraded for extoi'tionate charges
for degrees, but restored by the King's Bench; died, July, 1742.]
No man was ever written down except by himself.
Of the literary conflicts in which he was engaged with Boyle,
Atterbury, Pope, and Swift, caused by the publication of his
"Dissertation on the Letters of Phalaris/' Napoleon said at
St. Helena, April 6, 1817: "None but myself ever did me
any harm." O'MEARA : Napoleon in Exile. " Nothing can work
me damage," remarks St. Bernard, *' except myself : the harm
that I sustain I carry about with me, and never am a real suf-
ferer but by my own fault."
ST. BERNARD.
[An eminent ecclesiastic; born near Dijon, 1091; became abbot of
Clairvaux, near Langres, 1115; promoted the crusade of 1146; died
1153.]
Sermons in stones.
St. Bernard said in a letter : " Trust to one who has had
experience. You will find something far greater in the woods
than you will find in books. Stones and trees will teach you
that which you will never learn from masters. Think you not
you can suck honey from the rock, and oil from the flinty rock ?
Do not the mountains run sweetness, the hills run with milk
and honey, and the valleys stand thick with corn?" Had Shake-
speare read St. Bernard when he wrote,
" And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing " ?
As You Like It, II. 1.
Or Wordsworth,
" One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil, and of good,
Than all the sages can " ?
But Socrates said, "Knowledge is what I love; and the men
who dwell in towns are my teachers, not trees and landscape."
52 FKAXQOIS DE BERXIS.
FRANCOIS DE BERNIS.
[A Frencli statesman and ecclesiastic; born 1715; ambassador to
Venice, and minister of foreign affairs under Lonis XV.; cardinal,
archbishop, and ambassador to Rome, where he died, 1794.]
I will wait (tTattendrai).
His reply to Cardinal Fleury, who had witnessed the irregu-
larity of his early life, and frankly told him at the outset of his
career, " You have nothing to expect during my life." The favor
of Madame de Pompadour raised the abbe to the cardinalate
after he had " waited " for Fleury's death.
When Cresar proposed to distribute lands in Campania among
the soldiers, Lucius Gellius said it should never be done in his
time. " Let us wait a while," remarked Cicero, " for Gellius
requires no very long credit."
ANTOINE BERRYER.
[A French advocate and orator, of whose first appearance Boyer-
Collard said, " This is not merely a talent, it is a power; " born 1790;
deputy, 1830; member of the Academy, 1852; opposed the coup d'etat,
and retired from public life; died 1868.]
I have consecrated my life to the defence of the old
alliance of royalty and liberty.
The political profession of faith of the noted advocate, who
was strongly attached to the Legitimist party. At another time
he said, "I am a royalist, because I am a patriot."
A man has always the voice of his mind. A mind
clear, distinct, firm, generous, a little disdainful,
displays all these characteristics in its voice.
There are no ugly women : there are only women who
do not know how to look pretty.
Nothing was more characteristic of Berryer than gallantry.
Bankruptcy or death.
When the Austrian Archduke Maximilian was induced to
lend himself to the Emperor Napoleon's scheme of an empire
THOMAS BETTERTON. 53
in Mexico, Berryer exclaimed, "You are leading an archduke
from Austria to Mexico : what fate are you reserving for this
child of your victories, bankruptcy, or death ? " On the with-
drawal of the French troops, the Emperor Maximilian was shot,
June 19, 1867.
THOMAS BETTERTON.
[An English dramatist, and one of the most popular actors of his
time; born in Westminster, 1635; excelled in the roles of Othello,
Macbeth, and Hamlet, and was commended by Addison, Pope, and
Dryden ; died 1710.]
Actors speak of things imaginary as if they were real,
while you preachers too often speak of things real
as if they were imaginary.
When asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury why actors
were more successful in impressing their auditors than preach-
ers.
BIAS.
[One of the Seven Wise Men of Greece; a native of Priene, in
Ionia; flourished about 550 B.C.]
I carry all my effects with me (Omnia meet mecum porto).
Cicero, " Paradoxa," I., 1, quotes the words, "Omnia mecum
porlo mea;' Valerius Maximus, "Ego vero bona mca mecum
porto." Seneca and Plutarch have similar expressions, attrib-
uted by the former to the Greek philosopher Stilpo, the teacher
of Zeno. Phsedrus ascribes the remark to Siinonides. The
reply of Bias, during the siege of Priene, was given to those
who were surprised to see him making no preparations for flight;
and referred to his wisdom, his sole possession.
Mile. Fanny Bias, an opera-singer, replied to a friend who
remarked that she was leaving Paris for a journey with but
small baggage, by pointing to her figure and face, sa}'ing, "Do
you not see, that, like my illustrious ancestor, omnia mca mecum
porto ?" LAROUSSE : Fleurs Historiques.
Take by persuasion, not by force.
54 MARQUIS DE BIEVRE.
So order your affairs as if you were to live long, or
die soon.
He reproved some sailors who were calling upon the gods in a
storm by saying, "Be quiet, lest the gods discover you are here."
MARQUIS DE BIEVRE.
[A French litterateur and wit, born 1747; published several dra-
mas, and the " Almanac of Puns; " died 1789.]
Your majesty is not a subject (Votre majeste n'est pas un
sujet).
To Louis XVI., who said to him, " You, who make puns on
everybody, make one on me."
When told that the Abbe Maury had distanced him in a con-
test for a seat in the French Academy, he replied,
" Omnia vincit Amor, et nos cedamus amori " (a Maury).
VIRGIL, Eclogues, X., 69.
DUG DE LAUZUN DE BIHON.
[A French general, born 1747; fought in America; general-in-chief
of the army of the Rhine, 1793; insisting upon resigning his com-
mand, he was executed Dec. 31, 1793.]
I beg a thousand pardons, my friend, but permit me
to finish this last dozen of oysters (vous me permettrez
bien encore une douzaine cThultres).
To the executioner's messenger, who surprised him at a
breakfast of oysters and white wine, and said he was at the
duke's orders ; to which the latter rejoined, " No, ?noi*bleu, 'tis just
the other way : I am at yours ! "
His execution occurring on the last day of the year in the old
calendar enabled him to say, " I shall arrive in the other world
in time to wish my friends a happy new year."
His last words were, " I have been false to my God, to my
order, and to my king: I die- full of faith and of repentance"
(J'ai etc infidele a mon Dieu, a mon ordre, et d mon roi: je meurs
plein defoi et de repentir).
PRINCE YON BISMARCK. 55
PRINCE VON BISMARCK.
[Carl Otto, Prince von Bismarck- Schonhausen, a distinguished
Prussian statesman; born at Brandenburg, 1813; member of the
Diet, 1847; ambassador to St. Petersburg, 1859; to Paris, 1862; prime
minister in that year; chancellor of the North-German Confedera-
tion, 1867; of the German Empire, 1871.]
Blood and iron.
In a letter from St. Petersburg to Baron von Schleinitz, the
Prussian minister of foreign affairs, May 12, 1859, Bismarck
wrote, " I see in our relations with the Bund [the old German
Confederation, at the head of which stood Austria] a fault of
Prussia's, which we must cure sooner or later ferro et igne " (Ich
sehe in unsernt Bundesverhaltnisse ein Gebrechen Preussens, welches
ivir frulier oder spdter "ferro et igne" werden he 'den musseri).
This letter only saw the light in 1866, when Prussia applied the
cure to her Bund-relation ferro et igne. He had already made a
public use of the words in a speech before the Budget Commis-
sion of the Prussian House of Delegates, Sept. 30, 1862 : " It is
desirable and necessary that the condition of affairs in Germany
and of her constitutional relations should be improved ; but it
cannot be accomplished by speeches and resolutions of a ma-
jority, but only by iron and blood " {Die deutschen Zustdnde und
VerfassungsverlidUnisse zu verbessern ist wilnschenswerih und nolh-
wendig, was jedoch nicht durch ]\lajoritatsl>eschlusse, Reden, u. s. w.,
sondern nur durch Eisen und Blut bewirkt werden kann~). There
was, however, nothing original in the expression. Quintilian
speaks of slaughter as meaning blood and iron (cccdes videtur
significare sanguinem et ferruin). Declamationes. Arndt, the
soul-stirrer of the " War of Liberation," had introduced the
words to a German audience,
" Zwar der Tapfere nennt sich Herr der Lander
Durch sein Eisen, durch sein Blui."
Lehre an den Menschen : 5.
Schenkendorf, in " Das Eiserne Kreuz," declared that only iron
and blood could save his countrymen ; and Heine, in manuscript
memoranda found after his death, anticipated the "healing " as
well as the "blood and iron " in Bismarck's letter to von Schlei-
nitz ; for he said that " Xapoleon healed through fire and iron
the sick nation."
56 PRIXCE VOX BISMARCK.
Somewhat similar was Bismarck's remark, expressive of his
dislike of political speeches, concerning the popular indignation
excited by Manteuffel's arrangement with Austria during an
insurrection of the people of Hesse-Cassel against the govern-
ment in 1850, " Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches,"
(Lieber Spitzkugeln als Spitzreden}.
He used a striking equivalent for cannon-balls, when speak-
ing in Parliament at another time of the insufficiency of debates :
" The decision will come only from God, from the God of battles,
when he lets fall from his hand the iron dice of destiny "
Bismarck denied on four different occasions, from 1866 to 1S75,
the use of the expression "Might before Right" ( Maclit gelit vor
Kecht), which was imputed to him in the House of Deputies in
1863.
In the same debate in which he used the words "iron and
blood," he said, " We have too many critics of government, too
many parliamentary candidates, too many Catilinarian exist-
ences " (zu viele catilinarisclie Existenzen) : this latter phrase had
already been employed as the title of a romance by Theodore
Kb'uig (Breslau, 1854, " A Catilinarian Existence "), being meant
in both cases to express an existence supported by conspiracy.
The definition of a newspaper-writer, that he is " a man who
has failed in his career," although not given in that form by
Bismarck, is derived from a remark of his to a deputation from
Riigen to the king, Xov. 10, 1862 ; to the members of which he
said a few days previously, " An amicable relation between the
government and the House of Deputies is rendered impossible
by the opposition press, which is in the hands of malecontents
who have failed in their career." "With this may be compared
Disraeli's w T ell-known observation in " Lothair," that " a critic is
a man who has failed in literature and the arts."
Only one other saying belongs to this period of Bismarck's
life, but that is the earliest in point of time : it is significant of
his own "Junker" politics, and may have recommended him at
the outset of his career to the favor of a prince who was to
claim during a long reign the authority of divine right. Bis-
marck declared in the Prussian Parliament in 18-47, that "the
Prussian sovereigns are in possession of a crown, not by the
grace of the people, but by God's grace."
PRINCE VON BISMARCK. 57
A great unrecognized Incapacity.
While minister to Paris for a short time in 1862, he studied
the men with whom he was afterwards to deal, and mystified the
official world by his undiplomatic frankness. He easily read
the character of Napoleon III., whose silence had imposed upon
the French people, and of whom the English ambassador, Lord
Cowley, had said, " He never speaks, and always lies " (// ne
parlejamais, et il ment toujours). Events were to prove the justice
of Bismarck's verdict, " He is a great unrecognized Incapacity "
(une grande incapacity inconnue) . It was more accurate than the
judgment which the Prussian's apparent levity caused the em-
peror to pass upon him, "He is not a serious man" (Ce riest
pas un homme serieux) ; a judgment "of which," said Bismarck,
" I naturally did not remind him at the weaver's of Donchery,"
where, after the battle of Sedan, the emperor surrendered him-
self to the king of Prussia, and discussed with Bismarck the
terms of capitulation. Thiers said later of the Prussian chan-
cellor, "He is an amiable barbarian " (C'est un larbare aimable)\
and Francis Joseph of Austria, hearing him criticised after the
battle of Sadowa had destroyed the hegemony of Austria in the
Germanic Confederation, exclaimed, " Oh, if I had but him ! "
His "Junker" politics, by which is to be understood the "high
and dry " conservatism of the landed nobility, is illustrated by
a remark, which he made during this time concerning con-
stitutional government, that it was "democracy in its Sunday
best" (la democratic endimancliee) .
While in Paris, Bismarck accused Thiers of sulking with his
friends and his books, instead of taking that part in public
affairs, even under the Second Empire, to which his ability and
previous career would entitle him. "Be minister," said the
Prussian, "and w r e will between us re-make the map of Europe."
When the map of Europe w r as re-made in 1871, it was not
"between them," in the sense of 1862.
Even Bismarck's slightest remarks at this time were con-
sidered afterwards as prophetic. Walking one day with the
emperor on the terrace of St. Germain, he saw the dome of the
Invalides shining on the distant horizon. "It looks," he ob-
served, "like a gilded Prussian helmet" (il ressemUe a un casque
prussien dore).
58 PRINCE VON BISMARCK.
If Italy did not exist, it would be necessary to invent
her.
To Chevalier Nigra, minister of Italy to Paris ; of the tend-
ency of Napoleon III. to encourage Italy, and thus, by opposing
Austria, to assist unwittingly the purpose of Bismarck to humble
the leader of the Germanic Confederation, which occurred in
1866. The expression is derived from a line of Voltaire's, " If
God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him" (Si
Dieu n'existait pas, ilfaudra.it I'inventer). Epitre a I'Auteur du
Livre des Trois Imposteurs. It also occurs in a letter of Voltaire
to Frederick, Prince Royal of Prussia. "Seldom," wrote the
poet later, " am I satisfied with my lines ; but I confess that I
feel for this one the tenderness of a father." A similar thought
occurs in a sermon of Archbishop Tillotson : " If God were not
a necessary Being of himself, he might almost seem to be made
for the use and benefit of mankind." Goethe declared, " If there
be not a God, there will be some day; " that the necessity of a
Supreme Being must be sooner or later acknowledged. Millaud
borrowed Voltaire's line in voting for the death of Louis XVI. :
" If death did not exist to-day, it would be necessary to invent
it " (Aujourd'hui si la mort n'existaitpas, ilfaudrait I'inventer).
France took no part in the struggle which broke out between
Prussia and Austria in the summer of 1866, but hoped to gain
by it some territorial acquisition, however slight, rather than
come out of it empty-handed. Some one compared the policy
of Napoleon III. to a man who should profit by an eruption of
Vesuvius to boil an egg. Bismarck accused France of pursuing
"a policy of pour-boire," the smallest favor being gratefully
received (la France fait une politigue de pour-boire}.
At the close of the "six-weeks' war," Prussia found herself at
the head of the North-German Confederation, which had taken
the place of the old Bund. Bismarck expressed the new position
of Germany by saying in the Parliament of the Confederation,
March 11, 1867, " Let us put Germany, so to speak, into the
saddle ! You will see that she can ride " (Setzen wir Deutschland,
so zu sac/en, in den Sattel ! Reiten wird es schon konneii). Of
similar character was the reply of the Liberal leader, Herr
Lasker, to Bismarck, in the Reichstag, session of 1881, "Ger-
many has reached her majority."
PRINCE YON BISMARCK. 59
The chancellor said in the Zoll Parliament, May 18, 1868,
"An appeal to fear never finds an echo in German hearts"
(Ein Appell an die Furcht Jindet im deutschen Herzen niemals ein
Echo).
"Liberalism,'' he once declared, "is only nonsense, which
it is easy to bring to reason ; but revolution is a force which it
is necessary to know how to use."
In 1862, during a struggle between the Prussian parliament
and the government, he showed that he had in mind the fate of
Straff ord after a resort to force, by saying, " Death on the scaf-
fold under certain circumstances is as honorable as death on the
battle-field."
Some deviations from strict veracity led Bismarck to declare
in the Prussian Upper House, Feb. 13, 1869, " It will soon come
to be said, 'He lies like the telegraph.' 1 Napoleon's bulletins,
especially those from the Russian campaign, made " To lie like
a bulletin" a proverbial expression.
I am going to let Paris stew in her own gravy.
Attributed to Bismarck during the siege of Paris, 1870-71.
The Duke of Alva asserted that the Low Countries were fat
enough to be stewed in their own liquor. Bismarck may have
thought of a French proverb, " cuire dans son t /ws," and of the
remark of a great epicurean at dinner, that " with such a gravy
one could eat his own father " (avec une pareille sauce on man-
gerait son pere). In Ward's "London Spy," IX., p. 219, 1709,
quoted in " Notes and Queries," a writer describes a bath at the
Hummums, Covent Garden : " The landlord relieved us out of
our purgatory (the tepidarium), and carried us to our own dress-
ing-rooms, which gave us much refreshment after we had been
stewing in our own gravy." Shakespeare speaks of "melting
Falstaif in his own grease " (" Merry Wives of Windsor," II. 1) ;
and Chaucer, -
" That in his owen grise I made him frie."
Wife of Bath.
We find many sayings attributed to Bismarck during the
memorable campaign of 1870-71. The pretext for war was
found in the suggestion by Prussia of Prince Leopold of Hohen-
60 PRINCE VON BISMARCK.
zollern as a suitable candidate for the throne of Spain : his
hesitation and subsequent refusal of the honor prompted Bis-
marck to say contemptuously, " A sub-lieutenant does not have
the offer of a crown every day" (On n'ojfre pas tons les jours une
couronne a un sous-lieutenant}*
Busch in his gossipy book, " Bismarck und Seine Leute,"
records many of the chancellor's mots during this time. Thus
he said one day concerning religion, during his table-talk,
"Were I no longer a Christian, I would not remain at my post
an hour ' ( Wenn ich nicht melir Christ ware, bliebe ich keine
Stunde melir auf meinem Posten) ; and again, " Take away my
connection with and relationship to God (den Zusammenlmny mil
Gott), and I should pack up to-morrow, and return to sow oats at
Varzin."
He expressed his contempt for worldly considerations, " Or-
ders and titles do not attract me" (reizen micli ni.cht). It was
remarked when he was younger that he often wore a simple
medal as his decoration. Asked the reason of this modest dis-
play, he replied, <k I am in the habit of sometimes saving a
man's life." It was the Prussian Safety Medal, given to reward
attempts to rescue drowning persons, etc.
The struggle which, even in 1870, had declared itself between
himself and the Ultramontanes, prompted him to say of some
sharp retaliatory measure, " I am accustomed to pay men back in
their own coin " (Ich bin yewohnt in die Miinze wiederzuzahlen,
in dem man micli bezahlt) . Thus Sulla wrote as his own epitaph,
" No man ever did me so much good, or enemy so much harm,
but I repaid him with interest."
Other sayings relate to the French, during the march to Paris
and the subsequent siege. Thus he declared Apollo to be the
true type of a Frenchman, "who will not own that another
plays the flute better or even so well as himself."
The barbarous conduct of the French soldiers, many of them
brought from Algiers, caused him to paraphrase Napoleon's
famous mot, " Scratch a Russian, and you will find a Tartar : "
" Strip off the w T hite skin from such a Gaul, and you will find a
Turco " (Zieht man einem solchen Gallier die weisse Haul ab, so hat
man einen Turco vor sich).
In discussing with Jules Favre, in 1871, the terms of the
PRIXCE VOX BISMARCK. Gl
surrender of Paris, Bismarck said that in politics personal
preferences must be sacrificed to the public good, rather than
forced upon the country, which " should be served, not coerced "
(/ patrie veut elre sercie et pas dominee), Busch says that this
observation made a great impression upon Favre, who replied,
" C'est bien juste, monsieur le comte, c'est profond ; " and then
littered what Busch characterizes as a betise, " Still it is a fine
sight to see a man who has never changed his principles." Bel-
montet, a French WTiter, declares, on the other hand, " The
absurd man is he who never changes."
When two hundred million francs were offered as an indem-
nity, together with the surrender of Paris, Bismarck observed,
" Paris is too great a personage that we should treat it in so
shabby a manner : let us do it the honor of a milliard " (one
thousand millions).
During the negotiations for peace after the fall of Paris,
M. Thiers complained that Bismarck insisted upon speaking
German, which the French statesman did not understand. The
chancellor explained it by saying, " When I discuss with men
with whom I expect to come ultimately to an understanding, I
speak their language ; but when I see that it is useless to discuss
with them, I speak my own."
We are not going to Canossa (Nach Canossa gehen wir
nicht).
In the German Reichstag, May 14, 1872; of the struggle be-
tween the clerical or Ultramontane party, and the government,
which resulted in the passage of the laws proposed by Dr. Falk,
minister of education and worship, hence called " the Falk
Laws." They prohibited the exercise of ecclesiastical functions
by persons appointed by the Pope but disapproved by the State,
or by persons who refused to take the required oaths before the
civil authority. The parliamentary struggle was known as the
Kulturkampf, or " culture-contest," an expression which was first
used by Professor Virchow, deputy from Berlin, in an electoral
programme of the Progressist party, of which he is a distinguished
member : he afterwards explained it by saying that the contest
was not merely a religious one, but involved man's entire intel-
lectual and moral culture. The allusion to Canossa in Bismarck's
62 PRINCE VON BISMARCK.
mot indicated his intention of not yielding to the clerical party.
It referred to the celebrated penance of the emperor Henry IV.
during the struggle for supremacy between Germany and Rome.
The emperor replied to a summons to appear at Rome to answer
charges of misgovernment, by deposing the Supreme Pontiff.
Gregory VII. then excommunicated Henry, and fixed a day,
when, if still unrepentant, he should cease to reign. Deserted
by his subjects, the emperor was compelled to accept the Pope's
terms; and, crossing the Alps, he appeared in the dead of winter
before the gates of the castle of Canossa, among the mountains
of Modena, in Italy. Knocking at the door, and admitted within
the gate, he waited in the space between the first and second
walls, standing barefooted in the snow, and fasted until evening.
He returned on each of the two following days to the same place;
and only on the morning of the fourth day, Jan. 25, 1077, was
he admitted to the Pope's presence, where he swore to be faithful
to the command of the Church. " That one scene," says Bryce,
"was enough to mark a decisive change, and inflict an irretrieva-
ble disgrace on the crown so debased. Its wearer could no more
claim to be the highest power on earth." Holy Roman Empire.
The struggle for the right of appointment to sees within the
dominions of secular princes, which, being repeated in 1872, gave
point to Bismarck's refusal to imitate the example of Henry IV.,
lasted far beyond the lives of the original parties to the contest.
Henry died miserably, dethroned by a son whom the Pope's
hatred of the emperor had raised in rebellion. Twenty years
previously, in 1085, Ilildebrand passed away at Salerno, bitterly
exclaiming with his latest breath, "I have loved justice, and
hated iniquity: therefore I die in exile" (clilexi justitiam, et odivi
iniquitalem ; propterea morior in exilioj.
In 1877 a monument, called the "Bismarck Stone," containing
a likeness of the chancellor in bas-relief, and the words " Nach
Canossa yelien wir nicht" was erected by private subscription on
the spot near Warzburg, where Henry IV. took the road to Italy.
The appointment, however, in 1882, of Herr von Schlozer to be
Prussian minister at the Vatican, together with such a modifica-
tion of the Falk Laws as would indicate a cessation of the Kul-
turkampf, on terms not to have been expected in 1872, prompted
the suggestion of one of the Liberal journals of Berlin, " All
change here for Canossa."
COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON. 63
Beati possidentes f
The full sentence is, " Beati in jure con sentur possidentes." It is
contained in commentaries on the civil law, and is equivalent to,
"Possession is nine points of the law." With this meaning it
was applied by Prince Bismarck to the status of the Christian
provinces of Turkey after the war with Russia, and especially to
the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria. Mr.
Gladstone said in an interview with the correspondent of a
German newspaper in 1880, " Whoever understands the meaning
of the English phrase, 'Hands off!' will be able to understand
my line of policy towards the liberated Slavic population." He
wished them to build up their states without foreign occupation :
Bismarck would have encouraged their development as provinces
of that empire to which the Treaty of Berlin had assigned them.
When, in 1875, there was question of the intervention of
Germany in the struggle between the Christian provinces and
Turkey, which finally led to the Russo-Turkish war, Bismarck
declared that " the Herzegovina question is not worth the bones
of a Pomeranian fusileer " (V affaire Herzeyovinienne ne vaut pas
les os d'unfusile'er pome'ranien).
COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON.
[An Irish lady, celebrated for her beauty and accomplishments;
born 1780; on the death of her husband she removed to London,
where her house was for many years the resort of literati and Euro-
pean celebrities ; died 1849.]
When the sun shines on you, you see your friends. It
requires sunshine to be seen by them to advantage.
" Like summer friends,
Flies of estate and sunneshine."
GEORGE HERBERT : The Answer.
Lady Blessington also said, " Friends are the thermometers by
which we may judge the temperature of our fortunes."
Prince Louis Napoleon, on his election to the presidency of the
French Republic in 1849, did not invite Lady Blessington to the
Tuileries, although he had often been entertained by her in
London. Meeting her one day in the Champs Elysees, he
asked if she expected to remain long in Paris (Comptez-vous
rester id longtempsf). To which her cool reply was, "And
you ? " (Et vous ?)
64 NICHOLAS BOILEAU.
Many minds that have withstood the most severe
trials have been broken down by a succession of
ignoble cares.
This and the following are from Lady Blessington's Common-
place Book.
There is no knowledge for which so great a price is paid as a
knowledge of the world ; and no one ever became an adept in it
except at the expense of a hardened or a wounded heart.
Men can pity the wrongs inflicted by other men on the gentler
sex, but never those which they themselves inflict.
A beautiful woman without fixed principles may be likened to
those fair but rootless flowers which float in streams, driven by
every breeze.
Love-matches are made by people who are content, for a
month of honey, to condemn themselves to a life of vinegar.
[It was Dr. Johnson's opinion that " only a weak man marries
for love."]
A knowledge of the nothingness of life is seldom acquired
except by those of superior minds.
Religion converts despair, which destroys, into resignation,
which submits.
NICHOLAS BOILEAU.
[A celebrated French poet and satirist, called by Mathieu Marais,
"Reason Incarnate;" born 1636; member of the French Academy;
published " The Art of Poetry," 1674; appointed, with Racine, histo-
riographer, by Louis XIV.; died 1711.]
I only know three, Corneille, Moliere, and myself.
In reply to the question, how many great writers the age of
Louis XIV. had produced. "And how about Racine?" was
asked. " He was an extremely clever fellow, whom I taught
with great difficult}" to write verse." Madame de Genlis, a cele-
brated French writer (1746-1830), is credited with a similarly
egotistical remark, "Madame de Stael was not lacking in imagi-
nation : I could have made something of her if I could have
tauq;ht her to write." Buffon said, "Read only the works of
O v
men of genius : these are but few, Newton, Bacon, Leibnitz,
Montesquieu, and I."
NICHOLAS BOILEAU. 65
I have always observed that a man's faults are brought
forward whenever he is waited for (J'ai remarque que
ceux qui attendent ne songent qu'aux defauts de ceux qui se font
attendre).
The reason he gave for his habitual punctuality. It naturally
suggests the French proverb, " Les absents ont toujours tort "
(The absent are always wrong).
Your majesty is always lucky: you will not find him.
To Louis XIV., who said he was looking everywhere for
Antoine Arnauld, the theologian and leader of the Port Royal-
ists, then in hiding. In this way Boileau delicately expressed his
disapproval of the persecution of the Jansenists of Port Royal.
It was this member of the celebrated family of writers and
ecclesiastics, male and female, who, when urged to rest from his
labors, replied, " Shall I not have all eternity to rest in ? "
(N'aurai-je pour me reposer I'eternite entiere f) Another version
is sometimes given of the answer of the " Great Arnauld/*
whose genius was described by Fontenelle as that of a military
commander. His companion-in-arms, Nicolle, of a more peace-
ful and accommodating disposition, once avowed that he was
tired of theological controversy, and wished to rest; to which
Arnauld impetuously replied, " Will you not have eternity to
rest in ? "
Boileau allowed himself an uncourtier-like freedom of speech
towards le Grand Monarque , for when the king once asked him
to criticise some verses from the royal pen, the poet returned
them with the remark, " Nothing is impossible with your maj-
esty: you wished to make a bad poem, and you succeeded.'*
"Boileau had the spirit," says Macaulay, "to tell Louis XIV.
firmly, and even rudely, that his majesty knew nothing about,
poetry."
On another occasion, he expressed his agreement with the
king, who maintained that the words gros and grand were not
synonymous, by saying, " I am certainly of your majesty's opin-
ion : there is a great difference between Louis le Gros and Louis
le Grand " (or, as would be said in English, between Louis
"the Fat," the soubriquet of Louis VI., and Louis "the Great,"
the designation of Louis XIV.).
66 VISCOUNT BOLIXGBROKE.
He showed the same freedom with the king's cousin, the Due
d'Orleans, who invited him to dine on a Friday. The poet ate
nothing but bread ; but the duke, saying that the servants had
forgotten the day, urged him to eat meat with the rest. " You
have only to stamp your foot," replied the poet, " and fish would
start from the ground." When Pompey was advised to make
further levies against Caesar (B.C. 50), he declared that he "had
only to stamp with his foot, when the occasion required, to raise
legions from the soil of Italy."
It is a great consolation to a dying poet to have
never written any thing against morality.
Thus Fontenelle said at the close of his long life, "I was
born a Frenchman. I have lived one hundred years, and I die
/
with the consolation of never having thrown the slightest ridi-
cule upon the smallest virtue." Voltaire, when a candidate for
the French Academy, declared, " If ever a page has been printed
in my name, which could scandalize the sacristan of my parish,
I am ready to tear it to pieces in his presence." Sir Walter
Scott was comforted by the thought, " I have tried to unsettle
no man's faith, to corrupt no man's principles, and have written
nothing which on my death-bed I should wish blotted."
Boileau said to a playwright who brought him a play shortly
before the death of the great critic, " Do you wish to hasten niy
last hour?"
VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE.
[Henry St. John, an English statesman and writer, born 1678 ;
secretary for war, 1704; secretary of state, 1710; prime minister, 1714;
on the death of Queen Anne in that year, and the failure of his
attempt to restore the Stuarts, he escaped to France; returned 1723;
died 1751 .]
It is a very easy thing to devise good laws : the diffi-
culty is to make them effective.
He wrote of the House of Commons, in a letter to Sir William
Wyndham : " You know the nature of that assembly : they grow
like hounds, fond of the man who shows them game, and by
whose halloo they are used to be encouraged." Of the mass of
CHARLES BONAPARTE. 67
mankind he had no high opinion. "The great mistake," he
asserted, " is that of looking upon men as virtuous, thinking
they can be made so by laws ; and consequently the greatest act
of a politician is to render vices serviceable to the cause of
virtue."
We see for use, not for curiosity.
Mme. de Bawr, a French writer of romances, when asked by
Ducis why she lived, replied, " I live from curiosity '' (Je vis par
curiosite).
We can only reason from what is : we can reason on
actualities, but not on possibilities.
Pope, who put Bolingbroke's philosophy into verse, asks,
" What can we reason but from what we know ? "
Essay on Man, I., 18.
There is so much trouble in coming into the world,
and so much more, as well as meanness, in going-
out of it, that it is hardly worth while to be here at
all.
CHARLES BONAPARTE.
[Father of Napoleon Bonaparte; lawyer and patriot soldier; born
in Corsica, 1756; died 1785.]
Pew nations have attained the blessings of liberty,
because few have had energy, courage, and virtue
to deserve them.
In a speech before a popular assembly, when it was proposed
that Corsica should submit to France. He was then not more
than twenty years of age. Paoli said to him, when remarking
his energy and decision of character, " O Bonaparte ! you do
not resemble the moderns : you belong only to the heroes of
Plutarch ! "
Barbaroux spoke of Corsica in 1790, as a possible resort of
French patriots, "where neither Genoese nor French have been
able to naturalize t}^ranny ; which needs but hands to be fertile,
and philosophers to be enlightened."
68 BONIFACE VIII.
BONIFACE VIII.
[Benedetto Gaetani, born at Anagni about 1228; succeeded Celes-
tine V. as Pope of Rome, 1294; became involved in a contest with
Philip the Fair of France, whom he excommunicated, and by whom
he was imprisoned; died soon after his release, 1303.]
Silence gives consent.
A favorite motto of the Pope, which he derived from the
Canon Law, " Qui facet, consentire videtur." Decretals, Book V.,
12, 43.
PIERRE BOSQUET.
[A French general, born at Pau, 1810; a general of division in the
Crimean war; marshal of France, 1856; died 1862. J
It is magnificent, but it is not war (C'est magnifique, mais
ce n'est pas la guerre.)
Of the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, Oct. 25,
1854. About twelve thousand Russians had taken some feebly
defended redoubts, and then attacked the British, by whom they
were obliged to retire. After this, from an unfortunate miscon-
ception of the order of the commander-in-chief, Lord Raglan,
Lord Lucan, commanding the cavalry, ordered the Earl of Car-
digan, with the light cavalry, to charge the Russian army, which
had reformed on its own ground with its artillery in front.
The order was gallantly obeyed, and great havoc was made with
the enemy; but of six hundred and seventy British cavalrymen,
only one hundred and ninety-eight returned. Tennyson immor-
t/ v O i/
talized the action in " The Charge of the Light Brigade ; '' and
Disraeli called it in the House of Commons, on a motion for a
vote of thanks to the allied army, Dec. 15, 1855, "a feat of
chivalry, fiery with consummate courage, and bright with flash-
ing valor."
JACQUES BOSSUET.
[A French pulpit-orator and controversalist, born at Dijon, 1627;
bishop of Condom, 1669; preceptor to the dauphin, 1670; bishop of
Meaux, 1681; died 1701.]
JACQUES BOSSUET. 69
No man is more easily deceived than he who hopes^
for he aids in his own deceit.
The maxim, " Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur " (The world
wishes to be deceived, let it therefore be deceived), is ascribed
by Zincgref, " German Apothegms," to the papal legate Caraffa,
afterwards Paul IV. Its German equivalent, >" Die Welt will
beirogen sein," was already a common expression, which finds fre-
quent quotation in Luther, and was in Goethe's mind when he
said, "Man is never deceived: he deceives himself."
The princess had all the virtues with which hell is
filled (toutes les vertus dont Uenfer est rempli).
Sermon on the death of Anne de Gonzaga de Cleves, Princess
Palatine, 1684; who was converted at fifty-six, after a life of
political and personal intrigue, during which she said that the
greatest miracle would be her conversion to Christianity. The
saying, " Hell is paved with good intentions," quoted from Dr.
Johnson by Boswell (" Life," 1775), is referred in a note to
George Herbert, " Hell is full of good meanings and wishes "
(Jacula Frudentum, 1651, p. 11). The Germans have a proverb,
*' Der Weg zur Holle ist mil cjuien Vorsdtzen gepflastert;" and St.
Francis de Sales attributes to St. Bernard, " Hell is full of good
intentions and wills."
Bossuet said of the retirement of Mine, de la Valliere to a
convent, " The world itself makes us sick of the world."
Well-meant ignorance is a grievous calamity in high
places.
Goethe says, "Nothing is more terrible than active ignorance."
The heart has reasons that reason does not under-
stand.
A marginal note in a sermon on brotherly love contains the
words, " We cannot love our neighbor without loving God" (On
ne peut jamais aimer son prochain sans aimer Dieu}.
When God intends to show that any work is only his,
he lets helplessness and despair overpower us, and
then he acts.
70 LOUIS BOURDALOUE.
LOUIS BOURDALOUE.
[A French pulpit-orator, preacher to Louis XIV.; born 1632; died
1704.]
In his church thieves give up the purses they stole in
mine.
Louis XIV. having asked Bourdaloue what he thought of
Pere Honore, a Capuchin who preached at St. Antoine, he re-
plied, " Sire, Pere Honore scorches the ears and tears the heart :
at his sermons thieves return the purses they stole in mine"
(a ses sermons on rend les bourses que Von a couptes aux miens).
The great Conde could not separate himself from thoughts of
war, even in church. Going one day with his sister, the Duchess
de Longueville, to hear Bourdaloue preach at St. Sulpice, and
noticing when the orator entered the pulpit that his sister was
asleep, he woke her with the exclamation, " Wake up, sister,
here comes the enemy! " (Alerte, ma sceur, void Vennemi!)
BRENNUS.
[A chief of the Gaulish tribe of the Senones ; invaded the Roman
State about 390 B.C.: having entered Rome, he found the city de-
serted, except by some aged senators, who were murdered in their
ivory chairs. The Capitol was, however, defended by a garrison,
which was saved from a night attack by the cackling of some geese.]
Vse victis !
Brennus consented to leave Rome upon the payment of one
thousand talents. Reproached with using false measures, he
threw his sword into the scale, exclaiming, " Woe to the con-
quered ! " -PLUTARCH: Life of Camillus (by whom the Gauls
were finally expelled).
JOHN BRIGHT.
[A distinguished English orator and statesman; born 1811; en-
tered Parliament, 1834; president of the Board of Trade, 1868; chan-
cellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1880-82.]
The angel of Death has been abroad throughout the
land : you may almost hear the beating of his wings.
Against the continuance of the Crimean war ; in the House of
Commons, Feb. 23, 1855.
JEAN .PIERRE BRISSOT. 71
The right honorable gentleman is the first of the new
party who has retired into what may be called his
political cave of Adullam.
Of Mr. Horsman and a few other Liberals, who disapproved of
the Reform Bill introduced in 1866 by Earl Russell's adminis-
tration ; a reference to the discontented and distressed, who gath-
ered about David in the cave of Adullam (1 Sam. xxii. 1, 2).
He alluded to Mr. Lowe and Mr. Horsman, the most distin-
guished of the Adullamites, as reminding him of " the Scotch
terrier, which was so covered with hair that you could not tell
which was the head and which was the tail of it." Disraeli
once advised Mr. Robert Lowe to retire " not to his cave, but to
a more cynical place."
And he adores his maker.
When told that he ought to give Mr. Disraeli credit for being
a self-made man.
He said of a gentleman's ancestors, who came over with the
Conqueror, " I never heard that they ever did any thing else."
Being told, while temporarily indisposed, that a nobleman had
declared that Providence had inflicted upon him a disease of the
brain by way of punishment for the misuse of his talents, Mr.
Bright quietly observed, " It will be some consolation to the
friends and family of the noble lord to know that the disease
is one which Providence could not inflict upon him."
He once declared of the Tories, " Had they been in the wilder-
ness, they would have complained of the Ten Commandments."
He used the expression " a free breakfast-table," in addressing
the Edinburgh Chamber of Commons in .1868, advocating the
repeal of the remaining duties on tea, coffee, and sugar.
Mr. Bright made an assertion during the land troubles in
Ireland in 1880, which has often been repeated, " Force is no
remedy."
JEAN PIERRE BRISSOT.
[A politician of the French Revolution, born 1754; one of the
leaders of the Girondists, with whom he was executed, October,
72 LORD BROUGHAM.
How much blood will be required to wash out our
own!
During "the last night of the Girondists."
He said of Mme. Roland, " It is less difficult for a woman
to obtain celebrity by her genius, than to be forgiven for it."
Dufoce, a Girondist, being asked, on his trial by the revolu-
tionary tribunal, what he thought of Brissot, replied, " He
lived like Aristides, and died like Sidney." Taine, however,
calls him "one of those presuming, threadbare, talkative fel-
lows, who, living in a garret, lectures foreign cabinets, and
reconstructs all Europe." French Revolution.
LOUD BROUGHAM.
[Henry Brougham, born 1799; entered Parliament, 1810; lord
chancellor, 1830; raised to the peerage under the title of Baron
Brougham and Vaux; retired 1831; died 1868.]
The schoolmaster is abroad.
In a speech on the address to the crown, Jan. 28, 1828, after
the Duke of Wellington had become prime minister, Brougham
said that " the country sometimes heard with dismay that the
soldier was abroad. Now there is another person abroad, a
less important person ; in the eyes of some, an insignificant per-
son, whose labors had tended to produce this state of things.
The schoolmaster is abroad ! and I trust more to the schoolmas-
ter armed with his primer, than to the soldier in full military
array, for upholding and extending the liberties of my country."
Brougham refused Canning's offer of the office of chief baron
of the exchequer, on the ground that it would keep him out
of Parliament. " True," said Canning, " but you will be only
one stage from the woolsack." "Yes," rejoined Brougham,
"but the horses will be off." JEXXIXGS : Anecdotal History of
Parliament.
Measures, not men.
Brougham said in the House of Commons, November, 1830,
" It is necessary that I should qualify the doctrine of its being
not men, but measures, that I. am determined to support. In a
LORD BROUGHAM. 73
monarchy it is the duty of parliament to look at the men as
well as at the measures." In Goldsmith's " Good-natured Man,"
one of the characters says, " Measures, not men, have always
been my mark." Canning said in a speech against the Adding-
ton ministry, in 1801, " Away with the cant of ' Measures, not
men'! the idle supposition that it is the harness and not the
horses that draw the chariot along. No, sir : if the compari-
son must be made, if the distinction must be taken, men are
every thing, measures are comparatively nothing." Burke, in
" Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents," spoke
of "the cant of 'not men, but measures.'"
Of Lord Liverpool, who was premier for fifteen years,
Brougham said, " The noble lord is a person of that sort, that,
if you should bray him in a niortar, you could not bray the
prejudices out of him."
His self-sufficiency is seen by a remark concerning the cabinet
in which he was lord chancellor from 1830-34 : " The Whigs are
all ciphers : I am the only unit in the cabinet that gives a
value to them."
On Brougham's elevation to the woolsack, Daniel O'Connell
declared, " If Brougham knew a little law, he would know a
little of every thing." Emerson, " New Essays," quotes it from
Eldon, Brougham's predecessor as lord chancellor : " What a
wonderfully versatile mind he has ! he knows politics, Greek,
history, science: if he only knew a little of law, he would
know a little of every thing." Louis XVI. made a similar
remark of the Abbe Maury, who preached at the Tuileries in
1781, and touched upon government, finance, politics, etc. : " If
he had said something about religion," remarked the king,
" he would have said something about every thing " (Si fable
Maury nous avail parti un pen tie religion, il nous aurait parti de
tout).
As Samuel Rogers saw Brougham drive away from a coun-
try-house, he remarked, " There go Solon, Lycurgus, Demosthe-
nes, Archimedes, Sir Isaac Newton, Lord Chesterfield, and a
great many others, in one post-chaise." Sydney Smith, seeing
Brougham in a carriage, on the panel of which was the letter
B surmounted by a coronet, observed, " There goes a carriage
with a B outside and a wasp inside."
74 BEAU BRUMMEL.
BEAU BRUMMEL.
[George Brummel, commonly called " Beau Brummel," horn in
London, 1778, a favorite and companion of the Prince Regent, and
leader of fashion, having dissipated his fortune, he retired to Caen,
France, where he died, 1840 ]
I once ate a pea.
When asked at dinner if he never ate vegetables.
He explained limping in Bond Street, by an injury to his leg;
"and the worst of it was," he added, " it was my favorite leg/'
Being asked why he had such a bad cold, he said, " I left my
carriage yesterday evening on my way to town from the Pavilion,
and the infidel of a landlord put me into a room with a damp
stranger."
Passing a new bronze statue of Pitt, some one remarked that
he never thought Pitt was so tall a man ; " Nor so green a one,"
added Brummel.
After his rupture with the Prince Regent, Brummel came
upon him suddenly one day with some friends, and, addressing
one of them while looking at the prince as at an entire stranger,
said, " Alvanley, who's your fat friend ? "
He answered the question whether he had ever seen so unsea-
sonable a summer, by saying, " Yes : last winter "
" Civility, he once observed, "may be truly said to cost noth-
ing : if it does not meet with a good return, it at least leaves
you in the most creditable position."
After crossing the Channel, Brummel studied French ; and,
being asked what progress he was making, replied, " It's with
me as with Napoleon in Russia, J am stopped by the ele-
ments. 1 '
BUFFON.
[George, Count de Buffon, an illustrious French naturalist and
philosopher, born in Burgundy, 1707; appointed intendant of the
Royal Garden, 1739; member of the Academy, 1753; died 1788.]
The style is the man himself.
In his reception address at the French Academy, Buffon said
that "only well-\vritten works would descend to posterity. Ful-
ness of knowledge, interesting facts, even useful inventions, are
BUFFON. 75
no pledges of immortality, for they may be employed by more
skilful hands : they are outside the man, the style is the man
himself " (ces clioses sont Jiors de I'liomme, le style est Vhomine
meme). Maupertuis wrote to Frederick the Great, Nov. 10,
1745 : " Wit belongs to man ; style, to the author. One may
almost judge of th.e fortune of authors by reading their works ; '
and Goethe says, " A writer's style is the counter-proof of his
character." Pope declares that " nothing is more foolish than
to pretend to know a great writer by his style." Chesterfield,
writing to his son (1749), calls style "the dress of thought."
Isaac Disraeli, speaking of the literary character of men of
genius, says that an author can have nothing truly his own but
his style : an author's diction cannot be taken from him.
Fenelon, before Buffon's time, called a man's style " nearly as
much a part of him as his physiognomy, his figure, the beating
of his pulse, in short, as any part of his being which is least
subjected to the action of the will."
In Buffon's case the aphorism suited the man. His character,
habits, even his physique, resembled his style. " His manners
were distinguished, his tastes magnificent, his carriage noble ;
and all corresponded to the beauty of his images, the amplitude
of his periods, the harmony and majesty of his expressions. He
justified the inscription upon the statue erected to him in his
lifetime, ' Maj estate naturce par ingenium' ' (a genius equalled by
natural majesty). To some one who spoke to Voltaire of Buf-
fon's "Natural History," " Xot so natural," rejoined the poet.
His manner of writing, with his hands enclosed in lace ruffles,
made les manchettes de Bujfon a proverbial expression for an
ornate style. Grimm said Montesquieu had "the style of a
genius; Buffon, the genius of style;" and a witty woman re-
marked, that the naturalist sometimes renounced the spirit of
his age, but never its pomps.
Genius is only great patience (Le genie rfest outre chose
qiCune yrande aptitude a la patience.)
Carlyle wrote that genius is only an immense capacity for
taking trouble. Dr. Johnson's definition was, " Genius is a
mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some
particular direction."
76 LORD BURGHLEY.
LORD BURGHLEY.
[Sir "William Cecil, an English statesman; born 1520; secretary of
state from the accession of Queen Elizabeth, 1558; lord treasurer,
1572; died 1598.]
Madam, I have heard men say that those who would
make fools of princes are the fools themselves.
To Queen Elizabeth.
" England," he said, " can never be ruined except by a parlia-
ment."
He wrote to his son, Sir Robert Cecil, July 10, 1598 : " Serve
God, by serving the queen ; for all other service is indeed bond-
age to the Devil."
He used to throw off his official robe with the exclamation,
" Lie there, Lord Treasurer ! "
GOTTFRIED BURGER.
[A German poet, author of " Lenore; " born, 1748; died, 1794.]
You are Goethe, I am Burger.
The familiar and consequential manner with which Burger in-
troduced himself to Goethe in 1800. He was mortified to find
that the equality thus assumed was not recognized by the author
of " Tasso " and " Iphigenia."
DUKE OF BURGUNDY.
[Grandson of Louis XIV., and father of Louis XV.; born at Ver-
sailles, 1682. Fenelon was appointed his tutor, and effected an entire
change in his character, which, from being obstinate and passionate,
became humble and gentle. The duke and duchess died of malignant
small-pox in 1712, greatly regretted by the nation.]
"What, do kings die? (Quoi, done, lesroismeurent-ils?)
To Fenelon, who spoke of a certain king as dead. The ques-
tion illustrates the education of princes of that period. Thus
the grandfather of Philip Egalite, Due d'Orleans, started up
in indignation, when his secretary stumbled, in reading, on the
words, "the late king of Spain" (feu roi (TEspagne). " Mon-
seigneur," hastily answered the trembling but adroit man of
business, " 'tis a title they take ! " (c'est un litre qu'ils prennent ! )
CARLYLE : French Revolution, I. 1, 4.
EDMUND BURKE. 77
A king is made for his subjects, and not his subjects
for him.
These two sayings illustrate the two phases of the duke's char-
acter. The latter has, however, a more illustrious parentage ;
for it translates almost literally Dante's sentiment in his treatise
" De Monarchia," " Non enim gens propter regem, sed e converse rex
propter gentem," in which he anticipates the proposition of Cal-
vin, " that it is possible to conceive a people without a prince,
but not a prince without a people ; " and again Dante declares
that "'citizens exist not for the sake of consuls, nor the people for
the sake of the king ; but, on the contrary, consuls for the sake
of citizens, and the king for the sake of the people."
It is related of the Duchess of Burgundy, that she asked Lonis
XIV. and Mine, de Maintenon, why in England queens governed
better than kings, and answered the question herself : " Because
under kings it is the women who govern, and men under queens."
A palpable hit at the state of things in France.
EDMUND BURKE.
[A distinguished orator and writer; born in Dublin, 1730, or, ac-
cording to some authorities, in 1728; educated at Trinity College, and
studied for the bar; published his " Vindication of Natural Society,"
anonymously, 1750; entered Parliament, 17GG; Paymaster-general in
the Rockinghani ministry, 1782; retired 1783; died 1797.]
In that way I let myself down to' you.
In 1759 Burke was introduced to William Gerard Hamilton,
known, from his brilliant and only 1 speech in the House of Com-
mons, as " Single-speech Hamilton," who made him his private
secretary, and, at a later period, twitted him with being taken
from a garret. " In that way," proudly answered Burke, " I let
rnyself down to you."
The Abbe Mably, an historical writer, made an even more
pointed answer to a French count who had befriended him and
then boasted of it, "Men of merit lodge in garrets, and fools
inhabit palaces " (Les gens de me'rite logent dans des greniers, et les
sots habitent dans des hotels}.
Burke was in the habit of frequenting in youth the gallery of
the House of Commons to listen to the debates. " Some of these
78 EDMUND BURKE.
men," he said, " talk like Demosthenes or Cicero ; and I feel,
when I am listening to them, as if I were in Athens or Rome."
What shadows we are.
In a speech at Bristol, on declining the poll, September, 1780,
after an unsuccessful canvass, Burke alluded to the sudden death
of one of the candidates, Mr. Cooinbe: "The worthy gentleman
who has been snatched from us at the moment of the elecjtion,
and in the middle of the contest, whilst his desires were as
warm and his hopes as eager as ours, has feelingly told us what
shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue." Wordsworth
said, " We all laugh at pursuing a shadow, though the lives of
the multitude are devoted to the chase."
While making a personal canvass for an election in 1774,
Burke and his friends entered a house where the wife of the
owner was reading the Bible. " I have called, madam," he
said, "to solicit the favor of your husband's vote and interest in
the present election. You, I perceive," placing his finger on a
passage that struck his eye, " are making your .'calling and
election sure.' : ' JENNINGS : Anecdotal History of Parliament.
It was after the election of this year that Burke was followed
in returning thanks by his colleague, Mr. Cruger, a merchant;
who was content to express his approval of the sentiments of the
illustrious orator, by exclaiming, "Gentlemen, I say ditto to Mr.
Burke ! "
Burke, in his own speech on this occasion, expressed the proper
relation between a representative and his constituents, by saying,
" Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his
judgment ; and he betrays instead of serving you, if he sacrifices
it to your opinion."
He remarked half -seriously of a personal relation with the city
he represented, " Though I have the honor to represent Bristol, I
should not like to live there : I should be obliged to be so much
on my good behavior." BOSWELL'S Johnson, 1779.
One of his constituents protested against concessions to the
Irish; to which Burke replied, "Sir, it is proper to inform you
that our measures must be healing."
He wrote to a member of the Bell Club of Bristol, Oct. 31,
1777 : " If it be true in any degree that the governors form the
EDMUND BURKE. 79
people, I am certain that it is as true that the people in their
turn impart their character to their rulers; " and, in a speech to
the electors during his last canvass, in 1780, he said, "Depend
upon it, that the lovers of freedom will be free."
I do not know the method of drawing up an indict-
ment against a whole people.
In a speech on Conciliation with America, March 22, 1775,
from which other quotations follow.
Referring to the growth of the American colonies, he said,
" No sea but what is vexed with their fisheries, no climate that
is not witness to their toils." He spoke of the colonists as "a
recent people, a people who are still, as it were, but in the
gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood."
When he contemplated that fact, and reflected how profitable
they had been to the mother country, " My rigor relents : I par-
don something to the spirit of liberty."
The wisdom of our ancestors.
In the same speech, in 1775, Burke declared that he set out
" with a perfect distrust of my own abilities, a total renunciation
of every speculation of my own, and with a profound reverence
for the wisdom of our ancestors." Jennings (" Anecdotal History
of Parliament") asserts that Sir William Grant (1754-1832) was
the first to use the expression, " the wisdom of our ancestors,"
which he applied to a proposition of Sir Samuel Romilly to
subject a man's real property to the payment of all his debts.
He entered Parliament, however, in 1790.
" All government," said Burke, in reference to a compromise
with America, " indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment,
every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise
and barter."
The religion of the colonies partook of their independent
spirit. He called it " a refinement of the principles of resist-
ance ; it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of
the Protestant religion."
Looking at the determined character of the Americans, he
declared that "a nation is not governed which is perpetually to
be conquered;" nor could an Englishman properly engage in
80 EDMUND BURKE.
that perpetual conquest : " An Englishman is the unfittest per-
son on earth to argue another Englishman into slavery." As he
could not draw an indictment against a whole people, so he
could not be persuaded, when such a people are concerned, "that
acts of lenity are not means of conciliation." He would give
magnanimity a place even in politics; he thought it "not seldom
the truest wisdom : a great empire and little mind go ill to-
gether." If it was merely slavery they wanted, they could have
that anywhere : " it is a weed that grows on every soil."
In his speech on the Taxation of America, Burke asked,
"Would twenty shillings have ruined Mr. Hampden's fortune?
Xo ; but the payment of half twenty shillings, on the principle
it was demanded, would have made him a slave."
Liberty must be limited in order to be enjoyed.
He also called liberty " a good to be improved, and not an
evil to be lessened."
In a letter to the sheriffs of Bristol, April 3, 1777, Burke
wrote, " He that accuses all mankind of corruption ought to
remember that he is sure to convict only one."
He said of William Dowdeswell, chancellor of the exchequer
in 1765, " Immersed in the greatest affairs, he never lost the
ancient, native, genuine English character of a country gentle-
man."
" And thus lie bore without abuse,
The grand old name of gentleman."
TENNYSOX: In Memoriam, ex.
" Men want arguments to reconcile their minds to what is
done," he wrote to the Marquis of Rockingham, Xov. 14, 1769,
" as well as motives originally to act right."
"The poorest being," he once said, "that crawls on earth,
contending to save itself from injustice and oppression, is an
object respectable in the sight of God and man."
Those things which are not practicable are not de-
sirable. .
"There is nothing in the world, really beneficial," he con-
tinued, " that does not lie within the reach of an informed
understanding and a well-directed pursuit. There is nothing
EDMUND BURKE. 81
that God has judged good for us, that he has not given us the
means to accomplish, both in the natural and the moral world.
If we cry, like children, for the moon, like children we must cry
on." (Speech on the Plan for Economical Reform, Feb. 11,
1780.)
The public is poor.
In the same speech he said, " If any merit of an extraordinary
nature should emerge before that reduction is completed, I have
left it open for an address of either House of Parliament, to
provide for the case. To all other demands it must be answered
with regret, but with firmness, ' The public is poor.' This is
often quoted, " The state is always poor."
When George III. sent a message to the House in 1782, rec-
ommending economy in the public expenditure, Burke called it
" the best of messages, to the best of people, from the best of
kings."
The people never give up their liberties except under
some delusion.
Speech at county meeting of Bucks, 1784.
He declared that "the principles of true politics are those of
morality enlarged; and I neither now do, nor ever will, admit
of any other."
There is a loss of friends.
In a debate on the Canada Bill (1791), Fox had referred to
France, and made reflections on Burke's views of the Revolution.
Burke, when replying on a subsequent night, was called to order
by Fox's friends, and even by Fox himself, until he said that,
at the expense of the abandonment of friends, he would risk all
to exclaim, "Fly from the French constitution!" Fox whis-
pered, "There is no loss of friends." To which Burke replied,
" There is a loss of friends." Their friendship of twenty-five
years was at an end. But six years afterwards Burke could say
of Fox, " He is a man to be loved." Fox had said of the French
Revolution, " How much it is the greatest event that ever hap-
pened in the world, and how much the best ! " Samuel Rogers
declared it to be " the greatest event in Europe since the erup-
tion of the Goths."
82 EDMUND BURKE.
It is the day of no judgment that I am afraid of.
To Pitt, who said, while discussing French affairs in 1791,
that England and the British Constitution were safe till the day
of judgment.
Burke wrote to a French gentleman, October, 1789, " When-
ever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither
is, in my opinion, safe ; " and in a letter to a member of the
National Assembly, 1791, "Men are as much blinded by the
extremes of misery as by the extremes of prosperity.' 1 The
disappointment of his hopes by the excesses of the French Revo-
lution made him declare, " Without a monarchy in England we
most certainly can enjoy neither peace nor liberty "' He said of
the French philosophers, whose writings had done much to in-
culcate revolutionary ideas, "These fellows have a wrong twist
in their heads, which ten to one gives them a wrong twist in
their hearts also."
When the royal family was brought by the mob from Ver-
sailles to Paris, Oct. 5, 1789, Burke exclaimed, " The French
have shown themselves the ablest architects of ruin that have
hitherto existed in the world. They have done their business
*/
for us in a way that no Rarnillies or Blenheim could have
done."
Pardon me, sir, we were two yesterday : we are one
to-day.
When Fox and Lord North formed their coalition, and entered
the House together as the speaker was counting those present:
" One, two " On the arrival of Garibaldi in Rome, following
the entrance of Victor Emmanuel, September, 1870,' Pius IX.
indicated in his good-natured way the position of the illustrious
republican : " We were two : now we are three.''
Burke wrote to Sir Hercules Langrishe, on the Roman Cath-
olics of Ireland, in 1792: "That discretion, which in judicature
is well said by Lord Coke to be a crooked cord, in legislature
is a golden rule." Sir Hercules was the gentleman, who, when
asked if he had finished three bottles of port without assist-
ance, replied, " Not quite : I had the assistance of a bottle of
Madeira."
EDMUND BURKE. 83
Burke wrote to the king- of Poland in 1792 : " He is noble
who has a priority among freemen, not he who has a sort of
wild liberty among slaves."
I never knew a man that was bad, fit for service that
was good.
Said of Warren Hastings ; as this, in the great speech on his
impeachment : " Thank God, my lords, men that are greatly
guilty are never wise."
"The people," he once said, "have no interest in disorder.
When they go wrong, it is their error and not their crime."
His faith in the popular judgment was shown by the remark,
" In all disputes between the people and their rulers, the pre-
sumption is at least upon a par in favor of the people. '
He wrote to Sir Philip Francis, Dec. 11, 1789 : " There are sit-
uations in which despair does not imply inactivity." Disraeli
said, "Despair is the conclusion of fools." Sibyl.
It is enough for me to have rung the bell to him.
When Mr. Bennet Langton observed that he would have been
glad to hear another than Dr. Johnson, on every subject that
was broached. BOSWELL'S Johnson, 1780. Bourdaloue's bea-
dle, w 7 hen some one praised a sermon of the great preacher,
proudly exclaimed, " I am the man who rang the bell for him ! '
(C'est moi qui Va sonne .') Johnson's opinion of Burke was
equally flattering : " I do not grudge Burke being the first man
in the House of Commons, for he is the first man everywhere."
"A dull proser," Burke once remarked, "is more endurable
than a dull joker."
Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
He wrote to Thomas Mercer, Feb. 26, 1790: "The tyranny
of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny."
He once said of political sermons, " Surely the church is a
place where one day's truce may be allowed to the dissensions
and animosities of mankind."
Of his political principles he remarked, " I pitched my Whig-
gism low, that I might live by it."
84 EDMUND BURKE.
Swaggering paradoxes, when examined, often sink
into pitiful logomachies.
An illustration of his use of large words, of which the follow-
ing is another: when Croft's "Life of Dr. Young" was spoken
of as a good imitation of Johnson's style, Burke replied, "It
has all the nodosities of the oak, without its strength ; it has
all the contortions of the sibyl, without the inspiration."
PRIOR : Life.
I was not swaddled into a legislator.
He said in a letter, "I was not swaddled, and rocked, and
dandled into a legislator. Nitor in adversum is the motto for a
man like me. At every step in my progress in life (for in every
step I was traversed and opposed), and at every turnpike I met,
I was obliged to show my passport."
A member named Onslow endeavored on one occasion to ob-
tain support for his opinion in favor of preventing the publica-
tion of the proceedings of the House of Commons, by claiming
descent from three speakers of the House. Burke replied, " I
have not the advantage of a parliamentary genealogy. I was
not born, like the honorable gentleman, with ' Order ' running
through my veins."
" Difficulty," he once remarked, " is good for man."
The proper study of mankind is man.
The motto which Burke suggested for a book Boswell said he
should write after visiting the Isle of Man. Life of Johnson,
1776. (From Pope's " Essay on Man," II. 1.)
Johnson expressed a good opinion of Burke's humor. The
latter disapproved of the acceptance by a friend of the appoint-
ment of Dean of Ferns : " I do not like the name. It sounds
like a barren title." PRIOR: Life. He claimed that Horace
had a good living in view when he wrote :
" Est modus in rebus, sunt certi denique fines."
Satires, V. 106.
He translated it,
" A modus in the tithes, aud^/mes certain."
EDMUND BURKE. 85
Mr. Hartley, while making a dull speech in the House, de-
manded that the Riot Act should be read. "The Riot Act, my
dear friend ! " exclaimed Burke, looking at the empty benches :
"do you not see that the mob is completely dispersed?"
During the last years of his parliamentary course, Burke's long
speeches fatigued the new generation, which had not heard the
brilliant efforts of his earlier life. On one occasion when Burke
rose, a country member expressed the hope that the right honor-
able gentleman was not going to bore them with a long speech ;
which fairly drove Burke out of the house. . "Never before,"
said Selywn, in reference to it, " did I see the fable realized, a
lion put to flight by the braying of an ass." But Selwyn him
self once replied to a nobleman, who, seeing him and others
coming out, asked if the House were up, "No, but Burke is."
He had by that time gained the nickname of "the dinner-bell."
Burke called the divine right of kings and toastmasters, jure
de-vino (divino).
He compared the skulls in the catacombs to the old French
noblesse : " They do not shock one's feelings by pretending to be
alive."
His virtues were his arts.
The inscription which Burke composed for the mausoleum of
the Marquis of Rockingham.
I had indeed the folly to write it, but the wit to keep
it to myself.
When Fox asked him if he had shown Garrick a tragedy he
had written.
A whale stranded upon the sea-shore of Europe.
Of modern Spain. Edmund Waller said of James II., "He
will be left alone like a whale upon the strand."
I am alone : I have none to meet my enemies in the
gate.
Of the death of his only son. He said of this crushing event,
" They who should have been to me as posterity are in the place
of ancestors." In reply to attacks made upon his pension, he
86 AAEOX BURR.
said in "A Letter to Xoble Lord," referring to his son's death,
and his own retirement, ' The storm has gone over me, and I lie
like one of those old oaks which the hurricane has scattered
about me." PRIOR : Life.
He wrote to Matthew Smith : " I would rather sleep in the
southern corner of a little country churchyard, than in the tombs
of the Capulets."
Robert Hall said of Burke, "His imperial fancy laid all nature
under tribute."
Dr. Johnson made the celebrated remark concerning him :
" Burke, sir, is such a man, that if you met him for the first
time in the street, where you were stopped by a drove of oxen,
and you stepped aside to take shelter for five minutes, he'd talk
to you in such a manner that when you parted you would say,
1 This is an extraordinary man.' At another time he supposed
that a man were to take shelter from a shower under a shed
with Burke, and the same judgment would be passed upon him.
When Burke showed Johnson his house and lands near Beacons-
*
field, the philosopher exclaimed, " Non equulem invideo ; miror
magis" (I don't envy: I rather admire). Bos WELL : Johnson,
1778. Johnson said at another time, when ill, "That fellow calls
forth all my powers: were I to see Burke now, it would kill ine."
AARON BURH.
[An American politician, born at Newark, N.J., 1756; served in
the expedition against Quebec; admitted to the bar of New York,
1782; elected to the United-States Senate, 1791; chosen Vice-president
of the United States by the House of Representatives, 1800; tried
on a charge of treason, and acquitted, 1807; lived many years in
poverty in Europe; died in New York, 1836.]
Law is whatever is boldly asserted and plausibly
maintained.
Coke called law "the perfection of reason," following Sir John
Powell, who said in " Coggs v. Bernard " (" 2 Lord Raymond,
911 "), '' For nothing is law that is not reason." Hooker's sub-
lime personification naturally suggests itself : " Of Law there
can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom
of God, her voice the harmony of the world."- Ecclesiastical
Polity, I.
LORD YRON. 87
Burr wrote to Pichon, the secretary of the French Legation
at AVashington : " The rule of my life is to make business a
pleasure, and pleasure my business."
He asserted that the maxim, " Never put off until to-morrow
what can be done to-day," was made for sluggards. " A better
reading of it is, ' Never do to-day what you can do as well to-
morrow ; ' because something may occur to make you regret your
premature action."
LOUD BYRON.
[George Gordon Noel, born 1788; published "Hours of Idleness,"
1807, and, after a tour in Europe, two cantos of " Childe Harold; "
left England for the Continent, 1816, and produced in Italy many of
his finest poems; engaged in the Greek war of independence, and
died of fever at Missolonghi, April 19, 1824.]
I awoke one morning, and found myself famous.
After the publication of the first two cantos of " Childe
Harold : " quoted, from memoranda, by Moore (" Life of Byron ").
It was thought that in this poem he described himself ; but he
said, "I would not for the world be a man like my hero."
He once said to Count Gamba, father of the Countess Guic-
cioli, " Poetry should only occupy the idle."
Some of his sayings on politics indicate the liberal tendency
of his mind. After the battle of Waterloo, he remarked of the
English foreign secretary, " I didn't know but I might live to see
Castlereagh's head on a pole, but I sha'n't now." Not relishing
the position he occupied as a member of an unpopular opposi-
tion, he bitterly exclaimed, " I have simplified my politics into
an utter detestation of all existing governments ; '" but, on the
other hand, " Come what may, I will never flatter the millions'
canting in any shape."
The best of prophets of the future is the past.
Compare the remark of Frederick von Schlegel : " The histo-
rian is a prophet looking backwards " (Der Historiker ist ein
riickwarts yekehrter Prophet). Athenceum, Berlin : I., 2, 20.
Friendship may and often does grow into love, but
love never subsides into friendship.
88 LORD BYROX.
Like the measles, love is most dangerous when it
comes late in life.
The belief in the immortality of the soul is the only
true panacea for the ills of life.
Dead ! God, how much there is in that little word !
From a letter. The truth of this saying is illustrated by a
passage from Wraxall's "Memoirs/' quoted by Jennings ("An-
ecdotal History of Parliament") : " Sir Philip Francis said of a
regulation in Pitt's India Bill, abolishing trial by jury in the
case of delinquents returning from India : ' Had the experiment
been made when the illustrious statesman, the iate Earl of
Chatham, enjoyed a seat in this assembly, he would have sprung
from the bed of sickness, he would have solicited some friendly
hand to lay him on the floor, and thence, with a monarch's voice,
he would have called the whole kingdom to arms to oppose it.
But he is dead, and has left nothing in the world that resembles
him. He is dead ! and the sense, the honor, the character, and
the understanding of the nation are dead with him.' The repe-
tition of the words, ' he is dead,' " adds Wraxall, " was delivered
with the finest effect ; and the reflections produced by it involun-
tarily attracted every eye towards the treasury-bench, where sat
his son."
Byron's last words were, "I must sleep now."
Goethe expressed, in his conversations with Eckermann and
others, great admiration for Byron. " There is no padding," he
said, "in his poetry" (Es sind keine Flickworter im Gedichte),
He made Byron an exception to his statement, " Modern poets
put too much water in their ink" (Neuere Poeten tliun viel
Wasser in die Tinte). The mot is, however, not Goethe's, but is
taken directly from Sterne's "Koran," II., 142, who directed it
against the poets of the early part of the eighteenth century,
especially Pope. But, on the other hand, Goethe declared that
Byron "was always a self-tormentor," recalling the English
poet's allusion to "the self -torturing sophist, wild Rousseau."
Childe Harold, III., 77. Again Goethe said of him, "The
moment he reflects, he is a child " (So bald er reflectirt, ist er ein
Kind).
CAIUS JULIUS CAESAR. 89
CAIUS JULIUS CAESAR.
[Born in Rome, July 12, 100 B.C.; studied oratory at Rhodes;
filled several offices before the first triumvirate, when he obtained
the province of Gaul, the subjugation of which occupied nine years;
being ordered by the Senate to disband his army, he crossed the
Rubicon and entered Rome, 50 B.C.; pursued Pompey to Greece, and
defeated him at Pharsalia, 48; made dictator, conquered Egypt, and
crushed the Pompeiaii faction in Africa; returning to Rome, re-
formed the calendar, declined the title of king, and contemplated
great improvements in public administration; but was assassinated
by a combination of personal and political enemies, 44 B.C.]
This day you will behold your son either supreme
pontiff or an exile.
To his mother, on the morning of his election as Pontifex
Maximus, 63 B.C. His competitors were Isauricus and Catul-
lus, two of the most distinguished men of Rome. The Senate
was greatly alarmed at the success of the popular leader, and
called to mind the warning given them by the sagacious Sulla,
who said, when pardoning Csesar for a refusal to divorce his
wife Cornelia, China's daughter, " This man will be the ruin of
the party of the nobles, for in this one Caesar you will find
many a Harms ; " and although Csesar was careful to wear the
latus clavus, or broad purple stripe indicative of his rank, the
careless arrangement of his toga caused Sulla also to say of
him, "Beware of the ill-girt boy*' (male prcecinctum pueruni).
SUETONIUS : Life.
Similar situations have called out similar expressions to
Csesar's boast to his mother. Fiesco, whose plot to seize upon
Genoa, Jan. 2, 1547, gave Schiller the subject of a tragedy, said
to his wife on the eve of his attempt, " You shall either never
see me more, or you shall behold to-morrow every thing in
Genoa subject to your power." Falling into the water while
passing the next day from one ship to another, he was drowned
by the weight of his armor.
Mirabeau, after being the idol of the populace, foresaw the
change in public sentiment which would be caused by his sup-
port of the proposition to give the king, rather than the Assem-
bly, the initiative of war, and, determined to carry his point or
perish, he exclaimed, " I will either leave the house in triumph,
90 CAIUS JULIUS CAESAR.
or be torn to fragments." Hearing next day " the great treason
of the Count de Mirabeau " cried in the streets, he declared that
he needed not that lesson to know how short was the distance
from the Capitol to the Tarpeian Rock (je n avals pas besoin de
cette lefon pour savoir qu'il rfy a quun pas du Capitole a la roche
tai'peienne).
When one of the Directory, hesitating at the appointment
of Bonaparte to the command of the army at the age of
twenty-six, said to him, " You are too young ; " " In a year,"
he answered, "I shall be old or dead." -LOCKHART: Life,
IV. Just as Scipio, conscious of his own powers, replied to
those who objected to his election as sedile at the age of
twenty-four, " If all the quirites wish me to be aedile, I am old
enough."
Nicholas of Russia found, on his accession to the imperial
throne by the death of Alexander I. and the renunciation of his
rights by his brother, the Archduke Constantine, that an exten-
sive conspiracy against himself must be subdued by force. He
said on the morning when the troops were to take the oath of
allegiance, "I shall soon be an emperor or a corpse." His
energy saved his life and his crown.
After Cavour's secret visit to Napoleon HI., in 1858, to interest
him in the cause of Italian independence, Victor Emmanuel ex-
claimed, "Next year I shall be king of Italy or plain M. de
Savoie." Next year's battles of Magenta and Solferino made
him king of Italy.
Caesar's wife ought to be free even from suspicion.
When summoned as a witness against Publicus Clodius, his
wife Pompeia's gallant, who was prosecuted for the profanation
of religious ceremonies (the mysteries of the Bona Dea, to which
women alone were admitted), Csesar declared he knew nothing of
the affair. Being asked why, then, he had divorced his wife, he
replied, " Because my family should be free not only from guilt,
but even from the suspicion of it" (Quoniam meos tarn suspicione
quam crimine judico carere oportere). SUETONIUS: Life. Plu-
tarch gives it, "Because I would have the chastity of my wife
clear even of suspicion." Life.
CAIUS JULIUS CAESAR. 91
Better be first in a village than second in Rome.
Having received the government of Farther Spain after his
praetorship, he came to a little town in passing the Alps ; and
his friends, by way of mirth, took occasion to say, " Can there
here be any disputes for offices, any contentions for precedency, or
such envy and ambition as we see among the great ? " To which
Caesar answered, with great seriousness, " I assure you I had
rather be the first man here than the second man in Rome."
PLUTARCH : Life. " It is the true cry of nature," says Lacor-
daire : "wherever we are, we wish to be first." - Conferences.
When he was in Spain, he was so much affected by reading
the history of Alexander the Great, that he burst into tears.
When asked the reason, he replied, "Do you think I have not
sufficient cause for concern, when Alexander at my age reigned
over so many conquered countries, and I have not one glorious
achievement to boast?" PLUTARCH: Life. This is some-
times shortened into the exclamation, " Twenty-two years old,
and nothing done for immortality ! '
He rebuked his friends for expressing their dislike of aspara-
gus upon which sweet ointment instead of oil had been poured,
at the house of Valerius Leo, at Milan, by saying, " He who
finds fault with any rusticity is himself a rustic." Ibid.
The die is cast.
A motion having been made in the senate that some person
should be appointed to succeed Caesar in Gaul, before the
term of his command had expired, and that his claim to be
a candidate at the next election of consuls should not be ad-
mitted, Caesar advanced into Cisalpine Gaul, making a halt at
Ravenna, and sending his troops to the banks of the Rubicon,
now the Pisatello, near Rimini. A very ancient law of the
republic forbade any general, returning from the wars, to cross
this river with his troops under arms. Caesar, therefore,
having joined them, halted them upon the bank, and revolved
in his mind the importance of the step he was about to take ;
saying to those around him, "We may still retreat; but, if we
pass this little bridge, nothing is left for us but to fight it out
in arms." " While he was thus hesitating," says Suetonius
92 CAIUS JULIUS OESAB.
("Life"), " a person remarkable for his noble mien and grace-
ful aspect appeared close at hand, sitting and playing upon a
pipe. When not only the shepherds, but a number of soldiers
also, flocked from their posts to listen to him, and some trum-
peters among them, he snatched a trumpet from one of them, ran
to the river with it, and, sounding the advance with a piercing
blast, crossed to the other side. Upon this Caesar exclaimed,
' Let us go whither the omens of the gods and the iniquity of our
enemies call us. The die is now cast' ' (Jacta alea est ; or in
Greek, as Plutarch states.) He thus, in the opinion of some,
embraced that occasion of usurping the supreme power which
he had coveted from youth ; two verses of Euripides being fre-
quently in his mouth, translated into Latin by Cicero (De Officiis,
ILL)
" Nam si violandum est jus, regnandi gratia
Violaiiduni est: aliis rebus pietatem colas."
" Be just, unless a kingdom tempts to break the laws,
For sovereign power alone can justify the cause."
Pfaeniss. II.
What dost them fear? Thou art carrying Ceesar. (Quid
times ? Ccesarem vehis. )
While his soldiers were having a tedious passage from Brun-
disium to Dyrrachium, in the campaign against Pompey, Caesar
went secretly on board a small vessel, and discovered himself to
the pilot when the boat was in danger of being overturned, ex-
claiming, as Plutarch gives it in his " Apothegms of Kings and
Great Commanders," " Trust fortune, and know that you carry
Caesar." Plutarch, in his "Life of Caesar," states that he dis-
guised himself as a slave, and in the morning astonished the
pilot, who wished to put back owing to a head wind, by saying,
"Go forward, my friend, and fear nothing: thou carriest Caesar
and his fortune." Fournier doubts the story, because Caesar did
not mention it in his "History of the Civil War."
On one occasion when Gen. Jackson was sailing down Chesa-
peake Bay in an old steamboat, the waves were running high,
and an elderly gentleman present expressed some concern.
" You are uneasy, " said the general to him : " you never sailed
with me before, I see." PARTON : Life.
CAIUS JULIUS (LESAR. 93
The order given by Cresar to his veterans at Fharsalia, Aug.
9, 48 B.C., was, " Soldiers, strike in the face." He made but a
brief comment on the result: " They would have it so." It was
proposed, after this decisive action, to erect at Rome in his
honor a golden statue to Mars the Avenger, and an altar to
Vengeance; but he refused, with words used by Charles Sum-
ner, after the war of the Rebellion : " Monuments are made
for victories over strangers : domestic troubles should be cov-
ered with the veil of sadness."
Veni, vidi, vici.
Cesar's laconic announcement to his friend Amnitius, of his
victory over Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates, at Zela, in Asia
Minor, 47 B.C., who thereby lost his kingdom and his entire
army. PLUTARCH : Life. Suetonius says that among the pa-
geantry of the Pontic triumph, a tablet with this inscription
was carried before him, "I came, I saw, I conquered;" nbt
signifying, as other mottoes on the like occasion, what was done,
so much as the despatch with which it was done ; for Dion
Cassias states that Caesar was proud of this victory as of no
other, as on the same clay and in the same hour in which he
met the enemy, he attacked and defeated him.
" He saw me and yielded;
That I may truly say with the hook-nosed fellow of Rome,
I came, saw, and overcame."
2 Henry IV., IV. 3.
Equally brief announcements have been made in modern
times. John Sobieski sent the Mussulman standards captured
before Vienna to the Pope, with the message, "I came, I saw,
God conquered." Turenne announced the victory of Diinen, or
the Dunes, by which Dunkirk was retaken from the Spaniards,
June 14, 1658, with the words, " The enemy came, was beaten, I
am tired, good-night." When Sivwarrow informed Catherine
II. of the capture of Prague in 1794, by writing, " Hurrah !
Prague ! Suwarrow ! ' : the empress promoted him in equally
concise terms: "Bravo! Field-marshal! Catherine." More fa-
mous, and even briefer, was Sir Charles Napier's pun, announ-
cing the victory of Hyderabad in 1843, " Peccavi" (I have
94 CAIUS JULIUS CJESAR.
Scinde). (Before the battle of Meanee in the same war, he said,
"If I survive, I shall soon be with those I love : if I fall, I shall
be with those T have loved.") During the Spanish war of inde-
pendence in 1808, Gen. Palafox was summoned by the French be-
sieging commander, says Lockhart ("Life of Napoleon," 1808),
to surrender Saragossa, in these brief terms : " Headquarters,
Santa Eugrazia capitulation.'' The reply was equally to the
point: "Headquarters, Saragossa war to the knife " At the
end of sixty days the French retired.
" War, war, is still tlie cry, war even to tlie knife."
Childe Harold, I. 86.
*
I hold thee fast, Africa! (Te teneo, Africa !)
C?esar was never deterred from any expedition, nor retarded in
the prosecution of it, by superstition. Happening to fall, when
stepping out of the ship at Adrimetum, in his campaign against
.the Pompeian faction, he gave a lucky turn to the omen, by ex-
claiming, "Africa, I hold thee fast!" SUETONIUS; Life. As
William the Conqueror landed at Pevensey in England, Sept. 28,
1066, his foot slipped, and he fell with both hands upon the
ground. A loud cry of grief was raised at the evil omen. But
the ready wit of William failed him not. " By the splendor of
God," he cried, "I have taken seizin of my kingdom : the earth
of England is in my two hands." FREEMAN: Norman Conquest,
III. chap. 15.
When informed that Cato the younger had put an end to his
life after the defeat of the Pompeians at Thapsus, 46 B.C., Caesar
said, " Cato, I envy thee thy death, since thou hast deprived me
of the honor of saving thy life." He used his victims with
clemency, and. declared, " Xo music is so charming to my ears as
the requests of my friends, and the supplications of those in
want of assistance."
I am not king, but Caesar (Non rex sum, sed Ccesar).
When given the royal title by the multitude. He made the
name of Caesar greater than that of king.
To a coward, who boasted how many wounds he had received
in the face, he said, " You had better take heed, the next time
you run away, how you look back."
CAIUS JULIUS CAESAR. 95
Happening to see some strangers in Rome carrying young
dogs and monkeys in their arms, and caressing them, he asked
indignantly, " Do the women in their country never bear chil-
dren ? ' PLUTARCH : Life of Pericles
When advised to be on his guard against some approaching
danger, he replied, " I had rather die than be the subject of
fear." When Antony and Dolabella were accused of having
some designs against his person and government, he said, "I have
no apprehensions from those fat and sleek men : I rather fear
the pale and lean ones ; ' meaning Cassius and Brutus. PLU-
TARCH: Life.
" Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights:
Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous."
Julius Coesar, I. 2.
Henry IV. of France was of the same opinion. " Great
eaters and great sleepers," he said, "are incapable of any thing
else that is great'' (Les grands man gears et les grands dormeurs
sont incapables de rienfaire de grand}.
Et tu, Brute!
A certain soothsayer is said to have forewarned him of a great
danger that threatened him on the Ide,s of March ; and Cresar, as
he was going to the senate-house on that day, called to him, and
said, laughing, " The Ides of JMarch' are com,; " to which the
soothsayer answered softly, "Yes, but they are not gone." The
night before, he supped with Lepidus; and the question arising,
what kind of death was tlie best, Caesar answered, " A sudden
one ; " or, " one that is Teast v expectea."
When he had taken his seat in the senate-house, which stood
in the Campus Martius and was attached to Pornpey's theatre,
the conspirators came around him to pay their compliments,
and Metellus Cimber advanced nearer than the rest, as if to
make a request ; Caesar making a sign that he should defer his
petition, Metellus seized him by the toga on both shoulders, and,
the signal being thus given, the dictator was stabbed with three
and twenty wounds, uttering a groan only, says Suetonius, but no
cry, at the first wound ; although some authors relate, that, when
96 CALIGULA.
Marcus Brutus fell upon him, he exclaimed, " Thou, my sou ! "
(Kal ci) Tenvovl), or even a longer exclamation, " What! art thou,
too, one of them ? Thou, my son ! " Some commentators sup-
pose that the words " my son " refer to the relationship exist-
ing between Caesar and Brutus; but the expression, reported
as it is in Greek from unknown authors, there being no au-
thority for the familiar Et tu Brute, may be regarded as
doubtful.
While the conspiracy against Cresar was being formed, Brutus
called upon Ligarius, and, finding him indisposed, said, " Li-
garius, what a time is this to be sick ! " To which Ligarius,
raising himself upon his elbow, replied, " If Brutus has any
design worthy of himself, Ligarius is well." PLUTARCH: Life
of Brutus. After the death of Csesar, Brutus declared that he
once dreamed that virtue was a thing : " I find her only a name,
and the mere slave of fortune."
CALIGULA.
[Cains Cresar Augustus, third Roman emperor, son of Germanicus
and Agrippina, born A.D. 12; succeeded Tiberius 37; after the prom-
ise of a beneficent reign, gave way to the caprice and cruelty of a
madman; exhausted Italy by his extortions, and plundered the
provinces, until murdered Jan. 24, 41.]
Would that the Roman people had but one neck!
(Utinam populus Eomanus unam cervicem Jtaberet!)
When incensed at the people's applauding a party at the Cir-
censian games in opposition to him. SUETONIUS : Life. These
words have been attributed to Xero ; but Dion Cassius and
Seneca agree with Suetonius in ascribing them to Caligula.
" Anger," says Jean Paul, " wishes all mankind had only one
neck ; love, that it had only one heart ; grief, two tear-glands ;
pride, two bent knees." Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces, IV.
While caressing his wife Csesonia's neck, Caligula would say, " So
beautiful a neck must be cut whenever I please'' (Tarn bona cer-
vix simul ac jussero demetur) ; or, as it is sometimes translated,
" Fair as it is, how easily I could sever it ! ' Xow and then,
says Suetonius, he would threaten to put his dear Csesonia to
the torture, that he might discover why he loved her so passion-
CHARLES DE CALONNE. 97
ately. At a sumptuous entertainment he fell suddenly into a
violent fit of laughter ; and upon the consuls, who reclined next
to him, respectfully asking the occasion, " Nothing," replied he,
" but that, upon a single nod of mine, you might both have your
throats cut." Ibid.
Strike so that he may feel himself die ! (Ita fen ut se mori
sentiat !)
His well-known and constant order, prolonging the sufferings
of his victims by causing slight and frequently repeated strokes
to be inflicted upon them. Ibid. When about to murder his
brother, whom he suspected of taking antidotes against poison,
he said, " Find, then, an antidote against Caesar ! "
CHARLES DE CALONNE.
[A French courtier and minister, born at Douai, 1734; controller*
general of the finances, 1783; after attempting to supply deficits by
loans and temporary expedients, was dismissed, 1787; lived in exile
during the Revolution; died, 1802.1
Madam, if it is but difficult, it is done : if it is impos-
sible, it shall be done (se /era).
The words with which the light-minded courtier, who was
incapable of the patient execution of an elaborate plan, and,
whose only wish was to supply present wants without a thought
of the morrow, received a request of Marie Antoinette for a
considerable sum of money, made with the air of a queen to
whom nothing could be refused.
GEORGE CANNING.
[An English statesman, orator, and wit, born in London, April 11,
1770; educated at Oxford ; entered Parliament, 1793; under-secretary
of state, 1796; issued with others "The Anti- Jacobin ;" secretary of
state for foreign affairs, 1807, and again in 1822; prime minister, 1827;
died in August of that year.]
I called the New "World into existence to redress the
balance of the Old. ,
In a speech, Dec. 12, 1326, on the relations between Great
Britain and Portugal. The whole passage was, "If France
98 GEORGE CAXXIXG.
occupied Spain, was it necessary, in order to avoid the conse-
quences of that occupation, that we should blockade Cadiz ?
No, I looked another way : I sought materials of compensation
in another hemisphere. Contemplating Spain, such as our
ancestors had known her, I resolved, that, if France had Spain,
it should not be Spain 'with the Indies. I called the New
World into existence to redress the balance of the Old."
In a speech in the House of Commons against parliamentary
reform, Canning exclaimed, " Reform the Parliament ! Repeal
the Union ! Restore the Heptarchy ! ; as if the latter two were
as feasible as the former. This was the origin of the expres-
sion used in 1834 by Sir Robert Peel, in reply to a speech of
Daniel O'Connell in favor of repeal ; ' Repeal the Union ! as
well restore the Heptarchy ! "
Ah ! but you were tedious.
Canning replied to a clergyman who asked him how he liked
his sermon, " It was short; " at which the clergyman said, "Yes,
you know I avoid being tedious : ' " Ah ! but you were tedious,"
rejoined Canning.
When a new ministry was formed containing Addington
(Lord Sidmouth), who was successively chancellor of the ex-
chequer, first lord of the treasury, and home secretary, and whose
presence in every administration was considered necessary in
order to please George III., Canning remarked, "He is like the
small-pox: everybody must have it once."
Sir Harry Halford, a distinguished physician, quoted in com-
pany the saying, " Every man is a physician or a fool at forty."
Canning slyly asked, " Sir Harry, mayn't he be both ? " The
saying is attributed to Tiberius, but Plutarch (" Preservation of
Health") assigns to the emperor the assertion that "he was
a ridiculous man that held forth his hand to a physician after
sixty."
When Lord spoke of a picture he had seen, represent-
ing the procession of animals into Noah's Ark, the elephants
coming last and filling up the foreground, Canning explained it
by saying, "Your elephants wise fellows staid behind to
pack up their trunks."
CARACTACUS. 09
CARACTACUS.
[King of the Silures, a tribe of ancient Britons; after long resist-
ance to Roman arms, was defeated, and carried to Rome, A.D. 51;
died about 54.]
Is it possible that a people possessed of so much
magnificence at home could envy my humble cot-
tage in Britain?
On beholding the splendor of Rome. The Emperor Claudius
received him kindly, and gave him his liberty, and, according to
some writers, allowed him still to reign in part of Britain as a
prince subject to Rome. FREEMAN : Old English History.
THOMAS CARLYLE.
[Born at Ecclefechan, Scotland, 1795 ; educated at Edinburgh
University; began his literary career, 1823; removed to London, and
published "Sartor Resartus," 1834; "The French Revolution," 1837;
" Oliver Cromwell," 1845; " Frederick the Great," 1858-64; died Feb.
5, 1881.]
God has put into every white man's hand a whip to
flog the black.
On meeting Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1848. Emerson called
him "a trip-hammer, with an 2Eolian attachment."
In his address as Lord Rector of Edinburgh University in 1866,
Carlyle made use of the following expressions: "Beautiful is
young enthusiasm ; keep it to the end, and be more and more
correct in fixing on the object of it. It is a terrible thing to be
wrong in that, the source of all our miseries and confusions
whatever."
" The deepest depth of vulgarism is that of setting up money
as the ark of the covenant."
" Can there be a more horrible object in existence than an
eloquent man not speaking the truth ? "
"Xew truths are not the gifts which the old offer to the
young : the lesson we learn last is but the fulness of the mean-
ing of what was only partially apprehended before."
Give your life royally.
Great men are not born among fools.
100 CAROLINE MATILDA.
The unspeakable Turk.
In a letter to a meeting at St. James's Hall, London, in 1877,
called to discuss the Eastern question, and the part that Europe
should take in it, Mr. Carlyle wrote : " The unspeakable Turk
should be immediately struck out of the question, and the
country be left to honest European guidance."
In a discussion of the authorship of Shakespeare's plays, Car-
lyle said, " Lord Bacon could as easily have created the planets
as he could have written 'Hamlet.'
Towards the close of his life, he bitterly remarked, " They
will not understand that it is death I want."
Arthur Hugh Clough, the poet (1819-61), said of Carlyle in
1849, "He has taken us into the desert; and he has left us there."
De Quincey remarked to the great iconoclast, after the publica-
tion of " Latter-Day Pamphlets," in 1850, " You've shown, or
you've made, another hole in the tin kettle of society : how do
you propose to tinker it ? "
Of Carlyle 's critical powers Goethe said, " Criticism is our weak
point. We shall have to w T ait a long time before we meet with
such a man as Carlyle."
CAROLINE MATILDA.
[Queen of Denmark, sister of George III.; born in England, 1751;
married Christian VII. of Denmark, a weak and profligate king,
by whom she was neglected or ill-treated; Struensee, a physician,
acquired great influence over both king and queen, and was made
prime minister; in consequence of a conspiracy, he was executed,
and the queen banished to Zell, where she died, 1775.]
O God, keep me innocent ; make others great !
The fate of this illustrious and unhappy princess, who, in a
letter to George III. on the day before her death, protested in
passionate terms her innocence of all the charges which led to
her banishment, gives a melancholy interest to the words which
she scratched with the point of a diamond on a window of the
castle of Frederiksborg : " O mon Dieu, conserve-moi innocente,
donne la grandeur aux autres! '
LORD CASTLEREAGH. 101
LORD CASTLEREAGH.
[Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, and Marquis of London-
derry, a British statesman; born in Ireland, 1769; entered the British
House of Commons, 1794; president board of control, 1802; secretary
for war, 1805; for foreign affairs, 1812; represented England at the
Congresses of Vienna, Paris, and Aix-la-Chapelle; committed suicide
Aug. 12, 1822.]
The ignorant impatience of taxation.
When the income-tax was thrown out in 1816. Mr. Gladstone
quoted this expression on introducing his commercial treaty
budget in 1860 ; saying, that, if the author of that phrase could
again take his place in the House, he would be more likely to
complain of an ignorant patience of taxation.
" While Lord Castlereagh never showed the least symptom
of any information extending beyond the more recent volumes of
the 4 Parliamentary Debates,' " says Lord Brougham, " or possibly
the files of the newspapers only, his diction set ali imitation,
perhaps all description, at defiance." Historical Sketches of
Statesmen. Thus he once spoke of " the right honorable gentle-
man turning his back upon himself." "On another occasion,"
says Earl Russell, " he had gone on for an hour, speaking upon
what subject no man could guess, when he exclaimed of a sud-
den, ' So much, Mr. Speaker, for the law of nations.' At
another time, when he had spoken for an hour, tediously ami
confusedly, he declared, ' I have now proved that the Tower of
London is a common law principle.'" "Thomas Moore's an-
swer," says Jennings (" Anecdotal History of Parliament "), to
the question, ' Why is a pump like Viscount Castlereagh ? ' will
be remembered :
' Because it is a slender thing of wood,
That up and down its awkward arm doth sway,
And coolly spout and spout and spout away,
In one weak, washy, everlasting flood.' "
When some one asked Talleyrand, at the Congress of Vienna,
*/ ' O
who that personage was, undistinguished by decorations, the
French representative replied that it was Lord Castlereagh; and
added, " and sufficiently distinguished " (c'est Lien distingue).
102 CATHERINE II.
CATHERINE II.
[Empress of Russia; born at Stettin, 1729; married Peter, after-
wards emperor, 1745; deposed him during the first year of his reign,
1762, when she became sole mistress of the empire; of profligate life,
but great abilities, she promoted education and commerce, patron-
ized scientific men, and extended her dominions on the Black Sea;
was a party to the partition of Poland, 1772; died 1796.]
Your wit makes others witty (Votre esprit en donne aux
autres).
In a letter to Voltaire.
Falstaff said, " I am not only witty in myself, but the cause
that wit is in other men." 2 Henry IV., I. 2.
During his visit to Russia, Diderot noticed the uncleanliness of
the peasants, then serfs. " Why," replied the empress, "should
they take care of a body which does not belong to them?"
(Pourrjuoi auraient-ils soin d'un corps qui ne lew appartient pas?)
Diderot apologized on a certain occasion for touching her knee
in the heat of an argument. The empress put him at his ease at
onqe : " Let there be no ceremony between men " (Entre homines
tout est permis). She once closed a conversation with Diderot
and Grimm ; to attend to affairs of state, by saying, "Now I
must see how my bread is baking " (Maintenant il faut songer au
gayne-pain).
One of her maxims was, " I praise loudly, I blame softly "
(Je hue tout haut,je gronde tout bas).
Diderot described his royal hostess as having " the soul of
Brutus with the charms of Cleopatra." Speaking of the situa-
tion of St. Petersburg, he told her that " a capital at the end of
one's kingdom is like the heart at the end of one's fingers "
(avoir le capitale au bout de son royaume, c'est avoir le cceur au
lout de ses doiyts). He is reported to have spoken of the Rus-
sian empire as "rotten before it is ripe." Joseph II. called it
"a colossus of brass on a pedestal of clay."
CATHERINE OF Alt AGON.
[Spelled also Katharine. Daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of
Spain, born I486; married Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII. of Eng-
land, 1501; and, on his death, his brother, afterwards Henry VIII.,
who afterwards divorced her; died 1536.
CATHERINE DE MEDICI. 103
I have done England little good, but I should be sorry
to do it any harm.
To the commissioners, after her divorce from Henry VIII.
She also said, " I would rather be a poor beggar's wife and be
sure of heaven, than queen of all the world and stand in doubt
thereof by reason of my own consent."
CATHERINE DE MEDICI.
[Daughter of Lorenzo de Medici, Duke of Urbino; born in Flor-
ence, 1519; married the dauphin, afterwards Henry II., 1533; on the
death of her son, Francis II. (1560), became regent for Charles IX., a
minor; instigated the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, Aug. 24,
1572; died 1589.]
We shall soon say our prayers in French.
When the Huguenots, who conducted their services in the
vernacular, were reported to be gaining the upper hand, during
the minority of Charles IX. When another of her sons, Henry
III., told her that he had made himself king of France by kill-
rig the Duke of Guise, "the king of Paris," in 1588, Catherine
shrewdly remarked, " Take care that you do not soon find your-
self king of nothing." The next year he was assassinated by
Jacques Clement.
MARCUS FORCIUS CATO.
[A model of antique Roman virtue, called Cato for his wisdom,
also "the Censor," and "the Elder," born at Tusculuni, B.C. 234;
served against the Carthaginians; gained repute as an orator, and
settled in Rome, where he rose to be consul and censor, reforming
many abuses; strongly advised the third Punic war; died B.C. 149.
It is a hard matter to save that city from ruin where
a fish is sold for more than an ox.
Complaining of the luxury of the Romans.
Speaking of the power of women, he said, " All men natural-
ly govern the women, we govern all men, and our wives govern
us." Plutarch says that this might have been taken from the
Apothegms of Themistocles ; for, as his son directed in most
things through his mother, he said, " The Athenians govern the
104 MARCUS PORCIUS CATO.
Greeks ; I govern the Athenians ; you, wife, govern me ; and
your son governs you : let him use, then, that power with moder-
ation, which, child as he is, sets him above all the Greeks."
Cato found fault with the people for often choosing the same
persons consuls : " You either think the consulate of little worth,
or that there are but few worthy of the consulate."
It was a saying of his, that " Wise men learn more from fools,
than fools from the wise ; for the wise avoid the error of fools,
while fools do not profit by the examples of the wise."
Another of his sayings was, that he " liked a young man that
blushed, more than one that turned pale." Diogenes, seeing a
youth blush, said, " Right, my boy : that blush is the favorite
color of virtue."
" The man that blushes is not quite a brute."
YOUNG: Night Thoughts, VII. 496.
I cannot live with a man whose palate has quicker
sensations than his heart.
When an epicure desired to be admitted into his friendship.
He used to say, " The soul of a lover lives in the body of
another."
In all his life he never repented but of three things : " The
first was, that he had trusted a woman with a secret ; the second,
that he had gone by sea, when he might have gone by land ;
third, that he had passed one day without having a will by
him."
He reproved an old debauchee by saying, " Old age has de-
formities enough of its own : do not add to it the deformity of
vice." PLUTARCH : Life.
"Every one," he said, "ought especially to reverence himself,
for every one is always in his own presence," PLUTARCH :
Apothegms.
When he saw many had their statues set up, "I had rather,"
he remarked, " men should ask why Cato had no statue, than
why he had one." Ibid.
It was one of his sayings, "They that separate honor from
virtue separate virtue from youth.'' Ibid.
MARCUS PORCIUS CATO. 105
An angry man, in his opinion, differs from a madman only in
the shorter time his passion endures.
" Ira furor brevis est."
HORACE: Epistles, I. 2, 62.
Man must depart from life as from an inn, not as from
a dwelling.
Life bears to eternity the relation of an inn to a fixed dwell-
ing. Yet to some the comparison would have but little force, as
Dr. Johnson declared that nothing which had been contrived
by man had produced so much happiness as a good tavern or
inn. - - Bos WELL : Life, 1776. At another time he called a tavern-
chair "the throne of human felicity." Falstaif asks, "Shall I
not take mine ease in mine inn? " (1 Henry IV \, III. 3.)
But Shenstone wrote on the window of an inn :
" Whoe'er lias travelled life's dull round,
"Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
The warmest welcome at an inn."
The best way to keep good acts in memory is to
refresh them with new.
He declared the Romans to be like sheep : " a man had better
drive a flock of them than one of them ; for in a flock, if you
can get but a few of them to go right, the rest will follow."
PLUTARCH : Life.
"Those magistrates," he said, "who could prevent crime, and
do not, in effect encourage it."
He was told that Greek was such a language as the gods speak
in : " I would learn it, that I may speak with the gods in their
own dialect." Cicero said of Plato's "Dialogues," that if Jupiter
were to speak, he would speak as Plato did. The Emperor
Charles V. declared, " Spanish is the language to speak with
God."
A soothsayer must laugh when he meets another.
Preserved by Cicero ("De Divinatione," "De Natura Deorum,"
and in "Brutus"). Soothsaying -- that is, foretelling future
events by an inspection of the entrails of animals, or declaring
106 MARCUS PORCIUS CATO.
by such means whether an action could properly be undertaken
at a particular time had fallen into disrepute, and superstition
generally was derided. Thus Cato met one morning a friend,
who seemed to be in trouble, and who said he was afraid some
evil was about to befall him, as, on waking that morning, he
saw a mouse gnawing his shoe. " Calm yourself," replied Cato :
" the prodigy would have been indeed frightful if the shoe had
gnawed the mouse." Claudius Pulcher, when told, on the eve
of a naval battle with the Carthaginians, that the sacred hens
would not eat, threw them into the sea, exclaiming, " Let them
drink, then." Claudius was, however, defeated. When Hanni-
bal learned that the sacrifice seemed unfavorable to the imme-
diate action which he proposed, he said scornfully, " Will you
believe in a calf's liver rather than in a tried general? ' Csesar
declared in his African campaign, "I will have better omens
when I choose;" and Pyrrhus parodied a line of Hector's speech,
" The best of omens is the cause of Pyrrhus."
Delenda est Carthago.
The entire sentence, " Ceterum censeo Cartlmginem esse delen-
dam" is not found in any Latin author, but is translated from
Plutarch's "Life of Cato." Latin authors, from Cicero, " De
Senectute," to Aurelius Victor and Pliny, give the indirect quo-
tation, " Carthaginem delendam censuit." Cato, having visited
Carthage after the battle of Zama, B.C. 172, and remarked its
large army, immense store of provisions, and riches of all kinds,
returned to the senate, and denounced the prosperity of their
rival, letting fall a Libyan fig he had concealed under his toga.
When all had admired its beauty and freshness, " The land
which produced it," said Cato, " is but three days' journey from
Rome." Thereafter he closed every speech in the senate with
the words, " And my opinion is, that Carthage should be de-
stroyed;" for he thought it dangerous, says Plutarch, to suffer
a city which had always been great, and which was now grown
sober and wise through its misfortunes, to lie watching every
advantage against them. Life.
Cato w 7 as prosecuted in his old age, no less than fifty charges
being made against him ; the last when he was eighty-six years
old, on which account he said, " It is hard that I, who have lived
CAVOUR. 107
with men of one generation, should be obliged to make my de-
fence to those of another." Ibid. Goethe says he was right;
"for how can a jury judge from premises of which they know
nothing? or consider motives, which lie far behind them?"
Goethe has elsewhere declared that " a man should be tried by
a jury of his peers." Die Aufyeregten, III. 1.
CAVOUR.
[Camille Benso, Count di Cavour, an illustrious Italian statesman;
born at Turin, Aug. 10, 1810; elected to the Sardinian chamber of
deputies, 1849, after having for years defended the cause of Ital-
ian independence by voice and pen; minister of commerce, 1850; of
finance, 1851, prime minister, 1852; arranged with Napoleon III. the
war against Austria, 1859, but resigned after the peace of Villa
Franca; resumed office, 1860, and was the first prime minister of the
kingdom of Italy; died June 6, 1801.]
In my dreams I see myself already minister of the
kingdom of Italy.
In a letter to the Marchese Barollo, as early as 1833, when
Italian independence was but a dream, he showed what was the
ruling thought of his life. The cause to which he devoted him-
self was the constitutional unity of his country, the entire penin-
sula. "Italy," he said, "must be made by liberty, or I despair
of making her at all." He explained the condition of things
following the defeat of Xovara, and the abdication of Charles
Albert, in 1849, by the simple statement, "We existed, and
every day's existence was a gain."
He silenced a deputy who laughed while he was praising
English institutions in the Sardinian Parliament, by suggesting
that " the laugh could only proceed from some one w r hose name
has never reached England."
His recipe against being ennuye was effective : " I persuade
myself that no one is tiresome."
" In politics," he declared, "nothing is so absurd as rancor."
Cavour was never married. He parried the jokes of the king
on the subject of his celibacy by an allusion to the nobler devo-
tion of his life : " Italy is my wife : I will never have another."
108 COMTE DE CHAMBORD.
Any one can govern by a state of siege.
In his last illness ; referring to government by armed force,
when the laws are for the time being suspended.
In a speech after the annexation of Naples by Garibaldi in
1860, he made the important announcement' which will be for-
ever associated with the name of Cavour: "We are ready to
proclaim in Italy this principle, ; A free church in a free state.' "
They were also his last words, to the priest in attendance upon
him: " Frafe, frate, libera cltiesa in libero stato." Montalembert
wrote in the preface to his own works, published in Paris in
1860 : " In a word, the free church in a free state has been the
programme which led me to my first efforts, and which I con-
tinue to regard as just and true, reasonable and practical, after
the studies and struggles of thirty years."
COMTE DE CHAMBORD.
[Henri, Due de Bordeaux, son of the Due de Berri who was
assassinated in 1820, and grandson of Charles X.; born, in Paris
1820; since the Revolution, has lived out of France; is the last direct
representative of the elder branch of the French Bourbons, and is
called by his adherents Henri Cinq.]
I will never consent to become the legitimate king of
the Revolution (Je ne consentirai jamais a devenir le roi legi-
time de la Revolution).
He wrote in May, 1871, after an unsuccessful attempt of the
Legitimists to effect a monarchical restoration : " To the country
belongs the word, to God the hour" (La parole est a la patrie,
riieure est a Dieu).
In 1873 a fusion took place betw r een the Orleanists, or the
adherents of the younger branch of the Bourbons, represented
by the Comte de Paris, grandson of Louis Philippe, and the
Legitimists, who rallied around the Comte de Chambord.
Thiers had been forced from the presidency ; a re-actionary cabi-
net under his successor, Marshal MacMahon, stood ready to over-
throw the existing form of government. The "hour" seemed
to have come: it was only necessary to give the "w T ord." The
efforts of the Fusionists were directed to obtaining the consent
of the Comte de Chambord, in the event of his restoration, to
SEBASTIAN CHAMFORT. 109
the adoption of the tricolor, the badge of the Revolution,
originally the colors, red, white, and blue, of the Due d'Orleans
(Egalite), as the national flag of France, instead of the white
flag and the fleurs-de-lis of Henry IV., the first Bourbon king.
However much a matter of sentiment it might seem to be,
Marshal MacMahon himself, by birth and education a Legiti-
mist, but all his life a soldier under the tricolor, saw the folly
of an attempt to return to a flag with which the present genera-
tion of Frenchmen was unacquainted. In a conversation with
the Orleanist, Due d'Audriffet-Pasquier, he is reported to have
said, although he subsequently denied it, " If the white flag
were raised in opposition to the tricolor, the chassepots would go
off of themselves! " (Si le drapeau blanc etait developpc en face
du drapeau tr/colore, les chassepots partiraient tout seuls .') The
attempt was unavailing* The Comte de Chambord refused to
recognize a "legitimated revolution." " Henry V.," he replied,
"cr.nnot abandon the white flag of Henry IV. ' (Henri Cinq ne
peut abandonner le drapeau blanc de Henri Quatre). As the
Orleans princes, on their side, could not give up the colors
which symbolized their devotion to the cause of the revolutions
of 1789 and 1830, by which they had risen to power, the fusion
failed of practical results ; and the " exile of Frohsdorf ' ' re-
mained Henri Cinq only to a waning group of politicians and
grandes dames.
The cliassepot in the mot attributed to Marshal MacMahon
was a breech-loading rifle (named after its inventor, M. Chasse-
pot), which was adopted by the government in 1866, and first
used by the French force, which, with the papal troops, defeated
Garibaldi at Mentana, Nov. 3, 1867. In his report of the battle
Gen. de Failly said, " The cliassepot has done wonders."
SEBASTIAN CHAMFORT.
[A satirical French writer, born in Auvergne, 1741; lived mostly
in Paris; admitted to the Academy, 1781; was the friend of Mira-
beau, and favored the Revolution, " Tableaux " of which he pub-
lished; died, 1794, after being arrested by the Jacobins.]
What is the Third Estate?
Chamfort furnished ideas to other men, who, like Mirabeau,
enjoyed " brushing the most electric head in Europe : " of him
110 SEBASTIAN CHAMFOET.
Mine. Roland said that "he made one laugh and think at
the same time." Visiting one day the Comte de Lauraguais,
he said, " I have just done a piece of work '" (J'ai fait un ou-
vraye). "What!' 1 said his friend, "a book?" oucraye having
in French the double meaning that " work "' has in English.
"Xo, I am not such a fool," replied Chamfort; "but the title
of a book. I gave it to that Puritan Sieyes : lie can comment
on it at his leisure ; but, do what he may, the title alone will
last." The title was: "What is the Third Estate? Every
thing. What part has it in government V Xothing. What
does it want? To become something." (Qu'est-ce que le Tiers
Etat? Tout. Qu'a-t-il? Rien. Que veut-il? Y devenir quelque
chose.) The pamphlet which Sieyes wrote with that title immor-
talized him : the title alone remains. In his essay the consti-
tution-maker attempted to prove that the Third Estate, the
commonalty, as distinguished from the nobles and the clergy,
formed a nation complete in itself, which could exist without
the other two orders, while they were nothing without it.
Chamfort was also the author of the mot d'ordre, " War to the
castle, peace to the cabin ! " (Guerre aux chateaux, paix aux cliau-
mieres.'), which was called by Alison "the principle of the Revo-
lution," and was promulgated by Cambon, a merchant and
financier, who was the last president of the Legislative Assembly,
a member of the committee of public safety, and who, after the
fall of Robespierre, directed for a time the finances of the
republic.
"I shall not believe in the Revolution," said Chamfort, "until
cabs go at a walk" (Je ne croirai pas a la revolution que quand
les cabriolets vont au pas) ; which was equivalent to saying,
"until rich people in carriages cease to run down poor foot-
passengers " (ecrasser les passants). "The man," sa}~s Sainte-
Beuve, "who wanted a cab for himself in 1782, and obtained
none, wished no one to have one in 1792." In the opinion of
conservatives like Sainte-Beuve, personal resentments furnish the
motives of revolutions. Louis XV. would have suppressed cabs
altogether : " If I were lieutenant of police, I would prohibit
those Paris cabriolets." Journal of Afme. du Hausset, 293.
Chamfort's paraphrase of the watchword of the Revolution,
"Fraternity or death," which he called a "brotherhood of
CHARLES I. HI
Cain," was, "Bo my brother, or I will kill thee" (Sols won
frere, ou je te (ue). Thus Carlyle quotes " fiery Isnard ": "We
will have equality, should we descend for it to the tomb."
French Revolution, II., 1, 12. Goethe wrote in the second vol-
ume of his posthumous " Aphorisms : " " What sort of liberality
is that which everybody talks about, but will hinder his neigh-
bor from practising ? ' Chamfort said of the early acts of the
Revolution, " The French are a new people, which has as yet only
organized insurrection : it is little, but better than nothing."
When Marmontel was regretting these excesses, Chamfort asked
him, " Do you think that revolutions are made with rose-water? "
( Voulez-vous done qu'on vous fasse des revolutions a Ueau-rose ?)
Autobiography of Marmontel.
Every man who at forty years of age is not a misan-
thrope has never loved his race ( Tout homme qui a qua-
rante cms riest pas miscDithrope n'ajamais aime les homines).
Chamfort divided his friends into three classes : " the friends
who love me, the friends who do not trouble themselves about
me, and the friends who detest me."
He said of himself, "My head is Tacitus, my heart Tibullus"
(J\ii du Taclte dans la tete, et du Tibulle dans le co2ur}. " Neither
one nor the other," says Sainte-Beuve, " left either his head or
his heart for the good of posterity."
Chamfort called chance "a nickname for Providence." He
considered marriage " a fine invention to interest us as much in
the future as in the present."
He prefixed the nobiliary particle de to his name ; and when
the Due de Crequi said a name was nothing, Chamfort replied,
" It is easy to say that ; but call yourself M. Criquet, instead of
M. le Due de Crequi, and see the effect when you enter a draw-
ing-room."
CHARLES I.
[King of England; bom 1600; succeeded James I., 1625; became
involved in contests with Parliament in the first year of his reign, on
the granting of supplies; and, having dissolved three Parliaments in
succession, determined to reign without one; finally summoned the
Long Parliament in 1640, which declared war upon him, in the course
of which he was imprisoned, tried, and executed Jan. 50, 1649.]
112 CHARLES II.
If I granted your demands, I should be no more than
the mere phantom of a king.
To the Long Parliament, which demanded the power of con-
trolling military, civil, and religious appointments. At an early
period he defined the relations between a king and his subjects
thus : " The people's liberties strengthen the king's prerogative,
and the king's prerogative is to defend the people's liberties."
When Charles entered the House of Commons to arrest Pym,
Hampden, Holies, Hazlerig, and Strode, Jan. 4, 1642, he called
upon Speaker Lenthall to tell him whether they were present.
The Speaker made the historic answer: "I have neither eyes to
see, nor ears to hear, save as the commons of England them-
selves do direct." " Well, well," replied the king, "I think my
eyes are as good as another's." Failing, however, to discover the
members, he added, " Since I see all my birds have flown, I do
expect from you that you will send them unto me as soon as
they return hither."
Nothing is so contemptible as a despised prince.
Before his execution.
Xapoleon wrote to his brother Joseph, king of Naples, in
April, 1806, in displeasure at his conduct, "An exiled and vaga-
bond king is a silly personage " (C'est un sot personage que celui
(Tun roi exile et vagabond}.
On the scaffold Charles said, " I go from a corruptible to an
incorruptible crown, where no disturbance can take place." His
last word, spoken to Bishop Juxon, was, " Remember ! " It is
supposed to refer to a message to his son Charles, counselling
him to forgive the enemies and murderers of his father. Thus
Phocion, when asked, before drinking the hemlock, if he had
any message for his son, sent this : u I command and entreat you
not to think of any revenge upon the Athenians."
CHARLES II.
[King of England, son of Charles I.; born May 29, 1G30; landed in
Scotland, 1049, and was crowned at Scone; defeated at Dunbar and
Worcester; fled to France, but was restored to the English throne,
1660; joined the triple alliance against Louis XIV., with whom he
soon made a secret treaty; died 1685.]
CHARLES II. 113
My sayings are my own, my actions are my minis-
ters'.
In reply to a verse which Lord Rochester wrote and fastened
to the king's bedroom-door :
" Here lies our sovereign lord the king,
Whose word no man relies on:
He never says a foolish thing,
Nor ever does a wise one."
It was of Rochester, who was removed from the treasury and
made lord president, a more dignified but less important posi-
tion, that Viscount Halifax said, "I have seen people kicked
down-stairs before, but my Lord Rochester is the first person
that I ever saw kicked up-stairs."
One of the king's sayings which became a proverbial expres-
sion was, "as good as a play." It was said of the debates on
Lord Ross's Divorce Bill, which he attended in the House of
Commons, because, says Macaulay, "they amused his sated
mind."
Asking Stillingfleet \vhy he read his sermons, the bishop
answered, it was from awe of his majesty; asking the king, in
turn, why he read his speech from the throne, Charles replied,
" Because I have asked them so often for money, that I am
ashamed to look them in the face."
Mr. Cowley has not left a better man behind him in
England.
On the death of Abraham Cowley, the poet, in 1667.
George III. passed a different verdict upon ex-Chancellor
Loughborough, when told of his death : " Then he has not left
a greater knave behind him in my dominions." It was this un-
scrupulous politician who, when Alexander AVedderburn, made-
an unjustifiable attack upon Benjamin Franklin before the Privy
Council in 1774; accusing him of obtaining surreptitiously, and!
sending to America, some letters of government officials in.
Boston, upon the receipt of which the Americans petitioned for
the removal of Gov. Hutchinson and others. After making this
charge, AA^edderburn added, " He will henceforth esteem it a libel
to be called a man of letters, this man of three letters ;
"
CHAELES II.
alluding to the Latin word for thief, fur. Plautus speaks of a
thief being a man of three letters (trium litterarum homo).
Franklin remained silent during this attack ; but it was re-
marked, that when, as American commissioner, he signed the
treaty of offensive and defensive alliance with France, in 1778,
he wore the same suit of Manchester velvet as on his appear-
ance before the Privy Council. It was all the revenue the ami-
/ O
able philosopher desired; but Horace Walpole wrote, Dec. 11,
1777: "If I were Franklin, I would order the cabinet council
to come to me at Paris with ropes about their necks, and kick
them back to St. James's."
My Chancellor Cooper (Shaftesbury) knows more law
than all my judges, and more divinity than all my
bishops.
Shaftesbury, satirized by Dryden under the name of Achit-
ophel, served and betrayed a succession of governments, but
timed his treacheries to promote his fortune. To him is at-
tributed as to Fontenelle and St. Evremond-- the reply to
the question of what religion he was : " I am of the religion
of all sensible men;" and when asked what that was: "That
all sensible men agree not to tell." This definition is used by
Lord Beaconsfield in " Endymion," without acknowledgment
(chap. Ixxxi.). Whatever his religion may have been, King-
Charles knew him well enough to say to him when Lord
Ashley, " You are the wickedest dog in my dominions ; " to
which he coolly replied, "Of a subject, I think I am. :
5>
It is the custom here for but one man to be allowed
to stand uncovered.
Removing his hat, when he saw that the Quaker William
Penn, during an audience of his Majesty, stood covered. Penn,
however, said, " Friend Charles, keep thy hat on " !
During a visit of the king to Westminster School, Dr. Busby,
who held the position of master for fifty-five years, and educated,
it is said, a greater number of distinguished men than any other
teacher who ever lived, kept his hat on; giving as an excuse,
" The scholars must not know that I have a superior, else it
would be all over with my authority."
CHARLES II. 115
Charles II. was a good-natured monarch, who did not feel
attacks upon his royal dignity. When told by a man in the
pillory, that he was there for making pasquinades on the minis-
try, " Fool," exclaimed the king, " why didn't he make them on
me ? Then nothing would have happened to him ! '
A Frenchman, Gourville, told Charles in 1674, that a king of
England who would be the man of his people would be the
greatest monarch in the world. "I will be the man of my
people," replied the king.
His brother, the Duke of York, afterwards James II., gave
Charles some advice in 1685, on a certain point, which the latter
thought would provoke the people to resistance. " Brother," he
said, with a keen insight into James's character, " I am too old
to go again to my travels : you may, if you choose it." The
duke once warned him against walking out without guards;
alluding to James's unpopularity, the king replied, " You may
depend upon it that nobody will ever think of killing me to
make you king."
The old fool has taken more executions in that naked
country than I for the murder of my father.
Of the conduct of Gov. Berkeley of Virginia, in executing the
adherents of Nathaniel Bacon, who raised a force against the
Indians without the governor's commission, and became involved
in conduct considered treasonable. Berkeley was recalled after
these executions and confiscations of estates, and died soon after
his arrival in England, "imbittered in his last moments, accord-
ing to a most probable story, by the well-earned gibe which the
amiable Charles flung at him." LODGE: English Colonies in
America.
Charles said of George, Prince of Denmark, the good-natured
but dull husband of the future Queen Anne, "I have tried him
drunk and sober, and can find nothing in him."
When William, Prince of Orange, afterwards William III., all
of whose thoughts were on war, married Mary, daughter of the
Duke of York, the king said by way of friendly warning,
"Nephew, remember that love and war do not agree well
together."
He remarked of the first Earl Godolphin, who held many
116 CHARLES II.
important offices under the last Stuarts, William and Mary, and
Anne, " Sidney Godolphin is never in the way, and never out of
the way." Burnet calls him "the silentest and rnodestest man
v
who was perhaps ever bred in a court."
Jeffreys, afterward the infamous judge, and minion of James
II., resigned the recordership of London, on being reprimanded
by the House of Commons, which petitioned the king to remove
him from all his offices, in 1680: "Jeffreys is not Parliament-
proof," remarked Charles.
Presbytery is no religion for a gentleman.
To the Earl of Lauderdale, who was captured at Worcester
and appeared at the Restoration " in a new suit of clothes," says
Carry le ; " gave up presbytery, not without pangs ; and set about
introducing the Tulchan apparatus into Scotland; failed, as is
well known, and earned from the Scotch people deep-toned uni-
versal sound of curses, not yet inaudible." Cromwell 1 s Letters
and Speeches. " I took up my politics," said Sir Walter Scott of
his school-days, "as King Charles II. did his religion, from an
idea that the Cavalier creed was the more gentlemanlike persua-
sion of the two."
For its merit I will knight it, and then it will be
sir-loin.
On asking the name of a piece of beef which particularly
pleased him, and being told it was the loin, the king gave it the
name it has since borne.
Do not let poor Nelly starve !
On his death-bed; of Eleanor Gwynne, a celebrated beauty,
who was born in London about 1650, and, after she had achieved
success as an actress, became the king's mistress.
When the queen, Catherine of Braganza, asked the dying
king's pardon for any offence she might unwittingly have given
him, he exclaimed, " She ask my pardon, poor woman ! I ask
hers with all my heart ! "
CHARLES V. 117
CHARLES V.
[King of Spain and the Netherlands; born in Ghent, February,
1500; became king, 1516; elected Emperor of Germany, 1519; de-
feated Francis I. of France, at Pa via, 1525; in opposition to a second
coalition, his army under the Constable de Bourbon took Rome, 1527;
attacked the Protestant princes of Germany, 1547, but was defeated
at Innspruck, and put to flight; abdicated his hereditary dominions
in favor of his son Philip, and resigned the imperial crown, 1555;
retired to the monastery of St. Just in Spain, where he died, Sept.
21, 1558.]
Then he never snuffed a candle with his fingers.
Reading upon the tombstone of a Spanish grandee, " Here lies
one who never knew fear." BOSWELL'S Johnson, 1769.
Marshal Lannes said to a colonel who punished a young officer
for cowardice in his first engagement, " Know, colonel, that no
one but a poltroon will boast that he never was afraid." Julian
the Apostate declared that " the only inheritance I have received
from my ancestors is a soul incapable of fear ; " and the Regent
Morton did not exaggerate, when he said at the grave of John
Knox, Nov. 26, 1572, "Here lies one who never feared the face
of mortal man."
When Charles saw Martin Luther for the first time, the plain
appearance of the reformer caused the emperor to say, " That man
certainly will never induce me to turn heretic" (Hie certe nunquam
efficeret ut hereticus evadereni). Years afterwards, when Charles
had deposed the rebellious Elector of Saxony, and the Duke of
Alva wished to disturb Luther's grave at Wittenberg, the mon-
arch, more magnanimous than the subject, refused, saying, "I
w r age war against the living, not the dead! Let him rest in
peace : he is before his judge."
When his staff urged him not to expose himself in action, he
replied, "Xame me an emperor who was ever struck by a cannon-
ball."
What a beautiful retreat for another Diocletian !
Passing through the valley of St. Just, in Estramadnra, Spain,
to which he retired on his abdication. Diocletian, the Roman
emperor, closed a reign marred only by a persecution of the
Christians, by abdicating, A.D. 305, in favor of Galerius, and
118 CHARLES Y.
retired to cultivate his garden at Salona, in Dalmatia. He
replied to the urgent wish of his former colleague, Maximian,
that he should resume power, by saying, "If Maximian could
see the cabbages planted by my own hands at Salona, I should
no longer be urged to relinquish the enjoyment of happiness for
the pursuit of power." It was otherwise with Charles; and the
interest he still took in the affairs of the empire led Philip II.
to say when Cardinal Granvella remarked, "It is a year ago to-
day that your father abdicated," " And a year ago to-day that
he began to repent of it." The day after his abdication,
Charles presented his secretary to Philip with the words, " The
present I make you to-day, my son, is greater than that I made
you yesterday."
When his jester asked him if he raised his cap to him because
he was no longer "emperor, he replied, " Xo, Pedro, but because I
have nothing but this poor courtesy to give you."
How absurd to try to make two men think alike on
matters of religion, when I cannot make two time-
pieces agree !
Robertson states that the emperor w T as particularly curious
with regard to the mechanism of clocks and watches ; and, hav-
ing found after repeated trials that he could not bring any two
of them to go exactly alike, he reflected with a mixture of sur-
prise and regret on his own folly in having bestowed so much
time and labor on the more vain attempt of bringing mankind to
a precise uniformity of sentiment concerning the profound and
mysterious doctrines of religion. History of the Reign of Charles
V. This anecdote, however, lacks authenticity; for Robertson
only gives it as a report. It rests, indeed, upon no trustworthy
foundation, and is inconsistent with the views upon religious
subjects, especially in regard to the Protestant reformation, which
Charles expressed during his life at St. Just.
The emperor's first motto was Nondum ("Xot yet"); ex-
changed for Plus ultra (" More beyond "), " the audacious
phrase," says Sainte-Beuve, " which gave the lie to the Pillars
of Hercules/' the limit of the world to the ancients, but a
mere outpost of Spanish dominion.
CHARLES IX. 119
CHARLES IX.
[King of France; born 1550; ascended the throno, 15GO; declared
of age, 15(>3; during his reign the Huguenots were persecuted until
the massacre of Aug. 24, 1572, called the Massacre of St. Bartholo-
mew's Day, destroyed ten thousand of them in Paris alone; died,
after suffering the agonies of remorse, 1574.]
Young as I am, I can bear my own sword.
Refusing to fill the office of constable of France, after the
death of the Due de Montmorency in 1567.
The wound is yours: the pain is mine (La blessure est
pour vous, la douleur est pour moi).
Visiting Admiral de Coligny, who had been wounded in the
hand by Tosinghi, a Florentine partisan of the Guises, two
days before the massacre of Aug. 24. The king disliked the
house of Guise, of whose avarice his brother, Francis II., had
said, that "they would strip the kings of France of their last
shirt." Charles was, therefore, probably sincere in his regret at
the outrage committed upon the venerable Huguenot. Had
Coligny been killed by the Florentine, as was intended, the
massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day would not have occurred.
The narrative of the Venetian ambassador of that time fixes the
responsibility for both acts upon the queen-mother, with the
single participation of the Due d'Anjou, afterwards Henry III. ;
the Guises gave a silent acquiescence to the plan, which was
withheld from the king until the last moment. - - La Diplomatic
venitienne, I. 552, 553.
When, on the fatal night of the 24th, the assassins entered his
chamber, the wounded admiral said to their leader, " Young-
man, tliou shouldst respect my gray hairs : nevertheless, thou
canst abridge my life but little " (auxsi bien ne feras-tu ma vie
plus Irene}. The Due de Guise called out from below, when
told that the admiral was dead, " Fling him out that we may
see him! " and then kicked the dead body, saying, "Lie there,
venomous serpent : you will shed your poison no more ! '" (bete
ve'ne'neuxe, tu ne rc'pandras done plus ton venin .')
According to hitherto undisputed history, Charles IX., on the
morning of the 25th, seized a long fowling-piece, and fired from
120 CHAELES IX.
a window of the Louvre upon the flying Huguenots. Even his
cry of "Kill, kill! let none be left to reproach me!" has been
brought in to heighten the effect. When, two days afterwards,
a Huguenot was killed near him, he exclaimed, in anticipation
of the remorse which was soon to devour him, " Would to God
it were the last ! "
Fournier devotes many pages of his sixth edition to prove,
what he had been attacked for attempting in his first, that
Charles IX. did not fire upon the Huguenots. The main au-
thorities for the tradition have been Brantome, who was not in
Paris at the time ; and d'Aubigne, who had left Paris three days
before the massacre, and whose strong partisan feelings unfit him
for an historian. Sully, also a Huguenot, who nearly lost his
life in the massacre, does not mention the king's participation
in it; and a Huguenot pamphlet called "The Tocsin against
the Massacres and other Confusions in France," published in
1579, only seven years after St. Bartholomew's Day, speaks as
follows : " Although one would have thought that so great
a slaughter would sate the cruelty of the young king, a woman,
and many important persons of their suite, nevertheless, they
Seemed to grow the more infuriated the greater the outrage
became ; for the king, on his side, spared nothing towards it,
not that he put a hand to it " (non pas qud y mist les mains), but
because, being at the Louvre while the massacre was going on
in the city, he commanded that the names of the killed or pris-
oners should be brought to him, in order that due deliberation
might be made concerning those whom it was necessary to
guard or put out of the way." This is considered strong proof
by implication that Charles was innocent of the cruelty charged
upon him. Fournier, in a note to p. 203 of "L'Esprit," men-
tions two other Protestant writings where the story of the
fowling-piece is given as a mere on dit. The building, a window
of which is pointed out to travellers as that from which Charles
IX. fired upon the Huguenots, was not built until long after
1572. In a letter of the king's discovered in 1812, which he
wrote the day after the massacre to the Due de Longueville,
governor of Picardy, he says that he was not able to oppose the
massacre, nor apply any remedy to it; " having enough to do to
employ my guards and other forces, to hold myself as securely
CHARLES IX. 121
as possible within this chateau of the Louvre, in order to ap-
pease the sedition throughout the whole city, and prevent other
massacres, which I should marvellously regret " (ayant en assez
a f cure a employer mes y circles et autres forces, pour me tenir le plus
fort en ce chasteau du Louvre, pour apres falre donner par toute la
ville de V appaisement cle la sedition, et pour precenir d'autres mas-
sacres, dont faurois un merve'dleux reyreC).
A mot which Brantome attributes to Charles IX., that in the
case of rebels " it is cruelty to be humane, and humane to be
cruel," is from a sermon of Muis, Bishop of Bitonte, which
Catherine de Medici was in the habit of quoting to her son.
Histoire Universelle d'Aubigne', II. i. 2. The letter in which the
Vicomte d'Orthez refused to massacre the Huguenots of Bay-
onne, as commanded by the king, is considered by Fournier an
invention of d'Aubigne. In it he said, " Sire, I have communi-
cated the command of your majesty to his faithful subjects and
soldiers of the garrison : I have found here only good citizens
and brave soldiers, but not a headsman " (je u'y cd trouve que
bons citoyens et braves soldats, mais pas un bourreau*). No historian
follows d'Aubigne here ; nor is it well applied to this particular
officer, whose cruelty to the Huguenots of Bayonne and Navarre
was so inhuman that it called forth a rebuke from Charles IX
himself, which was confirmed by a letter of Catherine de Me-
dici. Finally, M. de Larroque discovered in the imperial library
a letter of Orthez, dated August, 1572, the month of the massa-
cre of St. Bartholomew's, in which he promised the king to cause
those with whose custody he is charged " to live in such a man-
ner" (de fere v'wre en tel poinct), "that no trouble should be
feared from them ; " that is, that Catholics and Protestants
should be restrained from mutual attacks and massacres.
FOURNIER : 212, note.
Later investigations destroy the authenticity of another horri-
ble mot of the religious wars, that of the Pope's legate, Arnaud,
abbot of Citeaux, who, when besieging Beziers, a stronghold of
the Albigenses, in 1207, with Simon de Montfort, gave the order,
"Kill all: God will recognize his own!" (Tuez-les tous, Dieu
connaitra bien ceux qul sont a lui!} Sixty thousand persons,
including old men, women, and children, were said to have
been massacred in accordance with this command.
122 CHAKLES X.
CHARLES X.
[King of France, youngest brother of Louis XVI ; born 1757; joined
the royalist emigration, 1789; entered Paris with the allies, 1814;
succeeded his brother, Louis XVIII., 1824; gradually surrounded
himself with re-actionary ministers, until the violation of the char-
ter, July 25, 1830, caused the three days' revolution, at the end of
which Charles ceased to reign; retired to Englaud, and thence to
Goritz, Austria, where he died, October, 1836.]
Nothing is altered in France : there is only one French-
man more (II riy a rien de change en France: il n'y a qu'un
Franqais de pZws).
An expression contained in a proclamation issued by Charles
when Count d'Artois, and published in the " Moniteur,'' or
official newspaper, upon the restoration of Louis XVIII., April
12, 1814. In discussing the authorship of this famous remark,
Buchmami (" Gefliigelte Worte ") calls attention to its unfortu-
nate similarity with the "phrase," to use Sieves' word, em-
ployed by Camille Desmoulins in voting for the death of Louis
XVI., Charles's brother: "A dead king is not a man less" (Un
roi mart n'est }xis un Jtomme le mains}. The phrase did not, how-
ever, originate with the Count d'Artois, but, according to " The
Contemporary Review," February, 1854, formed the opening of
an address composed in his name by Count Beugnot, at the
instigation of Talleyrand, Chancellor Pasquier and others, to
allay any fear that the restoration meant a return to the ideas
of the old regime. The address began as follows : " Xo more
controversy ! Peace and France ! Finally I behold it again :
nothing therein is changed except that there is one Frenchman
more."
The mot became so popular that it was parodied on all occa-
sions. The arrival of the first giraffe in Paris was celebrated by
the circulation of a medal bearing the words, "Xothing is
changed: there is only one animal more" (il riy a qu'un bete de
plus}, in which a sarcastic allusion to the Bourbons may be de-
tected, bete having a contemptuous signification unknown to its
English equivalent. When Francis I., Emperor of Austria, died
in 1835, and Prince Metternich remained at the head of affairs,
which he conducted in the same re-actionary spirit as before, it
CHAKLES XII. 123
was said, "Nothing is altered: there is only one Austrian less."
On the appointment of Talleyrand to be vice-grand elector of the
empire, Fouche said, " Among so many offices it \vill not count .
it is only one vice more'* (ce n'est qu'un vice de plus).
I have no wish to ride like my brother in a cart.
That is, in the tumbril of the Revolution ; or, as it is some-
times given, " I would rather mount a horse than the cart,"
rather exile than death. When urged to make concessions to
the feeling which, in July, 1830, broke out in revolution,
Charles X. preferred abdication to death ; as his brother, in his
opinion, perished by yielding too much. Asserting at another
time that there was no middle course between the throne and
the scaffold, Talleyrand maliciously suggested the post-chaise.
Before, however, setting out, as Charles II. said, on his trav-
els, the king attended a ball given at the Palais Royal, June
5, 1830, to the king of Naples, by his brother-in-law the Due
d'Orleans, soon to be Louis Philippe I. Two thousand guests
crowded the salons ; the people filled the gardens, where rows of
lights sprang from tree to tree, and from arcade to arcade. Dur-
ing the evening a presentiment of coming events filled the mind
of the Comte de Salvandy, a former minister to Naples; and
passing before the host, wiio was receiving the compliments of
his guests upon the brilliancy of the occasion, he said, " You are
giving us quite a Neapolitan fete, prince : we are dancing upon a
volcano" (nous dansons sur un volcari) ; alluding to the habit of
the peasantry, who thoughtlessly dance upon the slopes of Vesu-
vius, which may at any moment overwhelm them. In little more
than a month Charles X. had taken the post-chaise, and Louis
Philippe was hailed as the "citizen king."
CHARLES XII.
[King of Sweden; called the "Madman of the North;" born at
Stockholm, June 27, 1(382; succeeded Charles XI., 1(397; opposed a
league of the Northern powers; took Copenhagen; raised the siege
of Narva against Peter the Great; invaded Poland and Saxony;
marched upon Moscow, but was defeated at Pultowa, 1759; retreated
to Turkey, and on his return through Germany was obliged to sur-
render Stralsund; killed at the siege of Frederickshall, during an
invasion of Norway, Dec. 11, 1718.]
124 CHARLES ALBERT.
No matter: nothing resembles a man more than a
king.
"When a minister's servant apologized for addressing him
familiarly, not knowing he was* the king, " but thinking it was
only a man."
Charles had several horses killed under him at the battle of
Karva in 1700, where he defeated Peter the Great. As he was
mounting a fresh one, he exclaimed, " These people seem dis-
posed to give me exercise." "When asked what he thought of
Alexander, whose life he was found reading when a child, "That
I should like to resemble him," was the precocious reply. It
was suggested that the Macedonian lived but thirty-two years:
" It is enough," maintained Charles, " when one has conquered
the world." The Swede died at thirty-six. The anecdote may
have suggested to Pope the conjunction of their names :
" Heroes are much the same, the point's agreed,
From Macedonia's madman to the Swede."
Essay on Man, IV. 219.
CHARLES ALBERT.
[Carlo Alberto, king of Sardinia; born 1798; ascended the throne,
1831; made liberal reforms in the government; granted a constitution,
and put himself at the head of the movement for Italian indepen-
dence, 1818; after gaining several victories over the Austrians, was
defeated at Novara, March 23, 1849; and abdicated in favor of his son
Victor Emmanuel; died July of the same year.]
I await my star (J' attends mon astre).
The motto of his house. When Victor Emmanuel opened
the first Parliament in Rome in Xovember, 1871, the common
people sought all day in an unclouded sky for the " star of
Savoy," which they were told was visible.
The proud answer of Italian patriotism, " Italy will finish it
alone" (U Italia fara da se), given to French republicans in 1848,
who favored the intervention of their country to assist Italy
against Austria, has been attributed to others than Charles
Albert: by Reuchlin ("History of Italy," II. 1, 55) to Pareto. then
minister of foreign affairs ; to Cesare Balbo, a writer and liberal
statesman of that time; and to Gioberti, an even more distin-
VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND. 125
guished patriot. Gregorovius (" Rome in the Middle Ages," VI.
259) dates it from Cola di Rienzi ; but only properly, says Biich-
mann, in so far as it expresses the main idea of Rienzi's career.
The assistance which was refused in 1848-49 was accepted, with
a result not prejudicial to Italian pride, in 1859.
VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND.
[A distinguished French writer and statesman ; born at St. Malo,
September, 17G8; destined to the Church, but preferred the army,
which he entered, 1786; sailed for the United States, 1791, ostensibly
to discover the North-west Passage; but, after a journey from Niagara
to Florida, returned to France, 1792; joined the emigrants, and lived
in poverty in England; returned 1800, and published " Atala," a
picture of aboriginal American life; elected to the Academy, 1811;
ambassador to Berlin, 1820; to London, 1822*; minister for foreign
affairs, 1823; ambassador to Rome, 1828; died after a long retirement,
July 4, 1848.]
If the cocked-hat and surtout of Napoleon were placed
on a stick on the shores of Brest, it would cause
Europe to run to arms from one end to the other.
Of the terror which the name of Napoleon, as once that of
Richard Coeur de Lion, still inspired among those who had
crushed him. Chateaubriand, however, called the history of
France under Napoleon, "slavery less the shame (I'esclavage
moins la lionte}.
"France is a soldier'" (La France est un soldaf). A thought
which was suggested to Chateaubriand by the history of France
under the empire, the foundation of which rested upon military
glory.
Talleyrand said of Chateaubriand in his old age, when not
even the vivacious society and unremitting attentions of Mme.
Recamier could dispel his despondency, " He thinks himself
deaf, because he no longer hears himself talked of."
Chateaubriand illustrated the inconstancy of his political life,
which, however, manifested a great repugnance to imperialism
and republicanism alike, by saying, " I am a Bourbonist by honor,
a royalist by reason and conviction, and a republican by tastes
and character."
126 LORD CHATHAM.
LORD CHATHAM.
[William Pitt, first Earl of Chatham; called, until raised to the
peerage, "The Great Commoner;" born in Cornwall, Nov. 15, 1708;
member for Old Sanim, 17.35; paymaster of the forces, 1740: prime
minister for rive months, 1755; formed a coalition with Newcastle,
becoming secretary of state, and directing war and foreign *aff airs ;
resigned on the accession of George III.; privy seal, 17(Jf>, and ac-
cepted a peerage; resigned, 1768; opposed ihe American war; died
May 11, 1778.]
Methinks Felix trembles! He shall hear from me
some other day.
Asking, in the House of Lords, who were the evil advisers of
his Majesty ; and fixing his eyes on Mansfield, who seemed to
quail before his glance. Campbell, in the " Life of Mansfield."
quotes it "Festus; " which led the Hon. Edward Everett to write
him, that Lord North would not have quailed, but would have
said, "Judge Felix, if you please, Lord Chatham."
Moreton, Chief Justice of Chester, once used the expression
in the House of Commons: " King, Lords, and Commons; or."
looking at Pitt, " as the right honorable member would call-
them, Commons, Lords, and King." Pitt having asked that the
words be taken down, Moreton explained that he meant nothing;
whereupon Pitt gave him this advice : " Whenever that member
mean* nothing, I advise him to say nothing."
The Duke of Newcastle gave the management of the House of
Commons in 1754 to Sir Thomas Robinson, a dull man; which
made Pitt exclaim, " Sir Thomas Robinson to lead us! The
duke might as well send his jack-boot to lead us ! ' When Pitt
formed the coalition with Newcastle in 1757, the patronage
which the latter dispensed through the members of the House
made him seem so much like a proprietor of votes, that his
colleague said, " The Duke of Newcastle lent me his majority
to carry on the government." In fact, the duke looked upon the
objects of his patronage very much as upon his tenants; whom
he evicted when they did not support his candidates, saying,
"May I not do what I like with my own? "
During the Seven Years' War, Pitt brought about an alliance
between England and Prussia, by which France was overpow-
ered. The scene of action being, therefore, transferred from
LORD CHATHAM. 127
America to Europe, Pitt remarked at the close of the struggle,
"I conquered America in Germany." It was during this war,
immediately after the capture of Quebec, that Pitt declared, " I
will own I have a zeal to serve my country beyond what the
weakness of my frail body admits of ; " and Lord Chesterfield
said of the large forces and sums of money voted for the defence
of America against the French, "It is Pitt's doing, and it is
marvellous in our eyes."
G-entle Shepherd, tell me where.
The line of a song which Pitt repeated, when Grenville, in a
debate on the financial statement of 1762, asked where they
would have a tax laid : " Let them tell me where. I say, sir, let
them tell me where. I repeat it, sir : I am entitled to say to
them, tell me where." " It was long," sa} r s Macaulay, " before
Grenville lost the nickname of ' Gentle Shepherd,' which Pitt
fixed upon him." Essay on Chatham.
Chatham first made the suggestion of " a power behind the
throne," in a speech, March 2, 1770: "A long train of circum-
stances has at length unwillingly convinced me that there is
something behind the throne greater than the king himself."
The case of John Wilkes, in 1770, brought out one or two
famous observations from Chatham : " Unlimited power," he
said, " corrupts the possessor ; and this I know, that, where law
ends, there tyranny begins." In a debate upon Lord March-
mont's motion, made at midnight, May 1, 1770, that any inter-
ference of the lords, respecting the Middlesex election, would
be unconstitutional, Lord Chatham exclaimed, "If the consti-
tution must be wounded, let it not receive its mortal stab at this
dark and midnight hour." He had already said, when a member
of the Lower House, "I will not go to court if I may not bring
the constitution with me."
In a letter to the Earl of Shelburne, Sept. 29, 1770, he spoke
of " reparation for our rights at home, and security against the
like future violations."
Confidence is a plant of slow growth.
When asked for confidence in the ministry in 1776, he said
their characters were fair enough, and such persons he was
128 LORD CHATHAM.
always glad to see in the public service ; but, giving a smile
which was hardly respectful, " Confide in you ? Oh, no ! you
must pardon me, gentlemen. Youth is the season of credulity:
confidence is a plant of slow growth in an aged bosom!" "True
friendship," says Washington, "is a plant of slow growth."
Social Maxims. " I see before me," said Disraeli, in a speech
at the Mansion House, Nov. 9, 1867, " the statue of a celebrated
minister, who said that confidence was a plant of slow growth.
But I believe, however gradual may be the growth of confidence,
that of credit requires still more time to arrive at maturity."
Much of Chatham's finest oratory was employed against the
treatment of the American colonies by the ministry ; but, as
Brougham says, our idea of it rests upon a few scattered frag-
ments. In opposing the Stamp Act, he said, " America, if she
fall, will fall like the strong man : she will embrace the pillars
of the state, and pull down the constitution along with her."
In allusion to a quotation of precedents, he protested: "I come
not here armed at all points with law-cases and Acts of Parlia-
ment, with the statute-books doubled down in dog's-ears, to
defend the cause of liberty."
In 1777 he made the ringing declaration, while speaking of
the employment of German mercenaries : " If I were an Ameri-
can, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in
my country, I never would lay down my arms, never ! never !
never ! "
Equally famous is the figure he employed when opposing
the use of Indians in the war, 1777 : " I invoke the genius of
the Constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls the
immortal ancestor of this noble lord frowns with indignation at
the disgrace of his country."
O t/
In the same year he contemptuously answered the ministerial
boast of driving the Americans before the British army : " I
might as well think of driving them before me with this
crutch ! "
Of the impulse to speak, which overcame his self-command,
he once said to Lord Shelburne, " I must sit clown ; for when I
am up, every thing that is in my mind comes out."
Other sayings of Chatham's are : " Politeness is benevolence in
trifles. " " ' Butler's Analogy ' raises more doubts than it solves. ' '
129
Burke, in a speech on the Repeal of the Corporation and Test
Acts, March 2, 1790, quoted a remark of Chatham's : " We have
a Calvinistic creed, a Popish liturgy, and an Arminian clergy."
ANDRE CHENIER.
[A French poet; born in Constantinople, October, 17G2; secretary
of legation to England, 1787; committed to prison as a Girondist,
after pursuing a moderate course in the Revolution; and executed,
July, 1794, two days before the fall of Robespierre.]
I have done nothing for posterity ; nevertheless [striking
his forehead], there was something there ! ( Je riai rienfait
pour la posterite ; pourtant f avais quelque chose la!)
Fournier hesitates at setting aside the touching story of
Chenier and his friend Roucher reciting in the fatal cart the
first scene of "Andromaque," between Orestes and Pylades; and
the despairing exclamation of the author of the "Jeune Cap-
tive," that he had done nothing for posterity. " I confess that I
doubt," says the author of "L'Esprit dans I'Histoire," "while*
I regret my doubts." He adds, that the narrative of a romaneier,.
Hyacinthe de Latouche, is drawn from contemporaneous accomit
of suspicious authenticity, and names Alfred de Vigny as, con-
tributing, in his " Stello," to fasten the romance upon history-
Professor Caro, however, dismisses the scene as " a pure inven-
tion," and traces the famous mot of the poet to the notes- of at
poem by Loizerolles, on the death of his father, who. shared
Chenier's prison. Etudes et Portraits, chap. xi. This- same
Loizerolles attributes to Chenier what history has assignee! to his.
companion in prison, Trudaine, who was said to have drawn on.
the wall of his cell a tree, from which a branch had fallen,, and ,
above it the words, either in Latin, " Fructus matura tulissem" as.
asserted by the Marquis de Saint- Aulaire, in the "Lettres inedites .
de Mine, du Deffand," I. 103, note; or in French, " J'awais p&rte
des fruits " (I should have borne some fruit.)
If, however, doubt is to be thrown on all that Loizerolles and
Latouche have written on this subject, the following exclamation
of Chenier to Roucher must share the same fate : "It is so beau-
tiful to die young ! " (II est si beau de mourir jeune /).
130 LORD CHESTERFIELD.
LOUD CHESTERFIELD.
[Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, courtier,
orator, and wit, called by Sainte-Beuve " the La Rochefoucauld of
England; " born in London, September, 1694; educated at Cam-
bridge; entered Parliament, 1715, where his speeches were greatly
admired; passed to the House of Lords, 1726; ambassador to Holland,
1728; Lord lieutenant of Ireland, 1745 , principal secretary of state
for two years from 1746; was intimate with Pope, Swift, and the other
wits of the day; his "Letters to His Son" were published in 1774,
the year after his death.]
Will your majesty command the insertion of the usual
formula: "To our trusty and well-beloved cousin"?
The question with which Chesterfield received the angry
exclamation of George II., when the name of a person he dis-
liked was suggested for an appointment : " I would rather have
the Devil ! " Laughing at the turn his minister gave to it, the
king replied, " My lord, do as you please."
When asked how he got through so much work, he replied,
"Because I never put off until to-morrow what I can do to-day."
Dewitt, pensionary of Holland, answered the same question :
" Nothing is more easy : never do but one thing at a time, and
never put off until to-morrow what can be done to-day."
Being asked, when lord lieutenant, whom he thought the
greatest man in Ireland, he replied, " The last man who arrived
from England, be he who he might."
When walking in the street one day, Chesterfield was pushed
off the flags by an impudent fellow, who said to him, " I never
give the wall to a scoundrel." The great master of courtesy
immediately took off his hat, and, making him a low bow,
replied, " Sir, I always do." This has also been told of John
Randolph of Roanoke, in an encounter with the editor of " The
Richmond Whig."
Next to doing things that deserve to be written, there
is nothing that gets a man more credit, or gives
him more pleasure, than to write things that de-
serve to be read.
Letters to his Son, 1739.
LORD CHESTERFIELD. 131
If you can engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition,
(or whatever is their prevailing passion), on your
side, you need not fear what their reason can do
against you.
Letters to his Son, Feb. 8, 1746.
"Every man," says Seneca, "has his weak side."
" The ruling passion, be it what it will,
The ruling passion conquers reason still."
POPE: Moral Essays, III. 153.
Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.
Ibid., March 10, 1746.
The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in
the world, and not in the closet.
Ibid., Oct. 4, 1746.
You must look into people, as well as at them.
Ibid.
In this world the understanding is the voiture which
must carry you through.
Ibid., Oct. 9, 1746.
Another form of Bacon's "Knowledge is power."
There is nothing that people bear more impatiently,
or forgive less, than contempt; and an injury is
much sooner forgotten than an insult.
Ibid.
I recommend you to take care of the minutes, for the
hours will take care of themselves.
Ibid.
He quotes William Lowndes, secretary of the treasury under
William and Mary, Anne, and George I., as saying, "Take care
of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves."
Polished brass will pass upon more people than rough
gold.
Ibid., ftlarch 6, 1747.
132 LORD CHESTERFIELD.
Every man seeks for truth : God only knows who has
found it.
Letters to his Son, July 30, 1747.
Human nature is the same all over the world, but its
operations are so varied by education and habit that
one must see it in all its dresses in order to be
entirely acquainted with it.
Ibid., Oct. 2, 1747.
Again he writes, Feb. 7, 1749 : " Modes and customs vary
often, but human nature is always the same."
Merit and good-breeding will make their way every-
where.
Ibid., Oct. 9, 1747.
Endeavor as much as you can to keep company with
people above you.
Ibid.
Genealogies are no trifles in Germany, where they
care more for two and thirty quarters than for two
and thirty cardinal virtues.
Ibid., Nov. 6, 1747.
It [the value of time] is in everybody's mouth, but in
few people's practice;
Ibid., Dec. 11, 1747.
If we do not plant it [knowledge] when young, it will
give us no shade when we are old.
Ibid.
Men, as well as women, are much oftener led by their
hearts than by their understandings.
Ibid., Jan. 21, 1748.
He also wrote, May 15, 1749 : " Xine times in ten, the heart
governs the understanding." Mazarin used to say, " The heart
is everything" (Quand on a le cceur, on a tout). It was the
secret of his power over Anne of Austria.
LORD CHESTERFIELD. 133
- ._ . . - - - - - - .-- ~_ r - - - - .
Honest error is to be pitied, not ridiculed.
Letters to his Son, Feb. 16, 1748.
Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people
you are with.
Ibid., Feb. 22, 1748.
Cottages have them [falsehood and dissimulation] as
well as courts, only with worse manners.
Ibid., April 15, 1748.
Women are to be talked to as below men, and above
children.
Ibid., Sept. 20, 1748.
Venus will not charm so much without her attendant
Graces, as they will without her.
Ibid., Nov. 18, 1748.
He [the Duke of Marlborough] could refuse more
gracefully than other people could grant.
Ibid.
The following anecdote is related of the eccentric Earl of
Peterborough, and illustrates the popular idea of the great duke's
avarice and parsimony. The earl was one day returning from
the House of Lords, and was vigorously hooted by a mob, which
mistook him for Marlborough, then at the height of his unpopu-
larity. " I will convince you that I am not the duke," he said :
" in the first place, I have but five guineas in my pocket ; and in
the second place, here they are, much to your service," throwing
them to the mob. The earl was a distinguished soldier, but was
of opinion that "a general is only a hangman-in-chief."
Abhor a knave and pity a fool in your heart, but let
neither of them unnecessarily see that you do so.
Ibid., Dec. 20, 1748.
Be early what, if you are not, you will, when it is too
late, wish you had been.
Ibid., Feb. 7, 1749.
134 LORD CHESTERFIELD.
That silly, sanguine notion, which is firmly entertained
here, that one Englishman can beat three French-
men, encourages, and has sometimes enabled, one
Englishman, in reality, to beat two.
Letters to his Son.
Henry V. said of his army, wasted by disease, that, when they
were in health,
" I thought upon one pair of English legs
Did march three Frenchmen."
Henry 7., III. 6.
Fools never perceive where they are ill-timed or ill-
placed.
Ibid., July 20, 1749.
Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds, and the
holiday of fools.
Ibid.
No man takes pleasures truly, who does not earn them
by previous business; and few people do business
well, who do nothing else.
Ibid., Aug. 7, 1749.
Whoever is in a hurry shows that the thing he is
about is too big for him.
Ibid., Aug. 10, 1749.
The most familiar and intimate habitudes, connec-
tions, friendships, require a degree of good-breeding
both to preserve and cement them.
Ibid., Xov. 3, 1749.
People in general will much better bear being told of
their vices or crimes than of then: little failings or
weaknesses.
Ibid., Xov. 26, 1749.
There is a certain dignity to be kept up in pleasures,
as well as in business.
Ibid., Feb. 5, 1750.
LORD CHESTERFIELD. 135
Despatch is the soul of business.
Letters to his Son.
To be pleased, one must please. What pleases you in
others will in general please them in you.
Ibid., Feb. 9, 1750.
A man's own good - breeding is his best security
against other people's ill manners.
Ibid.
Paris is the place in the world, where, if you please,
you may best unite the utile with the dulce.
Ibid., April 30, 1750. An allusion to Horace's advice to min-
gle the useful with the agreeable :
" Omne tulit punctuin qui miscuit utile dulci."
De Arte Poetica, 343.
Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for
praise.
Ibid., May 8, 1750.
Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments
only give lustre ; and many more people see than
weigh.
Ibid.
Most arts require long study and application; but the
most useful of all, that of pleasing, only the desire.
Ibid.
For the parties affected by it (scandal) always look
upon the receiver to be almost as bad as the thief.
Ibid., Jan. 15, 1753.
Dean Swift made a witty use of this proverb, when he said,
of William the Third's motto applied to his succession, " recipit
non rapnit" (he received, he did not seize, the crown of England),
" The partaker is as bad as the thief."
136 LORD CHESTERFIELD.
Young people are very apt to overrate both men and
things, from not being enough acquainted with
them.
Letters to Ms Son, Feb. 17, 1751
The vulgar only laugh, but never smile; whereas
well-bred people often smile, but seldom laugh.
Ibid.
Individuals sometimes forgive, but bodies and socie-
ties never do.
lUd.
Do not tell every thing, but never lie.
Ibid.
You may always observe that the greatest fools are
the greatest liars. For my part, I judge of every
man's truth by his degree of understanding.
Ibid.
After their friendship, there is nothing so dangerous
as to have them for enemies.
Ibid. (Of knaves and fools.)
Tyrawley and I have been dead these two years, but
we don't choose to have it known.
Of Lord Tyrawley and himself, when both were very old and
infirm. BOSWELL'S Johnson, 1772.
His last words, his good-breeding quitting him only with life,
were, " Give Dayrolles a chair."
Dr. Johnson addressed to Lord Chesterfield the plan of the
Dictionary; but no attention was paid to it until within a short
time of publication, when the earl, flattered with the expectation
that it would be dedicated to him, wrote two papers in "The
World" in commendation of it. The device failed of effect;
for Johnson wrote him a letter, Feb. 7, 1775, "expressed," as he
said, " in civil terms, but such as might show him that I did
not mind what he said or wrote, and that I had done with him. '
CHILO. 137
In it occurred the celebrated sentence : " Seven years, my lord,
have now passed, since I waited in your outward rooms, or was
repulsed from your door." Johnson said in it that he did not
expect the treatment he had received, " for I never had a patron
before. The shepherd in Virgil grows at last acquainted with
Love, and found him a native of the rocks." lie afterwards
exchanged the word " garret " for " patron," in his translation of
Juvenal's Tenth Satire, so that it stands :
" Yet think what ills the scholar's life assail,
Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail."
Dante amplifies the thought of dependence upon the patron-
age of the great :
" And thou shalt prove how salt a savor hath
The bread of others, and how hard a path
To climb and to descend the stranger's stairs! "
Paradiso, XVII. 58.
Johnson's opinion of Lord Chesterfield was subsequently ex-
pressed with great freedom. "This man," he said, "I thought
had been a lord among wits, but I find he is only a wit among
lords." Of Chesterfield's "Letters to his Son," Johnson de-
clared that "they teach the morals of a harlot, and the manners
of a dancing-master." But he subsequently thought that they
might be made " a very pretty book. Take out the immorality,
and it should be put into the hands of every young gentleman."
On another occasion, when the "Letters'" were mentioned at
dinner in a gentleman's house, Johnson asserted that " every man
of any education would rather be called a rascal than accused of
deficiency in the graces." BOSWELL : 1776.
CHILO.
[One of the Seven "Wise Men of Greece; became an ephor of
Sparta, B.C. 555; and died of joy at the victory of his sou at the
Olympic Games.]
Know thyself.
The two inscriptions upon the Temple of Apollo at Delphi,
"Know thyself " (jvudi. ffawrov), and "Nothing to excess," which
appears most commonly in the Latin form (Ne quid nimis), em-
138 RUFUS CHOATE.
ployed by Terence ("Andria," I. 1), are referred, the first to
Chilo and Thales, the second to Chilo and Solon. La Fontaine
transferred the latter maxim quite literally to the French lan-
guage when he wrote :
" Rien de trop est un point."
Book IX., Fable 11.
Thales, when asked what were the hardest and easiest things
in the world, replied, " The hardest, to know thyself ; the easi-
est, to blame another's actions." Goethe objected to the first
maxim, that it promoted excessive introspection. " Hypochon-
dria," he said, "is nothing but sinking into the subjective"
(Hypochondrisch sein heisst nichts anders als im Subjekt versinken).
Table Talk, Riemer, II. 1814. But he declares again, "Man
only knows himself in so far as he knows the world ; " and,
" The highest point to which man can attain is the conscious-
ness of his own sensations and thoughts, the knowledge of him-
self." Montaigne declared that he studied nothing but to know
himself ; and Pope versifies the philosophy of ages :
" Know then thyself, presume not God to scan:
The proper study of mankind is man."
Essay on Man, II. 1.
When asked by JEsop how Zeus employed himself, Chilo re-
plied, " In humbling those that exalt themselves, and exalting
them that abase themselves."
" Gold," he said, "is tried with the touchstone, and men with
gold."
Chilo first advised that " nothing but good be spoken of the
dead ; " which comes to us through the Latin translation (de mor-
tuis nil nisi bonuiri) of a maxim in the "Life of Chilo," by Dio-
genes Laertius, only slightly modified by Thucydides, II. 45 :
"Everyone ought to praise the dead." Cicero said, "A good
name is the possession of the dead " (Bona fama possess io defunc-
torum).
RUFUS CHOATE.
[One of the most eminent of American advocates; born in Ips-
wich, Mass., Oct. 1, 1799; member of Congress, and Senator of the
United States, 1811-45; died at Halifax, N.S., July 13, 1858.]
RUFUS CHOATE. 139
There was a state without king or nobles; there was
a church without a bishop ; there was a people gov-
erned by grave magistrates which it had selected,
and equal laws which it had framed.
Speech in New York at the dinner of the New-England So-
ciety, Dec. 22, 1843.
Junius had already written : " The Americans equally detest
the pageantry of a king, and the superstitious hypocrisy of a
bishop." Letter 35.
A remark in a letter to the Maine Whig Convention, Aug. 9,
1856, caused much discussion and protest: speaking of a govern-
ment based on Northern, or anti-slavery ideas, he called " its
constitution, the glittering and sounding generalities of natural
right which make up the Declaration of Independence." Emer-
son said in reply, that these "generalities" were " blazing veri-
ties."
In a letter to the Massachusetts Whig State Convention of
1855, he wrote : " We join ourselves to no party that does not
carry the flag, and keep step to the music of the Union."
Then you are a dipped, but I hope not a wick-ed
candle.
When a witness described himself as "a candle of the Lord,
a Baptist minister."
He once said to one of his daughters at the opera, " Interpret
to me this libretto, lest I dilate with the wrong emotion."
When a friend asked him of what he supposed a certain
lawyer whom they had just met was thinking, Choate is said to
have replied, " He is wondering whether he made God, or God
made him." Another attorney he called "a bull-dog with con-
fused ideas." Of a distinguished chief -justice of Massachusetts,
he remarked, that the bar regarded him as the East- Indians did
their wooden god : " They know that he is ugly, but they feel that
he is great." When told that the next edition of Worcester's
Dictionary would contain twenty-five hundred new words, the
same chief-justice exclaimed, " For Heaven's sake, don't let
Choate get hold of it ! " alluding to the extraordinary amplitude
of the great advocate's style.
140 QUEEN CHRISTINA.
QUEEN CHRISTINA.
[Daughter of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden; born Dec. 8, 1626;
received a careful and masculine education; proclaimed queen, 1632,
with a regency under Oxenstiern; assumed the direction of affairs,
1644; abdicated after the exhibition of much eccentricity, 1624; ab-
jured the Protestant religion, and became a resident of Rome, where
she promoted art; died 1689.]
I might bring forth a Nero as easily as an Augustus
(Ilpourra.it aussifacilement naitre de moi un Neron qutun Auguste).
When urged by her subjects to marry. Thinking that one of
her suitors was attracted by her crown rather than by herself,
she derisively remarked, " A crown is indeed a pretty girl ! "
( Une couronne est une jolie file /) Her purpose to remain un-
married was declared on one of her numerous medals struck at
Rome : "I was born, have lived, and will die free" (Libero io
nacqui, e vissi, e morrb sciolto}.
Tell the Holy Father that I am not the less the daugh-
ter of the great Gustavus !
When her request that two friends be allowed to visit the
Castle of St. Angelo was refused.
A painter suggested that she hold a fan in her hand while her
portrait was being painted : " A lion is fitter for the queen of
Sweden/' was her reply.
The queen was admiring a statue of Truth, which she was told
was a virtue all princes could not tolerate ; " I can believe it,"
she said: "all truths are not made of marble" (Je le crois bien,
toutes les verites ne sont pas de marbre ).
She thanked the gentlemen who arranged a comedy to be
played at Innspruck, on the day when she had been admitted
into the Catholic Church there : " It is just that you should give
me a comedy after I have given you a farce."
He has cut off his left arm with his right (II s'est coupe
le bras gauche avec le bras droit).
Of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV., that
he had exterminated heresy at the expense of industrious sub-
jects, who found a home elsewhere. This mot, Fournier says, can
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO.
be referred to a time as remote as the reign of the Emperor Val-
entinian, of whom it was said after his treacherous murder of
yEtius, the general who commanded his forces at the defeat
of Attila, near Chalons in Gaul, A.D. 451.
*
I love men, not because they are men, but because
they are not women.
A similar remark is attributed to another masculine character,
Mme. de Stael : " I am glad I am not a man, as I should be
obliged to marry a woman." When the court ladies embraced
Queen Christina on her arrival at Fontainebleau in a travelling
suit which disguised her sex, she exclaimed, " I believe that they
take me for a man."
Of Mme. de la Suze, who became a Catholic, because her
husband, from whom she had separated, was a Huguenot,
Queen Christina remarked, " She has separated herself from her
husband that she may see him neither in this world nor in the
next."
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO.
[Born at Arpinum, Jan. 3, 106 B.C.; began his career as an advo-
cate at the age of twenty-five; finished his education at Athens;
elected consul, 64; crushed the conspiracy of Catiline; exiled by the
hostility of Clodius, 59; returned, 57; joined Pompey against Cresar,
but submitted to the latter, and produced in retirement his works
on philosophy and rhetoric; applauded the assassination of Cresar;
denounced Antony, by whose soldiers he was killed, after being
proscribed by the Triumvirate, Dec. 7, 43 B.C.]
Civis Romanus sum.
In his sixth oration against Yerres, Cicero described the out-
rages upon the person committed by the cruel and rapacious
governor of Sicily, and dwelt particularly upon the case of
Publius Gavins, who was beaten with rods in the forum of
Messina : " while in the mean time no groan was heard, no cry
amid all his pain and between the sound of the blows, except
the words, ' I am a Roman citizen ! ' Lord Palmerston made a
celebrated application of this phrase in a debate in the House of
Commons, June 25, 1850, on d> vote of confidence in Lord John
142 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO.
Russell's administration, especially in reference to Greece. At
the close of a five-hours' speech the foreign secretary, whose
conduct was particularly under discussion, defended the protec-
tion given to British subjects abroad, and challenged the verdict
of the House on the question " whether, as the Roman in days of
old held himself free from indignity when he could s&y.Civis
Romanus sum, so also a British subject, in whatever land he may
be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and strong arm of
England will protect him against injustice and wrong."
How long, I pray you, Catiline, will you abuse our
patience ?
The opening of the first oration against Catiline, Nov. 8, 64
B.C., in the Senate, which Catiline entered after full proof of
his treason was in Cicero's hands. The Latin form is as famil-
iar as the English : " Quousque tandem abutere, Catiiina, patientia
nostra 1 Another shorter expression, referring to the corruption
of the age in which so extensive a conspiracy could be matured,
" tempora, O mores! " is equally well known. Hardly Jess so is
the beginning of the second oration against Catiline, where the
orator indicates by different but nearly synonymous words the
manner of the conspirator's escape from Rome : " Abtit, excessit,
evasit, erupit" (He is gone, he has retreated, he has escaped,
he has broken forth).
Let arms yield to the toga.
A part of the line " Cedant arrna (ogee, concedat laurea lingua*"
which Cicero introduced, either in whole or in part, in the
oration against Piso, 55 B.C., and the Second Philippic, 44.
It occurs in a poem, most probably " De Suo Consulatu," and
provoked the ridicule of the wits and critics. He clung to it,
however, says Forsyth, with true parental fondness for a de-
formed offspring, calling it in " De Officiis " " a capital line,
which I hear is attacked by the wicked and the envious."
Life. Antony, in reply to the attacks of Cicero's philippics,'
quoted the line against him, while charging the great orator with
murder, conspiracy, and assassination.
Another saying which has become proverbial occurs in the
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO. 143
oration for Milo, IV., 52 B.C.: "Laws are silent amid the
clash of arms" (Silent leges inter arma). On the trial of Milo
for killing the notorious Clodius, the court-house was surrounded
by soldiers collected by the friends of the murdered man ; and
jUicero, disturbed by their presence and the uproar of the mob,
made but a feeble defence. The speech which lias come down
to us was composed after the trial, in which Milo was con-
demned. Acknowledging its receipt in Marseilles, \vhere he
was living in exile, Milo considered himself fortunate that so
convincing a speech was not actually delivered, " else I should
not now be enjoying the delicious mullets of- this place."
When Julius Caesar entered the Roman treasury, after crossing
the Rubicon, he was opposed by the tribune Metellus, whom he
threatened to run through with his sword, telling him " it was
much more" trouble to say it than to do it." "Arms and laws,"
he added, "do not flourish together."
Marius granted the freedom of the city to a thousand Cameri-
ans, who had distinguished themselves by their behavior in the
wars. He replied to the objection that it was contrary to law,
" The law speaks too softly to be heard amid the din of arms."
PLUTARCH : Life.
Otium cum dignitate.
The expression "cum dignitafe o//wm," as it is correctly written
(idleness with dignity), occurs in the oration for Sestius, 56 B.C.
It is also found in the "Familiar Letters," and in the treatise
"De Oratore." To a man who found him digging potatoes in
his garden, Lord Erskine said, " This is what you call otium cum
. diggin-a-tater ! " The younger Pliny used in a letter the phrase,
" illud jucundum nil ayere" for a translation of which we need
go no farther than to the Italian, " dolce far niente."'
That day seemed like immortality (immortalitatis instar}.
In the oration against Piso, 55 B.C., Cicero spoke thus of the
enthusiasm with which his return from exile was hailed, Septem-
ber, 57, when Plutarch reports him to have said, " Italy brought
me on her shoulders to Rome." In a letter during this time,
to his wife, Cicero said, "It is not my crimes, but my virtue,
which has crushed me."
144 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO.
To err is human.
The sentence from which " errare est liumanum" is derived
occurs in the First Philippic, 44 B.C., " Cujusvis hominis est
errare ! nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare " (Any man.
may err ! only a fool persists in his error) . *
Pope adds the Christian counterpart, "to forgive, divine."
Essay on Criticism, II. 325.
Cui bono?
Quoted from Lucius Cassius in the Second Philippic, and in
the orations for Milo and Roscius.
Forsyth says, " These two words have perhaps been oftener
misapplied than any in the Latin language. They are constantly
translated, or used in the sense of, ' What good- is it ? ' ' To
what end does it serve ? ' Their real meaning is, ' Who gains
by it?' ' To whom is it an advantage?' and the origin of the
expression was this : When Lucius Cassius, who is said to have
been a man of stern severity, sat as quaestor judicii in a trial for
murder, he used to advise the judices [our jurymen] to inquire,
when there "was a doubt as to the guilty party, who had a
motive for the crime, who w r ould gain by the death; in other
words, ( cui bono fuerit?' This maxim passed into a proverb, as
also the expression ' Cassiani judices.' " Life of Cicero, II. 292,
note.
Demosthenes sometimes nodded in his orations.
Plutarch says that those who complain that Cicero spoke thus
of the Athenian orator, in one of his epistles, forget the many
great encomiums he bestowed on him in other parts of his works,
besides calling his orations against Antony "philippics," in
imitation of Demosthenes, w r ho gave that name to his speeches
against the king of Maceclon.
Horace uses a similar locution to that of Cicero :
"Et idem
Indignor quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus,
Verum operi longo fas est obrepere soumuni."
(I, too, take it ill when good Homer nods ; but sleep may be allowed
to creep over an author in a long work.) De Arte Poet., 359.
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO. 145
The same poet uses an appropriate figure in a comparison to
Apollo :
" Neque semper arcum
Tendit Apollo."
(Apollo does not always bend his bow.) Odes, II. 10, 19.
Use is the best master.
In the oration for Rabirius, " Usus magister est optimus." Fre-
quent forms of the saying occur in Latin authors: " Rerum
omnium magister usus." C^SAR : Bell. Civ., 2, 8. " Usus mat/is-
ter egregius"'- PLINY: Letters, 1, 20.
" Usus,
Quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi."
(Custom, before which lies the decision, the law, and the rule of
speaking.) HORACE: De Arte Poet., 71.
From the idea of the mastership acquired by custom, may
have been derived the Latin maxim, " usus tyrannus " (custom is
a tyrant) ; and the legal maxim, " Common custom is common
law."
The sinews of war (nervus rerum).
In the Fifth Philippic, Cicero calls money " the sinews of
war ; " and, in the oration for the Manilian Law, considers " rev-
enues the sinews of the State " (vectigalia nervos ret puNicce).
Diogenes Laertius refers the phrase, which occurs in Plato
("Republic ") and Plutarch (" Cleomenes"), to the philosopher
Bion. JEschines, in his oration against Ctesiphon (which called
forth the "Oration on the Crown"), reproached Demosthenes,
with employing this among other newly invented phrases. The
Emperor Henry V. (1081-1125) introduced it into- Germany,
showing a Polish ambassador his treasure, which he called
nervus rerum agendarum. Champollion and Macchiavelli natur-
alized the expression in French and Italian ; the latter denying
that "money is the sinews of war." Rabelais is of the oppo-
site opinion : " Les nerfs des batailles sont les pe'cun^s." - Gargan-
tua, I. 46. Montecuculi, the Imperialist rival of Turenne and
Conde, quotes in his memoirs the saying of some one not named,
that " war demanded three things, money, money, money I "
146 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO.
(zum Kriec/fiihren sind drierlei D'mcje noting: Geld, Geld, Geld!)
Zincgref (" Apothegm ata ") supplies the author in the Imperial-
ist field-marshal Lazarus von Schvvendi.
He must fall either by the hand of his enemies, or by
himself ; for he is his own worst enemy.
Of Julius Caesar, B.C. 50; at a time when the Dictator had
made himself unpopular in Rome, " where," says Forsyth, "the
people seem to have hissed him in the theatre, and his plunder
of the treasury had disabused men's minds of the idea of his
wealth. Cicero said he did not believe his ' reign ' would last
six months," and hoped he should live to see his fall.
After Pharsalia, Caesar restored the statues of Pompey, which
had been thrown down. Cicero, a partisan of the defeated gen-
eral, said, that " by erecting Pompey's statues Caesar had secured
his own." PLUTARCH: Apothegms. Marcus Marcellus had
also been an adherent of Pompey, but was pardoned by Cagsar
after an oration of Cicero's, which has come down to us, and
which is really a eulogy of the man the orator had always op-
posed. In it Cicero says to Marcellus, " Wherever you are, re-
member that you are equally within the power of the conqueror."
After the death of Ca?sar, which he applauded, Cicero said,
"We have killed the king, but the kingdom is with us still."
He probably referred to Antony, who succeeded to Caesars place
in the affections of the populace, and of whom Cicero wrote to
Cassius : " Oh that you had invited me to the feast of the Ides
of March ! then there would have been no remains " (reliquiarum
nihiifuisset). FORSYTH : Life.
While there's life, there's hope (^Egroto, dum anima est,
spes est).
To Atticus, Letters, IX. 10.
" While there is life, there's hope, he cried."
GAY: The Sick Man and the Angel.
Rem acu tetigisti.
To a senator whose father was a tailor. Like our saying,
"To hit the nail on the head." "Many a man," says Goethe,
"strikes with his hammer here and there on the wall, and thinks
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO. 147
he hits every time the nail on the head " (Mancher klopft. mil
dem Hammer an der Wand herum, und ylaubt er treffe jedesmal dtn
Nayel aufden Kopf). Kunst und Alterthum, III. 1, 1821.
Cicero was the wit of his time. Thus, being told of a man
who had ploughed up the ground in which his father was buried,
he remarked, "That is certainly cultivating his memory " (Hoc
est vere colere monumentum).
Seeing his son-in-law Dolabella, who was of short stature,
with a long sword at his side, he asked, " Who has tied that
little fellow to his sword? " FORSYTH : Life.
Crassus reproached Cicero with accusing him from the ros-
trum, when but a few days before he had praised him : the
orator replied, " I did that by way of experiment, to see what I
could do with a bad subject." At another time Crassus wished
to correct his own remark, that none of his ancestors had lived
more than threescore years, and wondered how he could have said
it. Cicero dryly suggested, "You knew that such an assertion
would be very agreeable to the people of Rome."
One Octavius, who was an African, said that he could not
hear Cicero, who was speaking : " That is somewhat strange,"
replied the orator, " since you are not without a hole in your
ear." This was a mark of slavery among some nations. PLU-
TARCH : Life.
Faustus, Sulla's son, had wasted his estate, and was obliged
to put up bills for the sale of it. Cicero observed, " I like these
bills much better than his father's." Ibid. The pun refers
to Sulla's bills of proscription issued against citizens during his
dictatorship.
Hortensius, the counsel for Verres, in answer to Cicero's in-
sinuation, said that he did not know how to solve riddles :
" That is strange," replied the accuser of the Sicilian governor,
" when you have a sphinx in your house." Verres had unlaw-
fully presented Hortensius with a statue of the sphinx, from the
spoils of his province. The sphinx of mythology was a monster
which sat upon a rock, and proposed the following riddle to
every Theban who passed by : "A being with four feet has two
feet and three feet, and only one voice; but its feet vary; and
when it has most it is weakest." (Edipus solved the riddle by
saying it was man, whereupon the sphinx killed herself.
U8 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO.
Laberius, a Roman knight, was looking for a seat in the
theatre ; and Cicero said to him, " I would receive you here if I
had room ; " to which he replied, ref ering to the orator's political
vacillation, " I am surprised that you have not room, as you
generally sit on two stools."
I am happy to be praised by a man whom others
praise (Lcetus sum laudari me a laudato mro).
Quoted from Nsevius, an early Latin poet.
" Approbation from Sir Hubert Stanley is praise indeed."
MORTOX : A Cure for the Heartache.
When some one said, " Lyra will rise to-morrow," Cicero
replied, " Undoubtedly : there is an edict for it ; " intending to
ridicule Caesar's correction of the calendar. PLUTARCH : Life
of Ccesar.
Caninius Revitius was consul but a day : Cicero said of him,
" We have a consul so vigilant, that he has not slept a single
night during his consulate."
" There was never yet," Cicero once said, " true poet or orator,
that thought any other better than himself."
Nothing dries sooner than a tear (Nihil lacrimd citius
arescit).
Pro aris et foe is.
When Fitz-Greene Halleck wrote in his spirited poem, " Marco
Bozzaris," " Strike, for your altars and your fires ! " he translated
an expression of Cicero, " Pro aris et focis" in the oration for
Roscius, chap. v.
Let me die in my fatherland.
Having made an attempt to escape by sea from the proscrip-
tion of Antony and Octavius, he found the wind contrary, and
the sea rough : he therefore returned, saying, " Let me die in
my fatherland, which I have so often saved." As his attendants
set down the litter near his Formian villa, Cicero exclaimed to
the soldiers, as he drew back the curtains, and stretched forth
his head, " Here, veterans, if you think it right strike ! "
FORSYTH : Life.
HENRY CLAY. 149
HENRY CLAY.
[An American statesman and orator; "born in Virginia, April 12,
1777; elected United -States senator from Kentucky, 1806; to the
House of Representatives, 1811, and chosen speaker; commissioner
to sign the treaty of peace with England, 1814; a candidate for the
Presidency, 1824 and 1844; senator, 1831; resigned, 1842; re-elected,
1848, and served until his death, June 29, 1852.]
Sir, I would rather be right than be president.
A remark which became proverbial ; made to Mr. Preston of
Kentucky, who told him that the compromise measures of 1850,
which he advocated as a means of preserving the Union, would
injure his chances for the presidency by alienating the Northern,
or anti-slavery, Whigs. Clay's motto then and always was, "I
know no North, no South, no East, no West ; " which he first used
when taunted by a Southern senator with being unfaithful to his
section. During the debate in the Senate on the compromise
measures, he declared, "If Kentucky should to-morrow unfurl
the banner of resistance unjustly, I will never fight under that
banner. I owe a paramount allegiance to the whole Union, a
subordinate one to my own State." And again he said, " The
senator speaks of Virginia being my country. The Union, sir,
is my country." Patrick Henry said in the Continental Con-
gress, Sept. 5, 1774, " I am not a Virginian, but an American,"
and Daniel Webster declared, " I was born an American, I live
an American, I shall die an American."
It seems you are resolved to speak until your audience
arrive.
To a dull and interminable member of Congress, who said to
Clay, "You, sir, speak for the present generation, but I speak
for posterity." " Mr. Townsend mentions," says Jennings, " that
an interminable orator, haranguing to empty benches, whispered
to a friend, 'I am speaking to posterity.' 'If you go on at
that rate,' replied his friend, ' you will see your audience
before you.' " Anecdotal History of Parliament. It was enough
for the member of Congress from North Carolina, in whose
district was the county of Buncombe, when told that no one in
the house was listening to him, to say, "No matter: I am speak-
ing for Buncombe."
150 CLEMENT I.
On leaving a party at sunrise, and being asked how he could
preside that day as speaker of the House, Clay replied, " Come
up, and you shall see how I will throw the reins over their
necks."
CLEMENT I.
[Bishop of Rome; succeeded Linus, A.D. 67, or Anacletus, 91;
supposed to be the Clement to whom St. Paul refers as his fellow-
laborer; died, according to Eusebius, 100, and is reckoned among the
martyrs.]
"We are in the same boat.
To the church of Corinth, on the occasion of a dissension.
The letter from which this is taken is still extant, and is prized
as an important memorial of the early Church.
CLEMEXT VII.
[Giulio de Medici, Pope of Rome; succeeded Adrian VI., 1523;
entered the league against Charles V., with Venice and France;
made prisoner on the capture of Rome by the Constable de Bour-
bon; issued a bull against Henry VIII. of England, respecting the
divorce of Catherine of Aragon; died September, 1531.]
Non possumus.
The answer, " TVe cannot," to the demand by Henry VIII. of
the Pope's consent to his divorce from Queen Catherine, failing
to obtain which the king threatened to attack the papal domin-
ions. Since that time it has been the formula of refusals of the
supreme pontiff.
CLEMEXT XIV.
[Giovanni Ganganelli, Pope of Rome, born near Rimini, 1705;
succeeded Clement XIII., 176!); suppressed the order of the Jesuits,
1773; founded the Clementine Museum; died 1774.]
I have not been pope long enough to forget good
manners.
When told, after holding his first reception on his elevation
to the papacy, that he should not have returned the bows of the
ambassadors.
Cardinal de Bernis, the French literary ecclesiastic, who told
CLEOBULUS. 151
Cardinal Fleury that he would " wait " (v. p. 52), was said
to be very much pleased at Ganganelli's elevation. "I can
easily believe it," replied the latter: "poets ought to love
metamorphoses," alluding 1 to those of Ovid.
When asked by a lady if he did not fear the indiscretion of
his secretaries, the Pope replied, pointing to the fingers of his
right hand, "No, madam, and yet 1 have three."
Of Houdon's strikingly life-like statue of St. Bruno, who
founded the order of the Silent Carthusians, near Grenoble,
where the Grande Chartreuse was afterwards built, Clement
XIV. made a remark almost as celebrated as the statue itself,
which is now in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli at
Rome : " He would speak, did iiot the rules of his house impose
silence."
CLEOBULUS.
[One of the Seven Wise Men of Greece; king of Lindus, in
Rhodes, in the sixth century B.C.]
Be swift to hear, slow to speak.
"Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to
wrath." Epistle of St. James, i. 19.
Attributed to Bias in the form, "Hear much, speak little."
Cleobulus also advised "moderation in all things."
His daughter, Cleobtiline, was a great inventor of riddles.
To her is ascribed that on the year : " A father has twelve
children, and each of these thirty daughters, on one side white
and on the other black; and, though immortal, they all die."
CLOT AT RE I.
[Fourth son of Clovis, king of the Franks; born A.D. 497; on the
death of his father, became king of Soissons, and extended his
dominions by murdering his nephews, thus acquiring all the terri-
tory which Clovis had divided among his sons; died about 5(50.]
What great God is this, that pulls down the strength
of the strongest kings?
The last words of the " wild Clotaire," as Carlyle calls him ;
given by Gregory of Tours. - - History, IV. 21.
152 CLOYIS I.
CLOVIS I.
[King of the Franks, born about 466 A.D.; succeeded Childeric,
481; converted to Christianity, 496; defeated and killed Alaric near
Poitiers, 507; died 511.]
Had I been present at the head of my valiant Franks,
I would have avenged his injuries.
On hearing for the first time after his conversion the story of
Christ's passion and death. Thus Crillou, called by Henry IV.
"the bravest of the brave" (le brave des braves}, a title after-
wards given by Xapoleon to Marshal Xey, when excited at
Avignon by a preacher's eloquent description of Christ's suffer-
ings, put his hand to his sword, crying aloud, "Where wert
thou, Crillon ? " (Oil etais-tu, Cr'dlon ?)
The conversion of Clovis, after his marriage to a Christian
princess, was the result of a vow made when at the point of
defeat in the battle of Tolbiac. The fortune of the day having
changed, Clovis gained a complete victory over his German foes.
He then himself demanded to be baptized, and was accordingly
led by St. Remi, the venerable archbishop, on Easter Eve, 496,
through the streets of Rheims, which were decorated for the
occasion. Astonished by the splendor of a scene so new to him,
which was presented by the lights and banners, by the smoke
of incense, the chanting of the priests, and the shouts of the
multitude, Clovis asked the prelate, who was holding him by the
hand, " Is not this the kingdom of God, which you promised
me ? " " Xot the kingdom, but the way to it," was the reply of
St. Remi, who, as he led him to the font, uttered the historic
words, " Bend thy neck, meek Sicambrian : adore what thou hast
burned, burn what thou hast adored " (in the original Latin of
Gregory of Tours, " Ecclesiastical History of the Franks,*' II.
chap. 31, " Mitis depone colla, Sicamber;" in French, " Flechis le
cou, Sicambre adouci: adore ce que tu brulais, bride ce que tu
adorals" -Bordier's Translation}.
No historic mot has suffered more than this in its descent
through the centuries. If the change it gradually underwent
may be reasoned upon, it may have been thought that the word
"meek " could only be applied to a heathen warrior because he
had acquired humility by conversion to Christianity; before
SIR EDWARD COKE. 153
that change he must naturally have been proud, the Sicambri
being themselves the proudest tribe of Franks : substituting the
previous characteristic for the acquired virtue, we have the form
in which the saying has become proverbial in France, but in
which it presents the exact opposite of the original, " Bend thy
neck, proud Sicambrian " (Flechis le cou, Jier Sicambre /)
Menage, one of the lights of the Hotel Rambouillet, said to
his friend Chapelain at the conclusion of the first representation
of Moliere's "Precieuses Ridicules," which threw contempt upon
the literary society of the hotels, and revolutionized the drama,
" Henceforth we must adore what we have burned, and burn
what we have adored ! "
SIH EDWARD COKE.
[The eminent English jurist; born in Norfolk, 1552; educated at
Cambridge; solicitor-general, 1592; attorney-general, 1594; speaker
of the House of Commons, 1593; chief-justice of the common pleas,
1606, and of the King's Bench, 1613, from which he was removed by
James I., 1616; opposed the court party from that time until 1628,
when he produced his commentary upon Littleton; died 1633.]
Law is the safest helmet (lex est tutissima cassis).
The Latin inscription on the rings which he gave when made
Serjeant.
A man's house is his castle.
In the " Third Institute," Coke says, " For a man's house is
his castle " (et domus sua cuique tutissimum refugium) ; and in
Semayne's case, 5 Rep. 91, " The house of every one is to him as
his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against injury and
violence as for his repose." Chatham made a splendid use of
this comparison in a speech on the Excise Bill: " The poorest man
may, in his cottage, bid defiance to all the forces of the crown.
It may be frail, its roof may shake, the wind may blow through
it, the storm may enter, the rain may enter ; but the king of
England cannot enter ! All his force dare not cross the threshold
of the ruined tenement." When an Irish attorney said of his
client's house, "The rain may enter it: the king cannot,"
154 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.
"What!" said the judge (Lord Norbury), "not the reigning
king?"
Grattan said of Burke, " He became at last such an enthusi-
astic admirer of kingly power that he could not have slept com-
fortably upon his pillow if he had not thought that the king had
a right to carry it off from under his head."
Magna Charta is such a fellow that he will have no
sovereign.
Objecting to the words, " sovereign power," which the lords,
in an amendment to the Petition of Right, desired to leave
with the crown for the protection of the people. At a confer-
ence between the Lords and Commons on the Petition of Right,
May 8, 1628, Coke said, " We have a maxim in the House of
Commons, and written on the walls of our house, that old ways
are the safest and surest ways."
When the judges were asked if they ought not to stay pro-
ceedings until his Majesty had consulted them in a case where
he believed his prerogative or interests concerned, and required
them to attend him for their advice, all the judges except Coke
answered in the affirmative : he proudly replied, " When the
case happens, I shall do that which shall be fit for a judge to
do."
Corporations have no souls.
In the case of Sutton's Hospital, 10 Rep. 39, Coke said, " They
[corporations] cannot commit trespass, nor be outlawed, nor
excommunicate ; for they have no souls." Lord Thurlow once
asked, in his characteristically rough way, " You never expected
justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to
lose, nor a body to kick."
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.
[An English poet and author; born in Devonshire, Oct. 21, 1772;
while a Cambridge undergraduate enlisted as a dragoon, but was
discovered and discharged; printed his first volume of poems, 1796;
removed to Keswick, 1800, and lived in the society of Southey and
Wordsworth; published "The Friend," 1809, and other works be-
tween 1816 and 1825; removed to London, and died there, 1834.]
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 155
As there is much beast and some devil in man, so
there is some angel and God in him.
Frederick the Great saw only the first element : " Every man
has a wild beast within him," he wrote to Voltaire, in 1759.
" If a man is not rising upwards to be an angel," said Coleridge,
"depend upon it, he is sinking downwards to be a devil."
Good and bad men are each less so than they seem.
Most of these quotations are from Coleridge's " Table Talk : "
" A man with a bad heart," he said, " has been sometimes saved
by a strong head; but a corrupt woman is lost forever.''
Talent, lying in the understanding, is often inherited; genius,
being the action of reason and imagination, rarely or never.
Truth is a good dog ; but beware of barking too close to the
heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.
In politics what begins in fear usually ends in folly.
Carlo Dolce's Christs are always in sugar candy.
A rogue is a roundabout fool ; a fool in circumbendibus.
A man of maxims only is like a Cyclops with one eye, and
that eye placed in the back of his head.
Silence does not always mean wisdom.
The man's desire is for the woman ; but the woman's desire is
rarely other than for the desire of the man.
" In her first passion, woman loves her lover:
In all the others, all she loves is love."
BYRON: Don Juan, III. 3.
Shakespeare is of no age.
" He was not of an age, but for all time."
BEN JONSON : To the Memory of Shakespeare.
Painting is the intermediate something between a thought
and a thing.
Frenchmen are like grains of gunpowder, each by itself smutty
and contemptible ; but mass them together, they are terrible
indeed !
When a man mistakes his thoughts for persons and things, he
is mad.
Schiller is a thousand times more hearty than Goethe.
156 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.
Some men are like musical glasses, to produce their finest
tones you must keep them wet.
What comes from the heart goes to the heart. [Of composi-
tion.]
You abuse snuff. Perhaps it is the final cause of the human
nose.
To see Kean act was like reading Shakespeare by flashes of
lightning.
The largest part of mankind are nowhere greater strangers
than at home.
Oh the difficulty of fixing the attention of men on the world
within them !
lii the treatment of nervous diseases, he is the best physician
who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope.
No mind is thoroughly well organized that is deficient in the
sense of humor.
There are three classes into which all elderly women that I
ever knew were to be divided : first, that dear old soul ; second,
that old woman ; third, that old witch.
If you take from. Virgil his diction and metre, what do you
leave him ?
The earth with its scarred face is the symbol of the past ; the
air and heaven, of futurity.
You may depend upon it that a slight contrast of character is
very material to happiness in marriage.
Intense study of the Bible will keep any writer from being
vulgar in point of style.
Dry den's genius was of that sort which catches fire by its own
motion : his chariot-wheels get hot by driving fast.
How strange and awful is the synthesis of life and death in the
gusty winds and falling leaves of an autumnal day !
I don't wonder you think Wordsworth a small man :
he runs so far before us all that he dwarfs himself
in the distance.
To Mackintosh, who expressed his astonishment at Cole-
ridge's estimation of one so much his inferior as Wordsworth.
When asked which of Wordsworth's productions he liked best,
Coleridge replied, "his daughter Dora."
PRINCE DE COXDE. 157
Coleridge, who was a bad rider, was accosted when on horse-
back by a wag who asked him if he knew what happened to
Balaam: " The same thing as happened to me," replied the
poet, " an ass spoke to him."
Southey said of him, " The moment any thing assumes the
shape of a duty, Coleridge feels himself incapable of discharging
it."
Hookham Frere once observed, " Coleridge's waste words
would have set up a dozen of your modern poets."
PRINCE DE CONDE.
[Louis I. de Bourbon, a French general; born in Venclome, 1530;
avowing himself a Calvinist, became chief of the Protestant army in
the civil war, until killed in the battle of Jaruac, March 13, 1569, after
he had surrendered.]
Danger is sweet for Christ and my country.
The motto on his banner at the battle of Jarnac. Before the
action began, he received a kick in the leg from a horse ; but, al-
though the bone protruded through his boot, he spurred on his
followers by charging them to remember the condition in which
Louis de Bourbon entered the battle for " Christ and his country."
At first, all gave way before him ; but, wounded in the arm, his
leg broken, and his horse killed under him, he fell to the ground;
and, unable to fight or fly, surrendered to the Due d'Anjou,
afterward Henry III., by one of whose officers Conde was shot
through the head.
THE GREAT CONDE.
[Louis II. de Bourbon, Prince de Conde, commonly called "the
great ; " born in Paris, 1621 ; gained a victory over the Spaniards at
Rocroi, 1643; and over the Germans at Nordlingen, 1645; commanded
the royalists in the Fronde, until arrested and imprisoned in the
Bastille; having been sentenced to death, entered the service of
Spain, until the treaty of the Pyrenees, 1659; died 1686.]
Would to God it were Moliere bringing me yours !
(faimerais mieux que cefut lui qui me presented la votre!)
To a versifier \vho brought him an epitaph he had composed
for Moliere.
158 CONFUCIUS.
Demonax replied to Admetus, a bad poet, who showed him
an epitaph he had written upon himself in one verse, " It is
so pretty, I wish it were there already ! ' :
The manners of the great Conde partook more of the camp
than of the court. One day the son of the Due d'Epernon spoke
several times of his own father, prefixing in each case the word
" Monsieur." Disgusted by so unnecessary a use of titles, Conde
called out, " Monsieur the master of horse, tell monsieur my
coachman to harness messieurs mv horses to mv carriage" (M.
V V O \
Vccuyer, allez dire a M mon coclier qu'il incite MM. mes cltevaux
a mon carosse}.
Boileau, who used great freedom with Louis XIV., quailed
before Conde. " I can argue before the king," he said, " but am
silent before Conde ; " and on another occasion he referred to
the tone of a victorious general which the hero of Nordlingen
carried into literary circles : " Henceforth I shall agree with
M. le prince, especially when he is wrong. "
Conde and Turenne were opposed to one another during the
troubles of the Fronde ; and Conde was asked why he did not
/
take his antagonist prisoner, he was near him so often. " I am
afraid he'll take me," was the frank reply.
Your majesty is the master, but I pray him to make
me the janitor.
When the king claimed a right to the prince's chateau of
Chantilly, under the treaty with Spain, which country Conde
had supported. Louis XIV. understood the answer to his
question what the price of it was, and dropped the subject. The
estate is now owned by the Due d'Aumale, son of Louis Philippe.
When asked in his last days to write his memoirs, the prince
replied, " All that I have done is worthy only of oblivion : write
the king's history, then all other memoirs will be superfluous."
CONFUCIUS.
[The Chinese philosopher; born 551 B.C.; at twenty-two came
forward as a public teacher; one of the chief ministers of the king,
499, and, later, minister of justice; spent the rest of his life, after
retiring from public affairs, in travel, inculcating his doctrines; died
478.]
CONFUCIUS. 159
Those who have been united in life should not be
parted after death.
Causing the remains of his mother to be buried beside those
of his father.
" Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives,
and in their death they were not divided" (1 Sam. i. 23).
He said of a woman whose father-in-law, husband, and son
had been killed by tigers, but who preferred to remain where
she was, because the government was not oppressive, " Oppres-
sive government is more cruel than a tiger."
He told one of his disciples to take a horse from his carriage,
and present it in payment of the funeral expenses of a friend,
with whose family he had been condoling while on a journey.
" I dislike," he said, " the thought of my tears not being followed
by any thing."
He who exercises government by means of his virtue
may be compared to the north -pole star, which
keeps its placo, and all the other stars turn to-
wards it.
This and the following are from the "Analects," or "Table
Talk," London, 1867:
When I have presented one corner of a subject to any one,
and he cannot from it learn the other three, I do not repeat my
lesson.
In the book of poetry are three hundred pieces; but the
design of them all may be embraced in that one sentence,
"Have no depraved thoughts." [Socrates said, "I pray thee,
O God, that I may be beautiful within."]
Learning without thought is labor lost: thought without
learning is perilous.
" A little learning is a dangerous thing."
POPE: Essay on Criticism.
Gravity is only the bark of wisdom's tree, but it pre-
serves it.
La Rochefoucauld defined gravity as a mystery of matter
invented to conceal faults of mind (un mystere de corps invent e
pour dissimuler les dtfauts de V esprit).
160 CONST ANTIXE THE GREAT.
He who offends against Heaven has none to whom he can pray.
When we see men of worth, we should think of becoming
like them : when we see men of a contrary character, we should
turn inward and examine ourselves.
What you do not like when done to yourself, do not do to
others. [A negative form of the Golden Rule.]
I am not concerned that I have no office : I am concerned how
I may fit myself for one. I am not concerned that I am not
known : I seek to be worthy to be known.
When the accomplishments and solid qualities are equally
blended, we then have the man of complete virtue.
The superior man thinks of virtue : the small man thinks of
comfort. The superior man thinks of the sanctions of law :
the small man thinks of the favors which he may receive.
The superior man is affable, but not adulatory : the mean man
is adulatory, but not affable.
I have not seen a person who loved virtue, or one who hated
what was not virtuous. [In the discouragement of his latter
da vs.]
K -i
What the superior man seeks is in himself : what the small
man seeks is in others.
A poor man who does not flatter, and a rich man who is not
proud, are passable characters; but they are not equal to the
poor who are cheerful, and the rich who yet love the rules of
propriety.
Extravagance leads to insubordination, and parsimony to
meanness. It is better to be mean than insubordinate.
A man can enlarge his principles : principles do not enlarge
the man.
The cautious seldom err.
CONSTANTINE THE GREAT.
[The first Christian emperor of Rome, born 272 A.D.; proclaimed
emperor at York, 306; defeated Maxiinian and Maxentius, 312, and
became supreme in the West; by the defeat of Licinius near Byzan-
tium, was sole emperor; assembled the Council of Nicrea, 325, which
condemned Arianism, and adopted the Nicene creed; transferred
his court to Byzantium, 328; died at Nicoinedia, 337, being baptized
just before his death.]
GRAND DUKE CONST ANTINE. 161
In hoc signo vinces (Conquer by this sign).
In his march towards Rome, either at Aukin in Gaul, or near
Andernach on the Rhine, he is said to have seen in the sky the
luminous cross surmounted by the words which he placed upon
the Labarum, or standard of Rome, over the monogram of Christ,
after his defeat of Maxentius, at Saxa Rubra, near Rome, Oct.
27, 312.
Feeling of his head, when urged to punish the Arians, who
had broken his statues because he would not declare for them,
he said, " I feel no wound."
GRAND DUKE C6NSTANTINE.
[Second son of the Emperor Paul of Russia; born at St. Petersburg,
1779; served at Austerlitz, and in subsequent campaigns; governor
of Poland, 1814; on the death of Alexander I., renounced his right
to the throne in favor of his younger brother Nicholas; viceroy of
Poland; died 1831.]
I hate war : it spoils armies (Je deteste la guerre : elle gate
les armees).
CHARLOTTE CORDAY.
[Marie Anne Charlotte de Corday d'Armans, born in Normandy,
17G8, was a descendant of Corneille; adopted the principles of the
Revolution, and sympathized with the proscribed Girondists; having
resolved to sacrifice herself by the death of Marat, she came to
Paris, May, 1793, and, pretending to be the bearer of important
information from the provinces, penetrated to his chamber, and
stabbed him in the bath; executed the following July.]
The crime makes the shame, not the scaffold.
In a letter to her father after the murder of Marat, she quoted
a line of her ancestor Thomas Corneille (" Comte d'Essex,"
IV. 3) : -
" C'est le crime qtii fait la honte, et non pas 1'e'chafaud."
As in her mind there was no crime, so there was no shame.
Napoleon once said, " It is the cause, and not the death, that
makes the martyr."
That Charlotte Corday's thoughts were early given to the con-
dition of France, is indicated by her scornful remark to some
162 CORNELIA.
inhabitants of Caen, who were playing cards before their door :
"You play, and the country is dying." It was of such persons
that she wrote to Barbaroux : " What a miserable people to
found a republic ! " (Quel triste peuple pour fonder une rc'publique /)
She bore her trial with the utmost composure. " I have killed
one man to save a hundred thousand," she declared ; "a de-
formed wretch, to save the innocent ; a ferocious monster, to
procure peace to my country. I was a republican before the
Revolution, and I never lacked energy."
Fouquier-Tinville, the public prosecutor, suggested that she
must have practised much to give Marat such a blow. " The
monster ! " she exclaimed, " he takes me for an assassin ! "
When asked by her judge after the trial, what she had to say :
"Nothing, but that I have succeeded." In reply to the question
if she thought she had slain all the Marats : "Since he is dead,
perhaps the others will tremble."
It is the toilet of death, but it leads to immortality.
As the executioner was preparing her for the guillotine.
" She destroys us," said Vergniaud, alluding to her sympathy for
Barbaroux and the other Girondists, who were compromised by
her act, " but she teaches us how to die " (Elle nous tue, mais elle
nous apprend a momir).
CORNELIA.
[A Roman matron, eminent for her virtues and mental cultiva-
tion; the daughter of P. Scipio Africanus, and wife of T. Sempro-
nius Gracchus. J
These are my jewels!
To a Campanian lady, who, on a visit to the mother of the
Gracchi, displayed her jewels somewhat ostentatiously, and
wished to see those of Cornelia ; the latter turned the conversa-
tion until her sons had returned from school, and then presented
them.
" Pointing to such, well might Cornelia say,
When the rich casket shone in bright array,
' These are my jewels ! ' "
ROGERS: Human Life.
MME. DE CORNUEL. 163
Constantius, the father of Constantino the Great, once said,
" My treasures are my friends ; " and the wife of Phocion, when
asked where her jewels were, replied, " My jewels are my hus-
band and his triumphs."
MME. DE CORNUEL.
[A witty Frenchwoman, belonging to the society of the so-called
Pre'cieuses of the seventeenth century: her mots are recorded in the
correspondence of Mnie. de Sevigne, and the memoirs of the period;
died 1094.]
No man is a hero to his valet (II n>y a pas de grand homme
pour son valet-de-chambre).
Attributed to Mine, de Cornuel by Mile. Aisse. Letters, 161 :
Paris, 1853. The saying is, however, common to many authors
and heroes. Thus Montaigne : " Few men are admired by their
servants " (Pen d'homrnes ont e'ste admirez par leurs domestiques).
Essays, III. 2. The ordinary meaning given to the mot is, that
the man who is great before the world exhibits his weaknesses
at home ; but Goethe founds the aphorism, " es giebt, sagt man,
fur den Kammerdiener keinen Helden" upon the fact that only a
hero can appreciate a hero, the servant being unable to look
above his equals. Ottilien's Diary: Wahlverwandtschaften, II. 5.
Conde, wearied by pompous and extravagant eulogies, sent
their authors to ask the opinion of his valet (Allez le demander
a mon valet). Marshal Catinat (1637-1712), whose modesty
was equal to his bravery, so that Sainte-Beuve calls him " a hero
in spite of himself" (le he'ros sans de'sir), and of whom Louis
XIV. said to Pere la Chaise and Archbishop Harlay, on seeing
his name in a new list of marshals, " Here comes virtue
crowned!" (C'est bien la vertu couronnee /), used an expression
which maybe the original of all such French mots: "A man
must be indeed a hero to appear such in the eyes of his valet "
(Ilfaut elre bien he'ros pour Vetre aux yeux de son valet-de-chambre}.
La Bruyere wrote in his contemporaneous " Caracteres : " " The
nearer we approach great men, the clearer we see that they are
men. Rarely do they appear great before their valets" (Rare-
ment Us sont grands vis-a-vis de leurs valets-de-chambre). All
these sayings may, however, be referred to Antigoiius I., king of
164 COEKEGGIO.
Sparta, who, when Hermodotus addressed him in a poem as son
of the sun, and a god, replied, " My valet-de-chambre sings me no
such song." PLUTARCH: Apothegms, and Concerning Isis and
Osiris, chap. 24.
Dr. Johnson once observed, "People may be taken in once,
who imagine that an author is greater in private life than other
men. Uncommon parts require uncommon opportunities for
their exertion." BOSWELL : Life, 1763. "All celebrated peo-
ple," said Napoleon, "lose on a close view."
I saw some curious things, love in the tomb and
ministers in the cradle.
Describing a visit to Versailles, where she had seen the aged
Louis XIV. and Mine, de Maintenon surrounded by young min-
isters.
She called the eight generals who were appointed to take the
place of the great antagonist of Conde, " Turenne's small
change " (la monnaie de M. Turenne). Nouvelle Biographic Uni-
verselle.
Mine, -de Cornuel was asked to find a preceptor for a friend's
son : such a list of necessary qualities was given that she finally
said in despair, " I have sought for a preceptor for you : I have
not found him ; and, if I do, I will marry him."
Mine, de Saint-Loup called upon her, and in the course of an
hour observed, " Madame, I was deceived in being told that you
had lost your wits " {que vous aviez perdu la tete). " You see,"
replied Mine, de Cornuel, " how impossible it is to believe what
you hear : now I was told that you had found yours " (Vous voyez
le fond que l'on doit faire sur les nouvelles : on m' avail dit, a moi,
que vous aviez retrouve la votre}.
CORREGGIO.
[Antonio Allegri, called from his birthplace "II Correggio," an
Italian painter; born 1494; died 1534.]
I, too, am a painter (Anch'io son pittore).
The very doubtful saying attributed to Correggio on seeing
Raphael's St. Cecilia at Bologna. Meyer, in his " Life of Cor-
THOMAS CRANMER. 165
reggio," says, that at the time when the artist might have been in
Bologna, namely, in his youth, the Cecilia was not there ; equally
improbable is it that he was ever in Rome, where the exclama-
tion is said by some to have been called forth by the frescos in
the Vatican. The story may have originated in the similarity
of a figure in Correggio's St. Martha to the St. Paul of the
Cecilia. Grimm, in his " Life of Michael Angelo," denies that
Correggio ever saw Florence or Rome.
THOMAS CRANMER.
[Archbishop of Canterbury; born in Notts, 1489; educated at Cam-
bridge; chaplain to Henry VIII., who sent him to Rome to procure
the divorce from Catherine; archbishop, 1533, and the king's prin-
cipal adviser; of the Regency during the minority of Edward VI.; at
the head of the commission which produced the English Liturgy;
prosecuted for heresy, and excommunicated under Queen Mary;
burned at the stake, 1556.]
This hand hath offended, this unworthy hand.
Putting into the fire his right hand, which had previously sub-
scribed to the doctrines of papal supremacy and the real
presence.
CHIEF JUSTICE CUE WE.
[Sir Randolf Crewe, an English judge; born 1588; entered Parlia-
ment, and elected speaker, 1614; chief-justice of the king's bench,
1625; dismissed the next year; died 1646.]
Where is Bohun? "Where is Mowbray?
On the death of Henry de Vere, eighteenth Earl of Oxford, in
1626, a contest arose between Robert de Vere claiming as heir
male of the family, and Lord Willoughby d'Eresby, claiming
through a female, as heir-general to the late earl. The case,
known as the Oxford Peerage Case, was referred by Charles I.
to the House of Lords, who called in the judges to their assist-
ance., The following magnificent burst of judicial eloquence
occurs in the opinion of the lord chief-justice : "I have labored
to make a covenant with myself, that affection may not press
upon judgment; for I suppose there is no man that hath any
166 OLIVER CROMWELL.
apprehension of gentry or nobleness, but his affection stands to
the continuance of a house so illustrious, and would take hold of
a twig or twine-thread to support it. And yet time hath his
revolutions ; there must be a period and an end to all temporal
things finis rerum an end of names and dignities, and what-
soever is terrene ; and why not of de Vere ? For where is
Bohun? Where is Mowbray? Where is Mortimer? Nay,
which is more, and most of all, where is Plantagenet? They
are entombed in the urns and sepulchres of mortality ! yet let
the name of de Vere stand so long as it pleaseth God."
Judgment was given for Robert de Vere ; but, as he died
without an heir male, his name w T as entombed with the others,
until the title was called out of abeyance by Queen Anne, in
favor of Robert Harley, claiming through a female.
OLIVER CROMWELL.
[Born at Himtington, England, April 25, 1599; educated at Cam-
bridge; entered Parliament, 1628: joined the Parliamentary army as
captain of cavalry; commanded the left wing at Marston Moor, and
the right at Naseby ; member of the court w r hich tried Charles I. ; lord-
lieutenant of Ireland; defeated the royalists at Drogheda, at Dunbar
in Scotland 1650, at Worcester 1651; Protector of the Commonwealth,
1654; died Sept. 3, 1658.]
Put your trust in God, but be sure to see that your
powder is dry.
His advice to his troops when about to cross a river.
He declared to Falkland, in 1641, that, had the House of Com-
mons not passed the remonstrance on the state of the kingdom,
"1 should have sold all I possess, and left the kingdom." From
this may have originated the story that Hampden and Cromwell
had at one time determined to emigrate to America.
When some one spoke of Cromwell's slovenly appearance,
Hampden replied, " If ever we should come to a breach with the
king (which God forbid !), in such a case, I say, that sloven will
be the greatest man in England." Sir Philip Warwick wrote in
his diary, as quoted by Carlyle, that he came into the House one
morning, " and perceived a gentleman speaking, whom I knew
not, very ordinarily apparelled ; for it was a plain cloth suit,
OLIVER CROMWELL. 167
which seemed to have been made by an ill country tailor ; his
linen was plain, and not very clean ; and I remember a speck or
two of blood upon his little band, which was not much larger
than his collar. His hat was without a hat-band." Cromwell's
Letters and Speeches, I. 1, 1641.
" Having the king in my hands,'' Cromwell declared in 1647,
"I have the Parliament in my pockets." He may have said, as
asserted, "If I met the king in battle, I would fire my pistol ,
at the king as at another ; " for when Algernon Sidney refused
to be one of the king's judges in 1648, Cromwell declared, " We
will cut off his head with the crown on it."
A crowning mercy.
f
In his despatch of Sept. 4, 1651, announcing the victory of
Worcester the day before, he said, " The dimensions of this
mercy are above my thoughts. It is, for aught I know, a crown-
ing mercy."
To some one who remarked upon the crowd which poured out
to meet him on his return from the campaign in Ireland to
London, May 31, 1650, Cromwell grimly replied, "Yes; but if it
were to see me hanged, how many would there be ! " A similar
thought struck Henry IV. of France, when the people cheered
him after the attempt of Chatel upon his life, in the early part
of his reign; and William III. of England, predicting the reflux
of the great wave of enthusiasm which bore him to the throne
in 1688, said, " Here the cry is all ' Hosanna ' to-day, and will,
perhaps, be 'Crucify him' to-morrow.' Napoleon replied to
some one who noticed the applause which greeted him in Switz-
erland, "The same unthinking crowd, under a slight change of
circumstances, would follow me just as eagerly to the scaffold."
Cromwell assured a judge who hesitated to serve under him
when Protector, " If I cannot rule by red gowns, I will by red
coats ; " and he asserted, when the Independents demanded the
abolition of titles, "There will never be a good time in England
till we have done with lords." He accordingly assured the Earl
of Manchester, the Parliamentary general, that "he must in such
case be content to be no more than plain Montague," his family
name.
168 OLIVER CROMWELL.
I have sought the Lord night and day, that he would
rather slay me than put me upon the doing of this
work.
Of the dissolution of the Long Parliament, April 20, 1653.
On that day Cromwell entered the House of Commons, contain-
ing about fifty members, and sat in an ordinary place. After
taking part in the debate, he began telling the members of their
injustice, delays of justice, self-interest, and other faults, until,
stamping with his foot, he exclaimed, "You shall now give place
to better men ! '' " You are no Parliament ! I say you are no
Parliament ! " Having called in twenty or thirty musketeers,
he turned out the members with, " In the name of God, go ! "
History recalls with a shudder, says Carlyle, u that my Lord
General, lifting the sacred mace itself, said, ' What shall we do
with this bauble? Take it away! ' " Calling Sir Harry Vane by
name, Cromwell told him that lie might have prevented this;
but that he was a juggler, and had not common honesty. " The
Lord deliver me from thee, Sir Harry Vane ! " All being gone
out, the door of the House was locked. The Rump Parliament
had gone its ways. " They went," says Carlyle, " very softly,
softly as a dream, say all witnesses. ' We did not hear a dog
bark at their going,' asserts my Lord General, elsewhere."
Cromwell, II. 7.
Cromwell's language on this occasion finds its only parallel in
the remarkably frank expressions of Prince Bismarck, in discuss-
ing the emperor's rescript in the German Reichstag, Jan. 2-4,
1882. Replying to a charge of cowardice, which, he said, was
implied in the accusation that he shielded himself behind the
emperor's name, he added, " It is only a feeling of loyalty that
keeps me in my place : were the king mercifully to release me
to-day, it would heartily delight me to bid you farewell, and see
no more of you" (icenn icli im Dienste des Koniys niclit ware, und
icenn mich der Konig lieute in Gnaden entlassen iciirde, so icurde
ich von Ihnen, meine Herren, mil Vergnugen und auf Nimmer-
wiedersehen, Abschied nelimen).
And let God be judge between you and me.
Dissolving the Second Parliament of the Protectorate, Feb. 4,
1658. He replied to the offer of the title of king in that year,
BISHOP CUMBERLAND. 1C9
" Ro} T alty is but a feather in a man's cap : let children enjoy '
their rattle."
He promoted the influence of England by a vigorous foreign
policy, and protected her commerce in the Mediterranean. " By
such means as these," he said, "we shall make the name of
Englishman as great as that of Roman was in Rome's most palmy
daj^s." lie approved of the haughty behavior of an English
admiral at Lisbon, and declared, " I would have the English
republic as much respected as ever the Roman commonwealth
was." He also expressed the opinion concerning England's com-
mercial interests, that "a man-of-war is the best ambassador."
''The mighty things done among us," he once said, "are the
revolutions of Christ himself : to deny this is to speak against
God."
No man ever climbs so high as when he knows not
whither he is going.
Paint me as I am.
The shortened form of Cromwell's injunction to the young
Peter Lely, who was painting his portrait : " I desire you will
use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not to
natter me at all; but remark all those roughnesses, pimples,
warts, and every thing as you see me : otherwise I will never
pay one farthing for it."
BISHOP CUMBERLAND.
[Richard Cumberland, born in London, 1632; educated at Cam-
bridge; Bishop of Peterborough, 1G91; died 1718.]
It is better to wear out than to rust out.
In reply to some one who warned him that he would wear
himself out with his incessant application. Lacordaire said,
"It is better to suffer than to decay."
JOHN PIIILPOT CURRAN.
[An Irish orator and barrister, born near Cork, 1750; educated at
Trinity College, Dublin; called to the Irish bar, 1775, and gained a
large practice; entered Parliament, 1783; counsel for the Irish rebels
of 1798; master of the rolls in Ireland, 1800; died Oct. 14, 1817.]
170 JOHX PHILPOT CUKKAN".
When I can't talk sense, I talk metaphor.
MOORE : Life of Sheridan, II. 29, note.
He said of the speech of a certain member of Parliament,
"It was like a long parenthesis, because that is a paragraph
which may be omitted from beginning to end without any loss
of meaning ; " and of the speech of one Hewett, ' k It put me
exactly in mind of a familiar utensil called an extinguisher:
it began at a point, and on it went widening and widening,
until at last it fairly put out the subject altogether."
When asked what he thought of a certain speech in the
House of Lords, " made by an able speaker," says Jennings,
"but addicted to lofty language," he replied, " I had only the
advantage of hearing Lord airing his vocabulary."
His answer to the prosy member who asked him if he had
read his last speech, was brief : " I hope I have ; " and to the
poet who wished to know if Curran had seen his " Descent into
Hell : " " No, but I should be delighted to see it."
In this case I rather think your lordship takes the
will for the deed.
When a judge in a will-case remarked that it was clear the
testator intended to keep a ///e-interest in the estate to himself.
A judge was interrupted in his charge by the braying of a
donkey. " May it please your honor, it is "only an echo ! " sug-
gested Curran.
On one occasion Lord Clare was observed caressing a New-
foundland dog during Curran 's argument. Counsel stopped,
and, on the judge motioning him to proceed, observed, "I beg
ten thousand pardons. I thought your lordship was in con-
sultation."
He said to a judge who threatened to commit him for con-
tempt of court, " If your lordship commit me, we shall both
have the consolation of reflecting that I am not the worst thing
your lordship has committed."
Lord Clare once said, that if one of Curran's positions were
law, he would go home and burn his law-books. " Better read
them, my lord," was the retort. This*is also told of Dunning,
first Lord Ashburton, in reply to Mansfield.
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 171
He reminds me of a fool I once saw trying to open
an oyster with a rolling-pin.
Of the elaborate but confused exposition of a point of law
given by a learned Serjeant.
Curran was once engaged in a legal argument; and behind
him stood his colleague, a gentleman whose person was remark-
ably tall and slender, and who had originally designed to take
orders. The judge observing that the case involved a question
of ecclesiastical law, Curran said, " I can refer your lordship to
a high authority behind me, who was once intended for the
Church ; though [in a whisper to a friend beside him], in my
opinion, he was fitter for the steeple."
A judge, whose wig was a little awry, asked Curran if he
saw any thing ridiculous in it. "Nothing but the head, my
lord," was his reply.
He was told that he would lose his gown for defending the
rebels of 1798. " His majesty may take the silk," said Curran,
" but he must leave the stuff behind." A barrister changes his
stuff gown for a silk one on being made king's counsel.
My dear Dick, you don't know how puzzled we all are
to know where you buy your dirty shirts.
To counsellor Rudd of the Irish bar, who was remarkable for
his love of whist and his dirty linen.
Curran was asked what an Irish gentleman just arrived in
England could mean by continually putting out his tongue : "I
suppose he is trying to catch the English accent," he replied.
Being told that a miserly man had gone from Cork to Dublin
with but one shirt and a guinea : " Ten to one," said Curran,
" that he changes neither until he returns."
He refused to give a politician a list of Irish grievances,
saying, " At my time of life, I have no notion of turning hod-
man to any political architect."
Having been annoyed by fleas, he said to his landlady, "If
they had been unanimous, and all pulled one way, they must
have pulled me out of bed entirely."
He saw a broken pane of glass in an obscure alley of Dublin,
patched by a page of a very dull book. " This is the first
172 DAXTON.
time," said he, "that the author has thrown light upon any
subject."
The motto he gave Lundyfoot, the rich tobacconist, who was
setting up his carriage, is well known: " Quid rides?" From
HORACE : Satires, I. 69.
In his last illness, when his physician said he seemed to cough
with more difficulty : " That's rather surprising," replied Curran,
"as I have been practising all night."
DANTON.
[Georges Jacques Danton, called the " Mirabeau of the Sans-
Culottes," born at Arcis-sur-Aube, France, 1759; founded the revolu-
tionary club of the Cordeliers; directed the insurrection of Aug. 10,
1792; shared supreme power with Marat and Robespierre, and be-
came minister of justice; arranged the massacre of the imprisoned
royalists, September, 1792; member of the committee of public safety;
arrested after a struggle with Robespierre, March, 1791; and guillo-
tined April 5.]
De 2'audace, encore de 2'audace, et toujours de 1'au-
dace!
After the insurrection of August, 1792, which in fact sub-
verted the monarchy, the manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick,
appointed commander-in-chief of the allied armies of Austria
and Prussia, in which he called upon Europe to place Louis
XVI. securely on his throne, aroused France to a sense of
danger. The revolutionary army under Dumouriez suffered a
momentary check by the capture of Longwy and the siege
of Verdun. In revenge for the interference of foreign powers,
and to show the earnest purpose of the revolutionists, Danton
determined upon the massacre of the royalists, who crowded the
prisons of Paris. While the tocsin was being struck and the
discharge of cannon gave the signal of slaughter, the " tribune
of the people " shouted to the dismayed deputies of the Xational
Assembly, " This is a moment to decree that the capital has
deserved well of France. The cannon which you hear is not the
/
signal of alarm : it is the pas de charge upon our enemies. To
conquer them, to crush them to earth, what is necessary? We
must dare, and still dare, and forever dare, and France is
saved" (JPour les vaincre, pour les atterer, quefaut-ilf de I'audace,
DANTOX. 173
encore de Vaudace, et toujours de Vaudace, el la France est sauve'e).
The " Moniteur " omitted the last words from the report. " Old
men who heard it will still tell you how the reverberating voice
made all hearts-swell in that moment, and thrilled abroad over
France, like electric virtue, as words spoken in season." CAR-
LYLE : French Revolution, II. 3, 4.
" And as she lookt about she did behold
How over that same dore was likewise writ
Be bolde, Be bolde, and everywhere, Be bold."
SPENSER: Faerie Queene, III. 11, 54.
Danton was anticipated in the form of his exclamation by
the Marshal de Trivulce (1441-1518), who replied to the ques-
tion of Louis XL, what he needed to make war, " Three things,
money, more money, always money" (Trois choses, de V argent,
encore de V argent, et toujours de far gent) ; which the imperialist
general von Schwendi echoed fifty years afterwards, " Sind drei-
erlei Dinge noting : Geld, Geld, Geld." All are, however, to be re-
ferred to Demosthenes, who, when asked what three things made
the perfect orator, answered, "Action;" and the second thing?
" Action ; " and the third thing ? "Action." PLUTARCH : Lives
of the Ten Orators.
St. Just, who succeeded Danton in the Reign of Terror, re-
iterated the assertion of his predecessor, when he exclaimed in
the Convention, " Dare ! that is the whole secret of revolutions ; "
and Gambetta marked the difference between the eighteenth
and the nineteenth centuries, by announcing at the banquet on
the birthday of Gen. Hoche, at Versailles, June 24, 1872, the
formula of the third republic, " We must work, and still work,
and forever work ! " (du travail, encore du travail, et toujours du
travail .')
Some one, even more bloodthirsty than Danton, asked him
if the members of the " Right," meaning the ro} r alist deputies,
were not to be included in the massacre of September ; to which
he replied, " Everybody knows that I do not shrink from a crim-
inal act when it is necessary, but I dis-dain to commit a useless
one." And later, when common friends, fearing the results of a
quarrel between them, brought Robespierre and Dauton together,
the latter repeated his opinion: "We should not strike except
174 DANTON.
where it is useful to the republic : \ve should not confound the
innocent and the guilty." " And who told you," replied Robes-
pierre with a poisonous look, " that one innocent person had
perished ? " CARLYLE : II. 8, 2. Danton's fate was sealed
from that moment.
I have been carried into the ministry by a cannon-ball.
Because, after the insurrection of August, 1792, Danton be-
came minister of justice. What his relations with the court
party were from this time, has never been fully known. He may
have dreamed of playing the rule of Mir^ibeau. At any rate, he
declared, " I shall save the king, or kill him," and was even
bolder in his club of the Cordeliers : " I do not love the blood
of vanquished kings: address yourselves to Marat." lie fore-
saw that the Revolution would not cause a permanent displace-
ment of power ; and said in 1792 to the young Due de Chartres,
son of the Due d'Orleans (Egalite), " After our storms France
will return to it [the monarchy], and you will be king. Adieu,
young man, and remember the prediction of Danton." TAINE :
French Revolution, II. Bk. IV. chap. 9. The young man became
Louis Philippe I. Danton's motto at this time, addressed to the
Cordeliers, was, "Nations save, but do not revenge themselves."
Let us be terrible to prevent the people from becom-
ing so.
Calling for the re-organization of the revolutionary tribunal,
in 1793. He spoke of the actions of the Jacobins, but his own
person was no less terrible. " Nature has given me," he said,
"the athletic form and the harsh expression of liberty" (les
forces athletiques et la physiognomic apre de la liberle). Of gigantic
stature, large head, a bull-dog's face marked with the small-pox,
an eye of fire, and a voice which was compared to thunder and
a lion's roar, he realized the popular idea of a revolutionist,
whose terrific images frightened those he could not persuade.
He was pleased with the comparison of himself to Mirabeau,
whose relations with the court, as well as his physical and ora-
torical traits, bore some resemblance to his own. With a
solemnity of egotism, justified perhaps by the weak men around
DANTON. 175
him who attempted to play great roles, he declared that " Nature
has cast but two men in the mould of statesmen, --myself and
Mirabeau. After that she broke the mould." He applied to
himself, however, a common expression, especially in poetic
literature : thus Byron,
" Sighing that Nature formed hut one such man,
And broke the die, in moulding Sheridan."
Whither fly? If freed France cast me out, there are
only dungeons for me elsewhere. One carries not
his country on the sole of his shoe (On n'emporte pas la
patrle a la semelle des souliers).
When his relations with Robespierre had become so strained
that he was advised to fly. Danton claimed to be tired of blood ;
having called himself "drunk with men" (soul des homines'), he
declared that he would " rather be guillotined, than become guil-
lotiner." He compared the Revolution to a great lawsuit, "which
not often enriched him who gained it, while it ruined him who
lost it." He nevertheless thought it necessary to proclaim his
republicanism : to disarm suspicion he cried, " I, too, am a repub-
lican, an imperishable republican" (im re'publicain imperissable),
applying to himself one of the attributes of the Revolution.
But the fortitude of his victims dismayed him. "When they go
smiling to the scaffold," he said, "it is time to break in pieces
the sickle of death." He referred particularly to the Girondists,
of whom he had but a slight opinion. From their constant
comparison of themselves to the countrymen of Brutus and
Cassius, he called them "Romans without a country "(depayse's).
He likened their republic to " the romance of a pretty woman,"
such as Charlotte Corday, or Madame Roland, the beautiful
friend of the Brissotines ; and, hitting off their habit of eloquent
generalizations, he accused them of "intoxicating themselves
with words, while the people are intoxicating themselves with
blood." He saw by how delicate a thread he clung to power:
" As long as they talk of Robespierre and Danton, very well :
beware when they talk about Danton and Robespierre; " when,
in other words, the jealousy of the " green-eyed Incorruptible "
is aroused. But he hoped that history would throw a mild light
even over himself : " The sweet consolation is left me, that the
176 DANTON.
man who perished as chief of the faction of the Merciful (chefde
la faction des Indulgents) will find grace in the eyes of posterity.
i
At last I perceive that in revolutions the supreme
power finally rests with the most abandoned.
When the critical moment came, Danton's decision failed him.
He might have crushed Robespierre : he was crushed by him.
To his friends he said on his arrest, "I leave the whole business
in a frightful welter (un gacliis epouvantalle) : not one of them
understands any thing of government. Robespierre will follow
me : I drag down Robespierre. Oh ! it M r ere better to be a poor
fisherman, than to meddle with the government of men."
CAHLYLE : French Revolution.
Asked at his trial his name and place of abode, he replied,
" My name is Dan ton, a name tolerably well known in the
Revolution ; my abode will soon be in annihilation (dans le
neanC), but I shall live in the pantheon of history." He referred
to the church of Ste. Genevieve, now called the Pantheon, which,
after the death of Mirabeau, had been dedicated to the heroes
of a grateful country, with this inscription around the dome :
" Aux grands homines la patrie reconnaissance."
His trial was a mockery : his evidence was refused admission ;
while his defence consisted of ejaculations. " Men of my tem-
per," he cried, " are beyond price. It is upon their foreheads
that the seal of liberty, and the republican genius, are inefface-
ably stamped." When the president rang his bell for order,
Danton asked : " What is it to thee how I defend myself? The
right of dooming me is thine always (Le droit de me damner te
reste toujours) ; the voice of a man speaking for his honor and
life may well drown the jingling of thy bell ! " Condemned to
die, April 5, 1794, he consoled himself with the noise he had
already made upon earth. " I have tasted well of life : let us go
to sleep ! To-morrow I hope to rest in the bosom of glory ! '
His courage did not yet leave him. " They are sending me to
the scaffold : well, my friends, we must go to it gayly ! ' As he
passed Robespierre's house in the executioner's cart, he shouted
to his victorious rival, " You will appear in this cart in your
turn, Robespierre ; and the soul of Danton will howl with joy ! "
Of the cries of the multitude he said with characteristic egotism,
JEANNE DARC. 177
" The idiots ! they cry ' Long live the republic ! ' and in half an
hour the republic will be without a head ! " " When Paris shall
perish," he had once remarked, " there will no longer be a
republic." His friend Herault de Sechelles shared his fate; and
Dantoii rebuked the inhumanity of the executioner, who refused
them a last embrace : " Fool ! not to see that in a few seconds
our heads must meet in that basket ! " For a moment his de-
meanor did not seem to Herault to be worthy of him. He
was thinking of his wife: "Must I leave thee, my beloved?
(Oh, ma bien-aime'e! faut-il que j'e te quitte?) But," interrupting
himself, "Danton, no weakness ! " (Point de faibiesse /) His last
words were to the executioner : " Do not forget to show my head
to the mob : they have not often seen one like it!" "He had
many sins," says Carlyle, " but one worst sin he had not, that
of cant. He saved France from Brunswick : he walked straight
his own wild road, whither it led him."
One of his expressions was used by Napoleon : " I have made
noise enough in the world already." O 'ME AHA: Napolem in
Exile, 1816.
JEANNE DARC.
[The celebrated French heroine, commonly but erroneously called
Joan of Arc. Michelet describes her as the third daughter of a
laborer, Jacques Dare; and Henri Martin follows "Les nouvelles Re-
cherches sur la Fainille et le Nom de Jeanne Dare " by Vireville, and
the custom of writers before the sixteenth century, by returning to
the ancient name of Dare; born about 1411; burned to death at Kou-
en, May 31, 1431.1
My brothers of paradise tell me to go.
Jeanne Dare imbibed from infancy the principles of the
Orleanists, or supporters of Charles VII., against the English
and the Burgundians, near the latter of whom her birthplace,
Domremy in Lorraine, was situated. From her thirteenth year
she claimed to hear voices calling upon her to save France ; until
in February, 1429, she left home, in obedience to the heavenly
voices, and presented herself with a small guard before the king,
or the dauphin as she called him previous to his coronation. Con-
vinced of her sincerity, Charles gave her a force, with which she
178 JACQUES DAVID.
entered Orleans, the siege of which she compelled the English
to raise. After gaining several battles, and acquiring many
cities to the French cause, she accompanied the king to Rheims,
where he was crowned. The following spring she was captured,
and handed over by the Burgundians to the English for trial as
a sorceress. When asked by her judges why she bore her banner
by the side of the king's at Rheims, she replied, " It shared the
pain, reason enough that it should partake of the honor" (II
avoit cste a la peine, c'estoit bien raison qu'il fast a Vhonneur)."
Being asked if she knew what it was to be in a state of grace,
she said, " If I am not in it, may God put me in it ; and if I am
in it, may God keep me in it ! " (Si je n'y suis, Dieu m'y mette;
et si fy suis, Dieu in'y maintienne /) Finally, when condemned to
death at the stake, she showed no abject clinging to life, but
rejoiced that her work was done : " My voices have not deceived
me," was her consolation, as she thought of the visions on the
hill side of Domremy. Her last word, as her spirit took its
flight, as some said, in the form of a white dove, was
"Jesus ! " O'REILLY : Lcs deux Proces de Jeanne Dare.
Gambetta said at a great meeting in Paris, Feb. 1, 1878,
which celebrated under the presidency of Victor Hugo the cen-
tenary of Voltaire's death : " For myself, I feel sufficiently broad
to be at once the devotee of Jeanne Dare, and the disciple and
admirer, of Voltaire."
JACQUES &AVID.
[A French historical painter, born in Paris, 1748 ; studied in
Rome; appointed painter to the king, 1783; member of the Con-
vention, and voted for the king's death; was the friend of Robes-
pierre, ajid arranged the spectacles of the republic; Napoleon made
him his first painter; exiled at the restoration; died at Brussels, 1825.]
Put in more of the red ! Put in more of the red !
When mixing his colors, after witnessing, as anatomical
studies, the dying struggles of the victims of the Terror. One
cannot then 'be surprised at the answer he gave Louis XVI.,
who asked him how soon his portrait would be finished : "I will
never, for the future, paint the portrait of a tyrant until his
head lies before me on the scaffold ! "
STEPHEN DECATUR. * 179
STEPHEN DECATUK.
[A distinguished American naA-al officer, horn in Maryland, Jan-
uary, 1779; entered the navy, 1798; burned an American frigate
which had been captured in the harbor of Tripoli, 1804; captured
the British frigate "Macedonian," 1812; commanded a squadron
against the Algerines, May, 1815, and dictated a treaty of peace
with the Dey in June of that year; killed in a duel, March, 1820.]
Our country, right or wrong.
Having been appointed a navy commissioner at Washington,
on his return from his campaign against the Algerine pirates,
Decatur received the compliment of a public dinner at Norfolk ,
Va., in April, 1816, where he offered a toast, which, from the pro-
verbial character it acquired, his biographer calls not the least
valuable of his legacies to his countrymen: "Our country! in
her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the
right ; but our country, right or wrong." MACKENZIE : Life.
When the Mexican general Arista crossed the Rio Grande,
May, 1846, and was defeated by Gen. Taylor at Palo Alto and
Resaca de la Palma, President Polk sent a special message to the
United States Congress, calling for means to prosecute hostili-
ties. The position of the Whig party, whrch sustained the
administration, although originally opposed to war with Mexico,
was expressed by John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, who said,
" I hope to find my country in the right : however, I will stand
by her, right or wrong."
Another toast, which, in its shortened form, " Our country,
however bounded," obtained considerable celebrity in its day, as
the sentiment of Northern Whigs upon the same subject, and
which has often been confounded with the preceding, was
offered by the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, at the city dinner
in Faneuil Hall, Boston, July 4, 1846, after Texas had been
virtually annexed, and a disposition was shown in some quarters
to resist annexation by force or secession : " Our country, wheth-
er bounded by the St. John's and the Sabine, or however other-
wise bounded or described, and be the measurements more or
less, still our country, to be cherished in all our hearts, to be
defended by all our hands ! "
One or two sayings during the Mexican war became historic,
180 MADAME DU DEFFAXD.
although the authenticity of the first has been disputed. At a
critical moment of the battle of Buena Vista, Feb. 23, 1847,
Bragg's artillery was ordered to the support of the infantry,
who were overwhelmed by numbers. A single discharge of his
battery made the enemy waver. " A little more grape, Capt.
Bragg ! " shouted Gen. Taylor. Upon a second and third dis-
charge, the Mexicans fled in disorder. Mr. Crittenden, having
gone to Santa Anna's headquarters, was told that if Gen. Taylor
would surrender, he would be protected. " Gen. Taylor never
surrenders," was the reply. It became a watchword in the next
political campaign, when Gen. Taylor was elected to the Presi-
dency.
MADAME DU DEFFAND.
[A French lady of caustic wit and able critical ability, born 1697;
separated from her husband soon after marriage; her house was
for fifty years the resort of authors, statesmen, and men of fashion;
corresponded with Horace Walpole, Voltaire, and d'Alembert; be-
came nearly blind at fifty-four; died 1789.]
It is only the first step that costs.
Mme. du Deffand describes, in a letter to Horace Walpole,
June 6, 17G7, the origin of one of the most celebrated mots in
the French language. She says that Cardinal de Polignac, who
was a great talker, and a man of extraordinary credulity, had
given her an account of the martyrdom of St. Denis at Mont-
martre, and stated that, after his decapitation, he walked with
his head in his hands, two leagues to the spot where afterwards
the cathedral dedicated to him was built, in the village called by
his name. Her comment was, " The distance is nothing : it is
only the first step that costs " (La distance n'y fait rien: il n'y a
que le premier pas qui coute).
Camille Desmoulins gained the implacable hatred of the stern
and haughty St. Just by saying jocosely of him, " He carries his
head like the Host " (comme un saint sacrement), to which St. Just
retorted, "I will make him carry his like a St. Denis." Des-
moulins soon afterwards accompanied Danton to the guillotine,
saying, "My pleasantry has killed me " (C'est ma plaisanterie qui
ma tue).
MADAME DU DEFFAND. 181
The things that cannot be known to us are not neces-
essary to us.
Letter to Voltaire.
"Vanity," she said, "ruins more women than love." In her
opinion, "women are never stronger than when they arm them-
selves with their weakness."
She preferred "an old acquaintance to a new friend."
How happy one would be if one could throw off one's
self as one throws off others !
This ability to " throw off others " was illustrated by her going
out to supper on the day of the death of M. Pont-de-Veyle, an
intimate friend for forty years. The conversation turned upon
her loss : " Alas ! " she said, " he died at six this evening : other-
wise you would not see me here " (sans cela vous ne me verriez
pas id).
Having been told of a mot of Frederick the Great, who spoke
of the philosophers "having levelled the forest of prejudices"
(qui abattent la foret des prejugcs), Mme. du Deifand was said
to have remarked, " That is why they supply us with so many
fagots" (Ah! voild done pourquoi Us nous de'bitent tant de fagots},
(fagots meaning either fagots, or, in the other sense of the pun,
tales or "yarns"). More honest than Talleyrand, who never
refused the paternity of a bon-mot, she admitted in a letter
to Walpole that it was good, but claimed no right over it but
that of " adoption." Correspondence, I. 222.
She said of Montesquieu's "L'Esprit des Lois," that he might
better have called it "L'Esprit sur les Lois" (or "Wit on
Laws ").
When the remark was made of Voltaire, the author of the
Lives of Charles XII. and Louis XIV., that he had not much
invention, Mme. du Deffand exclaimed, "What more can you
ask ? He has invented history ! " (Que voulez-vous de plu* f II a
invente Vhistoire /) Lord Bolingbroke once charged Voltaire with
having changed in his narrative the circumstances of an event
in the life of Charles XII. for the sake of effect. "Conft->>."
he said, "that it did not occur as you have told it." -"Con-
fess," replied Voltaire, " that it is better as I have told it."
182 DEMADES.
Her caustic manner of speaking of friend as well as foe caused
Mme. clu Deffand to be compared to the physician who said,
"My friend fell sick, I attended him : he died, I dissected him."
She maintained an intimacy for many years with President
Renault ; who was in the habit of dining frequently at her
house, and remarked, that between her cook and the Marquise
de Brinvilliers, who was executed in 1676 for poisoning three
of her relatives and several other people, there was only dif-
ference of intention (entre elle et la Brinvilliers il ny a de
difference que dans V intention) .
DEMADES.
[An Athenian orator and demagogue; an opponent of Demosthe-
nes; entered public life, 356 B.C. ; after Chneronea acted with the party
of Macedon; excluded on account of bribery, by Philip, from public
functions; put to death by Autipater or Cassander, 318.1
Draco made his laws not with ink, but with blood.
The Athenian legislator, who nourished 600 B.C., made the
least theft punishable with death, because, as he said, small
offences deserved it, and he could find no greater punishment for
the most heinous. His laws were repealed by Solon. PLU-
TARCH : Life of Solon.
DEMONAX.
[A Cynic philosopher; born in Cyprus; lived at Athens about 150
A.D.I
Probably all laws are useless; for good men do not
want laws at all, and bad men are made no better
by them.
To a rich man who seemed proud of his mantle, which was
dyed purple, Demonax said, "Before you wore it, it was worn by
a sheep."
A bad speaker, who was advised to practise before an audi-
ence, said he always spoke to himself. " It is no wonder you
speak so badly," suggested Demonax, " with such a fool to hear
you."
DEMOSTHENES.
DEMOSTHENES.
[Born near Athens, about 382 B.C.; at eighteen won his
against his unfaithful guardians; defended the liberties of his coun-
try against Philip of Macedon; delivered the "Oration on the
Crown," 330; being condemned to pay a heavy fine on the charge of
accepting a bribe from a Macedonian, retired to JEgina; returned to
Athens on the death of Alexander; took poison on his death being
decreed by Antipater, 322.]
A man that runs away may fight again.
Quoting a line from Menander, when reproached with throwing
away his shield at the battle of Chseronea, 338 B.C. Familiar in
English by the lines in " Hudibras," III. 3 :
" For those that fly may fight again,
Which he can never do that's slain."
And Goldsmith :
" For he who fights and runs away
May live to fight another day."
The Art of Poetry on a New Plan, 1761, II. 147.
But the same idea was expressed in a translation from the
French, "A Pleasant Satyre or Poesie," as early as 1595 :
" Oft he that doth abide
Is cause of his own pain,
But he that flieth in good tide
Perhaps may fight again."
Here comes the pruner of my periods.
His remark whenever he saw Phocion rise to oppose him. "It
is uncertain," says Plutarch, "whether Demosthenes referred to
Phocion's manner of speaking, or to his life and character. The
latter might be the case, because he knew that a word or a nod
from a man of superior character is more regarded than the long
discourses of another." Life of Phocion.
Demosthenes said of the luxury of Corinth, " One buys repent-
ance there dearly." Hence the proverb of the impossibility of
the poor going there : " It is not given to every one to visit
Corinth " (Non cuivis liomini contingit adire Corinthum}. HOR-
ACE: Epistles, I. 17, 36.
184 LORD DENMAN.
yen some of the former adversaries of Demosthenes came to
y as he was leaving Athens to go into exile, and offered him
xoney, he exclaimed, " What comfort can I have when I leave
enemies in this city more generous than it seems possible to find
friends in any other? " The same remark is attributed by Plu-
tarch to ^Eschines, the rival of Demosthenes, when the latter
offered him money as he was going into exile. He had im-
peached Demosthenes in the matter of the crown voted him on
motion of Ctesiphon, for rebuilding the walls of Athens at his
own expense. ^Eschines opened a school of rhetoric at Rhodes,
where he read to his pupils the oration of Demosthenes on the
Crown. When they expressed their admiration of it w r ith much
enthusiasm, " What would you have said," asked their master,
" if you had heard the lion himself ? "
LORD DENMAN.
[Thomas Denman, an English judge; born in London, 1779; edu-
cated at Cambridge; entered Parliament, 1818; associated with
Brougham in the defence of Queen Caroline, 1820; attorney-general,
1830; chief-justice of the king's bench, 1832; raised to the peerage,
1834; resigned, 1850; died 1854.]
A delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
In his judgment in O'Connell vs. the Queen (11 C. and F.,
351) the chief justice used an expression concerning trial by jury,
which he afterwards told his son he regretted, because it was
not judicial, but the last words of which, however, are often
quoted by those who never heard of the learned judge : " If it is
possible that such a practice as that which has taken place in the
present instance should be allowed to pass without a remedy,
trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are
accused, will be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare."
JOHN DENNIS.
[An English critic and dramatist; born in London, 1057; made
many enemies by his satirical attacks upon public functionaries and
authors, as Pope, who revenged himself in "The Duuciad; " died
1734.]
LORD DERBY. 185
They won't act my tragedy, but they steal ray
thunder.
Finding that the manager of Drury Lane Theatre was using
in " Macbeth " some artificial thunder which Dennis had in-
vented for a play of his own the manager had rejected.
LOUD DERBY.
[Edward Stanley, fourteenth Earl of Derby; an eminent English
statesman and orator; born in Lancashire, 1795); educated at Oxford;
entered Parliament, 1820; chief secretary for Ireland, 1830-33; secre-
tary for the colonies, 1811; raised to the peerage, 1844; first lord of
the treasury, 1852, 1858, 1806; translated Homer's Iliad, 1805; died
October, 1869.]
Johnny's upset the coach !
To Sir James Graham, on the rejection of the Reform Bill in
1831, which had been mainly drawn by Lord John Russell.
The Grey ministry thereupon resigned, appealed to the country,
and obtained a large majority, by which the bill was finally
passed in 1832. To some one who thought that the reform
bill passed by the Derby ministry in 1807, giving the right of
suffrage to householders in boroughs, was too great a conces-
sion to the Liberals, the Premier replied, " We have dished the
Whigs."
He said in the House of Lords, February, 1864, of the course
of Earl Russell, the minister for foreign affairs, " The foreign
policy of the noble earl, as far as the principle of non-interven-
tion is concerned, may be summed up in two truly expressive
words : ' meddle ' and ' muddle.' "
Disraeli said of Lord Derby, then Lord Stanley, in the Plouse
of Commons, April, 1844, " The noble lord is the Prince Rupert
of parliamentary discussion." The comparison was a malicious
one. The nephew of Charles I. was distinguished for his bravery
and headlong courage ; but his rash pursuit of a part of Crom-
well's army at Xaseby, while the main body remained on the
field, gave the victory to the Parliamentarians ; and, after his
surrender of Bristol, he was deprived of his command : so on
this occasion Disraeli added, '' His charge is resistless ; but when
he returns from the pursuit, he always finds his camp in posses-
186 DESAIX.
sion of the enemy." Bulwer applied the epithet to Stanley in
" The New Timon," published in 1846 : -
" The brilliant chief, irregularly great,
Frank, haughty, rash, the Rupert of debate."
Lord Stanley said in a speech on the abolition of the Corn
Laws, March 15, 1836, " The Continent will not suffer England
to be the work-shop of the world."
We must stem the tide of democracy.
While Lord Derby did not utter these exact words, he spoke,
March 15, 1852, of a government " which will exert itself, I don't
hesitate to say, to stem with some opposition, to supply some bar-
rier against the current of that continually increasing and en-
croaching democratic influence in this nation, which is bent on
throwing the whole power and authority of the government
nominally into the hands of the masses, but practically and
really into those of demagogues and republicans, who exercise
an influence over those unthinking masses."
DESAIX.
[Louis Charles Desaix de Veygoux, a gallant French general;
born in Auvergne, 1768; imprisoned during the Terror; general of
division under Moreau, 1796; and in the expedition to Egypt, where
he governed the province of Upper Egypt with firmness and mode-
ration; killed at the battle of Marengo, 1800.]
The battle is lost, but there is time to gain another.
To Bonaparte, who thought at four o'clock in the afternoon of
June 14, that the battle of Marengo was lost ; a large part of the
French army being routed and in confusion. The advance of the
division of Desaix saved the day. He was himself, however,
struck by a bullet in the heart, and killed instantly : so that he
could not have said, as reported, " Tell the First Consul that I
regret dying before I have done enough to make my name known
to posterity." He was buried at the summit of the Pass of St.
Bernard, where Bonaparte said, " His tomb shall have the Alps
for its pedestal, and the monks of St. Bernard for its guardians."
Xapoleon told O'Meara at St. Helena, January, 1817, that
Desaix sent him the message quoted above ; but it is distinctly
denied by Marmont, Duke of Ragusa (Memoirs, II. 137).
CAMILLE DESMOULINS. 187
CAMILLE DESMOULINS.
[One of the principal actors of the French Revolution; called
" the attorney-general of the lantern," from the summary manner in
which he condemned royalists to be hanged to the ropes by which
the street-lanterns were suspended; born in Picardy, 1762; a school-
mate of Robespierre in Paris; took part in the storming of the Bas-
tille, 1789; became a partisan of Danton; elected to the Convention,
1792; endeavored to mitigate the cruelties of the Terror by the
publication of the " Vieux Cordelier;" proscribed and executed
with Danton, April 5, 1794.]
Burning is no answer (Bruler n'estpas repondre).
In reply to Robespierre, whose extreme measures Desmoulins
and the Dantonists were then opposing ; and who, in return, pro-
posed to burn, by way of correction, the numbers of their moderate
journal, " Le Vieux Cordelier."
Desmoulins, " not afraid at one time to embrace liberty on a
heap of dead bodies, begins to ask now, whether among so many
arresting and punishing committees there ought not to be a 'com-
mittee of mercy.' His first number begins with ' O Pitt ! ' his last
is dated 15 Pluviose, year 2 (Feb. 3, 1794), and ends with these
words of Montezuma's : ' Les dieux out soif ' (The gods are
athirst). CARLYLE : French Revolution, ii. 8, 1.
His retort to Robespierre became proverbial, and was applied,
for instance, to the Swiss canton of- Uri, which in the excess of
its loyalty to the myth of AVilliam Tell, burned a book of the
cure Freudenberger of Berne, entitled " William Tell : a Danish
Fable."
Desmoulins had not always opposed Robespierre ; for he once
asked, "What is Virtue, if Robespierre be not its image?"
Now, however, his mot was fatal. " Let his paper be read ! "
cried Robespierre. In a few clays, he who had written in 1789 :
" My motto is that of all honest people, no superiors ! '" found
his superior within his own party, and was denounced with the
rest of the Dantonists. Being asked his age by the Revolution-
ary Tribunal, April 3, 179i, he replied, ''I am thirty-three,
the age of the mn*-culotte Jesus, a critical age for every patriot."
On his way to execution, remembering the days when Necker was
dismissed, and he himself harangued the populace from a chair
188 DENIS DIDEROT.
in the Palais-Royal, he bitterly exclaimed, " This is the reward
destined to the first apostle of liberty ! ' Like Danton, he took
credit to himself for generosity : " I go to the scaffold," he said,
"for having dropped a tear over the unfortunate: my only regret
in dying is the want of ability to save them." Only when he
no longer was of the dominant faction did he see that the people
had been imposed upon by high-sounding but empty phrases-
" Poor people ! " he cried to the multitude who flocked to his
execution, "how they have deceived you! " (Pauvre peuple, on te
trompe /)
DENIS DIDEROT.
[An eminent French philosopher; born in Champagne, 1712 or 1713;
supported himself in Paris by teaching, and lived many years in
poverty while engaged in study ; was imprisoned for his first publi-
cations, or saw them burned; founded and edited with d'Aleinbert
the Encyclopaedia, from which he retired, 1759; visited St. Peters-
burg, 1765; died in Paris, 1784.]
The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.
In his last conversation.
Another of his aphorisms will be less contested : " Only the
bad man is alone."
DIOGENES.
[A Cynic philosopher ; born at Sinope, in Asia Minor ; lived at
Athens, where he affected a contempt for the customs of society;
being taken by pirates, was sold as a slave in Crete, but was
kindly treated; died at Corinth, 323 B.C., aged about ninety.]
Habit is second nature.
Cicero gives us the Latin form, " Consuetude quasi altera natu-
ra" (De Finibus, 5, 25); and, "Great is the power of habit"
(Consuetudinis magna vis est) (Tusc. Disp. 2, 17). Ovid says
that "nothing is stronger than habit" (nil consuetudlne majus) ;
and Quintus Curtius Rufus thinks habit to be not merely
a second nature, but stronger than nature (Consuetudo naturd
potentior est).
DIOGENES. 189
I am seeking a man.
When seen groping about with a lighted lantern at midday,
and asked what he was seeking. Doubted by Fouruier, because
Diogenes Laertius has not mentioned it. Lanterns are men-
tioned by ^Eschylus and Aristophanes. When Dionysius asked
Plato what business he had in Sicily, the philosopher replied,
"I came to seek an honest man.'' -PLUTARCH: Life of Dion.
Frederick the Great, writing to d'Alembert, after the latter had
refused the presidency of the Berlin Academy, said, " I have
been more fortunate than Diogenes, for I have found the man
for whom he searched so long " {car fai trouve Fhomme qu'd a
cherche si longtemps.)
To show his contempt of Plato's definition of a man, as " a
featherless biped," Diogenes exhibited a plucked cock, saying,
" Here is Plato's man ; " Franklin called man " a tool-making
animal ; " and Democritus was more comprehensive, " 'Tis all
that we see and know."
But I am not derided.
To some one \vho said to him, " They deride you." He ac-
counted those only to be ridiculed, says Plutarch, who feel the
ridicule, and are discomposed by it. - -Life of fabius Maximus.
When asked how it w r as that philosophers were the follow-
ers of rich men, and not rich men of philosophers, he replied,
"But the one sort know what they have need of, and the other
do not."
He threw away the only utensil he had, a shell with which
he drank, after seeing a boy drink from the hollow of his
hand. "He teaches me," said Diogenes, "that I preserve an
unnecessary utensil." SENECA : Epistles, 21.
Seeing a magnificent bridge over a small stream, he remarked,
" The people would do well to sell their bridge to buy w r ater."
When asked why he offered his hand to a statue, he replied,
"To accustom myself to a refusal."
He replied to the question, what beast's bite was the most dan-
gerous, "If you mean wild beasts, the slanderer's; if tame ones,
the flatterer's."
When a man of bad reputation put over his door, " Let noth-
190 DIONYSIUS THE ELDER.
ing bad enter here," Diogenes asked, "Where does the owner
enter? "
" I can govern men," he said, when exposed for sale in Crete :
"therefore sell me to some one who needs a master." He was
purchased by Xeniades, a rich citizen of Corinth, by whom he
was treated kindly.
When asked by his physician, on awaking during his last ill-
ness, how he was, Diogenes replied, "Nothing, sir, only one
brother anticipates another, Sleep before Death."
DIONYSIUS THE ELDER.
[Tyrant of Syracuse; born about 430 B.C.; appointed one of the
generals against the Carthaginians, and persuaded the people to
intrust him with the government; died 367.]
I would have somebody more hated than myself.
When blamed for rewarding a wicked man, who was hated by
the citizens.
In reply to the question, if he were at leisure, " God forbid,"
he said, " that it should ever befall me ! "
JOHN A. DIX.
[An American statesman and soldier, born in New Hampshire,
1708; removed to New York, where he became secretary of state,
1833, and United-States senator, 1845-49; secretary of the treasury,
1860-61 ; major-general in the civil war, and commanded the Depart-
ment of the East, 1864; minister to France, 1867; died 1879.]
If any one attempts to haul down the American flag,
shoot him on the spot.
Ordering by telegraph from Washington, Jan. 29, 1861, the
arrest, at New T Orleans, of Capt. Breshwood, the commander of
the revenue cutter " McClennand," which it was feared he would
turn over to the rebels.
MARCUS LIVIUS DRUSUS.
[Called Drusus Junior; an ambitious 'politician; tribune of the
people, 91 B.C.; desired to extend Roman citizenship, but saw his
laws vetoed by the senate; conspiring, 'therefore, against the govern-
ment, he was assassinated, 91 or 90 B.C.]
CARDINAL DUBOIS. 191
Build it so that every citizen may behold every action
I perform.
When his architect proposed to build a house for him in which
he could screen himself from observation.
"Hardly a man will you find," says Seneca, "who could live
with his door open." Talleyrand said, according to Stendhal,
" The private life of a citizen ought to have a wall around it "
(La vie prive'e d'un citoyen doit etre mure'e). Fournier suggests
that it was simple prudence for the diplomatist to make himself
the apostle of discretion. D Esprit, 437. " Choose out the
wisest, brightest, noblest of mankind," said Lord Erskine, " and
how many of them could bear to be pursued into the little cor-
ners of their lives?"
CARDINAL DUBOIS.
[Guillaume Dubois, a French ecclesiastic and statesman of scan-
dalous life and character; born in Limousin, 165G; preceptor to the
Duke de Chartres, afterwards the Regent Orleans, whose favor he
gained by pandering to his vices; became councillor of state, and
showed great astuteness in political matters ; minister of foreign
affairs; archbishop of Cambrai, and cardinal, 1721; prime minister
the next year; died 1725.]
To become a great man, it is necessary to be a great
rascal (Pour devenir grand komme, il faut etre grand scelcrat).
It was worthy to have been the maxim of his life.
After being kicked five times by the regent, once each for the
rogue, the pimp, the priest, the minister, the archbishop, Dubois
coolly remarked, " I pardon you, because I await the sixth as
cardinal."
JEAN FRANCOIS DUCOS.
[A French republican; born at Bordeaux, 17G5; deputy to the
Convention from the Giroiule, and shared the fate of his colleagues,
October, 1793.]
I hope the edge of your guillotine is sharper than
your scissors.
While his hair was being cut off by the executioner. He also
humorously remarked on the scaffold, " What a pity the Con-
192 CHARLES FRANCOIS DUMOURIEZ.
vention did not decree 'the unity and indivisibility of our per-
sons ! " as it had of the republic.
CHARLES FRANCOIS DUMOURIEZ.
[A French statesman and general; born at Cambrai, 1739; favored
the moderate party in the Revolution; minister for foreign affairs,
17!2, where he gained the king's confidence; general-in-chief of the
French army; defeated the Anstrians at Jemappes, and conquered
Belgium; having plotted a counter-revolution, was obliged to go into
exile, and died in England, 1820.]
Sire, I shall often displease you, but I shall never
deceive you ( Je vous deplaircti souvent, mats je ne vous trom-
perai jamais).
To Louis XVI., when made minister for foreign affairs.
When the master of ceremonies exclaimed, on Roland's first
appearance at court, " Without buckles in his shoes ! " Dumouriez
satirically replied, " Ah, sir, all is lost ! " (tout est perdu /)
He called the Girondists "the Jesuits of the Revolution."
Memoirs, III. 314. " They are men skilled in advocate fence.
They have been called the Jesuits of the Revolution, but that is
too hard a name." CARLYLE : French Revolution, II. 5, 2.
When a ham, which had the cross of the Teutonic order cut
in it, was brought on to the table, during one of his campaigns,
Dumouriez asked, " What, does the hog, too, belong to the Teu-
tonic order ? '
While meditating a restoration of Louis XVI., in collusion
with Austria, he defined his position : " Though I were to be
called Caesar, Cromwell, or Monk, I will save my country, in
spite of the Jacobins and the conventional regicides who protect
them." Four commissioners were sent to him by the Convention,
one of whom, Bancal, urged the example of the obedience of the
great men of antiquity to their country. " But," replied Dumou-
riez, "the Romans did not slay Tarquin. They had neither
Jacobin clubs nor revolutionary tribunals. Tigers crave my
head : I will not give it to them. Since you cite the Romans,
I declare that I will never be a Curtius to cast myself into the
gulf." The allusion is to the tradition, that, in 362 B.C., the
earth in the Roman forum gave way, and a great chasm ap-
ANDRE M. J. DUPIN. 193
peared, which the soothsayers declared could only be filled up
by throwing into it Rome's greatest treasure ; that thereupon
Curtius, a noble youth, mounted his steed in full armor, and,
declaring that Rome possessed no greater treasure than a brave
and gallant citizen, leaped into the abyss ; upon which the earth
closed over him.
ANDRE M. J. DUPIN.
[A French lawyer and legislator; born in the Nievre, February,
1783; elected to the Chamber of Deputies, 1826; opposed the ordi-
nances which caused the revolution of 1830; member of the first
cabinet of Louis Philippe; president of the Chamber, from whieJi he
retired, 1852; member of the Academy; prociireur-yeneral of France,
1857; died November, 1865.]
A sword, the hilt of which is at Rome, and the point
everywhere ( Une epee, dont la poignee est a Rome, et la pointe,
partout).
This comparison of the Jesuits which Dupin made in a lega?
argument in 1825 caused some sensation, but it was not original.
Diderot in a letter to Mile. Voland quoted it word for word
from the Abbe Raynal, and J. B. Rousseau exhumed it from the
" Anti-Coton " of d'Aubigne, a Protestant of the sixteenth cen-
tury, who attributed to a Pole the saying, "The Society of Jesus
is a sword, the. blade of which is in France, and the handle in
Rome." Prince Napoleon (Jerome) said of the same society, in
a debate on the clergy in the French Assembly in 1877, " Sow
Jesuits, you will reap revolt " (Semez du je'suite, vous recolterez
de la revolte^) .
When the point was raised after the revolution of July in
1830, whether Louis Philippe should take the title of "Philip
VII.," Dupin declared in an antithetical form, which was after-
wards, like many a catch-word, repeated on every conceivable
occasion : " The Due d'Orleans is called to the throne not be-
cause, but in spite of, his being a Bourbon " (non parce que, mais
quoique). Dominique de Gourgues, a Protestant gentleman, fitted
out three ships at his own expense, and sailed for Florida, where
the Spaniards had executed many of his co-religionists "because
they were heretics, although French " (parce que he're'tiques, quoi-
194 EDWARD III.
que Franfais). He took two forts from the Spaniards, and exe-
cuted eight hundred men, "because they were assassins, although
Spaniards " (quoique Espagnols, parce qu" 1 assassins).
Berryer said to the President of the Chamber, in 1851, while
Louis Xapoleon was preparing the coup d'etat, " Show ine a little
door, by which one could get into the Chamber, and bring you
support in case you were attacked : " Dupin replied, "I am just
looking for one by which I could get out."
EDWARD III.
[King of England; born at Windsor, 1312; proclaimed king under
a regency, 1327; defeated the Scotch at Halidon Hill, 1333; invaded
France, and gained the battle of Cre'cy, 134G; captured Calais, 1347;
made peace after the victory of Poitiers, 1356; but subsequently lost
nearly all that he had gained; died 1377.]
Honi soit qui mal y pense.
The motto of the Order of the Garter, which owes its origin
to Edward III. With a view of recovering what England once
held in France, he was eager to draw the best soldiers of Europe
into his interest, and therefore projected the revival of King
Arthur's "Round Table." For this purpose he invited for-
eigners and subjects of quality and courage to a tournament on
Kew Year's Day, 1344, a table being erected in Windsor Castle
of two hundred feet in diameter, at which the knights were to
be entertained at the king's expense. This festival excited the
jealousy of Philip of France, who not only prohibited his sub-
jects from attending the Round Table at Windsor, but pro-
claimed one to be held by himself at Paris. The English
tournament thus losing something of its prestige, Edward estab-
lished the Order of the Garter, April 23, 1349, the motto of
which, " Honi soil qui mal y pense " (Evil be to him who evil
thinks of it), seems to apply to the possible misrepresentation
which the king of France might throw out concerning the order,
as he had already done concerning the festival of the Round
Table. SIR W. SCOTT : Essay on Chivalry. The garter may
have been selected as the badge of the order, from the fact that
Edward had given his own for the signal of a battle (supposed to
be Crecy), which had been crowned with success. Popular tradi-
LORD ELDON. 195
tion is the only authority for the story that the king picked up
at a ball the garter of the Countess of Salisbury, and, replying to
the smiles of the courtiers with the remark, " Those who laugh
will be proud to wear a similar one," founded the order, upon
the ribbon of which he placed the old French motto, which, ac-
cording to the " Acta Sanctorum," III., was proverbial in France
before Edward's day.
Lord Bridgewater, as proud of his horses as of his decoration
of the garter, wrote over the door of his stable, " Honni soil qui
mat y PANSE" (from panser, to groom a horse). On the return of
M. de Lauraguais from a visit of philosophical study at London,
Louis XY. asked him what he went there for. " Apprendre a
penser, sire." "Horses?" (Les chevaux?) inquired the king, with
the same pun on penser.
LOUD ELDON.
[John Scott, first Earl of Eldon; born in Newcastle, England, 1751;
educated at Oxford; called to the bar, 1776; entered Parliament, 1783;
solicitor-general, 1788; attorney-general, 1793; chief justice of the
common pleas, 1791, and raised to the peerage; lord chancellor, 1801,
which office he held twenty-six years, with one year's interruption;
retired 1827; died 1838.]
New brooms sweep clean.
By way of apology, after Henry Brougham, who objected to
Lord Eldon's continually calling him Mr. Broffam, had made an
able argument.
The applicant for a living answered the lord chancellor, -who
asked him in whose name he applied, "In the name of the
Lord of hosts." " The Lord of hosts ! " exclaimed Eldon : " you
t/
are the first person who ever applied to me in that lord's name ;
and, although his title can't be found in the Peerage, you shall
have the living."
QUEEN ELIZABETH.
[Queen of England; daughter of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn;
born at Greenwich, Sept. 7, 1533; committed to the Tower by her
sister Mary, but removed to Woodstock; proclaimed queen, 1588;
signed the death-warrant of Mary Stuart; supported the Protestants
of the Low Countries; defended England against the Invincible
Armada, 1588; died 1603.]
196 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
I have desired to have the obedience of my subjects
by love, and not by compulsion.
A declaration to Parliament, like that on her accession to the
throne : " Nothing, no worldly thing under the sun, is so dear to
me as the love and good-will of my subjects." On receiving the
news at Hatfield of her accession to the throne, when but a short
time before she had been the object of her sister's suspicions,
Elizabeth exclaimed, " It is the Lord's doing, and it is marvel-
lous in our eyes ! "
Her marriage early engaged the attention of her subjects ; and
in answer to a petition of the House of Commons in 1559, that
she would consider the matter favorably, she replied, "For me
it will be enough that a marble stone should declare that a
queen having reigned such a time lived and died a virgin."
HUME: History of England, chap, xxxviii. In the same year,
however, she declared, on hearing that the dauphin, afterwards
Francis II. of France, was about to be proclaimed king of Eng-
land on his marriage with Mary Stuart, " I will take a husband
who will make the king of France's head ache ; and he little
knows what a buffet I can give him." She said in reference to
any possible attack by the French, " In times of danger it is the
custom of England to arm."
She was strongly opposed to the marriage of the clergy, and
took leave of the wife of Archbishop Parker, after an entertain-
ment in the episcopal palace at Lambeth, with the words, " And
you, madam I may not call you ; mistress I am ashamed to call
you: so I know not what to call you, but yet I do thank you."
On another occasion she remarked to Dr. Whitehead, " I like
thee better because thou livest unmarried ; " to which he bluntly
replied, " I like you the worse for the same cause."
Ye be burly, my Lord of Burghley, but ye shall make
less stir in our realm than my Lord of Leicester.
An example of the royal punning of those days ; to which may
be compared that of her successor, James I., when meeting for
the first time Sir Walter Raleigh : " By my saul, maun, I have
heard but rawly of thee ! ''
When offended at the conduct of the Earl of Leicester, who
was sent to the Low Countries with English auxiliaries in 1585,
QUEEN ELIZABETH.
but was accused of ambitious designs inconsistent with his duty'
as a subject, she had other language than a pun : " I will let the
upstart know how easily the hand which has exalted him can
bear him down to the dust."
She said of her instructions to the great officers of state, " They
are like garments, strait at first putting on, but by and by loose
enough."
Speak, good mouth !
When the mayor of Bristol said, on welcoming her, " I am the
mouth of the town," and then stopped short.
The Bishop of Ely hesitated to alienate to Sir Christopher
Hatton, according to agreement, ground in Holborn belonging
to that see, now called Hatton Garden. He hesitated no longer,
however, after the following vigorously expressed threat of her
Majesty : " If you do not forthwith fulfil your engagement, by
G , I will immediately unfrock you ! "
Sir Walter Raleigh made a wager with the queen that he
could weigh the smoke from his tobacco-pipe. He weighed
the tobacco before smoking, and the ashes afterwards. When
Elizabeth paid the wager, she said, "I have seen many a man
turn his gold into smoke, but you are the first who has turned
his smoke into gold."
The Queen of Scots is the mother of a fair son, and
I but a barren stock.
On hearing of the birth of James VI., in June, 1566.
When told by the Scotch ambassador that Mary Stuart was
taller than she, Elizabeth remarked, " Then she must be too tall,
because I am neither too tall nor too short." Elizabeth replied
to the urgent request of Mary to recognize her right to the suc-
cession, "I am not so foolish as to hang a winding-sheet before
my eyes." When advised to go less abroad on account of the
conspiracies which Mary's partisans were continually forming
against her, she answered that " she would rather be dead than
in custody ; " but she showed her knowledge of the origin of
the conspiracies by declaring to her rival, "Your actions are as
full of venom as your words are of honey." Much earlier than
this, she had been told that she would have no rest while Mary
196 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
lived ; but she asked, referring to Mary's own troubles at home,
if she could put to death "the bird, that, to escape pursuit of the
hawk, has fled to my feet for protection." When, however, the
truth of her ministers' representations became clear to her, she
signed the death-warrant of her deposed rival, muttering to her-
self, loud enough to be overheard, while hesitating to affix her
signature, such words as, " Aut fer aut feri" (Bear with her or
smite her), " Ne fereari, feri" (Strike, lest thou be stricken).
Xapoleon translated the words into French, when he said,
"// nous fallut abattre, sous peine d'etre abattus."
"In this world a man must be either hammer or anvil."
LONGFELLOW : Hyperion, IV. ch. 7.
The death of Mary fulfilled the prophecy of her father, James
V. : "It came wi' a lass, and it'll gang wi' a lass." The crown
came with Margaret Bruce, who married the father of the first
Stuart.
Let tyrants fear.
To the troops assembled at Tilbury to oppose the Invincible
Armada, in 1588, Elizabeth made a spirited address, beginning,
" Let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved myself, that, under
God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the
loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects ; and therefore I am
come among you, as you see, resolved in the midst and heat of
the battle to live and die amongst you. I know that I have but
the body of a weak and feeble woman ; but I have the heart of
a king, and of a king of England too."
When Speaker Croke alluded, in 1601, to the Armada having
been driven off "by the mighty arm of our dear and sacred
queen," Elizabeth interrupted him : " No, Mr. Speaker, but by
the mighty hand of God."
He who placed me in this seat will preserve me in it.
Of the treasonable attempt of the Earl of Essex, in 1601.
Her affection for this gallant and unfortunate nobleman is well
known ; but later writers do not entirely credit the story of the
rebuke given by the queen, in 1003, to the dying Countess of
Nottingham, who confessed that she had not returned the ring
given by Elizabeth to Essex with the intimation that if he ever
ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA. 109
forfeited her favor the sight of the ring would insure her for-
giveness of him. The queen even shook the dying countess,
exclaiming, "God may forgive you, but I never can." HUME:
History of England, chap. xliv.
When the Archbishop of Canterbury urged her, on the last
day of her life, March 23, 1603, to turn her thoughts to God, she
replied, "Never has my mind wandered from him." Ibid.
She may have answered, in reply to the question, who should
succeed her, "I will have no rascal's son in my seat," alluding
to Lord Beauchamp, son of the attainted Earl of Suffolk; but
that she asked, "Who shall succeed me but a king?" referring
to James VI. of Scotland, has little or no authority; it being-
more credible, that, when his name was mentioned, she merely
nodded in token of assent.
Dr. Johnson said of Queen Elizabeth, " She had learning enough
to have given dignity to a bishop."
ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA.
[Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James I. of England; born 1596;
married the Elector Palatine, Frederick V., 1613; persuaded him to
accept the crown of Bohemia; it involved him in a contest with the
emperor of Germany, which opened the Thirty Years' War, and in
which Frederick lost both his crown and the hereditary electorate.
After his death Elizabeth returned to England, and died, 1662.]
I would rather eat a dry crust at a king's table than
feast on luxuries at that of an elector.
This was said when urging her husband to accept the crown
of Bohemia, which the nobles of that country had offered him.
She imagined that the magnificence of Prague would surpass the
luxury of the electoral establishment of Heidelberg Castle, splen-
did now even in its ruin. The royal title itself attracted her.
"You would not," she said to Frederick, "have married a king's
daughter if you had not the courage to become yourself a king."
Her ambition equalled her beauty. " To reign is glorious," she
declared, "were it only for a moment." Frederick had a clearer
view of the situation. " If I accept," he said, " I shall be accused
of ambition ; if I decline, of cowardice. Decide as I may, peace
is over for me and my country." Other royal personages, how-
200 LORD ELLENBOROUGH.
ever, have shared Elizabeth's sentiment. Napoleon said to his
brother Louis, who urged his poor health against taking the
crown of Holland, "Better to die a king than to live a prince."
Theodora, the infamous wife of the Emperor Justinian, replied
to the threats of the factions of Byzantium, " For my part, I
adhere to the maxim of antiquity, ' The throne is a glorious
sepulchre/ 1
The devotion of the princes who supported "the Winter
King" and "the Queen of Hearts," as Frederick and Eliza-
beth were respectively called, was illustrated by Christian of
Brunswick, " the mad Brunswicker," whose motto was, " Filr
Gott und fur sie" (For God and her), or, as he wrote in a
French album, " Tout pour Dieu et ma chere reine " (All for God
and my dear queen). Carlyle calls him "a high-flown, fiery
young fellow, of terrible fighting gifts. He flamed up consid-
erably, with the queen of Bohemia's glove stuck in his hat :
' Bright lady, it shall stick there till I get you your own again,
or die ! ' " Frederick II., III. 16. The banner of Bernhard of
Saxe- Weimar, the successor of Gustavus Adolphus in the latter
part of the Thirty Years' War, is said to have borne a similar
motto : " Allesfur Rulim und sie " (All for glory and her).
LOUD ELLENBOROUGH.
[Edward Law, an eminent English judge; born in Cumberland,
1750; leading counsel for "Warren Hastings, 1788; attorney-general,
1801; chief-justice of the Bong's Bench, 1802, and raised to the peer-
age; died 1818.]
Mr. Preston, we are bound to hear you, and I hope we
shall do so on Friday ; but, alas ! pleasure has been
long out of the question.
To Mr. Preston, the famous conveyancer, who in arguing a
case had not exhausted the "Year-Books " by evening, and applied
to know when it would be their lordships' pleasure to hear the
remainder of his argument. Another tiresome conveyancer,
having, toward the end of Easter Term, occupied the court an
entire day about the merger of a term, the chief-justice said to
him, " I am afraid, sir, the term, although a long one, will merge
in your argument." CAMPBELL : Life, chap. li.
LORD ELLENBOROUGH. 201
A smartly dressed Quaker came into court, and, when tendered
the Bible, demanded to be allowed to affirm. As he did not
wear the distinguishing features of his sect, Ellenborough asked
him, " Do you really mean to impose upon the court by appearing
here in the disguise of a reasonable being?" This reminds one
of Talleyrand, who said to Mme. de Stae'l of her "Delphine,"
which was thought to contain a caricature of him in the charac-
ter of an old woman, " That is the book, is it not, in which you
and I are exhibited in the disguise of females? " The masculine
character of the authoress gave point to the question.
Of Michael Angelo Taylor, who, though very short of stature,
says Campbell, was well knit, and thought himself a very great
man, Lord Ellenborough said, " His father, the sculptor, had
fashioned him for a pocket-Hercules." Ibid.
Erskine urged Ellenborough to take the Great Seal, while the
latter knew that if he refused it, it would be offered, to Erskine :
he therefore twitted the great advocate upon his ignorance of
equity by the question, "How can you ask me to accept the office
of lord chancellor, when I know as little of its duties as you
do V "
You may go on, sir : so far, the court is quite with
you.
A young counsel, who had the reputation of being a very im-
pudent fellow, began his speech, " The unfortunate client, who
appears by me," and, after repeating it two or three times, /
stopped short. "You may go on, sir," said Ellenborough, in his
mildest tone : "so far, the court is quite with you." Ibid.
The demagogue Hunt began his address in mitigation of pun-
ishment for sedition, by complaining that he had been, accused
of " dangerous eloquence ; " when Ellenborough interrupted him
by saying, "My impartiality as a judge calls upon me, sir, to
say, that, in accusing you of that, they do you great injustice."
Ibid.
A tedious bishop having yawned during his own speech, Lord
Ellenborough remarked. "Come, come, the fellow shows some
symptoms of taste ; but this is encroaching on our province."
Handle Jackson, a declamatory speaker, who despised techni-
calities, and relied on his eloquence, began his argument, " In
202 DUG D'EXGHIEN.
the book of nature it is written" "Be good enough, sir," broke
in the chief-justice, "to mention the page from which you are
about to quote."
When told that the penurious Lord Kenyon was dying,
"Die?" asked Ellenborough, "what will he get by that?"
Lord Campbell says that he often heard the traditional descrip-
tion of the large, gloomy house which Lord Kenyou occupied in
Lincoln's Inn Fields : " All the year through, it is Lent in the
kitchen, and Passion Week in the parlor." Some one having
mentioned, that, although the fire was very dull in the kitchen-
grate, the spits were always bright; "It is quite irrelevant," said
Jekyll, "to talk about the spits, for nothing turns upon them."
Being told that the motto " Mors Janua Vita," put up in the
hatchment over Lord Kenyon's house after his death, was a
mistake of the printer (for vitce) ; "Mistake! " exclaimed Ellen-
borough, "it is no mistake. The considerate testator left
particular directions in his will that the estate should not be
burdened with the expense of a diphthong." Life of Kenyan,
chap. xlv.
&UC D'ENGHIEN.
[Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon, son of the Due de Bourbon,
and. related to the royal family of France; born 1772; emigrated
1789; fought against the army of the republic until 1801; retired to
Baden, where he was arrested by order of Napoleon; after a hurried
trial by a military tribunal at Paris, was shot, March, 1804.]
I die for my king and for France!
His last words. It was of this political murder that Fouche
in his posthumous "Memoirs" claimed to have originated the
mot usually translated, "It is worse than a crime, it is a blunder"
(C'est plus qu'un crime, c'cst line faute). The authenticity of the
" Memoirs " was denied by his family ; and the remark is often
attributed to Talleyrand, who could hardly have uttered it, if he
was, as Napoleon asserted at St. Helena, " the active cause and
principal instrument of the duke's death." Long before that
time, March 6, 1809, the emperor told Roederer that Talleyrand
informed him where the duke could be found ; and that, after ad-
vising his death, he groaned over it among all his acquaintances.
DUG D'ENGIIIEN. 203
This Sainte-Beuve considered decisive of Talleyrand's participa-
tion in the discovery and execution of the prince, but it is not
impossible that among his "groans" the remark in question was
uttered. Napoleon said to O'Meara at St. Helena, "I have
doubtless erred more or less in politics, but a crime I never com-
mitted ; " and, while he did not mention Enghien, he said that
Talleyrand advised him to do every thing he could against the
Bourbons, "whom he detests." One remark attributed to Tal-
leyrand in this connection, when Bonaparte expressed a desire
to see the duke before his execution, was, " Don't compromise
yourself with a Bourbon : the wine is drawn, it must be drunk "
(N'allez pas vous compromettre avec un Bourbon : le vin est tire, il
faut le boire). Napoleon stated to O'Meara that the Due
d'Enghien wrote him a letter offering him his services, which
Talleyrand kept back until two days after the execution. This
Lanfrey (" Life of Napoleon," IF. 9) calls " a twofold and shame-
ful calumny" against Talleyrand and the duke.
Mine, de Remusat, who writes with as strong a friendship for
Talleyrand as Lanfrey's hostility to Napoleon, denies that the
former approved of the execution : " His enemies and Bona-
parte himself have accused him of having advised the murder of
the unfortunate prince ; but .Bonaparte and his enemies can be
proved to be in error on this point. The known character of
M. de Talleyrand hardly admits the possibility of such violence.
He has told me more than once that Bonaparte had informed
him, as well as the two consuls, of the arrest of the Due
d'Enghien, and of his unchanging determination: he added, that
all three of them had seen the uselessness of words, and had
kept silence." -Memoirs, i. 4. Mine, de Remusat goes on to
say, that, a few days after the first return of Louis XVIII. , the
Duke de Rovigo (Savary, Napoleon's aide-de-camp, and minister
of police after Fouche), knowing her intimacy with Talleyrand,
gave her an account of the arrest of Enghien, by which it seems
that he had been mistaken for Pichegru by the conspirators in
league with Georges, one of whom had given the information
which led to the duke's arrest, and that when Bonaparte was
told of the error he cried out, " Ah, the wretch ! AVhat has he
made me do ? " Lanfrey calls this " the impudent story of
Savary."
204 DUG D'EPERNON.
It is not strange that the names of both Fouche' and Talleyrand
have been connected with the mot concerning the death of the
Due d'Enghien, when Xapoleon found sufficient resemblance
between them to say at St. Helena, " Fouche was the Talleyrand
of the clubs, and Talleyrand was the Fouche of the drawing-
rooms."
DUC D'EPERNON.
[Louis de Nogaret de la Valletta, Due d'Epernon, a noted French
courtier; born in Languedoc, 1554; a favorite of Henry III., who
appointed him high admiral of France; was in the carriage with
Henry IV. when the latter was assassinated; died 1642.]
You are going up, I am coming down.
The credit of the duke, who held high office under more
than one sovereign of France, waned before the growing power
of Cardinal Richelieu. Their relative position during the early
part of the reign of Louis XIII. was marked by the answer
which the duke, who was one day descending the staircase of
the palace of St. Germain, gave the cardinal, who was going up,
and asked him the news : " You, sir, are going up, I am coming
down" (Monsieur, vous montez, je descends}. This is also told of
Prince Galitzin, meeting his successor, Potemkin, the favorite of
Catherine II. of Russia.
DESIDERIUS ERASMUS.
[A celebrated scholar and philosopher; born at Rotterdam, Oct.
28, 1465 or 1467; became a monk, 1486; secretary to the Bishop of
Cambrai for five years, after which he studied in Paris and Italy;
visited England, 1498; published an edition of the Greek Testament,
1516; satirized the Roman Church, but shrank from the radicalism of
Luther; removed to Basle, where he published his "Colloquies,"
1522; died July 12, 1536.]
A disadvantageous peace is better than the most just
war.
So Luther declared that "a wicked tyrant is better than a
wicked war." Cromwell changed the opinion he once expressed,
that, "were Nero in power, it would be a duty to submit."
JOHN SCOTUS ERIGEXA. 205
Charles James Fox preferred " the hardest terms of peace to tlie
most just war." Franklin wrote to Josiah Quincy, Sept. 11, 1773,
" There never was a good war or a bad peace."
Erasmus pithily said of theological strife, " It is not the same
to be a wise man and a theologian " (Non idem est theoloyum esse
et sapere).
AVhile he was studying in Paris, and was very poor, he wrote
to a friend, "As soon as I get money I will buy, first, Greek
books, and then clothes."
My heart is Catholic, but my stomach Lutheran.
Of his dislike of fish.
He said of Luther, " He was guilty of two great crimes,
he has struck the Pope in his crown, and the monks in their
belly."
He founjjl on his visit to England that Cardinal Wolsey in-
vited learned men to the entertainments at his palace of Hamp-
ton Court. A scholar himself, he esteemed the prelate the most
honored by what was undoubtedly considered a condescension.
" O happy cardinal," exclaimed Erasmus, " who can surround
his table with such torches ! "
Like charity, it covers a multitude of sins. 1 Pet. iv. 8.
Of the hood (capuchon) from which the Capuchins, the mendi-
cant friars of the Franciscan order, took their name.
Voltaire said of their costume, "It can only excite the con-
tempt of the wise, edify good women, and frighten children."
During a persecution of Protestants under Adrian VI., in
1523-24, Erasmus said, "Wherever the legate heaps fagots, it is
as if he sowed heretics." Leo X. declared, " Erasmus injured us
more by his wit than Luther by his anger " (Erasmus nobis plus
nocuit jocando, quam Lutherus stomachando).
JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA.
[A philosopher, born in Ireland; passed most of his life in France,
where he was celebrated for classical learning and subtlety in scho-
lastic disputation ; sought refuge from church difficulties with Alfred
the Great; died about 875 A.D.]
206 LORD ERSKIXE.
The table only.
When Charles the Bald of France, who sat opposite to him at
dinner, asked Scotus what the difference was between a Scot and
a sot (<mid intersit inter Scotum et sotuni), he replied, " The table
only" (Me nsa tantum).
LOUD ERSKINE.
[Thomas Erskine, an eminent British advocate ; born in Edin-
burgh, January, 1750; entered the navy, and afterwards purchased
a commission in the army; studied law, and was called to the bar,
1778; defended the libel and treason cases; entered Parliament, 1783;
lord chancellor, and raised to the peerage, 1806; retired, 1807; died
November, 1823.]
You will be hanged if you do.
When Thelwall, on trial for high treason, during the exam-
ination of a witness for the prosecution, wrote on a slip of paper,
and sent it over to Erskine, " I'll be hanged if I don't plead my
own cause," his counsel replied in the same manner, " You will
be hanged if you do." Thelwall then wrote, "Then I'll be
hanged if I do."
He was told that one of his acquaintance had died worth two
hundred thousand pounds. " That's a pretty sum to begin the
next world with," remarked Erskine.
He had the following unique form of replying to begging let-
ters : " Sir, I feel honored by your application, and I beg to sub-
scribe [here the reader had to turn over the leaf] myself, your
very obedient servant."
" That which is called firmness in a king," he once said, " is
called obstinacy in a donkey."
The older a lamb grows, the more sheepish he be-
comes.
When counsellor Lamb said he felt himself growing more and
more timid as he grew older.
Sydney Smith once commented on his prevailing article of
diet : "We have had so much mutton lately, that I dare not look
a sheep in the face."
"When the hour comes when all things are revealed," said
CARDINAL D'ESTE. 207
Erskine, "we shall know the reason-- why shoes are made too
tight."
His friend, Mr. Maylem, told him that his physician had or-
dered him not to bathe. " Oh ! then you are malum proldltitum"
replied Erskine. " My wife, however, does bathe," added his
friend. " Worse still," was the advocate's quick rejoinder ; "for
she is malum in se ! "
When asked, while lord chancellor, whether he would attend
the ministerial whitebait dinner at Greenwich ; " To be sure I
will," he replied. " What would your fish dinner be without the
Great Seal?"
The only use of an oath in parliamentary debate occurs in a
very vigorous speech which Lord Erskine made in opposition to
the Seditious Meetings Bill, in the session of 1795-96 : "For my
own part, I shall never cease to struggle in support of liberty.
In no situation will I desert the cause. I was born a free man,
and, by G , I will never die a slave ! "
CARDINAL D'ESTE.
[Hippolito d'Este, an Italian prelate, noted for his patronage of
learning; brother of Alfonso, Duke of Modena; born 1479; died 1520.]
Se non e vero, & ben trovato.
Of the "Orlando Furioso," which Ariosto, who had been for
a long time in his service, dedicated to him, Cardinal d'Este is
reported to have said, " If it is not true, it is certainly well
invented." The saying is a proverbial one, and has passed with-
out translation into the literature of all nations. Biichinann can
find no other authority, however, for the origin of the proverb
than the anonymous author of "Grosse Leute, Kleine Schwachen,"
and thinks it may have been translated into Italian from the
close of the first part of " Don Quixote," where Cervantes says
that on the favorable reception of his work he will feel en-
couraged to seek after other adventures which may be quite as
entertaining, though not so true (Bk. I. chap. Hi.).
When asked how he could be satisfied with a small house that
he had built, after having described such magnificent palaces in
his " Orlando," Ariosto replied, " Words are cheaper than stones."
208 EUCLID.
EUCLID.
[The Greek geometer of Alexandria; taught mathematics in the
reign of the first Ptolemy, 323 B.C.]
There is no royal road to geometry.
When asked by Ptolemy if the science could not be mastered
by some easier method than the ordinary one. Dr. Johnson said,
"I hate by-roads in education." BOSWELL : Life, 1775. It
was a maxim of Dr. Parr's, " Greek and Latin are consecrated
temples which are only to be entered through the vestibule."
Plato wrote over the entrance to the Academy, " He who is
ignorant of geometry may remain outside ; " which led Goethe
to call it "the door of philosophy."
EMPRESS EUGENIE.
. [Eugenie Marie de Monti jo; born at Grenada, Spain, May 5, 182G;
educated in France and England ; attracted, by her beauty and
graces, the attention of Napoleon III., to whom she was married
January, 1852; after the fall of the empire resided in England.]
No, sire: it is French which has taught me love (c'est
le Franqais qui irfappris V amour).
When asked by Louis Xapoleon, when Prince President, if
love had taught her French.
She made another graceful answer when visiting the hospital
of Amiens during the cholera, in 1866 : " It is our manner of
going under fire."
Seeing that the victory of Prussia over Austria in 1866 threat-
ened to destroy the prestige of France, the Empress exclaimed,
pointing to the Prince Imperial, " That child will never reign, if
nothing be done to efface Sadowa." She is therefore supposed
to have urged the declaration of war by France against Prussia
in 1870, and even to have said of it, " This is my war " (C'est ma
guerre a moi). When the early victories of the German army
made it probable that Italy would seize the opportunity to enter
Rome, and deprive the Pope of his temporal power, the exclama-
tion is attributed to the Empress, "Better the Prussians in Paris,
than the Italians in Rome ! "
That the French were deceived in supposing their army ready
FAYORINUS. 209
for a campaign, is beyond a doubt. No one rests under a greater
responsibility for this deception, than Marshal Leboeuf, who
declared, when asked in June, 1870, of the state of the French
forces, " We are so well equipped, that, if the war were to last
ten years, we should not have to buy the button of a soldier's
gaiter " (Nous sommes tellement prets, que si la guerre durait dix
cms, nous n'aurions pas meme a acheter un bouton de guetre).
mile Ollivier, the pseudo-liberal prime minister of the deca-
dence of the second empire, on the announcement of the declara-
tion of war, said, July 15, " From this day a great responsibility
weighs upon my colleagues and myself : we accept it with a light
heart " (De ce jour commence pour mes collegues et pour moi une
yrande responsibility : nous Vacceptons d'un cceur leger).
FAVORINUS.
[A philosopher and sophist in the reign of Hadrian ; a native of
Aries, in Gaul; resided in Home, Greece, and Asia Minor, and ob-
tained high distinction.]
It is ill arguing with the master of thirty legions.
Yielding to Hadrian in a rhetorical argument, when he proba-
bly remained of his original opinion.
" He that complies against his will
Is of the same opinion still."
Hudibras, III. 3, 547.
Selden expressed a similar thought during the Civil War :
'Tis not seasonable to call a man traitor that has an army at his
heels."-- Table-Talk (Traitor).
JULES FAVRE.
[A French politician and advocate; born at Lyons, 1809; secretary-
general of the ministry of the interior of the republic of 1848; mem-
ber of the Constituent Assembly of that year, and of the Corps
Legislatif, 1858 and 1869, where he opposed the second empire; mem-
ber of the Academy; of the Committee of National Defence, 1870,
where he held the department of foreign affairs, and arranged with
Bismarck the capitulation of Paris ; member of the National Assem-
bly, and senator; died 1880.]
210 FENELON.
"We will not cede either an inch of our territory or a
stone of our fortresses (Nous ne cederons ni un pouce de
terrain ni une pierre de nos forteresses) .
From a circular to the diplomatic representatives of France
abroad, Sept. 6, 1870, immediately after the battle of Sedan and
the fall of the empire.
FEFELON.
[Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fe'nelon, a French prelate and
author; born in Perigord, Aug. 6, 1651; preceptor to the Duke of
Burgundy, 1689; admitted to the Academy, 1693; archbishop of
Cambrai, 1695; denounced by Bossuet for sharing the mystical sen-
timents of Mine. Guy on, and dismissed from court; wrote " Tele-
inaque," 1699; died Jan. 7, 1715.]
I am more of a Frenchman than a Fenelon, and more
a man than a Frenchman.
He also said, " I love my country better than my family, but
I love human nature better than my country." This is an echo
of the reply of Chremes when asked if he had time enough to
interest himself in the affairs of others :
" Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto."
(I am a man, and nothing which relates to man can be a matter of
unconcern to me.) TERENCE: Heauton. I. 1.
Socrates said, " I am not an Athenian, nor a Greek, but a citi-
zen of the world." He was the first cosmopolitan, though he
had never been out of Attica.
When Rousseau was walking one day on Mont Valerien, near
Paris, with Bernardin de St. Pierre, the author of " Paul et Vir-
ginie," and expressed his pleasure at the chanting of the monks
established there, Bernardin said, "If Fenelon were alive you
would be a Catholic to-morrow." "Ah!" replied Rousseau
with emotion, " if he were alive, I would seek to be his lackey
in order to deserve to become his valet-de-cliambre " (s'il vii-ait, je
cliercherais a etre son laquais^pour mcriter d'etre son valet-de-chambre}.
Voltaire said, " I do not know whether Fenelon be a heretic for
saying that God should be loved for himself, but I know that
Fenelon should be."
FfiNELON. 211
Fdnelon showed his liberal feelings by his manner of speaking
of his opponents: "We Catholics go too slow, and our brothers
the Protestants go too fast." lie could not convert heretics by
a dragonnade ; and on his return from an unsuccessful attempt to
bring over by peaceful arguments the Protestants of Poitou,
Harlay, the Archbishop of Paris, said to him, " It seems, M.
I'abbe, that you wish to be forgotten, and you shall be'' (vous
voulez etre oublie, vous le serez). It was a sentence of banish-
ment.
When Louis XIV. asked Bossuet what he would do if his out-
cry against Fenelon's " Maximes des Saints " were not supported
by the king, he replied, " Sire, my cry would be still louder " (Je
hausserais la voix davantage). Of this contest between Bossuet
and the supporters of views considered Jansenist and heretical,
which finally drove Fenelon into the obscurity of his bishopric
of Cambrai, Pope Innocent XII. said that the latter " sinned by
excessive love of God, Bossuet by insufficient love of his neigh-
bor ; " and of Fenelon's book, that its maxims had less scandal-
ized him than the conduct of his adversaries. Bossuet said of
Fenelon at this time, " That man made me pass many a wakeful
night," a remark also attributed to Philip IV. of Spain, of
Turenne.
Two sayings of Fenelon illustrate his views of royal interfer-
ence in matters of religion. He advised the Pretender, son of
James II. of England, to practise religious toleration in case he
came to the throne. "Xo human power," he declared, "can force
the intrenchments of the human mind : compulsion never per-
suades, it only makes hypocrites ; " and again to the same prince,
"When kings interfere in matters of religion, they enslave in-
stead of protecting it."
A good discourse is that from which nothing can be
retrenched without cutting into the quick.
Letter upon eloquence.
St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) has three maxims on the
same subject :
" The test of the worth of a preacher is when his congrega-
tion go away saying, not ' What a beautiful sermon ! ' but ' I will
do something.' "
212 JULES FERRY.
" The more you say, the less people remember. The fewer
the words, the greater the profit."
" When a sermon is too long, the end makes one forget the
middle, and the middle the beginning."
Our best friends are the source of our greatest sorrow
and bitterness (Les vrais amis font toute la douleur et toute
Vamertume de la vie).
Letter to M. Destouches on hearing of the death of the Due
de Beauvilliers, Aug. 13, 1714.
JULES FERRY.
[A French statesman; born at St. Die, April 5, 1832; admitted to
the bar of Paris; elected to the Corps Legislatif, 1863, and opposed
the second empire; member of the government of National Defence,
1870, and administered the Department of the Seine; member of the
Assembly; minister of public instruction, 1879 and 1882; prime min-
ister, 1880-81.]
Ni revision, ni division.
An expression first used in a speech at Epinal as the motto of
the administration or moderate wing of the republican party in
the legislative elections of 1881, neither a revision of the consti-
tution, nor a division of the party. The result of the elections,
although favorable to the republicans, did not secure a majority
to the Ferry cabinet, which resigned in November of that year.
A similarly alliterative expression may be found in the mot
d'ordre given by Pope Pius IX. to the Italian clericals: "Ne
elettori ne eletti" (Neither electors nor elected); in other words,
the supporters of the temporal power of the Pope should not
recognize the Italian government after the occupation of Rome
in 1870, by voting in the municipal and parliamentary elections,
or being candidates for office. The prohibition, so far as mu-
nicipal elections were concerned, was relaxed in 1881.
FONTENELLE.
[Bernard le Bavier-Fontenelle, a celebrated French author; born
at Rouen, Feb. 11, 1657; was a nephew of Corneille; published a
"Discourse on the Plurality of Worlds," 1686; member of the Acad-
emy; perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences, 1699; died
January, 1757, just failing to complete his one-hundredth year.]
FONTENELLE. 213
If I held my hand full of truths, I should be careful
how I opened it (Si je tenais toutes les verites dans ma main,
je me donnerai bien de garde de Vouvrir aux homines).
An expression common to many thinkers. Voltaire wrote to
Cardinal de Bernis, April 23, 1764 : " There are truths which are
not for all men, nor for all times " (II y a des verites qui ne sont
pas pour tons les homines et pour tons les temps) ; and in a letter
to the Countess de Barcewitz, Dec. 24, 1761, " Truths are fruits
which should only be plucked when quite ripe " (qui ne doivent
etre cueillis que bien miirs). The remark of Lessing is better
known : " If God should hold enclosed in his right hand all
truth, and in his left hand only the ever-active impulse after
truth (den einzigen immer rcgen Trieb nach Wahrheif), although
with the condition that I must always and forever err, I would
with humility turn to his left hand, and say, ( Father, give me
this: pure truth is for thee alone.' ' Anti-Gotze. Mme. du
Deff and was of opinion that " all truths are not to be spoken,
nevertheless it is always good to hear them ; " which is but
another form of the remark of Demosthenes to the Athenians :
" My counsels to you are of that nature that they are sometimes
not good for me to give, but are always good for you to follow."
Every thing is possible: everybody is right.
His two favorite maxims, indicating the paradoxical spirit
which characterized him.
When he presented his "Essay on the Geometry of the Infi-
nite" to the Regent in 1727, he remarked, " Here is a book which
only eight men in France are capable of understanding, and the
author is not one of that number."
To a lady who asked, on her arrival in Paris, what the chair
in the Academy was, of which she heard so much ; " It is a
couch," replied Fontenelle, "where wit sleeps" (C'est un lit de
repos oit le bel esprit sommeille).
There are three things I have always loved, and never
understood, painting, music, and woman.
When told by a newly married friend that his wife was witty
and amiable, Fontenelle asked, "Is she pretty? That is all
SAMUEL FOOTE.
women are obliged to be." (Est-elle jolie? Une femme n'est
obligee qu'a cela.)
He was told by a physician that coffee was a slow poison ; to
which he replied, " Doctor, I have been of your opinion for the
eighty years that I have taken it " (je le crois coinme vous, voila
quatre-vingts ans que fen pr ends).
When ninety years old, passing before Mme. Helvetius at
dinner, she said to him, " What am I to think of your gallantry ?
You pass before me without looking at me ! " To which Fonte-
nelle replied, " Madame, if I had looked at you, I should never
have passed ! ' : (Si je vous eusse regarde'e je naurais point passe' !)
A friend called upon him who was fond of asparagus cooked
with butter, while Fontenelle preferred it with oil. However,
to please his guest, half of it should be prepared with butter,
and' the original order was countermanded accordingly. While
they were talking, the friend, a bon-vivant abbe, fell in a fit of
apoplexy ; whereupon Fontenelle, without a thought of the suf-
ferer, rushed to the stairs, and called out to the cook, " The
whole with oil, as at first ! "
Fontenelle's last words were : U I do not suffer, my friends:
but I feel a certain difficulty of existing " (Je ne soujfre pas, mes
amis, mais je sens une certaine difficulte d'etre). He said that it
was time for him to go, because he was " beginning to see things
as they are " (je commence a voir les choses idles qu'elles sont).
Diderot said of him when, in his last days, his wit (esprit) only
occasionally flashed forth, " 'Tis an old chateau which spirits
revisit" (C'est un vieux chateau ou il revient des esprits).
SAMUEL FOOTE.
[A witty English comedian, 'sometimes called " the English Aristo-
phanes; " born at Truro, about 1720; educated at Oxford; opened the
Haymarket Theatre, 1747, being director, author, and actor; had great
talents for ridicxile, mimicry, and colloquial wit; died 1777.]
Thank you, sir : you know the company better than I
do.
When told at a party that his handkerchief was half out of his
pocket.
A gentleman having praised a very plain woman, Foote said
SAMUEL FOOTE. 215
he had a right to claim her, " by the law of all nations, as the
first discoverer."
Foote was dining one day in Paris with Lord Stormont, and
some old Cape wine was passed round in very small glasses.
Foote was asked why he kept his glass so long before him with-
out drinking; to which he replied, "I am only considering how
small it is of its age." This, however, is as old as Athenseus.
When told that the Delavals did every thing in good style,
" It is not," he said, " their usual gait."
Being asked if he had ever seen Cork, " Xo, sir; but I have /
seen a great many drawings of it."
Dibble said, that, much as he liked porter, he could never drink
it without a head. " That must be a mistake," interposed Foote,
" as you have done so, to my knowledge, above these twenty
years."
One who preserves all the exterior decencies of igno-
rance.
His definition of a very good sort of man.
When on one occasion he had attacked a pretentious person
upon his characteristic foible, and the latter had said, " Why do
you attack my weakest point? " Foote replied, " Did I say any
thing about your head?"
A conceited young fellow, not finding his jokes appreciated,
said to Foote : " You are flat to-day : you don't seem to relish
wit." "You have not tried me yet," was the answer.
Foote asked a man without tune why he was always humming
a certain air. " Because it haunts me," was the reply. " Xo won-
der," rejoined Foote, " when you are always murdering it."
On a certain occasion, a rich Cornish rector held forth upon
the surprising profits of his living, and stretched a very dirty
hand over the table. "Well, doctor, I am not at all surprised
at your profits," remarked Foote, "for I see you keep the glebe
in your own hands."
He said that he did not go to church : "not, however, that I
see any harm in it." When Boswell asked Johnson if Foote'
w r ere an infidel, "I don't know, sir," he replied, "that the fel-
low is an infidel ; but if he be, he is an infidel as a dog is an
infidel, that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject."
216 SAMUEL FOOTE.
A mercantile friend, who imagined that he had a genius for
poetry, insisted on reading some verses beginning, " Hear me,
O Phoebus, and ye Muses nine ! " and then, perceiving his auditor
inattentive, exclaimed, "Pray listen." "I do," replied Foote ;
" nine and one are ten : go on."
She keeps the Graces at arm's-length.
Of a lady extremely awkward in the use of her arms.
To a hypocrite, who said that his heart lay at his fingers' ends,
" I always thought so," replied Foote, " as I never knew it to lie
in the right place."
A guinea dropped on to the floor, and Garrick observed that it
had gone to the devil. "You are what I took you for," rejoined
Foote, " always contriving to make a guinea go farther than
any other man." Garrick was considered exceedingly avaricious,
although Johnson denied it. When once asked how he could
place Garrick 's bust on his bureau, Foote replied, " I allow him
to be so near my gold because he has no hands." Boswell quotes
a saying of Foote, that " Garrick walked out with the intention
of doing a generous action ; but, turning the corner of a street,
he met the ghost of a halfpenny, which frightened him." Life
of Johnson, 1778.
Suppose you go sober, my lord.
To an intemperate nobleman, who asked Foote in what dis-
guise he had better go to a fancy ball.
A dull dramatic author said he could laugh at his critics.
" Do so," said Foote ; " for in this way you will not only dis-
appoint them, but lead the merriest life of any man in Eng-
land."
A reviewer boasted that he had the power of distributing
literary reputation as he liked. " Take care," Foote told him,
" that you are not too prodigal of it, or you may leave none for
yourself."
It should be Woodcock, by the length of your bill.
Asking the landlord of the castle at Salthill, on the produc-
tion of the bill for dinner, what his name was, and being told it
was Partridge.
JOSEPH FOUCHE. 217
"If you go to Ziirich, beware how you stop at the Raven.
They will cheat you. They cheated me. But I had my revenge ;
for when we reached Schaffhausen I wrote in the Travellers'
Book :
" Beware of the Raven of Zurich!
'Tis a bird of omen ill;
With a noisy and an unclean nest,
And a very, very long bill."
LONGFELLOW: Hyperion, Bk. III. chap. iii.
Depend upon it, it is not a thing to be laughed at.
Returning a comedy to an author who had asked Foote to
look at it. Rivarol said of Dugazon, a buffoon, who overdid his
parts, " He is a good comedian, pleasantry apart."
A celebrated gambler, Baron *Newman, having been thrown
out of a second-story window at Bath for cheating at cards,
asked Foote what he should do. " Never play so high again in
your life," was the reply. The same advice is attributed, in a
similar case, to Talleyrand: "Only play on the ground floor"
(rez-de-chaussee) .
Lord Kelly had a very red face. " Pray, my lord," said Foote
to him, " come and look over my garden-wall : my cucumbers are
very backward."
When Foote was talking immoderately at table, a bishop
asked when he would stop preaching: "Oh, my lord! the nio-
inent I am made a bishop."
The foolish Duke of Cumberland told Foote, in the green-
room, he had come to swallow all his good things. " Upon my
soul," the actor replied, " your royal highness must have an ex-
cellent digestion, for you never bring up any thing again."
JOSEPH FOUCHE.
[Due d'Otranto, a French Jacobin; born at Nantes, 1763; mem-
ber of the Convention; minister of police under the Directory and
Empire, and a short time after the restoration; banished, 1816; died
at Trieste, 1820.]
Death is an eternal sleep (La mort est un sommeil eternel).
Placed by his orders on the gates of the cemeteries in 1794.
Robespierre said, in one of his last speeches, " No, Chaumette :
death is not an eternal sleep."
218 CHARLES JAMES FOX.
Napoleon asked Fouche if he did not vote for the death of
Louis XVI. ; to which he gave the courtier-like reply, " Yes,
sire: that was the first service I had the honor of rendering your
majesty ; " meaning that the death of the king was the first step
to the empire.
A lady wrote him from St. Petersburg, in 1801, that she had
seen Alexander I. in a procession, preceded by the assassins of
his grandfather (Peter III.), followed by those of his father
(Paul), and surrounded by his own. "Behold a woman who
speaks Tacitus ! " exclaimed Fouche.
CHARLES JAMES FOX.
[A celebrated English orator and statesman; born in London, Jan.
24, 1749; educated at Oxford; entered Parliament, 1768, as a supporter
of Lord North ; appointed junior lord of the admiralty, and in 1793
a lord of the treasury; dismissed for insubordination, he joined the
opposition, and became the leader of the whigs; secretary of state,
1783; foreign secretary, 1806; died Sept. 13 of that year, while nego-
tiating for peace with France.]
I am for equality. I think that men are entitled to
equal rights, but to equal rights to unequal things.
Napoleon's opinion was more in accordance with the assertion
of the American Declaration of Independence, when he said,
"Nature made all men equal." Turgot said, "The republic is
formed upon the equality of all the citizens ; " and Frederick the
Great imbibed even more radical ideas from the French philos-
ophers : "Kings are nothing but men, and all men are equal."
Dr. Johnson, however, declared that, so far from being true that
all men are naturally equal (in an intellectual and moral sense),
"no two people can be half an hour together but one shall
acquire an evident superiority over the other." BOSWELL: Life,
1776. In a speech at Glasgow University, Nov. 19, 1873, Mr.
Disraeli said, " It appeared to me that I should not greatly err
were I to describe the spirit of the age as the spirit of equality."
The worst of revolutions is a restoration.
Referring to the re-action of restorations, such as that in Eng-
land after the restoration of Charles II., and the " White Terror "
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 219
in France after the return of the Bourbons. Fox also said, in
the House of Commons, Dec. 10, 1795, " The people of England,
in my opinion, committed a worse offence by the unconstitutional
restoration of Charles II. than even by the death of Charles I."
Kings govern by means of popular assemblies only
when they cannot do without them.
In the House of Commons, Oct. 31, 1776.
He said on another occasion, " We ought not to legislate for
a nation in whose feelings and affections, wants and interests,
opinions and prejudices, we have no sympathy."
Of the assistance given by France to the American colonies,
and the consequent hostilities between England and that country,
Fox declared in the House of Commons, " America must be con-
quered in France : France can never be conquered in America."
Not a precedent, but a usurpation.
He once drew the following distinction : " Whenever any usage
appeared subversive of the constitution, if it had lasted for one
or two hundred years, it was not a precedent, but a usurpation."
His usual remark, when told that a speech read well, was,
" Then it was a bad speech." MOORE : Life of Sheridan, II. 12,
note.
"I learn more from conversation," Fox once declared, "than
from all the books I ever read." "A great thing is a great
book," says Disraeli, "but a greater thing than all is the talk
of a great man." Coningsby.
" The Greek historians," Fox said, " generally told nothing but
the truth, while the Latin historians told nothing but lies."
When it was asked if a Frenchman were not wiser in prefer-
ring the present, Fox thought he might be merrier : " Did you
ever hear of a savage who did not buy a mirror in preference to
a telescope V "
Topham Beauclerk called one morning after Fox had lost an
immense sum of money at play, thinking to find him in a state
of deep despondency. He was, however, reading Herodotus in
the original. " What would you have me do," he asked, " when
I have lost my last shilling?" When a French gentleman ex-
pressed his surprise that a nation so moral as England should
220 CHARLES JAMES FOX.
submit to be governed by a man so wanting in private virtue as
Fox, Pitt replied, " C'est que vous ?i'avez pas ete sous la baguette du
magicien " (You have never been under the wand of the magi-
cian). Many of his sayings show Pitt's generous estimate of Fox:
as this, of their comparative powers of expression, " Fox is never
at a loss for the word, and I am never at a loss for a word ; " and
of one of his speeches, "Don't disparage it: nobody could have
made it but himself; " and at another time, "Whenever I have
made a better speech than usual, I observe that Fox in his reply
surpasses himself."
When Fox, after the king's mental illness, contended that the
heir-apparent was entitled as of right to be regent, an idea
opposed to the traditional maxims of the Whig party, Pitt
exclaimed, " For this doctrine I will wn-whig him for the rest
of his days." MOORE'S Life of Sheridan.
Dr. Porson said of the two orators, " Pitt carefully considered
his sentences before he uttered them ; but Fox threw himself
into the middle of his, and left it to God Almighty to get him
out again ; " and William Windham said that " Pitt could speak
a king's speech off-hand," referring to the speeches with which
the sovereign opens Parliament, and which are carefully com-
posed by the cabinet.
Every man would desire once in his life, at least, to
make a pilgrimage to Switzerland, the country of
liberty and peace.
Samuel Rogers said that " the most beautiful and magnificent
view on the face of the earth is the prospect of Mont Blanc from,
the Jura Mountains." Richard Cobden was asked if it were
worth while to take a long journey for the purpose of seeing
Niagara. His answer was, " There are two sublimities in nature,
one of rest, the other of motion. The sublimity of rest is a
distant view of the Alps; the sublimity of motion is Niagara."
I die happy.
His last words.
Dr. Johnson said of Fox, " He is a liberal man : he would
always be aut Ccesar, aut nullus. Whenever I have seen him
FRANCIS I. 221
he was nullus" Caesar Borgia had a device under the head of
Caesar, "Aut Ccesar, aut nihil."
" Borgia was Caesar, both in deed and name;
' Caesar or nought,' he said: he both became."
Dr. Johnson used another Latin quotation with a more favor-
able intention, when he said, " Fox is a most extraordinary man,
who has divided the kingdom with Caesar (division imperium
cum Jove Ccesar habet) ; so that it was a doubt whether the
nation should be governed by the sceptre of George III. or
the tongue of Fox."
" In the most imperfect relic of Fox's speeches," said Erskine,
"the bones of a giant are to be discovered."
FRANCIS I.
[King of France; born at Cognac, Sept. 12, 1494; succeeded his
cousin Louis XII., 1515; conquered the Milanese the same year; was
a candidate for the imperial crown, which Charles V. obtained,
and formed a league with England and the Pope against Francis,
who was defeated at Pavia, 1525, and taken prisoner; confined
in Madrid until 152G, when he continued the war until 1529, and
later until 1544; promoted science, art, and literature; died March,
1547.]
Let him who loves me follow me ! (Qui m'aime me suive !)
To his officers, who opposed his fighting the battle of Ma-
rignano against the Milanese, in w 7 hich, however, he was vic-
torious, Sept. 13 and 14, 1515. The exclamation became a
proverbial expression.
A more elaborate appeal to the personal loyalty of his follow-
ers was the watchword of Henry IV. at Ivry, March 14, 1590 :
" If the ensigns fail you, rally to my white plume : you will
always find it in the path of honor and victory " (Si les cornets
vous manquent, ralliez-vous a mon panache Mane : vous le trouverez
toujours an cliemin de Vlionneur et de la victoire).
Larochejaquelin said to his volunteers, in the royalist insur-
rection in La Vendee, 1793, " If I advance, follow me ! if I ,
retreat, kill me ! if I die, avenge me ! " (Si j'avance, suivez-moi!
si je recule, tuez-moi .' si je meurs, vengez-moi /)
222 FRANCIS I.
All is lost save honor.
The translation of the announcement which Francis I. was
supposed to have made of the disastrous battle of Pavia, con-
taining only the words, " Tout est perdu fors rhonneur." The
real letter was found in the manuscript registers of Parliament,
and published in 1837. The original is lost; but the autograph
reply of the mother of Francis, Louise de Savoy, is preserved,
and contains almost textually the phrases of the king's missive,
which began by informing her that nothing remains to him but
honor and life (de toutes choses ne m'est demoure que Flwnneur et
la vie qui est saulre). He hopes that God will not abandon him;
recommends to her care his young children, and entreats her to
effect a safe return to Spain of the bearer of a letter he had
written to the emperor to ask what treatment he might expect
during his captivity. Captivite de Francois /., 129.
As Drouot pressed the hand of Napoleon, on the emperor's
return to the palace of the Ely see, three days after the battle
of Waterloo, Caulaincourt exclaimed, " All is lost ! " " Excepte
Fhonneur" added Napoleon. It was the first word he had spoken
since leaving Laon.
The Comte de Provence (afterwards Louis XVIII.) replied,
while in exile, to a proposal that he should renounce his claim
to the French throne, by saying that he was ignorant of the
designs of Providence, but was aware of the obligations of his
rank : as a Christian, he would perform those obligations to
his latest breath ; son of St. Louis, he would respect himself
even in chains ; successor of Francis L, he would say, like him,
" Tout est perdu fors rhonneur." BoURRIENNE : Memoirs of Na-
poleon, II. chap. xxvi.
The defeat of Pavia led to the surrender and captivity of
Francis I. It is said that in the first moment of despondency he
attempted suicide ; crying, as he struck at himself with a dag-
ger, " 'Twere better that a king should die thus." He was, how-
ever, conveyed to Spain ; the journey being imbittered by the
thought, "How dearly do I pay for this crown, which I thought
God had given me free ! " At the termination of his captivity,
which he purchased by a treaty he afterwards disavowed, arid
by the exchange of his two sons, he exclaimed, as his horse
FRANCIS I. 223
leaped across the Bidassoa, the narrow boundary between France
and Spain, " I am still a king ! "
I can make nobles when I will, and even great lords :
God alone can make a man like him whom we are
going to lose ( Je puis faire des nobles quand je veux, et meme
de tres yrands seigneurs : Dieu seul pent faire un homme comme celui
que nous allons perdre).
The very doubtful mot, concerning Leonardo da Vinci, the
Italian painter, who visited Paris on the invitation of Francis,
and is said to have died in the king's arms at Fontainebleau.
It is now, however, considered impossible that the artist, broken
by infirmity, could have left the chateau of Clou, near Amboise,
which had been given him as a residence by the king, to mix in
the festivals of the court at Fontainebleau ; nor could he have
been buried at Amboise (as was the fact), if his death had oc-
curred in the royal palace. It is also well settled, that on the
day of Leonardo's death (May 2, 1519), Francis could not have
been either at Fontainebleau or at Clou ; the contest for the
imperial crown of Germany then demanding his attention, and
preventing his absence from Paris at a greater distance than St.
Germain.
However that may be, there is no question of the liberality of
Francis towards art and artists. Raphael received more than
he thought due for the St. Michael, now in the Louvre, and in-
sisted upon the king's acceptance of a Holy Family. Francis
received it as if it had been the present of a monarch, saying,
"Persons famous in the arts partake of the immortality of
princes, and are upon a footing with them."
Other kings have shown the same appreciation of great artistic
and literary talent. When a nobleman complained to Henry
VIII. of rude treatment he alleged to have received from Hans
Holbein, the German painter, the king turned him away with
the sharp reproof, " I tell you, of seven peasants I can make as
many lords ; but of seven lords I could not make one Holbein."
Charles V., the third of these rivals for the German crown, made
a similar reply to his courtiers, who complained of the long
audiences he gave an Italian author who lived many years at
Antwerp : " I can make a hundred grandees, but no Guicciar-
224 FRANCIS I.
dini." Philip IV. of Spain (160o-65) said of a decoration
painted by himself in a portrait by a celebrated artist, " Is it not
a great honor to have borne a hand in a picture of Velasquez?"
Selden in his " Table-Talk " drew a clear distinction : " The
king cannot make a gentleman of blood, nor God Almighty, but
he can make a gentleman by creation." James I. had already
said, " I can make a lord, but only God Almighty can make a
gentleman."
Such is our good pleasure (Tel estnotr ebon plaisir).
His form of assent, resting, says Sully (" Memoirs "), not on
the approbation of his people, but upon his royal caprice. The
careless answer of a pleasure-loving king became the formula by
which his successors indicated their approval of legislative enact-
ments. The English derive a similar one from their Korman
sovereigns : " Le roi le veut " (The king wills it).
The indifference of Francis to his subjects is shown by his
answer to Charles V., who asked him what revenues he drew
from certain cities of France through which they were passing :
"What I please " (Ce queje veux).
Toute femme varie.
Written on a window of the chateau of Chambord by Francis
I., where it was seen and read by Brantome. Vie des Dames
Galantes.
That he scratched the words on a pane of glass with the point
of a diamond, rather than wrote them on the sill with a pencil,
is less certain. If with the former, it is the first time that we
read of the application of the diamond to that purpose. THEO-
PHILE : Essai sur divers Arts.
Tradition assigns two lines to the royal hand :
" Sou vent femme varie:
Bien fol est qui s'y fie."
(Woman often changes: foolish is the man who trusts her.)
It is but another form of the Virgilian line (" JEneid," IV. 569) :
" Varium et rnutabile semper
Fcemina."
("Always is woman fickleness and change.")
LONG'S Translation.
FRANCIS II. 225
Verdi echoed it in the air of his opera "Rigoletto " (La donna
e mobile "). Napoleon declared at St. Helena, that there was no
accounting for the actions of a woman ; and Victor Hugo pro-
nounces her "the enigma of the nineteenth century."
FRANCIS II.
[Emperor of Germany; born at Florence, February, 1768; began
to reign over the hereditary Austrian dominions, 1792; chosen em-
peror of Germany the same year; resigned, 1806, when the conquests
of Napoleon dissolved the Holy Roman Empire; assumed the title
of Francis I., Emperor of Austria; died 1835, beloved by his subjects
in spite of his reverses.]
If I am to live only with my equals, I must descend
into the tomb of my ancestors, and dwell there for-
ever.
The leaden coffins of the Austrian royal family stand in thi
crypt of the Capuchin Church in Vienna: it 'was to them that
Francis said he must descend, when reproached with being too.
familiar with his subjects.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
[Born in Boston, Jan. 17, 1706; at seventeen obtained employment
as a printer in Philadelphia; after a year in London established him-
self in the former city; founded the Philadelphia Library, 1731;
deputy-postmaster for the American Colonies, 1753; made discoveries
in electricity, 1752; member of the Royal Society; agent of the Colo-
nies in England, 1764; on his return, 1775, delegate to the Continental
Congress, and one of the committee to draught the Declaration of
Independence; minister to France, 1776, where he signed the treaty
with that country and afterwards that of peace with England; presi-
dent of Pennsylvania three years ; delegate to the Constitutional
Convention; died April 17, 1790.]
I think, father, if you were to say grace over the
whole barrel, once for all, it would be a vast saving
of time.
A suggestion that Franklin made at the age of twelve, when
the winter's provisions had been laid in, and he thought his
father's daily grace rather long.
He was on one occasion, during his youth, leaving the house
22G BEXJAMIX FRAXKLIX.
of the Rev. Cotton Mather, and was told to stoop in a low pas-
sage-way. " You are young," said the divine, " and have the
world before you : stoop as you go through it, and you will miss
many hard thumps."
Those who would give up essential liberty for the sake
of a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty
nor safety.
During the French war, in 1755.
The following sayings relate to the period antecedent to the
Revolution. Franklin wrote to Lord Kames in 1761 : "I have
long been of the opinion that the foundations of the future
grandeur and stability of the British empire lie in America."
Of the proposal to send British troops to enforce the Stamp Act,
he said in February, 1766, " They cannot find a rebellion : they
may, indeed, make one." Franklin was far from looking for-
ward, at that time, to a dissolution of the connection between
England and her colonies. Charles Pratt (Lord Camden), the
author of the maxim, "The discretion of a judge is the law of
tyrants," afterwards lord chancellor and a supporter of the
policy of Chatham, said to Franklin in 1760, "For all that you
Americans say of your loyalty, and notwithstanding your boasted
affection, you will one day set up for independence." Franklin
denied it, "unless you grossly abuse them."
In a letter on the Stamp Act, written from London, July 11,
1765, Franklin said, " Idleness and pride tax with a heavier
hand than kings and parliaments : if we can get rid of the
former, we may easiiy bear the latter." He also wrote on the
same subject: "The sun of liberty is set: you must light up
the candle of industry and economy."
In describing a debate on American affairs, in the House of
Lords, 1775, Franklin exclaimed, " Hereditary legislators ! there
would be more propriety, because less hazard of mischief, in
hereditary professors of mathematics, as in some university in
Germany.''
Franklin closed a letter from Philadelphia to Mr. Strahan,
M.P., July 5, 1775, after hostilities had commenced: "You and
I were long friends : you are now my enemy, and I am, yours,
B. FRANKLIN."
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 227
We must all hang together, else we shall all hang
separately.
In reply to a remark of John Hancock, while the Declaration
of Independence was being signed, July 4, 1770, that they must
all hang together.
In a debate on taxation, in the Continental Congress, July,
1776, Mr. Lynch asked why slaves should be taxed more than
sheep. " Sheep will never make insurrections," was Franklin's
answer. Some one asked why the new boulevards of Paris were
made so long and straight. "Bullets cannot turn corners," was
the reply of Baron Ilaussmann, the Prefect of the Seine under
Napoleon III.
Lord Howe spoke, in 1776, of England's need of American
commerce and men. " Ay, my lord," assented Franklin : " we
have in America a pretty considerable manufactory of men."
When told that Lord Howe had taken Philadelphia, in 1777, " I
beg your pardon, sir," retorted Franklin : " Philadelphia has
taken Howe."
Nothing is certain but death and taxes.
Franklin addressed a letter to M. Leroy, of the French Acad-
emy of Sciences, in 1789 : " Our constitution is in actual opera-
tion; every thing appears to promise that it will last: but in this
world nothing is certain but death and taxes " (mais dans ce
monde, il n'y a rien d' assure que la mort et les impels).
The revolutionary carillon of France, pa ira, was composed by
an itinerant musician, who took the refrain from a mot of Frank-
lin on the Revolution: ca ira, ?a liendra. CASSAGNAC : History
of the Girondists, I. 373.
Franklin said to the French ministry in March, 1778, "He
who shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive
Christianity will change the face of the world." He made a
prediction to Condorcet and others, which to some of them
became fatally true : " You perceive Liberty establish herself and
flourish almost under your very eyes : I dare to predict that
by and by you will be anxious to taste her blessings."
A Frenchman sent him a large cake inscribed ll le dinne Frank-
lin." He said it was a mistake for Zee, Deane, Franklin, - - the
three American commissioners.
228 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
When a friend remarked that the war for independence was
successfully closed, " Say, rather, the war of the Revolution : the
war for independence is yet to be fought."
If a sparrow cannot fall without God's knowledge,
how can an empire rise without his aid?
Proposing that the sessions of the Constitutional Convention,
in May, 1787, be opened with prayer.
A dying man can do nothing easy.
To his daughter, who advised him to change his position in
bed, that he might breathe with more ease. These are the last
words recorded of the American patriot and philosopher.
When Franklin's death was announced in the French National
Assembly, Mirabeau moved that the Assembly should go into
mourning, saying that " nations should wear mourning only for
their benefactors." He declared that "antiquity would have
raised altars to this mighty genius, who, to the advantage of
mankind, compassing in his mind the heavens and the earth,
was able to restrain alike thunderbolts and tyrants." Turgot
had already composed the line which was inscribed on Houdon's
bust of Franklin :
" Eripuit coelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis."
(He snatched the lightning from heaven, and the sceptre from
tyrants.)
This is an alteration of a line of the " Anti-Lucretius " of
Cardinal de Polignac, I. .v. 96,
" Eripuit fulmenque Jovi Phceboque sagittas; "
or it may even be referred to the " Astronomicon " of Manilius,
a Latin poet of the time of Augustus :
" Eripuit Jovi fulraen viresque tonandi."
Turgot first wrote, according to his biographer Condorcet :
" Eripuit coelo fulmen) MOX sceptra tyrannis."* This was in 1778,
when the most that could be assumed was a prophecy of the
result of the French and American alliance.
Frederick von der Trenck, the Prussian whose adventures
have given his memoirs a special interest, asserted on his trial
FREDERICK I. 229
before the "Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris, July 0, 179 1, that he
made Franklin's acquaintance in England in 1774, and was the
author of the line which has been attributed to Turgot. -- GAR-
TENLAUBE, 1863 : Last Hours of Baron Trenck.
Felix Nogaret, an almanac-poet, having translated Turgot's
hexameter into French (// 6te an del la foudre et le sceptre aux
tyrans), sent it to Franklin with three pages of complimentary
commentary. Franklin's reply may be thus translated : " Sir,
I have received the letter in which, having overwhelmed me with
a torrent of compliments I regret not feeling worthy of, you
ask my opinion of the translation of a Latin verse. I am too
little of a connoisseur of the elegance and subtleties of your ad-
mirable language, to dare sit in judgment upon the poetry which
is to be found in this verse. [In writing " de la poesie qui DOIT
se trouver dans ce vers," Franklin showed himself a subtle con-
noisseur of French.] I only wish you to notice two inexact
expressions in the original. In spite of my experiments in
electricity, the lightning still strikes our nose or our beard ; and,
so far as the tyrant is concerned, more than a million of us
united to snatch his sceptre from him."
FREDERICK I.
[Emperor of Germany; called from his red beard " Barbarossa; "
born 1121; elected emperor, 1152; crowned at Rome, 1155; subjected
Milan, 1158; defeated by the Lombards near Legnauo, 1176, and
made peace with the Pope; joined the third crusade, 1189, and was
drowned in the Cydnus, 1190.]
My son is slain ! But Christ still lives : let us on, my
men!
When the death of his son, who accompanied him on the
crusade, was reported to him. The father himself was soon to
perish ; and, as his body was not recovered, he was popularly
supposed to be sleeping in the Kyffhauser Cave, near Salzburg,
where a peasant maintained that he saw him, "at a marble
table," says Carlyle ("Frederick the Great"), "leaning on his
elbow, winking, only half asleep ; beard had grown through the
table, and streamed out on the floor."
The Duke of Ormond (1010-88) said, on hearing of the death
230 FREDERICK III.
of the brave and accomplished Earl of Ossory in 1680, " I would
not exchange my dead son for any living son in Christendom."
FREDERICK III.
[Emperor of Germany; born 1415; elected emperor, 1440; crowned
at Rome, 1452; was incapable of successfully defending the empire
against Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, who took possession of
Vienna and Croatia, 1485; died 1493.]
A. E. 1. O. U.
These vowels, which Frederick stamped upon coins and med-
als, and inscribed upon public buildings, were originally used
at the coronation of his predecessor Albert II., in the sense,
" Albert us Electus Imperator Optamus Vicat." The motto was
changed, after the coronation of Frederick III. at Aix-la-Cha-
pelle, to " Arcliidux Electus Imperator Optime Vivat" The librarian
of Leopold I. saw a manuscript of Frederick's in which a German
version was given, "Alter Ehren 1st Oesterreich Voll " (Austria is
crowned with all honor) ; and the emperor removed an unflatter-
ing inscription in the Burg, " Aller Erst 1st Oesterreich Verdorben."
As, however, there was no generally accepted motto for these
letters, learned men amused their leisure in fitting words to the
vowels : one of them, Rasch, organist of the Schottencloster,
about 1580, discovered two hundred possible applications. Three
of them are well known in Germany : "Austrian Est Imperare Orbl
Universo ; " "Austria Erll In Orbe Ultima; " and, " Alles Erdreich
1st Oesterreich Unterthan." The last may be rendered in English,
" Austria's Empire Is Over all Universal."
John, Elector of Saxony, called " the Steadfast " (der Bestdn-
dige) had a motto, " Verbum Dei Manet In JEternum" (The word
of God endures throughout eternity), the initials of which,
V.D.M.I.^E., he had engraved, says Carlyle, "on all the furniture
of his existence, on his standards, pictures, plate, on the very
sleeves of his lackeys, and, I can perceive, on his own deep heart
first of all." - - Frederick //., III. 5.
Ulric von Wiirttemberg, an Imperialist general (1617-71), had
the initials of the following words embroidered on his livery:
" Gottes Wort Bleibt Eiciy " (God's word lasts forever).
FREDERICK THE GREAT. 231
FREDERICK II.
[King of Prussia, called " the Great; " born in Berlin, Jan. 24, 1712;
ascended the throne, 1740; invaded Silesia in the war of the Austrian
succession; invited Voltaire to Berlin, 1750; invaded Saxony in the
Seven Years' War, 175G; gained the battle of Rossbach over the
French in November, and over the Austrians at Leuthen in Decem-
ber, 1757; over the Russians at Zorndorf, 1758; routed at Kunersdorf,
1759, when Berlin was occupied by the enemy; acquired Polish Prus-
sia, 1772; died Aug. 17, 178G.]
One cannot imitate Voltaire without being Voltaire.
The first letter from Frederick, then crown-prince, to Voltaire,
was dated Berlin, Aug. 8, 173G ; in it he said that the French
philosopher inspired one to follow in his footsteps, but the
burden was too great. It led to a correspondence in which the
prince acknowledged himself an apprentice" in the poet's trade.
"Voltaire," says Carlyle, "at sight of the princely productions is
full of encouragement, does a little in correcting, solecisms of
grammar chiefly." Johnson's opinion of Frederick's style was
severe : " He writes just as you may suppose Voltaire's foot-boy
to write, who has been his amanuensis."
I am above grammar.
During the time of their early intimacy Voltaire endeavored
to flatter the prince by telling him that he wrote better French
than Louis XIV., who made frequent mistakes in spelling.
Frederick replied, that Louis was a great monarch in an infinite
number of respects. A mistake in spelling could not tarnish the
brilliancy of his reputation, established by so many actions
which had immortalized him. " It belonged to him to say in
every sense, Ccesar est supra grammaticam" added the prince.
He referred to the celebrated retort of the Emperor Sigismund
at the Council of Constance in 1414. In his opening speech lie
said to the assembled prelates, referring to the Bohemian refor-
mation, " See to it that this nefarious schism is eradicated "
(Date operam ut ilia infanda scliisma eradicetur) ; whereupon he was
reminded by Cardinal Placentinus, that achix/mi was of the neuter
and not of the feminine gender. To this the emperor replied,
" Placentinus, however agreeable you may be to others, you please
232 FREDERICK THE GREAT.
us not when you assert that we have less authority than the
grammarian Priscianus, whom you say I have offended." The
mot more generally quoted has the authority of Menzel (" History
of the Germans," chap. 325) : " Ego sum rex Romanus et supra
grammaticam" (I am king of the Romans and above grammar).
Moliere did not exempt his royal master from the rule of
syntax ; for he alludes to " grammar which controls even kings "
(la grammcdre qui salt regenter jusquaux rots). Les Femmes Sa-
vantes, II. 6.
Xapoleon was a notoriously bad speller : he excused it by say-
ing, " A man occupied with public business cannot attend to
orthography."
Pope John XII., in his reply to the council which preferred
charges against him of gross misconduct, used a double nega-
tive, " so that you may not have power to perform mass or to
ordain no one " (ut non habeatis licentiam missarn celebrare aut nul-
lum ordinare). "The council replied by a letter of humorous
expostulation," says Bryce, " begging the Pope to reform both
his morals and his Latin." Holy Roman Empire, chap. ix.
The king has sent me some of his dirty linen to wash.
Writing, in 174*2, of their familiar intercourse, as that of
Terence with Scipio, Voltaire remarked, " You will say that I am
not Terence: true, but neither is he altogether Scipio." This
was the time when he called Frederick "the Solomon of the
North." Afterwards, when coolness had succeeded to the poet's
early enthusiasm, he added, "Epithets cost nothing." He also
styled Catherine II. "the Semiramis of the Xorth."
Voltaire wrote, Oct. 29, 1751, when his relations with the
Prussian king were on a doubtful footing : The man who
fell from the top of a steeple, and who, finding himself softly
cushioned in the air, said, ' Good, provided it lasts,' resembles
me not a little."
The change of their relations, from the time when Voltaire
used to flatter Frederick's French, is seen by a remark which
Maupertuis circulated to the poet's discredit. It was the reply
of Voltaire to Gen. Manstein, who asked him to revise some
papers he had written on Russia : " The king has just sent me
some of his dirty linen to wash : I will wash yours at another
FREDERICK THE GREAT. 233
*
time" (Voila le roi qu'f m*envoit son linge a blanch ir: je blancliirai
le votre une autre fois). Repeated to the king, it destroyed Vol-
taire's position at court. Frederick, in submitting his "dirty
linen," excused the mistakes his compositions might contain, by
saying, " We must leave him the pleasure of finding some fault."
He now applied to Voltaire the phrase, " fruitful of uneasiness "
(fe'cond en inquietudes), which Marshal Catinat had previously
used in a more complimentary sense, in a letter in which he
spoke of the genius of Vauban, and the feeling with which
he inspired the enemy.
Napoleon, on his return from Elba, convoked the Legislative
Assembly, and addressed them in a speech of power, but in a
tone of contemptuous familiarity; saying, among other things,
" If you have complaints to make, take another occasion, when,
with my counsellors and myself, we may discuss your griefs, and
I will see if they have any foundation. But this explanation
must be in private ; for dirty linen should be washed at home,
not in public " (car c'est en famille, ce n'est pas en public, quon
lave son linge sale). Similar advice was given by Voltaire to
the Encyclopedists.
We squeeze an orange, and throw away the rind.
The climax of the king's antipathy to Voltaire is expressed
by a statement to his friend La Mettraie, in September, 1751,
that he should want Voltaire a year longer. " We squeeze an
orange," he added, " and throw away the rind." This was quoted
by Voltaire himself in a letter to Mine. Denis, La Mettraie died
shortly afterwards ; and the king inquired anxiously concerning
his last hours, whether he had observed all the Catholic forms,
etc. Being told that his friend died like a philosopher, Fred-
erick remarked, " I am very glad of it, for the repose of his
soul." The king's real opinion of such men is illustrated by
his saying, " If I wished to punish a province, I would have it
governed by philosophers." The men he asked to his table
amused his leisure : he did not invite them into his cabinet.
Voltaire is about to set.
Seven years after his accession to the throne, Frederick wrote
to Baculard d' Arnaud, in acknowledgment of some rhymes :
234 FREDERICK THE GREAT.
" Voltaire est a son couehant,
Vous etes a votre aurore; ' :
which Carlyle renders, " Welcome, young Sunrise, since Voltaire
is about to set ! " whereupon the latter, insulted, but anxious not
to be supplanted, started on his fifth and last visit to Berlin.
Carlyle has a poor opinion of this Baculard, a poet once patron-
ized by Voltaire himself, but whom Carlyle calls "a conceited,
foolish young fellow, given to writing verses of a dissolute, esu-
rient, slightly profligate turn." Rivarol said of him, that "his
ideas resembled the panes of glass in a glazier's basket, clear
separately, obscure together " (claires une a line, et obscures toutes
ensemble}. The only good thing attributed to him is not authen-
tic : when Frederick, in one of his philosophical symposia, asked
him if he still believed in the existence of God, Baculard re-
plied, that he loved to think there was a being superior to kings
(faime a croire a un etre superieur aux rois).
France has been considered thus far as the asylum of
unfortunate monarchs : I wish that my capital should
become the temple of great men.
Letter to Voltaire, Oct. 7, 1743.
Thus Frederick said to Maupertuis, who had been sent by
the French Academy to Lapland to measure a degree of the
meridian, and was asked to organize an academy at Berlin,
" You have shown the figure of the earth to mankind : show also
to a king how sweet it is to possess such a man as you."
Frederick invited Wolf, banished from Halle in the previous
reign for his independent views, to return ; saying, " A man that
seeks truth, and loves it, must be reckoned precious in any human
society."
Every man must get to heaven his own way.
The tolerant spirit which Frederick showed on his accession
to the throne is illustrated by his comment upon the report of
the Board of Religion, as Carlyle calls it, June 22, 1740, that the
Roman-Catholic schools for the children of soldiers were used
for sectarian purposes. On the margin of the report the king-
wrote, with spelling in this instance unconnected by Voltaire :
" All religions must be tolerated, and the Fiscal must have an
FREDERICK THE GREAT. 235
eye that none of them make unjust encroachment on the other;
for in this country every man must get to heaven his own way "
(den [denn~] hier mus [inuss'] ein jeder nach seiner Fasson selich
[Fctfon seliy'] werden).
No monarch was less particular in maintaining his royal
dignity. He commanded his attendants to take down from a
high wall a scurrilous placard upon himself, which a crowd was
trying to read, and put it where they could see it better. " My
subjects and I," Frederick said, "have come to an agreement
which satisfies us both. They are to say what they please,
and I am to do what I please." He seems to have been more
scrupulous in regard to his personal dignity. Thus Heinrich
von Schmidt, advancing towards Frederick, after his accession,
says Carlyle, with jocose countenance, in the manner of their
old comradeship, met unexpected rebuff from the words, "My
cousin, I am now king ! " (Jetzt bin ich Konig /)
The motto of Frederick's political testament was written in
French with his own hand : " A prince is the first servant and
first magistrate of the state " ( Un prince est le premier serviteur et
le premier magistral de 1'e'tat). The aphorism occurs at least four
times in his works, and may have been derived from Massillon,
the study of whose sermons powerfully affected his youth. The
French pulpit-orator addressed Louis XV., then nine years old,
thus : " The freedom princes owe their people is the freedom of
law, of which you are only the minister and first depositary."
He drew the sentiment from Seneca : " The king will show that
he belongs to the republic, not the republic to him " (Rex pro-
vabit non rem publicam suam esse, sed se reipublicce). De dementia,
i. 19.
The thought expressed in his testament was the echo of that
by which his accession was inaugurated ; for on its official
announcement Frederick said, June 2, 1740, "My will henceforth
is, if it ever chance that my particular interest and the general
good of my countries should seem to go against each other, in
that case, my will is, that the latter always be preferred."
He answered his mother, when she for the first time addressed
him as "your Majesty," "Call me son, that is the title of all
others most agreeable to me."
" Toleration, in Frederick's spiritual circumstances," says Car-
236 FREDERICK THE GREAT.
lyle, " was perhaps no great feat ; " but one hardly expects to
hear of freedom of the press. His first act was to make arrange-
ments for a newspaper "frondent with genial leafy speculation."
Accordingly, after allowing unlimited freedom to the " Berliner-
zeitung," we find a cabinet-minister writing to the minister of
war, June 5, 1760, that he had taken the liberty of suggesting
that a certain court was very sensitive on this point, but that the
king replied, " If newspapers are intended to be interesting, they
must not be hampered " (Gazetten, wenn sie interessant sein sollten,
nicht genirt werden milsseii).
Of the principles which governed Frederick as ruler we have
illustrations in sayings which apply to all times and all forms
of government ; as, for instance, in objecting to a medal in his
honor proposed by Maupertuis, ' ' Let us do good without hope
of recompense ; let us fulfil our duty without ostentation ; and
our name will live among people of worth." "Wellington re-
peated the sentiment more laconically : " There is little or noth-
ing in this life worth living for, but we can all of us go straight
forward and do our duty."
On confirming a nomination which Maupertuis had made,
Frederick added a remark not unworthy of attention in repub-
lics : " Bad appointments to office are a threefold inconvenience :
they are an injury to public business; they dishonor the prince;
and they are a kind of robbery of those who deserve advance-
ment." The ability to perform well one's part depended on the
man, not on his rank. "Talents," said the king, "are distributed
by nature, without regard to genealogies ; " and again, " I love
the lineage of heroes, but I love merit more." Indeed, the man
of camps and battle-fields seems to have had little respect for offi-
cial emptinesses. When told of a Saxon minister of state who
had three hundred wigs, " So many perukes," he exclaimed, "for
such an insignificant head \ "
I will attack them even though they stood on the
steeples of Breslau.
When Frederick was marching against Breslau, November,
1757, in his second expedition against Silesia, during the Seven
Years' War. It was in this crisis of his career that the king-
addressed his generals, telling them, that, in defiance of the rules
FREDERICK THE GREAT. 237
of war, he meant to attack the Austrians, and that, if any one of
them felt unequal to the task, " he can have his discharge this
evening, and shall not suffer the least reproach from nie ; " and
when all swore to stand by him, " Good-night, gentlemen," he
said: "shortly we shall either have beaten the enemy, or we never
see one another again." About this time dates the anecdote of
the deserter, which Carlyle says has merit as a myth : " What
made thee desert, then? " " H'm, alas ! your Majesty, we were
got so down in the world, and had such a time of it ! " " Well,
replied Frederick, "try it one day more, and if we cannot mend
matters, thou and I will both desert ! " Carlyle dismisses the
tradition that the king shouted to his wavering troops, at Kolin,
June 18, 1757, as stated by Martin (''History of France," vol.
XV. chap, xcviii.) ; or, as others say, at Kunersdorf, Aug. 12,
1759, " Dogs, would ye live forever?" (Hunde, wollt ihr ewuj
leben ?) It was after Kunersdorf, when his coat was riddled with
bullets, and two horses had been killed under him, that Fred-
erick declared in writing to minister Finckenstein, " The con-
sequences of this battle will be w r orse than the battle itself.
I will not survive the destruction of my country. Farewell
forever."
He wrote to Voltaire in 1757, that, although threatened with
shipwreck, he will look the tempest in the face, and think, live,
and die like a king :
" Pour moi, menace dti naufrage,
Je dois, en affrontant 1'orage,
Penser, vivre, et mourir en roi."
OSuvres, vol. ii.
Of less serious form is his remark to the Austrian minister
Thugut, who left on the floor the red tape belonging to a bundle
of papers : " Take it, sir: I don't care for other's goods " (Tenez,
monsieur: je n'aime pas le bien cTautrui). This was just after
Frederick had taken Silesia, the very considerable " goods " of
Thugut's mistress, Maria Theresa. Of her and her royal sister,
Catherine II. of Russia, the king said at the time of the parti-
tion of Poland, " I would as soon write the Jewish history in
madrigals, as make three sovereigns agree, especially when two
are women."
FREDERICK THE GREAT.
Frederick said to the Bishop of Ermeland, two-thirds of whose
revenues he had appropriated, " Under your mantle I hope
to slip into paradise." "Hardly," was the response: "your
majesty has cut my mantle too close." The king received two
even sharper answers from Sir Hugh Eliot, who was the English
ambassador at Berlin. Frederick maliciously asked him, allud-
ing to the invasion of the Carnatic, who Hyder Ali was, " who
arranges, matters so well for you in India" (qui $ait si lien
arranger vos affaires aux Indes). The imperturbable ambassador,
referring in his turn to Frederick's conquest of Silesia and the
partition of Poland, replied, " He is an old despot, who has exten-
sively pillaged his neighbors, but is now, thank God, in his
dotage!" (C"es un vieux despote, qui a beaucoup pillc ses voisins,
mais qui, Dieu merci, commence a radoter!) This is, however, con-
sidered apocryphal by Carlyle ("Frederick the Great/' XXI. 5).
The following, if not true, is equally ben trovato. When Frede-
rick asked Sir Hugh, ''What do they say of in London? "
(referring to the Prussian minister, described as " a notoriously
ill-conditioned fellow," appointed merely to spite the English
government), Eliot replied, " A worthy representative of your
Majesty " (digne representant de votre majeste'). After this the
free-spoken ambassador was transferred to Copenhagen.
I am obliged to keep that young gentleman in my
eye.
Frederick enjoyed the society of Joseph II., whose radical
views of government harmonized with his own early aspirations.
Pie saw in him, however, an ambition which needed watching;
and, when some one remarked upon the different portraits of the
emperor which adorned the walls of the palaces of Berlin, Pots-
dam, and Sans-Souci, " Ah, yes ! " said Frederick, "I am obliged
to keep that young gentleman in my eye " (c'est un jeune hoinme
que je ne dois pas perdre de vue).
At the close of the Seven Years' War, when Frederick was
dining with the Emperor Joseph II. at Xeisse, he spied the
Austrian general Laudon about to seat himself at the foot of the
table on the other side. " Come here," said the king, making a
place for him next to himself: "I have always wanted you by
my side, rather than opposite to me."
HOOKHAM FRERE. 239
The finest day of life is that on which one quits it.
As Frederick was building a country house near the palace of
Potsdam, he was heard to say, looking at the royal tombs close
at hand, "Once there, one will be out of bother" (Oui, alors je
serai ,s<ms soucl) ; from which, and the fact that the cottage was
to be a retreat from the cares of official life, came the name it
has since borne, " Sans-Souci." Tt was there that Frederick died ;
but he was not buried in the tomb near by, but in the garrison-
church of Potsdam. His last words, about midnight, Aug. 17,
1784, were, "We are over the mountain, we-shall go better now"
(La montayne est passe'e, nous irons mi.eux). Of doubtful authen-
ticity is the sardonic remark to his nephew, the crown prince,
when the court physician held out a hope of recovery : " Pardon
me, my nephew, if I keep you waiting ! " and the statement that
he interrupted the singing of a hymn, containing the words,
"Naked came I into the world, and naked I shall go out,"
"Not quite naked, I shall have my uniform on ! "
HOOKHAM FRERE.
[The Rt. Hon. John Hookham Frere, man of letters; born in Nor-
folk, England, 1760; entered Parliament, 1796; ambassador to Spain,
1808; one of the founders of " The Quarterly Review; " died 1846.]
A Conservative is only a Tory who is ashamed of
himself.
When the names of Conservative and Liberal be"'an to be
O
substituted for the old-fashioned Tory and Whig. He also said,
" It is not of so much importance what you learn at school, as
how you learn it."
JOHN HENRY FUSELI.
[An historical painter; born in Zurich about 1742; visited England,
1763; became a painter by advice of Reynolds; professor at the Royal
Academy, 1749; published " Lectures on Art" and ''Aphorisms; "
died 1825.]
D Nature, she always puts me out !
His forte was the romantic style, in which he was grand, but
often extravagant.
240 THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH.
When jSTorthcote asked him how he liked his painting of the
angel meeting Balaam and his ass, Fuseli replied, " You are an
angel at an ass, but an ass at an angel."
Fuseli called Titian's portrait of Paul III. and his two nephews
"True History;" and N 
